PROGENITOR: WORM (A Wormquest AU)

DragonCobolt · Nov 29, 2021

SUSPICION	TECHNOLOGY	ECONOMY	WARFARE
2	3	3	2

THE METRIC DATA IS NOT AVALAIBLE TO YOUR CHARACTER UNLESS THEY HAVE SUPERHUMAN (10+) DICE IN MIND.
YOU MAY CHECK THE METRICS, BUT YOU MUST NOT ACT UPON THEM.
IF YOU START DOING MONKEY BEESKNEES, THEN I'LL REMOVE THESE.
BUT THEY'RE NEAT, SO DON'T MAKE ME DO THAT.

THE CURRENT MEMBERS OF THE STONEWALL NINE

TEAM MORALE: Dissolved (1/4), Fraying (1/2), Bad (3/4), Average (x1), Good (x1.5), Excellent (x2), Found Family (x3)
TEAM HEADQUARTERS: Yggdrasil, the World Tree
TEAM ALLIES: NYPD (Grudging), Stan Lee (Eager), Cam Nguyet (Whether You Want Her Or Not), Amanda Sykes, Abe Sykes
TEAM ENEMIES: Don Crawler (Nemesis) [IN JAIL], Glasshead (Nemesis) [IN JAIL], Miss Eyes (Nemisis) [IN JAIL], Zipperneck (Rival) [IN JAIL],
Cam Nguyet (Whether You Want Her Or Not)

TEAM WARDS: Tina Shaw, Amy Sykes, Cassie the Humanoid Force, Sloppy Joe, Aisha Laborn, Camilo Vera, Jill Danning

Lily Satō, Head of the Stonewall Nine

AGE: 19 (DOB: 1951)
PASSION: Girls [7], Fuck the Cops [4], Superheroing [1]
LOYALTY: Queer Rights [7], Your Friends [5], , A Better World [1]
BASE WILL: 25 | XP: 1

Lily has seen nothing but hassle from New York's finest and is damn sure not going to let them push her around. And now, finally, a queer woman can hit back harder than the patriarchy does.

BODY	CORD.	SENSE	MIND	CHARM	COMMAND
1d+1wd	6d	3d	3d	2d	2d

Lily, before becoming a metahuman, was perceptive and smart, but had the strength and endurance of a sixteen year old girl after a bad cold. Afterwards, she could become incredibly strong if she manipulated the physics of the items she touched, or the clothing she wore to augment herself. Her max press was five tons without any additional effort, a top speed of 40 MPH for running, and a vertical jump of 8 yards. Also, she can dodge bullets.

SKILLS (Broad, Flexible, Influence)
[Any] New Yorker, Japanese-American, Delinquent (B/F/-): 3d
[Any] Being a Lesbian in the 1960s (B/F/-): 3d
[Any] Superhero (B/F/I): 1d
[Coordination] Sneaking (-/-/-): 2d
[Coordination] Lockpicking (-/-/-): 2d
[Mind] Speak Vietnamese (-/-/-): 1d
[Mind] Speak Russia (-/-/-): 1d
[Mind - Hyperskill] Intuitive Physicist (B/-/-): 6hd
[Charm] Voice of the People (-/-/I): 1d
[Command] Stubbornness (-/-/-): 3d

Lily, before becoming a metahuman, was the bad apple of her family. A second generation Japanese immigrant, she doesn't like or respect her parents - if only because she's grimly determined they'd freak out if they found out what she...felt about other women. She's good at sneaking out and has spent more time at Stonewall than she has at school, as her grades will attest. She's got a stubborn attitude and is about ten years early for punk and ten years late for the Beatniks. She makes do.

ARCHETYPE: METAHUMAN
Source: Unknown | Permission: Super
Intrinsics:

Immutable: Barring superhuman assistance, gadgets, or something wildly unexpected, Lily's powers will not change or improve.

Infectious: Lily is either a strong, stable or weak vector (she doesn't know which.) If she's strong, she has a 100% infection rate until she reaches power equilibrium. If she's stable, she has an 80% shot (the joy of being a Tier 3.) If she's weak, she's got a 10% shot. Infection passes when she uses her powers on anything sentient.

POWERS

Not So Little Anymore...
Dice: 1wd

Hyperbody (+4), No Physics (+1), Booster [2] (+2), If/Then [Must Be Wearing Clothes Over The Parts Used] (-1), Obvious (-1)

Cost per Die: 5 | Total Cost: 20

By adjusting, in minute and gross ways, the physical properties of either what she carries and her own clothing, Lily effectively has her very own suit of strength enhancing exoskeletal structures. This imparts incredibly precise control to her blows, her athleticism, and her jumping. This isn't a subtle effect - her body emits strange flashes and odd noises as air and light interacts unpredictably with her physics alterations.

Fast as a Thought
Dice: 4d

Hypercoordination (+4), No Physics (+1), Go First [2] (+2), If/Then [Must Be Wearing Clothes Over The Parts Used] (-1), Obvious (-1)

Cost per Die: 5 | Total Cost: 20

Just like with her body, but this covers her reflexes as well. She can dodge bullets! ...not that she HAS too. The flashing and eerie hissing makes stealth hard, so she prefers to turn it off when she's sneaking anywhere.

Intuitive Physicist
Dice: 6hd
Hyperskill [[Mind]General Physicist (B/-/-)] (+1)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 12
She's intuitively a PHD equipped physicist on par with Albert Einstein. Maybe better, actually. She literally can't NOT know the exact right answer to any physics question. This really helps, considering her powers.

Everything is a Gun
Dice: 8d+1wd
Range: 2,560 Yards | Mass: Knockback = Base Damage + 6 meters | Base Damage: Width in Shock & Killing

Attack (+2), Area [1d] (+1) Spray [1d) (+1), Heightened Capacity [Mass] (+1), Penetration [2] (+2), Power Capacity [Mass] (+2), Speeding Bullet (+2), If/Then [Must Touch an Object] (-1), Obvious (-1)

Cost Per Die: 9 | Total Cost: 108

By touching an object (any object, really) and canceling their mass and lateral motion relative to the planet Earth, she can turn anything, from an apple to a doorknob to a manhole cover into a projectile. By touching a lot of objects (I.E, using spray), she can hit as many times as she gets sets. By making sure to touch relatively fragile objects and creating deliberate fracture points, she turns the weapon into a kind of kinetic shotgun (using Area.) People hit by this tend to go flying (using the Power Capacity [Mass]), but she can just use narrow blades if she just wants to do the slicing and slashing. The only problem is if she can't touch things with her skin (it has to be a skin to skin contact) it won't work. Oh. Also, the sonic booms.

No
Dice: 10hd
Range: 512 yards

Defends (+2), Power Capacity [Range] (+2), Spray (+1), Obvious (-1), Limited Capacity (-1), If/Then [Must have a Medium to Manipulate] (-1)

Cost Per Die: 3 | Total Cost: 40

By glaring at the air around her, she can render it impenetrable to whatever is coming her way. Maybe the air molecules suddenly lose the ability to move at all and become an impenetrable wall that simply bounces a kinetic projectile off, or negating an explosive's ability to undergo chemical interactions that lead to detonations, or making the air molecules ahead of her simply non-conductive to whatever energy blast is heading her way. This is not subtle - producing bright flashes, loud booms, and strange changes in local atmospheric conditions as the interactions become chaotic beyond the immediate radius. The maximum number of people or places she can protect at once is five people, but the more people she tries to protect, the less effective the defense is. It's literally impenetrable when she's just protecting one person, but if she's protecting five at once, a fast shot or lucky hit might get through.

Physical Fuckery
Dice: 5wd

Range: N/A | Mass: N/A | Speed: N/A

Attacks (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), If/Then [For Variable Effect] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Must Be Related to Repressing a Physical Law] (-1), Locational [Head, R. Arm, L. Arm, Body, R. Leg, L. Leg] (-6)

Defends (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), If/Then [For Variable Effect] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Must Be Related to Repressing a Physical Law] (-1), Locational [Head, R. Arm, L. Arm, Body, R. Leg, L. Leg] (-6)

Useful (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), If/Then [For Variable Effect] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Must Be Related to Repressing a Physical Law] (-1), Locational [Head, R. Arm, L. Arm, Body, R. Leg, L. Leg] (-6)

Cost Per Die: 6 | Total Cost: 120

Whenever she puts her mind to it, Lily can do something. If it can be done by suppressing a physical property or law, she can do it. Needless to say, once she realizes how her power works, she starts studying the hell of out physics. This is really easy, thanks to her intuitive understanding of physics. However, this power requires her to be able to use every SINGLE iota of her body's contact with the surrounding universe. If she has taken any trauma to any part of her body, then these powers short out. If she gets a chance to refocus, she can reestablish her control...unless the body part in question is too damaged to be used (I.E, filled with any combination of shock or killing damage.) In which case, she simply cannot tap into this ability to manipulate the universe. She simply lacks the holistic connection to the universe.

Seriously, Though, everything?
Dice: 1d
Range: Self Only

Attacks (+2), Attack Quality [10] (+10), Augment (+4), Area [10d] (+10), Booster [10] (+10), Burning (+2), Engulf (+2), Penetration [10] (+10), Radius [5] (+10), If/Then [Augment Only] (-1), If/Then [Cannot Spend Use Augment for anything but "Everything Is a Gun"] (-1), If/Then [Must Be Manipulating Matter On A Scale Permitting The Impacts She Wishes] (-1), Self Only (-3)

Cost Per Die: 54 | Total Cost: 54

Hey, what if she touches a mountain face and she negates its inertia and lateral motion for a flash of a second and turns Everest into a five kilometer high rock shotgun? Well, uh...take your pick! Add all of the above! If she uses a chemical tanker, it might explode. If she uproots an oil derrick, it will set things on fire. Anything justifiable in the scene, she can do it. She will have to spend a willpower point to do this. Oh, and be willing to accept the consequences.

Confident as Hell
Dice: N/A
Base Will (+3), Attached [Hyperbody] (-2)
Cost Per Point: 1 | Total Cost: 26
Lifting five tons over her head, running as fast a car, and being aware she doesn't have to be afraid anymore all combine to create a staggering, preposterous level of raw confidence. This is good, cause it makes her good at fighting supervillains and changing the world. The only problem is that if that hyperbody ever goes away...poof. There goes the confidence. Good thing that won't happen! ...right?

Andy Richter, Time Thief and Genius Gadgeteer

Andy's Powers

ANDY HAS 11 BASE WILL.

Hypermind
Dice: 4wd
Hyperbrain (+4), If/Then [Must be within 10 meters of any form if electrical equipment) (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted by wrapping his head in a Faraday cage] (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted with any form of non-physical radar jamming too] (-1)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 12

More Hypermind
Dice: 2wd
Hyperbrain (+4) If/Then [Must be within 10 meters of a pretty hefty chunk of computers) (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted by wrapping his head in a Faraday cage] (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted with any form of non-physical radar jamming too] (-1)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 8

Even More Hypermind
Dice: 2wd
Hyperbrain (+4) If/Then [Must be within 10 meters of even more computer components) (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted by wrapping his head in a Faraday cage] (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted with any form of non-physical radar jamming too] (-1)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 8

Dear God, Sir, How Much More Hypermind Do you Need!?
Dice: 2wd
Hyperbrain (+4) If/Then [Must be within 10 meters of a pretty hefty chunk of computers) (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted by wrapping his head in a Faraday cage] (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted with any form of non-physical radar jamming too] (-1)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 8

When Andy is within ten meters of any kind of electrically conductive material harnessed for human ends – lamp posts and microwaves, toasters and hair driers – he becomes smarter than the smartest human being in the world. If those electrically conductive materials are arranged into a computer of some kind, then he becomes a lot smarter, and he gets more and more smarter the more and more computers are around him. Eventually, he hits the four way tie for smartest monkey on this marble. Unfortunately, unlike some metahumans, Andy's "exocortex" is suspended on physical matter and communicated to him via electromagnetic signals, meaning they can be blocked or removed by his enemies.

