The X-men run missions and work together with the NYPD, striving to maintain a peaceful balance between humans and mutants. When it comes to a fight, they won't back down from protecting those who need their help.
Haven presents itself as a humanitarian organization for activists, leaders, and high society, yet mutants are the secret leaders working to protect and serve their kind. Behind the scenes they bring their goals into reality.
From the time when mutants became known to the world, SUPER was founded as a black-ops division of the CIA in an attempt to classify, observe, and learn more about this new and rising threat.
The Syndicate works to help bring mutantkind to the forefront of the world. They work from the shadows, a beacon of hope for mutants, but a bane to mankind. With their guiding hand, humanity will finally find extinction.
Since the existence of mutants was first revealed in the nineties, the world has become a changed place. Whether they're genetic misfits or the next stage in humanity's evolution, there's no denying their growing numbers, especially in hubs like New York City. The NYPD has a division devoted to mutant related crimes. Super-powered vigilantes help to maintain the peace. Those who style themselves as Homo Superior work to tear society apart for rebuilding in their own image.
MRO is an intermediate to advanced writing level original character, original plot X-Men RPG. We've been open and active since October of 2005. You can play as a mutant, human, or Adapted— one of the rare humans who nullify mutant powers by their very existence. Goodies, baddies, and neutrals are all welcome.
Short Term Plots:Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
The Fountain of Youth
A chemical serum has been released that's shaving a few years off of the population. In some cases, found to be temporary, and in others...?
MRO MOVES WITH CURRENT TIME: What month and year it is now in real life, it's the same for MRO, too.
Fuegogrande: "Fuegogrande" player of The Ranger, Ion, Rhia, and Null
Neopolitan: "Aly" player of Rebecca Grey, Stephanie Graves, Marisol Cervantes, Vanessa Bookman, Chrysanthemum Van Hart, Sabine Sang, Eupraxia
Ongoing Plots
Magic and Mystics
After the events of the 2020 Harvest Moon and the following Winter Solstice, magic has started manifesting in the MROvere! With the efforts of the Welldrinker Cult, people are being converted into Mystics, a species of people genetically disposed to be great conduits for magical energy.
The Welldrinker Cult
A shadowy group is gaining power, drawing in people who are curious, vulnerable, or malicious, and turning them into Mystics. They are recruiting people into their ranks to spread the influence of magic in the world, but for what end goal?
Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
Adapteds
What if the human race began to adapt to the mutant threat? What if the human race changed ever so subtly... without the x-gene.
Atlanteans
The lost city of Atlantis has been found! Refugees from this undersea mutant dystopia have started to filter in to New York as citizens and businessfolk. You may make one as a player character of run into one on the street.
Got a plot in mind?
MRO plots are player-created the Mods facilitate and organize the big ones, but we get the ideas from you. Do you have a plot in mind, and want to know whether it needs Mod approval? Check out our plot guidelines.
It was almost impossible to read the man's face from the one camera Panu had on him. His body language was not encouraging. It was... still. And sighing. Panu could see the man looking him over, but he did not know what to read into the motion. Jaager had not said anything yet. Panu had said everything he had come to say but Jaager was not saying anything back.
The boy's shoulders began to tense again. His hands found his cellphone in his pocket, and wrapped around it. Not to do anything--his hands could not do anything quicker than his mind could. Just to have something to hold on to.
The man's eyes flicked briefly to the camera in the corner. Panu's eye. The boy's hands tightened.
Jaager knew.
The man knew that Panu was organically blind and people who did not know him, did not understand, they thought this was a weakness. They didn't understand that their own stupid eyes were weak, and Panu's many eyes were the true strength. His parents had coddled him like he was... like he was five. He could not be weak, they were in the middle of negotiating. But if he tried to explain he would sound weaker, and what could he do, he didn't know, deleting things would not make things better and he did not have anything that could explode and he wasn't used to doing this alone--
Jaager pressed a switch in the table. Electricity flowed through circuits, and many more eyes came to life in Panu's range, staring into darkness. The boy sat very still as the man used his hands to clumsily interface with the cameras, sending orders to them through controls like he was drawing with crayons. Panu could have done things much faster and better, but he left it alone. The man trying to say something without using words.
