Cubist

Jubatus wasn't really asleep when Blueshift spoke to him: "Psst. J, your awake." said the tin can in a hushed voice. "You should come see this," Jubatus came and saw. "Damn. Not good," he replied, matching Blueshift's volume (but, of necessity, not her tone). All those blank faces, all those farm implements... "They're drugged, I'm betting -- so-called 'zombie cucumber' is my first guess." "They could tear this place down. Sheer numbers. Plus tools. But look. Their faces. They're not angry. Blank stares." 'Drugged' was indeed the most-favored hypothesis at this point; every last one of the Haitians seemed like they just weren't there. "We should wake the-" And then some idiot blasted away with a klaxon. Jube's reflexive upshift helped; at his current tempo of 40, the massive flow of sonic energy was slowed down by a factor of 40, and thus the noise level dropped by a good 10-15 deciBels or so (as far as his ears were concerned, anyway, and that's what mattered to Jube). Then, after the feline got his ear protectors on, the residual clamor was... a lot closer to tolerable. First things first: Get Blue clued in. "If things get ugly, you're intel and coördination -- commlinks for everyone." The 'if' was by no means an indication that Jubatus thought there was any real chance of avoiding battle; rather, it was the feline's precise language, his acknowledgement that battle had not actually broken out. Yet. "Right now, I'm going to see about threat management." These guys aren't responsible for their actions, so breaking them isn't an option. But they can still be dangerous, so let's see how many I can disarm, how fast... Jubatus rushed outside and started grabbing at the various not-weapons...

"Thanks, Miss Wells," Jubatus said in response to Miss Steampunk's compliment. After getting cleaned up, he again wore the silk shirt and khaki trousers he'd commandeered and modified from the corpse's luggage. "I don't know your culture all that well -- do you think it would be a good idea for me to go out and start chatting with the other passengers? I doubt I'll be able to find out anything useful, but, I dunno, maybe I'll draw so much attention that someone else could go unnoticed while doing something else."