Time Snatch
Dice: 2hd
Mass: 2.5 kg or less
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Limited Capacity (-1)
Cost Per Die: 5 | Total Cost: 20

Andy has a fascination with electrical gizmos and computers. But the 1960s was not enough for his subconscious. He is able to reach forward in time into parallel universes and, uh...steal stuff. The stuff can only come from other universes, and he can't do more than 2.5 kilograms at a time, making the stuff he REALLY wants (quantum computers, spaceship engines, laser guns) slightly tricky.

I Can Make Whatever You Want
Dice: 5hd+10d+5wd

Attacks (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), Delayed Effect (-2), If/Then [Variable Effect Requires at least 6wd of Hyperbrain to be active] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect is only for Technology] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Any Gadget Made Must Have the Manufacturable Extra] (-1), Willpower Investment (-1)
Defends (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), Delayed Effect (-2), If/Then [Variable Effect Requires at least 6wd of Hyperbrain to be active] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect is only for Technology] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Any Gadget Made Must Have the Manufacturable Extra] (-1), Willpower Investment (-1)
Useful (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), Delayed Effect (-2), If/Then [Variable Effect Requires at least 6wd of Hyperbrain to be active] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect is only for Technology] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Any Gadget Made Must Have the Manufacturable Extra] (-1), Willpower Investment (-1)
Useful (+2), Endless (+3), Delayed Effect (-2), Touch Only (-2)
Cost Per Die: 7 | Total Cost: 280

Hokay. So! Andy can make gadgets. He's, in fact, one of the better gadgeters in the world – in part because he doesn't NEED A LABORATORY. He doesn't NEED supplies. Because he just...uh...borrows them from the future. (Note, if he chooses to not borrow things from the future, then he will need a laboratory, but won't get a rebate in points.) The gadgets he makes can be, eventually, learned to be recreated by non-metahumans. Now, it still takes him some time to actually build a gadget! Now, there is one tiny problem: He needs to be smart enough to do any of this, and that means that if he's in a Faraday cage helmet, then he's shit outta luck.

Oh, also, the last useful ability is the ability to deconstruct other people's foci. So, if he finds a gadget in the wild, he can take it apart and gets all the Willpower used to build the device in the first place. This is why gadgteers tend to HATE one another. He can also deconstruct any device he's built to get the willpower he invested in it back.

Base Will
Dice: N/A
Base Will (+3), Attached [Hypermind] (-2)
Cost Per Point: 1 | Total Cost: 14

He's a driven, focused guy.

Sabah Attar, Girl Who's Under Your Skin

SABAH HAS 8 BASE WILL

Puppets
Dice: 2hd+8d
Range: Touch/5,450 Yards
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Delayed Effect (-2) If/Then [Needs Materials To Make Them From] (-1), If/Then [Can only use hard dice with skin] (-1), Touch Only (-2)
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Attached [Telekinesis] (-2)
Cost Per Die: 4 | Total Cost: 48

By using her telekinesis to sew together, uh, material - don't tell people it's skin, please don't tell people it works best with skin - Sabah is able to make incredibly useful puppets. With a 2x10 result, she can make 10 of them. They last forever and are perfectly loyal to her! ...so long as they're within about three miles. Once beyond that, they act on their own recognizance. She CAN make it with non-skin and she's even pretty good at it, but it is kind of tricky and doesn't always make the best minions. (a 2x1 to 2x3 result produces Rabble, while a 2x4 to 2x6 makes trained minions, and 2x7 to 2x8 makes professionals. 2x10 make Elites.

Matterkinesis
Dice: 9d+1wd
Range: 510 Yards | Mass: 1.28 Tons| Speed: 128 Yards
Attacks (+2), High Capacity [Mass, Range] (+2), Power Capacity [Mass, Range] (+4), Spray [1d] (+1), If/Then [Only Manipulates Unliving Matter] (-1), Limited Capacity (-1)
Defend (+2), Power Capacity [Range] (+2), Spray [1d] (+1), If/Then [Only Manipulates Unliving Matter] (-1), Limited Capacity (-1)
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), High Capacity [Mass, Range] (+2), Power Capacity [Mass, Range] (+4), Spray [1d] (+1), If/Then [Only Manipulates Unliving Matter] (-1), Limited Capacity (-1)
Cost Per Die: 19 | Total Cost: 247 points

This is the big shebang. Sabah is able to manipulate non-living matter to move it around. She's pretty weak. For...a tier 4, meaning she can "only" lift a 1.2 ton boulder off the ground from a "mere" 510 yards and "barely" throw it at 128 MPH. Guh. What a chump, right? This power can defend, attack, and manipulate matter. The matter that she manipulates tends to "stick" to what it was doing for about an hour - so if she flings a rock upwards at 128 MPH, then it'll keep going straight up at that speed for an hour before falling down.

Specialty Puppets
Dice: 2hd
Range: Touch
Attack (+2), Duration (+2), Variable Effect (+4), Attached [Puppets] (-2), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Only Is Attached to Puppets] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Can Mimic Expert Minion Abilities] (-1), Touch Only (-2)
Defend (+2), Duration (+2), Variable Effect (+4), Attached [Puppets] (-2), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Only Is Attached to Puppets] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Can Mimic Expert Minion Abilities] (-1), Touch Only (-2)
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), Variable Effect (+4), Attached [Puppets] (-2), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Only Is Attached to Puppets] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Can Mimic Expert Minion Abilities] (-1), Touch Only (-2)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 4

When she makes puppets, the puppets can do stuff that they would reasonably be able to do. If she makes a bunch of ninja costumes, they get the Elite Ability: Stealth, allowing them to do what minions normally cannot (sneak into buildings without being spotted.) She can attach any elite ability she wants to these puppets!

Armed Puppets
Dice: 2hd
Range: Touch
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Attached [Puppets] (-2), Touch Only (-2)
Cost Per Die: 2 | Total Cost: 8

...is that a puppet? HE'S GOT A GUN!? BLAM BLAM! If this power is used after the puppet power, then the puppets have guns and can do their damage in S/K damage. The guns look like they're made of felt cloth or bone depending on if Sabah is making them out of which cloth - but no matter how impossible the gun looks, it still can kill.

Immune Puppets
Dice: 2hd
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Variable Effect (+4), Attached [Puppets] (-2), If/Then [Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect is for Immunities Only] (-1), Self Only (-3)
Cost Per Die: 3 | Total Cost: 12

These puppets don't need to breathe, cannot be poisoned by gas, cannot get cancer, radiation, "live" I guess, forever, and are immune to pretty much whatever would kill a normal human other than straight out physical damage.

Self Stitching
Dice: 2hd
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Engulf (+2), No Physics (+1), Self Only (-3)
Cost Per Die: 6 | Total Cost: 24

Sabah hopefully doesn't learn about this for a while. But the instant her own flesh dies, she can control it and can instinctively stitch it back together again. This effects her entire body. At the most extreme case, if she is completely atomized, she will reconstitute herself in approximately sixty seconds. She will not enjoy doing this, but she can do it. Death for Sabah now requires some equally permanent effect or for her to lose her powers.

Touch Up
Dice: 1d
Hypercharm (+4)
Cost Per Die: 4 | Total Cost: 1d

Like most teens of any gender or sexuality, Sabah has a few hangups about her body. A few wrinkles gone, a bit less sag here and there. Most people won't notice, but they're gone.

Base Will
Points: 1
Base Will (+3)
Cost Per Point: 3 | Total Cost: 1

She's just a bit more confident. Also, I had 3 points to spare

Lisa Wilbourn, Nose Who Knows

LISA HAS 12 BASE WILL

Become a Foxgirl
Dice: 2hd
Useful (+2), Endless (+3), Self Only (-3)
Cost Per Die: 2 | Total Cost: 8

Lisa becomes a fox girl!

Elementary
Dice: 5wd
Hyperskill [Broad, Flexible] (+2), No Physics (+1), If/Then [The wild dice must be set to the value of the normal die rolled] (-2)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 20

Why, it's elementary, my dear Watson! This is a broad and flexible skill that covers all manners of detective and investigation sneakery. It has no physics, allowing for preposterous levels of information to be drawn, far beyond what would normally be available from a mere glance. The only problem is that it is somewhat dependent on her own mind (5d.) So, if she rolls a 4, 3, 2, 1 in her normal mind dice, she'd HAVE to get a 5x4 - a fast, but not necessarily correct deduction.

Bang
Dice: 10wd
Hyperskill [Broad] (+1)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 40

She's quite possibly the best shot on the planet with any gun or gun like object. This is a byproduct of her incredibly focused intellect.

Coordinated Like A Fox
Dice: 10wd
Hypercoordination (+4), Attached [Fox Girl] (-2)
Total Cost Per Die: 2 | Total Cost: 80

When she is a fox girl, she is able to preform feats of physical coordination that defy imagination. Dodge bullets? She can CATCH bullets. She can shoot bullets WITH HER OWN BULLETS.

Can't Touch This
Dice: 1d
Hyperskill [Narrow] (+0), Interference (+3), Duration(+2), Attached [Fox Girl] (-2)
Total Cost Per Die: 4 | | Total Cost: 3

Remember when I said she can dodge bullets? Say she gets shot at. She rolls a 10x10 using her coordination+ this skill. This now on for the rest of the battle. She can dodge all the bullets forever until the battle is over.

The Nose Knows
Dice: 10wd
Hypersense (+4), Attached [Fox girl] (-2)
Cost Per Die: 2 | Total Cost: 80

Her senses are so preposterously attuned to the world around her that she can see in the dark, read by touch, identify targets by smell, differentiate between distinct sounds in a symphony by their subtle differences, and can sense movement up to a quarter of a mile away.

Oh Shit
Dice: 2hd
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), No Physics (+1), Radius [13] (+26), Self Only (-3), Uncontrolled (-2), Attached [Fox Girl] (-2)
Cost Per Die: 26 | Total Cost: 104

This is a power no one knows she has. Because it's not really a power exactly. It's a combination of her incredible senses and her deductive reasoning. Here's how it works. If anything catastrophic happens within 12 hours - the death of a loved one, a natural disaster, a space station knocked out of orbit and smashed into the ground - and it happens somewhere within 50 miles around Lisa, this power triggers. The game resets to that point with her waking up from a prophetic dream put together by her subconscious, aware of exactly what she did during that day. Once she realizes this power exists (and, also, the 50 mile limit to when it triggers) she is going to be INCREDIBLY CLINGY.

Base Will
Points: 5
Base Will (+3)
Cost Per Die: 3 | Total Cost: 15

She's confident, like most of you, because she has superpowers.

Theo Anders, Arm of the Resistance

THEO HAS 7 BASE WILL

Limb Field
Dice: 8+2wd
Hyperbody (+4), Booster [+8], No Physics (+1), On Sight (+1), Endless (+3), Power Capacity [Range] (+2), Radius [1] (+2), Spray [1] (+1), If/Then [Only for arms] (-1), If/Then [Requires Local Materials] (-1)
Cost Per Die: 20 | Total Cost: 320

So! Everything within a 3 mile range can be touched by Theo by manifesting an arm made of local materials (air, if nothing's there, but he can also use cloth, bits of stone, metal, anything that he can use to reach through.) This does mean it doesn't work in a vacuum, but it can work in an extremely thin atmosphere or with local dirt if he was, say, on the Moon. Anywho, he can make as many arms as he want (for example, if there were twenty people in a ten yard radius, he could make 20 arms to grab each of them by the scruff of their necks.) What is more, he can use this power through screens to cheat the distance. If he sees someone on TV, he can manifest an arm there and pants them! Cool!

Anywho, these arms can lift 1.28 trillion tons, last forever unless he is killed or runs out of willpower. They can throw a 1.6 ton object nearly a tenth of a mile. They can punch someone so hard that they'll go flying 48 yards BEFORE you figure for any extra damage. And did I mention they defy the laws of physics - so, he can pick up a building without spilling the coffee cups inside? Cool!

