The hour grows dark, and a nervous Zero thumbs through it's mail. It finds a letter from one of it's various TV associates. The envelop says "You've got to read this!"



Zero laughs a deep, uproarious laugh. It's the type one may make when they are scared as all hell. It's a welcomed sound, but then the Doctor catches itself. Quantum was weird. What if a latter Zero was going back in time, playing cosmic pranks on this scale? It wrote some of the faked documents, but some of these where not its' work. Are they fabricated by delusional or amoral cultists? Is it a cruel scam done in Zero's name? Or was it, bizarrely, real?!

"Oh, Quantum! You little scamp of a science, you! Only you could make a person seriously debate if he's been time traveling or not. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha...!"

Bogota

... I'm trapped in this roach-motel built sometime during the lifetime of Simón Bolívar and sneaking these essays back to my publisher through the fillings in my teeth, so I damn well better get paid for this shit.  This is the end of the snort trail, my vision quest for the golden lion depositing me on these verdant mountains amidst the biggest military operation of the past thirty years.  It's the Fourth Reich outside, too, all storm troopers and ubermensch demanding calm and promising security to the greatest people the planet's ever seen.  When I snuck into the country the meat lines and other hallmarks of a mobilized state were already in force, and they've only gotten worse since Pax's toy soldiers and the finest men and women to ever serve in the Armed Forces of the United States began their long march through the jungle.  I'm given to understand that the UN and the rest of the world ponied up some guns of their own to bring to the fight, though I'm not surprised given the crap that's on the line.

It's well known, of course, that I am a psychic myself with a long track record of prognostication, so I'm going to tell you how all of this is going to play out.  A lot of people are going to be thrown into a meat-grinder and spilled all over the jungle floor.  A lot of quality drugs will be burned.  A lot of heart-breaking documentaries will be made.  I think there's even a few buildings full of neat things that will be dug up to the shock and astonishment of the world.  Five years from now, a broken and bitter Colombian population will look back on the most prosperous and powerful time in their short little history and, with a twinkle of pride, tell themselves that the purges and totalitarianism, the back-breaking bullshit and genetic selection and drugs and experiments wasn't all that bad.  They'll look on the metric tons of cash poured down on them from on high and turn their noses up in disgust.  They'll firebomb McDonalds for being too American.  And not a god-damn politician in the world will pretend to understand why they're so ungrateful.

Because at the end of the day, this war isn't going to have a winner or a loser.  It will just have a pile of dead and a pile of bills, a few flimsy promises and a lot of great footage of Novas killing and dying for N! and the other feedsites.  You're all to fucking stupid to care, too, so when the banner adds and merchandising comes your way you'll fork over your twenties and wonder what Solitaire and Impetus and Pax and the Medellin felt and did.  But you won't listen to a damn word of what they say, because you'd rather have some gene-spliced shiteater digest it for you first.  Too goddamn hard to think about the thousands of women and children as people and it's so comforting to make them a statistic.  You want your heroes in matched spandex and your reality sterilized so you won't have to deal with a little ugliness.

I hate it here.

[ Dr. Rollo sent a follow up piece to meet his publishers demands, but it simply consisted of an expletive repeated 1,000 times. ]

Calipur, M. (2006). Drugs in the nova age. In T. Robertson (Eds.), A parent's primer on substance abuse (216-243). New York, NY: Dover.

Excerpt:

Of the many results of the recent Columbian Conflict, few would have predicted that one of the most enduring would be the introduction of designer drugs into society.  Theories abound as to the how these drugs hit the streets.  Many blame rogue cartel members, international crime syndicates, and rogue novas, while the more paranoid whisper about attacks by the Columbian government, via drugs, on social order, or even that such drugs are being pushed by major governments as an experiment in combating nova abilities.  But ultimately, the origin of these drugs, and the politics surrounding it, is irrelevant to the friends and family of the addict, those that must endure the aberrant behavior and strange side effects that the drugs have on those they love most.

Empathy
This drug comes directly from the Columbian conflict, and popularized the use of nova-derived drugs throughout the world.  The ironically named empathy was developed as a method to deaden the emotions of soldiers, turning a normal soldier into a sociopathic killer, and calming the nerves of soldiers on the front lines faced with the dangers of combat.  After the effect wears off (duration dependent on dosage), the user is then subject to an enhanced sense of emotionality and camaraderie as the brain overcompensates for the blocked emotions.  This drug found it's way into use by the criminal element via Columbian drug runners, who found it all too helpful in steadying their nerves for criminal activities, or indoctrinating new members.  Since then, it has steadily grown in popularity, both with the criminal element, and strangely, within many corporate settings.  Many corporate managers see the ability to "go for the kill" without remorse, and the team building camaraderie that comes after, as a highly valuable tool to getting the edge over competition, and covertly encourage use of the drug.  It is also popular amongst right-wing conspiracy theorists, who claim that it will "protect them from nova mind-control" despite lacking any evidence supporting their claim, or even the existence of nova mind-control for that matter.
Side-effects: Long term users have disregulated emotions, there is limited evidence linking use to higher rates of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.  Relationships of the user are often in rapid flux, as even when off the drug, users may experience periods of deadened emotions followed by periods of extreme intensity.  While Empathy isn't addictive in the traditional sense (it does not have an immediate high) users often become psychologically addicted, coming to depend on it for difficult situations, and to enhance emotionality in social situations.

Mite
Supposedly, this drug has a steroid-like effect on novas, but in normal human users this drug has far more pronounced effects, leading to vastly increased muscle development.  Though the ease of muscle development makes it a popular, though expensive, steroid alternative for bodybuilders, it is also a highly addictive drug in it's own right.  Users experience extreme pleasure moments after the drug is injected, and elation that lasts for hours after.
Side-effects: The human body was never meant to handle the kind of muscle growth allowed by this drug.  Anecdotal evidence (more rigorous scientific studies are unavailable due to the short time that these new drugs have been available) shows that users may experience skeletal problems such as shattered bones or spinal warping, and several cases of cardiac arrest (heart attack) have been reported in connection with the drug.  Varying emotional side effects have been reported, ranging from increased mood swings and aggression similar to those seen in steroid users, to a dreamy euphoric quality, or even severe depression.

Red 7
This substance has seen perhaps the most street use of any nova-age drug other than Empathy.  Rumored to have initially been designed for military use, this drug began seeing street use as early as 2004.  It temporarily enhances the physical abilties, and aggression of users, while providing a feeling of invulnerability to the user and a disconnect with the consequences of their actions.  While Red 7 is considered the prototypical drug of its type, several derivatives and variants exist on the market.  Popular alternatives include Red XXX (popularized for its enhancement of sexual performance and experience), Red Angel (base effects of Red, with feelings of euphoria and altered perception), and Red 21 (with a lesser, but longer lasting, high).
Side-Effects: Red is both highly addictive, and dangerous.  Aside from the dangers associated with the altered mental state caused by the drug (heightened aggression and risk taking), long term users run a very real risk of death due to hormone imbalance and increased stress on the heart, kidneys, and liver.

Soma
This drug, purported to impart Nova abilities on the user, is almost certainly a myth.  While there is no evidence that such a drug exists, it does not however stop countless young people from being drawn into drug use.  Often, Mite or Red-variants are sold under the label of Soma, as they give the appearance of heightened, or even superhuman, physical abilities.  By the time they now the difference (if they ever do realize it), the user is so addicted to the drug that they are willing to take it despite its not actually being Soma.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:06, Mon 16 Aug 2010.

... just in, fighting has escalated in Colombia with the detonation of what appears to be a nuclear device.  Footage is still coming in.  At this time it is uncertain if ...

---

Everyone's eyes were fixed on the television and its pronouncement of the unthinkable.  Reactions were mixed.  The busboy was near to tears, having hoofed it out of South America from the look of him.  Wait staff kept the drinks coming.  Customers kept ordering, a sort of desperation creeping in, the vision of the mushroom cloud and burning jungle staining their memories.  I ordered Laphroaig.  I couldn't blame them.

"Jesus Christ.  They really did it."  Man at the bar looks to be in the middle of a midlife crisis.  "Have to invade now.  Fucking wetbacks."

Nice.  Real nice.  Busboy gives him a look, but he has tattoos too; maybe he was a cartel member?  Must remember to investigate further.

"Bet it was some aberrant.  Mutant freak with nuclear vision or worse."  Unspoken but painfully obvious is the corollary: they scare me.

We're all getting antsy.  Footage keeps streaming in, and the local media isn't helping much since it keeps telling people not to panic.  That's the worst possible thing to tell people: don't panic.  I have never met a person that didn't get more antsy when told not to panic.  The fact that Internet and Op Feeds were awash with bomb threats and paranoid sightings of a 'fifth column' ready to retaliate against the US was icing on the panic cake.

"You know I heard that the Arabs are starting to execute aberrants whenever they find them.  In Saudi Arabia, you know?  Some Muslim thing.  Maybe they know something we don't.  He's pretty buzzed, but the loudmouth has a lot of the crowd nodding quietly to themselves.  No one knows how far this will go.

There's a lull in talking as footage of Caestus Pax saving the day hits the news.  This gets some applause.  It's nice to see miracles happen, and even better when the man doing it is a Real American Hero.  "Alright, that's our boy!" someone shouts.  There's cheering.  Watching Pax get incinerated is pretty swell.  Naturally, the footage cuts out before its clear if Pax is dead or not.

At this point, the talking heads take over the TV again.  "Good thing Nellis is just down the road."  He thinks the US Military will protect him.  Funny.  The news is being very tight lipped about whether or not anyone from T2M was hit by the explosion.  Maybe they don't know. But then I've never had much of a knack reading people through the TV.

"You know ... this is our fault."  Loudmouth's buzz is getting the better of him.  "We're too tolerant of these freaks.  Let them get everywhere.  My son, he's got it in his head that he's going to be a damn aberrant.  Wants laser vision."  Sarcasm.  Does he hit his son too or just stick with belittling him?

"Colombians supposedly put all their novas to work for the state.  That's how they got so tough so fast."

"Yeah.  I used to know a marine who erupted.  First chance he got, he bailed and sold-out."  Oh, I don't like that face.  He does another shot.  "Least he got what was coming to him."

"Could use a few more nova marines out there right now."  Mid-life crisis.  Definitely.  He's touching his wedding band.  "You think they can win this one without nukes?"

"What's the point?"  The bastard giggles to himself, leaning heavily on the bar.  "Make a big glass parking lot out of it all.  Maybe send a message.  'Freaks get out'.  We can spell it in big old craters."

Mid-life crisis laughs.  "Warn two groups at once."  Each of these two are tacitly elected by the crowd to speak for them.  To save other people from voicing their fears or prejudices.  Maybe if I was on the Strip there would be a more pro-nova crowd, but here there's as much fear as awe.  "You've got a point, brother.  My wife, she's always at the TV anytime that fucking Impetus is on.  Even unmutes the commercials."

"Yeah.  I know that feeling."  The news is showing police forces in Peru trying to round up some saboteurs and terrorists.  "Love to wipe that smug look right off of his face."  Impetus has a kind of magic on people, but one out of a hundred ends up like this.  Angry and violent.  I think it's more like unrequited love turned to jealousy than anything else.  "I'll tell you this: any of those freaks try to start running our government, take what's ours, push me around, I'll show them a thing or two."

I have a sudden premonition.  Now that the talking heads are saying this will go down in history and speculating whether this will lead to larger wars, the honeymoon is over.  Suddenly I'm interested, and instead of just enjoying my scotch I'm thinking about how long it will be before these two decide to take their frustrations out on some easy targets.  And as I'm looking around the bar, I realize they aren't the only ones.  At least half the people there are so wound up from seeing the mushroom cloud that they would believe or do anything just to make the fear go away.  Maybe the other half have faith in Pax or Utopia or the US Military to keep them safe.

Suddenly, I'm interested.  And I feel like there's something I ought to do about it.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:27, Fri 24 Dec 2010.

"Hun!  You're going to be late for school!"

That's my voice.  I don't hear my voice very often, thanks to my job, so it surprises me sometimes.  My daughter is less impressed by it.  I wish I knew how to get through to her.  "Did you finish your homework last night?"

"Drop dead."

I have become a character from an '80's movie.  I am the enemy.  The uncool.  Figures.

"I want to see your report card when it comes in."  We pile into the car, and I'm trying to work up to the hard subject.  After a minute of her ignoring me to text on her phone, I cut to the chase.  "Honey, I don't want you to worry about the bombs, okay?  I promise you we'll be safe."

"What are you talking about?"  She hasn't stopped texting.  I try to summarize the fighting in South America when she interrupts me.  "Look, I so don't care about politics and stuff.  Narcosis is in town, so my friends and I are getting together after class and ... can I have forty bucks?  Emergency cab fare if the whole thing gets like really weird."

I've miscalculated.  While I've been away and working, my daughter has kept growing.  And now some part of her education is just ... gone.  She's wearing her Phantasm-brand clothes, a MALicious shirt and listens to the latest NoVox, but I don't think she could tell me where Colombia even is.  As long as the war isn't here, it never crosses her mind.  I find her some money and keep silent the rest of the drive.  She doesn't mind.

It's when we arrive that she finally shows some signs of life.  There's fundies protesting right across from the school, Michaelists with signs decrying the nova, the demon-wearing human flesh, and all those children who 'worship' at the Nova's unholy temple.  They have some kind of rude chant going too.  The police are already on their way, but the damage is already done.  "Oh my god," my daughter murmurs in outrage.  "Why?  What's their problem?"  She's traumatized.  Her first brush with real prejudice and she's one of the targets.

"Just ignore them honey.  And try to have a good day at school."  She doesn't even bother to respond.  She just gets out and heads over to yell back at the protesters.

The bombs might not have found her, but the war has.  I don't think I'm going into work today.  It's about time I got back to my little side project.

I really am having second thoughts about this.

In one sense, this is exactly what has to happen.  I'm a big believer in symbolic acts: Christ on the cross, Socrates' suicide, those little rituals that go into joining the mob or coming of age, they all have a sort of meaning beyond themselves.  They stand for something bigger.  So I'm committed and ready to make this happen.  It's just really hard to take that last step and go through with it.

There's a knock at the door, and my heart jumps into my throat because no one was supposed to show up while I was working on this.  But I'm quiet, and soon whoever it was has given up and wandered away.  "Guess it's not your lucky day."

The two Michaelists I've got tied up glare back at me.  If they knew what was coming next, they'd be even less happy.

Right now I'm digging through their e-mail server and finding a lot of hate.  I'm also finding signs that they're funded through entirely legal donations.  I'm not happy.  My daughter's at her friend's house so I could go ahead and do this, and I want it to be worth something.  Maybe I'm just not cut out for this.

In fact, one of the two has managed to get the tape off of his mouth.  "Your only hope of salvation is acceptance of our truth!  God will not soften his heart to you or your sin!"  He's really struggling too.  I really don't know what to do.

Suddenly my side's on fire and I'm on the ground.  It's not real damage, but it really shocks me, especially since I heard it coming but just didn't think it through.  The guy who was knocking on the door is advancing on me with the shotgun, having shot his way through the window to get me.  "Bill!  Bill you alright?!"  He fires on me again when he sees me move, but just hits furniture.  I shouldn't be surprised: it's the guy from the bar.  "Come on!  Get some!  You think I haven't killed one of you freaks before?  Fucking aberrant!  Come on, get some!"

I peak out.  He's emptied the shotgun all around me, but he takes another shot at me with some kind of huge handgun.  He's getting his friend free.  It's all going wrong, and I know I can do this, that I should do this.  It's just hard.

Crap.

I wanted to do this without quantum.  Without violence.  Without validating their bullshit ideology.  But I'm out of options, and something ought to be done.  When I step out again, the fight is over awfully quick.  There's blood and a lot of damage, and I'm just running so I don't get caught because there are some people peaking out to see what the hell is going on, but after a minute I'm back in my element and I'm gone.  I don't think anyone's following me, and I've got their hard-drive in my hands.

I guess my decision's made now.  The War's on.

... one dead.  The two injured men have told police that their attacker was a nova, but the investigation is still proceeding at this time.  If you have any information regarding the attack, please call Nevada Crime Stoppers ...

---

That could have gone better.

Right now, instead of sitting at work I'm tracking a nova.  I don't know their name, but I've seen them on the web before.  They haven't noticed me.  And that's alright, because I'm not actually interested in them.  I'm interested in whoever might be interested in them.  Just a little research and patrol.

In the media, this one's a draw.  I made a mess, but they're caught firing wildly with longarms and an unregistered handgun.  I anonymously handed the hard-drive over to a journalist who's now trying to explain to how he got in possession of it.  I'm just hoping the police use whatever is on it to put a stop to the worst of this crap.  Whatever I've become, I would prefer to just live my life.  And I'm sure there are others like me out there.  Everyone's a little timid to paint a nova as a villain right now.

The nova's heading to the Archon, like so many of them do, and before I run into Mr. Shield I break away.  They'll never know they had an escort, I hope, and that's just the way it ought to be.  I'm trying to judge just how far to take all this, whether I want to match blood for blood or just play the vigilante when I have some spare time.  It really tells me something more about myself, just how much all of this suddenly means to me.  I don't even feel bad killing a man.  To say he had it coming is to miss the point: he was a threat, a danger to himself and everyone around him.  It shouldn't have come to it, but I refuse to feel guilty that it did.

I started reading the Null Manifesto last night.  I'm not buying it, at least not totally, but this Divis Mal -- I guess that's what my daughter's T-Shirt is about -- makes some good points.  Las Vegas used to be a different place, but it's always been violent.  Usually the violence is covered up beneath some class and bright lights, but even when I moved here there were still problems.  What am I going to do if it gets worse?  I could move, but I don't think that will make it any easier for my kid.  I decided a long time ago that using my quantum for profit would only single me out, ruin any chance I had at regular life, so I know as well as anyone that the laws just aren't built to handle people like me.  Maybe we are set apart from society.