This was... kindness? No, people who would threaten eight year olds did not have kindness.This said I know your weakness, and I am choosing not to use it against you. This was better than kindness, safer: this was acceptance.
"Thank you," Panu said softly. Now that the man knew, the boy let his gaze drop to his lap, stopped trying to pretend like his eyes were any good, or that eye contact meant anything to him. "May I use the others? Many eyes are better." Now that the cameras were awake, he could have raised them from the table himself. But he thought it was better to ask.
The man's terms were very good. Read-only permission of all systems, with write privileges on request. He was allowed to call the tiger secretary or Jaager, either of them. Jaager valued him enough that Panu did not have to go through minions if there was something important. The boy nodded, determined not to call the man unless it was something really, super, incredibly important. He would not be a bother.
Somehow the man's words were easier to understand now. He did not know why, but he liked it.
And now questions about him. Asking what Panu wanted, instead of telling him what to do. This was a strange way for a leader to act. Maybe something was wrong with the translation after all? Or maybe Jaager was a little soft, despite his threats. Still, Panu made sure to answer him very well. All points covered.
"Xavier's has Adapted and works with police, Faust has E-M-P, Sanctuary is stepping on ant hills, Australia has spiders, I am very white so not Asia or Africa, and cartels were back up plan. Jaager is best option in New York and New York has many networked systems so it is good for me. Also I think you probably have killed your father for power and did not get caught, so that is good too."
"I can do everything with computers. They like me. I do not actually need pay, because ATMs like me too. But I need home. And adults. I am very small so adults do not fear me in your country. In Finland they know better, but I think people do not know Swans here, so it is... fresh start?"
"Any orders are okay, I am not a good boy. Just tell me what to do."
While they were talking terms... Panu fidgeted, but it was such a small thing, the man couldn't mind. He blurted it out:
"Also I would like a Dog." Wait, no. That wasn't the right word. That was the name, not the object. He tried again. "A... toy helicopter? With camera? Dogs are useful."
The Finnish police had confiscated his Dog, because they were bullies and also stupid.
Panu will gladly mess with your assets and holdings, and/or reprogram a few of the stalker bots to target only Sanctuary members, and/or other mischief of varying degrees. This will be helpful, he trusts. <3
PS: If you strike Jaager Worldwide, I so want Panu to be there!
The man sat down. Panu watched him from the room's camera, as he pulled out the seat next to Panu and settled himself. This put him out of the view of Panu's phone, but that was okay. The room camera had a very nice side view.
Sitting down was important. Sitting down meant that the man was starting to understand that the adorable eight-year-old could destroy him. This was more like Panu was used to being treated, when Tuonela had brought him to meetings.
The man's tone and cadence did not change. But on the camera, his body language definitely did. Panu did not see the claws initially--they were very small, when viewed from so far away. But he knew what threats looked like, and he stayed very still as the man waved a hand in his face. Against the contrast of his own pale skin, the black claws showed up very clearly in the image. They felt very sharp against his forehead, like a cat's claws, but weighted so that you only needed to let them fall and they would cut.
The translation matched the action. The threat was re-iterated several times, in varying complexity, which allowed for very little misunderstanding.
A little bit of tension went out of the boy's body. His shoulders stopped trying to be perfect squares, and he let out a breath. A death threat. And not a novice death threat, a worthless I'll kill you that anyone could say. An experienced death threat. A professional death threat.
The man had accepted that Panu could hurt him, and had admitted that he was the type of man who would hurt an eight year old. Good. Now they could talk.
Panu adjusted his headphones. They'd slipped a little when the man had poked his forehead. Then, he gave a quick nod. "Okay. Your fruit game is gone already but I have not hurt other things yet. Now you know that I can do what I say I can do, yes? Now I am useful?"
He did not know what 'technopath' was. Latin or greek roots all jumbled together, the way English speakers liked to do. But he understood from context that this is what his power was, in English, and that the man knew what he could do.
"Now you can pay me?" Were those the right words? The man hadn't seemed to understand them earlier. Panu spun a few others through the translator: "Employment? Job?"
He shoved his hands into his hoodie pouch, and nodded agreement with the man's terms. "I can accept that I am single cutest thing if you will pay me for it."
