November 3rd, 2020.  The ruins of Freedom Force HQ

Every poll predicted President Davis will lose the election.  The last few months have been a roller coaster, with one scandal, and tragedy, following another.  The meltdown in Manhattan.  The exoneration of Ethan Myers. The suspicious deaths in Pinedale.  Experiments on Mutant inmates at Camp-X.  The Brotherhood taking hostages in the UN.  Avengers tower blown up.  Magneto melting the statue of liberty.  Deaths at 'the Raft'.  Mutants rioting in the streets.  A mega pharmaceutical company building its own Mutant army.  The list went on and on and on.

No wonder all of Davis' accomplishments in the last four years have been forgotten.   The only thing that seemed to be on everyone's minds these days was 'the mutant question', and Davis was deemed too soft to offer a solution.

The headlines were already written.  Andrew Williams was supposed to take office.  Entire articles written about Davis's failure to lead the nation in its most trying times.

And everyone was in for a shock when the results started coming in.  It's not only that President Davis has won the election.  It was that her victory has been unprecedented in American history.  She carried every state – all fifty of them.  Not only that, but her party won all the contested seats in the Senate, and the entirety of the House of Representatives.

The conspiracy theories in the dark web gathered momentum before the election results have been called.  'Mutants' stole the elections.  It was the only possible explanation.  And if the American people have been denied their vote, what other option did they have left?
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 18:47, Tue 19 July 2022.

The results both pleased and terrified Illya.

"All fifty states? That seems like a lot. Almost too many..."

This was going to be trouble, of course. While it was mathematically possible for someone to pull all fifty states, and for that same party to pick up all open seats in the House and Senate, it was so statistically unlikely as to be impossible anyway. For that to happen to the candidate who'd been losing in the polls made it even more unlikely.

The thing was, if this was a coup, it was a stupid one, because it looked like a coup. So, something else was going on here.

Clearly this was the machination of a sinister and powerful group. But with no proof, and no direct mandate to investigate, it was the job of Freedom Force to support the election as legitimate and fair.

Mutant Rights had been at the forefront of the election issues, and Davis had been the pro-mutant candidate. As mutants, Freedom Force was about to catch the brunt of the public's negative sentiments regarding the botched election. Things were going to get ugly.



1 XP: When you claim that a situation or event is a result of the machination of a sinister and powerful group.

"Well that looks fishy.  I hope she says something right away about figuring out what's really going on.  Otherwise it's going to be bad."  Kate said as well.  She might not be old enough to vote yet, and might not really have much deep interest in politics, but she knew at least that much.

The call from Johnson came a short hour later, asking them all to report to the command RV.  By the time they arrived, (ex) Senator Kelly was already on the news, demanding Davis declares the election null and void, and launch an investigation into the very clear case of election fraud.  And while he didn't specifically blame Mutants, he certainly implied they were somehow responsible for what happened.  The self-professed militias didn't need to listen to his speech to reach the same conclusions.  People were arming themselves, and if Freedom Force didn't do something quick, all hell was bound to break loose

"Sit down, Agents" Johnson closed his laptop by pushing his fist over the top panel.
"I trust you all seen the news.  I just got a call from Valerie. The President wants us to check if the election results have been tampered with.  And she wants us to give her something within the next twenty-four hours"

Gwenyth, late again, charges into the room excitedly while holding her phone out in front of her. She manages to interrupt Agent Johnson at "I trust you have all seen the-"

"Oh my gosh guys have you seen the news?! Isn't it great! I was really worried for a little while but it looks like Davis managed to pull off a miracle!!!" She shows her phone excitedly to the rest of the team before starting to realize the weird looks she is getting. "Um... guys? What's with the faces? This is a good thing, right?"

"It's a good thing if it's true," Frank said to Gwyneth. She was a bit naive if she just accepted the results out of hand. "But when something is too good to be true, it generally isn't."

"Too good to be true?" Gwenyth asks, cocking her head. "Wow, what a... stressful way to think... o-oh! Hello Agent Johnson! I didn't see you there!? Wait is this a briefing?" She starts rapidly fumbling with her phone. "Inbox full? What does that mean?" she mutters.

"Um... how are we supposed to do that?  I mean, I don't even know how votes get counted.  Aren't there people who's job it is to do this sort of thing?  Unless you want us to go talk with them..."  Kate offers her complete insuitability to the job at hand to him.

Johnson didn't think Gwenyth to be so dense as to believe Davis won by a landslide.  She must have been sarcastic, an attitude which he didn't much appreciate
"Almost all ballots these days use voting machines to tabulate results.  They also create paper copies so a significant portion of them can be statistically inspected later for any deviation.  So far, it looks like no deviation has been found, which leads me to conclude all the machines were somehow hacked - without leaving a trace, and made to print out erroneous logs.  I can't imagine even the Russian or the Chinese to be able of such a feat.  It's too clean"

And just as he was talking, all members of Freedom Force got a message into their phones, from an old comrade of theirs:




The list contains the names of people who posted about being 'ready to do something' about the election, filtered to include only the ones with criminal records and a history of violence.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:14, Thu 21 July 2022.