[WhatIf] Mechanon took control of the Minute Man VII Robots?

[TheQuestionMan]

A What If? Plot Thread

 

The I.H.A. decided it wants to incorporate some of Mechanon's technology into the next upgrade for the Mutant Hunting Minute Man VIII Robots. Unfortunately this allows Mechanon to take control of the Robots and use them as his personal army. They still Hunt and Kill Mutants, but they also Hunt and Kill Humans.

 

Combined with Mechanon's abilities can you imaging where this is going!

 

 

QM

[Balabanto]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

On the surface, it looks like a great plot, but now, let's look at the holes.

 

What you really have here is an armageddon scenario of the worst kind. If you want to end your game with a bang and have them fight a classic villain at the end, sure.

 

But if not, this is likely to have dire consequences for your gameworld. Robots this size tend to explode when demolished. After this, no one will like your heroes much. This may not be fair to them.

[Greywind]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

But if not' date=' this is likely to have dire consequences for your gameworld. Robots this size tend to explode when demolished. After this, no one will like your heroes much. This may not be fair to them.[/quote']

You know for a fact robots of the size of the Minutemen tend to explode when demolished? Do you have referential video captures? Or are you just basing off things like MechWarrior video games and whatnot?

[freakboy6117]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

Hm mm well assuming only a couple of robots where upgraded then mechanon might be trying to locate the storage facility.

 

so you would have the giant robot rampage across the city from the R&D lab to the main holding facility with every attempt by IGHA to stop them thwarted (especially if they use more robots as they just increase mechanons forces) and so the heroes must intervene before mechanon acquires an unstoppable army

 

 

on the plus side this lets you kill two words with one stone you discredit IHA and defeat mechanon plus good PR stopping the robot menace

 

the facility can be on the out skirts of the city and thus avoid major property damage well out Sid of the swath of destruction cut by the rampaging robots

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

Adding Minutemen to Mechanon's forces would probably make him a greater threat, adding to his available resources at the very least; but I don't think the IHA has enough of them to make up an army. Mechanon may or may not have the facilities to manufacture them in large numbers, but with his knowledge of robotics I imagine he could create something as dangerous as the Minutemen on his own if he wanted to. Anyway, large numbers of giant robots have definite drawbacks: they take up a lot of room to store and maintain, are difficult to hide and attract a lot of attention.

 

Now, as a twist to a scenario in which the IHA has deployed the Minutemen, this could be downright nasty.

[JmOz]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

An idea for the OP, if the IHA had to recruit mutants to fight the robots, in other words they had to eat some crow or see the city/world go down the drain

 

needs work, I know there are some problems with it

[assault]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

The way I would handle it would be:

 

The IHA's Master Plan comes to fruition, and they unleash their Minuteman robots on the world. Oops.

 

When the dust settles, the plot arc related to the IHA is over.

 

You can bring them back eventually, or you can assume they were effectively destroyed, depending on the flavour of your campaign.

 

Either way, this is a major campaign event. It's not the Bank Robbery of the Week.

 

Any consequences are under the GM's control. Balabanto's suggestion is only one possibility.

 

This is an epic scenario. It should be treated as such. If PCs are going to die, it should be in a scenario like this...

[Comic]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

Mechanon loves all his children, even the clunky, backwards ones put together by pathetic organics who only partially understand that the day of the carbon-based is over.

[Jared Rann]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

Wouldn't Mechanon have even a grander plot than this? I mean without humans, mutant or not, his purpose for existance would be gone. Plus wouldn't the I.H.A. be smart enough to place remote self destruct devices on their robots just in case something does happen and they have to take down one of the robots themselves?

[McCoy]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

Wouldn't Mechanon have even a grander plot than this? I mean without humans' date=' mutant or not, his purpose for existance would be gone. Plus wouldn't the I.H.A. be smart enough to place remote self destruct devices on their robots just in case something does happen and they have to take down one of the robots themselves?[/quote']

In my campagine Mechanon (actually Ultron, it's a DC/Marvel/Champions hybred universe) sees himself as the next step in evloution. He wants to rid the planet of carbon-based life and build better robots. Once the PC's even had to get Apocalypse to fight on their side against him.

