Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

[OddHat]

Say you have a group of Champions PCs not optimized for stopping a natural disaster. If you need sample characters, use the Champions. A brick, a couple of non-vpp gadgeteers with decent skill sets, an energy projector, a low power VPP user, a martial artist, maybe a minor speedster. A gang of 350 point characters. How do they deal with:

 

An Earthquake?

 

A Tsunami?

 

A Giant Flaming Meteor?

 

Invoking cinematic rules is fine; getting crunchy is fine. How do these lower power, by the book heroes deal with classic four color natural disasters?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Say you have a group of Champions PCs not optimized for stopping a natural disaster. If you need sample characters, use the Champions. A brick, a couple of non-vpp gadgeteers with decent skill sets, an energy projector, a low power VPP user, a martial artist, maybe a minor speedster. A gang of 350 point characters. How do they deal with:

 

An Earthquake?

 

A Tsunami?

 

A Giant Flaming Meteor?

 

Invoking cinematic rules is fine; getting crunchy is fine. How do these lower power, by the book heroes deal with classic four color natural disasters?

 

Laterally In any such scenario if the PCs are not set up to deal with heading off the natural disaster, they have to deal with the consequences.

 

Earthquakes make buildings fall over so they can use their abilities to dig people out, or squirm into the wreckage to take oxygen or water to someone trapped so they can live long enough for the other team members to dig them out. Danger = falling/crushing damage.

 

A tsunami can have similar effects (burying people) with the added time constraint that they may drown. Lots of swimming underwater in murky conditions. Danger = drowning.

 

A flaming meteor (assuming it has already hit) can again cause people to be trapped, but this time lots of fire is the main obstacle, so there's probably going to be some heroic shielding of normals. Danger = burning.

 

I'd generally start off describing the PCs helping out generally then getting a call in on a big job that would probably take up a lot of the session, maybe involve some problem solving and non-combat heroics. It can make for a nice change of pace.

 

If you want them to stop the disaster you are going to have to provide them with the means. Perhaps the disaster is being caused by Doc Vibe's Tectonic Shaker, and they need to defeat the Doc and dismantle his fiendish machine.

 

You could even make the scenario finding a hero who CAN stop the disaster and persuading them to help.

 

Alternatively (again) a villain gang could take advantage of the chaos and suffering and be trying to steal a couple of pallettes of gold bullion from the First National, and it is up to Our Heroes to stop them whilst saving as many normals as possible and dealing with the additional hazards.

 

Finally this is a great opportunity for characters to employ power skill to use powers in unusual or creative ways, or possibly even spend a bit of XP to develop a power in a crisis situation.

[Utech]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

I'm afraid I don't have time to address all three natural disasters right now. So I'll focus on the first.

Earthquake

Odds are the heroes won't know an earthquake is coming and they can't stop the earthquake once it has started.

That leaves dealing with the earthquake while it is happening and with the aftermath.

During:

Many strong earthquakes last a while. Perhaps as long as three minutes. That's a lot of time for superheroes. You could probably fill a whole evening's pay with them rushing around during the shaking.

They can use their time to

 

• stop structures (buildings, bridges, dams, etc) from collapsing,
  
• get innocent people out of danger when structures are going to collapse,
  
• (on a smaller scale) stop furniture from collapsing on people,
  
• turn off gas lines to prevent fire,
  
• protect people from falling debris.
  

After:

It can take weeks, months, even years to recover from an earthquake. You could probably organize a long-running campaign around this recovery process.

In the immediate aftermath there would be

 

• people buried,
  
• unstable structures,
  
• fires,
  
• chemical spills,
  
• live power lines snaking around the ground,
  
• looting (perhaps of the 'super' variety),
  
• more falling debris.
  

In the long-run, there would be

 

• structures to demolish and replace,
  
• important people dead or hospitalized (the mayor? our heroes' command and control? that supervillain who was keeping all the minor villains in check?),
  
• a frightened populace,
  
• aftershocks,
  
• "quake lakes",
  
• emergency workers and/or rescue teams from many countries who will need coordination (or who may have been infiltrated by nefarious forces..?),
  
• Molemen?
  

