CaptainManbeard

Avatars of the Cosmic Crystal

<Snipped quote by CaptainManbeard>

I don't see any causal conflicts since alternate timeline versions are not the same as direct future versions of the prime individual. The way I see it, this future version comes from a parallel reality/alternate timeline, but in its future, and goes back in time/hops from timeline to timeline in order to stop or counteract their 'prime' self and alternate selves. As opposed to coming directly back from the 'prime timeline's' future, which even if we did allow an interaction would ultimately result in either a Grandfather Paradox or a very deterministic fate. Since killing or defeating one's future self doesn't mean that you won't eventually become them, then go back to start the cycle all over again.

To give an example (albeit a poorly thought out one), see InFAMOUS. Specifically Kessler, who is simply an alternate version of Cole from the future. In particular, a future where the Beast went on a rampage and he lost everything, a series of events that sparked his desire to go back and interfere in the first place. Besides the mechanics of causality, I think time powers working as you describe is fine. Even if one time travels and makes changes, assuming no branching realities where that change succeeded are created and the timeline one is currently in is altered instead, those with Quantum Shards will remain aware and unaffected by such changes.

Since our character concepts are so similar, however, I might just go the straight villain angle and nix the prime part beyond said character wanting to gather more power to prevent their alternate selves from reforging the crystal, keep the current realities as they are, prevent the inevitability of the next loop, etc.

@Havoccultist

Oh yes, I think we actually were on the same page after all about your future self idea. I went back and re-read your original post and realized I misread a part. I thought you meant that your evil version came from the future our characters were heading towards, kind of like Alternate Barry/Savitar in the Flash show, but I see now what you meant. So yeah, we can say that there are countless alternate pasts, alternate presents, and alternate futures. Some timelines are farther along than others, and there can be many different eras covered in our adventures.

Like, there could be a timeline where it's still the 1950s but aliens invaded, or a timeline where there's a zombie apocalypse going on, or a timeline where Earth has been destroyed and the remaining humans live on other planets.

And please feel free to continue on with your idea, your evil version and my Sith Lady/Lord could probably team up for a while, though I imagine he would eventually distance himself from her when she veers even farther down the path of evil than him XD. It seems your character still has some semblance of honor and a sense of greater good, but my evil character will eventually devolve into a sadistic bitch LOL.

Avatars of the Cosmic Crystal

<Snipped quote by CaptainManbeard>

I see. Probably something time related, precognition and general temporal manipulation, since I have a character arc idea where a future version of my character from an alternate timeline intentionally corrupted the Quantum Shard they had to become a Void Demon, as they seek to stop the mending of the crystal to preserve not only their own power and/or existence, but also to keep what they see as the loop within a loop from repeating. I.E. to keep the crystal from being reforged just so another group of gods or beings, be that the Avatars or whoever else, can go to war over and shatter it again. This antagonistic future version of my character would also seek to maintain the status quo as it currently is, believing that all the realities which presently exist thanks to the shattering will be erased or destroyed or irreparably damaged if merged back into a single timeline.

And that's not a risk they're willing to take.

@Havoccultist

I had a similar idea for my Sith character XD. I was thinking of making them eventually become an evil character, and she is an alternate timeline version of my good character's twin sister. They come from very similar timelines that split off at the moment of a plane crash when they were kids. In the brother's timeline, his sister died, and in the sister's timeline, her brother died. He managed to grieve and then recover, but she still harbors a lot of emotional trauma from that day and gradually becomes resentful of her alternate timeline brother for him not having been as miserable as her after losing his twin. Not only that, in his timeline, their parents had another daughter, while in her timeline, their parents divorced and then eventually died in a car crash while they were arguing. She begins to feel betrayed that the other version of her family had such a happy life without her and that sparks the gradual corruption of her Quantum Shard.

As for your idea for time powers, I'd be curious to see just how far you wanted to take them. Since the Cosmic Crystal is a fourth dimensional construct, and by extension the Quantum Shards, I'd imagine any temporal-shifting abilities would not directly effect anyone who also had a Shard. But it could effect the environment around them. As for the future version of your character, I'd imagine their Shard would be a different one than the past version, since it seems unlikely that a fourth dimensional object could go back in time and co-exist with a past version of itself. Instead, it could be that his timeline was ripped in two as well, with a different Shard going to each half and finding him in both timelines.

I have to head to work now, but we can discuss it more later. I'm excited!

Avatars of the Cosmic Crystal

Tentative interest since I've got more than a few RPs going at the moment. But when you say gods, exactly what level of power are you thinking of? And what kind of god? Cause when I hear both I tend to think of entities that are close to if not omnipotent, or extremely abstract and esoteric, and that usually doesn't bode well for the narrative.

