Thanks, Varon!

I worked out some of the biological factors behind his ability to control fire (it's not 'magical'...there are biological explanations behind his power) and in the process came up with a villain who could possibly come into the story at some point.
In light of that, who (HW user) created Invictus again? The guy who infected Thomas with his biologically-altering virus prototype could have been connected to or gained control of the genetic research that led to the creation of Invictus. That way we could have more connections in the world and stuff like that. I just don't know how feasible that is...
I think it'd be cool, though.

I had some ideas for the government of the city. So right now we have a governor, right?
So what about a city council? Or is that too typical? I was thinking we could have three main political groups (if we have a council) with respective leaders. I didn't want to do the typical Rep/Dem political split, so I thought a major third party would be good to throw in the mix, as well as a couple minor political persuasions as well. Unless we have a crackdown in the political realm and run this much more from the top down. Dunno.

I didn't think of names, either, but I thought if we had a real power-fight going on between three different political parties under the governor, that would give her lots to do to keep the city running smoothly.
However, the form of government of the city somewhat depends on how much CF is under federal authority, because it functions as a prison or holding-place for supers, right (sorry, that's not the in-world name for them)? If so, then I think it should have a special federal status of a kind with DC - not just a city but not just a state, either.
Just some ideas...

Areth,

Karthmin

Worldbuilding update:

Map is slow going. I'm basically having to screen-shot google maps close-ups of the Gladstone area and piece them together into a giant, super-detailed map of the area. Once that's done, I can start tweaking things, moving roads, widening rivers, and make a city where once there wasn't one. So yeah, still working on it. As fast as I can. I literally spent almost all day today working on it.

As for power origins. The best that scientists can figure is that some people are born with powers and they have been unable to identify what gene or genes are responsible for it. However, in the mid 1950's researchers with the Argo Initiative discovered that while only maybe 3% of human beings are actually born with dynamic abilities, a much larger percentage (theoretically anywhere from 15%-35%) of people are born with latent abilities that may or may not ever develop. After that discovery, there has always been some group or another seeking to find and unlock dynamic potential. So people who "got their powers" from genetic experiments, or freak accidents are people with dynamic potential.

Never before in history had anybody really focused on unleashing dynamic potential, which was why historically the number of dynos was much smaller than it has been in the past century.

OK so I read the last 2 pages of this. I think from Seer's monstrous post I was able to glean most of what's going on as far as back story. I don't know individual characters, but I have a feel for the 'world' now, if you want to call it that.

I first heard about this project from the good sir Suiauthon. That was maybe 2 months ago. Since then the superhero cogs have been turning in my head, and I'd like to give a whirl at a superhero story. I wonder if there might be a place for it in the Crystal Falls world.

Basically, I don't care what powers my 'hero' has. I haven't thought that part. I just want to get to the psychology of it all... what wielding all that *power* would be like. And that's one of the reasons I started to fall more and more in love with the CF idea, at least as Seer presented it, because it gets to that a little. Before I get into my super idea, let me stir up the building blocks of the world a bit. (That's not a sentence you say every day!)

You mentioned some people willingly moving to CF to not have to deal with the responsibility of their powers. Yes, I definitely see that. I also see a few other possibilities of where you could go with that. I'll follow Seer's example and do bullet points. (; Although maybe it should be more of a flowchart... anyway, without worrying about organizing it, here's the info in my head:

- We have the people moving to CF to "get rid of" their powers.

- I see lots of people resisting that move, because they love their powers too much... and in this group, I see three main kinds of dynos:

- I see some dynos trying to be like your stereotypical heroes who are like the superpolice of their little metropolis.

- I see others using their powers as supervillains.

- And finally I see some people taking their powers into secret, not wanting to be rid of them, but also not wanting to be real showy with them either.

As far as public reactions to the dynos, I see a couple possibilities. They would probably both be present, but what the majority would be is a different matter.

- "Put them all in CF and be rid of them!" These people are uncomfortable with the dynos and don't like that some use their powers for bad, and want to use CF as a penal colony type of thing.

- "Let them decide." These people like CF as it is, but don't want to be forcing anyone to have to move there. They may or may not like dynos personally, they just respect freedom.

Those are what I see being the 2 major opinions. Heh, they're kind of like the battle over gun laws.

Anyway, I don't really know why I got into all that. It doesn't have much to do with my real idea. I just thought it might be worth something. Pardon me if I've been redundant to anything on pages I haven't read. (;

What follows is the REALLY important stuff:

So, basically, the character I want to write is someone who starts out as a Super "hero," maybe with a book or two all about his heroic deeds. But somewhere along the line I throw readers a real curve-ball, and the power just gets too much for him, and he goes all villain on everybody. This stone or whatever that keeps Crystal Falls powerless only grows in time, reaching farther and farther until someday, it will keep all of earth powerless. My character keeps moving away, trying to prolong his super-powered life, but this universal kryptonite just keeps getting stronger, and eventually he breaks, and decides to get a band of other like-minded dynos, and put an end to it. The main story arc is his quest to destroy the stone so that he can keep his powers... the only problem is, the closer he gets, the less power he has. And once he manages to reverse the effects, and others start slowly regaining their powers, he has competition. So his goal is to pick off all the other Dynos, one by one. With the help of his henchmen he recruited a few sentences ago. And they are more or less successful on a case-by-case basis.

I guess that's a lot to bite off with one character. He would sort of be a big responsibility as the arch-villain of the world. Maybe he isn't powerful enough to really be taken seriously... but he *did* manage that thing with the stone...

