The Good, The Bad and The Spandex: Discussion Thread

Well alright then.

The first idea is a old alien race I made a long time ago, they are called the HIVE, a race of biomechanical beings that tend to "assimilate and consume" planets they find, think of them like the Replicators from Stargate, a race of technological beings who can only consume and replicate. Suffice to say, facing them would be quite dangerous unless you were prepared.

The next is a individual just referred to as "the Mechanic", mostly because he's forgotten his own name thanks to being driven just a wee bit mad by alien tech. The good news is that it hasn't left him catatonic and he now makes a living by constructing devices and vehicles for people who pay him enough, the hard part is finding him.

But if you ask him, and can make it worth his while, he should be able to construct at least a starship with some difficulty.

@Sijo

Would ya mind if I switched to Scythe for now?

I'm trying to come up with a multiverse, and I'm having trouble coming up with a classification system. Do we just want to do what DC and Marvel did and classify according to numbers? Or letters or something?

An or two:

Anti-Metahuman Sentiment

It exists, let's start with that. It is neither prevalent nor is it unheard of. Especially in Conservative America, there are forces that promote the restraint of metahuman activity, in one fashion or another. In higher level politics, it is calls for monitoring, registration and stronger deterents, responses, to metahuman crimes and preferably these powers in the hands of non-metahumans, or "baselines". Down on the street, in the small town, in the so-called grassroot, there are voices of reasons, shouts of anger and then there is the hand of violence. A homegrown terrorist organization, there to protect the rights of normal, everyday, humans that some feel simply cannot exist as long as people with super powers do.

There is always back and forth, disagreement of where to draw the line. There are those who only label the ones naturally born with powers as others, most to those who's biology and physiology has clearly delineated from human norm and the most extreme at any with super powers from any source, even be it technological. Minuteman, he has his fans, but some spit his name, for clearly he is no longer human. In this day and age, however, these voices are marginalized, unheeded by a generation that considers itself more rational than its ancestors.

This may change, however, if groups like Melancholy's cult get their ways, and stir up the pot of hatred yet again.

"-stir up the pot of hatred-" What the fu-

The O'Allen Family

An Irish family that came to this country among a hundred thousand other immigrants. They are an American success story, pulled themselves up from their bootstraps through various well-placed investments and are spread through a number of lucrative business interests. They're rich, they're shady and seemed to be involved in a lot of anti-metahuman activity, from backing politicians that back the legislation, to funding those grassroot organizations via charity and outright funding those public project for the protection of the people and definitely not funding those terrorists dudes, nosireebob.

Anti-Psychic Sentiment

Psychics are scary, man. You're a reasonable, enlightened person, you have nothing against most metahumans. You reason they're no more dangerous than someone with a gun, except they likely had no choice in the matter so even that doesn't carry the inherent threat as someone who did chose to carry a weapon. And if one kills you, sure, it'll suck, dying sucks. It would suck if you were blown up by a terrorist attack in the next ten minutes as much as if a fireballs from a pyrokinetic hit you.

A psychic, a telepath, however, will not simply kill you. They'll take your body, still alive, and hollow out your mind and, hey, isn't that where Da Vinci said you keep your soul? Smart guy, that Da Vinci. Maybe they'll leave some part of you alive to scream from inside your head. Maybe one has control of you right now and you just don't know it.

Even among metahumans, this sentiment lies somewhere like a rotten seed. Where they may congregate, those with the power of the mind may be given a wide berth by some of the others. "I just don't trust 'em. They could be looking into my thoughts, trespassing on my most private sanctum."

Anti-Magic Sentiment

Suffer not the witch to live. Okay, so that's just the religious nuts, and no one else listens to them, or at least they pretend not to. Among people more "rational" people, they simply scoff at magic. Clearly, these are metahumans who have deluded themselves to believe in a supernatural cause to their powers, when clearly there is some logical science behind these shenanigans. Beyond this extreme, you still have the skeptical, even if they aren't married to newtonian views of science.

Moving on to actually more rational people, you still have those who are afraid of magic out of more practical purposes. A wizard, if they're generalized enough, can do practically anything, if given enough time and material components to work with. Even the specialized ones, say, in "fire", can do a whole if also given sufficiently twisted logic to make the given result about their specialty. (Say, a fire wizard twisting minds by inflaming passions.)

Psionics vs Magic

A mage can do anything, later. A psychic can do something, right now. Not true one-hundred-percent of the time, but that about hits the crux of the matter. Champion University's Titania and Mab might be the most blatant example, but even professional organizations like TALOS aren't immune to seeing their psychics and mages butt-heads to see who can't tackle a "weird" problem better. Then the tech guys starts butting in between them and everything goes straight to hell.