Tougher Than He Looks
Dice: 3hd
Defends (+2), Endless (+3), Hardened Armor (+2), Armored Defense (-2)
Cost Per Die: 5 | Total Cost: 30

He's tougher than he looks. He has 3 levels of Light Armor, which reduces shock damage to 1, then converts 3 levels of killing damage to shock. So, if he was thrown into a wall for 5s/2k like poor Ned, he'd take 1s/2k, then the 2k would be turned to shock, so that's a total of 3s - a bad bruise, not a potentially life threatening spine snap.

Rachel Lindt, Houndmistress Extraordinaire

RACHEL HAS 9 BASE WILL

Pet Their Heads And They Wag their Tails
Dice: 2hd+2d
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Touch Only (-2)
Hypermind (+4), Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), If/Then [Does Not Provide Hard Dice To Canines] (-1)
Points Per Die: 5 | Total Cost: 30

When Rachel pets a dog, the dog wags their tail! Also, she can now talk to this dog, forever, at any time, using normal conversational English. She can also understand the dog's response. Oh! Also, the dog gets +1d to its mind as hypermind, bumping it from an animalistic 0d to a human level 2d. Good dog! Who's a good pupper?

Make My Doggy GROW!
Dice: 3hd+6d+2wd
Range: 5,120 yards
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), On Sight (+1), Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), Obvious (-1)
Hyperbody (+4), Booster [2] (+2) Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), Attached [Make My Doggy Grow] (-2)
Hypercoordination (+4), Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), Attached [Make My Doggy Grow] (-2)
Defends (+2), Duration (+2), Armored Defense (-2), Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), Attached [Make My Doggy Grow] (-2)
Defends (+2), Duration (+2), Interference (+3), Armored Defense (-2), Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), Attached [Make My Doggy Grow] (-2)
Attacks (+2), Penetration [5] (+5), Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), Attached [Make My Doggy Grow] (-2)
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), Engulf (+2), Attached [Pet their heads] (-2), Attached [Make my Doggy Grow] (-2), Self Only (-3)
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), Attached [Pet their Heads] (-2), Attached [Make my Doggy Grow] (-2)
Points Per Die: 13 | 260

If a dog that Rachel has petted is within range - or even just visible through a screen, or...she can talk to it over a phone (note to self: Invent radio collars for her dogs that she can work through), she can make the doggy GROW! This only lasts for a short time, but the dog will become much larger, much tougher, and much stronger and much faster. Basically, they get +3hd+6d+2wd to their Body, their Coordination, AND they'll get (effectively) 5 levels of light and hardened armor and +5 health levels on each area, making each dog a literal walking tank! ...also, they get laser eye vision. Which can cut through tank armor. Cause, you know. They're dogs.

...the dogs can also fly. At 640 MPH.

Cause they're dogs.

Power Collar
Dice: 2hd
Range: Touch
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), Always On (-1), Automatic (-1), Touch Only (-2)
Point Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 4

The dogs, once she pets them, cannot gain dark energy powers despite being sentient. It's an instinctive byproduct of Rachel's will to both connect with dogs and 'keep them safe' - wild, uncontrolled dark energy powers spreading unchecked through the doggy population terrifies her subconscious. And so, her subconscious makes sure to lock that off.

Healing Touch
Dice: 2hd
Range: Touch
Useful (+2), Useful Quality [5] (+5) Engulf (+2), Touch Only (-2)
Points Per Die: 7 | Total Cost: 28

Though terrified at first this power only works on Dogs, Rachel is relieved to learn it actually can work on just about anything. She touches them, and they glow a little, and then heal 7s/7k to every single part of their body instantly. No muss, no fuss. It, sadly, cannot bring people back to life unless she pushes herself (she will have to permanently burn 1 Base Will to do so.)

Base Will
Total Points: +2
Base Will (+3)
Point per Will: 3 | Total Cost: 6

She's determined. Not as much as others, but enough.

Marsha P. Johnson, The Queen of Stonewall

MARSHA HAS 11 BASE WILL

Flower Power
Dice: 9d+1wd
Attacks (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [All Effects are Plant Themed] (-1)
Defends (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [All Effects are Plant Themed] (-1)
Useful (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [All Effects are Plant Themed] (-1)
Cost Per Die: 21 | Total Cost: 273

A powerful and incredibly flexible ability, Marsha is able to create and utilize plant growths (most people think she can only do flowers, but she can do trees, she can do vines, she can do thorns, oh boy.) These plants often defy physics and understanding - if she wants, she can make a thorn that can cut through tank steel, or a tree that can grow powerfully enough to uproot a building, or an apple that, when eaten, can cure sickness. While her power isn't as "rawly" strong as some other abilities - if she got into a tree V arm wrestling contest with Theo, Theo would win - her powers are so staggeringly flexible that she is an amazing asset. However, her powers do need to be "formatted" - meaning that if she isn't prepped for combat or defense, she is terrible vulnerable.

Queen of Stonewall
Dice: 8hd
Defend (+2), Endless (+3), Radius [3] (+6), Delayed Effect (-2), If/Then [Only Works in an building she owns and operates and has become in, some metaphorical and metaphysical sense, hers] (-1), No Physical Effect (-1), Exhausted (-3)
Cost Per Die: 4 | Total Cost: 64

So long as the Queen is in her domain, no harm shall come to any who are there. This power is an endless effect centered on her, radiating out approximately 40 yards (meaning an exceptionally large building won't be entirely protected.) The effect is entirely psychological - people simply cannot bring themselves to harm anyone while in the field - this includes her allies, she can't shut it down for them.

Beauty Without Compare
Dice: +4d
Hypercharm (+4), Obvious (-1)
Cost Per Die: 3 | Total Cost: 12

She is luminous, with total of 7 dice in Charm.

Fabulous Performer
Dice: +1d
Hyperskill (Broad, Flexible)
Cost Per Die: 1d | Total Cost: 1

This is a mild improvement, but it was all I could think to spend her last point on. Sue me!

Tori Heflin, The Telekinetic Smuggler

TORI HAS 8 BASE WILL

Invisible Telekinesis
Dice: 3d+1wd
Attacks (+2), Booster (+4), High Capacity [Mass] (+2), Non-Physical (+2), Power Capacity [Mass] (+2), Subtle (+1), Spray [1d] (+1), Locational [head] (-1)
Defends (+2), Controlled Effect (+1), Duration (+2), Interference (+3), Power Capacity [Range] (+2), Radius [1] (+2), Subtle (+1), Locational [head] (-1)
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), Booster (+4), High Capacity [Mass, Speed] (+2), Power Capacity [Mass, Speed] (+4), Subtle (+1), Locational [head] (-1),
Useful (+2), Booster (+4), Engulf (+2), High Capacity [Mass] (+1), Power Capacity [Mass] (+2) Attached [Telekinesis] (-2),
Cost Per Die: 45 | Total Cost: 315

By focusing, Tori is able to create telekinetic fields. Unlike many, these fields are completely, one hundred percent invisible. She can protect people in bubbles (selectively, if she wants!) bout 10 yards wide, so long as they are within about 80 yards of her. Her attacks are incredibly narrow stabs that then balloon in the target - they can only be dodged, not resisted with armor (hence the 'non-physical' extra.) If she's feeling exceptionally vindictive, she can just grab your heart and punch it as hard as she can from within your ribcage too. Her max range for her TK attacks is 800,000 yards. That's 450 miles! It can send people flying pretty goddamn far too.

Next, she can pick up and carry stuff. Anything within 450 miles, and her max weight is 2,000 tons. Not as stupidly huge as some people, but nothing to shake a stick at. What is really amazing, though...is this.

Anything she picks up - anything at all - becomes invisible TOO. This includes her own self, if she's using TK to fly. This includes the ENTIRE PARTY if she's carrying everyone. This includes jets. This includes buildings. Anything she grabs, she can turn invisible!

Adaption
Dice: 4hd
Useful (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect For Immunities Only] (-1), Self Only (-3)
Cost Per Die: 4 | Total Cost: 32

Thanks to telekinesis, she can also breathe in space. With telekinesis.

Base Will
Points: 1
Cost Per Point: 3 | Total Cost: 3

You know the drill by now. Powers, better will, had points hanging.

Brian Laborn, The Power in Obscurity

BRIAN HAS 7 BASE WILL

Grueclouds
Dice: 9hd
Attack (+2), Daze (+1), Duration (+2), Radius (1) (+2), Non-Physical (+2), Spray [1d] (+1), Limited Damage (shock) (-1), Limited Width (-1)
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), Radius (+1), Attached [Dazing Cloud] (-2), Automatic (-1)
Cost Per Die: 10 | Total Cost: 180

When activated, this power is a bit slow and sluggish - effectively going off last on every round. However, you have to know it is coming, and this requires a Resistance roll of Sense+Perception to spot where Brian is looking (he just need to glare to do it.) If the resistance roll fails, then you get hit with 5x10 attack in a 10 yard radius. Due to limited width and limited damage, this only does 1 shock to the head. ...it also removes FIVE DICE from their next turn. If a character has no dice, they can't do shit. This happens each round they're in the cloud, so if they're completely debilitated, they take 1 shock to the head every round until the cloud is dispersed or they slowly and painfully die. Since, 1 shock per 6 seconds for an hour is going to kill you. Even better, the cloud also gets a 4x10 useful effect that obscures visibility, chokes out EM frequencies, and negates all but the best dark energy perceptions. That's what the useful is, the jamming field.

Power Thief
Dice: 1d+2wd
Attacks (+2), Variable Effect (+4), Endless (+3), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Is For Mimicking Powers Only] (-1), If/Then [Target Must have been exposed to the Gruecloud at all! Ever!] (-1)
Defends (+2), Variable Effect (+4), Endless (+3), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Is For Mimicking Powers Only] (-1), If/Then [Target Must have been exposed to the Gruecloud at all! Ever!] (-1)
Useful (+2), Variable Effect (+4), Endless (+3), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Is For Mimicking Powers Only] (-1), If/Then [Target Must have been exposed to the Gruecloud at all! Ever!] (-1)
Cost Per Die: 18 | Total Cost: 162

If a target has been exposed to the dark energy cloud that Brian can produce, Brian can replicate that power. In himself. Now, usually, it will be a great deal weaker, and it may require expending some willpower, but he can do it. What's more, as he hits more people (or more people volunteer for the admittedly unpleasant whammy), his power catalogue just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

Ghost Recall
Dice: 2hd
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), If/Then [Subject must have been exposed to the Gruecloud] (-1), No Physical Effect (-1)
Cost Per Die: 2 | Total Cost: 8

Powers aren't the only thing that Brian can copy. He can also recreate the memories and personality of a person in a ghostly, shimmering cloud of darkness roughly in the shape of the person. Their personality-clone cannot form new memories and only exists for a short time, but has pretty accurate information. If you can convince them to give it up. Is this ethical? Anyway, that's Brian's power set!

Brian's Library

Every Single Power From the Stonewall Nine
THE EYEBALL POWER SUITE (note, as this is multiple powers, it would take Brian a total of 5 rounds and 81 WP to make one permanent eye with each of these powers. However, he doesn't need to make an eye with every part. He can just have an eyeball that flies for 18, or an eyeball that can access the Eyeball Zone for 18 WP (18 to make it, 0 to make the Zone) Fortunately, due to Permanence, each of these WP expenditures does last forever. Or, uh...until the eyeball is squished...

Eye Eye, Sir!
Dice: 1d+2wd
Defends [Evasion] (+0)
Useful [Exists] (+0), Permanent (+4), Touch Only (-2)
Points Per Die: 2 | Cost: 18

By focusing, an eyeball grows inside of Brian's body, then pops out. It's gross.

Why Is It So Tough, It's An Eyeball!?
Dice: 1d+2wd
Useful [Health Boxes] (+0), Permanent (+4), Attached [Eye Eye, Ma'am!] (-2)
Willpower Cost: 2 | Cost: 18

When he creates the Eyeballs (which, as a note, he currently cannot), Brian can only give them 3 extra health levels, making them much smaller.

