Dr Archeville

"Well, the basics, to start with," he said, leaning back a bit. "What your powers are, how you got them. Why you decided to do what you do with them. How you met and joined up with the Interceptors. You do not have to tell me everything, of course-" "just whatever you are comfortable with."

"That -- if I may," Archeville said to both Dr. Rao and Jubatus, "seems to be an odd distinction to make." "If you are forcing your throat to make phonemes, if you human mind is making you nonhuman throat and voice box make those sounds -- and, I would add, all tests indicate your mind is still very human, and both it and your body show no signs of instability or threat of degradation -- then you are making phonemes. And if you are stringing those phonemes together to make words and sentences, that is vocalized communication. You are speaking to us!"

By human standards, Mutt was a dummy, but compared to other dogs, he was a genius. He could speak, read (slowly, and he moved his lips while he did so), write, and even use simple tools (though the lack of thumbs made this difficult)! But none of that really mattered right now. No, now was the time to call on his other super-doggie abilities. I will show them the meaning of fear! The spirit-dog moved, invisible, incorporeal, to the center of the werewolf pack, and faded into view, first the burning red eyes, then the luminous yellow-green jaws, followed by the coal black fur. He cut loose with a howl, a spine-tingling, soul-chilling howl from the depths of the shadow-realms the Ghede called home. With luck, it would either spook the werewolves into scattering (making it easier for the other heroes to pick them off one-by-one), or cow them into accepting him as their Alpha.

Mutt Move Action: Get into position so that as many of the werewolves + metalheads are within 50 feet. Free Action: Turn off Concealment, fading into view. Standard Action: Use fearsome Presence. All non-Fearless beings within 50 feet of Mutt need to make a DC 20 Will save. Fail = shaken (-2 attack rolls, saving throws, and checks) Fail by 5+ = flees area as fast as possible; if unable to flee, becomes shaken Fail by 10+ = panics (flees as fast as possible, defends normally but can't attack; if unable to flee, is dazed [take no actions, but retain full defense]), and drops any held items Fearsome Presence is based on Emotion Control (Fear), and Kenson's said it should be treated as a Sustained (Lasting) effect. So 1 inute later, anyone affected gets to make another save, with a +1 bonus; 5 minutes after that, another save with a +2 bonus; 20 minutes after that, another save with a +3 bonus, and so on.

"You are smarter than you... give... yourself credit... for," Archeville replied, struggling to keep his defense up in light of Jack's increased aggressiveness. "Or, rather... than you let yourself.. appear to be. And, yes, in retro... spect I probably should not have... gone with someone so... extreme for the test." "Speaking of... atypical people," he shifted to a purely defensive stance, focusing wholly on deflection, "how is Vince doing? What is your 'read' on him? Have you all been comfortable taking orders from him? Does he seem comfortable in giving orders to you all?"

"Oh, their pizzas are quite different. Then again," he shrugged and looked deep into the gunbag of mystery, "there are a large number of pizza styles in the United States alone. Chicago, California, New York, Detroit, all have their own regional variations. Same as hot dogs or chili -- you will find all types in this wondrous melting pot of a country!" "General tune-up, nothing particular in min-," he began to ask when Colt brought out the RPG. He grinned and gave a half-shrug, "never know when you will need to use one of those. Best to know how to use it, and never need to, then need to use it but not know how!"

When the car went below the 6th floor, the magnet shut off, and the strange robot fell to the ground. When the car stopped at the lobby, Protectron rose. "Your swift actions are appreciated, Friend-de Havilland" it said flatly. "Systems are operating at adequate levels, and will return to nominal condition in under one minute. May I suggest you use this time to access The Lab's security systems and program it to give me temporary access to this elevator, your biochemistry laboratory, and any paths between the two?"

"Halt," the robot announced as it flew after the fleeing centaur. It spread its mighty metal arms wide, and prepared to latch on to the creature. "You are engaged in activities with known criminal elements, and are needed for questioning."

