My understanding is that you were on Earth since you have the lowest defenses of anyone in the group. Of course the president has no defenses and was aboard, but hey...

Anyway, feel free to make a post of what you did in reaction to the explosions. Things were getting pretty crazy dirtside, while everyone else was a light year away have a nice quiet chat with the bad guys. You can even make it a fiction if you want.

yeah that's where I got confused I thought Me Omar, the Pres and Joani were dirtside *shrug*

Maybe I will write a fiction or something, I'll see if I can thinkg of something otherwise I'll post again when its appropriate

The Prez doesn't have much access to Lorean. Also the rest of us can beat him up, even kill him, without totally tossing out our long term plans.

So I guess its initiative time. Factoring the bonus from Intuition if Cody succeeds in the activation roll. I think I mentioned a tactics roll as well to add to initiative. Even if Cody wins the initiative though he lets Omar take lead and will defer his action until the target is sighted, though if his intuition does warn him of danger he will preempt Omar by telling him to stop whatever was about to be Very Bad.

I'd like to participate in that scene - Joani will be ready in case they need her.

I am letting Omar take the lead on this one..hs player hasn't had much opportunity for action scenes. Cody is playing support and will use his disorientation to make it harder for his psychic powers to mess with us.

I dont know if the scene warrants a 3-on-1 or if that will make it "too easy." I dont have a problem with it but check in with Foxy...

I've already said my piece on Nova (us) vs. Super-Psion encounters.

To Repeat:
We should go first (maybe) but the first one to attack is going to hit solidly a glass jaw. Just make that's you hitting him.

Other option for our super psion: We could take him off this timeline.

Not exactly true... Lorean knows that she was artificially prevented from leaving this timeline, but she has not yet worked out how to overcome that programming. All of her spare time has been devoted to your current problems and she hasn't had the time to work out how to get around it.

Is there any way to track Telepathy? I.e. backtrack and figure out where it came from?

We know that if and when we return the political super psion to Earth he'll get killed. We should be able to use that...

No way to backtrack.

Psychic Awareness might be a possibility for that, though it is not a strictly canon use of the power. Actually...it does say it lets you detect active powers even if they are normally surrepititious. Did Cody sense anything when Robin got snuffed? He *should* be able to tell whether it was Robin or an outside source immediately...

Psychic Awareness might be able to tell you that it is happening, depending on the circumstances and rolls, etc. It won't allow you to backtrack to a source though.

You did not sense anything that way about Robin, but then your intuition had just flared and you were in the process of reacting to that and preparing to act if necessary to have been paying attention to something like Psychic Awareness. If it happened because Robin committed suicide at someone else's command that would have been very subtle compared to what you were looking for at the time.

A quiet whisper amidst shouting.

Hmm. Okay. I would like to point out though that Psychic awareness is a passive power and always on.

I understand, but like I said, it was a hectic situation and it's very hard to hear a whisper in a room of shouts.

Hmm... suggestive but not conclusive.

If we have the time before the meet up with the aliens I want our science staff to examine our three dead types. First the warm ones and second the cold one.

We are *not* going to try to save the insane, insanely dangerous, insanely hostile super-psion. Instead he can serve as an example of what happens the instant your kill switch turns on.

Before looking for massive telepathic things that work on the super-telepaths, lets check for a simple bio-unit in their brains.

IIRC correctly the Proxies are altered on a genetic level so should be detectable with a gene scan...

They are genetically altered, but it would be years of effort to unlock the genetic code so to speak. Think of it being much like a cure for taint. Each person's genes are slightly different, and thus while the process is the same, it still has to be tailored to the individual. In other words you couldn't just plop a latent in to a tank and press a button. Making a super-psion is the equivalent of coming up with a cure for taint. Once you know the trick you can duplicate the process, but it will still have to be specific to the individual. Plus, Andrew will have 5 medicine, 5 scinece, mega Int, and 5 Nova medicine. You would have to have the psion version - 5 Psion Medicine.

So yes, you can tell they are altered with a gene scan, but that's about all you will get from it, without putting in massive research.

IC I think they got screwed. No way you can thump some bozo on the street with a club, drag him into a lab, and strap him down and make him a super-psion.

Pre-manifestation, the Potential for Psions is also the Potential for Novas. In Steve's opinion the reason we don't see Psions this powerful is because they become strong novas instead.