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, I don't know if all that fits with everyone's vision for CF, but it sort of does give a reason for this stone to lose its power-suppressing abilities, and it does give everyone an evil bad-guy to be against, with individual supervillains (his henchmen) for each individual story. I mean, it divides the whole thing into two camps, and is the perfect setup for each superhero to have their nemesis to fight, without it being a clichéd, oh these powerful people came out of nowhere. It levels the playing field into a sort of global civil-war between these dynos, but that stays mostly in the shadows of larger world-events due to the sheer numbers of things. I mean, there aren't THAT many Dynos.......

Well, there's where my head is going with all this. Let me know what you think. (: I really should have gone to sleep before I started writing at all, but my creative cogs were turning and I didn't want to say no to them. The result, another monster-post for this thread.

PS - I know this is my first post and all, and I won't be offended if everyone decides my stuff isn't worth a thing and just throws it all out. I respect that as a newbie to this project I am subject to others who have put a lot more time and effort into it. (: Just thought I'd contribute a little more meat to chew on.

I like the idea in concept (and I love some of the implications/potential of the normals who are in the "put them in CF!" camp); however, it would need fleshing out and modifying somewhat.

Currently the plan is for the stone's powers/etc. to fade over time, and I think that works well for our early stages of developing characters. A big, nigh global fight might cause too much to happen too fast. Maybe if there was a way to push this far into the future of our timeline? Even by a decade or two after the complete fading of the stone's powers, maybe? Perhaps the stone beings to work again, inexplicably, and this time basically supercharges itself somehow. That would be a really cool storyline, I think.

Yes, I was under the impression that the weakening of the dampening field was subtle enough that most people might not notice it yet. Plus, from what I understand, there are about forty years between the creation of the dampening field and its eventual (nearly) complete decay, so he might be a bit old by then...

Kay, so here's what I was thinking....

I was never thinking a sudden ceasing of the dampening field. Think of it like something that puts out radiation... that's why it's getting stronger to begin with, it's just putting out more and more of this radiation stuff. When he destroys whatever "it" is, all that radiation is still there, and there's nothing he can do. But it will eventually fade away.

As far as the field growing to begin with, maybe it doesn't get global, like I said at first. Maybe it just spreads to like... the whole state, or something. And he anticipates the globalness.

As far as the civil war thing, I was thinking... what if he's vastly outnumbered, so he can't afford to make it a huge ordeal. It's more like individual hit missions. This keeps it quiet, and just sort of provides a little method to the madness. I'm sure there will be some of our superheroes who have their supervillain nemesis, and others who don't... they just fight stuff/themselves. This setup allows for both of that.

As far as age, I don't know if 40 years really matters for a superhero. And I guess, it doesn't matter if he's around for the initiation of the suppressing project.

So, how much of dyno activity is unknown to the general public? Obviously, if they're saving people's lives, society will notice, but as far as everyone knowing their names and collecting the trading cards, I don't know. Mainly, I want to know how much of the history is known to the general public, and how much the average citizen would understand if they happened to develop powers.

I don't know, I think they would be generally known, but I don't think people would understand the sheer scale of the thing. Maybe they assume there's 15 or 20 dynos, the ones they've heard of, and if they go online and research it or something, they might discover there are 50-100 known dynos of varying powers. But no ordinary civilian would have any idea of the whopping 3% of the population being "that way." I'm also assuming lots of the people might have a power, but it's small and insignificant so it doesn't attract much attention.

On that note of different kinds of powers, what if some people had "curse" powers, such as someone whose fingers turn everything to gold who end up having trouble eating and can't figure out how to actually use the powers well......

Anyway...

Either way, I've been doing some character development, mostly in the department of superpower. Whether or not my character's villainy is of the scale and in the direction I have stated in my above posts is irrelevant... the important thing is he does eventually become a villain.

So, first things first. I've noticed the majority of superheroes are white males... Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Iron Man, Captain America, and I could go on. There are a couple ladies in there, but they're mostly white. So just because of that, really, with no other reason, I decided my dude won't be white. I haven't decided what, but he could be asian, black, or anything really. Just not white. Nothing wrong with white folks, but it makes sense that there would be more than just white people who are dynos.

Now, the fun stuff. His power...

Gosh, this guy needs a name. I'm open to ideas, but for now I'll call him Alpha.

Alpha's power is the manipulation of waves. At first, the most obvious application of this is sound and light. He can't amplify them, but he can bend them, making blind and deaf spots, or sudden flashes and loud booms.... localized.

The thing is, at first Alpha has trouble putting someone in a deaf or dark spot, because there are lots of echoes and reflections that still allow little bits to get in. In time, however, he learns to take care of echoes and reflections too.

His limit is that if there is no light in a place, he can't make light randomly. He has to work with what's there. Additionally, if there IS a light source, he can't just get rid of it. He can put someone in a blind spot, but a crowd might take a little more work and concentration. Also, if there is more than one light source, this could make things exceedingly difficult.

Eventually Alpha discovers that when he has plenty of light, like in a bright room or outside in the sun, he can make laser beams of varying strength, allowing him to melt or cut things.... including people. This is one of the points that he gets giddy with power, and may lose control a little bit. Before the most dangerous thing he could do was blind someone... or I suppose maybe burst their eardrums/deafen them.

