Home » The Crystal Hall » Character Discussions » To Phase or Not to Phase...
| Re: To Phase or Not to Phase... [message #59929 is a reply to message #11300 ] |
Thu, 14 June 2012 15:25   |
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 Sojiro
Messages: 1672
Registered: November 2011 |
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That doesn't even make sense. Words don't suddenly start having different meaning when discussing a specific author's work.
"Chekhov's Arsenal" is quite simply not the correct expression to describe what you were referring to.
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| Re: To Phase or Not to Phase... [message #60909 is a reply to message #60794 ] |
Mon, 02 July 2012 17:25 |
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Rabiata
Messages: 528
Registered: July 2008
Location: Germany |
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That is totally crazy. And funny  .
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| Re: To Phase or Not to Phase... [message #61387 is a reply to message #59948 ] |
Tue, 10 July 2012 05:52 |
TheEyes
Messages: 456
Registered: May 2011 |
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| Sir Lee wrote on Thu, 14 June 2012 20:50 | Speaking of Ayla and Checkov's Guns, there's one I think I missed... and knowing Diane, she almost certainly dropped a hint earlier.
That's about the Marvel acquisition. It sorta dropped from the sky on me. When did we get the first hints that Ayla was setting up a big deal and/or that he noticed Marvel was ripe for plucking? The only example I can recall is that Hulk movie ad, showing how messed up Marvel was...
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Are you talking before Ayla 5:
| Ayla and the Network | I had a quick conference call with some New York business partners before I rushed off to breakfast. Setting up a corporate buyout was WAY harder when you didn't have your own teams of lawyers and accountants on hand. Otherwise, I would have just bought most of the company myself, and had my executives handle the details. As it was, I was having to let some other businessmen in on the plan, and to trust that they could keep their teams from leaking the news to the buyout target. Or to the Wall Street Journal. I needed my own financial organization that would be loyal to me.
Right, like a fourteen-year-old mutant intersexed freak was going to inspire loyalty in anyone. Meanwhile, I had to get the buyout done before Marvel's parent company made any more stupid commitments on movie rights. I swear, those guys didn't have enough sense to keep from sinking their life's savings in ePets.
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I don't know if Diane mentioned Marvel specifically before then, but we do see that Ayla was trying to find something interesting to do with the ownership stake he got in Townsend Publishing (Peril's parents gave him a stake in return for paying off their debts, which he had done in return for the fake-penis incident). He may have been looking around then, and noticed that Marvel was ripe for the taking. That was, I think, mid Ayla 4?
What's got a bee in my bonnet is the next Marvel-related Chechov's Gun, from Birthday Brawl 5:
| Quote: | He was waiting at the place we had picked for our prior meeting, and he was alight with excitement. At first, I thought he was just over-exuberant about the BIT-slicer run, but I realized that wasn't it as soon as he started talking. "Oh man, I can't thank you enough! Mom and dad called me about the company! This is the greatest thing EVER! Mom's going crazy planning out the expansion, and they think they're gonna end up taking over all the floors in the whole building!"
I tried to calm him down a bit. I said, "Yeah, when we mapped out the distribution network for Marvel comic books, we figured out that using New York as the sole distribution point was just stupid. We could electronically transmit four-color files to nine other printers around the country, and save a ton of money on distribution. But our network analyst said we needed a mid-South printer, and our options were basically Memphis, Nashville, or Atlanta. I opted for Nashville."
"You mean, you opted for my folks. I really owe you a big one for this. My mom is crying she's so happy. Just a few months ago, they were afraid they were gonna have to declare bankruptcy, and they hadn't found any reasonable way to grow the business in years, and then you drop this in their laps. They think it's a gift from God."
I smiled, "No, it's just some self-serving machinations from a Goodkind."
He ignored that. "Dad said you bought the whole building, so they have room to expand for this."
I admitted, "I bought the building next door too, in case they need further expansion in a few years. We can get that building re-conditioned floor by floor as we juggle renters, so if anything goes wrong with your folks' building, we have a backup plan."
"Whew," he whistled. "You think way bigger than my folks do. We'd never try that in a million years. How could we ever afford it?"
I told him, "Think of it as economies of scale." Then I changed the subject, because I really didn't want to get into a discussion of exactly what I was doing with the network of printing companies that Marvel was going to be using.
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I think Ayla is planning on building a media empire, leveraging the profitable Marvel properties and distribution network to fund a large news organization, with a big-time research backend: a global scale information network. Ironically, this is somewhat how News Corp works: using tabloid and film sales to fund Fox News and their other conservative activist propoganda machines and influence peddling schemes. Maybe Ayla will buy a struggling newspaper or news magazine next.
[Updated on: Tue, 10 July 2012 05:53]
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| Re: To Phase or Not to Phase... [message #61416 is a reply to message #11300 ] |
Tue, 10 July 2012 15:05 |
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Nicky82
Messages: 1408
Registered: May 2011 |
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The best parts of the Marvel takeover are the Golden Kids meeting and the reactions to the IPO (especially Kismet hurting her hand slapping Dynamax in powered armor when he gave the thumb up to Ayla in the middle of Team Tactics).
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| Re: To Phase or Not to Phase... [message #61440 is a reply to message #61418 ] |
Tue, 10 July 2012 20:37 |
TheEyes
Messages: 456
Registered: May 2011 |
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| dr. bibber wrote on Tue, 10 July 2012 15:48 | | TheEyes wrote on Tue, 10 July 2012 11:52 | Maybe Ayla will buy a struggling newspaper or news magazine next.
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I would not expect Ayla to buy a newspaper, as the profits on those are continually diminishing. If I recall correctly Ayla is already a mayor stakeholder in eClip and I would expect him to invest more in those more modern ways of sharing news.
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Generic news, or general news, is doing bad, because there are so many players providing what is essentially a fungible commodity. Specialty news sites can do much better, both by appealing to a specific audience and by providing in-depth analysis. The Economist, for example, is doing very well.
Anyway, that's not the point of buying a news organization. Ostensibly, Ayla would be buying the newspaper or news magazine with the intent of combining publishing and distribution assets with Marvel's comic printing and distribution assets, but the real reason would be to provide cover for his growing global intelligence network. This intelligence network will pay off in a large number of ways: advance warning about enemies and competitors, intel on prospective future acquisitions, early access to breaking information, etc.
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| Re: To Phase or Not to Phase... [message #61449 is a reply to message #11300 ] |
Wed, 11 July 2012 01:36 |
Belgarion213
Messages: 353
Registered: March 2005
Location: Melbourne, Australia |
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We know from one of the earlier stories that there is no 'mutant web spider'. We also know that Google is apparently forbidden to search *.mut domain's for some reason. That raises a question, is there a WELL FUNDED 'Mutant News' site? I could see Ayla moving n that direction, if she's buying old/new media. Yeah its a 'small' percentage of the worlds population, but I still think it's a workable idea.
Stop Watch is now being forced to either maintain the Web Spider or has sold it of to avoid being messily killed by the Super Villia's who got tagged by it, but its still a workable idea.
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| Re: To Phase or Not to Phase... [message #61453 is a reply to message #11300 ] |
Wed, 11 July 2012 03:20 |
khade
Messages: 1638
Registered: May 2011
Location: Rockies |
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The web spider was given to the Mal and Jadis, as tow of the few people who no one could really accuse of abusing it, or was going to be, not quite clear if it was yet.
I'm not really clear on the logic, probably something about them already knowing the dangers of information being in the wrong hands, and villains knowing that their dad won't allow attacks and heroes knowing he is at least honorable.
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