DShomshak

Doctor Medusa has no super-powers, just her Petrifying Gun that transforms organic matter into, to look at it, white marble. Depending on the gun's setting, the transformation reverses in minutes, hours, or, or apparently never. (Anything inorganic shot by the gun tends to shatter, which is how she breaks into bank vaults and the like.) The Marmoreal Menace has never deliberately used her gun to kill, and Virtuous found a simple way to reverse the transformation, but there have been accidents -- which is part of how Doctor Medusa because wanted by the law and had to turn to a life of (deliberate) crime.
 
Doctor Medusa made no secret of her attraction to Virtuous, and her desire to "collect" him. He'd make a gorgeous statue... though he spontaneously reverses the petrifying effect in mere minutes, regardless of the gun's setting. So her strategy has always been to petrify Virtuous long enough to complete some other crime and get away with no greater harm to him than lipstick on his cheek. In her last caper, though, rumor has it she shot Virtuous just before her partner, another member of the Indecency Brigade, punched him.
 
And knocked him off the edge of the skyscraper whose penthouse apartment they had just robbed.
 
And the hero broke.
 
Scuttlebutt in the underworld is that Doctor Medusa had to be dragged away, while screaming, "I can fix him!" She hasn't been seen since. But some people say that when Doctor Medusa returns to crime, she's going to be crazy. Bad crazy.
 
Dean Shomshak

Indeed, the CU as a whole has scads of alien characters: all the ones in Champions Beyond, all the Lemurians -- and I'd include the Empyreans as well. But they're largely shuffled off into their own subsettings, apparently not interacting much with the rest of the CU. (Though two Lemurians make it into CV3.)
 
But you could argue that Skarn and Tyrannon aren't really "core characters" for the CU, either. I mean, they're literally in different planes of existence. Either they invade Earth, or PCs have to come to them. They also fill the same story role. So why put both of them in CV but not, say, Xarriel, who is also a mad tyrant with vast powers and nigh limitless resources who might invade Earth? I don't know, other than I wrote up a bunch of setting material for Skarn and Tyrannon and got it published in The Mystic World. So Steve had it all ready to cut and paste into CV1; didn't have anything comparable for Xarriel. Too bad. The CU can use a Darkseid expy as well as a Dormammu expy.
 
PS: Yes, I counted. Another category: Created By Me: 30 characters. 10%. And I'm not counting characters I rewrote, such as Tyrannon or Edouard and Anais Vandaleur.
 
Dean Shomshak

On reflection, the shortage of robots and androids does not surprise me as much as I first thought. Thinking back on the much more populous Marvel Universe, how many robot villains were there as of, say, 1995? (About the time I stopped paying attention.) Using OHOTMU as the standard for who's important, I can recall Ultron, Machinesmith, the Super-Adaptoid, the Mad Thinker's Awesome Android, Dragon-Man (an alchemical construct IIRC), Master Mold (representing the Sentinels), Nimrod, Quasimodo, and... um... It, the Living Colossus? Plus the Kree Sentry robot and the big HYDRA robot whose name escapes me at the moment. But AFAIK only Ultron and the Sentinels are that significant. And Doombots, but they're agents. So I son't think robots are under-represented in the CU. But OTOH -- which gets to one of the reasons for this exercise -- it also means that if a GM wants to expand their version of the CU in a direction that hasn't been done to death already, robots, androids and other constructs are one way to go.
 
Dean Shomshak

1) Sure, I have other books, going all the way back to Enemies I, II and III. But I figured the CV trilogy best represented the core of the CU. Or at least what Steve Long thought the core of the CU should be.
 
2) Who am I to stop you?
 
3) Foxbat is an excellent case study. Yeah, he's physically competent, but not superhumanly so (apart from SPD 5). Knows martial arts, but not enough to compete on that alone (maximum 8d6 attack? Not hardly.) Some skills, but not amazing, either. So what category does he get? Weapon. A gun scaled for a Low Power Superbeing (50 active pts) and a few minor gimmick-gadgets. And that's it. He's had the Ping-Pong Gun since his first appearance, and there's no indication he'll ever change it much or develop other tech.
 
4) Batguy would fit into Training (he's supposed to be among the world's best HTH fighters and detectives -- though I remember a friend reading an assessment that he is not #1 in either), and he might count as an Inventor if he develops new gadgets fairly often. I will grant that being a billionaire lets him be an Inventor by proxy. If you want to say the resources of Wayne Enterprises make him a Mastermind I won't argue too hard, though that seems to be more a justification for him being able to have a Batmobile, Batplane, and Bat-I-Don't-Know-What All, rather than a source of institutional power or Followers.
 
