#that new trailer is exactly like the first ones we got for Flux

[praxeus-13]

Damn RTD rly saw how successful the Flux marketing campaign was and decided to do the same thing sksksksk

[graffitibible]

Do you think zones and battery cities exist outside the US, like all around the world?

i’ve thought a lot about this, actually! in the universe i’m building for “pray for disaster,” there’s a lot of world history that goes hand in hand with character histories, stuff like that. the specifics of the dates are still in a mild state of flux (which is to say that since a lot of works are in progress i don’t want to canonize something that i’ll have to contradict later) but i do have a basic layout for the progression of world events and thus the layout of what the hell happened in places that aren’t california.

so the lore we get from canon occasionally conflates the helium wars with the analog wars; for my part, i choose to separate them out but maintain that there’s a bit of overlap. the helium wars were a global war, a global struggle that involved multiple countries, including the US. the analog wars were more akin to a civil war that took place specifically between the zones in california and battery city. i’ve got a timeline i use to keep my version of canon from contradicting itself; in it, the americas only lasted in the helium wars up until around the early-to-mid 1990s. by then, bli had a well-established presence in the area, particularly in california (possibly since the 70s or 80s). by the time the americas drop out of the helium wars, those countries have more or less been dissolved as entities. the “may death never stop you” trailer states that battery city is the capital for what remains of all the americas, so it’s very possible that a union or republic or coalition was made of the north, south, and central america regions - not just the US. but that would’ve essentially been little more than a front for the corporatocracy that Better Living quickly establishes.

we’re going to focus on the US (or what’s left of it) since that’s what you were asking about. in the “may death never stop you” trailer we get a brief look at what the country that used to be the US looks like now, and those definitely aren’t your ordinary state lines. california got to remain as is, but the rest of the states weren’t so lucky. dr. death defying’s listening party mentions “losing texas,” due to some kind of massive explosion or bomb blast, so to say that battery city is capital of what remains of the americas like the “may death never stop you” trailer suggests sounds accurate. i imagine large swathes of this territory have become borderline unlivable.

so, what’ve we got here in what’s left of the US? i count seven distinct territories of what used to be the states, though the gridded view makes it hard to be 100% sure of that. still, it looks like seven so right now i’m going with seven. my name scheme for them (so far) boils down thusly, keying to the way i numbered them in the screenshot i took above:

california (CA) - got to remain as is, with battery city as its capital. since it’s the smallest territory on the map i think that it might actually have the largest amount of livable surface area, which means that the US is, environmentally speaking, not doing so hot as a whole. this is important.

utah (UT) - the territory to the immediate right of california. both the transmissions and dr. death defying mention the “battle of utah,” so i assume that utah got to keep its state name (though not its state borders).

wyoming (WY) - the territory immediately above california and (new) utah.

new carolina (NC) - that whole southern region that includes texas and florida, basically. it’s the biggest in terms of surface area but also significantly lower in population considering how little of the territory is actually habitable by now, since a bomb or calamity with the power to wipe out texas is going to leave a hell of an environmental scar on the surrounding territories.

new dakota (ND) - the area between the great lakes and wyoming.

new virginia (NV) - lower east coast, just beneath the great lakes.

new maine (NM) - the upper east coast, to the right of the great lakes.

so, swinging back around to your initial query - i don’t think that the rest of the US follows the model that california sets specifically. i think that since battery city is deemed to be the capital of what remains of the americas, it’s unique - and i think that’s what made it such a target for rebellion in the first place. battery city is the capital of all the americas now, which means that it’s probably where a lot of BLi’s power is stored. the comics all but outright state this: in dismantling battery city, the main characters seek to dismantle BLi.

so the analog wars are, based on what i can discern from the canon we get, the name for the struggle between better living industries and those who oppose them - aka, killjoys. outside battery city, there are six zones (at least in the era of the music videos; dr. death’s twitter mentions zones 1 - 6, though the comics later imply that there are at least seven zones. for our purposes, we’re going to look at this from the perspective of the mv eras). we don’t know what’s beyond those six zones - only that there is a world outside of them.

