Okay, I'm here

[Doc Nebula]

So, an old buddy invited me to join here and annoy people.

He also invited me to read some of his fiction in something called PLANET TALES, but apparently I'm too stupid to find PLANET TALES.

I don't know how much I'll be able to post here.  I'm old, fat, married, and have kids, and there are constant fights over who gets to be on the computer when and for how long at home, and when I do manage to knock everyone else unconscious and get on for a while, I'm usually writing.  (If you want to see the sort of stuff I write, go here:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=lp_B007CBDXA4 or here:  https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/damadigan). 

I'm currently working on finishing up an epic fan fic tale called WILD BLUE YONDER, in which... well, lemme find my Facebook post on it:

Never mind.  I can never find a Facebook post older than a couple of days.  It's one reason I hate Facebook.  Anyway, in WILD BLUE YONDER, it's December of 1944.  Nazi supervillains in the Axis Occult Society have discovered that Glen Miller's trombone is actually the ancient Horn of Power used by Joshua at the Battle of Jericho (it can shift its shape) and have hatched a scheme to mystically divert Miller's plane carrying him from England to France so they can steal it. 

However, their plotting has been overheard by the ghost of Amelia Earhart.  Unable to speak to the living, Amelia confides these grave secrets to the transformed spirit of a dead WWI German aviator who hates Nazis, and who is currently incarnate as a walking pile of moss and muck in a swamp somewhere.  This... er... Heap, if you will... manages to get word to a small group of Allied heroes -- Montana "Monty" Johnson, famed archaeologist/adventurer, bronze giant and international crimebuster Kent "Doc" Raven, and a pair of two fisted archaelogists named Carson and Sheila Hart, who moonlight in the winged harnesses and helmets of Falconman and Falcongirl. 

Unwittingly along for the ride with Captain Miller are fellow USO performers Magerock and Tazara the Magicians, who detest each other. 

On the other side?  Ancient sorcerer Myron Moulton, evil alchemist Diabolico, young occultist Vassily Van Dammerung, and the mysterious German criminal known only as "M". 

Along the way, our heroes pick up a young pilot named Curt Sorkin, who somehow came into the possession of an experimental rocket pack built by Doc Raven sometime before, and who never gave it back. 

Now, as Glen Miller's plane flies further into Axis territory with each turn of its propellors, a small band of Allied heroes races to catch up with him in an experimental rocket plane built by Doc Raven, while the outcome of World War II hangs in the balance...

Anyway, that's what I'm working on now. 

[Buster's Uncle]

I believe this takes place in the same universe as ZAP FORCE? 

I wanted to ask you about the ISSUE ZERO thing you posted recently on your blog.  It ends with a mention of Sparta - Zap Force story?

Welcome to AC2, BTW.

[Doc Nebula]

No, ZAP FORCE isn't a Tale of the Omniverse.  I use Sparta City a lot, though... if things go as planned, I'll be using it in CYBERFORCE sometime in the next thousand years or so.  (If they don't go as planned, well,  I won't.)

And that's what that "Issue Zero" thing is about.  It's good writing, so I put it on the blog to save it out.  It's all part of a thing that a Professional Established Artist and I are trying to put together.  He's done some work for Image and Marvel, and he's been invited by the guy who owns CYBERFORCE to submit ideas for a new series.  So that's another thing I'm working on. 

We actually spent six weeks coming up with a brilliant team concept for Marvel, but he got tired of Marvel constantly telling us we couldn't use certain characters because Brian Michael Bendis would stamp his widdle feet if we did, so we've given up on that.  (But it's too bad, because it's an AWESOME team concept.)

So now we're working on this CYBERFORCE thing.  He got them to send me a gigantic stack of CYBERFORCE for free so I'd know something about the characters, and thank God, because if I'd paid for any of these I'd just kill myself.  There is literally nowhere to go but up with this concept.

Another place I used Sparta City in the not too distant past was as a setting for an abortive superhero RPG.   I love the timeline I came up with for that RPG, so I'm putting it in here.  Feel free to ignore it.

1937 – The world’s first superheroic age begins when a super strong, apparently all but indestructible mystery man thwarts a gang of heavily armed bank robbers. Although this mystery man departs (leaping or flying away, no one is sure) before anyone can ask his name, a blurred photograph taken at a distance seems to show a horseshoe shaped emblem on his chest. The press names this mystery man ‘The Mighty Omega’.

