WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

[Captain Obvious]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

Polymer would phone in bomb threats to the WTC, the Pentagon, Congress, and the White House to try to minimize the damage if a plane does get through. He would then hang out in the Boston airport and use his bio-plastic entangle on the hijackers that show up there, with an anonymous tip the police to check the car the hijackers left in the parking lot, so they will realize what these guys that are being Drimmeled out of the plastic cocoons were up to. A further call to federal police in DC should ensure that all major targets there are cleared out. He would then feel guilty for the rest of his life about the two planeloads of passengers he couldn't save.

[Egyptoid]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

White Knite is the goodie 2 shoes. He'd go all prime-directive

and not expose himself as a super in the mundane world.

 

He's got the megascale flight and TK to ground (break engines) all 4 flights in time,

and could do it stealthily. Phone calls with info to search for would be part two.

 

He'd retire into obscurity but fight crime as he could.

He's got the VPP and need never expose himself to the mundanes,

he could be a "guardian angel"from then on.

 

If he somehow flubbed the grounding, he'd goto WTC and deflect the planes there.

The trick would be to get the nation to learn some other way the lessons of 9/11.

[Egyptoid]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

Cosmo Knite is the grandstander. He'd phone and radio right to the White House.

When they would probably ignore him, he'd fly to personally ground flight 93. (bust engine with blaster)

 

Then he'd buzz over to NYC and claw or shoot off an engine from the two planes at the WTC.

 

And he'd do it at the last possible second, saving the towers but letting the jets crash

into the suburbs.

 

He'd let the plane hit the Pentagon for 2 reasons.

a. those authority types are relatives of the guys who got him decommissioned as a Star-Knite.

b. the nation needs to wake up to terrorism.

 

But he'd assume they'd be all grateful to him.

So Cosmo-Knite would cheerfully be the worlds only super-hero.

He'd eat it up. He'd do all kinds of good deeds, and kill bad guys.

but he'd be an arrogant "hero".

[BcAugust]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

Cyrande is an alien princess who would consider it a "nice gesture*" to stop the planes. And she is quite capable of doing so(She's got a 180pt No Endurance Quantum Power VPP). Afterwards, she'd likely try and use her celebrity to focus on her first objective, seeing if humanity can be "uplifted" to the stars. In fact, this world makes a better subject then the Champions one....

 

*IE, she's doing it because the very idea pisses her off, but she comes from a world with no heros. So, she uses her old vocabulary.

 

Nox, on the other hand, plays hell with the terrorists. Blackouts the Boston Airport, turns the terrorists over to the cops babbling everything they know.(*coughs* 60+ Presence for Intimidation), then nearly killing herself porting to the other airports, which she likely would have called in bomb threats while she was in boston waiting. And if she was late... well, she can't do anything while the planes are in the air, but hope. In all likelyhood, would go into hiding after this, waiting for the rest of Aegis to show up, and tries to figure things out in this strange future world.(She's from 1993. Plus, Nox and Sherry(her human form) are completely different, other then both being female.) If they don't... Sherry will live the rest of her life out, just trying to make a difference. That's what heroes do.

[input.jack]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

Cosmo Knite is the grandstander. He'd phone and radio right to the White House.

When they would probably ignore him, he'd fly to personally ground flight 93. (bust engine with blaster)

 

Then he'd buzz over to NYC and claw or shoot off an engine from the two planes at the WTC.

 

And he'd do it at the last possible second, saving the towers but letting the jets crash

into the suburbs.

 

He'd let the plane hit the Pentagon for 2 reasons.

a. those authority types are relatives of the guys who got him decommissioned as a Star-Knite.

b. the nation needs to wake up to terrorism.

 

But he'd assume they'd be all grateful to him.

So Cosmo-Knite would cheerfully be the worlds only super-hero.

He'd eat it up. He'd do all kinds of good deeds, and kill bad guys.

but he'd be an arrogant "hero".

 

No offense, but he doesnt sound much like a "hero" at all, if hes willing to let planes full of innocent civilians slam into the suburbs and the Pentagon just because he's peeved at the people there. (Who are this worlds version of the people hes peeved at, not those actual people, anyway). That, and apparently he "kills bad-guys" pretty routinely.

 

I know its just personal opinion, but I dont consider Punisher or most other "Iron Age heroes" to be heroes. And he sounds pretty Iron Age from that brief description.

 

As for the nation waking up to terrorism, the fact is that the incident happening at all, even unsuccessfully, will accomplish that.

 

People forget; we got lucky in the actual attack. Bin Laden was counting on killing at least ten thousand people, expecting twenty thousand, and hoping for more. He only got about three thousand people in his cowardly attack, and even though losses were incredibly light considering how bad it -could- have been, it still had a galvanizing effect on the American outlook.

[Black Rose]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

Penumbra would find himself in the position, once again, of having to show people that a guy wearing SS duds and throwing around darkness can be a good guy. Only this time there's no Virtue to say he's a good guy (Virtue was the bearer of The Sword, and commonly believed to be the spiritual descendant of King Arthur and Jeanne d'Arc) and no other metas to compare to, favorably or not.

