Help me design my own time squad

I have something of an odd (for me) idea - making my own hero team similar to how I've made villain teams. I do, however, want to run their looks, stories and AT/powerset combos past you guys, to see if I didn't do something completely stupid in my haste to design four characters within the span of an afternoon. So, here goes:

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Over a million years into the future, mankind will transform the Earth into a living paradise. There will be no diseases, no hunger, no poverty, no hardship. People will live for hundreds of years in comfort and peace, blessed with healthy, strong bodies, and what threats the scum of the universe pose will be dealt with swiftly and decisively by the Earth Defence Force - an army of veritable super soldiers armed with the unimaginable technology of the future.

At least, that's what was supposed to happen, until history started eroding right from under us. Somehow, events in the past would alter, causing chain reactions which had disastrous consequences for our idyllic future. In response, a time machine of unimaginable power was constructed, able to detect these changes before they had an effect on the future. To correct these errors in the timestream, an elite team of the world's best, most resourceful agents was put together. This new team was called the F Squad, and their mission was to travel back in time, correcting the past to preserve the future.

For years, the F Squad kept the perfect future safe from errors in the timestream, until something in the early 21st century went horribly wrong. History was changed so completely that even the future's mighty time machine could barely react in time. The whole of F Team was scrambled to correct the past, but by the time they existed their time portals, the future was gone completely, the machine which powered their time travel devices had never been built, and of the 20 members who left future Earth, only three appeated on the other end. They are trapped, now, in our time, looking for the error which erased their time from existence in the hopes that rectifying it will return heaven to Earth.

The surviving three are:

Commander Ren Tarara

In a future world defined by technology so advanced that it might as well be magic, Commander Tarara is one of the few remaining "pure human" soldiers in the Earth Defence Force. Born a super human, Tarara inherited her entire family tree's most powerful genes, bred into mankind over thousands of years of controlled evolution. Through years of gruelling training and intense hard work, she excelled in all physical activities, besting even heavily cybernetically augmented super soldiers at their own game, proving once and for all the superior human genetics would always have a place in society. A veteran of almost 100 years of front line service before she was drafted into F Squad, the commander is hardened warrior, dauntless in the face of mortal danger, relentless in the fight to defend her world and a living inspiration to the men and women she commands.

Though she has often been singled out as the greatest hero of her entire world, the commander remains humble, insisting that anyone in her place would have done the same. She leads the F Squad with bravery and honour, unyielding to her enemies, but fair to her team-mates. Even in the darkest hour, even when all seems lost, the members of F Squad can always take solace in the fact that their Commander will stand strong and tall, and that she will never give up the fight.

*meta-game*
I'm really not sure what to make Tarara as. I want her to be your typical "super man" build - very strong, very hard to kill and with very low-key, low-effect powers. I was thinking of maybe going with a SS/Inv or a SS/Regen Brute, just because I don't have one, but I'm starting to think that I don't want to make her quite the absolute strongest. I suspect - when that comes out - that a Saint Justice/Regen or a SJ/Will Scrapper might be more appropriate. Willpower is hands down the coolest set for "natural" type characters, even if Tarara gets her powers from long-term genetic engineering, and Street Justice seems like the closest Scrappers have to super strength without actually using Super Strength. Still thinking about that.

Engineer Tillin Gax

When he was still a young cadet, Gax had the misfortune of being on the front lines of the disastrous First Wave of the Vree invasion. The invulnerable insectoid aliens tore apart most of the first response force, leaving very few survivors, Gax being one of them. Though the aliens were later pushed back by the full might of the Earth Defence Force's heavy artillery, Gax was still left with a mangled, torn up body. Though the medicine of the future was fully capable of repairing his body, good as new, Gax chose instead to have his body augmented with prototype cybernetics and modified through experimental chemicals. After seeing the appalling casualties that Earth suffered in the First Wave, Gax was determined to do everything he could to ensure he could do something about it if such a disaster ever happened again. And when the future's scientists had done all they could to him, Gax simply continued the work himself, learning most of Earth's sciences within the span of roughly 80 years.

Gax proceeded to help advance the future's science by leaps and bounds, developing the robust system of non-invasive cybernetic augmentation via sub-cellular deposition that later became the standard enhancement procedure for the Earth Defence Force. He also pioneered numerous physique enhancement chemicals which could give a human soldier super-human strength, durability and reflexes without any of the debilitating effects of previous generations of treatments, though the extreme cost of these made them restricted to just special operatives, with field soldiers being outfitted with the more conventional cybernetics.

