What is a name?

[McManus]

"tis not hand nor foot nor any other part that makes a man. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

 

I want to propose a bit of a contest…along the lines of the alternate DC heroes one from a while back.

 

One person throws out a name for a hero… preferably a one that is a bit off the wall. The others create a short background/description for the hero. After a day the first person selects the winner and the winner throws out the next name.

 

First name: Ellipsis

[Clonus]

Re: What is a name?

 

Ralph Besse was regarded by others as a tragic example of a promising mathematician who had wasted his potential by concentrating his efforts on solving an impossible problem. Not only didn't anyone know the answer, there weren't all that many people who could understand the question. He worked on it for more than 10 years since his days as a grad student, striving for the breakthrough that would make his thesis not merely good enough to get him his Ph.D. but win him the Nobel Prize. Finally after 72 hours without sleep working on the problem he was convinced he had it. He phoned his thesis advisor but was so incoherent that the professor called an ambulance for him. After 48 hours of psychiatric observation he was released and rushed back to his apartment.

 

Strangely, even though he was on foot, it took him only a minute or so to run the several miles back. But the solution to the problem that he'd written was incomprehensible to him now, filled with undefined notations and operation symbols. Heartbroken, he went out to get drunk but things didn't get any less strange. Once again he crossed town in an impossibly short time. When he walked out in front of a car it moved in a straight line around him to avoid him. The pub quickly emptied as people noticed the way the bartop was shortening so he could get his beer faster and the drunker he got the more distorted everything around him got.

 

He'd become Ellipsis, gifted with the intuitive ability to warp space, shortening the distance between any two points at will. This acted as a defense (by diverting attacks to the side) and a means of transportation, as he'd walk slowly, while around the ground rippled and seemed to propel the patch of ground on which he walked at amazing speed. He could broaden even the tiniest crack into a large opening just by manipulating the topology of space. He could even manipulate the flow of time, stealing speed from others. However, he didn't have much of an attack so he abandoned the study of maths and took up martial arts instead.

 

Next: Soma

["V"]

Re: What is a name?

 

We have drunk Soma and become immortal; we have attained the light, the Gods discovered.

Now what may foeman's malice do to harm us? What, O Immortal, mortal man's deception?

 

"Turned out there were more of them - no, make that more of US - than anyone ever guessed. That mixed up genome, that crazy little cats cradle of DNA that seperated mankind from mutant wasn't so rare as we thought. Turned out it wasn't an on/off proposition. Turned out it was just a matter of scale - everyone had it, just some had it big and bold, and the vast vast majority had it so small it never showed.

 

Until Soma.

 

Soma changed the world. He was a mutant himself, came out of the east and left a trail of chaos behind him. India first, then through Afghanistan, into Europe and westward. And everywhere he went, everyone he touched, was changed.

 

That was his power. His only power. His presence tangled up that cats-cradle in everyone around him. Tangled them up, empowered them.

 

New mutants, thousands of them. New gods. A whole world of them. I preferred my old life, easy dull and simple, but I never had a choice. Soma changed me. And he kept on walking."

 

--

 

Next suggestion: Ex Libris

 

EDIT: SORRY! Just re-read the original post - I guess we should be sticking with Ellipsis till someone moves us on. I'll go back to the drawing board!

[Clonus]

Re: What is a name?

 

Sorry, that was my fault. However I want to point out that the more abstruse a name, the less likely you are to get more than one entry.

[McManus]

Re: What is a name?

 

Fair enough...Doesn't need to be a contest.

 

On with Ex Libris...

[Grimble]

Re: What is a name?

 

Ex Libris: Mortimer Schrupp had always been a social misfit. He prefered books to people. The humiliation and anger from the abuse he took as a weak bookworm in school never really left Mort. It actually grew inside him. Using his genius intelect, photographic memory and blindingly fast reading speed, Mort learned everything he needed to know to be a Master Villain.

 

On his first villainous mission Ex Libris, as he now called himself, bypassed the security and broke into a high-tech research lab so he could build up his arsenal. Upon entering the lab area, Ex Libris found that a VIPER Strike force had beat him to the scene. Angered by the rival villains, mort stealthily set a few of the more volitile experiments to go off in VIPER's faces. once he tied up the VIPER agents, took some of their weapons and equipment and copied the computer files of the lab. Mort called the cops!

 

Ex Libris quickly worked out that having a cover of being a "Super Hero" would allow him access to much more info and super tech. He could also steal the tech from captured villains. Eventually, once he has everything he needs for his Master Plan, he will take on another identity and take over the world! BWAHAHAHAHAH!!!

[Grimble]

Re: What is a name?

 

This thread doesn't seem to be pulling in the posts. I'll see if another name will help.

 

The new hero name is: Litmus

[Clonus]

Re: What is a name?

 

When it comes to information gathering, the oldest and in many ways best way is just to talk to people who know what you want to know. The biggest problem is that people lie. Most police officers and spies fancy that they are good at telling when they are being lied to, and are quite wrong. Even when you hook someone up to a so-called "lie detector", you'll find yourself getting inconclusive results all the time. Sean Pulverston on the other hand has no such problem. Gifted with a limited, but ultra-powerful telepathic power, he just knows when someone is lying. He's never been fooled yet except by people who really don't know what they are saying is wrong, making him the top spy in his agency, and perhaps the world. His codename is Litmus.

 

Next: Meridian

[Dr. Rune]

Re: What is a name?

 

Daniel Trent was a nothing in life. Uneducated and homeless, he wandered the streets of Century City in search of something he couldn't put his finger on. For years he roamed the back alleys and sewers trying to survive, but knowing that something great loomed on his horizon.

 

It came from outer space.

 

It was a small fleet, as alien invasion forces go, but enough to threaten the city....possibly the world. Daniel craned his head out of his box to see the night sky lit up with energy signatures of bio electric beams, heat vision, photon manipulators, laser lances and many other bright and shiny instruments of death. As he crawled out to get a closer look, twin meteors streaked for the alleyway that he called home, crashing only twenty feet from him and knocking Daniel flat on his back. From the smoldering crater came one of Century City's greatest protectors, The Emissary....eyes blazing with a bright blue light. Twin azure beams sliced through the night air, aiming for the insect like, Strk'dok warrior and cutting it in two. Goo and ichor flew everywhere in the old alley coating garbage cans, the walls....and Daniel in it's eerie green slime.

 

Six months later, Daniel woke up in the hospital and promptly unhooked the monitors from his body....strangely knowing the function and operation of each one. The image that stared at him from the mirror was one he didn't recognize. Gone was the emaciated, scraggly, street bum. He had been replaced by a square jawed, golden haired, well muscled Adonis. Immediately realizing that the strange energy of the Emissary mixed with the Strk'dok's alien physiology had advanced him to the next level of human evolution. He was now the smartest, strongest, quickest, and most durable human on the planet. He had reached the highest point in mankind's developmental peak.

 

He had reached the Meridian.

 

And he had work to do.

 

Enter: Nightingale