 

How much he could do would depend on whether or not his T'port is actually a Transdimensional Sidestep, as he thinks, or if moving between shadows is doable. He'd prefer the hijackers were packing; he's got a lovely trick based on controlling the darkness inside a gun's inner workings. But since they only have boxcutters, he'd disarm and restrain them with tentacles called forth from the shadows; if they get nasty, he's got a Shadowshatter attack that will do nicely, provided he's out of the way of civilians (it's messy on norms*). He'd try to get to each plane, but his luck usually doesn't allow for such things; more than likely he'd be distracted long enough for one, if not both, of the Towers planes to hit. He could help a lot with the evac, though; the Towers would be full of smoke, making lots of shadows to T'port through.

 

 

* In case I haven't mentioned, Penumbra lives in a world where virtually all of the big heroes (and most of the smaller ones) are Silvery Bronze, but some of the big bads are quite Iron; and a few of the heroes have adjusted to cope. Pen's "bad luck" means he deals with some really nasty crap, and his worldview has suffered; he still admires the noble big guys, but knows that he can't be like them and survive. Besides, when was the last time you saw Albion (Brit Supes/Cap mix) in an, ahem, adult entertainment club?

[McCoy]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to CrosshairCollie again." - DOH!

Got him for you.

[McCoy]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

Wow. Tough one.

 

Millennium would take the high road. Would fly to Washington, under his own power, and tell the authorities what he knows. Given that he can demonstrate unaded flight, bend steel in his bare hands, and read minds, should be able to get the FBI to strongly suggest that four planes be searched for hidden boxcutters before anyone is allowed to board, and that they use a wand on the passengers one more time. If unable to prevent the crash, will evacuate as may people from the tops of the WTC as possible.

 

Cheeta is screwed. Will not go to the authorities, doesn't have the speed to cover all the flights. Will go to manhattan. Call in bomb threats to try to get all the concerned planes searched again, Pentagon evacuated. Will pull fire alarms on all floors of the WTC to try to evacuate it. Next step will depend on how sucessful any of that was.

 

Iron Will is in his element. Hacks into Air Traffic Control at the airports, shuts it down, grounding the planes (if unable to get into air traffic control, will black out the east coast from Washington to Boston).

 

Snow Leopard thinks strategically. Mentally writing off the 9/11 casualties, she gets on a plane to Bagdad. Once there she assassinates Saddam Husane, removing any pretext for Gulf War II (which would kill more people than 9/11). She then travels to Afganistan, finds Osama bin Laden in whatever hole he may be hiding, drags him out and collects the reward. Warns the Saudi royal family that they have until she bust the slave trade in sub-saraharan Africa to institute some meaningful reforms.

 

Dolphin screwed. Invulnerable, but not useable on others. Doesn't have the PRE that Millennium does to compell cooperation with the authorities. Will get on the first flight, prevent the hijackers from taking control, see if he can reason with them. There has to be an "abort" signal they can send to the the others.

[Weldun]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

I have a reserve/retired character called Gate. As a wizard who focuses on dimensional magic, the vast majority of his powers have been stripped from him, but he now most likely no longer has his dependancy upon meditation to keep himself "in synch" with the reality he's currently in. Having only (only he says - sheesh!) his 30pt Lesser Magics VPP, he would be focusing on calling the FBI and telling him of the threat, offering to meet them with all the evidence they will need to beleive him. At the meeting he woul demonstrate a wide variety of magical abilities and telling them that it is through these abilities that he is privvy to the details that he is.

On a personal level, Gate is VERY interested in the fact that he is apparently trapped here. There are several dimensions that he cannot enter for some reason, but this is the first that he cannot leave. He would likely be having a ball trying to figure it all out.

[garou]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

Whisper of the Shadowed Mind would have absolutely no problem stopping 9/11 from happening. The average terrorist has an EGO of 10-12, and zip for mental defences. Whisper is more than capable of Mind Scanning the entire eastern seaboard, finding them, and Mind Controlling them into giving themselves up before it happens.

 

He then starts scanning Afghanistan for OBL. When he finds him (and he will), he has OBL make a statement on live TV, while wearing a pink tutu and eating a ham sandwich.

 

 

Whammo He'd love to stop them. Odds are good that he couldn't - his flight is still pretty erratic. He'd probably get the bright idea of trying to either fight his way into the White House to convince the powers-that-be that Bad Things Are Going to Happen, or, possibly trying to shut down the airport in question by ripping up several of the runways. He'd probably fail in his attempt, but at least he would have tried.

[input.jack]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

The pink tutu is a particularly good touch

[TheRavenIs]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

I am impressed with all the different ways everyone's C's would deal with this. I want to thank you all for your getting involved. Now don't stop keeping this going. I will post my C's sometime in the future, I am only waiting till I get a few of the others on the boards to answer.

[Egyptoid]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

No offense' date=' but he doesnt sound much like a "hero" at all, if hes willing to let planes full of innocent civilians slam into the suburbs .... sounds pretty Iron Age [/quote']

 

You are correct. Just barely fits definition of hero.

Cosmo Knite wants to be the "Green Lantern" for the world so badly.

He's a "Guy Gardner" type, and 95% of his powers are from foci

because his superiors took the innate ones away, feeling him unworthy.

