Doomsday!

[Shadow Hawk]

It's the end of the world (as we know it). Russia has launched the missiles at the U.S., NATO, Japan and the PRC. Retialitory strikes have gone up in response. The air raid sirens are sounding, the TV and Radio are telling you this isn't a drill...

What does your character do, when thier are only minutes before the nuclear bombs arrive?

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: Doomsday!

 

Crimson Mage: In Seattle, WA. Re-adjust my magic pool and create a interdimensional gate between Earth and the land of Fairy. Usher as many people through as possible before the bomb goes off. On the other side of the gate when it does, I now have to explain to the Selie Court why I just brought dozens of humans to Fairy... and hope they let us stay long enough for the worst to be over.

 

The Mad Ninja: In San Fransisco, CA. Attempt to get my family out of town, and fail. Killed in the explosion.

 

The Eagle: In NYC. Grab my girlfriend and her daughter and fly straight north as fast as I can. Caught in the air some 20 miles north of the city when the explosions start, he's stunned unconcious by the blast, and the fall kills his girlfriend and her daughter. He survives, but doesn't want to. Spends the next few months doing rescue work near NYC, until he dies of radiation poisoning.

 

Shadow Hawk: North of San Diego. Grabs his gear, flies low and fast northwest until he's got a mountain range between himself and Miramar MCAS. Puts on gear, duck and cover in canyon until shockwave passes. Shadow Hawk then makes his way east, purchasing/stealing what he needs from small towns. Going to ground in southern Utah, he ends up joining a Mormon community where he trades his abilities for membership.

 

Yes, I put some thought into this. Based (loosely) on the alternate history Doomsday 1983, where a real-life incident of computer/radar/sattlelite failure almost lead the USSR to believe that the U.S. had launched a first strike. Historically, the Colonel in charge decided that the detected strike of five-six missiles was 'too small' to be real. It turned out to be a sattlelite/computer interface failure.

[Vulcan]

Re: Doomsday!

 

Unless I'm playing in a party of superman-tribute characters who can all fly at hypersonic speed and survive in space so we have a shot at trying to stop all the missiles, it's pretty simple.

 

Grab a lawn chair, head up to the airport, and get a front-row seat of the fireball. What kind of idiot would want to (try and ultimately most likely fail to) live in a post-nuclear wastland? Whoi would want to survive the death of all that was near and dear to them? What would the point of it be?

 

Go ahead. Reset the darn campaign and start over, says I.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Doomsday!

 

I don't have any characters powerful enough to do anything about it, or capable of long-distance unassisted spaceflight, so in all cases: Suicide.

 

Then make it a point to never game with this craptastic GM again.

[phoenix240]

Re: Doomsday!

 

Since non of my characters are powerful enough to do much about this it would be either a really unusual way to change the game's tone/genre or a spectacular way to wrap things up.

 

From a non meta perspective. I see most of them as reacting much like the people around them: denial, panic, desperate attempts to find loved ones, hugging, saying those things that "needed to be said but never seemed important" and all those syrupy jazz.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Doomsday!

 

The Justice miniseries (with art by Alex Ross) starts off with the villains having a nightmare of this very scenario and then almost causing it to come about in their twisted efforts to prevent it.

[Cygnia]

Re: Doomsday!

 

Prospero: Check yet again to see if this is yet another trap by his hated enemy The Nightmare Eternal. Wonder in horror if his immortality can beat being nuked whether he wished it or not.

 

Osprey: Kill her [bLEEP] hated eco-terrorist aunt

 

Me: Nut-punch the GM

[assault]

Re: Doomsday!

 

My character wakes up.

 

Assuming this situation is actually real (in the game world): Check to see if history can be changed. Failing that, move to another dimension.

 

Out of character, I would mention to the GM that I'm not a fan of post-apocalyptic settings, so I would expect there to be a way of getting out of this.

 

Of course, presumably there is some back story to all of this, which should allow some way of addressing it other than "we all die".

 

I'll note that I am currently reading DC's Earth-2 books, which start with "the end of the world as we know it", but that's not just a simple "somebody goes mad and pushes the button" situation. In any case, the situation is built into the background, rather than being something a GM decided to randomly drop on his players.

[Badger]

Re: Doomsday!

 

Badger- Can fly, but lacks the required pop to do much.

 

Frosty Bob- well, he is immortalish, though a nuclear hit would be enough to kill him. Though, if not near a blast he likely survives, and would probably do well in post-apocalypse. Though, without women, beer, and something to shoot at, he might be bored.

[drunkonduty]

Re: Doomsday!

 

Knight Sabre would try, and probably fail, to intercept the missile heading for Tokyo (where she is based.) If she failed she'd die in the explosion. If she succeeded, well Tokyo might be OK for a while but it'd go down hill fast.

 

DarkStar would dimensional travel somewhere else. Where he winds up would be a bit random, he has almost no experience with interdimensional travel. He's not fond of people so he wouldn't much miss them.

[CptPatriot]

Re: Doomsday!

 

Captain Patriot: Knowing the possibility of a catastrophe could occur, he goes into his prepared bomb shelter, calling the other superheroes in his network. He has a fully stocked shelter for 6 people with a 5 year supply of MREs and a six month supply of water. He awaits the worst. He knows he can't do anything for the people in NYC, but with the spare communication tech at his disposal, he can set up an emergency network to help coordinate help for the survivors.

 

Psi-kick: She's a part of Capt. Patriot's network, but there's no way she could get to his shelter in time. She'll run to the subway and head to him after the bombs drop in hope to work towards helping the survivors.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Doomsday!

 

Cougar would die.

 

Sunburst would Push and Flex his TK Shield + Megascale and create a Force Wall protecting the Earth. It would fail, but ICBMs are fragile and enough might explode with secondary explosions might stop a first and second wave, but there are so many he would fail.