I was never an enormous Bat-fan, so I'll defer to anyone who says they know the character well.
 
4) By "gadget user," do you mean Weapon? Because a weapon can be taken away. If it requires major surgery to take away the source of a character's powers, thry're probably a cyborg.
 
And thank you for being interested!
 
Dean Shomshak

I wondered which origin types are particularly popular for the Champions Universe, and what types of Powers go with them the most.
 
Why? Because
1) It might point to character concepts that are cool but have been neglected; and
2) I’m a deranged nerd.
 
So this has been my spare-time project for the last week.
 
The whole CU is very large, but not all of it is equally propmoted. So I’m restricting the domain of analysis to the three volumes of Champions Villains. 292 characters total, not counting “agent” types such as Doctor Destroyer’s robots or Necrull’s Necrullticians. Individual characters only!
 
Here are the categories I devised when I did this analysis for my own Champions settings:
 
* SUPERNATURAL BEINGS are innately magical creatures: demons, dimensional conquerors, undead, etc. Examples: Bloodrage, Takofanes, Tyrannon. Also people with supernatural ancestry, such as Frag.
 
* MUTANTS were born with super-powers in their genes. I also include MUTATES, whose origin stories specifically say that their powers are the result of genetic manipulation (such as anyone given powers by Teleios). Examples: Menton, Hurricane, King Cobra.
 
* ROBOTS AND CONSTRUCTS are artificial beings. They have powers because somebody else built them that way. Robots are of course the result of tech; but golems and similar magically-created artificial beings fit in this category as well. Examples: Mechanon (duh), Syzygy.
 
* ENCHANTED characters were given powers by magic: a curse, a spell cast upon them, a magic potion, or the like. Examples: The Basilisk, Black Fang, Harpy.
 
* WEIRD SCIENCE covers all those lab accidents, exposures to industrial waste or atomic radiation, and empowerment processes that are scientific but aren’t specifically called out as exclusively based on gene-splicing. (Though some origin stories are not clear on this point.) Examples: Durak, Bulldozer, everyone in Project Sunburst, Sunspot.
 
 
* CYBORGS started out as normal people but gained powers by having bits added to them. Usually techm but I extend the concept to magical additions (such as a magical gem permanently affixed to the character’s body) or other surgical modification. Examples: Interface, Fiacho, Cairngorm, Howler.
 
* SORCERER characters cast spells. Examples: Doctor Yin Wu, Demonologist, Talisman.
 
* INVENTOR characters build gdgets (including, but not limited to, powered armor) or otherwise do things using SCIENCE! It’s implied that they can build new tech, even if they don’t have VPPs — they aren’t limited to just one device or suite of gadgets. Examples: Doctor Destroyer, Teleios, Utility, Binder, Doctor Philippe Moreau.
 
* TRAINING: If a character’s powers come down to extraordinary skills that aren’t super-tech or sorcery, they go here. Mostly martial artists, but there might be others such as a super-thief with incredible skills but uses mundane tech, Examples: Scorpia, Green Dragon, the Cahokian.
 
* WEAPON: The character’s powers derive from a device that could be taken away, whether it’s tech, magic, or undefined. Moreover, the character lacks the skills to replace or alter the device easily. Examples: the Warlord (he didn’t build his own battlesuit), the Crowns of Krim, Lazer.
 
* MASTERMINDS would be powerful just from the people and resources they command, even if they didn’t have any other source of power. Example: Franklin Stone and Doctor Philippe Moreau are “pure” Masterminds; Doctor Destroyer, King Cobra, and the Warlord have extensive organizations in addition to their personal powers; Baron Nihil and Tyrannon rule entire populations; and the Demonologist can Summon whatever demons he wants, while the Engineer creates robots at will.
 
* ALIENS aren’t human, but aren’t specifically supernatural. Extraterrestrials such as Herculan and Firewing go here; but so does Leviathan (a Lemurian) and Ape-X (uplifted gorilla). This is often a “meta-origin,” worth noting even if not being human is not specifically the source of powers (as Herculan was artificially given powers that are not natural to his species, the Fassai).
 
* OTHER is anything so rare and weird that it doesn’t justify creating a new category, or the source of the character’s powers simply is not known. Example: Timelapse, Glacier.
 