This was not the reaction Panu was used to. Normally it was an adult talking while they used him as a threat, but he had been there for some of these negotiations, and this is not how they went.
Panu was not very good at reading faces. It wasn't often that he had an eye pointed directly at their expression. The camera in his hoodie pocket was angled upwards. It could see the man's chin very well, but the rest of his face was at a slant, harder to see and harder to decipher. The security camera in the room looked down from above and behind, catching the back of the man's head. Body language was easier--more dramatic to see on film. Tone of voice was the best, but it was hard to tell what words the man was stressing. The English moved so fast, and he did not know which word was which. He could pause for a more careful translation but then the man would know something was wrong with him. He could not be weak.
So he was not sure. But he was pretty sure. That the man was being condescending.
This is not how it would have gone if he had an adult with him. This is why he needed an adult to back him, again.
Since he could not read the man's tone, he went with the safest option, the one that let Ambrose read into Panu's words whatever was appropriate: a complete and utter deadpan, spoken in his soft voice.
>> "Well, thank you very much for the vote of confidence,"
"You are welcome." 'Vote of confidence' was some kind of idiom. But the statement itself didn't seem important, so he didn't cast further afield to see what it really meant.
"My name is Panu," he made sure to say that part slowly, and he hoped that was right for conveying how stupid it was to ask again who he was. Maybe he was not the only one who didn't speak English here. "I am deleting all of the games from your phone now. If you call me adora--ador--" That was a very hard word to pronounce and he did not like it. "If you call me cute again I think I will delete everything from your secretary's computer next. Maybe then something from your research lab?"
He stared down the man (...while staring up).He hoped that his organic eyes were pointed at the man's eyes, it was hard to tell the angle with only two cameras. But the point was not the staring: the point was that it bought him quiet time to replay the audio. Twice. Adorable, adorable. Okay.
"I am the eight-year-old who will destroy your data piece by piece unless you sit down." His neck was starting to hurt and anyway Jaager was just being obnoxious. One more time: adorable.
"I am not adorable. I am very threatening." He got it right that time. He knew he did.
He walked past the skyscraper again. The fourth time. He didn't really worry about being spotted by anyone in the lobby, because it was only the receptionist, and she was busy on her computer. She was doing actual work, which surprised him—he was used to passing secretaries who had internet forums and videos hidden behind their other windows. A receptionist who was responsible when no one was around to watch her was a good sign for the company.
He was not worried about cameras, either. He knew exactly where they looked. He didn't try to take them over or edit their livestream or anything time consuming like that—he simply slotted himself at the side of the adults who were walking past, and became invisible. He was very short and that was useful. When he grew up this would be much more work.
The passes allowed him to keep the building in his range as he worked his way into their network. Most of their servers where in his reach already, so it was fairly simple to reach out his fingers (his mind-fingers) and scrape in the few that remained, the ones that were on the upper floors. There was nothing too exciting, except that the accounting department was extremely creative. That was reassuring. If Mr Jaager was entirely above board then he would just call the police.
Panu retied his shoes, and made sure his headphones were straight. Then he went inside.
...Tried to go inside. The revolving door wasn't an automatically rotating one, and he had to push at it to get it moving, and it took most of his weight, and then it went really fast and he had to jump out at the end before it ensnared him in its death circle.
He liked regular automatic doors much, much better. They behaved themselves.
“Can I help you?” The receptionist called out.
Panu straightened his headphones again and trotted up to the front desk. He stood on his toes, and put his elbows on the counter. He was holding a brown paper bag. “My dad works here my mom's outside he forgot his lunch can I bring it to him?”
He had once brought a bomb into a building this way. This time the bag held only string cheese. He had bought it at a store, mostly so he could get a paper bag that looked like a lunch bag.
The receptionist smiled at him. “Who's your dad, sweetie?”
“Micheal Jameson. He works on fifth floor? Accounting?” Panu kept his voice soft. If she noticed his accent, this would get much harder. Michael Jameson was a real person, who was working on a spreadsheet reconciliation on the fifth floor right now. If accounting was truly an art, he would be Picasso. The background of his computer showed two young boys, both blonde haired, one of them about Panu's age. Parents made it very easy for Panu to identify them.
