Dr Archeville

Re: New JLU Tonight Poor Carter....

Re: WWYCD: Power Loss Dead Head -- would collapse, a de-animate corpse. Dr. Archeville -- would frantically try and figure out what's going on, but would likely lack the intelligence needed to do so. He'd probably be lucky if he could make it out of his own laboratory.

Re: New JLU Tonight Would've been nice if CN had actually advertisted the fact they were gonna be showing new eps... I found out about it from the Atomic Think Tank (M&M boards), and the guy posting it had found out about it from tv.com. 'Course, this isn't the first time CN's premiered something and not bothered to tell anyone.... Hawkman was in the second ep. Sorta. In the JLU, Hawkman's Carter Hall, an archaeologist who found the Absorbatron (or something with a name like that), a 'black box' of a Thanagarian ship that crashed in Egypt 6000 years ago. The two Thanagarians inside raised up the locals level of tech (they built/got them to build the pyramids, and presumably inspired the myth of Horus the falcon-god). They eventually died. Carter Hall, when he touched the Absorbatron, had the entire ship's log (and the two Thanagarian's personal logs) telepathically donwloaded into his brain, so he now believes he's the reincarnation of the Hawkman that was on Earth so long ago. And he believes Hawkgirl is the reincarnation of the Hawkgirl that was there 'with him' 6000 years ago. Which is about as clear a backstory one could hope for a JLU Hawkman, given how horribly convoluted Hawkman's (and Hawkgirl's) backgrounds in the comics are. Oh, you don't know the full story? Here, let me tell you. Hawkman History 201: Hawkman originally was Carter Hall, a reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian Prince Khufu, who had in the modern day discovered that the mysterious "Nth Metal" ("nth" rhymes with "plinth") could negate the effects of gravity and allow him to fly. He donned a costume with large wings to allow him to control his flight and became the crimefighter, Hawkman. An archaeologist by trade, Hall used ancient weapons from the museum of which he was curator in his efforts. Hawkman was a charter member of the Justice Society of America, and became the JSA's chairman, a position he would hold until the end of the JSA's run in All Star Comics. He romanced Shiera Saunders, his reincarnated bride Princess Chay-Ara , who also became the crimefighter Hawkgirl. Along with most other superheroes, Hawkman's Golden Age adventures came to an end when the industry turned away from the genre in the early 1950s. His last appearance was in All Star Comics #57. Later in the decade, DC Comics, under editor Julius Schwartz, decided to revive a number of heroes in new incarnations, but with the same names and powers. Following the success of The Flash, Hawkman was revived, this time as an alien policeman from the planet Thanagar, though his powers were largely the same. Created by Gardner Fox and Joe Kubert, this Hawkman, Katar Hol, came to Earth with his wife Shayera - Hawkgirl (later Hawkwoman) - in pursuit of the criminal Byth Rok (a shapeshifter), and remained to fight crime on Earth. They adopted the named Carter and Shiera Hall and became curators of a museum. This Hawkman became a member of the Justice League of America, where he often verbally sparred with the iconoclastic liberal hero Green Arrow. In the 1960s it was revealed that the original Hawkman (as well as all the JSA members and Golden Age characters) lived on the parallel world Earth-Two, and that Katar Hol lived on Earth-One (with al the other JLA and Silver Age characterss). The JLA and JSA had an annual meeting throughout the 1960s and 1970s during which the two heroes often met. The landmark 1985 series Crisis on Infinite Earths resulted in a massive revision of much DC continuity and led to many characters being substantially rewritten. Hawkman was to suffer some of the greatest confusion as successive writers sought to explain his various appearances. In the revised timeline, there was a single Earth which had witnessed the JSA in the 1940s and the JLA decades later. Successive revisions sought to establish exactly who had been Hawkman and Hawkwoman at different stages. For the first few years the pre-Crisis incarnations were still used, during which time they were prominent across the DC Universe and joined the latest incarnation of the Justice League. Then DC decided to reboot Hawkman, in a pair of series entitled Hawkworld. In this series, Thanagar was a class society which conquered other worlds to enrich itself. Katar Hol was the son of a prominent official who rebelled against the status quo. He and his partner Shayera were sent to Earth and remained there for some years until Hol was apparently killed. This created a host of continuity errors, though, as the new Katar Hol was established as having only just arrived on Earth, raising the question as to who had been around previously. As an attempt to resolve the problem, it was established through retcons that the Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkwoman had also operated during the 1940s, and that Nth Metal came from Thanagar. They had remained active and then joined the original incarnation of the JLA. Moreover, yet another Hawkman - Fel Andar, a Thanagarian agent - had been the one who joined the Justice League during the 1980s, pretending to be a hero but secretly seeking to infiltrate the JLA. The mini-series Zero Hour (which sought to untangle some of the continuity knots inadvertantly created by Crisis) muddied the waters further by merging the different Hawkmen into a "hawk god", who had his own series briefly during the mid-1990s, and who had a small role in the alternate-future series Kingdom Come. In the later 1990s, the series JSA untangled Hawkman's continuity, establishing him as Carter Hall, a man who - along with Shiera - had been reincarnated dozens of times since his life in ancient Egypt b/c they had been exposed to the Nth Metal drive of a crashed Thanagarian ship, and the Nth Metal somehow strengthened their souls so they would be perpetually reincarnated, rather than pass on when they died. The Katar Hol of Hawkworld had also come to Earth during the 1990s, as established. The 1980s imposter spy went back to Thanagar. The status of the hawk god is unclear. Hawgirl/Hawkwoman History 201: The Golden Age Hawkgirl was Shiera Sanders (or Saunders), the reincarnation of the Egyptian princess Chay-Ara, and partner of Carter Hall, the Golden Age Hawkman. The Hawks were members of the All-Star Squadron, and while Hawkman was also a member of the Justice Society of America, Hawkgirl was not, only assisting the group on occasion (although recent retcons seem to point to Hawkgirl being formally inducted into the JSA at some time). Eventually, Carter and Shiera married and had one son, Hector Hall, who is the current Doctor Fate. Through retcon, Carter and Shiera joined the Justice League of America in the early 1980s. Shiera died when she was merged with Carter and Katar Hol to form a new Hawkman version, a "hawk god" creature, during the events of Zero Hour. The Silver Age Hawkwoman was Shayera Hol, a law enforcement officer from the planet Thanagar and wife of Katar Hol, the Silver Age Hawkman. She was a member of the Justice League. When Shayera and Katar Hol came to Earth in pursuit of the shapeshifter Byth Rok, they were befriended by Midway City police commissioner George Emmett, who established cover identities for them as Carter and Shiera Hall. After capturing Byth and bringing him back to their planet, Katar and Shayera chose to return to study Earth's crimefighting methods, and they fought against evil as the superheroes Hawkman and Hawkwoman. As Hawkwoman, Shayera eventually joined her husband as a member of the Justice League. As Shiera, she first worked as Carter's secretary, but later became co-director of the Midway City Museum. Recently, Thanagar had established itself as a military dictatorship bent on conquering other planets. Hawkman and Hawkwoman thwarted Thanagarian plans to invade Earth, destroying their own starship in the process. Hawkman and Hawkwoman remain on Earth, regarded as traitors by everyone on Thanagar. Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Shayera Hol was wiped out of DC Comics continuity. Late in the 1980s, a Thanagarian spy called Fel Andar arrived in Earth to infiltrate the Justice League as Hawkman II. Then he took on an unwitting earthwoman, Sharon "Hall", as his Hawkwoman. This impostor, intending to gain his teammates confidence, claimed to be Carter and Shiera Hall's son Carter Hall, Jr. He was actually working for the future alien-alliance Invasion. When Sharon learnt about the masquerade she exposed the truth to J'onn J'onzz and Maxwell Lord. Confronted by both, Hawkman II escaped back to Thanagar but not before murdering Sharon for her betrayal. Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Fel Andar was wiped out of DC Comics continuity. In the early 1990's, Thanagarian policemen partners Katar Hol and Shayera Thal arrived on Earth with the mission to capture the Thanagarian shape-shifting criminal Byth. They were part of a force which used the hawk as their symbol, and also had a winged, gravity-defying harness. Together they fought crime on Earth for some time until their tempestuous working relationship led them to break up their partnership. Then came the events of Zero Hour where Katar was merged with Carter and Shiera Hall in a new Hawkman version, which briefly created the "hawk god" creature. This Hawkman adventured for a brief time before going insane and being banished into limbo. Shortly after that, Kendra Saunders became the new Hawkgirl, and Carter Hall, the original Hawkman, was ressurected. Shayera met them on her final battle against Byth when the three Hawks, aided by the Animal Man, defeated the Thanagarian criminal for good. Shayera's mission on Earth was ended and she went back to Thanagar. The current Hawkgirl is Kendra Saunders, a young woman who committed suicide. When Kendra's soul left her body, the soul of her grandaunt, Shiera Hall, the Golden Age Hawkgirl, entered it. She currently has all of Kendra's memories, but almost none of Shiera's. She is a member of the Justice Society. Future JLU eps are to be: Chaos at the Earth’s Core First aired: 9/24/2005, 10:00pm EST Green Lantern leads Stargirl and Supergirl to Skartaris, a fanastic world where they meet a new hero, The Warlord. To Another Shore First aired: 9/24/2005, 10:30pm EST Wonder Woman learns of a plot to steal the powers of the 3,000 year-old corpse of The Viking Prince. Flash and Substance First aired: 1/1/2006, time unknown The Flash must handle an onslaught of super-villains during the opening of a museum in his honor. Dead Reckoning First aired: 1/1/2006, time unknown The League comes to the aid of Boston "Deadman" Brand, the ghost of a deceased circus acrobat, who needs their help in recovering the souls of members of a monastic order. Patriot Act First aired: 1/1/2006, time unknown Green Arrow must lead a team of non-powered superheroes against a berserk super-soldier attacking Metropolis. The Great Brain Robbery First aired: 1/1/2006, time unknown A mystic artifact causes Lex Luthor and the Flash to switch bodies. (Fitting, since Michael Rossenbaum, who does the voice of the Flash in JLU, plays Lex Luthor in SMALLVILLE )