 

He's good enough to be a hero, per se, no "evil" disads,

but lets face it, Green Lantern types really should get straight A's in worthiness.

 

So he would cheerfully stop 9-11, making sure CNN is there on time to film it.

 

and as far as him being the only super in the world. oh my gosh that's his basic dream.

 

this is an awsome thread, please more people post !

and to think I was just belly-aching about WWYCD threads !

[TheRavenIs]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

I was just hoping to create a WWYCD that was intresting to consider. I like that some people like it...but sometimes it would be nice to see that in my Rep? Joking.....just happy that people are having a good experiance here.

[DataPacRat]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

Bunny is in a bit of an odd personal situation, given her Secret (and I know at least one other player in her game reads these boards, so no, I can't say ). But other than that...

 

She's roughly human-shaped (in fact, she designed her body's shape on some popular human models - you know, the ones with staples in their navels...), but has fur, a rabbit-shaped head, removeable cybernetic limbs, a few symbiotic creatures that live inside her, can lay diamond-filled eggs, and can speak a thoroughly non-human language. I'm sure she'd be able to get the attention of High-Up People at the White House, and even if she can't prevent the actual plane-crashes in time, the fact that she knew about them beforehand will give her a certain amount of Serious Credibility.

 

She comes from a post-'01 timeline, and the fact that this world doesn't have supers and hers does, and the fact that "an alien has come to Earth" means that the butterflies are going to do rather strange things to the timeline anyway... so she'll throw caution to the wind, and start work on a program to Improve The World. (Funded by those diamond eggs, just like on the Earth she's more familiar with.) Including removing certain unpleasant individuals from their positions of power, on all sides of the globe.

 

Among other things, she'll try pointing out that the doctrine of abrogation, that some verses of the Qur'an supercede others, is unnecessary - and then that certain verses of the Qur'an suggest alternate modes of behaviour: "There is no compulsion in religion." - 2:256, and "You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them." (thus encouraging a rationalist, scientific Islam) - 17:36 are good starters.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

She's roughly human-shaped (in fact, she designed her body's shape on some popular human models - you know, the ones with staples in their navels...), but has fur, a rabbit-shaped head, removeable cybernetic limbs, a few symbiotic creatures that live inside her, can lay diamond-filled eggs, and can speak a thoroughly non-human language.

 

 

My head a splode.

[CBikle]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

I was just hoping to create a WWYCD that was fun to consider.

 

The notion of a "fun" 9-11 thread is ...well... you know.

 

I don't consider myself to be a "super-sensitive" type of guy (my sense of humor tends to be dark and very unpolitically correct), but threads about using recent real world tragedies as game material seems very creepy and not a little ghoulish.

 

Although the worst thread I've seen was the Hurricane Katrina WWYCD thread that was started right in the early stages of the disaster (when people were dying, starving, etc.) and followed through the duration of it.

[Tim]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

Of the 2 characters I've actually played.

 

All-American would do what he could to get to one of the airports and get on one of the planes. Considering he absorbs the energy from physical attacks and releases it thru his HA punch, he would let the hijackers threaten and attack him as long as it got them focused away from the flight vrew and other passengers. He could also easily take them out. And being from Champs Earth, he has now seen 2 massive terrorist attacks and would try to stop this one from happening to this world. He would feel guilty about not being able to stop all the planes.

 

Psilancer (based on Lancer of CKC with a dagger-like psi-blade instead of her psionic lance) would easily be able to slip aboard one (or more) of the planes invisible and incapacitate the flight crew, preventing them from leaving the ground. She would concentrate on the two from Boston, and hope the others would not take off due to the confusion she would cause there. being nterpreted as a terrorist attack. She would also phone in a terror threat to the other airports.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

Sentinel A new Hero, a flying brick. He will use he's knowledge to call in detailed information on the terrorist’s to the authorities. He’d also head toward NYC. He is a flying brick, so he’d head to Boston and would stop the two groups that would take off from that airport. He’d make sure that the terrorists tell the authorities what they planned.

 

Crossfire Technomancer Ninja with advanced tech as well as magic. He'd make sure that the planes are grounded, all American Aircraft if needed, having all air-traffic control systems go down would make sure no planes take off. The make sure that the authorities get the info on the terrorists. Then head toward NYC. One of the things that make Crossfire a hero is a Robotic Car with an advanced AI. He'd use that to get to NYC and using he's skills/tech/magic to make sure that the towers were evacuated, just in case.

 

Titan Mk VII Cyborg, think Cyborg from Titans, with advanced science skills. He'd be hard to hide he's altered appearance, so he wouldn't try. He'd goto the FBI office in Denver and then using what he call's 'Brother': a warable AI that is interconnected to him to download all the information he has on the terrorist's.

 

Bearcat Wolverine type, he'd get to Boston and find the terrorist's and make sure they don't live to make the flight. Then make sure that he left info, in Arabic, that gives the names and current locations of the other terrorists. Then he would find a way to OBL and then not stop till every terrorist organization on earth is either distroyed or dead.