This is how Panu got a very official laminated vistor's pass to clip on his hoodie. He got into the elevator, and did not go to the fifth floor.
He went to the CEO's office, and peeked over another desk just outside. This one was shorter, and he could see over it without doing anything silly. Behind it was a tiger who did not look amused.
“Can I help you?” They were the same words as the woman downstairs, but the tone was completely different.
“I'm Mr. Jaager's 11 o'clock.”
“Mr. Jaager does not have an 11 o'clock.”
“Now he does.” This was true. She was logged into her calendar on her computer, so updating it was very easy. Across all synced devices, Mr. Jaager's 11 o'clock showed up as an entry created by Madeline Brass.
The woman looked at her calendar, then back at him. There was a certain narrowing of her eyes that was much more impressive when they were tiger eyes. But he couldn't show fear to a secretary. "I think he wants to see me. You should get him. I can wait."
Her eyes stayed narrow, but he saw a flash of teeth, just briefly. He thought it was a smile. "Right this way."
He checked down the hall she was pointing towards, but there were only offices and conference rooms. Nothing worrisome. He gave her what he hoped was a proffesional nod, and followed.
She deposited him into one of the empty rooms, and left again. He sat down in a plush wheelie chair. Swung his legs, a little. Tucked his cellphone so that its camera eye was peeking out of the edge of his hoodie. Swung his legs, a little more. Finally he opened up the paper bag, and took out a string cheese.
When he saw her coming back, the winged mutant from the interview in tow, he hurried to shove the half-eaten cheese back in the bag and the bag on the table no wait under the table so that everything looked really neat. He didn't stand as she brought Jaager in, because standing was something you did to show deference. He stayed sitting, right at the head of the table.
“Hello Mr Jaager. My name is Panu. I am the new owner of all your computers and data and also your schedule. If you pay me I will give them back.”
The phone in the man's pocket had a paused game on it, something stupid with bright pictures of fruit. Panu's eyebrows drew together as he realized that. "Unless you are not the one in charge here. Then bring me that person. I do not think you are in charge if you are playing games during a..." He checked what Mr. Jaager's actual 11 o'clock was. "...a board meeting."
That sounded important. Panu would be unhappy if Ambrose was just a figurehead, but it would explain a lot about how the man acted on the internet.
Always begin from a position of power. This is what Panu had been taught. If you hit them and they were down and begging, then you could ask anything and they could not refuse you. This was how Tuonela, his family, had operated. It had worked very well until it hadn't.
He went through the list again. Xavier's Sister School, the Sanctuary shelter, Faust Pharmaceuticals, Jaager Worldwide. These were the ones in New York City. There were bigger ones in other countries, maybe better ones. But he was a small Finnish boy with very blonde hair. In most of Asia and Africa he would stand out too much. He did not want to stand out right now, not when his biological parents would be looking for him, and maybe (probably) the Finnish police. There was a group in Australia who was promising, but he did not like the heat, and he did not like spiders that could eat birds, so he did not think he would like Australia. Central and South America had much potential, but he did not like their infrastructure—less cameras, less networks, less wifi routers. That could be his backup plan, maybe. The drug cartels were always looking for capable mutants, Tuonela had sold many children to them. He could sell himself very easily if this did not work out. He was obedient and useful. He would be treated well.
New York City. There were 12,460 traffic lights, 7,660 of which were tied to one central control system. 61.477%, most of them localized in the city proper. Traffic cameras and business cameras and tourist cameras. Financial districts that relied on computer trading. And four potential places to go, the highest concentration of any location on his list.
Overhead, a ding sounded, and then the voice of their captain. Weather conditions were good, they were expected to arrive on time. Fasten your seat belts that will not at all help you if the plane were to crash over international waters. Turn off your electronic devices as they may interfere with inflight systems.
...That would be bad.
Panu took a deep breath, then politely worked on disconnecting himself from the plane's computers. A woman towards the back of the plane was ignoring directions, and looking online at purses. He switched her phone into airplane mode, as well as the phone of a man watching sports, a teen streaming music, and several more. He searched, but there were no more. Everyone was behaving now.
He returned to his list.
Xavier's. A school for mutants. It had been attacked and/or destroyed repeatedly in the past but had a better track record recently. They accepted students K-12, so he was not too young. He had never been to a school. It might be fun, and he could always leave if it wasn't.
