Plot bits, just lying around
May. 28th, 2018 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI keep thinking up fic that's less fanfic and more same genre more me.
Like my epic MarySue get to sleep stuff, but, bit more focused.
So there's Star Labs, origin and home of metahumans.
And there's an old DC title, the All Star Squadron. Who seem like a natural fit for working out of that location.
And there's the existing superpower, Alchemy and his shiny rock, of pulling in people's other timelines, the lives they never had, and specifically using them to power someone up.
... which has so much potential in a more time travel focused setup, you can make epic messes by having people swap their lives for ones that could help, but remember a whole different world.
And then there's temporal micro manipulation, which ought to be the most badass superpower, especially for subtle stuff... but they used for the least subtle setup.
There's the butterfly themed time agency I keep wandering through different settings with. Replacement Time Masters could have a theme. Or the subtle chaos team could be very anti the concept of mastering time.
And then there's a thing mostly from Doctor Who, where certain beings can feed on the lives you never had, until they leave you with only one possibility, the one where you die right now. Or there's tech that can take the time of your life and turn it into so much energy. Very rich source, is time.
So you wonder how a being would know which lives they could feed on. Who makes good eating. It'd be the ones with a lot of possibilities left. Not just long lives, but influential, or varied. Lives that make a difference got to be richer than bland samelike length of days.
So what if you wake up one day with a superpower. You can see time lines, the time of their lives, those of free willed beings who with their choices could make universes. And you notice they're always changing, and around you they change in response to you. You get a feeling for how to nudge them to be longer. Plenty good superhero stuff, right?
But you're hungry.
... superhero team brought together by someone whose natural biological interest here is farming. Live long and prosper, cause that makes good eating. But live in interesting times, because that makes interesting flavours.
Nobody is going to want to trust them, once they find out what they can do, who they can eat.
But they can see a day when all the lights go out. A point past which literally no one lives. Unless they and theirs make a difference.
So they've got plenty self interested motive to try and save the world. It's where they keep all their stuff. And all the happy meals on legs.
They would also maybe like to not be evil.
But this trying to keep the lights on gig, it doesn't give many details. There's actions that keep lives longer. But they could make randomly generated lists and steer by tapping the back of cards, it isn't moral decisions they're making if that timeline sense is all they're seeing with.
You could do a few things with that. Could set it up so the way to live longest is to live well, and they're a paladin on accident. But that is not the most dramatic. If their moral sense says one thing and their food sense another, well, then they've got choices.
But if they can nudge timelines in a more powers based way, like directly?
Time to hand out superpowers.
And I have in mind something like what I'd do given a GL power ring - share.
Like, if it can power one person for 24 hours, how many people can it do for five minutes? (288 or some more complex measure?)
Some arbitrary ability to make a difference would be built in to the power set, maybe having to burn life to use the other timelines, maybe being guaranteed to live less long if you power up that way.
But the offer is out there. And when the danger is great enough, it's not just about the All Stars, everyone can rise.
I feel like the initial squadron would exist for PR purposes, to get people to take the offer when it comes, but also as officers with practice leading mixed ability groups.
Also, if someone knows who will make a difference come the day and is primarily motivated by that, they're probably not going to be much fussed about rogues. Like, they're not even going to show up unless they're going to kill someone. No killing becomes the only way to do a job without pre crime seeing it. And then the kind of rogue who protects their territory, or outright switches sides one day? They're going to get treated different by someone who actually knows that in advance.
So you've got a morally ambiguous mastermind with a weird ends justify the means approach with a lot of extra data behind it.
And then you've got... anyone who ever dreamed of power.
Lots of interesting pieces
just needs, like, characters and a plot and stuff.
Like my epic MarySue get to sleep stuff, but, bit more focused.
So there's Star Labs, origin and home of metahumans.
And there's an old DC title, the All Star Squadron. Who seem like a natural fit for working out of that location.
And there's the existing superpower, Alchemy and his shiny rock, of pulling in people's other timelines, the lives they never had, and specifically using them to power someone up.
... which has so much potential in a more time travel focused setup, you can make epic messes by having people swap their lives for ones that could help, but remember a whole different world.
And then there's temporal micro manipulation, which ought to be the most badass superpower, especially for subtle stuff... but they used for the least subtle setup.
There's the butterfly themed time agency I keep wandering through different settings with. Replacement Time Masters could have a theme. Or the subtle chaos team could be very anti the concept of mastering time.
And then there's a thing mostly from Doctor Who, where certain beings can feed on the lives you never had, until they leave you with only one possibility, the one where you die right now. Or there's tech that can take the time of your life and turn it into so much energy. Very rich source, is time.
So you wonder how a being would know which lives they could feed on. Who makes good eating. It'd be the ones with a lot of possibilities left. Not just long lives, but influential, or varied. Lives that make a difference got to be richer than bland samelike length of days.
So what if you wake up one day with a superpower. You can see time lines, the time of their lives, those of free willed beings who with their choices could make universes. And you notice they're always changing, and around you they change in response to you. You get a feeling for how to nudge them to be longer. Plenty good superhero stuff, right?
But you're hungry.
... superhero team brought together by someone whose natural biological interest here is farming. Live long and prosper, cause that makes good eating. But live in interesting times, because that makes interesting flavours.
Nobody is going to want to trust them, once they find out what they can do, who they can eat.
But they can see a day when all the lights go out. A point past which literally no one lives. Unless they and theirs make a difference.
So they've got plenty self interested motive to try and save the world. It's where they keep all their stuff. And all the happy meals on legs.
They would also maybe like to not be evil.
But this trying to keep the lights on gig, it doesn't give many details. There's actions that keep lives longer. But they could make randomly generated lists and steer by tapping the back of cards, it isn't moral decisions they're making if that timeline sense is all they're seeing with.
You could do a few things with that. Could set it up so the way to live longest is to live well, and they're a paladin on accident. But that is not the most dramatic. If their moral sense says one thing and their food sense another, well, then they've got choices.
But if they can nudge timelines in a more powers based way, like directly?
Time to hand out superpowers.
And I have in mind something like what I'd do given a GL power ring - share.
Like, if it can power one person for 24 hours, how many people can it do for five minutes? (288 or some more complex measure?)
Some arbitrary ability to make a difference would be built in to the power set, maybe having to burn life to use the other timelines, maybe being guaranteed to live less long if you power up that way.
But the offer is out there. And when the danger is great enough, it's not just about the All Stars, everyone can rise.
I feel like the initial squadron would exist for PR purposes, to get people to take the offer when it comes, but also as officers with practice leading mixed ability groups.
Also, if someone knows who will make a difference come the day and is primarily motivated by that, they're probably not going to be much fussed about rogues. Like, they're not even going to show up unless they're going to kill someone. No killing becomes the only way to do a job without pre crime seeing it. And then the kind of rogue who protects their territory, or outright switches sides one day? They're going to get treated different by someone who actually knows that in advance.
So you've got a morally ambiguous mastermind with a weird ends justify the means approach with a lot of extra data behind it.
And then you've got... anyone who ever dreamed of power.
Lots of interesting pieces
just needs, like, characters and a plot and stuff.