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 Pharoah Dynasty
An ancient sorceress is on a quest to bring her long-lost warrior-king to the modern era in a bid for global domination. Can the heroes of the modern world stop her before all is lost?
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.
Sonya misses most of Rupert's lecture while getting herself under control, washing her face and running her hands under cold water until they stop shaking.
Meanwhile, she confirms two things. First, she's not wearing this strangely worn-in jogging suit over the black garment she never goes out without, she's wearing it instead. Second, the jogging suit has two startlingly well-concealed holsters in which her guns are comfortably and imperceptibly nestled. Both facts as implausible as they are incontrovertible.
Once her brain starts working again she remembers Calley's collar, and her thought that a garment like that would be useful. Could it be...? It seems like an absurd bit of magic... then it occurs to her that she's keeping company with a winged man and the world's most moronic mesmerist, and shelves her skepticism. Instead, she stares at the worn patch on her left knee for a moment and thinks fix yourself! as loudly as she can.
Nothing happens.
"Oh well. It was worth a shot," she mutters. She's still not sure what's going on with this jogging suit, but it's not really the most important thing going on. The conversation in the living room is audible through the door...
> "I can tell the guards I am one of them. I can walk right in and tell > them I am taking Raina for one reason or another and leave with her."
That gives Sonya a moment's pause. Would it work? It wouldn't fool the robots, of course, but could the robots override the other soldiers? If Naveed just commanded them all to lay down their weapons and throw open the gates, what would the automation do? I bet Calley's technogeek friend would know, she muses.
> "I believe in survival of the fittest. Raina would have survived no > doubt if not for someone in this room."
That gets a laugh out of Sonya -- survival of the fittest, where "fitness" is measured not by success but by Naveed's preconceptions. That's a new one on her. And the more Naveed talks, the clearer it is that, while he may be powerful, he's not clearly an ally... nor is Rupert clearly an enemy. She could probably surprise them both by kicking the door open and firing... but she'd get at most one shot before being taken down, and it's not at all clear which one of them she should target. Besides which, things seem to have moved past the kill-or-be-killed stage.
So, with a final deep breath, she steps back out of the bathroom. The dogs are huddling around Wings, who is wrestling them for a bag of dog-food, and Sonya moves as far away from them as she can while waiting for Rupert's answer.
Had Sonya made a list of Naveed's likely reactions to her outburst, she's not really sure what would have ended up at the top of the list. Pummeling her senseless, maybe, or ordering her to jump out the window. She is sure that an approving burst of laughter would not have been on the list, and it takes her a while to realize he's serious about it.
> "I didn't mean to control you... sometimes I can't control when it happens."
Yeah. Right. I can't always control when I hit you with a brickbat either, jerk. She doesn't say it out loud, though... she figures it will either earn her another violent outburst or another condescending fake-apology, neither of which will get her anywhere.
> “...and you are amazing. Please, though, hold off on anymore apt lectures for just a minute.”
Sonya nods at that, a little dazed. Wow. Impressed both of them. Imagine that! She makes a mental note to tell Grandma the story before she remembers, with that sinking feeling in her stomach she's almost gotten used to, that she can't ever talk to Grandma again. Or Mom, or anybody.
Meanwhile, Rupert has called his precinct -- His secretary is Delores, she files away in case she needs the information -- and fast-talked them out of sending a squad car. A moment later Sonya can hear police sirens driving past the building, and breathes a sigh of relief.
That's when she notices the dog. Correction: dogs. Giving Wings the They Never Feed Me expression. Staring mournfully at Rupert. Being perfectly well-behaved. Perfectly well-behaved... Dogs.
It's OK, she tells herself, feeling her breathing accelerate and her palms sweat. I've got control of it now. I won't suddenly shift. I won't. I haven't in months! Nothing to worry about. And has to touch bare skin anyway, right? Nervously, she sticks her hands deep into the pockets of her jogging suit and backs away from Wings and the lab.
The pockets. Of her jogging suit. Her electric blue jogging suit. With white stripes. And pockets. Somewhat worn around the knees. Very familiar, she's been jogging in it every morning for about two years. Ever since Danny gave it to her for Christmas.
Except none of that ever happened and I don't own a @!@#!!@ jogging suit!
She startles a little when she backs into the wall, and begins to sidle slowly to Rupert's bathroom door, careful to keep both of the dogs in her line of sight.
