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OOC thread for this thread. A strange visitor from another planet is here to turn us all into were-jaguars, and it's all Max Mars' fault! @Heritage @Tiffany Korta

GM April 20th, Wednesday, 2022, 11.30AM Guthrie Gallery of Energy Innovations, Freedom City University, Freedom City, USA Adorning the Gallery's entrances were banners inviting readers to "SEE THE FLYING ALIEN PYRAMID!", strategically augmented with "Free food!", "Live music!" and "Meet Max Mars!" Whatever else could be said about him, in this case all those things were true. Inside was an extravaganza of Max Mars' usual levels. The austere and functional layout of the Guthrie Gallery, a rotating exhibition of various energy sources from steam engines to a replica Omegadrone Power Pike, was coated in glitz and excess. On one stage, up-and-coming rock sensation Frank Larrabee sang about the misty forests and mountains of his hometown, Emerald City, and of the unsolved mysteries they hid from wondering eyes. On another, acoustically-isolated from the rock balladeer, metal band Spydor acted out the War of Taranok and Scorvicious, and on a third pop idol Silvia "Silver" Moon and the Moonlites danced through a confrontation with hereditary illness and the stigma against the chronically-ill. The technology making it possible for all three acts to be on at the same time without their performances interfering had its own mini-exhibit, replete with attractive salespersons. Booths pertaining to other recent inventions, including the Phobos V utility-phone, and advertising positions within MarsTech itself, packed the halls. The free food ranged from buffet-style steam trays to onigiri to fresh-baked pretzels, in quantities sufficient to feed even a crowd of university students and guests with families. And in the center, visible from all the arms of the Gallery, was the huge floating, pulsing nightmare of metal and stone that was the alien pyramid. A suite of technicians kept a careful eye on read-outs behind the cordon set up around the pyramid itself, a cordon guarded by smiling and uniformed representatives of Brande Mangement, a company so mysterious that all anyone really knew about it was that it hired superhumans as security personnel. In the shadow of all this, Max Mars, standing proud in his five-nothing frame cloaked in a resplendant red suit, held court and eagerly explained what the strange machine was and its ramifications. The crowd that had gathered filtered in and out, kept up to date everywhere in the Gallery on Max's endless patter through the P.A. system. "This is better than gold, folks! A working alien spacecraft! If you think anti-gravity is for your grandkids, you're in for a shock! With this baby we've picked out planets NASA wouldn't have found for another 80 years, at least! A food replicator, a database of languages we've barely begun to scan, and this ain't even it's full size! Before we dug it up, the people in that Mexican village thought it was just another hill! This is our ticket to the stars, people! Without having to wait until Americatech deigns to grace us with the answers, we'll make our own!" That last hit more of a sour note with the Freedom City crowd than it might have back on the West Coast. But Mars' other words, and the various gizmos around the central hall demonstrating the applications of this alien super-tech, left a much more positive impression. "And best of all!" Max's grin seemed barely able to fit on his red-bearded face, "We've found the space jockey who piloted this thing! He's been trapped inside, for thousands of years, and you'll be here when he says his first words to us! So stick around, folks, enjoy yourslelves, and get ready for an outta-this-world encounter!"

