What Would You Do #9 (Jurassic Park)

[Mayday]

This is a 3 part What If.

 

What would you do if you and your arch nemesis were transported to the dinosaur era. There are trees, big dinosaurs, little dinosaurs, mammals, fish, fresh water, volcanoes, a nice climate, everything you need to survive...

 

What does your arch enemy do? You might have been in combat, maybe you were just walking down the street in civilian clothes.

 

Then later on you (or your arch enemy) find that there is a race of people here living in caves eeking out an existence and occasionally getting eaten. A small tribe ready for the conquering or enslaving. (Yes I know neanderthals and T Rex did not co-exist, maybe they were transported here also, or are descended from other time travellers) What do you and your arch enemy do with them?

[Mayday]

Once Mayday's teammates were sent back to the Jurassic. A Batman (tech) guy, a lightning guy, an egyptian god avatar, and a few scientists. They managed to cannibalize their gear and mine enough ore to hotwire the device that sent them there with help from the lightning guy providing power. Thats what got me thinking about this, and how your arch enemy would react.

 

Mayday is a mentalist designed to hunt and hurrtt other mentalists. armor piercing Ego Attack and a very strong Mental Defense. Her arch enemy is Psiona, a 100pt EC of most of the mental powers. Mayday can hurt her, and survive an attack by her without too much damage but Psiona will ultimately win, probably, in a one on one.

 

They both know who the other is being mentalists, so secret ID or no it would not matter. I think Psiona is smart enough to not kill Mayday immediately, and Mayday's gadgeteering genius would be useful. So while Mayday played Survivor/Robinson Crusoe Psiona would be the first to discover the tribe and would turn them into an army to serve her, set herself up as a queen while working on the return to the present.

 

Mayday would eventually be captured as Psiona needs her and you cant hide forever from a mentalist, Psiona hates her with a need to slay or enslave so would try to control her. Lacking modern brainwashing facilities she might have some trouble getting Mayday to work willingly, and may have to use coercion by threatening the tribe children.

 

Psiona has hired time travelers before (she had him send the team back) and so eventually her own teammates will show up, brought by him and haul them back to the present where she will undoubtedly then brainwash the heck out of Mayday. Sigh.

 

The other Hunteds she has are Bora, Mentalla, and Le Son. I dont think any of these three are very strategic thinkers, unlike Psiona, and would likely take the opportunity for revenge. Mayday would find the tribe first and try to protect them while setting up her shelter and food supplies.

 

Since none of the three have capability to get back alone, or ties to any time travelers the GM would have to bury a crashed time ship in the jungle leading to a race to who got to it first probably.

 

A slight alteration of this would be Ancient Egypt, where her teammate is the immortal avatar of the moon god. Mayday'd make a great priestess... and in 3000 years he could let the team know what happened. ;-)

[Chuckg]

Baron von Darien -- walk away from the people and let them die. He knows about the dangers of changing the past, and is detached enough to do it. It would still be a decision that pained him... he's nowhere near *that* far beyond human sentiments... but the Baron has not survived eleven centuries as a master vampire without learning how to have his head reign superior to his passions.

 

As for the arch enemy? 99% of the Baron's reasons for *not* permanently disposing of enemies are purely pragmatic ones. There's no way he's going to pass up a chance to err, bury his problem, when he's 65+ million years away from such social impediments as police forensics, homicide detectives, and state penal codes.

 

Of course, since his arch enemy is either (the Baron's been fully designed but not used in play yet) a dark sorceror, another master vampire like the Baron, or Black Paladin, this particular rumble in the jungle bids fair to go on quite a while.

 

 

Starguard -- suggest to her arch-enemy that they temporarily team up and try to get home. And with her Cosmic Power Pool, that will take about as long as it takes for her arch-enemy to figure out that all he needs to do to get home is point out to her that her link to the Unified Field and Cosmic Awareness might potentially let her open a time gate.

 

(Which, since her arch-enemy is either Doctor Destroyer, Takofanes the Undying, Mechanon, or Teleios(*), will take them about two seconds of thought, seeing as how they're all genius-plus intellects... and two of these guys can do time travel themselves anyway. Granted, only Teleios really has any incentive to *accept* a truce... the rest will be in 'crush the gnat and then go home under their own power' mode, or 'I'd rather stay here and rust than ever cooperate with a filthy organic' mode.)

 

Edit -- AAMOF, it just occurred to me that putting Mechanon in Earth's prehistoric past will make Mechanon the happiest little psychotic robot that ever just realized it had a *GOLDEN* opportunity to prevent homo sapiens from ever evolving. Good thing Starguard has the Power Cosmic...

 

(*) Starguard has a Mystery Hunted, and the DM hasn't told me which one it is yet. The four I listed are the four most likely suspects.

 

If they're still around by the time they discover the people, she'll fight off the dinosaurs and save the tribe. She knows about the danger of changing history, and will feel horribly bad about taking such a risk, but... she just can't stand back and let people get killed. She. Just. Can't. Do. It.

