Author Musings

I'm still working on the planning out general events for the next arc. But in the mean time there's been some reviews which I'd like to respond to. I've answered some of the questions a few times privately, but that's not possible with Guest reviews. More the pity, I actually prefer responding privately rather then like this. So here are a few thoughts regarding recent reviews by several guests. First off I'll address the complaint regarding how I described the field which forced Swan to abandon her earth, and trapped many people in the Freedom Academy.

The setup for why Swan had to leave her world is based on an episode of the TV show Eureka, a show which follows the sheriff with normal intelligence but lots of common sense for a town filled with super geniuses who routinely violate the laws of physics as a matter of course. This is a town where "random acts of gravity" is a valid criminal offense, time travel has happened multiple times, and many other wacky scientific hijinks. In the episode in question a visiting scientist is there to preform an audit, but accidentally uploads a self hypnosis program into the town's jukebox. A jukebox which is used for all music in the town. This then starts causing (often hilarious) problems. One of these problems that gets resolved at the end of the episode is that two of the residents were listening to the song Melt With You by Simply English.

This song has the chorus of "I'll stop the world and melt with you, you've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time". This causes the two to build a device which generates an ever expanding bubble of frozen time. By the time this is noticed there's only one chance to stop the expansion. The attempt to shut down the machine is then complicated by the deputy listening to the song "I Shot the sheriff", and nearly doing just that. As I recall, the bullet fired freezes in place when it enters the time stop field. Then falls to the ground after the field is shut down, implying that it really did freeze time instead of just having a relativistic distortion of one's perception. Or maybe the field was a stasis field which merely halts all movement. The episode never said to my knowledge, but implied a time effect.

This story uses the AU idea that the sheriff was shot and killed, and thus the machine wasn't shut down in time. In the episode it was a very close thing, with the Sheriff just barely cutting power to the machine before it was too late right after he was shot at. Based on the lyrics of the song that caused Henry (I think) to make this device one can assume that it has two functions. First, it stops the world. This is shown by everything in the field freezing in time. Second it would probably cause organic matter to melt after it finishes 'stopping the world'. The line at the end of the prologue about the implosion taking a thousand years is there to imply that the machine didn't completely stop time, just slow it down to the point it effectively doesn't matter. It probably couldn't even function if it was a 100% complete time freeze since the machine is the origin point of the field.

What else would you call a field which quite literally distorts time in an ever expanding area so that it runs at such a slow rate that an implosion which should be near instantaneous takes a thousand years?

Now on to another point raised by a Guest review saying the Freedom Society setting being based on comics.

In regards to the Freedom Society world being based on comics, well that to an extent is true. I've mentioned this to others, but it's the campaign setting I use for superhero games. And the superhero genre has it's very real basis in comics. In fact without the first appearance of Superman we might not have superhero comics as we know them today. One could legitimately say that all superhero fiction has it's origin in comics, even if the world setting it's self doesn't. But the genre is even older then that. Yet with the introduction of Superman everything changed.

There were heroes like Doc Savage and The Shadow for sure. They appeared in pulp serials and radio dramas. In fact The Shadow was originally a radio drama that got it's start as the mysterious announcer for a weekly crime drama series. It was only later that he got his own series detailing his exploits. The pulp magazines came later still. But these weren't true superheroes yet. The Shadow relied on hypnosis for most of his tricks, with detective skills and combat experience filling in the rest. These could be better classified as mystery men then superheroes.

The campaign world it's self was created over a ten year long campaign that began back in 1990. The campaign was initially set in 1948, and every now and then we'd advance the game world a few years while making new characters. Initially the campaign had a very pulp era mystery men feel to it. The campaign was fairly low powered with mostly skilled combatants in the style of pulp magazine masked crime fighters. Heroes like The Shadow, Flash Gorden, The Phantom, or at the higher end of the power scale Doc Savage provided the basis for the campaign's initial feel. The setting however has it's own heroes and villains. And even at it's most whimsical it's darker then comics tend to be. Heroes die, and they do so more often then you might expect for something based on comics.