The Mighty Omega becomes something of a fixture around New York City well into the 1940s, and in his wake, many more men and women of mystery appear, including Marvel Woman, Mr. Midnight, Redhawk and Bluejay, the original Night Vision, Lady Lash, Captain Dynamo, Citizen Brain, the Six Guns, the Silver Streak, the Red Ruby, and Mech-X, the Automatic Man. By the time the U.S. enters WWII, it almost seems that every major American city has at least half a dozen homegrown ‘superheroes’ patrolling their own particular neighborhoods and fighting crime.

Over this same period, perhaps inspired by the sudden advent of colorfully costumed crimefighters, a wave of equally colorful, larger than life criminals appears. Renegade scientist Julius Vector uses advanced, outlawed ‘fringe science’ to create many superhuman lackeys, including the Green Terror, Chromedome, the Big Bang Gang, and the Ice Queen. White supremacist Jack Boot and his Blackshirt Brigade rampage through the poorer sections of Chicago, frequently clashing with Chicago’s own homegrown crimefighters Slugger and Brawler. Gang wars break out in Los Angeles between rival criminal factions led by colorful figures like the Brass Dragon, Great White, and the King of the Hill. In Detroit, a mysterious figure named Motorhead consolidates his hold on the city’s most vicious rackets, despite constant opposition by Detroit’s own resident costumed heroes Black Lion and Prince Tiger. In the city of Milwaukee, 5 local ‘mystery men’ (including one woman) or ‘superheroes’ – Redhawk, Bluejay, Citizen Brain, the Supermagnet, and Winged Victoria - band together as the colorfully named Fighting Five to protect their city from the depredations of villains like Colonel Rage, the Tin Soldier, the King, Queen, Jack and Ace of Spades, and Pluto, King of the Underworld. Similar heroic groupings appear informally across most of America at this time in local municipalities, battling the seemingly endless hordes of colorfully garbed, melodramatically named ‘supervillains’ who have sprung up in response to the advent of so many masked crimefighters.

In Hell’s Kitchen, New York City, elderly Jewish scientist Ischach Schramm perfects a suit of powered armor designed to look like a huge stone statue. Calling it his ‘Grey Golem’ suit, Professor Schramm hopes to wear the armor to help rescue Jewish inmates of Nazi concentration camps. However, a Nazi agent known as the Black Swastika learns of the power suit and attempts to steal it for Germany, an effort that results in Professor Schramm’s death and his grand son, Avi, donning the Grey Golem suit and battling the Black Swastika and his Bundist goons. During the fray Professor Schramm’s laboratory and notes on the Grey Golem armor are destroyed.

1941 – The U.S. enters WWII. FDR issues a call for all patriotic Americans to enlist in the military and as a result, the Super Soldiers Battalion is formed, featuring many if not most of America’s active mystery men and women. This Super Soldiers Battalion is divided into three sub-squadrons; one, with the most powerful heroes in it, is sent to fight the enemy directly in the overseas theaters. The two others are deployed to the East and West Coasts of the U.S. to fight saboteurs and spies.

During the course of WWII, it becomes obvious that both Germany and the U.S.S.R. have been engaged in recruiting and creating their own super soldiers; Julius Vector does work for both nations during this period, bringing into being many super powered Nazi and Communist figures, including some of the most powerful superhuman figures in history, such as devoted proletarian Svetlana X, whose enormous telekinetic powers wreaked havoc across two different continents over the course of the war, and Fenris, the gigantic wolfman whose enormous strength and near indestructibility was exceeded only by the unrelentingly ferocious, bestial hatred with which he attacked all enemies of the Third Reich and the Aryan ideal he revered.

Vector also designed and built the rocket-wing exoskeletons used by the Hitler Youth superteam known as the Boy Blitzers and, subcontracting for the Japanese, built the deadly nuclear powered armor worn by the Nipponese super soldier Ion Maiden (originally, the armor had been intended for Japanese ace Daichi Agoto, but which was in the end worn by Hikaru Dewara, as women proved to be both more resilient to the secondary radiation emitted by the armor's power pack, and the more lightweight female frame greatly improved flight performance).

Other super powered Axis operatives whose abilities may or may not have been attributable to Vector include Arguseigen (Eagle-Eyes), the Nazi operative who could, from the safety of a bunker in Berlin, see nearly anywhere in the world; the Italian super soldier Ironhand, Icemoon, whose control over heat and cold once froze the English Channel solid, and Tyr, the legendarily elusive Nazi sniper-assassin who terrorized the entire Western European theater of operations until he was finally tracked down by the first Night Vision, who gave his life to destroy the German super soldier.

