E.L.F, Extraterrestrial Lifeform

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Biigoh said:
Going by the Tau codexs? codexes? codii?, not really... the humans who end up in the Tau Empire actually get treated BETTER than they would in the Imperium, complete with the ability to worship the Emperor (minus the super Anti-Alien Fanatic parts).

The sterilizing is specficically from the Dawn of War/Dark Crusade (Tau Scenario), and was done to rebellious humans. What happens to rebellious humans in the IoM is definitely worse.
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Codices :p
 
Shujin said:
I'm discovering that tabletop has the dumbest rules for Eldar Farseers that make no sense whatsoever and are better off being ignored. Like that apparently Farseers don't have telekinesis as a psychic discipline.
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Use the WH40K rules for model battles as a guideline, RPG is all of whacky and stuff. Remember it's all cut-down to represent, metaphorically, a battle and thus all delicate and not combat-easy stuff is cut off.

I used it in few WH40K rpg sessions, the Players had their own models and had to make do with my Fantasy goblin spider-rider as stand-in for everything else. And cardboard stick-figures.;)

It was fun when used with tabletop splatbook for fluff.
 
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Yarudazuigu said:
cardboard stick-figures.;)
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Speaking as someone who made a ten-inch card stock full body character portrait that had folding side panels to stand up in front of my place at the game table and a custom mini out of Green Stuff for my character (and repainted it when he changed his outfit) as well as making a second, transparent outline out of the side of a soda bottle set up on a painted mini base to use on the map when his invisibility power was active, I am apalled. :p

Edit: It's never too late for good grammar!
 
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Biigoh said:
The sterilizing is specficically from the Dawn of War/Dark Crusade (Tau Scenario), and was done to rebellious humans. What happens to rebellious humans in the IoM is definitely worse.
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IoM kills their rebels, and it is likely at least some are tortured before that happens. Dooming a population to extinction by forced sterilisation is fairly similar. It depends on the scale I suppose, I think it is implied not all humans were sterilised on Kronus. Not that they had very good options when they were caught in the crossfire.

Of course, no matter how much better Tau may be to an individual person or population, IoM's goal to ensure that human civilisation, not the xenos, dominates the galaxy, is one I can get behind.
 
Truthfully, the Imperium of man is so large that pretty much every conceivable method of governance is observable. Regarding xenos, the Imperium has a mentality that it is perpetually besieged on all sides. Most xeno races are sane and peaceful, but the Imperium merely sees xenos in the guise of Eldar plotters, Dark Eldar sadists, Ork warmongers, and Tyranid waves. At the very least, most xeno races are outright ignored in favor of the other great powers.
 
Apprentice.1
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    • Apprentice​

    "So let me get this straight," Danny said, hand absently checking his tie. It was three days after the eventful power testing episode. PRT troopers had been released from custody but for reasons of safety, they'd kept Taylor here. He tried not to dwell on it. "You can make some kind of wonder material, and the first thing you want to make out of it is a motorbike."

    "Jetbike," his daughter corrected him with a little amused half-smile.

    He narrowed his eyes, looking pointedly at the computer terminal where the schematics for several plane turbine engines were displayed. "Jetbike, sorry. Faster, I'm guessing, than a mere motorbike and infinitely more suitable for carrying the mighty Farseer around."

    "That's right!" Taylor laughed, laughed like she hadn't since before her mother died and it was an infectious sound. Well, maybe he just wanted to laugh after everything that had happened. That was still happening.

    Her 'Tinker lab' on the repurposed oil rig the local Protectorate used as a headquarters was a large workshop that had been cleared out. There were shapes on the floor and walls that were brighter than the rest where old equipment had been, bolt holes still in the flooring. The storage cabinet had stayed with a wide variety of tools inside and so had the work bench with the built in computer. The back wall was completely covered in this 'wraithbone' stuff, metal racks and rods embedded in it. On the floor near the center of the room was the top half of her jetbike's case.

    Didn't look much like a bike, Danny thought.

