WWYCD: Global Mind Control

[phydaux]

Well, it looks like the Evil Overlord finally pulled it off.

 

His most recent plan for global domination has actually worked.  The genetically engineered insects his minions released have multiplied and spread.  Through a combination of low level telepathy and a highly addictive narcotic chemical that is absorbed directly through the skin, every human being that a bug lands on gets drawn into the bug hive mind.  While their knowledge, skills and personality remain intact, their will is completely given over to serve the bug hive mind.  Getting free of skin contact with a bug severs the link to the hive mind, but the highly addictive nature of the bug's toxin has even the strongest willed heroes looking for a "bug fix" in less than half an hour.

 

But it seems like this plan has worked a little TOO well.  Bug swarm clouds have spread all across North America.  Every population center is fully infected, including the Evil Overlord and all his minions.  The hive mind has police, the military, and every major hero AND villain working together to gather every living human into the hive mind.  Non-humans like androids, aliens, and spirit beings are either contained or, if necessary, destroyed.  Bug swarm clouds are working their way across Central America, and ships & airliners full of bugs are making their way across the oceans to enslave the other continents.  

 

So far you have avoided physical contact with any bugs, although you know that all it will take is skin contact with a single but to enslave you.  Meanwhile you have to come up with a plan to get humanity free of bug control.

 

How do you stay free from bug enslavement?

 

What is your plan to save humanity?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(BTW - The above is basically the first half of the first chapter of Confessions of a D-List Supervillain by Jim Bernheimer.  I recommend it highly).

[mrinku]

Well, Robo-bushi is just fine as far as avoiding infection goes. Full Life Support (and a robot). Can use the gadget pool to make a bug sprayer.

 

Going to need allies... his first instinct would be to rescue the other members of Superforce. Spray them, then work out a plan. Generally speaking they're a strong willed bunch, so the addiction is probably okay with everyone looking out for each other.

 

Dunno... this sounds like it's already spread  a bit far for a typical supergroup to deal with.

 

Dwarfstar might be okay if he stays partially densified - his skin would be pretty hard to penetrate - but unlike Robo he has to sleep sometime so won't have much time to act.

 

Big Girl and Captain Third are pretty much bug-bait, though BG has naturally tough skin and may be okay. Depends on the bugs.

[Era Scarecrow]

Lots of bugspray?

Although if you want to get rid of the bugs, preferably all in one swoop, you'd probably need to isolate the bug (without getting infected) figure out say a sound frequency that only they are susceptible to, then (this is the hard part) set up a huge megaphone in every thousand miles or so, and then do a huge pulse of the sound making them all fall over dead. Give 24 hours for them to be eaten, and then the bugs are gone, now to cure the people.

Curing the population? Probably do it at the same time, so see if there's a frequency that brings them out of the hive-mind without permanent damage, and blast it at the same time you get rid of the bugs.

 Simple, right?

[drunkonduty]

Darkstar would probably go down to the mind control. He has a force wall he can put up to keep out the bugs. EVentually he'll run out of END and the wall will come down. Then he's bug chow. Maybe his (recovering) PTSD will help him resist the mind control? HE does have a very high CON and might be able to resist the physical addiction.

 

Knight Rider is all power armoured up. She could avoid the bugs for a long time. But not forever. She has to eat and drink. She'd try to organise a strike on the  queen bug to take her out.

[phydaux]

Quasar - Quasar would adjust his Force Field to function as a giant Bug Zapper.  That would keep him safe from the bugs.  The only problem there is that once it is functioning as a damage shield then it's NOT functioning as a Force Field.  So he would be defenseless against everything EXCEPT bugs.  But one crisis at a time, right?  He would be all over the long wave, hitting up his UNTIL contacts to alert the rest of the world about the bug menace, sharing the design of his Bug Zapper Belt, and brainstorming with the other technology types about potential solutions.