Jube's evaluation of the group: Apologies to anyone who believes I've misrepresented their character. While I can read everyone's character sheet, Jube only knows what he's learned from research and/or talking to other characters. Which means that Jube has greatly underestimated the King of Suits, as far as I can tell. If Jube knew that Marcel had experience with Cambodian jungle warfare -- and, more importantly that Marcel survived the experience -- he'd be thinking "guerilla warrior" rather than "noncombatant". Now, about Jube's alleged Master Planning: In just about any situation, we're probably going to want Blueshift in the air as an undetectable sensor platform. If she's not in combat, she avoids the combat-stress-induced unreliability of her cloaking device, right? Likewise, it's hard to imagine any situation in which we wouldn't want our own private comm network. So in any scenario, the first thing Blueshift should do is pull commlinks out of her belt and have Jube distribute them to everyone (speed is cool!). If Jube isn't available, Wisp is an acceptable second choice for transporting commlinks to their users (teleporting is cool, too!). Naturally, this works best if Blue has a little advance notice, but even if we're caught by surprise, it should help after the initial shock. Similarly, no matter what's going on, it just makes sense for Push to play the role of Big Friggin' Gun; for Jube to zip around drawing fire while attempting to incapacitate enemies as and when he can; and for Wisp to 'port on top of whoever looks like they're not expecting it, and whale on their enemy butts from surprise. On to the five sample Master Plans which Quote asked me to provide... Sneak attack at night If we have sufficent advance notice: Get everyone up and battle-ready before the enemy shows. Jube and Wisp zip around drawing fire and doing whatever nasties they can manage; Push just friggin' murderizes whatever he deems a suitable target; Marcel covers Push's back; Blueshift flies around invisibly overhead, seeing all and making sure nobody is caught by surprise. If anyone is awake when it happens: Wake up Jubatus (speedster) first, Blueshift (coördinator) second, Wisp (self-sniper) third, Push (big gun) fourth, Marcel (supernumerary) fifth. The speedster and teleporter are the first combatants because they can take the battle to the enemy quickest, meaning 'draw at least some enemy fire away from the remaining sleepers'. We form up to the 'canonical' battle deployment as and when possible. If nobody's awake, and the first sign of attack is the enemy firing a shot: As per 'if anyone is awake', except modified as needed according to the damage done by the shot. Sneak attack during the day With advance notice: Assume combat formation before the enemy comes, and (try to) take them down before they can hurt us. No advance notice: The enemy gets one free shot at us, presumably. We do our best to form up, modulo any damage that results from the enemy's opening salvo, and fight back. Battle is joined, and the enemy has someone who can ignore/neutralize the powers of [insert hero name here] If direct power-use is no go, try indirect power-use. Example: Suppose the enemy has someone who's immune to Push's kinetics. In such a case, Push should try other stuff like, how about if Push levitates/throws 3/4 ton of lumber at the guy? Or rip the ground out from underneath the guy, and use that chunk of dirt to throw the guy way the heck up into the sky, or even into the ocean? Apart from that, Push can also focus his attacks on those of the enemy who are not immune to kinetics, and let Jube and/or Wisp hit the kinetic-immune dude. Jubatus and Wisp don't really have any damage-causing powers, as such -- they just hit hard and/or fast -- so 'immunity' to Jube or Wisp is likely to be more in the line of being generally tough or invulnerable or some such. Here, the idea is to exploit the mobility advantage; if the 'invulnerable' enemy is within the cargo-carrying limit of whichever hero, try physically moving said enemy way the heck out to hell-and-gone. Into the ocean would be nice, if possible. Blueshift being our 'forward observer', the relevant form of immunity would be stuff that obscures her Super-Senses. She should watch out for, even track if at all possible, unexplained blank spots in her sensor suite. The enemy uses illusions to impersonate (some of) us We should work up some code-phrases ahead of time -- special knowledge which the enemy would not know, and which would therefore expose any such imposture. Once an impostor is exposed, pound on the illusion-caster (if we know who that is), then on the enemy who did the impersonation. We're not likely to have a lot of time to spare during battle, but if we can figure out how to mess up the illusion-caster's power, that would be nice... The enemy sends endless waves of minions at us!!! Push is the go-to guy for taking down an entire crowd of mooks in one shot, or at least put up a force field to keep the mooks away from anywhere, or anyone, they shouldn't ought to be near. Blueshift's aerial vantage point will assist her in IDing the source of the trouble, whereupon Wisp and/or Jube can pop over there to deal with that source.

Having gotten the information he sought from his current set of co-workers, Jubatus thought about how they might best be employed, tactically speaking... Push's role is pretty obvious; his powers over kinetic energy make him a Swiss Army knife that hits like a BFG-9000 with all the upgrades. He's our heavy hitter -- as long as he's functional, we got lots of ways to mess over anybody that gets in our faces. Of course, any enemy with half a brain will figure that out real soon, so guarding Push's back will be everybody's responsibility. Blueshift's easy to place, too -- intel and co-ordination. I bet she can pull untraceable, unjammable commlinks out of her Belt Of Many Things, and with her as an invisible 'eye in the sky', it's a good bet we won't be caught by surprise no matter what. And if things go pear-shaped, her Tesla Gauntlets won't hurt us one bit. Wisp: Teleport means she can hit anyone, anywhere, from any angle, at any time. In other words, she's a sniper who fires herself at the target. Me: Blitzkrieg with a side order of Decoy. I'm nowhere near the fastest supertype around, but I can outrun damn near any bullet made, so I can draw fire like nobody's business and not have to care. 'Marcel': Our weakest link. Clearly wasn't chosen for fighting ability. He can be our reserve, but if things get bad enough that he's needed... well, 'maybe the horse will sing'. And, well, he is an extra pair of eyes. I guess his primary duty can be watching Push's back...

Note on Jube's most-recent post: Yes, Jube's character sheet has "immunity to aging" on it. Alas for teh kitteh's peace of mind, he doesn't know that yet. He'll find out soon enough, because he should be displaying signs of senescence within the next however-many months, and when said signs obstinately refuse to show up...

