Supremacy: A Universe Proposal

[Czernobog]

The French line pushed toward the enemy hill-tops, thousands advancing. That was when the enemy artillery fired, rays of pure heat vaporising hundreds in mere seconds. After ten minutes and a panicked, terrified rout, nothing was left of three-quarters of the French military but dust. The Germans had control of the River Marne. This was just the first thing that would change...

The first inkling of the tremendous changes Parahumans, superscience and magic would unleash upon the 20th and 21st Centuries was at the River Marne in September 1914, where the French military was utterly destroyed by German heat-ray artillery, the flower of France's youth reduced to ash and dust. The war ended in Paris a few weeks later. But many more changes would come...

The Rising Sun and the American Crusader tussled in mid-air amidst the ruins of Hiroshima. Below them, the men of Eagle Unit stood, watching from the sidelines, fearful of the terrible clash of gods that was taking place far above them.

The First World War brought with it no end of troubles: first the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, then the Ottoman Collapse and the Austrian Civil War. All of them marked the death of empires, and two began the ascendancy of new powers. But the long war was not over, as Stalin's Russia invaded Eastern and Central Europe in 1939, and was only stopped by rivers of blood and the combined might of old enemies.

Ludwig Von Sternberg looked at the Ruins of Stalingrad - his Dämmerungshelder had protected the airship that had dropped the ultimate weapon - Mjollnir, the weapon that had annihilated Stalingrad and all the souls within, in an explosion of pure atomic fury. Victory had been won in the west - but at what cost?

In the east, combined with the Soviet assault on Europe, Japan invaded the United States, landing at San Francisco, its forces led by Special Unit X, commanded by the feared Rising Sun, who was to die years later at the famous Battle of Hiroshima, the two living gods - the Rising Sun and the American Crusader - fighting to the death in an epic hours-long battle that levelled the city. It was this battle that was the downfall of Special Unit X, wiped out by the American Eagle Unit.

Vasiliy Zhukov, the Red Star, General-Secretary of the Communist Party, looked at the arms reduction treaty. It would end the Cold War. Without hesitation, he signed it. This was one war he couldn't win.

The cold war continued until 2001, when it ended without a clear victor. It had seen the Korean and Vietnamese wars, the end of (most) colonisation, and had ended with the western powers in the advantageous position, but with the survival of the Soviet Union and the Soviet-backed Republic of China. Now, the world is greatly changed from that wet day in September 1914. It is now 2012, but the world is totally different from what you might expect.

Clean energy is the order of the day, parahumans are renowned as the protectors of the world's public, and the mystical thrives in open sight. But there are also those parahumans who would use their powers for villainy rather than altruistic ends, and there are those just don't care.

With such supremacy over normal humans, the public must trust those who could easily crush them like ants...

[Malchus]

And, again, Kamin finds a way to both utterly destroy a bunch of Soviets and humiliate them too.

Kamin, I gotta ask, do you have issues against Soviets? Every time I see something involving anything remotely like the USSR you're they're either just defeated ad humiliated or about to be. It's beginning to look a lot like a revenge fantasy.

[Czernobog]

And, again, Kamin finds a way to both utterly destroy a bunch of Soviets and humiliate them too.

Kamin, I gotta ask, do you have issues against Soviets? Every time I see something involving anything remotely like the USSR you're they're either just defeated ad humiliated or about to be. It's beginning to look a lot like a revenge fantasy.

I don't have issues. In fact, the Soviet Union in this world is bigger than in our time line.

Here's the world map:

2009 unfinished.png (71.41 KiB) Viewed 13908 times

[Malchus]

You still had Stalingrad annihilated (which German-victory fanboys seem to love so much) and they "surrendered" the Cold War without hesitation, making them look like pussies. It still leaves the mind wondering.

EDIT: More to the point, how in the world do you surrender in a Cold War? Despite the name, it's not an actual war. And that makes the Soviets look even more pussified--they surrendered during an official peace time. Because that's what the Cold "War" was, tensions between two big power blocs without an actual declaration of war.

[speaker-to-trolls]

^You're right that you can't surrender the Cold War in any way besides promising to never ever interfere with anyone elses interests ever again (impossible for a big power like Russia), renouncing Communism, or both. In this scenario I think Kamin has the Russians cutting down their nuclear stockpile to a minimum, but to be honest that still doesn't make the Russians look all that good.

To Kamin; What were the Russians alternatives to signing that treaty? It would have to be something pretty dire to justify handing over a lot of their weapons. In fact I can't really think of anything that dire, I mean the Russians gave up on Communism in the real world, and they still didn't reduce their stockpile before the Americans agreed to do the same (AFAIK, please someone correct me if I am wrong).

EDIT: Why do the Japanese still rule Korea? If the Japanese Empire was the same as it was in our world and the war followed roughly the same course why didn't the USA want them to give up their territories? In fact I'd think a failed Japanese invasion of America, considering America has never been invaded since 1812 (and maybe the Mexican war, but I think that depends how you define America), would encourage them to be harsher on the Japanese.

