THE ALLIANCE EXPO

[metamods]

Who: EVERYONE
What: A crisis occurs at the Alliance Expo.
When: April 13
Where: Central City
Content Warnings: character death, loss of autonomy/self, mass destruction

THE ALLIANCE EXPO

Every April, Central City hosts a guild publicity event known as the annual Alliance Expo, ostensibly to memorialize the Godfall Incident.

Most people will have heard this major historical event referenced by now — the name is inscribed on city monuments, evoked in political debates, taught in a history class, and reimagined for movies. If not, at the Expo itself, informational booths paint a very black and white picture of how good triumphed over evil.

On April 3rd, 1985, a young metahuman named Starstruck nearly obliterated Central City. Seeing the risk of his unchecked rage unraveling reality itself, heroes and villains joined forces to stop Starstruck and save the world from its certain destruction.

In the wake of the incident, Metahuman survivors came together — not as heroes and villains, but as citizens of the planet. At this first Alliance Expo, they created the Guilds with the common goal of protecting this universe.

Since the 80s, the Expo has opened to the public. Like the Alliance itself, it has evolved (or devolved?) to be more commercialized. Nowadays, the Expo is a publicity event where vendors sell branded merchandise and knockoffs of licensed and unlicensed heroes alike.

OPENING CEREMONIES —

In the spirit of its early days, when the Expo was meant to be a point of connection for all metas, it still offers free entry to metahumans who are in costume (or whose identities/meta status are known). As with any convention, inside the crowded Central City Convention Center, attendees must wear their badges on lanyards as they navigate booths and schedules. The show floor provides curated museum-style exhibits about the Godfall Incident and other pieces of metahuman history, as well as art installations and even some branded food and merch stands that venerate the heroes who saved the day.

Of course, non-metas attend as well, but in smaller numbers. Many of them are fans of capes, who arrive dressed in dated costumes of their favorites and chat about their favorite era of a particular hero's career. Having paid for the rare opportunity to rub shoulders with their idols at this prestigious event, they may overwhelm new heroes with requests for autographs or comments (or critiques!) about their wardrobe. In addition to fans, meta attendees may run into investors sidling up to heroes with hopes of getting in on the ground floor to make a mascot of the next big hero under the guise of altruism.

A speech from Frances Starling kickstarts the opening ceremonies. Following her scathing, undisguised criticism for the commercialization of a tragic event (and reference to the particular surprises it posed to its stakeholders), she acknowledges that she feels an obligation to be here. She devotes most of her speech to addressing the new Confluence-created metas about the danger that comes with being a metahuman and a citizen of this world, emphasizing that no meta is obligated to throw themselves headlong into danger. Metahumans, she says, deserve the chance to live a quiet, modest life as much as anyone else.

The dazzling display that follows is anything but modest. The Expo's opening ceremonies continue apace with indoor fireworks, a hologram movie, and a band with a lightshow. In addition, new metas get the chance to perform in a variety of ways:

• The Alliance's staffers are more than happy to facilitate any talented metas who wish to show off their skills during the ostentatious opening ceremonies.



• Some time later, new Alliance heroes are ushered onstage to debut their hero identities to the world. An announcer excitedly reads code names as facilitators nudge the new heroes onto the stage to parade around the catwalk and show off their costumes and gadgetry. Stars explode around them, and time is made for anyone who wants to give a little speech.



• The Expo has also pre-arranged a dramatic performance with the new guild members: just as the new Alliance heroes make their debut, new Society members arrive to "crash" the celebration and cause mischief. In the loose scripting that prepared participants for the event in advance, staffers encourage them to ham it up and mug for the cameras. Some may have pre-arranged choreography — of their own, or at the behest of the Alliance's marketing team. For playing along and making the heroes look good, Society members will be rewarded handsomely ... off the record, of course.

THE SIMULATION —

Squat in the center of the show floor is this year’s big draw: a virtual-reality simulation recreating the Godfall Event, developed using the memories of witnesses and edited for gamification. According to the brochures, it's part training exercise and part memorial for all the superheroes who fell against Starstruck.

