OKAY, WE HAVE DILLY-DALLIED LONG ENOUGH, IT IS TIME FOR THE TIME TRAVEL NONSENSE TO ACTUALLY START HAPPENING.

Here's how it's going to go down.

On August 2nd (this Wednesday/Thursday IRL) a group of scuffed n gritty looking future versions of characters already in the game will emerge from a time hole in the middle of LA. In their timeline, the death of Celestia on August 7th 2014 at the hand of a mystery assailant resulted in the collapse of Alpha Force, which allowed various supervillains to rise unchecked, eventually plunging the world into a horrific dystopia, ruled in part by the sinister Sovereign and in other part by the equally sinister (no, really) Princess Unikitty. This band of rebels has come from ten years in the future to try to stop the assassination of Celestia, and in doing so hope to prevent their timeline from coming to pass.

However, they have likely been followed into the past by some less than savoury characters who are intent on stopping them from achieving this – or simply on using the time portal to their own advantage. The time travellers will need to convince their past counterparts of their good intentions at the same time as trying to stop any ne'er-do-wells who followed them into 2014 from disrupting the timeline in any negative ways.

On August 7th (February 14th/15th IRL), the time travellers will see to it that Celestia is not murdered while she making a public appearance at a local school – they anticipate that her assassin, a mysterious figure known only as 'Wyoming', is planning to plant a power-destabilising field in the venue and are able to thwart it, preventing her death. However, the assassin will instead succeed in stealing the Sun Medallion, the source of Celestia's powers and eternal youth, and escape back into the future, resulting in a dystopia just as dystopian as the one the time travellers were trying to prevent.

After this, the time travellers will have to follow Wyoming into the future to attempt to retrieve the medallion – with the assistance of some characters from the present. We'll probably give folks a week or two to have their characters run around in the future before the Medallion is finally retrieved and everybody returns to their rightful time period.

(Or doesn't – if anybody does actually want to keep around their future character, they're welcome to submit an app. Similarly, if you feel like this would be a good excuse to app in a character From The Future who you don't already play, you can absolutely use this as an entry point to introduce them.)

We'll be putting up an open log for the future characters to enter through the TIME PORTAL on Wednesday; in the meantime, everyone is encouraged to finalise what's going to be going on with their characters for this event.

AS MOST OF YOU PROBABLY RECALL, a little while back we put up a post for discussing a plot where a group of characters would show up from 10 years into a grimdark alternate future to try to change the past. WE WOULD STILL LIKE TO DO THIS, but a few things need to be hammered into place before we can go ahead with it.

What we DO know is that ten years into the future, Earth will be approximately half under the tyrannical rule of Sovereign, and half under the equally tyrannical rule of Princess Unikitty. Each of them is trying to wrest control of the other half from their rival, but they must also contest with various resistance groups, as well as the planet being ongoingly under siege by various alien forces – Alternians, Skrulls, etc. - which are only just being fought off every time they stop clawing at one another's throats for long enough to try to invade, leaving Earth increasingly dystopian and war-weary.

A group of rebels will use a time machine – I think there was talk of it having been constructed by Black Ghost – to travel back to CH's present day in order to prevent this future from coming to pass.

After this is accomplished, all or some of the time travellers will go back into the future with some present-day characters in tow in order to, probably, do something with the time machine to make sure that the timeline will be properly reset.

THINGS WE NEED TO ESTABLISH:

• Which characters are coming back into the present? Doesn't have to just be resistance fighters – they can be followed through or infiltrated by villains! In fact it would be pretty great if they were followed through by a few bad guys, because that would better justify needing present-day characters to come back to the future with them to help seize the time machine back.

• What event are they attempting to stop?

• Who came up with this plan?

SO reply to this post with what your character/s are doing in all this (their status in the future timeline, whether they'll be involved in goings-on in the present), and if you want to, make suggestions for the above bullet points, and GET DISCUSSIN'

(If anyone has any characters they would like to app to bring in during this plot and leave in the past after it's over, also, feel free to throw ideas around for that!)