* COMPLEX: Characters can fit within multiple categories, as the dimension lord Skarn is both a supernatural being and a sorcerer, or Cheshire Cat is both a highly trained martial artist and gained teleportation powers through weird science. But if a character fits in three or more categories, I just call it “Complex.” Example: Josiah Brimstone has one set of powers as a sorcerer, another set from the demon that’s fused to him, and a third set from magical devices. OTOH I make exceptions for Masterminds and Aliens, as these tend to be meta-origins — and I try to limit assigning categories based on what’s really important to a character. Just packing a gun or minor gadget, for instance, isn’t enough to place a character as using a Weapon.
 
Placing characters in origin categories can be iffy. Like, I don’t assign every character with martial arts on the character sheet to the Training category: Often its just an add-on and the character would function as a superbeing without it. And as the discussion of Weird Scienct and Mutate characters suggests, the line between them can be blurry. But the goal is to spot patterns, not to precisely classify every character.
 
Here’s the result:
 
Supernatural Beings: 30 characters; 10%
Mutants/Mutates: 65 characters; 22%
Robots/Constructs: 8 characters; 3%
Enchanted: 23 characters; 8%
Weird Science: 54 characters; 18%
Cyborgs: 9 characters; 3%
Sorcerers: 33 characters; 11%
Inventors: 26 characters; 9%
Training: 31 characters; 11%
Weapon: 44 characters; 15%
Mastermind: 25 characters; 9%
Alien: 17 characters; 6%
Other/Unknown: 9 characters; 3%
Complex: 3 characters; 1%
 
Further analysis available if anyone's interested.
 
Dean Shomshak

Oh, I think mutants can be used effectively as a symbol for other anxieties. I just think they don't work very well as an allegory for racism, and only marginally better as an allegory for homophobia.
 
In part this is because allegory is by its nature heavy-handed. Symbols are shiftier. They ask questions but are not so much insist on the answers.
 
For me, the most effectivde symbolic use for mutants is: Our children are not like us. And they have powers we do not comprehend, such as navigating social media on smartphones. (Back in my day it was programming VCRs.) And they will supplant us and take over the world. So how do you feel about that? Some people hind this hopeful. Many people find it terrifying.
 
Dean Shomshak

Oh, I think mutants can be used effectively as a symbol for other anxieties. I just think they don't work very well as an allegory for racism, and only marginally better as an allegory for homophobia.
 
In part this is because allegory is by its nature heavy-handed. Symbols are shiftier. They ask questions but are not so much insist on the answers.
 
For me, the most effectivde symbolic use for mutants is: Our children are not like us. And they have powers we do not comprehend, such as navigating social media on smartphones. (Back in my day it was programming VCRs.) And they will supplant us and take over the world. So how do you feel about that? Some people hind this hopeful. Many people find it terrifying.
 
Dean Shomshak

An interesting editorial here. The pundit makes a good point about how the new Republican party is in some senses making Congress more "democratic," which doesn't sound "authoritarian." But I think the writer misses the point that one can be anti-institutional and still be rabidly authoritarian. The question is where the authority lies. Part of what makes fascism fascist is the lack of due process: Institutions operate by the whim of the leader, the party, or the mob. And from what I can see, the core grievance of MAGATs is that the formal machinery of law and government denies them the cultural dominance they seek, in which people like them can wield arbitrary power over everyone else. In which case, offices stripped of power and institutions in chaos suit them very well.
 
The Kevin McCarthy speaker debacle has a silver lining (msn.com)
 
Dean Shomshak

I am well aware of it. And my critical judgment is that they are not very good at it. That's why I don't like them. I have made this argument before, at considerable length, and do not care to go through it again.
 
Dean Shomshak

I am well aware of it. And my critical judgment is that they are not very good at it. That's why I don't like them. I have made this argument before, at considerable length, and do not care to go through it again.
 
Dean Shomshak

Brazil is experiencing their own Jan 6th right now....
 
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/protesters-storm-brazils-congress-support-former-brazilian-president-j-rcna64816

It's been pointed out that the Republicans cannot afford to have more than 6 of their number out of the chamber at any time, lest a Democrat force a new vote for a Speaker who will immediately undo all the ridiculous rules.

Doctor Medusa has no super-powers, just her Petrifying Gun that transforms organic matter into, to look at it, white marble. Depending on the gun's setting, the transformation reverses in minutes, hours, or, or apparently never. (Anything inorganic shot by the gun tends to shatter, which is how she breaks into bank vaults and the like.) The Marmoreal Menace has never deliberately used her gun to kill, and Virtuous found a simple way to reverse the transformation, but there have been accidents -- which is part of how Doctor Medusa because wanted by the law and had to turn to a life of (deliberate) crime.
 