 

I've never seen a Minuteman or Sentinal self-destruct, nor seen that on the Minuteman writeups.

[assault]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

Wouldn't Mechanon have even a grander plot than this? I mean without humans' date=' mutant or not, his purpose for existance would be gone.[/quote']

 

No. It's an infinite universe, full of life that needs to be destroyed...

 

Plus wouldn't the I.H.A. be smart enough to place remote self destruct devices on their robots just in case something does happen and they have to take down one of the robots themselves?

 

Obviously. But who says it would work? After all, the robots are smarter than they are, now...

 

Potentially, fixing the self-destruct mechanisms might be a way of stopping the unstoppable horde, but obviously that's easier said than done. And it might not work.

 

Hmm... I really like this scenario. There's something that's just right about an endless, soulless horde of giant robots turning on their creators and heading off to create mayhem. It's what being a superhero is all about.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

On the surface, it looks like a great plot, but now, let's look at the holes.

 

What you really have here is an armageddon scenario of the worst kind. If you want to end your game with a bang and have them fight a classic villain at the end, sure.

 

But if not, this is likely to have dire consequences for your gameworld. Robots this size tend to explode when demolished. After this, no one will like your heroes much. This may not be fair to them.

 

Two questions:

 

1. Why is this automatically the end of the world? The IHA don't have many Minuteman, and they aren't *that* powerful.

 

2. More importantly, if giant robots are trying to exterminate humanity, why would the survivors be angry at the *heroes*?

[Tom]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

Couple of suggestions: Watch MD Geist and MD Geist 2, along with the Terminator movies -- that should give you an idea of what you're potentially unleashing in a 'worst' case scenario. The X-Men 'Days of Future Past' arc should be useful as well...

 

The biggest question is probably how many robots does the IHA have, and does Mechanon get all of them -- followed by the question of how dispersed is the deployment. Assuming your PCs aren't the only heroes in the world, they're going to be part of a larger effort to deal with rampaging robots, and presumably on point to find a way to defeat whatever means Mechie is using to control his minions or Mechanon himself...

 

I ran this idea as part of the backstory for a visit to a post-apoc alternate world where the PCs had to save the remnants of humanity from the surviving robots...

[Metaphysician]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

The problem is, the IHA robotics arm is nowhere near big and bad enough to produce any of those scenarios. And while Mechanon himself could do so, he could do so more or less irrespective of any IHA Minuteman takeover.

[SuperPheemy]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

How many Minutemen does the IHA have? Even if there's only two-dozen, twenty four giant robots led by Mechanon can wreak havoc on any large urban area. Or could easily sterilize a small nation to serve as a base of operations.

 

Personally, that sounds like an awesome scenario. Worthy of Mechanon's legacy.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

Me, I'd tend to put a twist in this scenario.

 

Sure, Mechanon can access the Minuteman robots and control them, but only one at a time, and he has to literally control all of a robot's actions himself (0 DCV Concentrate Throughout). So if the IHA is fielding three robots against the heroes, he might control one to attack the IHA forces, then switch to another one to attack an oncoming train (leaving the first temporarily confused and under fire from its own forces), then finally bounce to the third to attack the heroes, since "those carbon-based IHA fools were such deficient programmers" and he could do much better.

 

Might even put another twist, that a sufficiently skilled electronics expert could use this link Mechanon now has with the upgraded Minuteman robots against him (whether just to locate him, or to access and control lower-level functions).

 

Just a few thoughts.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: [WhatIf] Mechanon took control of the Minute Man VII Robots?

 

Good premise...but why would Mechnanon need the Minute Men robots in the 1st place? They kind of suck, and he could probably make better ones if he wanted them.

 

 

However, what ifs don't always make sense, so just for the sake of running with it I would say that Mechanon would take the step of wiring them all directly to his own "mind", and operate all of them directly making them more "intelligent" opponents. However finding and disabling Mechanon stops them all making for a nice big finish.

[assault]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

Me, I'd tend to put a twist in this scenario.

 

Sure, Mechanon can access the Minuteman robots and control them, but only one at a time, and he has to literally control all of a robot's actions himself (0 DCV Concentrate Throughout).

 

Seems kind of dull, in my opinion. It's not the kind of deadly threat to human survival the less restrained options are.

