Vorlonagent

So Sauron was more generous to Earth than the self-proclaimed "Guardians of the Universe"...

I might have to do with discrimmination. Inhabitants of Earth, a pre-interstellar civilization, have at my last count, been given a total of 5 green rings. And it's not just green Lantern rings. Earth seems to sop up Larntern rings of all colors. One Orange Lantern ring in the entire universe and it ends up with a human at one point.

Pandora should be genre-savvy enough to realize that "nah, it'll never happen" is a less-used variant of "what could go wrong?"

To the best of my ability to tell Damian has been depicted as older than Grace.

Ellen's area-effect ability would be "Little DR" if it recast itself using affected people's minimal stored magic (everybody had some) + ambient energy. At that point it would be self-sustaining until it ran out of people to affect. I am aware that this is not how Ellen's area-effect mode actually works.

So the Shady Corporation did something unwise because they thought someone else was doing something unwise? parallel universe events do not need to match up with EGS prime events. There is no universal clock. Some universes have time that works a little bit different. Lord Tedd's world could be running several years ahead of the EGS Prime continuity. Even 10 or 20. Since time travel isn't possible, we have to know that Second Life's timeline is running out ahead of EGS-Prime or Nioi couldn't capture SL-ELeen's life through to graduation and going off to college when EGS-Prime-Ellen's own life was nowhere near there. Nioi may have known what it did but made random-chance contact. I don't have any idea what to think of Tedd's dreams at the moment...

Maybe likely it's a ceremonial reference to her as a daughter of Amidala?

Certainly it can be. PTSD is a reaction to severe stress when the person has no control. It doesn't have to create instability, But generally speaking abuse does tend to beget new abusers and that's what I was driving at with Damian and Shade Tail. Damian taught Shade-Tail to be an abuser. Grace wouldn't have been Grace at that point. She would have been a he, and yes, would have probably been the killer they wanted to create. Shade Tail could have been uncontrollable despite no exposure to a CMD. A super-powered teenage rebellion. I'm not sure how that would nregate Damian's creation since Shade Tail was created as a Damian-killer. I'm pretty sure Lespuko is the addition to Grace's makeup that was considered the big risk. And if there's no Damian, why mix Lespuko into shade-Tail? Why would Shade-Tail and Tedd must have met earlier? I don't disagree so much as can't follow your reasoning. Ellen's existence depends on when Elliot gets killed. Why assume that's before Elliot is first turned female? Nioi is just someone who touched the diamond. Agreed she's no analogue to Elliot. It's certainly possible that not all of the Main 8 exist in Lord Tedd's universe but we don't know.. I assume they did because there's no compelling reason to think they didn't. They may have all existed in Second Life as well but just have incidental contact with Ellen. The works for everybody but Sarah. In the primary continuity she had contact with Elliot since childhood. The Browns may not have met the Dunkels at at the very least...

I've been a tilter at windmills through most of my internet life. Critterkeeper mentioned the B5 newsgroups, I was on the moderated newsgroup through much of the early-mid 2000s. Under the same name as I use here as well. Taught me a lot about how to (and how not to) argue on the internet. I highly recommend being the minority voice on a moderated internet form. It's a good learning experience. It's only recently that the question "why?" comes up more and more and I find I do it less and less.

I certainly don't want it to naturally want to go anywhere near me...

I don't know about you but I can't push a 14-ton can of anything anywhere it doesn't naturally want to go.

That is a 14-ton can of sandworms.

I have a D&D mage with an "Intercontinental Magic Missile" spell....

That is big part of what teaching *is*.

Who said Shad Tail was unstable? He's very stable. He's divided the world into abusers and the abused and decided he prefers to be an abuser. We have circumstantial evidence that he is manipulating Lord Tedd, probably up to and including *being* Lord Tedd. "Power behind the throne" and all that... I can go with Shade-Tail gutting Damian, but Tedd's friends are the least helpful to him if they're dead and only Shade-Tail is left. Just for my own sense of drama I want there to be a sense that Shade-Tail could still have chosen a path like Grace's and chose instead a darker one. The thing about CMDs and Shade-Tail looking for another source is, Tedd only showed up on Grace's radar because he made the goo that turned into the goo monster. that had nothing to do with CMDs. Worse, as I think of it now, the goo monster that WAS in the newspaper article was only there because of Lord Tedd...and we're discussing Lord Tedd's origin! So no newspaper article and no link back to pre-Lord Tedd. Shade Tail has to meet Tedd some other way. I'm not sure how. That's why I elected to have Damian self-destruct instead of getting mauled to death. Elliot's influence has to be removed. Killing him is the easiest way to make that happen and drive the surviving members of the main 8 away from Tedd so his emotional support system is just Shade Tail...until he meets Nioi anyway. I have no idea where Nioi fits into this since she had no analogue in the primary comics continuity that we've seen to date. That plus her ability to visit the primary comics timeline suggests she's a dimension traveler who ended up in (or was at least from the other side of) Lord Tedd's Earth. that's as likely as any other number of explanations...