EDIT EDIT: I think we've jumped to conclusions on the Cold War issue, it seems that the Soviets just agreed to mutual disarmament even though it would leave the Capitalists in an advantageous position, that's pretty believeable if the Soviets were already losing.

[Czernobog]

You still had Stalingrad annihilated (which German-victory fanboys seem to love so much) and they "surrendered" the Cold War without hesitation, making them look like pussies. It still leaves the mind wondering.

EDIT: More to the point, how in the world do you surrender in a Cold War? Despite the name, it's not an actual war. And that makes the Soviets look even more pussified--they surrendered during an official peace time. Because that's what the Cold "War" was, tensions between two big power blocs without an actual declaration of war.

They didn't surrender - both sides agreed to massively reduce their arsenals after a nasty incident of nuclear terrorism. The Cold War just...ended without a clear winner or loser.

As for the destruction of Stalingrad, the Soviets were facing the full might of France, Britain and Germany, and it still took the nuclear destruction of one of their cities to get them to agree to a peace - not an unconditional surrender, a peace. I'd hardly call that wimpish.

[Czernobog]

To Kamin; What were the Russians alternatives to signing that treaty? It would have to be something pretty dire to justify handing over a lot of their weapons. In fact I can't really think of anything that dire, I mean the Russians gave up on Communism in the real world, and they still didn't reduce their stockpile before the Americans agreed to do the same (AFAIK, please someone correct me if I am wrong).

EDIT: Why do the Japanese still rule Korea? If the Japanese Empire was the same as it was in our world and the war followed roughly the same course why didn't the USA want them to give up their territories? In fact I'd think a failed Japanese invasion of America, considering America has never been invaded since 1812 (and maybe the Mexican war, but I think that depends how you define America), would encourage them to be harsher on the Japanese.

The treaty that ended the cold war was a response to a horrific act of nuclear terrorism that destroyed Indianapolis - this led the nuclear powers (more than existed in our world) to decide on reducing their number of warheads by 50 to 75 percent, and to immediately try and stop further nuclear proliferation.

As for the case of Korea, the US decided that having the Japanese keep it and Taiwan would be beneficial to facing the Soviet Union and the Soviet-backed Republic of China (In our time line Taiwan was added as an afterthought. In this timeline Chiang kai-Shek, who suggested it, wasn't even invited to the peace conference, as he had ties to the Soviets who had just barely been defeated by the combined might of the major European powers). Also, China came out of WW2 stronger than in our time line, due to the Japanese focus on America, and was still strong enough to pose a threat to the tenuous peace (in fact a war was fought between China and Japan/America in 1948, lasting about six months before the Chinese, facing heavy casualties and nuclear weapons, made peace as quickly as possible).

[Shroom Man 777]

So, we see American Crusader, Rising Sun and Red Star in this exciting new universe. I wonder if they'll also be meeting US President Alfred F. Jones and guys like Alexander Bradley, Daniel Danielson, and other tall and athletic guys. Does that Ludwig von Sternberg also share his first name with someone surnamed Schrodinger by any chance?

A world where geopolitics is dominated by superhumans would actually be a good basis for some interesting stories. But there has to be more to it than just randome altarnate realty hippotheticel senareo histries or whatevers. There has to be character, not characters as in characters like who/what/people, but character as in mood and theme and stuff that determines the direction of a particular verse. Campy superheroes in a campy superhero world? I doubt nuking places is very campy. "Realistic" shakey-cam gritty geopolitical stuff? That seems to be what Kamin usually attempts. I hope the execution is better than previous attempts though. There needs to be a bit of spice, a bit of emotion or insanity or spite or dickery or in/appropriate humor or irony or enthusiasm or happiness or anger or mischief or glee or a bit of something, anything, (and not just attempts at fear/badassery through big swords or bannerspikeskull grimdrakstraks) to give Kamin's work a "soul". I hope he'll eventually learn/develop/whatever it someday. It's not something anyone can really teach you, just something you do yourself.

It's probably one of the most notable flaws in his stuff, sometimes the idea isn't really bad or no worse than other ideas other people are using themselves, but when he writes it it ends up being pretty sparse that there's nothing else but the idea itself. But I think he still has to "find himself" or whatever. I think you've gotta do that, develop a "personality" you can imbue in your own works, so you can make them fun to read. When you develop personality, then you can do personalities and then assume all sorts of forms and styles for your works. But it's not something developed overnight, or in short order.

Blah blah blah blah shrom shrom shrom strak strak strak frod frod frod dak dak dak.

[Magister Militum]

And, again, Kamin finds a way to both utterly destroy a bunch of Soviets and humiliate them too.

Hey, there's nothing wrong will killing many filthy commies. After all, that was essentially Goldstein's job during the Cold War.

Anyways, it's an intriguing concept, though it could stand to be better fleshed out.

[Czernobog]

The Timeline

1914

The First Great War begins on June 28, and ends on September 7th at the Battle of the Marne. Nevertheless, chaos begins to spread in Europe, where it will first rise up 3 years later.

1917

Communists take power in Russia, founding the USSR. Only one member of the Tsar's immediate family survives, fleeing to Great Britain.