When Alpha discovers that he can diffract light into its individual colors of the spectrum, he then discovers that he can control wavelengths that aren't part of the visible spectrum. This would allow him to avoid detection on infrared cameras and stuff, or manipulate radio waves to prevent people from communicating, or control harmful waves such as UV or X rays, or even Gamma rays.

At this point Alpha learns also that his mind's control over electromagnetic waves is vastly superior to his control over other waves, such as sound waves. His control over sound and other kinds of waves such as sound or heat is much more limited. They are related powers, but they aren't his power, so he can use them a little bit, but limitedly. Mostly this just allows me to let him mask his footsteps for a silent approach and stuff like that, without having to worry too much about other kinds of waves. (; Also limiting him to one type of wave allows me to let him experiment with brain waves, but not get too far. Mostly his limited control over brain waves just allows him to stun or at most knock out individuals, but it takes loads of concentration.

Back to electromagnetic waves...

I'm thinking of having a scene where someone who is "friends" with him but secretly wants to stop him is trying to conceive of a way they can lock him in a cage/box thing that prevents him from accessing waves, but one day when the two of them are together, Alpha wants to microwave something that won't fit, so he just leaves it out of the microwave and bends the waves out of it to the plate of food. His "friend" is at first discouraged, but this turns out to be more of a strike against microwaves, and his plan may work after all. (; Yes, this bit is for humor mostly.

Anyway, when he gets into the really heavy waves that are considered harmful, like gamma rays, that's when the power gets too much for him and he goes villain.

I haven't decided for sure on all the details of all this, but that's his basic backstory. (: I still kinda want to let him have power over more kinds of waves, but for now he stays limited, and his main trademark trait is laser beams.

Thoughts?

Also, entropy. Entropy is always a factor that needs to be considered when developing any kind of superpower/magic system-- and if the stone isn't affected by entropy (ie if it's homeostatic or constantly increasing in power), there needs to be a reasonable explanation for it.

I like the idea of Alpha's powers, but I'd like to point out that light is not technically a wave... it can behave as a wave or it can behave as a particle, but technically speaking it IS neither.

Well yeah. Maybe that's why he has MORE control over it as opposed to other kinds of waves. Something about the combination of whatever light is allows him to control it, but only partially control things that are purely waves. Such as sound.

Ok, gang. Good news. I have a tentative timeline!
It's pretty rough with lots of room for development, but it's a start.

The story right now is that the Gladstone Incident (i.e. - the battle where Gladstone, VA is destroyed and the Sentinel Stone/Neutral Zone and the Falls are created) takes place on September 5, 1973. Crystal Falls is built over the following years and is officially incorporated on the three year anniversary in 1976. The city grows and prospers, blah blah blah. In the late 80's and 90's thanks to clandestine conspiracies and efforts that I've yet to develop we see an unprecedented spike in the number of dynamically gifted individuals (dyno is actually a slang/derogatory word kind a like "muties" in Marvel's X-men stories) as latent and weaker dynamic potentials are jump-started. This coincides with a gradual (almost imperceptible to average people) shrinking of the Neutral Zone. It all comes to a head when the NZ collapses completely in 2005 due to either the natural failing or intentional sabotage of the Sentinel Stone (we can decide which). This now leaves CF with the world's largest concentration of dynamically gifted criminals as they escape from the Gladstone Detention Center (i.e. the prison built for super-criminals in the heart of the NZ).

So....based on that, the best time for your characters' story-lines to begin would probably be during the Awakening/Fading period of 1988-2005. I mean, feel free to start stories set further down the line if you want, but that particular period was custom built to accommodate y'all.

Anyways, here is the link to the timeline.

On a different note, most of the "schools" for dynamically gifted children started in CF were more like places for parents to pawn off their unwanted dyno kids. They were less like the Xavier Institute and more like the assimilation schools that Native American children were sent to. Their idea of teaching control is more about teaching the kids how to contain/suppress their powers, and not about how to use them responsibly. Now, as the NZ shrinks and schools that were once in it find themselves dealing with the reality of their students' abilities, hopefully one or two would see the light adapt a more constructive approach. But many I fear would probably either close or relocate to further inside the NZ.

And no...I still don't have the map finished

Can the character I described be the saboteur of the Sentinel Stone using a similar plot-line to the one I described? (: I can begin working on that story right away just to put something in the canon. If not I'll write something anyway, just dream up a different storyline.

Has this been done? Has anyone put together this "Script bible"? Anyone want to help me do that?

Or is it? I mean, it's cliche to have Mafia and such be small fry. But one superpowered individual against a complex network of organized professional criminals with high levels of intelligence? My money would be on the mafia. Regular organized crime like this might put dynamics in a position where they might want to try to work together a bit. I dunno, just a thought. I think we should make the Crystal Falls mafia a bit more formidable, just to be a little different, you know?

(I've read up to page four on here, working my way up to present.)

First we have to decide if there is a saboteur. But if everyone's ok with going that route, your character can have the job. However, you'll need to go back to the drawing board for his motives for destroying the Stone, because the random expansion of the NZ causing him to freak out doesn't really mesh with the rest of it.

That's kinda what I've been working on with the backstory, the timeline, the map, etc. Adult life has just kinda made for slow-goings.

I had a conversation with Mark that really developed my character and his storyline into something that will work much better. (: Let me outline it here...

Alpha applies himself obsessively... Almost in a self-admiring sort of way, and accomplishing stuff is essential to his self-worth. I'm thinking of having him struggle with depression when he tries to help others, to some extent. Saving someone and being the "hero" might not really be very fulfilling.