> "So why are you lying for everyone here? I don't see how you have anything > to gain by helping these mutants, and personally I could care less who or > what goes in or out of those camps so long as I get Raina."
Sonya rolls her eyes at that as she edges towards the bathroom. Just how dense is this guy? Rupert had already said he doesn't want to see anyone else locked up in the camps... especially Wings over there. Granted, she can't quite remember exactly how Naveed had worded the order... something like 'Give me a reason not to kill you,' she thinks, which didn't actually obligate Rupert to stick to true reasons... but it seemed plausible enough. Apparently he really was turning over a new leaf.
Either that, or he's running a long con.
> "Is there anything else you'd like to tell me before I go to get Raina?" > "I honestly hope you don't plan on going by yourself. I highly doubt > you would get very far no matter what your power is. You'd be better > off looking for someone to help."
Much as Sonya appreciates the boy's sarcasm, she winces at his choice of words. Oboy. I hope he doesn't take that advice too seriously, given that we're the nearest 'someone's around.
"Actually, it might be interesting to watch. But I'll bet money that your mind-control doesn't work on machines -- right, Naveed? Rupert, will you explain about Stalkers to this guy? I'll be right back."
With that, she ducks into the bathroom, shuts the door behind her, and looks at herself in the mirror.
Sure enough, electric blue jogging suit. She was wearing it when she left Calley's apartment to go jogging this morning. She'd been half-awake, she remembers, just letting the body do what it was apparently accustomed to doing while half-awake... which apparently involved putting on a jogging suit she doesn't own.
By the time Sonya gets herself untangled from Wing-boy and on her feet, things seem to have calmed down a bit, and she takes a moment to survey the situation.
Naveed, while still basically being a jerk, is no longer throwing a tantrum. Wing-boy, while still nervous, is no longer in full-fledged (pun fully intended) panic. The dogs, while still dogs, have stopped their annoying caterwauling. And Rupert -- well, actually, somewhat to Sonya's shock, Rupert has been something vaguely resembling the voice of reason throughout this whole strange little interlude. But he's lying half-dazed on the floor, which might explain it.
A sane woman would take the opportunity to flee. But she did tell Syn she'd gather all the information she could, and she really does want to know what Rupert was doing with this mutant kid in his apartment. She hadn't paid too much attention to Rupert's answer to Naveed's question at the time, but the phrase "I can’t let anyone else get thrown in that place" floats up into her memory.
Imagine that. He has a conscience after all. Even if he did shoot his pregnant girlfriend. She's not really prepared to forgive him for that, conscience or not... but it's still nice to know. And as she reviews his entire answer in her head, she realizes there are more urgent issues to be addressed, and everyone else seems too distracted or beaten-up to address them.
"All right, everybody needs to calm down, right now," she snaps in what she's come to think of as the 'Grandma voice' -- not shouting, Grandma never actually shouted, but people listened to her anyway. It's odd hearing it come out of this skinny white girl's mouth, but she doesn't stop to analyze it. "You, Wings, get back inside before one of Rupert's neighbors comes out to investigate the ruckus and sees you. Rupert, make whatever damn calls you have to make, before your 'fellow officers' show up and find out you've been keeping a teenaged mutant boy in your bedroom. Having a mutant girlfriend's bad enough for your rep around the precinct, don't you think?"
"And as for you..." Sonya's more than a little surprised at herself as she walks over calmly to Naveed, ignoring both the dogs (!) near Rupert and the fact that Naveed could take her apart without half-trying, and slaps him, hard. Not hard enough to hurt -- not that Teresa's body was capable of that anyway -- but hard enough to get his attention. "You ever pull that mind-control stunt on me again and I'll find a way to make you pay for it. Do you understand me? Sit down and calm down and we'll see what we can find out about Raina."
She could stop there, she realizes, but she's on a roll and, in a weird adrenalin-laced way, rather enjoying it. "And at least try to remember that your precious little sister is an actual grownup person with a mind of her own, will you? I don't approve of her taste in men either," that with a glare at Rupert, "but this whole overprotective big brother thing gets real old, real fast."
Nobody seems to have responded, which -- now that Sonya thinks about it -- was often the effect Grandma had on people, too. So she puts her fists on her hips and glares around the room. "Well??!?"
(( OOC: I know I'm g'modding a little, but it seemed narratively appropriate. If you have a problem with it, just let me know and I'll change it. ))
(( OOC: Navi - all the mind-control stuff is fine. You should probably include some reaction to Griff's punch, though, don't you think? Being hit by it, dodging it, whatever? ))
> "Teresa! You can now move. Move here and hold this boy out of my way while I wait for Rupert's answer."