The marketing team of the Alliance clearly had a field day. Programmed using state of the art Winters Industries technology, the simulation allows anyone to step into the role of a hero and relive the Godfall Incident — or at least, a heavily sanitized version of it. Even the marketing team recognizes that it would be upsetting to faithfully recreate the carnage of that day and market it to the world. Though it claims to be recreated from the memories of those who lived it, the introductory cutscene provides a more palatable version that plays out like a Saturday morning cartoon:

You are a hero of the 1980s. The costumes are bright and colorful, the hair enormous and flowing. The hues of the simulation are oversaturated and vaguely psychedelic. You may find yourself delivering bombastic, alliterative catchphrases or striking dramatic poses for no particular reason. It’s fun! Just go with it!

At the center of all of this, Starstruck destroys (random, and of course) unoccupied buildings with his energy blast powers. A classic 1980s cartoon villain, his hair is the biggest and the pointiest, and he’s wearing spikes and eyeliner. The VR replica doesn't quite match the brochures outside, but it’s close enough, right? As soon as he spots heroes approaching, Starstruck stops destroying (random and, of course, unoccupied) buildings to monologue at length, cackling about his plans to destroy the world and how you heroes can do nothing to stop him! This is a VR game, not just a cutscene — participants can interact with Starstruck. Go on! Walk up and punch him mid-speech!

Any attack will start the battle in earnest. As promised, this is just a silly sort of beat-em-up game. Starstruck has several different patterns of energy attack, which he’ll mix up some. In his second phase — indicated by him getting angry and glowing red — he whips out some larger attacks, but he’s never too difficult to defeat. You came in here to play a fun game, maybe try out some new powers, and ultimately feel like heroes, and that’s what the game is going to deliver.

You know. Probably.

Notably, Atomight appears to be perturbed by all of this. The hero does not stay on the show floor long, excusing himself curtly after the simulation is announced. Any who linger too close to Conference Room C may hear an explosive argument between the leader of the Alliance and the head of marketing. It seems that Atomight painted a very different picture of what this event would be, and the marketing team of the Alliance ran wild without the input of its chair. He returns to the event, though. Obligation keeps him rooted here, unhappy but unwilling to abandon the dream that founded this.

A GLITCH IN THE MATRIX —

As everyone is distracted by the glitz and glam the Expo offers, no one notices as someone makes their way to the simulator’s core console and slip a USB into the drive.

Inside the simulation, something subtly shifts. The bright colors dull to something more realistic. The punches and kicks lose their sound effects. The screen tears briefly as the simulation splits, duplicating itself into multiple instances. Then it all goes dark.

When the lights come back on, participants stand in the midst of a mostly destroyed Central City. A massive column of light shines in the center of the city, so bright it hurts to look at. The air sears your lungs. People scream, racing away from the slowly expanding field of energy, leveling buildings as it goes.

At the epicenter stands Starstruck, and the energy that is destroying the city is radiating out of his form. However, on closer inspection, he's changed too. This is no longer some over-the-top, dramatic villain. This is a teenage boy, looking terrified, alone, and unstoppable.

And you know he can’t stop.

He wants to, you can tell he does, but he can’t.

So you need to stop him.

It’s no wonder Atomight didn't want this celebrated.

You struggle to remember that this is a simulation - for some, the thought may slip away entirely. It feels real enough. Hero, villain, unaligned — however you think of yourself doesn’t matter. You’re standing shoulder to shoulder with friends, lovers, and enemies to do the unthinkable. Some of you may be freshly sprung from the maximum security metahuman jail. Some may have bolted away from parents, donning makeshift costumes, knowing that this may very well be your last stand. Others still may be in plainclothes, your metahuman status hidden to the world until this exact moment.

While some participants may retain their own values and minds others can be compelled by the AI of the hero role they're placed into in any of the following ways:

• TURN AWAY AND RESCUE CIVILIANS — Some heroes can't face the moral quandary posed by Starstruck's fall. Maybe you leave the hard choices to others and focus on what you can do and who you can save.



• CONVINCE OTHERS TO TRY TO REACH STARSTRUCK (OR DO IT YOURSELF) — If you've taken on the role of one of Starstruck's teammates, you may stand between your friend and the adult heroes trying to take him down. You're driven by the sense that if you could just get within earshot and talk to him, you could reach your friend and calm this whole thing down.



• FIGHT THROUGH YOUR FRIENDS TO STOP THE VILLAIN — Those in the position of grizzled heroes or cynical villains may believe the situation is well past something that words can solve. You've seen the reports, and you know you have less than an hour to stop this kid from destroying the planet. You’ve weighed his life against the billions on the planet and have made your choice, no matter how much it sickens you to do so. And now you have to snuff out this child’s terrible light, even if you have to fight your way through your own loved ones to do it.
  