 

Add additional weather problems for additional challenge. Imagine what would happen if the earthquake were combined with

 

• a heatwave
  
• heavy rain (with lightning?)
  
• a blizzard.
  

[ghost-angel]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Reality Storm addresses some of these - specifically Tornado, large scale fires and Lava Flows.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

In most games I've been in, unless the natural disaster had an unnatural origin ("If we destroy the Weather Machine, the tornado will disperse!" or "If we can take out Quakemaster, we'll save the city."), the PCs aren't powerful enough to outright stop the event; all they can do is minimize the damage.

 

Really powerful characters could invoke Saturday Morning Cartoon physics and, say, squeeze the tectonic plates back together or counter-rotate inside the tornado. Actually heading off this sort of thing and preventing it en-toto is often simply out of the PCs range.

[Vulcan]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Say you have a group of Champions PCs not optimized for stopping a natural disaster. If you need sample characters, use the Champions. A brick, a couple of non-vpp gadgeteers with decent skill sets, an energy projector, a low power VPP user, a martial artist, maybe a minor speedster. A gang of 350 point characters. How do they deal with:

 

An Earthquake?

 

A Tsunami?

 

A Giant Flaming Meteor?

 

Invoking cinematic rules is fine; getting crunchy is fine. How do these lower power, by the book heroes deal with classic four color natural disasters?

 

Of the three, the Earthquake is the truly unpreventable one. By the time you know it's going to happen, it's already happening. All you can do at that point is damage control.

 

On the tsunami, you (presumably) have at least a little forwarning. If the party has a really, really strong brick (80 STR or more) perhaps the GM will let him go to the beach and start counterwaves that would weaken the tsunaimi (no idea if it's realistic, but this is a comic-book scenario, after all). Maybe the wizard can open a long horizontal gate at sea level and shunt the extra water to another dimension - it's amazing how cheap a power gets with 'one charge, never recovers' and some other misc. limitations.

 

A meteor is the easy one, if the party either a) is informed early enough to borrow a Shuttle, or has someone on the team with a lot of flight and full LS (or access to a spacesuit through contacts). Once there, options range from blowing it up to towing it off it's course. If there is anyone out there with a degree in astronomy, calculate how much the course of a mile-diameter asteroid (your choice of types) would change if hit with a 60 AP power (force equivalent to 100 tons) once every 12 seconds for an eight-hour period.

 

I suspect most people will be surprised by the answer. (Personally, I think the course change will be signifigant, but I lack the knowledge and math skills to figure it out.

[Maur]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Making waves on the surface won't do anything to blunt a tidal wave as the actual energy of the wave is coming towards land from under the surface. The wave slows down as it rides up on the land shelf and the water above builds up. This is what creates the rising wave that one sees on land. Out on the ocean it can pass beneath even a small sailboat and do little more than slightly rock it, heheh.

[Vulcan]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

In real life, yeah, you're absolutely right. However, in real life, there are no bricks that can lift 1600 tons, either. This is a prime example of comic book physics, which is closely related to Star Trek physics. It doesn't have to really work, it just has to sound plausible. In general, a GM shouldn't shoot down a plausible-sounding idea to stop a disaster unless the players are masochistic (did I spell that right?) enough to enjoy failing.

 

Besides, in the Champions book p.160 has suggestions on 'Stopping Things' and suggestions in the sidebar for the STR and velocity of both tidal waves and meteors...

 

Asteroid/meteor, small: STR 40-60, movement 500”

Asteroid/meteor, medium: STR 60-100, movement 500”

Asteroid/meteor, large: STR 100-150, movement 500"

 

Tidal wave, small: STR 30-40, movement 80-120”

Tidal wave, medium: STR 40-50, movement 80-120”

Tidal wave, large: STR 50-60, movement 80-120”

 

It also suggests using a force wall or a large flat object to catch these things....

 

Not as impossible as it seemed, is it? (At least in a comic book world.)