Jay Xavier didn't bother to acknowledge Zap's inquiry about his aging. Unsurprisingly, this was something of a sore point for him; given the fact of his high-speed metabolism, he had to assume he was aging 6 times faster than normal. And cheetahs in captivity typically dropped dead before their 15th birthday... Not a happy-making situation. But what could Jay do about it? Answer: Nothing. Nothing at all. So he just didn't think about it, and however much time Jay had left, he was damn well going to cram as much life into it as he could manage. Which might have been part of the reason he originally decided to get into the hero game, come to think of it. Some people thought it wasn't possible to not-think of a specific topic. Those people were idiots. It was very possible, even easy, and the key to doing it was to focus on something else. And right here and now, on this bus, Jay was focusing on the conversation he was having with the geek from ASTRO Labs: "...pretty much any phenomenon whose governing equations include a term for Time, really," he said. "Current flow, motion, yada yada yada."

Jube is still available for the safari!

Knowledge/Streetwise? Jube doesn't have that, and so he'll have to fall back on his Jack of All Trades feat. Take 20 'roll' is (20 + INT modifier), which works out to 24 in Jube's case.

The driver's hairstyle is rather distinctive. Would Jay (or anybody else, for that matter) recognize him? Just for grins, Jay will use his Quickness for a Take 20 'roll' against an appropriate Knowledge skill (and Jay's are Current Events (+8), Technology (+9), and Theology & Philosophy (+9)).

"...how far can you extend the field?" the geek said. "Beats me -- don't know, and never tried to find out." "Oh. Too bad. Knowing that in advance, we could've simply matched the distortion you create against, say, the temporal distortion caused by the tech Downtime uses..." The technobabble-heavy conversation between Jay Xavier and The Geek From ASTRO Labs, like every other ongoing conversation, was cut short by the bus' arrival. "Well, sir, looks our ride's here," the geek said, stepping to one side. "After you." Jay accepted this gesture of respect as his due. He was, after all, 74 years old, cheetah or no.

Having gotten over most of his irritation in his second-or-so of upshifting, Jay raised one finger to the geek is a hold on for a moment gesture. Then he took Zap up on her offer of a handshake and spoke to her: "No harm, no foul. The 'kitty' thing's a hot-button issue for me, and I'm working on it. As for age... let's just say it's even money I'm older than at least one of your grandparents, hrrrm?" Having said his piece, Jay gave the Russkie an approving nod and returned to his chat with the geek. "Okay: Like I was saying, how about you try a number of wires at known distances from my skin, or maybe just one wire you can reposition as needful, and measure the signal propagation time --" "-- because that should tell us how the strength of your Time-distortion effect falls off over distance," the geek interrupted with a diffident grin. "And it would also be appropriate to do this at many different locations on your body, to see if there's any spatial variation --" "-- right, right. And have a fixed-position wire at a known location, as a gauge of the absolute field strength --" Those heroes who had dealt with the cheetah before would have been pleasantly surprised to see his current attitude; genuinely enthusiastic, rather than any of the countless flavors of Disgruntled he ordinarily displayed.

The first person Jubatus spoke to was Blueshift... Okay, intel is good, and I like the sound of those 'utilities'. "Got it: Heavy on data-collecting, some personal protection, decent mobility plus hand-to-hand attack, and a bag of tricks," Jubatus summarized while nodding. "Thanks." Jubatus would have moved on to his next task, but the tin can spoke up: "Your fur. Overheating. Why aren't you?" The feline moved his shoulders in a mutant shrug. "That's a valid question, and I'm not sure." Because what little I do know suggests my Timeshift might be fueling itself off of the kinetic energy of molecular motion... maybe... and I'd just as soon not have the details known to anybody other than me. "My guess is, it's my build; long and rail-thin equals lots of surface area to radiate heat away per unit volume." And let's hope that line satisfies the Elephant's Child here. Yeah, right. As if. When Jubatus approached 'Marceau', he went out of his way to not seem threatening, even going so far as to downshift to a tempo a tiny bit slower than the normal value of 1. Apparently, this effort was not wasted, for 'Marceau' didn't seem to be nervous about talking to a big, fanged cat: "Don't know how likely that is, but I think it's possible, yeah," the feline replied. "Statistically speaking, heroes do tend to attract villains, so I figure it's prudent to be prepared for it. Just in case. "Anyway... Heightened strength, combat skills, temperature resistance. Thanks."

