Set
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quote:Originally posted by razsolo:
quote:Originally posted by Ken Arromdee:
quote:Originally posted by Set:
Mimic Mimic specializes in assuming very precise humanoid forms, down to the genetic level, and can adapt so precisely as to gain access to the abilities of the race mimiced. This process requires assimilation of biological matter from the 'donor,' and Mimic is scrupulous about getting permission first,
This won't work because there's absolutely no reason why this character should not step into a Legion meeting (or the Legion Academy) and ask for permission from everyone present so that he has a large library of forms. The characters being heroes, they would have to agree.
I dunno, I can think of any number of reasons it wouldn't play out like that...I can imagine Shadow Lass and Sensor Girl would have a problem on spiritual grounds with letting someone else take the power that is theirs as their respective planetary protectors....Dawnstar or Chemical Kid are both pretty arrogant, I could see them having a problem with sharing their awesome powers with someone who hasn't earned it...and I think a lot of heroes would quite reasonably be a little apprehensive about that much power being in the hands of one person - especially if that person is going out of their way to gather as much power as they can, it would be only natural to question their motives...and even with the best intentions, there's still the possibility they could go about things the wrong way or that they could be manipulated by someone like Mordru or the Time Trapper...
Pretty much my thoughts. First, Mimic can only take racial abilities, so Shady and Sensor would be out (although it could take on a Talokkian form and gain other Talokkian traits, such as good night vision and being perhaps a touch stronger than the average person).
But many Legionnaires would be opposed to 'sharing' their powers and form, starting with Shrinking Violet, for obvious reasons, and including people like Mon-El (who, thanks to Ol-Vir, is quite familiar with how dangerous someone with his powers can be) and Element Lad (who seems unwilling to allow people to even visit his homeworld, let alone steal their forms and powers!).
Others might not care so much. Stone Boy, for instance, might see no harm in allowing someone to emulate his ability to turn into a statue, and, while Triplicate Girl might not tolerate someone taking her form and using her powers, there's gotta be a Carggite out there somewhere who could use the money and would 'license' their image and abilities for a coupla credits...
Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
I adore Swarm and Healer. They're extremely inventive and interesting.
Mimic, however, reminds me of Ben 10, only without the wrist gear. That being said, I think that if he had more than just permission from his subjects to limit his power, he might be powered down enough to not raise objection. ESPECIALLY since I have always thought that Durlan's are constantly registering and inprinting new forms. I guess the 'down to a molecular' blueprint is slightly different?
Anyway, like Ben, maybe Mimic could have a time limit that his cells, however they're formed, can maintain superpowered forms. Perhaps the limitation is sever enough to make him not capable of great and fantastic feats.
A further limitation might be recovery time between forms and/or no do overs, either ever or for a specific amount of time or form numbers.
Did I say that I love your Swarm and Healer?
-------------------- 'In the twinkling of an eye' I'll be dancing in the sky!
Come, join me!
From: Salem, Oregon USA | Registered: Aug 2003
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Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
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quote:Originally posted by Candlelight: I adore Swarm and Healer. They're extremely inventive and interesting.
Thanks! I've always liked the creeptacular concept of an organism that uses shapeshifting abilities to heal other people, by sending it's own tissues into the a wounded creature and causing them to replace damaged tissue, and then sort of adapt to the surrounding biology, so that they aren't rejected, as they transform themselves to incorporate the DNA of the surrounding tissue, and are 'recognized' as 'self' by the body's defense systems.
There's also terrifying non-healing applications to such an ability, such as to put organic 'bombs' inside of people, to later rupture and release toxins or contagion or to grow out of control like some alien cancer, but Healer would never dream of using their powers this way...
quote: ESPECIALLY since I have always thought that Durlan's are constantly registering and inprinting new forms. I guess the 'down to a molecular' blueprint is slightly different?
My thought is that aliens with superhuman powers would still be subject to the same laws as anyone else. A telepath would be expected to respect personal privacy and not deep-probe passersby and broadcast intimate details about them to all and sundry, for instance, and could be charged with criminal tresspass or whatever.
Similarly, a shapeshifter might be able to use their understanding of human biology to assume a generic human form, but to assume the form of an actual person would be an act of fraud and misrepresentation, if you didn't have that person's consent to do so.