1919

The Ottoman Empire falls apart in revolts, and several powers with territories close to it take advantage of the chaotic situation - most notably Greece, which takes Thrace, Constantinople and the area around Smyrna. The American Crusader, Alexander Anderson, is born near the end of the year.

1922

Austria-Hungary collapses in civil war due to attempted reforms; Adolf Hitler raises insurrectionist army against the Hapsburgs. Italy invades Trieste, as German peacekeepers march into Austria and Bohemia.

1923

Austria and Bohemia annexed into the German Empire by popular demand, Hitler's army crushed by the German military. Yugoslavia created. American Explorer's Society founded.

1925

Joseph Stalin takes over the USSR.

1928

Lost city of El Dorado discovered by the American Explorer's Society. Tesla Reactor invented by Nikola Tesla.

1933

Eagle Unit founded, to protect the United States of America against 'extra-ordinary threats'. 'Adventurer archaeologist' Alfred 'Montana' Brown, of the American Explorer's Society, foils a Serpent-man plot to reclaim the surface world.

1936

The Dämmerungshelder are founded by Magierfeldmarschall (literally 'mage field-marshal') Ludwig Von Sternberg, to protect Germany. Berlin Summer Olympics take place.

1937

Empire of Japan invades China, at around the same time as Italy invades Yugoslavia. Alexander Anderson joins Eagle Unit. The 'super-boom' begins.

1939

Stalin invades Poland, Finland, and the Baltic States. They fall rapidly to him, but Germany, France and Britain declare war on the USSR swiftly.

1941

Japan attacks San Francisco and Pearl Harbour in simultaneous attacks, the San Francisco invasion taking place around this time, led by the Rising Sun but nevertheless driven back into the sea by Eagle Unit.

1942

German invasion of Russia, assisted by France and UK, begins. Approximately 6 million soldiers are part of the invasion, however German Scientists, including Albert Einstein, are working on a super-weapon to knock the USSR out of the war.

1943

Mao Zedong is killed in a skirmish with Japanese soldiers, leaving the Chinese Communists leaderless. Island-hopping campaign against Japan continues.

1944

Moscow is under siege by the Germans, however the harsh winter (even with adequate supplies) is slowing the offensive down. Project Mjollnir is almost complete.


1945

Mjollnir is deployed at Stalingrad, devastating the city. Soviet Union agrees to a peace deal. Battle of Hiroshima between the Rising Sun and the American Crusader leads to Japan's surrender and the destruction of the city.

1948

Korean War begins, lasts for six months before the attacking Chinese run out of supplies and air support and are forced to retreat. Roswell Crash occurs, an extra-terrestrial spacecraft crashes in the South-western US. It is later discovered to be a scout-craft for the Greys, from Tau Ceti, who plan to invade Earth in 1999.

1952

The first artificial satellite, Wotan, is launched by Germany.

1961

First moon landing, by the USSR.

1967

First moon base built, named Tranquillity 1, by the United States of America. Vietnam War begins between communists and nationalists in former French Indochina. With the help of Germany and Japan, America barely succeeds in winning it by 1970. The terrorist group SCORPION is founded.

1970

Civil Rights Act passed. American Crusader calls this 'a milestone for the nation'.

1982

Alfred Franklin Jones, a militarist Democrat, wins the 1982 election. He begins construction of a spaceship to rival the British Excalibur and the Soviet Leningrad, the USS United States of America.

1986

Alfred F. Jones wins the election again, and begins detente and ballistic missiles reduction talks with the USSR, primarily through his opposite number, Premier (and General Secretary of the Communist Party) Vasiliy 'the Red Star' Zhukov. The USS United States of America is completed.

1995

First contact made with an alien species. Fusion power invented.

1999

The Greys invade Earth, and attempt to land ground forces and destroy human cities. They are however, driven back with negligible loss of life. Arthur Edward Windsor crowned King of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

2001

Nuclear terrorist bombing, now believed to have been carried out by SCORPION, devastates Indianapolis. Massive nuclear arms reduction takes place, each nuclear-armed nation now only having about a thousand or so warheads.

2012

The present date.

[Czernobog]

The Red Guard

The Red Guard are the Soviet Union's premier superteam, dedicated to 'protecting the Motherland and aiding the spread of Communism through other regions'. They were founded in 1986, and have fought in many conflicts throughout Africa and the Middle East, as well as policing the USSR and being the counterpart of the US parahuman military team known as Eagle Unit. Their members are:

Hammer and Sickle is the tactical brains of the team, Captain in the Red Army and fighting with superhuman strength, agility and intellect. He prefers to use projectile weapons, although he has two melee weapons for fighting close-up, and he always has his superstrong fists.

His background is a proud one, having fought multiple times in bloody conflicts, receiving the Order of Lenin first class for valour in the face of the enemy during the First Afghanistan Conflict. Having reached the rank of Captain, and with such a distinguished record, there is no surprise he was selected for Project Mikhail, the elevation of mortal to superhuman. He is compassionate when out of battle, but when in it is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve victory, and has a strong sense of duty.