A couple of notes on Jube's most-recent post in the thread... The geek's opening spiel sounds kind of bizarre to be coming from someone who's supposed to be a scientific whiz kid. Thus, Jay's presumption that the poor guy is freaking out and trying not to show it. Also: The "Babson-Forward mass detector" is named after Roger Babson and Robert L. Forward. In the RealWorld, Babson (1875-1967) was the guy who started the Gravity Research Foundation; Forward (1932-2002) was a physicist who wrote science-fiction novels about those of his way-out ideas he couldn't figure out how to test in a laboratory, and who actually did invent a mass detector. On Earth-Prime, I think it makes sense that the analogues of these men would have worked together, coming up with interesting things including refinements to Forward's mass detector. "You're so young!": Jay Xavier was born in 1946. In other words, the dude is older than dirt, at least by comparison with many other PCs. His 'odometer' got 'rolled back' as part of his transformation into a cheetah/human critter, but he still has 70-odd years of life experience and yada yada yada...

Okay, a non-invasive procedure, Jay thought. Good sign. "Well, sure," he said. "Basic premise of scientific experimentation -- if it's there, it can affect other stuff that's there." And then the geek offered up a clumsy, tentative attempt at a justification for trying to investigate Jay's Timeshift power in a lab. Since the geek would surely have flunked out of any science classes long ago if he was as incompetent as his current spiel made him appear, Jay concluded that the poor guy must be freaking out a lot more than he was letting on. Chalk up another one for my inhuman appearance, damnit. "You got that right, and I say I'm in," Jay replied. "What I'm hearing sounds like a decent place to start investigating. Got any particular hypothesis in mind to test, or are you just at the data-gathering stage of the game?" "Ah, the latter, sir," said the geek. "Up until now, all I've had is a conjecture that some of the noise I've been getting on my Babson-Forward mass detector is directly related to your super-speed." Because he doesn't have the hard data he needs to confirm that his toy's tracking me in particular. The feline nodded. "Makes sense. And you can call me Jay; I promise not to bite -- at least, not unless you ask politely." The geek looked puzzled; Jay could tell the exact moment he got the joke by noting when the red of embarrassment washed over his face. And as luck would have it, that seemed to be the cue for a new arrival to intrude on their conversation: Hearing that egregiously overenthusiastic word, Jay winced: "Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it..." He upshifted in the next split-second, making himself some time to let his intense annoyance drain away. The newcomer... Jay blinked in shock at first sight of her. "Hebe and da Gama, you're so young!" he said uncontrollably.

Jubatus Habitat for Metahumanity I KAN HAZ HUMANITY? Murder on the VIctorian Express Space Safari: Jubatus, Wisp, and the Monkey They Came From Below! Wayward Transit June 2011 vignette

Regareding pre-statted opposition: I don't mind either way. Jube and Wisp, eh? Not a problem...