[Vulcan]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Okay, it's not easy. But if it was easy, why would you need superheroes to deal with it?

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Sometimes, the best the heroes can do is minimize the harm done. I recall an old Alpha Flight making that conclusion. The townspeople were saved, but the town and all they owned was still destroyed by flood.

[Basil]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

How do they deal with:

A Giant Flaming Meteor?

 

A meteor is the easy one, if the party either a) is informed early enough to borrow a Shuttle, or has someone on the team with a lot of flight and full LS (or access to a spacesuit through contacts). Once there, options range from blowing it up to towing it off it's course. If there is anyone out there with a degree in astronomy, calculate how much the course of a mile-diameter asteroid (your choice of types) would change if hit with a 60 AP power (force equivalent to 100 tons) once every 12 seconds for an eight-hour period.

 

I suspect most people will be surprised by the answer. (Personally, I think the course change will be signifigant, but I lack the knowledge and math skills to figure it out.

 

Interestingly, this scenario, only a WHOLE lot bigger, was recently discussed. My conclusion: do NOT try to "bust up" the asteroid; shotguns are harder to make miss than single bullets.

 

"60 AP" of STR --- i.e., a STR of 60 --- can move 100 Megagrams against a pull of 9.80665 m/s. IOW, a force of ~9.807 * 10^ 5 Newtons. A sphere, 800 m in radius (about "...a mile-diameter asteroid..."), with a density of ordinary rock (call it sg of 3.5), has a mass of ~7.506 * 10^12 kg.

 

To make things simple, assume one is accelerating the mass from rest, and no forces other than the STR-derived "push" are present. Applying the above force to the above mass gives an acceleration of 1.306 * 10^-7 m/s/s. Which doesn't sound like much...

 

Because it isn't. Applying that force to that asteroid for 90 days, continuously, will cause a velocity (or change in velocity) of about 1 m/s. Or about 2 1/4 miles per hour. HOWEVER, the asteroid would be pushed ~3,950 km. That wouldn't be enough to miss by itself (probably), but if you aim it right, you can make use of whatever other (gravitational) forces are around.

 

Still, I'd suggest a higher STR if you want to be sure.

[Vulcan]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Excellent! While I was wrong by several orders of magnitude, it can still be done with reasonable level power, given enough time or if the asteroid is spotted early enough. After all, 1m/s velocity means you travel 1 km over 1000 seconds (or around 17 minutes); 10 km in 3 hours; a month of travel generates 2400 km. And this is after the PC in the above example stopped actually pushing on it...

 

And upping the AP of the power to 80 (not all that high, either - 70 AP + pushing, used once/turn would do) applies four times the energy, which will make for a profound increase in the deflection of the asteroid's course (would it actually be a 4x increase, or have I just completly forgotten my physics?).

 

Or just having 4 heroes with 60 AP powers that would work in space...

[Vulcan]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Interestingly' date=' this scenario, only a [u']WHOLE[/u] lot bigger, was recently discussed. My conclusion: do NOT try to "bust up" the asteroid; shotguns are harder to make miss than single bullets.

 

On the other hand, the 'shot' is likely a lot easier to manage on an indvidual basis. It's just dealing with enough of them quickly enough to make a difference. And just the big pieces need to be dealt with, ones small enough to burn up in reentry - or even ones just a little larger, that won't do too much damage on impact - can be ignored.

 

I wouldn't recommend NASA trying it in real life, mind you, but we are discussing a comic-book scenario...

[Sean Waters]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Interestingly' date=' this scenario, only a [u']WHOLE[/u] lot bigger, was recently discussed. My conclusion: do NOT try to "bust up" the asteroid; shotguns are harder to make miss than single bullets.

 

"60 AP" of STR --- i.e., a STR of 60 --- can move 100 Megagrams against a pull of 9.80665 m/s. IOW, a force of ~9.807 * 10^ 5 Newtons. A sphere, 800 m in radius (about "...a mile-diameter asteroid..."), with a density of ordinary rock (call it sg of 3.5), has a mass of ~7.506 * 10^12 kg.