HELLO I COME BEARING PLOT. This plot is going to be primarily player run, and as widespread or as narrow focused as you like. It could easily involve the whole game or just a few people. It is optional, but radical.

The idea: TIME TRAVEL.

The structure of this time travel plot will be thus:

PART ONE
Ten years in the future of CH, there has been a Bad End. For those unfamiliar, this means that everything has gone to SHIT through some means or another, and is tonally a post apocalyptic world of tomorrow. The nature of this “apocalypse” will depend on player plotting, and the people who want to step up to be bad guys. Has someone risen up to become an evil cyborg overlord? Have Alternians taken over the planet? Has TRIDENT taken over CONDOR? These are the questions that we must answer.

Everyone who wants in will get to make a gritty, dark future AU version of their characters. An INCIDENT will occur that will send a group of these characters into THE PAST (aka present game time) in an attempt to stop whatever bullshit has caused the future to suck so much. This could be one event, or multiple.

The important thing is that we have a team of time travelers in Los Angeles attempting to fix the future, and weirding everyone out. They must acquire some kind of MacGuffin, or stop some disaster.

PART TWO
With the mission more or less in hand, the time travelers will travel to the future – and this time, they will be bringing a motley of past people with them, to experience the rotten world of tomorrow. Why? Because they need help doing some kind of thing, most likely dicking with a time machine in a way that will properly reset the timeline instead of creating an offshoot.

So they are basically fighting to make their timeline no longer exist.

At any rate, they need backup. Time will move along in both timelines more or less linearly, though there can be some variation for convenience. How this part ends really depends on you.


So what we need to do here is PLAN. Who wants in? Who wants to timetravel? Who wants to be villains?

Use the comments below to decide. The plot will start mid November and will proceed indefinitely, since the rest of the world will be able to continue on regardless.

A hero team up spearheaded by Starbreaker and Neku have started doing some investigation into the music plague. This is the information they will recieve, when investigating possibly culprits. Other characters may reasonably come upon this information by their own means, but we do encourage you to help boost the existing effort!


( THE SHORT LIST )

Most of you already know about this, but starting Wednesday (July 16th) Los Angeles will come under a terrible curse: vast swathes of the population will find that trying to talk about things like normal people will result in bursting into song, complete with background music, choreography, and, if enough people are around, the roping in of random passersby as backup singers.

The singing will not be relentless. Songs will emerge sort-of-intuitively based on the situation. Some people might find themselves singing musical number after musical number, incapable of so much as dropping a bowl of pasta on the floor without bursting into song about it, whereas others might only have one song throughout the whole event. Some people might not have their own songs, and just end up contributing a line or two to someone else's. Some people might be lucky enough not to sing at all.

The unifying factor in everybody's musical numbers, however, is that they will be an outpouring of honest feelings, whether the singers want those feelings outpoured or not. (That doesn't mean they have to be big and dramatic feelings reveals every time – you might just be emotional about having dropped your pasta.)

How you actually enact this in-game is up to you! We thoroughly encourage changing the words of existing songs to better match your character's circumstances, and working out duets or ensemble numbers with other players, and so forth. If you want to thread out a song with other characters then go for it, and if you want to just make a post with the lyrics to what they're singing in it without actually tagging anything out that's cool too. (If you have a youtube link to the song that's double rad.)

If you don't want your character to sing at all that is also fine! And feel free to refer to off-screen song events without actually working out the specifics of said songs.

We anticipate this will last about 5-7 in-game days, so 10-14 days OOC, but it could be more or less depending on how swiftly the culprit is found and dealt with. (Despite the fact that the effects of this plot are heavily based on that one Buffy episode, the cause of the singplague is not the same.)

What is this, you ask? Isn't the six month anniversary at the end of July? Isn't this a little bit preemptive?