  
• DESTROY THE WORLD? — Especially unlucky participants may get shuffled into Starstruck's AI and stand as the harbinger of this apocalypse, right at the epicenter of the blast.
  
  His emotional state — your emotional state — swings wildly between anger, horror, grief, and regret. But one thing is clear: he never wanted this. And neither did you. Loss weighs heavily on you, dragging up your own dark feelings and memories of loss, inadequacy, pain. It assails the senses and doubles you over. As the darkness encroaches, the energy around you pulses and expands further.
  
  You can't hold the energy in; your powers are out of control. Will you ask someone to end it — and you with it? Or will you decide that if you have to die, the world should go with you? Or maybe your friends can find the right words to talk you down, miraculously saving you from your own might.

OUTSIDE

It takes time to notice. At first, the party continues apace — until alarms blare. The technicians and technopaths stop what they’re doing and run for the simulation room. Those who run after them and can read the monitor data can't quite determine what exactly has gone awry — but on thing is clear: the participants aren't responding to reality, and many seem to be in genuine distress.

The technicians are also distressed as they declare that the simulation can't be shut down. Pulling the power could cause serious damage to those still inside — the safety protocols, after all, also rely on that power, and people inside are throwing around attacks that could seriously injure each other if they weren’t safely within a VR space.

Those on the outside can work to save the trapped participants:

• Can you help the technicians diagnose the problem?


• Can you convince them that you should go in and pull people out yourself like in Sunset Falls? Careful - that might not exactly work the way you expect, but it’ll be easy to slip past the distracted workers if you really want to try.


• Maybe you want to investigate what triggered the failing in the first place and go for the convention center's security footage, which reveals the masked figure with the USB. How will you track them down?


• Got another plan? To pursue these and other options, please collaborate with other players to develop a plan and pitch your approach to the mods HERE.

AFTERMATH —

Maybe you defeat Starstruck, or whatever unlucky person happened to be playing him today. Maybe you somehow manage to talk them down this time. Maybe you stood by and let him destroy everything, unwilling to sacrifice one life for millions. One way or another, thanks to the work of those outside, the simulation reaches its end.

For those emerging from the simulation, the VR Hall comes back into focus. Medical staff run inside — mercifully, the safeties didn’t fail. As real as it all felt, no matter what powers were being thrown around, no one comes out physically hurt. After a brief check-up to ensure that there’s no lingering side-effects, the healers and medics determined that any scarring you’ll walk away with on this day is all mental.

Those who return to enjoy the rest of the Expo will find the mood sobered. However, plenty of vendors still need to offload their wares, and plenty of attendees want their money's worth. Nothing even really happened, right? Just a glitch? In spite of all you’ve just seen and felt, the Expo kicks back into full swing pretty quickly after the situation’s resolved, as if nothing even really happened.

The booths and informational posters with their shiny, marketable version of the Godfall Incident are still firmly in place. Knowing what you know now, can you really rejoin the party...?

Not wanting any negative PR, the Expo organizers are offering everyone involved in the VR incident a free goodie bag of convention swag! Enjoy your branded lanyards and tea cozies. If that isn’t enough, they may be able to slip you a little hush money.

IN SUMMARY...

• The Alliance Expo is part job conference, part tech conference, and part comic-con, and all metahumans attend for free. New guild heroes and villains will be publicly introduced.


• While operating as intended, expo attendees can relive a light-hearted, propaganda version of the Godfall Event via VR simulation, where participants step into the shoes of a real hero who existed during this time to experience a light-hearted, Saturday morning cartoon version of events.


• After someone sabotages the simulation, the simulation becomes realistic recreation of the Godfall Event. Participants may be overwhelmed by the programmed AI's memories and motives, and can take the role of either any hero or of Starstruck himself, a terrified teenager who lost control of his powers.


• The simulation runs multiple simultaneous instances, so multiple characters can take on the role of Starstruck or the role of his savior and/or killer.


• Those outside the simulation can work together to investigate or fix the crisis. To pursue these and other options, players should use the OOC community to collaborate and develop a plan to pitch to the mods HERE.

Please direct any questions regarding this log HERE.