Gax was drafted into F Team for his tremendous intellect and analytical thought, which helped greatly in resolving some of the more complex problems of temporal displacement, as well as for his comprehensive knowledge of the history of technology, giving the team a good understanding of local technology regardless of what time period they ended up in. Serving as the F Squad's chief engineer, Gax has also done much to enhance their equipment, and not too rarely, enhance his squad mates, as well, save for Commander Tarara who simply refused any augmentation offered to her. Though Gax usually serves as the F Squad's brain, his physical prowess is not to be underestimated, as the sum total of enhancements he has done to his own body make him a formidable soldier in his own right.

*meta-game*
I honestly don't know what to make of this guy. At first I wanted to make him a Stalker, because... Then when I made him, he didn't really look the part for a Stalker, so I got to thinking... Scrapper, maybe? He has the glowing green gauntlets because I was thinking of maybe making him Kinetic Melee/Something, like Electric Armour or Energy Aura, but I just don't know.

Heavy Weapons Expert Irina Seth, pilot of "Gunny"

Though still a VERY young child, especially by the future's standards of longevity, Seth is one of the few people alive who can pilot the Mk. 9 SuperTerran heavy assault Battle Mech platform, which she has nicknamed "Gunny." Though the future's medical technology is unimaginably advanced and able to cure nearly any ailment, there are still some conditions which are beyond even their level of expertise. Though an unfortunate combination of factors, Seth received a genetic lottery dud. Born with an inoperable defect of her nervous system, the young girl was left almost completely paralysed from a very early age. Though cybernetic augmentation has enabled her to walk on her, her body is still extremely weak, collapsing from fatigue from even a short walk. Normally, Seth would have been labelled an invalid and placed on society's welfare programme, the young girl had other plans.

What she lacked in physical strength, Seth more than made up with in spirit and ingenuity. After years of honing her skills at virtual mech simulators, Seth was finally allowed to pilot a real mech, an old deprecated Mark 9 Terran Assault Pod, in the qualifying rounds of Earth's then popular "Robowar" sporting event. Everyone was sceptical of the chances a small, crippled, untrained girl in a legacy mech stood against the professional soldiers and athletes that the competition attracted, but Seth proved them all terribly wrong. Playing her old mech to its strengths, she won the first ever Robowar she featured in, wiping the floor with the Earth Defence Forces' finest, both embarrassing and impressing a large number of high-ranking generals. After cleaning out the Robowar tournament three times in a row, the Earth Defence Force was finally forced to enact new legislation so that they could offer Seth a position on the force.

Seth rose through the ranks quickly, being appointed as training instructor of mech combat within a month of her enlistment. Until her arrival, mech pilots, selected from among the ranks of ordinary soldiers, fought as they would on foot, failing to utilise many of their mechs' actual strengths and hampering its mobility with on-foot tactics. Within a year, she had transformed the army's mech core from a slow, lumbering artillery role into the fast attack mobile fire support role that it eventually assumed within the armed forces. Seth's amazing achievements, reached by the age of just 16, made her a prime candidate for the F Squad, for which she was given a brand new, state of the art Battle Mech with which to act as heavy fire support for the team on especially dangerous missions. Though still very young and quite sickly, Seth has proven able to survive even the heaviest of battles and pull her team-mates out of seemingly impossible disasters alive and mostly unharmed.

*meta-game*
This one pretty much HAS to be a Brute, but what kind? I already have two SS/Inv Brutes, so that's out of the question, but what else is there that can simulate a heavy mech? I was thinking of maybe compromising a little and going with EM/Inv, since Invincibility kind of plays up the "big tough thing" card, but I don't know. And for this one, I don't even know what travel power to give her. For the rest I can kind of wing it, but for this one...

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That's all I have for the moment. If I think of any additional characters, I'm sure I can have them suddenly pop out of the time stream

More than anything, though, I hope to hear your opinions on their costumes. What should I improve, what should I change, what works and so forth? Almost as important are their powersets. I want to actually MAKE these characters, and I'm pretty much sure I want them all to be melee, but what melee AT do I give to each of them and which powersets do I pick from that AT?

Any help on the matter is appreciated, and thank you for your time

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

What a great concept! I'm not sure if there are any "errors", as everything seems to be logically consistent. The one question I had was what kind of look do you have in mind for F Squad?

I read "super soldiers" and I think hardcore military, which seems to be what you have going. However, it seems that we start off the story in a utopia, which seems to be the type of world that would not need a hardcore military.

Sure, I get that the EDF and the F Squad are the defensive arm of this utopian Earth, but the character histories seem more like a dystopian military.

I'm not explaining myself right, basically I get a Colonial Space Marines feel rather than a Starfleet feel and both are ostensibly military organizations, with the latter in a "utopian" setting.

A lot of this will be mitigated by the look you choose for your guys.

Again, a great concept and very entertaining. Thanks for sharing!

Think of it in terms of the Rikti society - technically, they HAVE a military, it's just that it doesn't do a whole lot most of the time, and every time it has to do something, it gets saddled with the Battalion or the Coming Storm or Cthulu or some such.

