Quick Summary:
The Riot Plot was played in 3 stages.
Stage 1 (Dec 2012 - Feb 2013) - Five police officers are caught on film using excessive force against a mutant suspect; mutant/human tension begins to rise. Kick starter post and full plot intro below; kick starter from the beaten mutant's perspective here.
Stage 2 (Feb 2013 - May 2013) - The cops involved in the beating are formally exonerated following a police investigation; protests begin, but are largely peaceful. Kick starter post/stage 2 intro here.
Stage 3 (May 6 - 12, 2013) - Those exonerated cops? They beat up another mutant. This time, a reporter. Bad idea, boys. NYC erupted into violent mutant v. human riots for a solid week; the National Guard had to come in and quell things at the end.
Stage 1 Kickstarter / Overall Plot Introduction: Source: View-tube, a popular video sharing site.
Title: Visible mutant, Police brutality.
“-‘re gonna feel like an ass…” It started mid sentence, with the voice of a young man, and the sound of curtains being pushed open. The footage, obviously shot with a low grade camera, or a cell phone, showed a fuzzy figure walking down the street. Slowly, the camera focused, revealing a woman. “Told you, Shaun. Told you they could be hot!” The shaky video zoomed in quickly on the visible mutant, who had a grey complexion, large bat-like wings, and a long, devilish tail tail. Still, it couldn’t be denied that she was attractive. “When I see you at school tomorrow, I’m getting that five bucks…” The video flipped around abruptly, showing the face behind the camera. It was a boy with braces, brown hair, and a rather plain face with a pimple or two, revealing a recent meet up with puberty. He grinned widely at the camera. “You owe me…Wait-” His eyes flicked up to something off screen.
The camera flipped again, showing the girl once more; there was a cop car pulling up to her. The woman didn’t stop walking, though, looking back and shaking her head in answer to something the cop said. The cop car halted for a moment as the woman sped up. Slowly, a cop climbed from the car, and started calling out to the woman . “Can’t hear… lemme open the window.” . The camera moved, and went dark for a moment as the teen struggled with the window. After a few moments the camera was lifted back to the scene, which had apparently escalated quickly. “On the ground! On the ground!” The officer had his hand on his weapon, the mutant turned to run, and the cop started running after her. Another cop car, just arriving on the scene, saw the woman running, and swerved to cut her off. It wasn’t clear in the video whether or not the car hit her, or if she fell over it, but there was definitely car to person contact, and she definitely went over the hood, falling to the ground on the other side.
The officers were on her in a flash, even as she struggled to stand. A large man dove at her, grabbing her wrist and trying to force it behind her back; Her wings kicked into action, flapping a few times. “Oh my god…” A dull thud was heard as another officer came from the side with a night stick, smacking it into the wing’s folding joint; A scream of agony was heard as another officer joined in, and the first one pressed her into the ground, placing his knee on her head to force it down. The two other officers pummeled her wings mercilessly; the words they were screaming were drowned out by the mutant’s wails of agony as she struggled to move.
Her struggles only made it worse, though, as when her wings were clearly disabled, they started hitting her legs. “Shaun… Shaun this is bad…” The boy’s voice came in again, sounding as if it was overwhelmed with the shock of the situation. The woman was moving still, though mostly it was trying to struggle away from the officer’s relentless attacks; in response the heavy one moved his knee from her head, screamed something in her face, and then started hitting her in the head with his night stick. After three hits, she was still; he hit her two times just to be sure. “I’ve… I’ve got to tell someone-” As the police lifted the woman up, the camera flicked off.
The video raced around the internet like wildfire, becoming viral within hours of being posts. Mutants and their supporters commented and tweeted about their outrage, people chimed in to support the officers, and trolls jumped in with stupid and unfunny jokes to try to provoke a reaction. It wasn't long before the media got involved, and the incident became world famous.
Officials did their best to downplay the situation, and dispel the tension the situation was creating. Little did they know, a storm was brewing.
* * *
The MRO riot plot will take place in roughly three phases; these phases will take place as follows.
Phase 1This phase takes place right after the video's release. At this time most, if not all characters will be aware of the incident; the video itself will have millions upon millions of hits, and you are very welcome to have your character play out their first (or billionth) viewing in a thread. Many people will have something to say about this video; feel free to scoff at ‘human rights’ groups yelling about how it’s about time a mutant got put in their place, or root along with them! It’s up to you!
During this stage there may be small, contained incidents of racial tension and violence, as one might expect from something like this. You are more than welcome to play out such things, but keep in mind, it must all be within reason; Human supremacists aren’t going to go on killing rampages, just as well as mutant supremacists aren’t going to be dropping people left and right. At this point, the case is under review, and as far as everyone knows, the cops, who can’t clearly be identified through the footage, are going to go to jail for a loooong time for this.
As of phase one, the factions will not be the focus; the tension will be high everywhere, but there won’t be a whole lot anyone can do about it. It will seem as if that tension might just hang in the air forever… that is, until something happens to cause the strings holding a civilized society together to break.
Phase 2Phase two will take place right after the cops are exonerated. A video will be released from the cop’s dash cams, along with audio, and they will leave it at that, believing it will sate the masses. It will not; organized, but peaceful protests will begin to pop up across the country. Counter protests will also pop up; human’s who are not fond of mutants (or the incredible crime rates in the Order territories) will also be heard.
It is during this phase that the X-men will be called in to assist the NYPD in keeping the protests peaceful. Neutral characters, Order members, mansion students, even off duty x-men and NYPD characters can participate in the protests. The tension from phase one will only go up; certain parts of town will be unsafe for mutants, certain parts unsafe for humans.
The NYPD, MRC, and X-men will be working very closely together from this part of the plot onward; they will stand as a united front, human and mutant, in order to try and ease the tension.
The Order, on the other hand, might have other plans.
The protests will run for some time before one of them turns violent, leading to…
Phase 3Phase three will start with another brutal attack, and the horrible luck of a pro-mutant protest, and an anti-mutant protest being ‘accidentally’ scheduled in the exact same time and place. Both of these will happen within hours, and it will not end well.
This phase will be short, chaotic, and violent. It will allow you to experience your character at their best(or their worst). As a neutral character, will you run amidst the rioters, or try to help maintain order? As an NYPD officer, will you stand as a pillar of strength in a sea of chaos, or will you crumble to the unforgiving forces of sleepless nights and stressful days? As a member of the Order, will you use this opportunity to further the cause, or will you get lost in the crowd of discontent faces? As a member of the X-Men, will you be a shining example of equality and cooperation, or will you break down in response the haunting cries of “Traitor!” as they echo throughout the crowd?
This will be the climax, and culmination of the plot, and it will only run for 1 week, IC, before the national guard is able to get the riots under control.
* * *
Now, notice how none of these phases have a specific time frame, with the exception of the riot itself; that’s because I’m going to try and take a more unique approach here. Basically, the plot will move forward when the general consensus is that people want it to move forward. We will keep track of this in the plot threads, which I will be opening at the beginning of each phase.
Links!
Phase 1 plot page!Archive