    He checked how his suit jacket sat on him for the third time. He was wearing one of his best ones, freshly dry cleaned and starched with the inner jacket he had always thought too formal for anything. He had the cufflinks, combed his hair and wrote down speaking points on index cards. You could never be too formal when you're dealing with the Federal Government, Danny figured. Especially not when it was trying to take his daughter from him.

    He wasn't stupid. No one went this far out of their way, pulled this many strings, was this invested in just any parahuman. You only get one chance to make a first impression, after all and he knew he was going to need all the help he could get.

    "Armsmaster is helping me with it," Taylor said, gesturing at the computer. It didn't have a proper keyboard but plastic surface with a stylus for drawing. Right now, it was lit up with keys but he'd seen her draw in a few pieces in an Auto CAD like program with a surety that surprised him. "Getting a lot of the parts I need machined and some design issues. He even put me in touch with Kid Win! You know, his hoverboard?"

    Jetbike, right. For some reason, having confirmation that it was going to fly wasn't making him feel any better about it.

    "This can't wait until you're eighteen?"

    Taylor gave him an even stare. "I can start applying for a youth driver's license tomorrow, if you want."

    She had him there.

    "Besides, it's not the first thing I'm going to finish." She swiped at the computer screen for a few seconds, and pulled up what looked a lot like a costume. There was close-fitting white power armor with measurements marked on it underneath a red and black fabric design. She had several variations, some with an ouroboros pattern and others with an all seeing eye. The head was uncovered with a little notation next to it asking: 'Helmet? Can't think of anything that doesn't look stupid.'

    "I can't take – " Taylor paused, head tilting slightly as she thought. "Well, maybe I can take a bullet but I really wouldn't want to try it."

    "You think?"

    "So," she stressed. "Wraithbone armor. If I don't see it coming, or I'm not fast enough, then it can take a lot of punishment for me and I don't have to spend a lot of time fixing it up afterwards."

    The almost casual reference to her precognition was never something he would get used to. Nor was the assumption that she'd be in danger.

    "I thought the PR department was going to handle your costume?"

    Taylor crossed her arms, looking mutinous. She seemed more open now, to him. Easier to read which gave him a bit more confidence in dealing with her. Not that much more confidence, sometimes he felt like her mood changed on a dime. Teenagers. "Sure, until I saw what they were going to put me in."

    He made an exaggerated wince. "That bad?"

    She sighed. "Tights, tunics and a bow." Danny snorted, and quickly tried to turn it into a cough. His daughter glared at him. "Green. Pointy shoes."

    He lost the battle, chuckling openly now. "Should have seen that coming."

    Taylor smirked a little. "I did. The actual appointment is tomorrow, I needed to have alternatives ready."

    She knew she shouldn't – He swallowed the flare of anger. That wouldn't help, it never did. He reached out and put a hand on her head. For a moment, Taylor just froze, staring at him blankly until she seemed to come back to herself. He bit his tongue lightly. Asking if she was alright wasn't going to get him a straight answer. After three days of trying and getting stonewalled, he'd learned to just let it be. Was it because of the attack, or something her power was doing to her? It could be both. He hated this. Feeling helpless.

    And he was too tired to push.

    "You know you're restricted for a reason," Danny said instead. That persistent little headache was coming back. Guess the medication must be wearing off. "You need to be more careful."

    Her eyes dropped, chastised. "I know, curiosity got the better of me."

    Before he could respond, his phone vibrated. Danny cringed, gingerly taking out his PRT-issue cellphone and held it like it was dripping with acid. Maybe that wasn't very fair of him, but he turned it completely off and tossed it out of reach in the backseat for good measure every time he got in the car. He turned off the alarm.

    "Got to go?"

    "Yeah," he said. Time to stare down some government bigwigs. "Wish me luck."

    "Will it help?" Taylor said, just a bit knowing and that stung. The days when his little girl believed her Dad could do anything were long gone, it seemed. He couldn't blame her for growing up too fast for him. Time flies when you aren't paying attention.

    Danny smiled weakly. "Probably not."
    0o0o0o0o0o0o0o​

    The only thing Director Emily Piggot wanted right now was to curl up in bed with a stiff drink and forget Taylor Hebert even existed.