Mostly, I emphasise military backgrounds for all the characters because they've been cherry-picked from the military, as F Squad is, at its core, a military unit. Sure, the error in time might be something as simple as Thomas Edison choking on a cherry, but then it may be something as unpleasant Earthy is suddenly invaded by crab aliens from the negative zone, or the Nazi conquered Stalingrad or something major like that which requires serious application of military force.

You do have a good point in the broader sense, though. I could and should probably introduce a more civilian member of the team somewhere down the line.

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Generally speaking, the future is a utopian paradise exactly BECAUSE these people dedicate their lives the harsh, all-consuming military and so defend their world. It's a little like Praetoria in that some need to sacrifice their lives for the good of the many, only unlike in Praetoria, people choose to make that sacrifice instead of having their choice made for them, and the safety and freedom of the common folk is always the top priority.

*edit*
And thank you for the kind words This idea really kind of exploded all on its own once I started thinking about it...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Wow. After reading that I forgot about building characters and am just ready to read some more.
My mind is focused on the storyline. For example can incremental changes start to bring the original team back together in time for the final battle?

Oh sorry, I'll go back and look at you character development for the game and report later.

I seem to have unintentionally written in an unspoken "they changed the world in some way" prerequisite for joining F Squad, so I could easily take someone who has done something more for society which has ended up having military applications and thus inducting said person into F Squad. Like... Whoever worked on the original genetic engineering programme that made people live for hundreds of years and have superior strength and super healing abilities.

I'd need a concept, a costume and a story for that, though, and I'm not really sure if I want to add another one right now. Plus, I'd need some way to differentiate said character from the others, and I already have a man, a woman and a giant robot

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Yeah, Ren Tera should be the leader-type. Unless you give her a signature weapon, like one of the Vanguard ones, she should be classical hits things and gets away with it. I'd say StJ/Will Scrapper sounds fairly good.

Have you considered making Tillin Gax a Time Manipulator? He's the cybernetically enhanced engineer of a team of time travelers, it'd seem like a natural fit. For offense you could go several ways, Energy, Rad, Beam Rifle seem the most straight forward. Electric, too. Each of those colored to match his glowing gauntlets, naturally. He's the techie of the team, after all, he's allowed to have the nice toys. Plus it'd give the team a support member.

Irina Seth and her battle suit is a tough one. I'm thinking Tanker more than Brute, though. Her shtick is survival and bailing out her allies in trouble. That's a Tanker's job. Maybe a Super Reflexes/Kinetic Melee Tanker? She'll dodge what comes at her, which is not what you'd expect from a mech (exactly as her backstory says) and use the kinetic energy emitters on her suit to deal damage in return. Plus, Kinetic has a ranged attack, and a war mech should have at least one of those. Mechs traditionally use one of two modes of travel, flying or jumping. Either is good, but jumping perhaps gives the best in combat maneuverability, plus you can use Spring Attack to show her blistering attack speed. Suddenly she's just THERE, and then the enemy falls down.

That's just what I read of it. It'd make each character very distinct from each other.

Glad I could help.

Having time Manipulation powers and still be stuck is easy enough to explain, though. Power. In the far future utopia, the energy supply must be plentiful, otherwise, no utopia. So sending F Squad that far back in time, well that's not cheap in energy. It's possible, but expensive. In the 21st century, though, no such power exists. Even if you pooled the entire energy output of all Earth's power plants for a month, you'd still be falling short. But a personal generator could sustain minor temporal instabilities, such as those from Time Manipulation. If they could hook up with the far future time machine again, it's be easy to come back, but that line has been disconnected.

For the mech, then yeah. If "Can take a hit" is the goal, then you've got invulnerability and electric armor to pick from. And a mech shooting sparks all over looks like a broken mech to me. I'd consider if it should have a melee weapon, though. Yeah, it's an anime cliche, but that tech broadsword with the Jacob's ladder inside could be worth looking at. Not saying it'd work, but it's not another Super Strength.

And sorry about the name, I typo'd.

Yeah, I suppose you're limited to Energy Melee, Super Strength, Martial Arts, Electric Melee, and Kinetic Melee if it has to be internally powered. That or the edge case that is claws, but only if you use Vanguard Claws. An internal monomolecular blade emitter? Could work, although it's adding additional tech where none is needed. Then again, "because we can" does seem to be a part of the design philosophy of the future tech.

And just because I couldn't get a good night's sleep thinking about it, here's a fourth and final (for the moment) member of F Squad:

Intelligence Officer Lexxy

After the devastating conclusion of the second AI Rebellion, the scientists of the future finally accepted the basic sentient life cannot be created and discarded without ethical ramifications. The Earth government banned the production and research of sentent, self-replicating androids, though what few androids had survived the Rebellion were instead inducted into human society as a gesture of good will. Experimental Variable Platform Research Android Series 315, unique ID tag LXXY1182837, was one of these. A female body shape android, "she" was offered the human name Ala Naraa, but the android instead chose to retain its own original identity, assuming the name "Lexxy" as a reference to her original ID tag.

