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Prince Charon · 02-19-2018, 01:18 PM

I almost fell out of the sky anyway, catching myself a few feet above a street lamp, but I got what I needed. Moving in closer, before he could reach the stand of woods he seems to be heading for, I put up an arching wall in front of him. Naturally, he immediately ran straight up the wall, straight into a forming bubble. We'd speculated about how to capture speedsters before, and the idea of them running around the inside of a force-bubble to escape via centrifugal force had come up, so I made the bubble freely rotating to prevent that, and added a second bubble just outside of it, to protect anyone from touching the first bubble before he calmed down. Instead of trying that, though, he seemed to fall forward, catching himself on his hands, and appeared to make a few dozen attempts to punch his way out.

To minimize distraction while trying to maintain the bubble against this assault, I came in for a landing next to it, folding and dismissing the mini F-15 construct with a five-tone harmonic buzz-crunch that would be familiar to most people who were kids in America in the 1980s. I pinged the cops with our GPS coordinates while I caught my breath, and it wasn't long after that that the guy calmed down enough that I got a good look at him. I was not impressed:

Starting at the top, he wore a yellow ski mask which had been unevenly cut away around the nose, mouth, and chin, and there were red designs embroidered over his ears that might be either wings or lightning bolts, or could be something totally other. Below that, he wore a yellow 'Members Only' jacket with the tag torn off, and a red lightning bolt on a white roundel on the pocket. He also had on a half-open yellow messenger backpack, a pair of yellow rubber dishwashing gloves, yellow trousers with a red canvas belt, and yellow converse all stars.

"This is what is known as a citizen's arrest, in case you were wondering," I told him, as I heard the sirens rapidly approaching. He gave a fast, high-pitched reply that I was unable to parse. Luckily, while my ring does not permanently record everything without orders, it does hold things in a buffer for a few minutes. "Ring, play back what he just said at, I guess, one-third speed."

"How are you doing this!? You're a Green Lantern I'm wearing yellow this shouldn't work!"

"Real life," I replied, "is not a comic book. Ring, play that back for him at three times speed." Not like I was going to tell him what my actual weakness was. That's about when the cops arrived, lead by Sergeant Jameson, one of the more OK cops I've worked with.

"Good catch," said Jameson, getting out of his car.

"Thank you," I replied. "He seems to be unable to slow down, or perhaps just unwilling, so his lawyer may insist on concessions relating to that."

"Great," he sighed, "just what we need." Glancing at the cops getting out of the other car, he glared at the younger one and shouted "Put that damn taser away, didn't you read the report!?" I hadn't even noticed, being a bit more focused on maintaining the two force bubbles. After a few seconds, he said "OK, you can do that thing with the bubble."

'That thing' was to shrink and deform the inner bubble such that it almost took on the shape of the contents, then open holes in it, and finally take on the form of handcuffs with a gradually-shrinking chain, to pull his hand behind his back. I then allowed the outer bubble to dissipate. Jameson then put actual cuffs on the thief, and pulled his mask off.

"Hang on, I know this guy," said the sergeant. "Danny Whithammer. I busted him a few times for dine-and-dash, purse snatching, convenience store robbery... always 'steal something and run,' ain't that right, Danny?" That... was a potentially interesting data point.

With thanks to ilbgar on Spacebattles.com for the title.

Character Notes: I'm not currently planning to create full GURPS character sheets for these characters (for one thing, I don't really think I could create an unbiased version of myself), but some general descriptions of their powers seem appropriate, for anyone who is interested. These were written for people on other forums, so you may find some of the information herein redundant:

The 'me' seen here would be rather less powerful without his gadgets: Along with Active Thoughtform Creation and a few related skills, he has what many call Second Sight, which includes precognitive visions, retrocognitive flashbacks, and the ability to see and communicate with spirits, but he has no conscious control of when his Second Sight activates, nor which power comes up, without using his gadgets, and/or an appropriate ritual.

His power ring, like most such rings, is more of an aid to spellcasting than the universal multi-tool and Ultimate Weapon depicted in the comics. It has a few spells built in, and allows him to cast them and others near-instantly (Path/Book Adept 4), rather than needing a lengthy ritual in a prepared space with various appropriate symbols and items set out. The ring has a pretty limited virtual intelligence, but some power rings don't even have that. On the bright side, he doesn't need a battery to recharge the ring, he just needs to recite his oath at least once every twenty-four hours. He also has a deck of Mage: the Ascension tarot cards, which make information-gathering rituals easier and faster, and a 'TARDIS key' pendent, which he suspects is still being enchanted by the spirits; so far, it just seems to make time and space related effects slightly easier.

His armour and other equipment are just barely magical at this time, only having spirits tuned to keep other spirits from messing with them.