Sometimes, Jay Xavier's brain was faster than his brain. When that anonymous geek asked if Jubatus could please demonstrate his Timeshift under laboratory conditions, Jay's immediate (Timeshifted, even) first thought was How the [bg=black]xxxx[/bg] does this clown even know about my Timeshift!? -- followed, only marginally less quickly, by the follow-up notion Oh. Right. Dude studies the space/time continuum, so whatever sensors he uses, I probably stick out like an acetylene welding torch. Never mind. Which left the question of what to say in reply. In the first few days after he'd 'traded up' from his human body, Jay reflexively preferred that nobody learn anything about his Timeshift, on the grounds that manipulating the space/time continuum was too friggin' dangerous a trick for anybody to mess with. But that was before he recalled all the time-travelers who'd shown up in Freedom City, and elsewhere, over the years... In the end, Jay concluded that his objections to letting people study his power probably fell under the category 'closing the barn door after the horse escaped'. That said, there was nothing wrong with being cautious about who he allowed to study his power... Jay's internal musings whipped by in a (somewhat large) fraction of a second, after which he replied: "An experiment, hrrm? Possible, but I'd like to know more before I give you a yea-or-nay." Jay took a subtle sniff of the geek's scent, and made note of how the geek reacted when he heard Jay's inhuman voice. "For starters, what kind of set-up are we talking about here?"

What Jubatus is up to in his most-recent post: Jube may not be Crazy Prepared, but he sure wants to be, and he goes out of his way to try being CP. Thus, he's putting together a Master Plan (as per the MP feat) for the upcoming battle. What with Jube's Quickness, he's going to Take 20 for the MP roll, and end up with an INT check of 24, for a nominal Master Plan bonus of +2. Q: How the heck do you put together a Master Plan for opponents you don't know anything about, in a battle that you have no idea when, if even if, it's going to happen? A: You don't do that. Instead, you put together *lots* of Master Plans, for a large collection of hypothetical scenarios, and you hope that one of your hypothetical scenarios will be decently close to whatever events end up, like, actually happening. So... the GM can rule that all of Jube's MP-related efforts are wasted, and there's no MP bonus at all when the fight actually goes down -- this would be perfectly reasonable, because while Jube tries to be Crazy Prepared, it's not clear how close he comes to truly being Crazy Prepared. Or maybe one of Jube's hypothetical scenarios is close enough for jazz, so that it's worth a +1 MP bonus. Or maybe Jube gets lucky and hits the jackpot, for the full +2 MP bonus. Either way, it's fine by me...

Jubatus, as was his habit, did not initiate any conversations of a social nature all day. Requests for information or clarification, yes; offering up ideas for how to solve a sticky problem, yes; "how are you doing, [insert name of person here]", no. Of course, the feline was quick enough to speak up when someone else was making an idiotic mistake, but the people he was now working with were all blessedly competent, so that hardly ever happened. Jube's therapist had told him often enough that he really ought to work on his interpersonal skills, and he agreed, in principle. This simply wasn't a good time for such things; he and the others had a job to do, and it was just stupid to waste any time (or attention, or anything else) on at-best-peripheral matters that weren't even vaguely relevant to getting the job done. Then again, Jube's Timeshift power ensured that he, at least, had time to burn. But if he did that -- if he (literally!) made his own Time -- his personal 'clock' would be running much faster than anybody else's. That, in turn, meant the difference in respective tempos would make it impossible for him to interact socially anyway, so it wasn't really a solution to the problem, now was it? Hmmm. He was the fastest cat alive, so he did have time to burn. Buckets and buckets more time than anybody else here -- pity for it all to go to waste. Well, Jubatus knew what to do with all his extra time. It was common knowledge that superheroes tended to attract super-powered opponents, so he might as well work up some tactical plans just in case any such opponents showed up to hassle this group of superheroes. Granted, he had no way of knowing which opponents might show, let alone what powers they might be wielding, but that just meant he needed to work up several plans for several different hypothetical scenarios. On the plus side, the powers of the people on Jube's side would be a constant, or at least consistent, for all such scenarios. So it would be worth spending a little realtime on inquiring about his comrades' special abilities. "Hey, Blue; got a question for you. See, being the unkind and deeply paranoid soul I am, I'm worrying about us getting attacked by some random jerkwad or other, maybe even a group of 'em, before we're done here, and I want to be prepared. Just in case, is all. So... what can your battlesuit do?" After getting Blueshift's answer, Jubatus moved on, gleaning information from Push and Wisp and 'Marcel'...

[snicker] Well... yeah...