Normally it would be, but these are special circumstances. Because this is our official announcement that for the anniversary of Capital H's first six months of game play, we will be running...a Musical Event.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, this even will be in the theme of the Once More With Feeling episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - that is to say, there will be a magical compulsion going throughout the city of LA, compelling people to break into songs about their feelings as if life has suddenly become a musical. There will be specific plot reasons causing this at the time, but those will be gotten into closer to the actual date. Right now, the purpose of this advanced warning is to give plenty of time for planning.

Because what you have to do with an event like this is rewrite musical numbers to be game accurate, and plan for how you'll have your characters sing them. These songs can be done solo or in groups, but cooperation with other players makes for the most fun! You can use tracks for actual musicals, adapt other pieces, or even just make stuff up entirely if that's your preference!

This post will be the first of what will probably be multiple plotting posts for this purpose - since we're just starting out, what we're mostly looking for is general brainstorming. This means offering suggestions for other characters or groups, or declaring your intention to rework a particular song, or plotting how you will work larger plot archs into the event!

Keep in mind, you don't just have to use old stuff in the event - you can also create entirely NEW plot with other characters during the event in the form of song. If you have any questions, let us know. The actual event will likely take place at some point during July, for at least a one week IC duration.

Here are some good examples of what the event is about:

I Know What You Feel from Once More With Feeling, which is basically the villain song from the episode. Sweet the demon won't actually be the villain for this event, but it will have a similar feel.

The kinds of shit that will happen on the streets.

A good example of a group song portraying interpersonal conflict.

Sometimes people will sing duets with each other while being in different physical locations! Wow!

Okay, so, now that people have gotten into the rescuing the AI boss fights have been posted:

DESERT
DOWNTOWN
TAR PIT

How much you guys want to thread this versus hand wave it is up to you, but the important thing is that interested parties let us know what they are planning to do. You have two basic options: one is to destroy the AI and be done with it, and the other is to try to capture it for steady.

Destroying a core will just cause the AI to retreat to the still functioning ones. Which means, that if someone is inclined at any one of the three locations, they will be able to capture it, but ONLY if it is the last remaining core. Otherwise it is going to pull out of a location as soon as someone attempts to access its code.

Whether or not people work this out is purely up to you. Sciency people can work together to accomplish this, or they can compete. Or they can just destroy all three cores. There are benefits to both.

If you are going to try to destroy a core or capture it, please post here, and discuss with other people OOC how you want it to work out. The AI will not be able to stop anyone now - it's been overwhelmed.

This is also where zombified Nightforce member fights will happen. The only one that is claimed thus far is Dr Dynamo, so if you want to claim one to fight/capture/kill then please do so here as well.

Signless is back on the street, and for those of you who don't know, his incarnation is a resurrection of Troll Jesus from like 2000 years ago, only he's been brainwashed by the Empire to serve them. This means he is on Earth to do villain stuff, and right now that villains stuff is STEALING YOUR THINGS.

He is optimal levels of troll agile and acrobatic, stealthy, and also a powerful psionic. He's going to be breaking into various places and hunting down various people to steal items of irreplaceable worth, sometimes for the sake of agitating people and collecting things that can be used for social traction.

Mostly, though, he's looking to cause chaos and conflict in the super hero/super powered ranks, and so stealing these items may also result in him just giving them away to the people you want to have them least. Or he'll just hang onto them and torment you with them personally. The main purpose is to cause inter-organization conflict.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Signless has some emotion based psychometry, meaning he can see some emotional events surrounding an item by touching it. This is a way he can learn of an item's worth, for the record.

SO FAR HE IS TRYING TO STEAL/STEALING:
1) The Cybertronian Forge
2) Celestia's Sun Medallion
3) Clint's Bow
4) Ben's Watch
5) Miriel's Magical thing (?? still need deets)

IF YOU WANT IN ON THIS PLOT, LET ME KNOW:
1) What you want Signless to steal/what said item actually is.
2) How Signless could know about it/know it's worth stealing.
3) Whether you want it to be a successful theft or just an attempted one.
4) Any ideas for what he can do with it that would really light a fire under someone's ass.
5) Whether you want to RP some sort of scene with it getting stolen or if you want it handwaved.