Problem solved!

ritian and France losing would probably mean, the conditions that enabled the nazis to seize power would not have existed. I don't think the Great Depression by itself would have been enough. The situation would especially suck for France, which would have been occupied German territory. There still might have been a WW2 of some sort, with France trying to regain its independence, probably aided by the USSR and the UK. And maybe it's Stalin that is so happily appeased in order to maintain "peace in our time" until it all goes south.

I'd like the 10 minute argument, please...

Actually well before then. I am saying living with Damian had an entirely different effect on Shade-Tail than Grace. In Damian both iterations of Shade Tail saw their own ability to be a monster reflected. Grace looked for a different path. Shade-Tail made himself into Damian 2.0.

My theory is that Damian existed, and Ed Verres is right that Dr S's daughter grace didn't die, so the Shade Tail created to fight Damian is a guy, not a girl. Ed Verres still infiltrates the lab and Dr. S still suggests Verres look after Shade Tail. Damian attacks the lab and takes it over as in the core comic's timeline. There is no Grace to mother Damian's army, so Damian alters his plan. How? Who cares. He's going to die when the timeline gets to Painted Black. Damian recognizes Shade Tail as a potential rival and commits a lot of abuses best left unsaid. Shade Tail escapes, and goes looking for Tedd just as Grace did. Shade Tail and Tedd become good friends. Shade Tail gets CMDed in here somewhere. Painted Black. The important difference here is Shade Tail has none of Grace's non-violent outlook and starts taking Damian apart. Damian self-destructs in the lab rather than outside. Only Shade Tail survives. It goes downhill from here. Under Shade Tail's influence, Tedd becomes Lord Tedd.

I tend to avoid unmoderated forums for exactly this sort of thing. I get into enough arguments on moderated forums.

I prefer to assume as few changes as needed to explain differences like this. The only deviation needed AFAIK is Dr. S's daughter Grace didn't die. In Grace's reality she was built as a Damien-killer. It's possible that the Shady Corporation would still have tried to build a another Greater Seynoulu despite (or perhaps because of) the problems they had with Vlad but the threat of Damian was what drove them to add Lespuko to the mix. For General Shade Tail to have the same capabilities as Grace (he may not, but I assume he does as Grace's evil twin), Damian has to exist or some motivation equal to the threat of Damian would have to be introduced. which is simpler? What few snippets of General Shade Tail's personality we've seen suggests a lot of influence from a being with an outlook like Damian's, even if it wasn't Damian. So under my personal "rule of least changes", there's no reason to think Damian didn't exist in Lord Tedd's world and circumstantial evidence to suggest that he did.

In Lord Tedd's reality, the group that made Vladia made Gen. Shade Tail instead of making Grace. Shade Tail's human DNA was supposed to be from some ruff, buff Navy Seal type. In our reality, Dr. S (I can never spell his last name) switched that DNA with his daughter's after she died in a car accident. Ed Verres once speculated Dr. S's daughter might not have died in Lord Tedd's universe. Which means no CMD exposure. It may be that CMD exposure was intentionally withheld to keep Shade Tail more controllable. Perhaps there was a designated age planned for CMD exposure and Damian attacked and took control of the facility before Shade Tail (Grace or General) got to that age. Edit: Almost-certainly General Shade Tail got CMD exposure through Lord Tedd.

The burnout could still blind Tedd's ability to perceive magic or crash his ability to create wands, watches, etc.

I like to think Sierra's choice to produce the B5 game had some small influence on Turner eventually picking up B5's 5th season. If so, then I also like to think I had a small influence on Sierra's choice to make the game. I was a very enthusiastic fan and had VCR recordings of all B5 episodes that had aired. Several times over the decision-making process Sierra's management needed to look at an episode, so they would ask me for it. I'd run home (literally..I lived that close to work), find the tape with the episode and cue it up. So I like to think I had a (small)squared hand in helping B5 get its 5th season. Probably between 1/100% and 1/10% at most.