Case study: What if they succeed?

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

Teleios would also be good to use. He avoids the spotlight and has the resources for undercover forces. Start a few Children of the Damned colonies across the world with accelerated maturity and you're set.

 

The old "replace leaders with clones" tactic is right up his alley, too.

 

Interestingly, Teleios doesn't really want to rule the world for the sake of exercising power. To the extent he's considered it, it would be so he could have the freedom to conduct his experiments without interference from law enforcement or superheroes.

[DShomshak]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

Boll Weevil: As it happens, my article "Megavillains!" back in Digital Hero #3 included a discussion of strategy and tactics for conquering the world, with an appendix of numerous possible methods. You might find it useful as you brainstorm a setting.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

Africa could be ruled by VIPER.

Joseph Otanga might have something to say about this.

Maybe I need to break down and buy Master Villains

Maybe so. It has some very good writing. Especially for Skarn the Shaper, Tezcatlipoca and Tyrannon the Conqueror.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

Boll Weevil: As it happens, my article "Megavillains!" back in Digital Hero #3 included a discussion of strategy and tactics for conquering the world, with an appendix of numerous possible methods. You might find it useful as you brainstorm a setting.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

Wow, I forgot you wrote that! Very interesting and useful article. I even got a few game sessions out of Baron Frost.

 

Joseph Otanga might have something to say about this.

 

Maybe so. It has some very good writing. Especially for Skarn the Shaper, Tezcatlipoca and Tyrannon the Conqueror.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

As with Istvatha V'han, master villains who are already rulers and conquerors, like Skarn and Tyrannon, demonstrably have the plans and resources to take over the world, and their existing territories demonstrate what it would be like with them in charge.

[Haerandir]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

I guess this is where I make my traditional pitch in favor of the Warlord. He's got the resources in terms of personnel, equipment and strategic planning needed to (potentially) effect a world takeover, the administrative ability to (possibly) hold it together for a while, and the ambition (certainly) to try. All he needs to succeed is a pinch of GM Fiat .

 

The argument against the Warlord is that he's not really in the weight class of Dr. Destroyer, and if he ever could conquer the world, he should have done it by now. There's a bunch of ways to pump him up from 'budget Dr. Destroyer' to 'world conqueror'. In particular, you could team him up with one or more other master villains or groups if you need to justify a sudden increase in effectiveness. Good candidates include Teleios, Menton, Eurostar, possibly Red Dawn (or several members of Red Dawn if the group breaks up or the more idealistic members are captured/killed). He's also a logical choice to hire the various military/tech-based mercenary solo villains to round out his forces. He could also stumble across one or more downed spaceships and incorporate more Hzeel or other alien technology into his forces. Maybe he finds a Mechanon backup base and busts Cybermind out of Stronghold to re-program it for his use.

 

As for the questions of 'how does he do it?' and 'why now?', I can think of a decent scenario: With the US currently bogged down fighting yet another land war in Asia, Roger Warwell sees his opportunity. He sends Shadow Army commandos disguised as Primus and UNTIL agents to create a series of incidents which exacerbate the tensions between the two agencies, and between the US and UN. He sets other plans in motion to hamstring other possible sources of interference (maybe he tries to re-start the Viper/Eurostar war, or pits the Zen Team against the Tiger Squad, and so forth). Then, while everyone else is distracted, he steps in to 'fill the shoes abandoned by the world's peacekeepers' by intervening in civil wars and conflicts between Third World nations, eventually creating an empire for himself which serves as his springboard to world conquest. Assuming this is all part of the backstory for your campaign, or is achieved through time/dimensional travel and not during the course of a game, you can probably get way with being a bit vague about the actual details.

 

Voila! The world is being run by a megalomaniacal military genius in an impregnable, mobile fortress. If you gave him high-powered allies, then they can act as regional governors (Teleios in North America, Fiacho in Europe, Molnya in Russia/Siberia, Joseph Otanga in Africa, etc.) Viper, if it still exists, continues as an outlaw/criminal organizations, but now they're the good guys! (Or at least relatively neutral). In fact, it's entirely possible that Viper acts as the logistics and communications conduit for the various resistance movements around the world (including the PCs).