Eyebeam
Dice: 1d+2wd
Attacks [Eyebeam] (+0), Spray [5d] (+5), Attached [Eye Eye, Ma'am!] (-2)
Willpower Cost: 3 | Cost: 27

The Eyes have laser beams. Because they're eyes. Brian's eyes will have a total of 6d+2wd, rather than 9d+1wd.

Eyeflight
Dice: 1d+2wd
Defends (+0), Attached [Eye Eye, Ma'am!] (-2)
Useful (+0), Permanent (+4) Attached [Eye Eye, Ma'am!] (-2)
Willpower Cost: 2 | Cost: 18

The Eyes have it! ...flight, that is. Brian's can soar along at a mere 10 MPH. They are slightly better at dodging though.

Into the Zone
Dice: 1d+2wd
Useful [Traps Target In Horrifying Nightmare Dimension] (+0), Endless (+3), Traumatic (+1), Attached [Eye Eye, Ma'am!] (-2), Touch Only (-2)
Willpower Cost: 0 | Cost:0

Brian's eyes, like Miss Eye's eyes, have access...TO THE EYEBALL ZONE.

Your Attack, Foreseen
Dice: 1d+2wd
Hyperskill [Dodge] (+0)
Willpower Cost Per Die: 0 | Cost: 0

Formatting his power this way does let Brian dodge better.

Mistress of All Eyes See
Dice: 4hd
Hyperskill [Tactics] (+0), Power Capacity [Range] (+2), Booster [5] (+5), No Physics (+1), If/Then [Can Only Command Eyes] (-1)
Points Per Die: 7 | Cost: 63

For a staggering 63 GODDAMN willpower, Brian can get the STAGGERING ABILITY to command Eyeballs with his mind at a range. AMAZING!!!!!

GADGET ONE: The Gaia Engine

Useful [Gravity Control] (Mass: 500,000,000 tons| Range: 200,000,000 meters| Speed: 50,000,000,000 meters per round [74 times the speed of light])
Dice: 2hd
Useful (Free, Gadget) | Duration (+2), Booster [10] (+10), Power Quality [Mass, Range] (+4), High Capacity [Mass, Range] (+2), No Physics (+1), If/Then [Requires Metamaterials Produced by Lily to Function] (-1), Foci [Fragile, Bulky, Crew x4, Manufacturable] (-5), Obvious (-1), Slow (-2)
Cost Per Die: 10 | Total Cost: 40 WP (1 Base Will To Free Up)

Costing 40 WP from your pool (representing the metamaterials that you provided to construct it), the Gaia Engine is a remarkable device. Requiring the attendance of sixteen trained professionals - among the first hires that Andy ever made - the Gaia Engine is capable of gravitational manipulation at an obscene scale and speed, with ludicrous precision. How absurd? Well, from orbit, you can snatch up the entirety of Manhattan - island and all - and rip it into space and then fling it towards Alpha Centauri at 74 times light speed without damaging a single thing on it, nor causing it damage when it lands on Charon. Cool! You officially can't bitch about me spending 40 of your WP on this fucking thing, you goddamn maniacs!

The duration is approximately a day, so once per day, the crew have to make sure the gravity field that keeps Yiggy in the air is 'reupped.'

GADGET TWO: The Aegis
Defense [Gravity Shield]
Dice: 5hd
Defends (Free, Gadget), Endless (+3), Interference (+3), Attached [Gravity Manipulation] (-2), Foci [Bulky, Manufacturable] (+0),
Cost Per Die: 4 | Total Cost: 40 WP (1 Base Will to Free Up)

Feeding off the Gaia Engine, the Aegis is an attached chunk of material that projects a defensive field around the entirety of the Yiggy's superstructure. Incoming weaponry, unless it goes faster than 5x10, is simply swatted away. This includes beams of light, the rays of the sun, solar flares, and other nasty things.

GADGET THREE: Room Service
Useful [Room Service]
Dice: 3d+1wd
Useful (Free, Gadget), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), Attached [Gaia Engine] (-2), If/Then [Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect is for Room Service Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect only applies within the Yiggy's superstructure] (-1), If/Then [Room Service must be Requested] (-1), Foci [Bulky, Manufacturable] (+0)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 7 WP (1 Base Will To Free Up)

Also feeding off the Gaia Engine's powers, Room Service is simple as hell. You ask for tea, earl gray, hot. Then the fucking tea shows up! This also covers very attractive P-zombies that look like dead celebrities, medical aid, giving you lucid dreams, creating illusions, playing movies, and translating languages.

Here's some basic rules for gadgeteer who want to make powers

---

GADGEETING RULES FOR GADGETEERS

STEP ONE
Decide what power does. All powers can either ATTACK, DEFEND, or be USEFUL. Each thing costs (+2)

Example: I want to make a ray gun that can also heal people. It Attacks [Ray Gun] (+2) and is Useful [Heals People] (+2)

STEP TWO
Apply modifiers for extras and flaws to each power capacity. The full list is found in the Wild Talent's core rulebook. Add them all up into a total cost per die. The minimum point value is always 0 (you can't get extra for going below your maximum.)

Example: This ray gun can fire very fast. It has +3 Spray. This ray gun heals all of you! It has Engulf (+2). Both attack and useful has the Foci (-1) with the Fragile (-1) and Accessible (-1) flaws. This means it costs 2+3-3+2+2-3 for a total of 3 points per die.

STEPTHREE
Count up how much it costs based on how many dice. If it has hard dice, the hard dice are "base cost x2" and if it has wiggle dice, then they cost "base cost x4."

Example: This ray gun has 5d+1wd. It costs (5x3)+(3x4) for a total of 27 willpower.

STEP FOUR
Use your gadget. The gadget can then be taken apart to regain your willpower back. If you want to, you can burn 1 base will to make it a gadget that exists permanently (freeing up those dice for later.) If the gadget has the Manufacturable extra, then it can be made a common, household device that anyone can buy for a cost of 1/2 the willpower it costs to make in base will, taking 1 month per base will spent to make it ready for manufacturing.

Example: Pretend the raygun has manufacturable (even though it doesn't.) It costs 14 Base Will to make it buyable at any street corner, and takes a year and change for the final designs to be completed. Once done, the inventor gets the 5d+1wd that they put into the gadget back into their gadgeteering dice pool.

---

HOW TO INFLUENCE PEOPLE WITH YOUR INFLUENCE SKILLS

There's a big old table from the Kerberos Club book! Here it is!

Torgamous · May 6, 2022

CyberEnby said:
Edit: Tho I will be sad that we don't get to recruit a rag tag band of alien misfits to aid us with their unique skills.

Just gotta do that before we start the war.

Step 1: Recruit ragtag band of alien misfits
Step 2: Kill God

DragonCobolt · May 6, 2022

I finally did it, I finally tagged Greg Stolze (the writer of this setting) and he liked it! Well, he liked the tweet!

MJ12 Commando · May 6, 2022

10ebbor10 said:
We're getting involved either way.

The guy in question invades and crushes everyone but those he sees as Dark Energy Gods. We are not Dark Energy gods.

The question is not whether there will be war, but what the wargoal will be.

Generally speaking, the enemy should never be assumed to be a rotting edifice where one swift kick will bring the whole thing crashing down. Even incredibly dysfunctional governments can marshal surprising strength and resilience in the face of a countervailing offensive threat. So if they're an actual existential threat of some sort, containment is even better as a wargoal because it means that you're not putting yourself in a situation where you're fighting at a disadvantage rather than forcing the enemy to actually bring their forces to you.

And yes, I am aware that "we're getting involved either way." That doesn't mean that deciding that a huge moral crusade to liberate the galaxy is the optimal choice. Restraint is not a dirty word, and oftentimes is a far smarter option than maximalism.

CyberEnby said:
lol, lmao

We're about to hear down the foundations of power - tho ONLY reason we have even a snowball's chance in hell of doing it not violently, is because we have a big enough stick that the interests involved are going to hesitate just long enough to be rendered irrelevant.
And DC has been pretty clear on what we're getting involved in. Not getting involved would be like turning a blind eye to warcrimes on Earth.

And, as Ebbor points out, we kind of don't have a choice - the dude's an existential threat to us. Containment is not a great long term plan for those.

A group which has only a "snowball's chance in hell" of fixing the perceived problems of a tiny-ass world with a few billion people on it without mass violence and destruction that ends up likely making the curse worse than the disease is unlikely to have the capacity to effectively analyze uncountable billions or trillions of people's problems and fix those even though we understand them even less than we understand humanity and understand the politics of the situation even less by virtue of the problem being literal aliens.

BTW: If "containment is not a great long term plan" - implying a lack of power, "liberation" is even less of a long term plan because it is definitionally harder and puts you at risk for reversals because instead of just beating off the enemy while they stew in their own contradictions, you're engaging in an active campaign against them which puts your assets at risk.

Torgamous · May 6, 2022

MJ12 Commando said:
Generally speaking, the enemy should never be assumed to be a rotting edifice where one swift kick will bring the whole thing crashing down.

Generally speaking, the enemy isn't a god ruling a planet by virtue of its own personal power.

DragonCobolt · May 6, 2022

Fortunately if you guys change your mind, you have time! The set up for either attack or containment is like, easily two days of writing work!

10ebbor10 · May 6, 2022

MJ12 Commando said:
Generally speaking, the enemy should never be assumed to be a rotting edifice where one swift kick will bring the whole thing crashing down. Even incredibly dysfunctional governments can marshal surprising strength and resilience in the face of a countervailing offensive threat. So if they're an actual existential threat of some sort, containment is even better as a wargoal because it means that you're not putting yourself in a situation where you're fighting at a disadvantage rather than forcing the enemy to actually bring their forces to you.

And yes, I am aware that "we're getting involved either way." That doesn't mean that deciding that a huge moral crusade to liberate the galaxy is the optimal choice. Restraint is not a dirty word, and oftentimes is a far smarter option than maximalism.

That logic would work with a traditional enemy with traditional supply lines. In that case, forcing the enemy to come to you is an advantage, because their supply lines will suffer wheras yours don't.

But that's not the strategic situation we are looking at. Supply lines are a neglible factor here, with all the superpowers about.
A containment strategy is one that is doomed to fail, because it strengthens our enemy while weakening us. The guy gets strength from suffering, so the presence of the front line boosts him.
Meanwhile, we know that every generation of superheroes is weaker than the former, so every single loss we take is one we can not replace.

So containment will work for 5,10 maybe 15 years. And then the guy starts breaking through the lines, knows all our apparent superpowers, and we are all out of tricks.
A liberation directly targets his powersource while we retain our most precious advantage, the element of suprise.

Take on obvious example, Cam's peaceful C-fractional rockets. One of those could obliterate a planet, and the only thing that can stop it is either firing first, or having precognition.

CyberFemme · May 6, 2022

DragonCobolt said:
I finally did it, I finally tagged Greg Stolze (the writer of this setting) and he liked it! Well, he liked the tweet!

You should post a link to this thread in the Progenitor Reddit as well!

MJ12 Commando said:
Generally speaking, the enemy should never be assumed to be a rotting edifice where one swift kick will bring the whole thing crashing down. Even incredibly dysfunctional governments can marshal surprising strength and resilience in the face of a countervailing offensive threat. So if they're an actual existential threat of some sort, containment is even better as a wargoal because it means that you're not putting yourself in a situation where you're fighting at a disadvantage rather than forcing the enemy to actually bring their forces to you.

And yes, I am aware that "we're getting involved either way." That doesn't mean that deciding that a huge moral crusade to liberate the galaxy is the optimal choice. Restraint is not a dirty word, and oftentimes is a far smarter option than maximalism.

A group which has only a "snowball's chance in hell" of fixing the perceived problems of a tiny-ass world with a few billion people on it without mass violence and destruction that ends up likely making the curse worse than the disease is unlikely to have the capacity to effectively analyze uncountable billions or trillions of people's problems and fix those even though we understand them even less than we understand humanity and understand the politics of the situation even less by virtue of the problem being literal aliens.

BTW: If "containment is not a great long term plan" - implying a lack of power, "liberation" is even less of a long term plan because it is definitionally harder and puts you at risk for reversals because instead of just beating off the enemy while they stew in their own contradictions, you're engaging in an active campaign against them which puts your assets at risk.