General Steel is the leader of the team, its strategic commander, as well as having a power-suit made of Herculeum, a rare mineral that fell from the sky in the Tunguska crash-site. His suit is state-of-the-art, having integral weapons, a fusion torch and inertial dampers that allow it to fly at hypersonic speeds, and also increasing his strength and durability immensely. He is a skilled commander, compassionate towards his men but merciless toward his enemies.

Firebird is the team's mystic specialist, a young-adult sorceress with a pet phoenix hatchling nicknamed 'Sparks', and is attuned to the spiritual side of things, as well as being able to cast devastating attack spells. Her phoenix pet is loyal and willing to sacrifice itself for her, as she is toward her country.

Ivan Alexandrov is the team's sniper, cold and detached, creeping the rest of them out with his morbid atmosphere. He is the only non-super in the team, and the only one without a code-name. There are rumours that he was transferred there because of his conduct on and outside the battlefield, but their veracity is unknown. Nevertheless, he is incredibly skilled, and rumours exist that he has cybernetic enhancements, shadowy and covered in secrets as he is.

Their enemies:

Rasputin, protege of Koschei the Deathless, practitioner of dark magic, and worshipper of the dead god Tchernobog, he will stop at nothing to bring his divine master back to life.

SCORPION, an international terrorist organisation interested only in world domination, without a creed or a belief system that justifies their atrocities but the simple belief that might makes right.

Koschei the Deathless, Archlich, Necromancer and Master of the Vanishing Isle of Beyan, upon which he set his fortress of black iron. He may be a servant of or somehow connected to the shadowy extradimensional ruler known as Necrolord Terminus, as their modus operandi are similar.

General Alexei Romanov, a highly charismatic former Soviet General who leads an insurrection in the far east of Siberia that may or may not be associated with SCORPION. Where he gets his funding, his equipment, and his soldiers, as well as where his base is located, is unknown to the Soviet Government and military.

[Czernobog]

Note: I'm not seeking to plagiarise anyone with this article. Any similarities are coincidence, et cetera...

The Elementalists

Once upon a time, there were four beings who personified the raw elemental power of the Earth itself. Their names were thus: Tiamat, whose slightest movement could make the sea flood the land; Bahamut, whose fists could shatter mountains; Thunderbird, whose speech could unleash hurricanes; and last of all the Phoenix-Lord Firewing, whose breath could set whole continents aflame. They had many children - Tiamat, the Leviathans that dwelt in the seas, Bahamut the Behemoths that lived upon the green earth, Thunderbird, the mighty birds that flew in the skies, and Firewing the Phoenixes and Dragons that had power over flame.

But these beings fell into slumber, and their children died, and became rare, and Men rose up upon the earth. And so, did Atlantis, the greatest empire of old, rise up on the power of the Elementals. Where their powers were especially strong, on the convergences of the ley-flows, they built wells to tap the raw elemental energy, providing an easy source of magical power, around which they built their numerous colonies.

The Atlanteans, however, had not provided for the many barbarian tribes that lay beyond their empire, in their grand psycho-historic predictions of the future. And so, in the twilight of the 50,000-year old Atlantean Empire, about 100,000 years ago, one man, Tyras Valhallen, rose up, and his immense empire (surpassing even Ghengis Khan's) soon stretched from Europa and Hyperborea into the vast deserts of Transaxonia and the wastes of Setesh-Khemet. And then, through the foulest treachery, he invaded Atlantis itself.

The Ten Thousand Heroes, each worth a hundred men, fell on that black day. A thousand times a thousand was the number of Valhallen's vanguard, and they rampaged through Atlantis' holy ground, sacking the cities, burning down the temples and massacring the mage-priests of the sacred grounds. Eventually, the King of Atlantis, Massilar the Last, unleashed the full power of each and every Elemental Well at the intruders, destroying them all.

But he had no idea of the power he had unleashed.

The delicate balance of powers that enabled Atlantis' existence was destroyed. Massive storms blackened the sky, the heaving earth swallowed up entire cities. Flame fell from the skies, and huge cliffs fell into the sea. The Elemental Wells, each the heart of an Atlantean colony-city, exploded as they were forced to provide more power than they could safely tap, destroying each in an eruption of raw elemental fury. Valhallen's citadel was sent down into the caverns in the depths of the earth, every man within kept from death by a quick-casted spell of suspended animation. And at the last, Atlantis itself was sank and drowned by the waves, in a few generations existing only as a myth that was eventually told to the Greek philosopher Plato.

But one Elemental Well, survived, although with the catastrophic rerouting of the ley-flows its immense power was reduced to a shadow of what it had once been. In a quiet corner of Africa, that would later be called the Congo, it kept its power dormant and steadily began draining the local environment to power the few functions that it could still fulfil.

100,000 years later, the Congo knew war, and a quartet of mercenaries were feared throughout it. For them, with technological powers neither the barbarians of Tyras Valhallen or the priests of Atlantis knew, war was a business, a science. They were educated men, and scoffed at the beliefs of the natives. However, one particular belief, a local superstition, turned out to be true. They were sheltering from artillery fire in a cave, when the earth shook and revealed a hidden passage. They ventured into it, seeking to fulfil their curiosity, and beheld to their wonder, a ruined city, swallowed up by the earth and perfectly preserved.