~*~*~*~

The 'Reverse Flash' depicted here has a normal running speed of 7 yards per second, or 14 miles per hour, but also has Altered Time Rate (Biokinesis, -10%) 2, which triples (not doubles) his speed of thought, reflex, and movement. He also has Damage Resistance (Absorption, Heals Only, +80%; Biokinesis, -10%; Electricity Only, -40%) 6, which allows him to absorb electrical attacks and use them heal himself - in the undepicted fight from the day before, he did not so much boost his speed directly, as remove the tiredness and strain he got from pushing himself to move faster. He also has Regeneration (Slow; Biokinesis, -10%), meaning he heals faster than normal anyway, Fatigue Regeneration (Fast; Biokinesis, -10%), meaning he recovers from being tired faster, and Recovery (Biokinesis, -10%), meaning he wakes up from being knocked out much sooner. In GURPS terms, he's probably the most expensive character here, but as GURPS is a simulationist system, that does not automatically mean that he can't be beaten by someone built on far fewer points (mind you, that can also happen in D&D, if you roll badly enough, just as it can in real life, if you're unlucky, stupid, or both). For all this, though, he's still a small-time crook, with the intelligence, imagination, ambition, and habits thereof. Mind you, he'll meet smarter crooks in prison...

~*~*~*~

Bluestreak is, as noted in the text, an astral projector, though an unusual one, in that she has to concentrate to turn her astral body invisible to the material world. Otherwise, she looks like an attractive, nude woman, with sky blue skin and dark blue hair (her physical body looks fairly similar, save for not being blue, and normally being clothed in pubic; her face is slightly different, though still attractive). Bluestreak has Enhanced Time Sense (Astral Projection, -10%; Only in astral body, -20%), meaning that she thinks much faster than most people, and Astral Celerity (Nuisance Effect: Must run, -5%) 4, meaning that her astral body moves very fast (about 28 yards per second, or a little less than a mile a minute). She's also a decently powerful and skilled psychokinetic, having Telekinetic Control (Melee Attack, C, -30%; Only in astral body, -20%) 12, meaning that her astral body is a bit stronger than her physical body, but must still 'touch' objects and living things to affect them.

~*~*~*~

I've been thinking of leaving either Dr. Implausible or the Rouge Angles of Satin as Noodle Incidents, but I could probably come up with some detail on them if there's interest.

Thoughts?

