Ver 3.9 | Video

[liverletdie]

[ Welcome to Tony Stark's very swank lab, in the bowels of his company. There isn't much there, the way the camera's angled, just Tony Stark's head from above, and he's accompanied by a large sea turtle (with a human penis attached) and a few scattered sheets of metal that haven't been worked yet. The camera faces down, which means Stark looks up at the camera, giving it a look. Lately, he's gone back to the mustached look, instead of the goatee. His hands spread across the table, like he's using it to hold himself up. ]

I'm not normally one to look down on someone using science to move forward. Hell, I'd fund them, if I thought they'd take it. That's kind of the point of being a futurist, is trying to figure out ways to improve our future, and I do mean that, the communal our. Unfortunately, we have some people who get in our way at every turn, and no matter how much we look, the rabbit hole gets deeper.

I took something of a vacation recently, with a few other people, and we thought -- hey, wouldn't a diving trip be fun? But wouldn't you know it? After we head into the warm carribbean waters, there's someone determined to make our lives a living hell. I mean, keeping us out of countries, sure, and I suppose it's our fault for heading to the Caymans, because of their connection with Britain, but hey, we had every right to be there.

Anyway, when we went diving, we ran into an issue. You see, being curious, spunky imports as we are, we decided to investigate the oddities underwater. The weird thing was, we found something in there. It wasn't your standard...oddly placed underwater storage facility, it was your average underwater shadowy organization research center. Complete with, [ he gestures to the turtle with a human penis attached to it ] mutated animals. Now see, there wasn't much there. I guess we startled them, or maybe they were afraid we'd get too close eventually, but there were some interesting notes. Apparently, this thing here [ he gestures to the dick on the turtle ] was supposed to launch fire. Talk about sexually transmitted diseases. This wasn't the only one, either. I mean, the rest were other body parts, but it looks like the same thing could have applied to those too. They were mutating them to have powers.

Just think abot that.

As someone who's used technology to give myself something comparable to powers, I think I have a hell of a position to be pretty outraged by this. Who knows, they do this, what's next, they build an army of... [ He looks down at the turtle, well, it wouldn't be an army of turtles with dicks that shot fire, but... ] people with powers to take us out?

Don't lose your vigilence. It was a team effort that led to some of us figuring this out. The more we work together to take care of them, the better off we'll be.

Comments

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[professorlionface]

And, of course, the question that's been missed here: where did they get it?

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[liverletdie]

I have my suspicions. They had plenty of human parts there, but also parts from one of the worlds we'd been sent to.

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[professorlionface]

So, genetic manipulation and organ harvesting? And here we were afraid they only posed a threat to us!

The parts from the other world, was it the mechanoids or these seafaring gentlemen I've heard so much about?

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[liverletdie]

The seafarer's actually. If it was the mechanics, I'd have a bit more information about it. You know biology isn't my specialty.

But the issue is that this could be pretty dire, pretty quick. Especially if they were to get ahold of our particular DNA.

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[professorlionface]

The whole Vulcanus matter started because they got a hold of our DNA. But I'm not sure that I recall any sort of pyrokinetics in that group, unless it was a small part of a more general template.

...Or they've improved beyond those limitations since.

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[liverletdie]

No. But they also only made copies, singular, if I remember right; and they didn't exactly succeed. And then it was Skrulls.

They're trying to find the right match, here, and I want to make sure they don't.

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[professorlionface]

I doubt any of us would like them to find that. That's just what we were trying to prevent here, and it's possible your infiltrating that base might have caused some setbacks. [Hopefully. Not wise to take for granted, of course.]

But that's a point worth considering, they had every opportunity to expand their templates while the Skrulls were among us. Which isn't even considering the possibilities Super-Skrulls could provide.

There's no telling what their individual agents may be capable of.

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[liverletdie]

Exactly.

I think, however, that they haven't perfected replicating Skrulls. Why would they rely on them?

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[professorlionface]

They do seem to be the agents Vulcanus sends out most often, so they must still have an edge over the Metamen. Of course, that doesn't rule out that they might have tried refining the Metamen process to apply to Skrulls.

With the seamless execution of that February, I think that's probably a safe assumption. But I still have to wonder how limited their supply is.

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[liverletdie]

Since we know they still have agents around, they can't be that sparse.

Then again, I think the skrulls are easier to get where they want them to be, too. Think about it, the metamen could be nobodies, the skrulls could be anybody.

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[professorlionface]

That much we've seen confirmed through our investigations in London last month. But they apparently aren't relying solely on them, if your well-endowed chelonian is any indication.

What do you have from our amphibians? The dimension-crossing ones.

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[liverletdie]

Not much. I think they were using the bodies for bases. Anything they can use, and everything, to get what they want.

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[professorlionface]

[He lets out a long sigh.]

It can't all have been a dead end, can it?

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[liverletdie]

No, I don't think so. This is still big news. I hear you guys didn't get much in Antarctica.

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[professorlionface]

No signs of a Vulcanus affiliation, no. And even if there had been before, it certainly wasn't an active site. Just your standard case of ornithology gone horribly wrong.

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[liverletdie]

Well, your site might have been a bust, but we found something, and apparently the other team was just as fruitful.

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[professorlionface]

Oh? What did they turn up?

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[liverletdie]

Something more interesting than powers, that's for sure.

Vulcanus has some pretty interesting technology. Particularly when it comes to pulling things here.

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[professorlionface]

We didn't happen to get our hands on any of that ourselves, did we?

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[liverletdie]

No, unfortunately not. Just the remains. Val forwarded me the data.

[ He holds a hand to his forehead. ]

I can't believe someone let her go over there, grateful as I am.

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[professorlionface]

Yeah, she seems...a bit gung-ho for her age. Granted, she did have Kurt on that leg of the mission, I believe, but even so.

[He pauses a moment, considering the news a little further.] So, we knew already that they were making outgoing visits. That it can go both ways...

I'm not particularly fond of being outclassed. I'm sure you like it even less.

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[liverletdie]

No, it's certainly not something I'm exactly happy with, but what can we do about it, except prove that they aren't outclassing us.

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[professorlionface]

In that case, how do we intend to beat them at their own game?

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[liverletdie]

That is the hard part. I'm working on it, but if you've got any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

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[professorlionface]

Off the top of my head? I have nothing. I don't have the data for it, if we even got what data we need to give us any hints as to how they done it.

But if we get enough good heads in one room, we might be able to work something out.