Re: The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Clichés Nice additions, DangerousDan (and all you others )! And you're quite right, Publius. I've no idea why the link's not working; I'll see if I can find a mirrored site somewhere else.

Re: The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Clichés *checks* *double-checks* *triple checks* BLAST!!! Well, since 3:46 (A problem involving an alien is resolved in a manner dependent on the unusual and heretofore-unknown location of the alien's reproductive organs) has to my knowledge only been in two movies (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, when Kirk kicked the alien in the 'knees', and Men in Black II, with the "Ballchinian" alien), it seems like two is the magic number....

Re: The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Clichés No, it doesn't, since my "argument" was doing nothing but explain why humanoid aliens (and many other things) are so commonplace, and that, as I said at the beginning, a lot of these cliches are grounded in the realities of making movies/tv shows with the resources available at the time.

Click here for the original list. Note that the original list does have some pertinent information not copied here. Also, I've added a few notes of my own in red showing that some of these clichés are more grounded in reality than the authors may like to think. Section I: Overused Plots and Storylines 1. Post-cataclysmic rag-tag armies struggle to kick the Rooskies out of the good ol' US of A. [That's called "propaganda." America's quite good at it.] 2. Post-cataclysmic rag-tag armies struggle to survive against gangs of bandits, mutants, cyberpunks, bikers, etc. [*glances at reports still coming out of New Orleans*] 3. The rag-tag rebel army/fleet struggles valiantly to overthrow the Evil Empire. [Not quite an Evil Empire, but the Revolutionary War, anyone? The US forces could certainly have been accurately described as 'rag-tag'.] 4. The Good Guys travel through time to stop a historical Bad Guy, usually Hitler. 5. The Bad Guy travels through time to kill the Hero in his childhood, or to prevent him from ever being born. 6. The Chronocops travel in time to catch a Bad Guy who escaped into some other era. 7. Scientists work feverishly to develop a cure for the Supervirus or a weapon to stop the Invincible Bad Guys. 8. An alien: --A. Is stranded on earth; --B. Befriends a human child or falls in love with an earth gal; --C. Is pursued by shadowy malevolent Pentagon officials under the pretense of national security; --D. Uses his/her/its alien powers to defeat the shadowy malevolent Pentagon officials, making them look foolish without really harming them; --E. Makes teary farewell and returns to its home planet. 9. A virtual reality program is activated, and the distinction between reality and the program becomes confused or indistinguishable. 10. People connect their brains directly to computers and get dependent on them. 11. Aliens travel a zillion miles to loot the earth of resources which exist in far greater and much more easily exploitable quantities on the many uninhabited bodies they pass on the way to earth. 12. A complex computer system spontaneously becomes self-aware. 13. A couple files an application to the government for permission to conceive a baby. [some countries are considering something like this to regulate population growth.] 14. A human falls in love with a robot. 15. A robot falls in love with a human. 16. UFO abductions. 17. Brain-controlling parasites attempt to wrest control of human race. 18. Aliens put someone on trial for the sins of humanity. 19. A high-tech amusement park goes lethally berserk. 20. Death from old age turns out to be due to some simple, single cause, leading to an easy immortality treatment, with consequent catastrophic social implications. 21. A great alien hunter decides that humans are the most entertaining prey of all, and visits Earth to bag a few. [The Most Dangerous Game. No aliens required.] 22. Psychedelic drugs give somebody magical power over space, time and reality. 23. Aliens with completely incomprehensible motivations make war on the human race/invade earth. [The (Current) War in Iraq?] 24. The bureaucratic/reactionary mindset stands in the way of scientific progress. A researcher overcomes it through ability, purity of heart, and use of the scientific method. Or not. [Yep. Only we could use some more of the overcoming; right now the bureacracy has the upper hand.] 25. Two hostile factions colonize a planet within walking distance of each other. 26. The government ships criminals off to other planets. [Australia?] 27. A human male becomes pregnant. 28. An android discovers emotions and loses control. 29. A young researcher: --A. Gets a job at a Mega-huge Corporation or Ultra-secret Government Agency; --B. Learns that the employer's latest discovery has a Nasty Side Effect or involves some obvious human rights abuses; --C. Confronts the employer, who casually dismisses the researcher's concerns and chides her/him for not being a "team player"; --D. Tries to blow the whistle to avert disaster; --E. Gets hounded by Shadowy Malevolent Goons; --F. Attempts to meet with inside sources, and finds them either dead or with just enough life left to utter a cryptic clue; --G. Watches the disaster overtake the CEO; --H. Testifies before Congress; --I. Enters the Witness Protection Program; in roughly the order given above. 30. Aliens invade earth in order to eat humans. 31. An AI turns on its creators. [Yeah, kids never turn on their parents...] 32. A person from the past goes into suspended animation and wakes up in modern times, or a person from modern times goes into suspended animation and wakes up in the future. [Yeah, that's a lil' thing called "Linear Time" -- people usually wake up after they go to sleep, not before.] 33. A person travels back in time to meet a major historical personage and winds up either becoming that person or taking that person's place at a critical juncture. 34. The rightful monarch or long-lost heir is restored to the throne. [How is this a "sci-fi" cliche?] 35. A sexually selective plague kills off or sterilizes almost all of the men, or almost all of the women. 36. A human discovers that the human race is being controlled by aliens. 37. The alien invasion that flounders because their technological advantage is perfectly neutralized by their lack of resources, compared to the humans. 38. Earth is threatened by an asteroid, and a space mission is mounted to save the planet. [Well, if there's a rock coming this way, I'd hope we'd at least try to do something about it.] 39. Humans are seen as a menace to galactic society, having developed technology over a few short centuries compared with the thousands it took the other races. 40. The government bans music, painting, dancing, or some other art form; only the hero seems to care enough to do anything about it. [Footloose and Dirty Dancing were sci-fi movies? ] 41. A technological innovation prompts a large portion of society to violently suppress it. [Yeah, Big Oil has absolutely no reason to suppress developements in fuel efficiency...] 42. "Single female monster ISO single human male. Object: Mating." 43. An entire society is run by a computer. Maybe it goes beserk. 44. An being is sent to earth on a mission of assassination or genocide; it changes its mind after getting to know (and perhaps fall in love with) one or more humans. 45. The crew's memories are wiped. As they recover, they discover that they are helping the guy who did it to them. 46. A man escapes a VR simulation, and later discovers that he has escaped into another VR simulation. 47. An alien that is substantially like us doesn't understand love, and visits humans in order to learn. The lesson is completed after the alien gets a Dose of Good Luvin'. Section II: Overused Settings and Characterizations 1. Aliens whose thinking is so different from ours that no communication is possible. 2. Alien races that find our women attractive, while we find theirs to be repulsive. 3. Alien races who differ from us only in skin color and/or facial features. [that's called "low special effects budget"] 4. Extra breasts on the alien women. 5. Aliens that are incomprehensible to humans but understand humans perfectly. 