Lord Nemesis

"It is all a Nemesis plot"

-a loading screen bump on City of Heroes.

"It is not all a Nemesis plot."

-another entirely separate loading screen bump on City of Heroes

Lord Nemesis is the head of the Nemesis faction in the MMO CIty of Heroes. He is known for some of the most gripping conspiracies in the game and has pledged a vendetta against Statesman the leader of the Freedom Phalanx, Paragon City's most decorated heroes. In addition to being the nemesis of one of the leading NPC protagonists he also has a long time rivalry with the main villain of the game Lord Recluse.

The birth of a Nemesis
In 1945 after the allies had won World War II Nemesis first came into public knowledge, he used the sigh of relief after the war to strike and struck against Capital Hill taking hostages and forcing the justices to declare him the new "Emeperor of America" Not only had he caught the politicatians and conventional law enforcement unaware he had also struck whne many of the still budding super-heroes were overseas finishing up their part in the war. Nemesis had spent years building up his finances, planting spies, and buying up high-end military secrets and technology so when he struck he was no mere madman making a power play against the US but a major threat.

Statesman was one of the first heroes on the scene along with other mebers of the Freedom Phalanx incuding psychic super heroes SIster Psyche'. Super Heroes were certainly not out of what Nemesis had prepared for and he set off several nerve gas bombs in major American cities, bombs he would trigger if the anyone tried to interfer with his plans. After Statesman's arrival the bombs were set off and Nemesis ensured him that millions of Amereicans would be dead within a day's time without the anitdote, on only he knew and would reveal if he was recognized as emperor without delay. But thanks to Sister Psyche' the venom was taken out of the threat as she looked his mind found the antidotes' locations herself.

Nemesis was still not at a loss in addition to his terrible suit of armor he had an atomizer ray one that killed may heroes instantlly but as soon as the antidote was distributed heroes from alll over charged capital hill and join Statesman in his fight against the diabolical supervillain, With an epic battle concluded Nemesis was caught...or so it seemed. When the battle was over the the brave heroes found out that the Nemesis they had captured was a robotic double. The real Nemesis had escaped and for years was thought to have just disappered into the darkness of history...

Chaos in Paragon
In 2004 a race of hostil creatures known as the Rikti invaded Paragon city. The event was dubbed the Rikti Invasion as is one of the most infamous events in Paragon City's colorful history of giant robots and mutant monsters. The Rikti were set on the destruction of the human race and touched down in Paragon City to do it. Many good men, women and whatever else was flying around Paragon, lost their lives fighting the menace and the situation was treated as a global threat. When was said and done the Rikti were eventually driven back thanks to heroes like Hero1, Lady Jane, Statesman, Scirocco, Vanessa DeVore and more. The Rikti's main ships were sealed from their home dimension, the troops that were left on earth could not return without abandoning their ships to use their personal mansized portals and the protals in question were unable to be enter anylonger only leave. Even today most of the remaining Rikti are holded up in their crashed mothership in an area now deemed "the Rikti War Zone". When the Rikti had lost the first wave of the invasion they reached out to others that might help them, establishing diplomats with Lord Recluse and research assistances with SERAPH a branch of the UN that reaches out to the super-science community. The Rikti have secretly even reached out to Crey Industies a major manopoly run simlar to Lexcorp from the DC comics.

The Rikti had a virus used in times of war that mutated non-Rikti giving them pychic powers like them and reconditioning both their DNA and their minds. They released it upon their defeat turning many homless into a slave army over time thus the Lost were born. The Lost were are ussually seen in back allies and underhighways most often mistaken for bums until one gets close enough to see their disfigured faces and the high tech lasers hidden beneath their rags and by then it is of course to late.