The architecture was like no culture on Earth, although vaguely reminiscent of the Greco-Roman, and at the city's centre, they found a shallow well of pure clear water, with shimmering energies within. Each man touched it, and in a moment of intense pain, of heat hotter than the sun and yet colder than the void of space, they were transformed. The energy of the elements had reached within the men, transforming each into the paragon of one of the four elements: water, fire, earth and air.

They decided, in light of their newfound powers, to retain being mercenaries, although with a notably higher amount of pay.

The four men known worldwide as the Elementalists are:

Lightning, a.k.a Thomas Thunder, grandson of the famed adventurer and hero Leonard 'Leo' Thunder, who was part of the American Explorer's Society. He himself is a mercenary with a code of conduct and the leader of the team. He struggles to live up to his grandfather's fame, and is the team's tactical and strategic commander, which his clear thinking helps with. Able to manipulate air, sound and lightning, also with the more wide-scale ability of atmosphere (i.e weather) control, with the ability to turn himself into a humanoid thunderstorm in a pinch. He is also immune to poisonous gas, suffocation and electricity.

Deluge a.k.a Florence Flood, commander of water in all its states (excluding vapour). He's a bit more controlled than Lightning or Firestorm, and follows his leader's example in having a code of conduct, although he treats its rules more like guidelines. He lacks the ability to unleash wide-spread devastation, but makes up for it with skill and finesse, being able to manipulate the water in a man's body, or use a cupful of water like a sword or shield in his hands. He can turn himself into a humanoid made of water, making him immune to injury and enhancing his powers during this time. He cannot drown, and his clothes and items don't get wet, something which he uses to his advantage.

Rock a.k.a Daniel Goldson, able to manipulate earth, metal and mineral (including crystals). He's rather rooted to the ground, not taken to wild flights of fancy, but is still rather intelligent and imaginative. His powers also somehat enhance his durability and strength, even when his geokinesis is not active, and he has the power to unleash wide-level, high-strength earthquakes at his strongest. He can't turn himself into anything, but makes up for it with his unparalleled skill at using his powers, and the fact that he can demolish buildings without any need for explosives. When rooted on the earth, he regenerates faster than normal humans, albeit slower than other parahumans.

Firestorm a.k.a John Coleman, able to manipulate the most destructive element, flame. He is immune to flame or lack of oxygen and can summon and manipulate fire, using these abilities to devastate the enemy. He is prone to wild passion, and his hates and desires are like consuming fires he has to keep under control. This is more than made up for, however, by his skill at creating consuming firestorms, hence the code-name. When a big foe comes up, he surrounds himself with a gigantic figure made of pure flame hotter than the sun, able to melt and burn through metal with pathetic ease. He's one of the smarter people on the team, when he can cool down and keep his hot head under control.

[Czernobog]

Sunstorm

Real Name: Darius Earl

Age: 27

Appearance and Personality:

Darius Earl is blond and blue eyes, physically in his prime, averagely tall and somewhat athletic. He's handsome, but still intelligent, while being determined and focussed at doing what he does. Personality-wise, he's compassionate and willing to stand up for what he believes is right, regardless of what people tell him to do. He doesn't like killing (and considers it to be crossing a very important line) but will consider it under very extreme circumstances, such as when he's fighting a villain that poses a threat to the entire world.

Origins:

Darius Earl was the son of a rich collector of extraordinary artifacts, particularly Atlantean ones recovered from what little outposts survived from that empire's cataclysmic fall. One in particular intrigued him. It was a crown, made of a golden metal that was stronger and harder than steel. It bore the inscription 'the worthy heart shall bear me and obtain power', which had baffled everyone who owned it. Darius, while being born into wealth, knew that there were others that weren't as lucky, and wanted to help them. But he knew that he was in no shape to become a vigilante, and so, daringly tried the crown. It seemed to sink into his head, filling him with knowledge and power he'd never possessed before.

With speed, he made a costume, and, trying to think of a name, came up with 'Sunstorm'. It seemed to fit his powers, which seemed to be connected with light. And so, the superhero Sunstorm was born. He rapidly became a media celebrity, but proved he was a genuine hero by fighting in the alien warlord Voidstar's invasion in 2007, standing beside American Crusader and the other heroes of the parahuman community in defeating the warlord's invasion fleet.

Right now, he's settled down a bit, but still has little permanent connections, as his wealthy father died recently, leaving him in possession of wealth he still doesn't know how to spend. He has an on-and-off relationship with a woman in the parahuman community, going under the name of Starfire, but he's attracted a large rogue's gallery over the years. Only one thing is certain though - he's going to have his hands full in the next few years, particularly with the rise of the terrorist organisation SCORPION.