Eventually he just goes overboard. His sense of morality is skewed, and he still thinks he's being good but he puts himself in the place of a god. And like Mark said, "Maybe that's what the gods were anyway. Dynos like us."

Nobody likes him putting himself in the place of a God. So people get mad at him, making him get mad at them, and just making things escalate into like a "wrathful god" dude. But since he's made himself a god he always thinks he's good.

That's why he wants to get rid of the stone. Even though its power is fading, it's a challenge to his power in his vision of himself as a god. And if he's a god and he *doesn't* destroy the stone, he doesn't like that. It's kind of a pride thing. He needs to have *control*.

But the thing is, a lot of the power and god stuff is just in his head. Like, he's bigger than he thinks. He's more of just a nuisance to others, and soon after he takes out the stone, a group of 3 or 4 other dynamics take him out.

The end.

So my story would be kind of a tragedy... but I want to focus more on the psychology of it. I'm thinking my story would be a collection of journal entries, public records, newspaper clippings, interviews, and such stuff. So it would be like a historian's account.

Do we want consistency in reading level/story length for all of these? I was thinking mine would be a relatively easy read novella at around 40k words, but might have some deeper themes and psychology stuff younger reader's might not understand.

So, thoughts?

The mafia having power would fit rather snugly into my plans for Wisp and Echo... Especially if they have a few dynamics working for them.

@Elanhil
I planned on keeping my stories in the novella size for CF too. That way there is more space for the overall story and character cameos in other stories.

I've developed a villain called Bloodhound. His telepathic abilities aren't powerful enough to read minds, but he's an expert psychic-tracker. He might have made his living as a psuedo-psychic or a private detective earlier in life, but now he's on some higher payrolls.

He was rather young when he discovered his abilities (not long before Neutral Zone came up). I think his dog ran away and the two were close enough that he realized he could sense the dog's presence. He was very excited and told others (perhaps more than his parents, but it might have been only them). Soon enough, a tutor took interest and tried to teach him to hone his abilities, but something fell apart with that and his family moved to Crystal Falls not long after. He would sneak away at times so feel his powers again. They had become like a security blanket to him, and he didn't like that he couldn't reach his family's minds anymore. (Can he reach into the Neutral Zone to find minds, or is there a block there as well, even if he's outside?) He left the city as soon as he was old enough.

Hmm, good question. I think that would depend. For one, I'm not sure if the neutral zone has definite boundaries, or if it's more of like a fading strength type of thing (Bubble vs. cloud). But either way.... For example, my character who pulls from light sources to shoot laser beams could shoot a beam into the neutral zone, but he wouldn't be able to pull light out of it, I guess. So for yours, I guess it would depend on how you would describe his power. Is it people's brain waves emanate from them and out into the world and he picks up on those? If that's the case I would say yes, his power would work from outside on someone inside. Or is it his mind going out in some way and seeking people's thoughts and stuff? If that's how it works, I'd say no.

But that's all just my opinion.

Perhaps like being able to reach in, but not reach out. What do you think, Seer? How it it more likely to work?

It would probably cut it off completely and make it impossible to reach in or out.

When the Sentinel Stone was created, Sentinel (who had never before made a warp artifact and was unpracticed at it) said as he warped, "no more powers."

This means not only would the Stone's effects neutralize powers of those within the NZ, but it would also prevent people's powers from reaching into the NZ as well.

So a telekine could hurl a boulder into the NZ, but their control of the boulder's movements would end as soon as it entered. They also wouldn't be able to stand outside the NZ and move something within it. So I think the same would go with telepathic abilities.

Also, Caleb, I imagine your character's laser would only travel a few yards in the NZ before it dissipated back to normal light. At least when the NZ was at its peak. Maybe towards the very end, that wouldn't be the case.

Here's this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bEt ... sp=sharing

Feel free to edit and add people. I just invented 3 characters in like 15 minutes. They obviously need work, particularly the mob boss guy, but I figure they provide enough foundation to write with, and if you do use them you can fill out the bio a little bit. I encourage everyone involved with this project to come up with a few basic characters everyone can use. (;

Seer, I don't get why that would be. He has already condensed the light into a laser, and like any other laser beam doesn't require anything to keep it from dissipating. It's the same as that boulder thing.


Update on my Character:

Birth Name: Alexis Raymond Panagos
Superhero Name: Lux/Spectrum/Undecided
Supervillain Name: Zeus
Superhero Attire: Something gold, textured, and shiny.
Supervillain Attire: Modified Toga/something ancient Greek
Picture: Link 1 Link 2
Brief Timeline: 2nd generation American, his grandparents immigrated from Crete during WW2. He was born August 8, 1975. He began to discover his powers in a fuller way (he had known about them awhile) late in his Highschool career. In 1993 he went to study Mathematics at [some undecided University, not in Crystal Falls]. The rest is too complex to sum up, but I'm writing about in my story. (: He moves to Crystal Falls at some point in the late 90s/early 2000s.
Personality: I'm thinking of pulling a lot from Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, but Alexis is more reserved and antisocial, and not at all the romantic that Gatsby is.

If you want to mention him in any of your stuff, I am very open to that. Talk to me, and I can help you be accurate. Don't mention him and not tell me. (;

Thank you for your time, have a nice day.