He dug through the files he had downloaded before going offline. Class listings. Basic schedules. History. Staff list. There was an ice mancer, which was cool. (He allowed himself a small smile for the small joke.) An omni-ligual language teacher, a math teacher who could animate sketches. They seemed nice. Better: they seemed semi-powerful, influential. They worked with police sometimes (not ideal). It did not seem the safest, but he could help them with that. And there was a lot of information about them, a lot he could read through to make sure it was not a mistake to go there.
He paged through news articles. He had translated them to Finnish before take-off, but had not checked the quality. Some of the words didn't make sense, maybe? It was hard to tell when mutants were involved. Maybe there really had been a clay Christmas tentacle behemoth, and a… a laser death clown? (That one was recent, the other was old.) And people becoming costumes. Did they turn into cloth? He wasn't sure. But someone from Xavier's had reversed the process. She had walked up to the mutant causing it and everything had stopped.
Panu's hands clenched in his lap. The plane jolted: not something he caused (he double-checked he was still disconnected). They were just accelerating down the runway. Soon they would be in the air.
“Nervous?” The woman next to him said. He didn't need to turn his phone her way to hear the smile in her voice.
Panu shook his head. A small, tight motion.
“Don't worry. Flying alone can be scary, but your parents will be waiting to pick you up at the end, yes? My son--”
He muted his audio intake. She was distracting.
...After a moment, he turned the sound back on, just a hair. He did not want to listen to her, but he liked the sound of her voice. It was pleasant.
He took a deep breath, and let it go. His list. This was a very serious problem. A woman who made a mutant's powers stop? Maybe it wasn't, but maybe it was: a Blackout. The English was… Adapted? Maybe she wasn't, but maybe she was. If she was then hopefully her room would burn down while she slept. Panu did not like Adapteds. He moved the school to the bottom of his list.
The Sanctuary. Many mutants, many strong mutants. The articles did not say it in as many words, but he knew how reporters sounded when mutants were so strong that the polices' eyes slid away from them, like pretending you did not see the monster hiding in your closet. That was good. But bad. But good. He liked strong mutants. But his family had been a lot like them, and if their family wasn't careful, then they would step on ants and step on ants until they stepped on an anthill. Then it did not matter how strong they were and how many they killed, because the swarm would kill them. Especially if there were Adapteds in the swarm. He moved the Sanctuary to the bottom of his list—no, second from the bottom. They were still better than the school-with-Adapteds.
Faust Pharmaceuticals. This was a very very good option. Their CEO was a woman mutant, many of their staff were mutants, they hired mutants all the time for their projects, and many of their current drug trials were focused on mutants. Curing mutants was not ideal, but hopefully that was just a shady cover story and they were really doing terrible things in their labs. That would be better. Then they would not care about child labor laws or reporting him to the authorities. He pulled up a clip of the CEO speaking. She was blonde and young, and looked confident. She smiled as a microphone was stretched out to her--
--and Panu's hope went up in smoke, much like the electronics near her. No no no. Faust Pharmaceuticals, deleted. Not an option. EMP mutants were worse than Adapteds, they were like pond scum that grew and killed all the fish, except the fish were his eyes and ears and mind. No no no no no.
The plane reached the end of the runway, and lifted, pressing him back into his seat. They rose and rose. A steady pressure built in his ears and in his head. His list was looking less good than it had when he had boarded the plane. New York City was looking less good, but he was on his way there already.
Jaager Worldwide. Please please please don't have Adapteds or EMPs or, or, mandatory acid baths. Whatever was worse than Adapteds or EMPs, he didn't even know.
He shoved his hands into the pouch of his hoodie, and went through what he had on them.
Jaager Worldwide. Led by Ambrose Jaager. A young CEO, only twenty-five. The previous CEO, his father, had passed away just before he assumed control.
Maybe he had killed the man to take power and hid it well enough that the media did not know. This was promising. If the father had died of boring natural causes that was also okay, but less promising.
He kept reading. High concentration of mutant staff and mutant hiring, a focus on pharmaceutical drug trials aimed at a mutant cure--
--Had he accidentally overwritten this file with the Faust file? Combined the data? No, the wording was different even if the meaning was the same. Competing companies, then. Good. They could put the EMP-woman out of business so she could rot in a hobo box in some other city.