 

To make things simple, assume one is accelerating the mass from rest, and no forces other than the STR-derived "push" are present. Applying the above force to the above mass gives an acceleration of 1.306 * 10^-7 m/s/s. Which doesn't sound like much...

 

Because it isn't. Applying that force to that asteroid for 90 days, continuously, will cause a velocity (or change in velocity) of about 1 m/s. Or about 2 1/4 miles per hour. HOWEVER, the asteroid would be pushed ~3,950 km. That wouldn't be enough to miss by itself (probably), but if you aim it right, you can make use of whatever other (gravitational) forces are around.

 

Still, I'd suggest a higher STR if you want to be sure.

 

Ever played pool?

 

Get a smaller asteroid and use it for a cannon shot, slingshotting through the gravitational field of Neptune and back out of the solar system. We do it all the time

 

(On the break up point, small enough bits will burn up on atmospheric entry. Still an environmental disaster on a large enough scale but unlikely to crack the mantle and end life - or at least less likely)

[Basil]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Excellent! While I was wrong by several orders of magnitude' date=' it can still be done with reasonable level power, given enough time [i']or if the asteroid is spotted early enough[/i]. After all, 1m/s velocity means you travel 1 km over 1000 seconds (or around 17 minutes); 10 km in 3 hours; a month of travel generates 2400 km. And this is after the PC in the above example stopped actually pushing on it...

 

It would make a lot more sense to keep pushing. In a situation of constant acceleration,

d= 1/2 * a * t^2

That is, distance equals one-half acceleration times the square of the time. Twice as long means four times as far.

 

And upping the AP of the power to 80 (not all that high' date=' either - 70 AP + pushing, used once/turn would do)[/quote']

Dang, I knew I forgot something---my previous math assumed constantly pushing. NOT one second out of every twelve. That would mean, effectively, one-twelfth the acceleration, therefore one-twelfth the (sideways) velocity and one-twelfth the distance.

 

You'd do better to use a rocket motor, or something that can push continuously.

 

applies four times the energy' date=' which will make for a profound increase in the deflection of the asteroid's course (would it actually be a 4x increase, or have I just completly forgotten my physics?).[/quote']

Yes, for times the force (not energy) will produce four times the acceleration, which leads to four times the distance.

 

So, if you want to move that 7.506 * 10^12 kg rock 6400 km in 90 days, you'll need to accelerate it at ~2.117 * 10^-7 m/s/s. That's a force of ~1.589 * 10^6 Newtons. However, if you're only applying the force one-twelfth of the time, you are actually applying a force of ~1.907 * 10^7 Newtons when you are applying a force. Divide by 9.80665 m/s/s (1 "gravity"), and it's the same as lifting 1.944 * 10^6 kg (aka 1944 "tonnes") against Earth's surface gravity. That takes a STR of about 82.

 

If you were applying force constantly, a STR of 64 would suffice (remember, this is to move 6400 km; a STR of 60 would move it ~3950 km, ~62% of Earth's radius)

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Change Environment: Remove natural disasters. Megascale.

[Basil]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Ever played pool?

 

Get a smaller asteroid and use it for a cannon shot, slingshotting through the gravitational field of Neptune and back out of the solar system. We do it all the time

 

(On the break up point, small enough bits will burn up on atmospheric entry. Still an environmental disaster on a large enough scale but unlikely to crack the mantle and end life - or at least less likely)

 

Three points:

 

1) slingshotting like that takes time. More time than you're likely to have in such a scenario.

 

2) In a closed system:

Momentum is conserved. Momentum = mass * velocity

Energy (including matter) is conserved. However kinetic energy by itself is not necessarily conserved. Kinetic energy = 1/2 * mass * velocity squared

In an impact such as you're suggesting, the momentum after the impact is the same as that before; thus, (if the two objects stayed whole) we can predict the velocities of the two objects after the impact. This will, at the speeds necessary for a significant change in the path of the threatening asteroid, mean the kinetic energy after the impact is GREATLY less than the kinetic energy before the impact. Thus, a great deal of kinetic energy must be changed to another form of energy. Some will be vibrational (the asteroids will "ring like gongs"), much will be heat, but much must be taken up in fragmenting both. As well, some of the momentum will be "used up" scattering the pieces, and not push pieces away from the Earth. Thus, a good deal of both asteroids will intersect the Earth.