Meanwhile, on the American home front, the lesser powered sub-squadrons of the Super Soldiers Battalion engage in seemingly endless battles with super powered Nazi saboteurs like the Black Swastika, Redball, the Baroness, and the Iron Eagle.

During this period, Redhawk, Bluejay and Winged Victoria restyle their costumes along a more patriotic theme and rename themselves ‘the American Eagles’, referring to each other as ‘Red’, ‘Blue’ and ‘White’ for the duration of the war, which they spend in the East Coast homefront squadron of the Super Soldiers Battalion. In 1944, Red and Blue are killed attempting to rescue people trapped in a tenement fire set by Axis saboteur Firedrake. White reverts to her previous costume, which she has dyed black, and rechristening herself Winged Vengeance, she stalks and kills Firedrake in a pitched battle on the Baltimore waterfront which the revenge driven superheroine barely survives. In this battle, her winged battle harness and electro-staff are both destroyed.

1945- The war ends. Many of America’s ‘superheroes’ have fallen in WWII -- even the Mighty Omega is thought to be dead for months, after his partially successful attempt to foil a secret German A-bomb test results in him being caught in the bomb blast. Those superheroes that survive return home to find an America that is now becoming obsessed with the ‘Red Menace’; fears that are exacerbated by constant rumors of Soviet ‘super spies’ infiltrating America. The Mighty Omega, Marvel Woman, and several others form a group called ‘the Ultra Americans’ at the request of President Eisenhower. Simultaneously, Executive Order 206 is issued, prohibiting all unauthorized superhuman activity. A highly classified codicil of Executive Order 206 establishes the Reconnaissance Observation and Oversight Co-operative Committee, known informally as ‘the Rookery’, a new intelligence branch specifically tasked to keeping tabs on superhuman activity throughout the world. Its directors will come to be called ‘the Rook’ or ‘the Raven’ depending on gender; the first ‘Rook’ appointed to run ROOCC is Avi Schramm.

1946- Citizen Brain and the former White/Winged Victoria/Winged Vengeance retire and, in their civilian identities, quietly marry. A few other retired ‘mystery men’ attend their wedding, but it receives no press coverage.

1957 – the Ultra Americans discover and raid a vast subterranean complex, discovering that it is the secret global headquarters of Dr. Julius Vector. During this raid, it becomes evident that Vector is in fact an alien spy, and that, in fact, shapeshifting aliens have by this point successfully infiltrated every level of American society. Night Vision II and Marvel Woman manage to reverse the frequencies on a ‘cryptowave’ array they discover in Vector’s compound, causing the army of covert alien spies to revert to their true forms. Chaos breaks out across America, but in response, thousands of previously unknown superhumans who had kept their abilities secret to avoid trouble with the law reveal themselves to destroy the alien threat. Afterwards, President Eisenhower declares all these previously unknown superhumans ‘great American heroes’ and rescinds Executive Order 206, claiming that America’s ‘superheroes’ have proven themselves to be the nation’s first, best line of defense against ‘abnormal and exotic threats to public safety’.

During the Krell inspired violence, Julius Vector is killed, and in response, his second in command, Hugo Random, forms an organization of outlawed superscientists called VECTOR (Voltaic Electronic Cybernetic Terratonic Orgonic Radioactive) to perpetuate the fallen Vector’s legacy as a superscientific outlaw devoted to reaping rich rewards from the exploitations of ‘fringe’ science. Before the uprising is finally put down, the Mighty Omega flies into space to attack a ‘Krell mothership’ his super senses have detected. He never returns.

1958 – The sleepy East Coast municipality of Sparta City is untouched by the violence of the Krell Invasion, apparently having had no alien infiltrators within its city limits, and being one of the few larger urban centers in America that has never produced a ‘mystery man’/’superhero’. After more than a decade of post-War prosperity, however, gang violence erupts in the poorer neighborhoods as several different small crime rings and street gangs battle for control of the steadily growing drug and black market arms trade.

