Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

[Marcus Impudite]

Warning: Potentially controversial subject matter. Be cool folks, I'd rather this not have to be moved to NGD.

 

Your character and company have found themselves in an alternate timeline where, as per the title of this thread, the infamous 9-11 terrorist attacks didn't happen. Here, the 9-11 highjackers were found dead along with all the evidence of what they were planning the night before. The individual or individuals responsible have, to this day, never been identitifed; some speculate it was vigilantes, and some absolutely insist it had to have been a covert Special Ops group. At any rate, the Twin Towers are still standing and everything else you'd have expected to be different is. How (if at all) does your character's counterpart from this timeline differ from him/her/it?

 

And, of course, WWYCD?

[Hermit]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

Actually, to my knowledge, most (possibly all) of my characters are in a Timeline where 9-11 didn't happen. It was averted , stopped, or lessened a great deal by other superheroes.

[Beast]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

since the plot was foiled ,I see a slower build up of the laws that became the patriot act(some may not even be implemented)

no declaring war on Afganistan or Iraq(unless Sadam starts acting up even worse

 

I could see more covert operations being done(assassinations happening)

[Chuckg]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

Note, we'd probably still be at war with Afghanistan, if not Iraq. That the attacks were stopped wouldn't change the fact that we'd be epically pissed off that Al Qaeda had tried, and we'd still be telling Afghanistan 'hand him over or else', they'd still be telling us to go pound sand, and the 'or else' would thus start up.

[Beast]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

I disagree

it would be a covert war at best

that it was a group that killed the terrorists and left all the evidence needed to convict

IMHO would say that a 3rd party was involved

the public would not be as angry that war would be called for as nobody(americans) were killed

it would be an eye opener for the Bush government and get them to go after Al Queda

the government would still have doubts if they did not know who the covert ops group was

[Clonus]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

Note' date=' we'd probably still be at war with Afghanistan, if not Iraq. That the attacks were stopped wouldn't change the fact that we'd be epically pissed off that Al Qaeda had [i']tried[/i], and we'd still be telling Afghanistan 'hand him over or else', they'd still be telling us to go pound sand, and the 'or else' would thus start up.

 

No, in a comic book after the plot was foiled a team of superheroes would just go in after the accused perpetrator and grab him. No need to go to war. Note that in a comic book universe, this would have been a unremarkable villain plot rather than something unprecedented and shocking. War with Iraq still might have happened, because 9/11 was not so much a reason for war with Iraq as an opportunity to solidify support behind the idea of going to war with Iraq. But even with a weaker political position, Bush still might have gone in to "find the WMDs"

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

Never happened in my world. Worshipers/Avatars of the old Egyptian gods are able to send the spirits of those innocents who died unjustly out to avenge their deaths and they unfailingly track their slayers and associates and have a true hate for the modern style terrorists. ( And so are handled with kid gloves by most Govts. even though they want to restore the ancient Egyptian empire.)

[assault]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

Meh. After averting WW2 and the breakup of the British Empire, 9-11 seems kind of inconsequential.

[StGrimblefig]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

I tend to see 9-11 as one of those "nexus points" where our world and a multitude of game worlds intersect. In my vision of it, the attacks still happened. Some normal people did some heroic things. A lot of people still died. I could see one of the planes surviving, if a super happened to be on it at the time.

 

This allows me to have the characters in a world a little closer to our own, although the existence of supers in the world would cause the response to the attacks to be quite different. Of course, all of this would have happened before the PCs start in the game, so it is not something for them to particularly anguish over. But, it shows the players that big, flashy supervillains are not the only ones to watch out for.

 

So how did the terrorists avoid detection and defeat in a world filled with supers? First, the same way they avoided it in the real world. i.e. by not doing anything particularly illegal until the day of the attacks. Second, one of them has a super ability -- an area affect invisibility to all forms of clairsentience. This is not a very useful ability in most situations, but extremely useful for this particular group. You see, if they are not doing anything to attract the attention of any superheroes, and the FBI/CIA/NSA/whomever have not detained them, the only way for them to be detected would be with some form of clairsentience (or perhaps a large-area danger sense -- big red stopsign powers, in any case).

 

Thoughts, questions, flames? I can take it.

[hfergus]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

Only one of my heroes would be even a bit different if 9-11 did not happen. (I ran the senario. It happened, and my heroes dealt with the aftermath.)

 

Olorin would be less known, and less loved in New York. He plotted where all living, dead and dying were magically, and prioritized their rescue. That's all he did, but many lives were saved and bodies recovered. The rest did what they could, but were only a part of all heroes present.

[Chuckg]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

No' date=' in a comic book after the plot was foiled a team of superheroes would just go in after the accused perpetrator and grab him. No need to go to war. Note that in a comic book universe, this would have been a unremarkable villain plot rather than something unprecedented and shocking.[/quote']

 

Good point re: superteam and average supervillain scheme.

 

As for the Iraq war thing, this is not the place to argue whys, wherefores, and common misconceptions about it... and I'm staying off of NGD 'cause if I got into it there, my mean time until re-banning would probably be circa 1 week.