EDIT: I took a personality test for him, too... Results as follows:

PERSONALITY: ISTJ
VARIANT: ASSERTIVE
ROLE: SENTINEL
You are one of the Sentinels - a reliable and dedicated individual who respects traditions and prizes responsibility. You are known for your directness, attention to detail and quiet dedication.

I could also see him being either an INTJ or INTP, but I don't think he's strictly any of those, as he tends to kind of live outside reality a little bit. It's hard to pinpoint.

Oooh! We have some excitement on the thread!
I don't think we've met, Elanhil. Nice to 'meet' you.

I like the arc of a superhero turning villain. Especially because you have the power sort of changing him as he learns to use it more and more. Very interesting storyline.

About laser-beams entering the Zone... I think it would have to 'dissipate', regardless of the physics of the case, because the actual beam was created by a dynamic, and thus is actively working against the warp of reality that is being sustained within the boundaries of the Zone.
Though if that is the case, why would a stone thrown by a dynamic continue its course? Perhaps it would have to simply turn into dust??

Here's my solution: Because the Zone is essentially a warp of reality in which dynamics and their powers are not even possible, I think anything done by any dynamic in any way that effects what is within the Zone (or the Zone itself) would have to become obsolete. It's not about the physics at all, but we're dealing with a completely different reality, in which dynamics don't exist. So nothing they do can be or can become a part of the Zone's reality. Make sense?

That's my take on the Zone. I think it works best because of the whole alternate-reality aspect. But I'm good with whatever is decided by the group.

I've done some character-work on Flame's fiance (she's a prosecuting lawyer for the govt.) and have a little backstory on the man who 'created' Flame (Thomas was a dynamic with latent ability, and this man (who is a quite possible villain (with a dynamic army; he's not personally a supervillain, but he has LOTS of dynamic resources at his command)) infected him with a virus that woke Thomas' power.). Sorry for all the parentheses. I'll post on the guy and explain better.

Areth,

Ka

Okay, the villain's placeholder name for now is Dr. Pyrex (Fireking, if you will...).

He works at (actually owns) a top-of-the-line smallish hospital that specializes in fire-related injuries (not a coincidence). Unknown to the general public, he himself creates most of his patients.
Here's how: he is actively searching for pyrokinetic dynamics, and is researching their DNA so that he can hopefully create a virus that will give non-dynamics pyrokinetic abilities. The way he does this is by releasing a prototype virus that activates latent dynamics (hopefully) in places where he can track all those who have been infected to see if there are any results. Non-dynamics are totally unaffected by the virus.
Latent dynamics, however, will be effected in some way or another. However, the virus is only a prototype, so it doesn't exactly work like it's supposed to. (And there are different degrees of ability within the ranks of dynamics anyway. Does this work with our view of dynamics?)
Anyway, the signs of being effected by the virus are usually violent fires breaking out randomly, usually causing injury to the newly-wakened dynamic. These people (very small number) are Dr. Pyrex's special patients. He uses them as experimental subjects to further his research and refine his virus so it works better and better. His goal is to (as I said above) create a virus that can turn normal humans into pyrokinetic dynamics.

So Thomas Cathar is infected at a circus with one of Dr. Pyrex's prototype viruses and a week or two later burns his house down around him, destroying his whole family. Thomas' pyrokinetic powers, though previously latent, were very powerful, so he was totally unaffected by the fire he created and ran away from his house. No other dynamics awakened by the virus had been unaffected like that. Dr. Pyrex, through his agents, learns that Thomas' body was never found (he is presumed dead by all official records), so he initiates a huge search for him, because he realizes that he may have a complete success on his hands. Thomas is to Dr. Pyrex the culmination of his undercover research and he wants him desperately.

Thomas, of course, is unaware of this. He knows everyone thinks he is dead, knows that he has otherworldly powers, and goes completely underground. Whatever he is, he knows lots of people would love to get their hands on him. He is wracked with guilt because of the deaths he caused. However, he reveals himself to his fiance to reassure her that he is not dead. He shows her proof of his power, and she rejects him because she believes dynamics are demon-possessed.
Totally a wreck as a result, he realizes that Crystal Falls is his only hope of redemption and flees there (how public is it that CF is enclosed in the NZ?).

He is closely followed by Dr. Pyrex's henchmen, nearly captured right outside the NZ, but he uses his powers to destroy them and cover his tracks, subsequently vanishing into Crystal Falls, where he reintegrates into society as a normal human being (a firefighter, actually; poetic justice...he caused a lot of fires with his power). Because of Thomas' past in the spy world (specifically technology), he effectively creates an avatar that Dr. Pyrex cannot trace as the former Thomas Cathar.

Don't know how much of this overlaps with what I've previously said about the Flame (placeholder name, btw), but that brings in a villain.

Dr. Pyrex ultimately wants to create a small army of pyrokinetics to make himself a kingdom. Maybe he wants to rule the US or something. I don't know for sure, but he wants to make a powerful pyrokinetic strike-force.

If needed or desired, Dr. Pyrex could have greater interests than just pyrokinetics; or he could be part of a bigger ring of 'dynamic developers' trying to make different kinds of dynamics. In which case there might be a 'dark lord' mastermind behind all the research.

Anyway, that's that.

(Should we make separate pages for information on different characters, their particular villians, parts of the world that we have individually created, all for easy reference so that we can better integrate details from each person's contributions???).

-Ka

That makes sense. It's a different take on it, but it makes sense. It's not that a lazer beam is impossible in the zone, but the beam's origins were not natural, and basically the NZ negates anything dynamic. So the beam would dissipate once it hits the zone. Or maybe none of its light could enter the zone, just kind of splashing around it. Maybe the hypothetical stone thrown by the dynamic would crash as if it hit a wall.