There was a recent video clip. Some sort of recorded livestream. Panu pulled it up with great trepidation, knowing, just knowing, that something would go horribly wrong. He scanned the data quickly, not able to bear watching it at normal speeds--
He was right. But. Ah. It was okay? The wrong was that the man was okay with taking off clothes on video. But he was a physical mutant with great big wings, so it made sense that he did not like shirts. Panu could live with this.
There was nothing else bad. Nothing at all.
He relaxed in his seat, and let his audio turn back to normal volumes.
“You look like you feel better,” the woman smiled at him again.
“I do.” Panu found that he could smile, too.
He would hit Mr. Jaager. When the man was down, when he knew that Panu was strong and useful, that was when Panu could ask to join him, and Jaager would have to say yes.
Character's full name: Panu Miika Harmaajärvi Alias/ Nickname/ Code name:
[/i] Takala (Finnish surname, "(dweller in the) back") in Ragnarok: Muninn (old Norse for "memory"/"mind"; Odin's raven) on forums: TechnoBabble on networks: Joutsen (Finnish for "swan")[/ul]Gender: Male Age: 11 Date of Birth: 4/04/2007 (Finnish nameday: November 11th) Birthplace/ Home/ Place of origin: □ □ □ □ □ □ Nationality:Choose database:
American [proof of native citizenship attached]
Finnish [proof of native citizenship attached]
New entry
Ethnicity/ Cultural Heritage: Finnish
Appearance Hair color and style: Fine platinum blonde, an inch or so long, straight, soft as it looks Skin Tone: Lightly tanned because Xavier's California campus is AWFUL Eye Color: Very light blue Height: 139.7 cm (4'7”) Build: Skinny and a little plump around the pinchable edges because American adults have cultural custom of Bribe Children With Sweets Visible mutation: Close observers will notice that his eyes don't always track where they should, and his timing can be a few milliseconds off when reacting to sound inputs, particularly speech in languages other than English and Finnish. He usually speaks soft, and does not always emphasize syllables or words in a way that a native speaker would. Scars/ Tattoos/ Piercings: NA Other features: NA
Everyday clothing style: Likes to bury himself inside of adult-sized hoodies. Light gray or white are preferred. Under that is usually a plain T-shirt, jeans, and white tennis shoes. All his clothes are new and clean, and kept neat in their own fashion. Uniform: NA Sleepwear: Whatever he was wearing, plus a blanket cocoon. Miscellaneous clothing: Always has a set of headphones on. Prefers giant black studio headphones (with white swan decals), but can tone it down to ear buds if he's attempting to be discrete. Always has some form of smart phone or camera in hand or dangling around his wrist or neck. His hoodie pocket tends to clatter with extra batteries and spare tech.
Character Personality: 11-year-old Panu is 120% wiser and more world-weary than stupid 9-year-old-new-to-America Panu. Now he knows that adults are stupid no matter whether they are goodies or baddies and everyone lies. He is a prickly hedgehog who does not need or want hugs and if you try he will flail ineffectually.
He has very good concentration for his age, but does not always remain on task without supervision, and is prone to showing visible signs of frustration or protest when bored (like flopping face down over a keyboard and refusing to move, or changing the language settings of all neighboring phones to Chinese and pretending he doesn't know how to switch them back). He likes to make himself useful to his family because keeping everyone safe is what he is here for and he will not fail again [see memory file 20141126001613145, external storage 17. file flag: emotional content, do not watch with others present]. Hobbies/ Interests:Has started taking violin lessons, mostly to punish the teacher who suggested it and also anyone in hearing range. It is an electric violin, and he can play classical music in his own mind while cat-screeching at everyone else. Job or part time job and description:[redacted] Fears/ phobias/ concerns: Adapteds are horrible things that should not exist. There is no purpose for them and they should die. Black outs are also terrible, and mutants who can cause them or any form of EMP pulse should be banned from life. Also microfiber couches. He hates that unholy demon skin with a burning passion. Special talents: Native Finnish speaker, knows a conversational amount of Swedish as well. Has a decent grasp on English now thanks to being in the Worst Country for two years now.
