Discuss The Throwaways - The Molehill

[DeLarge]

 

The Throwaways

The Molehill

 

The World

 

While the worldâ??s history follows roughly the same chronology as our own, there are a number of differences: the main one being that metahumans have been present and known to the public for three quarters of a century (although they have secretly been in existence throughout human history in various forms), and have been subtly altering major events throughout time ever since.

 

In the early 1940s, as a way of combatting the rising power of the Nazis during the Second World War, scientists working as part of a clandestine government organisation known only as Project Salvation chemically altered the physiology of a man named James Bishop and enhanced him to superhuman levels: his strength, speed, agility, stamina, reflexes and senses were greatly heightened by the process, and he became the US Armyâ??s number one weapon in the fight against the Nazis. But Project Salvation opened the floodgates, sparking the Super Soldier Race as each country desperately attempted to replicate the success of Bishopâ??s augmentation to varying degrees of success, and the age of Super Combat was upon us. Battles were no longer fought by platoons of men, but by single combatants who could punch through reinforced concrete and leap great distances, and soon ordinary combatants were rendered all but obsolete.

 

But this was only the beginning, and the real metahuman breakthrough came in the 1970s, when a brilliant young scientist named Adam Clarke found himself trapped inside his laboratory as an experimental particle reactor malfunctioned, a freak accident which resulted in Clarke becoming the hero known as Vanquisher, the Invulnerable Man. He was the first truly â??superâ?? superhero, able to fly through the air, shoot beams of light from his eyes and reduce entire buildings to rubble with just a swing of his fist.

 

If it wasnâ??t for Vanquisher, metahumans as we know them would not even exist. The mutations in his blood, when studied, revealed more about the potential hidden within the human body, and government-funded scientists began work on creating the new breed of super-soldiers, selectively mutating them to create men and women with capabilities to equal Vanquisher, and soon enough new superheroes began appearing across the globe. Suddenly, people with the ability to generate massive quantities of fire or move objects with their minds began helping civilians, fighting crimes and engaging in acts of international heroism.

 

Naturally, the emergence of more and more superhumans resulted in the forging of alliances, with multiple teams forming across the United States, and eventually spreading across the world. The first, and most well-known team was Stormforce, an esteemed group of powerful metahumans which still exists today, albeit with a much-changed roster of heroes. It is the dream of many to join Stormforce and fight evil with the best superhumans on the face of the planet.

 

It wasnâ??t too long before the mutations developed included hyper-intelligence, and soon intergalactic spaceflight was not just possible, it was simple. Some of them even discovered other universes existing alongside our own, and eventually they managed to open gateways between these realities, allowing visitors from other worlds to cross over into our own.

 

But regular Earthbound humans were not ready to let aliens and creatures from other worlds take all the glory, and countless wealthy or just plain bored men and women set themselves up as vigilantes, utilising acrobatics, martial arts and high-tech weaponry to fight crime in their respective cities and neighbourhoods. The most notorious of these was a mysterious figure known only as the Shadow who operated across Patriot City, and was ultimately the first non-powered superhuman ever to join the ranks of Stormforce. 

 

Stormforce

 

The world's number one superhero team, Stormforce is made up of some of the most powerful superhumans on the planet. While their ranks have changed numerous times over the decades they have been together, their current line up consists of the following members.

 

Steel Saviour

 

To the public, the Steel Saviour is one of the greatest heroes around: a mysterious man, clad in a suit of robotic armour that conceals his identity from all who may seek to find out, who helps those in need and has thwarted numerous attacks on his home country by supervillains and non-powered threats alike. He stands for peace and justice, and has vowed to defend not only his country, but also his world from anything that threatens to jeopardise that which he stands for.

 

He does so not with superpowers, but with advanced technology contained within his armour: wearing it, he can fly, easily punch through solid concrete, and shoot concussive blasts from his hands and eyes. Not only that, but he also has retractable blades hidden in each of the forearms, a small missile launcher mounted on each shoulder and a number of other weapons he keeps to himself. The armour is also wired with state-of-the-art thought control, meaning there is no lag between the man inside the armour thinking of a movement, and the armour making the movement. In short, it makes him the ultimate human weapon, and the world can be thankful that he chooses to use this power for good.

