Posted my "Loose ends" business in Character Fiction. Hope it is what you were looking for, Fox.

and...scene.

Perfect. Anyone can feel free to post things that don't fit in the normal threads like that. And remember that I do take extra fictions and such in consideration when awarding experience.

Cody was using the comm that time...

Opps....

Ok, now that everyone is introduced. I need a basic game plan spelled out. Please include personal plans as well as the plans for global change. My thought is that once we make the initial moves I will move the timeline ahead a year or two and give you guys an update. However, I don't want to do that until I fully understand what you have in the works, nor do I want to rush you if you are enjoying things in 1922.

Basically, if you guys would perfer to stay where you are for a bit for roleplay let me know, otherwise we'll move ahead a year for Mercer's return.

Steve's priorities:
1) Push (probably with Cody's help) for Banking reform, specifically something like the FDIC.
2) Push (ditto) for the US to join the League of nations.
3) Push for debt forgiveness for Germany.
4) Make money.

Note that points #1 & #2 are fairly efficient in that both will involve manipulating the same people (influential US political types). Note also that while the list of things he intends to do doesn't stop there, that plus preventing Totalitarism / Getting Communisum to fall apart is probably all he's going to have time for.

On the subject of #4, basically we have a combination of investments and there have been close to a Billion (with a "B") dollars in gold and what not recovered from sunken ships over the last 30 or so years. If he runs out of gold and IMHO still has opportunities to take advantage of, he'll "find" some more.

Omar's plans.

1. Challenge Communism's information monopoly by publishing a pro-Western, pro-capitalist, Arabic newspaper in the Soviet Republic of Chechynia. He will make sure that his identity, as the owner, is known. He hopes, that while down there on a visit, the Communist apparatchik will arrest him. Then, once at the local headquarters, he will alert Cody that a 'decision maker' needs adjusting. Omar will incapacitate or kill those who try to kill him.

2. Make money importing Western goods and investing in local businessses.

When the timelines were wide open, Cody saw little point in becomming involved in the politics or affairs of any one world. To him this just seemed arrogant and futile...much easier to just go where you want to be than to put out infinite fires.

Now that we have "settled" here he sees his political involvement as a neccesary part of insuring the teams survival, safety and comfort until they can find a way back to the inifinte ocean. Not that he doesn't enjoy a little heavy-handed altruism...

Ultimately however Cody is in this thing for the greater mystery. The sooner they get things tweaked to their liking he wants to get back to investigating the Watchers, their enemies and the other happenings on a more cosmic scale.

Phillip doesn't have a clue (not being from the future and all), so will probaly just go along with what is happening. That said, his no1 goal is to stop another "world war". Not for the war's sake, but for lifes sake. (hey, if you where to show him a war away from earth entirly of robots...whats a robot )

Bradford is pretty much in this for the glory, fame, the scratch, and the dames, at this juncture. I am sure once he fully grasps what is at stake, he'll be slightly more altruistic.

Andrew will do what needs to be done to keep another Aberrant War from happeneing but beyond that he has no goals beyond expanding upon himself. He is already becoming less interested in the human condition and this will only increase over time.

As Cody said, there's little point (other than stroking ones own ... ego) to trying to alter the fundamental truth of the multiverse. While they are stuck here Andrew is forced to deal with this current series of events but if they are freed ... well it's hard to care what happens so long as he is safe and able to do what he wants.

Ok, I've got specific plans from Omar and Steve, and I know Cody is going to be adjusting world leaders and checking up on them.

I'd like some specifics from you other guys as well. We are looking at a year of downtime after all, what will you be doing during that year?

Also, you guys are welcome to post fictions of what your character is up to during that year.

Well for one I'll practice logging on with the correct account.

Andrew will work on 2 things during the next year:

1) He will spend a great deal of his spare time practicing with his shapshifting and other quantum powers (basically a caveat to spend expereince how I want rather than on what gets used.

2) Andrew will study the any/all physics texts that Lorean has and will make an effort to put himself in a position where he can interact with Einstien, Oppenhiemer, and the other great Physicists of the era. If possible he will use his advanced knowledge to help push these men further along in thier own knowledge.

3) (yeah I said two... sue me) As the opportunity presents itself Andrew will sieze mining rights for areas with high concentrations of fissionable materials, as well as store of said materials and stockpile them away from any of the world's governments. In this endevour he will ask for help from the group, basically he is hoping to slow the proliferation of nuclear weapons by a simple lack of materials.

Bradford will basically be doing the following for the next year:

1) Study "history" (future to him ) to find out what the hell goes wrong in the other time lines, and using this info, work with the others to achieve their goals.

2) Study language texts. He only knows German and English, so he would like to be as fluent as possible in as many languages as possible.

3) Study and observe a variety of weapons in action (video footage, or possible visits to weapons experts of the era) in order to make any "combat" illusions more realistic.