Lexxy found herself in a world which permitted her to exist, but which still saw androids as both monsters and aliens, shunning them from society and conspiring to prevent their ability to self-reproduce, leaving many androids feeling like they were citizens in title only. Rather than resort to the same violent methods of her predecessors, Lexxy instead opted to appeal to human kind's sense of justice and morality, spending many years campaigning for androids' rights to vote, reproduce and assume civic duties. Through her tireless efforts, Lexxy became an ambassador of peace, spearheading a spirit of tolerance and acceptance that saw not just androids fully integrated in human society and given their full set of inalienable rights, but also opened the door to the trans-species citizens who would one day share Earth alongside humans. Many of the higher ideals of the future's society can be traced back to this one single android who touched the hearts of whole world and reminded everyone that we're not so different after all.

As one of the oldest surviving androids at the time and a great contributor to world peace, Lexxy was one of the first people offered a position in F Squad at the time when it was still being formed. As F Squad was a primarily military venture, Lexxy ended up undergoing significant upgrades to her frame to accommodate enhanced strength and durability, as well as a wide variety of various purpose equipment. Her stated role in the F Squad is one of diplomatic relations, serving as the first contact correspondent when interaction with the past is necessary and employing her vast experience in diplomatic negotiations to ensure that violent conflict is always a last resort and never a first response. And even though Lexxy is fully capable of defending herself, she has always favoured stealth as a means to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. With engineer Gax's supercharged cloaking device technology, Lexxy is able to withdraw from a violent situation, gain access to figures of authority in order to appeal to them directly and, if absolutely necessary, remove them with the smallest amount of bloodshed possible.

Though Lexxy never aspired to "become human" as was the slogan during her campaign of acceptance, she did retain her original human simulacra face, in her words "out of a sense of nostalgia."

*meta-game*
I really think the best way to go for Lexxy is as a Kinetic Melee/Something Stalker. I'm not quite sure what that "something" might be, but I'm thinking possibly Super Reflexes. In truth, I wrote her biography around the concept of a Stalker, so naturally, that's what first best, but I'm open to suggestions.

Once again, thank you for the suggestions and I look forward to hearing what I could fix on this one final member

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Kinetic Melee/Energy Aura would work and fit within your framework. Your future tech reminds me of 'Biononics' from Peter F. Hamiltons Commonwealth books, internal 'enrichments' which allow their users to generate and manipulate energy fields for protection or offense.

Energy Aura fits well with that, you could spin it out as an internally generated magentic field or go with something more esoteric such as a 'quantum' force field to allow for it's in-game effects against energy etc (which fits with unimaginable future technology!)

Yeah, I thought about Kinetic Melee/Energy Aura. That kind of leaves Engineer Gax out in the cold, however, since I kind of wanted to use that for him Oh, well, I'll make use of Energy Aura for ONE of them and the other will have to find an alternative.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I just have to post here because, man, you guys have no idea what it's like going through this process stream-of-consciousness style, online, in chat, with Sam.

He has the greatest imagination.

--NT

Well, NT, now you get to see the result of that brainstorming session and all the help you gave me in the process of coming up with this concept. See? I don't just talk about these things. I actually made something out of it

Do you like how it turned out? I, uh... Took some liberties with the basic premise we talked about

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Sam has gotten some great help on builds so I'll try to help with costumes. I suggest drawing on the Time Bandits for inspiration. A greater time squad never existed.

Finally, with Street Justice now a reality, the F Squad has finally arrive into our world I gave quite a bit of thought to their archetypes and personalities, and have made them as the following:

Commander Ren Tarara: Street Justice / Willpower Scrapper. Her extreme physical fitness and uncompromising tenacity have made her vicious fighter and hardy survivor.

Engineer Tillin Gax: Electric Melee / Energy Aura Scrapper. The extensive modifications that Gax has made to his body have given him practical control over several forms of energy, which he made use of both in the field of battle and his work as an engineer.

Heavy Weapons Expert Irina Seth and her combat mech "Gunny:" Energy Melee / Invulnerability Brute. Gunny is a heavily modified front line heavy assault super-mech equipped with a power plant potent enough to power an entire city, which can be focused into direct energy burst attacks, and its thick futuristic armour make this machine almost impossible to take down.

Ambassador Lexxy: Kinetic Melee / Super Reflexes Stalker. Her pacifist beliefs have led her to choose a type of combat specialisation which relies on avoiding unnecessary contact and achieving combat objectives with as little bloodshed as possible.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.