    Paperwork? She didn't have enough paperwork. She could always use more. Here, have an explosive public trigger event. Deal with that for a week and when it was all over, stamp a few forms, have a few meetings and then it would be business as normal. Normal with twice the paperwork, because the girl was literally a walking liability problem with pointy ears. A problem with global range which meant it fell to the PRT to make sure that problem was firmly theirs to deal with and no one else's.

    Too late, have an assassination attempt by an unknown long range Master within the PHQ. She had to escalate the situation. Problem was, there weren't too many levels left for Taylor Hebert's file to escalate to. Andrew Richards of the WEDGDG Department was being a pain in the ass, other PRT branches were eyeing her pseudo-Ward, she got a call from the goddamn Senator and her back was killing her.

    And did she mention more paperwork?

    Because what she really meant was all of the paperwork.

    The elevator chimed. Danny Hebert got in dressed up in a sharp charcoal grey three-piece suit.

    "Director."

    "Mr. Hebert."

    I hate your kid, she thought.

    They went up two more floors in silence. She got out of the elevator first, absently sipping at her coffee, straight black, as she extended her security pass from her retractable badge holder. After swiping, the door beeped and unlocked. She let them in, turning on the lights and picking a chair. This was the same room one fifteen-year-old girl had been in after plucking information from Costa-Brown's head. She couldn't help wondering what exactly they had talked about.

    "Your input is valuable and will be taken into consideration, Mr. Hebert."

    The man gave her a wry smile. No doubt thinking something along the lines of 'Taken into consideration, for about five seconds.' Call her jaded, but she couldn't say he would be wrong.

    "Thank you for the sentiment, Director."

    Emily nodded. "Least I could do."

    She woke her terminal and the first thing she saw was the PRT file for 'Farseer.' Then she imagined the looks on everyone else's faces as they read it. The large screen above the center of the table connected to the call and one by one the busts of some of her colleagues showed up around the edge. New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Seattle. Andrew Richards eventually connected, cigarette hanging from his mouth like it was a permanent fixture and he looked like something had ruined his day and then pissed in his coffee.

    The PRT Director of St.Louis, Pierre Minetti looked up from his terminal and pointed down. 'What the hell, Emily?' he mouthed.

    Yup.

    Huh. Would you look at that. She was feeling better already.

    "I invited Dragon to join us because she has forwarded some information to my desk that shows Farseer's provisional Shaker rating is inaccurate," Rebecca Costa-Brown started with.

    What a surprise.

    "Dragon? If you would?"

    "Thank you, Chief Director." Another person connected to the call with the square bust of an average looking woman of indeterminate origin appearing on screen labeled 'PRT Vancouver' as Rebecca Costa-Brown's tile shrunk down from the center to the 'PRT Los Angeles' tag at the bottom.

    The center of the screen became dominated by a video of the dark storm over Brockton Bay taken from what looked like a street cam.

    "We're all familiar with this event." Dragon stated. "The storm centered over Winslow High School covered the entirety of the city limits and remained for two days before dissipating. A No Fly zone was enforced above Brockton Bay following this event, however I received permissions to deploy sensors in the atmosphere to record a repeat, if there was one."

    There was one.

    Dragon replaced the video with a second, this time with the backdrop of the top level of Piggot's PRT building just visible at the bottom. There was a muted crack of thunder and then the sky exploded in dark roiling clouds and twisting lightning.

    "Observe," Dragon said. "This is the event frame by frame."

    The video replayed from the beginning greatly slowed down. At first, slightly cloudy sky and then Piggot saw the sky buckle before tearing. Beyond the hole, she thought she saw a glimpse of an alien landscape with seething clouds of its own that seemed to twist in her vision before it became obscured by dark storm clouds.

    "There was a commercial plane with four hundred and twelve passengers that went missing in the first storm at roughly eighteen hundred feet." Two seats to the right of her, Piggot could see Danny Hebert's brow heavily wrinkle as he stared. "At the time, we believed it may have eventually crashed into the Atlantic. However, several of my drones have similarly vanished."

    Director Armstrong cleared his throat. "So her power is an inverse of Labyrinth's?"