That's all assuming the NZ is more bubble-like, and not cloud-like. Is that correct?

Seer, you mentioned the zone goes 9-miles out... does it go 9 miles up and down, too? So literally like a big, invisible bubble? It would be interesting if some flying superhero flies over Crystal Falls and falls to his death... that would attract some media attention. *just musing here*

Actually, I decided to rescind that part and say that lasers created outside of the zone would work. But whatever works best for everyone is fine by me..

People can still fly to their deaths though. *thumbs up*

Oh dear.

I'm fine either way with the lasers. It's not really essential to my story.

For some reason I like a cloud idea more than a bubble. Dunno why. Maybe I just like the idea of a dynamic's powers fading as he/she enters the NZ rather than just blipping out of existence as soon as they enter the zone. Makes it more subtle and gradual.
They wouldn't realize what was happening as quickly, I think.

And an expanding reality-warp cloud seems like it would require more energy to sustain than a bubble, for some reason.

I like people flying to their deaths, though.

I kind of like the cloud idea too. It makes a little more sense to me. It's kind of like that radiation example I gave awhile back. The closer you get to the source, the worse it gets. The only thing is, that could be harder to coordinate between authors.

The advantage of it is, though, if the Sentinel Stone were sabotaged, I don't think the NZ would collapse right away, but it might fade more gradually, like radiation dying off. That makes more sense to me than we just have this NZ losing its effectiveness randomly for no really apparent reason...

And it really helps my plot. (x Canst we please do it that way?

Hmm...I like the cloud/radiation idea, where it gets worse as you get closer, but we need to determine just for collective clarity at what distance from the Sentinel Stone the NZ becomes absolute.
If it's got a 9-mile radius, are we going to say it's absolute at 7 miles, 8 miles, or what?
Or, flipping this the other way around, because the NZ is expanding we should set a specific distance from the edge of the NZ cloud.

I think one mile sounds reasonable, though that's a lot of moving room. But with a 9-mile-radius Zone as a whole, there's still plenty of Zone that is absolute (16 miles across in all directions from the Sentinel Stone).

Oh, and a sabotaged Sentinel Stone sounds cool, Elanhil, as long as you don't destroy it with your powers.

Question: If the NZ was made by a reality-warper, is there any reason that a different reality-warper has not so far destroyed or at least altered the NZ? That seems like an obvious thing to do, unless of course he/she didn't mind the NZ being there. Are we going to assume that there are no other reality-warpers, or, if there are, they don't want to destroy the NZ?

The NZ was like a bubble at first. But as the Sentinel Stone's power faded, it became more cloud-like until it eventually dissipated completely. My original use of the word "sabotage" was synonymous with "destroy", and destroying the Stone would destroy the NZ. But, if you want to go the sabotage route, I guess we could play around with it.

Excellent question.

1. Reality warping is a rare talent among dynamics, which are pretty rare themselves, and it works differently for each person.
2. Altering another person's warp would be like re-writing a hacker's code without seeing the code.
3. Altering the effects of a warp-relic would require that you be a warp-smith yourself and that you have access to (aka be able to touch) said relic. And since warp-smiths aren't a-dime-a-dozen, and the Stone would neutralize your powers before you could get close enough to work with it, I don't think we have anything to worry about. And even if a warp-smith did manage to get to the Stone with their powers intact, factor #2 would still be in play.

When are these characters in office in CF? Right now, in 2015, CF is almost a 39 year old city. I would hope the Mayor and Chief of Police haven't been in office for that long!

Maybe the mob-boss (Nobody calls them mafia bosses anymore. Don't you people watch crime dramas?) would be around that long, but I'm still trying to figure out when/how the Mob moves into CF. Because it certainly wouldn't have been there in the Gladstone days, and I doubt central Virginia is a very active region for the Mob. And no. We are not going to say that CF has its own independent Mob/Mafia that sprung up on its own. We have enough worldbuilding holes to fill in without creating more for ourselves.

Couldn't something natural still destroy, or at least damage a relic? Usually they're really durable and powerful and are hidden in pocket dimensions or some such thing, but what if it has some kind of sensitivity? What if it was fractured when an earthquake came through? This might be a good opportunity to break with comic book tradition and nod to the mundane.

I was thinking the furthest the history went was 2005 when the zone ended. But it doesn't matter. If you can want, you can put dates in and even develop more characters. That's the point, they aren't my characters. (;

It isn't expanding. It's shrinking.

Okay, so when the powers faded it stayed pretty consistent near the middle but started to fray around the edges. And I've been using sabotage as destroy, too. (;

What I want to happen is for the stone to get destroyed just before the zone starts to weaken to give the zone a strong reason to start weakening. Say the sentinel zone is cleft in half... It's still *there*, and it must have *some* powers, but it would make sense for its powers to begin fading.

/: I suppose we could do that... but destroying the Sentinel stone is *so perfect* for the story I already began.........

It could still work. Though, I suppose Zeus isn't the sort to think of mundane means to destroy something...

I was attributing the fading to entropy without much need for external factors, but we could do it your way, Caleb.

The timeline went to 2005, when the NZ collapses completely. But it's not like the CF universe just ceases to exist after that. That's actually when it really starts to get interesting. It's only after the NZ is gone that we can have CF become the superhero capital of the world.

