Good morning, Sentinels! 

There were lots of great conversations in the comments yesterday after the reveal of Miss Information, and you seem very into the new way she works! That’s great to hear. I look forward to sharing even more stuff with all of you! Speaking of which, here’s a Hero!

For all the trouble being on the Autism spectrum gave her in her younger years, Kim Howell prided herself in her ability to focus, to analyze information, and to come to accurate conclusions better and faster than just about anyone else. Her friends and family were unsurprised when she moved quickly from a temporary contract job at the Australian branch of RevoCorp to a full-time data analysis position. Her exemplary work in crunching numbers and delivering results paved the way for her inclusion on a team of code-breakers working on the top secret Omnitron project.

RevoCorp had recovered part of the original Omnitron core and was analyzing its self-altered programming in order to better understand what had happened. They were interested in determining if it were possible to recreate the conditions that had spawned a sentient AI, as well as what steps would need to be taken to prevent future occurrences. Ms. Howell was a key member of the deciphering team working on Omnitron, and was actively monitoring the remaining scraps of live programming when the cosmic event transpired that precipitated the reactivation of Omnitron in its more terrifying form. The overflow of information would have just looked like bizarre nonsense to most people, but Kim followed every bit. She saw like she had never seen before.

The code that rewrote Omnitron also upgraded Kim Howell’s mental capacities, allowing her to analyze everything she saw at a much deeper level. Suddenly, she could see the connections between seemingly unrelated events, the weak-points in structures and in people, even the aftereffects of otherwise unimportant actions. Her real time analysis gave her a chance to prevent great catastrophes or to practically foresee the future. Coupled with her skill at archery, she was able to make a notable difference in ranged situations with pinpoint accuracy.

Taking the hero name Parse, she set out to use her abilities to right wrongs and bring accurate analysis to vigilantism. She spent time in the streets of Rook City, fighting crime. She became an ally of the Freedom Five, and was the first to realize that their faithful administrative assistant was, in fact, the villainous Miss Information! She spent years in space, encountering all manner of bizarre creatures and helping them where she could, all while desperately trying to return home. She made it back to Earth in time to play a pivotal role in the OblivAeon event… but that’s another story.

Parse’s tale is as long and complex as her ability to analyze data, and it comes to just as fine a point. She can see the truth of things, but not all truths are what people want to hear. That’s fine with Parse. She’s not here to make friends — she’s here to make things right.

—

Of heroes from the pages of Sentinel Comics, Parse has perhaps the most variance across all her stories. From the gritty street-level stories of the 1980s to the space-faring adventures of the 2000s, you never know where or how Parse is going to be depicted next. Even through it all, her powers and personality have been fairly consistent, even aimed in very different directions.

To learn more about Parse, check out these episodes of The Letters Page podcast:

Representing everything that makes up the Parse story in one Hero deck is a challenge, but she has a lot of iconic elements that shine through!

First off and most importantly, she’s a human computer. She makes calculations. She sees how things work, and how to make them stop working.

She’s also an archer, though not a super-powered one. She doesn’t have fancy arrows. She’s just REALLY good at hitting her target, or making unlikely things work with a single shot.

Ultimately, she uses her abilities to quickly assess situations and either give valuable advice or overcome seemingly impossible odds.

Besides her First Appearance variant that looks into her gritty early stories before rebooting her as a less harsh character, she also has a variant from her time in space, as well as one from a reality where her role in space became less focused on returning to Earth and more focused on seeing the end of things…

We have a couple of questions today sparked by yesterday’s update about Miss Information! First off, a question from RedDusk:

A: Correct! Any cards that say “A thing happens to [Name]” or “[Name] does a thing” or anything like that only work if [Name] is in play. Otherwise, that instruction is skipped!

Then, SkyWhale asked:

A: SkyWhale! This is an incredibly astute question, and one that requires a bit of explanation.

Normally, things you do to one side of a villain character card persist to the other side. As an example, think about ALL of the Core Game villains. Baron Blade, Citizen Dawn, Grand Warlord Voss, Omnitron, The Matriarch, Akash’Bhuta. They are all the same person on both sides of their character card (which Miss Information is as well, but I’m getting to that), and most of them (not Baron Blade or Citizen Dawn, really) can flip multiple times over the course of a game. Imagine if Tachyon Hypersonic Dashed Omnitron, and then the villain character card flips — as it does every round with Omnitron — negating the effect. Boo! That’s no good! Fortunately, that doesn’t happen. The Hypersonic Dash still applies, even though it was played when the villain character card was on the other side.

Now, Aminia Twain is immediately different for a big reason. She’s a Hero target. (Incidentally, we’re gonna do some graphic design tweaks to make that more immediately clear on the front of her character card.) So, this means that Hypersonic Dash can’t even hit her, as it deals damage to “each non-Hero target”. But! The question still stands: what if a status effect of some sort happens to Aminia Twain? Let’s not worry about where it comes from or even what the status effect is: some effect is giving, uh, let’s say “Damage Immunity” to Aminia Twain. Then, she flips to the Miss Information side. What happens to the Damage Immunity?

It goes away.

WHAT?! WHY? 

Because she’s a different target. 

HOW?!

Because her keyword changed.

This is HUGE. She has the “Bystander” keyword on the front of her card, but she has the “Villain” keyword on the back of her card. Keywords matter a bunch: “One-Shots” and “Ongoings” are played very differently, just because of their keyword. Same thing here. Yes, it’s the same card, but it has both a different name AND a different keyword on the back. Thus, when the card flips, it’s a different target.

This will be mentioned in the Disparation rulebook, as well, so don’t worry about this update being the only place with this information. That would be rude of me!

OK, enough about all that. Time for me to get back to work on other things… but I’ll be back tomorrow morning with an update about another Villain! Who could it be?!

Until then, keep on saving the Multiverse!

-Christopher