Charade Picks (Tobyverse)

Pitch

My concept is based around a miraculous happening in the mid 1800s, when an as yet unnamed entity rose an island out of the sea. Unfortunately for said island-raiser he wasn't able to claim it, and instead a consortium of scientists and businessmen took control. The Visionaries, as they called themselves, wanted to create their perfect utopia of technology and class on the island, and set about doing just that. They brought in thousands of people, from artists to workmen and raised a city of the future, a fantastical place more advanced and wealthy than even London, Paris or New York.

The island had its difficulties over the years, as it evolved and eventually declared independence, becoming something of a modern-day city state. It has been involved in wars, scandals, culture clashes and the highest of diplomatic meetings. Today, they have a representative on the UN. Its still a fantastically advanced and strange place to many, as it as retained some of its 19th century charm while still pushing forward into the modern era. Strange generators and turbines power it, crackling strange green energy. Jetpacks are available, but only to the licensed. Cars and clothing invoke a memory of yesteryear, and architecture is still plodding along, but slowly. Its a Neo-Victorian, art deco, gothic masterpiece, and that is exactly how the inhabitants like it. It has its problems, however. And like any city, hosts its fair share of super-humans, heroes, villains and madness, only exacerbated by the conditions not likely present anywhere else in the world.

The idea being that it is a successful Bioshock style project, inspired both by that series of games and Wonder City of Arkham City.

Pick 1: Atlantis

In 1857, while Britain was distracted and embroiled in the conflict in India, Baron Cornelius Klough, aka Baron Nemesis, Master of Mechanism, struck. His plan was truly diabolical. It had always been known that he was a master engineer, metallurgist and clockmaker, but his mastery of geology and tectonics was, until now, unknown. Loading hijacked freighters with a series of strange devices, he then proceeded to sink them at a series of points in the middle of the Atlantic. Then, at some unknown signal, the devices activated, and Baron Nemesis achieved the impossible, and somehow created land. It could be that he raised an already sunken island, or manipulated the plate tectonics. Or even triggered an as-yet unknown underwater volcano, bringing it to the surface. What is known is that he dragged a huge landmass to the surface. Then, he and his hidden legion struck. They seized the island within a matter of hours and began fortifying it. Nemesis hoped to use it as a nigh-impenetrable staging ground for his forces, able to strike at both sides of the Atlantic with his armored battleships and submersibles. They even began laying the groundwork for a series of war-factories. But one piece of bad luck would doom Nemesis's mad plot. The clipper The Prince of Wales happened to be crossing the Atlantic at the time, and spotted the legions of darkness. The first mate, William Shore, had once been a marine, and fought the Baron's forces at the Orkney Islands and off the coast of France before, and recognized the dangers. Deft handling by the captain, Eustace Shrive, allowed The Prince of Wales to escape the slower armored ships of Nemesis's forces, and as night fell they were able to slip away under cover of darkness. Racing back to England, the officers and crew of The Prince of Wales immediately descended en masse on the offices of the Admiralty, and after a short time and some truly desperate pleas, the British military ground into action. Their anti-Nemesis task force was called in from near Prussia, and the situation was reported to the various embassies. The British task force set sail at once, hoping to catch the Baron while he was still constructing his defenses. They did, and the battle raged with incredible ferocity. A full half the task force was sunk, and only the intervention of a convoy of French and Spanish ships were able to save the day. The remainders of the fleet bombarded the island heavily, and marines stormed the main buildings. Baron Nemesis looked to make his escape on one of his experimental rocket balloons, but was shot by marksmen before getting out of range. To this day his body and vehicle have not been recovered.

Atlantis of Today: Atlantis remains a technological and architectural masterpiece, as the need to modernize and reinvent blended over the decades with its desire to hold onto its roots as a Victorian creation. Today its design is something of a meld between the Art Deco of the early 20th century and the medley style of Neo-Victorianism, where the future meets the past. Computers are still filigreed and the subways stations are still gated with elaborate metal constructions. Even the clothing harkens back to an early time, though a large movement has been growing among the youth of the city in which they wear clothes that are as modern and far from the dominant Neo-Victorian style as possible. Polyester blends are popular. The standard of living is something of a mix. On one hand, everyone in the city has access to the standard of living advances that the city prides itself on. But on the other hand, the liberal movement has only been active for around thirty or forty years, and there are still antiquated laws on the books that would seem practically barbaric to people from the United States. It would be a Capitalist’s dream, but outside investors have to compete with not only the existing corporations and big businesses of Atlantis, but also the various smaller cottage and homegrown companies and shops. Watchmaking is still a useful and successful profession.