6. Alien species depicted as having no ethnic, religious, cultural, philosophical or political variance, especially: --A. Wise mystics --B. Stoic warriors --C. Pastoral innocents --D. Cowardly sneaks --E. Amazon babes 7. Alien species with personality traits or cultural mores that are treated as invariable laws of nature. 8. Alien races whose names all have lots of hard consonants. 9. Lots of apostrophes are packed into alien words and phrases for no apparent reason. 10. Humans of future have no ethnic, religious, cultural, philosophical or political variance. 11. Cities of future are depicted as though sanitation workers have been on strike from now until then. [Ever been to Detroit? (I keed, I keed!)] 12. The entire story setting is dominated by huge impersonal business conglomerates. [Which would never happen.... *goes to watch a movie made by Time/AOL/Disney/Warner/MegahugeCo*] 13. Planets with the same exact climate planet-wide (planets without atmosphere excepted). 14. Super-intelligent AI's that speak, behave, and act in a manner indistinguishable from the human characters. [scientists have been working on making computers this sophisticated since the 50s; Alexander Turing devised a test where a judge has a conversation with a person and with a computer, both in seperate rooms, and if he couldn't tell which was which, the computer passed the test.] 15. The incredibly competent man-of-action with more skills/degrees than you can shake a blaster at. [Leonardo DaVinci? Benjamin Franklin?] 16. The incredibly competent woman-of-action with large breasts, no sexual inhibitions, and more skills/degrees than you can shake a blaster at. 17. Shadowy malevolent Pentagon officials. [Yeah, all real-world Pentagon official are forthright and honest...] 18. Each and every character has a tainted history. 19. A society consists of: --A. A handful of ultra-powerful ultra-rich; --B. Criminal lords who control everything not controlled by the ultra-rich; --C. Police whose only principle of operation is maintenance of the status quo; --D. Hordes of poor people starving in the streets; --E. Absolutely no middle class whatsoever. Nonetheless, the society manages to remain at a high technological level. [sounds like America.] 20. Societies where all technology has been destroyed except automobiles and their equivalents, which are still running yet there are no mechanics, workshops, or gas stations. 21. Heroes who are so emotionally stunted that they don't care about close friends/relatives that die as long as they complete some mission. [That's called "basic military training"] 22. Any character with a perpetual two-day growth of beard. 23. Futuristic societies where only the ultra-rich can afford quality health care, and everyone else is reduced to selling their bodily organs. 24. Beings of pure energy. 25. A society in which everyone is required to die on his or her Nth birthday. 26. Creatures from our mythology (e.g., centaurs, dragons) occur among the wildlife native to an alien planet. 27. Aliens whose sociology, values and beliefs are indistinguishable from those of an Oriental culture, e.g., feudal Japan.. 28. Eccentric scientists. [Albert Einstein. Nikola Tesla.] 29. The assistant to the scientist who is either deformed or dating the scientist's daughter. 30. Future societies that have relapsed into feudalism. 31. Alternative Earths where society is just like some society of the past, with some technodoodads added. [Wouldn't that be what the "Alternative" in "Alternative Earth" means?] 32. Palace guards who are ineffectual due to ineptitude or inattentiveness. [The National Guard stationed in New Orleans?] 33. Fantastic but non-viable creatures (men with tortoiseshell backs, gigantic insects) made possible by high levels of radiation, and which don't suffer any ill effects from it. 34. Aliens that speak human languages without error, having taken no pains to learn how. 35. An alien tongue is translated into perfect English, except for gratuitious use of alien units of time and distance. 36. Aliens whose vocal apparatus is just like ours, so that they can speak human languages with only a slight accent. 37. Omnipotent pacifist aliens who impose their philosophy on us without bothering to protect us from the races they have left alone. 38. Men and women live in separate societies (and I'm not talking Mars and Venus, either). 39. Clones are inexplicably different from regular people in a particular manner (mentally unstable, don't mind being used as cannon fodder, etc.). 40. The vast majority of alien races consider 20ºC to be room temperature. 41. Societies that are utopian in every regard except for one serious drawback that completely outweighs the utopian aspects, such as having the death penalty for some really minor offense. 42. Disembodied live brains living in tanks. 43. Eyes that glow (sometimes accompanied by minor-key chords in TV and film). 44. Sentient artificial intelligences that wish to eliminate the human race. 45. Sentient artificial intelligences that select a human figure to holographically represent themselves. 46. Computers with voice synthesizers either use a sensuous female contralto, a threatening male baritone, or a nasally tinny neutral voice. 47. Bad guys who miss everything they shoot at. 48. Beginning warriors who hit everything they shoot at. 49. Characters who are always ready for intimate relations. [This describes many men I know... and several women.] 50. All genetically superior humans have an innate drive to rule, conquer, or kill everyone else. [it's called ego, something someone who's "superior," or who's been told all his life that he's "superior," would have in abundance.] 51. Alien vampires that feed on brainwaves/life-force/exotic biochemicals/psychic energies that can only be obtained from sentient life forms. [First off, vampires are by definition beings that feed off of other beings. Secondly, sentinet means "able to perceive and interact with one's environment." People are sentient. So are cows. So are cockroaches.] 52. Post-cataclysmic societies that treat items of the lost technology as holy relics. [Cargo cults.] 53. Alien monsters that find humans edible, tasty, and non-toxic. 54. The evil duplicate of the hero, sidekick, universe, etc. 55. The grammatical differences between the languages used by humans and aliens are cited as conclusive proof of radically different ways of thinking. 56. Sentient AIs that communicate with other sentient AIs via their voice synthesizer. 57. The intelligent and confident woman who can be bribed with a dress. 58. Androids with intelligence equal to an IQ of around 1000 who can't seem to figure out human emotions, humor, or verbal contractions. [There are a lot of humans who don't have a sense of humor and are emotionally stunted.] 59. Everyone in the post-catastrophic future dresses like heavy metal musicians. 60. A common proverb gets "translated" into more generic terms, resulting in obfuscation of the meaning. 61. An alien race has a trait that greatly complicates interacting with them, but even after centuries of contact with humans they still manage to keep it secret. 62. The ancient spacefairing alien race that: --A. Has existed for zillions of years; --B. Went into hiding, left this universe/dimension, or went extinct so long ago that no current spacefaring race has ever met them; --C. Is known solely through legends, ancient artifacts of amazing technological advancement, and/or evidence that they created one or more (sometimes all) currently living races. 63. Aliens whose language is not pronounceable by humans, but who can still speak human langauges with relative ease. 64. The villain who can infallibly predict how the protagonists will react to a given turn of events. 65. All religious figures are: --A. Intolerant hatemongers who make Hitler look like Jesus; --B. All-tolerant lovemongers who make Jesus look like Hitler; --C. Ignorant, unwashed rabble. 66. A society of aliens and/or villains that are amazingly similar to an Infamous Human Political Movement. 67. Societies wherein gender roles and attitudes are completely reversed. 68. Whiz kids. 69. Most aliens breathe oxygen, just like humans do. 70. Bored, omnipotent, immortal beings. [if you're omnipotent and immortal, you're likely going to get bored at some point. Heck, simple non-omnipotent immortality can lead to boredom. Heck, non-immortal, non-omnipotent people get bored!] 