In case anybody can't figure it out from the post: feral!Jube was very hungry after he escaped from the ArcheTech building, so he ate some pigeons. THese weren't enough to sate his hunger, so when he ran into Crow, who was just coming out of a supermarket with a bunch of stuff including kitty treats, feral!~Jube rifled thru Crow's bag and scarfed down all the treats. feral!Jube is running at his default tempo of 6 times quicker than normal, and that's why he can pluck birds out of the air and so on.

The cheetah roamed through Freedom City. It was only a little hungry, having found some smallthings that it could grab out of the air and eat. The smallthings had lots of dry crunchy stuff growing out of their skin, and the dry crunchy stuff tasted awful. Fortunately, the cheetah found it could easily pluck the dry crunchy stuff out of the smallthings. The cheetah thought the smallthings tasted pretty good; it just wished they had more meat on them. The cheetah loped through the streets of Freedom City, following its nose, because there was always a new and interesting smell around every corner. And then there was a very new and interesting smell right in front of it! The new and interesting smell came from a tallthing. This tallthing was as slow as every other tallthing it had run across, so it wasn't -- couldn't be -- dangerous. It had dark stuff on top of its head, and the new and interesting smell came from a thing it held in its forepaws. In fact, there were a number of new and interesting smells coming from what the tallthing held in its forepaws, but there was one smell in particular, a smell that reminded the cheetah of the smallthings it had eaten just recently, a smell that made the cheetah drool a little. The cheetah raised itself up on its hind legs and stuck its head in the thing which the new and interesting smells came from. There were a bunch of shapes inside that thing, and since they were all so close together, the cheetah couldn't tell which smell came from which shape. The cheetah stuck its forepaws down inside the thing, and pulled all the shapes out so it could examine them better. It sniffed at each of the shapes. Each shape had a new and interesting smell, but most of them didn't smell like food. The cheetah let go of the shapes that didn't smell like food, letting them drift slowly to the ground as it moved on to the next shape. The last shape it pulled from what the tallthing held in its forepaws, nowthat smelled like food. Even better, that shape smelled kind of like the yummy smallthings! The cheetah sat on its haunches and looked at the food-smelling shape it held in its forepaws. This shape was round, like some of the out-sticking bits on the movable wall panels in the empty space it had woken up in. This shape was also not food; when the cheetah licked it, the shape tasted sort of like sand and metal. Yuck! The cheetah realized that the food-smelling shape was made of two different kinds of stuff; one kind of stuff tasted sort of like sand, and the other kind of stuff tasted like metal. So the food-smell had to be coming from inside the shape, just as the shape had come from inside the thing which the dark-topped tallthing held in its forepaws. Okay, that meant the cheetah just had to figure out how to get at the inside of the food-smelling shape. It thought about the out-sticking bits it remembered, and how those bits had moved... The cheetah grabbed the sand-tasting part of the shape in one forepaw, and grabbed the metal-tasting part in its other forepaw. Then it twisted at the two parts of the food-smelling shape -- yes! The metal-tasting part of the shape came loose! And the food-smell was a lot stronger, so the cheetah was right about the food-smell coming from inside this shape! Tiny food-smelling bits were drifting away from the shape. The cheetah grabbed one out of the air, and found that it tasted very good! The cheetah ate all the tiny bits that drifted in the air, and then it ate all the tiny bits that were still inside the shape. When it had eaten all the food-smelling tiny bits, the cheetah was still hungry. A little. It looked at the dark-topped tallthing; maybe this tallthing would get other food?

No worries, Arichamus! In Jube's case, at least, his 'loner vibes' might well make at least one or two would-be fans hesitate to approach him. But he's not really doing anything hostile, so the deterrence factor could decay over time, yes?

Jubatus is generally a loner... but he is a highly exotic-looking (hence, easily recognizable) superhero, and he has been the subject of a certain amount of media coverage, so it wouldn't be at all surprising if some of the civilians in the crowd recognize him and start doing the "starstruck fan" routine, or something in that neighborhood...

I'm sure Supercape will address that, KD. THe man is recovering from an operation, after all... give him a bit of time, yes?