 

Flame Young Human Torch type, he'd use he's wireless laptop and he's hacking skill to get the info to the authorities he'd also use the hacking to shut down the flight control system, have fire alarms going off at the towers, pentagon, capitol, whitehouse. He'd then head toward NYC, he would not use he's powers but drive to NYC as fast as he can. If he isn't close near the time the planes would hit he'd be powered up and headed that way, he'd make sure he could get there to stop the planes if he's hacking didn't stop the planes of the autorities didn't believe the info. A flaming object moving at a few hundred mph toward NYC should ground all aircraft.

 

Electric Blue KOS-MOS type. She would use her Mind Link with any computer to bypass any security to make sure that the Mayor of NYC get's the info, as well as Director FBI and AG, and Joint Chief's of Staff. She would then use her mega-scale teleport to get to NYC. Once in NYC she'd make her way to the Mayor and offer him her services to stop the terrorists. Having a young woman suddenly appear in a corona of electricty should tell the Mayor he isn't dealing with anyone or thing that has ever existed.

 

The Traveler Extra-Dimensional Wanderer. He'd figure that he's bosses or one of he's enemies wanted him here, so he'd find a place out of sight and use he's powers to makes sure the terrorists are arrested. The Public finds out that OBL and the fanatical islamic world wants the west distroyed. He knows he shouldn't meddle but if he has to stay here on this world forever, he owes it to make sure that it might actually servive so he has a place to live, plus a hero is suppost to stop this kind of thing. Then he'd just do what comes naturally, meddle where he figures he can do so that helps this earth and do as little damage to it as possiable. Traveler is over 10,000 yrs old, he takes the long view on things, but also knows when to do the now.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

I miss-spoke not fun, but maybe one that would bring out the heroic. I think what happened on 9/11 to be horrorific. It was the act of inhuman violance. I wanted this to be a way they the posters get the chance to say, here my C stands.

[Haven Walkur]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

This isn't meant to be thread necromancy. This thread's author asked me to consider the situation and I actually came up with a response...but as I've been very distracted recently, it's taken me a while to get my response posted. But here it is, finally.

 

 

 

Busy Day

 

 

Seriously not cool, thought the athletic black-haired girl in the colorful caped leotard as she looked around in dismay at the busy streets of downtown Manhattan. Horns blared, car stereos pounded out bass lines and people shoved and jostled past, sending pigeons fluttering lazily up from the sidewalks into the late-afternoon sky. This is the last time I let those spooky super-geniuses do a number on my temporal coordinates, Gamma Girl -- a.k.a. Haven Walkur in her civilian ID -- thought. Where am I? No, scratch that, check out the Manhattan skyline, chicks and dudes. Okay, when am I?

 

A skinny black dude was heading down the sidewalk towards her, ball cap turned backwards and bluejeans riding low on his hips. He looked about her age, eighteen or so, and Gamma Girl reached out and snagged his jacket.

 

"Hey, excuse me,†she said, “do you know what the date is?"

 

He stopped and stared at her. "You crazy? Why you all dressed up that way for? Broadway ain't no swimming pool."

 

Gamma Girl gave him a smile and a shrug. "What can I say? These are my working clothes."

 

The black dude snorted. "Yeah, they something. You a dancer?"

 

"No, man, I'm not. I just want to know what the date is." Everyone in New York's a comedian, Gamma Girl thought, stifling the urge to roll her eyes. But this is starting to kinda weird me out, being downtown in uniform in broad daylight. I need to get some info and get moving.

 

"Don't trip," the dude said, grinning at her. "Monday, it be Monday ten."

 

"What month?" Gamma Girl asked, feeling like a total spaz. Man, what a question to have to ask! Thank-you Rond Vidar and Brainiac 5, you spooky SOBs. She bit down on her lip; it wasn’t like she could hurt herself through her force field, but the faint pressure helped her concentrate. C'mon, Haven, focus! she thought.

 

Now the dude laughed. "What month? You be trippin'! It September."

 

And now the really tough question, Gamma Girl thought with a sinking feeling. Dude, you are gonna love this one. "And what year?"

 

The black dude stared at her, laughter vanishing. His expression wavered somewhere between suspicion and anger. "You playin’ me? This some kind of a joke?"

 

Gamma Girl looked him in the eye, projecting a confidence she didn’t feel. "No, it's not a joke. What year is it?"

 

For a moment, the dude hesitated. Gamma Girl stared him down, letting her body language underscore her words with a sense of seriousness and urgency -- and just a little ‘don't screw with me.’ It was a basic bluff, one of the first lessons she’d learned on the street and she was good at it.

 

Finally -- "You crazy, don't know what year it is," the dude said. "You crazy! 2001, okay, it 2001. You a crazy woman...you wanna get you crazy a** outta my face now, I ain’t kiddin’."

 

"Thanks so much, citizen," Gamma Girl said -- and then clenched her right hand around her Legion flight ring and got airborne.

 

September in New York City, and yes, Gamma Girl could smell autumn in the breeze playing ring-a-rosy around the skyscrapers. Man, I haven’t been back home since...since 1979, the Gambione stakeout with Lady Gray, that time Vandal Savage tagged me. It seemed like such a long time ago...Hell, it’s been a long time, I’ve been to the 30th Century and back since then.