Doctor Medusa made no secret of her attraction to Virtuous, and her desire to "collect" him. He'd make a gorgeous statue... though he spontaneously reverses the petrifying effect in mere minutes, regardless of the gun's setting. So her strategy has always been to petrify Virtuous long enough to complete some other crime and get away with no greater harm to him than lipstick on his cheek. In her last caper, though, rumor has it she shot Virtuous just before her partner, another member of the Indecency Brigade, punched him.
 
And knocked him off the edge of the skyscraper whose penthouse apartment they had just robbed.
 
And the hero broke.
 
Scuttlebutt in the underworld is that Doctor Medusa had to be dragged away, while screaming, "I can fix him!" She hasn't been seen since. But some people say that when Doctor Medusa returns to crime, she's going to be crazy. Bad crazy.
 
Dean Shomshak

An interesting editorial here. The pundit makes a good point about how the new Republican party is in some senses making Congress more "democratic," which doesn't sound "authoritarian." But I think the writer misses the point that one can be anti-institutional and still be rabidly authoritarian. The question is where the authority lies. Part of what makes fascism fascist is the lack of due process: Institutions operate by the whim of the leader, the party, or the mob. And from what I can see, the core grievance of MAGATs is that the formal machinery of law and government denies them the cultural dominance they seek, in which people like them can wield arbitrary power over everyone else. In which case, offices stripped of power and institutions in chaos suit them very well.
 
The Kevin McCarthy speaker debacle has a silver lining (msn.com)
 
Dean Shomshak

An interesting editorial here. The pundit makes a good point about how the new Republican party is in some senses making Congress more "democratic," which doesn't sound "authoritarian." But I think the writer misses the point that one can be anti-institutional and still be rabidly authoritarian. The question is where the authority lies. Part of what makes fascism fascist is the lack of due process: Institutions operate by the whim of the leader, the party, or the mob. And from what I can see, the core grievance of MAGATs is that the formal machinery of law and government denies them the cultural dominance they seek, in which people like them can wield arbitrary power over everyone else. In which case, offices stripped of power and institutions in chaos suit them very well.
 
The Kevin McCarthy speaker debacle has a silver lining (msn.com)
 
Dean Shomshak

I don't do Champions Universe. I don't like the "Mutant Hater" trope. I will never buy this book. But a good review, and it sounds like a well written book.
 
Given that bigotry is fungible, though, it would probably be easy to cross out "mutant" and write in some other group, such as "Magic" "aliens," or "mentalists," and the book would work nearly as well.
 
Dean Shomshak

IHA is not as limited in their hate as Genocide was. They hate every superpowered person equally. Mutants are just the low hanging fruit, easy to pick on.
 
They WILL make comments on ANY superbattle which causes large damage, even if mutants are not involved. 
 
(Of course, nothing in the book forces to use the entire book as is. Need giant robots for something? Pull out the Minuteman MARK 7 and have it look different and poof..it's a giant robot. Need a fallen hero? Cat's Eye is one. Blah, blah.)

I just got the book and skimmed through it. Nice work. I love that Genocide existed, as did IMAGE. The history section tells the fall of both organizations (with Genocide mostly killed by it's own hand by revealing themselves too soon, and a very well played plot by the IHA to assassinate Murdock, the leader of IMAGE). They took advantage of The Battle of Detroit to assassinate Apostle, Flamboyant, and Mustang. 
And of course, tons more history. We got bases, tons of leaders (many of them normal, but Archer Samuels is a cyborg), agents (all named via military lnes, as opposed to Genocide's chest mosfet), Minuteman MARK 7 and Minuteman Tracker MARK 3 robots, and there own "supervillains" Hunter (well trained and equipped normal), Shi No Te (demon possessed martial artist who works for IHA only to kill challenging foes), and MTU846 (a mutant killing robot ah la Terminator from Kinematik's earth).
 
Also included are the villain groups Revenge Evolution (Vengeance [Murdock's son], Eterno, Spector, and La Bete), and Sons of the Father (a mutant and mutant liking normal biker gang lead by Jason "Father" Todd, and includes Speedy, Eric "Punch" Todd, Zapper, Tess "The Doctor" Madrikan, Melissa "[nickname withheld for reasons]" Tolgaharna, and various unnamed normal bikers).
 
And a few important individual mutants, like Cat's Eye (ex hero turned assassin by IHA actions), Popper (teleporting kid who needs your help), Shadow Fire (mutant teacher who generates black colored fire), and Death (homeless mutant man who has a powerful death touch).
 