Powers and Abilities

Sunstorm can project blasts of cosmic energy which manifest as rays of concussive light. These may be dialled down to concussing or stunning levels, or sent up to lethal levels. He can also use this cosmic energy to create shields of force, and can also channel it into creating physical constructs. He is also stronger than normal humans, able to lift 150 tons at maximum (although doing so strains him), and is more durable, able to ignore anything up to the pounding of heavy artillery. He is faster, but only as much as his superior strength allows him to run, he has a lot more stamina, and tires a lot less easily. He can also read and write Atlantean script. He has the ability to hover, but has yet to progress to full-on flight.

Also, the Atlantean artefact that gave him his power has a self-defence mode for if he is badly injured in the course of battle. Healing energy will course through him, restoring him to full health, and Orichalcum armour will appear, protecting him from further blows as blinding solar light shines forth from his eyes, and a sword covered in white flame will appear in his right hand, ready for use. However, entering such a state has a draining effect on him, can only be used every six months due to the amount of power it takes up, and he cannot consciously trigger it.

Rogue's Gallery

Voidstar, an extraterrestrial warlord dominating seven clusters, with a sizeable army and starfleet and dozens of vassal states. He invaded Earth in 2007, but was driven back by humanity's might and the strength of its parahuman protectors. However, he escaped and has sworn revenge against Earth, contributing considerably to its reputation in the wider galaxy.

General Reinhardt Totenkopf is a traitor from the German Empire and an artificial superhuman, made so by his own hand. Aside from his expertise in military matters, he is a consummate scientist and engineer, a true renaissance man, although he prefers to let underlings do the hard and dirty work. He has associations with SCORPION, which is regarded by the United States as the greatest threat to freedom currently existing.

Bloodwing is a self-professed (although it is extremely unlikely) fallen Angel with some vampiric tendencies (namely the fact that he has fangs and likes drinking blood), and the primary nemesis of Sunstorm. He is also a devious plotter and planner, but his true danger lies from the fact that the two have roughly equal powers, but Bloodwing has far more experience in using them, and can actually fly using his blood-red feathered wings.

[Czernobog]

Terminal City

Terminal City, Michigan (also known simply as Terminal), is one of America's biggest cities, housing eight and a half million people, with an interesting history. One the shore of the Great Lakes, its site was known by the local Indians as a cursed place, which allowed the early settlers to live there without much in the way of fighting, and it was founded in 1812. By the 1840s, it had about 150,000 people within, with immigration rapidly increasing. In the early 1900s, it was a boom town, with tons of skyscrapers and factories working night and day. 'Made in Terminal' became synonymous with quality, and the town experienced an economic boom. When the Great Depression came, the streets of its slums became a battleground between police, vigilantes and the mob, a war the mob eventually lost in the 40s and 50s with America's economic reinvigoration. But it remained a background presence in the city, one that simply couldn't go away.

In the 60s and 70s, Terminal's boom continued, albeit at a much slower pace. But in the 80s, the bubble burst, millions of companies went down, and the city experienced the largest crime-wave in its history. New heroes emerged: the Revenant, an undead vigilante, Raven, a crime-fighting low-level parahuman billionaire, and several others. Meanwhile, American Crusader and Albert Banner, the city's Mayor, fought whole-heartedly to restore Terminal City.

The crime wave stopped in the mid-1990s, but Terminal City continues a strange halfway existence - half rust-belt, half-glitz town, with several new defenders to aid it in the long climb to recovery, such as Street Shaman and the patriotic hero Stars and Stripes. In most of Michigan and throughout the Great Lakes area, it is the proverbial big city, an entertainment city and regional financial capital as it slowly shifts away from heavy industry.

Terminal City is divided into four districts - the Centre, the city's beating heart by the lake, the Belt, the inner area, the Suburbs, and the Outliers, a series of industrial parks eventually fading into wilderness.

Each district is divided into boroughs, and each borough into neighbourhoods.

Landmarks of Terminal City include the Illinois, a kilometre-tall skyscraper, and the Park, an island of green in a sea of concrete and steel.

[speaker-to-trolls]

Terminal City

So far so Crowtalon Light, but I'm sure you can develope it a bit more over time as things happen there.
One thing though

But in the 80s, the bubble burst, millions of companies went down, and the city experienced the largest crime-wave in its history.

Perhaps need to check the numbers on this one.

Landmarks of Terminal City include the Illinois, a kilometre-tall skyscraper, and the Park, an island of green in a sea of concrete and steel.

They have a skyscraper in a city in Michigan called the Illinois?
Also Detroit is already the Big City in Michigan, but I suppose we can put that down to alternative historicity.

Sunstorm

First of all good choice in changing his name, Darius Dawnbright sounds very cartoonish, Darius Earl is, for my money, a cool name.

Appearance and Personality

So far so predictable, but as I've said before it's really quite hard to get a decent idea of a character across just with a description rather than with examples. Someone will doubtless roll their eyes at you for using 'tall and athletic' again, but it's not really worth spending too much time on the physical descriptions of your characters. Might help to find a few new adjectives, but it's not really a problem.

'handsome yet still intelligent'

. Good looks generally detract from intelligence?

Origins

'THe worthy heart shall bear me and obtain power' is not that difficult to figure out, first of all, especially if you know the thing is magic.