 

So this is 2001, Gamma Girl thought. Far out! The streets were much busier than she remembered, even for downtown. More cars, more people, and a lot of them seemed to be holding some kind of weird handset to their ears...huh, I guess they finally got that whole ‘cellular radio-telephone’ deal going. And the phones are so small now! ’Course, mine’s smaller. Gamma Girl pressed the embossed ‘L’-and-starburst design on her heavy gold ring and listened to the electronic echoes of a empty channel for a while. No-one there. For now, I’m the only Legionnaire around.

 

The day was almost over, the sun slipping down towards the Bay and the New Jersey skyline in the west. The last of the sunlight striped the towering buildings of Manhattan, the light glowing orange as old honey on the gray stone and flashing like lasers off metal and glass. And there’s a lot more glass now than there was in my time, Gamma Girl noted. Some of these skyscrapers look like they’re completely glassed in. I guess the World Trade Center really did start something with all those big windows...wonder if I can see the towers from here? They’ve only been up two years, my time, and I still think they’re way cool. A mid-air shrug and a grin. So sue me. No reason not to go take a look.

 

Gamma Girl did a lazy aerial roll and headed south following Broadway, the burgundy capes on her shoulders fluttering like flags. She’d always liked the feel of the air slip-streaming past her force field; it felt...cleansing, somehow, kind of the way she imagined water would feel. As she flew past one brightly-lit office window, she waved cheerfully to the mob of suit-and-tie workers crowded up against the glass. Most of them were yakking into those little portable phones, too. She grinned and shook her head; man, you’d think they’d never seen a four-color costume before.

 

Maybe they haven’t. That thought brought her up short, and Gamma Girl blinked. She’d just been assuming that the capes-and-cowls business would still be going strong after all this time, but maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe the costumed heroes had been phased out, outlawed, disbanded...or maybe it was just a slow day in downtown Manhattan. She mulled that over, flying south pretty much on auto-pilot; after all, even in 2001 New York was still her hometown. Far below her, Broadway was busy and broad, just like the name said, and she wasn’t about to lose sight of one of the major one-way streets through downtown -- not from any height less than stratospheric, anyway, she thought.

 

A burst of yellow, red and orange like a quiet fireworks display caught her eye; the trees in City Hall Park had their autumn color on. Directly across Broadway from the park was the Woolworth Building with its funky cathedral top...and beyond that were the twin towers of the World Trade Center, glowing in the last light of the sun, their bases hidden by the tangle of lesser high-rises. Beyond lay the gray water of the Hudson River and the Bay. Gamma Girl looked up at one of her favorite NYC landmarks, smiling -- and suddenly turned gray as the Hudson.

 

Tomorrow, she thought, stunned and sick. It’s all gonna be destroyed tomorrow.

 

As a time-lost member of the Legion of Superheroes hailing from the 20th Century, Gamma Girl had needed to adjust to a lot of crazy 30th Century things...and more than a few crazy Legion things. And one thing that still freaked her out a little was when the Legion’s ace telepath, Saturn Girl, brought her up to speed on something with a mental download, a condensed psychic briefing that put the info directly into Gamma Girl’s brain without Saturn Girl ever saying a word. This knowledge was like that, only worse; it came out of nowhere with a certainty that put it beyond question, beyond doubt. Tomorrow.

 

Gamma Girl’s bright hazel eyes were very wide. Oh God, they’re going to fly planes, hijack planes and fly them into the towers, fly them into the Pentagon and all those people...all those people are going to die. The hijackers, those murdering scumbag terrorist hijackers...they kill all those people.

 

“All those people,†Gamma Girl whispered. “All those people.â€

 

Reflexively, she jabbed at the comm switch on her Legion flight ring. Still nothing. The muted static of the empty channel seemed to mock her. It’s just me, Gamma Girl thought, feeling her pulse thunder and her face beginning to flush. God, it’s just me. I have to find the other capes, I have to let them know -- but who’s here now? Which version of 2001 is this, which future am I in the past of?

 

I need a phonebook, I need to track down this 2001's cape-and-cowl brigade. The Justice Squadron, in my time they were based in New York City, maybe they’re still here; the Fabulous Five were out in L.A., I can try them too. Okay, phone, phonebook, today’s paper, itineraries for those flights -- let’s move, Haven!

 

 

***

 

 

9/11/2001

8:30am

 

I hate you, God, Gamma Girl thought with terrible conviction. The skies were blue over Manhattan this morning, with a fresh breeze coming off the Bay to make pedestrians glad of their jackets. Seen from above, the streets were a moving mosaic, the bright colors of coats, scarves, caps swirling like confetti caught on the breeze. It was going to be a beautiful day. I hate You because none of the heroes of this world have superpowers, there’s only me and I’m not fast enough. The tears gleaming in Gamma Girl’s eyes had nothing to do with the wind.

 

She hadn’t slept yet but she wasn’t tired; feeling a thousand years old, maybe, but not tired. It had been a hell of a night...a hell of a nightmare, and it still wasn’t over. So now she was on the roof of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, leaning up against the radio mast and waiting to catch a plane; a couple of planes, actually. It was the best solution she’d been able to come up with, but people were still going to die. As a costumed hero and a sentient being, Gamma Girl was having more than a little trouble with that.