now, better living is absurdly powerful. they’re a megacorporation. they literally own death. the rebellion happening outside their city walls isn’t something they want to see continue - by the comics era, it’s clear that BLI wants to see the killjoys thoroughly eradicated from both the surface of the world and the public consciousness. yet despite their seemingly infinite resources, they can’t seem to wipe them out.

now this is very much theoretical (i mean much of this response is purely conjecture lol) but i think that might be because there literally isn’t a way of accessing battery city from outside the zones, or at least not an easy one that battery city can exploit. i think that battery city and the zones have been extremely isolated thanks to…whatever’s out past zone six/zone seven. severe radiation? possibly, though i don’t think it’s due to bomb blasts - most radiation from nuclear weaponry won’t linger for longer than two weeks. long-term health effects will linger, but immediate death isn’t going to be what kills you in that scenario unless you don’t shelter from the blast and remain in shelter for something like 48 hours after it hits. i think it’s more likely that it’s some mass damage to parts of the ozone in the area around the zones, which means that showers of mass amounts of UV radiation can be hugely detrimental in the short term and long term depending on how much of it there is, and way more likely to be a long-lasting status effect in the physical area than something like nuclear fallout.

so, from there i speculate that the establishment of the zones might have been a deliberate means of isolating battery city from the rest of the world. this could have been on the part of the killjoys, if it meant that battery city wouldn’t be getting reinforcements or wouldn’t be capable of contacting other BLI cities for help through the environmental interference. this also could have been on the part of battery city itself, to keep the rebellion from spreading to other parts of the world, to keep those pesky killjoys from leaking their ideology into other territories. it could honestly go either way! both sides would have a reason to do it, and it would certainly explain why the struggle in the mvs and comics feels so centralized in that singular location.

so no, to answer your question, not exactly. i think the zones and battery city are a pretty unique situation and i think that’s very possibly a result of battery city being the beacon of BLi’s power that it’s outright stated to be in the comics. but also that’s just me! 

i think it’s also incredibly likely that the rest of the americas might have similar situations going on, but in isolation from the rest - we get very little insight into what the rest of the world is doing (other than australia apparently disappearing completely in 2019), so it’s really honestly up in the air. i don’t think it’s a corporate mandate that all cities and territories be surrounded by concentric circles of zones, for example, but i do think it’s very likely that another city in another part of what used to be the states is grappling with a very similar resistance and in relative isolation from the rest of the world. we’re talking about a large expanse of territory that had huge chunks taken out of it in the wars that ravaged the landscape, like the literal size of texas in scope. if the surface of what used to be the US is that cratered by war, i think it’s very likely that there are a few habitable cities scattered throughout the americas, these little bastions of civilization that are all owned and operated by BLi. and while i don’t think every territory surrounding those cities would follow the “zone” model, it’s worth wondering what a rebellion in another city would look like, if it’s not surrounded by a desert soaked in radiation. like, what about any cities situated near the great lakes? if those lakes are still there, i’m just putting it out there that “secret underwater killjoy city” is totally possible as long as it wasn’t engineered by andrew ryan

[gamerszone2019-blog]

Overwatch Hero Sigma Is Now Available for All Players

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/overwatch-hero-sigma-is-now-available-for-all-players/

Overwatch Hero Sigma Is Now Available for All Players

Overwatch’s

latest hero, Sigma, is now available for all players on Xbox One, PS4, and PC.Blizzard confirmed Sigma’s move from PTR servers to full availability. Blizzard is also running a Role Queue beta seasons starting today and ending on September 1, which is intended to allow players to choose which character class they’d like to play as so two tanks, two support, and two damage players can all be matched up.

For more on Sigma, our original story follows:

Overwatch hero 31 is here and he’s a new tank named Sigma.

