BoloOfEarth

Normally, I shy away from reading comments on websites, but the first one that I saw there had a great nickname for Trump that I need to remember:  Dolt 45.

Normally, I shy away from reading comments on websites, but the first one that I saw there had a great nickname for Trump that I need to remember:  Dolt 45.

How did Taylor Swift get lifeguard Mitch Buchannon to dance ?
 
 

What did the vacuum cleaner say back to the ceiling fan?
 
 
 

One thing Trump has achieved: A lot of us are realizing, or remembering, how important such fuzzy and archaic concepts as "honor," "character," "tradition," and "trust" actually are to maintaining the sort of society we want to live in.
 
Back when I attended the University of Washington, I heard a talk from an emeritus professor who was one of FDR's advisors back in WW2. Early in the war, there was debate about media control. Should the government try to suppress news about military defeats or domestic labor unrest?
 
He said no. He argued that "The government of the United States must never be seen to lie." Or even to hide the truth. His reason: "If our enemies see that we tell the truth when the truth is bad for us and good for them, they will believe us when the truth is good for us and bad for them." Roosevelt agreed.
 
The payoff came at the end of the war. The administration knew the US was going to defeat Japan eventually, and began planning for the war's end. This led to what the professor called the most narrowly targeted propaganda campaign in history: aimed solely at Emperor Hirohito and the few other people with real power in the Japanese government. The message: Though we demand unconditional surrender, we in fact offer some conditions. There will be no revenge -- and the Emperor will live. In this, it is safe to surrender.
 
And the message was believed. Not to undervalue the importance of nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but the professor argued it was just as important that the Japanese government -- in particular, Hirohito himself -- believed the back-channel promise that he would be spared.
 
I have remembered this story every time it has come out that the US government or president has lied through its teeth. When strict honesty was the rational strategic choice in the greatest danger the country faced in a century, what's your excuse for lying now?

I believe the excuse, although Trump would never admit it, is self-interest. His past actions show a pattern of decision making based on whatever would be best for him, personally, whoever else was involved.

If you want to go full on weird how about the weakness fields from Hancock? Her children are litteraly her weakness, in their presence she's just a well built, very healthy woman, when seperated she becomes Super. She bears the seperation soley to create justice in an unjust world...?

then we have something in common. But then understand I'm one o those whacky guys who sees North  America and South America as two different Continents and just plain "America" as a country. Yes, I know many have decided it's one continent... but it's two. I know because Teddy Freaking Roosevelt sealed the deal it that way by arranging a canal! Thanks Teddy!
 
So to all my fellow North Americans be ye Canadian, Mexican, or whatever. I say rock on 
 
And I hear South Americans are lovely people too
 
EDIT: And yes, of course I Know  you can call the country 'The United States' if you want.  That's two thirds of it's name  but if someone calls me a yankee or a "USian" or a  Gringo don't expect me to answer. Pet peeve. I try to respect what others prefer to be called, so I expect the same in return. Not singling you out, LL. But like I said, pet peeve.
 
 
EDIT EDIT: And I apologize. I'm probably being very defensive and unnecessarily so. I seem to be in a bad mood today

Dude. If that's you lashing out in a bad mood, I'm going to have to declare you one of the nicest people I know. It's like a puppy nibble compared to my mildly cranky responses.

So, the players got to meet (actually rescue/capture) Major Vasilov, as well as encountering a Shadow Creature summoned by Darkforce.  The best part was when Shadow Boxer figured out that the hero team was being spied upon through nearby shadows -- which is usually his gig. 
 
The plot involved the Boston Commons (at Secession Squad's behest) kidnapping the son of a certain unnamed political figure when said son was secretly meeting with Vasilov.  The Commons captured Vasilov as well, and had staged things to look like the hero team was responsible for the kidnapping.  When the heroes found out about Vasilov, they further researched Red Alert enough to learn a bit about Mother Russia. 
 
During the actual rescue mission (mainly the heroes wanted to clear their own names), as they were preparing to teleport out, they realized they couldn't force Vasilov to go with them.  So their mentalist used a Mental Illusion on him to make herself appear to be Mother Russia and convinced him to go along willingly.  (And yes, the mentalist knows how to speak Russian.)  All in all, a successful mini-introduction of Red Alert.
 
