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“As of this moment, homo superior is declaring war on the United States and every other nation that is run by humans and human sympathizers. Your time is over. It is now our time.” -- Magneto in Grievances

Can it be burn everything time? Everyone else gets their go-to-the-moon plot. Move to Sanctuary? Something that isn't rolling in stagnation as a collective faction?

Hell, I'll start us off. What have those humans been doing since, I dunno, we kinda killed numerous world leaders? I don't think we can top that until we destroy the country, so I'd say some lesser missions are in order. What can we do? What's a threat to the Brotherhood?

Military bases?

Government structures?

Resources?

Nuclear missiles?

How about attacking the decommissioned Sentinels and fucking them over-forever? They've got to be kept somewhere, especially since the threat of mutants has gone up since Apocalypse.

Depending on the status of the sentinels we could always try to find a way to reprogram them to attack baseline humans instead of mutants. Otherwise making sure they can not be brought back online would make sense since you want to deprive enemies of effective weapons.

On the depriving the enemy of assets and weapons front SHIELD has some mutant agents. The kind of operatives that can be considered heavy hitters. Perhaps an attempt to remove one or more of these super powered agents of SHIELD would be in the Brotherhood's interest?

Taylor would be happy to join in. He can help with getting into (and subsequently destroying or stealing from) government facilities. And I cannot say no to messing with Sentinels.

I imagine Taylor can reprogram the Sentinels to attack those without an active Xgene, then add in a program to automatically return changes to the way Taylor made it, if anybody tried to just fix it. So SHIELD would likely have to destroy their own sentinels, or find a way to deactivate them so that the corrupted files could be purged and replaced with proper programs. Either way, there will be havoc.

Really, Taylor can help out with most of the ideas Pyro mentioned.

Rolling in stagnation? Speak for yourself, firebug, I'm plenty busy.

I think we should also focus a little more in-game on the other networks of the Brotherhood outside of New York, at least demonstrate that the organization is doing something to gather members and obtain more support even after the latest string of attacks. Perhaps get some of those Purifiers/FoH/etc groups rolling on the site so that the BH has something to more openly combat rather than random acts of terrorism, then going into hiding. We ought to retain some of that grassroots allure.


Edit: Yayyy more ideas.

Alternately, we could build upon the template that the assassinations set up, having various threads occur concurrently with one main buildup. My main issue with anything Brotherhood related is SHIELD, so perhaps some subterfuge is in order. Perhaps we don't focus the attacks in New York, or at least not just there. SHIELD's presence is strongest in the Big Apple, so why not go somewhere less teeming with agents and have them scatter about?

Talking to Exodus on AIM, he brought up what I think is a really good idea, in attacking infrastructure. Communications systems, power grids, gas mainlines (you can burn something, Pyro!), services that are essential to everyday life that people take for granted. I think it would build up on the already established precedent of the poisoning of Manhattan's water supply, that mutants don't have to go on an obvious killing spree in your local mall or grocery to pose a threat.

The New York subway system is a good target in my view, or any heavily-used mass transit system in a large metropolitan area. The only thing they'd need are a layout of the control center, people to get them in and someone to hack into the terminal system and fuck it up. A simple blackout would do. There'd be thousands of people trapped underground and the possibility of trains colliding at unmanaged intersections.

Gas mainlines are present in every city, so it's a matter of drawing a town out of a hat. Or hell, the Brotherhood can send a group right to one of the big oil refineries in the Gulf and knock an off-shore rig out. Remember the infamous gas shortage in the South a year or so ago thanks to the hurricane season? Trust me, cities do grind to a halt.

Likewise, communications networks are vital to any city. Black that out and things get crazy. No cable television, no land lines, knock out cell towers, leave people in another black out--a smaller-scale one than the EMP blast from the Apocalypse, of course, but the memory of that is fresh and could send people into a mass panic. Moreover, if they were to conduct such an endeavor someplace where communications are essential, such as a busy airport like the Los Angeles Int'l, JFK, Jackson-Hartsfield (apparently the world's busiest), things get really crazy.