@Havoccultist

I don't mean gods in the sense of "beings who can effortlessly rewrite any and all aspects of reality with a single thought," but more like those you would find in D&D pantheons or say Greek Mythology. Take the Timebreaker Wars, for instance. That was a battle fought between many different pantheons, so you can imagine hundreds of gods all fighting each other.

Here is a good video from Matt Mercer of Critical Role that details the types of gods I'm envisioning having fought in the Timebreaker Wars:



However, for our characters, when I said "basically gods," that was more of a reference to them being OP, not them being literal gods like the ones who fought and died in the Timebreaker Wars. Our characters were just normal mortals at first, and then once they bond with their Quantum Shards, they begin to develop god-like powers, such as perhaps elemental abilities or healing or light/gravity/shadow/whatever, but they are still technically mortals. I will probably play two Avatars, one who has a powerset similar to Blue Marvel from Marvel Comics and one is akin to an OP Sith Lord.

What powers do you think you'd like to use?

Avatars of the Cosmic Crystal

The Cosmic Crystal is a fourth dimensional construct that anchors the Spacetime Continuum and connects the End of Time with the Beginning of Time in the Eternal Loop. That was, of course, until the Timebreaker Wars, wherein gods from many different pantheons battled each other for control of the Crystal. The sheer ferocity of the conflict severely weakened the fabric of the Continuum over repeated cycles, until the entire timeline collapsed in on itself like a massive quantum black hole. The immense pressure of the implosion rendered the Cosmic Crystal unstable, and it exploded with such magnitude that reality itself was distorted and shattered.

The Spacetime Continuum began to heal itself, but since the Cosmic Crystal was now scattered into many different Quantum Shards, the Eternal Loop was forever broken. Instead of one unified timeline, there were now thousands, branching off into endless possibilities. And in some of these new timelines, the Quantum Shards bonded with hosts, marking them as Avatars of the Cosmic Crystal and instilling in them a deep-seeded desire to travel the Multiverse and unite with other Avatars to eventually reform the Crystal.

So, your characters are Avatars, and you can customize the timelines they are from however you want. Alternate pasts, alternate presents, alternate futures, whatever. Create to your heart's content. That goes for abilities, too. Consider this a power fantasy playground where we all play OP characters who are basically gods. Any time we have combat stuff, I'll just throw swarms of enemies at the characters and then we can just have fun. To give you an idea of how tough the various adversaries should be, we'll say pushovers and minions are C-Tier, somewhat capable opponents are B-Tier, mini-boss-type enemies are A-Tier, and formidable threats are S-Tier.

C-Tiers and B-Tiers require minimal effort to defeat, A-Tiers are a bit harder but shouldn't be too much of a struggle, and S-Tiers are quite powerful and dangerous if they're not handled strategically. That will give you an idea how to write out your battle scenes.

As for the initial plot, we'll say that each character has just discovered the Quantum Shard in their timeline and bonded with it, and they are then teleported to what is left of the floating island Celestia. This used to be a beautiful whitestone palace surrounding by a sprawling garden and sitting amidst a sea of multicolored cosmic energy, and the Holding Chamber inside the main tower housed the Cosmic Crystal. But now everything is shattered and rotting and covered in black vines, and as the Avatars gradually collect more Quantum Shards from across the Multiverse, Celestia will begin to heal and rebuild itself. As for how we get the Shards, we'll say that all the S-Tier enemies we face are fellow Avatars who became corrupted by their Shards and turned into Void Demons. So, we seek out Void Demons and their minions, defeat them, retrieve the Quantum Shards, and return them to the Holding Chamber to gradually reform the Cosmic Crystal.

Teen Titans: Sidekicks Unite

So I think we at least have a good enough starting group for me to get to work on the IC, and we can always add in more characters as we go if more people become interested. Like, other sidekicks could be late getting to the party or maybe are doing patrols elsewhere and they join the Titans at a later time. This allows us to keep open recruitment constant. It makes sense that some heroes would still be watching over the world while others are at the celebration, and we can have Martian Manhunter up on the Watchtower monitoring global media and communications during the event.

I should have the IC up in the next few days, and unlike previous RPs, I'm not gonna have this huge intro post. It's just going to be a quick recap of the origin plot points discussed here and then a few paragraphs for each of my characters to get the thread rolling.

Also, for anyone interested, I'm starting a second RP called "Avatars of the Cosmic Crystal," which will serve mostly as a power fantasy playground for people to play OP characters who are basically gods. Keep an eye out for that Interest Check thread soon XD.