    Inverse? Emily thought. Labyrinth could bring parts of other worlds into her current reality. That was just an open rift waiting to gobble up anything unlucky.

    "Perhaps," Dragon said noncommittedly. "Of more interest is that the first storm was static."

    "Implying that the second one wasn't," Emily said. "Spit it out."

    "Very well. The second event only lasted twenty-three minutes, but it rapidly exceeded the range of the first one extending to hurricane size of a measured one hundred and thirteen-mile diameter within the first five minutes and approaching tropical storm size of four hundred and seven miles before dissipating. It was also noticeably descending."

    Not like Labyrinth. Worse. Much worse.

    "Extrapolating from the rate of expansion and Farseer's observed strain," which is to say, none at all, "I theorized that it's possible another two-day storm with her conscious control could easily bury the eastern seaboard. If not more."

    "Dear Lord," West muttered.

    And the only thing that might have saved them all was that the girl's trigger event had given her brain damage. Emily met Minetti's eyes again and smiled. The man looked ashen.

    "I think it's safe to assume that a 'nine' for Shaker is probably not high enough," Costa-Brown deadpanned.

    "The storm was rated a six independently," Wilkins of New York said, looking like he'd swallowed something sour.

    "It was big," Costa-Brown shrugged. "But ultimately didn't do too much damage for what it seemed. In other news," the Chief Director smiled a smile that screamed schadenfreude. "Her Thinker rating is also getting a revision upwards."

    There were groans. Some good natured, some dreading.

    The storm on the screen was replaced with a much friendlier video of Taylor Hebert in a room, scribbling furiously in a notebook. Yellow Post It notes were plastered all over her workspace as were several discarded pens.

    "Can you tell us anything else about who attacked you?" Dragon's voice came over the speakers with a note of exercised patience. "Taylor, are you even listening?"

    "Shut up," the girl answered waspishly. She looked up with a mortally offended expression as she held up her notebook. "The Sleeper is going to move in two months. The Slaughterhouse Nine are going to depopulate some country village I'm trying to pinpoint and in two years, the Three Blasphemies are going to kill the king and queen of the Netherlands. Do you understand?"

    Without waiting for an answer, she set her notebook down gently and went back to writing.

    Piggot's grip on her coffee cup tightened. Taylor Hebert lived up to her chosen cape name; able to see scattered events with unprecedented detail up to fifteen years into the future with one event Taylor had marked down as being beyond that and only 'probable.' It was a wealth of information, and somewhere in that pile of gold was a treasure someone had tried to kill her for.

    How they had known, who they were, even where exactly they were was unknown. Their only lead was Taylor's own testimony that she had been observing the eastern hemisphere around the Russo-China area.

    "Analysts are going over the notebook now," Costa-Brown said. "We've already begun passing verified information to other federal departments such as FEMA, the CIA and Homeland Security. This is why I wanted her in Watchdog, Richards."

    Andrew Richards blew tobacco smoke from his nose with a lop sided smile. "That's a lot of words for an I told you so."

    "What is the new rating?" Minetti cut in.

    "Thinker eleven."

    Armstrong blinked, letting out a startled chuckle. "We actually assign elevens?" West let out a suspicious sounding cough even as Costa-Brown laughed.

    "Yes, we do."

    "Could have fooled me."

    "What stopped Farseer from getting a twelve?" Piggot had to ask. Global range, over a decade range on precognition with clarity, post-cognition, the whole nine yards. All things considered, it was a strange decision. Conservative, but not so much that it actually made a difference to anyone with any sense at all.

    Rebecca Costa-Brown didn't immediately answer.

    "Scale breaker," Richards commented with another puff of smoke. "We sit her down, tell her to go wild. What will we get?"

    "At the time of testing, Farseer precognition only saw into the immediate future," Costa-Brown said, gesturing downwards towards her terminal and the open PRT file. "The specialist testing was focused on her demonstrated post-cognition. That notebook is the result of an unfocused whim, in the time span of a few minutes. She has also developed extremely precise cold reading capabilities and her ability to feel emotions covers every living person on this planet. If we had to give her an accurate Thinker rating…"

    Above a twelve, entering that nebulous realm where theoretical crossed with the practical and a total population size of one: the Sleeper.