You're making some assumptions there that I don't think are warranted, mostly because - as Targamous pointed out - this is a case where we're looking at a very non-traditional enemy.

Mostly you're complaining about operational details, which I'm consciously not providing because DC is obviously kind of burnt out with this quest and I don't want to micromanage his finale. And I'm going to leave it to him unless he tells me otherwise.

Assume that this little operation is going to involve a lot of prep to make sure we know what were getting into, what the likely result will be, and what the best way of attaining our objectives will be.

10ebbor10 · May 6, 2022

MJ12 Commando said:
A group which has only a "snowball's chance in hell" of fixing the perceived problems of a tiny-ass world with a few billion people on it without mass violence and destruction that ends up likely making the curse worse than the disease is unlikely to have the capacity to effectively analyze uncountable billions or trillions of people's problems and fix those even though we understand them even less than we understand humanity and understand the politics of the situation even less by virtue of the problem being literal aliens.

BTW: If "containment is not a great long term plan" - implying a lack of power, "liberation" is even less of a long term plan because it is definitionally harder and puts you at risk for reversals because instead of just beating off the enemy while they stew in their own contradictions, you're engaging in an active campaign against them which puts your assets at risk.

You seem to be thinking that our enemy is some kind of normal society, (and I am counting stuff like fascism as normal here). It's not.

It's a society ran by a guy who derives strength from suffering. We don't need to understand all his slave's problems, because we are faced with a villain who is optimizing for being "the worst". Anything we do, regardless of competence or forethought, will be better.

DragonCobolt · May 6, 2022

CyberEnby said:
You should post a link to this thread in the Progenitor Reddit as well!

But I am too A Spooked

Torgamous · May 6, 2022

I understand. Reddit can be intimidating.

DragonCobolt · May 6, 2022

CyberEnby said:
I'm consciously not providing because DC is obviously kind of burnt out with this quest and I don't want to micromanage his finale

Go Nuts! Worst thing I do is don't use the ideas and it might be rad or cool!

CyberFemme · May 6, 2022

DragonCobolt said:
But I am too A Spooked

Is that because you're shy or because you don't want to drive traffic from reddit here?

If it's the later, I can respect that, but if it;s the former then I - who had both my appendix and my sense of shame surgically removed when I was six - will happily do it for you!

DragonCobolt said:
Go Nuts! Worst thing I do is don't use the ideas and it might be rad or cool!

Here goes!

Built a gadget to let our remote viewers (Weeks and... whatshername from ProgHarm) observe Apokalips without being detected. Some sort of power or adding the stealth quality, you know how to build these things!
Get all the info we can from the Cronkites, then also see if they have stories of people fighting and/or killing these dark energy gods.
Never let a good crisis go to waste! The rapid technological and economic uplift that Cornucopia can provide has just become a matter of planetary security! Do YOU want to be enslaved and tortured by a megalomaniacal superpowered alien tyrant alongside your friends and family? No? Then GRIT THOSE TEETH and step up to accept your FREE HEALTHCARE! Think of the children!
Activate the Stonewall 9000 protocol! Amy still hasn't spored, and with a gadget to make her explosions safe you can mimic what Cam did with her Progressive Cadre and tip the cosmic scales to get people with powers that aren't random! Focus on gadgeteers and hyperbrains because they act like force multipliers, and round them out with a good selection of other powers.
Develop a Warp Drive that can go very fast indeed using the abundance of WP generated by the Stonewall 9000. Call it the Warp Drive because it warps space, and when it travels FTL you can tell the helmsperson to go to Transwarp! Also build ships for these! Flying saucers with negative matter powerplants used for reactionless propulsion and generating power. If the deal with the Cronkites goes through, we could even base it on their existing warp drives for that two point cost reduction. This will be important to get in contact with any other civilization who have warred with Godlings, so you can...
Go recruit a RAG TANG BAND OF ALIEN MISFITS WITH TROUBLED PASTS that have UNIQUE SKILLS! Also, the Cronkites are totes Quarian expies, so we deserve to get a Tali out of the equation. Get us a Cronkite squad member!
I don't know much about the Cronkites, but if things go well maybe we can figure out a better solution to their Dark Energy problem? Some sort of... vaccine, so they will no longer die if they come in contact with it?
If we end up REALLY getting along with them, maybe we can terraform a planet for them eventually? That was basically the end state of Yggdrasil's upgrade tree anyway. Hehe, get it, 'upgrade tree'.
We also need to prepare to render an enormous amount of sophonitarian aid after we take out Not!Darkseid, Apokalips is gonna be in rough shape based on what we know. Matter duplicator powers will be very useful there - the Utopia Network could come in very handy.
If we go into battle, give us bitching power armor! We never got to actually build it in the quest because we basically fucked off to do world peace immediately!
Obviously there needs to be some sort of Avengers Assemble scene where we call on Earth's mightiest heroes to accompany us (Stan has been VIBRATING with EXCITEMENT for 72 HOURS! That can't be good for his heart!)

DragonCobolt · May 6, 2022

CyberEnby said:
Is that because you're shy or because you don't want to drive traffic from reddit here?

Oh, entirely due to shyness. My friend Erika was like, "Greg follows me, I can tag him if you want" and I hid under my bed

Torgamous · May 6, 2022

CyberEnby said:
Also, the Cronkites are totes Quarian expies, so we deserve to get a Tali out of the equation. Get us a Cronkite squad member!

I don't know much about the Cronkites, but if things go well maybe we can figure out a better solution to their Dark Energy problem? Some sort of... vaccine, so they will no longer die if they come in contact with it?

Envirosuits.

CyberFemme · May 6, 2022

DragonCobolt said:
Oh, entirely due to shyness. My friend Erika was like, "Greg follows me, I can tag him if you want" and I hid under my bed

DC: I can't watch.
Me (striding unto the sub-reddit with like, 5 Karma to my name): WHAT UP Y'ALL! I got a BIG FIC (for you all to read)!

edit: It's not a very active subreddit - if any of you want to spread the world elsewhere, that would be great. It would be nice if DC got some more readers (and hopefully more sales on his Amazon page).

DragonCobolt · May 7, 2022

"Well," you say, reading the chemical list again. You turn back to face the rest of the Stonewall Nine and smile. "If we run low, we can always find Grimes."

They nod.

Amanda's brow furrows. "Who the heck is Grimes?"

—

Cronkite Colony
Mars
March 12th
1971

You were looking at the latest translation of the galactic map that the Cronckites had given you when a cough came at the door and you turned to see that, at last, the freaking diplomat had arrived.

The past week and change had been some of the most annoyingly slow busywork that you'd ever had to take part in - requiring a vast amount of work and an exceeding amount of care that left you feeling frazzled and irritated by everything around you. It wasn't that you were a blunt instrument! You could fine tune the breakdown of physics with enough precision to do brain surgery just by splitting the right atom in the right way!

But still.

The Cronkrites - a name that started as a joke, then became more and more settled as the aliens decided to just keep using their initial sound mixing software for translation - were incredibly sensitive to dark energy emissions of all kinds. But they also needed a lot of dark energy emissions for…any kind of diplomatic interaction to happen at all, because their language was so different.

And when they agreed to trade technology for a place to live, the United Nations had put their heads together, looked at the requests that the Cronkites had put together for a homeworld, then ignored them and said they could have Mars.

It was naked self interest. Everyone wanted the non-dark energy based FTL systems, the replicable by baseline space aged materials (the stuff these guys could do with noble gasses was slightly insane and absolutely cheating), the space aged medical technology…which, while not immediately applicable to human biology, was still fascinating enough that everyone on Earth was practically chewing their arms off to get it.

So, give them a planet as soon as possible, then leave it to the Stonewall Nine and the Progenitor to make the Cronkites actually happy.

Oh, that's not the only reason, Lisa had said to you when you had groused about it. There's also the fact Mars is within range of the big guns.

You weren't sure how much of that was actually a part of their thinking. But since giving the Cronkites a place to live had made them "joysong" and "bounty-yes-manifold", you weren't exactly going to grump about the hard work.

It was mostly the fact you had to walk on eggshells and double and triple check everything with Andi, who was downright paranoid.

Still.

Amanda, working with Andy, had used dark energy to create natural solutions to some of the major problems with Mars. The gravity was no problem - according to themselves, the Cronkites took gravity shifts in utter stride, biologically. They just needed some gravity - even a minute amount - to give an up/down state to their less sentient "subsystems." Yeah, they were less singular beings and more…colonies with intention. Each grub was a big non-sentient sack of muscle and digestive systems, colonized by a complex fungal growth that, when it grew into the nerves of the grubs created their sentience. It was then supported by a carefully cultivated ecosystem of tiny bugs that flew around providing valuable social chemicals and information and…

And…

It was all so gross.

But it needed an up or down to function, just like how a ton of human biology needed an up or down. It just didn't degrade in quite the same way humans did.

Anyway, Amanda had just teleported to the core of Mars and spun it up again. Afterwards, she had needed a hot coffee and two aspirins. With the magnetosphere of Mars up and running again, it had just been a lot of building structures to the specifications of the Cronkites, with information relayed between them and Andi. But now they were supposed to be landing, and that meant the United Nations had sent…

A diplomat!

She was tall, very skinny, with long hair, and big glasses. Kinda cute, in a wide eyed, 'oh gee shucks i'm on mars, about to talk to aliens' kind of way. Your brow furrowed. Kinda young too. "Uh," you say. "Are you from the UN?"

"Yeah! Uh! Oh! Hi! Yes! Kinda! Sorta. I'm the diplomat's…diplomat!" she said, pointing at herself. "We've been in communication with, uh, with Time Theif…uh…" She gives a huge, huge smile. "Sorry, just…wow!"

Oh god, she's a fan.

"Yeah, Andy's quite something," you say, smiling. "You can use our real names, you know. And yours is…"

"Right!" She thrusts her hand out. "Taylor Worm! I mean Worm Herbert. I mean, uh, Taylor Herbert!"

You take her hand. "Lily Sato."

"I know, what was it like fighting Zipperneck?" she asks, excitedly. "And Lady Eyes? And Glasshead?"

"Scary and faster than you'd expect from the comics," you say, a bit dryly. "But, wait, hold up. You're a metahuman?"

"Tier ten!" she says, proudly. "I know it's not much, but…but it's something!"

"And your codename is Worm?" you ask.

"Yeah!" she says. "I talk to worms. And bugs! I just like worms the best. Well, I used to not. Long story. I was in a locker-"

"Cool, uh, did the UN miss the fact that if these guys are exposed to dark energy, they explode?" you ask. "We've got partial historical data from them. They lived on an Earthlike planet until one of them got hit by a…a Spark…" You sigh. No one had a good name for "chunk of dark energy sufficient powerful enough to make a Progenitor" so, Spark was the best you could do. "They blew their own planet up."

"Yeah, I know, it…it's horrible," Taylor says, shaking her head. "...how did they survive?"

"By the time they got hit, they had already colonized two neighboring planets - their solar system had three that were marginally habitable to them," you say. "Afterwards, they were on a downward spiral - their off world colonies weren't sustainable - but the big explosion drew the attention offfff…" you walk Taylor over to the galactic map and point at a kind of thread like collection of tendrils that connects six solar systems together. "These guys."

"These guys?"

"Well, their name is unpronounceable but Andy thinks it translates to Allice slash Imperium of God and Or the Essence of Scientific Understanding," you say. "No real description on culture or biology because after interacting with their diplomats caused the Cronkites to explode…on a smaller scale, fortunately…"

"Oof."

"So, the Alliance Imperium guys left them with a box that produces complex biological material when they push the button. That was six centuries ago." You sigh, and at Taylor's expression, you nod. "Yeah. We're dealing with some absurd time scales here - some of these civilizations are even older."

"Jeeze," she says, shaking her head, looking at the map. "They're all so tiny."

