Feel free to work on your character concept(s) here!

So what I'm noodling around with in my head right at the moment are either The Nomad, sort of a "Starlord by way of the Last Starfighter" deal, or The Harbinger, come back from a post-apocalyptic future to prevent a mistake that cost her best friend's life, or one of The Beacon or The Janus, either way a world-class acrobat and fencer, superheroing because her father is so rich that she can get away with it.

I'm presently typing more thorough backstories for all of them, just wanted to preview the barebones concepts in case there are any notes or thoughts.

I'll wait for more. One thing for now - the Harbinger's friend is, presumably, also from the (reasonably distant) future? Did she overshoot in travelling to the present, or was the mistake that far-reaching? If it has to do with the apocalypse, then it's interesting (perfectly believable, mind) that the death of a friend is what brought it home for her enough to want to fix it.

It's a work in progress, of course, but I think the death of The Harbinger's friend is down to a distinctly post-apocalyptic cause- murder by roving band of Mad Max rejects, radiation from digging through a bombed out city, leftover superweapon, disease unknown to an advanced society, etc.

Harbinger doesn't really set out to fix it so much as stumbles across someone's time machine that they don't understand and decides that, while they have the chance, the best way to prevent their friend dying is to make sure the apocalypse (WW4, I assume) doesn't happen at all. It's a desperation move and a grief-driven gambit, not something they thought out all that well.

Going to sleep here in a moment, but these are my top three character ideas right now.

Starfighter- the Nomad, former child soldier in an alien war.

Kaitlyn Clarke was born in a small town in Kentucky, where she was raised by a single mother and a long string of father figures ranging in quality from decent to emotionally distant, but never outright abusive. Left to her own devices much of the time, she developed into a video gaming prodigy and a veritable wizard at Ethereal Skies, a revolutionary, highly successful starship combat simulator. As these things often turn out to be, the game was also a stealth recruitment tool for a reclusive, enigmatic, and profoundly pacifist alien species known to most as the Ethereals, owing to their near-mythical rarity. When the Ethereals came for her, Kaitlyn was almost thirteen, her mother's current boyfriend was a strict disciplinarian with no business helping to raise a teenager, and being drafted into an elite, multispecies defense corps sounded like the best adventure possible. Kaitlyn went with the aliens and scarcely thought twice.

Kaitlyn joined the Starfighter Corps, the elite defense force of the Ethereals, composed entirely of aliens, owing to the Ethereals' pacifist ethos. Kaitlyn was the first human to join, and over the next few years she poured herself into first training and then the work, earning the respect and friendship of her comrades, all that good stuff. Everything changed in Kaitlyn's seventeenth year, when the Dark came for the Ethereal homeworld (unofficially dubbed Etherea, for convenience).

The Starfighter Corps lined up to face the invading Cyliens in the skies above their adopted home, outnumbered ten to one but standing firm, legendary morale never faltering... until it did. At a crucial moment, Kaitlyn's resolve wavered, she turned to run, and the servants of the Dark pounced on the opening, shattering the planet's formerly impregnable defense and decimating the Starfighter Corps, laying waste to the planet and leaving the survivors of both the Corps and their Ethereal patrons to scramble for evacuation. In the aftermath, the Ethereal race, never an expansionist lot, has become nearly extinct and Kaitlyn was branded a traitor, a deserter, and an outlaw by the surviving remnants of the once-great Starfighter Corps.

Ever since the once-mighty Corps disintegrated in the skies above Etherea, Kaitlyn's been scrambling to stay ahead of the remnants of her old colleagues and former friends. In desperation, she's returned to Earth, ditched her ship in the ocean near New Atlantis, and hidden herself among the masses of other humans in the city. She does vigilante work under the name Starfighter to redeem herself, in her own eyes if not those of her comrades.

---

Brainstorm- The Harbinger, time-traveling telepath on a mission to improve the future she barely remembers.

Chloe Donovan, called Brainstorm, comes from the future, in a time about twenty years after the next World War. In this ruined world of the future, Chloe managed to get by on scavenging the ruins of what came before, diving into the ruins of cities and abandoned superhero bases and villainous lairs with her best friend Kate, in search of valuable resources or technology.

Kate and Chloe were essentially inseparable, close as sisters, until the day they broke into an abandoned supervillain's laboratory (at Chloe's insistence) and Kate was cut down by an automated defense system. Faced with the prospect of a life without her best friend, Chloe threw herself at riskier and riskier targets for weeks, until she found herself in a long-lost superhero's hidden lab, and that's where she found the time portal.