Many thanks to all for your suggestions and comments.  I plan to use them to further flesh out Red Alert, as this team will likely play a part in future adventures.

Are you nuts? Who wants to have sex with a reactor? Sure, your thing will glow, but not for long enough to makit worth it!
 
Neon lights vs bioluminesence

Two teams. The, "Shield" team is the public one, defenders of Russia. Team, "Sword" is covert ops.

But the symbology is a little backward, The hammer represents the industrial proletariat and the sickle represents the agricultural workers. They're not weapons. Plus modern Russia eschews overt Soviet symbology. Save that stuff for cold war settings, really.
 
The Federal Security Service do continue to use the old KGB sword & shield badge, but with the soviet emblem replaced with the Russian Federation one. Same job, same symbolism.
 
The Russian Federation patriotic colours are red, white and blue. The national emblem is this:
 

 
I could see a flag suit called Russian Eagle (Русский орел - Russkiy orel); white bodysuit with the shield on the chest and blue and red trim. The rider is St George killing a dragon with a spear, so there's another image you could run with. Make him from Georgia for a double dip of patron saint.

Hmmm... I don't want the element to be too common, because I don't want the PCs to have ready access to it.  (Plus, I made her powers not work in the presence of an Uncommon element, and I don't want to redo all of that.)  Though I could make it a relatively rare Earth element that her home world didn't have.  (quick research - just found this listing of radioactive gems that might be useful.  There's even one called - I kid you not - Coffinite.  Though I'm inclined toward Chevkinite, which was named after a Russian general-major who was chief of staff of the Russian Mining Engineers Corps.)
 
Truly Evil GM Moment -- I could still have the meteorites (kinda like the sound of stalinite), which the players will immediately latch onto... but it doesn't have any effect on her at all.  ("Why are you waving that rock in my face, Honey Badger?  Is that supposed to be some American humor that I just don't understand?")
 
As to General Zima, that's an idea.  One of his kids, or grandkids, could be a member of Red Alert.  I'll have to think on that.  Thanks.

((OFF TOPIC)) 
This is an aluminum foil recipe. Serves one. Make multiple separate packets if you are serving more than one.
 
Chicken part (I'm a white meat guy, so it was usually a breast)
1/8 to 1/4-inch thick slice of a medium onion
Garlic powder (two scant pinches)
Dried oregano (two scant pinches)
Bottled Russian salad dressing (two generous teaspoons)
 
Comment: The Russian dressing has honey in it (most salad dressings don't) which makes the baked juice have a nice glaze to it. Other dressings are a real step down.
 
Lay out the foil. Cut the onion slice in half. Separate the rings of one half of the slice, and array them on top of the middle of the foil.
 
Sprinkle a pinch of garlic powder and pinch of oregano over the onion.
 
Pour 1 teaspoon of the salad dressing over the onion.
 
Lay the chicken part atop everything.
 
Repeat the first few steps: separated onion ring halves, garlic powder, oregano, salad dressing, but everything goes on top of the chicken.
 
Roll up the foil to make a sealed packet. Take care to bend the ends up, and don't puncture the foil, so the juice doesn't escape the packet while cooking.
 
Bake on an oven sheet or pizza pan. Starting with a cold oven and a frozen chicken breast right out of the freezer (c'mon, what bachelor remembers to thaw anything?), set your oven for 400 F and the timer for an hour.
 
I prefer to serve this with rice; put a mound of rice on the plate, pick open one end of the packet and pour the juice over the rice. Then open the packet the rest of the way and put the rest on the plate. Strangely, Worcestershire sauce is a good table condiment with this.
 
Note only the knife and the cutting surface and knife are dirtied in the prep process. No pans, unless the foil leaks. Fairly long cooking time, but tasty enough to prepare and serve for a prospective S.O. and even prospective mother-in-law.
 
Five stars. Joe Bob says check it out.

The sad thing is that Putin almost certainly hasn't had to invent anything in relation to control of the press and fixing elections. Those were all well established during the Soviet and Yeltsin eras, and he just inherited them. Of course as ex-KGB he was very familiar with them as well.
 