What I do know is that it feels good to do something.  And if things escalate, this city might just see a lot more of me.

The Columbian Conflict profoundly impacted the world, a world already realing from the introduction of Novas and the globalization of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.  What happens after Columbia?

Politics:
In the wake of Columbia (now occupied by a UN task force responsible for sorting out the mess and restructuring the country), the world is a mess.  Novas are a greater commodity, and threat, than ever before.  The Directive gets a huge boost in support, as the untrusting baselines want information and options regarding novas from an independent and reputable HUMAN source.

Small governments see Columbia as both a warning and an opportunity.  Harnessing novas becomes the way to move from 3rd world to first world in a matter of months... Or to help an elite few enjoy 1st world benefits anyway.  As for major governments, the US, EU, China, and Japan all take center stage over the next decade, but all have widely divergent views on how to move forward.

The US implements its own Nova Registration Act and monitors novas heavily; anti-nova sentiment runs wild, and the US removes the blanket authority it gave to Utopia early on. Oddly, despite the level of rabid mistrust, novas are still immensely popular in the US, perhaps more so than in any other country, and conquer pop culture almost completely.  Several novas even take up political careers, with one being elected to the senate. The supreme court and congress begin the long process of adapting the law to novas. Government organizations begin heavily recruiting novas, and pressuring newly errupted novas to move away from Utopia affiliation.

China encourages its citizens to recognize novas as just another part of the citizenry, with responsibilities comensurate with their power.  China had little patience with Utopia from the beginning, and now takes back the majority of the power it had given to Utopia.  China begins a new push toward growth and progress, with novas spearheading the effort and coordinating with baselines in an unprecidented manner.  Despite the country's questionable human rights policies, it becomes one of the best examples of nova-baseline integration and how to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the nova age.  Over the course of the decade, china is a leading nation in quality of life, wealth, and education, though that success and contentment lead to a break down of some of the ethics and government policies that allowed china to succeed in the first place.

Japan builds on its position as a lead technology manufacturer and cultural hub.  It pulls in incredible amounts of wealth from an unending stream of high-tech devices, software, and entertainment.  New modes of display combined with new graphic and music design techniques, make Japanese entertainment and music an actual challenger to hollywood's supremacy in the entertainment sphere.  Tokyo becomes a hub of nova influenced pop culture.  Japan maintains ties with Utopia and welcomes their training, even as it privately develops its own nova training facilities, and works on the keys to unlocking the nova potential in others.

The EU supports Utopia, and grows increasingly supportive of UN activity.  Many in other parts of the world even see the EU and UN as synonomous.  The EU utilizes novas to solve many of its problems, reduce defense budgets, and increase cohesion in its member states by increasing quality of living and implementing standardized production standards.  Utopia, with power reduced in many places, is glad for the support and still works to forward its goals of a better world, albeit in a smaller sphere.  EU countries are largely opposed to America politically, even as cultural exchange continues unabated.

Utopia, a world power in its own right, continues operations in Africa, Australia, and the Middle East.  While it does continue activities in the West and East, it is capable of less direct intervention due to various government hostilities and government programs.  Despite such setbacks however, Utopia remains highly active in politics and hopes to one day create the glowing future that is its namesake.

Criminal Activity:
The Columbian Cartels are well and truly gone, but several individuals are still on the loose, including a few of the leaders.  They proceed to weave themselves into other societies and grow new organizations, though with a much lower profile than their previous endeavors.  The Columbian Cartel survivors are highly sought after as consultants by many small governments, criminal organizations, and would-be generals.  Their knowledge of nova crime tactics, ability in managing large-scale operations, and proven skill using a small organization to effect the larger world all make them incredibly useful.  And they supposedly have the secret to creating novas, which is currently the most desired information in the world.

Over all criminal activity goes into something of a lull, at least overtly.  Organized crime becomes far more subtle, and holds its breath hoping for the scrutiny of the world to pass it by.  This new subtlety, combined with technological and societal change progressing far faster than the law and law enforcement can keep up, leads to the formation of very powerful and profitable  crime syndicates however.  The Asian and Russian maffias grow vastly in power and influence, while individual criminals make fortune and fame exploiting rapidly changing society.

Drugs remain a major factor in criminal activity, though new drugs now vie for control of the market.  Alongside perenials such as heroin and meth, new nova-synthesized drugs are available, along with the dangerous drugs that were first produced during the columbian conflict.  Added to the mix, rumors abound of columbian-made Eruption injections, magical cocktails that can turn one into a nova so long as one has the money to pay.

Technology:
Technology growth is too rapid and broad to describe.  The slow, planned release of tech by major companies disappears, replaced by incredible leaps in technology in virtually every field.  The tech field is the new wild west, where independent creators, mega-corps, and new start ups vie for consumers and their pocketbooks.  Any number of incredible inventions are available at exorbitant rates, but the true challenge is finding products that will stick to the market and around which society will reshape itself.

Space technology is one such arena of tech growth.  With the wonders of the nova age, people begin to look once more to the stars.  While governments seek new conquests and new resources, many individuals long for adventure and new frontiers to cross, a way to perhaps equal the exploits of the novas around them.  Nova space explorers and new technologies meet the needs of both, and within the decade moon colonization and longer manned spaceflights to the mars and beyond become realities.

Nova Groups:
Teras - Grows in popularity amongst novas and baselines alike.  Due to their showy intervention in Columbia, the organization gains a great many allies in the nova community, and impressed the world as a whole.  While thier actions made them a rather threatening presence to most governements, the public sees them as heroes.  Their popularity is ironically disturbing to the Pantheon however, due to the watering down of philosophy and the difficulty it presents in moving novas further away from humanity to explore their own evolution.

Aberrants - A growing portion of the nova community finds Utopia and its efforts distasteful or even counterproductive in light of the events in Columbia.  After paranoid revelations later that year of the once popular Slider, and her strange implication in the murder of a popular nova soccer player turned T2M war hero, these dissafected novas grow suspicious of Utopia and band together. They work at unraveling the mysterious organization, as well as to find a way for novas to navigate the confusing new world without utopian paternalism or nova based philosophy-religions.

The Host of Eternity - The religious movement gains greater followings, especially in India, Africa and the western and midwestern US.  As the world's nova population swells, many are drawn to the church and its themes placing novas as angelic beings in service to a greater god.  The church presents many religious young novas with an alternative to Utopia, one that meshes better with their views of the world.  The church works to improve the world, "fight evil", and build its membership.  Its enemies (of which it has many) suggest that it is a large cult that has far too much power, one that will eventually try to purge the "unclean" from the earth to create its own variety of paradise.

XWF - Increases profoundly in popularity after Columbia.  Fights are staged on a grand scale, and veterans of both the EqW and Columbia are recruited for special matches with the lure of unthinkable sums of money.

They keep dragging me back.  My disappearing act couldn't last.

Our election is over, and we can all hail our new president: Albert Brown, Democrat, Mississippi, carpetbagger.  But in his first months in office, Brown's already taking some real crap in the media and not even from me.  It's worth a review, and I'm rocking a twelve hour buzz so let's get started.

He's a lawyer-turned state representative, and like most lawyers he's a certifiable creeper.  Follow these breadcrumbs (Link, Link, and Link) and see.  The biggest offense here is his extra-ordinary fixation with blonds, but second to that is the obsequious relationship with the military.  Weapons have brought jobs to his constituents, and he's never met a missile or advanced warplane that didn't get him hot.  The combination of the two is probably what pushed his popularity through the roof, since it bolstered him in demographics usually dominated by the Right.

But the real road to the White House for Brown was paved through his Connecticut family and friends.  Like all carpetbaggers, he's a transplant who saw opportunity and took it.  Everything about him is fraudulent, not the least of which his military record (link) and his hair (link).  His destiny was set before he was twenty five, and the word nepotism isn't strong enough to describe the degree to which the American elections have been rigged with these transplant vat-babies.

This only makes it all the better that the media is convinced Brown is pulling a bait and switch with American voters.  He was pretty explicit about his intentions to build stronger relationships with Project Utopia, even at the expense of entangling American foreign policy.  And he was pretty explicit about stomping on state's rights by overhauling American education with new Federal standards.  Acting surprised that Brown's charm gives way to a reformist, imposing leftist agenda won't save you now, public.

Maybe, just maybe this relationship will show dividends in time for reelection, with new technology making new jobs for American voters.  But he's jeopardizing that angle of things by playing hide-and-seek with Utopia's finest.  It's understandable, after all: part of Lauren Pendleton's platform was distrust of Nova "sphinxes", and while America's still crazed for Impetus, the Impetus can't seem to get the president away from his advisors and the Secret Service.

The paranoia is making Aberrant politics the rule in America.  China's ruling party, finally emerging from media blackouts and well-concealed post-N-Day violence, has asserted humanity's dominance and banned Novas from advancing to the highest echelons of power.  Europe and Russia have the Directorate's cloak and dagger protection to check the excesses of Nova politicians.  The Middle East is in the same boat, albeit with religious extremists handling the policing.  It's too early to tell how post-Cartel Latin America will handle itself, Africa's still a mess, and Australia and Indonesia haven't had any rising stars trying to take charge yet.  No, once again the future will be settled on American soil, and the rest of the world is looking to stars-and-stripes to make the first move and draw out some battle lines.  I'd laugh if I weren't crying.  From the laughter.

Congress is wasting no time getting into the fray.  Since the Democrats packed the House of Representatives with the President's allies, the Senate has found itself unable to vent their spleen on Brown's legislation.  So they're taking out their frustrations by investigating ways to boot Justice Scalia from the Supreme Court.  Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard of Justice Scalia's eruption last month or heard him speak on the news.  He's increased in size, grown three more heads, and lived up to his legacy of fantastically bad rulings predicated on the slimmest of justifications in complete ignorance of legal precedents.  Out of some Biblical devotion or inflated sense of self-worth, he's going by Antonin "Four Horsemen" Scalia now, and it's that lifetime appointment that makes people nervous.  After all, how long will he live?  He weighs over five-hundred pounds now, most of it blubbery girth and swollen ankles, and there's no telling whether his new physiology will give out this year or a hundred years from now.  The Republicans are content to send the president and Utopia a message by raising a fuss about it, which puts the Democrats and Nova celebrity Raoul Orzaiz in the same boat for the first time I can remember.  The precedents set by the impeachment of Justice Samuel Chase back in the 1800's could mean that this is little more than a publicity stunt.

Five bucks says that the Four Horsemen's mutations continue to progress until they need to wheel him in on a cart.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:27, Thu 31 Mar 2011.

This is my insurance plan.  I've uploaded this file to a computer that checks in every two days for a code.  If I don't enter the new code every two days, this file will be sent to other terminals all over the OpNet and the Truth will get out.

We've known about Novas for a long time.  People within the US Government lied.  Elected officials hold no power any longer.  There is a conspiracy at the highest levels of government that abuses the democratic system to ensure that they themselves remain in power and pursue an agenda.  I know because I participated in one of the programs assembled by this conspiracy.

My name is Master Sgt. York Gara.  At present, I am uncomfortably retired in Summerlin, Nevada.  My handlers keep me close to ensure my cooperation, and there are tags on my record so that, if I try to leave the state, law enforcement agencies are notified that I am a person of interest and they are to detain me.  While I am in this range, trained personnel periodically access my thoughts to ensure that I have not talked to anyone and to continue their latitudinal study on the effects of the project on the human body.

Project Vulcan was a future weapons program.  The wars of the 21st Century would not be fought with the machines and methods: they would be found with the mind and the program, by soldier-diplomats and machines.  My particular job with Project Vulcan was to develop training methods to develop the potential of genetically promising candidates for trans-human capabilities.  Many public novas now serving in the Army or working for the Government once passed through my unit before continuing on to do work elsewhere in the project.

Importantly, Project Vulcan does not exist.  It is not an official part of the United States Military or Government.  It receives no official funding and has no personnel.  It receives no official authority.  It has no official base of operations and the personnel and technologies it produces enter public consumption through other channels.  The basic technology of the OpNet, for instance, was developed in 1992 by Project Vulcan personnel.  Water filters intended to filter hexavalent chromium are a byproduct of research into the use of waterborne pharmaceuticals and chemical weapons.  And the Nova boom is a byproduct of a Project Vulcan effort to reactivate latent genes to produce super soldiers.

There are thousands of failed Novas in America today.  We know them as sufferers of Gulf War Syndrome.  I am one of them.

My work focused primarily on the development of nascent telepaths and telekinetics into psychic warriors.  Every day began with memory exercises and remote sensing, followed by intense physical exercise to cement the bond between the physical, the mental and the spiritual.  Captain Mercer, the Project's commanding officer, allowed me free reign to manage my unit, demanding only a one in ten pass rating.  Screened soldiers then separated into specialties, each focusing on the development of individual powers, many of which would be familiar to people today.

Vulcan's super soldier research also contributed to the development of an unlimited energy source in the form of the Casimir Generator, device capable of producing infinite energy from a vacuum that functions by influencing what we now understand to be quantum energy through psychic action.  During my time there, others were very near to perfecting the device to make it capable of operating without the assistance of a trained psychic operator.  I can only assume that the research concluded successfully, and that the government continues to conceal its completion in order to avoid destabilizing the global economy.

Instead, the Gulf War research on psychic warriors and genetics was brought to a special committee within the UN Security Council and used to produce a special retrovirus surreptitiously added to vaccination packages.  The proof of this is everywhere: far fewer novas have emerged from underdeveloped populations, and those populations in Africa and Central America that have experienced multiple eruptions are among those most readily aided by the Red Cross, the World Health Organization, and the Triton Foundation.

The Government does not want you to know these things.  But the world must know.  If you are reading this, you are my insurance plan.

---

The full journals of York Gara were released as part of a DVD Exposé, valued at $24.99 and including a sensationalized .pdf copy of the 'originals'.  Their authenticity remains highly suspect.  Naturally, no records of York Gara's existence has been found, though an assemblage of childhood photos, people claiming to have known Gara, and copies of his birth certificate have appeared in OpNet sites.  Of course, all diagrams and formula have been redacted or lost to damage.  If only the unedited copies could be released, or the psychic unit revealed to the world.  Then, surely, radical elements like Divis Mal and Iran could be reigned in and all of our problems would go away.

Naturally, it quickly gains a cult following and a denouncement from the US Government and Project Utopia scientists.  This only fuels interest in the journals among the paranoid and the insecure.  Although, to be fair, the company responsible for distributing the DVDs has posted record revenues, and plans to begin two OpNet programs starring Dan Aykroyd and Jesse Ventura respectively to capitalize on their success.

January 1st, 2005
AP Wire

Calcutta, India -- Team Tomorrow nova André Corbin was reported DOA at UN Franklin Moran field hospital this morning at precisely 4:02 am.  Paraphysicians worked tirelessly for eight hours to reinvigorate Corbin's failed biological processes, only to declare him dead after unsuccessful attempts.

Corbin had attended a New Years Eve party only hours before, and was in Calcutta on retainer to Novelty Consultation to safeguard against corporate espionage.  Members of the Teragen are being asked to come forward to answer questions related to Corbin's death.

Details are few and far-between in this event, but the act seems to be one of assassination.  Corbin's injuries are purportedly the result of conflict with another nova, though no information is forthcoming at this time.

---

January 6th, 2004
N! and CNN Televised Live Broadcast from André Corbin's Funeral and Wake

[Broadcast joined in media res: Slider, tearful, stands at the podium next to Corbin's closed casket]

... gives me great sadness, as Novas and Baselines alike have lost a strong hero needlessly.  André was a, a credit to the cause.  Both as a nova and an individual.  And his passing shall leave our Earth a sadder place for a brief time.  Although I know he would want us to move past this tragic event, hopefully finding it within ourselves to--

[Slider looks to her left.  She seems startled, then without warning opens a portal to her right and dives through.  The crowd is startled and in an uproar.  The portal closes.]

Damnit, Shuki, where'd she go?  Sarah, put someone on it -- This is live, for God's sake, Jesus Christ someone get in front of the camera.  Switch to three on three, two, one ...

[Camera switches about, eventually focusing in on the reporter]

"Er, this is N! correspondent Sanji Ramanathan reporting live from Calcutta when only moments ago Team Tomorrow Member Jennifer Landers fled the premises, breaking off her eulogy for André Corbin in midsentence.  Details are utterly absent at this time and I'm probably going to get fired.  But, um, that's how this business works.  Sarah, I quit."

---

April 5th, 2005
Tonight, on N!, A Hero Remembered: The Death of André Corbin

[Series of images from Corbin's life.  Stock photos, football photos, Team Tomorrow photos]

Football star, celebrity, bad boy and war hero: today the world remembers Team Tomorrow's rowdiest hero member, André Corbin.  His sudden and tragic murder in Calcutta has triggered an outpouring of sympathy around the world, and pictures of candlelight memorials around the world have already become iconic of our time.  But who was this brazen Celtic Tiger?

[Tragic music plays.  Interview.]

"He was such a wonderful person," sobbed Lucy Atwater, President of the Corbin World Fan Club, which maintains a popular OpSite Devoted to the nova's life and career.  "All he ever wanted was to help people, to be on top of things and make the world a little more exciting.  I can't even imagine who would want him killed."