But all these events are chicken shit, crumbs in the grand scheme. While SHIELD is scrambling to contain all of these problems, the main focus is out in Colorado. A crowning piece of Depression-era public works projects, a symbol of American innovation and perseverance, the BH sends its heaviest hitters to take it out. It makes a nice statement, cutting the power supply to various areas and possibly provoking a huge flood. Assuming SHIELD is distracted in other areas, it gives that group more time to combat existing security and knocking it out.

To carry it out, I figure we'd employ other cells of the BH, with our characters perhaps overseeing things or just carrying it on their own in a specialized group. Their abilities would have to suit the mission. Anywho, those are my updated two cents.

Um...

Yes?

I don't know what else I could even suggest. Infrastructure would be a nice target to hit, especially civilian essentials.

Is that thing in Colorado the Hoover Dam?

Si. Still reeling from the effects of working with extremely concentrated acetic acid and acetone and something sulfur-based that smelled like sweaty balls (yay labs), I guess I forgot to mention it by name. My bad.

Uh, Hoover Dam's not in Colorado. Its on the Colorado River, but I think its in Nevada.

I'm up for putting BT into this. Also, the idea of incoporating the cells into it is great. It could help give weight to the fact that the BH is global. At the Hoover Dam, someone like Avalance would be awesome.

Strikin somemore fear into those sapes hearts? Count this mutant in!

It has been implied for ages that the BH is more than a gang of disgruntled louts who hang out in an abandoned theme park, so really trying to put attention on the size and the scale of the BH, with cells around the country would be really great to put into practise.

The BH woud have spent a lot of time/resources into developing attacks like this, like they would have the assassinations so I don't really think it's too damaging it's been a 'while' between these events - after all they could hardly guess the reactions and know for sure everything would happen. They'd likely have rough ideas what to do next but that doesn't mean they would be able to plan to the letter. But that's just my take on it.

Speaking of other targets, what about bridges? It sounds small fry but until a bridge has gone you don't realise how crutial those things are, when you're having to make upwards of a hundred mile round trip in some cases. In some bad weather here an area of England lost several bridges and people were just cut off from everything and the Army had to be scrambled to build a footbridge, just so people could get from one side of a small town to the other again.

I'm all for this Hoover Dam destruction if I get permission to bring Dominic back in the game whenever this plot starts up. I'm really liking this whole bringing back the badass Brotherhood thing.

So focusing some of the spotlight on other BH cells sounds generally accepted. I figure they could be used as anything, from NPC's to perhaps a thread entirely played out by them, with one or two of our playables calling the shots. I know I'm just repeating myself here, but I'm trying to cement some of the facets we're agreeing on. In the timeline, I think it's best if these missions take place just before the main events, exact times can be worked out, but in a way that'll have SHIELD mobilized all over the place contending with power and communications outages and gas line fires and basically using these lesser branches as fodder.

Now. Bridges. I like bridges. Maybe sneak an X-3 tie-in (stop groaning) and take out the Golden Gate. It's big, heavily used, in one of the biggest urban centers in the country, and yet another symbol of American blah di blah. Couple that with Hoover Dam (which is in Nevada, good job) and we have two large spotlight missions focusing on huge structures away from home that will affect both transportation, energy, and possibly the landscape in wake of a big-ass flood. I'm sure we can find everyone that wants to participate a role.

But three is a magic number. So, following up on the pretty successful assassinations template, I figure there's room to pack in one more big-name target, and to make sure the nation knows that the New York branch of the Brotherhood is alive and well and in their backyard, I'd still like to target the NYC Subway system. Get someone like our token technopath, Koen, into the control center and shut down all communications, shut off power to the cars themselves, maybe even take one of the larger stations hostage (the one in Times Square seems the most appealing) and drive them past panic and into insanity. With people like Rage to make them rabid and Aingeru to make them lose their minds, it'd be devastating to a crowd of trapped commuters. Long-term mental scarring, anyone? Remember, it's not so much about property damage as it is making a statement.