 

Construct

 

A young woman from France, Amira Deforest was one of the â??Awesome Sevenâ? heroes who created and supported Maggie Magnificent. At the age of 9, Amira and the other members of the Awesome Seven were struck by an alien meteor rock with unknown origins. It is not known whether the meteor rock granted the girls miraculous new powers or merely unlocked them, but it is known that shortly after they received their powers--which allowed them to give physical form to their thoughts-- they used their powers in tandem to create their very own hero, whom they christened â??Lady Hero.â? Lady Hero and the Awesome Seven were a hit from their inception, launching a number of toy lines and animated series based upon the groupâ??s global crime fighting adventures. This all changed, however, when, during the Awesome Sevenâ??s teenage years, the other six members and numerous friends and family members were mysteriously murdered, leaving Amira alone and imbuing her with additional energy. Despite her loss she valiantly continued the fight against injustice alongside her created hero.

 

Whereas originally she could only create a dense, plated, form-fitting armor for herself and sustain flight, she now has the ability to create virtually anything imaginable. When fighting crime she uses this ability to create white, translucent armor capable of stopping a punch from even Magnificent and fights with various constructed weapons or directed energy. Her ability is powerful enough that she has been seen on one occasion to recreate the other members of Stormforce in hard light form, and they operated almost as efficiently as the actual team. Although her ability mainly manifests as white light, when under duress her abilities sometimes shift to other colours of the rainbow, most noticeably yellow. Whether the colour shift is related solely to her emotional state or the strength of her powers is unknown.

 

Maggie Magnificent

 

The epitome of a hero, Maggie Magnificent, usually referred to simply as Magnificent by the public, captured the hearts and minds of people worldwide for years. When she debuted alongside the Awesome Seven as Lady Hero, she was immediately a hot commodity. She operated under many names and costumes; each was accompanied by its own limited edition life sized figurine. She was unchallenged in strength and beauty, unrivaled in the number of crimes stopped and lives saved, and unrelenting in her championship of the underrepresented and the disenfranchised. She used the innocent desire of the children who created her, as well as the guiding hands of their friends and families, to improve life worldwide. After the tragic incident which claimed the lives of her extended family, she took her remaining creator, Amira, under her wing and continued their quest to better all mankind.

 

Unlike the other members of Stormforce, her costume is very fashion minded: a white, shoulderless dress with gold accents, a gold belt, black gloves, exposed black boy shorts with gold outlining, and white and gold open-toed heels. Her fashionable dress and wholesome demeanor belie her immense and fearsome powers. She is actively touted as being one of the, if not the most, powerful super on the planet. She can emit several different wavelengths of energy from her eyes, has enough strength to move a planet, can survive nuclear explosions, and is rumored to possess other, unknown abilities which she has not had cause to use yet.

 

Pantheon

 

Where some superhumans are demigods, gods or godlike beings, Pantheon has a singular advantage over all of them: while they are singular gods, she is the physical manifestation of every god, goddess and demigod in the Greek and Roman pantheons, hence her codename. She possesses, among other things, the wisdom of Athena, the speed of Hermes, the rage and fury of Ares and the magic of Hecate. This makes her an incredibly powerful being, but thankfully she has chosen to use her powers for good, standing alongside the heroes she sees as the peers of her deities and keeping the world, and everyone on it, safe.

 

Pantheon dresses as is appropriate to her power, in a suit of Greco-Roman armour replete with gold leaf, a gem-studded tiara on her head and, unlike a lot of the ancient history-themed superheroes out there, chooses to cover her arms and legs with armour rather than leaving them exposed. Her weapon, known as the Phalanx, is an object formed from pure energy which alters its shape to fit whichever god or goddess Pantheon is best representing at any time: from the Trident of Poseidon to the lightning bolt of Zeus, whatever shape it takes it is nonetheless one of the most powerful weapons in this or any world.

 

Hart & Sole

 

A pair of former career criminals, Jack Hartford and Soledad Ramirez once made a decision which caused their lives to take a turn for the bizarre. A chance break-in at a seemingly ordinary New York brownstone led to the pair stumbling across an ancient and powerful magical book named the Palladian Grimoire, and upon reviewing the spoils of their crime and reading out a single sentence from the book, they were accidentally granted vast magic powers: Jack was given dominion over the physical vessel of man and beast, while Soledad was granted power over the realm of the spirit. Along with these powers came a vaster understanding of the world, and the worlds between worlds, and they turned from their life of crime to become superheroes.

 

For a long time they fought darkness and despair, of both magical and scientific origin, as the magical team known as Hart & Sole, and it wasn't long until they were taken on by Stormforce as their resident experts in magic and the occult.