Sorry, all, didn't realize it was my turn! Move Action: Move to intercept a Centaur Stand Action: Attempt to grapple. Attack roll vs. Centaur (1d20+7=23) Grapple check vs. Centaur (1d20+17=32) Remember that, per our House Rules on Grappling, if Protectron beats the opposed Grapple check by 5+, the Centaur is pinned/helpless.

Initiative for Dead Head (1d20+2=5) go, zombie, go! Initiative for Mutt (1d20+2=18) Aroooo!

Visiting family Saturday, should be back Sat night. And, hopefully, my posting mojo will return by then.

Dead Head had been spent a fair amount of time in West end over the past few months. The melting pot of cultures present fascinated him, especially the varied collection of myths and legends about the various afterlife realms and the varied undead of those cultures. This evening had been spent at Temple Ben David, conversing with the late learned spirits who still clung to the area. Shame about Rabbi Isaacs soup pot, not gettin' passed on to his son. But where the heck do I even begin lookin' fer it! It was when the burned remains of his apartment were cleared out -- almost 80 years ago! On the way back to Lantern Hill (man, I have really gotta get that teleport charm worked out!), he passed near the 5-on-3 argument. "Eh, no rest for the restless. C'mon, boy." Mutt, the faithful spirit-hound, barked in the affirmative, and followed along, invisible and intangible. He approached from the direction opposite Jeni. It would be easy to mistake him for belonging to the same clique as the three men that the five in red were accosting, but as soon as he moved into the light, it was clear he was something else altogether. "Hey, fellas!" he greeted cheerily, hoping it would give them pause. "What's goin' on?"

Dead Head began to stir, and moan. "grrraaaaaiiiiinnnnnsss.... grrrrraaaaaiiiiinnnnnsssss...." He sat bolt upright, eyes wide, "ya should go ta someplace with whole-grain bread, not the plain white stuff!" He ungracefully got to his feet, and took in the scene; Mutt flew down to his side. "Man, I'm glad that worked! Y'all would've been up a creek without a paddle if'n it didn't!" His words were slightly garbled by the spirit-dog furiously licking his face. "Any mystic stuff in there what needs confiscatin'? I know a gal who can take care'a it."

Recalculated so it's actually closer to Pluto. That's where it emerged from, and I figure it took maybe 15 minutes for everyone to get up to ArcheTech.

Archeville was not at all surprised that Supercape was the first to arrive. "" he replied in his mother tongue, shaking the fellow scientist's hand, "" "Ah, Lieutenant, always a pleasure," he replied to Victory, "though I of course wish the situation was not so grim. Yes, a large asteroid is headed our way; it will be quite the task, but one I am confident we can achieve." Archeville almost toppled over when Rachel ran into him. "A pleasure to meet you, Miss Geist!," he replied, smiling at the gobsmacked woman. "I am flattered you- oh, I am not sure I would go that far in comparing me to- ah, yes, flattery and accolades can come later. Now, there is one more..." He scanned the corridors, expecting Push to come out any moment, and soon enough he saw the star-eyed youth. He waved him over, "ah, there he is!" "This way, please, there is much to go over." He lead them to a large table over which a holographic image of the Earth rotated lazily. His fingers flew over a control panel, and the image pulled back to show the solar system. A red dot pulsed near Pluto. "There it is, folks: a doomsday asteroid." A small pop-up window appeared next to it, listing statistics:

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His recovery bonus is such that he automatically makes it, so he wakes up a minute after the bad guy goes down.

... the reason I posted them here is so that Supercape (y'know, the guy actually running the adventure) can yay or nay them. I don't know if he'd be okay with the 5.5 year thing, or if he wanted this to be a more immediate threat.

It's actually worse, because I put in the wrong number for some of the variables in the Impact program. I've edited my post to reflect more accurate findings. Short version: everybody dies, everything is wiped out.

This sounds like something up both Dok and Dead Head's alleys.

Oh, and with Space Travel 5 (25c), the Pegasus-class Space-Plane can reach Neptune in 4 hours 9 minutes 11 seconds.