As the campaign wore on it went through many stylistic changes. This ranged from four color golden era style adventures that would have fit in well with the old anthologies DC published to find the next big hit after Superman, to tales which would have fit within the height of the silver age. We had groups of characters who went on light hearted and campy 1960's Batman TV Show style adventures and ones which explored the darker side of superheroes with teams of anti-heroes who were more monster then man. My character in that part of the campaign was animistic and would eat whatever she could kill, including humans. She was the nicest and most moral member of the group.

One common theme from that original campaign has been that it mostly followed the adventures of the Freedom Society over the years. Hence why I call the setting the Freedom Society world. From it's origin as a sort of superhero gentlemens club where members gathered to share tales of their exploits (and occasionally team up) ala the original Justice Society comics, to modern times when the Freedom Society is recognized as the worlds longest active and most powerful super hero team the campaign chronicled it all. But we did occasionally go off and explore other teams and aspects of comics.

Anymore when I game master a campaign in this setting it follows rookie heroes who aren't affiliated with the Freedom Society. That team over the years became larger then life, and I typically run campaigns that focus on those who are just starting out. Not established and already well known heroes.

The setting has it's own rich history. And while some events might have been loosely modeled off events in comics, the Freedom Society world puts it's own spin on them. For example the events involving Mega Cannon I detailed in the interlude happened during that original campaign when it was set in the early 80's. At the time his character got arrested, went on trial, and was sent to jail for 30 years. The player made a new character, the end. Years later after the campaign had ended and I'd gotten permission to use the setting as my own from the others I read the Civil War storyline. By this time I'd began to write superhero stories set in the Freedom Society world set after the events which ended the campaign.

The events which trigger the Civil War in Marvel Comics struck me as remarkably similar to what happened with Mega Cannon during the campaign. Which got me to thinking. At the time the GM didn't want to deal with it any further then hammering home the point to the player to be careful with the heinous acts. That particular player had been kind of reckless up till then. He was new to the group too. He'd I guess not realized throwing a bus filled with school children at a villain isn't very heroic. But after reading Civil War I'd realized that things should have gone further then that.

At the time the campaign was dealing heavily with Punisher style vigilantism, which was kind of the big thing in the 80's. There was the Charles Bronson movies, most any action movie for that matter, The Punisher was becoming a major character in his own right, and so forth. Playing such characters when the campaign was set around then felt only natural. But after reading Civil War I put thought into why such anti-heroes would be on the rise in the 80's.

I considered what sociological changes would move things away from the hero/sidekick model which had lasted through the 70's. EVERY major hero in comics seemed to have a sidekick in the 40's and 50's. Batman had Robin. Aquaman had Aqualad. Superman had Supergirl (and Krypto I suppose). Arrow and Speedy, the list goes on and on for DC. Even Marvel comics did this. Captain America and Bucky, Human Torch (original, the android one) and Toro, and so forth. The justifications for the sidekick having identical powers sometimes got rather silly.

So what changed? Why would a system which clearly works, and the campaign had even dealt with it a few times, suddenly stop? Then I considered that the late 70's was also when society made a big stink about putting children in danger. Many sidekicks in comics were quietly forgotten in the 70's because of this shift in public opinion. Others were allowed to grow up and become major heroes or anti-heroes in their own right. Kid Flash took over as the Flash in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Robin split away from Batman and took on the identity of Nightwing, Supergirl took on the identity of Power Woman, and so forth on the DC end. Marvel mostly just phased the sidekicks out as if they never existed.