 

He ALSO would be freaking RIGHT OUT over his wife's & daughter's safety.  He would probably make Bug Zapper Belts for each of them to keep them safe, too.  This would be odd for them, because as far as his wife knows he's just a mild mannered university physics professor.  His 12 year-old daughter, however, is well aware of his secret identity as Campaign City's most powerful superhero.  So if either of them are infected then BOTH of them are infected, meaning the bugs would use his daughter to set a trap for him.  And at 14 Or Less he would fly head first into that trap.  So in the long run Quasar is toast.

 

Shadowhunter - "Let's see.  Smoke grenades, bolos, grapnel, knock out gas... Damn it!  No Deep Woods Off!  Maybe I can uppercut a... billion... grasshopper-size bugs... BEFORE one lands on me...  Sigh..." 

 

Shadowhunter loads up a small plane with supplies and heads for the Gulf Coast.  Out in the Gulf he looks for an oil rig at least 20 miles from shore.  He'll drop the supplies in water-proof, botany packaging right before he ditches.  He'll hole up on the oil rig, living off the supplies he brought with him.  Then he'll use short wave radio to organize the global bug resistance.  

 

Mystica - Initially she would be convinced that this was all a plot by extra-dimensional insect spirits, along the lines of Bug City from Shadowrun.  She would seal herself in a Magic Circle to protect herself from the bugs, and then try to find the chief bug spirit and the insect shaman that's controlling it.  They don't exist, of course, because THESE bugs are genetically engineered.  But that thought would never occur to Mystica, and she would spend many days trying to find the mystical origin of the plague and to punish the warlocks who brought it about.  

 

Once she FINALLY admitted to herself that she had actually encountered a non-magical threat that was so large that she couldn't just ignore and "Leave mess for others to clean" she would be quite flustered, and VERY angry.  

 

"Punch-Punch, Boom-Boom heroes, THEY save world from SIMPLE THINGS.  Mystica saves world from important, MYSTICAL threats.  Now Mystica must do BOTH?  Is no good.  NO GOOD!"

 

She would then TORTURE her Magic Only VPP until she came up with a 1d6 RKA AOE Megascale, X16 END, only works at exactly midnight on the night of the full moon, only effects creatures blood kin to those currently trapped in the caster's magic circle. etc., etc..  And in one fell swoop she would kill every bug on the planet.  And quite possibly herself.

 

And IF she lived, she would spend the next several YEARS reminding every superhero how DISAPPOINTED she was in them, that they couldn't even handle "Few bugs.  Feh!"

[massey]

Valiant is an alien (well, he thinks he's an alien, anyway -- he's actually a genetically engineered superhuman, but he's got nonhuman DNA mixed in, plus mental defense and power defense).  So he should be okay as far as bug contact goes.  First thing he'll probably do is stop the airplanes that are headed overseas.  Keep the problem from spreading as long as you can.  He has mental powers, but he doesn't understand that's what they are, so he wouldn't know how to use them effectively against the hive mind (he thinks he's got powers like Superman, but actually his powers function very differently).  He'll probably look for the villain's home base, and see if there's anything there that can be used to stop what is happening.

 

Huntsman is a normal human, so he'll need to take precautions against bug contact.  Likely he'll start wearing a full body suit so he has no exposed skin.  He's a genius, so he'll probably start looking for a chemical that can counter-act the bug's toxins.  If you can inoculate people against it, you're halfway there.  He'll keep a low profile and work in the shadows.  If he finds a solution, he will probably try and treat the water supply of major cities with the antidote.  That, or include the antidote formula in one of his company's products, so that people will use it without realizing it.

 

Metropolis Kid isn't human anymore.  He's basically an urban elemental, with a mystic link to the spirits of human cities.  Those spirits are going to freak out when their inhabitants start becoming members of a hive mind.  He will probably try to combat the hive mind on a spiritual plane of existence.  He's got a magic VPP, and if the ancient cities are scared enough, they'll give him the extra juice he needs.  If there is no mystical aspect to it (and the hive mind is not forming a psychic gestalt that he can punch), then he's going to be completely clueless.  He's only like 14, and he didn't pay attention in science class enough to come up with anything here.