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Mutants & Masterminds: Future Imperfect - Chapter 5.1: Clotho


Joani

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Travis rubbed his temples, his head hurt and it felt like something was trying to pry his skull open from the inside. He'd been feeling less than stellar since waking in the hospital and so far it hadn't gotten any better. This meeting, this place, annoyed him and the computer wasn't really telling them anything that they couldn't have guessed or figured out. He noticed that his TK was bleeding out once more, and sighed wondering if this had something to do with the memory loss, the virus, or something else entirely. "How big are those ships? How much mass I mean?" The question came out as a croak but he didn't repeat it, he'd been clear enough for the computer to answer him.

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Originally Posted By: Rorx
Tom scowls at the image of the AI before putting on a bland,neutral face and asking, "Can we have a run down of what happend in Germany and South America? Did those countries/areas actually try to get rid of their occupiers or where they too much in the aliens pockets?"


Eve acknowledged the request with a beeping sound and then answered, “Germany and Southamerica are completely in the aliens hands. Both countries seemed to have been successfully infiltrated from within. Germany’s political landscape has made a major set back to WWII conditions while Southamerica has been united under a new left wing movement that swept the entire country. All humans have supposedly pledged their allegiance to the alien invaders. There are no reported attempts of trying to fight off their oppressors. We are still trying to determine how the aliens have managed to get such a firm grip on those two countries but are left to educated guesses. I have calculated a 88,65 % chance that the reclaiming of both countries will be met with a strong resistance. If the humans under the alien’s control fight for them nothing short but a full scale war will end this situation. Since the alien’s are not losing their own resources this war may well end in total annihilation of said countries. Having the aliens surrender is highly unlikely, less then 6,54 %.”


Originally Posted By: Travis Kincaid
Travis rubbed his temples, his head hurt and it felt like something was trying to pry his skull open from the inside. He'd been feeling less than stellar since waking in the hospital and so far it hadn't gotten any better. This meeting, this place, annoyed him and the computer wasn't really telling them anything that they couldn't have guessed or figured out. He noticed that his TK was bleeding out once more, and sighed wondering if this had something to do with the memory loss, the virus, or something else entirely. "How big are those ships? How much mass I mean?" The question came out as a croak but he didn't repeat it, he'd been clear enough for the computer to answer him.


Eve ‘turned’ to face Travis and acknowledged his request with another beeping sound, “The ships are approximately 150m high, 240m long on each side giving them a roughly cubic shape. Mass is unknown since the material and its density is unknown. Assuming it was made by human hand using high quality steel and alloys its mass would be over 1.000.000 Tons.”
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"OK, Wow, that's pretty massive. So much for the idea I could just haul those ships down on Berlin and Buenos Aires and end this quick." He scowled and rubbed at his forehead even harder, it was like the idea had made his headache worse. "Looks like we're going to have to do this the hard way," he said, grinding the words out past the pain.

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"I can probably manage a gate into one, maybe both, but I'm not sure I can hit both in a short period of time and be of use afterwards."

"What's the approximate distance from Omaha to either of the ships?"

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Eve answered Grav’s request without actually looking at her. “The ships are in Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO) to Earth. Each one staying exactly the same distance and location above Germany and Southamerica respectively above Berlin and Buenos Aires if you draw a direct line

- Geocentric orbit with an altitude of 35,786 km (22,236 statute miles) above mean sea level. The period of the orbit coincides with the rotation period of the earth: 24 hours; the speed is 3 km/s.”

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"I could copy your gating ability, but that would mean splitting up the team again. I don't think that would be wise considering the size of ship or the numbers of aliens present." Tim had remained quiet as he watched the others make sense of the information.

"What is even worse is that we have populations that are comitted to these aliens. There are millions of people who would fight and die to protect their 'masters'. A direct assault on the ships would mean killing more than the aliens. The populuations would be wiped out as well. I am not ready to kill human beings, no matter how misguided they may be."

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"What if we can lure them away?" Juno suggests from the back of the room, where she lounges against the wall.

"Get them to come for us, instead of attacking them on their own turf, surrounded by people we'll have to pull our punches on?"