 

They both dress in rather ominous fashion, with lightweight enchanted body armour which glows with a faint, ethereal light at all times, underneath long hooded cloaks of deep scarlet which offer them high levels of magical protection as well as the ability to move between realms at will. This means that they frequently move from the physical realm to the spiritual realm in order to communicate with spirits and otherworldly creatures, and can even go as far as summoning these creatures and allowing them to move between realms with them.

 

Doctor Braddock

 

A charismatic hero with the charm and tenacity of the adventuring science heroes of old radio shows, the figure known throughout the cosmos as Doctor Braddock (and sometimes simply as, the Doctor) is a well-respected and awe-inspiring member of both the science and hero communities. Once a brilliant but angry youth with intimacy issues, his powers were the only thing that distinguished him from the billions of humans wallowing in self-pity worlwide. Indeed, it was these powers that earned him the attention of a certain organization who put the young man through numerous life-threatening situtations and forced him to come to terms with his anger. Managing to survive through his trials, and no longer burdened with his seething rage, he was able to turn his attentions to the world of science and technology. Barely two years after his job transition he became a leading scientist and a reknown mechanical engineer whose many inventions haved solved countless world issues.

 

Doctor Braddockâ??s wields the miraculous ability to manipulate spacetime. In his youth he primarily used this power to open wormholes in space to transport himself from place to place. These wormholes were originally massive, energy-consuming and slow forming, but after years of practice he can instantaneously create and travel through these wormholes either to another location of his choosing anywhere on Earth or in an alternate dimension. Additionally, he can increase or decrease the gravity in an area or on a target, can create multiple wormholes to absorb and redirect attacks, and is even rumoured to have the ability to travel through time, although that is largely speculatory. His abilities seem to be knowledge based; as his understanding of his ability develops, the stronger he becomes. In battle he also utlizes a myriad of inventions including a directed-energy weapon, a deployable anti-matter shield and weaponized scalpels, which have also been enchanted by Hart & Sole. Costume wise, he dresses like a cross between a doctor and an adventurer. A red photographer's vest filled with seemingly bottomless pockets covers a plain white t-shirt with the letters D and B slightly overlapping diagonally on the chest and tan, flexible cargo pants constructed from his own patented metamaterials, and brown hiking boots.

 

Valhalla

 

Named after the Norse legend of an afterlife for those who die in combat, Valhalla is a vast skybase from which Stormforce operate. From their vantage point in the clouds, the team is able to monitor much of the activity on the ground, and quickly identify any potential extra-terrestrial threats that may emerge from outside our own galaxy. The base is fitted with separate chambers for every member of the team, as well as an extensive gym and training area, a number of laboratories equipped for various types of research and development, and many more secrets besides.

 

Powered with revolutionary repulsor technology, the station requires comparatively little power to operate, and is able to change location to combat threats across the globe swiftly and decisively. Some detractors of the team view the constant presence of Valhalla and, by extension, Stormforce themselves, as a violation of privacy and even a potential threat to their wellbeing; however, the overwhelming majority of people see it as a necessity with the increasing proliference of superhuman threats across the planet.

 

Nobody knows for sure how the team came into ownership of such a huge and expensive complex, but many believe that it is something to do with MacOne Enterprises, a large corporation with many ties to the superhuman community.

 

Geist Industries

 

Founded in the early 1920s by a German-American named Franklin Geist, the company that would go on to become Geist Industries began life as a medical supply company providing valuable support to hospitals and medical professionals in the wake of the First World War, a venture which turned out to be rather profitable. A century later, and Geist Industires is a vast multinational corporation with fingers in many different pies, from biological and chemical weapons technology to news publication and television broadcasting.

 

Having been handed down through multiple generations of the Geist family over that time, the current CEO of Geist Industries is a reclusive, enigmatic figure known to the public only as 'Mr M', who delegates all public duties to various of his subordinates and is rarely, if ever, seen out in public. Regardless of his demeanour, though, he is without a single doubt one of the most powerful and influential men in the world, and he has revolutionised Geist's involvement in a new and very important area: superhumans.

 

As vocal supporters of superhumans and superhuman causes since the days of Project Salvation, Geist have, in recent years, pumped a large amount of money into the study and support of superhumans, recognising their existence as the most important scientific breakthrough in history, to great effect and profit.

