Cryo's Grand Plan

Back to Professor Cryo's hidden schemes

All those who pay attention to the Cryosphere have noticed that for years, Professor Cryo has been investing great efforts in preventing new attacks on it. This is particularly obvious in Maestro's (futile) attempts to get the Cryosphere recognized as a sovereign nation by the UN, and in Cryo's attempts to reach out to the elements in the US government that seek appeasement with him.

Those efforts actually go even further than the public realizes: The main proponent of appeasement within the US government, Representative Forrest, has been blackmailed into doing so for years. He is not the only politician that Cryo has hidden influence on.

The goal of this policy, however, is not what it seems. Most people assume that Cryo is simply trying to secure his positions, and avoid a potentially disastrous Third Battle of the Cryosphere. That is the exact impression he wants to give: The true goal of his policy is not to achieve peace, but to convince the world that he wants to achieve peace; to lead everyone to believe he is more interested in consolidating his control over the Cryosphere than in anything else.

That is not the case. Professor Cryo's goal is nothing short of world domination - but if people believe he is too careful for such ambitions, all the better for him (in fact, if Depute Forrest gets caught, it will serve this specific goal just as well - even if people are outraged at Cryo manipulating US politics, the impression will still be that he manipulated politics so that he could avoid war).

Conquering the world, needless to say, is no small task. With his access to thousands and thousands of supervillains, as well as his advanced technology, Cryo could potentially succeed at it...But he does not like those odds. Additionally, even if he defeated the world's heroes, he would still have to deal with rivals such as George Li, Nollius and Shadow. As such, he has been working toward a plan that will enable him to destroy all his enemies at once.

The plan is twofold: First, it involves the creation of the Dimensional Blaster. The Blaster is an array of massive devices, distributed across several planes; when fired together, they may strike any coordinates on Earth (and beyond, to a certain extent), causing an outward singularity that causes all objects within those coordinates to be ripped apart across the planes. For Cryo, it's the ultimate weapon: Capable both of precision strikes and mass destruction anywhere on Earth, working in such a way that there is essentially no defense against it. Even the toughest metahumans would be helpless targets.

As powerful as the Dimensional Blaster is intended to be, however, it is merely a secondary plan. Plan A is "The Big Freeze": Professor Cryo has been working for many years on a device, based on the same technology as his force-field, that could such kinetic energy out of the entire planet, slowing everything down to a crawl. The only ones not slowed down will be Cryo and those among his minions equipped with special protections; they will then be able to move around in a world frozen to nigh-immobility, killing heroes, soldiers...and every supervillain not considered trustworthy by the Professor. Once normal speed is restored, there will be no-one left capable of opposing Professor Cryo.

Plot seeds:

• Cold Diplomacy: Professor Cryo needs something done urgently outside the Cryosphere, and forces Representative Forrest to handle it. This may lead some heroes to become suspicious and investigate the representative. If they discover the truth of his connection to Cryo, scandal is certain erupt...

• War Across the Planes: The heroes learn about the Dimensional Blaster. They'll need to secure a reliable way to travel across the planes, then fight Cryo's agents while surviving the dangers inherent to the planes in order to destroy the Blaster before it is complete. But even if they succeed, the Big Freeze remains underway...

• Cryo's Triumph: The Big Freeze has been activated, and the most loyal of Cryo's agents are walking the frozen Earth, killing both heroes and villains that Cryo doesn't trust. The PCs are unaffected (possibly due to events in War Across the Planes, possibly due to Madman getting revenge, possibly due to Checkerboard stepping in), but can they stop Professor Cryo before he takes over the world?