LAST EDITED ON Jun-15-14 AT 01:23 AM (EDT)
So tonight, I'm talking to Phil, like you do, and he says..."Hrm. What would you say is a top ten list of noteable villians in UF?"
And that was a legitimately hard question! I had to think about it a bit. As with most lists of this sort, I couldn't come up with a precise order, instead shaking things out into tier rankings.
Right up at the tippy top, of course, you have the big three:
Those three are pretty obvious, I think; there's probably not a lot of argument to be had about their place at the top, only relative positions. Largo probably belongs in the number one slot because of the enormous impact he's had on everything that came after him, even if nothing major has been done with him since last century. Akio and Loki are more fluid; Akio has had a lot more screen time and is more well-developed as a villain, but Loki was the headliner in Twilight, which is itself a front-runner for "most important and notable of the UF sub-groupings."
Coming in below them, in the second tier, you've got:
Neither of them has had a very large on-screen presence, but one of them is an ancient mechanical demigod from beyond time, and the other is the literal, actual Devil. Surtur was at the top of the undercard in Twilight, and Cybertron Dreams was one of the big beasts of the jungle in UF canon back in the day, so notable and important it was slated for a full rebuild rather than a scrapping.
I feel good about Surtur being this high up, especially since if you read closely you can see his hand moving behind the scenes. I'm less certain about Unicron; I may be ascribing to him more notoriety than he deserves because of his source materiel. Nontheless, that's my second tier.
Going further down is tricky. I'm going to say... we're allowed to use groups, not just individuals, assuming there's a common affiliation and theme. So in that vein...
- The Magnificent Ten
- The Earth Alliance
Yes, the Magnificent Ten specifically, not just Big Fire as a whole. That also was a tough call, but I feel in terms of just all-out force of presence, impact, and most importantly notoriety, it has to be the Magnificent Ten rather than their parent organization.
The presence of the Earth Alliance, of course, should need no explanation. They were gonna be on the list somewhere, it was just a question of where, and here they are.
(Fun alternative question! If you're not allowed to use groups, only people, who reps for Big Fire and the EA? I say Shockwave Alberto and Bill Clarke, although an argument can be made for Admiral Cartwright.)
Now we're moving down into the bottom third. Occupying the tier below our big Organization of Evil, we've got:
- Roger Tremayne
- Eidun Palpatine
... it says something about UF that actual honest-to-god Sith Lords are so far down.
Palpatine's place on the list I'm comfortable with; Tremayne I feel I have to justify. I might be accused of double-dipping, after all, wasn't he in the Magnificent Ten? Well... yeah, but only in Blades. And he was also in the Earth Alliance. Maybe he shouldn't be here? Or maybe his slot should be occupied by the Psi Corps as an organization? But he was such a scrapper, that one. No matter how many times he was cut in half he kept coming back! I sort of feel like that deserves a place on the list.
At this point I actually began to run out of steam for slot number ten. There have been a lot of villains in UF, but most of them have met untimely ends before having a chance to have a big impact! I mean... a one-note joker like, say, Carson D. Carson, definitely doesn't deserve to be on the list. Touga Kiryuu? Ennnhhhh... doesn't feel right. If Fables of the Reconstruction hadn't been thrown in the dustbin, I'd probably have gone with Windrazor, but it has been, so I didn't.
I thought long and hard about Garth Zard'al, but it was like "Mmmm.... no." Clarissa Broadbank? Maybe! Definitely a strong contender. But Clarissa is just sort of a bitch. She's certainly incredibly notable, though. I got as far as typing in her name...
And then it came to me. There was only one person who could occupy the last slot in the list of top ten notable villains of Undocumented Features. Nobody else is as perfect. That person is, of course:
I think that one... just speaks for itself.
-Merc
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