Geez3r

November 2nd, 2015 11:04pm For whatever else Freedom City is, it is the epicenter of meta-human activity in the world. And that means that the world's largest collection of death rays, possessed talismans, magic rings and all other man of super weapons are collected in close proximity. When the city's criminals are caught, these items are confiscated, logged as evidence, and stored in different locations throughout the city so as to not paint too large of a target on any one location. One such facility is in Lonely Point, the closest geographically to Blackstone prison. This facility however only houses items that are damaged or broken so this facility is theoretically the safest as anyone breaking into the area won't acquire any new firepower once inside. As FCPD learned today however, that did not mean that it wasn't a target. The facility had been the target of a coordinated assault of meta-humans, who made a clean getaway, with the police unsure of what was stolen. Police forces were being assembled, Blackstone was locked down in case this was a precursor to a jail break and the story was played on all the late night new channels and radio stations. And now, the heroes began to arrive on the scene to lend a hand in apprehend these dangerous criminals.

I think she might be a little too high PL for what I've got planned unfortunately Thev.

So thread idea. There's a break in at police evidence lock up. Not much is taken, but the big ticket item that has gone missing are the charred remains of Malice's battlesuit, the Mantle of Freedom. It's up to our heroes to determine who stole the suit and what their nefarious plans are now that it's in their possession. I'm obviously throwing it's creator Bastion into the mix, and I'm looking for ~3 other PC's to join in. A bit of investigation and lots of combat as per usual for my threads. PL 10+ for that reason.

Bastion Can't Change Their Stripes - 20 IC posts

Eric smiled and slowly raised his glass to meet Natalya's "To new beginnings." he said simply as he clinked his glass with hers. The duo spent the rest of the evening trading stories, sharing anecdotes and otherwise just enjoying each others company. But they didn't stay until they were the last ones in the restaurant or anything like that. When the meal was over, they simply parted ways and headed back to their own lives. They had an enjoyable evening and now had another person in the city that they could call a good acquaintance. Perhaps this was the start of a better tomorrow.

"No you pretty much got the gist. You'll find that in science the middle bit is always the confusing part. You know what you started with and you know what you end up with, it's connecting the dots that's the tricky part. Now while I laid it all out nice and rosey here, don't be surprised if you don't see it on store shelves any time this decade. Once I figure out the science of it, I still need to figure out the engineering bit of it, and then comes the business aspect of it to get it in the hands of the consumer. But really I think I'm just in love with the fact that I've got a lab again. Granted it's where my living room should be at the moment, but it's a lab and it's all mine." said Eric with a gigantic smile plastered on his face. "Unfortunately I still need to do some fine tuning and calibration with this thing before I can get to the really fiddly bits." he said as he gestured with his robotic arm. "Wine glass, yes; transistors, no."

"Right now it's a functionally indefinite duration. The hitch is that the object requires a committed projector and that projector requires a steady stream of power (and quite a lot of it if I'm perfectly honest). Without any power, the object loses its mass and reverts to being true light. Which, as far as the mass market implications are concerned, is a fatal design flaw. No one is going to build their house out of hard light if the house winks out of existence when the lights go out. This is about where I got to in my tinkerings while in Blackstone. Or at least that's as far as I could take the research while inside the walls. Now that I'm out I can begin work on the next phase." said Eric clearly enjoying himself. "Ok, so in all of reality, we understand four fundamental forces in the universe that account for how basically everything works. They are: gravity, electromagnetism, and then simply the weak force and the strong force - magic is the unofficial fifth force, but good luck in getting that published. You know the first two, so the weak force - for our purposes - is what holds molecules together and the strong is what hold atoms together; I'm focusing on the strong. So if you remember your chemistry, you know that an atom has protons and neutrons in its center, its nucleus, and then it has a bunch of electrons orbiting around it. Protons have a positive charge, neutrons have no charge and electrons have a positive charge. But hang on a second, you also know that two like charges on magnets repel one another, so how are a bunch of positively charged protons able to stay right next to one another without repelling each other? The answer: the strong force. It is the most powerful force known, and as such overrides the natural tendencies of these subatomic particles and keeps them together. The problem is that the strong force has the absolute shortest range of the four forces, being barely undetectable when just outside the nucleus of an atom. What I'm trying to do is use the strong force to tack the Higgs Field onto the photons of light so the reaction is stable without needing a continual supply of power."