 

Before she’d crossed paths with Vandal Savage in 1979, Gamma Girl had been the protégée and junior partner (not “sidekickâ€; like her mentor, she detested the term) of the vigilante hero Lady Gray. And as the Lady was also Miriam Blakely, Haven Walkur’s adoptive mother, Gamma Girl had long ago got into the habit asking herself, “what would Lady Gray do?†when she found herself into a bad situation. This time, though, the Lady didn’t have any good answers.

 

‘In this business, there are alternatives and there are hard choices,’ Lady Gray had told Haven back when she was starting out as Gamma Girl. ‘Sometimes they’re the same. Don’t let it immobilize you.’

 

Don’t let it immobilize you...man, I didn’t really dig what Lady Gray was saying back then, but I do now, that’s for d*mn sure, Gamma Girl thought, turning her face into the wind. She was saying that sometimes the best you can manage won’t be enough, but you still have to do it ’cause the alternatives are worse. Gamma Girl hadn’t let it immobilize her. She’d tried the alternatives and made her decision, the best decision she could -- and I hate it. I made a lousy screwed-up decision, but it’s just slightly less screwed-up than every other decision I could make. This time every single alternative means people die.

 

“This time the alternatives all suck!†she yelled into the wind.

 

Gamma Girl had tried to handle the whole F.U.B.A.R.’d situation by the numbers, all regimented and rational. Yesterday evening, when she’d first understood exactly what was going to happen on September 11, she’d scrambled for a phone. And of course, the nearest place that had working payphones and intact phonebooks was a near-by visitor center -- the one in the World Trade Center.

 

Mondo mistake, she thought, digging her fingers into her shoulder-length black hair as if she were trying to pull the memory out of her head. Just being inside the twin towers was a seriously bad trip, like Bellevue-and-rubber-rooms bad. She raked her fingers through her hair without meeting any resistance, fingers sliding frictionlessly through without a single catch or tangle. The force field that had covered Gamma Girl head-to-toe all her life covered each separate strand of her hair, too. Yeah, I’m trying not to freak out totally here, so it’s just as well I can’t tear my hair out.

 

At the World Trade Center, Gamma Girl had ridden up in one of the elevators with a bunch of other people -- and discovered a moment after the elevator doors had closed that being inside the WTC complex was a VERY BAD IDEA.

 

However she knew what was going to happen on the fiery 11th, the knowing was a lot more powerful inside the building. Shattering. Somehow being inside the Twin Towers was causing a kind of T.V. documentary of the coming disaster to run continuously in her head, like déjà vu but in reverse. Gamma Girl had spent the ride up trying desperately to shut out the visions of smoke and flame and walls falling, bodies falling, and she’d just managed to keep from losing it in a major way...though the look on her face had seriously spooked a party of Dutch tourists visiting the Big Apple.

 

And once she’d finally got to the visitor center and the phones, there was no listing in the Greater New York City phonebook for the Justice Squadron. In fact, the Yellow Pages had no listings at all for any of the cape-and-cowl brigade, even the ones like the Sentinels that she was pretty sure advertised...or at least they did in my time. And Directory Assistance -- no help there. Another dead end, and at first she hadn’t been able to figure out why.

 

She’d punched O and told the friendly dude who came on the line what kind of listings she was looking for. She hadn’t really expected it to be any big deal, but then the dude came back with a line about him secretly being a superhero called Captain Q-Tip, and offered to give her Superman’s home number. If she were just hanging out without anything in particular on her mind, she’d have enjoyed his line of BS; the dude would’ve been a laff riot -- but she wasn’t joking! Gamma Girl had hung up and called back, but this time she’d got some chick who hung up on her as soon as she said that she needed the number for any New York-based costumed or metanormal heroes or teams.

 

She hadn’t bothered calling back.

 

By then, though, she’d been starting to have some really unpleasant suspicions. Evidence doesn’t care if you believe it or not, evidence just is, Gamma Girl had reminded herself. And even if I don’t like where it’s going, it’s all going the same d*mn way. And at last, looking through a newspaper someone had left in the snack bar, she’d had it confirmed; there were no costumes mentioned, no costume-and-cowl activity reported anywhere in the U.S., anywhere in the world. What she’d been most afraid of was true; there were no costumes active in this version of 2001. None mentioned, none listed. None there.

 

No-one but her.

 

And when she’d finally figured that out, all Gamma Girl had wanted to do was scream. It was worse than unfair, it was impossible. I can not be the only one, she’d thought, appalled. I can’t be the only costume in the whole d*mn country! In the world! There are gonna be planes leaving from Boston and Washington and Newark, and even if I could get there, I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t even catch up with them!

 

But the fire, the smoke, the memories of things that hadn’t happened yet had been all around her -- and by this time tomorrow, those memories would be real. All those people. So Gamma Girl had taken all the 20th Century cash she had on her -- a five-spot she found crumpled and forgotten at the bottom of a pocket -- and changed it for quarters, dimes and nickels for the pay-phone.

 

Gamma Girl had spent the whole five dollars -- less a Canadian 20-cent piece -- on phone calls to officials and agencies. Now, standing on the North Tower in the wind, she kept going back over and over and over those phone conversations, replaying them endlessly in her mind just in case some of them came out differently this time around....