Still operational, but with controls and instructions that were well beyond Chloe's comprehension, the time portal proved to be an irresistable temptation. Managing to power it up, Chloe took a leap of faith into the portal... and vanished. The next thing she knew, she was in the present, before the war, before the world fell apart, with her memories scrambled and fragmented. All she remembers is that she came back to change the future, to save Kate, and she assumes she meant to do that by making sure the next war neer happens.

---

Crusader- The Beacon, fighting crime just because she can.

Sarah Wallace is the only daughter of Charles Dexter Wallace, CEO of Wallace Corp, a major research and development corporation based in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States, and coincidentally supplying next-generation armaments to the American Department of Defense. While not blessed with supergeniuses on the payroll, the corporation does well enough with conventional arms and armaments that Charles and his daughter Sarah are, in technical terms, filthy stinking rich. While Charles is content to direct the corporation in its continuing efforts to reverse engineer advanced superhuman tech and alien weaponry to then sell on to the US and allied governments, Sarah is the epitome of the idle, reclusive rich, occasionally showing up in paparazzi photos at social events or training herself for an eventual run at the Olympics, but mostly staying out of the limelight and living off of her nearly bottomless trust fund.

At least, that's how it appears. In reality, Sarah, a world-class fencer and gymnast in addition to being blessed with generational wealth, spends her time seeking justice and cheap thrills as a masked, rapier-wielding heroine on the streets of New Atlantis. Her equipment comes from surplus Wallace Corp stuff, but her father has no idea, believing that his little girl merely prefers the sea air and the nightlife of New Atlantis to the corporate boardrooms and cutthroat politics of helping run the company in Atlanta. That's ok, though. She's only eighteen. Charles is sure she'll come around eventually, but you're only young once, so he continues to patiently indulge his little girl's whims.

Re: Starfighter.

Very interesting set-up with lots of potential hooks.

Note that I never said that the Dark ever went after anything other than Earth in this dimension. Neither did I say that they did not. Given the timing, however, it seems logical to conclude that Etherea either is a valid substitute for Earth in their plans (but then, why not go after it in the first place?) or has something that would help them go after Earth again...

A lot of Earthlings may be interested to hear of this development.

Re: Brainstorm.

Another prospective player already picked that hero name.

That aside, also neat. Though as you say, her plan is not thought out all that well. One obvious hole is, who is to say that Kate would even exist or be the same person in the "fixed" future? Or that she would be able to get back? But that is the way of it with time travel plots and it does make sense in-character.

Re: Crusader

Curious. So does she mostly live in New Atlantis, or does she regularly travel back and forth? That might be a hassle... though with her resources, may not that big a one.

It still sounds a bit more like a Janus to me, given the double life aspect and the mask. Though one can spin it either way. I can see how she'd be more of a Beacon if she spends most of her time as a hero in New Atlantis rather than having a more 50/50 split between identities.

In reply to Master of Games (msg # 6):


Perhaps Etherea wasn't actually attacked by The Dark at all, it was just wrecked by a fleet of frustrated Cyliens in retreat and looking for a soft target. Starfinder just assumed, based on propaganda and what she would have gleaned from Earth's history with them, that it was at The Dark's behest. Or Etherea's near enough to Earth to serve as a viable staging area for the Cyliens when/if The Dark wants to have another try at Earth.


Nuts. I missed that, sorry. Still, I could pick up Super Speed for the Harbinger instead of the telepathy/telekinesis combo platter and call her Forerunner, instead.


I think she's either counting on quietly fading out of existence in the present when her work is done, or (especially if I go with the Super Speed option for powers) she just took the leap before thinking the details through and now she's just improvising.


Hm. Ok, that slipped past me while I was writing, but maybe she's attending some sort of elite boarding school in New Atlantis ("Never too young to start networking with tomorrow's movers and shakers," says her father) thus she spends most of her time here? And you're right, it works just as well as The Janus, she could go either way on that.

Or there is some sort of McGuffin there... plenty of options. Whatever it is may not come into play for some time (at least, I am unlikely to kick things off with a full-scale alien invasion... though, the night's young), but eventually it might have a big payoff.



Sure. It may help differentiate the character - there are a few psychics already. Though bear in mind that you don't have to stick with the book options, something else might work as well so long as it goes with the theme.

Hmm... speaking of which, the playbook writeup says your ability may have had something to do with how you ended up in the past. Although, that's vague enough that it doesn't need to be anything immediately apparent.



That could work - and it would be a neat hook. "Tomorrow's movers and shakers" are the natural prey of aspiring supervillains (except maybe for the ones who are secretly supervillains themselves!).

Ooh, now that you bring up non-book options, allow me to present the alternative I've been noodling with at work all day. I'm calling this version the Maximum Kang Harbinger:


This message was last edited by the player at 10:46, Sun 25 July 2021.