71. An immortal being that wants to die. 72. People with cyborg implants will needlessly exhibit the benefits of this hardware just to relieve boredom or show off. 73. Children with access to the highest levels of military planning, scientific research, and governmental decision-making. 74. A smart, courageous, gorgeously attractive woman who is rarely if ever asked out. 75. Every planet seems to have a surface gravity of 9.8 meters per second squared and rotates around its axis in about 24 hours, just like Earth. 76. All of the spacefaring races have roughly the same level of technology. 77. Aliens that transform into a colorful puddle when they die. 78. The Free Love Utopia, populated only by fabulously good-looking people, that somehow remains free of sexually transmitted diseases, has no relationship turmoil, and is not inundated with hordes of people looking for easy sex. 79. The untrained, average Joe who can take on and defeat highly trained and well-equipped operatives. 80. The Wise Race of Ancients who do nothing for the protagonists except offer advice. 81. The Wise Race of Ancients that secretly supports the protagonists. 82. The former Great Man of Action who is now just a washed-up drunk. 83. An interstellar realm is ruled by a handful of powerful families, each scheming to eliminate the rest, instead of forming alliances. 84. Except for the distinguishing marks on aliens and bad guys, everyone has perfect skin. 85. Upon arrival in a distant epoch, the time travellers can speak the local language without accent. 86. The city's main computer can be accessed from any of a number of public-access terminals located conveniently throughout the city. 87. The less technologically advanced a culture is, the more spritually advanced it is. 88. The modification of one custom, law, or common belief would transform Western society into Utopia. 89. All female scientists are good-looking; male scientists are average-looking. 90. Except for full-blown dictatorships, government officials of the future never abuse their powers. 91. Not even the soldiers or marines make vulgar jokes. 92. In the future, everyone's taste in music and literature extends solely to the classics. 93. Immortals who assume many identities over the course of human history. 94. Everyone's counterpart in the parallel universe has, as his/her associates, the counterparts of the same people that the primary knows in this universe. [The important word to remember here is parallel.] 95. Whenever the captain walks onto the bridge, the same people are always on duty. 96. Superheroes wear primary colors (red, blue, and yellow). 97. Supervillains wear secondary colors (green, purple, and orange). 98. Only bad guys have goatees. 99. In the future, everyone is good in bed. [The wonders of modern medicine ] 100. Entire cities whose buildings use the same architectural design. 101. World governments are enlightened and efficient; nation-states are backward and primitive. [For a world government to work, it'd have to be efficient.] 102. In the future, everyone either supports their government fully, or is engaged in a terrorist campaign to overthrow it. 103. In the future, government corruption has been eradicated. 104. The tribal chieftain's eldest child is a defiant free-spirited youth, and if female is the sexiest member of the tribe. 105. The alien's superpowers become manifest when he/she/it is exposed to Terran conditions. 106. All alien females, galaxy-wide, use cosmetics the same way that Western women do. 107. Although humans still have multiple languages, each alien race has only one langauge. 108. Kindly enlightened races are native to beautiful planets with congenial climate; cruel, benighted races arise on ugly planets with brutal weather. 109. Ths ship's computer is programmed to track the location of each and every person aboard, but is never programmed to report personnel in unauthorized areas, or those who suddenly disappear. 110. Among the intelligent creatures, man-sized beings predominate. 111. The token black guy is the muscular scion of a Noble Warrior culture. 112. The entire population of the planet lives in one city. 113. The energy being takes the form of a mass of flickering lights. Section III: Overused story events and plot devices 1. Discussions, ending with a joke, about how bureaucracies are the same everywhere in the galaxy. 2. The most intelligent course of action is precluded by orders from high-ranking ignoramus, on the basis of a transparently flawed rationale. [This would be called government. ] 3. Technological malfunction as a plot device. 4. The timer count-down on the Bad Guy Device being stopped by the hero with bare seconds left. 5. Alien contact perceived or regarded as a spiritual/quasi-religious experience. [Cargo cults.] 6. Aliens who are vastly more intelligent and advanced than we are, but we beat them anyway by "ingenuity," plain guts, or exploiting an Achilles Heel. [Custer's Last Stand? The Alamo?] 7. A teenage genius discovers an entire new field of science, and builds practical devices that use it, in his bedroom. 8. The psychological trauma/attitude problem of female character is cured (or at least temporarily relieved) by a Dose of Good Luvin' from the hero. 9. Persons of different species interbreed without difficulty. [Male Donkey + Female Horse = Mule. Male Horse + Female Donkey = Hinny. Male Puma + Female Leopard = Pumapard. Male False Killer Whale + Female Bottlenose Dolphin = Wolphin. Male Caracal + Female Serval = Caraval. Male Serval + Female Caracal = Servical. Camel + Llama = Cama. Goat + Sheep = Geep.] 10. The author lectures the viewer/reader; the lecture takes the form of a Platonic Dialogue between two characters, or of the Cosmic Message from the Ultra-enlightened Aliens to the Great Unwashed Human Masses. 11. A conspiracy develops, involving lots of people, and remains secret for an extended period of time. [Nixon's whistle-blower, Deep Throat?] 12. The author attempts to wittily euphemize the phrase go screw yourself by referring to it as "a physiologically impossible act". 13. The availability of firearms notwithstanding, swordfighting returns as a significant method of combat. 14. A Big Surprise awaits the reader/viewer at the end of the tale: --A. The Barbaric Society is really post-cataclysmic Western civilization. --B. The man and woman who flee from a doomed civilization and start rebuilding on the third planet of a medium-sized yellow star are named Adam and Eve --C. The alien children, slaves, or pets are really the parents, masters, or owners --D. The head of Terran government is a disguised Bad Guy or is under direct control of the Bad Guys. --E. A major figure in the conflict is really another major figure in disguise. --F. The Kindly Benevolent Aliens are neither. --G. The reputedly inhospitable Outdoors is not only inhabitable, but markedly better. --H. It was all just a dream/game/simulation. --I. The alien threat was just a hoax to unite humanity. --J. An ancient civilization was actually founded by space aliens. --K. A major historical figure (Jesus, Einstein, Lincoln, Elvis) was really a space alien. --L. The apparently-human leader of the robot/cyborg army is also a robot or cyborg, and this becomes appartent when his/her/its "skin" falls off. 15. Telepaths use their power to achieve a heightened sexual experience. 16. Telepaths are regarded as witches or lunatics, and are dealt with accordingly. 17. Inherited supernatural power (telepathy, lycanthropy, etc.) becomes pronounced at the onset of puberty. 18. Humans leave for the stars, forget all about Earth, and rediscover it later. 19. No matter how slowly the monster shambles along, or how quickly the victim runs, the monster is always right behind the victim when he/she trips or encounters an obstacle. 20. When fleeing danger, females trip over their own shadows while men can sprint without caution. 21. An alien artifact imbues human(s) with incredible abilities. 22. A fighter pilot, upon destroying an alien vessel, yells "yeeeeeeee-haaaaaaa!" [A long and time-honored tradition among fighter pilots; they do it when they shoot down enemy craft, so why wouldn't they do it when shooting down alien craft? ] 23. The time traveller helps the future society mellow out by introducing music from his period. 