Comments

[portolan]

Another cold laugh at that. If he works hard enough. That's all he's been doing for seven years, no, since he was a boy.

But he feels a little better. Not soothed, just less pressure boiling inside him. He can't quite manage to say it. The shame of having been so needy, of either having been terrible or having been dramatic in thinking it, still hovers there, and he doesn't want to take any more from David. He sees that shake. Sees that exhaustion.

Maybe some day he'll be able to process that David wants to hear him. Even when things are hard.

Today, David's comment is a blessed change of focus. "Of course I do," he says before David even gets his name out.

[helpdesk_hero]

Today David doesn't have it in him to push, to demand, to explain that without that openness and giving two ways he can't even begin to do this long term.

It's the fatigue and the pain and the recognizing genuine fear and grief. For now he can do only so much so he lets it go and his question is out there. The words Balthier says, so quick, makes him laugh, bitterly.

"You have more faith in me than I do. I think... I think maybe I'm not. You can't even imagine all the various paths of my life I have seen. All the darkness. I think I'm predisposed toward it. That light you praise me for? It distanced me from people. It makes me harsher. I assume people need my guidance. Just look at what I did to Josh. Any of the things I've caused to befall him, in many different realities and lifetimes."

[portolan]

He finally takes a moment to pause. Maybe he has the advantage, because he's comforted David before. He also, at the end of the day, has less running through his head. He could just argue David's points. But there's something deeper there.

"People do need your guidance. They just need to be part of the conversation too. And you have to listen to back. If I'm supposed to believe I'm good because you tell me, then you have to believe me when I say it to you. Otherwise we aren't equals. How can we love you properly if our word is always ranked second? How can we believe your compliments if we are always wrong when it comes to you?"

Well, he's being a font of love and warmth today.

"Maybe that's what love is; seeing what the other is when they're bent on slandering themselves."

[helpdesk_hero]

Oh. Oh dear. David's the one in tears. But it's because he's been moved to them. He can't be moved to find words, not when he's crying over all of this. Loved, even when he's slandering himself.

His heart is aching.

"You'd love a man who knows what it is to murder his best friend with his own hands? To experiment on him and take him apart?"

[portolan]

His fingers dig so hard into his own flesh he may well split it beneath his nails. It’s agony not to be able to hold David, and worse, that resisting doing so is making him want to pull away emotionally too.

The tears, he hopes, are some level of relief because at least he isn’t protesting anymore.

“I love a man who has to carry that with him and hurts over it,” Balthier says in the gentlest, most soothing voice he can muster. “That’s good enough for me.”

He cannot imagine doing that to Fran, but he can fathom some terrible situation that would force it on him, and how horrific it would be to live with that. David still has to learn to trust him, to accept his love, but he’s understanding a little better why it’s so hard for him.

[helpdesk_hero]

When David goes evil, he does it on grand scales. Helped that he cured cancer and just about all other illness with that. One life for billions. It had made sense. A lot of sense. He hated that it made sense.

"This is it. This is why you are so amazing. You forgive me, even the things I can't forgive myself for."

[portolan]

If David were to voice those details, Balthier wouldn’t be able to say with any certainty that it wasn’t the right call or that he wouldn’t have done the same. But the fact that David hurts over it means he isn’t afraid of David, or for David’s heart, not in the long run.

His comment pulls the first smile Balthier has had since the simulation went wrong. It’s just so unabashedly David. And more than that — it’s affirmation that David loves him for something he can control, something that isn’t smoke and mirrors and careful consideration.

“I think I have a tiny inkling of what that feels like,” he says. “I don’t—I’m not used to sharing the things I feel shame about. Thank you for being so gracious.”

[helpdesk_hero]

"I'm not trying to be gracious. I love you," David answered. "And that means I want to know you fully. Completely. All of you and all the ways you are. The good and the bad and everything."

That's what love is, he thinks. Maybe he's wrong. That desire to know and understand had turned Loki away.

[portolan]

Balthier swallows hard, pressing his eyes with the heels of his hands again.

This is what he’s always wanted. Since he was old enough to think about a partner. And now that someone is offering it, he feels like running away to hide.

“I want that,” he says. His voice cracks, but he pushes on. “But — everyone I have tried to love has wanted me competent and detached. Any emotion I showed was used against me sooner or later. Except with my mother, and she—“ he takes a rattling breath because honestly this one still hurts. “She still left me.”