Teen Titans: Sidekicks Unite

@CaptainManbeard

I don't mind her being in stasis and awakening on Earth or someplace else. I can have her motivation being to find her cousin and being devastated that he was killed. And then connecting with Connor and or Jon. She could have awakened very recently. But again i can play another character if playing her is off the table.

@Eviledd1984

Kal-El wasn't killed, he was in stasis and then awakened in the modern era, where he was raised by the Kents. At the start of the RP, Superman is alive and well and part of the Justice League. So, we could say Kara's spacepod was discovered at the same time as Zod's and the other officers, but perhaps there was some malfunction and they were unable to release her from stasis until very recently. The party at the Hall of Justice could be her first major social gathering since being awakened or something.

Or, if you are wanting to RP out her first encounter with Clark, Conner, and Jon, you could start off with a different character and then the Titans could find her pod at some point and then you could bring her on as a second character.

Teen Titans: Sidekicks Unite

Jon has the conventional Kryptonian abilities and weaknesses and is a little fruity.

Shame Damian Wayne isn’t here.

@Crimson Flame

Okay, cool!

I am interested in joining this rp. I was just wondering if there would be room for another Kryptonian. I was thinking of playing younger Kara Zor-El who arrived on Earth after New Krypton is destroyed. Or perhaps she is visiting Earth to meet her cousin Kal'El. I imagine it would be like with Starfire and be a sort of fish out of water situation. If not then I was thinking I could play either Kid Flash, Zatanna, Batgirl, Terra, Beast Boy, or maybe Duela Dent (Joker's Daughter).

@Eviledd1984

The other characters are good, but I'm already playing Kid Flash, lol. And in this continuity, there is no New Krypton, at least not yet. The planet was destroyed thousands of years ago in the Apokkian Wars and Kal-El was in cryogenic stasis for millennia before awakening, so if you're playing Kara as his cousin, she too would have been in stasis that whole time.

I was thinking of combining Cassie with Storm from X-men, especially with her being the daughter of Zeus and having the Lasso of Lighting, I feel like electricity powers make sense.

@WhiteAngel25

Okay, that sounds good :).

Teen Titans: Sidekicks Unite

@Martian

Okay, cool! I'm excited too XD.

@WhiteAngel25

I loved her in the Gifted! I gotta go back and watch season 2 at some point, lol.

@Crimson Flame

Hmmm... We should probably use different superhero aliases for them. How about this: You can use Superboy for Jon, and I'll tweak Conner a little to add some powers similar to Remy LeBeau and Bishop from Marvel. Conner's alias can be Red Gambit, and in additional to some of the physical capabilities of being half-Kryptonian, he can channel the stored solar energy normally used for Heat Vision to instead fire red hand blasts, charge himself up kind of like KaioKen, and use his stored energy as a catalyst to convert potential energy into explosive kinetic energy, thus turning inanimate objects into bombs through that molecular acceleration.

I'm still working on his exact powerset though so I don't make him too OP.

Teen Titans: Sidekicks Unite

I haven't decided for sure yet, but here are the faceclaims I'm thinking of for my characters:

Chandler Riggs as Dick Grayson/Robin (eventually Nightwing)


Joshua Orpin as Conner Kent/Superboy


KJ Apa as Wally West/ Kid Flash

Teen Titans: Sidekicks Unite

@WhiteAngel25

Welcome to the team! XD

@Martian

All those ideas seem awesome! Though, with the mention of Steel and the Death of Superman arc, I should note that the first appearance of both Bizarro and Doomsday are tied into my ideas for the greater plot, and so I had planned for those to happen at some point after the start of the RP. However, I think I've devised a way to make Steel's origin work with this continuity:

In the early days of the Justice League, while rebuilding after the Reach invasion, the other Kryptonian spacepods were uncovered, which contained General Zod and a team of high-ranking military officers who had been commanders in the Apokkian Wars. In this continuity, Zod is not a villain (at least not yet), and is devastated that the war went on without them and has now been over for thousands of years. Their original plan was to use Earth to breed new super soldiers for the conflict, but the cryogenic stasis never released them as expected and they slumbered for millennia.

Wanting to learn more about his people, Kal-El accompanied Zod and the other Kryptonians to search the shattered remains of their homeworld, and then completely vanished. Many people assumed Superman had either died or abandoned them for his own kind, and were relieved when he returned seven months later. So, John Henry Irons could have been operating as Steel during that period. As for why Superman was gone so long, he explains that they got pulled into an ongoing conflict with a large slaver fleet led by a rogue AI system and an army of robots. After defeating the fleet and all the back-up drives of the AI (who will eventually return as Brainiac in our RP), Zod and his team continued on deeper into space and Superman returned to Earth.

So, that gives a Death of Superman-like event for Steel's origin while also preserving Bizarro and Doomsday for my idea XD.