This change in public opinion I realized could be what caused the apprentice system of sidekicks to have been ended in the Freedom Society world. Society as a while no longer looked favorably on kids being put in danger. But what would be the fallout of this shift? After all, these teenagers weren't likely to NOT become heroes. But they no longer are receiving training from established heroes. Again Marvel comics did a good job of highlighting the ramifications with the New Warriors comic, and eventually their epic screw up. In the Freedom Society world there was already a similar, if smaller scale, disaster caused by Mega Cannon. In the comics much of the reason behind the Civil War debacle fall on the shoulders of Maria Hill and Tony Stark. Hill's with or against mindset and dislike of meta-humans created the initial problem, while Stark's arrogance and blindly following orders when combined with his "Me vs Everyone" attitude made things exponentially worse. The fact even the Avengers were falling apart due to various moral conflicts didn't help any

Personally, I thought the registration act as shown in Civil War was going too far. It exemplified the way Stark and Hill didn't understand many of the issues costumed crime fighters face. It also exemplified Hill's 'with me or against me' mentality. The registration act in comics had no middle ground. If you had powers or specialized training you HAD to register, be assigned to one of the teams being formed for the 50 state initiative, or you were automatically a criminal and would be hunted down like one.

It didn't matter if you even wanted to be a hero or not. Only want to live a quiet life? Tough, because you have some sort of super power you were forced to either register and become a hero... Or be thrown in an inescapable prison in a hostile dimension. And you'd be thrown in said prison without trial, probably injured and without medical treatment. Many heroes were permanently crippled because of this policy. Captain America was declared an enemy of the state and fired upon even before the registration act was even signed into law. Why? Because he refused to enforce this unjust law. Until Shield fired upon him without provocation though he wasn't going to fight the law. Just not enforce it by fighting his friends and any innocents who just happened to have a super power. He thought his time was better spent fighting actual super villains.

Interestingly, during the Civil War storyline Captain America's secret avengers fought more crime and stopped more super villains then Tony Stark's official avengers team. Stark was too busy hunting down and crippling his fellow heroes to actually fight crime.

So as I was considering the idea of a registration act and how it would be implemented in the Freedom Society world I considered the flaws in the original source material. At which point I realized there was no government agency like Shield with blanket authority to instigate such a war on heroes. Nor was there a group like the Illuminate that Marvel revealed with World War Hulk and Civil War that had secretly undermined both the heroes and governments (maybe without intending to do the either) even if for the best of intentions.

By that point in the world setting Mister E had become so powerful he's effectively his world's equivalent to Superman, complete with being a paragon of virtue. And had been continuously active since 1948, while not having worn a mask since 1965. If such a paragon, his team mates, and dozens of other heroic teams whom all are well respected were to testify before congress about why their planned registration act is doomed to failure and the problems it will cause rather then solve, I don't think it would have gone through. But I believe the experienced heroes would see what issues the registration act is trying to solve.

Thus I decided that while it took years, eventually a version of the registration act did get passed with the full backing of the Freedom Society. While the event in the Freedom Society world is inspired by comics, it's implementation isn't. And the final registration act passed in this setting isn't a blanket "register or go to prison" affair. You only have to register if you intend to use your gifts to fight crime. In which case training is mandated so the would-be hero isn't a danger to the public. Nor is their civilian identity made public knowledge. But it brings with it benefits such as actually being deputized to make arrests. Just want to use your laser vision to spot wield while working construction, or even hide the fact you have powers and live a quiet life? Then nobody in the government is going to bother you. Although your co-workers might be a tad alarmed when you are welding I-beams with your eyes.

I hope this exploration into the origins of the Freedom Society world setting is found to be interesting by others. I like the setting. It's got a lot of history, and is full of many fascinating stories. For Example in the FS world the Manhatten Project didn't create the atomic bomb. They were actually having a lot of trouble with the project. The bomb was in truth a modified and weaponized version of an experimental power generator created by Kevin Smith, aka Mister E that exploded to devastating effect when he first tested it.

This then had many repercussions, not the least of which is the curse Mister E suffers under to live until he atones for his invention. Perhaps I'll write an interlude at some point which explores some of these aspects of the Freedom Society world. Or maybe even Mister E's first acts as a hero. I've already written about the last days of the original Freedom Society in my Wild Horses series. As I mentioned, I'm still prepping for the next arc. But I expect I'll start writing it soon. I'd like to finish chapters for my other stories like Wild Horses Sometimes Breed and Wings of Destiny first though. Those two stories especially have been giving me trouble when writing the latest chapters.

This has been Faerie Knight, peace.