 

Mechanon is not some bank robbing punk. His plots should be epic in scale.

 

---

 

When I design Champions scenarios, I find it useful to try to think like a supervillain. Otherwise it's too easy to end up with the mundane and boring.

[McCoy]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

Me, I'd tend to put a twist in this scenario.

 

Sure, Mechanon can access the Minuteman robots and control them, but only one at a time, and he has to literally control all of a robot's actions himself (0 DCV Concentrate Throughout). So if the IHA is fielding three robots against the heroes, he might control one to attack the IHA forces, then switch to another one to attack an oncoming train (leaving the first temporarily confused and under fire from its own forces), then finally bounce to the third to attack the heroes, since "those carbon-based IHA fools were such deficient programmers" and he could do much better.

 

Might even put another twist, that a sufficiently skilled electronics expert could use this link Mechanon now has with the upgraded Minuteman robots against him (whether just to locate him, or to access and control lower-level functions).

 

Just a few thoughts.

If the Minuteman hardware can handle it, why doesn't Mechanon download a copy of himself to the Minuteman? If the hardware can't handle it, first order is "come here for a CPU upgrade."

 

Could result in an uncomfortable phone call from the IHA. "Hi, yes, you know how in the past we tried to restrict your rights and cripple your effectiveness as crime fighters? Well, really, we had the best of intentions. I'm sure we'll all laugh about this someday. But, you remember those big robots we built as a safeguard if you did somethig like try to exterminate humanity? Well, they're why I'm calling. They're -- gone. Yep, gone. All of them. Activated themselves and launched from their silos a little over two hours ago. Stayed below the skyline so we couldn't track them. Yep, remote overrides, homing beacons, even self destruct, none of that working. We're not even getting telemetry. Yes, everything we know about you and your teammates was in their data banks. Just thought you'd want to know!"

[Twilight]

Re: Mechanon take control of the Minute Man VII Robots

 

If the Minuteman hardware can handle it, why doesn't Mechanon download a copy of himself to the Minuteman? If the hardware can't handle it, first order is "come here for a CPU upgrade."

 

Could result in an uncomfortable phone call from the IHA. "Hi, yes, you know how in the past we tried to restrict your rights and cripple your effectiveness as crime fighters? Well, really, we had the best of intentions. I'm sure we'll all laugh about this someday. But, you remember those big robots we built as a safeguard if you did somethig like try to exterminate humanity? Well they've acivated themselves and are trying to exterminate humanity. No, the irony is not lost on us."

 

Post changed because I find it much more amusing this way.

[BNakagawa]

Re: [WhatIf] Mechanon took control of the Minute Man VII Robots?

 

if Mechanon has the kind of mega genius brain capacity it's supposed to, it ought to just let the new, upgraded minutemen do their thing and hunt down all the mutants at large. Then, after they're all safely out of the way, reprogram them to exterminate all of the captured mutant superpowered life forms that make progress so difficult for Mechanon.

 

After that, the world is left more vulnerable to the ultimate goal of eradicating human life. Power up the Minute Men and get to work.

[Highwayman]

Re: [WhatIf] Mechanon took control of the Minute Man VII Robots?

 

Heck, just turn up the sensitivity of the mutant detectors until anyone with even a slight variance off theoretical "pure human" genes registers as a mutant. It's simple, effective, and you you get the see the look on the IHA meatbags' faces when their own robots start hunting them down as "mutants."

[BNakagawa]

Re: [WhatIf] Mechanon took control of the Minute Man VII Robots?

 

Heck' date=' just turn up the sensitivity of the mutant detectors until anyone with even a slight variance off theoretical "pure human" genes registers as a mutant. It's simple, effective, and you you get the see the look on the IHA meatbags' faces when their own robots start hunting them down as "mutants."[/quote']

 

No, that's too obvious. You want them to go at their intended job for as long as possible before any hint of function incompatible with continued human existence is detected.

[Balabanto]

Re: [WhatIf] Mechanon took control of the Minute Man VII Robots?

 

No, what you do is you insert a mutation potentiality virus into the Minuteman Robots.

 

"This person has a 35 percent chance of giving birth to a mutant. This percentage is too high. ZOT!"