 

Given that she's an 18-year-old high schooler with the Power Cosmic, she'll almost definitely wind up being worshipped as the tribal goddess.

 

 

Dr. Pain -- while Starguard would suggest a truce with her arch-enemy for purely idealistic reasons, Dr. Pain would do so for practical ones... only a fool holds a pro wrestling match in a burning house, and all that. Then again, *his* arch-enemy is much smaller scale... Boa Constrictor. (Alternatively, Bulldozer.)

 

He'd also ponder about the ramifications of saving the tribe, but then he'd go 'What the hey, this far back I'm probably not gonna change history too much anyway, 'cause they'll just get wiped out the next generation. But not *this* generation!'... and he'd flex his pecs and start doing the Rock Bottom on some tyrannosaurs.

 

He'd of course be accepted as a legendary gods-touched warrior hero... bricks do *very* well in primitive tribal cultures. And while he's no genius, he can show them basic things like fire, boiling the water before you drink it, and the concept of the saw, the axe, the knife, the etc.

 

 

Addendum -- realized I forgot to do the wilderness survival question.

 

Seeing as how the Baron and Starguard both have Total Life Support, they don't *need* survival skills.

 

Dr. Pain, OTOH, is going only off of what he can remember from that Boy Scout's Manual he used to sorta kinda read when he was 15, and never made it past Tenderfoot anyway. Then again, with a CON 40, he'll be surviving eating the wrong plants and animals on pure endurance until he meets the natives, at which point they can teach him the wonders of TL0 nutrition at the same time he teaches them the wonders of primitive hand tools and modern sanitation, along with each others' language.

 

Heck, Boa Contrictor might end up not being a villain here, because although his original appearance would horrify the tribesmen, after he fought the monsters to defend them alongside Dr. Pain, he might very well find acceptance.

 

Addendum -- source of the Gilgamesh and Enkidu legend? Of course not, way way too far back. But maybe racial memory...?

[Blue]

Re: What Would You Do #9 (Jurassic Park)

 

Originally posted by Mayday

This is a 3 part What If.

 

What would you do if you and your arch nemesis were transported to the dinosaur era. There are trees, big dinosaurs, little dinosaurs, mammals, fish, fresh water, volcanoes, a nice climate, everything you need to survive...

 

What does your arch enemy do? You might have been in combat, maybe you were just walking down the street in civilian clothes.

 

Then later on you (or your arch enemy) find that there is a race of people here living in caves eeking out an existence and occasionally getting eaten. A small tribe ready for the conquering or enslaving. (Yes I know neanderthals and T Rex did not co-exist, maybe they were transported here also, or are descended from other time travellers) What do you and your arch enemy do with them?

Anthem would have difficulty. She's a street kid, not a jungle kid. She'd probably observe what plants the dinos eat in order to decide what is safe to eat. Learn through observation.

 

Her arch-enemy, her father, is a degenerate drunk who would suffer without alcohol but eventually would sober up. He might even eventually make some attempt to reconcile. The change of environment would actually do wonders for him. Not the type of devious world-beating answer you'd expect, but the honest truth. He'd probably straighten up.

 

For part 3 I'll assume that the locals have distilled some berry equivalent of alcohol. He would remain a bastard and beat them mercilessly, taking their alcohol and treating them like servants, that is, until Anthem found a way to liberate them (short of killing him).

[Vondy]

Anthem - grab the nemesis and fly forward around the world using his 60 points FTL travel to return to the present, executing a backwards superman maneuver. The flight array (flight, supersonic flight, and ftl flight in an MP strikes again).

 

Midnight - goes native and leads the natives in an uprising against the evil one! He wouldn't know a temporal paradox if it came up and kicked him in the backside.

 

Pinstripe - execute bad-guy, recover evil-doer's time machine, return to future, execute all involved in the manufacture of said device.

 

Doc Micro - will cannibalize his gear, build a time machine, and return both to the future.

[lemming]

Calico Hmm, survival skills and a longish lifespan. Not long enough to take the long route to modern days though. And no skills that would get her back.

She doesn't have much in the terms of arch-enemies, but the feelings would generally run pretty hot. So someone would probably die. Then we'd be back to the first question assuming survival.

With the Primitives, she'd probably just keep a watch out for them at first, but she'd take long explorations around.

 

Nighthawk His arch-enemy has always been more of a rival so Whisper and he would probably wind up teaming up. They both have decent survival skills, etc... And both realize, sooner or later someone will show up. It's just how it is in this buisness. They'd probably join up with the tribe. Not sure what the tribe would make of a winged male and a female who can turn invisible & desolid.

 

Scales He'd be fine. Fairly invulnerable & immortal. Now if he can't just whip up some magic EDM to get back to the present, there's always just meditating.

His arch-rival was Warlord (not 5e), Scales and he would probably come to an understanding. They were friends and had gone through a lot since WWI. If it hadn't been for that nasty buisiness in '48...

The primitives would probably react to both with lots of fear, but driving the dino's away would be child's play for either.

 

Andromeda It's good to be queen.

[Ghost who Walks]

Sounds like a lost world scenario.

 

If he was still a player...