While all the ideas sound great I'm a bit loathe to believe that the BH could get away with all of this without meeting some opposition. Six prominent visable people were killed during the assassinations, one of them being the President. SHIELD not to mention the X-men would be on red alert and proactively on the look for anything the BH would be planning next.

There is a reason the battle of good vs evil has been going on forever. Bad guys do things the good guys stop them. Its gotta be a balance. With everything that's happened it seems the villains are just flaunting their standing, and doing things with no worry of being stopped or threatened. Its really making the good guy factions look like a bunch of ineffective pansies, and that shouldn't be the case. The balance only works if both parties keep it in check.

I'm not ragging on anyone's ideas. Its just something that's bugging me and I wanted to put it out there.

And what would you call the United States' endeavors in the Middle East and the War Against Terror? Point is, the government IS ineffectual. And the point of the smaller groups attacking communications and power grids all over the place at once is so that SHIELD can zero in and focus on them, but ultimately spread out their forces. Think about it. Why is Yemen and Jordan so important right now on every news cycle? This whole resurgence of Al Quaeda, blah blah blah, the reason it's all popping up in such geographically disparate places is so that a) the organization can demonstrate their global member base and support, and b) to provoke the US into Napoleon's blunder of spreading out military forces and resources across such a wide area that the entire thing becomes ineffective. I haven't, for a moment, stipulated that SHIELD simply sit on their hands and just watch as the Brotherhood launches attacks all over the US. Hence, that's what those additional branches of the BH are there for, to demonstrate that SHIELD is doing something, but in this instance, the Brotherhood have launched something that is larger than their core New York members.

I have been taking SHIELD into consideration each time I've added input and ideas into this plotting thread. As a matter of fact, I always address the consequences of any plot I've put my two cents in. Saying that they've been neglected and overlooked is just mildly disappointing. Someone isn't reading posts. But point of the matter is, the good guys don't always win. They seldom do. X-Factor has Latveria, X-Men have the Inhumans. They're getting to save the day before bedtime, so it's only fair the BH gets to have a run of their own.


Now. If we (meaning those of us that have characters in the Brotherhood/Acolytes) want to give this another level of intrigue and drama and throw our SHIELD compadres a bone, I think some sabotage is in order. Someone leaks info to SHIELD via an anonymous tip. No one knows who, no one knows why. All members bank accounts are strangely still, so it's not a bribe. One of the main targets becomes compromised, and instead of goals of fear and destruction, it's just a fight for their own lives. After everything's said and done, no matter who gets caught or what NPCs go down in a flash of fire, the organization's going to be reeling. Who sold them out? Who had the mission specs? Why did they do it? What else have they been disseminating? The Brotherhood launches its own witch hunt, and we have plenty of characters that are disgruntled with the current status quo, and even one with plans of leaving, to draw suspicion in a high-stakes game of whodunit. I think some internal strife would give us plenty to do.

Personally, I like that last bit the best. I would like to see the Brotherhood in a fight, everyone blaming everyone else. Who tattled to Daddy that we were going to sneak out after supper? The X-Men and X-Factor are very good at winning against NPC threats, but their rep with PC villainry is very poor, simply because there's no fun in always losing and we want our BH players to have fun too. There have actually been very few full on battles between the X and the BH, and in each one, while the BH might have been chased off, they usually at least partially fulfilled their goals. The FOH was destroyed. 65 or so people died in Magneto's attempt to take the twins. Wolfshead was a massacre. I think, that the assassinations were successful because of the surprise nature of them. To suggest that the bad guy mutants will escape unscathed from blowing up major dams, power grids, whatnot, makes us all look bad, and considering we've established other heroes do exist, I think that final suggestion about being betrayed is the best solution.