 

Thus, the Earth will get "a duck's-eye view of a shotgun blast". While some will miss the Earth, and some fragments not survive passage through the atmosphere, much will hit the Earth.

 

3) You (and others) are overestimating how useful breaking up an asteroid would be. After all, a bowling-ball sized fragment might make it through, and a beach-ball-sized fragment almost certainly will.

 

Consider, also, that all the fragments that burn up will put matter into the upper atmosphere; a lot of matter. That matter is going to react with the highly unstable, highly reactive ozone. And ozone depletion is not a good thing. As well, the Earth's albedo will go up. The net result will be any where from un-nice to extinction-level catastrophe.

 

 

 

Seriously, why does everyone want to blow up The Death Asteroid®? Just shove it aside, that's the best AND simplest method.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Three points:

 

1) slingshotting like that takes time. More time than you're likely to have in such a scenario.

 

2) In a closed system:

Momentum is conserved. Momentum = mass * velocity

Energy (including matter) is conserved. However kinetic energy by itself is not necessarily conserved. Kinetic energy = 1/2 * mass * velocity squared

In an impact such as you're suggesting, the momentum after the impact is the same as that before; thus, (if the two objects stayed whole) we can predict the velocities of the two objects after the impact. This will, at the speeds necessary for a significant change in the path of the threatening asteroid, mean the kinetic energy after the impact is GREATLY less than the kinetic energy before the impact. Thus, a great deal of kinetic energy must be changed to another form of energy. Some will be vibrational (the asteroids will "ring like gongs"), much will be heat, but much must be taken up in fragmenting both. As well, some of the momentum will be "used up" scattering the pieces, and not push pieces away from the Earth. Thus, a good deal of both asteroids will intersect the Earth.

 

Thus, the Earth will get "a duck's-eye view of a shotgun blast". While some will miss the Earth, and some fragments not survive passage through the atmosphere, much will hit the Earth.

 

3) You (and others) are overestimating how useful breaking up an asteroid would be. After all, a bowling-ball sized fragment might make it through, and a beach-ball-sized fragment almost certainly will.

 

Consider, also, that all the fragments that burn up will put matter into the upper atmosphere; a lot of matter. That matter is going to react with the highly unstable, highly reactive ozone. And ozone depletion is not a good thing. As well, the Earth's albedo will go up. The net result will be any where from un-nice to extinction-level catastrophe.

 

 

 

Seriously, why does everyone want to blow up The Death Asteroid®? Just shove it aside, that's the best AND simplest method.

 

To be honest real world physics are not going to matter a lot to me: if the PCs are clever and resourceful and the plan sounds like it just might work, it probably will.

 

Pushing the asteroid aside IS the best method, and if you catch it early then you only need a tiny change in angle and it misses entirely - you don't just shove it laterally, you change its course. (Of course you'd need strength AND flight to accomplish that - standing onthe asteroid and pushing just is not going to help)

 

Mind you to accomplish that the thing has to be weeks or at least days away from the planet, and where is the drama in that?

 

As to breaking it up, as I acknowledged, even the bits can make a mess, but nowhere near as much as the full asteroid hitting. However, if you do break it up each of the bits has a lot less momentum, even if the overall momentum remains the same, and if you break it up (say) 200 miles from the atmosphere THEN set off a nuke in the path of the bits 100 miles from the atmosphere that will either pulverise or deflect a lot of the mass, and provide a pretty light show.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

One possible approach with natural disasters - say the asteroid one - is that the players will only partly succeed - they have enough effect to prevent extinction but the world is nonetheless irrevocably changed...quite a nice way to introduce a post apocalypse scenario!