 

Mister Fabulous would be a bit limited at first, without his lab, and only he Fabulous mind to save himself. He would strike an truce with his archfoe, Dr. Grondicus.

 

As far as the primitive natives. Mister Fabulous would locate them on the first day. After teaching them how to make "Fire", he would draw some messages on the cave walls to be discovered in the future, by his teenage sidekick. The sidenkick would recognize them as Mister Fabulous, appear on Oprah to tell the world, and be widely disbelieved. "Not even Mister Fabulous can have that strange an adventure." Trading his Timex whristwatch for some food and cloths, Mister Fabulous starts exploring the world, attempting to lead his archfoe away from the primitive natives.

Together the two of them would use Mister Fabulous Shoelaces to build a raft. Dr. Grondicus's cape would then be used as a sail.

 

Sailing by the stars (both have astronomy), they would live off of pterodactyls for their epic journey, slaying them with the slingshot Mister Fabulous built. Dr. Grondiocus would eat far more than his fair share, and would refuse to cook or do dishes (he is a villain, remember)

 

They would travel to Antarctica, and contact the space aliens who are keeping watch over the earth from there. Upon explaining that they are from the future, they would be whisked off to the aliens home planet (Venus). There they could be expected to enjoy many hours sitting in a room, being asked endless questions.

 

Upon learning of his fate, Dr. Grondicus would use his incredible strength to sieze the spacedcraft, and turn it back to Earth. While not his home planet, he feels it is better than the bureaucratic maze that is Venus! He and Mister Fabulous battle over the controls, and the control stick breaks off in Dr. Grondicus hands. Dr. Grondicus and Mister Fabulous then flees in the only escape capsule, rocketing into space.

 

She alien spacecraft crashes into the Earth, where its antimatter core is breached, resulting in a huge explosion, killing the dinosaurs.

 

While Doctor Grondicus insists he is not to blame, Mister Fabulous modifies the escape capsule into a time machine, using a piece of string, a caveman's stone knife, 3 copper pennies (not the zinc ones) and a game cartridge for Tetris.

 

The hero and villain return to the future, landing on liberty island, where a bunch of tourists coming to see the Statue of Liberty gawk at the two emerging from the capsule. Mister Fabulous is temporarily blinded by the flashbulbs going off in his face, and Doctor Grondicus makes good his escape.

[Hermit]

Hmm, sadly, some of my characters are lacking an archnemisis.

 

Must rectify...

 

Will get back to you later.

[The Watcher]

Warp: The closest thing to an archenemy he has is Tesseract, and she just likes to show up every so often to hang around him and get him to use his powers (She finds the dimensional fabric in his vicinity very pleasant, especially when he uses his powers), no matter what problems this might cause him.

 

Both being dimensional manipulators, Warp would try to convince her to pool their powers in attempt to get back to the future. Time, after all, is just another dimension.

 

Hopefully, he'd be able to convince her to help, and together, after some time learning to coordinate with each other and some good Power: Dimensional Manipulation rolls, would end up back in the present day (with or without possible sidetrips to other eras in history), with a good reason for buying a time travel slot in their multipowers.

 

Will answer for other characters later.

[zornwil]

Blazing Arrow wouldn't be horribly concerned as he has survival and other skills. He'd help out the people in the cave, sticking to as old as techniques as he knows.

 

But he doesn't really have an "arch rival" so I can't pick an enemy or know what they'd do.

[The Watcher]

Spectrum: The closest thing he has to an archenemy would be the Mystery Hunted who's an Earth supervillain who wants to extract the secrets of the Progenitors that are currently in Spectrum's subconscious. Likely canidates for that position include Doctor Destroyer, Teleios, and Mechanon.

 

Having a military background which included lessons in tactics and strategy, Colonel Crichton knows when a strategic withdrawl is called for. A massive super battle on prehistoric Earth and the inevitable collateral damage to the surroundings could potentially change the course of history.

 

So it's off into space for Spectrum, and hopefully the villain will follow in pursuit. If Spectrum is lucky the subconscious knowledge in his head will lead him to the Progenitors and they'd be willing to send him and the villain back to the future.

 

If not, unless he can figure out how to use his powers to time travel, it's a game of cat and mouse throughout the galaxy, being as careful as possible to avoid impacting on Earth history, as Spectrum is forced to go back to the present the long way around.

 

Mystic: Since he's a potential Archmage, his archenemy is probably big in mojo as well. Both he and his enemy would know the dangers of time travel and the potential to accidentally negate their existence, so they would most likely call a truce long enough to magically get back to the present.

 

Proteus: His archenemy is whoever created him. Teleios is a likely suspect. Hopefully whoever it is would be amenable to a truce for the purposes of mutual survival. Thanks to being able to adapt to any circumstance, Proteus does fine living in the past.

 

When cavemen are discovered the villain will probably try to exploit them in someway. This will force a renewed conflict, and with the villain separated from most of his resources, Proteus has a good chance of winning.

 

After villain is stopped Proteus will pick out an isolated and geologically stable place and then hibernate his way till the present day.