She's noticing the many colors of threads connecting systems. Tiny bits of one, two, three systems, some with five or six. You nod. "From what the Cronkites say, the main issue is that a solar system is really fucking big. It takes centuries to get done with just one and moving onto another - and if you have dark energy, it's so easy to turn real estate into something you can use." You rub your cheek. "...so, speaking about the fact they explode when exposed to dark energy."

"I'm not infectious!" Taylor says, hurriedly. "Tier Tens are where it caps out. I don't pass energy. My powers also don't interact with other people! And! And! I'm not going to be the diplomat! I'm the diplomat to the diplomat."

"What do they do?" you ask.

"I talk to bugs!" she says, cheerfully.

"You talk to bugs," you say.

"And make them smarter, so they can talk back. And a bit stronger," she says, nodding.

"Huh," you say.

"Like your friend, Rachel!" Beat. "Wife!" Beat. "Girlfriend!" Beat. "...with worms instead of dogs!"

"Huh," you say, managing somehow to not smile at the increasingly panicking girl.

"It's even permanent, too! So!" She held out a small plastic box. A tiny worm within wriggles.

"Hello," you say.

The worm wriggles.

"Mr. Smith says hi back," Taylor says, looking proud of herself.

—

Yggdrasil
New York City
March 15th
1971

You groan as you lay down in your bed next to Rachel and Rachel nuzzles against your side. "Long day," she says. It's not a question.

"Yeah," you say.

Rachel is quiet.

"When…are we going to do this?" she pushes herself, so that she is looking down at you, her hair - grown long and straight - hanging around her cheeks. "We keep saying we'll do it tomorrow. Do it later. But then the universe drops something new and insane in our laps every day."

You roll onto your back. You flush.

"I…" You trail off.

Rachel lets you take your time.

"I'm just scared." You whisper.

There had been enough scary stuff today. Taylor and her little worm had been instrumental in making communications fast and easy - she and Andy hooked him up with a gizmo that the smart worm could wriggle in to provide instant, real time communications, and suddenly, talking to the Cronkites wasn't just easy - it was like talking to a human being. Before, they had needed computers and pre-programmed diplomatic intelligence software to turn their language into what we could understand.

Now…

Now it got a lot easier.

"There are three possibilities, when a species is exposed to Dark Energy. The first, you know. Their consciousness is capable of holding onto it in a limited fashion - a fragment of the power is held by the Progenitor, then is passed on, and the Progenitor serves as a conduit for the energies. We call this a Chorus or a Pandemonium," the Cronkite speaker said, his voice transmitted into the chamber holding all the power brokers in the solar system. You knew it was serious because Cam had arrived, sitting in the background while her smiling puppet, Bao Verong took the attention. "The second is the Diasporics - creatures such as we, who cannot contain dark energy at all. The energy is released in an uncontrolled fashion. With the energy of a Progenitor…" He trailed off.

And no, he wasn't a shorthand because he sounded like Walter Cronkite. They Cronkites actually had sexes and genders! And one roughly mapped onto 'male.' Wild universe.

"The final is the kind that lives in the star you call Bearnard's Star. They are…Gods. Their species holds onto dark energy so tightly that it does not pass. This means that rather than one Progenitor, they have one…God. Some are kind. Some are…not."

"And that's the, uh…that's the issue," Jason says, taking over as he turns to face the assembled delegates. "Two days ago, I…using the Yggdrasil and stealth technology brought myself within a light year of Bernard's Star and then observed it from a distance and used my exo-cortex to collate the information gathered." He breathes in. Then out. You had already gathered from the fact that Jason had looked as if he had lost twelve pounds over the past two days…that whatever he was going to tell everyone, it wasn't good.

"The entity, which I have codenamed the Unsided, which controls the primary habitable planet on Bernard's Star appears to…extremely malicious," Jason says, then rubs the back of his neck. "I don't pretend to fully understand the sociological or ideological reasons, the…biological reasons…uh…" His hands shook. "They, uh…"

"What, uh, wh…what exactly do you mean by malevolent?" the United States ambassador to the United Nations - some guy named Bush - says. You're pretty sure he's some Republican that President Humphry had to put somewhere to keep the politics of the United States from exploding apart anymore than they already had, what with the President getting superpowers, dying, coming back as a ghost, then forming a third party as a self-replicating dark energy gestalt consciousness bullshit.

"I mean, that he draws direct mental and physical energy from the torment and suffering of sentient beings that he rules," Jason says. "Every moment of pain they feel amplifies him. Or. It. The entity in question doesn't seem to entirely exist in this universe. "

…you lived in a very weird universe. A very weird and very fucked up universe.

The conversation went along directions you didn't quite expect.

"We need to isolate his solar system," Bao Verong says, immediately. That wasn't what you'd thought Cam would go for. You were pretty sure Cam was going to got immediate total global saturation of every single fucking bomb she could think of, with Amanda dropping a moon or two to finish it off. "An entity like this? They're inherently inwardly focused. They can be contained, isolated, and dealt with on our own time scales."

"And where did you get that assumption from?" The soviet union ambassador asks, frowning. "What if they want more proletariat to oppress? It's another method of exploitation, one enhanced through dark energy means, but such systems must grow - they cannot not."

"And yet, we're not prepared for an interstellar war," Bao Verong says. The Bush guy sighs, rubbing at his temple.

"In my experience, you're never prepared for the war you're going to fight…that doesn't change the fact you need to do it…"

You shake yourself, coming back to the present, looking up at Rachel. She smiles down at you.

"I'm scared too."

—

The debate went on for a long time. While the United Nations and the governments of the world argued, you found yourself in a room with a globe and the four smartest people in the world. Cam frowns and walks around it as Jason taps at the computer that's projecting the globe in a holographic display, adding more detail to the map. "Another tormentium," he says, tiredly.

"How is he powering them?" Cam asks.

"Geothermal, the planet's got three moons and they're all fairly large," Jason says.

"We c-"

"No," Jason and Andy and you all say at the same time.

Cam scowls. "You do know death might be an improvement for everyone on that planet?"

"We are not killing…" Andy glances at Jason. Jason grunts. Andy looks back at Cam. "Thirty billion people by dropping three moons on their planet."

Cam frowns. "It'd work."

"It wouldn't work, Cam," Jason says. "Amanda would survive a moon drop - she'd have enough time to teleport into the stratosphere and just watch the fireworks."

"Amanda doesn't draw willpower from the suffering of thirty billion people," Cam says. "With the sudden loss of his playthings, the Unsided goes from…" She pauses, then looks at the map, cocking her head.

"If he works anything like most metahumans, then he'll have a reserve of…of…" Andy pauses. "What do you see?"

Cam has gone completely white in the face and as you watch, sags into her seat. She puts her hands over her face and begins to cry.

You, Andy and Jason all stand perfectly still as her shoulders shake. You step slowly around the table, then sit down next to her. Jason and Andy are both still frozen. "Hey," you say, softly. "Uh, you okay?" Wow, Lily. Great question. Cam rubs at her eyes, breathing in a slow, shuddering breath - and then shakes her head.

"No," she says.

"Uh, Andy, Jason, go…get coffee or something," you say. Jason stands up to do that, and Andy shoots you a nervous glance.

Cam looks at you with sad, sad, sad eyes. "I'm not embarrassed," she says, then sniffs. "Emotions are part of being human." She wipes at her eyes again with her palms. "Just…normally, I can control it better."

"Yeah," you say, feeling a tiny bloom of nervousness. Cam…

Cam's Cam? You don't know if this is her just lying or playacting. She can be a subtle manipulator, if she wants, and the only clue would be when, five years later, you realized that her offhand comment had put you onto the course that would define your life. But…

Fuck it, she was hot. And crying. And you couldn't bring yourself to be a dick to a hot girl crying, even if she was Cam.

Plus…your fiancee liked her. Rachel and you had had very tense conversations about ProgHarm and Cam, and you had promised to at least be a bit open minded. A little. For Rachel.

"What did you see?" you ask.

She points at the globe - at several dozen recently constructed slit trenches that Jason had just programmed into the display. Well, you say slit trenches, they're each just about big enough to be seen from space. "Those are equatorial gantries for the construction of starships," she says, quietly. "Their placement, the infrastructure grids you can see around them, the access to energies, and most importantly…" She taps at the computers to throw up holograms of the moon's orbital paths and you see what she had seen - she was smart enough to figure it without the moons, but once you had the moons on display as well…

Yeah.

They were placed so that'd have the most access to clear skies and easy launches.

The moons that orbited this planet orbited close. So close that there was a theory going around among the planning groups that they had been placed artificially - to increases the vulcanism and geothermal energy of the planet. It seemed like a stupid way to do it, but hey, you weren't a sociopathic demigod.

"Okay, they have shipyards," you say. "We've got shipyards."

"They have recently constructed shipyards for bootstrapping a massive number of small ships or a small number of massive ships into orbit extremely quickly," Cam says, quietly. "And it's my fault."

You rub the back of your neck. "I don't really get it. Like, you're…the reason they're attacking, right?"

Cam shakes her head. She ticks them off on her fingers. "The historical databanks that the Cronkites gave us made it pretty clear: Gods don't fight other Gods without a damn good reason. They sometimes go after Choruses, depending on the situation they're in - the Unsided's forces met…one of my scout ships and assumed that I was alone. That's what bought us time. But now that he's realized we're a Chorus…" She looks at you. "He's gone to full on exterminationist attack."

"And this is your fault…"

"Because if I hadn't built Progressive Harmony the way I built it, then we'd have read like a Chorus." She frowns. "Add to that the fact I called my shot spectacularly incorrectly…"

"You didn't, though? The first alien species we met was a dark god that runs a hellworld-"

"Which is just Moldova again, on a bigger scale. Entirely applicable to human thought patterns," Cam sighs again, then ducks her head forward. "I predicated decades of my life in advance on an assumption based off the best evolutionary models I had available to me - but…as often happens when running on a sample size of one, using biases inherited by a merely human mind, I was wrong. And now we're in a war with a time limit that's a hell of a lot harsher than I expected."

Silence.

"Well," Cam says, perking up. "We got what we have, lets get to work." She stands up as Jason walks in, carrying a pair of coffees he got form somewhere on the Yiggy. Cam takes on, knocks it back, then says: "...I have an idea that is as ludicrous as it is idealistic."

You blink. "Are you sure you're not an imposter? Is J Edgar Hoover in here?"

Cam smirks. "I mean, even if he was, he'd be using my thought pattern. So." She shrugs one shoulder. "Want to hear the idea or not?"

You shrug. "What the hell. The doomsday clock is at midnight! Lets see how Nyugen Cam goes when she goes nuts."

Cam smiles, then tells you her plan.

You whistle, slowly.

"I like it," Jason says.

And for once, you actually agree with him.

—

"And that's the basic idea," you say, pointing at the map, turning to face the lot of them. "It won't be as big a splash as we'd like, but…still, it'll be a huge number of variables for the Unsided to deal with."

"That's insane," Lisa says.

"I fucking love it," Theo says, punching his palm together.

"Yeah, me too, I just needed to say it's insane," Lisa said.

Marsha grins. "It…does have a certain appeal to it."

"Are you sure Cam came up with this plan and not Andy?" Brain asks.

"Second to that," Tori says, raising one hand.

Sabah smiles. "I knew she couldn't be all bad," she says, confidently.

"How?" Lisa asks.

"Well, you know…" Sabah pauses. "Okay, I didn't know it at all, but I try and think the best in people."

"So, are we all in for this?" You ask, crossing your arms over your chest. "It'll mean that we're in the first wave - the entire Stonewall Nine. And it's running on a hell of a gamble - if it goes south, then they'll need to resort to plan Moonfall." You frown. "In case you don't know, that's where our biggest high tiers that aren't me punt the moons out of orbit and onto the planetary surface."

Everyone looks pensive at that.

Sabah nods. "How many people live on Hellworld, again?"

"Between twenty, thirty and forty billion - approximations are hard to measure up. Most of them don't really move around," Andy says, quietly. "They live in cubbyholes, hooked up to the Tormentariums."

"Right," Sabah says. "They're still people."

"They have to be," Theo says, shrugging his shoulders. "Doesn't work otherwise, right?"

Everyone is silent again, thinking.