Cham, being a superhero with both government sanction and the legal backing of the Science Police, would be allowed to duplicate suspects during the course of an investigation or sting operation (pretending to be a henchman of a crime figure, for example, to gather information on him, just as an undercover police officer is allowed to pretend to be a crook to get close to other crooks), but the average Durlan on the street, IMO, wouldn't legally get to do that, since non-shapeshifters would be afraid of shapeshifters stealing their identities, draining their bank accounts, sleeping with their spouses, etc.
But that's all IMO. If there were no such laws, and Titanians and Durlans and Bgtzlns could pretty much ignore privacy laws or identity theft laws or tresspassing laws, then Earth xenophobia would make a heck of a lot more sense...
quote: Anyway, like Ben, maybe Mimic could have a time limit that his cells, however they're formed, can maintain superpowered forms. Perhaps the limitation is sever enough to make him not capable of great and fantastic feats.
A time limit makes some sense. In theory, whatever biological processes go on in a Durlan body might be suspended while they are in another form. They can eat, breathe, etc. as appropriate to the form they've assumed, but they increasingly feel 'hungry' or like they are 'holding their breath' as their true Durlan biology is not getting the sustenance *it* requires.
Durlans like Cham, and Yera, who spend hours at a time in alternate forms as the result of infiltrations, or acting jobs, would be extremely proficient, by Durlan standards, at 'holding their breath' and staying in non-Durlan shapes.
If this is the case, the officially recognized orange-antennae-head-humanoid form would have been specifically designed by Brande's people to allow the Durlan physiology to function unconstrained, so that any Durlan who has trained themselves to assume this form could stay in it indefinitely, although some might be more comfortable in their green tentacle-monster form, and revert when out of sight to 'relax.'
quote: A further limitation might be recovery time between forms and/or no do overs, either ever or for a specific amount of time or form numbers.
No do-overs, in combination with the requirement to get consent, could be a crippling drawback.
On the other hand, perhaps, as part of getting consent, Mimic secures a certain amount of DNA from the donor (a strand of hair could contain enough DNA for hundreds of changes, if not tens of thousands). Each time Mimic assumes a form, their body devours and rips apart some of the stored DNA, decoding it and altering it's own DNA to match, and so the supply of DNA available from the donor is decreased the more they use that particular form. (And it's possible that someone who understands the nature of this change, which would be easy to learn about, since Mimic has signed contracts explaining how it works to a bunch of people, would be able to steal the samples, or hit Mimic with a burst of DNA-scrambling radiation, rendering stored samples useless, and leaving Mimic stuck being 'just a Durlan' for as long as it takes to recover / replace DNA stores of other powered species.)
quote: Did I say that I love your Swarm and Healer?
Indeed you did, and thanks!
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Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
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Winathians don't normally have powers, but they do have the 'twin-thing' going on, and, while twins of other worlds may sometimes be said to have a special connection, the twins of Winath sometimes take that a step farther...
The Terror Twins, Phebi (feh-bee) and Deme (dee-em), telepathically linked, able to tap into their sisters strength, speed, etc. so that each of them is perfectly linked, moving together like cogs in a deadly machine, and each functioning with twice normal strength, speed, etc. for a woman of their size and strength. Unfortunately, their constant link to each other has left them violently distrustful of others, with an 'us against the world' mentality, and more than a touch of co-dependent psychosis. Sometimes they want to be alone in the universe, and end all life in a genocidal rampage. Other times, they want to impose their shared link upon others, using machines to crush the will of others and 'link' them to themselves, tapping both their own skills and mental reserves, and also using them as expendable drones. They have a primal love of causing chaos and confusion, sowing terror not for any political cause or philosophical belief, but because their own fearlessness, as they reinforce and reassure each other constantly, makes them cruelly curious as to the reactions of others to acts of destruction and carnage. The sight of others scurrying to save themselves from whatever act of terror they have engineered, and the later breathless news reports of the atrocity, reassure them and fill them with a sense of superiority and control.
[Yeah, they're not 'heroes' by any stretch of the definition, so they don't really fit the title of the thread. The next Winathian isn't really a super-hero either, but he's a much nicer person...]