Well, that solves one problem, thinks Sonya as she climbs to her feet and heads back to the apartment, though not so much helping with the 'getting the hell out of here' plan. It occurs to her that perhaps she could ignore the command altogether -- after all, she isn't really Teresa, now is she? -- but she doesn't want to give that fact away, and there's no easy way for her to tell the difference between a command she is forced to follow and one she chooses to, and she doesn't have a lot of time to experiment. Mind control, she repeats to herself, is weird.
In any case, she figures it can't hurt to take a peek into the apartment. Running away hadn't worked all that well, perhaps shooting the jerk when he's distracted with Rupert would work better. Or, well, maybe not shooting him -- then she'd have to explain why she's carrying around police hardware, which would get awkward -- but hitting him with a lamp or something. That always works on television.
Or maybe cutting out the middle man and hitting him with a television would be better.
In fact, she ends up not having to decide. Instead, she reaches the apartment doorway in time to collide with an adolescent boy and a pair of truly remarkable wings as the collection attempts to burst into the hallway... which makes the question of whether she's following Naveed's command rather moot, since Wings isn't exactly in the jerk's way to begin with. It becomes further moot when she finds herself tangled up in a collision of wings and arms and legs and, annoyingly, back on the hallway floor when her attempt to extricate herself interacts poorly with Ian's attempt to do the same, resulting in an ineffectually flailing assortment of limbs worthy of a Marx Brothers routine.
"Dude, will you calm all the way down, please? I'm not going to hurt you -- I don't even know you!"
(( OOC: Griff -- I'm assuming here that you get past Naveed and you're still trying to get away, as per your post? Let me know if that's wrong and I'll edit. ))
> "She is a princess! She was pure! You weren't even fit to lay a hand on her! > She is a goddess among you human fools and deserves to rule you all!"
I was with you until that last one, dude, Sonya thinks from her increasingly uncomfortable position on the hallway floor. Raina had seemed like a nice enough girl, but her big brother was kinda pushing it with the whole 'goddess among human fools' thing. Idolizing your little sister is one thing, but there are limits.
Of course, if he's another one of these mutant supremacist types, maybe he doesn't count me among the 'human fools.' On consideration, she's not sure that's any better... bigotry is bigotry. On the other hand, if there's going to be bigotry, better to have it on your own side.
> "Tell me, why should I not kill you here and now?"
Oh, this should be good. Perversely, being paralyzed in the hallway makes it more difficult to take this whole situation seriously than it might otherwise be: Sonya suspects she would be laughing right now if she were able to.
> "You're not gonna take me, you sick sadists. Take this, you monster!"
What the -- who was that?!? The voice is male, young, and unfamiliar, clearly coming from inside the apartment, and Sonya wishes she could turn around and look inside as it's followed by the sounds of violence. Who isn't going to take who? Who is this guy, whose side is he on, and what on God's green earth was he doing in Rupert's apartment?
(( OOC: hope nobody minds my posting out-of-order, especially since we don't really have an order.
Also, Raina, it's all fine -- just go ahead and use Naveed's power on Sonya however is IC, and if I have a problem with it OOC I'll let you know and we can fix it then, but I find it unlikely.
Question, though: how long do Naveed's commands last if they don't have a natural end-point?))
> "Freeze!"
Sonya gets about five feet down the hall before Naveed's shouted order reaches her, and she stops short with one foot on the floor before momentum sends her toppling forward, folding around her outstretched arm and not-quite-screaming with the pain in her wrist.
Damn, she thinks once the immediate pain subsides. I thought he had to make eye contact, like Dracula. No such luck. Fortunately for Sonya, the "freeze" command doesn't seem to preclude her from doing things other than moving, which includes healing her wrist. Which is helpful in many ways, especially the not-being-in-pain ways, but doesn't help with the whole seeing-what's-going-on thing.
On the other hand, it doesn't prevent her from hearing the proceedings from inside the room. Dogs (plural!!!) barking. Things getting knocked around. And Rupert's summary of his, er, troubled relationship with Raina.
Some of that Sonya had already known, but the pregnancy and miscarraige were news, and between that and the "I just bagged her" comments, she finds herself briefly uncertain which of the two men she most wants to watch being battered bloody. Lord knows they both deserve it.