"I'm in," Marsha says.

"Me too," Tori says.

Theo snorts as you look at him. "Do you need to ask? This is the next best thing to fighting World War 2 in space. How the fuck would I stay home?"

"If Theo's in, I have to be in so he doesn't do something stupid," Brian says.

Sabah gives you a thumbs up.

Rachel rubs her shoulders, then grins. "...I got a lot of dogs."

You turn to Andy. He snaps his fingers and pops his palm against his knuckles. Then he nods. "Eh. I got nothing better to do, right?"

You turn to Lisa. Her ears perk up and she puts her finger on her nose, then cocks her head. "Hmmm, I dunno. It seems like hard work…" she says. But you know that she's in - because she doesn't try and dodge as you grab her around the neck and hug her tight.

"There's one member of the Stonewall Nine who hasn't decided yet, though," Theo says.

Everyone looks at you.

You stick your tongue into the corner of your mouth, then draw it back. Then you think.

Well?

…yeah, I'm in.

—

Tormentarium-90118
Hellworld, Bernard's Star
March 16th
1971

Moments become time become moments again.

Strands…like thread, stretching…pulling…

Tightening.

Snapping.

That's the thing. Isn't it?

If forever is forever is forever, then nothing is anything. One moment is easily the same as the next, viewed far enough away. It all becomes a line.

So there has to be a snap.

And in that moment between infinity, zir mind is able to not feel the pain of the next eternity. That makes it worse. Zi floats there, trembling and quivering, and wishing for something, anything other than the emptiness and blackness of the snap. Sometimes, the snap is followed by a deep, dark plunge into non-sensation, un-places, things that have no frame of reference.

Sometimes, though, there is a definite frame. Sociological constructs and historical contexts to make the suffering oh so much worse.

Seeing a mate dismembered aches more when zi knows that zi has loved her or him for years, yes?

Obvious.

Obvious…

"Holy shit this fucking sucks."

Zi freezes, dead, still in zir snap, and realizes that zi are looking upon something entirely unexpected within the blackness of the moment between infinities. If zi was pressed to describe the entity before zim, zi would begin with the head. A horrifying bared-skull head, with barely any flesh at all. Two forward focused eyes, predator eyes, angled and centered and aimed right out. A massive mandible, splitting the bared-skull head, coming to a narrow spike tip of a chin. The neck is almost too thin to be believed, and the torso continues the nightmare of articulated, bladelike narrowness. Preposterously, though, adornments are here, and there, placed on the mockery of a thinking form to make it seem more…

Lifelike.

Long dark hair, too thin to be on any proper head, drawing around the narrow blade shoulders. Faint mounds that could be the chest glands of a proper male body.

Clothing, made of the same fabric and material that zi might have worn, before being placed into the Tormentarium.

The skull-face twisted itself into a parody of concern. "Oh, uh, do you understand me? We don't have much time. My name is…well, you can call me Filly." Blade-fingers are held out. "Take my hand. We don't have much time. Andy says just yanking you out of this think will signal a bunch of alarms - so…" Skull-lips twist and smile. "We're going to be faking it out."

Zi hesitates.

The snap begins to thread together. Infinity awaits - and a horror yawns beneath zim.

Zi takes the blade-fingers.

And, with a jarring THUMP, zi finds themselves in a narrow glass tube. The memory if it is enough to be scream worthy, and zi writhes, kicking zir secondary and primary legs against the tube. It's funny, after…infinite lengths of time, one might imagine that the first memory, of being lowered head first into this tube would have faded. But the memories inside of the Tormentarium are…getting foggier by the second, draining between zi's fingers like sand on a silt beach.

Gentle force takes hold of zi, drawing zim out, and zi finds zimself surrounded…by more of the bone-creatures from the Tormentarium vision. Zi scrabbled back, bumping into one of the hatches of the Tormentarium channels. Zi's breath drew, short, sharp, and heavy over zi's inner lungs, burning and tingling with the acrid smell of real air. Zi lifted zir's primary arms up, over zi's head as zi ducked forward, trying to place zimself.

"It's okay…" one of the least horrifyingly thin bone-creatures says. They…she…is green. A comforting, strange color that zi has only seen from time to time. Sometimes in dreams. The few dreams zi had. "It's okay. We're here to help."

The bone-creature smiles. It somehow doesn't look so hideous now. "My name's Marsha. What's yours?"

Zi blinks.

"...I don't know," zi says, quietly.

"Well, think of one quick, buddy," the bone-thing with the bright red all over her says. She's holding something in her hand. "We're about to, uh, try something only mildly insane!"

—

The surface of Hellworld lives up - or…maybe it should be down to your every expectation. You looked over the lip of the chasm that leads down to the Tormentarium that you'd infiltrated. Next to you, Ngoc Vo was looking through her binoculars. She was how you'd gotten into the place, after all. She and you were both dressed and ready to go. She was in her IEG risker uniform, you were in your Morganna outfit. And both of you were being very quiet.

Because…

Well.

The landscape before you is a vast red plain. The sky is low and studded with roiling clouds. Volcanic ash plumes spurt out of distant mountains. And there are cities. Vast, sprawling cities, interconnected by lines of rail and traffic. Moving through them, their bodies hunched and their forms malnourished, are smaller, less overtly dark energy sustained creatures like the triangular being that had been the Herald. They are watched over by obsidian black segmented snakes that fly through the air on wings of impossible geometries, and periodically, someone gets snatched off the street and messily devoured, screaming piteously.

The cities, it seems, are mostly here to run support staff for the Tormentariums themselves. People, enslaved to torment more people, who then go on to become tormenters themselves. When you had arrived, you had watched and Vo had read the minds of two technicians who had been removing people. Seemed some people took to the Tormentarium so well that they were removed and put in charge of running the Tormentarium.

The techs were down for the count, tied up and chucked by Vo back onto the Yiggy, where Andy was examining them.

He swore, left right and center, that he wouldn't dissect them.

"...are you sure that this Filly is going to work?"

"Her and Buzzy were made for this," you say, softly. "They're the members of the Stonewall Nine custom built for this."

"You know, counting them, it's the Stonewall Eleven now."

"Yeah, well, shut up," you say.

"Hsst!"

You look down, at the narrow crevasse you're perched on the lip of. It plunges straight down to a winding path - and the inside of the crevasse is lined with a gridwork of hatches. Each hatch holds someone that the people in the city are tormenting. All the pain and anguish goes straight to the Unsided. Theo is waving up to you, waving his arm. None of you are willing to risk communicators, so he sticks to using one of his glowing hands to float up a note to you. You read it.

Filly reports that she and Buzzy are operating in the system as expected. Get Mr. B.

You glance at Vo. "Ready to get the ace in the hole."

Vo pauses for a long time. Then she looks at you. "If this works," she says. "If this actually works…then no one is going to ever believe it when they make the movie. They will watch it, and they will say…bullshit."

"Yeah," you say. "I know." You pat her shoulder. "I'll try and make sure Stan doesn't give you any more bad dialog."

Vo rolls her eyes and then vanishes. But she was smiling when she did it.

You hop off the wall, then kill gravity enough to float down. You land among the others and take your first look at one of the Beranrd Star aliens…Bernards? Starians? Considering their structure, Starian actually seems closer to the right term. He or she or…they or whatever gender they use is trembling - but as you land, they speak - their voice musical and translated by one of Andy's gizmos.

"What is going on? What are you things?"

"Hey," you say, kneeling down. "My name is Lily Sato. I'm from a planet called Earth…and…do you know what dark energy is?" You hope the translator can manage it. The Starian nods, their central trunk bobbing. At least, you think it's a nod. "Your…the entity you know as the Unsided? You hate him, right?"

"...yes," the Starian whispers, their central mouthparts opening to reveal the complex articulation of their throat.

"We kinda have a problem with him too," you say as Vo returns with your ace in the hole behind you. "We need to use your tube. And, uh…we figure, since we're here, we might as well give you something else for your trouble." You smile. "How do you want to get Dark Energy powers?"

"B-But…how?" the Starian asks.

"It's kinda complicated," you say, then reach into your pocket and pull out the device that Andy built. It's pretty simple. It has a quantum link between himself, wherever he is, and the person that the device is used on. It allows Andy, for just a bit, to use their neural architecture the same way that he uses computers. Doesn't hurt them.

What it does do is saturate them with the Dark Energy powers that Andy had been sitting on since 1968.

The Starian shudders - and then flames explode along their body. They're warm, and they're blue, and they cast a cool light around the place as they float upwards - and laugh raggedly. "Whoa, now, don't go running off half cocked," Marsha says, gently, while Lisa leans over, then whistles.

"Hey, Andy was right," she says…as you stand…and you turn…

And you face your Ace in the hole.

You smile at him.

He does not smile back. Too busy looking absolutely fucking terrified.

All things considered, you can't blame him.

—

Zi trembles, trying to contain zir power. The urge to just fly away and…and…and rip into the machinery around zim was overpowering. But Marsha kept her disturbingly long fingers on zir shoulder, and said: "Just wait…"

"Explain what 'Andy was right' means in this case?" the leader of the humans asks. Lily Sato, her name is. Zi is getting more used to the humans, by the moment. Or is it part of the powers inside of zim?

"So, normally, our friend here…zi, have you picked a name yet?"

Zi hesitates. Then, slowly: "Cleansing Flame."

"Got it, Flame here, would be a Tier 4 - solidly in the world destroying badass range. But zi's not human. Zi…is capped off. Not infectious. But zi has all that power, so…zi's closer to a tier 2. Maybe even…a Progenitor level badass."

Lily whistles. "You're going to have to learn quick, Flame," she says.

"I still don't understand the plan…" Flame says, looking over to the one they called…Aceinhole. He's kinda pudgy, compared to the rest of them, and currently has his head in the tube that zi had come from. Zi doesn't envy him. "What is Aceinhole's power?"

"Oh, his name's not…heh…" Lily shakes her head. "His name? Is-"

—

Tink.

Tink.

Tink.

Across a world. Across many worlds.

In a single instant.

In eternity.

The viewpoint really is all that matters, to define these things.

The sound's the same.

Tap tap tap.

Screeehhhhh.

A sound. Resonant. Squealing. It dies out quickly. Destructive feedback, resulting from primitive electronics.

In some scenarios, the interruption is merely surreal. A burning house, suddenly having a metal platform and a stick figure creature standing on it, holding a narrow, irregular shield with a neck-blade thrusting from it, casually sliding fingers along narrow metal strands drawn taut, like bowstrings. A mortifying social faux pass thrown in disarray as the stick-man leans towards what looks like a straight backed metal frond.

In others, the interruption provides a desperate grounding of sensation. The people floating in sensory deprivation, granted the reprieve of the impossible sight. People burning forever, having something other than crisping and crackling, hearing a voice.

"A one. A two. A one, two, three-"

Deionne Bright strummed a chord to save a world, and began to sing his number one, chart topping single Little Green Man directly into the brains of twenty billion suffering souls. He pitted a single catchy song about a homesick man from Mars falling in love with an Arizona girl designed entirely to sell merchandise in chintzy stores across America so that he could afford hookers, blow, and penthouses against all the pain and agonies that centuries of technology could engineer.

The torturers didn't have a goddamn chance in hell.

—

"You know, I was originally going to work on Bright on that song," Jason said, on Yidrasil, tapping his foot in time with the speaker as he and Andy leaned over an unconscious alien.

"Really?"

"Yeah. It was gonna do anti-syntergene stuff," Jason says. "But, like, Buzzy beat me by an order of magnitude."

Andy laughed.

They listen together.

"It's a real bop." Jason says.

"Absolutely."

—

"Here come the fuz!" you say, peering over the lip as it looks like the entire city has become one big swarm of buzzing flies. Except they're not flies, they're those flying snake things. Since everyone knows where you are, you risk communications and turn on your communicator and shout into it: "Okay! Weeks, please tell me it's fucking working!"

"It's working! It's working!" His voice comes back. "The Unsided, right now, is physical! In his palace."

"Is he coming for us?" you ask.

"No, he's not," he says.