24. Time travellers go back in time to prevent some Bad Thing from happening and in the process actually cause the Bad Thing to happen. 25. Time travellers go back in time to prevent some Bad Thing from happening; they succeed, but cause something worse to happen. 26. When a player gets "killed" in a virtual reality simulation, they also die in real life. 27. A war gets started over a stupid misunderstanding between two sides that otherwise have no reason to fight, and no effort is made to resolve the crisis diplomatically. [*looks to the Middle East*] 28. The two opponents in a war have been fighting for so long that they've forgotten how the war got started in the first place, but no effort is made to resolve the crisis diplomatically. [*looks again to the Middle East*] 29. The two opponents in a war have been fighting for decades/centuries/millenia; the main characters end the war peacefully in a matter of days or hours. 30. Humans have a special quality that makes us unique, so that even superbeings can learn something from us. 31. A pet survives the disaster, and is discovered at the end of the story. [How is this a sci-fi cliche?] 32. So-called elite forces get their butts kicked by a smaller, less well-armed force. 33. A scientist develops an artificially intelligent computer system that can understand natural language and draw inductive conclusions from incomplete data, and uses it on projects far less practical and/or profitable than such a computer would be. 34. Someone gets healed by contact with aliens (often by a laying on of hands). 35. The greedy businessman refuses to recognize that his dangerous product/service will screw him over long before he can hope to make a profit. 36. The monster kills/eats the token black guy first. 37. Explorers are greeted as gods by the natives, who cling to this belief in spite of everything the explorers do and say. 38. An alien custom throws humans into confusion, even though one or more human cultures share the custom and have followed it for centuries. 39. Low-brow white male human bar patron of the future spouts bigoted remarks that wouldn't be tolerated today, while protagonists look on in silent dismay at the "dark side" of the human race. 40. A person's physical impairments vanish when they are possessed by the Alien Entity. [When you move into a run-down house, you fix it up.] 41. A technologically advanced race conquers a technologically inferior race, and puts them to work doing things that the conqueror's machines can do far more efficiently. 42. The gang of cute and/or misfit kids rescue the universe, where a large group of competent, organized and well-armed adults failed. 43. The aliens' plan to exterminate the human race is stopped at the last moment when they notice a human exhibiting some virtue , such as love, humor, etc. 44. A fellow has Super Powers, but can only use them when he is emotionally agitated. 45. The protagonists destroy the entire social structure and governmental system of the society they encounter, and only a few old fuddy-duddies complain. 46. A problem involving an alien is resolved in a manner dependent on the unusual and heretofore-unknown location of the alien's reproductive organs. 47. The human abdomen is an ideal incubator for Alien Eggs/Spawn, and this has no apparent effect on the host until the Alien Spawn erupts from their stomach in a messy fashion. [The abdomen has the most room, and the uterus is already there. Early pregnancy -- and most tumors -- aren't visible to the naked eye.] 48. No matter how large a ship is, any monster let loose on board will learn its way around in an hour's time, enabling it to sneak up behind its victims without fail. 49. A female antagonist changes sides after receiving a Dose of Good Luvin' from the hero. 50. The crewmember who is brainwashed or otherwise subverted into sabotaging/betraying the ship is allowed to return to duty, with no concerns that they remain a security risk. 51. Resolving the imminent threat to mankind requires that the drunken has-been get sober. 52. A high-ranking matriarch, in a society that oppresses men, falls for the Hero's rugged charms. 53. A crewmember has a radical change of personality, but the few people who notice don't seem particularily bothered by it. 54. Human spies are sent to inflitrate an alien society in order to better understand it. 55. When the Evil Overlord dies, none of his surviving henchmen move into the power vacuum; instead, his empire collapses. 56. The Good Guys, after a setback, launch their counterattack with the help of members of a rastafarian-like culture. 57. The death of the Bad Guy involves a long fall. 58. At some point the protagonists must enter a hostile region called The Forbidden Zone. 59. When the Heroes destroy the computer that runs an entire society, it's considered a good thing for the members of that society. 60. When an ordinary crewmember transforms into the Enlightened Being of Cosmic Power, he departs the scene instead of staying around to help out his still-human buddies. 61. A society of humans adopts an artifical means of reproduction (such as cloning), forgets about sex and intimacy, and has to learn about it at some later point. 62. Any weapon can be picked up and used by anyone, no matter how lacking they are in training and/or upper-body strength. 63. When defeat is imminent, it is avoided by a strategem, tactic, or weapon that could just as easily been used at the start of the fight. 64. Away teams going on dangerous missions are comprised of irreplaceable members of the ship's crew, such as the captain, medical chief, chief engineer, etc. Expendible flunkies are left behind to mind the store. 65. Time travel from the future into modern times winds up in the year of the show's production. [budgetary contraints -- it's cheaper to have one future set and use the backstage lot for the modern set than to have a future set and a second future set or a distant past set.] 66. Any class of people having super powers will be persecuted by normal humanity. [seems likely. Normal humanity's kinda narrow-minded that way.] 67. The lowest-ranking members of any mission team are doomed. 68. A starship captain disobeys a direct order from a superior. When the dust settles, he's still a starship captain. 69. The episode ends with the two arch-enemies playing a game of chess. 70. Malignant aliens land in densely-populated regions, are instantly targetted by a criminal (who is fatally defeated). Benevolent aliens land in the boondocks. 71. After a remonstration from the Good Guys, the Great Dictator confesses that he was merely trying to keep order, and reforms. 72. The possessed human exhibits superhuman strength. 73. The crewman in the leaky spacesuit is rescued with seconds of air to spare. 74. The stranded heroes come across a crashed space vessel. The ship is returned to a serviceable condition after only a little bit of repair work. Section IV: Silly Science 1. Super-intelligent computers blow up when the hero confuses them. 2. Super-intelligent computers get confused when the hero says to them "everything I say is a lie" or some other paradoxical statement. 3. Space vessels lack fuses, circuit breakers, and surge supressors, so that the control panels explode when some distant portion of the ship is damaged. 4. Computers get reprogrammed by someone who has no knowledge of the computer's operating system. 5. Computer terminals display the current operation (e.g., "UPLOADING VIRUS" ) in huge, flashing letters. 6. The patently obvious design flaws in a vehicle or weapon system go uncorrected during the entire life cycle of the system in question. 7. A vehicles and/or weapon systems is deployed in an entirely impractical environment. 8. Spacecraft features have been pointlessly carried over from water-borne designs. 9. An untested medical treatment is used. It's 100% effective and has no side effects. 10. Some acquires a medical condition that will be fatal in an amount of time expressed to the tenth significant digit; the cure is found and applied in the nick of time, enabling a 100% recovery. 11. A robot is shot and bleeds oil. [Hydraulic fluid, most likely.] 12. Spacecraft, when shot, blow up as if they had been packed with gasoline and liquid oxygen. 13. Computers, when shot, explode as if they had been stuffed full of Roman candles. 14. An item of technology is quickly reverse-engineered by a far less advanced group of researchers. 