Sonya had expected something to feel different when she successfully led Naveed to Rupert... but nothing does. So, is that it? Can I go now? She isn't sure. She doesn't seem to be leaving... but on the other hand, she doesn't neccessarily want to leave... or does she? Mind control is weird, she concludes, and idly wonders what would happen if Naveed mind-controlled Slate while Calley was in charge before deciding she's woolgathering. He's opened the door, she's done her job, she can leave now.OK, here I go!
She continues to stand there looking at Rupert.
Guess not. So, what... I have to introduce them?
> "Can I help you?"
Worth a shot.
"Um... hi. Not me, so much, but this here is Naveed. He's a mutant, some kind of mind-control thing with his eyes, and he wanted to meet you. You might want to run away or something. Um, Naveed, this here is Rupert, he's Raina's boyfriend. As for me, I'm, um, leaving now."
To Sonya's delight, she actually manages it this time... or at least, manages to step away from the door in the general direction of the stairs.
(( OOC: whether she gets stopped, or comes back on her own, or flees this thread, depends a lot on the events of next few seconds... ))
It's been about twenty minutes since Sonya received Naveed's command to take him to Rupert.
That's long enough for her to hail a cab, give the cabbie Rupert's address, and have him drive there. He doesn't live that far away.
It's also long enough for her to wonder why she's doing this.
It seemed like the thing to do at the time, at first... after all, she had just told this guy Rupert had shot his relative, and he had kinda freaked out about it. But once the adrenalin (and the initial effects of Naveed's mental influence) wore off, it had very much seemed like a bad idea.
To begin with, how is she going to explain Teresa knowing Rupert's address? She only knows it herself because she'd gotten the precinct secretary to give it to her, back when she was wearing Stanley, with some story or another about his network access seizing up and wanting to send Rupert a Christmas gift he didn't want the whole office knowing about. The last thing she wanted was any kind of connection being made between Teresa and Stanley. She'd rather not introduce Rupert to Teresa at all, frankly, especially not while he's sober: he's not stupid, and he's no doubt already figured out that "Stanley" was a shapeshifting mutant, it wouldn't take enormous brilliance to connect the dots. And even if she finds a way to squeeze out of that one, there's still Rupert's whole mutant-hating thing. Sonya's pretty sure she'd gotten through to him the other night, but Naveed isn't exactly the best poster child for the whole Mutants Deserve Your Love and Support movement.
So, really, the logical thing to do is to tell the cabbie to stop, and run the hell away. Which Sonya would absolutely do, except Naveed had told her to bring him to Rupert, so she has to do that first.
Between the absurdity of that thought-process, and the whole glowing-red-eyes thing, it doesn't take much careful analysis to conclude that Naveed's mutation involves mind-control. Useful talent, that she thinks with a touch of envy, and makes a mental note to let Syn know about this guy as soon as she has the chance to make a private call. Or, well, to let Syn know she's got something, anyway... cell-phones being easy to tap, as Sonya has learned from countless television shows. Wonder what Raina's is.
It's an interesting sensation, being mind-controlled. Sonya had always thought it would be like being drugged, or a zombie, or something... but it's not. She's completely herself, except for this compulsion to take Naveed to Rupert. I could shoot him, she realizes with some surprise... nothing in her compulsion stops her from doing that, or makes her want to obey him in any other way. Right. So, that's the plan. I shoot him, then I get the hell away... or, no, wait, first I have to drag his body to Rupert's apartment, and... oh, hell.
She gives up at this point; the cab has reached its destination, and it's just easier to follow through to the end. "He's paying," she tells the cabbie as she gets out of the cab and heads to the building's front door.
A minute later she is knocking on the door of his apartment with a trembling hand, her phobic response to the barking from the other side of the door competing with, and losing out to, Naveed's compulsion.
The Club is starting to get crowded, which is usually Sonya’s cue to leave.
During the last few months she’s gotten pretty good at controlling her mutation… at least, once she’d stopped freaking out about it and started making sensible plans… but there’s still the possibility that someone might bump into her accidentally and trigger an imprinting. It’s happened more than once already, and though she’s managed to avoid getting into trouble for it thus far, she’s not inclined to push her luck. So, she tends to avoid crowds.
She finishes her sandwich and coffee as the band does their warm-up set and contemplates her next move. She could just run out on the check… the body she’s wearing tonight is a long-legged redhead in fairly decent shape: she could outrun their bouncer easily, and it’s not like she has to worry about being recognized. But she’s got some cash in her pocket at the moment, and her waiter had been nice to her; he doesn’t deserve to be stiffed. All right, then, she decides, tonight I pay.