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"They're already on guard," Ronnie said softly, her voice tired. She'd napped, but the virus was still affecting her. She need a couple of days of rest; she wondered if she'd get that. "And if some fucking human starts shooting guns at me intending to kill me, I'm going to kill him first. As much as I don't want to do it, Tim, we're probably going to have to kill some humans, just because they'll be trying to kill us. 'Course, that's your choice, to defend yourself or hold to your ideals. I hope you make the choice that you can live or die with.

"I say Germany first, so that they don't try to increase their foothold in Europe while we're distracted. They already have South America; let's get them out of the heart of the EU."

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Once Kevin got back to his room in Buckingham Palace, he picked up the phone and dialed the number that the chauffeur had given him. After speaking to an 'automated' voice he was put through.

On the other end of the line, the 'automated' voice, Eve, announced that 'a Mr. Bridges' was on the line and that she was putting him through. After the obligatory 'hello?', and 'how's everything going?', started the real conversation.

"The Queen is putting me up for the week in Buckingham Palace. She says that I need a vacation. But, after that, I'll be joining you... the teams first, official, Brit. So, besides letting you know how and where I was, I was just wanting to know; Sly, can you, you know, listen to me all the way over here? That way we don't have to worry about phones, and you can coordinate with Grav to bring me back?"

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"I'm not worried about killing a few people. It would be unavoidable and necessary. It is the slaughter of tens of thousands or more that concern me. I hope to avoid death on that scale."

"I agree," Tim said in response to Ronnie. "The population density and resources in Europe make the German ship our first target. The surviving ship might take out it's wrath on the surrounding nations. I'd hate to see Paris, London or Rome scortched into oblivion with a punitive strike."

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Originally Posted By: Tim Wiley
"... I am not ready to kill human beings, no matter how misguided they may be."

Originally Posted By: Grav
"I'd rather not kill the humans there either."
Originally Posted By: SalmonMax
"...instead of attacking them on their own turf, surrounded by people we'll have to pull our punches on?"

Originally Posted By: May Allman
"... if some fucking human starts shooting guns at me intending to kill me, I'm going to kill him first. As much as I don't want to do it, Tim, we're probably going to have to kill some humans, just because they'll be trying to kill us. 'Course, that's your choice, to defend yourself or hold to your ideals. I hope you make the choice that you can live or die with."


Travis groaned, not just from his constant headache but also from the rampant idealism that was flowing through the room. "This isn't happy fucking play time with Nerf guns and plush aliens. This is goddamn war. I realize I'm not terribly popular around here and that if it came down to it you're all probably rather I go away an' never come back. Feelin's mutual startin' right now, I don't want any of you coverin' my ass, my left, my right, or even standing in front a' me if you can't bring yourself to pull the fucking trigger and kill. Aliens, humans, giant goddamned fucking robots, its doesn't matter, it us or them, kill or be killed.

"So yeah, like Ronnie said, I hope you can make a choice you can live or die with but I'll be damned if I'm gonna get myself killed because you folks weren't ready to face the harsh realities of war." He finished speaking practically a snarl before putting his hands to his head, "Shit, my fuckin head. Hey computer, I need some meds, what you got?" He shoved away from the table and left the room looking for the medbay and some painkillers. Five minutes later Travis stumbled back in and dropped back into his chair as the General was speaking.
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"Jesus, I'm not saying I won't defend me and mine," Juno complained. "I'm just saying, IF we can get the fight away from the city we won't have as many people shooting at us, and so we won't have to kill as many people. It's win-win. Less shooting at us, less shooting we have to do. What's the problem here?"

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"We've done well enough so far for people who weren't trained to kill. Note that I said I'd rather not kill people, not that I wouldn't. It's not my first choice when dealing with people. You can call it idealism, but I prefer to call it being civilized."

"I agree with the choice of the European ship, for pretty much the same reasons, but the same holds true for the other ship. It's likely that the other ship will take action. By choosing either one we give the other a chance to go on a warpath. Thus we need to find a way to occupy both ships simultaneously."