Which means these 5 idiots gave up their destiny as gods in exchange for being mid-level managers in a conspiracy to murder humanity... complete with kill switch.

And yes, Steve has every intention of making all that public.

Posted, I suggest you read the fiction "Despair" in order to gain proper context on Andrew's physical and emotional state.

awesome post Andrew... wow

Very nice Andrew.

Thanks, apologies for the delay, it took me a while to figure out a way to write Andrew back into the story

I'll third J.R. and Fox.

I hope you guys like the wrap-up to this chapter. To be honest, I hadn't intended for the chapter to last anywhere near this long, but I started feeling that I was making things too easy for you and so I introduced more conflict in the form of the Proxies. In the process, I'm afraid some folks who weren't able to participate as directly like Andrew and Joani were left unable to really do much for far longer than I had intended. I'll do my best to remedy that in future chapters. We shouldn't be dealing so much with Psi in the future so it shouldn't get quite so focused on one or two characters any more.


So now that the current crises is wrapped up, what do you guys want to do?

It is my plan to make this timeline your home base to which you can return between other excursions and adventures. Also, I have more plot lines in store for this timeline as well, but you will have to leave and come back to discover what they are.

Things you have explored so far.
- Sterility conspiracy
- Proteus and the aberrant war
- Alien threat (some of the alien threats... there are still others around.)
- Hammersmith event

Still to be explored:
- Watchers
- Taint (and curing it)
- You need to return to one timeline to stop two asteroids from impacting Earth and destroying the remains of humanity.

There of course are lots of other possibilities, but those are the ones that are in the works already.

Now that this chapter is over Andrew will be able to buy all but the last dot in Nova Medicine, which means we are now one chapter away from him being able to cure Taint. That will open up other possibilities.

I would like for you guys to venture out and pursue the Watcher mystery some, however, I am open to what you guys want to do if you'd rather go in a different direction.

I'll be sending out PMs with XP. Please discuss and let me know where you guys want to go next.

Well let not rush things along too quickly, I've a few story points to hit still...

You still have at least one chapter to go before you can buy the last dot, then you have to spend time IC working on cures and mastering the process so that you can pass on the technique and knowledge to others. I'm not rushing you, take all the time you need to.

Actually let me ask this: Are any of my fellow players going to be sore if I drag this out a bit?

I've a bit more story to tell with Andrew yet and the cure will come about as his preplanned arc ends. I can wrap up sooner if need be though ...

Take as much time as you need

Add to that list:
Upgrading Lorean with some space weapons, I suspect we're going to be building some soon.

Not to sound callous, but what is the point of performing task #3? In an infitinely time-space continuum that world will still be destroyed we'll just create another branch that isn't. I'm personally struggling to grasp why we should give a crap about trying to change things for the better in an infinite TSC.

Target practice for the weapons and we may have a use for all those tons of gold lying around.

It's easy for us, perhaps profitable for us (I was totally wrong on just bringing cash around), and of great benefit for them.

Also their aliens are presumably our aliens and I'd like to know who is around and what they are capable of.

I think you miss my point - not matter what we do our actions will only branch off and create yet another divergent timeline. As for money we don't seem to have much use for it given the 70 odd years of corporate manuvering we've done.

The only aliens we might be able to influence to a lasting effect are the Watchers IMO.

Bradford,

It's true that you will cause a branching every time you make a change. But... Lorean now knows how to travel back to the same timeline which means the further back you go the more of a change you can make, and it will effect all future branchings. Plus, I think you are looking at this with a very pessimistic view. Yes, a branch occurs in which you didn't go back, but for every timeline you spawn that way a whole new tree grows in which you do make the good change.

Either way, the next step should be searching out the watchers. Look at it this way. Bradford has medical profiles of every nova on this timeline. In order to get more data he is going to need to sample more novas, which means visiting other timelines. That's motive for him to travel.

OK Valid enough for my IC PoV - I still don't buy it from an OOC PoV though - infinite is infinite

True, but if you take that PoV then there is no point in getting out of bed in the morning. If nothing you ever do makes a real difference why do anything at all?

Two answers to that, first, because we humans have a limited perspective and can't see the infinite and thus delude ourselves that what we do does make a difference. Second, because while what we do really doesn't matter on the large scale of infinite timelines it does matter on the small scale. You can see and touch the people whose lives are changed by what you do.

Valid points both, my OOC opinions aside.