The Good, The Bad and The Spandex: Discussion Thread

The AI is so humanoid on Axel that he may as well be counted as a human.

Anyone, with Amethyst out of commission, I was thinking of switching to Vicky observing the battle from afar. She'd be there scouting the Fracture situation herself, but then a couple giant robots started doing battle in the street and she's asking if any TALOS interference is needed.

Excerpt from an Omnitech Industries press conference

"-would your corporation say about the issue of a more human, uh, Artificial Intelligence? What if one were to be, say, uh, indistinguishable from a human, with the way it thinks, talks?"

"That is an excellent question, and one that Omnitech Industries takes a very firm stance on. We consider our algorithms to be worthy of rights similar to pets, due to their similar intelligence. We do not enforce such beliefs upon the world, but in our territory, a mind is a mind. If one algorithm were to achieve sapience, well, we'd just treat it with the same kindness and respect as any human! These minds are our /children/, and we need to treat them with proportional kindness if we are to move on as a species! Of course, no such-"

edited 8th Sep '16 4:33:23 PM by Mistfader

Oh, uh, spoilers for a decades old anime, I guess.

I wouldn't get the reference, anyway.

I just realized that I should probably add Charles as a associate to Axel, someone needs to fix him.

And since Virgil is a Dr. Wily style character, expect countless robotic minions with quirky personalities.

I remind everyone that all minions are expendable- that's why I allow them. They can't have notable personalities and unlike PCs, they can be killed off.

edited 9th Sep '16 2:17:25 PM by Sijo

So no expendable Robot Masters with personalities then?

You can create Robot Masters as Characters. In which case you play them one at a time.

edited 9th Sep '16 2:34:49 PM by Sijo

Got it. I will have a lot of characters by the end of this.

What about playing as Charles Bates, Axel's creator during scenes where Axel needs to be fixed? Where would that count?

I wish to know so I don't break any rules.

You'd need to write him up, too. (Not for just a conversation, though. I mean if you use him independently.)

edited 9th Sep '16 3:20:32 PM by Sijo

Notification: The basic rules have been appended. Nothing major, in fact its pretty obvious stuff, but I decided to be better safe than sorry. See the first post in the Signup Thread for details.

THE NARRATIVE MYTHOS

In the beginning, there was nothing. Not even rules.

But since there were no rules, nothing prevented things from coming to existence from nothingness.

Among the first things to exist were the Titans (also known as Primordials). They were ethereal, powerful, meaningful; they were- concepts.

Eventually, the Entities agreed that the current state of being should not continue. Reality needed purpose, sense; it needed- a story.

And thus, by working together, the Entities 'wrote' the Story. And it began with a bang-

-a Big Bang.

(Note that they are not the only beings claiming to have created the universe.)

Eons later, the Entities still exist. Many of them seek to experience physical existence by merging with mortals (these are known as Living Mythos) or possessing them (these are known as Exalted Parts.) And several of them are currently on Earth.

Titans

• The Hero / The Light / The Sleeping King: The inactive head honcho of the Titans after he overthrew their last boss. His theme are of glory and perfection, but he became too perfect and achieved the Horizon-Collapsing Narrative Singularity, necessitating that his overmind be placed into suspended animation deep within his pocket reality before his glory made all other things irrelevant.
• The Conqueror / The Flame / The Once King: Previous head honcho of the Titans, now his pocket reality has been reworked into a Hell dimension, possibly The Hell dimension if stories are to be believed. He wants to burn everything forever in the fires of conquest, see his enemies driven before him and have their works crushed beneath his feet.
• The Shadow / The Villain / The Despicable: The Narrative of being just the worst. A craven coward who is without honor or limits to his atrocities, the ultimate liar who cannot be trusted, even when he speaks the truth, the great loser of the universe, not that he minds, as long as everyone else loses more. He is Space Satan, and if you manage to win his approval it is time to rethink your life choices.
• The Abomination: The deathless corpse of a slain Titan, forever trapped inside its last moments when it was struck down by the Omnispear. It now want to kill everything forever, dissolve this stable reality and find a true end in the Dark Before.
• The Monster: The Narrative of violence, terror and degradation. Supposedly the Omnispear was forged from his blood, so that's a thing. He doesn't have a pocket dimension like the others, instead rampaging through the realities of the others as his incarnate self.
• The Iron Warrior: An infant and nascent Narrative, the incarnate narrative of purest battle itself. It does not yet exist as the others do, but emanates through certain weapons throughout the universe.
• The Mutation / Kagazabi: The incarnate Narrative of "always a bigger fish". She is imprisoned inside an immortal woman after she ate said woman and then turned into her. Because that's a thing that happened.
• The Others: The Behemoth, the Juggernaut, the Party, the Maker, the Impossibility, the Imitator, the Nightmare, the Bodhisattva, the Asura, (those two get along, strangely enough) the Lawmaker, the Lawabiding, (somehow those last two don't get along), the Devourer and more.
• The Cast: The lesser bodies that make up a Narrative's hierarchy. They're normally organized into the Main Cast, with a Lead Role, each Main Cast member's Supporting Cast and an entire plethora of Extras. These bodies are people, with the Extras normally making up entire species. They are not completely barred from reality, unlike the overmind and its associated emanations, but may enter under special conditions. (To note, most Lead Roles are the same sex as their Narrative, or more like the other way around, with the notable exception of the Light's Lead Role.)