"Okay,okay, poor job of explaining." said Eric sounding not at all displeased, but rather invigorated that he had a captive audience. "Everything has certain properties, but in a vacuum, those properties are neither strengths nor weaknesses. Iron and lead for instance, while both metals have different melting points, malleability, conductivity, density, etc. For instance, in the olden days, they made iron armor instead of lead armor because it was light weight (relatively speaking) and was quite hard and could hold its shape. On the other hand, lead with its low melting point and its high density made it perfect for casting bullets." explained Eric as he laid it all out. "My Bastion tech on the other hand is kind of a different animal. You know about conservation of energy right? Matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed, they simply change form. For sake of our conversation the main difference between matter and energy is that matter has mass and volume, ie: it has a physical form. What my tech is doing is blurring the line. It allows energy to masquerade as matter for a time. You heard of the Higgs Boson particle they discovered at the LHC right, or rather confirmed existed? The god particle they called it. That particle is why, on the subatomic level, some subatomic particles have mass while others do not. By manipulating this Higgs field and using light - photons if you want to be technical - as a conduit, I am able to give light mass, to make it hard. Hard light. Make sense?" asked Eric eager to see Talya's impression.

By this point in time Eric had edged himself as close to the table as possible and his voice carried that same air as a child going to Disney World for the first time. "Well that's the thing, I didn't invent a battlesuit, I made one; the concept had already existed, I just put my own personal stamp on it. Besides, it's often far more cost efficient to make a squadron of fighter jets than to make a single battlesuit. The former has been refined enough to be mass marketable, in the case of the latter, each is a unique enterprise onto itself." said Eric trying to undersell himself. "You would have liked Dr. Reese Corning, he's the advanced mechanical engineer instructor at HIT - of them anyways. 'An object that functions is a product; an object that functions well is art.' They could back it up too, he had been a watch maker for 30 odd years on and off as a hobby, and had this old-timey wind-up pocket watch made entirely of wood; it was a masterpiece." said Eric sounding suitably impressed. "I mentioned earlier that you confront any problem that you have with the tools and resources available to you at the time. The phrase in engineering you always hear is that 'you can't make a lead balloon' meaning that you are constrained by the properties and availability of your materials, even if that particular phrase was disproved. If I can work out the final kinks, then I have an entirely new type of material available to me, which opens up a huge array of solutions to problems I previously wasn't able to solve."

"Neither actually." admitted Eric. "I've always been a smart guy, but I've never been the smart guy, at least once I got out of the little pond that is public school, and got into HIT. There was never a class that I struggled with, and the material always came to me easily, but I needed the instructor or textbook or something to follow along with. Genius to me is someone who invests a new field of mathematics by candle light so that they may accurately explain the movements of the stars. I'm an engineer, I give a form to the knowledge of the scientists that came before me. I think it stems from freshman year. In one of my classes, we had to make a device that would sort a bag of M&M's by color. Now obviously that's not a problem you see in your text book, and there's no code you can steal online to do that. So you're faced with a given challenge and you have to solve it with the knowledge and tools you have available to you. It's a demonstration of how you specifically solve a problem. I got such a thrill out of that project, because it validated all of the time I had spent up until then studying. It was tangible proof that what I had learned could make an impact on the world. So I've been trained, and my creations are the sum total of my knowledge focused through the lens that is my creative psychological construct."

"I'd like to take you up on that offer some time. Though do warn me ahead of time if I will be the kid at the table. Would probably be wise to warn them about me too, I've got a feeling that showing up out of the blue at a bridge game might throw some people for a loop. Then again this would be a group of people you regularly hang out with so they've probably used to a few curve balls at this point." replied Eric with a smile. "If you're quick enough, you may want to try blitz chess, there's a few more opportunities for a sneaky trick here or there since it's so fast paced, but don't try that move against someone who's really good." After helping himself to some more of the steak he asked Natalya "Speaking of skill sets, how did you acquire yours? Were you trained, self taught or do you just sort of make it up on the fly?"

