I would set MK 9 in an alternate universe with a bunch of new takes on old characters .....

Dimension Traveling Monk :

( I don't really have a set name for him yet ), but after the events of Armageddon, their is no one left to defeat Onaga, the gods abandon earth, and the earth realm warriors are dead. The god of time grants this monk the power to travel parallel universes to find new / old warriors of Earth realm to come to our dimension and defeat Onaga. He's travels for hundreds of years , which in our time goes by in seconds , and realizes that every parallel universe he visits, that unvierse's version of Onaga has already taken over ...... He finally ends up in the version of earth that this game is set in , and finds that Onaga is on the verge taking over, so he must help the MK warriors of that universe defeat Onaga, so they can travel to the "Cannon" MK universe , destroy Onaga, which would undo the events of Deadly Alliance / Deception / and Armageddon .......... so that Onaga was never ressurected

In game powers / moves : Can freeze time / Teleport / Sword with clock on the hilt

Hanzo :

Alternate version of Scorpion where HE killed the original Sub-Zero in their first fight , thus turning Sub-Zero into the spirit of Vengence NOOB SAIBOT .... and now has the more traditional role of trying to fight for earth. Has a symbiotic like skull mask that covers his nose and mouth, and his eyes turn white when he's ready to fight, but would retain a more human face with hair pulled up like a samurai. Has more of Matrix style look but with the yellow and black colors. He's also revealed to be the chosen one to defeat Onaga forever ......

In game powers / moves : old school moves, flaming sword

Noob Saibot :

The original Sub back for revenge on Scorpion. Has a more wraith like appearance, with a black hood covering his face, and a long black vest , with slimy grayish black skin ....... Uses a Big ass Scythe that he can actually morph into two smaller scythes ......... super bad ass in the game and super scary

In game powers / moves : Makes shadow men jump out of him ala MK : Trilogy ...... can create a tar like shadow on the floor where black hands raise up out of the ground and hold the characters feet ..... Teleport attacks


Cold Front :

This is a take on Sub-Zero II , but he is evil. His skin is almost translucent, and his blood glows neon blue. To take his brothers place in the Lin Kuei as leader, he must bring back the head of Scorpion, the problem is his brother wants to kill Scorpion too so there is kind of this 3 way clash between Scorp , Sub and Noob, or rather Hanzo , Cold Front, and Noob .....

In game powers / moves : Sub-zero style, but freezing powers are at close range while projectiles are frozen ice sickles that do damage. Ice Daggers as weapons.

I'll throw out 4 more characters tomorrow ( I have 24 in all ....... trust me I could post an entire Novel based on my concept )

Unless of coarse you think my ideads are shit, in which case I just wont waste my time :)

Nuff said.

:)

METICUS DEMENS (DEMENS for short)

an evil scientist type person, who experiments with humans and gives them abilities. his best creation is RYOKU, who has super strength unlike anything else. DEMENS plans to defeat ONAGA using RYOKU and his other creations to take over the realms. (yeah im going with that guys story idea) hes also trying to stop the monk guy.

moves: throws a ball at you that freezes you; pours acid on you; drinks something that makes him invisible; fatality: uses a miniature sun and a magnigying glass and burns you alive

RYOKU

created by DEMENS with the body of tsang tsung, liu kang, johnny cage, and jax. he has unbeleivable super stength and his DEMENS secret weapon to defeating ONAGA.

moves: super punch; stomp; fatality: rips you in half

more 2 come

I think I've had my share of alternate universes for the foreseeable future. I think it'd be much cooler if they simply took their time, and carefully crafted new characters. So how about a couple of these types of unique sorts of characters:

1. A Political Figure: Could be aligned any way (good/neutral/bad), is a fighter, and is based in the structures that manipulate the contest of Mortal Kombat to or against their favor. Their motive could be "for the greater good", "rage against the machine", or comodities like we have in the real world (gold,oil, land, diamonds..ect) Those are issues to politic over. Kintaro is almost this sort of character, but just...not. They haven't given him enough.

2. A Dreamer: Dreams are still shrouded in mystery so, there's plenty of room to experiment with this sort of character. Not telepathic in the sense that they can move things with their mind. More along the lines that say "dreams move this character in whatever direction". Dreams guide them. They made this suggestion with Kai's MKA ending, but again...they haven't given him enough.

3. A Sub-God: Someone who Raiden or Fujin delegates the other duties of Earth to. For instance, the Grimm Reaper would be a sub-god. He is delegated the duty of (given the job of) collecting and transferring souls from Earth to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. There could be many of these sub-gods in place that help keep the balance on Earth. The Elemental Gods of MKSub-Zero: Mythologies get close to being delegates of Raiden, including Fujin. But guess what? They didn't give them enough...

How does Raiden run the Earth? ----> could be Delegates. Sub-Gods that are essentially a part of him, or his own hierarchic structure that do things for him in order to keep the order on Earth (they hold their own "jobs" so to speak). They could be stand-alone sentinel-types too, so that when they die like they did...he doesn't die with them. They may just go back into the source = Raiden and lay dormant.

4. Avatars: Extremely meek representatives of gods. Actual people who are basically blessed with talents above the average human by a god. They may not even know that they are avatars until they are tapped for whatever purpose. But if they're aligned with the good guys, they are generally put in place as a last ditch attempt at restoring whatever balance has been disturbed. And if they are endowed by evil forces....you see the potential goodness in that I hope.