[Images from the crime scene and investigation]

According to Calcutta law-enforcement officials, Corbin's body was found at four AM on January 1st in his Calcutta hotel room based on an anonymous tip phoned in to a local police station.  He was rushed to the hospital by ambulance, but he was pronounced DOA from the catastrophic levels of blunt trauma he suffered.  Corbin had been hit from behind hard enough to shatter his vertebrae, stave in his ribcage and pulp his heart and lungs.

[An image of his injury is actually played.  Images of Corbin in the hospital are played next.  Someone wants people to see this, so they will sympathize.  Natesh Balindari, an investigator with the Calcutta Police, appears on the screen]

"Our present investigation is based on the assumption that Mr. Corbin's killer was another nova.  A normal human would have had enormous difficulty overpowering a nova of his ability and experience."

No witnesses to the attack have stepped forward thus far, leading to some speculation that he may have been killed elsewhere and the body transported to Calcutta.  However, police state that the evidence at the scene of the crime indicates that he was killed where his body was found.

[Footage of an interview with Ricardo Montoya-Bernal]

"Those of us who knew André cannot adequately express our sadness and outrage at this crime.  Our most profound sympathy goes out to André's family and the people of Ireland, and we promise to investigate his murder to the full extent of our ability."

[Footage of Corbin in Africa and Colombia, playing football with local youth, performing stunts, and distributing food in villages and small towns.]

Above all other things, Corbin had an enormous heart.  On the job with Team Tomorrow, he used every spare moment while on the job to spread a little joy and happiness.

Tonight, we remember a hero, peel back the layers to see the man beneath, and in doing so draw new insights into the plot that led to his death.

---

From USA Today, 04/06/05
Do you think the allegations of a conspiracy within Project Utopia are true?
___Yes       8%
___No       67%
___Not Sure 25%
Who do you think murdered Corbin?
___Criminal Cartels  38%
___Teragen           20%
___Slider            14%
___Government Agency  8%
___Project Utopia     8%
___Unknown           12%

---

Transcript of the syndicated Jordan McDevitt Show, a talk-radio program, aired April 8th, 2005

Jordan McDevitt: Back on the air with Grace from Annapolis.  Topic of discussion is still André Corbin, misfit or martyr?  Grace, you're first, what do you think?
Grace from Annapolis: First of all, thank you Jordan.  It's good to hear someone standing up for the truth now and again.
JM: Well thank you, Grace.
GA: I personally and deeply, personally insulted by all of this hullabaloo and hokum about Corbin being a hero.  It's a load of whitewash big media is pushing to try and make a big story out of nothing.
JM: Whitewash?
GA: Absolutely, Jordan.  You look back, look back at everything that man said and did in his 'career' and you'll see a a a womanizer, a drug-addict, a petty thug-
JM: Examples, Grace.  Give us some specifics.
GA: Well just last year he threw a, a cream pie right in Caestus Pax's face.  And mouthed off to authority.
JM: Could have just been the stress of the last year.  I'm actually glad he threw that pie.
GA: But before that, Jordan, he associated with porno stars and and and drug dealers.  And he's never had any respect for tradition or authority.  When he was a soccer star he refused to stand for national anthems, even his own!
JM: Alright, that's fair.
GA: That's right it's fair!  He's nothing more than a brute who'd been scating along by the seat of his pants.  Who are they trying to kid that he was a hero?  He's no Impetus or Thorn or Antaeus.  He hasn't fed a continent or even saved the world from a nuclear bomb like Solitaire.  He's just been spending money, partying and smiling for photos, but now, all the sudden, they want us to believe he's some big war hero.
JM: Why does this bother you personally?
GA: Because he was a mysogynist pig and probably had plenty of enemies!  This investigation should be over by now!
JM: Well that's one word.  Okay, next caller, Dave from Denver.  Dave, you're on the air.
Dave from Denver: Thanks Jordan.  Look Corbin may not have been as big or powerful as some of the rest of the team, and he was only on the team for two years, but that made him all the more of a hero.  He was like Batman, standing toe to toe with novas twice as big and coming out ahead.
JM: You could say that.
DD: And he was the kind of guy who drank lager instead of some prissy expensive wine.  Even if he could fly and give you a real bender he was one of us, Jordan, and that makes him a hero and a martyr in my book.
JM: But if he was a martyr, Dave, what did he die for?
DD: Probably ran afoul of that Teragen cult.  Maybe they wanted him to join and he said no.  I say he died for us.

---

Graffiti from a Las Vegas Suburb, March 2005

CORBIN DIED FOR OUR SINS

WHY DOES IT TAKE THREE MONTHS FOR UTOPIA TO ADMIT IT?

---

From N! the News, broadcast April 8th, 2005

After a three month investigation, spokespersons for Project Utopia admitted that Jennifer "Slider" Landers is now wanted for questioning in relation to the murder of André Corbin in Calcutta.

"DNA evidence on Corbin's body confirms that Landers was there at the time of his death, and voice-pattern analysis of the anonymous tip called into emergency services confirms that it was Landers who placed the call," said Peter Knorr, leader of Team Tomorrow Europe and André's superior.  "Right now, we do not know what role she played, but her continued flight from authorities and efforts to remain unfound do not help her case."

"Further evidence indicates that Landers may have been approached by more radical members of the Teragen recently.  We are presently investigating these elements to determine if there was a larger conspiracy behind this assault."

T2M leader Ragnarockette has offered no additional comment at this time.

---

Email intercepted via an unsecure Bluetooth connection on a mobile device by DeVries agents and forwarded to Impetus as an item of interest in his ongoing investigations; dated January 2nd, 2005

Wizard of Oz

Not what we discussed, maybe, but enough of a tornado for now.  We play our cards right, this also helps clear up that infestation we've talked about.  I put some thumbscrews to the Guild and the Good Witch, and we're all on the Yellow-Brick Road here.

Anyway, if you want a follow-up, let me know.  T never asks for one, though, so I wouldn't bother.

Always a pleasure,
-- Chiraben
This message was last edited by the player at 08:17, Sun 26 June 2011.

March 25th, 2005
N! Lifestyles with Kate Millions

Kate Millions: Welcome back to N! Lifestyles, I'm your host, Kate Millions.  Our guest today is Rupert Krupp, N-tech consultant from C-Net and a self-described nova-phile.  Hi Rupert!
Rupert Krupp: Hi Kate.  I'm glad to be back.
KM: And today you've brought us the future of personal communications.
RK: Yes I have.  You remember the '90's, how miniaturization changed everything and the rise of the Internet brought the world closer and closer together.
KM: Sure do.
RK: But today, the Internet's almost completely subsumed into the OpNet.  These next generation phones use technology tested by Team Tomorrow and Project Utopia to integrate multiple levels of functionality into a single portable, affordable mobile device.  What I'm holding here are four examples from this summer's coming line-up, all due to be released head to head.
KM: Okay, but first you've got to help me out.  The big selling point on these phones is OpNet on my phone.  But when I hook my computer or my TV up to the OpNet, I still need a eufiber connector cable and an adaptor.
RK: That's the great thing.  Utopia's new universal wireless uses tower uplinks to get information directly to a network of incredibly powerful OpNet hubs.  These hubs are going online in the US next month, once the old fiber-optic networks are all linked into the hubs, the network will go live.  Different providers already own shares in the different hubs and can allocate their share of the total bandwidth appropriately.  The big players in this new game are ViaSoft, Verizon-Century, Google Global and Matsushita-Matrix.
KM: Wow.  This is a lot to take in.  Those are all mega-merger companies, though, right?
RK: That's right.  But a number of shares were reserved for smaller up-and-coming companies to keep the crucial US and Japanese markets from missing out on crucial innovation-time.  Neither project Utopia nor the US government wants to see a telecom monopoly stalling things now.

KM: So with these new phones, all I have to do is turn them on?
RK: You won't get the same speed you do over the OpNet hard-line, but you'll be able to use your devices from virtually anywhere in the continental US.  And by next year, that will go for most mega-metropolitan areas around the world: Paris, London, Beijing, Addis Ababa, Mexico City ... you name it.
KM: Do these phones have any limits?
RK: That actually varies from phone to phone and provider to provider.  You'll still see the same variety of pricing plans that you will from cellular providers today, it's just that your internet and other bills will all be packed into one device, one number, and one e-mail address.  There's new services too, such as GPS Navigation, mass-data storage for photos and work, and digital document readers too.
KM: I'm still a little bit of a data-head.  Can I upload my own programs to the phone?
RK: That will depend on the phone and the provider too.  Project Utopia's technical advisers have put restrictions on the operating systems of these early models but promise that by 2008 they'll release a MOBILE-NOVA OS free to developers and consumers in its entirety.

KM: What would we do without Utopia?  Okay, so lets move on.  Who are these four?
RK: First up we've got the Apple iOptimize.
KM: It's pretty cute.
RK: Apple really has their eye on the college crowd this season, and this user friendly model slides open like *this* to provide you with a full keyboard.
KM: Wow!
RK: You can type, you can text, you can save files and you can synch-up directly with your computer with this cable here.  They only come in white right now, and there's no sign about whether they'll come out with more colors.  It's like a small computer you can slip into your pocket.  There's talk of the next generation using a touch pad.

KM: Next we've got the BlackBerry 7880.
RK: Which is, admittedly, a bit of a disappointment.  It still has the QUERTY keyboard, integrated phone, Bluetooth, but there's not option for GPS functionality.  It's basically the old 7780 made OpNet compatible, and running new functions will drain your battery in just hours.
KM: Ouch!
RK: The standards for these new mobile devices are incredible, though: 360 Mbit/s with MIMO 2x2, 50 Mbit/s upstreams.  Another year, and that could double again.  Nova technicians are helping to get the new networks up and running in record times and with comparatively few errors and missteps.  The general belief is that if we create the capacity, usage and economic development will follow-after.
KM: I don't even know what I would do with that sort of speed.
RK: And by next year we could be talking about 64-bit processors in your phone.  It's an exciting time.

KM: The KHI Keystone is my favorite.  This is raw power, easily a replacement for most laptops, and they even managed to slip a trio of mini USB ports into the side here, so that if you want to hook up a full sized monitor, keyboard and mouse you can do it.  It also comes with the Kraken Heavy Industries product guarantee, so it'll work in extreme temperatures and can even deflect 9mm bullets.
RK: You're not serious.
KM: Try me.
RK: The price is competitive too.  Get one while you can, because right now there's an effort to get an anti-trust probe and a supreme court decision regarding Hell Kraken's use of his nova powers to supply the most expensive components of the manufacturing process and there's no telling which way it will go.
KM: You don't seem to think it will work out for Hell Kraken.
RK: President Brown received an awful lot of support and campaign funding from ViaSoft last year.  It may be their ace in the hole against the Teflon Giant.
KM: And last but not least we've got this Nokia N101.  Not real remarkable, but that's a nice camera there.
RK: That's a Carl Zeiss 5.0 megapixel camera.  It's tied with the KHI Keystone in that regard, though KHI intends to release a better one in sixth months.
KM: So are these the front-runners this year or just a random pick?
RK: You'll see just about every company coming out with an OpPhone soon, most of them with eufiber uplinks and wireless like these.

KM: Alright, but do you think we'll be using these same phones next year?
RK: That's a really important question, Kate.  With the speed of the nova-boom these last eight years, it seems like the consumer electronics market can't keep up.  And while it's saved the economies of Japan and North America, the dark side of this boom is a weird dip in consumer confidence: people are so sure that some nova is going to invent a new phone or TV tomorrow that they aren't actually buying what we've got today.  And without that extra consumption, profits in the electronics sector have actually sank for nine straight months even while our most amazing products go to market.
KM: So you're saying we should buy one.
RK: There's a lot of options and a lot of trade-in programs designed to reward the people willing to jump onto the cutting edge today with discounted upgrades tomorrow.
KM: Seems like a desperate move.
RK: Finland and, in the United States, the state of Washington have actually passed laws subsidizing this sort of "rolling upgrade" on mobile hardware.  Connected cities and urban centers are poised to take center stage in the changing world economy.  Check with your local government, see if they'll make some sort of arrangement with you.
KM: Sounds like a great idea, Rupert.  Thanks for coming on.
RK: Always a pleasure, Kate.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:50, Thu 05 Sept 2013.

Keep very quiet.  I have infiltrated the quantum hall, and sit now among the gods.  They have not yet removed me.  Their glassy eyes stare confused.  Am I one of them?  So long as I do not flinch, the tzitzimimeh won't descend to tear me apart.

Behind me, oblivious to my cunning, Impetus, Solitaire, the Hell Kraken and Comstock talk about what to do with their lives.  In fact, I have just watched Impetus descend the stairs to confront an aggressive man breathing fire.  These men stared each other down, shaking my drug-shriveled heart even through the sound-proof-bullet-proof-150-proof-glass, and I have no doubts that blood will be shed this night.

The question is whose?  And in what quantities?

The Hell Kraken's party, here at the Archon in Las Vegas, is the sort that causes structural damage in the foundations of nearby buildings.  On my way here, I ingested a large-though-finite number of little green and blue pills and took special care to avoid the dance floor, where the speakers are tuned in such a way as to rupture organs and blender thought.  The novas love it.  Some even bask in the destructive waves of sonic annihilation, their alien faces piqued with serenity.  To preserve my disguise, I have ingested ambrosia and celestial wine, which even now threaten my senses with the most vivid phantasmagoria.  Make no mistake: a nova is not a baseline, and a baseline can only begin to understand a what it is to be a nova.

Impetus is leaving.  Whatever the big man said, he did not say it pleasantly.  Ares has called out Apollo; are we to die in their war?  For every chemical and sonic wonder here, every life-like hologram and nova waitress with just the right sort of smile to melt the knees, there comes an equal horror.  I don't trust these bastards.  How the hell could I?  And you're a goddamn moron for trusting them like you do.  I'm a mushroom-cloud laying meat gun for the Truth, what the hell do the rest of you shits know?

---

My hangover just ended.  It started last week.  Furthermore, I fucking called it: Crimson Dawn and Captain Impetus and the Planeteers threw down in Death Valley.  Every one of you bastards owes me a metaphorical beer, and a journalism award for scooping everyone on such a major, earth shaking event in my goddamn OpEd column.

I would have gloated earlier, but after the Teflon coated giant debriefed me he waved his hand and all of my information media deleted itself.  True story.  Furthermore, I do not know what happened to me for a period of 48 hours.  This column shall reconstruct what I remember from that time ...

---

You bastards keep clambering to hear what I have to say about this Corbin-Slider-murder-love-triangle thing.  Alright.  Fine.  She's terrified and he was a cock-sucking douchbag who deserved everything he got and more.

Unlike the rest of you mouthbreathers, my holy badge of journalism permitted me to encounter our-beloved-girl-next-door Slider last year in the aftermath of Colombia.  We shared exactly 17 sentences and one-and-a-half beers.  Every last one of you thinking she is fleeing the authorities because she has some master plan or is a member of the Teragen or secretly mind-controlled by Der Fuhrer Sudamericano and his mutant-clone drug army deserves to be peeled, salted, driven through the streets by mental patients with spiked planks and used as a toilet by baboons at best.

I, you inbred clown-shoes, met Slider.  She was just another stupid human being like you or me.  Only she could make the ground slippery and hop through dimensions.  The worst thing she ever did as a person was count Andre Corbin as a close friend.  You're all looking too hard for bullshit that's not there.  And I've already kicked over three shrines to Saint Corbin, so if you enjoy the proper functioning of your genitalia and colons you'll hide any of that crap when you see me coming.

Instead of wondering about the pop-idols that N! foists upon you, perhaps consider the peculiar nature of the New Years Bash [Link] in India.  Facts are much harder to febreeze out now that there's a brand-new OpNet with neigh infinite hosting space, but I don't think there's been a cover-up at all.  I think you've all been too brain-screwed to unglue from the Novox for more than ten putrid seconds ...

---

In a heart-rendingly twisted turn of fate, Team Tomorrow has never been more popular than it is right now.  I thought about doing an expose on Comstock's failed leadership, failing charity, and failure as a human being, but I am a contrary and thirsty viper coiled about the roots of the World Tree.  So let's talk villains instead and table Steely Dan for next time.

Team Tomorrow has made its fair share of enemies over the years, but Project: Utopia does not like talking about what has happened to them [Link].  In fact, your congressmen [Link] have been delightfully cooperative in helping Project: Utopia disappear people.  Don't worry America: other countries do it too [Link][Link][Link].  Don't go cutting your wrists and greasing hair over your eyes just yet.  So where are the bad-guys that T2M has so valiantly vanquished in last few years?  That's a very good question.  I interviewed over thirteen credible anonymous sources and could not get anywhere.  In fact, it wasn't until I headed across the pond back to Europe that my search for the Truth got anywhere [Link][Link][Link].

Almost every public enemy Team Tomorrow has faced has disappeared after arrest.  This began with the holding of "persons of interest" in the wake of the Equatorial Wars, escalated during the Drug Wars, and reached a fevered pitch in the aftermath of Colombia.  You'll find attached to this column several lists and manifests describing secret flights from all across the world to countries in Eastern Europe, routed down through Kuwait and the UAE, and finally arriving in Ethiopia and Bahrain.  Note the greasy thumbprint of Utopia's bureaucrats, too convinced of their own superiority to believe that any baseline or good upstanding Utopian could follow a simple chain of manifests to find that they've been disappearing people directly into the two most Utopia-sympathetic states on the entire goddamn planet.  You're looking at evidence for illegal human trafficking of kidnapped baselines and novas from over thirty countries around the world.  You developed-world lawyers?  Stop waxing yourselves and get on it.

I can't say for certain who has been disappeared in this way, but from the look of it the 'cargo' has come from wherever T2M's three teams have been fighting.  And now, with news that the personnel strapped T2M is going to try and organize a new T2M: Central to watch over the Middle East and the 'Bright Continent' of Africa, it may just be time for all of you to take a good long look at exactly who you're wacking-off to ...