"I never played until Blackstone, after that it seemed like a wonderful time to learn. There aren't quite as many cheats as you would expect in those walls. You tend to accumulate too much free time if people stop inviting you to the games. Turns out there is honor among thieves, but only when they would be bored out of the mind otherwise. Did give me enough time to figure out how to shuffle with one hand though, though other feats of legerdemain remain elusive. Didn't have the other arm until year three." he said with a little wave of his robotic hand. "Turns out there was some concern over giving me access to tools and materials." he continued sarcastically. "We ran the gamut for card games though. Guards wouldn't let us bet on anything material, so poker lost its charm eventually. That and you can only play the same game so many days in a row before you go nuts. Crazy Eights was my personal favorite. We'd play chess on occasion too, though that one tended to cause lots of ego clashing so it wasn't as frequent. I'm still garbage at reading people though."

Well Eric's attempts to turn the discussion to interesting rock formations had failed utterly, mostly by his own doing - par for the course really. "I've had the knack for pattern recognition and tactical thinking for a while now. Manipulation and psychological profiling on the other hand are bit outside of my normal routine. When I play poker - rather, when I'm allowed to play poker - most of my game is the cards rather than the players; I pretty much wind up counting cards by accident. I guess they're pretty much the same in principle aren't they? Weighing probabilities for a given outcome based upon historical data." He sat there and mused for a moment. "That's what the heroes who aren't in the spot light are for aren't they? We've got heroes we hold up as pillars of the community, and paragons of virtue. Then there's another set who we trust are on the side of the angels, but otherwise... Who watches the watchers?"

"Yes, all of those terrible villains who were far too serious to crack jokes. Such terrible, terrible people they are." muttered Eric, not entirely sure himself if he was being serious or not. "Humor probably goes hand in hand with admitting you're the bad guy. At that point, you're basically just enjoying the ride. I'm frankly not sure which is worse." said Eric with a frown. He had mental picture of himself as Malice, only with a yellow smiley face painted on the helmet as he unloaded a rocket barrage at a squad of FCPD vehicles. Not a pleasant thought. "Probably made pursuing the criminals a bit easier, or at the very lease you were able to discern a pattern, and know how was responsible for a given act. Not that there aren't those that still enjoy the spot light, the Crime League for instance. But their particular idiom is all about being the opposite of the Freedom League, so drawing attention to themselves kind of comes with the territory. Discretion, as you know, has it's uses." "I've never had much difficulty navigating my social circles, usually because there weren't enough people to make a circle. Lot of associates, but not many friends. Something that is a matter of public record as a matter of fact; they cited it in my trial as evidence for declaring me a psychopath. My mother always said 'Your heart can hold secrets and friends, but not both'. Smart woman."

"Well that's the thing; up until now I haven't been much of a traveler. The furthest away from Freedom I've gone is Boston for a conference a few years ago. That's yet another thing I've wanted to change this time around. Before all of this I was the stereotypical corporate stiff that worked far too many overtime hours in the hopes of climbing the corporate ladder. For good or ill, it's a trait I inherited from my own father." he replied after taking a moment to take a few more bites of steak. "While I was in Blackstone, I did raid their library for their books on geology at the suggestion of Dr. Gerald Neiss - may have heard of him, went under the moniker of 'Dr. Quake' and robbed a few banks a couple of years ago, nice guy over all, if you get get past all of the puns. I'm hardly an expert on the subject but I fear I may have developed a fascination with the subject matter when he showed me an Oregon opal with botryoital jasper inclusions. Lot of technical terms in there, but basically it's an otherwise clear rock that appears to have clouds and auroras inside of it. I considered myself to be a smart man but it kind of blew my mind that something like that existed and that I had no idea. Dr. Neiss gave me a listing of some of his preferred locations, most of which are way out west, and I figured I should make my way out there when I have the chance. Maybe send a few pictures and letters back; he's up for parole soon enough, who knows might make a friend through the whole arrangement."

Eric nodded in agreement and was about to speak when something in the corner of the room caught his eye - the waiter bringing out two filet mignon entrees. From the way he was focused on the steak, Natalya would be forgiven for thinking he had just been rescued from wandering the desert for days on end. With his hands on the arms of the chair, Eric looked positively ready to pounce on the waiter. But mercifully they did not have to find out if Eric really would as the waiter was tableside in a mere moment. Eric even managed to say "Thank you." without drooling. Eric unceremoniously picked up his fork and dug in, with the steak being so tender, no knife was required. "Mmmmmhmmm. So good." he said more to himself than anyone else with his mouth half full as he savored the first bite. And you had to admit, it was probably one of the best steaks you've ever had, probably not the best considering Natalya's long life, but a definite front runner. He washed down his first bite with a splash of wine. He held the glass in his hand for a moment, looking at it whistfully. "I first came here on the suggestion of my girlfriend at the time for one of our few dates. She was something connoisseur, and was able to tell me the exact reason why this wine paired so well with this steak. Said reasons I can never remember, so I stick with the chef knows his trade and leave it at that." he said with a smile setting down his glass. "So I'm not going to be in a state to talk shop while this steak is in front of me, so change of topic? What are some of the more interesting places you've traveled to?"

