Days of Future Present

[Bobby Drake]

So, I've been bouncing this idea around for a little while, and figure it's time to suggest it to the site.

Background:
1) I'm worried about starting Onslaught as a plot arc with only a few posters; it seems like an arc that requires more activity than people currently have time for.

2) I feel like we've created kinda a big world at this point, which is great, but given how few PCs post regularly we're all sorta rattling around in it.
So I figure it might be interesting to shrink the world temporarily and see what that does.

More specifically, I'm thinking something like the following:

• Somehow or another, a relatively small group (comprising all the active PCs and maybe a handful of NPCs) are kicked twenty years into the future. (One possibility is via Illyana's mutant power.)
  
• The future they end up in is similar to Marvel's "Earth-811" from the "Days of Future Past" series (see en.marveldatabase.com/Earth-811) -- the MRA passed, outright human-mutant war ensued, most "mutant adventurers" were killed or imprisoned, other mutants are forcibly Cured and sterilized, yadda yadda, the remainder are outlaws, actively hunted down by the world's governments, living in hiding.
  
• For some reason (handwave handwave handwave), the folks who travelled forward know/believe they can only return to their home-time as a group -- which makes it necessary for us all to stick together, even if some of the group is BH and some is Institute.
  
• We RP a bunch of adventures in that world... looking for a way back to our own time, looking for allies in 2027, avoiding discovery/arrest/neutralization, trying to figure out what events led up to that future, getting involved in side-adventures, etc.
• One important feature is we're all more or less forced to deal with each other all the time, rather than the current rattling-around we've been doing. Kinda like taking a long vacation with your family. Another important feature is that it's all pretty stressful for the PCs involved... much more dystopic and actively dangerous than the baseline 100mverse.
  
• When this starts to get dull, Illyana manages to find us again and we come back to more or less the same point we left.
  

Let me know if:
a) you want to participate in an arc like that, and
b) you think you'd be able to post at least once every 3-10 days

If enough people want to participate, I'll post a more specific proposed plotline.

If I don't get responses, I'll forget about it.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

I'm in with my two PCs!

Days of Future Past, woohoo!

[Pyro Uni]

Oh. Hell. Yes.

Count John in

[Bobby Drake]

Bob is in.

Warren stays behind, but I will introduce a 41-year-old grizzled-veteran-mutant-rebel Warren as a temporary PC.
( I think it'd be fun to play a war-weary Warren, and also interested to see what it does to the Jorren dynamic. If it gets too goofy, I'll write him off, but the narrative laws of time-travel stories require that he "later" travel into the past for some cockeyed reason once this plot arc is done. )

Rahne is in.
I'm thinking Illyana's power-surge happens during a Brotherhood/Institute fight.
That would force the BH and Institute exiles to work together, letting us do RP combinations that we don't normally get a chance to do. Who knows, Rahne's loyalties might even go up for grabs.

[Bobby Drake]

A handful of plot-brainstorming thoughts (none of these are set in stone, just bouncing ideas around):

• Doug Ramsey gets dragged along (NPC)
  In a nod to comic canon, Doug and Rahne establish a relatively innocent romantic relationship under fire and Doug then gets killed relatively pointlessly and makes everybody sad.
  
  
• Julian Keller gets dragged along (NPC)
  I'm thinking it's helpful to have an arrogant impulsive NPC on the team to get us into trouble, and it takes the pressure off of John to be the obnoxious guy we don't like, and that the Julian/Josh dynamic in this kind of high-stakes setting might be fun.
  Also thinking it might be cool to do a "one of the team is a traitor to the rebellion" thread while we're in the future, and he'd be an obvious suspect.
  Not to mention that he might actually redeem himself.
  
  
• The 20-years-older Reed Richards (hereafter Reed-811) is revealed to be running SHIELD and is responsible for much of the anti-mutant techology (including the synthetic Cure) and is generally considered Enemy Number One among mutants.
  Which of course sets up the question of whether we trust the 100m Reed.
  (He was originally working on synthetic Cure when he discovered MGH, after all.)
  
  
• 100m-Reed gets dragged along (NPC)
  Almost immediately upon our arrival we’re attacked by the government (they have mutant-tracker technology or Hounds or something) and rescued by the mutant rebellion, but the rebels refuse to rescue Reed (see above) and he’s taken prisoner by the government.
  Of course, we have to get him back because we all have to go back together.
  I figure this sets up a bunch of possibilities, including an arc somewhere where we’re not sure which Reed is which. (I figure someone with Reed’s power wouldn’t age too visibly…)
  
  
• If Toni and Matt come along, we could do the "ZOMG Matt is dead!/No he isn’t!" thing in the context of this plot-arc instead of Onslaught... eg, he gets taken out by Sentinels or something, we think he's dead, Toni goes bazonkers, the government interrogates and brainwashes him and then sends him back to infiltrate/attack the Mutant Rebellion.
  