---

It is May, and President Brown is a little over a year into office, and already the United States has embraced the political spirit and begun looking for alternatives.  If the greatest country on Earth can't pay attention to anything for more than ten fucking minutes, than not a single word of commentary is going to make a difference.

With enough Colombian marching powder and hateful emails, you can do just about anything these days.  Like make two representatives resign from congress amid campaign finance scandals.  I didn't tell anyone squat yesterday, but since Duke's feeling generous today feast your greedy eyes on these photos of the extra-marital affairs of each one [Link][Link].  Normally, I wouldn't waste my time ending the political careers of these generic mouth-breathing pederasts (and with those photos, it arguably ain't libel anymore!  Talk to my editor) but in this case the two in question were authors on legislation that would have granted Project Utopia nearly unlimited access to the Department of Homeland Security and all the special powers of the Patriot Act.  It seems that we are not only content to sell our own people out, we are willing to sell them out to a nebulous NGO with visions of global unity/empire and a reassuring smile...

---

I used to do location pieces.  I might start again, and today might be the template for it.  Let me tell you something about Las Vegas.  And the police department.  And why novas think they can do what they please out there.

Impetus' has this entire city stitched up tight.  Either you are a fanatical enemy of the most attractive man in the world, or you are willing to listen to his good suggestions about how to manage your own life.  Statistics on nova-violence and anti-nova hate crime may be alarmingly high, but the easy explanation for that is the fact that nearly all crime has become anti-nova in nature.  Because if you are open-minded enough to listen to Impetus' and those PR commercials the city asked for, than you are ready to lay down your weapons and differences and work hard at your job.

So what's left for crime is either petty stuff, stuff done by people with poor access to an OpNet connection, or fanatically anti-nova in nature.  Crime is dissent with novas in Las Vegas.  Hate to say it, but I can't escape it.

Vigilantism is turning Las Vegas into a moral empty set.  The police are up-arming as fast as possible, becoming a small military in the process, but meanwhile T2M:A has to sit tight while everyone else puts on hoods and masks to assert their own personal moralities ...

---

Whoever you are.  You know who you are.  The thing in New York was one thing.  Wrecking my car was one thing.  But this thing now?  That's another.

Readers: fuck you.  Take my back-columns and like it.  I'm invisible, and you can't see me.

New York.  God, I'm still in New York.  For anyone trying to find me from my posting this, I will give only this hint: there's bed bugs everywhere, and it smells of urine.

That's the joke.

I'm still on the prowl, hands like eagle talons eyes like hubcaps, but this latest obscenity demanded I brake the holy silence with heresy.  NBook has dropped, an OpNet application for the trendy tools native to Manhattan, Vegas-Center and San Francisco but spreading to overtake the land with a two-thumbed fist.  And already, some month or two after its debut to college campuses, it has a few hundred thousand users and millions waiting at the gates just to have a chance at getting into the general release.  Details are few and far between, but it lets you profile yourself so any government spook or marketing devil can scoop everything up wholesale.  Post pictures, write comments, and link to your other friends.  'Social network', I heard the latest blond clone on MSNBC call it.  No.  I'm a doctor, and I've never heard of anything so contrived.

But since Impetus and some other novas got onto it, half the world now wants in.

And since I'm the journalist here, let me ask the hard questions that everyone should be asking themselves: who coded this thing?  Where did it come from?  What purpose does it serve?  At least initially, they promise it won't have any advertisements, so it fails the Rollo Test by not disclosing what greed or other sin of human nature drove its creation.  What is it here to do?  I don't buy the making-the-world-a-better-place argument.  Neither should any of you anymore.  Utopia's dividends [link] and the tax returns they so recently made public [link] show a lot of green and gold and not a lot of sign that the 'charitable institution' plans to reduce the US National Debt or carry out the colonial dream of raising Africa from poverty, and if we can't trust Utopia then surely you don't expect me to trust anyone else?

That's the damnedest part of it, isn't it?  Utopia has bankrupted hope.  In fact, by trying to coerce 'hope' and 'change' into physical form, they only made these metaphysical things vulnerable to the cold aluminum baseball bat of pragmatism and geopolitics.  They've killed 'hope' and 'change' because, like every messiah before them, they could not make the revolution happen overnight or without bloodshed.  And as a direct result, we the human race are frustrated, tired and quickly arming ourselves.  Except for those cultists who drank the kool-aid and want so badly to believe.  And those are the demographic for NBook.  Whether the N stands for nova as in 'new' or nova as in 'aberrant ubermensch' no longer matters.  You're either doubling down on your faith in the abilities of our philandering leaders [link - and I'll bet you thought I forgot about you, President Brown, didn't you?  I've got more to say next time] or you are sinning against the new-quantum-gods and trying to break heaven.

So, NBook users, leave a comment: how is it?  And I've got a pool going for how long before one of you posts something self-incriminating that tips you off to the porous nature of your private-public-virtual-space.  The spooks and commissars are people too: they'll be getting Nbook pages next, just to be sure you still believe.  I don't.  And that's why I'm never stepping near that thing calling itself an OpNet site.  The number of people here in New York City living on less than $2 dollars a day -- that's extreme poverty for all you budding economists out there -- has tripled since 1998.  How is this even possible?  The bums are well dressed and there are 'social programs' to take care of them, but every night some novas come rolling around ole-Gotham to clean up the worst and break bread with the best.  The Avatar marked me for one of the worst just last night, and, good readers, you should appreciate my magnificence when I say I managed to talk my way out of that one.  Because, triumphant example of all that humanity has to offer that I am, I'm not winning any fistfights with that musclebound God-fearing sonovabitch.

I hate it here.

[Names to be added to the new Census]

Elemental Assassins

1. Air - Formerly Suzukaze, now???
   
2. Fire - Akira
   
3. Earth - Heinrich
   
4. Water - Formerly Shiro, now???
   
5. Void - Paul

T2M:A

1. Impetus, pratically a walking divinity and new leader of the team.
   
2. El Dragón, the second in command, real American hero.
   
3. Binary, the boy wonder, master over data and computing.
   
4. Flare, America's new sweetheart and the raw firepower of the team.
   
5. Johnny Afterburner, the human rocket.
   
6. Ricardo Montoya-Bernal, a veteran of the Colombian Conflict, potent fighter and olympian, meant to replace Comstock as muscle on the team. [PU: pg 132]
   
7. Melissanda Estevez, a youth from Colombia almost finished with training, meant to appeal to youth and show Utopia's success in Colombia. [PU: pg 134]
   
8. Lynelle "Virtue" Johnson, a middle aged Iowa born nova and natural peacemaker, perhaps one of the last true idealists in the world.

Project Proteus

1. Chiraben
   
2. Freak, a.k.a. Annette
   
3. Fashoud - Porter
   
4. Harley Logan
   
5. Ishida - Assassin
   
6. Khytam Manat al-Uzza al-Lot
   
7. Montressor
   
8. Suzukaze
   
9. U-Boat
   
10. Director Ozaki
    
11. Director Thetis

Elites / Others
Shadow Dancer, Solitaire's Friend

Happy New Year, miscreants.  It's been an eventful one, what with simmering hatreds, religious fanatics and surging markets.  But I made a promise to bury a man, and bury a man I shall.  Hello President Brown.  Did you miss me?

Our story begins in the Beltway.  In these fine United States, the Democratic Party presently enjoy an unprecedented level of power in the United States: majorities in the house and senate, a paste-eating tool of a president in Albert Brown, and a lot of sympathy from the justices of the Supreme Court.  It's been five years since the Equatorial Wars and the destruction of the World Trade Center and a little over a year since Brown took office, but they've used this time well: the new Department of Homeland Security has its claws on the old internet and the OpNet, unprecedented wiretapping power, authority to detain and investigate, and even power to put you on a no fly list.  While you were sleeping or fretting over Colombia's aftermath, these jackals have grown mustaches just to twirl them.

Nothing could possibly be wrong in Brown's America, and those suggesting otherwise can now be easily disappeared.  Just like Maggie McConnell.

Maggie McConnell was a Republican rising star, a despicable human being and savvy politician.  But I repeat myself.  Six months ago, she disappeared without any obvious trace.  Oh, a note was left and a cover story put in place that she had resigned her seat in the House to head an NGO, but that NGO is remarkably opaque.  No sign of her, she's just vanished.  I tracked down people who knew her and interviewed them (Footage Link).  I wish I was making this up.

[Footage: Faces and voices are obscured to prevent outing his sources.  Interviews show people afraid, unwilling to talk with Rollo.  Eventually, he manages to intercept someone at an Arlington, Virginia coffee shop.  The man speaks in an angry whisper, indicating that none of the family or friends know where she is but that men had directed them not to speak about it.  When Rollo asks further, the man indicates he is afraid that they have locked her up somewhere.]

Though less than a reliable witness, the paranoid ramblings of the man I interviewed did set me back on track to keep my promise, since it turns out that Brownie had a hand in this: he simply signed a piece of paper that let his shadowy friends in the Directorate violate Maggie McConnell's rights, and she wound up dead.  Linked are pictures [link] of an unidentified body left in a Detroit alleyway, and my DNA samples from the body confirming Maggie's for the overworked Detroit police department.  She hadn't been investigated much because she looked like any other body one finds outside a nova drug den.  A very confused coroner found Maggie had suffered a massive stroke and heart attack just as you would if you were abusing some of the higher powered narcotics our brave soldiers have brought back from Colombia.  But no evidence of drugs.

Some of the fine men, women and asexual denizens of the OpNet provided the keys to the puzzle.  Dox [link] dropped by enterprising hackers in Finland and Hong Kong after the reveal of the Directorate included a number of executive orders that had been sloppily redacted, including the executive order permitting the Directorate to investigate persons of interest such as Maggie.  Some of the methods of intelligence gathering permitted under the latest incarnation of the Patriot Act include psychic scanning and telepathic interrogation techniques.  Team Tomorrow used powers like that to crack down on crime, so it must be safe, right?

I had an expert take a look at poor Maggie, and that expert confirmed her death was a result of prolonged psychic assault [link to report, names redacted].  Someone conveniently beat this woman, a US Congressional Representative, to death, neatly silencing one of the only unifying voices in the self-destructing Republican right.  And I have President Albert Brown's signature on the order making all this possible.

Enough to prosecute?   No.  But coming into the 2006 election cycle, I want everyone to know exactly what sort of man President Brown is.  He doesn't fuck kids or interns.  He doesn't lift his doggie by the ears.  He doesn't even line his pockets with campaign donations or bribes.  But he kills people, and cares if you don't like him.  He is building an arsenal of weapons, and is not afraid to silence you and your family to stay on top.  He's a wonderfully, charmingly nice man looking for a blunt object to crack your skull open.

So fuck him.  Previously, I've told all of you about his faked military record and toupee [link].  Did you know he also has foreign accounts?  If you don't believe me about his casually throwing out lawmakers to the wolves, follow the money [link] and see where his loyalties lie.  Then vote this tool out.  Vote his party out.  I've got thirty four months before he's up for reelection, and I'm going to make good use of them.

I hate it here.

[A newsroom, newscasters looking expressively at the camera and each other]

"...And now to our on scene reporter covering this amazing trial, the outcome of which will surely be debated for months to come, Shemka Hadib.  Shemka, tell us what's happening at the courthouse"

[The steps of a courthouse, surrounded by reporters, protesters, and police.  The doors open, and 6 men are escorted out of the building to be met by their family members and a Michaelist pastor.]

"Breaking news here at what legal experts are calling one of the most important trials of the new millennium.  The defendants are being escorted out by the police and a trio of Utopia escorts, Ricardo Montoya-Bernal, Melissanda Estevez, and Lynelle "Virtue" Johnson, provided to ensure the safety of the acquitted security guards.  It's hard to tell what the Team Tomorrow members think of the decision, they're playing it pretty cool here, but the defendants certainly aren't.  As you can see, they are hugging family and supporters, waving their arms, and oh, one of them just made an inappropriate gesture at one of the nova rights protestors Bob.  It's a pretty heated scene out here, both the pro-nova and the Michaelists look like they're ready to throw punches and... Wait Bob, a nova just landed near the Utopia escort, it looks like Geryon, the fugitive nova activist.  Impossible as it sounds, tensions here are even closer to break-- OH MY GOD! He just disabled 2 of the Utopians and... and Ricardo's down now too... HE'S KILLING THEM!  HE JUST KILLED THE MICHAELIST SHOOTERS!  AND NOW HE'S LASHING OUT AT THE CROWD... HE'S KILLED THE PASTOR AND HE... he's coming... he's... he's coming this way...

[The menacing figure of Geryon floats purposefully toward the camera crew, hands stained with gore, a malicious smile on his face.]

"Hiya Shemka.  Has anyone told you that you look amazing for a woman without, oh, what's the politically correct way to put this?  Well, for a woman without a quantum glow to her.  Anyway, guess I'll talk business for just a minute... No no, don't back away, stay right where you are.  Good.  Now then, let's put on my serious face, try to remember my lines... Humanity! This is your warning.  We will not be judged by you, and we will not accept your slights, your taunts, or your aggression.  We are, each of us, a law unto ourselves.  Don't make me warn you again."

[After a last intense look at the camera, Geryon flies away.  The crowd is in chaos as people are trampling one another, and the T2M members are just pulling themselves up from the ground to chase after the long-gone Geryon.]

"He... He's gone now.  He... It was like a game to him, we were like ants to him... They... Andy, are they all dead over there... I.. Bob, I can't do any more, I can't report on... Just give me a minute Bob, I'll be able to tell you more if you give me a minute.  Andy keep rolling..."
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:52, Fri 18 Jan 2013.

Email from Katherine Baker to Solitaire:
Can I sue someone?  Jordan McDevitt’s people just ran this “documentary” they’re doing past me with less than 48 hours notice.  It doesn’t make you look good; in fact, it goes out of its way to paint you as dangerous.  There’s no way I can stop this now, it’s already got Utopia’s okay and N! doesn’t want to ruffle too many feathers.  But we can sue his people for defamation of character?  I’ve linked everything below.

Email across the Teragen ciphered mailing list from Shrapnel:
Are you seeing this shit? After Geryon was on this prick’s Two Minutes of Hate bit, and then made good on his promise to play twist-top with that Michaelist?  Raoul, Impetus, you’re supposed to be playing damage control here to keep me from having to play bad cop with the monkeys. Fix it.

nBook Message Across Impetus-Divine Friendsgroup:
This is crazy!  First they launch an investigation into Impetus’ using mind control or some other crazy conspiracy theory, and now they barely give him any time in this news-thing about HIS team?!  Someone should find Jordan McDevitt and murder him!  IMP4EVA!


---


Attached: excerpts from:
N!’s Cutting Edge: A Team Tomorrow Americas Retrospective
Broadcast September 15, 2006

Hi, I’m investigative journalist and talk radio legend Jordan McDevitt. Since leaving Clear Channel to broadcast my radio show over the OpNet, I’ve received a lot of questions about Team Tomorrow. For some of our listeners, they’ve always been there. For others, it looks like their time in the sun came and went. Tonight, for N! Documentaries, I’m going to show you the five year history of Team Tomorrow Americas and try to give you a look behind the masks.

After an animated segue, Jordan is standing in front of a mosaic of images from Bahrain, Iraq, Liberia, Sao Paolo, and Bogota.

 It seems like only yesterday that the Galatea’s explosion in low earth orbit showered the planet with exotic particles and weird space radiation, triggering the eruption of over 100 novas world-wide and kicking off the nova age. When we look back at those days, it’s incredible to think we survived.

Several video segments play in quick succession while the musical score tries to force a feeling of crisis with brass, strings and orchestra;

(1) Caestus Pax (still Shelby Eisenfaust to his coworkers) on a construction site, caught on camera by a friend as he shows off his new incredible strength;
(2) The Fireman (Randal Portman) giving interviews to the news after famously saving a school bus full of children from the flaming wreckage of the Galatea as it falls from the sky;
(3) Video of Gale hiding in her home shortly after her eruption in the middle of a crowd of high-schoolers, with some people shouting angrily and others proclaiming that God has sent an angel;
(4) The Hell Kraken, speaking before the UN to explain his accidental extermination of the people of Aktau, Kazakhstan;
(5) Louis Martin Freeman, better known today as Duke “Core” Baron of the XWF, surrounded by superhot plasma and pursued as he darts through Brooklyn, dodging police bullets and robbing stores as he goes.

The Aeon Society, an international philanthropist organization headquartered in New York, funded the first studies of nova physiology and powers, and shortly after managed to influence the UN to approve the Zurich Accord. And to safeguard human rights for novas and put a understandable face on nova-kind, they also helped organize Project Utopia and Team Tomorrow.

Footage from January 1st, 1999, of the original six members of Team Tomorrow being introduced to the public in their original Kevlar-weave uniforms. Then it segues to their first success in Iran two days later, taking out members of the Islamic Dawn and returning prisoners to the United States to face trial.

From the beginning, Team Tomorrow had a military purpose and ambition: fighting crime, hunting terrorists, and making the world safe. But they also promoted Utopia’s agenda with humanitarian missions, community service, and public works projects. After demonstrating goodwill peaceful intentions, we opted to let them stay in the United States on a few conditions: we wanted a team of our own, and we wanted to choose the location ourselves.

March of 2001 gave us T2M:A, Americas own superheroes. It wouldn’t be long before they’d be moved out to the front lines of the Equatorial Wars.