02-19-2018, 01:18 PM	#565
Prince Charon Join Date: Dec 2012	Re: Five Earths, All in a Row I almost fell out of the sky anyway, catching myself a few feet above a street lamp, but I got what I needed. Moving in closer, before he could reach the stand of woods he seems to be heading for, I put up an arching wall in front of him. Naturally, he immediately ran straight up the wall, straight into a forming bubble. We'd speculated about how to capture speedsters before, and the idea of them running around the inside of a force-bubble to escape via centrifugal force had come up, so I made the bubble freely rotating to prevent that, and added a second bubble just outside of it, to protect anyone from touching the first bubble before he calmed down. Instead of trying that, though, he seemed to fall forward, catching himself on his hands, and appeared to make a few dozen attempts to punch his way out. To minimize distraction while trying to maintain the bubble against this assault, I came in for a landing next to it, folding and dismissing the mini F-15 construct with a five-tone harmonic buzz-crunch that would be familiar to most people who were kids in America in the 1980s. I pinged the cops with our GPS coordinates while I caught my breath, and it wasn't long after that that the guy calmed down enough that I got a good look at him. I was not impressed: Starting at the top, he wore a yellow ski mask which had been unevenly cut away around the nose, mouth, and chin, and there were red designs embroidered over his ears that might be either wings or lightning bolts, or could be something totally other. Below that, he wore a yellow 'Members Only' jacket with the tag torn off, and a red lightning bolt on a white roundel on the pocket. He also had on a half-open yellow messenger backpack, a pair of yellow rubber dishwashing gloves, yellow trousers with a red canvas belt, and yellow converse all stars. "This is what is known as a citizen's arrest, in case you were wondering," I told him, as I heard the sirens rapidly approaching. He gave a fast, high-pitched reply that I was unable to parse. Luckily, while my ring does not permanently record everything without orders, it does hold things in a buffer for a few minutes. "Ring, play back what he just said at, I guess, one-third speed." "How are you doing this!? You're a Green Lantern I'm wearing yellow this shouldn't work!" "Real life," I replied, "is not a comic book. Ring, play that back for him at three times speed." Not like I was going to tell him what my actual weakness was. That's about when the cops arrived, lead by Sergeant Jameson, one of the more OK cops I've worked with. "Good catch," said Jameson, getting out of his car. "Thank you," I replied. "He seems to be unable to slow down, or perhaps just unwilling, so his lawyer may insist on concessions relating to that." "Great," he sighed, "just what we need." Glancing at the cops getting out of the other car, he glared at the younger one and shouted "Put that damn taser away, didn't you read the report!?" I hadn't even noticed, being a bit more focused on maintaining the two force bubbles. After a few seconds, he said "OK, you can do that thing with the bubble." 'That thing' was to shrink and deform the inner bubble such that it almost took on the shape of the contents, then open holes in it, and finally take on the form of handcuffs with a gradually-shrinking chain, to pull his hand behind his back. I then allowed the outer bubble to dissipate. Jameson then put actual cuffs on the thief, and pulled his mask off. "Hang on, I know this guy," said the sergeant. "Danny Whithammer. I busted him a few times for dine-and-dash, purse snatching, convenience store robbery... always 'steal something and run,' ain't that right, Danny?" That... was a potentially interesting data point. With thanks to ilbgar on Spacebattles.com for the title. Character Notes: I'm not currently planning to create full GURPS character sheets for these characters (for one thing, I don't really think I could create an unbiased version of myself), but some general descriptions of their powers seem appropriate, for anyone who is interested. These were written for people on other forums, so you may find some of the information herein redundant: The 'me' seen here would be rather less powerful without his gadgets: Along with Active Thoughtform Creation and a few related skills, he has what many call Second Sight, which includes precognitive visions, retrocognitive flashbacks, and the ability to see and communicate with spirits, but he has no conscious control of when his Second Sight activates, nor which power comes up, without using his gadgets, and/or an appropriate ritual. His power ring, like most such rings, is more of an aid to spellcasting than the universal multi-tool and Ultimate Weapon depicted in the comics. It has a few spells built in, and allows him to cast them and others near-instantly (Path/Book Adept 4), rather than needing a lengthy ritual in a prepared space with various appropriate symbols and items set out. The ring has a pretty limited virtual intelligence, but some power rings don't even have that. On the bright side, he doesn't need a battery to recharge the ring, he just needs to recite his oath at least once every twenty-four hours. He also has a deck of Mage: the Ascension tarot cards, which make information-gathering rituals easier and faster, and a 'TARDIS key' pendent, which he suspects is still being enchanted by the spirits; so far, it just seems to make time and space related effects slightly easier. His armour and other equipment are just barely magical at this time, only having spirits tuned to keep other spirits from messing with them. ~~~~ The 'Reverse Flash' depicted here has a normal running speed of 7 yards per second, or 14 miles per hour, but also has Altered Time Rate (Biokinesis, -10%) 2, which triples* (not doubles) his speed of thought, reflex, and movement. He also has Damage Resistance (Absorption, Heals Only, +80%; Biokinesis, -10%; Electricity Only, -40%) 6, which allows him to absorb electrical attacks and use them heal himself - in the undepicted fight from the day before, he did not so much boost his speed directly, as remove the tiredness and strain he got from pushing himself to move faster. He also has Regeneration (Slow; Biokinesis, -10%), meaning he heals faster than normal anyway, Fatigue Regeneration (Fast; Biokinesis, -10%), meaning he recovers from being tired faster, and Recovery (Biokinesis, -10%), meaning he wakes up from being knocked out much sooner. In GURPS terms, he's probably the most expensive character here, but as GURPS is a simulationist system, that does not automatically mean that he can't be beaten by someone built on far fewer points (mind you, that can also happen in D&D, if you roll badly enough, just as it can in real life, if you're unlucky, stupid, or both). For all this, though, he's still a small-time crook, with the intelligence, imagination, ambition, and habits thereof. Mind you, he'll meet smarter crooks in prison... ~~~~ Bluestreak is, as noted in the text, an astral projector, though an unusual one, in that she has to concentrate to turn her astral body invisible to the material world. Otherwise, she looks like an attractive, nude woman, with sky blue skin and dark blue hair (her physical body looks fairly similar, save for not being blue, and normally being clothed in pubic; her face is slightly different, though still attractive). Bluestreak has Enhanced Time Sense (Astral Projection, -10%; Only in astral body, -20%), meaning that she thinks much faster than most people, and Astral Celerity (Nuisance Effect: Must run, -5%) 4, meaning that her astral body moves very fast (about 28 yards per second, or a little less than a mile a minute). She's also a decently powerful and skilled psychokinetic, having Telekinetic Control (Melee Attack, C, -30%; Only in astral body, -20%) 12, meaning that her astral body is a bit stronger than her physical body, but must still 'touch' objects and living things to affect them. ~~~~ I've been thinking of leaving either Dr. Implausible or the Rouge Angles of Satin as Noodle Incidents, but I could probably come up with some detail on them if there's interest. Thoughts? __________________ Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life. "The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates." -- Tacitus Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted. Last edited by Prince Charon; 07-21-2018 at 06:47 AM.