Mortals

• God-King: A villainous Living Mythos empowered by the Light.
• Dragoknight: A heroic Living Mythos empowered by the Conqueror.
• Warlock: A mercenary Exalted Part patroned by the Conqueror.
• Umber: A Living Mythos working for TALOS empowered by the Shadow.
• Melancholy: A villainous Exalted Part shaped by the Abomination at the edge of death.
• The Hunter/The Monster: An anti-hero Living Mythos empowered by the Monster. He fought in the war, accepted the Shintai and became a villainous Exalted Part.
• Blood Hound/War Crime: An anti-hero scion of the Monster's Living Mythos, the Hunter's son. He sought to follow in his father's footsteps and was tricked into becoming an Exalted Part, further infused with the Monster.
• The Man-Slayer/War Dragon: A Living Mythos empowered by the Iron Warrior.
• Tiger Warrior: A woman that has touched upon the power of Narration under her own talent, displays colorings of the Monster and the Iron Warrior.
• Kagazabi: A mortal woman that was devoured by the Mutation, but then she became a super cancer and ate her right back.
• Dance Dance Rebel: The reincarnation of one of Kagazabi's descendant, he too displays a power that touches upon Narration.

Players: feel free to create new Entities or characters related to them. For example, Labyrinth might be The Nightmare.

edited 10th Sep '16 2:22:21 PM by Sijo

I'll be playing as Hazel and Misty for a while. Sijo will be taking over as Mindseye while I do so.

edited 10th Sep '16 4:53:56 PM by emilyorthoclase

Okay.

I wasn't very clear in The Minuteman's signup, so here's an explanation. He's a stronger-than-average speedster with the ability to slow his perception of time, which means his power is basically a temporary Bullet Time. His name is a pun on that.

edited 11th Sep '16 12:05:35 PM by MajorProblem

Gamma Asylum

TALOS is responsible for a number of incarceration facilities for abnormal prisoners, two of them are referred to as asylums. One of these holds the criminally insane, this one holds tragedies. It has only a dozen prisoners, people who must be contained because they are, by no fault of their own, too dangerous to let loose on the world. First Night is one of these prisoners, although that's be choice. After he wrangled its location out of his then thralls, he decided that was the best place to put himself.

The young boy codenamed Loup Garou is incarcerated here. He transformed into a mindless killing machine upon the unprovoked activation of his metagene, a hulking werewolf-like creature with superstrength, supersenses, powerful regeneration and bones, teeth and claws made of a silvery metals that burned others as silver burns real werewolves. The boy is not a real werewolf, TALOS checked, bringing in an actual werewolf wise woman to be sure.

Codename Hurricane Pandora is a young girl from Africa. Her powers activated under stress in response to a local militia attack on her village. Her village is recorded as having been wiped out by a freak storm. She is one of the most powerful electro, cryo and aerokinetics in the world, and the combination of freakishly strong power proved too much for her mind to handle. Several parts of her higher reasoning have been shut down, leaving enough for her to believe she is a messianic goddess.

Ooh, I like it.

Wait for something...."primal" to show up soon.

Permission to join in on the Superior industries thing? Considering we have what are basically domestic terrorists harassing an American business, I think this would be a good way for the Minuteman to show up.

Considering said American business is dumping toxic waste at a defunct sewage plant, I'd say it's not as clear cut as you're making it out to be.

Actually, I would say yes. Dumping toxic waste is such an American thing.

Permission granted.

And I like the Gamma Asylum too. I'll add it to the List.

Well, The Minuteman doesn't know that.

edited 11th Sep '16 4:45:10 PM by MajorProblem

Fair enough.

To be clear, Superior Industries are guilty of this and other crimes. But none are publicly known. And Minuteman being as 'Extreme' as he is might lead him to the wrong conclusion. Mindseye and The Bear have no evidence (and The Bear has a criminal record I believe, even if a minor one.)

(Also, according to wikipedia terrorism has to involve violence. Still dumping dangerous substances into the environment without permission is a crime.)

If Minuteman needs a clue, he might notice that all attacked vehicles belong to Superior.

edited 11th Sep '16 5:01:01 PM by Sijo