City Hall, Emerald City, Oregon December 3rd, 10.17 AM, 2016 "...so we turn to the man with a plan: Maximilian Mars! Together with our beloved mayor and crusading D.A.! Shall we give them a warm welcome, fellow munchkins?" Fit and fashionable John Nakane needn't have bothered with the suggestion. A roar of applause and hollaring voices greeted a short, smiling and stocky red-haired man dressed in expensive blue simplicity, a care-worn and kindly-looking woman whose quick wave, predominantly green wardrobe and auburn hair marked her as Mayor Amanda Talbot and a thin and stern-looking brunet whose bespectacled officiousness pegged him as District Attorney Stanley Everett. The unlikely trio took to the podium mounted at the end of City Hall's broad front porch, a stubby granite cliff flanked by the slopes leading up to the aggressively modern metal and glass structure from which over 450,000 souls had their fates determined. With a flicker the holo-screens snapped to life, showing the three at gigantic size in crystal-clear resolution across the front of the building. Tilting down the microphones a little to better reach his bearded face, Max Mars grinned boyishly at the congregation. In almost every direction the manicured lawns and gardens held scattered collections, singles or parties of locals, while the geometrically exact white lanes were crowded to the bursting with them, the throng thickest in the broad square right before City Hall. The winter sun was unusually strong today, despite the clouded weather, which fit with today's agenda perfectly. "Hellooo my little people! It's great to see so many of you here today! The public notification did say this was just a sneak peak at the future, and you're the ones who make the future happen!" Waiting for the whoops of approval to die down with a fatherly "aw, shucks" expression, Mars quickly got down to business. "We all pay attention to the news, and we all know the problems facing our world. A lot of them seem too big for anyone, or even everyone to handle. But we didn't get where we are by giving up! You can't cross a thousand miles in one step...well, at least not until our teleporter watches are out in 2018, but until then we take this one step at a time, one day at a time, one problem at a time." Mars took a hard drive out of his pocket "For a start, our wasteful consumer culture. This is a two-terabyte drive, peanuts, right? But look at all the stuff that goes into it, just to make a disposable, near-obsolete pile of junk. Mr. Everett?" The District Attorney stepped forward, rummaging in his pocket and pulling out something that took a second for the sensors to focus properly on it: a tiny thumb drive, grey and russet with the MarsTech logo. "How much space is that again, Stan?" Mars asked with a grin at the audience. "Two hundred and fifty terabytes, Max. Consolidation of city records is already almost complete, and the security is, well..." Everett frowned at the piece of electronics in his hand "...well it's actually almost unbelievable. I have even been keeping personal files on this." "And this is just the first step, folks! Mayor Talbot, you've been looking for material to shore up Red River Dam, correct?" "We all know what happens if it collapses, Max, and frankly I would prefer our fair city not suffer Astoria's fate." The mayor's smile was a little more wry than usual "This the part where we dramatically reveal those slow-growth nanobots?" Mars clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide with betrayal "Mandy! How could you? But yes!" At his nod Talbot held her hand up to the sensors, revealing a tiny pile of concrete visibly alive with activity "Self-repairing structures aren't just Freedom City's thing anymore, folks! And we don't need an Ancient Egyptian cosplayer to do it either! This is all us, Emerald City, we're making this happen together!" This time the cheers, whoops, screams and claps lasted for a good five minutes. Which was no problem. Selective sound-pitching tech meant that the questions from the press, civilians and short statements from the most powerful people in Emerald City carried through loud and clear. In the hustle and press of the crowd, a cheerful-looking young man with a ponytail and a very consistent red/green color scheme accidentally stumbled against a smaller woman. With a yelp of surprise he whirled around, fists half-raised until he saw who she was. "Sorry! Sorry, I wasn't paying attention! You okay? I'm Paris, Paris Redwater." He offered his hand with a chagrined twist on his mouth "I'm here for school, my Comms teacher wanted me to see professional public speakers in action. How about you?" He asked with a raised eyebrow "Here for the city spirit?"

OOC for this thread. Emerald City PCs only, but if you want yours in only say so. Everyone's day gets a little weirder with the city's first-ever local supervillain. And all the people who want her dead. (The title is ironic.)

GM July 5th, Tuesday, 3.45PM, 2016 4027 Tower St., Emerald City, WA, USA Downtown on the Emerald City riverfront was like being in another world. Voices and faces from dozens of other countries filled the streets, the sharp sea breeze lent a salty tang to the smells of streetside vendors selling the cuisine from dozens more and the sleek, pristine skyscrapers rearing above bore the richest names on Earth in at least ten languages. In particular was the soaring crystal-green Emerald Tower, the corporate center of world-famous MarsTech, one of the several new corporations in the super-technology industry and already a household name. The Tower was the hub for its own micro-universe, the eye of a financial, legal and technological hurricane, a block in each cardinal direction devoted to its needs and those of its sky-dwelling inhabitants. Public involvement with superhumans was considered passé, a kind of cheating, so there was little surprise when Prof. Erasmus Bolt was contacted about one of his newest inventions and invited to a meeting with the head of MarsTech, the flamboyant and vibrant plutocract Maximilian Mars. Although he has made a name for himself as someone with the city's best interests at heart, nobody doubts that Mars is chiefly concerned with Number One. For whatever reason, Erasmus had not yet entered the Tower. "Bolt!" A harsh, cold voice hissed from behind him, which turned out to hail from a very dour-looking man cloistered in a pitch-black limosuine, a rarity in downtown Emerald which prides itself on its mass-transit system. The man glared out at Bolt, then up at the Emerald Tower "Come to see Mars, hn? When you're done, come see me. I'm Kessler, Arwin Kessler, KessKorp. Unlike Mars, I won't lie to you. My card." Thrusting his lean hand out with a well-produced rectangle of laminated plastic pinched between thumb and forefinger, Kessler waited with an air of impatience for Bolt to take it.

OOC for this thread. There's some problems with companies...sabotage...insider flummox... @Supercape [X-FILES THEME]