Anti-Tech Sentiment

Not anti-technology, anti-mad science. It's certainly not as prevalent, but there are those who's metahuman powers lend themselves to scientific and "scientific" pursuits and those whom it makes nervous as hell. It usually gets lumped in with the other more specific forms of anti-metahuman sentiment noted above. If you're worried about the mad scientist type doing experiments on you, safe to say you might also be worried about the wizard-type cursing you or the telepath... telepathing you too.

Another :

The Grays

AKA "Alien Greys", "Greys", "Grays", "Roswell Greys", and "Zeta Reticulans".

Turns out that 50s alien movies were right. There are, in fact, little green men that live on Mars. They're still undiscovered by human science, but they're well known in the intergalactic community for violating contact procedures and abducting humans. They're kind of like the North Korea of the Galaxy. They think everyone's terrified of them, but the galactic government is getting pretty sick of their shit.

• Technology

Their tech is very advanced, they're at least in the top ten most developed species in the Milky Way Galaxy. Once again, the appearances of their devices were pretty accurately recreated in the movies.

• Society

Gray society is comparable to Kobolds from dungeons and dragons. They're sadistic, cowardly, and rely on traps and technology to survive. Without their tech, they're even weaker that humans. They make their home in the dark, massive caverns deep beneath Mars' crust. Every Gray is required to join the defense force when they come of age, and thus their form of government is basically the chain of command of most of Earth's militaries, being led by a commander-in-chief and his Generals. The Grays have no family unit and reproduce entirely by cloning.

• Science

Gray scientists consider healthy human specimens around 20-30 years old above all others, and usually try to abduct subjects themselves. This isn't illegal, but it's pretty frowned upon by the leadership, if only for the results of the experiments.

• Abominations

This is the fate of most people abducted by the grays, the ones that haven't been probed and released or cryogenically frozen. A horrific corruption of human and alien DNA, they've lost all memories and have drastically reduced intellect. They're usually used as cannon fodder, due to being much sturdier than the Grays themselves. Despite their usefulness, the chain of command hates them. Along with being an affront to nature, they're not very discriminating in their rage, and will attack almost anything they see.

edited 23rd Sep '16 9:34:52 AM by MajorProblem

Holy moly was I tired when I wrote that.

Do they like to probe people?

Are they actually gray, not grey?

Most definitely

Any spelling works

edited 23rd Sep '16 9:40:21 AM by MajorProblem

Okay, now, see, while I'm not against the idea save for the one bit: Them being Martians.

I dunno, I think we should save Mars for something special.

Now, the one thing I said about the protection around the solar system that I think I failed to emphasize (in fact, mayhaps I failed to mention it at all) is that it fails to beep for singular small ships or just a few more. It's there to prevent full-scale invasions.

Tiny invasions, now those happen all the time.

How about them being from Mars, but having left thousands of years ago to live a spacefaring existence?

edited 22nd Sep '16 10:37:29 AM by MajorProblem

Sorry if I hadn't posted in a long while, real life had other plans for me. So, about the whole Anti-Superhuman post, I was planning on making a Human Supremacist group.

The Purging Flame

Some could not stand the fact that there were metahumans, cyborgs, psychics, mages, and the like coexist with humans. Some believe that pure humans should be the dominant variant, others believe that pure humanity should be the only variant. Some just whine and moan about the situation, cruel yes, but others just simply carry out the acts. Others still, have the resources to do it on a wider scale than the average hate crime. Enter The Purging Flame, led by one Ansel Voight, a charismatic but brutal individual, a secret syndicate plotting to overthrow the American government due to their anger and bitterness towards the government for even tolerating anyone other than pure humanity and not suppressing, or exterminating, them. They do this in order to, according to them, "protect the world and humanity of these mutants, abberants, and abominations, even if we must harm them." There are rumors of a cell in Easton City, but no one can know for sure.

edited 25th Sep '16 1:51:45 PM by Ore-O

Mm, perhaps too extreme. Maybe rather a group evincing to protect normal human interests. A moderate and nice sounding agenda, but their methods and true motives are questionable.

Perhaps what I have could be an offshoot of the more moderate group.

That sounds more realistic than everyone moderate or everyone batshit. The more moderate group would allege they have no connection and probably have higher numbers.

Would there be any metahuman advocacy groups? Metahuman supremacy groups? Are metahumans expected to become superheroes and supervillains? Are there laws against metahumans taking specific jobs?

There are at least two or three schools exclusively for metahumans; how do they relate to everything mentioned?

EDIT: Would it be off-color for me to make a "hail Satan!" joke?

edited 22nd Sep '16 7:13:51 PM by emilyorthoclase

Nothing's too off-color when I'm around.

edited 22nd Sep '16 10:25:43 PM by MajorProblem

Sorry I haven't been around, people. There was no power in the island for like 40 hours! I'll get around to everyone's posts later today.

