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Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 9:57 pm
by Mobius 1
When you're Carmen Sandiego, I don't think it matters.

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 10:03 pm
by Booted Vulture
Carmen Sandiego as played by Angelina Jolie on Oscar Night?

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 10:21 pm
by Siege
You know, it would be fun to have an outrageous thief character who can "steal the banks of the Nile" and such...

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2012 2:24 pm
by Siege
Somewhere in the underground labyrinths of the moon...

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Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 12:55 pm
by Invictus
Siege wrote:Snip list of WRAITH members
A bit late and correct me if I'm mistaken, but it seems to me that out of the veritable hive of scum and villainy that is WRAITH proper, there isn't one mad scientist among the lot. So why not let Enoch Razaq be that? He'll be the man who quests for the ruins of Babel. A man with nam-shubs up to here and with unique and dangerous insights into the secrets of human cognition. He's the only man to make practical memetics work, a first-rate mesmerist who regularly perform acts of brainwashing and behaviorial control which shouldn't be possible in the timeframes he has.

Or he could just be a general trailblazer in transhuman technologies, providing WRAITH with its supply of superhuman goons.

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 5:07 pm
by Shroom Man 777
Speaking of mad scientists, has anyone ever brought up Gerald Bull?

Real life expert on cannons, built artillery pieces for the South Africans and all that, worked for the US' HARP, and afterwards couldn't let his vision of shooting shit into space from a giant gun be stopped and tried to make the BABYLON CANNON with Saddam before getting whacked by Mossad.

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 5:36 pm
by Siege
Invictus wrote:Snip ENOCH RAZAQ
Yes. That's perfect! A man with a secret lair in the primeval ruins of Shangri-La, with knowledge of hidden lands and forbidden lore... A man with a dozen of these could rule all the Orion!
Shroom Man 777 wrote:Speaking of mad scientists, has anyone ever brought up Gerald Bull?
I'm not sure anyone has, but I prefer to shy away from using actual people as characters. Especially in cases like this: it just feels cheap to use an actual assassinated guy as fluff for our pulp, you know?

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 5:18 am
by Shroom Man 777
Yeah, though in the case of Abdul Qadeer Khan, at least the protagonist can scream out the last name and have it echo all coolly. :D

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 10:26 pm
by Siege
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The V-44 is designed to be a heavy hauler. "Imagine this aircraft with a cabin large enough to internally carry an 8 x 8 x 40-ft. container, several helicopters, all types of high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles, light armored vehicles, eight standard loading pallets, or 70 [medivac] litters," reads an industry analysis describing the concept. "Imagine an aircraft that could transport 80 to 100 troops or 10 to 20 tons of equipment and supplies at speeds greater than 300 mph over distances from 1000 to 2000 miles and then safely land vertically, without the need for runways or airports."

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 10:47 pm
by Booted Vulture
The second one seems to be a ac130 spooky like variant. Unless there are gun ports for its cargo of tanks :D

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 2:43 pm
by Siege
In trying to rid CSW of references to contemporary politicians Adelaide Drake-Carringdon now replaces Maggie Thatcher as PM in the 80's. We still have Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to get rid of however, as well as all British PMs post-Thatcher and a variety of other politicians.

Any suggestions for replacements?

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:42 pm
by Malchus
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Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 7:58 pm
by Mobius 1
For some reason I always just saw Barclay as Dennis Haysbert in full-on 24 mode.

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Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2012 6:55 pm
by Siege
Agreed on Haysbert as Barclay, I've had that image in my mind pretty much since I saw him on 24.

Now, Harrison Ford as a hardline (but not completely senile by the end of his term) replacement for Ronald Reagan, and Morgan Freeman as Britain's first black PM to replace Tony Blair?

Yes. Yes, I think I'd like that very much.

Any suggestions for names?

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:31 pm
by Siege
How'sabout:

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Sir Julian Leighland Liberty is a British Liberal Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Liberal Party from 1992 to 2002.

The successor to Conservative PM Adelaide Drake-Carringdon, Liberty was a remarkable man in a number of ways: he was the first Liberal Party Prime Minister as well as the first black man to hold the office, and during his decade in power he survived more motions of no-confidence than any PM before him. Labour and the Tories threw numerous accusations at him: Liberty was too accommodating to the Americans, too friendly with the WEU, too soft on the Soviets; he was neglectful of the Commonwealth or if he wasn't he was 'too enamored with the past', he either didn't focus enough on Britain's internal affairs or did so too much -- according to the nation's traditional power-brokers, he couldn't do much of anything right.

Despite torrents of critique Liberty still managed to hold together his government for an entire decade. He was admired by Britons wary of traditional party-line bickering, and his seemingly uncanny ability to manoeuver himself out of a sticky spot earned him the nickname 'Lazarus Liberty'. Sir Julian resigned from his positions in July 2002 citing health problems.

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 6:52 pm
by Booted Vulture
The real question is: What was the man's policy on university tuition fees?

Wow. A Liberal Party PM, now I know we're in bizarro verse.

Sorry, that was over specific. It should say 'Wow. A Liberal Party now I know we're in bizarro verse.'
'

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 11:57 pm
by Ford Prefect
Man, is that some social commentary. :)

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 2:29 pm
by Siege
Booted Vulture wrote:The real question is: What was the man's policy on university tuition fees?
You tell me :). I have no idea what British university tuition policy even is, let alone what it was or could have been...
Wow. A Liberal Party PM, now I know we're in bizarro verse.
If pseudo-Reagan and pseudo-Thatcher maintained similar deregulation / spend-the-Reds-to-death policies and after a decade the Soviet Union is not only still there but Premier Maksimov is actually laughing in their faces... I figure that would induce butterfly effects like you wouldn't believe. So, instead of John Major there's Julian Liberty to save Britain from recession (and probably to curtail Drake-Carringdon's crazier global ambitions). After him we get, well, probably a Labour Party PM of some stripe, I don't know yet.