Darius, while being born into wealth, knew that there were others that weren't as lucky, and wanted to help them. But he knew that he was in no shape to become a vigilante

THere are better ways for a rich kid to help the less fortunate than becoming a vigilante. Batman doesn't beat up criminals because he thinks it's the best way to help people, he does it because he's fucked up in the head.

It seemed to sink into his head, filling him with knowledge and power he'd never possessed before.

This bit is interesting, especially when coupled with the bit a little later about how he can read Atlantean script. What I'd do is have the message on the crown be a bit more ambiguous, something about the Atlantean word for power having different connotations to the English, or something, so it could mean 'understanding' rather than what we're used to, and that his wearing the crown was more to do with understanding the Atlanteans than the possibility he might be able to shoot lasers out of his nose to kill aliens.
I also think you could play up this aspect a bit, think about how the Atlantean knowledge he absorbed might have affected his character.

He has an on-and-off relationship with a woman in the parahuman community, going under the name of Starfire, but he's attracted a large rogue's gallery over the years.

I know I said it's a generic name and may be unfair of people to think you've pilfered it, but I still think you should change this just in case there is any confusion

Other than that, not much to comment on really, the Atlantean Battle Mode thing is quite interesting, especially if you make it something he doesn't have full control over (like the Avatar State in a way, don't pretend you don't get that reference). However, you'll have to do a bit of clarification on this guy:

Voidstar, an extraterrestrial warlord dominating seven clusters, with a sizeable army and starfleet and dozens of vassal states. He invaded Earth in 2007, but was driven back by humanity's might and the strength of its parahuman protectors. However, he escaped and has sworn revenge against Earth, contributing considerably to its reputation in the wider galaxy.

Why was an alien warlord with dozens of vassals and thousands of starships under his command repulsed by some superheroes and Earths puny military? Now I know this happened with Mogar in the Comix and probably with various aliens in actual comics, but Mogar was A) an idiot insisting on personal combat with Earths heroes and B) a joke (someone more involved with Comix correct me if I'm wrong). I don't know what the justifications are in real comics, but I'm sure there are some, and if not then there should be. Not that I'm demanding anything right now, just make sure you think through his defeat when you come to do any more on him.

[Czernobog]

LUDWIG VON STERNBERG

Date of Birth: 1894

Name: Ludwig Karl Mayer Von Sternberg

Origins:

Ludwig Von Sternberg was born in 1894 to an aristocratic family in Castle Sternberg in East Prussia, a large fortress on a crag over a desolate moor. He soon was seen as a natural prodigy for magic, but refused to join any of Europe's great magical universities, finding them hopelessly conventional. Instead he studied heavily at home, until he enrolled as an officer, and by 1914 was a Captain in the German Army. By the end of that war he was a Colonel, and by the end of the Austrian Civil War in 1923 was a General, his crack troops having played a vital role in the utter destruction of Adolf Hitler's insurrectionist army.

The period in his life between 1923, and 1936 when he was promoted to Feldmarschallmagier and founded the Dämmerungshelder, are full of adventures as the young General (he had cast several age-retarding spells on himself) explored the world, fighting Egyptian Mummies, lost civilisations dating back from Antediluvian times, and other such things.

In 1933, he returned home to his native Germany, and in 1936 he founded the Dämmerungshelder, a group of 'twilight heroes' with extraordinary power, tasked to defend Germany from otherwise unstoppable threats. They fought against the Soviets during the Second World War, and protected the airship Brunnhilde against a swarm of Soviet fighter-planes, as it dropped the first atomic bomb, code-named 'Mjollnir' upon Stalingrad, forcing the Soviets to seek peace.

Ludwig was also the first Captain of the German starship Kaiser Friedrich II, its space-battleship, in the 1980s, although he resigned that rank, as well as of that of Feldmarschallmagier in 2001 as his age began to catch up with him, preferring instead the simple title 'Commander of the Dämmerungshelder'. After his resignation, he was offered several chances to enter politics, but refused, saying simply 'it is not for me'.

His latest escapades with the Dämmerungshelder have involved trying to track down the secretive leaders of SCORPION, and several fights with the mad Rheinhardt Totenkopf.

Appearance:

Ludwig Von Sternberg appears to be in his late 30's or early 40's, but is in actuality much older and more intelligent than that. He is tall and muscular, being above all a soldier. All this belies his magical knowedge, and he does not wear robes, instead wearing a German Field Marshal's uniform.

Powers:

Ludwig Von Sternberg is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant mystic authorities on the planet, being a master of magic. His preferred abilities are showy and destructive - lightning-bolts, particle beams, fireballs, telekinesis. But he is also a master of teleportation, conjuration and defensive spells. He is however not good at summoning, having never seen it as useful. He also has several mystic artefacts, most notably a cavalry sabre that can cut through anything, and a pistol that never misses - both enchanted by himself, and serving as his main weapon. His uniform is also enchanted - it can deflect bullets, being a last defence for him if all his other defences are somehow neutralised.

[Czernobog]

IT'S ALIVE! MWAHAHAHA!