Things were really bad when Putin took over and he genuinely did a lot of good in stabilising the country. No one would have benefitted from Russia falling further into chaos in 2000, except maybe China. Even Gorbechev admits that Russia really wasn't ready for democracy and things were going to have to be rolled back. He ultimately may be taking notes from China and be building a compromise economy and polity.
 
Meh! Enough real world stuff! Play Vladimir Vladimirovich however you choose - evil bastard, paternalistic patriot, mind controlled 4th Reich puppet or Alien Android! It's sufficient to have had the discussion to explore the options.
 
Actually, here's an idea... in a superhero world maybe the relentlessly macho V.V.Putin is himself an enhanced being. I'd be thinking super-soldier/bionics, though Mind Control or super-persuasion powers could fit right in.
 
Or bitten by a radioactive bear! Yowza!

There's a range of more or less nasty options, depending on how you want your Putin to be.
 
I'd tend to have him tread very carefully in regards to Mother Russia's family. Genuine protective custody would be my default. He will want to be working with this person and not against her. Making it so she can't find them? I'd not buy that. Giving them new lives and guarding them carefully, as with MCU Hawkeye's family, which earns her gratitude and establishes a level of dependence? That's more Putin's style, IMHO.

Another thought -- keeping a Superman-level being like Mother Russia under control requires some forethought.  I made her an actual mother -- son Ivan, age 6 and daughter Irina, age 2 -- and figure that the Russian government has her children, as well as her Earth parents, in "protective custody" as a means to keep her following orders that she might not like.  (Her husband was killed by a terrorist bomb a few years ago, prompting her to stop hiding her powers.  Citing possible terrorist reprisals is a good way to justify keeping her family under lock and key.)  I'm sure they'd also have a ready supply of the kryptonite-substitute on hand, so she doesn't threaten Vladimir directly or just grab her kids / family and run.
 
Ideally, the PCs might eventually figure out that they can really hurt Red Alert by getting Mother Russia out from under Putin's thumb, most likely by the PCs going to Russia themselves and rescuing her family members.  So I'd like to have at least the basics laid out of what they'd be facing.  Underground, lead-lined facility? 
 
What other measures would they have in place? 

Not necessarily corrupt (though there will be some corruption in certain members), but definitely the "ruthless and personally loyal" for the most part.  The Personality writeup for Major Vasilov (yes, I know it's spelled slightly differently than the 4E Colonel Vasalov / Tokamak, but Vasilov is a more common spelling) reads in part:
 
 
 
 
And yes, these are folks sent on covert black-ops missions.  Including an assassination of a defecting Russian spy, which also resulted in the death of an American super who was guarding the defector.  Nothing provable linking the deaths to Red Alert, but everybody in the intelligence community pretty much figures they were responsible. 
 
I'm including Mother Russia in the mix because I see her as a genuine heroine seeking to protect and help her countrymen, but forced into Red Alert as a means of keeping a close eye on her (and because she is a major powerhouse.)  I want the players to wonder, what is a person like her doing working with those guys?

The Bear is a major totem of Russia so something like a werebear or a Bear shaped battlesuit ?
 
How about Peter the Great ? He's a giant.
 
I back Lord Liaden's suggestion about General Winter.
 
Then there is always Baba Yaga......
 
You could have Tunguska who has a one shot ever power. But it is a doozie........
 
How about a version of the Unknown Soldier but a Russian ? Look at all those who dies at Tannenburg, Stalingrad, the seige of Leningrad etc.
 
Scorched Earth also sounds good.

Putin's an interesting case study. I read Gorbechev's last memoir recently, and his take on V.V. Putin comes across as more of a competent control freak who doesn't trust anyone else to run the show, rather than someone that's inherently corrupt. 
 
It's worth recalling that he stepped in and fixed a total mess, which WAS horribly corrupt, left by Yeltsin, and that his initial election appears to have been legitimate. Or at least, actually reflected the wishes of the majority of the voters.
 
