"My name, is Monolith, and I stand as the Impetus of change. Change from the status quo that the Protectorate seems content on keeping. I will say this, they are heroes, and they do protect, but what they are protecting is dead and gone."
—Monolith
Paradigm Shift is a superhero play by post roleplay hosted on Ten Thousand Rads.
It is February 26, 2017 and Brockton Bay, USA is an okay place to live. That is, until, a mysterious man known only as Monolith hijacks every broadcast in the city, promising a change from the superheroic status quo.
The roleplay can be found here
. It fizzled out in October 2017, and then received a short-lived sequel.
Paradigm Shift contains examples of:
- Almost Out of Oxygen: This hits Monolith like a truck when he walks into Fog's gas, realizes that he can't breath, and then gets hit by Night.
- Bad Guy Bar: Impetus was technically a villain organization and has their base at the Fat Angel bar that London owns. No longer applies as of their officially becoming a heroic group.
- Brain Uploading: Sandstorm does this to herself in the process of turning her body into a humanoid mass of nanomachines.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- Any time Impetus (or any other cape team) goes against unpowered people, this is what occurs.
- Impetus suffers from one at the hands of Empire Eighty-Eight in their second real outing, courtesy of Night and Fog. Only Monolith got out of that one without several busted ribs.
- Gale-Force Sound: Sonorous' primary form of offense. Has a range of about twenty feet - outside of that, he loses control and tends to start causing collateral damage.
- Gunpoint Banter: In the first fight between Impetus and Empire Eighty-Eight, this occurs. Monolith grabs Alabaster, wraps him in a headlock, and all combat promptly stops.
- Heel–Face Turn: Of a sort. Impetus was introduced to Brockton Bay by Monolith hijacking a news broadcast to deliver his manifesto, then demolishing a building. Thus it was generally viewed as yet another villain organization. However, after Monolith gave Lung a beatdown and Impetus went out of its way to stop small crime in its area of operations, the PRT made an effort to recruit them and they are currently an officially recognized hero organization.
- In a Single Bound: Monolith gets around this way particularly efficiently, considering he can use his boosted strength to jump then reduce his density to be light as a feather.
- Intangible Man: Turning down his density turns Monolith into this.
- Nanomachines: Sandstorm's Tinker specialty. She's replaced every single cell in her body with specialized nanobots and has demonstrated the ability to repair injuries on the cellular level.
- Nigh-Invulnerable: Monolith's trump card. Any and every physical attack just bounces off him and his armor.
- Powers as Programs: Wargame can swap the powers of any two capes in his line-of-sight, including his own. His only limitation so far is that it doesn't work on individuals with a Changer or Breaker power that seriously alters their form.
- Pragmatic Hero: Monolith and Wargame both believe that the Protectorate and PRT have ultimately failed in their mission and need to take a harder stance against villains. Both have shown themselves perfectly willing to kill at least Lung and likely others for the ultimate goal of a safer city.
- Shock and Awe: Overload's power essentially turns her into an electric version of the Human Torch.
