Stronghold Protocols...

[Delthrien]

Has anyone worked up (or know of a link to) a set of protocols that might be used for Stronghold. If possible, I'd like to see info the handling/storage of "dangerous" foci. Like, what happens to all those power armor villains when/if they get captured?

[Tech]

Although I've used Stronghold for years, I haven't felt the need to come up with protocols to handle dangerous foci. If asked to, it would go something like:

 

1) Is the foci known to be dangerous? If yes, the foci would be handled by a Type 2 Robot and taken to a secure area (most likely the Vault) for holding and later, possible examination. If not, the foci would be examined in a lab.

 

2) Is the foci merely a hi-tech version of a known weapon? In other words, a blaster, a higher powered gun, etc. If so, it'd be taken to a secure area as above. It would be examined sometime in the far future unless it was needed to convict the criminal, which would prevent it's examination for awhile. If it's a strange foci and/or an unknown foci (Cosmic Peashooter), examination would occur immediately for possible danger to people.

 

3) Is the foci stolen property? If so, it'd be returned to it's owner. If not, it needs to be held and put in a secure area.

 

And so on and so on. This is just off the top of my head and doesn't hold to any particular legal aspect. Hope this gives you a some ideas.

[pinecone]

Hmmm... I've always played it that if you were a Foci-villian you go to a regular federal prison instead of Stronghold...I guess anything to do with the federal gov would include a 500 page guidline with 500 pages of interpertations...

[ChuckB]

In my game , a separate Stronghold (or PRIMUS) van would transport the foci to Stronghold or to an appropriate (quasi-)secure government agency (Primus , UNTIL , M.E.T.E , etc)or superhero HQ for the short-term.

[lemming]

So far in my Universe, no PC has visited Stronghold. Though mine's a UN run operation with a few multiple locations. SWORD has it's own version or so it's rumored.

 

Though with any sort of digging Foci using villians that still warrent a Stronghold are sent there while their Foci are sent to a seperate facility. At that facility they're crated and put into the warehouse.

 

yes, the GM has Warehouse 23, why do you ask?

[John515]

Location of Stronghold

 

I was telling one of my new-to-HERO players about Stronghold and he asked me a very good question:

"If the inmates are so much a threat to the world, why don't they just put it in Antarctica? Escapes would be nearly impossible!"

I gotta' say he's got a good point! My response to that had to do with the cost of a facility like that in such a remote location and the difficulties in maintaining it there. I don't think he bought it......

 

Your thoughts on this, HEROphiles?

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Well, Stronghold isn't an international prison. (So it *can't* be in Antarctica)

Given that, I think a desert is the next best thing.

[lemming]

Re: Location of Stronghold

 

Originally posted by John515

I was telling one of my new-to-HERO players about Stronghold and he asked me a very good question:

"If the inmates are so much a threat to the world, why don't they just put it in Antarctica? Escapes would be nearly impossible!"

I gotta' say he's got a good point! My response to that had to do with the cost of a facility like that in such a remote location and the difficulties in maintaining it there. I don't think he bought it......

 

Your thoughts on this, HEROphiles?

Well Whamme Whamme brings up a good point.

Now in my world it is international, so the locations are:

• 
  Outback of Australia (being closed down)
  Midway Island (Still good for US)
  Alaska (Another US)
  Faeroe Islands
  

[OddHat]

In my default setting I don't use Stronghold. Not the genre I play.

 

That said, the applicable rules from my setting;

 

Foci that can be considereed evidence are held in a containment facility policed by the local Super agency. In the CU that would be Primus. This facility is not in the same physical location as the prisoners who used the foci. It's not necesarily in the same state. After trial, the foci are moved under guard to research facilities contracted to attempt to reverse-engineer them so that they may be put into use first by the military, then (eventually) by industry. These attempts are almost always futile in my campaigns and in most comic book settings, but YMMV.

 

If the Foci is "real tech" it is disasembled and stored or disposed of. A government Super may end up being issued anything they can use: "Hey! Captain Patriot is using Doc Vile's Staff with a Knob on the End!". If it defies all attempts at analysis it is eventuall sent to The Warehouse. Think the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[wcw43921]

I always thought a good place for a second Stronghold would be the bottom of Lake Michigan. Even if a villain managed to defeat all the security systems and make it up to the surface, that would be plenty of time to alert any and all superheroes and authorities from Chicago to Detroit (Millennium City for 5th ed. CU) to Milwaukee--heck, you could even call in the Minneapolis/St. Paul superteam for good measure.