4) Talk with the novas and crew to glean knowledge of the future, including fads and "hip" slang.

5) Practicing his powers.

6) Put his swerve down on Lorean :P

I'll need to think about this one for a bit. A year is a long time...

Downtime xp anyone?? :o)

Phillip will help as much as he can doing what is asked (he has little clue how to help at the moment). While he is not helping (which could be most of the time), he will:

1)lookup history.
2)test his limits with his power (not with other people though).
I)gross usage (how bit?)
II)fine usage (could I power a torch?)
3)try to figure out(possibly with Elizabeth's help) a better way to eat other than a blowtorch. (maybe drinking alcohol and creating a spark in the stomach?

Has everyone checked in on downtime actions?

Now that Cody has surrepititious telepathy, I imagine that when not performing active "rehabilitatons" on world leaders, he will spend a great deal of time "eavesdropping" on the thoughts of prominent people worldwide...searching for the clues and motivations behind the 20th century he is familiar with. He will especially be on the lookout for behind the scens players. For example, thoughts a senator might have regarding one of their corporate constituents might lead him further down the rabit hole...

When not "working" he will enjoy leisure time, making time especially for Steve, who will possibly provide enough mentoring that he will finally purchase the investigative genius enhancment.

How will the crew, especially the new members react to his abilities as a telepath? I know Philip is largely immune but what of the others?

Morgan is considering taking charge of the rebuilding of Germany to insure that racism plays no part in the country's recovery and rise. Assuming everyone will allow him to take charge there given what a touchy subject Germany can be.

Morgan would also like to have everyone help lay the groundwork for a worldwide government.

Meanwhile Lorean is building an information network worldwide in every major capital in the world, then moving down from there to other major cities, and eventually to the minor ones.

***
Wed night I will attempt to make the big update. If anyone wants to post before then in the main thread feel free. Also, you are welcome to post a fiction piece covering what you do in downtime. The only thing about that is be sure to PM me if you make any big world changing actions first.

Will we have downtime xp to spend before the next major part?

Well, about the xp... I just recently gave out quite a bit of xp via nova points from the last chapter, and we weren't really at what I'd consider a chapter break, but I will go ahead and give everyone 5 xp to spend in the downtime. PM me with what you want to spend them on.

I am going to work on the big update tonight. At the latest it will be up by tomorrow night. One year will pass in the world, I will try to take into account the actions and plans that were mentioned. We will start back just at the point where Mercer returns from his little juant through time, at which point you guys are going to meet Mercer, and his group of friends as he begins to create the Aeon Society.

Cody, send me an IM tonight if you are online.

By the way, I should have mentioned it in the previous post, but if you have spent the year working on learning something, then that would be the most appropriate thing to spend the xp on. For backgrounds such as Contacts, allies, and Influence, I will allow you to buy those at 1 xp per dot since they are specific to this timeline. Resources can be purchased for 2 xp per dot since it can follow you when we leave this timeline.

I just got back, I'll post tomorrow (Sunday).

You do realize of course that Mercer just resonded out loud to what Steve sent over the link...

Does Mercer have a link implanted from a future Lorean?

Yes.

Gah! Wrong account again, sorry about that!

In all seriousness ... we have yet to establish just how Max's time travel works so Andrew is not inclined to take Steve's knowledge as anything more than conjecture and theory. Everything I've ever read would suggest that either Max is not limited to a single branch of this timeline or that he is immune to paradox OR that he is in fact caught in, what Star Trek would call "a predestination paradox" meaning he's incapable of changing events despite the fact the it appears that way to him.

Granted, Steve's idea is just that at this moment... but it's a start, and the alternatives don't seem to be better. Trying to blame Max, is going to be counter productive. That's also the case even if Andrew is right.

Whether Max's limitations are inherant to his powers or his personality don't really matter. Yes, if he had a different personality, and if his limiations are not part of his power, then it's *possible* that he could be a lot more useful. But there are a lot of "ifs" in that chain of logic and the being wrong could be very bad.

We have two bottom lines here. One is that we can't afford to antagonize Max. We need him on our side even if he's not going to help because god knows he could hurt us a lot. And BTW he just *did* help a lot with Divis. The other bottom line is that we have Lorean's word that her creators thought paradox would be dangerous to "her".

I lean strongly towards predestination myself. Immunity to his own powers and/or Paradox implies it.

The alternative appears to be he can make changes willynilly and remember the results. Which is fine until you realize his decades of experience then get multiplied by dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of timelines.

It'd get seriously confusing really quickly, and Max is protrayed as being decisive and not confused (as opposed to Herzog). And he'd still be a pocket calculator dealing with something out of his league. For all our computing power we can't even predict the weather.

EDIT: And if we're stuck on one timeline, then chances are Max is too.

I would love to have a deeper canon explanation of his time travel abilities. From what I can figure though, he may very well have been suffering from the Predestination paradox in the canon timeline. He theoretically traveled to the trinity era, but obviously did not manage to stop the aberrant war from occurring although he must have known about it. As active as he is in the Adventure! setting I can't imagine him as being so chicken-hearted as to not try and change things as massive as the aberrant war.