 

**“If you think we’re going to pull those flights just on your say-so,

you’re crazy. You have any idea how many calls like yours Logan

International gets every day?â€*

 

*“Is this some kind of a joke? Who is this? How did you get this

number?â€*

 

*“Do you know the penalties for placing hoax calls to the Federal

Aviation Administration? We are a federal agency....â€*

 

* “Special Agent Hendricks here. How did you come by this

information?â€*

 

*“In order to take any action on your report of alleged terrorist

activity, we’ll need a name and contact number for you as the reporting

party....â€*

 

*“You have reached the Security Office for Washington Dulles

International Airport. Our regular hours of operation are 8:00am to

5:00pm Monday through Friday....â€*

 

*“Threats against specified U.S. airports and air carriers are taken very

seriously by this agency. By making such threats you risk arrest and

federal prosecution....â€**

 

Abruptly Gamma Girl straightened up, startling a seagull on the parapet in front of her. “Useless, useless, useless,†she said out loud. “They wouldn’t believe me or they thought I was the one making the threats. Maybe I should’ve let them go on thinking it, maybe that would’ve got their attention and got them here!â€

 

The seagull cocked its head and regarded Gamma Girl with one black glass bead of an eye. Reassured that she wasn’t going to make any more sudden moves, the bird fluffed its gray-and-white feathers against the breeze and continued on its way along the top of the parapet. Gamma Girl stared after the seagull, not really seeing it. No, she thought, claiming to be a terrorist wouldn’t have done any good. It would have got a response -- oh man, would it! -- but it would only have ended up confusing the situation even worse...unless the feds acted on my report immediately and exactly.

 

“Yeah, like they’d do that.â€

 

Gamma Girl was convinced that even with the best intentions in the world, the feds would keep trapping themselves in a maze of procedural red tape. By the time they’d hashed out the chain of command and the jurisdictional issues and got agents on the scene, the planes would be flying. The horse would be gone but the feds would carefully close the stable door behind it, and lock it. They’d try to follow the playbook even though it was too late for that. It was too late to get a concerted federal response going from the moment I got here, and I didn’t have any way of convincing the feds to move. Still don’t.

 

Show ’em my powers? Sure, that’d convince them. And while they’re all busily trying to debunk or debrief me, the planes are still flying. Gamma Girl gave her head a quick dismissive shake, like a restive horse tossing its mane. “I’ve been through this,†she said. “I’ve been through it and through it ’til I’m sick of it and I’m still only coming up with one best solution.†Her eyes still on the seagull, Gamma Girl slowly clenched her hands into fists. Best solution....

 

Oh yeah, and about that best solution? Gamma Girl smiled a tight, hurting little smile. That’s the one where everyone on the four hijacked planes dies, 266 of them including the terrorist scumbags. And better add in anyone unlucky enough to be caught on West Street, Barclay, Church or Liberty when the wreckage from the planes falls...the fuel, fire and twisted metal of United Airlines Flight 175 and American Airlines Flight 11 after they flatten themselves against my shields. Maybe we’ll even get a few bodies falling free...after all, 84 of the 266 people who die are on these two planes.

 

She took a shuddering breath. But 3000 people won’t die in the fall of the Towers. I can’t save the 300 but I have a shot at saving the 3000. Does that balance out? I have no idea, but I have to do it. I have to do what I can to help...even if it feels like I turned into the Angel of Death all of a sudden.

 

“And if I don’t choose they all die,†Gamma Girl said softly.

 

Making hard choices. Lady Gray had tried to tell her that’s what the cape-and-cowl brigade was all about. The costumes were the ones who made the hard choices in situations where winning just meant losing a little less. Angel of Death? Hell, you put on that responsibility when you put on the uniform....

 

“And if you can’t handle the one you’ve got no business wearing the other,†Gamma Girl finished quietly, her voice unsteady. She was crying now, tears sliding smoothly down her force field like rain on a windowpane.

 

Shields were Gamma Girl’s specialty, her power and expertise. But there were times -- times like now, for instance -- when she wondered bitterly why she couldn’t generate a force field that would block the pain of feelings. But no, emotions were an attack that always went right through her shields -- and they never missed. Her innate and ever-present personal force field would stop a bullet. Her force walls could stop a runaway car. Her largest and most powerful fields, her Shield-trio, would stop almost anything: the Alpha Shield resisted energy attacks and had allowed her to survive a brief interval on the surface of Melquior, a small sun; the Beta Shield resisted physical attacks and might just work to deflect the two doomed Boeings away from the Twin Towers; the Gamma Shield resisted both energy and physical attacks, but at lower levels than the other two.

 

But none of her shields, none of her powers had ever been able to stop the heartache.

 

Time to book, Haven, Gamma Girl told herself. Need to anchor the base of the Beta Shield well below the roof of the North Tower and angle the whole thing to deflect the plane down towards the street. And if I come away from that little stunt alive I’ve got about 8 minutes to get ready to do the same thing on the South Tower. This is going to be a world-record missile deflection -- she managed a faint, watery grin through her tears -- and with two of the biggest missiles I could ever have imagined.

 

It was 8:39 am. Something spooked the seagull and it went winging away into the blue sky, its mournful cries falling through the air like slow raindrops. The sound of the gull’s voice made Gamma Girl’s throat ache, her heart ache as if she were a windchime and the seagull’s cry had set her ringing.