 

Of course a lot of the standard Stronghold systems and defenses would need redesigning, not to mention the need for a submersible prison transport--but it would be a great way to keep a Chicago or Millennium City-based team's arch-enemies close enough to get back quickly into the action.

[Jeff]

One other reason not to put Stronghold in Antarctica is that you want to get supervillains there quickly - less time for them to wake up, less time for someone to intercept them. Transporting them in the U.S. also gives you plenty of PRIMUS and superhero backup nearby in case of incidents. Antarctic Stronghold may be reasonably convenient for Argentinian authorities - assuming they're locking up supervillains - but being out of the way provides its own problems as well as advantages.

[McCoy]

Re: Location of Stronghold

 

Originally posted by John515

I was telling one of my new-to-HERO players about Stronghold and he asked me a very good question:

"If the inmates are so much a threat to the world, why don't they just put it in Antarctica? Escapes would be nearly impossible!"

I gotta' say he's got a good point! My response to that had to do with the cost of a facility like that in such a remote location and the difficulties in maintaining it there. I don't think he bought it......

 

Your thoughts on this, HEROphiles?

In RL Alcatraz was too expensive to operate, half an hour from a major city.

 

In my campagine Stronghold is dug into a mesa in the middle of a still radioactive abandoned nuclear test range in New Mexico. No roads, staff and deliveries chopper in. Staff stays on site for two weeks, then has two weeks off. No dependants on site. Foci go to a secure research facility in New England. These are the second and third most secure US instalations (after Dreamland).

[Marcus Impudite]

Me, I always thought they should make Stronghold a space station, and a fully automated one at that. Provided that not may villains in the campaign world have the means of getting back to the surface without dying of vacuum exposure or burning up in rentery, that should provide all the containment that is needed.

[OddHat]

Originally posted by Marcus Impudite

Me, I always thought they should make Stronghold a space station, and a fully automated one at that. Provided that not may villains in the campaign world have the means of getting back to the surface without dying of vacuum exposure or burning up in rentery, that should provide all the containment that is needed.

 

Depends on the genre.

 

In a four color campaign, the whole point of Stronghold is for the villains to escape (again). It only needs to be secure enough to be credible within the world's ground rules. If you're playing Saturday Morning Heroes, The Tick or Seanbaby they might not even bother taking off the villain's power armor before puting him in a 1900s style jail cell with a large window...

 

In my default campaign tractable metahuman criminals are given a chance to work for the government and monitored constantly by government telepaths and technicians. Less tractable villains receive bouts of Clockwork Orange style "therapy." True world shakers, if captured at all, are strangely never heard of again...

Kinda dark really.

[McCoy]

In a couple of months Istvatha V'han is going to show up, offer to have her people telepathically examine all criminals currently under a sentence of Death, Natural Life, or more than ten years. Any being held for a crime they did not commit will be reported to the authorities for pardons. Non-violent criminals will be "adjusted" so they can be returned to society in weeks instead of years. Violent ones wll be removed from human society, don't worry about them, they will not prey on anyone on your world again.

 

Wonder if the PC's will see the problem with this.

[OddHat]

Originally posted by McCoy

Wonder if the PC's will see the problem with this.

 

Depends on the genre...

 

I've had PCs in my campaign let criminals they liked go rather than turn them over to my version of a real-world-with Supers justice system. That's a good thing. It adds plot hooks, and shows that the players are still human...or at least humane. On the other hand, when they do turn the bad guy over to the law, they know he's going away. If they see him again, it will be as an NPC "Hero."

 

If I don't want a villain captured, he runs away. Fighting to the end is rarely the smart super criminal's best option.

 

If I were playing a standard four color game things would take much more handwaving.

[BoloOfEarth]

In my world, I added a second super-prison (after I purchased Palladium's Gramercy Island book) on the East Coast. Basically, a massive supervillain attack on the Riker's Island prison pretty much destroyed it, so the Feds rebuilt it as a kind of Stronghold II, but with cell blocks for normal (or semi-normal) prisoners too. This takes care of the "outside of his armor, he's normal" villains.