 

There is, however, another company with much greater stock in the future of the superhuman community: MacOne Enterprises.

 

MacOne Enterprises

 

A relatively new company in comparison to Geist Industries, MacOne Enterprises was founded in the early 1930s by Gregory MacTaggart, a genius engineer and entrepreneur who made a name for himself and his company by providing high-end weapons tech to both those involved in Project Salvation, as well as the conventional military. Many people say it was MacTaggart's technology which helped win the Second World War, although generally the praise is shared with the soldiers of Project Salvation themselves.

 

Since then, MacOne Enterprises has gone from strength to strength, growing to become a company to rival Geist Industries, with divisions focused not only on weapons technology, but also civil engineering, clean energy initiatives and charitable causes among many others.

 

However, their greatest success was the accidental creation of Vanquisher in one of their own laboratories, and the very notion of 'superheroes' has been indellibly linked with MacOne Enterprises in the public consciousness ever since. They continue to back superhumans not only with research and financial support, but also by supplying them with the latest technology to assist them in doing their vital work for the safety of the world.

 

In the late 1990s, Gregory MacTaggart passed away peacefully, controversially leaving control of the company to his youngest son Alexander rather than his eldest Nicholas: since his meteoric rise to power, Alexander has brought the company great success and profit at the expense of alienating his brother and sisters, who are no longer associated with MacOne Enterprises. A much more public figure than the elusive Mr M, Alexander MacTaggart has a reputation as something of a playboy, flaunting his considerable wealth and power in public while utilising his canny engineering and business skills to bring forth great things for the company behind closed doors.

 

Task Force Delta-Echo, aka 'The Throwaways'

 

Behind the public facade of unwavering superhuman support, Geist Industries conceals a network of far more sinister undertakings where superhumans are concerned. From genetic and biological experimentation to studies into the synthesization and weaponization of superpowers, Geist have been dabbling in the dark underbelly of the superhuman community for quite some time.

 

The latest in a long line of such endeavours is Task Force Delta-Echo, informally known as 'The Throwaways': a team of superhuman convicts coerced into monitoring and policing the world's superhuman community, with violent and sometimes deadly results. The project is currently under the joint supervision of Tyler Reins and Esfir Veselov, two Geist executives who hav a storied history with the superhuman community and with Geist Industries itself; but who are committed to making the world a safer place by controlling what they see to be rogue elements within the world of the superhuman.

 

Each member of the Throwaways is shackled with a piece of Geist technology which, if they disobey an order or attempt to attack a Geist executive, will activate and kill them. Each device is uniquely designed for each member of the team, and made to overcome their superhuman abilities in a variety of creative and disturbing manners, and has both an automatic trigger and one controlled by Reins. Generally the members of the team are recruited from prisons and other such situations: Reins believes that, if offered a choice between working for the Task Force and being imprisoned, most will choose the former, even if they do remain unaware of the more deadly elements of the arrangement.

 

As a strictly off-the-books endeavour, the Task Force operates out of a vast underground base known only as 'The Molehill', formed of a complex system of intertwining and overlapping tunnels connecting up large individual rooms and containing small chambers for each member of the team, training areas and meeting rooms, and has been highly developed to operate with a skeleton staff so as to minimize the number of people who are aware of the Task Force's existence.

 

Discuss

 

This is the place to discuss any thoughts, concerns, queries or questions you might have about The Throwaways - leave your responses below and I'll do my best to get back to you as soon as possible!

 

I'll also be updating this thread with new information as it comes to light, so remember to keep checking back!

[CaNz]

I was wondering what characters do, if anything, when they are left off of a mission? I am totally okay with sitting this one out, and I have plenty more backstory content to write about... but during the mission it would be odd to have some people not doing anything. I wrote in an alibi for the time gap for this mission by having Roy make a weapon, but I was wondering if you had a more general rule in mind.

[DeLarge]

Generally speaking when a character sits out a mission, the idea would be that they would be on another assignment elsewhere, either solo or as part of another team (there are Throwaways other than our characters out there, we just haven't written anything about them yet). As it's only the first assignment, your character may not have even been recruited yet, and could join the team for the start of the second assignment. But generally, if you decide to sit out an assignment then you can come up with an alternate assignment your character could have been put on and write about it in the Backstories thread.

 

I hope that helps!

[CaNz]

That works for me, thanks! I probably will be posting a couple more short backstory segments before the first mission ends, so I wanted to know what I could do.