 

“Bye-bye birdie,†she whispered, and walked over to the parapet on the far side of the roof. It was a long way down.

 

Gamma Girl glanced up, her tears catching the sunlight and sparkling in tiny prisms. The seagull was gone. If You don’t like the way I’m handling this, God, then You can just live with it. I’m going to have to. But that’s the price you pay for wearing the cape; you get to choose. I get to choose. You don’t ever get to plead helplessness.

 

She kissed the smooth disc of her Legion flight ring and stepped up onto the parapet. It was 8:41 am. “If I had to do it again, I’d do the same,†she said, looking off into the sky to the north. “Please understand. I’m not asking you to forgive.†Then she focused her will on the flight ring and was gone, plunging down like a diver past the uppermost floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

 

Gamma Girl had planes to catch. It was going to be a busy day.

[Robyn]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

Repped.

 

Oh, and I realized after doing so that this was a WWYCD thread, so

[TheRavenIs]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

WOW, that is all I can Haven. A good story, a good POV, and it was a busy day for Gamma Girl. Having to make that choise was why I did this thread. That responce makes this worth all of it.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

--thread necromancy--

 

To continue this but with a change.

 

For some reason your team finds themselves on a world that Super’s have never existed. Your Team still has the powers, equipment, whatever that makes them a Super. You are alone and if you have any E-D powers that would normally allow you to leave, they don’t work. (this means any trans-dimensional communication is not possible)

 

Your team finds themselves on this world and discover that the date is 9/10/2001, your team knows what happened on 9/11/2001, even if the event didn’t happen on the world they came from. The team knows enough information; the location of the targets and the planes used by flight number, where the planes took off from, the time that the planes were taken over. What does your team do? Please add the emotions behind your teams’s actions as well as.Anyone answering this question should bear in mind these facts:

 

2 of the planes took off from Boston and those were the planes which hit the WTC. The one that took off from Washington is the one that hit the Pentagon. The one that took off from Newark was probably going to crash in Washington DC but the passenger rebellion caused it to crash early. However the passenger rebellion would not have happened had the other planes been stopped from hitting the WTC. Also you only have an hour and forty two minutes between the first plane taking off and the last one taking off (which was delayed by 40 minutes because of high winds).

[Basil]

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

 

For some reason you find your C on a world that Super’s have never existed. Your C still has the powers, equipment, whatever that makes them a Super. You are alone and if you have any E-D powers that would normally allow you to leave, they don’t work. (this means any trans-dimensional communication is not possible)

 

Your C finds themselves on this world and discover that the date is 9/10/2001, your C knows what happened on 9/11/2001, even if the event didn’t happen on the world they came from. The C knows enough information; the location of the targets and the planes used by flight number, where the planes took off from, the time that the planes were taken over. What does your C do? Please add the emotions behind your C’s actions as well as.

 

Last edited by David Johnston : Apr 14th, '06 at 06:19 PM.

 

Anyone answering this question should bear in mind these facts:

 

2 of the planes took off from Boston and those were the planes which hit the WTC. The one that took off from Washington is the one that hit the Pentagon. The one that took off from Newark was probably going to crash in Washington DC but the passenger rebellion caused it to crash early. However the passenger rebellion would not have happened had the other planes been stopped from hitting the WTC. Also you only have an hour and forty two minutes between the first plane taking off and the last one taking off (which was delayed by 40 minutes because of high winds).

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I do not owe David Johnson......rep.....paid in full.

 

The details would depend on which character, but the basics, the first moves, would be the same for all.

 

There's 24+ hours, time to do research:

1) Is there Skype or other voice over IP service in 2001?

2) Is the TOR network, or other anonymizing HTTP servers, in 2001?

3) What web-email services are current?

4) What's the current situation with anonymous remailers?

5) Far and away the most important: get all info possible on the people and group that did the earlier bombing of the WTC.

6) Research up some other Islamic terrorist group.

 

The idea is: phone in a threat about 5AM EST to the WTC, claiming to be "avenging" the group that did the earlier bombing. "We have placed 8 bombs throughout the Satan Towers! With the uranium the forces of freedom made available to us, we have irradiated much organic material, and each bomb is coated with that material; when they go off, not only will they destroy the symbol of the Great Satan, but organic material that will be absorbed by the satanists in Manhattan, thereby poisoning them and giving them cancer!" The authorities will not dare ignore that! They'll evacuate the towers, so if the rest of the plan doesn't work, the number of people endangered will be reduced.

 

A similar message will be sent to the Pentagon. As well, emails will be sent to every newpaper, radio station, and TV station in NYC and Wash who's email address is publically available.

 

Then, just as the four flights are filling up, call the airports posing as the other terrorist group, and claiming to have snuck suicide bombers on board. It would be best to up the number of planes to 5 or 6, so that when nothing/nobody is found on some flights, the paranoia level goes up, and just about everything is grounded. The closing line of the threat should be, "You will never find out who they are! They are not carrying bombs; there's no need to take a bomb onto an airplane--the bomb is already there!"

 

The authorities should be able to figure out that last line; IIRC there had already been a few folks who had considered the possibility of using an airplane as a fuel-air bomb.