Eric was doing a lot of laughing this evening it seemed, which spoke much about his spirit. "Yes and I do suppose since I'm keeping the paint job, it would be quite likely police would draw the same conclusion with me. So, to wholly legitimate business then?" he said offering up his wine glass for a toast. "On that front I should probably practice some - hrmm, it's not 'monologue-ing' when heroes do it, what's the word? Right 'banter' - for patrols. Not for practical use in the fights - too many explosions for that to be an effective strategy - but more for I suppose identifying one's self as friend or foe. I will also have to update my database for known costumed individuals, it has gone unpatched for too long; also there are now targets I don't want to shoot on sight. Really now as I analyze the logistics of it, being a villain seems to be much easier." continued Eric as he rubbed his chin, his eyes darting side to side as he did the mental math. "You had an objective, observed the target to identify mission parameters, identified and eliminated possible variables and entanglements to maximize mission effectiveness and executed the plan at the apex of probably success. Heroes just kind of get in the way of the bad guys' plans, essentially at random. Well actually maybe they don't. Do heroes have a set patrol pattern, or do they just go where the mood strikes them? Or are there a lot of crimes that happen when you're in your civvies minding your own business?" asked Eric suddenly having a spike in curiosity, half thinking out loud, half asking Talya for input.

"That does seem like it would cause more than a few issues growing up like that. I was rather blessed with a fairly normal childhood." replied Eric as he internally reminisced. "That always did strike me as an oddity with immortals. Staying current with trends as the years pass you by. Most of the older generation can't get a grasp on technology newer than the past decade, and unless my math is wrong, the telegraph was still widely used when you were a child, and now you're talking to a guy with a robot arm that owns a personal flying tank with laser beams... it's been a weird century." said Eric leaning back as he did some mental arithmetic. "Sorry if that came off cold, I meant no offense." he added after he recognized the taste of shoelace. Eric couldn't help but smile back as Natalya's expression lit up when she started talking about the other heroes. "Story for another time perhaps?" he replied in her "more than one glass of wine" stories. "Bounce around on rooftops for a while and see where I fit in huh? Sounds about right. I'd ask you to go on patrol with me one of these times but I think my skill set clashes just a tinsy bit with yours. That and the suit's not quite up to snuff yet."

"Touchy subject the Danger family?" asked Eric tentatively. He wanted to know more, but he figured if there was a place where bad blood could boil, it would be between immortal bloodlines. He didn't want to poke the tiger with a stick at the moment. "I was afraid you might say that. Masks do have a tendency of making it hard to keep tabs on each other when the masks come off. Shame, I liked that guy too." said Eric as Natalya relayed that she didn't know Dark Star's whereabouts. "And yes I figured that the heroes that I might get along best with are the ones I haven't personally shot at. But I was more asking in relation to the circles they ran in. Or does that not really happen all that often? Sorry, but from the "outside perspective" I guess you could call it, when you see a bunch of completely unrelated heroes show up at the scene of a crime in mere moments, one would figure that they knew each other. Or do all just randomly cross paths with strangers in the course of punching bad guys in the face?" asked Eric suddenly quite unsure about the mechanics of crime fighting.

Almilee Paragon v. Paragon has got to be fun to watch.just two people throwing each other through buildings and breaking bridgesEcalsneerg Almilee> One Incursion thread was Paragon vs two Paragons and a BrickAlmilee that sounds both amazing and terrifyingEcalsneerg Although the mechanics of knockback mean stuff tends not to get trashedAs powerhouses and bricks can soak up the massive punches without going flyingGizmo Well, less a brick and more of a...Almilee if my Paragon ever gets made, I want her to go up against an alternate universe version of herself someday, just to see how much they can smash while trying to smash each other.Ecalsneerg DON'T YOU DAREEcalsneerg BAD GIZMOGizmo Rock!