He's not really looking for power he can use himself - he's just looking for things that people will fight to get back. Think in terms of optimal chaos!

These thefts will be occurring gradually over the next month or so.

Phase two of this plot is hitting now! The sequence of events will be as follows:

1) On Saturday the 15th, around 2PM, the virus Legion infected Orion Pax with during their brief encounter will go live, infecting both Orion and the Fake Dynamo with a replicating program that will cause any capable system it touches to start broadcasting its location to the Alpha Tower. This means that they will have access to the exact coordinates of the 3 prisons, though they are still not openly visible on the surface. If they go to investigate immediately, they will discover signs of a structure approximate 3 meters beneath the sand in the desert location, 10 meters under the tar pit location, and form reasonable assumptions about the downtown one being inside of a normal looking office building (that is surprisingly difficult to get into.)

2) Around 6PM, smack dab in the middle of supper rush, the AI known as Fake Dynamo will realize that its security has been compromised, freak out, and basically go nuclear. It will go into its phase two, which appears to be open war against the "Inhuman Threat."

3) Subsequently, three towers will appear at the prison locations (large, albeit smaller than pictured.) The ones in the desert and tar pit locations will spring out of the ground like daisies, whereas the one in downtown LA will appear to shed an "outer skin" that looks like a normal office building to reveal the alien architecture within. Yikes.

4) The towers all well defended, both with hard to damage and penetrate exteriors and defenses with the same sorts of energy attacks boasted by the cyborg soldiers. Also, unsurprisingly, more cyborgs are going to flood the streets, this time averaging towards the bigger and stronger - choice members of the flock perhaps.

5) The most dangerous of which are several superhumans that have been fully converted - namely the captured members of Nightforce (including the real Dr Dynamo). They are basically mindless cyborgs with super powers and robot parts who obey the AI's whim. Nightforce members will be mod NPCs who will appear in rescue logs. If you want to be responsible for the death of one of them, you can call dibs. There are four.

From any point past stage one, captives are able to be rescued or escape. How long it takes to infiltrate the towers depends on player actions but it will probably take at least several hours to deal with things, if not more, and longer to actually clear out the interiors. HOPE YOU LIKE DUNGEON CRAWLS, because all the towers go at least another full length beneath the ground, with extensive mining systems down beneath.

Fake Dynamo is an AI built into the three different towers, as described in the Scary Jail posts. Though in three different bodies, they are all the same mind, and run all three areas simultaneously. They have a lot of processing power, but given the fact that they are controlling all of their soldiers and all three buildings, it is possible to overload them with distractions.

STUFF YOU CAN DO:
1) Fight monsters yaaay.
2) Help breech the exterior walls of the towers. How you do this is up to you, but getting a ton of people in there should be relatively difficult. The exact defenses and potential methods of entry are flexible, so you can basically make up whatever plans you want and run with it. If you're unsure, as a mod.
3) Rescue living captives, which are mostly some animals, minor superhumans, and even some vanilla humans. Also all those player characters.
4) Try to get in an shut down the Fake Dynamo AI - this will have to be done in all three locations to truly get rid of them.
5) Capture the Ai...or destroy it! What happens here is up to you. The potential risks to trying to hold something like this are obvious, but if it can be restricted and questioned there is valuable information that can be gained from it, both relating to this plot and beyond!

As usual, if you have any questions, let us know!

[PS. If you noticed any eerie similarities to SCP-962 from The Foundation, you were correct! This plot has been an AU version of that entity, tweaked and fleshed out to better fit this setting. Just in case you forgot that these fuckers were still around.]

City hall has issued a Level 4 Outbreak warning after dozens of reported sighting of "mutant cyborgs" around the Los Angeles area. With descriptions ranging everywhere from "bipedal dogs" to "humanoid machines", CONDOR has suggested it may be the work of a Rank A super villian, or even a new alien invasion. Citizens are advised to stay in doors and well protected, and to move in groups where necessary. CONDOR agents have been assigned to locations across the city for the purposes of public safety, and all registered super heroes are being asked to aid them in the protection of the civilian population.