You think quick. "Okay. Lisa! Up here!" you say, and a fox lands on your shoulder. "Second wave, go fucking nuts!"

You leap out of the trench, then start to sprint into the silty dunes - and focus.

Distance begins to collapse around you.

—

The rumbling sonic booms that ring out over the Starian city come after the two flying humans drop from orbit and announce their arrival. One of them is a burly man with a huge grin who drops through the head of one of the flying, obsidian plated snakes that flew through the air to protect and terrorize the city. Smashing it into the ground and driving through its head with both feet, he steps from the wreckage and laughs.

"Fuck the parole, I'd have done this for free!" he shouted as, next to him, another man clad entirely in gleaming steel rolled his arms and then began to charge towards another warmachine that was crawling from the strange, black buildings of the alien city.

"Shut the fuck up, Alphonzo and kill stuff!"

Zipperneck shook his head - then grunted as a pair of glowing red dots appeared on his chest. His chest was fine. His nice suit was burnt to a crisp and the smoke wafts around him. He brushes it away, then glances over to see two of the local aliens gaping at him. He grins at them, flexes, then grabs onto…well, his brain wants to call it a streetlamp. What it actually does, he has no idea.

He picks it off the ground and hurls it like a spear through the chest of one of the flying monsters that swings by overhead. He grins as the creature smashes to the ground, then picks up the head of the first and hurls it at a third - bringing it down with a crunching of metal and spray of sparks. Explosions echo from throughout the city, while he glances back at the terrified aliens.

"...fuck, though…at least dad got to fuck a German girl or two, what do I fucking get, some triangle ass looking-"

"Alphonse!" Steelsuit shouts from down the street. "Come on! Keep up!"

"Listen, prick, I'm not in the army! I'm here because you fucking need me! I don't see you doing any-"

A searing white detonation rips up the horizon. Rumbling mushroom clouds spread outwards as a hot wind spreads outwards.

"...Jesus…" Zipperneck mutters, then jogs after Steelsuit.

—

"Okay, it looks like we have…a lot of bad guys coming our way," Tori says, lowering her binoculars. "They want to shut Dionarre off."

"That they do," Theo says. "Wanna see a fun trick?"

"I'm more concerned about the army, Theo," Tori says, while Brian narrows his eyes, using a mimicry of Lisa's abilities. The army heading their way wasn't actually made up mostly of the snake things - instead, it was like the ground had opened up and revealed dozens if not hundreds of concealed caches of vehicles that had emerged. Most of them were spider-limbed tank things that were somewhere between a nightmare and a horror, and they were formed into fast, skittering chevrons. They had already begun to open fire - blasts shooting into curving arcs, before Tori started to redirect them with her telekinesis, bouncing them further up into the air and turning them invisible so the bad guys couldn't know what had happened.

Theo rubbed his palms together. "This whole fucking time, I always said, I wanted to cut loose."

His hands touched the ground.

There was no earthquake. No shudder. No hint that anything was about to change.

And then the entire army vanished in an explosion of red dust and a roar of shifting earth. Stone and boulders the size of minivans rained down in the plains ahead of the slit trench, and both Brian and Tori gaped as they watched the huge, glowing red wrist of a hand shoving upwards. A hand the size of Rhode Island, pushing the entire army that was coming their way up and up and up and…

Up.

"What's your max weight again?" Brian whispered.

"...a…few trillion tons."

Tori and Brian gaped at Theo.

"Give or take."

Amanda's voice cracked over the line. "This is Progenitor, I've handled one of the shipyards. A…a bit more collateral damage than I expected, but we're good. Do you need help?"

Brian held up his com.

"We're good," he says.

Theo, meanwhile, was looking at Cleansing Flames, who was rippling with red and orange highlights. "What?" he asked. The Starian's glare got hotter. "...what!?"

—

You leap once more and then land on a small rise. You and Lisa settle down and she stretches her arms as she hops of your shoulder. "Is this really going to work?" she asks.

"If dark energy works the same way across species, then…well. If we lose, we lose. At least we've caused damage, and wave two is hitting spots across the planet for maximal strategic effect," you say, while you focus.

It's funny.

You have the abilities of a god.

You can…literally do anything you really set your mind to - just by breaking the laws of physics in the right way. But the problem is that you're fairly sure that anyone who has been a godlike emperor of a planet of suffering has defenses against the biggest threats that he will regularly face.

Not his subject.

Other gods.

So, at this moment, when it all hangs in the balance, all you've done is carried a small fox…

And made entropy dance a little jig.

"You sure this is what you want?"

Lisa shushes you as she lays the wooden stock on the red earth and peers through the scope. "Shh. Shhh…" She whispers. "For this moment, I want reliability." She sticks her tongue out of the corner of her mouth.

Sights down the Remmington 700 bolt action rifle's scope - the scope that had just been undifferentiated oxygen molecules a while back, until a completely impossible string of quantum coincidences caused it to manifest out of literal thin air.

Lisa sights a second longer.

Then she pulls the trigger.

Her rifle bucks.

The bullet leaves the barrel.

Arcs gently up.

Is ignored by the field of dark energy emitters that disrupt incoming energy blasts.

Whips through a narrow opening in a window.

You do wonder, later.

What did have to feel like, to sculpt your psychology so that you draw direct strength and energy from pain - to have pleasure and joy beamed directly into your head.

You have a feeling the last thing that the Unsided thought…

Was thank you.

The bullet hit him center of mass and dropped him to the ground, boneless and limp.

You honestly couldn't help yourself.

"Great shot kid," you say. "One in a million."

"Oh you shouldn't have done that," Lisa said, sitting up, working the bolt as she did so. "I am never going to let you live it down."

In the distance, the citadel began to crumble as impossible stone imploded in on itself. Overhead, the clouds began to clear as, across the whole of Hellworld, people began, at last, to wake up.

"We're going to need to come up with a new name for this place."

—

New York City
New York
January 1st
1972

"And you look perfect," Amanda says, stepping back as she looks you up and down.

You nod.

"I killed an alien dictator, why am I more scared now," you say, quietly, looking at yourself in the mirror. The cream colored suit really brings out your eyes. You look cut and deadly and beautiful all at once - and your knees are trembling harder than when you'd sprinted across Hellworld to deliver Lisa there.

"Because the Unsided was easy," Amanda murmured. "Big tree, rotten roots. This is hard."

You look at her. "Aren't you supposed to say this is easy?"

Amanda sighs. "Your mom should be here, not me. But since your parents are…" She closes her eyes, breaths in, then breathes out through her nose. "...indisposed."

"Homophobes," you say.

"Indisposed," Amanda says. "So, I'm going to be here. And…listen. The hard questions aren't even things that have yes and no answers." She puts her hands on your shoulders, turning you to face her. "Those are easy. Do you fight the bad guy or not is easy. Do you win or not when you fight a bad guy? That's an easy question. There's two possibilities, and you just…find the one that you get to." She blushes, and barrels ahead. "The hard questions don't have yes or no answers. And…you can't…answer being in love. You just have to do it."

You look down at your feet.
"Yeah," you say.

"You and Rachel are good kids," she says, softly. "And if Abe and I can make it work…so can you two."

"Yeah," you say, squaring your shoulders. "...I'm still scared shitless."

"Language," Amanda says, automatically.

"Ah!" You thrust your finger at her. "Glass houses, you once dropped a great big fat fucking F-bomb."

Amanda's cheeks heated. "Ladies still shouldn't swear."

"Yeah, well, I'm no lady," you mutter.

"Then why is Rachel marrying you?" Amanda asks, showing that snark she's more than capable of delivering when pressed.

"...touche," you say.

Amanda offers your arm.

You don't choke up at all.

Amanda leads you to the door - and through it, you can see all your friends waiting for you. Amy and Tina and the newest member of their friend group, Taylor, are in the front row, looking downright giddy at all the pageantry. There's a bunch of dogs taking up the left side of the church - but they're not even the weirdest people. Amanda's friends were stopping in too, and some people from the IEG - you were pretty sure Cam had decided it was worth sticking her nose in. But even they're eclipsed by the ball of glittering light and the spindly, human sized spider made of cut glass, who are both wearing capes.

Stan Lee had convinced the first alien metasophonts who had ever visited Earth - the first aliens to visit peacefully to see who had just knocked over the biggest scariest God in the local sector down - that it was the custom on Earth for metas to wear capes.

You breathed in, then breathed out.

"I just…walk out there," you say.

"And you keep answering the hard questions," Amanda says, softly.

"Goodie."

You and she step forward, to the rest of your life.

It's, on the whole, a good one.

THE END

There are a bunch of rolls that are just...assumed. Like, cam is gonna 10x10 on her thinks. She's Cam. That's how she does.

For everything else, there's this!

CHECK: Lily convincing the freed Starian to trust her
ROLL: 3x5, with 1 gobble die for the insane situation, 2x5. Success!
RESULT: The Starian is going to go along with this!

CHECK: Bright V Hell
ROLL: 10x10 on Bright's guitar playing, versus the normal ass dice pools of millions of torture experts. It's not even funny.
RESULT: The Unsided has something like 50 base will invested in "the suffering of others." And now, the machines specifically designed to channel that suffering to him are instead pumping him with their joy and happiness. Even if not every single person feels it strongly enough to trigger a major loss…that's still 20 billion WP to drain away…

—

CHECK: Zipperneck V. Big Snake
ROLL: Big snake has 5 HAR and 10 health levels per area. Zippy takes -1d to do all killing and gets 5x10, and burns 10 WP to get 10x10, doing 5x10, doing 10K to the health. The sucker's down!

CHECK: Zippy V more snakes
ROLLS: Snakes get 2x10 on their pen 4 eyelasers, but he's got 10hd in hard armor, it bounces off. He grabs a building and beats them with it. Thanks to the penetration, 5x10 and, with more WP, 5x10 for a second hit takes out two more.

—

Marsha, Theo and Tori against the mobilized armies of darkness

CHECK: Really, they mostly leave it to Theo.
ROLL: 2x10, 2x9, 3x7!
RESULT: Well, you saw it, you've already read the post!

—

CHECK: Lisa makes her shot. She takes 2 rounds to aim, getting +2d, rolling (in total), 2d+20wd. She really didn't need to aim. She's just showing off.
ROLL: 10x10, with +1 for damage.

CHECK: The Unsided has 10hd in his heavy armor, light armor, and 10hd in his force field. Since his WP is 0, he rolls 5d, 5d and 5d on each, getting
ROLL: 3x7 for heavy armor, 2x3 for hard armor, and 2x3 for his force field. Not even close.

THe Unsided takes 12s/12k to the head, soaks none of it. He'd normally have base will…but when you lose WP without WP to lose, then you lose base will. So he's tanked himself psychologically. The weakness of his whole set up, really.

ThatGazzer · May 7, 2022

That was a good story DC!

Good job and thank you for taking on this fun little project

notbirdofprey · May 7, 2022

I really enjoyed reading and participating in this!

Torgamous · May 7, 2022

Goddammit Stan.

CyberFemme · May 7, 2022

Holy shit!

Wow, that's a Death Star Exhaust Port level weakness right there. That's why you spread your base will around folks!

Thanks so much DC! I had a great time with this quest!

JNewbold54 · May 7, 2022

Well, this has been a lot of fun. And all things considered, this is a pretty great place to end.

Thanks for all the fun times, DC. Look forward to seeing what you come up with next.

DragonCobolt · May 7, 2022

Thank you everyone!

I'm very tired, and I am now going to rest and relax by starting a new quest!

...but what!?

dragonkid11 · May 7, 2022

What a fantastic end to another wonderful quest by you, I'm eager to see what comes next now

CyberFemme · May 7, 2022

DragonCobolt said:
Thank you everyone!

I'm very tired, and I am now going to rest and relax by starting a new quest!

...but what!?

Bad DC! Take a few days off at least!

DragonCobolt · May 8, 2022

Oh!

The one thing I regret never fucking doing: The Tom Lehrer interlude

Writing a song called "I'll Vote For You, Me."

PROGENITOR: WORM (A Wormquest AU)

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