There is a massive gang war in Paragon City in lower threat areas thsi takes the form of the Hellions and the Skulls. The Hellinos and Skulls both are gang members with super powers, the Hellions push stolen magical artifacts to other villains like the Banished Pantheon, the Tsoo and Circle of Thorns: the Skulls push a drug called "Dyne" which creates super powers in ordinary people, however the drugs are addictive and in high doses they mutate the users, dull their minds and increase aggression tendancies; hence the Drug has lead to the creation of the monsterous greenskined gang of punks called the Trolls, Dyne also is useful to the Mad doctors of the Vahzilok, and the Outcasts. Because of the compition for customers in the same territories the Hellions and Skulls are in super powered gang war that does not seem to be letting up any time soon. The Skulls are eventually revealed to get their supply of Dyne from The Family, a higher end mofia style gang and the Hellions are revealed to get their arifacts from the blackmarketeers of the Warriors street gang another high end gang who style them selves on a moderen day take greek warriors of old.

What does this have to do with Nemesis? The Rikti had been tricked by robotic dublicates of the heroes of Paragon and traced back to earth. Nemesis had built the dounbles of Statesman and his fellow Freedom Phalanx to destroy the cites of the Rikti homeworld and then teleported them back, making sure to leave behind a lingering energy signature for the Rikti to follow. In addition to starting the War Nemesis reached out to the Rikti and is on good terms with the commander thus he manages to stay abreast of all Rikti activies and manipulates them as he see fit including the Lost and Crey Industires. Both of whom he has sponsered and donated too while panting spies within both organazations. In addition Nemesis is the one who gave the Warrior's their seed money and helped the Family rise to power over the other crime familes with cutting edge drug manufactoring and both organizatinos work for him unoffically even by underworld standards; this also grants him influence over the lesser gangs dependent on them like the Hellions, Skulls and all their clients. His status as a high priority silent partner at Crey Industires which sells nearly every single piece of cutting edge technology has ensured that Nemesis can manipulaulate industries both offical and criminal with ease with perhaps the exception of Arachnos. Because of Lord Recluse's status as the smartest person on the face of the planet to the point of near omniscience Nemesis has never quite been able to pull one over on him and so he has a greater presence in Paragon City as opposed to the Rogue Isles.

What is it all for?
Nemesis plans to use the psychic network the Rikti share to upload his consciousnes into the minds of every single Rikti thus living on forever as an entire race. Only the commander of the Rikti has access during times of war to the network as a whole, so once the Rikti reestablish contact with their home world the network will be opened to report in at which time Nemesis plans to make his move. The chaos and the subterfuge is only partly to give Nemesis influneces, the main focus of the chaos sewn by Nemesis is to keep the heroes of the world top busy to stop him. Unlike the last time Nemesis struck this time the heroes of theworld are far to distracted with seeming seperate problems, so much so few to none will be ale to stop the Rikti derectly to say nothing of him personally.

Nemesis Group
Nemesis has build an entire army of steam powered and/or clockwork robots. Though the victorian style technoolgy might look old and outdated the devices function better than most modern day robots even by Paragon's standards. In addition to their craftman ship and heavy production numbers the creature are entirly hack proof because of mechanical style. Mixxed in with the numerous robotic soliders are real life people, won over by Nemesis's silver tongue promising a better tomorrow, due to the same clothing used for both man and robot and the robots' life like features many law enforcers will not know until it is too late whether they mowed down a souless machine or a misguided youth until after they use lethal force. The robotic soilders are better snipers than the humans but the humans are given devices that function as repair-kits and med-kits. There are also the less human looking but very deadly Jaegers, sweeper devices with mounted gun turrets and explosive payloads. There are the massive War Hulks, machines driven by pilot soliders inside with firepower greater than that of tradional tanks. There are the Nemesis Automations, a subset of Nemesis used to impersonate entire office buildings or working staff and run Nemesis various front companies. Last but not least are the Fake Nemesis, because Nemesis himself is sometimes needed to issue orders to more dilicate situations he has built many duplicates of himself all of which are modled after the armored steamsuit he wears with the exception of not needing him in them and running on their own as some sort of baffling, steampunk AI units all designed to act as he would in any given situation but remain aware that they are fakes with the plans of the original outweighing all else even their own lives. Because of the Nemesis Fakes 99% of the occations the player, hero or villain, will encounter Nemesis, even supposedly the real Nemesis, it is in fact a double with the real one remaining miles away in most cases. The real Nemesis can only be found in two area in game; One: the Rikti War Zone, during the fight to uncover the truth about the Rikti with Dark Watcher; Two: Ouroboros...