  
• I would love to see both Primer and Laurie come along and having to cooperate.
  ESPECIALLY if Matt was there too to get all protective... the Primer/Matt/Laurie/Toni dynamic could be a all kinds of fun.
  
  

[Laurie Collins]

I'm in with both Primer and Laurie, this sounds awesome!

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Just throwing this out to add to the plot stuff. I'm planning on Josh kicking the bucket sometime between the present and the 'Days of Future Past' period. Probably trying to protect kids at the Institute from Sentinels, etc... and plus, 18 year old Josh meeting 40-something Warren would just be too awesome to pass up.

I'm not sure about Ororo yet. I had the idea that she could have gotten brain-damaged in combat, or tortured into insanity, so the resistance kind of keeps her around still because she'd totally die out in the fighting. She's mostly not helpful, and thinks that it's 2007. If anyone ever saw 'Reboot'... it's kind of like Fong after Bob got nullified. Wow, dating myself there...

Where does anyone else see their characters? Alive? Dead? Good? Bad? Gray area?

[Jack Russell]

Count Jackie in! And his beastly other half too if situation should call for it. Heh. (Willing to put money on that his future self would be dead. Or maimed. Or rabid and drooly-like.)

You know Roger's all in, too, or a 20-year-older version of himself which would be EXTREMELY interesting. xDD He'd.. well.. be himself, just.. older, and with quirky new power additions--like emotion tweaking, which he is supposed to have later anyway.

[Bobby Drake]

So, maybe the way the 811-timeline works is something like the following:

• In 2009 or so, something really bad -- like, thousands dead, millions injured, property damage in the billions level bad -- gets blamed on mutants.
  It doesn't really matter what, or whether mutants were even responsible. Maybe Emma Frost finally rebuilds her stolen Cerebro but due to a programming error causes half the population of Manhattan to become homicidal. Maybe Phoenix comes back from the dead and turns New Jersey into shredded wheat. Maybe Avalanche accidentally drops California into the ocean.
  
  
• This catalyzes a worldwide anti-mutant hysteria. The Mutant Registration Act passes and mutants around the world are herded back into camps on the slightest excuse. The ranks of the Brotherhood swell, and hundreds of copycat groups start up worldwide.
  
  
• In 2011, the UN declares a worldwide War on Mutant Terrorism, which is generally seen as a War on Mutants.
  
  
• Nick Fury is replaced as head of SHIELD by Jean-Claude Ancher, who is far more anti-mutant. Reed Richards returns to his original synthetic-Cure research and is successful. Henry McCoy loses his political appointments and, after a couple of unsuccessful assassination attempts, becomes a recluse.
  
  
• By 2013, small but powerful mutant armies are actively at war with most nations. The Institute is destroyed. The X-Men continue to operate as a SHIELD-allied mutant anti-terrorist group, but are increasingly seen by mutants as traitors and by baseline humans as untrustworthy.
  
  
• As the government's actions become more extreme, the X-Men become disaffected. One by one they quit and are replaced by mutant and MGH-mutate soldiers of proven loyalty. In some cases, the X-Men are forced to assist in chasing down and forcibly Curing their former members, though often covertly allowing them to escape instead.
  
  
• By 2015, the only remaining "original" X-Men are Impulse, Angel, and Iceman. Then Impulse is killed in a military action, apparently by friendly fire. Warren quits in grief/shock/disgust, and later ends up joining the Brotherhood.
  
  
• By 2027, the mutants have lost the war. The last few isolated pockets of mutant rebels (still known as the Brotherhood) are in hiding, being systematically neutralized by SHIELD troops. Infants are systematically tested for the X-gene and forced to take the Cure before their powers even manifest; the few remaining "official" mutants, including Colonel Robert Drake (aka Iceman), are under strict SHIELD supervision. The civilian world has generally relaxed, considering the war won.

So when the 100m-exiles arrive, they're attacked by SHIELD (who assume they are just another bunch of rebels) and rescued by 811-Warren's branch of the Brotherhood of Mutants. 811-Warren recognizes them as the youthful versions of people he knew, especially Josh (who is dead!) and Bob (the enemy) and WTF!??!

And we take it from there.

[Matthew Craft]

*Toni shoves Matty over and starts typing*

So I'm just toooooo lazy to log into my own account, because it's my birthday and all and I've eaten waaaay too much cake and sweets to function properly.

But yes, future? Hell yeah! *whips out notebook to write down names of all major corporations in the future that are just 2 man operations in the present so that she can invest and make a gazillion dollars*

Oh, and count Matty in too. Might as well drag him along, especially if we get to see what the warflower kids look like.

[Matthew Craft]

Oh hoho! I was just chatting with Roger/Jack/Arthur and totally came up with some awesome ways to incorporate Toni. Heh...

So Toni and Matty both get hurled forward.