    "Is she a Trump?" Deputy Director Grassland asked, filling in for Houston's Director Rodriguez. "From all accounts she seems to be gaining abilities as time goes on."

    "That is the official stance."

    Dragon obligingly showed clips from the power testing session in the PHQ. Telekinesis that bled into a Blaster power of sheer force, lightning generation. Her 'wraithbone' had made the rounds with the tech staff and was suspected to have more of a power interaction than just her ability to shape it. In other words, at this point no one cared if she was actually a Trump or a grab bag who managed to grab all the Thinker powers and then went back for seconds in ridiculous.

    "I've gotten recommendations to officially label Farseer as a Shaker Trump combo in order to downplay the rest of her abilities." That wasn't much of a downplay, but it might keep the lid on things for a bit longer. Costa-Brown laced her hands together. "The real question is, we've got a Thinker eleven with strong combat capabilities and several Protectorate teams without strategic Thinkers." She gave them all a significant look. "How do we use her?"

    As the discussion started in earnest, Emily Piggot glanced over at Danny Hebert.

    He was clutching index cards between his hands beneath the table. Shoulders slumped and pale, looking down at the PRT file on the terminal.

    "Perhaps we should consider that Brockton Bay is the girl's hometown," Piggot said over the others.

    "Sure," Richards replied. "Except you've got some kind of whack job Master that already knows where she is." Danny's mouth opened, then closed with a troubled frown. "Treat it like Witness Protection, she knows something that's inviting lethal force."

    "If you move her around and she's involved, won't that advertise you've got a new strong Thinker?" Danny found his voice. It was still hesitant.

    "Watchdog requires its specialists to be available for emergency situations, Mr. Hebert." Richards said flatly. "At the very least, you're looking at relocation to Los Angeles unless you choose to withdraw her application." The man smirked nastily. "At which point, I'd have to requisition her from the Wards as an asset to national security."

    Danny gritted his teeth, face shifting from pale to red unevenly creating blotches.

    "Perhaps we can come to a compromise," Costa-Brown tried.

    "Economic crashes don't compromise. Natural disasters don't compromise. Parahuman assassins really don't compromise – "

    "She's still a child, Richards," West said.

    "She's my child, to be exact," Danny snapped.

    And here we go...

    Give a room of investors a golden goose and watch them go at it. She should have seen this coming. Emily Piggot rolled her eyes and settled back in her chair, kicking off her shoes and took a bigger sip of her coffee. She scrolled through the PRT file, looking for any addendums and changes as the discussion derailed.

    Well, her morning was shot. She checked to see if anyone was paying attention, and promptly went web surfing.

    Director Emily Piggot of East-North-East was a lot of things, but she knew how to pick her battles.
     
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    finbikkifin said:
    Go for the dorky cone, Taylor! Dorky cone!


    Have they considered that it may be an offshoot of her shaker powers bringing in creatures from elsewhere, or are they just terrified that proposing this will result in even more paperwork and even higher ratings?
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    They are suffering from a terminal case of 'Taylor is being tight lipped about it.' It also doesn't fit in neatly with the view of her getting attacked through the medium her powers use somehow as parahuman powers pretty much don't work like that, so it ended up being 'I dunno what happened, I was just minding my own business when I saw something was coming to attack me while using my precog powers.'
     
    Maybe a more streamlined, swept-back teardrop version of the classic Dork Eldar cone? She is building herself a jetbike, after all.

    Edit: Like the ones trendy bicyclists use, only with perhaps a bit more coverage on the sides and back of the neck (the latter would need to be articulated a bit, but that's not a major issue) and face protection.

    Sauce: Do Aero Helmets Make a Difference? -
     
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    Mr Pumblechook said:
    The threat to 'requisition' her... a very powerful clairvoyant with a whole grab-bag of powers including high level blaster, and a teenager to boot. That would end well, I'm sure.
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    I never understood how anyone could've thought that was a good idea. 'A triumvirate-tier parahuman? Let's pressgang her? Nothing could go wrong!'