Politics: The island is governed by a two-chamber Overseeing Council. The two Chambers are the Body Politic and the Body Populous. The Body Populous elects its representative by district, and the most populous districts have two, so as not to overwork the Consul charged with overseeing it. The Body Populous is the larger of the two Chambers. The Body Politic consists of Consuls who are elected separately from the Populous ones, and are representatives of “Established and Respectable Parties”, there only being limited number of seats for each political party to campaign for. Originally a method by which the Visionaries could double the number of Consuls they controlled, over the years several new parties have met the requirements. While none of them have quite unseated the most powerful Futurist party, the Liberal and Nostalgia parties have gained great territory in the Body Politic, and the number of seats has been expanded twice.

Economics: Atlantis is a highly wealthy nation, and deals in a variety of different fields of trade. Their merchant marine and merchant aeronautic are still a powerful force in shipping today, and it is not unheard of to see Airship ports, one of the most historic in New York City. They produce a large number of luxury goods, and there are even entire hotels designed to look like Atlantean buildings. Depending on the purchasers sense of style the goods can range from tasteful to gauche. Atlantis is still a major stopping point for shipping and travel across the Atlantic, and it is quite common for trans-Atlantic flights to have stopovers in Atlantean airports. But Atlantis is still most famous for its technological prowess. It spends hundreds of millions each year to make billions back keeping its technological edge, and Atlantean technology, while rather unusual-looking, is still the standard to which everything from computers to calculators is compared. Tourism is also on the rise.

Atlantis's view on Superheroes: Is rather schizophrenic. On one hand, the spirit of innovation, technological freedom and supremacy means that many people from Atlantis take up the mantle of super-heroics. Over the years there have been many individuals, from brilliant inventors who took their tech to the streets to paragons of mental and physical will who shaped their bodies into living weapons. The same, sadly, can be said of the super-villains, however, and Atlantis's role as a super-villain created island, as well as Doctor Xyle's takeover, has made it a bit of a “tourist spot” for aspiring villains. The other side of the coin is Atlantis's government, which is often not supportive of super-heroics. Especially in the early years, the Visionaries hoped to keep a stronger grip on the island, and there were even clashes between law enforcement and super-heroes. Today, the government does not openly approve of many heroes, but the days of clashes with the police are long gone.

Some Locations In Atlantis

Basic Atlantis Timeline

Atlantis Recruitment Speech

Pick 2: Julius Rex Lexington Faraday

Julius Faraday was born in 1837 and turned twenty the month that Atlantis was brought up from the sea. Part of a rich and noble family, Faraday wanted for nothing, and only his natural curiosity and cleverness kept him from becoming simply another one of the idle rich of the British aristocracy. Excelling in the mental and the physical, he graduated with honors from Oxford University. It was there he was recruited by a group of British government officials, who were looking for bright young men to serve as “couriers”, really a polite word for spy and assassin. Yearning for a larger purpose in life and with a desire to see the world, Julius jumped at the opportunity. He traveled the world for some years and before he was twenty-five had killed at least a dozen people. He was struck by the ease at which it came, after the first few. He spied on foreign powers and foreign businesses and scientists and even some of the eccentric costumed villains that wreaked such havoc. But he became dissatisfied. It was a chance meeting with an old friend, Xavier Rookwood, at their mutual club, that would change his life forever.

