System Supervillain, Book 17 Prologue (Patreon)

Sometimes, these chapters just write themselves. Enjoy!

Prologue – Trade Chat

(Capes & Cowls Forum, General Chat)

Message of the Day: Remember, Capes & Cowls is ‘neutral ground’. Keep it civil, and if you try to track someone through our site, it will not end well for you.

Speedy, AngelEyes, Frosty, Jester, Freedom, Slayer, Aegis, Stars, Oracle, Emerald, Snowflake, MagicGurl, Victory, RedHot, Scholar, CantSeeMe, Turbo, Emperor, HotStuff, DontYouWantMeBaby, NemesisSpark, KoolAidMan, SliceNDice, Destroyer, Lolth, Inquisitor, Narrator, PartyGurl, Chummer, Fabricator, DevilsDaughter, TheWhiteHat, TripleThreat, BelyyMedved, Necromancer, LuckyDice, Chiller, GrimDark, RazzleDazzle, Slicer, BlackDragon, DarkAngel, Sparky, Mindkiller, MultiMe, Stepford, Dollmaker, Quickfoot, Mindtaker, MrRoboto, ItsyBitsySpider, Valkyrie, TitaniumTits, InfoGirl, ScoopGirl, HolyBlessing, and DonJuan are in the chat.

Stepford: And that is the SDI’s Colorado Springs facility gone. Also, if anyone is interested, I have an interesting variety of new product ready to move. Not my highest quality, I know, but the provenance makes up for it, in my opinion.

Inquisitor: Not that I’m complaining, but how did you take down the facility?

Stepford: When the Guild sent out their Unified Action announcement, I nabbed one of their footsoldiers while she was visiting her parents’ grave. They apparently died in a fight between Matchlock and Tyberos back before the System. Anyways, I used her to open the door. Some local talent joined me, and we killed, captured, or converted everyone inside.

InfoGirl: Um, converted?

Stepford: I turned them into one of my ready-to-ship brides, of course. Though, I guess I should rebrand, calling them ‘partners’, since I expanded the tech to include men, as well.

KoolAidMan: Note to self, stay away from Stepford.

MrRoboto: I can tell you that there is factory they were using for their power suits in Phoenix, which is now dead.

Valkyrie: Chicago branch was wiped out a while back, by Storyteller, but we just helped with the St. Louis site.

ItsyBitsySpider: Tokyo Rangers just used their giant mecha to stomp the site by Kyoto.

HolyBlessing: That seems a little extreme.

ScoopGirl: I’ve heard that they’ve been getting restless, since their usual Dark Cabal nemesis is gone for another few years, at the earliest.

DarkAngel: Their research facility at Summit Station in Greenland has been destroyed. 67 guards and 289 scientists and staff dead.

Sparky: We found a records office in Queens, and eliminated it. Intel passed on to the Guild.

Chummer: European Headquarters is in Berlin. We’re throwing a party here, so everyone come and join in the fun.

DevilsDaughter: Already there. My father has been looking forward to ‘entertaining’ several of these people for a while now.

Slayer: Those fuckers had a facility in Cairo, not two kilometers from the Seal of the Immortal King. I think they were studying it. All dead now, though.

TheWhiteHat: Cyber-operations are targeting SDI networks and datacenters around the world.

NemesisSpark: The Collective is moving. The primary SDI network hub west of Da Nang has entered physical lockdown, and internal defenses have neutralized all organics inside. Nuclear power source is set to go critical. No civilian casualties projected from the initial blast.

Slicer: Holy shit! Just how many of these SDI bases are there?

Lolth: They’ve been actively spreading their rot since partway through World War II, when people realized just how devastating weaponized supers can be. There’s a reason why modern militaries try to only deploy supers who fall in the ‘super-soldier’ category, rather than heavy hitters.

InfoGirl: The Guild’s rise also dates back to roughly the same time period. While they were established back in 1890, they were originally only a collective resource network for crafters and healers, but it was just before the war that they moved into more of an unofficial governance mode. According to records, the founders saw the potential for trouble, and decided that a neutral organization could help keep things from getting out of hand. Especially with some of the things that the different powers were developing for the war.

Jester: The SDI base in Manchester has been destroyed, and all personnel captured or killed. The lucky ones were killed.

MultiMe: Why do you say that?

Jester: Because the King stepped in and personally ordered all SDI personnel captured to be transferred to the Scapa Flow Undersea Penitentiary, even if they don’t have powers.

Speedy: Are the stories about that place really as bad as they sound?

Chiller: I’ll just say that no one knows anyone who has ever been released from Scapa Flow. Even the ones who are supposedly released are never seen again. As a total coincidence, the UK’s primary research center for superpowers is located in Orphir, just north of the prison, but that is just where the elevator is. The majority of the facility is underground. Or underwater.

Jester: Like he said. Anyone who goes there should be hoping that they die quickly. The alternative is not pretty in the slightest.

BelyyMedved: The facility in Kazan has been cleansed. But what did the SDI do that called down this kind of response from the Guild? It is most unlike them to act so openly.

Administrator has entered the chat.

Administrator: Intelligence was provided to the Guild regarding plans being developed by the Superhuman Defense Initiative. Upon verification that the intelligence was accurate, the Guild issued the Unified Action announcement.

ScoopGirl: What were they planning?

Administrator: The intelligence included details on three projects. Project Sentinel is designed to create robots which would hunt and capture or kill superhumans, making superheroes redundant, and making it easier to marginalize supers in general. This project had already reached prototype phase.

Victory: The prototypes went down easily enough for us, but they were able to knock Titania and I about a bit. Against mid-tier or street-tier supers? The prototypes would have been a PROBLEM.

Administrator: Project Colonial would have capitalized on the marginalization of supers in an attempt to transfer them to off-world colonies in the solar system and through the different portals to other systems, while ensuring that space navy assets were under ‘pure human’ control.

Snowflake: Oof. And since most supers are more liability than help when it comes to space battles, that would have looked entirely reasonable, if they’d been allowed to release it, and frame the narrative.

BelyyMedved: But none of those rise to the level where the Guild would take Unified Action.

Administrator: The Unified Action decree was made due to the third project. Project Chlorine is a eugenics program designed to reduce the number of supers by subverting the healthcare system and using in vitro genetic testing, induced miscarriages, and forced sterilization procedures to reduce the birth rate of supers over time. It was this project which prompted the Guild to act, after the full board met and reviewed the verified intelligence.

Administrator: To reiterate, the Guild acted only after verifying the information through other sources, and the Unified Action decree was determined to be the most suitable counter to the planned projects.

SliceNDice: Wow. That’s fucked up, even by my standards.

Narrator: That story should be unwritten.

Destroyer: Well, fuck. Let me find the nearest SDI branch.

Emperor: The SDI was already unwelcome in my lands, but I shall ensure that they are kept out.

Frosty: That is terrible. I hope that the bastards get everything that is coming to them.