Morality Good/ bad/ neutral/ other: It is important to protect his family and protect himself. That is the order in which they appear on his list. Anyone who threatens family in the present or who may pose a threat to them in the future should be deleted like an irredeemably corrupted file.
Mutations Mutation description: Technopath/Human AI. Panu has all the capabilities of a high end computer inbuilt into his brain, complete with his own organic wifi. He can link with all sufficiently advanced technology within 100 yds of his location, and freely access the data they contain for the purposes of mining or modifying. He can also tunnel through a device into a connected network outside his range, though this requires narrowing his focus.
Strengths: He intuitively understands the scripting of all software and file formats he encounters, and can write, rewrite, or re-purpose them towards his own ends. Programming comes as easy to him as thought. Basic passwords don't stop him for more than a few seconds, as they're the gate, and he's essentially climbing over the fence to access systems directly. Encrypted data takes him significantly longer, but he can generally break it given hours or days to work on a problem.
He treats his own mind like an organic computer, and reprograms it in ways he finds more efficient, including the installation of software and organizing his knowledge into files and databases. His memories are encoded into AV files readable by standard software, allowing for playback and external backup. A simple internet connection allows him access to a multitude of translation programs, rendering him functionally omnilingual (...with a bit of a time delay, and an acceptable margin of error in translation and pronunciation). His internal calendar app pings him at appropriate intervals for meals.
Like any good computer, he can multitask, dealing with multiple input/output streams at a time. While Panu is not super intelligent, the ability to read Wikipedia articles at the same speed as a computer or spin math formulas through Wolfram Alpha allows him to fake it, though discussion on a topic may bring to light that he is just parroting things to sound smart.
Weaknesses and Limitations: Panu has lost the ability to see through normal means. This is his own fault—he found that his peak efficiency occurred when he recorded all incoming audio and video, so he routed that process to main. But he wrote over something when he did it and now it is gone and he can not determine how the original organic was supposed to function--
[deep breaths are like factory resets but without the down time, therefore they should be used liberally]
Panu sees only through cameras located in his vicinity. If there are none, he's blind. It is possible that despite his enhanced awareness of the issue, he could make such a mistake again. He cannot backup the entirety of his mind; only the parts that can be converted into existing file formats, like the visual and audio components of his memories, and lists of things he knows.
While he's superficially aware of all tech in his range, he functionally tends to focus on 1-10 things at a time, with the rest on a passive status. For example, while he'll know if your cellphone is in his range, he won't be reading your text message history unless he focuses on doing so. And while there may be hundreds of cameras in his range on a crowded NYC street (between smart phones, digital cameras, street cameras, etc), he's only going to focus on those he's interested in. He might set up alerts for others (like, “if something deviates significantly from the norm in this screen then switch it to main”), but he's not likely to notice small blips if he's not specifically paying attention for them.
When tunneling through a device to reach elements on its broader network that are outside his range, he must narrow his focus to that single network, disconnecting from everything else within his range. Depending on the size and complexity of the network, it can take him minutes, hours, or months to find what he's looking for. Unless the network he's tunneling through includes nearby video sources, he's rendered blind to his immediate surroundings until he disconnects. In an Adapted's field, Panu would be stripped of sight, his connections, and access to his non-organic files. (No files are damaged by an Adapted field; it's the equivalent of a hard reset. He'll just take a minute or two to fully boot back up).
He is in the habit of hosting his worst memories in external computers, and deleting them from his own mind. This is probably not good for his development, which is why he doesn't tell adults he's doing it, because they might make him stop. Because these memories (as well as more mundane memory backups) exist in real, physical computers, there is a very real possibility that someone could find and view them. Or edit them. Some of his memories are preserved only in uploaded form, and edits to them would cause irreversible damage to his memory.
While his mutation allows him to know many things via near-instant online searches, he struggles to understand many of the things he reads, particularly in their implications. A lot of stuff available on the internet does more harm than good to a kid's mind. Also, spinning English sites through a translator into Finnish and then spinning his responses back into English doesn't always help things, either.