Either that, or as the time-travel power suggests, every time he moves in time he is causing a new branch, thus preventing any changes in his original line.

The question here is what will happen when he attempts to travel again? At this point Lorean believes this timeline to be somehow separated from the rest of the multiverse, and so far that seems likely. Max moved into this line's future and returned from it, but of course you guys were already present at the point where he made his first jump so you are part of the future he saw.

The only way to really test it is to make a change and have either him or Lorean jump forward to see what happens, and so far you guys have ruled that out as potential for paradox.

I agree that predestination is the most likely (and unfortunate) case and we've thrown the whole thing out of whack just by existing (oops) at the wrong time.

That said I was waffling back and forth before my post where Andrew finally hauled off on Max, I did seriously consider having Andrew try to kill him. Ultimately it's not in ANdrew's nature right now which is why I didn't. He does however sincerely think that Max is A) A coward B) a huge part of the problem and not the cure.

Part "A" doesn't imply Part "B".

RE: Killing Max
I was afraid someone would try that. Max *isn't* technically responible for the various problems we face. Ultimately the problem we face is dealing with super humans and integrating them into society. Max failed at that, but he was trying to do the right thing.

We already know that we're going to do the heavy lifting this time around. That Max isn't willing to doesn't mean he's without use. He's a reasouce, and we're better off with him than without him.

You are right and I don't think I implied that A begat B, merely that A compounds the problem

Are you sure Max isn't the problem? Honestly without talking to Bates I don't think we can know if Max's actions upon his return from the future are was triggered the eventual Aberrant war and such. We as players can touch on the real world problems, WW2, Stalin, OPEC, DeBeers, etc and know that the source is X Y or Z but we cannot know if Divis Mal would have been a vet into cute and fuzzy bunnies if Max hadn't been around. Mal was in love with Max but constantly felt spurned/rejected/unable to act on it. That is a huge part of what made Mal who is was. If Max had died that day who knows, Mal may have dedicated his life to Max's cause of "racial" harmony out of love for his lost freind.

Problem is, even assuming the worst case synario, i.e. Max *did* cause all kinds of problems, it isn't what he was working for, nor were the root problems his doing. Failing to win isn't the same as causing the problem.

The problems that Max inflicted on the world were not of his own making, and are at worse failures of his in responding to the actual problem. This specifically includes Divis' relationship issues which I'm much more inclined to blame on Divis.

Problems the world faces:
1) Superhumans
2) Societies reaction to them.
3) Divis Mal or whatever his name is.

Max's solution was to try to get Divis to wear a white hat, and to form Utopia. These are not bad solutions, but they weren't implimented successfully. Max may have trained Thetis, but the solution to that problem is to do something about Thetis, not something about Max.

I don't see how we can judge Max more harshly than, say, Omar or Cody. Omar's love of attention is potentially a larger problem than Max's fear of paradox (a fear shared by Lorean BTW). Cody is already deep into Taint issues, and he's already started killing people.

Are we going to kill them too? The answer there is "maybe", but we should wait for actual problems rather than the potential for problems.

Actually Cody hasn't killed anyone...Hitler made that choice all on his own...Cody just gave hime enough knowledge to make that choice.

In any case this isnt Bates game anymore. We, the gamers, have inherited it so its up to Fox as to how he wants to play it in *his* game.

I suppose Cody could just snoop in Max's mind (though granted Max probably has a very high if not "Maxed" willpower and/or iron will knack.

The only reason I havent is that Cody knows he needs the trust of the crew and people wont trust him if he starts snooping without consent.

Oh yeah...and regardless, antagonizing Max has made for great roleplaying form the OOC perspective...just look at the flurry of posting!

Heh no this isn't RPing this is debate, the RPing is in the other thread. As a person I agree with Courier that Max's failures should not damn him. Andrew the PC wants to change what he knows leads to disaster and he's in a place right now where killing Max and/or forcing him to act differently are legit options in his mind.

At any rate I agree that ultimately it's Fox's choice how Max's powers work and what his role is. Maybe Fox decides that Max's every action is doomed for failure and that as a result his continued existance really is the source of the infection. It's like taking a medicine you don't need. Sometimes it can do some real damage. Then again maybe Max just can't catch a break.

Again, and to be clear OOC, we have no idea what Max's death could do. We don't know that if Max were gay and he an Divis got a nice littel cottage in Vermont that the would could be a great place. We do know that Max is trying to make things better. We do know that he is not saying all that he has seen. We do know that Max is not willing to tell us about future events for fear of paradox and a bad hangover.

IC, Andrew is looking at Max as the problem. IN this case he belives the cure is worse than the malaise. If only Andrew were more cold blooded, he would already have tried to kill Max when he was ticked off.