[Boll Weevil]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

There so needs to be a Book of the Warlord. Nice!

[Haerandir]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

Somewhere around here I have my notes for when I started working on a 'Book of the Warlord' of my own. Alas, I never got past the outline stage. The funny thing is, I don't even consider myself a fan of the Warlord, but every time we have one of these conversations, I'm the only one who mentions him.

 

Poor Roger. He's the Master Villain the Fans Forgot!

[DShomshak]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

Haerandir raises some good notions for the Warlord and makes me take another look at him. May I suggest a variation?

 

Instead of fomenting chaos to set legitimate military forces against each other, maybe he should offer himself as the Black Ops go-to guy for governments who who want situations Dealt With but don't want the public relations headaches of body bags or massacres. Want to intervene and topple that regime that's made itself especially obnoxious, or crush the insurgency that's interfering with your favorite oil company/campaign donor? Hire the Warlord. In public, governments are shocked, shocked, at his brutality but what can they do about this villain? They can't even find his secret base!

 

And so the Warlord gains more and more power in the Third World, setting up puppet regimes that play nice with the rest of the world and, more importantly, with him. Major governments accept this because they think they understand him and can control him. And then... Whoops. No, they can't. Suddenly he has a huge army recruited from his Third World conquests, automated Hzeel-tech factories churning out advanced weapons and vehicles for them, and a bunch of other villains as his Special Forces and junta. Give him a Hzeel-tech device to neutralize nuclear weapons as icing on the cake, and suddenly he can start conquering in earnest as a latter-day Genghis Khan. Once he captures a major nuclear arsenal and shows he's willing to use it, the game of Risk is over and he's won. Until the heroic PCs start the resistance, of course!

 

Dean Shomshak

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

Haerandir raises some good notions for the Warlord and makes me take another look at him. May I suggest a variation?

 

Instead of fomenting chaos to set legitimate military forces against each other, maybe he should offer himself as the Black Ops go-to guy for governments who who want situations Dealt With but don't want the public relations headaches of body bags or massacres. Want to intervene and topple that regime that's made itself especially obnoxious, or crush the insurgency that's interfering with your favorite oil company/campaign donor? Hire the Warlord. In public, governments are shocked, shocked, at his brutality but what can they do about this villain? They can't even find his secret base!

 

And so the Warlord gains more and more power in the Third World, setting up puppet regimes that play nice with the rest of the world and, more importantly, with him. Major governments accept this because they think they understand him and can control him. And then... Whoops. No, they can't. Suddenly he has a huge army recruited from his Third World conquests, automated Hzeel-tech factories churning out advanced weapons and vehicles for them, and a bunch of other villains as his Special Forces and junta. Give him a Hzeel-tech device to neutralize nuclear weapons as icing on the cake, and suddenly he can start conquering in earnest as a latter-day Genghis Khan. Once he captures a major nuclear arsenal and shows he's willing to use it, the game of Risk is over and he's won. Until the heroic PCs start the resistance, of course!

 

Dean Shomshak

 

 

I think I've got the next big story arc in my superhero world. Although in my world the warlord is a different guy now and backed by Ares ( Enforcer's flavor).

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

I think I've got the next big story arc in my superhero world. Although in my world the warlord is a different guy now and backed by Ares ( Enforcer's flavor).

 

You know, in the Champions Universe a number of super villains, and heroes, have been avatars of various mythological gods, or mortals empowered by them to be the gods' agents. I can't think of a more appropriate candidate for supernatural "upgrading" by a war god like Ares than Roger "Warlord" Warwell -- a seasoned tactician and front-line fighter who revels in battle and bloodshed.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

But so does Archon, the Empyrean superhero!

 

I still want to know about the mysterious figure behind Teleios. Because if you assess the likelihood of a master plan's success by the amount of substantive resistance that it's receiving, this is the one that's working!

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

But so does Archon' date=' the Empyrean superhero![/quote']

 

Hmm... I would have thought Archon a little too heroic and noble to link up with a butcher like Ares (at least as how he's usually depicted). But another god of war might be a better fit.

 

Coincidentally, though...