"I'll try..." Dead Head moaned. The zombie glared at the Sorcerer, focusing on the weird necromantic power within himself, and within their foe. As with the cultist from earlier, the revenant reached out, his own power seeking out the more varied wellspring before it. An aura of green balefire appeared around Dead Head's whole body, and a similar aura of sickly purple sprang up around the head cultist, then began to flicker and flow into the heroic zombie. Hooo-wee, an' I thought the lil' feller's mojo was somethin! "Cain't... hold... it..." he gasped, his voice strained from exertion and muffled by the streams of black ichor flowing down his nose and up his throat. Mutt continued to fly around overhead.

Math time! :geek: Supecape said the asteroid was big enough to cover a state, so let's assume it's as big as New Jersey (the state Freedom City is in, and the 5th smallest state in the U.S.), 240 km long and 110 km wide (radius 55 km). This goes far, far, far beyond the examples I can find: Let's say the asteroid is roughly cylindrical. Volume of a cylinder = pi x radius squared x height V = pi r2h pi = 3.14 r = 55, and r2 = 3025 h = 240 V = 2,280,796.26 km3 1 cubic kilometer (km3) = 1,000,000,000 m3 V = 228,079,626,000,000,000 cubic meters (m3) Mass = volume x density. Density of rocks ranges from 1.1 (for coal) to 3.4 (for Peridotite) grams per cubic centimeter (g/cm3). I split the difference and used 2.25. Also, 1 g/cm3 = 1 tonne per cubic meter (t/m3) 1,000,000 g = 1,000 kg = 1 tonne = 2,204.62 lb 1,000,000 cm3 = 1 m3 Mass = 228,079,626,000,000,000 cubic meters (m3) x 2.25 t/m3 = 513,179,158,500,000,000 tonnes = 513,179,158.5 gigatonnes = 5.13179 x 1014 kg Asteroids average at 25 kilometers/second = 90,000 km per hour Per the Solar system map site I linked earlier, Neptune was 30.956 AU from the Sun at noon on January 31st, 2011. (1 AU = average distance from Earth to Sun.) That puts it 29.956 AU from Earth. (Assuming they're on the same orbital plane; they're actually not, but I'm not going to get that detailed.) 1 AU = 149,597,870.7 km = 92,955,807.27 miles 29.956 AU = 4,481,353,814.7 km = 2,784,584,162.6 miles Time = Distance / speed If it was going in a straight line, it would get here in (4,481,353,814.7 km / 90,000 kph) = 49,792.82 hours = 2,074 days = 5.6 years But it should take longer, since it's going in a more curvy manner. Per this nifty tool for calculating impact effects: * If it hits in the middle of the Atlantic, roughly halfway between the US eastern seabord and Arica's west coast -- about 2,950 km away -- it opens a crater 200 miles in diameter and 70 miles deep in the sea floor. It would create a fireball 330 miles radius; the heat would be enough to ignite Freedom City. 10 minutes after impact, a magnitude 11.7 earthquake would hit FC. 2.5 hours after impact, the soundwave of it reaches FC, at 120 dB (enough to cause permanent hearing loss & physical pain), accompanied by 1,870 mph winds. Anything the quake didn't get, this would. 4.2 hours after impact, the tsunami wave hits; the waves will aver 1,750 feet high. * if it struck Freedom City, it would leave a crater 211 miles in diameter & 75 miles deep. The entire United States would suffer a magnitude 11.8 earthquake, and even a city as far away as Seattle, Washington (Emerald City) would still be hit with deafening boom, 3 hours after impact. I'm actually okay with us tacking a thing that'd take over half a decade to reach Earth. Sometimes heroes do things no one ever knows about, because they need doing.

"" he screamed, "" "" he spat, darting over to the kitchenette, "" Her correction of 'opportunity' to 'ethical opportunity' elicited a harsh, barking laugh. "" he exploded again, thrusting fists into the air. ""

In a flash Archeville was at her side, "Jessica!" He checked her pupillary response and pulse rate, and offered one arm for her to steady herself on. "Are you alright? How do you feel? What happened?"