WWYCD:Nightmares of Past Futures

[nexus]

Sorry to those that hate these threads and I hope this one hasn't been done before, but it struck me as interesting.

While on patrol in a suburban neighborhood (Or passing threw on more important business if you such things are beyond you), your PC stumbles onto a group of superhumans attacking what appears to be a perfectly normal middle class home with heavy and lethal force. Its only blind luck that the family isn't already dead. The attackers turn on you savagely regardless of if your character intervenes or just approaches to investigate. They are heavily armed, powerful, well coordinated (to a military degree) and equipped with advanced gear and weaponry that matches no known organization profiles in your game universe. They also seem to have a high degree of knowledge about your powers and tactics.

But, heroically, you managed to save the targets and escape/drive off their assailants. The grateful civilians are completely clueless as to why they were attacked. Investigating turns up a normal background, no connection to Viper, other supers, anything that might prompt such an attack. A few days pass, then those same supers contact your team via secured means (encrypted, telepathic, whatever it takes). They explain that they are revolutionaries sent from a future, a fairly dark future where a genocidal war has nearly destroyed mankind. The cause? A single vile dictator that happens to be the youngest daughter of the family they attacked. The super provide what proof they can (images, psionically transmitted memories, etc) and the child does truly seem to grow up into a evil figure that will be responsible for countless deaths.

What do you do?

Edit: The girl's future self isn't specifically trying to kill superhumans and wasn't apparently triggered by the sudden death of her parents/family at some point in the past. In other words, there guys might be misguided in their attempt to change the past, but they are not complete idiots.

[Chuckg]

Starguard -- call the New Sentinels. (Who, really, would most likely have been called already.) Vote for the position of 'we need to see that she's raised in really really nice conditions to hopefully make her not grow up evil'.

Dr. Pain -- Ask these future nimrods if they've ever heard of the terms 'time paradox' and 'self-fulfilling prophecy'. Offer to loan them his Terminator 1 & 2 DVDs.

Baron von Darien -- you mean they lived through the initial fight?

What Dr. Pain did, only with much deeper examination of the situation (i.e. -- the girl), along with relocation, along with notification of the Trismegistus and/or any superhero friends he might have that we have a time/prophecy situation in progress, and we need to figure out if it's one of those that can be avoided, one of those that is inevitable, or one of those that could have been avoided but the act of trying to avoid it in this particular fashion just /made/ it inevitable.

[OddHat]

Style - Does everything in his power to determine if this is true, including directly visiting the world of the Supers who sent the data. Carefully explains to them that the branching nature of time makes it impossible to change their world by killing this child. Uses force if he has to. Investigates many possible futures of the child, seeking a way to prevent this tragedy in his own world.

Flesh Gordon - Is completely out of his depth. He'll alternate between protecting the child and making passes at the female revolutionaries. WIll take the child and her siblings for a ride in his Strato Ship, and feed her sugary "space food" from the nutrient synthesizers and teach the kids rude songs in the Trade Tongue of the Empire. Could easily forget why they are out here and convince himself that he and the kids are an interstellar folk music group dedicated to entertaining famillies on a thousand worlds! The kids will have to talk him down. May find a way out of the problem by pure luck.

Legend - Will protect the weak. He will also seek guidance from his team mates on ways to prevent this dark future.

[Metaphysician]

Microman II: Asks the logical question- "How, exactly did this dictator rise to power?" In particular, how she arose despite the presence of the Sentinels, or if the Sentinels were wiped out prior or during in some way.

For that matter, he'd probably like some evidence that this even *is* their timeline anymore. . .

Diomedes: The entire family now has a benefactor. For the forseeable future, Diomedes is going to be dedicating a good portion of his money and attention to this little girl, hopefully becoming a mentor figure. OTOH, he asks his Contact some questions about the nature of time, first.

[Whitewings]

Red: Blank look. Her knowledge of such things is fairly minimal. Once someone explains it in terms she can grasp, her reaction will be simple: "Be nice. Girl will be nice."

Faye: She'll do her best to be an unofficial "big sister" to the supposed future dictator. Of course, she's not going to take these jokers at face value; she'll either perform or have someone she trusts perform deep telepathic scans to be sure these guys aren't just nuts. If they aren't nuts, well... see above, for Dr. Pain. "Yo, stupids. Ever watched 'Star Trek?' Didn't think so. You mess with this kid again and you're lunch meat. Clear? Good." Subtle isn't in her vocabulary.

Champion Wind: As Champion Wind, she won't do much. As herself, she'll try to be a friend to the girl, so that if she does rise to power she won't become an evil dictator.

Ika: "Unh?" She's bascially a cave girl. Good luck explaining time travel to her.

Crystal: Well, the staggering wealth of the Kaine family and the huge array of contacts they have sholud be enough to find the family breadwinner a job somewhere else. Crystal herself might or might not take a personal interest in the girl, but she'll put the word out that it would be advisable to see that she grows up fairly happily.