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:23 pm
by Booted Vulture
Siege wrote:
Booted Vulture wrote:The real question is: What was the man's policy on university tuition fees?
You tell me :). I have no idea what British university tuition policy even is, let alone what it was or could have been...
Well at the moment its £3,000 a year tution fees for university. Paid for by a loan from the government that has at something like £% plus inflation that they didn't have to pay back until they're earning £21,000.

Of course before the last election it was only £1000 a year and the lib dems were campaigning on the basis of not putting up the fees ridiculous amounts of course when the coalition formed that went out the window and up went the fees. So lots of people feel betrayed by the lib dems on that issue.

boring politics lecture over. :P

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2012 3:52 pm
by Siege
Yeah, I'm not saying that's never going to be the subject of a CSW story... But it's a level of detail I'm not quite prepared to deal with right now :).

Meanwhile,

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Harlan Gray Hunter was the 40th President of the United States, serving from 1981 to 1989. Prior to that he was captain in the United States Army, congressman and Governor of his home state Indiana. A dyed in the wool Republican, Hunter campaigned against his predecessor Carnegie on a Cold War platform, claiming the Democrat had been too soft on the communists and implicitly accusing him of letting the Second Revolution happen on his watch. Hunter's presidency was marked by the communist renaissance and the charismatic Republican positioned himself as a staunch capitalist bulwark standing against the Soviet bloc, to the point where for the better part of a decade the Cold War seemed almost a purely personal conflict between Harlan Hunter and Alexa Zhadanova. Hunter and the 'Red Witch' met in person only a memorable handful of times but despite their ideological antagonism developed a remarkable insight into each other's personalities, which ultimately lead to the two receiving the Nobel Peace Prize together in 1989. Hunter was famously quoted as saying "I understand her [Zhadanova] better than I do my own wife". Zhadanova meanwhile said of the President that "in another life, in a better world, Comrade Hunter could have been my brother". It should be noted that Zhadanova did not bandy the term 'comrade' around as lightly as some other communists, reserving it exclusively for those she saw as brothers in arms. Hunter's second term ended in 1989; Zhadanova retired the premiership and indeed from public life only a year later.

In his first term Hunter ordered an invasion of Colombia, pushed through a number of civil rights reforms that enraged some of his more conservative supporters and famously survived an attempt to hijack Air Force One whilst he and his staff were aboard; the attempt was the first high-profile operation by the fledgling international terror syndicate WRAITH and set the trend for the kind of spectacular high-risk high-stakes plots favoured by its leader, Malcolm Kroner. The hijacking failed (a sensational rumor that the President played a key role in foiling the kidnappers was downplayed by the White House), but it wasn't until a year later the FBI discovered that WRAITH financiers made billions of dollars short-selling American stock during the panicked few hours of the kidnapping. At the same time however the plot ensured that Hunter was reelected in a landslide in 1984. His second term was primarily marked by foreign affairs, notably the first wide-scale hunt for WRAITH, the First Gulf War, and the negotiation of a series of strategic arms and outer space control treaties with the Soviet Union.

Harlan Hunter ranks highly in public opinion polls of U.S. Presidents and is credited for generating an ideological renaissance on the American political right.

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:17 pm
by Invictus
Siege wrote:In his first term Hunter...famously survived an attempt to hijack Air Force One whilst he and his staff were aboard; the attempt was the first high-profile operation by the fledgling international terror syndicate WRAITH and set the trend for the kind of spectacular high-risk high-stakes plots favoured by its leader, Malcolm Kroner. The hijacking failed (a sensational rumor that the President played a key role in foiling the kidnappers was downplayed by the White House)...
This was necessary, wasn't it. :P

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:06 pm
by Malchus
I was hoping that'd get a small nod myself when I suggested the pic. :)

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:40 pm
by Mobius 1
I totally dig Harlan Hunter - I mentioned I was nervous about replacing Presidents, but seeing the end result I don't really have a problem with him.

Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2012 8:11 pm
by Siege
Thanks guys! And yeah, I totally had to include that nod, it's far too CSW to miss out on :).
Mobius 1 wrote:I totally dig Harlan Hunter - I mentioned I was nervous about replacing Presidents, but seeing the end result I don't really have a problem with him.
I know, right? I was concerned about replacing household names like Reagan and Clinton as well, but now I'm starting to realize the ridiculous amount of freedom you get out of just making people up. Plus it's much easier to write a fictional guy's response to the Soviet renaissance than it would be to write Reagan's.

Now, after Harlan Hunter his former VP, Miles Warren, is elected. He turns out to be not as capable as Hunter and serves only one term because the outcome to the Second Gulf War is widely considered to be a major embarassment to the West; after him we get another Democrat. He replaces Bill Clinton. I've got no name yet, but my suggestion would be:

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Also, Moby, this guy totally has to be VP under Skye during the Secret War:

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Re: Random Ideas (Input Requested!)

Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2012 10:50 pm
by Mobius 1
It's pretty obvious Bartlett would make a great character in CSWverse - as much as I'm used to Sheen as The Illusive Man, I grew up on him in the West Wing, so he naturally works as a President - in the same vein, if you need pictures of political characters, TWW is a gold mine - Jimmy Smits, Alan Alda, John Goodman - all good stuff.

As for Skye's new veep, man, she just cannot win when it comes to completely shady characters.

EDIT: Goodman, Alda, Smits:

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