She catches her waiter’s eye and makes a little signing gesture in the air, and he nods and smiles to let her know he saw her. A few seconds later he’s standing by her table. “Are you sure you won’t stay to hear the band play? They’re pretty good, I’ve heard them before.”
A scruffily-dressed woman in the audience steps up to the stage and starts singing, and for a few moments she forgets about flirty waiters and crowded clubs and how she’s going to afford her room tomorrow and just listens.
She’s tempted to stay despite the crowd, both by the music and the prospect of flirting with her waiter some more… it’s the most normal thing she’s done in weeks, even if she’s using a borrowed body to do it. Also she’s still hungry, and the cherry pie on the menu had looked pretty tempting, though she’s not sure she can afford it.
“Well… I don’t know,” she mumbles once the song is over, vaguely aware of the singer hugging her boyfriend. “That cherry pie looks awfully good, I admit, but…” She’s searching through her wallet to see just how much she can afford to splurge on luxuries like pie tonight when her waiter surprises her with a shy grin. “The pie’s a special tonight... free with one phone number. I won’t even call it if you don’t want me to. And how about some more coffee?”
She blinks in surprise, and her mouth starts working without her. “I – I don’t have a phone number – um, I mean, I don’t really live in town, I’m staying at the Three Moons Motel – ” Stupid, why did you tell him that? He won’t be looking for you, just for this body you’re wearing! “but I, um, I’ll be leaving soon and, um… I’m sorry, I have to go…” she hastily throws a bill down on the table, not even looking at it, and backs away from her seat.
Unfortunately, she’s not looking where she’s going as she trips over a chair leg and stumbles, knocking a plate of garlic bread off another guy’s table and onto the floor. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”
> “"Actually Fade, you have great power... you just would never fully realize that."
Andy looks back and forth between Fade and the new arrival as he speaks. He’s fairly sure the new guy isn’t threatening her, though it’s hard to be completely certain; certainly, her reaction doesn’t seem to suggest he’s an enemy. Does that make him another mutant? That would be cool. Two in a row!
That might also explain why he’s leading with his arm out like that… not that he’s being blatant about it, but one advantage of Andy’s speed is he has plenty of time to examine things. If he has some kind of mutant ability that he guides using his arm, that would explain it.
The polite thing to do, he realizes, would be to wait for Fade to respond… the guy is talking to her, after all… but impatience gets the better of him. "Hi I’m Speed ‘ru’n XMan too?"
I agree with you that it makes perfect sense (both IC and OOC) to have optional trackers that people can choose to wear or not, with the understanding that if you don't wear them you're on your own.
The way I'd understood it Hunter was enforcing their use, and had agents following anyone who went out of the Labs "in case they accidentally lost their trackers". But perhaps I misunderstood.
Anyway, more generally -- if the current arrangement at the Labs is that people are free to leave and return, without being monitored if they don't want to be monitored, then I'm perfectly content. (And if the PCs all choose to stay full-time at the Labs given the choice, they're of course free to do so.)
Also, with respect to the power neutralization... perhaps I'm confused there too. I'd assumed the device worked on people other than Vibe, but perhaps I was wrong.
Hunter or mods or whoever is definitive about this, can you clarify the situation for PCs at the Labs, just so I'm sure we're all on the same page? Specifically: 1) Are they under constant surveillance? 2) Is anyone other than Vibe getting any of their powers neutralized? 3) Are they free to leave and come back? 4) If they leave, are they free to do so without being monitored by agents or equipment?
If we anticipate the Resistance doing planning, etc. for several real-world months before the attack on the Camps, then I'd like to make a request.
Can we work out some IC way to allow Resistance members to leave the Labs and return without being followed by Hunter's goons or tracked by his tracking gadgets?
As things stand, it seems like practically all the PCs have spent 24 hours a day for the last 2 months living in the Labs, under constant surveillance and the effects of the mutant-power-negating gadget that keeps Vibe from using her hypno-voice.
This all seems somewhat odd IC (does nobody have a life outside the Labs? Friends, family, lovers, jobs, etc?) but I'll admit this is primarily an personal OOC request... I'd like to be able to RP with some of the folks in the Labs without letting Hunter spy on Sonya whenever he wants to.
Anyway, just a request. If everyone else is content with the Labs situation, I'll work out some reason for Sonya to end up in the Labs so I can RP with the rest of y'all, and the status quo can be maintained.