[Basil]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

To be honest real world physics are not going to matter a lot to me: if the PCs are clever and resourceful and the plan sounds like it just might work' date=' it probably will.[/quote']

It depends on where one draws the line between "suspended" and "hung by the neck". I have a good idea of where the likely/unlikely line runs when it comes to physics, and "That 200 km diameter asteroid will hit Earth in two days! Quick, PunyFlyingMan, go up there and push it aside with your 5 STR!" is something I'd just know was not near possible, even if I hadn't been doing all this figuring in this and the other thread.

 

Pushing the asteroid aside IS the best method' date=' and if you catch it early then you only need a tiny change in angle and it misses entirely - you don't just shove it laterally, you change its course.[/quote']

True. As CrosshairCollie pointed out in the other thread, accelerating the asteroid might be the easiest method; though it would likely hit the sun, then.

 

(Of course you'd need strength AND flight to accomplish that - standing onthe asteroid and pushing just is not going to help)

I have been assuming that, without mentioning it.

 

Mind you to accomplish that the thing has to be weeks or at least days away from the planet' date=' and where is the drama in that?[/quote']

Will it work or won't it, will it work or won't it, will it work or won't it, will it work or won't it,....

 

Complications could arise, people can be working on ways to preserve some part of humanity if it doesn't work, others can be blocking the d**n fools trying to "blow it up," etc.

 

As to breaking it up' date=' as I acknowledged, even the bits can make a mess, but nowhere near as much as the full asteroid hitting. However, if you do break it up each of the bits has a lot less momentum, even if the overall momentum remains the same, and if you break it up (say) 200 miles from the atmosphere THEN set off a nuke in the path of the bits 100 miles from the atmosphere that will either pulverise or deflect a lot of the mass, and provide a pretty light show.[/quote']

You'll still have the problem of all that matter in the upper atmosphere, plus now you've made a lot of it radioactive. Also, that close to the Earth, very very little will be deflected into paths that will miss the Earth (do to Earth's gravity). Remember, outside (most of) the atmosphere, there's nothing to convey the bomb's "push" to the pieces, except the relatively small mass of the bomb, and the radiation it releases. So not many pieces will feel any effect, and VERY few will be significantly effected.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Good point. Shaped nuke pointing away from Earth detonated on one side of a small asteroid that sends 'shrapnel' into the onrushing broken mass of the asteroid. And maybe we'll do it 1000 miles out

[Drhoz]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

by a happy co-incidence, the Skeleton Crew are now the owners of a set of alien hyper-nukes ( going cheap, one careful owner ) so boiling the entire asteroid into vapour isn't that much of a problem and indeed would solve the problem of having Vitus as the world's newest nuclear power.

 

And you could always use the nukes to deflect the tidal wave, couldn't you - that would work, wouldn't it?

 

( I should point out that of all Earth inventions, the one he got the most pleasure from was a bagful of fragmentation grenades and an open window. )

[Vulcan]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Long and short, it's physically impossible for a person to lift 100 tons. But in the genre we see it all the time.

 

Don't diss the genre just because the math doesn't work in real life. If the characters come up with something and it sounds plausible, go for it.

 

It's a comic book, after all! Realism is optional.

[Basil]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Long and short' date=' it's [i']physically impossible[/i] for a person to lift 100 tons. But in the genre we see it all the time.

 

Don't diss the genre just because the math doesn't work in real life. If the characters come up with something and it sounds plausible, go for it.

 

It's a comic book, after all! Realism is optional.

 

Excuse me, this in the Hero System Discussion board, NOT the Champions board. Deriding people for not kowtowing to comic [sic] book conventions is, at best, impolite here.

 

If you don't want to deal with those whose horizons are broad enough to find fun in real world physics, you may be on the wrong board.

[Vulcan]

Re: Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?

 

Ahh.... dersision wasn't my intent there. I apologize if it sounded that way. No insult was intended, sorry.

 

But while you make a valid point about this being the HERO System Discussion, the thread title is 'Stopping Natural Disasters in Champions?'