 

I still want to know about the mysterious figure behind Teleios. Because if you assess the likelihood of a master plan's success by the amount of substantive resistance that it's receiving' date=' this is the one that's working![/quote']

 

For my own CU-based campaign, I decided to make Teleios's mysterious patron Noatar, the master geneticist of the Empyreans (mentioned in Hidden Lands p. 51). Noatar lives and works in the valley outside the city of Arcadia, where he maintains a preserve of previously extinct species recreated from fossilized remains. Noatar is something of a hermit, preferring the company of his animals to that of even his fellow Empyreans.

 

As I conceived of Teleios's origin, Noatar is very interested in the genetic potential manifested in superhumans, but didn't want to leave his home for the dangers of studying them firsthand. When the theories of Jakob Stroessen came to his attention, he realized the human was on the right track, but still lacked the critical insight to make a true breakthrough. However, with Noatar providing the needed data, Stroessen could become a valuable "research tool."

 

Since Teleios began his career Noatar has monitored his achievements, both in the human media and by instruments tracking Teleios's creations by their distinctive genetic patterns. From time to time Noatar contracts one of his kinsmen to capture an organism made or altered by Teleios for him to examine in detail, usually Hunter Thav (see HL pp. 89-90). This might include heroes empowered by Teleios.

 

Noatar realizes Teleios's actions could put many human lives at risk; but as an immortal and student of nature, he's seen many species pass into extinction and accepts even large-scale death as part of the natural order. He probably won't intervene unless Teleios poses an imminent major danger to the global ecology, and then only indirectly by alerting the authorities or heroes.

 

If and when Teleios learns of Noatar's involvement in his past he'll be humiliated and enraged at being someone's pawn, and will devote his energies to locating and confronting the Empyrean, to prove which of them is the true master of genetics.

[Cassandra]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

If a villain does completely conquer the world, they might end up like General Zod in Superman 2. Sitting in the White House, bored because they would have nothing to do.

[DShomshak]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

Well, I never used the CU for my own campaign (and won't, if I start another) but if I did, Teleios' benefactor would be his own future self. I'm thinking that just as my last supers campaigns emphasized magic and the supernatural, my next (if it ever happens) will emphasize time travel, with various alternate futures meddling in the Superheroic Age as they try to ensure they become the future that really happens. Some of the possible futures are ones in which supervillains won. There would be "bootstrap" causality loops in plenty.

 

Such a setting would include a Teleios-like super-geneticist. (To cite another thread, it's one of the elements a great superhero setting should contain.) One future would be a horrible dystopia in which "Teleios" won. He exterminated humanity and replaced it with a race he considered superior; actually, he's done this several times, as his definition of perfection changes. Plus there's the occasional kaiju running around as leftovers from past experiments, and the like.

 

Then there's the other biotech world in which "Teleios" drove biotech to vast heights but was killed before he could do anything too horrible. (Or maybe he got a morality infusion and stopped being a villain?) The result is a much stranger future than the simple dystopia.

 

Both futures have sent back agents to assist the campaign's "Teleios" and try to steer him into making their future real. Though, there would also be characters come back from the horrible dystopias who want to nip their home timelines in the bud -- another origin and motivation for both heroes and villains.

In the CU, PCs who learn about Teleios' story and the many competing timelines might wonder which timeline helped Stroesser.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

If a villain does completely conquer the world' date=' they might end up like General Zod in Superman 2. Sitting in the White House, bored because they would have nothing to do.[/quote']

 

That was the point Dr. Mid-nite made early on this thread. The classic Emperor Doom story is one outstanding example of this.

 

Maybe Gravitar has the right idea after all. She seems to just want to be acknowledged by the world as supreme, not actually do any of that tedious governing.