Link A rare single child, Link's clingy co-dependent nature, a result of his lack of a twin, on a world where *everyone* has a twin, developed into a full blown psychic capacity. Some part of him flailed around, seeking the connection that everyone else had, and he found it, time and again, as he developed the ability to 'synch up' with other creatures. At first, the ability was limited to pets and farm animals, as he would link his mind to their own, and perceive through their senses, and communicate with them on some primal level. He didn't so much 'control' them, as influence their behavior, and since he worked primarily with animals that were already domesticated, he found it easy to suggest courses of action to them. The more he linked up to them, the more the animal seemed to retain a fraction of it's enhanced intellect, bled over from his own, and the easier it became to link up with them, and to teach them even greater tricks. It was some time before he learned that he could manipulate groupings of similar animals, already with some weak 'herd mentality' or 'pack mentality' of their own, insinuating himself into the position of 'pack alpha' or 'leader of the herd.'
He makes his living on Winath, domesticating animals with his abilities, and linking up with various species, expanding his own awareness of the world around him.
It's well known that he's a bit of a man-about-town with his love-life, and that he only dates other 'singles,' like himself. His various 'lovers' (not all, or even most, of whom, have any sort of physical relationship with him) agree to keep to themselves his ability to forge a link with them as well, allowing them, for a brief time, to experience the life of connection that fate has denied them. The fleeting links he forms with his fellow singleton Winathians are nothing so strong as the shared-sensory, empathic links he forms with animals, although, like those links, they grow stronger with repeated exposure, and some of his longer-term paramours can feel his presence, or even catch an impression of a strong emotion he experiences, as their link grows far beyond any normal sense of familiarity and connectedness that a normal pair of Winathian twins would share.
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Due to a rare, once-in-a-lifetime genetic abnormality, she gradually divides into two individuals from the feet up, rather than from the head down.
A premiere ballerina, and a master of the ancient French martial art of Savate, she is also moonlights as an amateur detective, in the tradition of Irene Adler, Miss Marple, Trixie Belden, and Velma Dinkley and Daphne Blake.
-------------------- "So different from the Original Superman of Krypton!"
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-------------------- Go with the good and you'll be like them; go with the evil and you'll be worse than them.- Portuguese Proverb
From: Illinois | Registered: Jun 2010
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Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
quote:Originally posted by Emily Sivana: I have been doing research for fanfiction, and I really like the Xudarians.
Tomar-Re was one of the classic 'alien' Green Lanterns from way, way back. What a funky design. Orange skin, a fish fin and a parrot beak? Whacky!
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Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
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And, from Naltor;
The Historian The doctors foresaw only a slim chance that both mother and child would survive the difficult birth, but she took steps to change those odds, sending relatives across Naltor in advance of the event to bring compatible blood and experimental supplied to strengthen her for the upcoming labor, defying the dire predictions. Both she and her child lived, although Candr was born without eyes, and, it was later discovered, without the gift for prophecy. Still, they adapted. His malformed optic nerves and tissues proved incorrectable, and they opted for cybernetic eyes, which the clever child learned to strip the governing software from to allow him to see farther and with far greater magnification than traditional Naltorian sight, and in different wavelengths. Still, it wasn't his bionic eyes that made him a hero, it was his prophetic gift, not to see the future, but to read the past. When he enters an area, or meets an individual, or hefts an item, he begins to receive glimmers of the past of that subject, with the most emotionally dramatic (or traumatic) experiences coming in the 'clearest.' As crimes, particularly violent ones, tend to leave powerful 'psychic marks' for him to locate, he found himself naturally gravitating to solving crimes, coming to a crime-scene, or handling a piece of evidence, or meeting a suspect, and learning of events past, that might prove guilt or innocence.
As Naltorian criminals can foresee events that might lead to their capture, they tend to be extremely good at keeping out of jail, but they had no experience with a man who could see evidence they'd left in the *past,* and The Historian has made quite the name for himself!
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-------------------- Go with the good and you'll be like them; go with the evil and you'll be worse than them.- Portuguese Proverb
From: Illinois | Registered: Jun 2010
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Set
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A metal-toothed Bismollan? Seems kinda redundant since they are already able to bite into pretty much anything with their normal teeth... (Indeed, the metal teeth would probably be destroyed the first time their salivary glands activated!)