Eric there silently for a moment before replying flatly "I don't know why I was expecting a simple answer." After a sip of wine he added "I was just thinking to myself you must lead an awfully interesting life if heading back to Freedom City is your idea of a return to normalcy; forgot who I was talking to for a second." Of all the things Eric had seen and heard of in his life, immortality was one of the ones that would just leave him flabbergasted. How could one just live forever and never age? How would someone in that position live out their days? Those were questions he desperately wanted to ask, but those aren't exactly "first date" questions so he put a pin in them. "Speaking of coworkers and integrating into society, do you have you heard any grumblings on who I might want to avoid in the coming months? And actually if you could do me one better, do you know what ever happened to Dark Star? He vouched for me after the incident, but no one has seen him in years. I'd like to talk with him if possible."

Eric didn't seem to realize how much his mentioning of Jack of All Blades affected Natalya, instead being more interested in the aroma of the wine that had just arrived. You do notice that he seems to be a little ginger with the wine glass in his metallic hand however. "Yes it should be an interesting ride this one." he replied nodding in agreement. "Phase two is trying to figure out to make this thing ready for the mass market." he said raising his wine laden robotic arm in the air like he was giving a toast. "But one mountain at a time." "Well I feel as if we've talked about me an awful lot so far, so how about you? You kind of fell off the radar for a while there if my sources are correct, and you've only recently returned. Hubris would lead me to believe that it's because you somehow knew about my impending release, but scientifically I believe the real answer is coincidence. So what have you been up to, or is it all the cloak and dagger stuff that never officially happened?"

Bastion Can't Change Their Stripes - 6 IC Posts Census Information Veteran Progress: 63/ 90 (earned with Atlas) Basic Character Slots: PL10 / 150PP: BastionPL10 / 150PP: Animal Man IIPL7 / 105PP:Veteran Rewards: 0 / 1 Spent UnspentRetired Characters: MaximaDynamo // Original DynamoAtlasJesterTempest

When Natalya's glance went to Eric's arm a strange grimace crossed his face for a moment before he just burst out laughing. It took him a few moments to regain his composure alternatively silently shaking with laughter and trying to avoid Natalya's gaze lest he return to the previous state. "You've been hanging out with Jack of All Blades too much. Seriously, everyone I talked to had a "that was actually pretty funny" story." When the topic turned to raising funds, it was Eric's turn for a coy grin. "So, funny story? Before my incarceration, most people know that I was the head researcher for a company called Darts Inc. What they don't know is that I was also the majority shareholder. My outing had a rather detrimental effect on the company's stock price, for that you can thank irrational investors as my true identity and subsequent removal from the hierarchy of the business did little to affect our EBITDA. It did however allow for an independently wealthy, scientifically-minded individual to make a rather cheap acquisition, his name was Dr. Victor Archeville. Now at the time, many of my assets were being being divvied up for restitution and reparation, but the public sector moves rather slowly in this regard, so by the time they figured out the exact amount I owed, the stock I held was essentially worthless. So instead of selling it, it was held in escrow with the remainder of my assets. Darts became Archetech and I became very rich."

When Talya asked him about his objectives Eric suddenly leaned forward and began talking in such an animated fashion, that'd you'd be willing to wager a year's salary that he had just been dying to tell someone. "Okay, so like step one is a new base of operations. I already have most of the layout in my head - I did a semester of architecture in my undergrad so I'm not useless in construction - but after the last one... happened, I believe getting zoning permits is going to be a bit of an issue. So what I'd need is either an investor or some start up capital. So I'm going to be starting up my own business again. And it's not going to be weapons this time, don't worry. I've been sitting on something actually-" he leans in even further and lowers his voice to a whisper. "- hard light technology. I call it Bastion tech." He leaned back in the chair and started talking normally again. "It's actually something I got Archeville to work on years ago. He was able to solve the magenta problem or rather he pointed out the problem and I've been working on solving it since. Right now I've got a working prototype, three guesses to what it's hooked up to and the first two don't count. If I can stabilize the materialization process, boom - game changer. It's like 3D printing to the nth degree. Given enough power I could build anything - okay granted it can't build anything electronic - but walls? roads? bridges? Yeah. If I get this off the ground, I literally build tomorrow's foundation and that will be my legacy."