Sigma is an “eccentric” scientist from the Netherlands whose obsession with astrophysics ended very poorly for him. Now a living weapon, Sigma can control gravity. His unstable mental state led to his incarceration before Talon broke him out, and now he’s using his gravity powers for evil.

These are Sigma’s abilities as revealed this morning by Blizzard:

Hyper Spheres: That launches two gravitic charges that implode after a short charge, dealing AOE damage.

Experimental Barrier: Sigma can shoot a barrier to any location, then retract it if he chooses.

Kinetic Grasp: Converts incoming projectiles into makeshift shields.

Accretion: Collects nearby debris then turns them into outgoing projectiles.

Gravitic Flux (Ultimate): Sigma lifts enemies in a targeted area and launches them into the sky before slamming them back down into the ground.

Alongside the new moves, Blizzard revealed gameplay details about how Sigma plays. As a tank, Sigma is a heavy hitter that can take plenty of lumps. He lacks mobility, but can generate barriers from a distance, and control choke points by manipulating the area around him.

Sigma’s backstory is still something of a mystery. Yesterday, Blizzard revealed a particularly dark trailer on how Sigma turned from an astrophysicist into a metal-clad weapon. During his research into black holes something went particularly awry. And while we still don’t know what exactly happened to Sigma, it’s clear that he’s not the man he once was.

Sigma has been teased for the past couple of days, first in a developer update that was interrupted by a black hole, then an image of Sigma’s jumpsuit posted on Overwatch’s official Twitter account. Sigma will go live on the PTR shortly at 11 A.M. PT/1 P.M. ET/7 P.M BST.

Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN. Got a tip? Email us at newstips@ign.com or reach out on Twitter.

Source : IGN

[mattymattymerduck]

Into Infinity (Pt. 1)

Summary: Imagine being pulled through a portal randomly. When you awake, you find yourself in the Marvel Universe. More specifically, Tony Stark’s lab. Guess this is what happens when Tony Stark ‘examines’ an Infinity Stone.

Warnings: Nope

Word count: 1300

A/N: I am not responsible for posting this, I promised @thedizzyidiot I would do this self-insert pic thing so here. Have it.

Let’s get one thing straight; life isn’t perfect. It never has been and it never will be, but it has its moments just like everything else. Sure, you may not be exactly where you planned to be when you turned 24, and no, there isn’t anything particularly extravagant or adventurous about your life, but it’s a pretty okay place to be.

And you thought this would be an average day - as usual you were running late for class, so when you got there your teacher would be disappointed but not overtly harsh on you, and you would have another long and for the most part disinteresting day. Well that’s not what happened.

Campus was emptier than usual, which was almost a frightening thought because there was always at least a dozen students smoking or skipping class or just enjoying the sun on their spare. The fact that not a single one of them was embracing the warm wind was unsettling, and had you thought anything even slightly out of the ordinary could happen to you today, you might have seen it coming.

It - of course - being the giant endless hole under your feet. At first you thought you tripped on the uneven sidewalk or something else that you normally did, but usually when you tripped you landed face first on the ground, not in an entirely different room all together.

You knew this room too, not by the chilling absence of the sun or the cranked AC, not even by the view of a city you had never visited before, framed by windows larger than life. No, you had seen this very lab in a movie, one of your favourite series of adaptations; you just couldn’t figure out how in the span of a single heartbeat you had fallen through your university campus and ended up here.

In Tony Stark’s very own lab.

“JARVIS, why don’t you read me those statistics again, I know there’s something I’m missing here.” And you definitely recognized that voice, the esteemed, and very fictional, Tony Stark pushing open the glass door with his back.

“Sir, there seems to be a flux-” The robot chimed in while you threw your gaze around the room. There must have been something wrong, maybe you hit your head on the cement and now you’re in a coma? Maybe you were in fact still asleep in your bed and this whole thing was a dream? Maybe you were dead and the Marvel Cinematic Universe was your heaven.