 

Adamas would survive and try to help the survivors. Effective immortal he might live to see the earth blossom.

 

 

 

QM

[Christopher]

Re: Doomsday!

 

Grey Angel:

There are some options:

This is the WW3 in 2020 - she time travelled to prevent it (and what happend after that) in the first place. She would have been prepared to save as many people as possible. She always had underground bases and she propably would have prepared underground shelters with emergency teleport or some hidden SDI-systems for as many cities as she could. As in her timeline 10000 Humans is all taht is left by 2250 any way she can increase that number would be helpfull. Well, there are still WW 4 and the machine rebellion to prevent - perhaps she has a better shot at them.

 

Second option:

Get to her nearest teleport platform or out of blast range. Save as many as she can. Her armor si tought and can shield againt radiation.

Wonder what the heck she did wrong to start WW3 early. Propably be down at first. But then catch her again and save as many people as she can.

 

In either case her technology should be enough to provide save shelters.

She could even decontaminate landscapes fast, or prevent the nuclear winter (from lasting) by using her weather controll tech. 200+ Years more advanced tech has it's benefits, but she would have to stop keeping it secret (not that big of a problem, considering there is no more internet or government to be concerned now).

 

Third (crazy prepared):

As the missiles fly, and the bombers scramble a few superadvanced sattelites delcoak and just pick of all the missiles and bombers off in flight, creating the minimal fallout possible in the process.

As for the bombers, she would at least ask each nation to first recall them (after they see that there are no more missiles inbound/outbound). Afterwards do a gobal transmission and aks "Wich idiot pressed the red button, damit?"

Then she would propably be hunted by every government and villain, because she just showed the entire world that her technology is way's beyond what earth can do (she always kept that a secret: "Even my technology is not advanced enough to prevent humanity from destroying the planet").

Septa:

Could survive a direct nuclear hit (Desolidificaiton based on "ignoring" Fire - even a few million degrees). She can shield hersalf against radiation (small VPP).

Would be in a tricky sitatuion, as she now never might find out who the heck she is (this entire hero-gig was jsut to find that out). What she does depends a little on how well teh "Hero gig" has caught on to her:

If not at all, she would help people in immediate danger but otherwise focus on finding the guy who knows her next big lead. And hope that one hasn't gone cold - or up in smoke.

If it has she would go out of her way to save as many as she can. And die old resenting all those she could not save and her past she never found out.

Green Light Girl:

Green Lantern Clone, but no that well in Ranged Combat. Alien robot and last survivor of a civilisation that wiped itself out in a religious civil war. So there would be a few paralells. Asuming the GM does not allow her to spontaniosly become Ion/supercharges to save the planet, she would at least try to protect new York by taking down missiles the hard way (green light sword in the warhead).

Afterwards (if she doesn't finds a heroic death) help as many survivors as she can.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Doomsday!

 

Spatha would destroy the Dimenional Barriers protecting Champions Earth and beg the Empress Istvatha V'han to save us!!!

 

Cheers

 

QM

[Egyptoid]

Re: Doomsday!

 

Sandor the Mystic could defend Neptune City, and probably heal the people and repair buildings afterwards.

 

 

White Knite is space based, so he would probably zap a few ICBMs here and there, and shut down any bad guy's satellite warfare.

[Gnaskar]

Re: Doomsday!

 

Me: I'm in the third largest city of a NATO country. I'd pick up my emergency bag and run south as fast as I can (away from the city center). I have the route pre-planned. If the plume is drifting my way, I'm doomed, but otherwise I have a fairly decent chance coming out alive. My parents are covered by Continuity of Government plans, so at least I can be fairly certain they're alive.

 

Captain Citadel: Override the controls on all the various drones he as given to police, fire departments and other emergency services. Their new mission: missile interception. If that fails, plan B is something drastic involving a supercharged molecular destabilizer to make everything that enters the campaign city's airspace disintegrate.

[Matt Holck]

Re: Doomsday!

 

Beast would find an appropriate rock surface to record his shadow when from the radiation blast burns him

 

and would then pose for the flash burn photography

 

 

 

Sunset (Dragon) would hide in the Ocean

 

Icarus (5 dimensional spider) would teleport to safety. The extra-dimension space he occupies is still subject to heat

[Christopher]

Re: Doomsday!

 

Septa:

Could survive a direct nuclear hit (Desolidificaiton based on "ignoring" Fire - even a few million degrees). She can shield hersalf against radiation (small VPP).

Would be in a tricky sitatuion, as she now never might find out who the heck she is (this entire hero-gig was jsut to find that out). What she does depends a little on how well teh "Hero gig" has caught on to her:

If not at all, she would help people in immediate danger but otherwise focus on finding the guy who knows her next big lead. And hope that one hasn't gone cold - or up in smoke.

If it has she would go out of her way to save as many as she can. And die old resenting all those she could not save and her past she never found out.

Have to add one:

She (superthief found magical staff) can prevent the bombs from going off! Her Power is staff that gives her knowledge and dominance over a set of 6 Magical Elements - wich kinda split the entire realm of physical laws and forces between them.

Atom bombs are quite dangerous, but also very hard to detonate properly. And inproperly detonated they are barely dirty firecrackers*

It would be a possible heroic feat for her to create a planet spanning field that manipulates the fundamental force just enough, that all atom bombs missfire. Still, any missle that is intercepted would make this a lot easier for her...

 

 

*Seriously you could not detonate one by throwing an atom bomb just at it. Fat Boy & Little Boy had a chance of miss-detonation in the two digit percent area! Even just "stretching" the reaction a little would be enough to let them go of mostly harmless.