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Sly nodded at points being made. "A couple things, I'm no military expert, but fighting the enemy in their home is Always better than fighting them in your home. It would suck to kill innocent people, but better the innocent people living under the shadow of those ships than innocent people any place else on earth. Second, I don't see any reason why we can't just go straight into there ships now that Grav knows were we need to be to disable them and while Tim can copy her powers of transport, we only have one computer genius who can disable their ships so only one assault at a time is possible. Unless we sent in two groups, one to the bridge of each ship, to occupy them directly, then our computer wiz can disable one then jump directly to the secured bridge of the other and repeat the process."

He thought for a minute, "Oh, the other option is not to destroy one of the ships but to capture it pirate style then use it against the other one. What about doing that?"

When he was handed the phone he listened to Kevin the just repsonded, "I'll call you back shortly to make arrangements", and hung up.

*Dang it Kevin, I don't want people knowing what I can do. Please bear that in mind when talking across international phone lines that could easily be tapped. But don't worry, I'll stay in contact so that we can retrieve you when ready.*

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*Some planning, but nothing detailed yet. And I'd like as much as possible to keep my abilities even from our supposed benefactors. I don't know about the British government, but I just discovered that the US has a secret shadow organization called Mutant Division that makes it their business to be prepared should any mutant do anything that they don't agree with.*
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Simon waited patiently for Fox to loose the distracted (and mildly annoyed) look on his face, but eventually the impetuounous of someone still closing the emotional gap from 14 to nearly 19 got the better of him and he asked quietly, "Um, Sly? When...when would be a good time to, to go looking?"

Simon was usually the cool and collected one of the twins, but his expression at the moment was one of barely contained hope and anxiety. He'd taken his sister's hand, lacing their fingers together in a silent give and take of support from her and waited.

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*I'll have to get back to you when there is some info to share Kevin. I need to see to things right now.* He hated to be rude, but there was too much going on to be distracted.

Looking at Simon, "We can do that as soon as this discussion is over." He wasn't all that much older than Simon and Savannah, but having grown up on the streets and on his own for years he felt like an old man in comparison and the youth's impatience made him smile.

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Simon returned the telepath's smile, then set his mind to the discussion going on around. "What about attacking their moon base and luring the ships up there? There might be human casualties if they're manning their ships with people, but there'd be a lot less, and definitely fewer non-combatants involved. We could try taking one of the ships and attacking the moon. My guess is the other ship would respond and chase after."

He shrugged, "That's assuming we could take control of one of the ships, figure out how to fly and fire the weapons, and keep control long enough to post a threat to the moon base."

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Simon shook his head vigorously. "That's a bad idea, at least until we know more about the ships and the base. We don't know the structural strength of the ships or how much power they would release if they exploded. What if we fracture or just completely destroy the moon? Most life on Earth depends rather heavily on the cycles of the moon; we could do a lot more damage to ourselves than the aliens have if that happened."

After a moment he realized he'd probably drawn a lot of attention to himself with his outburst and blushed. "Ummm....I know water. And...we need the tides."

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Tim tried not to laugh at Simons prognostication that the ships could destroy the moon. it cam out as a snort.

"Sorry Simon. I didn't mean for that to come out. But there is no way one of those ships can destroy the moon. It's mass is 7.3477 X 10 to the 22nd power kilograms, with a volume of 2.1958 × 10 to the 10th cubic kilometers." Tim rattled the numbers from memory without pausing to think of them. "It is 3474 kilometers in diamter. All the nuclear weapons on earth, focued at one spot on the moon could not destroy it. All a ship a few miles in diameter would do is leave a crater and eject some material, assuming it impacted at a velocity high enough."

"If a base was built down into the core of the moon, and there was a giant reactor in there, it might be possible to explode it. But it would have to be a HUGE reactor. The moon is just too massive for us to worry about destroying."

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Simon thought about that and asked, "Are you sure? Eve said we didn't know what the ships were made off, the weaponry they have is way beyond what we've developed. Maybe I'm being paranoid, I just don't want to end up with us breaking something we can't fix."

He looked down and shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe I've seen too many Star Trek episodes. If you think that would work, it'd probably be easier than actually trying to man the weaponry of the ship."

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Juno rubbed her temples.

"Alright, I'm confused," she confesses. "We're talking about attacking the ship over Germany. Maybe trying to get it away from the city first, maybe not. Maybe fly it into the moon. Maybe try to hijack it. I dunno...maybe we should work on how we're going to attack it and beat it before we worry about what to do with it when we've got it."