I'd recommend you coordinate the overall course of the battle via PM with StalkerDoc (and whoever else will be running the Camp defense) and publish the resulting skeleton. All the PCs involved in that thread can follow along accordingly.
That way you can run it as a brilliant strategy that nevertheless fails because the Stalkers turn out to be tougher than you thought.
Which doesn't leave you looking stupid, merely wrong. (And really, leaves you looking no worse than the Resistance, which has allowed dozens of people to die and hundreds to suffer while sitting on its hands for two months.)
Quick question: how much longer (real-world) do we anticipate the Resistance preparing before its eventual attack on the Camps?
If we're talking about a few weeks (that is, the attack posts start in February or earlier), running two distinct attack threads seems redundant... we won't be quite finished with the first one by the time we start the second. In that case I'd say we should wait. (This is especially true if we intend to have yet a third grand battle thread at the labs afterward).
If we're talking about a month or longer, then I'm all for a failed attack on the Camps as Katrina suggested.
I think Rupert is the Warden/Overseer of the Camps, and he's in touch with someone (I really apologize I can't think of your name ATM, just your power) who can shift to different people by taking on their DNA (if I'm remembering it correctly). And again, if memory serves, that person is in touch with Calley? Calley is part of the Kabal. So if we could get that all working out we could touch base there and start working on a coordinated attack and rescue on the Camps.
All of the above is correct (Sonya is the mutant in question). The minute Sonya gets a call from Syn saying "we're on", she can contact Rupert and say "we're on".
For that matter, Syn can contact Rupert directly... Syn and I have established (via PM) that Sonya has been reporting whatever information she collects, and he has a phone. Of course it's more fun for me when my char gets to do Cool Stuff(tm), but it isn't necessary.
Sonya is not aware that Calley is part of the Kabal, but Calley (and therefore, I assume, Hunter) is aware that "Teresa" is part of the Order, if that matters (though I can't see why it would).
Re: how to move this forward... I haven't been involved in the plotting, and if the existing plot plans make everybody happy that's great, but my $0.02: I don't see why the camp breakout thread has to involve huge numbers of PCs.
As far as I can tell Kaz is capable of single-handedly slaughtering a couple of hundred armed troops... especially with assistance from two or three other super-combat-powerhouse characters. And Rupert can turn off the bracelets.
So there's really only one unsolved tactical issue: how do we neutralize the Stalkers? And really, they are just robots... there are enough technical-genius/cyberpath types in the Resistance and at the Labs that we can simply assert, any time we want, that the Resistance has now found a technological fraziwhatsit that turns them off, or drains their power-sources, or scrambles their sensors, or reprograms them so they attack the Camp guards, or whatever else we want.
Once the Resistance finds a way to turn them off, it's: a) turn off the bracelets, b) neutralize the Stalkers, c) take out the guards, d) collect the prisoners and run away with them. (Even better, herd them all into Abyss's void and have him run away... harder to track.)
Anything else is not driven by plot needs, but by the desire to have more PCs involved. Which is fine, if that's what we want, but it means things go more slowly, and we should accept that.
Re: small-group RP... I've been doing small-group social RP to keep myself entertained while the plot goes on around me. I imagine that's what most of us are doing.
I'm happy to have Sonya be more tightly tied in to the main plot if people want that (just PM me and let me know), but as above I'm not sure why it's necessary that everybody be. I'm content for Sonya to stay peripheral... not everybody gets to save the world, after all.
well, this may be moot with the "X-Men Attack" plan being worked out else-thread, but if it isn't... maybe it's a good idea for the inmates to start making active plans for a breakout?
I don't mean actually escaping from the camps -- everyone has already weighed in on how bad an idea that would be. I mean more like... "OK, let's assume someone's going to try to break us out. When that happens, we'll need to be ready to move and move quickly. So let's set up an organization internally, find ways to pass messages quickly, build up a map of the Camps, keep track of numbers of guards and what their patrol schedules are, etc. Maybe we can find out more about their defenses, what weapons they use, where the armory is. Maybe we can trick or seduce one the guards into sending messages to the outside. Etc."
You know, being less passive. Even if it doesn't result in any big dramatic breakout stuff, it might lead to more interesting interactions/conversations.
If it helps at all, I started a Sonya-infiltrating-the-camps thread a couple of weeks ago that hasn't gone anywhere... if anybody wants to join me there to kick off something like this, feel free.