---

TEAM TOMORROW: AMERICAS
Footage of the public unveiling of the T2M:A base in the Sierra Nevadas just north of Las Vegas, Nevada, complete with its research labs and Olympic size swimming pool, almost entirely built by T2M’s members as part of their training.
Jordan follows this with footage of T2M:A socializing on the strip, then immediately segues to them fighting side by side with American Soldiers across a dozen countries in the equatorial wars, especially Iraq and Afghanistan. Each member is introduced with a graphic of their name and then some of their most memorable moments in the past five years, and sound bites clipped out of context to give characterization. Members of T2M:A may note that some of the lines are from private conversations, and that most of the footage in this intro segment comes from before Colombia.

---
(1) First up is Impetus.  Impetus is the pinnacle of human imagination: fast, strong, handsome, graceful, intelligent, utterly likeable.  “Alright Sam, my lad, lets go paint the town red. Neon red.” McDevitt’s team edits in heavy rock music, like a military recruitment commercial, as Impetus lifts himself out of a pool for his first famous photoshoot. Then him screaming through the clouds past a parachuting cameraman, laughing with joy. Crowds cheer for him as he gives his best inspirational smile. ”Better than human!”  In Iran, he robs the momentum from flying debris to save some local soldiers in an urban battle, then rockets away on the captured potential energy.

The segment shows a brief montage of the young, nerdy baseline Jason Tybolt growing up in Seattle, Washington, before describing his eruption during an accident at a propulsion laboratory.  His powers over momentum and inertia grew over time: first just objects, then himself through the air, and then hearts and minds.  Finally, a clip of Impetus shouting to an impassioned crowd: ”Humanity has taken its first, great steps onto a new stage of evolution and history.  United, we can achieve anything.”

---
(2) Second is Phantasm.  Unlike Impetus, Phantasm oozes subtlety and unseen power.  The rock music takes on heavier tone, and images of novox rock band Green Women playing to a full crowd are mixed with glamor shots and runway shots of Phantasm in stylish clothing and her incredibly trendy clothes line.  Little is known about Phantasm’s history or background, so the segment plays up the dark and mysterious elements of her character.  She doesn’t speak publicly much, so they sample from one of her PSAs and then segue to her showing a crowd her shapeshifting abilities and her power to conjure up glowing green quantum constructs torn from nightmare.  One of her strange quantum constructs finishes the segment by carrying a wounded man from a burning structure.

To McDevitt’s credit, his editing team didn’t choose the most horrific one they could find.  A fan interviewed at a rock concert declares loudly for the camera.  “Oh my god I love her!  Phantasm!  Woo!”

---
(3) Third, Solitaire.  Strong, fast, flying through the air and unstoppable.  Footage is chosen to emphasize how dangerous she is: she talks to the poor and homeless in the streets of Vegas.  She flies through buildings, shattering their windows with sonic booms.  She wrestles with cartel novas and throws them back down to crater the earth.  Her fans throw up the horns and wear jackets that imitate hers.  Lt. Kovich from the T2M base, sitting in interview, says “There’s no one like her.  Period.  We wouldn’t even try to wake her up in the morning; if she hit snooze, we let her snooze.”

Video shows March 9th, 2003, when the Space Shuttle Discovery, damaged from passing meteor fragments, was dramatically rescued by members of T2M, with Solitaire flying into space and manually towing the shuttle to ISS2-Icarus Station with strength alone.  The iconic photo of Solitaire - pushing the shuttle through space, her quantum-arm lit up like a newborn star, her mouth curled with determination - is accompanied by a trumpet call, making for a superman-esque moment.

---
(4) Fourth, Dr. Zero, who suavely announces  "I think I'll 'give Caesar his due."  Wily and ferociously coordinated, Dr. Zero is shown breakdancing effortlessly on the heads of journalists on the strip.  Then it segues to him dashing through a hail of bullets to throw tear-gas canisters into some bunkers and carry a wounded soldier away to safety.  McDevitt’s editing team has found every weird and wacky costume they could ever catch him in, and then puts images of him with novox rock band Green Women in concert alongside Phantasm.  He’s shown reading to school children, lecturing at a university, and then engaging in gunplay from behind some sandbags.  “A doctor’s work is never done.”

Since little was actually known about Dr. Zero’s identity, the documentary plays every tabloid speculation and seedy expose claiming to know who he was or whence he came.  He’s a martial arts guru from a mountaintop in Idaho.  He’s a Sumerian King who travels through time.  He’s an American secret agent from World War Two.  He’s a she, and an alien sent to save us from ourselves.  But when the segment ends, the person behind the mask is caught wagging a finger before the camera, as if to say I’ll never tell.

---
(5) Fifth, Harley Logan.  Like Solitaire, he is made to appear dangerous, but Harley comes off as a caricature of a man.  He breaks through buildings, flings men and women into the air only to pounce upon them and break them on the ground.  He empties a captured rifle, then throws it with lethal force to kill a soldier in Zaire.  His monstrous eufiber colony lets him adapt actively to battle, and lets him move stealthily in the shadow.  The segment is very, very short.  He rides motorcycles, lurks in the background, and obviously loves to smoke and drink.

---
(6) Sixth, Prodigal.  Young David Erickson erupted and left Kearny, Nebraska at the age of 17, when his eruption left him with a mix of demonic and angelic features and he joined T2M:A to try and find some help and guidance.  He’s revealed in a swift montage to be a dysfunctional lunatic, everything that could go wrong when someone becomes a nova.  The segment is only slightly longer than Logan’s twenty second blip, but in the brief time allotted, a Baptist pastor in the interview chair speaks: “He has no love or reverence for God.  Only for himself.  His own profane image.”

Footage shows Prodigal destroy some jeeps in a combat exercises, before a Utopia spokesperson regretfully announces: “We thought we could be there when he needed us most, and that he’d be there for us.  Sadly, Prodigal has parted ways with us.  We can only hope he will find the peace elsewhere that he could not find in service to his fellow men and women.”  Prodigal left T2M:A almost immediately after the team’s first deployment.  The last image is his winged form flying away after the first major battle in Uganda.

---
(7) Seventh, Zeus.  Samuel Wolfson, a charmingly awkward 23 year old Native American from Pine Ridge South Dakota, stutters through introductions, apologizing for his problems.  “Hhhhhello, America.”  Soft music plays for the brave, fallen hero.  Some of the footage from training showed him struggling to control his powers, as arcs of electricity wildly shoot everywhere and his lightning-snake construct scolds him.  Kids love him, and the Native American Friends to Sameul Wolfson hold up signs thanking him for representing them.

He perished during the closing battles of the Equatorial Wars.  The final image of the segment is a simply monument to him in South Dakota, near where his ashes were cast into the wind.

---
(8) Eighth, Gravitas.  A series of random science images are flashed quickly to segue away from Sam, speeding up and compressing into a single white dot on a black screen, then disappearing as a camera pan out shows this to be the black of Gravitas’ eye.  Gravitas has no equal in matters of the mind, and his tools orbit strangely around him while he works.  Master of Gravity, he effortlessly raises tanks and deflects missiles and bullets with his power.  He’s shown working in front of several computers at once, and then consulting on supercolliders and other American “big science” projects.

McDevitt’s crew doesn’t talk much about Quentin Abernathy, the man, but always show his matte black, light-devouring eyes.  Gravitas, though handsome and clever, witty and capable, is shown to be fragile and far from human.  Images of him with mechanical prosthetics following wounds sustained in Columbia and played up to make him the inheritor of Stephen Hawking’s legacy in the public consciousness, but there’s another subtle message beneath: that even novas can be crippled, and even the Master of Gravity has his limits.

---
(9) Ninth, Comstock.  T2M:A’s original leader is nigh indestructible, and the second strongest man in the world when his density control is pushed to the limit.  Missiles, mega-strong novas, claws, quantum bolts ... all slam mercilessly into Comstock’s indestructible metal skin to no avail.  His mastery over metal permits him to weld beams together and use buildings against his foes.  McDevitt’s editing team ensures that Comstock comes across as the Incredible Hulk, a monster.  When riled, he runs through vehicles and buildings, and tears tanks apart to use as equipment, raw materials or armor.

Dillon Amargosa came from small town, and gave almost all his earnings from T2M back to his hometown and Las Vegas.  The segment mostly cobbles together the Amargosa Charitable Foundation’s PR videos and Comstock’s Nevada Tourism commercials.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
OOC: Would you like to know more?  See the following threads:
[Story Arc #1] Training Camp
[Location] Socializing on the Strip - Pre-Equatorial Wars

---

 -------

THE EQUATORIAL WARS: 2001 - 2002

After the commercial break, Jordan McDevitt appears with a map of the world, colored blue for ocean and black for land, and every country that saw open fighting between 2001 and 2002 colored in red.  The fighting takes place mostly in developing and equatorial countries, making the conflict’s formal name obvious.

Novas didn’t spring up in just one place, they sprung up everywhere at once.  Sometimes, they had support to guide them and help them integrate with society.  Sometimes, they were already terrorists or criminals.  After the UN and the Aeon Society helped answer the question of how we would treat novas, the rest of the world had to answer the question of uprisings and insurgencies fought with nova powers.  The Equatorial Wars.

US Army General Tobias Gahagan, the man behind the US Nova Recruitment Initiative, from an interview conducted in 2004 in full dress uniform:  ”In 2001, the Equatorial Wars were everyone’s concern.  The OPEC nations had riots in the streets and old regimes were falling every day as terrorists and democratic uprisings were either led by novas or hired novas to fight for them.  Elites were everywhere.  Russia was imploding.  Energy prices skyrocketed.  Without Team Tomorrow, NATO couldn’t have hoped to keep the world safe from terrorism, and the UN and World Bank couldn’t have hoped to keep the world’s economy from a total crash.  In a hundred little conflicts across the world, Team Tomorrow supported UN Peacekeeping Missions and US interventions into developing nations.  Because of their service and sacrifice, wars ended faster and with less bloodshed, and the first laws and traditions concerning nova warfare came into being.  Team Tomorrow are heroes, and I’m proud to have fought alongside them.”

Lt. Anne Kovich, in uniform with a beret and her service medals: ”They fought on every continent in the Equatorial Wars, and everywhere they had to hold the line against governments and gangs suddenly empowered by an eruption or some nova soldiers of fortune.  I helped with security for T2M and Utopia personnel in the field; grain distribution, construction projects, and nova relations.  I had to learn six languages, international law, civil engineering ... it was a massive undertaking.  But they were under ten times the workload I was.  Gravitas would sometimes take time to help some of us with our Farsi or French or Burmese or whatever language we were learning at the time.  And we’d look forward to it!  Because after ten minutes with him it would just make sense and everything we’d gotten from the classroom just came together in one big ‘duh, of course!’ moment.”

World Bank Economist Stasia Kurylenko: ”When the wars started, Russia was only just emerging from the collapse of the USSR government, and the Russian Federation had a series of weak leaders bullied by private oligarchs and nova-capitalists.  With the assassination of our President Medvedev, the government collapsed almost overnight and global markets followed.  The army’s weapons were boxed up and sold all over the world by corrupt officers desperate to keep their families in bread and warmth, intensifying conflicts.  No one could buy or sell anything across borders.  Revolutionaries wanted to take Kamchatka or Greater Mongolia or some other part of country and break it away from the Russian Federation.  Our trade partners balked.  European energy markets imploded.  China even threatened open warfare when coal shipments stopped.  Then, Project Utopia convinced the new government to sit down with representatives from the World Bank.  They went to the UN and secured temporary freezes on consumer goods and currency exchange rates.  They swooped in before everything could get worse, and with barely 200 people working and perhaps five nova financial advisers and international law experts hammered out a solution.  If the Galatea and the arrival of novas can be said to have caused the trouble, Project Utopia deserves credit for solving the problem before it could lead to a global lost generation and an intensification of conflicts.  They take the vision of the UN and its partner institutions and give them power.”

The mayor of Addis Ababa, Arkebe Oqubay: “I have had people ask me: Arkebe, could we have done it alone?  Could Kenya have done it without the world’s novas coming here to defend us?  I tell them that we could have, that we could have hired our own novas, or purchased more weapons from Russia.  But we would have lost something of ourselves in the struggle.  Not just people.  Not villages.  But a part of our souls.  When Caestus Pax and the Utopia novas came to us, they asked nothing of us save that we live in peace for all mankind.  They asked only what we should ask of ourselves.  The wars were terrible.  Terrible!  Many thousands of people died, and in some places the wars still do not seem to be over.  What would it have been like without Team Tomorrow?”


When the program returns to Jordan McDevitt, his world-map highlights each flashpoint, each small war of the larger whole that ended up classified under the Equatorial Wars.  Though millions died in conflicts elsewhere, the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan take center stage in all this, and the documentary shows footage of Utopia novas fighting jihadist novas as the towers of the World Trade Center in New York collapse.  The aftermath, including the Iraqi Chemical Weapons Incident, does not skimp on the horrifying imagery.

The camera zooms out to show Jordan McDevitt again, more images of the conflict behind him.  ”But though they may be heroic, novas are not gods.  Team Tomorrow lost several of its own to the fighting.  Early on, Prodigal succumbed to post-traumatic stress and fled the team, disappearing for over a year.  And in the closing days of the conflict, nova-extremist elements of the Iraqi government detonated their hidden bunker complex as T2M:A closed in.  Harley Logan and Samuel Wolfson died in the explosions, and their sacrifice will forever be remembered by us, and by the Iraqi people.  Project Utopia and United States joint environmental restoration efforts continue in the polluted lands.”

The program freezes here with an interactive map, so the OpNet viewer can click different hotspots from the war to get videos and more detailed accounts the events of the wars.  If the viewer does not interact, the program goes to a commercial break.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
OOC: Would you like to know more?  See the following threads:
[Story Arc #2] Equatorial Wars and Travel to Africa
[Char.Dev.]Vignettes, Asides, and Hidden Moments

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This message was last edited by the player at 16:13, Wed 04 Sept 2013.

THE NOVA-TECH BOOM

Jordan McDevitt appears again.  Images of important innovations play behind him as he walks and reads from the teleprompter.  “Even as America mended its wounds and tried to look to the future, Team Tomorrow found ways to help speed the recovery.  One was technology.  Though wild and untested use of nova science gave way to chaos in the wars, the United States and the UN agreed to cede to Project Utopia power to regulate nova-science, and Project Utopia took quick action to bring this scientific know-how safely to the marketplace.  While Chinese, Russian and Indian firms suffered from catastrophic mismanagement after the Moscow Crash and the Wars, American, European and North African firms entered the nova-tech boom.
Our cars got faster and more efficient,” images of Prof. Tetsuo Yamato with Utopia-Japan and his hyper-combustion engine,
“our computers shook off fiber-optics and embraced eufiber and the OpNet, images of Anibal Buendia and Gravitas working hard at a computer,
”and renewed interest in the space program driven created thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of new revenue.”  Impetus and Gravitas working on ISS-2 Icarus Station high above Earth Orbit.

Bill Gates, CEO of ViaSoft: “Between 1998 and 2003, we made 15 years of progress in computing and computing infrastructure.  It wasn’t just shared coding or the hardware improvements either; four novas were hired onto ViaSoft’s staff shortly after the merger, and inside three months they were able to reorganize projects and retrain half of our employees.  At one point, I asked T2M:A for input on a Gates’ Foundation project to bring laptops to US Schools; the next day, Impetus was there, made some good observations, and came with a promise from Utopia to match whatever funds ViaSoft and the Foundation would contribute.”

Carla Mendez, from the City of Las Vegas Department of Planning: “Las Vegas really became a city when the Hoover Dam was under construction, and for the whole of the 20th Century its growth and destiny were tied to entertainment and tourism.  But after the 2001 nova establishments started springing up all over the city, and T2M:A took a special interest in helping their host city.  The Las Vegas maglev is the best public transportation system in the US, and we managed to build it for a fraction of the original cost because they donated their time and powers to the task.  It was a watershed moment for us: with that improvement, it was like we exploded onto the market with a big sign saying ‘rent is cheap, the government loves you, and this is where everything happens.’  Tech companies, small factories with Utopia licenses for sustainable technologies and design, and people just flooded in.”

Interview with Dr. Zero from 2003.  “I know I have to spend most of my time out there, protecting the free world, but I have a deep and meaningful inner life.  This city reflects that inner life: it’s wild and creative, it wears masks but still laughs at itself.  So, today, I’m announcing that I’m donating $3.2 million to Nevada Robotics, so they can make their dream of modern medical prosthetics based on my research a reality.  No no, don’t thank me.”

Dr. Feargus MacDaeid, biogeneticist and epidemiologist for the Triton Foundation: “When the Aeon Society was just organizing Project Utopia, Justin Laragione (Director of Project Utopia) came to me and the Triton Foundation and said ‘how would you like to save the world?’  And it wasn’t just money that came pouring in, it was talent and expertise, professors and doctors and research from across the world.  Best of all, people started listening to us.  The first thing I worked on was a new model for preventing the spread of malaria in West Africa, and that went swimmingly.  After three months, I’m feeling pretty intoxicated with power and so I asked Justin if we could try to cure cancer, and he said “sure, we’ll write you a check and send over one of these novas”.  He started by data-mining thirty different datasets from India, the US, Australia, Canada and the UK.  Before I know it, we’re looking at the Lakshimanan Test, a 98% accurate early screening for breast cancer.  We’ve been able to share that genetic test, and low-cost high-accuracy genetic testing methodologies, with medical professionals in 170 countries.  Best of all, we’re on track to have a retroviral vaccine that should prevent the manifestation of the condition by early next year.  Breast cancer is about to be a thing of the past, and medical bills have never been lower.”