...and you could use that one advancement to switch the playbook to Innocent if she does.

It may take a while for that particular payoff to arrive, but yes, that's a neat option.

As an extra thought, maybe the memory loss is a hidden feature rather than the result of the stress of time travel or what have you. She's supposed to not yet know or remember certain things for the loop and the rest of the plan to work right.

I had noticed another prospective player pitching an Innocent, and I wouldn't want to step on anyone's toes, but that's certainly a possibility to keep in mind for the future.

At any rate, I'll work on all three ideas a little further at work, see if I can flesh out that Beacon a little, nail down the discrete Backstory questions from the playbooks, and post up what I have before I go to bed tonight.

How is it going? No rush, especially since I already extended the deadline a bit. Still, do you need help with anything?

Also, I was wondering - the Harbinger would be from the post-apocalyptic ruins of New Atlantis in particular, correct? Seems like that might be especially grim. The contrast between the promise of utopia and its destruction, plus the island being cut off from the trade routes on which it depends, plus all that super-stuff running out of control...

On another note - was the Starfighter Corps just protecting the Ethereals for their own sake, or was there some other reason? Something important located on their planet, perhaps, or maybe some crucial role the Ethereals play in the galaxy? Any such option would make them a bigger target as well, thus meriting protection. Or maybe they were just defending themselves by the means available to them, of course - up to you.

For that matter, did the Starfighter Corps undertake any missions other than defending Etherea? I suppose even if their remit was limited to that, they could have the odd bodyguard duty for travelling Ethereals or scouting missions against emerging threats.

Sorry about the delay; work got real busy, I started being exhausted during my off hours, and with the deadline already extended, I figured I'd take my time, really make sure I'm satisfied with my work before I turn it in. Today's my day off, though, so I should have backstory for at least Starfighter and Harbinger sometime this evening. In the meantime, it's Q&A time!


I had imagined she was from somewhere on the mainland, actually, and New Atlantis was basically just a legend, like Avalon or Ys, by her time, vanished without any clear consensus on what precisely happened to it. A less dire situation in the future, but a hint of mystery (and perhaps one more unknown disaster to prevent) in the present.


The Starfighter Corps was conceived by the Ethereals centuries ago as a combination defense force and buffer against contamination from the outside.

The Ethereals, see, are a profoundly xenophobic bunch, but also pacifists and quite technologically advanced. Without some sort of military, all the neat toys they've built and then tossed aside as distractions on the road to True Enlightenment would be free for the taking to every tin pot dictator and would-be pirate king in space. The Ethereals can't be having that, so they create the Starfighter Corps. Using a variety of subtle tools, they test the populations of alien worlds, seeking individuals with both military potential and personalities least likely to corrupt Ethereal society. Solid candidates get approached with your usual red pill/blue pill offer from The Matrix: have your memory wiped and go back to your old life, or join the Corps, use the advanced technology of the Ethereals to defend them so they don't have to haul around the bad karma from doing violence and other dirty work themselves, and in return be allowed to live a utopian life on a small, paradisiacal continent of the Ethereal homeworld that's been set aside for the Corps, essentially a giant Alien Preserve.


I envision the Corps as being one part planetary defense, and one part espionage group, tasked with gently nudging other galactic powers away from making contact with Etherea and resolving potential threats to the sanctity of Etherea before they become actual threats. So yeah, some missions away, but all centered around defending the homeworld, in one respect or another.

Glad to see you're still with us!



Or indeed old Atlantis. Perhaps the legends even converged. It makes sense, though it does also make me wonder just how far into the future she is... Perhaps she's not even too sure herself, especially these days.

Very interesting re: Starfighter Corps. It seems like there was room for all sorts of different motivations there... although most may simply have found it preferable to their old lives. Either way, it seems they ended up developing enough of a collective pride to continue hunting a deserter (as opposed to all of them just going their own way after the defeat).

Here's the backstory questions for Starfighter.



On the subject of Why The Dark Would Target The Ethereals, I notice the Dark appears to have a real rage on for psychics. Perhaps the Ethereals were simply a natively psionic species with unusually advanced technology and that's why The Dark decided they had to die?

Perhaps. I'm inclined to leave that a mystery for now, but that may well be part of the puzzle at least...

I quite like all of that. Any thoughts on her "abilities", or rather gadgets?

Also look forward to what you settle on for your other concepts! They all seem like they could fit in quite well, depending on what team idea I go with.