 

As far as normal protocols are concerned, my players are so paranoid that they typically hand-deliver any truly dangerous individuals (sometimes stripped bare and a few tattoed as "Lifetime Members" of the hero team's fan club). So I never thought about what normal protocols would be.

 

Logically, it seems silly to keep villains' foci near where they are incarcerated. Game-wise, though, it allows the GM more fun plot hooks, greater chance for escape of recurring villains, etc.

[Delthrien]

How about...

 

... the "legalities?"

 

I want to maintain some degree of believability in the way the legal system addresses super-criminals (without binding the hands of the authorities too mucn.

 

Foci that are stolen, I think should logically be returned to the original owners (after trial I think - though I'm not quite certain what the rules of evidence are...).

 

What about foci that are the personal property of the criminal or foci where ownership is not clear (such as with alien technology or ancient artifacts )?

[OddHat]

Re: How about...

 

Originally posted by Delthrien

... the "legalities?"

 

I want to maintain some degree of believability in the way the legal system addresses super-criminals (without binding the hands of the authorities too mucn.

 

Foci that are stolen, I think should logically be returned to the original owners (after trial I think - though I'm not quite certain what the rules of evidence are...).

 

What about foci that are the personal property of the criminal or foci where ownership is not clear (such as with alien technology or ancient artifacts )?

 

No legal problems there at all. In the Real World a drug dealer can lose the car he was driving when dealing, any suspicious cash he had on his person, his house... no stretch at all to say that the laws in a world with Metahumans would allow the government to take absolutely everything from a captured supercriminal, including his fancy gadgets. Depending on the genre there's not going to be much sympathy for the meta in question either.

 

OTOH, if you'd like to let the meta keep his Ring of Lazer-Taag, by all means do so. It's your game.

[Supreme Serpent]

I could see the gov't "imminent domain"-ing a lot of captured villain foci if they could understand it and/or felt it would not be a danger to use. I imagine if there's a lot of this, you could see a government hero team using this stuff with a large tech-support staff backing them up. "OK, Sinestro's in prison for life now. Fill out form 1028-J-7 and get his power ring over to Department H for assignment to a suitable recruit."

[GenreFiend]

Out of curiousity,

 

and because I don't have the any of the 5th Ed. CU stuff; where IS Stronghold in the official CU? In games I've run, I always put it 1 1/2 miles underneath Death Valley.

[Sketchpad]

In my campaign, the original Stronghold was nuked by a loose confederation of villains bent on causing as much chaos as possible. After that event, the UN stepped in and rebuilt it as an artifical island in the Pacific Ocean that UNTIL monitored. I also had it so several major cities had temporary Stronghold pens that were used to hold villains before they were transported out to Stronghold Island. The UNTIL soldiers that are placed on the island are given low-level power suits that help protect them from the inmates and also allow for communication ease. There were also a few heroes that were considered Stronghold staff and a few members of the larger groups who volunteered X many hours per week to the prison in exchange for database updates.

As for armor protocol ... I always ran that any gadgets or gizmos that needed to be studied were transported to my version of STAR Labs for examination/investigation, even if it's a duplicate (gadgeteers are always upgrading their gadgets). For standard weapons that were only slightly above the tech-level, they were placed in the island's armoury, which also houses the turtle-shell armor and larger weapons employed by base personelle.

 

Sketchpad

... hoping that FOX isn't reading and make the next reality show "Stronghold Island" before he does

[Wormhole]

On foci confesscation: That's why when I run a foci-based villains I have them make spares and store them at "undisclosed locations". This way, if I want Doc Freeze Rayâ„¢ to escape from prison and start wreaking havoc again I won't have the same problems as if his freeze gun was a one-of-a-kind item.

[loraxxx]

the dc universe version of stronghold--the slab--IS in antartica....

 

it got moved there last summer after the joker, thinking he had a terminal disease, doused everyone in the old location with a diluted version of joker-venom (driving them insane, and giving them joker faces) and arranged for a massive jailbreak....

 

transport to and from the facility is regulated by JLA teleporter technology....

 

i don't know what they do about foci, though....