On a different note, my nit-picking worldbuilder brain is still trying to come up with a plausible explanation for the sudden increase not only in the number of dynamic individuals in the world, but in their degree of power. If dynos have really been around since the days of Noah and are remembered in myths and legends, then how come the legends stop with the Enlightenment? Even with dynos being rare, wouldn't that make them more noticeable? How come with the increase of written records accounts of dynamic individuals decrease? How come all the legendary heroes were just super strong, fast, coordinated, smart etc. and our are heroes are flying, controlling the weather, and farting acid clouds? What changed?

I'm still piecing together my answers to this conundrum, and usually I would wait 'til I had it ironed out better. But with the way you young whipper-snappers keep popping out new ideas faster than I can weave them into our existing material, I figured it'd be safer to get this written down for public perusal before it's too late. And of course we're gonna go with my beloved bullet points for this part!

• For starters, naturally occurring dynamic abilities are extremely rare. In the early days of the Argo Initiative, they only managed to find 5 dynamically gifted individuals. At the height of the Argo Initiative/A.S.I.A., after decades of rounding up dynamics from around the world, there were only about 50 known active dynamically gifted individuals in the whole world.
• Most natural-born dynamic gifts are easy to miss if they are not discovered and developed. The first Argonauts was just another muscle man before the A.I.’s training helped him unlock his true potential and discover his real strength. The acrobat, with much training and experimenting, went from a guy who could see exceptionally well at night, to a guy who could see as clearly in the dark as you or I can in the light. But if you aren’t looking for these abilities, they’d be easy to miss. So a natural-born atmopath (weather controller) might occasionally cause a freak gust of wind, or make a downpour lighten up a bit, but wouldn’t be doing the same things as Storm.
  
• Much of the 50’s and 60’s (especially after the discovery of people with dynamic potential that never manifested into abilities) was focused around enhancing and maximizing dynamic abilities. Common tactics ranged anywhere from radiation experiments, to genetics, to meditation, to rigorous training. Each had their own effectiveness for different individuals, but they were all still pretty limited. For instance, the afore-mentioned atmopath even with radiation exposure and advanced training would never be able to do more than influence existing weather conditions.
• However, that all changed when A.S.I.A. recruited Vulcan. Vulcan was a wonder-smith/warp-smith who joined the Agency in the mid-60’s. He was both the first warp-smith on record, and (more importantly) the first reality warper on record. During his time at A.S.I.A., he was tasked with creating all kinds of weapons and technologies.
• One of those technologies was a microwave that he warped reality around so that he could put warp-relics into it and it would create identical duplicates with the same abilities. Before that, he was unable to mass-produce warp-relics.
• The majority of Vulcan’s projects were focused on identifying people with dynamic potential/abilities, awakening dynamic potential/abilities, and enhancing dynamic abilities. Among those projects was a belt he created for fellow agent, Pangea, which boosted his elemental abilities from being able to stir a breeze, make a fire flare, heal a blighted plant, and make a small wave to being able to fly on the wind, ignite and direct enormous blazes, and control water and minerals at will. This proved that warp-relics were the true ticket to maximizing dynamic abilities.
• Vulcan was also tasked with making warp-relics that endowed normal people lacking any dynamic potential with super abilities. While he was able to make many artifacts that granted considerable power to those who wielded them, he could never make anything that would permanently give powers to a non-dynamic.
• When another reality-warper (Sentinel) joined the agency, Vulcan was tasked with trying to train him to make warp-relics to. Sentinel’s talents however lie elsewhere. He could warp reality to give himself a variety of abilities, but extending his warping to other objects never worked out for him. Creating the Sentinel Stone during the Gladstone Incident was a hail Mary that wound up permanently stripping him of his powers.
• After the Gladstone Incident and the dissolution of A.S.I.A., Vulcan started up his own company, Vulcan Technologies, where he continued experimenting with making warp-relics that awakened and boosted dynamic abilities/potential beyond their natural state.
• This is where things are still foggy. I’m thinking that sometime in 1979/1980 either through conspiracy, sabotage, or accident, something happens with Vulcan’s artifacts that spreads their effects across the country (or world), which would account for why their are more dynamics than ever before and why they’re so much more powerful than at any other point in history. My current ideas for this are:
  
  • Vulcan goes to subversive mastermind mode, bent on increasing the number/power of dynos, and creates
    
    • A powder that he markets as a water-purifying agent and sells to water processing plants across the country, thus releasing it into the public water supply.
      
      The problem with this is that he can’t really warp chemicals. He could warp say, a stone, duplicate the stone with the dupliwave that I mentioned earlier, and grind them into powder and then sell the powder.
    • A piece of water-filtering equipment that he makes for water-filtering plants/water-works departments, that have the same basic effect as the powder idea.
      
      This works better than the powder idea, because it would be an object that he can warp and then just throw into the dupliwave.
    • Satellite or satellite pieces that broadcast power awakening/enhancing signals onto the earth. The network can be discovered and torn down quickly, but not before doing their job, and thus causing the 1980’s spike in dynamic individuals.
  • Vulcan creates a large stock of power-boosting relics, someone tries to steal them and either they find their way into the world and do their job, or the robbery goes wrong, there’s an explosion that scatters the ashes of the relics into the atmosphere, and the ashes have the same effect as the powder in the water-supply idea.