15. A group of aliens is smart enough to steal someone else's technology, but too stupid to make any improvements on it. 16. A technological development progresses from half-baked theory to useful implementation in fifteen minutes instead of fifteen months. 17. After twenty years of crew members being tossed around like the balls in a bingo cage, the spacecraft still has no seatbelts. 18. Nuclear weapons have an effect well out of proportion for reasonable yields. 19. Computer security protocols are overridden merely by saying "override" to the computer. 20. A clone grows to match the cloned person's state of physiological development in a small fraction of the time. 21. Clones think, act, and speak in a manner indistinguishable from that of the cloned person. 22. Clones come out of the cloning vat with the same haircut as the individual cloned. 23. AI software has unique properties that prevent it from being copied or transmitted like any other data. [The same could be said of human minds.] 24. AI software is able to bypass the security protocols of the operating system in which it runs. 25. On-board computers always know exactly how long it will take for the malfunction to blow up the ship. 26. Computers that exist in the far future or are alleged to be 'cutting edge,' will demonstrate less functionality than a Commodore 64. 27. Two races have never contacted each other, cannot speak each other's language, and cannot possibly have worked out compatible protocols for transmission of data; nonetheless, their computers enable them to communicate over their ships' viewscreens upon first contact. 28. Twentieth century firearms are abandoned, even though the high-tech replacement is significantly more complex to engineer, more costly to build, and is not appreciably deadlier, longer-ranged, or more accurate. 29. When an extra or a minor character is shot, they fall over immediately dead; when a major character is shot, they either survive with a nasty-looking wound, or they linger long enough to utter some parting words. 30. Lasers are visible when travelling through the vacuum of outer space. 31. A robot that can't climb stairs is deployed in an area where stairs are common. 32. A tactical system that can only deal with targets visible to the naked eye is still considered worthwhile. 33. A tactical system of the future that has no targetting capabilities is still considered satisfactory. 34. "Reversing the polarity" is the solution to virtually every engineering problem. 35. Laser beams travel about as quickly as an arrow. 36. Heroes/ships can dodge laser beams because the beams travel about as quickly as an arrow. 37. Alien artifacts still work after being abandoned for a million years. 38. Spaceships make a whoosh as they go by. 39. Huge, expensive spacecraft are used to transport inexpensive goods in tiny quantities. 40. Stars go shooting past the spaceship as it flies through space. 41. A large dose of radiation results in super powers instead of super tumors. 42. A large dose of radiation causes an individual creature to "evolve" into a more advanced form. 43. The solution for a problem solved four weeks ago is thrown away and never seen again. 44. When a character is aged prematurely, or cured of premature aging, hair that has already grown changes color to match. 45. A space vessel is sent out on missions before its systems are fully operational. 46. The Hero knows how to defuse the bomb, but can't remember which of two wires to cut. 47. When a computer is working on a difficult problem, the increased power requirements cause the room lights to dim or flicker. 48. Robots that despite their size and function are designed with exactly the same features as a human (two arms and legs, ten fingers, two eyes, same joint system, etc.) 49. Somebody lifts a car (or some other heavy object) with his bionic arm, even though the rest of his body is normal flesh and bone and couldn't possibly support the load. 50. The plans for a complicated device can be downloaded onto a 1.44 Meg floppy. 51. Increasing a computer beyond a certain level of speed, memory capacity, or complexity causes it to become self-aware. 52. Creatures capable of changing their shapes can also alter their mass while they're at it. 53. A hole the size of a barn is made in the hull of a space ship; decompression of the ship's atmosphere takes a half minute or so. 54. A hole the size of a dime is made in the hull of a space ship; decompression of the ship's atmosphere takes a half minute or so. 55. A large nuclear explosion can be obtained by putting several smaller devices together. 56. The same energy beam which causes rocks, buildings and robots to violently explode produces only a puff of smoke and a bit of burnt flesh and clothing when used on a living being. 57. The sewers/ventilation ducts provide easy access throughout the city/ship/castle. 58. All computers have madly whirling tape drives. [All computers did, back in the 50s or so.] 59. When something explodes in space, the shock wave is ring-shaped. 60. When an orbiting space vessel is crippled or otherwise put out of action, it immediately starts falling out of orbit. 61. A shape-shifter whose natural form is homogenous can be knocked out with a blow to the head when in humanoid form. 62. The narrow energy beam disintegrates the entire person it hits, and his clothing and possessions, but doesn't leave so much as a stain on the chair he is sitting in or the ground he is standing on. 63. Instead of a solid physical door, jail cells of the future are secured with force fields, turning every power failure into a jailbreak. 64. Space vessels bank in order to make turns. 65. When the ship goes to red alert, the lights dim and turn red. 66. In spite of the tremendous safety hazard presented, glassware is permitted in large quantities on ships that make use of artificial gravity. 67. Colored irregular crystals are the power source of the future. 68. The artificial gravity is the last system of all to fail. 69. Ion storms. 70. Alien life forms that increase their mass without ingesting anything. 71. When two ships meet, they are both oriented with 'up' in the same direction, unless one is disabled, in which case it always lists. 72. Computer security passwords are entered by saying them out loud. The possibility of bugs or spies never hinders this practice. 73. The matter transmission device cannot duplicate live organisms, except by accident. Duplicating the circumstances of the accident never succeeds. 74. Data processing devices emit a quasi-random series of innocuous sounds when processing information. Every character that is printed on the computer screen is accompanied by a sound. 75. Although computer keyboards of the future will still have the space bar, nobody will use it anymore. 76. The spaceship that is really a living creature with a significant amount of intelligence. 77. Laser guns have recoil. 78. The stolen alien technology is already compatible with our power systems and can be installed and used immediately. 79. Beam weapons can only be fired in a narrow beam in a continuous direction, and can never be swept across a target or fired at a wide angle. 80. The alien forces are dependent on the mothership, such that destroying the mothership disables them. 81. Every inhabited planet rotates around its axis about as quickly as Earth does, give or take a couple hours. 82. The chemicals in the lab are mostly colorful. The poisonous ones are always bright green. 83. Computer displays project their contents onto the face of the viewer. 84. Dimming the lights on the bridge conserves enough power to enable a significant increase in the speed of a multi-ton spacecraft. 85. You can get from the common areas of a ship to the most sensitive areas via the ventilation and maintenance ducts. There are never any security precautions in place to prevent this. 86. A computer can be destroyed by shooting its display screen. [iMac ] Several more of the above are due directly to budgetary contraints, or dramatic fiat/convention. Third-tier characters are third-tier characters, so they don't need a long death (for the same reason they dno't get much screen-time), but a main character would. Most alien planets are earth-like, b/c the tv show/movie in question is filmed on Earth; most alien races are humanoid, b/c they're played by human actors.