Ages ago, I invented a 'reverse X-Men,' and the backwards version of Cyclops was named Charybis, and wore a special mouthguard, because whenever he opened his mouth, it opened a vortex to a black hole and started sucking things in front of him into the vortex, crushing them until they fit into the mouth-sized aperture and were annhilated... (So Cyclops opens his eyes and sends out destructive energy, while Charybis opens his mouth and pulls stuff in to be destroyed.) The reverse-version of Wolverine sarcastically said, 'Yeah, that's our fearless leader. He has the mutant power to suck real hard.'
That might make for a scary Bismollan alternate, one that has a powerful gravitational force that pulls stuff towards his mouth...
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Set
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From Talokk VIII;
Scirocco shares a special link to the silica-sands of the Talokkian desert, able to control it through a discharge of static electricity, and riding animate dunes of sand through the desert, leashed by coils of static electricity from his hands. He can whip the sands up into deadly sandstorms, or send them to engulf others in great masses, and can, to a limited extent, use static electricity to defend himself, in a situation where he has no sand to manipulate.
His ability to electrostatically manipulate the sands of Talokk VIII is shared by a species of subterranean sand-serpents of vast size, and due to his similar manipulations of the static-charged sands, these creatures ignore his passage, almost as if he were one of them.
Also from Talokk VIII;
Survivor has smooth and indistinct features, almost as if the harsh climates that she frequents has worn her smooth. More years ago than she can remember, she was lost in a terrible storm, and her body adapted to survive the unforgiving climate. Over the years, she has travelled to every corner of Talokk VIII, from the hearts of the bleakest desert, to the depths of the oceans, to the frozen expanse of the polar regions, and in each place, her body has adapted, growing fins, gills, fur or scales, as appropriate. Her body has been burned, frozen, crushed and swallowed whole, and she has adapted to survive each of these ordeals. She takes a certain perverse pleasure in challenging new and extreme situations, wondering if this time she'll find the one thing that she cannot adapt to and survive. She now looks up at the night sky, and wonders how her body will adapt to the cold and dark between the stars.
Perhaps she has learned every lesson that Talokk VIII has to offer, and it is time to leave the nest...
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Set
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From Tamaran;
For thousands of years, Tamaran has had a small sub-population, born seemingly randomly to any family or bloodline, these days called the Black Tamaranians. Capable of absorbing solar energy, like all Tamaranians, the 'Black' Tamaranians are unable to release this energy to fuel the power of flight, and remain ground-bound.
Ten centuries past, a Tamaranian was born to the royal family with this 'defect,' and coined herself the name 'Blackfire,' leading to others with a similar affliction being called 'Black Tamaranians' for the first time, and, due to her, admittedly brief, grip on the throne, comign out of second-class status and becoming somewhat fashionable as enforcers for 'their' queen. Through Psion manipulations, Komand'r, called Blackfire, empowered many of these faithful servants with energy-projecting abilities similar to her own. The beneficiaries of her largesse enjoyed perhaps too much the role-reversal under her reign, where they were no longer the cripples and the unseen, but instead the feared arms of the queen.
Her reign was not so fondly remembered by the vast majority of Tamaranians, and with the end of that reign, the former enforcers found themselves running the risk of extinction at the hands of those they had oppressed in her name. In a surprising show of solidarity, they banded together and fought their way to an isolated region, and fortified their position against all attempts at seeking revenge for their past abuses. Decades became centuries, and over generations, the old insults were forgotten.
The Tamaranians and 'Black' Tamaranians found themselves defending their world from external threat on several occasions, begrudgingly working together, at first, but eventually forming tentative alliances, and, yet more centuries later, slowly re-integrating as a society.
Genetic technology had long since been discovered that allowed the Black Tamaranians to correct the deficiencies that prevented them from flying, and over ten generations of sporadic intermingling of the two groups, some traces of energy manipulation have also begun to appear among the original population (who, despite the name 'Black' Tamaranian, appear no different from any other Tamaranian, to the casual observer. The name refers only to their former patron, Blackfire, whom they still quietly remember as the one who brought their sub-population out of obscurity, although they know better than to share their appreciation for the former tyrant-usurper queen with those whose ancestors did not benefit from her brief reign.).