As you can see, I need some help with figuring out what went down that caused the 80’s-00’s awakening. I mean, continued experimentations with other things like genetics, radiation, etc. would explain part of it. But the best explanation for why kids/adults across the country suddenly start developing these amazing abilities is that without their knowing they were exposed to something that boosted existing abilities and awakened latent potential.

Help!

Yeah, so far all of my ideas take place in the present. It's cool that we have writers spread across the history.

Charcoal filters are pretty common, so if the dupliwave fried something to ashes, that might be the ticket.

Would A.S.I.A take interest in a nine-year old, code named Bloodhound? He's older in my story, but that may attach to his past. Perhaps he was still being subtly recruited when his parents moved him away from that.

No, not really. The point is he wants to exert his power. I guess since he sees himself as Zeus, the God of weather, he may find some way to make a natural disaster to destroy the Sentinel Stone.

An interesting plot line might be for him to think he's going to go destroy the stone, only to find it had been naturally broken by an earthquake or something. That would do nasty things to him, because he wants to have absolute power. I don't like that as much, but I could work with it.

Along those lines, I may have somewhat of a solution for that problem, Seer. Again, it involves my character, which I don't know how I feel about him having another majorly significant role... xD I guess that's the point.

Zeus would HATE Vulcan and his desire to spread warped relics to more people. If Zeus found out that Vulcan industries could give powers to more people, he would do all he could to destroy it. Building off of your last idea, he would probably try to steal all the boost relics, and then attempt to destroy them somehow. Because his power is over electromagnetic waves, maybe Zeus would try to incinerate them somehow using UV rays or do something even stronger like Gamma radiation or something. Maybe he thinks he succeeds, but when he disperses the radiation he used to fry the relics (not sure if that would work) the radiation carried the boosting capabilities throughout the earth. Or something along those lines.

I dunno. Just a possibility. It sounded better in my head. xD Whatever happens, I think Zeus would be actively trying to stop it if he knew about it/could.

About the dupliwave, if it's a modified microwave and used microwave radiation, Zeus could manipulate it. What if he had a showdown with Vulcan, and in trying to stop the dupliwave from working, he accidentally (perhaps because the dupliwave involves warped reality) made it go into overdrive or something, and created an inordinate amount of something, and then somehow they got spread all over everywhere.

*just tossing around ideas*

The problem is, that Zeus would only be about 4 or 5 years old when the Awakening (that's what I've decided to call whatever the event happens to be) takes place in 79/80.

They would take notice if his powers were noticeable enough, but they wouldn't recruit him, because he was a minor. They probably would just have kept tabs on him.
Also, pre-Awakening, his powers were probably a lot more subtle. Plus, I doubt that as a 9 yr-old, he knew that what he was doing was supernatural, he probably just thought he was really good at finding people. Then when the Gladstone Incident happens and the world learns that superpowers are real, he might start suspecting that he's like the super heroes/villains. Then when the Awakening happens, his powers would've been jump-started into full-force, and he would've had to have figured out how to deal with them.

Ooh... true... He was born in '79, I think. I suppose I could bump everything back, but...... nah. I don't wanna.

What if something got into vaccines? That's something that affects a human's system directly...

I like what's happening!

So is Vulcan still around in the present-day? I mean, he's a pretty darn significant figure to fit into all of this.

About the sudden increase options: I don't like the satellite idea for some reason. But it just doesn't seem to fit with Vulcan's warp-smithing abilities for some reason.
Some form of the powder idea is good, I think.

Ooooor, the global spread of dynamic-increasing-whatever-it-is is an ACCIDENT, a byproduct of a struggle, along the lines of what Elanhil mentioned but obviously with a different person trying to get control of the stuff.

I don't know Vulcan's character, but to me it would make sense, if he goes mastermind on us, that he would want some way to control or at the very least influence the dynamics that would be created by his relics. So why would he broadcast something all over the globe? To me, again not knowing his character, it would make sense if the global spread was an accident, resulting from a struggle over the relics and technology he had developed.

Originally he was a background character. *does some mental math* He tries to fade into the background after the Gladstone Incident, and I imagine he tries even harder after the Awakening.

Mastermind was actually just a freak thought. It doesn't really fit his character. Really, I think the reason he kept working on the relics after the GI was creator's compulsion. You know? When you start a job, and it isn't finished, and it drives you nuts. He spent all that time working on them with A.S.I.A. then the gov't just shuts them down and he feels like he still has ideas to try to accomplish what he set out to do. So he starts a company that uses simpler warp-relics to pay the bills so he can focus on his real work.

What if Vulcan just tries to make a relic to disinfect some water supply of some large metropolis (maybe CF itself, that would make sense for it to be the epicenter) but in so doing he just infects the water so that it somehow has the boosting effect on people with dynamic potential. That would make sense why CF is the superhero capital of the world. But it also makes sense that it could spread to other places from there.

Vulcan doesn't live in CF. His powers wouldn't work and he wouldn't be able to make anything if he did.

CF is the superhero capital of the world, because of all the dynamic people that went/were shipped there while the NZ was still up. When it went down, CF became the city with the world's largest population of actively dynamically gifted individuals, both heroes and criminals.

But the water filtering with unforeseen side-effect has promise.

Well he could do it for CF even though he doesn't live there. Like he was commissioned by someone. And furthermore, if it starts to spread while the NZ is still up, that explains how it would be able to get so far out of hand without being detected. And everything could be a combination of the water thing and people moving there.

Which would also explain how no one caught on that it was in the water and why no other cities are yet the "dynamic capital of the world".

Exactly. (: It works well with my plot too.