Run into Future Toni! Who's all like "Rawr! Mutant rebellion ftw!" Either that or a brainwashed agent for the evil dudes. That'd be fun.

Anyways, they find out that Jack and Toni had kiddies at one point. Or...at least Jack finds out, cause it'd be funnier of the real Toni didn't know. They get to meet the kiddies!

But yeah, Dead-future-Matty would be an interesting twist. It could be an awesome set-up for Onslaught, what with the Matty-go-boom thing, since naturally that'd be how the future-matty went. Could be to buy time for the rebellion to get the hell out of dodge or what have you. It'd be key in convincing the others during Onslaught that Matty really is dead after the whole booming thing.

Anyways, just some thoughts. And now I know how to spend my time while I anxiously await my Xbox 360, Halo 3, and Bioshock, which won't be around until like next week

[Laurie Collins]

Histories for my characters-
Laurie: After graduating from the Institute she starts college but gets expelled during her freshman year when the university realizes she's a mutant. With her name on "the list" and the world becoming increasingly hostile her choices seem to be joining some sort of mutant group or going into hiding and, at her mother's urging, she chooses the second and effectively loses touch with everyone by 2012. In 2013, after the Institute is destroyed, she's discovered and while she manages to escape her mother is killed resisting arrest for harboring a mutant. This leaves her pretty much stranded with no way to get a mainstream job/life or much of an idea of how to find old friends she can trust and she ends up peddling her mutation- for a fee she'll make you feel however you want which is really what drugs and prostitutes are trying to get at anyway. She keeps an ear out for any news of people she knows, but the first word she gets is that Matthew and Josh are dead and Bob seems to have gone over to the dark side, so she just keeps on with her mutation prostitution gig, living with more conventional whores and pretty much giving up on anything else. We could run into her at any point or not, whatever

Primer: Less depressing more succinct. He sees the way things are going and, not being a moron or caring all that much about anyone else, fakes his death and gets the hell out of dodge. He can currently be found on some small island somewhere bribing the authorities and laughing at dystopia. Everyone thinks he's dead, we probably won't run into him. Real!Primer however probably recognizes that his future-self's death was faked and walks around smirking knowingly and annoyingly.

Other things: I was planning on having Laurie do a bit of growing up during Onslaught in terms of not relying on other people so very much anymore so at some point she might get cut off from the group and have to work her own way back to them. Not sure how that would work out RPing-wise but I'll think of something.

Who can tell I really don't want to write my paper? *laughs*

[Rogue]

Oooh, neat. Roguey's in.

Will have to think on the future!Roguey a bit, though, heee. Many ways that could go. ^_^

[Warren Worthington III]

Current-time folks being pushed forward:
(PCs) John, Bob, Josh, Ororo, Rahne, Primer, Laurie, Jack, Matt, Toni, Rogue, Chris
(NPCs) Doug, Julian

Possible plot/interaction threads:

• Doug/Rahne romance & Doug’s death
  
• Primer/Laurie family reunion dynamics (plus Matt, Toni, 811-Toni, and 811-Laurie)
  
• 100m-Josh and 811-Warren relationship dynamics
  
• “someone’s a traitor”
  
• Dealing with 811-Bob
  
• Laurie’s rite of passage (this should totally involve meeting her older self)
  

(( Current as of 9/28 ))

[Warren Worthington III]

I'm thinking we can kick this off once we're finished with "Shattered."

My setup suggestion, short and sweet:

• Primer takes Rahne (tracker) and Plan B (escape vehicle) into the Institute to kidnap Gail Collins. They get spotted, alarm goes off.
  
• John, Bob, Josh, Ororo, Laurie, Jack, Matt, Doug, Julian, Toni, Illyana and Rogue all come tearing in. (not all of them have to pose)
  
• Illyana uses her power to teleport Gail to safety just as plan B tries to teleport the BH and Gail back to HQ and oops! They crossed the streams!
  
• Earthshattering kaboom and everyone except Gail and Illyana gets flung 20 years into the future.
  
• When we're done, we all return to the exact same spot... but my guess is we won't actually want to finish the fight then.
  (We could even give this whole arc a happy ending if we wanted, by immediately rushing off to stop whatever the event was that started the whole mess.)
  

A few thoughts that might make the timing of this more fun, at the cost of playing around with some timing:
1) Have this be simultaneous with Down in Flames... that is, push that conversation up to the present, and have it interrupted exactly where it is by the alarm going off, leaving John and Rogue still together but in mid-breakup.

2) Have this be perhaps the day after Shattered, possibly later the same evening, such that Bob is still stuck in ice-form and shattered. 811-Warren remembers Bobby being shattered like that 20 years ago but doesn't remember how he fixed it.

3) Have this be simultaneous with The Loneliest Number where Storm is about to lose patience with Jake and make a move and then the alarm goes off.