Physical Abilities General Physical Capabilities: Panu is strong enough to wiggle his way up on top of counters so he can open kitchen cabinets. He can sprint surprisingly fast, like a startled rabbit. Due to a if-you-want-gelato-you-must-jog-first habit instilled in him by Best Friend Noel, he can keep it up and not die of wheezing for a decent amount of time. Fighting Style: If you are going to die it will be in a traffic accident when the lights change all wrong. Fighting Style Pros/Cons: Your death requires sufficient planning so please be patient.
Swans of Tuonela A group of self-styled mutant “super villains” based out of Finland. Responsible for an escalating series of terror campaigns from 2010-2014. Most well known for their serial abductions of mutant children as both hostages and tools in their crimes. Activities were confined to Finland and neighboring Nordic countries. Most members were captured or killed in a police raid on December 26, 2014.
Actions ...See Vantaa City Bomb Threat
...See Kakslauttanen Hotel Hostage Crisis ...See Kidnappings of mutant children in Nordic countries ...See Crimes by mutant children in Nordic countries ...See Aktia Bank Robbery ...See Assassination of Ingvar Carlsson ...See Ansur Data Breach
...documented use of his mutation included the ability to involuntarily wrest control of another mutant's power. Killed in the police raid on Tuonela headquarters.
Codename Takala (English: "(dweller in the) back")
Edit 2018: Panu got caught on completely stupid charges that no one could prove and spent two years on probation at Xavier's Sister School in California. After totally not his fault incidents there, he was transfered to the New York campus, were the Stupid Adapted could be used to threaten him to not-reprogram-the-security-systems.
Roleplay Where did you learn about this site?: teh interwebs Do you have any other characters on MRO, if so who: Player of Jiri, Calley, et al Sample RP: Panu knew the files were wrong. Edited, corrupted. A hackjob. He was not stupid. When he searched his memories for father, mother, for family, he only saw the faces of the Tuonela. Perämies had done this to him when they took him from his home. He had used Panu's own power and he had done it, so that Panu would not panic, would not try to leave.
He knew the files were wrong, but the data was right. This man and woman existed in fragments of early images, scraps that Perämies had missed, but that did not make them father and mother. They were speaking, but he had muted the incoming audio. Music played instead; Jean Sibelius' Lemminkäinen Suite. His eyes were in their direction but they did not know him at all, they thought he could see them. Probably they had been told he was blind, but they still did not understand. They did not notice the phone in his lap, its camera pressed into the folds of his clothing so all its eye saw was gray-black. They did not notice the camera in the corner of the room, tracking them.
The police woman probably noticed, but the police woman could go die. She made him blind and stupid whenever she came in the room. She was behind the glass wall, he could tell because he could not see there. She was a blackout, a null, an Adapted.
His family was gone, murdered, and they were trying to give him back to these people. These humans. He could see the woman was crying as she spoke to him, edging closer, her hand almost touching his but afraid to move that last inch. Good. He wasn't hers anymore, she shouldn't just touch him whenever she felt like it. The man looked much older than in the fragments Panu had. His hair was brown in those files. In the black and white of the police camera, his hair was nearly turned to snow. The files said he was 44 but he looked very old. He said something to Panu.
Panu did not hear it, of course. But he nodded just a little, because he knew that was what they wanted. Everyone watching, that was what they wanted. The police woman too. They thought if he accepted these people, then it would fix something.
The woman threw herself at him, wrapped her arms around him. He was warned by the black-and-white camera so he did not flinch, but he did not hug her back. The man reached out for his hand, and set his own palm on top of it, just resting. Big and warm and weighty. It felt strong but it was not.
He would not stay with them. Maybe a month or two or more, until the police left him alone. Then he would be very far away before they could catch him. He knew how to get IDs, everyone in Tuonela had gone by many names. He knew the man Perämies went to to get the papers, and he knew how to use his power to pay for them.
They were not his family. They were just two humans who could not even protect their own child. They could only hold him and say things in his ears, things he did not want to listen to. A family this weak would allow him to be taken again, would die on him again. He would find a stronger one.
Tuonela Notes to Self: Takala - dweller in the back - Panu Perämies - Co-Pilot - power hijacker Johtaja - Leader/Manager - injury splitter Parvi - Swarm - bug caller, mute from physical changes Vuori - Mountain - laaaarge