(05-22-2024, 10:50 AM)M Fnord Wrote: So I'm doing a thing, or at least I'm in the preliminary stages of doing a thing, that involves IST shenanigans. (A Worm crossover in fact, because it's about time I got the damn mind virus too.) More specific, I had the wild hair to do an IST world set in the late 2010s/early 2020s as the baseline. I've read the 90s update Bob did and I've skimmed the IST25 outline (lord but the forum change did a number on the formatting), but it's been a while since then (god we old) so I'm curious to see if anybody has any bright ideas on what kind of nonsense the IST got up to in the intervening years. There's a couple things that I want to include for story reasons, primarily the discovery of parachronics as the next new superscience, but other than that any and all ideas are welcome. Even the stupid ones - maybe especially the stupid ones.

(05-23-2024, 12:46 AM)Inquisitive Raven Wrote:

(05-22-2024, 10:50 AM)M Fnord Wrote: So I'm doing a thing, or at least I'm in the preliminary stages of doing a thing, that involves IST shenanigans. (A Worm crossover in fact, because it's about time I got the damn mind virus too.) More specific, I had the wild hair to do an IST world set in the late 2010s/early 2020s as the baseline. I've read the 90s update Bob did and I've skimmed the IST25 outline (lord but the forum change did a number on the formatting), but it's been a while since then (god we old) so I'm curious to see if anybody has any bright ideas on what kind of nonsense the IST got up to in the intervening years. There's a couple things that I want to include for story reasons, primarily the discovery of parachronics as the next new superscience, but other than that any and all ideas are welcome. Even the stupid ones - maybe especially the stupid ones.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Worm entities effectively wall off the timelines they intend to use for their experiments from parachronic travel from outside timelines. You could have a team of parachronic travelers arrive in one of the affected timelines just as the entities are setting up their barriers and get trapped. In that case, you don't really need a detailed history of the IST timeline, just enough for characters to make references.

Another option would be to have them discover the parahumans timelines after Gold Morning. This assumes that killing off the entities removes the barriers.

The third option is to have the IST timeline(s) be inside the barrier. Imagine the panic when IST Earth loses contact with all other quanta and possibly a large chunk of their own quantum level. I'm assuming for simplicity's sake that all timelines isolated by the entities are at the same quantum level. Do IST supers have encounters with Cauldron? How does that play out? Tinkertech is notoriously irreproducible. The same cannot be said of the tech developed by gadgeteers.

Quote:I'd somehow gotten the idea reading the IST25 outline that the US had gone full Amerxit at some point, which colored some of my initial worldbuilding until I reread it and realized that I'd fucked that up. So, experts.

(06-12-2024, 11:56 AM)M Fnord Wrote: Since it won't leave me alone, I did what I usually do in these instances - I opened up a spreadsheet and got to timelinein'

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fr6pBhUVX42LE2j0fyDOz0B3_F2_XYm3cwClu889kLg/edit?usp=sharing

• 1995 - United Nations: "The IST Academy is established. While primarily intended to groom future IST members, it is open to all young metahumans regardless of their career plans." The inaugural class had five metahumans, including a meta codenamed "Fadeout" for his invisibility and superspeed powers.
  
• 2019 - 30 September - Earth: "Draka Incursion ends with a counter-raid and the destruction of the Draka wormhole nexus generator by IST agent [WHITENOISE]." IST agent Fadeout, who doesn't survive the explosion.
  

Quote:but he might have ended up in IST25 if that had gone ahead.

(05-23-2024, 09:00 AM)M Fnord Wrote: And tbh most of the IST stuff is going to be random drips of exposition and/or flashback material, so I am honestly just looking for the broadest of outlines and ideas for dumb references. I am perfectly happy to just make shit up and fill in gaps as necessary, just figured that I'd come to the experts first before grabbing my spray cans.

(06-12-2024, 03:37 PM)Bob Schroeck Wrote:

Quote:but he might have ended up in IST25 if that had gone ahead.

Oh, yes, I had planned on it, I just never got that far.  Ian's character, too, whose name escapes me and whose character sheet I don't seem to have in the IST25 directory.

Oh, and "Whitenoise" sounds like a great hero name itself.

In the Timeline of Some Sort entry for 31 December 1994, our Fun Tyrant Wrote:Noted supervillain William "Marquis" Lavere

In the Stuff That Needs To Be Figured Out As We Go Along tab, he Wrote:Who takes over for Ventura?
Who takes over for Wellstone?

(06-12-2024, 05:04 PM)Mamorien Wrote: I don't think his forename ever registered with me before. (Does Amelia exist, and stay in his custody, in that timeline?)

(06-12-2024, 05:04 PM)Mamorien Wrote: As continuity would have it, I came up with a candidate for 2016 whom I consider equally suitable for 2004: Senator Joe Kazanski, tentatively of Alabama.