Lt. Colonel Magdalene Sawyer, US Navy Medical Corps: “One of the greatest concerns of the Equatorial Wars was preventing the breakdown of medical services.  After a major conflict, Team Tomorrow would prioritize restoring clean water and shelter, and Project Utopia would help distribute drugs and vaccinations.  We knew that if things broke down, we could be looking at cholera, tuberculosis, influenza, or a hundred other infectious diseases spreading like epidemics.  But that never happened.  After the war, T2M and Utopia kept us working with the Triton Foundation to target infectious diseases on a global scale.  We just tested an early vaccine against HIV, and the older treatment for tuberculosis has been replaced by a cheaper, three day treatment.”

Captain Vladimir Remek, Czech Republic, pilot of ISC-Remembrance: “After the Moscow Crash, it looked like we’d never get to space.  But I spoke with Solitaire and Phantasm at one of these functions, told them my fears.  Now, I go to space every six months.  I never have to lift-off, I am taken by portal, and my craft, the International Space Craft Remembrance carries out low-orbit science for weeks before refueling and resupplying at Icarus Station.  Space-planes are already becoming reality thanks to our research.  If Dr. Abernathy’s low-gravity manufacturing methods meet expectations during testing when we go out again next month, then lunar and asteroid mining could give way to exotic materials manufacturing.”


The screen gives more options to select from, so school children viewing the broadcast can be inspired and see how carefully regulated nova-science has made the world a better and richer place.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
OOC: Would you like to know more?  See the following threads:
[Setting] Dawn of a New Era: Changes in the Nova Age
[Setting] Era of Discovery - Nova Age Science and Philosophy

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THE NEW BLOOD, AND THE DRUG WARS: 2003-2004

The program returns, starting with a Las Vegas anti-drug advertisement.  It shows a young black man wishing for something, anything, that will help him pass his exams and make state in basketball this year.  He looks at a picture of Comstock in his locker.  Later, another kid on the basketball team offers him a self-contained injector of something called Mite so he can be just like Comstock.  He tries it; the next day, he’s in the hospital comatose, his parents crying over him.  The camera zooms out to show Comstock at the hospital.  ”I didn’t become this way by shooting up.  Neither can you.  Mite’s not just a bad idea: it might be your last idea.”  Mite: Not Even Once.

The advert segues to Jordan McDevitt in front of a variety of images of drugs and drug paraphernalia.  ”Wherever novas apply themselves, they find success.  But sometimes, they apply themselves to sick causes.  Following the original T2M’s crackdown on organized crime in New York City, T2M:A turned to the task of cleaning up America’s streets.  Drug sales had funded military operations through South and Central America during the Equatorial Wars, so the new focus was to choke the cartels and drug producers out.  No one could have predicted how things went from there.”

A montage of images play of Freak’s attacks on the public.  Then the illegal nova-paparazzi footage of Freak’s apprehension in T2M:A’s base, with Dr. Zero and Freak emerging from the concrete floor in a loving embrace (no mention is made of the brave teleport-grapple-disruption that led to this).  News clips from different stations are shown, describing drug-violence related to novas and attacks on T2M’s family members.  T2M:A are shown in another clip escorting out Elites and Cartel novas after their victory at Kansas City.

”The Drug Cartels used money and nova-science to push newer, harder and more dangerous drugs, so it fell to T2M to take the fight where diplomacy prevented the US Army from going.  To win, they would need to replace their fallen.  Four new recruits made the grade.”

---

First position goes to Flare.  Flare’s N! score must be high, because they choose amazingly positive clips when making her introduction montage.  She heals people at hospitals, makes walls of fire to protect people from incoming gunfire, and puts out fires on the Space Shuttle Discovery.  She’s cute, her red hair is a real hit with America’s youth, and her youth and energy are infectious.  She’s America’s sweetheart.  “Stay in school,” she tells a small crowd at some Las Vegas community get together.  Sara Childe has become the mighty Flare, a true superhero from the good conservative state of Arizona: the only person on the team to immolate a tank with her hands.

---
Second, the incredible Gale.  Before she became Gale, Stacey "Stace" Wilderschmidt was born on July 21st, 1982 in San Francisco, California.  She captured the hearts and imagination of America when she erupted in a crowd, manifesting avian claws and enormous, feathered wings.  Some found her angelic, and she hid in her own house for days while people took photos every time she so much as peered from a window.  Part of the original Mazarin-Rashoud study group, she tried to return to civilian life rather than join T2M alongside Caestus Pax and others.  After several successful years of university, however, she returned to join T2M:A when they needed the help most.

Gale is shown to fly through the air, create rigid barriers of vacuum or hyperconcentrated gases, and commands the weather itself.  A great deal is made of her efforts in the Project Utopia terraforming project in the Ethiopian highlands.  The segment closes with video taken by a passing helicopter of her perched atop the Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas, watching the people below.


---
Third is Suzukaze.  The first images are from her introduction to the team, demure and wearing traditional Japanese kimono.  This characterization is immediately informed by images of her tearing across the battlefield killing people with her swords, a purple quantum glow traveling in her wake.

Lt. Kovich, again in interview, shakes her head sadly and brutal hard rock music plays.  “Suzukaze was ... hard to work with.  She knew what the objective was, but like Harley she always seemed to have her own gameplan.”  More clips of her performing very precise martial arts.  ”She wouldn’t hesitate for a second when lethal force was required.  Just showed up, did what she was needed, and then sheathed those swords and walked out.”  The audience is not meant to empathize with Suzukaze.  The audience hardly knows anything about Suzukaze from that segment, except that she’s a foreigner and dangerous.

---
Fourth and finally is Slider, America’s wayward daughter and a powerful nova from the original Team Tomorrow.  Slider does a lot of good things, but the musical accompaniment suggests a person to be pitied, not a hero.  She teleports the team into and out of action, brings doctors and medical personnel where they are needed, and reads books to kindergartners with a warm, friendly smile.

But there are ratings to consider, and McDevitt wants to stay on message with other American conservatives.  The editing finds clips of her looking angrily at André Corbin during the Equatorial Wars, and circumstances where she didn’t play well with the team.  Like Prodigal, she is made out to be troubled by all the violence and stress, and not receiving the help she needs.

---

A timeline appears next to Jordan, showing major events from the Drug Wars, and he talks, offering some basic comments on each.  Some terrorists gave up faster than others.  Some went underground, and found other ways to make a living while planning their next moves.  In South and Central America, the War on Drugs took on new dimensions as nova criminals fought their way to the top of the drug cartels and targeted American cities and schools.  Methamphetamine, heroin, marijuana and cocaine still made money, but the most dangerous drugs of this era were the new ones: Mite and Soma.  Mite is synthesized from nova mitochondria and hormones, and makes anabolic steroids look tame.  Soma is made from fluid extracted directly from the node.  Both drugs preyed upon people’s desires to become novas, to stand among novakind and enjoy all their strength, beauty and power.  They sold fast, and demand grew exponentially as word spread.  But they came with a price.”

While the Equatorial Wars had Islamic Extremists with nova support destroy the World Trade Center, the most destructive and defining event of the Drug Wars was the destruction of Sao Paolo, Brazil.  A nuclear bomb, or something very near to it, went off suddenly and without warning.  T2M:A investigated, and found it was related to the drug cartels.  It was an unparalleled environmental catastrophe, with millions dead.  Project: Utopia clean-up efforts have been underway ever since, with a new breed of Zushima Microbe created just to try and absorb lingering radiation and exotic particles from what was once Brazil’s busiest city.

Another clip from the 2004 interview with US Army General Tobias Gahagan.  “After early successes, T2M:A had a real and pitched battle in Kansas City that ended with several elites in custody and a major distribution center for drugs in the United States locked down.  But we knew that the fighting had to go south, to the producers themselves, and especially the nova leadership.  The real breakthrough happened in Mexico, when T2M:A assaulted a compound managed by a gang called the Zetas.  Not only did they capture eight novas that day, they freed kidnapped scientists, busted a major production facility for drugs and explosives intended for open warfare against the government, and found information that pointed directly to Colombia as the real center of power for all the South American Cartels.”

Antonio Restrepo, Utopia appointed interim mayor of Bogotá during reconstruction.  ”The government had been corrupt for years, but when the Medellin arrived it was almost as though things became less corrupt.  They had the power and the charisma to sell everyone on a new vision, a great fascist state that could quell the casual violence and take control.  Publically, drug sales were condemned.  Privately, every child suspected of being a nova was purchased or kidnapped and put to work for the Medellin.  Those who disobeyed were turned into soma, and those who complied were given money, power, everything.  And we let them do this, because they used their money to make schools, public buildings, utilities, public transportation.  We sold our freedom for these things, and became complicit in murder.”

McDevitt’s timeline returns.  “In Colombia, the Medellin Cartel had become the center of a multi-billion dollar drug trafficking circle.  They had infiltrated and replaced the government with former nazi-sympathizers and an ideology of tyranny.  Their ultimate goal a Fourth Reich in South America, paid for with drug money and blood.  As the truth came to light, a task force led by the United States with the blessings of the UN moved to depose the corrupt Colombian government and the Cartels.”

T2M:Europe’s Thorn, a clip from a formal interview at the one-year anniversary.  ”We had been briefed that there were two major threats, that all of the teams needed to organize together because the Cartels had prepared for us and the allied forces.  They had nuclear weapons, primitive nuclear weapons but exactly the sort of nuclear weapons we went into Macedonia and Iraq to find.  And they had armies of weak novas, most of them barely more than children, forced into fighting for the state.  The second turned out to be propaganda, and the cartels just had some talented people and well paid Elites on their side, but the first was real.  I was miles away when the first bomb went off, the one Comstock taunted them into launching, but I still remember the flash and the heat.  I also remember the second one, the one that blinded Caestus Pax.”

Raoul Orzaiz, in a perfectly fitted suit, being interviewed by Jordan McDevitt: ”The Battle of Bogotá was the first time that the world saw a group of novas acting as one to avenge an injustice against their kind.  The Cartels treated people like cattle, to be milked of soma and other products and sold at market.  Human beings are not cattle, let alone novas, and we could not stand by and just accept that.  When the teragen gathered together to support T2M, Divis Mal himself stood with us.  The world watched and listened.”

Footage for the Battle of Bogotá plays.  The world’s first look at Divis Mal.  Solitaire absorbing the energy of a nuclear bomb herself before winking out of existence.  Comstock charging across a stretch of terrain while thousands of artillery shells, energy fields,  and quantum bolts explode around him.  Gravitas subduing the whole of the battlefield with his powers.

The segment comes to a close showing the injuries T2M:A members received in the conflict: Gale’s radiation burns, Gravitas’ lost limbs, Caestus Pax’ lost eyes.

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Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
OOC: Would you like to know more?  See the following threads:
[Location] Headquarters (Outside Las Vegas, Nevada, USA)
[Story Arc #3] Drug Wars -- Missions and Sao Paolo
[Story Arc #3] Drug Wars -- Mexico
[Story Arc #4] Columbian Conflict
[Char.Dev.] Off The Clock

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This message was last edited by the player at 07:06, Wed 04 Sept 2013.

Commercial Break

This Winter, On 16 and Nova!  MTV takes you back inside the lives of Amber: ”I dont’ feel like a baseline no more.  I’m dropping my mox dose and I feel so much more in control, so, like, alive!”
Catelynn: “These tattoos symbolize a lot of what I’ve gone through.  I’m MALicious.  High school was really hard!”
And Letricia: ”And so by looking at me would you have thought that I was a nova?”  ”No.  You look so normal.” [Her date replies, smiling.]  ”Good.”  [She beams.]
Can you still live like a teenager once you’ve erupted?



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“...In the not too distant future, the apocalypse has happened.  Only one man can save mankind: Dr. Maxwell Turing, Cyber Elite is ... TIME-COMMANDO!  ... “



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The Thermal Borehole illuminates the night sky with the nigh-limitless energy of the planet Earth.  A robotic drone is commanded by a beautiful woman in a pantsuit as it carries out laborious industrial tasks with perfect precision.  A KrakTek server box glows reassuringly in a dark, clean-lined building.  “Kraken Heavy Industries.  Your Future, From Your Hands.”

The Alumni of Tomorrow, and The New Guard


When the program returns, Jordan McDevitt has a group photo from the Alumni of Tomorrow Event behind him.  Around it, the borders show other photos of T2M members in their off-hours.

”For most of 2004, we had to get by without our nova heroes.  Several of the members had sustained severe injuries in the fighting, and needed months to recover.”  A photo of Gale recovering from radiation sickness appears on the left, and a photo of emergency workers in radiation suits searching for Solitaire’s remains among the dust on the right.  ”Others faced criticism of their work, or decided to leave the team for personal reasons.”  Photos from Comstock’s tribunal on the left, and Gravitas working on robot-prostheses on the right.  ”The other Utopia teams came together to pull the additional weight, but it was becoming clear that the team would never be the same.”

”In early 2005, after it was clear that more than half of the team would be retiring or going on auxiliary, Team Tomorrow: Americas appeared with a new roster.  Half alumni, half new guard, the new team has had a rough start and a new regional focus.”


---

Another video montage with rock music shows off the 2005 lineup.  It starts with a pictures of the nine members from the 2003 lineup, then dims portraits of those who left the team.  Comstock: Retired.   Dr. Zero: MIA.  Gale: Retired.  Gravitas: Retired.  Phantasm: Retired.  Solitaire: MIA.  Slider: Suspected for Murder.  Three left out of ten.

Then, the montage segues to the remaining members.  First is Impetus, the new leader, his boyish looks giving way to a more mature demeanor, with a streak of white hair giving him George Clooney-esque aura of responsibility and class.  He’s joined by Flare and <purple>Suzukaze</red>, presented as though they are complete opposites: the good, bright, noble, fiery and American Flare juxtaposed against the dark, narrow eyed, frowning, icy and foreign Suzukaze.  It’s clear that the program has a variety of conservative arguments to make, but they let it go before making any explicit statements.

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For the New Guard, first up is El Dragón.  He’s not a handsome man, but at six feet tall with the build of an MMA fighter, Angelo DeVarga strikes a dramatic figure.  Video clips and images show his life as a US Army Ranger, a speech made after his eruption in Columbia, and using a combination of force fields and martial arts to annihilate foes.  He’s a master.  In fact, a direct comparison is subtly suggested by the editing: he’s better than Comstock.  Why have a metal man when you can have one made of force-fields and freedom?  Why have a strong haymaker punch when you could have martial arts and flight?  Why have a kid who retired after a tour of duty when you could have an Army Ranger?  Why have halting, accented Spanish when you could have a suave, masked, bilingual warrior?

El Dragón is the ideal hero.  One that will fight, bleed and die for America.  Someone scarred and hard, that could never be a celebrity.  Someone devoted to duty and honor.  A gargoyle, bereft of romance or sympathy or mercy.


---

Fifth is Ricardo Bernal-Montoya, another T2M:Auxiliary and Colombia veteran assigned to T2M:A full time.  In the year after his eruption in southern Mexico, he participated in masked nova show fights, but admits ”the atmosphere disagreed with me.  I wanted to make something of myself.  To be successful and recognized for something more than simple violence.”  Despite this sentiment, many of his opponents from that pre-Utopia year are now XWF competitors, and for the ratings McDevitt’s editors have interspersed images of the masked nova performing devastating and acrobatic wrestling moves upon the XWF’s best as the segment plays.  Ricardo is raw, powerful muscle, one of the strongest men in the world and very nearly a medalist at the 2004 Nova Olympics.  Quantum aberration -- more colloquially “quantum taint” -- has left him with distinctive green-hued skin, fins and spines growing from his forearms and back.  In battle, he still wears a mask, suggesting that it gives him Luck and Foresight.  His signature Bounce puts Teragen Monsters on their backsides, and his Shockwave Slam can wreck a city street.



---

A final clip of Ricardo’s flying-spinning-pile-driver cuts abruptly to a computer generated image, showing a spark traveling along a wire and arriving at a thousand houses.  The spark enters a television in a living room, where Binary, the boy wonder, sits on a couch and laughs.  WIth just a gesture, the television changes to a different program.  Moments later, another gesture brings a dozen other screens from all over the room, each with some video feed or program running, all obeying Binary’s commands.  A Canadian youth that Impetus saved from a collapsed arcade, Binary’s eruption took his fascination for data, computers, wires and machines and transformed him into a digital god.  Clips show his support efforts for the team, coordinating everyone’s activity, stealing data from computers, and working with Johnny Afterburner in the workshop on some new gadget or future-tech marvel.  The segment ends with the sixth member of the team turning to the camera and giving it the peace sign.



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Seventh, Virtue, a humble woman from Iowa.  Lynelle Johnson was a mother, a teacher, and active member of her local Unitarian church.  Today, she’s all of that and the most even tempered member of T2M.  She’s not fast, she’s not a good markswoman, she cannot fly and she couldn’t even imagine throwing bolts of energy at anyone.  But every clip proves that she’s an earnest, kind, and benevolent soul.  Furious crowds calm at her simple asking.  Tensions falter.  Peace and cooperation reign, and people feel a fulfilling emotional compulsion to be better people to one another.  Virtue is something of an oddity on the team, more akin to T2M:Asia Pacific’s Geisha than any of T2M:A’s past members.  Her recruitment represents a real effort on Utopia’s part to emphasize peacemaking and community development.  Jordan McDevitt, at least, seems unconvinced that she’s right for the job.



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Eighth, Melissandra Estevez, a beautiful eighteen year old youth from the streets of Bogota.  If the program is to be believed, Melissandra’s family had bravely hid her from the Medellin when the Cartels had come looking for bright young children and novas to recruit, and when the joint mission had liberated the city she emerged to thank her liberators.  Estevez’ branding is based entirely on her youth and her professed faith in Utopia’s mission of a better world.  She’s a world class gymnast, expert markswoman, fast, tough and devilishly clever, but her real value comes from her talent for teleportation.  Though not yet a Dr. Zero or Slider, her talent is considerable, and with quantum attunement she can bring a person with her.  ”Thank you for having me.  I hope to make the world safe for all men and women, of every creed and every color.”