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Sly just had a very disturbing thought and paled.

Speaking aloud to get everyone's attention, "Guys, I think we need to put this discussion on hold for a bit, we're getting way ahead of ourselves, we need to get more info before we start throwing out wild ideas. In fact I think attacking the German ship first would be a really bad idea now that I think of it. We should see about infiltrating the humans on the ground to gather the intel we need."

At the same time he sent a quick message mentally to everyone in the room, *We have an alien listening in on this, I'll explain more shortly when it's safe, but for now lets steer the conversation some other direction and mislead the alien to our intentions. Travis is unaware, but the alien is listening through him. Everyone but Travis receives the message.

To Tom, *Tom, please step out of the room and ask Eve is she is able to scan for life signs and capable of detailed scans on the level of a cat scan? If so please ask her to scan everyone but not to reveal the results yet. Travis has an alien in his head and if it becomes aware that Travis knows of it's presence it will kill him. But I'm worried that more of us might be tagged too. If so we can't be made aware of it. Please let Eve know. Thanks.*

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That's just fucking great. They are mind-riding us. Tim remembered the images he saw when inside Travis's mind and they made sense.

It also gave those bastards access to my mind.

Tim was worried. His worry led to the familiar, nervous cramping of peristaltic movement. He would need to hit the bathroom soon.

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Eve quietly acknowledged the command and started scanning the mutants. After a short while she produced the results for Tom’s and Sly’s eyes only.

Click to reveal..
ooc: Only Travis shows positive on the scan for having an alien in his head. Eve notes that you all share a minor irregularity in brain patterns on the EEG indicating that something has been done to you during your stay onboard the alien vessel. She has no way of telling what but assumes it has been a manipulation of your memory, though.
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Tom thanks Eve, then returns to the meeting and catchs Morgan's eye. When he contacts him he passes on the news that only Travis seems to be infected, although all show signs that are likely to be memory manipulation or loss.

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For her part, Juno is visibly appalled. Her eyes widen and her mouth drops open in a horrified expression. She glances at Travis, but then wrenches her eyes away. Abruptly she coughs, "Excuse me for a sec," and hurries out into the hallway.

Once out of the room she whirls to glare at the wall and thinks hard, How long have you known that?! We've gotta get that thing out of him!

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Well-fuckin'-done Sly, Ronnie thought after she'd gotten over her shock. You do know that the odds of someone telling a secret rises with each person who knows? Now you've put his life in the hands of every person here, some of who don't like him or haven't proven that they're capable of using thumbs. Oh, and your change-about? Smooth, skippy. Really smooth.

She didn't glance at Juno as she left, struggling to keep from lambasting Sly about that, too. It was proof of her point; not everyone would be able to handle this. "Look, I think that we need to hit the one in Germany first," Ronnie argued. "It makes the most sense, tactically.

"But... I'll go with the consensus of the group on this."

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Finding out that he was the sole occupant of his brian made him feel better. Alot better. In fact, Tim had been chain smoking from the stress since learning about Travis's cranial guest and that they may have visitors as well. With that out of the way, Tim could focus on the current task at hand. He returned to observing the others discuss the alien ship situation.

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Grav for her part didn't miss a beat at the revelation and continued discussing things as normal to keep the illusion going.

"Look we need to pick a ship,I say we feint at the one in Europe, and take out the one over South america, they won't expect that."

The thoughts she directed at Sly were different.

I actually prefer to take out the one over Europe, it's imperative we continue planning this attack as if we don't know about the alien or it will get suspicious. So let us continue on. We'll change things later when he isn't here.

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*Fine by me. I just didn't want us throwing our real and final plans out if the aliens are listening to everything through Travis. Misdirection on the other hand is a very useful thing. It's a magician's stock in trade after all.*
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Travis pretends that he didn't see the sudden look Juno gave him before leaving the room. Wonder what that is all about? The rest of the meeting grows oddly silent for a moment before Ronnie and Grav speak. "Either way need to hit one, my money is on Berlin as well. Root them out of the heart of Europe, if they really do control all of South America there's only so much they can expand from there anyway."

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