The Dämmerungshelder

The Dämmerungshelder (Twilight Heroes) are the parahuman protectors of the German Empire. They take their missions from the Kaiser personally, and only in the darkest times are all of them deployed to the same field. For if there is a foe they cannot best together, then things will look incredibly bleak, not just for Germany, but for the whole world. Their names and abilities are listed below.

Valkyrie

Valkyrie is just that - an immortal Valkyrie straight out of Norse legend. Along with Fritz Von Allenstein and Ludwig Von Sternberg, she is a still-surviving founding member of the Dämmerungshelder. She has some capability of weather manipulation, has a milk-white horse that flies across the sky faster than sound and whose hooves create blinding auroras in the sky, and has a spear that strikes with the force and fury of a lightning-bolt. She is also immortal, unable to die or age unless she truly wishes to.

Ludwig Von Sternberg

Ludwig Von Sternberg is the leader of the Dämmerungshelder and a masterful mage. He is the glue that holds them together, and one of their three surviving founding members. He fought in WW1, the Austrian War, WW2 and many others, sheer experience and skill turning him rapidly into a tactical genius, one who is rarely outsmarted. Not that he's weak at actual combat - he is just as battle-ready as any of the other members of the Dämmerungshelder.

Fritz Von Allenstein (The Dead Colonel)

Fritz Von Allenstein fought as a Colonel in the Second Great War, against Stalin's forces, and proved particularly adept at the Battle of Minsk. So many times, the Soviets threw men and tanks at his positions, and time after time they were pushed back, meeting heavy casualties. So, Stalin's forces unleashed the darkest magics they could muster, hurling them at the Germans as a black wind that sloughed flesh from bone. It is wrong to say that Fritz survived. He endured, the wave of dark magic killing him, reducing him to a skeleton as was its design, but his soul remained trapped in his body.

His men advanced once more, and this time the Soviets fell into a deathly terror as they beheld the army of the dead, and fled the field in fear. Fritz's unit has been reduced to a handful by now, but still they continue to fight, filling enemies with terror as they walk towards them, still attacking despite their untimely deaths.

Mjollnir 2

The Mjollnir 2 is the airship that transports the Dämmerungshelder. It does not rely on petty helium or hydrogen, instead using anti-gravity projectors to provide lift, and mighty fusion engines to provide thrust. It has an AI that steers the ship about its course, and fires its main weapons, capable of razing a sizeable city in six minutes. It has a 50-megaton nuclear anti-orbit missile in its spine, to give alien invaders a nasty surprise, and has row after row of railguns, heat-rays, and Tesla-projectors to defend itself.

Jürgen Steiner (The Necromancer)

Jürgen Steiner is adept in dark magics, the manipulation of shadow and blood, the calling forth of demons and other such things. He can also raise the spirits of the honoured dead, those that fell in battle protecting their nation, to fight by his side once more. Though they are ethereal and can only weakly interact with the physical world, their mere sight can fill mortal enemies with the terror of death, and although they can only remain in this world briefly, he can call forth up to about five hundred at a time, although this drains him greatly.

Wolfgang Schmidt (The Inventor)

Wolfgang Schmidt is the creator of the Mjollnir 1 (lost while fighting an alien invasion) and its successor, but he is much more than that. He is a genius in most fields of science as well as an accomplished engineer, and designs much of the German Empire's military gear. As well, when the time comes for him to fight he dons a suit of power armour designed by him personally, which is more than capable of fighting off the enemy.

Theresa Von Sternberg (Germania)

Theresa Von Sternberg is Ludwig's daughter, and she is imbued with a tiny portion of the power of the celestial spirit that protects the German nation. As such, her code-name is Germania, after the personification of Germany seen in so many nineteenth-century paintings. She is super-strong, able to topple a skyscraper, and super-durable, able to survive a 25-kiloton explosion, albeit with severe injuries. She has the power of flight, and typically bears Medieval-style armour capable of enduring an atomic explosion, a sword capable of cutting even through forcefields, and a shield capable of blocking a heat-ray, bearing the black eagle of the Holy Roman Empire upon it.

She also has a pet eagle, that she rarely goes without - concentrating, she can see through its eyes as if they were her own.

Karl Mayer

Karl Mayer is a member of Special Operations and possesses no superpowers save skill in exotic martial arts, a powerful arsenal of weapons and gadgets, and a cybernetic implant that enables him to make calculations (like those relating to ballistics) extremely fast and increases his speed and reflex time. All of which allow him to fire his twin plasma pistols with extreme accuracy and just barely dodge enemy fire (an automatic weapon such as an assault rifle or machine gun will still kill him easily).

History

To be written...

[speaker-to-trolls]

This actually looks like a decent team, maybe you could do with a little more clarification on Mayer and Allenstein's abilities, though, and a bit more on the backgrounds of everyone on the team, like some kind of hint as to how they got to be on the team.

I'm a little unsure as to what Mayer and Allenstein's roles are, so maybe a bit of clarification on them. I don't see any problems with any of the characters as concepts, except maybe Germania but I've gone over that following your suggestion in the Comix Mad Ideas thread.

Not bad.