Bad Science and Super Spies - Interest Check

[LittleGenreMagic]

The Elevator Pitch: Comic Book Science is used by a secret paramilitary agency to give questionably consenting subjects superpowers. The rp focuses on said subjects being housed in a secret base, organized into teams, sent on missions, and plotting their escape.

Any interest?

Depending on how many people are interested we could focus on a single team or multiple teams.

I'm thinking there might be a couple different "generations"/groupings of assets from different stages in the development (gen 1 basucallg all died. Gen 2 had only a couple survivors but have pretty wild powers but also pretty wild side effects. Gen 3 was when they started actually trying to direct powers so the powers are narrower in scope but more effective. Gen 4 is just starting to come out of the labs).

Depending on if anyone's interested there might be a couple staff roles.

I'm thinking Bond and/or Shield like missions depending on interest. Perhaps the program is in response to a growing number of enhanced humans in the world. Though the organization would *certainly* be shades of gray morality wise at best.

And yes, to anyone wondering, I did start thinking about this after reading watching The Winter Soldier.

 

[kckolbe]

OH, this is really interesting. In X-Men, my favorite character was Banshee, an older mutant with a very weak power but a lot of veteran knowledge. I'd love to do something like that here.

 

[obieblu]

I am incredibly interested. I've tried this a few times, even. I'd like a chance to see it through.

 

[LittleGenreMagic]

Awesome! Since there's a bit of interest I'll fill out some details/do the complicated things like building character sheets and everything.

Since you two are first on board I'll ask your opinions. Would you two be more interested in leaning into the organization treating the assets as previously unwilling subjects turned coerced into behaving assets (with some amount of light brainwashing/behavior modification, lethal measures against rebellion, threats of violence as sticks as well as some carrots) or more interested in the organization being, while shades of gray, a bit less "we'll encourage team bonding and then always make sure one member of the team is kept at base during missions to help make sure people come back" evil about everything. I lean more towards the outright evil but willing to go the other way if that's the general preference.

Also, I'm thinking the time/tech level would be "comic book modern". Like most of the world is basically as the current day and age but there are organizations (such as the one creating the assets) with really futuristic/high tech stuff. Either of you have strong feelings otherwise?

Less for making decisions and more just for planning purposes; what sort of character powers/roles are you interested in? I could see an older generation character being a team lead but we could have an assortment of roles like infiltration specialist or medic.

 

[kckolbe]

I would be very hesitant to limit the options of future players by saying we all volunteered or were coerced or brainwashed. There could be multiple styles of "origin story" within the group. Some medical experiments due to rare conditions, some who agreed to test for money, maybe some prisoners...the group is formed based on the results of the test rather than the cause of it. Also, the organization may have changed its "recruiting" methods over the years, especially once they got more effective. So different backgrounds don't seem like a cohesion breaker. As an example, look at the actual military. Over generations we've had draftees with no say in the matter, prisoners who joined in lieu of prison, immigrants who joined to become citizens, as well as a variety of volunteers.

As for what I'd want to play, a male 30 or older, probably no more than 60 on the upper end. This would put him as one of the earlier generations if not the earliest surviving. I'm torn on this, because I think having variety in the strength of abilities would be interesting, but I want my character capable enough physically to go out on the group events and attractive to at least some of the females involved. If not attractive, at least not so off-putting as to remove options.

 

[LittleGenreMagic]

A variety of origins seems like a good call. They likely get the volunteers (knowing or not quite understanding what they're getting into) that they can and use varying methods to get the rest. My character I'm planning, for example, bounced around the foster system/running away, got into trouble, earned some dubious skills, got into Trouble, and started down the 'very successful thief' path. A bit before her 18th birthday she got picked up for breaking in somewhere and instead of getting driven back to her current foster family or to the local police station she ended up taken to the Project's facility and said foster family never bothered looking for her, figuring it was like her 9th time running away. Meanwhile she's basically told "you're talented, but wasting said talent. We don't like waste."

So as for the age of your character you have like two options. Option One is it's likely that the so called Generations are more phone generations than people generations, each lasting like 4-6 years rather than twenty. So a first generation taken in around 20, with the 4th generation just coming out of the labs, could easily be in their mid to late 30s. If you wanted your character to start older we can talk possible stasis/your character being put on ice for a few years while they worked out some issues.

Also, for all future rp related chatter please head over here.