Xavier was one of the Visionaries, a ruthless and brilliant young man who had more than doubled his family's fortunes even in the brief period he had controlled them. Rookwood saw in his old friend great possibility, and as that fateful night went on, Faraday broke confidentiality and confided in his friend his dissatisfaction with his job and more importantly, the cause he had dedicated himself to. Rookwood knew a time was coming in which dangerous men like Faraday would be absolutely necessary, and so, at two o'clock in the morning, Rookwood began to describe his dream for Atlantis. Faraday had heard of the place, of course. There were few that hadn't. It filled the newspapers and halls of parliament and he'd even been asked to investigate the efforts of other powers to control it. But as Rookwood described his vision, Faraday was hypnotized by it. He saw in Atlantis a place better than Britain, a true paradise where science and industry and art would flourish as they had never done so before. And so, in the early hours of the morning, Julius Faraday told his friend that he would gladly do whatever it took to make their dream a reality.

Shortly after Julius was discharged from government service, and began his new work as a private agent of the Visionaries. Despite his relative youth compared to many of their other operatives, Faraday soon distinguished himself time and time again. His new dedication drove him to see Atlantis created. He manipulated business and politics, threatened powerful people and blackmailed others. He killed, and bribed and sabotaged all in the name of the dream of Atlantis. He soon became their best and highly-placed agents. And finally, when they began laying the first bricks of Progress City, he relaxed, at long last. His respite was not to last. He was called into action against suppliers who thought to hold valuable materials for ransom, seeking higher prices. He battled costumed criminals and agents from a dozen different countries or more, all seeking to sabotage Atlantis before it even began. He sunk pirate vessels and made generous offers, and sometimes threats, to experts and scientists the Visionaries hoped to bring to their new island.

And then he made a mistake. It was supposed to be a simple mission. A breather. Investigate work stoppages on the far side of the island, away from the main construction of Progress City. It was thought to simply be an agitator. Or simple ineptitude. But it was far worst. The work gangs on that side of the island had fallen under the thumb of a vicious and terrible beast, a Noble Vampire who had smuggled himself onto the island. Faraday was taken by surprise, and despite fighting fiercely, finally was captured by the beast and its thralls and offspring. The creature turned out to be surprisingly close to human, a decadent thing slouched from the darkest courts of the night. He hoped to turn Faraday, use him as a spy into the heart of the Visionaries themselves. But Faraday escaped, blasting his way clear with explosives being used to shape the cliffs. He rushed back to Progress City, but he knew that he was infected with the strange, mystical disease that the Noble Dead carried. Desperately he threw himself into the care of Progress City's new medical center, and some of the finest minds of the time began to work on keeping him out of the hands of their new enemy. They also sent a pair of airships and bombarded the far side of the island's construction areas, then swept the zone with mercenaries. The doctors and scientists worked feverishly to cure the disease, but it was for nothing. Then, one of them had a new idea. Instead of curing him, they would modify it. And so, with little chance of surviving, Julius Faraday underwent a massive set of treatments, injections and bombardments. And it worked. A desperate last-ditch attempt to allow him to control his new state. They'd sterilized the disease, so he could not pass on his new gifts, but at the same time he had powers he'd never dreamed of. His speed, strength, endurance and senses were all enhanced by magnitudes. He ceased aging and his youth would remain forever. After some time, they were even able to allow him to keep much of his power in the sun, though he still had some sensitivity to direct sunlight. And so, Julius Faraday became Atlantis's eternal protector and agent. At first, he continued working for the Visionaries, but as they grew older and as Atlantis grew, Faraday realized that he would have to dedicate himself to Atlantis itself and its continued existence, not whoever led it. During the 20s he helped open the doors of Atlantis to outsiders, knowing that their isolationism would never allow them to flourish. In the thirties he helped maintain Atlantis, but became foe to the current government when he began destroying aspects of the weapons projects for the Nazis. Eventually he was re-instated after the National Socialist sympathizers were forced out of office. He was a leader of the resistance against Doctor Xyle, after desperately crashing his plane into side of the island in a last-ditch attempt to get inside the dimensional shield.

Julius Faraday is vampire James Bond. He's a spy with over 100 years of experience, and has spent every waking moment of that making sure that Atlantis stays strong. Sometimes he has worked with heroes and sometimes against him, and remains an enigma to most. Major governments have a file on him, of course, but the exact details are, for the most part, unknown. He's the man behind the men who are behind the men, except when he is in front of the men who are behind the men. Its complicated.

The Tobyverse Draft

Tobyverse