1961 – 1980

Another chapter in the era of superheroics seems to dawn with the 1960s, as a new generation of heroes and villains appears on the scene. In addition to the largely Midwest based Ultra-Americans, a new team called the United Heroes of the World forms in New York City, featuring various NYC based heroes like Kid Scorpio, Lawman, the Dark Lady, Spartan, Blackbird, Johnny Skylark, and the Blue Blazer. At roughly the same time, several new supervillains appear on the scene, the most powerful of whom, Red Rasputin, ends up battling with, and being defeated by, most of the individual members of the United Heroes, as well as the entire team. In response to this, Red Rasputin organizes his own team, the Legion of Evil, which features mostly low grade, not particularly successful masked criminals such as Impala, the Ogre, Robber-Baron, Invisibolo, Castellan, and Ice Queen II. Although the various versions of the Legion of Evil will continue to reform over the next two decades, they are rarely more than an irritant to the superheroes of the 60s and 70s.

On the West Coast, a loose alliance of ‘counter culture’ superheroes calling itself the Free Association forms in San Francisco. Featuring such worthies as Maxi-Mod, the Lovers, Skyrider, Go-Goddess, the Blond Blinker, Hep-Cat & Beat Boy, Psychedelique, the Blue Whale, Sagittarius the Archer, and Captain Amazing, the Free Association actually saves the entire West Coast on half a dozen separate occasions from a variety of threats, including an invasion by hostile undersea warriors and deep-ocean monsters directed by evil super scientist Dr. Poseidon, an attempt by a sociopathic sentient computer called Cobalt Core to mind control everyone in California, and several attempts by Red Rasputin and his Legion of Evil to launch world domination efforts are also brought to naught by the Free Association. In one of these battles, Skyrider is killed in combat by Red Rasputin.

1962 – Internal power struggles rip VECTOR in two; its heavily armed paramilitary enforcement branch, under the command of disgraced former Soviet Army general Gorgei Barushkoff, breaks off into an independent criminal group that names itself Red Octopus. The remainder of the Sixties and much of the Seventies will be marred by running global battles between VECTOR’s super powered minions, Red Octopus, various superhero organizations, and the Rookery.

Julius Kane is elected Sparta City’s district attorney in 1963. Later that same year, Lawman of the New York City based United Heroes reveals that he is actually former Olympic athlete and war hero Wendell Glenn. He retires from superheroics and moves to Sparta City, where he marries and begins to raise a family. Also around this time, a mysterious crime figure calling himself Ironmask makes himself known, declaring himself the ‘boss’ of Sparta City’s largely unorganized underworld, a declaration he enforces by waging ruthless war against Sparta City’s other crimelords and gangs. Although District Attorney Julius Kane struggles valiantly to contain and curtail Ironmask’s growing influence, he is never able to determine the identity of the enigmatic crime boss, although he does round up and successfully jail many of Sparta City’s lesser criminals during the course of his three terms as D.A., with the aid of savvy Sparta City police detective Wendell Glenn, who in 1970 is appointed Police Commissioner of Sparta City.

In 1965, the Mighty Omega is declared legally dead. President Kennedy declares a day of national mourning which the United Nations also recognizes. Memorial statues of the Mighty Omega are raised in various places all over the world, and for the next ten years, ‘Omega’ becomes one of the most popular names for infants in the United States.

In 1975, a new Redhawk and Bluejay appear in Sparta City, primarily targeting Ironmask’s various rackets and criminal enterprises, but also clashing with Red Octopus task forces and VECTOR operatives several times. The new Redhawk and Bluejay are wearing some sort of winged costumes that allow them each to fly and seem to give each of them some sort of resistance to both bullets and energy attacks, which is unfortunately insufficient to preserve their lives when a running battle between Ironmask’s lieutenant Blackthumb and a heavily armed Red Octopus squadron spills over into a secure warehouse storing experimental radioactive isotopes causes a disastrous explosion, which kills all combatants along with several dozen bystanders working in nearby buildings. Former District Attorney Julius Kane, who is now a City Council member, vows to bring Ironmask and the directors of Red Octopus to justice, and on the strength of this promise, is elected Mayor of Sparta City later that year.

In 1977, after a running gun battle with the police, Ironmask is killed. His identity is revealed to be that of Ray Napier, a successful used car salesman and several term Sparta City Council member. For much of 1977 and 1978, Sparta City’s underworld is ripped by bloody street violence as various of Ironmask’s subordinates battle to take over. In late 1978, a new Ironmask emerges, and the Sparta City rackets stabilize again, restoring relative peace to the city’s streets.