Also included is an adventure "What A Goddess Will Do For Her Child". Elaine Debone wants her son back. And Black Rose, the escaped Stronghold resident, is willing to help. And...well...the secret between them is something. I'll just leave it at that.
 
All in all, it is well written. It doesn't ignore Genocide at all (they existed, they were destroyed, IHA picked up what was left). I recommend it.
20230106_225732.heic 20230106_225739.heic

Going out on a limb for a couple of potential candidates:
 
1) Paul Ryan - used to be a darling of the Freedom Caucus back before they were only a circus sideshow yet he also managed to appeal to the more moderate members of the House Republican caucus as well. I've always thought his leaving the House had a lot more to do with Trump dragging the party into the gutter and Ryan wanting no part of THAT than any other possible motive.
 
If they reach 30-40 rounds of voting with no significant changes, I wouldn't be shocked to start hearing rumors of a "Draft Ryan" movement. 
 
2) On the other hand, if the Democrats wanted to eventually stop the Republican sideshow for some reason (like raising the debt ceiling this summer to save the government from default), it'd be interesting for them to do a "Draft Liz Cheney" thing.
 
As speaker, she wouldn't be onboard with endless meaningless investigations of pretend "crimes" nor would she be onboard with any "Impeach Biden" movement for no crime at all.
 
She'd be spending all her time trying to keep the Republican crazies in line and likely not have any time left over to promote a real Republican agenda of any sort (whether Trumpism or a more conventional Republicanism). And at worst, if she did manage to reign in their crazies and prevent them from recruiting more crazies to run for office in the 2024 election cycle, that'd only be good for the country in the long run. 
 
If the Democrats block voted for Cheney, they'd only need a couple of disgruntled Republicans to cross over and vote with them. 
 
It'd tie the Republican caucus in knots for the next two years while providing, perhaps, the chance for a couple of pieces of bipartisan legislation to pass like raising the debt ceiling (or getting rid of the whole concept of "a debt ceiling" altogether).

Classic.
 
 
 

1) AUTHOR: Lois McMaster Bujold
2) BOOK: A Civil Campaign is my literary comfort food. Funny, and a great example of exploring the second- and third-order effects of a technology.
3) COMIC: Have not seen any, and I don't count superhero comics
4) MOVIE: Kafka (I think it qualifies)
5) MOVIE POSTER: The Quiet Earth
6) TV SERIES: Tough choice between Babylon-5 or Firefly
7) ARTIST: Michael Whelan, but only because he's one of the few I know about. I will look up some of the names mentioned in this thread.
 
And I too have a soft spot in my heart for Plan Nine from Outer Space. As Scarecrow Video says of Ed Wood, he might have made decent movies if only he'd had more money and more talent. He still managed one of my favorite SF movie lines: "Because you Earth people are stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!" (Or something like that. I don't guarantee I remember the exact phrasing.)
 
Dean Shomshak

Today, Explained discusses the e;ection of George Santos; why nobody noticed (until too late) that he is almost entirely fictional; what can be done now (probably nothing, unless something turns up now that people are following the money); and what it means for American politics going forward.
 
https://www.stitcher.com/show/today-explained/episode/the-many-lies-of-george-santos-210502804
 
My guess is that Republican strategists are already prepping additional fictional candidates to flip seats in 2024. It's not clear that *any* amount of lying about oneself is a criminal act in running for office, or forces removal once the votes are cast. So, work out which candidate would attract votes the best, recruit an actor to play that role, and fake up some documentation if you think it's necessary. Once butt is in Congressional seat, who cares if the fraud is discovered? One can do a lot in two years.
 
Democrats, as usual, will be completely outflanked, bewildered, and impotently outraged once they figure out what happened.
 
Dean Shomshak

Since one of the GOP Reps said on the radio today that they *must* shut down the government at the first opportunity in order to Save America from the Biden Agenda, it sounds like the Freedom Caucus is well on its way to implementing its own agenda.
 
Which, as the WaPo pundit who was also interviewed put it, is to "blow things up." He thought they didn't really have policies; IMO he failed to see that anarchy is a policy. (Of a sort.)
 
Dean Shomshak

We have spent two years trying to keep Covid out of the house to protect our frail and now bedridden mother. Vaccination, boosters, masking whenever we leave the house. Yesterday, my brother tested positive, with a second test for confirmation. We are now trying to keep my brother as far from our mother as possible, as much as possible, but we can't afford to, like, send him to a hotel for a week. I am terrified.
 
CORRECTION: I just thought of a way to get him out of the house for a week that's in our budget. I hope he agrees, and it's not too late to prevent contagion.
 
Dean Shomshak