“Who the hell are you?” Maybe you would have been able to choke out something more comprehensible if your head wasn’t swimming with all the regrets you had and the fact that you just weren’t ready to die. That, and how lame would it be to go from tripping and hitting your head too hard on the sidewalk?

“No. Nonononono, this, this right here? It is not happening. I’m just gonna wake up, dust myself off and get to class. Oh no, I’m already so late for class!” You had to pace, it was a habit, something to work off the adrenaline pushing through your veins. You were fully aware that Tony, a man who until this very moment you would have been ecstatic to meet, was staring at you like you were mental. And maybe you were to some extent, because how could this be happening otherwise?

“Right. Excuse me, yeah you, I don’t know how you got in here but if you could pack up all your crazy and get out of my building that would be great.” You had stopped walking when you heard his voice, the voice you were so used to hearing through the speakers of your tv. You took a moment to stare at each other before you released a shaky breath.

“This isn’t usually how dreams work though, is it? Would you mind pinching me? At least then I can rule out the possibility of dying on my way to class.” You stuck your arm out to your hallucination and watched him almost recoil.

“See, here’s the thing, I would, but I don’t like getting psycho on me, it’s bad for business.” You bit your lip and nodded, seeing his point. If you were in his place, you would be scared too. Worried and maybe a tinge excited, but scared.

“Right well I can’t leave until we figure out how I got here, and since none of my friends have the ability to make a trap door that falls into the set of Iron Man or even have Robert Downey Jr in their contact list,”

“Robert Downey who?” Tony was a hairs width away from giving up on the conversation. Frankly, he was a little worried about the lax security in the Tower - how could someone just waltz right into his lab without alerting any of his security measures or running into a single Avenger? They were getting old and rusty if it was that easy for a college student to trespass so effortlessly.

“Jr. You, or at least, where you got your face from.” This made total sense to you, juggling both universes in your head, but Tony was lost and vaguely offended.

“Alright sweetheart, I got my face from my parents, neither of which had a Downey or a Robert in their name. And just for the record, no one else has a face like mine, the world couldn’t handle all that handsome roaming the streets.”

“Wait, but if you look like this it’s safe to say this is based off of the movies, right? Not the comics 'cause then you’d be flawlessly reconstructed into the shape Stan Lee gave you. So then the question is are you following the same timeline?” You replayed the last scenes from the latest Avengers movie in your head, that and everything you’d already seen from the Civil War trailer.

“Oh my god, Civil War. That hasn’t happened yet, has it? Steve, is he okay? Have you met Bucky yet? How’s Rhodes? Is Pietro alive?” Even if this was a dream or heaven or whatever, the least you could do was get the answers you’d been dying for.

“What Civil War? How do you know about all of those people, why would Steve not be okay?” It was like he was talking to a brick wall, and now you were back to pacing. He considered briefly calling security to haul you out, but now he was curious. Who were you?

“Oh thank the lord. Pietro though, he’s alive isn’t he?”

“Speedy’s recovering, but he’s fine. How do you know him?” You didn’t seem like a Hydra agents, but it was the only viable excuse he could come up with.

“I knew it! There’s no way Clint would have taken him on the helicarrier if Cho couldn’t heal him up!”

“Lady! Focus. Where did you come from, and how do you know all this stuff?” Tony’s hand slammed onto his desk and the noise jolted you right out of your excitement.

“I just have one more question, okay?” You asked softer than before, getting a better handle on yourself with the sliver of fear Tony’s annoyed eyes awarded you. He nodded with a sigh and pulled his hand away from the cool metal.

“What were you last working on - before you came in here and found me?”

“Why should I tell you that?” Tony didn’t like the idea of his recent work getting into the hands of someone he couldn’t trust, it could mean New York all over again. He was still sorting out the repercussions of that disaster, and on top of the whole Ultron thing there was no way he could let another cataclysmic villain weasel into their ranks.

“Because I think that’s how I got here.”