    Honestly, you'd think an organization like the PRT would've figured out that you can catch way more flies with honey than with vinegar. The hard sell is never a good idea because it doesn't foster any real loyalty to your organization. The moment the hold you have over your target disappears, they're gone and you now have a stupidly powerful precog with a grudge against your organization on the loose. What are you going to do? Kill her? Like that won't backfire...

    Honestly, I was kind of hoping for someone in that discussion to speak up and carefully list all the reasons why trying to forcibly enslave S-class capes in any way is an apocalyptically bad idea. Rather surprising that that didn't happen. I mean, there has to be at least one person on the PRT Board of Directors that has something resembling common sense, or at least a sense of self-preservation.
     
    OTOH, Danny retaliating effectively requires him actually communicating effectively with Taylor. She'll probably be cool with their approach until she realises it involves politically-motivated inefficiency or railroading her dad.
     
    Blackhole1 said:
    Honestly, I was kind of hoping for someone in that discussion to speak up and carefully list all the reasons why trying to forcibly enslave S-class capes in any way is an apocalyptically bad idea. Rather surprising that that didn't happen. I mean, there has to be at least one person on the PRT Board of Directors that has something resembling common sense, or at least a sense of self-preservation.
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    The one with common sense is currently kicking back and browsing the internet since she knows to pick her battles when it comes to stupid.
     
    Blackhole1 said:
    I mean, there has to be at least one person on the PRT Board of Directors that has something resembling common sense, or at least a sense of self-preservation.
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    Piggot may be a grumpy bigot but she's not a moron. She's well aware of the fact that the other directors behaviour is risky at best and near suicidal at worst. She also knows that no one is remotely interested in listening outside of Dragon and possibly Alexandria.

    On the topic of thinker 12 it's pretty obvious A) who it is and B) that they (Cauldron) don't think she's quite up to Contessa's ability to control fate. After all she could path out most of what Taylor saw if she cared to ask; or she might be the one verifying her visions.

    Why do I get the feeling that a fight between Contessa and Farseer would go in Taylor's favour? Ultimately Contessa relies on predicting her opponents response long before they've made it; the thing is the warp spits on the the concepts of causality or time. It could easily turn into a game of cat and mouse as Taylor foresees Contessas actions whose path in turn alters to take into account her response to the visions which changes the future which is forseen changing paths again and giving everyone headaches. Or it might just BSOD as the shard simply can't calculate with any degree of accuracy.
     
    Blackhole1 said:
    I never understood how anyone could've thought that was a good idea. 'A triumvirate-tier parahuman? Let's pressgang her? Nothing could go wrong!'
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    This is internal brainstorming, not actual policy.
    If the PRT was a person, these would be the subconscious thoughts and random impulses that never make it to your mouth because it's overruled by the conscious mind which knows better.
    Sensible people(see Piggot, Costa-Brown) let the more avaricious talk and get it out of their system before pointing out much more reasonable lines of action.

    Emily is hilarious, though.
     
    I'm surprised Danny hasn't triggered with all the crap happening to the last of his family. The stress must be killing him. As for Taylor, no preasure, just the fate of a dead/dying race on your shoulders. Nope, nothing to stress over at all.
    Would Galactic level precience with Centuries of range constitute a thinker 12? Cause I personally might put it higher. Maybe Ziz will take a shot at her just to get rid of the migrane?
     
    Jarrik32 said:
    Why do I get the feeling that a fight between Contessa and Farseer would go in Taylor's favour? Ultimately Contessa relies on predicting her opponents response long before they've made it; the thing is the warp spits on the the concepts of causality or time. It could easily turn into a game of cat and mouse as Taylor foresees Contessas actions whose path in turn alters to take into account her response to the visions which changes the future which is forseen changing paths again and giving everyone headaches. Or it might just BSOD as the shard simply can't calculate with any degree of accuracy.
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    In the event of mutually unreliable precognition, Taylor is a superhumanly fast and agile space elf ninja who can explode things with her mind, while Contessa is just a normal woman in a suit.
     
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