He's yet to technically exceed his constitutional limits... the Russian constitution limited Presidents to two consecutive terms, but omitted an absolute lifetime two term limit (this was something Putin has exploited, but didn't invent). He served his first two terms 2000-2008, switched to Prime Minister 2008-2012 and was re-elected as President 2012. During Medvedev's term as President the term length was increased from four to six years, so Putin is still in his third term (and first consecutive one). Assuming he's reelected next year, it'll be 2024 before he needs to look at dropping back to Prime Minister again, retiring or changing the rules. He'd be 72, so it's not impossible that he may be planning retirement (though my guess would be not).
 
My take on the kind of super team he'd assemble as a personal one would be "reliable operatives". Not dupes, not corrupt. Ruthless and personally loyal. I really doubt he'd consider blackmail a reliable means of control - too risky. Super special ops would be my take. These are the guys sent out on covert black ops strikes and who have a role in dealing with other teams that get out of hand. Probably have an official role as Presidential Bodyguard (which would by MY suggestion as their official title).
 
There should be other teams of less reliable, but powerful operatives that would be used for non-sensitive work like disaster relief and crime fighting, and have a big positive publicity role... with a reliable team leader.
 
There would also be Army teams for supers that could be relied on to follow military discipline but deemed not suitable for the Presidential Bodyguard. And penal teams aka Suicide Squad would fit in as well. 

OTOH, there's some evidence that the apartment building attacks by "terrorists" in the late 90s/early 2000s were staged by Russian intelligence services.  Those attacks led to a renewed war in Chechnya and greatly expanded Putin's presidential powers.  Also, Putin basically made a deal with the oligarchs, they get to keep their oligopolies and he gets a cut.  He now has a net worth between 80 and 200 billion USD, and owns several hidden dachas around the country.  

I'm not a DC person at all, so I had no idea about the Bombshells Supergirl.  Many thanks for pointing that out.  I'm not at all surprised that the idea of Kal-El landing in Soviet Russia has already been explored in comics - it seems a fairly obvious idea - but I didn't know it had already been done with Supergirl as well.  (Hey, I never said it was a terribly original idea on my part.)  I just don't want her origin to be obvious to the players at first.  Flying bricks are a dime a dozen, after all, so I figure it may take them an encounter or two (with her using heat vision and super breath) before they connect the dots.
 
The cosmonaut origin for Wight actually basically came from Maker's player, who made a mention in her origin backstory (involving an explosion aboard the UNTIL Gateway station) that another astronaut / cosmonaut could have also gotten powers in the same explosion.  I'm adding him to Red Alert mainly to give the PCs a personal animosity with the team.

For Mother Russia, I would suggest that rather than a Kryptonian/ Kryptonite analogue, you take the Daxamite approach, wherein she's vulnerable to an element which doesn't exist on her home world, but is common on Earth. The Russian government keeps that a closely-guarded secret, but not only has weapons made with the element ready to use against her, but could threaten to make that knowledge public should she refuse to cooperate, so all her enemies would know.
 
Since TQM has thrown out a lot of Champions Universe references, I might as well include one from the recently-released Golden Age Champions for Sixth Edition, which may have potential as both character origin and legacy.
 
In the winter of 1939 Kiril Lenskii was a young officer in the Soviet army serving in his country's war against Finland. Badly wounded in an attack that wiped out the rest of his unit, and overcome by the severe winter cold, Lenskii collapsed unconscious over underground caverns which released strange gasses. As they entered his lungs his body began to change. He awoke to discover that not only was his body healed and stronger than before, but he was now immune to the cold, and could even create intense cold, snow, and ice over limited areas. Given the code name, General Zima ("winter"), over the course of World War II Kiril Lenskii became the Soviet military's leading superhero, and remained so for many years.
 
All seven of General Zima's post-war children developed super powers. Today there are over two dozen "super" descendants of General Zima active in Russia. (It would be reasonable to expect a few of their relatives to have emigrated to other countries at some point.) Although his history doesn't explicitly state it one way or the other, there's no reason to assume superhumans from his lineage necessarily manifest the same types of powers as their ancestor. General Zima's origin implies his abilities resulted from his body adapting to a specific environment. (General Zima has a full write-up and character sheet in GAC.)