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Ninth, Johnny Afterburner.  With a public image cribbed loosely from Disney’s the Rocketeer, Texas native and pilot Nathan Powell races through the air on the limitless quantum flames of his jet pack.  Johnny Afterburner somersaults, rolls, dogfights and pushes the sound-barrier with moxie and ease.  Machines respond to him, in a limited sense, and he tends to have a wrench in hand or some grease stylishly smeared somewhere on his clothes or face.  Clips shows him escorting planes from Bahrain, taunting Crimson Dawn in Death Valley to draw his fire, and delivering a charismatic knockout punch to a mugger on the streets of New York following the Alumni of Tomorrow event.  He’s a man’s man, fashion model, laughing the in face of danger and nipping at Impetus’ heels.  The segment closes out with him whooping with joy as he screams skyward, headed for the stars.

---


With the lineup montage over, Jordan McDevitt gets another timeline and a mosaic of images of the new team.  ”Nine novas, six new faces.  Hopes were high that the team could rise to the challenge and turn itself back toward development projects and peacetime tasks, spreading the Utopian message and Western culture.  But within weeks, those hopes were shattered.”

January, 2005: a full fledged investigation starts in India after the death of T2M Auxiliary, war hero and soccer legend André Corbin.  The segment quickly segues to Slider’s dramatic exit during the funeral, and the global manhunt that ensued.  With Slider off the team and suspected of murder, the new team roster was finalized and presented to the public ... only for Suzukaze to be ejected from the official lineup without official explanation.  News segments play of a dozen shows and N!-tertainment feeds speculating over what could possibly be the problem.  But with Suzukaze back as an Auxiliary, and soon mysteriously absent from the public eye the team was again eight.

Another segment plays, this time with footage of Death Valley.  Wealthy nova Elite and one-man-army Crimson Dawn challenges Impetus, and Flare, Dragon, Johnny Afterburner and even some T2M support staff arrive to help put the crazed nova down.  In the aftermath, Impetus looks like a hero, albeit a reckless one, but the damage to the landscape was considerable and many people realized they did not want full-on nova warfare happening on US soil.

Jordan McDevitt shows a variety of clips of the team accomplishing early goals, signing autographs, and having press conferences.  ”The team managed to adapt to peacetime, but in July 2005 another bump in the road would have lasting ramifications.”  One by one images that make up the background disappear, and when the background behind him is totally black, a single large image of New York City appears.  Smoke rises skyward from a single building, the Ritz-Carlton at Central Park.  Footage plays of Comstock and Ragnarockette holding up the building after the bombs in the lobby detonated.  Gale striking targets with lightning only to be struck by an anti-tank round through the shoulder.  El Dragón, Impetus and Johnny Afterburner commanding the sky.

An interview with T2M:E leader Thorn following the event.  ”Solitaire heard them coming and sounded the alarm, and there was a second when none of us could take her seriously.  Who in their right mind would attack a room full of novas?  There must have been forty or fifty of us there altogether.  Pax and a few others had left before all of it went down, but even so, it sounded like utter madness.  A minute later and all of us were hard at work again.  A few of us were injured, but the real cost was the staff at the hotel and the damage to the city.”

Lt. Ann Kovich speaks, her face much darker and more serious than normal.  “In the investigation afterward, we found that the terrorists were mostly escaped novas and drug addicts from Colombia.  A lot of them were carrying neo-fascist propaganda or badges.  Swastikas or lightning-bolt badges.  They used gas to try and immobilize everyone, and they were hoping to kill everyone by bringing the whole skyscraper down.  It was a scary thing, to think that it had been only four years since the world trade center came down, and if it hadn’t been for quick thinking we could have seen the same sort of catastrophe again.  What would we have done if they had died?  What would have happened to the rest of New York, or the rest of the world?”

Dr. Clara Barton, nova physician with Project Utopia: “People exposed to the chemical weapons attack suffered terrible burns to their lungs, eyes, and other mucous membranes.  But the Colombian gas weapon had some strange exotic particles, and the novas exposed to the gas started acting strangely.  Flare, for example, grew much more distant from her family.  She spent more and more time separate from the team, began to take long trips into the desert ... generally antisocial.  Impetus, too, began to slow down, become more antisocial, and behave strangely.  We definitely, definitely saw that at the special hearings before the House Subcommittee on Nova Affairs.”


---

Footage from the special hearings show congressmen asking Impetus about Divis Mal, the Teragen, and other topics.  Impetus’ responses transform from cooperative to accusatory in moments.  The footage has been cut to remove logical links that he makes, the parts that would make his accusations toward the Representatives of the subcommittee.  “Imagine the outrage of the veterans who had seen friends die to safeguard the future of the many.  The betrayal felt by those who had watched friends die fighting in a war that they were commanded to fight.  Do they have a right to be scared? Yes, for my kinsmen have done all those things, we have been betrayed in this way, and some of us are willing to use violence to protect our rights, and the rights of our children, from oppresion.”   He looks like crazy man, a terrifyingly persuasive madman threatening the government of the United States.  “Anger the bull and you'll get the horns.”

Sweating from the tension, Chair of the Subcommitte Representative Preston Mills (R-Iowa) asks.  "Now, this Divis Mal figure, in your personal opinion, would he also share this opinion?”  There’s an impassive reaction shot of Impetus and Ragnarockette, then it cuts back.  ”Part of this committee's purpose is to determine whether or not there is reason to believe that novas, as a group, present a clear and eminent danger, to the United States and even to the world.  So, let me ask you outright: do novas, more than any other group, present a clear and present danger that warrants this committee's attention?”

Imp started laughing.  A rich, deep laugh that filled the room with pure enjoyment and played directly on the amusement centers of the brains of those present.  Once his mirth had subsided he wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and looked directly at Mills, who had somewhat foolishly stopped his avoidance and counter persuasion techniques to address him directly.  “The people that are a threat to you, your way of life, and to your future are the fear mongers, the sensationalists and the unscrupulous few who prey upon your fear of the other for their own gain, and who have done and alarmingly thorough job of conditioning America to believe that every acorn is the first signal of Armageddon.  Those people are not worth listening to, people like you, Congressman.  People who flap around the farmyard convincing everybody that their doom is imminent from the latest boogeyman.”

Reaction shots from the other people present.  When the footage cuts back to Impetus, the amusement had faded and he was deadly serious.  "I have a question for you, Congressman. is the reason you you and your cronies arranged for this tedious re-hashing really motivated by hysteria, or is the hysteria that you are trying to incite in the minds of Americans, people who are not going to fall for it this time, a hopelessly transparent attempt to bias people against novas, with me as their supposed mouthpiece, in preparation for the upcoming presidential elections?”

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
OOC: Would you like to know more?  See the following threads:
[Story Arc # 5] Full Circle
[Location] Headquarters (Outside Las Vegas, Nevada, USA)
[Char.Dev.] Group Vignettes
[Char.Dev.] Vignettes, Asides and Hidden Moments

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This message was last edited by the player at 14:53, Thu 12 Sept 2013.

Violence in Las Vegas

The swooping segue leads to Jordan McDevitt standing in front of an image of the Las Vegas skyline.  ”Impetus’ inflammatory oratory before the House Subcommittee on Nova Affairs changes a lot of minds and created a lot of distrust.  But it also revealed the extent of government action to address the nova threat.  Over the past year, that threat has loomed even larger.  Las Vegas, Nevada, host city to T2M:A, saw its landscape transformed by the novatech boom and T2M:A’s public works.  It’s only reasonable, then, that it has become the focal point for public outcry and anti-nova sentiment.”

Clips show the growth of anti-war movements, anti-nova political action committees, and the Church of Michael Archangel, a grassroots outgrowth of American Conservative Christianity that perceives novas to be demons sent from hell to reap the souls of mankind.  A sign of the end times.  Violent episodes, with several novas found murdered and their bodies left out as messages, have been attributed to the Michaelists.  Some events have even seen Michaelists directly and publically attack novas for the media attention.  Other clips show Phantasm and Gale dealing with Michaelists.  And still other clips show novas acting out, playing masked vigilante to reign in Las Vegas’ crime problems or retaliate against the Michaelists.

”To deal with this problem and maintain public order, Las Vegas’ Metropolitian Police Department has become a paramilitary organization, reinforced by drones and cutting edge Kraken Heavy Industries anti-Nova and riot-control weapons.”

---
Robert McManamon, Las Vegas resident and lawyer: “We’ve had soma-labs in Kingman Arizona.  We’ve had arson in Summerlin.  We’ve had full drug labs.  All the War on Drugs has done is pushed already desperate dealers north of the border, into our cities and our communities.  This is a problem that Project: Utopia made, and T2M should be here handling it, not street vigilantes and gangs.  For our civil suit, I combed through every documented event in the past two years: we’ve seen a 60% rise in crime since this started, and every time a new nova erupts in a bad neighborhood they are immediately drawn into this growing web of social disorder.  Team Tomorrow!  If you’re listening, we’re still here waiting for you to do your jobs!

Arkady Levitov, DeVries Agency Security Consultant and Data Analyst: “It’s impossible to escape that Las Vegas, Nevada has become a global city.  Capital has flown like mercury to it, pooling there, fueling growth and development but also leaving creative destruction behind.  But for every problem, there is a solution.  New equipment and practices have made the justice department a leading innovator in 21st century policing techniques and nova-law.  And there is growing demand in the market for gated neighborhoods or high-rise condominiums with OpNet wired defenses and surveillance and other security measures.  Drugs and anti-nova violence may come to the city, but nearly every day we see major corporations making substantial investments to keep the city from tumbling into disorder.“

Video plays of Gale and Flare attending the now-notorious wedding of Gale’s father and Flare’s mother.  The event turns into a fiasco, with Michaelists shouting slogans.  Finally, a child begins screaming and people in the crowd fire guns at the two novas, injuring both before Gale swoops them away.  The resulting hospital stay of America’s sweetheart and the hateful expressions of the avian-nova become iconic images of the year.

Raoul Orzaiz: ”The gunmen in the crowd took their freedom of speech and expression and pressed it too far.  When they inflicted violence on Gale and Flare, they took their lives into their own hands.  That those two did not kill them does not change that they transgressed the law or deserved punishment.”

Footage plays of Geryon assaulting the crowd outside the courthouse, killing both of the indicted shooters in the attack on Gale and Flare, then killing the Michaelist pastor leading the protestors by tearing his head from his body.  Raoul’s voice cuts back in: “We are, each of us, laws unto ourselves.  You cannot pretend that a speed limit could fairly apply to the Suzukaze, or insider trading laws could fairly apply to the Mathematician.  That would be absurd.  But Geryon stepped outside his purview, acted on another novas behalf and stole Gale and Flare’s right to seek justice as they saw fit.”

Lt. Kovich, in interview: ”The Teragen and the Host of Eternity, both, have spread messages that put them in direct conflict with local laws and Project: Utopia.  It’s sometimes an uphill battle to fight for nova rights, and it’s a batlte that has to be won in the hearts and minds of every person on earth.  For every villain, there’s a vigilante out there, donning a mask or playing public defender like Johnny Afterburner, trying every day to make the world a safer place.  We’d rather interested novas sign on with the Utopia, though, instead of striking out on their own.”

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
OOC: Would you like to know more?  See the following threads:
[Location] Las Vegas: Superstition, Fear, and Jealousy
[Location] Headquarters (Outside Las Vegas, Nevada, USA)
[Char.Dev.] Group Vignettes
[Char.Dev.] Ties That Bind
[Char.Dev.] Vignettes, Asides and Hidden Moments

---

---

The End of An Era?

After the commercial break, Jordan McDevitt is seated next to a well dressed woman in glasses.  ”In the first hour of this program, we showed you what’s come before and helped you peer behind the masks novas wear.  In our second hour
The Battle of Bogota was tougher and bloodier than anyone could have imagined.  Anyone except our next guest, Dr. Erin Portman, an expert on nova psychology and quantum corruption.  She has spent the last two years studying the nova condition and recently published The Colombian Conflict: How Nova Audacity Is Eroding the Nation-State.  That’s a big title there, Erin.  How does it all relate back to T2M:A?”

”Thank you, Jor.  It actually has everything to do with T2M:A and Project: Utopia, and their handling of the War on Drugs.”

”How so?”

”Though no one can fairly say that they failed in their aims, T2M:A fought that war with little regard for the lives or property of others.  Negotiation powerhouses like Impetus and Geisha persuaded every agency and government along the way to roll over and cooperate, and people like Comstock and Solitaire behaved without any regard for collateral damage in their aim to accumulate personal glory.”

”Those are some pretty big accusations.”

”But supported by the evidence.  When Comstock got angry in Colombia, he completely disregarded the safety of all those around him and dared the Colombians to drop a nuclear weapon, in the process injuring many of his comrades and hundreds of supporting US soldiers, not to mention damaging the countryside.  And Solitaire’s grudge on Juan Trajillo led to incredible damage to two cities.  Neither one of them could actually be hurt, but they didn’t think of how their actions affected those around them.  This sort of narcissism is typical of nova psychology, and likely was aggravated by the burdens of combat duty.”

”Alright, I can see where you are coming from.  But Comstock faced a full tribunal for his actions --”

”And got away with barely any punishment whatever.  If he had been part of the US Army, he would have faced a court martial and a prison sentence.  But Utopia protected him.  They allowed him to voluntarily step down as leader of T2M:A and continue as an auxiliary.  This pattern is typical of the way Utopia runs things, and this sort of capitulation from governments around the world is paving the way for a single global state.”

”What you call capitulation others would call cooperation.”

”What’s the difference if it means America becomes subservient to the UN agenda and Project: Utopia?  But we’re getting off topic.  The stresses that T2M:A came under, fighting back to back global conflicts and acting as the spearpoint in efforts, left every member of the team with a combination of narcissism and post-traumatic stress I’ve labelled Columbian War Syndrome.  Some of the oldest members were already founding members of the Teragen, and have grown closer and closer to that deviant philosophy since Colombia.”

”Let’s take a quick account.  Dr. Zero?  Makes a few erratic public appearances, then disappears altogether.  No one knows where he or she went, and Utopia isn’t talking because they don’t want us to see.  Phantasm?  Retreats to her fashion contracts and being a pop star, where everyone worships her.  She won’t talk about the conflict publicly, and shies away from even the slightest uncontrolled public exposure.  Comstock gets a slap on the wrist, throws a temper tantrum, and starts building even bigger things to put his name on.  He even began speaking like either he or Impetus were planning on running for president, if you can believe it, one of the most egotistical things I can possibly imagine.  Gravitas disappears, but in his case we know he started retreating into his research and then his disabilities.  Solitaire disappears, reappears without warning with a completely new look and spends all her time around the Teragen.  And Impetus?  He becomes the new leader of T2M after disappearing for a year, and within weeks a simple disagreement with an elite at the Archon in Las Vegas turns into a major battle at Death Valley, with his whole team involved.  If that isn’t narcissism, I don’t know what is.”

”You’re referring to Crimson Dawn?”

”Yes.  And, actually, it’s been a little over a year since Impetus’ Alumni of Tomorrow party in New York.  First, let’s not forget how egotistical this is, and how plainly dangerous to the public to invite so many novas to one spot.  But moving beyond that, even the novas that attacked that gathering were elites and former cartel novas showing signs of Colombian War Syndrome.  Their complete disregard for them own lives and the lives of others, their desire to fight T2M to regain the glory and attention of the world, and their complete psychological disintegration under questioning and psychic probe validates everything that I have said.  Those novas are ticking time-bombs, ready to explode.”

”But you’re clearly exaggerating.  Some of the team made it out alright.”

”True, not everyone shows signs.  The new guard, the ones who just fought in Columbia and the 2005 lineup, are faring better than the people who fought through the Equatorial Wars.  Flare, for example, hasn’t manifested any obvious signs of psychological disorder.  But we cannot forget that these people are young, fragile, and easily molded by their wartime experiences and the power they wield.”

”It sounds like you’ve packed that book to the gills.  But we’re out of time for today.  The book is The Colombian Conflict: How Nova Audacity Is Eroding the Nation-State.  Dr. Portman, thank you.”

”Thank you.”

”When we return, Bahrain.  Project Utopia’s dirty little secrets laid bare, and what this means for the future of the team.”

---



COMMERCIAL BREAK

Trumpets play a fanfare.  American youth, taking exams in high school, playing football, hugging and wearing graduation caps.

“Your future.  You think about it every day.  You wonder what comes next.  In a changing world, you know that things can change in a heartbeat.”

Footage of emergencies.  Novas fighting novas.  Brave baseline militaires fighting the most horrible aberrant mutations of the Colombian project.  People cleaning up rubble in Los Angeles after a major battle in the streets.

“For the better world of Tomorrow.  For your safety.  For your future.”

Footage of computer networks managed by a skillful technicians, keeping a careful eye on the world.  Soldiers in modern armor with modern weapons and black synthweave facemasks.  Nova secret agents with smiling, reassuring, confident faces.

“The Directive.  We have control.  We keep you safe.  We are your hope.”

[This advertisement paid for by the Council for American Sovereignty and the Russo-American Coalition.]