By the time of the 31st century, the greatest heroes of Tamaran are four Black Tamaranians called The Black Watch.
Bloodfire is a sex symbol on Tamaran, being blessed not merely with exceptional energy projection abilities, but also with a rare violet-black coloration, and a long mane of curly blood-red hair, that leaves a trail like billowing volcanic plume of smoke and fire behind her as she flies. Her solar-powered energy projection powers manifest as dull crimson beams of force and heat that often melt items struck and start raging fires. While most Black Tamaranians project stored energy from their hands, she more commonly shoots bolts of heat and force from her glowing red eyes.
Nightfire has the more common skin tone reminiscent of Komand'r herself, and has waist-length straight black hair, that leaves a black streak across the sky behind him, like a swath of starless night (most males keep their hair short, and leave little or no visible energy trail in flight). His dark blue-black energy blasts dissipate energy struck, causing machines to falter and run down, and individuals to feel chilled and stunned. He can even smother fires with a concentrated attack. While all Tamaranians are stronger than the human norm, Nightfire seems to gain strength from dissipating energy with his powers, and is several times stronger than a normal Tamaranian of his size and build.
Moonfire also shares the skin tone of Komand'r, and has shoulder-length gently wavy white hair, that leaves a very short 'trail' of what appears to be serpentine wisps of fog behind him in flight. He generates pale white beams of gravitic energy that he can use to push items away, drag them to him, or, with concentration, to move them around, like a form of telekinetic 'tractor beam.'
Ghostfire was born hairless, without even eyebrows, but has the same coloration as a standard Tamaranian. She leaves no colored energy trail in her wake, and produces bright beams of dazzling golden light that she can use to blind others, focus into laser-like cutting beams, or use to manipuate the spectral properties of a target, causing it to alter colors, or even making it translucent and neat-invisible. With extreme concentration, she can even form holographic images, but they are not easily mistaken for anything else, as she has not yet learned to make holograms in any color other than soft yellow. Of the four, however, Ghostfire is the one with the best understanding of the physical sciences, and the one most likely to figure out new uses of her powers...
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Both Tom Tanner and razsolo came up with ideas for Zwennian heroes, which totally wouldn't have occured to me! Here's what they inspired in my noggin;
Golem Girl When Gerta Shyr goes to sleep in contact with earth or stone, her body sinks into the surrounding surface, become insubstantial and infused with the material, which then shapes itself into a form like that of her own body, but several times larger, as her self diffuses through the surrounding material. Through lucid dreaming techniques, she has learned to function in this state (although she does come across as a bit distracted...), and can move this massive earthen or stone 'golem' around and take action. If the construct of earth and stone is demolished, she 'wakes up' abruptly, a surprised-looking but otherwise unharmed Zwennian woman who has begun to study unarmed fighting techniques just in case of such a situation...
She tends to spread out the longer she remains asleep, and more so in elements like sand or loose earth (assuming some truly colossal sizes), and less in sturdier material, like stone (in which she is rarely more than twice her normal height, and about forty times as heavy).
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posted
^^^^That reminded me of a Zwennian villain I came up with; Gorgon Girl. With green dreadlocks and body modifications to give her vertically slitted pupils and a greenish tinge to her skin, she is also pretty heavily pierced and tattooed.
As her name would suggest, she can turn people to stone by inducing a coma state in her victim. She needs to make eye contact to do it as she accesses her victim's neural pathways through their optic nerves and because her victim is catatonic, it's pretty much impossible to restore them to normalcy without the assistance of a skilled psi.
The strange part about her power is that it also works on non-Zwennians, which has raised a lot of questions about how the Zwennian petrification process actually works on a biological level, and if it's something that non-Zwennians could learn with the right discipline....
-------------------- Read the alternate adventures of the Legion after Legion of Three Worlds! postlo3w
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Set
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quote:Originally posted by razsolo: ^^^^That reminded me of a Zwennian villain I came up with; Gorgon Girl.
That's a totally logical progression, a Zwennian 'hypnotist' who makes other Zwennians fall asleep (and turn to stone), so that she can rob them! Very cool notion, and also neat to give her the ability to take it up a notch and inflict 'Zwennian sleeping sickness' on non-Zwennians, causing them to turn to stone!
Very cool, and very creative! I totally wish I'd thought of that!
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