Re: WWYCD? "Once more, with Justice" Dead Head -- would join in (after a bit -- he's a supernatural critter, so, like Spike, it'd take a while for him to fall to it's effects), creating a remake of Michael Jackson's Thriller video. His song would probably be very similar to Thriller, too. Doktor Archeville -- would dislike allt he chaos, but would sing about his visions for a Utopian technological future. One made by him, on the broken backs of all who opposed his 'forced improvements'. The song/dance would be a German oom-pah-pah style.

Re: Presence in your campaign In the Gaalctic Champions game I'm in, my character (Dead Head, a zombie) shambled into a room and let out a terrifying moan/scream/roar. The bad guys -- six "faceless Stormtropper mook-types" -- all fell prone in horror. The GM made me reduce my PRE after that But it's all good

In the HERO System Bestiary, some of the Undead critters (notably the Ghost, Mummy, Skeleton and Zombie) have the power Undead Senses: +4 PER with all Sense Groups [12 Active]; Only to Perceive Images Created By Means Other Than Necromancy (-1) [6 Real]. There's been some confusion in my gaming group as to just how this would work. Could you pleasy clarify just what the power does?

Re: WWYCD: Ignorance is Bliss Dead Head -- would wonder why in the galaxies anyone would do that (he's an undead zombie with a COM of 4 and Distinctive Features: Walking Corpse [Concealable with Effort; Causes Extreme Reaction [Fear/Revulsion]; Detectable By Common Senses]; he looks not unlike Evil Ernie [Chaos! Comics]). He'd also be torn between being flattered and angered (he has the PsychLim: Seeks to punish those that defile the dead [graverobbers, necrophiliacs, and the like] [uncommon, Total]; these pics would be borderline pesudo-necrophilia). Then he'd show his teammates, just to gross 'em out. Doktor Archeville -- would first be confused ("I don't remember doing zat!")... then flattered... then a tad upset. He'd then hack into the server's where the images are hosted and either delete the pics, or (if he's got the time and is feeling silly) alter them so the images of him are replaced with ones of, say, Ron Jeremy.