Despite many sightings made by the public, only two injuries have been reported. Correlations to recent missing persons cases are still being investigated.

---

Is this the nefarious work of Fake Dr Dynamo...? The answer is definitely yes.

As many of you have already guessed, the disappearance of the vigilante team Nightforce has coincided with a rise of dangerous activity in Los Angeles, presumably at the hands of that weird asshole shitposting on #The Watch. If characters investigate, they will discover many cases of missing pets and other animals over the last few months, as well as some suspicious missing persons.

Worse yet, there are now some really freaky creatures roaming the street at night. The most common forms appear to be animals that have been mutilated with cyborg parts that force them to look more human - usually in the form of walking in a bipedal gate, with augmented "hands" and "feet", as well as cosmetic adjustments such as the removal of snouts, ears, and tails. While the bodies look heavily damaged, they are shockingly fast and strong, and many have robotic parts built into them that make them very good at what they're built for. What are they built for, you ask? Capturing inhuman creatures, including humanoids with powers.

Along with them seem to be sharp looking robotic creatures of various sizes, that are just human enough looking to make the fact that they aren't more unsettling. Some of them have scary human masks. Some of them look like half mannequins. Use your imagination. Almost all of these have dangerous energy weapons built for attacking and restraining. The average creature will be around a C Rank in power, though some of the larger ones could be considered either B or A Rank at their best.

These creatures will occasionally attempt to capture regular humans, but they will not hurt them if they can avoid it. (Though they might by accident because not all of them are super smart.) Non-humans, however, or humans with superhuman powers, they will attack, capture, and even kill without much care for their well being. If they kill someone or manage to restrain them, they will run off with the body.

There are three hot spots:
1) Several square blocks in downtown Los Angeles.
2) A particular area in the Mojave Desert.
3) The La Brea Tar Pits. (Wikipedia.)

There are lots of things you can do to start off with: the only thing that is off the table for now is actually rescuing anybody because the source has not been unveiled yet. Beyond that, you can:

1) FIGHT CYBORGS
- These guys are definitely around. You can FIGHT them. With your FISTS. Or OTHERWISE.
- They are pretty tough.
- Interrogating them won't do anything because they don't talk.
- However, you can definitely capture one or take a dead body for research if you want. (Ask a mod if you do this.)

2) INVESTIGATE
- Investigating can be done by simply asking mods questions or by arranging an interview scene with some NPCs (as played by mods via IM).
- You can cut up the bodies! We know how much you scientists like doing that.
- Ask witnesses things.
- Research missing persons.
- Etc. Just let us know what you're looking for. Be specific.

3) GET KIDNAPPED
- You can get kidnapped by these monsters, but this will mean something really terrible either will, or will be at risk of, happening to your character.
- There is potential body horror available, though we're going to want to keep this limited to a few people for tone reasons.
- Body horrors involve the things you would expect, like cyborg parts and removing "inhuman" qualities.
- Robots may get brainwashed, also, if they run off of any sort of code.
- If you do this there will be SECRET STUFF, so just let us know in this post if you're looking at getting kidnapped.
- It will probably put you out of play for a a few IC days.

4) ESCAPE
- UNLESS YOU ESCAPE but you're not really allowed to escape until the beginning of the next phase of the plot because reasons.
- Obviously you have to do number 3 before you can do this one.

5) GET AMNESIA I GUESS
- This one is kind of weird, but if you think it would be fun for your character to forget everything that's happened to them since just before Dr Dynamo's post, let us know.
- No long term consequences.
- But having a couple amnesia dust volunteers could be fun, for reasons.
- Only do this if your character has actually seen things related to this plot.

6) OTHER...?
- Seriously guys, get creative. If you aren't sure, just ask Harry or Quix.