Strikes a Chord Two Decades Later.

2006-10-17T16:18:17Z

This is an imaginary story (which may never happen, but then again may) about a perfect man who came from the sky and did only good. It tells of his twilight, when the great battles were over and the great miracles long since performed; of how his enemies conspired against him and of that final war in the snowblind wastes beneath the Northern Lights; of the two women he loved and of the choice he made between them; and how finally all the things he had were taken from him save one. It ends with a wink. It begins in a quiet midwestern town, one summer afternoon in the quiet midwestern future. Away in the big city, people still sometimes glance up hopefully from the sidewalks, glimpsing a distant speck in the sky... but no: it's only a bird, only a plane. Superman died ten years ago. This is an imaginary story...

Aren't they all?

All Stars...

2006-09-24T08:14:31Z

Some old images that a friend threw my way awhile back...

What a reworked DC Universe would look like...

The Age of Heroes...

2006-09-24T08:12:14Z

(Digging through old journal entries as well about the mush...)

I was there at the beginning of the age of heroes.

Looking up in wonder at the sky, watching the streets in hope, and looking down those dark alleys and knowing that there was fear in those who would strike humanity down.

I saw a super man fly, felt the fear of a dark knight.

And I believed.

Years down the line we'll look at this, see it as a historic event. But for those of us who were there... who saw the rise of these 'gods', we'll always feel the wonder of those first few days. Where we saw people blessed with extraordinary gifts rise up and take a stand. How we sat there with hope in our eyes as the darkness of the human soul was met with the brightness of what humanity can be.

He lives between the ticks of a second.

2006-09-24T07:46:31Z

I am digging through my journal to recover MUSH-related storybits and rule-items. They will be posted here. Much like this one. Does it work? You tell me.

April, 1945.

"God help me, I've committed the worst sin any man could ever commit. I fell in love with two women.

Words cannot express the kind of love I feel for Joan. I've only known her for a few short years but I know she's the one. I want to spend every last of my waking moments with her. I want to grow old with her and spend our last days on Earth watching the sunsets, together, from our porch. The thing is... I love my country just as much and I want to keep them both safe.

Ever since the bombs fell, I woke up every morning in a cold sweat. Fear seized my heart and snatched away precious breath. I worried that one bomb will take away Joan and another bomb will take away my country. What life would I have left without both and how could I possibly continue to live without either?

So when my country called for me, I did what any other son could do: I answered. Joan begged me not to go. She told me I could be hurt or worse, I could end up like my father. I smiled and hugged her. I told her not to worry and that I'd come back safe. There was never a hint of doubt in my voice when I said these words because I knew something I could never bring myself to tell her. Five years ago I had an accident and now I can run fast -- faster than the lightning and faster than the Fuhrer's bullets. I have a gift and if I could use it in the service of my country then that would be the greatest kind of love a son could show his mother.

The day I left for Europe, I snuck something a few extra things in my duffel-bag. A pair of blue slacks, a long-sleeved red shirt, and my dad's old war helmet. An unfortunate accident with a bottle of mustard, just prior to sneaking it away in my bag, left an ugly yellow splotch on the shirt. It was an outfit definitely not sanctioned by Uncle Sam, but had he known about my gift, I'm sure he would've understood. It definitely wouldn't let me fit in among the ranks and that was the point. If I was going to run, I didn't want anyone to recognize me. I'm not in this for fame. I just wanted to keep the two loves of my life safe.

I wore that mustard-reeking red shirt beneath my jacket all the time. When the firing started, I'd disappear from the frontlines and don my father's helmet. I moved faster than the bullets. My friends, cut down, would end up resting comfortably in the stretchers of the med-tents before they knew what hit them. I just happened to be around hanging around the mess one night when O'Connell recounted how a German grenade tossed toward our trenches was miraculously knocked off-course by something he could barely see. He called it, "some kinda red-an'-blue flash!" He was talking about something I did while wearing dad's old helmet. I spent the rest of the night hiding from the others, so they wouldn't see my mile-long, ear-to-ear grin.

Before long though, I didn't have much to grin about. Towards the end of January, our Russian "friends" liberated Auschwitz. What we heard about what went on there made us sick to our stomachs. Every night after, Weiss would break down and cry himself to sleep. I knew a man could feel pain.. but what Weiss was going through was something unspeakable. It's like he lamented not the loss of his own innocence but the innocence of mankind. I couldn't even begin to understand what that was like until we got to Buchenwald a few months later...

Bodies upon bodies. Men and women turned into living skeletons. I thought I'd seen death when we stormed Normandy but this, this was the true face of death. Pointless, depressing, and utterly wrong. Bombs weren't going off here. Commanders weren't screaming orders to their men. There was just silence. Baffling, deafening silence. I don't even remember there being colors. Just lots and lots of grey. There was no life in Buchenwald. Just slow and crippling death. Believe it or not, the worst of it for me was when we got into the main buildings and went through the so-called medical wards...

I never spoke a lick of German in my life but by God, I know chemical formulas when I see them. Scrawled out along wheeled blackboards all around a room that reeked with sickly antiseptic, I realized what they were working on here. Those Nazis, they wanted to run just like I could. Someone had an inkling that man could run faster than he ought to and that there was spectacular military applications for it. In the next room, I saw the failures of the experiment in being able to run. Men with broken legs. No legs. Wheels for legs. Combustion engines mounted to their chests and cheetah legs sewed onto where their arms ought to be. It made me sick.

When we got back to base, I put my dad's old helmet and that mustard-stinkin' shirt back into my duffel bag. I can run faster than the lightning and the Fuhrer's bullets.. but there was no way I could outrun this. Joan, I love you."

-- Cpl. Jason Peter "Jay" Garrick, age 24.

System Check

2006-09-24T07:29:40Z

I'm drawing up the system we'll be using for 'combat'... if anyone has ideas, comment here or forever hold your peace.

Other crap to follow in the coming days since a good chunk of the game is done already anyways.

DC Universe MUSH

Strikes a Chord Two Decades Later.

All Stars...

The Age of Heroes...

He lives between the ticks of a second.

System Check