Re: WWYCD: The Ponderous Plumbing Problem Dead Head -- Would wonder what the heck it was, then show it to his teammates. He'd hope they don't ask him to crawl into the pipes and track the source of it. Doktor Archeville -- Would take a sample and subject it to several dozen tests, possibly accidentally creating a Mutant Blob Monster in the process. He'd wonder what uses it could be put to, if it could possibly be an environmentally-safe form of industrial lubricant.

Re: What Would Your Character's City Be Like? Dead Head -- Gotham would work, as would Transylvania. Or the city Baron von Darien described. Something with lots of shadows so he could easily get around (he's got Invisibility to Sight, Only In Darkness, and Teleport, Only to Vanish When No One's Looking At Him). Doktor Archeville -- Futurama's New New York

Re: Worst Fear! Dead Head: For the zombies which overran his home planet (he's a PC in a Galactic Champions game; his homeworld was overrun by [revamped] Dawn of the Dead-style zombies) to somehow get off-world and spread their plague to every inhabited world in the Universe. That, or the loss of his mental faculties and he degenerates into a flesh-eating, brain-craving maniac, like all the other zombies on his homeworld. Doktor Archeville: fully falling to the madness that has touched every member of his family (and which manifests in him as low-grade "Mad Scientist Personality Disorder"), causing him to do something like become the next Dr. Destroyer.

Re: WWYCD-Hurricane Katrina A fair question. Those, he'd let go, as they're obviously taking what's needed to live. Those he sees looting, say, DVD players or jewelry stores -- people being unrepentantly selfish bastards -- he'll KO.

Re: WWYCD: Don't Say You Didn't Warn You Dead Head: Would initially freak out, but then resume his calm/joking routine, and wait for ***** to come in it's own sweet time. Doktor Archeville: Would rush his furutre-self's corpse to his lab, find out where in the timestream it came from, and tune his Temporal Viewer to it, trying to see just what it was he was trying to warn himself about.

Re: WWYCD: Attraction Loop Dead Head: Is an undead and feels almost no emotion, and gave up on ever being with anyone long ago. He does, however, still occassionally flirt with others, so it is possible someone might have some odd necrophilial attraction to him. However, dead Head also has no heartbeat, and so no blood flow, and so certain... things simply don't work, so he couldn't really reciprocate. He'll try and get to the bottom of what's going on. Doktor Archeville: Is a hyper-brainy scientist, and so likely wouldn't notice anything at first. Eventually he would see something's up, though... and it's not outside the relam of possiblity that he'd take advantage of the deal, though if he did he'd feel fairly guilty afterwards. He'd work on making some Mental Shields for his female teammates (or a cloaking device for himself so they can't sense him), then work on figuring out just what's what.

Re: WWYCD-Hurricane Katrina Dead Head: Has Enraged: When witnesses others suffering cruel and unusual punishment, and PsychLim: Protective of Children, and PsychLim: Seeks to punish those that defile the dead (graverobbers, necrophiliacs, and the like). He'd be alternating between beating the looters and rioters down (especially the ones who are robbing the dead), and working to protect the childrens. Doktor Archeville: Would be teleporting in and carrying others out (subduing them if need be), then work to rebuild the levees and pump the water out. Or, if he's in a "Mad Scientist" phase, introduce a viral agent into the waters that would mutate the people and animals still there into disease-resistant amphibians.

Re: WWYCD: The Spray's The Thing...(some mature themes) Dead Head: Is undead, and has full Life Support, so he'd be unaffected by the pheremone spray. He'd go beat the Hazmat-suited thieves, then call in the CDC to clear the air. Doktor Archeville: Would possibly be affected, and would make lewd advances on some of his female teammates. Assuming he's able to see this coming, though, he'd whip up a life support/inhibition-enhancer belt for himself, then go take down the thieves, finding some way to turn the spray against them. He'd then work on a way to reverse the effects on the city.

Re: WWYCD: Omelas Dead Head: has PsychLimit: Protective of Children and Enraged: When witnesses others suffering cruel and unusual punishment. The adults of Omelas would soon all be very, very dead, and the innocent children (all the ones too young to have had any concept of what had been going on, and the ones who had been shown but were shocked & sickened & disgusted) would all be relocated. This would, oddly, create a group of children who would come to love the Boogeyman (Dead Head's a zombie). Doktor Archeville: would realize the ends do not justify the means, and (owing to his dislike of magic) would free the child, and all the other children (the same ones Dead Head would have) and take them somewhere safe. The adults he'd leave to the Hague.

Re: Question on Adjustment Powers Thanks, all! And I agree with the floating head -- good idea, Hugh!

Some caveats: I only have a few 5E books (and haven't had them for very long, and they're the only HERO books I've ever owned), not 5Er, so (A) I'm still a newbie to the game, and ( it may well be that what I'm about to ask is already covered in the 5Er book. Say I've got a Gadgeteer with a 60 point VPP Gadget Pool. One of his devices is a Synaptic Interference Generator pistol which causes weakness, vertigo, and slowed reaction times -- a Drain on STR, DEX, and SPD. How should it be built? or (Personally, I think that since being able to affect 2 Characteristcs/Powers simultaneously is a +½ Advantage, and being able to affect 4 simultaneously is a +1 Advantage, being able to affect 3 should be a +¾ Advantage. Was this changed in 5Er?) Similarly, say he makes a Metabolic Leeching Gauntlet, which lets him sap a foe's strength, stamina and agility -- a Transfer on STR, DEX, and STUN. Should it be or Which build is better/more accurate, and why?

Re: Overwhelming PRE attacks

Re: Overwhelming PRE attacks

Re: Overwhelming PRE attacks "Only for PRE attacks & defenses" wouldn't be much of a limitation, true -- it couldn't be applied to PRE-based skills, but that's about it. "Only for Fear-Based PRE Attacks and only to Defend against Fear-Based PRE Attacks" would, IMO, definitely be a bigger limitation, though, which is why I took it as such. It's a Galactic Champions game. Menton, Takofanes, Dr. Destroyer, and the Crowns of Krim are all long-dead. This came up in the very first encounter. I think it's a bit early to "nuke the game" (especially when I've already told the GM I'd be more than willing to greatly reduce or even remove the extra PRE).