The Catching-Up Game

@Mistfader: go ahead.

@Emily: If you ask me, it depends on the nature of that multiverse's catalogers- cosmic librarians would use letters, mathematicians would use numbers, etc. Personally, I have always preferred Thematic Classifications- "Nazi Earth", "Dinosaur Earth", etc. More user-friendly. But you can make your own system and present it for consideration.

@God of Awesome: I'm going to approve the O'Allen family and use that as an anchor to your anti-Super points.

@Major Problem: The Grays are OK by me (except the cows part; while it is funny, it is hard to believe.) I will however wait until it has been decided where they currently live before approving them (I'm OK with Mars, but I want to hear other opinions.)

@O-Reo: I think the Purging Flame is OK because it provides a racist terrorist group that heroes can punch out; compare with the O'Allen's, who represent a subtler, more difficult to deal with kind. (I will however, wait for more comments before I approve it.)

And yes, I think there are certainly open pro-Meta groups, if only because its both logical and fair. Of course, most of those are probably going to end up as targets.

edited 23rd Sep '16 9:11:20 AM by Sijo

Concept: The Multiverse

Universe-1/Easton Prime 'verse: The universe where the RP proper takes place.

Universe-2/Mirror Morality 'verse: A universe where everyone's moralities are reversed: heroes are villains, villains are heroes, neutrals are neutral but in a slightly different way.

Universe-3/Roman Empire 'verse: A universe where The Roman Empire has survived to the present day and become the only government of Earth. They're currently dealing with internal corruption and various rebelling factions, as well as trying to colonize other planets.

Universe-4/Sword and Sorcery 'verse: A universe of magic and might, of barbarians and magicians, of loincloths and chainmail bikinis.

Universe-5/Space Western 'verse: A universe where Earth is beginning to colonize other planets. Society stagnated around the late nineteenth century, so 2010s fashion and technology are basically futuristic versions of 1880s and 1890s fashion and technology. Easton City was destroyed in an incident in the mid-twentieth century, but there is a New Easton on Mars, the first settlement there.

Universe-6/Nazi 'verse: The obligatory universe where the Axis won World War II thanks to Hitler being usurped by a wizard and self-proclaimed reincarnation of Wotan.

Universe-7/Dinosaur 'verse: A universe where dinosaurs haven't died out, and humanity has only recently started to evolve.

Universe-8/Zombie 'verse: A universe where a zombie plague has eradicated most of Earth's population.

Universe-9/Easton High 'verse: A universe where Easton City is home to Easton High: one part Superhero School, one part Reality Show. Think Tiger & Bunny meets Young Justice.

Universe-10/Pulp 'verse: A universe of superheroes with weaker or no powers, costumes, and gimmicks.

Universe-11/Nuclear Apocalypse 'verse: A universe where a nuclear apocalypse devastated the planet and survivors roam the wastelands.

Universe-12/Sky Pirate 'verse: A universe where the primary modes of travel are jetpacks and zeppelins, sky pirates attack the wealthy and powerful, and the skies are protected by the Pan-Global Air Defense Society.

Universe-13/Demon 'verse: A universe ruled by demons, where humans are slaves and a food source.

Everyone else, feel free to add universes or details to existing universes as you see fit.

edited 23rd Sep '16 10:53:43 AM by emilyorthoclase

I like the Nuclear Apocalypse verse.

How about a 'verse where the creation of new technologies are eschewed in favor of magic?

Also, opinions on the Grays being from Mars?

edited 23rd Sep '16 11:01:31 AM by MajorProblem

Kinda cheesy, but the rest of them are like that anyways.

Oh and

Lovecraft Verse: Where most superpowers are from a dead god that waits to one day reawaken and lay waste to the planet.

Perhaps a Steampunk verse or a Cold War verse.

Hmm, some of those worlds are a bit extreme But if combined with the fact Creation is part of an ongoing Story (The Narrative Mythos) then anything is possible. Oh and I want to add my own:

Earth ?: The simple-alternate Earth. There is, at first look, nothing vastly different from Earth-Easton here. The differences are subtle- as in people's lives. For example, perhaps Ilene Irving was never kidnapped by Psi Lord, and someone else instead became Mindseye. (This was inspired by a Story Arc in Fairy Tail.) This world could be used by the PCs as a "What if?" scenario.

Re: Mars, while the Galactic Community would definitely disapprove of their actions, most likely they are not even aware of them. The Greys are well hidden and Earth is far away from their current interests.

edited 23rd Sep '16 11:53:27 AM by Sijo