 

Come to think of it, the mythic Olympian gods were pretty much laissez-faire landlords. They ruled the universe, but did little beyond party, scheme among each other, and meddle in mortals' lives for their amusement.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

Well' date=' I never used the CU for my own campaign (and won't, if I start another) but if I did, Teleios' benefactor would be his own future self. I'm thinking that just as my last supers campaigns emphasized magic and the supernatural, my next (if it ever happens) will emphasize time travel, with various alternate futures meddling in the Superheroic Age as they try to ensure they become the future that really happens. Some of the possible futures are ones in which supervillains won. There would be "bootstrap" causality loops in plenty.[/quote']

 

I must admit, I have a lot of trouble wrapping my head around causality loops like that one. Teleios in the past gains his knowledge from Teleios of the future, but Teleios of the future wouldn't have that knowledge if he hadn't learned it in the past? It's an uncaused cause -- the knowledge must have originated from somewhere else!

 

But your "once and future Teleios" competing timeline idea is very intriguing, though. Quite a dilemma to watch PCs work their way through.

[assault]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

One future would be a horrible dystopia in which "Teleios" won.

 

Typical. I was kicking around ideas for a Weird Australia this morning. One that had fallen victim to the Marsupial Apocalypse. I was thinking that while it might have initially involved some accidental mutation, it was mainly driven by deliberate Mad Science.

 

Naturally the motivation would be different from that of Teleios. My (as yet unnamed) loony would be driven by a kind of environmental agenda, where he tries to eliminate introduced species and restore Australian native species - living and extinct - to ecological dominance. Of course that would have a devastating impact on the human population, but... Science!

 

Obviously the point would be that he succeeds, and turns Australia into a kind of Marsupial Mad Max wasteland.

[assault]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

I must admit' date=' I have a lot of trouble wrapping my head around causality loops like that one. Teleios in the past gains his knowledge from Teleios of the future, but Teleios of the future wouldn't have that knowledge if he hadn't learned it in the past? It's an uncaused cause -- the knowledge must have originated from somewhere else! [/quote']

 

It's easy to understand once you remove the portions of your brain that limit your perceptions to only four dimensions....

 

Open your Fourth Eye and all will be revealed.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

Is that the one behind my forehead, or my navel? I can never keep my chakras straight.

[psyber624]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

To gain knowledge is to seek it. When you can answer the question yourself the answer will be revealed to you.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

Typical. I was kicking around ideas for a Weird Australia this morning. One that had fallen victim to the Marsupial Apocalypse. I was thinking that while it might have initially involved some accidental mutation, it was mainly driven by deliberate Mad Science.

 

Naturally the motivation would be different from that of Teleios. My (as yet unnamed) loony would be driven by a kind of environmental agenda, where he tries to eliminate introduced species and restore Australian native species - living and extinct - to ecological dominance. Of course that would have a devastating impact on the human population, but... Science!

 

Obviously the point would be that he succeeds, and turns Australia into a kind of Marsupial Mad Max wasteland.

Oooh, koalas mutated into actual "drop bears"!

[assault]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

Oooh' date=' koalas mutated into actual "drop bears"![/quote']

 

Yeah. Not original though - the basic idea appeared in a Superhero 2044 supplement back in 1980.

 

The execution of the idea back then was pretty hopeless, and I don't have access to the supplement itself anyway, but the idea itself is firmly wedged into my head.

 

Unfortunately, the idea would probably work better in the SH2044 setting itself, which occurs several decades after a nuclear war. It would be quite plausible for Australia to have fallen particularly hard, and a nice change from the usual thing where we get off relatively lightly.

 

Collapsing Australia in a more civilised context is a bit harder. What happens to all the people? OK, some of them mutate, and others move to New Zealand, but it's still a big population shift. Just blowing them all up only appeals to me in certain moods...

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Case study: What if they succeed?

 

Dr. Yin Wu has an interesting endgame. He's trying to locate or re-create the Jade Mirror of Transcendence, a mighty mystic artifact which can alter reality as per its user's desire. The Doctor wants to use it to transform the whole world into the likeness of medieval China, dominated by magic and with no better than era-appropriate technology, and with himself as supreme Emperor. Historical precedent gives a clear vision of what this society would look like. Presumably PCs and NPCs from the modern world would be altered to their closest societal analogues. What's good about this scenario is that it should be possible to undo the transformation in one stroke, and return the world to normal.

 

I've long considered whether Takofanes' seemingly-random rampages over the years have a similar goal: laying the magical foundation for a mighty spell to reshape the globe into an echo of the Turakian Age, in which he would again be master.