Harbinger backstory questions, same format I used for Starfighter. Harbinger's abilities are basically just superhuman intelligence and the gadgets and inventions she builds with it. She's got a giant brain and an ego to match, hopefully that came across in the writing, I confess I'm still working on distinct voices, so to speak, for all of these characters.



For Starfighter's "abilities," I'm definitely going with a modular blaster (the precise nature of its emissions (laser beams, plasma bolts, streams of raw cosmic energy, etc) can be modified on the fly, like switching out one clip for another in a pistol, and either an anti-grav pack or a cloaking rig. The second ability probably depends a lot on what the rest of her team looks like: if she's hanging around with a lot of flying or otherwise fast-moving people, I'll go with the anti-grav pack so she can keep up, but a cloaking rig might make more sense if it's a handful of teens who have to catch the number seven bus before they can get to city hall to save it.

If all goes well, I'll have a Beacon up tomorrow, same format.

Very neat. I think the combination of high intelligence and being a kid from low circumstances comes through well.

It does make me wonder a bit about post-apocalyptic society, such as it is. I guess it's not crucial to establish much about it, especially with her brain as scrambled as it is. Still, presumably she was self-taught in some way - or was there some rudimentary schooling left over? Also, she presumably sold the scraps she salvaged to someone, except for what she used herself?

Also, I wonder how extensive the damage to her brain really is, and whether she might overstate the damage to faculties other than her memory. It seems like something someone like her would fear a lot (after all it is her main asset and she clearly takes some pride in it), but also a possible excuse she could give herself for any mistakes she makes in the present. Just an aside though.

Aaaaand The Beacon. Hero name's changed, now she calls herself Sabre. I'm not as happy with this one as I am with the other two, but I'm not sure why. She just feels like kind of an afterthought, though that may be because I didn't do as much world building with her (because I didn't need to; Sabre's not a time traveler from the future or a space outlaw, she's literally just a privileged adrenaline junkie with a particular set of skills and the resources to put them to use.)

Crusader really does seem like the sort of name someone from an older generation may have already picked... Might even use it, if you don't mind and if there is ever an occasion.

Anyway, she does seem pretty simple and straightforward by comparison. Not necessarily a bad thing, though.

I take it you've settled on her spending most of her time in New Atlantis and only very occasionally being dragged back for more socialising?

Also, what kind of equipment does she use, other than the fencing gear and presumably a sabre?

Feel free, it's a good name.


Yeah, I think she attends some sort of elite, upper crust private boarding school on the island, and barring other plans (spending the holiday with a friend or roommate, fencing competition requiring her presence elsewhere, etc), spends most of her holidays with her father on the mainland.


Pretty much just duplicate fencing gear (modified for actual combat with extra padding, more Kevlar in vital areas, and haphazardly painted in an improvised urban camouflage pattern), a sabre (also for real combat, not for practice or competition),  and probably some means of getting around, a souped up motorcycle or scooter or something. Nothing weird or fancy.

On reflection, I have a couple more questions about Harbinger.

1) What kind of gadgets does she have? It doesn't have to be an exhaustive list or anything, but some examples would be nice, to give me some idea of the power range and style as it were. Relatedly, are they just things she cobbled together here, or did she bring some over from the future?

2) What sort of accommodations does she have in the present? If she's making gadgets here, presumably she'd need a workshop or a lab or something, and she would probably need some place to crash. Though I suppose her life in her original time would have prepared to do more with less in both regards...

You don't have to answer those immediately if you haven't already thought of it. The team discussion might suggest some possibilities.

While I'm at it... how many people would know about Harbinger's time traveller status? As well as the fact that she comes from a post-apocalyptic future? Is it something she'd try to hide from most people for now, except maybe the team?

As primary options, I think she's got some kind of janky homemade energy weapon (call it a disruptor pistol or something, not much good for robots or anything without neural pathways). Probably some sort of personal force field generator, nothing fancy, just strong enough that she has some survivability. I think that's all she's brought from the future, anything else she needs has gotta be cobbled together in the present, out of suboptimal materials, and probably won't see much more than one use, maybe two.


So, I considered having her live in an orphanage or something similar, but that doesn't really work if she's an older teen, so I think she's renting some space in a quiet office park, converted the bulk of the space to an improvised laboratory/workshop, sleeps on a cot in a side office. Pays the bills by selling off tiny, incremental improvements to existing technologies to interested parties; nothing world changing or particularly interesting, just enough to keep the lights on and the pizza delivered.


I don't think it's something she's prepared to just go telling anyone, so if anyone besides the team (who have to know, for deterministic reasons) asks, she has a whole made-up backstory, complete with forged database entries and documentation, ready to go. The details keep changing every time she tells it, and it's an open secret that it's all lies, but it's probably good enough for most of the merely curious.