5. A Genius: Essentially a "know it all", except for the fact that he//she is not omnipotent at all. These types of characters are typically scientists, or techno-mancers. Meaning that they specialize in the practices of manipulating the atomic structure of things, or that they have an innate quality about them that allows them to build, control, and manipulate mechanics. The super-powerful geek who might also be a fighter, good looking (or not), and be well liked (or hated) or popular for whatever reason. Ketchup and Mustard get close....but they haven't given them enough. Sektors more likely at the moment.

7. Tree Hugger // Animal Lover: A character like Poison Ivy, who's specialty is plants and or animals. Nightwolf gets close to handling this for MK but, he's just...not.

8. Voodoo Doctor: Same basic premise as #7 but the opposite of dealing with the living versions of plants and or animals. They're necromancers who specialize in unothodox medicines, communications with the dead, and with extreme concentration, they are rumored to be able to access portals to other dimensions (stop using portals as a general mode of transportation! everyone should not be able to find and use them). Among other dark arts qualities of course. Ditto Nightwolf comment.

9. Achilles: A character that is unstoppable except for one crucial ailment. The Plague is an example of an Achilles sort of character that doesn't necessarily have to be a "human-like". But is rather a force that only has one crucial flaw. I also think that Gods like Raiden or Fujin should posses this quality about them. Which helps distinguish them as Gods in the first place. They should be virtually unstoppable, they're Gods. Shinnok or Quan Chi should have been this figure when they were introduced in my opinion, BUT...they didn't give either of these characters enough...

10. Elemental: I generally think that they just haven't done good enough with these characters, and should really explore the sheer amount of "stuff" you can do with them without cross-referencing. For instance, Rain and Nightwolf should never have had anything on their move list that suggested lighting. Rain is a water character....or more over, a liquid character. Think about every liquid in the world for a second. Water, mist, due, sweat, tears...BLOOD even. He doesn't need a lightning strike, even though yea, lightning happens while it rains.

I'd really like to see an Earth character. Almost like a Sandman character without all the typical stereotypes. I don't need the guy turning into a big sand cloud and all that, I don't need the huge sand fists and exaggerated body-parts and what have you. Just a master of all things Earth. Rock, mud, clay, sand (quicksand), and even metal if he's good enough or becomes good enough over time.

Say for instance we have a Earth character that needs to make a rock out of mud....He should be able to take the mineral from the water and make a rock. Vice versa for the water character. Rain would take the water away from mud.

I will say that they did alright with Fujin in MKA, but there's still a crapload more you can do with air. You can make whips and so on...

If they looked at all the possibilities and found a unique way to bring those possibilities to life through martial arts, we'd be golden. That's what I'm looking for.
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And the list goes on and on without an alternate universe sort of scenario, and switching around the existing characters' powers as a smoke screen for illegitimate "new" characters. It's not new then, it's just more of the same old stuff..which is bad.

I have a few character ideas posted in this sticky thread if you care to scroll and look...if not I can re-post if anyone wants.

http://www.mortalkombatonline.com/content/forum/showmessage.cds?id=97189

in all honesty i dont want to see anymore new character i mean the new ones after MKDA but i really hate Dairou, Darrius, Hsu Hao, Hotaru. after those horrible characters i dont want to see anymore i mean MK has over 60 characters as it is and i dont know how having new characters is gonna tie into the ending story of MK9 assuming that they actually plan to end this story in MK9 like they said for the last game.

but the other new characters i liked like kenshi ,frost, nitara i think need more work on their story i mean i see a thing going on with frost and sub-zero and seems she has more to her story than just wanting to be grandmaster shes young and nieve so id love to see a relationship happen with sub and frost since her and subby are the only cryomancers left, since now i think i can assume that they are the only ice powered people in the lin keui, and from subs MKDA ending he still seems to care a lot about frost regardless of what she did.
kenshi is just awesome and love to see more to his story.
ashra i like how they tied her and nitaras story together now

i'd like to see more animalistic characters like scorpion and reptile.

name - fangs
height - 6 feet 3 inches
weight - 252 pounds
type - arachnid
allies - scorpion
enemys - reptile
character arena - the cave
look - similar to goro with an extra 2 arms but is a spider.

bio - after the destruction of blaze and everthing and everyone went back to the way it was. it awoken a species that has survived the test of time and began to crawl out of the forests and caves that may or may not lerk in the shadows.

he seeks out for a particular race known as saurian race. there are few saurian's and few arachnids because of the past wars. one in particular is a general known as reptile. although reptile does not remember much about his past when he see fangs he starts to remember and that feud picks up where it left off on earthrealm. both there species depend on the outcome.

special moves - web throw, web ball, bite, wall kick, venom spit,
and web clone.

fatality 1 - fang's for coming. fang jumps onto the opponnet then lays an egg in there mouth. it then hatches, then thousands of spiders burst out the opponnets mouth leaving them with a blank stare and a mouth streched open.

fatality 2 - fangs alot. fang jumpes onto the opponnet then bites down continually causing the toxins to run through the opponnets blood stream causing them to drop dead with a pale look.

hope you enjoyed.

Kuatan

Shokans King, Kuatan was (with Shao Kahn) general of Onaga's army . Bored to serve his master The Dragon King, Kuatan and Shao Kahn was planning to kill the Dragon King in order to share each other the realm oh Outworld. after the death of Onaga.

Once the accomplished mission, the Dark Kahn didn't really want to share the throne with Kuatan, and finally push the shokan in a deadly trap. The King Kuatan was dead! Shao Kahn became the one, the Emperor of Outworld.

When Onaga was back, he knew what happened about their project of the outworld and through that shao Kahn was the only representative of his death, and bring Kuatan to life...

Now Kuatan, King of Shokans and Goro's father, wants a revenge against Shao Kahn and promise to Onaga "fidelity".



(sorry for my english i'm french :) )