[Badger]

Badger- She hasnt done anything evil yet. So this is not justified. His former bad self would be tempted to kill her for the good of the world. But would probably go into future to help them there.

Frosty Bob- Ask to go into the future. To meet this dictator. And probably hit on said dictator. If the COM is high enough.

Weasel- The gadgeteer of the group, analyzes their proof, does some Calculus-like mathmatecal gobbledy-gook. BLAH BLAH BLAh. Bob and Badger get bored and go to future w/o him. He also would probably "borrow" some of their tech to add to his power armor. He is the only one of these main three who has any notion of what time travel does and works.

[BcAugust]

Cyrande would be wondering how the family survived. And would likely question the nature of the girl. If she's a sociopath or psychopath, then Cyrande would likely quietly kill the girl. If that's not the case, she'd likely argue for taking the girl in and having Starguard mentor her.

Nox, on the other hand, would require a member of her team to sit on her long enough to listen to these guys (Loathes people who use lethal force and is very protective of innocents) While she would probably agree with Diomedes to mentor and protect the girl, she'd insist the other team goes to jail at the very least.

[sinanju]

A few days pass, then those same supers contact your team via secured means (encrypted, telepathic, whatever it takes). They explain that they are revolutionaries sent from a future, a fairly dark future where a genocidal war has nearly destroyed mankind. The cause? A single vile dictator that happens to be the youngest daughter of the family they attacked. The super provide what proof they can (images, psionically transmitted memories, etc) and the child does truly seem to grow up into a evil figure that will be responsible for countless deaths.

What do you do?

Cassandra, Man-Ape, Hell's Angel, pretty much ALL my characters curse them for the ignorant, time-travelin', paradox-inflicting MORONS that they are!

Of COURSE she grows up to be a dictator with a serious hard-on for wiping out superhumans. Superhumans attacked her family when she was a child for NO GOOD REASON THAT SHE KNEW ABOUT!

Didn't these dimwits ever watch The Terminator?

[nexus]

Well, it wasn't that she had a hard on for killing superhumans. She becomes a Hitler like figure that tries to take over the world.

To clarify matters, their story confirms her "rise" wasn't caused by any odd attacks or the sudden death of her family. In other words, they're not complete morons but seem to be an honest, last ditch attempt to stop something nightmarish from happening in the future. Like World War 2 and the Holocaust except on a bigger scale.

Edit: They're not complete morons. Apparently I am.

[Twilight]

Well if thier story confirms that it was odd attacks on the girl's family and the death of her family that caused the girl's future rise, Twilight would suggest rather tersely that they refrain from attacking her family lest they cause the event they're trying to prevent in the first place. Of course Twilight is rather protective of children and would be very annoyed by thier attempts to slay one. Of course as he's not an idiot himself, Twilight would find it practical to keep an eye on the girl and try to steer her in the direction of goodness if he can.

[nexus]

Well if thier story confirms that it was odd attacks on the girl's family and the death of her family that caused the girl's future rise, Twilight would suggest rather tersely that they refrain from attacking her family lest they cause the event they're trying to prevent in the first place. Of course Twilight is rather protective of children and would be very annoyed by thier attempts to slay one. Of course as he's not an idiot himself, Twilight would find it practical to keep an eye on the girl and try to steer her in the direction of goodness if he can.

Wasn't.

I screwed up.

[Twilight]

Wasn't.

I screwed up.

Oh, well Twilight will still suggest they not attack her as it COULD HAVE been something like that that caused her rise. Plus he's not fond of those who attack children, as I mentioned before. Otherwise his reaction is the same.

[Chuckg]

OK, time to play 'hack the prophecy'.

"This child is absolutely, 100% destined to grow up and conquer the Earth and rule it under her iron heel!"

"OK, fine. Fire up the dimensional jumper. I'm Fed-Ex'ing her ass to Nazi World.'

'... the wha?'

'It didn't say *WHICH* Earth, did it? And the net amount of evil in the multiverse actually goes marginally *DOWN* as, well, she sounds like at least a /few/ percent improvement on Hitler.'

'What if she comes back here and conquers our planet in the name of Nazi Science?'

'Dude, if they could find the dimensional way back to our world, they'd invade us anyway, her or not.'

[Blue]

If the future is malleable enough that it can be changed through killing the transgressor then it can be changed through proper education of the individual. I don't see any of my characters sacrificing the girl, even if they were convinced it was the truth. It's more likely that they would do their best to help her be the right kind of person.

[WhammeWhamme]

If the future is malleable enough that it can be changed through killing the transgressor then it can be changed through proper education of the individual. I don't see any of my characters sacrificing the girl, even if they were convinced it was the truth. It's more likely that they would do their best to help her be the right kind of person.

Well... anything like that has one flaw: Things can go wrong. One traumatic incident ten years from now and she disappears and begins building her power...