1978 – Red Rasputin and Dr. Poseidon scheme to inundate the East Coast with a colossal tidal wave created by setting off a small yield nuclear warhead on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean one hundred miles east of New York City. These plans are foiled and the entire eastern seaboard is saved by last minute intervention from the United Heroes, but in the resultant chaos, both Red Rasputin and Dr. Poseidon are killed, along with Crusader and Lady Lightning of the UHW. Champion relocates to the West Coast, where he finances a new superhero team, Knight Force, based in Los Angeles.

TODAY – Superhumans, both heroic and villainous, seem to be everywhere you look, although in point of fact, they make up significantly less than .01% of the overall population. In an attempt to avoid organized superhero groups like New York City’s United Heroes, Chicago’s Ultra-Americans, and Los Angeles’ Knight Force, many costumed villains appear to have migrated to Sparta City, a mid sized metropolis just off the Atlantic which seems to have no native superheroes. Over the past few years, the quality of life in Sparta City has degenerated as the outlaw paramilitary group Red Octopus battles organized crime lord Ironmask for control of Sparta City’s underworld. Someone claiming to be the original Chromedome has also surfaced in Sparta City, leading a loosely structured gang of super criminals that includes such notorious figures as Kodiak, Mr. Fahrenheit, Negative-Master, and the Asp. Solitary criminals like the Stomper, King Weasel, and the Raptor are also known for their viciousness.

Both the Mayor and City Council of Sparta City have publicly implored any superpowered, public spirited citizens to step forward and help combat this rising tide of supervillainy, and the local Chamber of Commerce has posted a $5,000 reward for the apprehension of any known costumed supervillain. The 1975 deaths of the young Redhawk and Bluejay seem to have had a stifling effect on superheroics in Sparta City, however.

And thanks for the welcome.

[Buster's Uncle]

Good stuff.  I wish I wasn't on a deadline, and could take the time right now to go through this and comment in detail.  Feel free to nag if I don't get to it in the next 24 hours.

[Buster's Uncle]

So, an old buddy invited me to join here and annoy people.

He also invited me to read some of his fiction in something called PLANET TALES, but apparently I'm too stupid to find PLANET TALES.

http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?board=14.0

It's right above Downloads in the root forum, forth from the bottom.


I deny asking you to annoy anyone.     Please be yourself, but don't get carried away.  [snickers]

[Doc Nebula]

You specifically told me to annoy people.  Okay, you didn't, but who are they gonna believe?

I just realized I posted an early version of the timeline without a lot of cool stuff I put in it later.  If anyone cares, let me know and I'll dig out the later version with all the 80s and 90s stuff in it. 

[Buster's Uncle]

I DID intend for you to entertain people; I'll cop to that.

[Doc Nebula]

What, I'm some clown, to amuse you?

[Buster's Uncle]

Yes; I've told you so before, Mr. Pesci.

-I finally saw that movie last year; not bad at all.

[Doc Nebula]

GOODFELLAS is effing brilliant, sir.  Not pulp fiction, but, still, effing brilliant.

[Buster's Uncle]

I cannot disagree.

My church lady 72 year-old mother came in while I was watching the last half hour, with a cocaine-high Ray Liotta driving around town seeing helicopters everywhere - and had no trouble picking up what was going on, or finding it interesting.  Quite a trick, on their part.


You're definitely gonna keep me from getting any work done.

[Buster's Uncle]

So D, what's your initial impression of AC2?  I'm pleased that some of our guys have popped in and talked to you; that's the sort of thing I hoped would happen.  They're good guys.

I've found you highly entertaining so far, not unlike a clown to amuse me; hope you've been amused as well.  If you get to craving a custom avatar, let me know, and I'll hook you up.  I can change your screen name, too, if the fancy takes you.


Supper's calling; back in about 30...

[Doc Nebula]

'sawright.

What's WRONG with my avatar or username?

#heyyoukidsgetoffamylawn

[Buster's Uncle]

That there's a mighty fine avatar, as a matter of fact.

I dunno, I was just surprised when you didn't sign up as Doc Nebula...

[JarlWolf]

I spied your posts, and I have to say your damned funny, I like the hard hitting humour. Though I think I am unfortunately the forums resident old man, I have a setup somewhere in this forum, pitched tent and have a fire going. Been burning literature to keep warm, been using crappy adult contemporary works/romance escapist novels, but I fear I may be running out. I need to visit your country or step outside the forum to find more.

Also, how is your stance on the actual game itself? Mind I don't care if you actually play it or don't, just wondering if your a fellow SMAC addict. I always like to share sleep deprivation stories with.