Bahrain

The show returns and segues directly to footage of Bahrain.  The public saw a sudden arrival of two dozen or more teragen novas, then Caestus Pax brutally annihilating the fortified Rashoud Center Project Utopia maintained on the island.  Geryon and others vent their rage on the building and every Project:Utopia employee they can find.  Then, as law enforcement and military assets respond to the disaster, they retaliate against anyone that draws a weapon against them and filter out into the city to find anyone else associated with the facility.  Then there is footage of the terrorist, Slider, bringing Impetus and Comstock to New York in what appears to be an effort to address the United Nations ... or perhaps an effort to set a glowing, egg-like bomb ... or perhaps just an attempt on Justin Laragione, Director of Project: Utopia.  The terrorist is shot, Solitaire flies through the portal to recover her.  Comstock retreats, and then moments later after some more words with the director Impetus flies backwards into the portal.

”The world is still piecing together all the details of what happened on that fateful day in Bahrain.  We saw skeletons torn from their closets, heroes become villains, and a sudden and startling return to the violence of the Equatorial Wars.  But the real question today is what we will do next, and how Team Tomorrow will be changed by the experience.”


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Nova Reactions to Bahrain











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The Bigger Picture

After the commercial break, Justin Laragione, in a public statement the afternoon following the Bahrain disaster: ”The attack on the people of Bahrain is a tragic mistake, one that can never be undone.  Though it pains me to admit it, the mistake is as much ours as the Teragen extremists responsible for the destruction.  Records recovered from the Rashoud Facility and Hospital targeted by the terrorists has brought to light a conspiracy within Project Utopia.  A group of people shamefully manipulated by one of our own.  A nova with power to force others into monstrous acts.  The perpetrator was a member of the project, a medical researcher who participated in the Colombian Conflict, and who decided to use the very same methods the Cartels used in a perverse and monstrous attempt to bring about Utopia’s ideals.  The conspirators used force, political assassinations, and illegal experimentation on human beings. Their actions have tarnished the character and the dream of Project Utopia.

“The nova at the center of all of this was an anarchist who has recently registered the nova name Dr. Worm.  He committed several crimes shortly after his eruption and was apprehended by T2M:A.  Afterwards, he was given medical and psychiatric care, rehabilitated and given an opportunity to reenter society by working with the Project in fields related to his specialty.  Instead, he abused our trust, managed to lie to or psychically manipulate his doctors, and then turned other loyal people to his cause.  The full details of this conspiracy are still being evaluated, but in keeping with our policy of transparency and disclosure we will be sharing our internal reports with global media outlets and intelligence services as we complete them.  Until Dr. Worm is apprehended, we will not rest, nor will we falter.

“On behalf of the Project, I must apologize.  I must apologize to those killed by the Teragen extremists, the victims of a violent outburst, the defenseless people of Bahrain.  I must apologize to those the conspirators hurt or killed, for their abominable acts, acts which could never bring about a better world.  I must apologize to my people, the staff of Project Utopia, who I and my administrators have failed by not uncovering this before it was too late.  And I must apologize to the conspirators and their families, because we should have protected them from the mental disorders of their nova colleague.  Finally, I must make a special apology to the family of André Corbin.  Some of the information recovered from Dr. Worm’s lair in the labs at the Bahrain Center have proven beyond any doubt that Corbin had uncovered part of Dr. Worm’s conspiracy.  For this, Dr. Worm manipulated the nova Slider into murdering him.  It was because of our negligence that Corbin died.  And it was because of our negligence that Slider has become a terrorist and teragen extremist herself.

“Over the next month, we will be conducting a thorough internal investigation, and a radical reorganization of Team Tomorrow.  We must clean our own house to earn back the world’s trust.  We cannot let hope die simply because we tried to give a madman a second chance.

"No further comments or questions at this time.  Thank you.”

---

The image freezes on Director Laragione’s grief stricken face.  Jordan McDevitt walks into the camera frame.  ”The identity of Dr. Worm has been verified, and today agencies around the world seek this dangerous anarchist with every resource at their disposal.  But the mere fact that a single nova with mental powers of suggestion could put together a conspiracy on this scale has sent a chill through our collective consciousness.”

Dr. Worm’s face, a twisted, hairless, horrible photo of an altogether average looking man, moves into the frame behind McDevitt, joined by five other images of other hyper-influential novas: the psychic psychopath Freak, the ineffable Impetus, Indonesian nationalist and industrialist Parameswara, German media mogul Gustav Keld, and Host of Eternity Archangel Amida.  ”A single point of information can’t tell a story, because it lacks context, but as new information has come to light, a pattern emerges.  In her 2004 presidential run, Libertarian candidate Lauren Pendleton was ridiculed for arguing that a cabal of nova ‘sphinxes’ with extraordinary intelligence and mental powers were conspiring among themselves.  People like Dr. Worm, but also people like Parameswara, or Gustav Keld.  Novas with tremendous charisma, and the ability to influence the very functioning of the human brain.”

“Alone, such people could only advance their own sociopathy.  But together, or in pursuit of another’s goals, they are capable of almost anything.  Far fetched?  Maybe.  But I feel that I owe Lauren Pendleton an apology.  She wasn’t fear-mongering; she was trying to communicate to the American People a very real and present danger brought about by nova kind.  For every hero, there could be a villain out there.  A nova traumatized by war.  A nova that Utopia’s flailing bureaucracy neglected or forgot.  A nova without morals, or so confused that he, she ... or it ... can no longer tell wrong from right.”

Pictures of Harley Logan, Prodigal, Suzukaze and Slider slide into the frame.  "We've seen in the past how Project Utopia, in their naivete and mercy, has allowed unstable individuals into positions of power.  Oftentimes, they are practically begging for help, their mental health clearly in jeopardy, but the project has somehow missed it.  Sometimes it seems obvious that Project Utopia simply wishes to give novas with bad eruptions a home, a hospital where they can be cared for, a way out to keep them from being out in the world doing harm.  But we are seeing now Utopia's greatest weakness laid bare: the very same ideals that have guided it to make the world a better place make it vulnerable to bad people with bad intentions."

"Team Tomorrow is the vanguard of the Project.  But its come time for us to ask ourselves whether their time is over.  Whether the world needs these nova teams.  Whether we can afford to trust in Project Utopia's judgment in a world with over 6000 novas on the census.  Because if we keep giving our power away to these brave souls, who have fought so hard and given so much, than we almost guarantee that more events like Bahrain will happen."

---

"Next week, our program will return to its normal format.  We will dig further into what scientists are calling neuro-linguistic programming, and how these techniques could be changing the way you think without you realizing.  Also, it's called 'Dorming Down', a method by which a nova can suppress their nova talents and node to blend in with the rest of society.  Our guest will tell us whether there are novas among you right now, in your schools, your workplaces, and your government.  Finally, fast food; is your government looking out for your health?  Good night America."

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
OOC: Would you like to know more?  See the following threads:
[Story Arc #5] Full Circle

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Major Organizations

Utopia: The organization that cured cancer and brought life to the desert is forced to regroup and do massive PR work in an attempt to bring life back to the Utopian dream.  Utopia really is a good organization tarnished by the actions of a few, or at least that is what they tell the world and each other anyway.  The world, and world governments in particular, merely reply with amoral hypocritical condemnation and the question "what have you done for us lately?"  Driven by their remaining allies' repeated requests for technological parity with tech powerhouses like Japan and the US, Utopia releases more of its technology, creating standardized nova age tech infrastructure in Europe, South America, Africa, and parts of Asia; this New Tech^tm is in direct competition with Japanese and US developments, driving economic and technological conflict.  Utopia redoubles efforts in regions it is still welcome in, putting participating nations on a path to the highest standard of living ever experienced in human history, which ironically instills a sense of envy and opposition in non-Utopia countries.

Directive: In the wake of Bahrain, the Directive is the new, best hope (as seen by world governments) for controlling the nova problem; a beacon of sanity, security and familiar "business as usual" law enforcement in the insane nova age.  In a major political coup, the Directive (a treaty organization similar to NATO) is given oversight of Utopia and nova activities within member nations, and the power to enforce the Moscow Pact, a set of rules regulating nova international activities between member states.  The Directive has massive autonomy to act due to the vague nature of international law and its own charter.  The organization employees some of the world's most talented baselines and a not-insignificant number of novas, including the former Utopian Frostburn as a direct liaison between Utopia and the Directive.

Criminal Cartels: Finally finding a precarious but booming homeostasis, the large criminal organizations cater to individuals and government alike, while a weakened utopia no longer has the authority to counter anything but the most overt breaches of the law in regions hostile to Utopia's presence.  Russian and Asian cartels are by far the most powerful, due to the region's lack of Utopia presence and already corrupt governments, but the cartels also make surprising inroads into Canada due to the lack of a strong militarized nova government force to stop such expansion.  The remains of the South American cartels become "little brothers" to the Asian cartels.

Teragen: The Teragen is more divided, with disparate goals and ideals pulling them apart.  The Sanctified pull the movement into loose alliance with the Host of Eternity, an alliance the Dominion is happy to use but uninterested in truly being a part of.  The Accord (a direct result of the Utopian Terat's philosophical leanings) seeks to spread rules for nova society into other large nova structures, be they Terat, Host, Elite, or even Utopian; further, they ally with the nascent aberrant movement and any cause likely to stabilize the growing hostilities in the world.  The dominions places itself in direct opposition to humanity, a true terrorist organization that is held in check only by its lack of numbers.  The rest of the terats are a heterogeneous lot, providing a place for young novas and swaying to the beat of whichever faction is ascendent at any given time.

Elites: Business is great, elites are in more demand than ever.  Several companies are setting themselves up as political powerhouses, especially Devries.  Anna, given the secret information she is privy to, and her collaboration with Impetus, is interested in accruing political power.  She intends to use her influence to help fight the hidden conspiracies acting against nova interests and to aid the budding Vigilance movement.

Regional Politics

North America: The US backs away from Utopia even further, creates its own nova research and military projects, and dares the weakened Utopia to act against the violation of nova non-proliferation and Utopia's stranglehold on technology.  The US Army keeps intense scrutiny on the Americas base outside of Las Vegas, and monitors all Rashoud facilities while contributing billions to the Directive.  Partisan divides are strong, and will only grow worse as the presidential primaries begin.  Religious divides grow stronger, with Michaelists incorporating many large Baptist and Nazarene congregations, while the Host shows gains a surprising number of converts ranging from alternative religions and even some christian circles.  Canada is surprisingly against Utopia as well, with the public feeling betrayed by the organization's unscrupulous actions, moving to block them from many activities in their sovereign territory.  Only Mexico is still on good terms with Utopia, and many North American operations use Mexico as a staging area, enough that T2M:A may be moved to Mexico City once the lease expires on the Las Vegas base.

European Union, Central and South America: The European Union as a whole doubles down on Utopia and the UN, even as many member nations throw their support behind the directive. The EU, as well as Africa and South America use the troubled Utopia/US relationship as a way to form closer ties to Utopia, and reap significant financial benefits from R&D and other Utopia projects.

Asia: Utopia popularity wanes from its already low levels in these areas, while Directive support is massive, expanding the organization's influence greatly.  Nova movements are tightly controlled, and used for the benefit of the state in Russia, the Koreas, and China.  South Asia is still a bit of a nova free for all, with nova cults springing up in villages throughout the region, making it a favored area for members of the Host.  Criminal Cartels expand massively in Russia, China, and to a lesser extent Japan, to the point that they have as much influence as local governments in many regions.  The middle-east is openly hostile toward Utopia, one too many acts of Nova destruction turning the populace against the organization that gave so much to the region.  The poor and uneducated population of the area even call for a return of traditional values and theocracy in the face of perceived betrayal by both their leaders and Utopia.  Criminal Cartels find a welcoming, nurturing environment in which they can grow strong and vibrant; their first crop of lucrative and elicit fruit is just coming up for harvest.

1998:
Tyrone Brown was 18 when his father erupted in a freak grilling accident, becoming the nova celebrity Burnout.  Fame and fortune rained down on Brown Sr., but his family fell by the wayside, a casualty of the excesses of the nova condition.  When Tyrone's classmate said the young man would never be able to hold a candle to his father the "superhero," Tyrone's punch landed him a suspension that cost him admission, and an academic scholarship, to MIT.  Fortunately dad came through one last time.  Apparently nova's were outside the normal rules: participate in a few tests for the MIT researchers, make a few donations, and Tyrone was in class by the fall of '99.  Of course he had to include a note that he was seeing a counselor for his "anger problems," but pride was a small price to pay for one's future.

2002:
Burnout died in February of 2002, along with so many other early novas, in the Iraqi WMD disaster.  Tyrone's father died penniless, there was no inheritance.  Without his father to pay for school, Tyrone had to rely on part time jobs to pay his bills, and his grades fell behind.  Peers and Professors alike were merciless in their criticism of the son of a failed nova who "never should have been in school to begin with."  Coming home after work, tired, buzz from a few after-hours beers already worn off, another driver ran him into a mailbox. Not one of the flimsy, box-on-a-stick mailboxes either.  A sturdy brick column that cost over a grand to repair and totaled his car. DWI was what the report said, DWB was the truth of the matter, but either way he couldn't get insurance to pay for his car, and the costs of the repairs and legal fees meant an end to college.  The courts, in their infinite wisdom and mercy, referred him to a Utopia program for individuals with substance abuse problems.  He took the lifeline, it was all he had.

2003-2006:
Tyrone completed the substance abuse program, another success story for Utopia, and was streamed into a menial labor job for the sprawling organization.  After a short while in the general pool of unskilled labor, Tyrone put in an internal application to R&D, hoping that the rapidly expanding organization might be willing to overlook the marks on his record in favor of expedience.  They accepted him, and he climbed through the ranks to become a direct assistant to Quentin Abernathy.  Gravitas was Tyrone's idol, an active engineer of a brighter future and mankind's greatest hope of unlocking the fundamental workings of reality.  It was just simple stuff, but assisting Gravitas made Tyrone feel like he mattered to the world, even if he had given up on his own dreams of a Ph.D. and his own lab.  When he finally worked up the nerve and showed Dr. Abernathy some of his ideas from the time back at MIT, the world renowned scientist looked at the paper for exactly 9 seconds before stating "the math just isn't there, but good try.  You've got a lot of potential.  You should go get a doctorate"  The words were more painful than when he was fired for wasting the time of one of Utopia's most important assets.  The all seeing eye of Utopia, in conjunction with the nova business wizards who managed work flow, had deemed his 9 seconds of distraction and the potential relationship they represented to be worth ending Tyrone's employment.  Gravitas noted the absence of his assistant, annoyed at the disruption to his routine: Jim, in charge of productivity, noted the minor changes in Dr. Abernathy's performance, but calculations clearly showed that the danger of lost time due to a meaningful work relationship far outweighed the minor distraction represented.  Order preserved, Jim took another sip of coffee.

2006:
With his record, lack of official academic background, and Utopia unusable as a reference, Tyrone could not obtain work in science. Falling upon a friend of his father's for help, a family friend from before that fateful day in '98, Tyrone found a job in construction.  He was a bad fit really, but he wanted to work.  He got better, studied, applied the same intellect that made him a top researcher for Utopia.  He was going to be promoted to foreman when KHI bought out his company, laid off the workers, and replaced them with a diverse line of ConBots.  It was proof of concept for the robots, very important to the company as a whole.  Tyrone and the other workers were given severance pay, on the condition they not talk about their termination, on pain of a visit from the unceasing and unstoppable KHI litigation team.  He took the check of course.  Then he took the unemployment check, and then the welfare check after that.

2007:
Tyrone was drunk.  He seldom drank, it was a stupid waste of money, but he had to get away from his life for the night.  When he stumbled out of the bar, it was almost 2, and he didn't even see the man who ran into him like a freight train.  "Outa the way zip!" and Tyrone was on the ground.  Then he was up, chasing down the bastard.  Hitting him was like hitting a brick wall, but it was worth it.  The nova laughed, picked him up with one hand, and held him there until the police arrived.  The assault charges landed him a court date and a 5k bail.  He took out a loan he never intended to pay back, and made plans.  The next day he took his mom's car, the one she'd left him when she died a few years back, but never drove because he couldn't afford the insurance and getting his license reinstated.  And he drove.  Listened to the radio.  Got a milkshake.  Watched the moonrise.  He found a perfect spot, a nice little overpass, a place where hardly any cars ever drove by.  He was going 110, frightened but happy to soon be free, a few tears leaking out of his eyes, when the nova with the rocket ripped him out of the car.  "What the hell do you think you're doing citizen?  Damned selfish you ask me, someone other than you might be hurt, you know?  Hell, lets get you some help..."

2008:
The sentencing could have been worse, all things considered, but it was still harsh due to his prior record.  After he was out of the hospital he went straight to jail, but there was a last hope for him after all.  Utopia, rocked by scandal, and always in the business of saving the disadvantaged from themselves, was starting a pilot program to reduce recidivism and limit the time non-violent offenders spent in jail.  As a former Utopia employee, Tyrone was at the top of the list.  He joined the program of course, the other option was to rot in jail.  He was given time with nova psychologists, quantum behavioral modification therapy, and specialized drugs to reduce aggression and limit addictive tendencies.  He was their lab rat; in exchange he would get 2 years off his sentence and the chance at a guaranteed job after getting out.

When the media came by for the photo op, he was the patient they spoke to. "Mr. Brown, I'm sure you're thankful for this amazing opportunity, and I'm equally sure that you'll make the most of it.  Thanks to Utopia and the amazing novas working on its team, you'll have a second chance at a productive and meaningful life.  What do you think of that?"

Tyrone's gaze was intense, the question was clearly emotional for him.  He glanced at his case worker and the watching doctors, then he lowered his gaze to look at the floor.  He replied quietly, solemnly, holding back tears.  "Yeah, novas.  Don't know what I would've been without them."
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:31, Sun 22 Sept 2013.