 

So how did the terrorists avoid detection and defeat in a world filled with supers? First' date=' the same way they avoided it in the real world. i.e. by not doing anything particularly illegal until the day of the attacks. Second, one of them has a super ability -- an area affect invisibility to all forms of clairsentience. This is not a very useful ability in most situations, but extremely useful for this particular group. You see, if they are not doing anything to attract the attention of any superheroes, and the FBI/CIA/NSA/whomever have not detained them, the only way for them to be detected would be with some form of clairsentience (or perhaps a large-area danger sense -- big red stopsign powers, in any case).[/quote']

 

That 'immunity to clairsentience/precog' thing would be a wonderful power to give Osama himself, as it would explain why its so damn hard to find his ass.

 

As for your latter statement, you're not quite on base -- the clues existed even to the FBI and the CIA in our world. The problem was, the FBI had only part of the clues necessary to figure it out, the CIA had the other parts, and they were legally forbidden from sharing information on the topic(*), so the dots were never connected until after the fact.

 

In a superhero universe, PRIMUS/UNTIL/SHIELD/Checkmate/whoever agency that shares in both domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence functions might very well, by simple reason of their existence, have both halves of the puzzle available. Alternately, somebody like Mentac or Batman might have applied their super-analytical brain to the problem and drawn conclusions beyond that of mundane law enforcement. So, its not quite in "would have taken clairsentience to see it coming" territory.

 

 

 

(*) Legislation was since introduced to remove this problem. Which piece of legislation and the pros and cons of passing it is definitely NGD territory tho.

[Peregrine]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

... and I'm staying off of NGD 'cause if I got into it there, my mean time until re-banning would probably be circa 1 week.

 

You're mellowing out in your old age. Back in the day it woulda been a day; two, tops.

[Yansuf]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

As for the Iraq war thing, this is not the place to argue whys, wherefores, and common misconceptions about it... and I'm staying off of NGD 'cause if I got into it there, my mean time until re-banning would probably be circa 1 week.

 

Absolutely!

[input.jack]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

I think the freakiest part about it, to my PCs, would be that the would-be terrorists didnt wear flashy uniforms and use energy weapons. No Hydra. No Viper. No AIM.

 

"Oh ^%! Regular Humans can do this kind of crazy stuff too?!?"

[Susano]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

I know 9/11 didn't happen in Gestalt (Scott Bennie's universe), and didn't happen in the Kazei 5 universe. I'm unsure about Shadows Angelus, but then it's 2112 (at least) there, so that's not a big deal. Can't say about any other settings.

[shadowmage87]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

9/11 did happen in our campaign setting. Supers don't exist until 2012 in my campaign setting, so I'd have to do a lot of backtracking to figure out what it would actually do to our heroes. The EPD (emergence of powers day) is basically the 9/11 of our campaign setting, that is, the world-changing event that radically alters the way worlds and countries function, etc.

 

In my estimation, no 9/11 wouldn't change our campaign setting too much. EPD would still cause a mass hysteria leading to massive calls for governmental expansion and superhuman registration. Actually, the response to superhuman emergence was modeled partially on the response to 9/11, and partially on the response in Marvel Civil War.

[Balabanto]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

It didn't happen in mine. The base of the most powerful Superhero Team in the world is right below the World Trade Center. What idiot would risk that attack knowing a 95 percent chance of failure exists. The fight would take less than an action phase, and the planes would never get that close. The moment the planes were detected approaching the center, the heroes would gather in a few minutes and get on board, and that would be it.

[Armitage]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

Given a world where multiple people can accurately and reliably predict the future, barring some sort of anti-precog shielding, as mentioned, it almost certainly won't happen.

On September 4th every precog screams in horror simultaneously, then finds a phone and dials the Feds.

Sort of like the TV show Seven Days. A major terrorist attacks happens and an NSA agent travels back in time a week to alert his bosses and prevent it.

[Clonus]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

Given a world where multiple people can accurately and reliably predict the future, barring some sort of anti-precog shielding, as mentioned, it almost certainly won't happen.

On September 4th every precog screams in horror simultaneously, then finds a phone and dials the Feds.

.

 

Now you make me want to write a story where that happens. A dozen reliable precogs get visions of a plane hitting the World Trade Center and the subsequent collapse. The authorities swing into action and capture several terrorist suspects boarding a plane. Whew. Now we're safe. We can relax and call off the alert.

[Shaft]

Re: Alterate Timeline: 9-11 Averted

 

In my Supers games, I usually make it that 9/11 was part of a bigger plot (simultaneous attacks in Washington DC, NY, LA, Chicago, London and other) involving two dozen or so planes, and that Superheroes and Superagencies stopped all of them except the ones that took out the towers, and possibly the one that crashed into the Pentagon. Viper or a similar super villain agency like SPECTRE or COBRA stands in for or is the backer behind Al Qu'aeda.

 

I think it would be keeping with the genre to have at least one of the passengers on one of the planes be a superhero in his/her secret ID.