He forces himself to open his eyes, giving David a very weak smile. “Will you still love me when I’m morose and afraid and don’t know what to say? I’m easy to like when I’m polished. I’m — not much underneath that.”

Because truly, the only love he’s known has been conditional.

[helpdesk_hero]

"She didn't leave you, she was stolen from you," David corrects. That's important, Balthier. That's important to remember.

"I'm sorry you went through that, you didn't deserve it. Just as, no doubt, you think that I shouldn't have been abandoned so many times. But what it comes down to id that you're morose and afraid right now, and I still love you. Even with the room spinning and my eyes having trouble focusing I still love you. I'm not going to stop loving you."

He's going to love Balthier no matter what. Provided, well, the guy doesn't try and take over the world. And even then he'd still love the guy while he stopped him.

[portolan]

"He drove her out, but she didn't try to take me with her. In all those years, she never tried to get me." It's a whisper, because he feels ashamed that he wanted to be rescued. But he was a kid. Being in Nolan really made him think about just how young 16 was, and his mother had left years before that. "That's why I never went to see her. I was so angry and hurt. What if I went and she'd turned me away?" But she wouldn't have. And then he'd have been angrier that he missed that time with her.

He couldn't win.

Except, somehow, he is, because David has somehow pried these secrets out of him and is still saying he loves him. Not in spite of but including these wounds. The I love you hits differently today. He doesn't know how to catch it yet, but scions he wants to.

"You're making it excruciatingly difficult not to touch you."

[helpdesk_hero]

"Oh? Are you certain of that? Or would your father have been the sort to stop her?"

Because David has theories, but not any data to back them up.

"It's excruciating not to be touched. But I can't control any of it right now. If you did, you might touch me skin to skin, and clearly there are things you're not ready to share with me. And I can't be sure what echoes of Thunderclap left in me won't attack."

And that's the god's truth.

[portolan]

"You know, I've spent a lot of hours pondering that question." But he feels less foolish for it, hearing David suggest it on his own.

"You told me if we touch, you'd see me as I see myself. I don't want that. I want the way you see me. But, I would want you to have the way I see you." And if that ever happens, that David have to touch him with his defenses down, then Balthier will be happy for that piece.

"And dear one, I know Thunderclap rattled you. Clearly Nolan rattled me. But you aren't him, whatever similarities you have." He hears David's voice again, coming out of that other body. "It didn't even occur to me to hold his actions as yours."

[helpdesk_hero]

"It's not that. It gives me what you know. That doesn't always come out the same as how you see yourself."

IT's as simple as that.

David can't handle any of this.

"I'm so tired, Balthier. And so broken. I don't know what to do."

[portolan]

Balthier’s head is too addled to argue semantics. That’s probably the best sign of how off he is.

“Maybe today we just be broken,” he offers. “And I keep loving you through it.” Just to be clear.

But his brain is also chewing on a plane to get David home.

[helpdesk_hero]

David would probably win the argument, because he knows this better than Balthier would. It's his power.

"Only if I can keep loving you through it too," David sighed. He wilted a little, because he was wilting. "Meanwhile, I need to check in with my coworkers and head back to my hotel room."

Worst part of conventions is that they are never one day.

[portolan]

“Please,” Balthier agrees. “You love me better than anyone else has. I don’t ever want you to stop.”

Conventions he knows nothing about though.

“You’re in no shape to move and I unfortunately can’t gallantly carry you. May I propose an unethical solution?”

[helpdesk_hero]

"I have no intention of stopping," David says with a sigh. He just needs Balthier to hear that. "Don't assume I'm going to, please."

"What is the solution?"

[portolan]

“I promise that I am sincerely trying to catch myself,” he agrees. “Please know it isn’t you or your actions. You are teaching me to trust.” One day he will tell David the details of Wilber’s but not today.

“I can transfer to others not just myself. Let me send a tiny bit of your misery to random passerby. Everyone here today is miserable anyway. But just enough to get you to the hotel and able to sleep.”

[helpdesk_hero]

"The wounds of our pasts will haunt us," David agreed. He got that. Even if he didn't always respect that the way he should have with some people he loved.

The news, though, made him frown. That... sounded not so good. But...

"Can you really control it that minutely?"

[portolan]

Haunt, yes, but hopefully quiet.

"I have the precision and will of a very successful pirate," Balthier points out. Look, a little bravado. He's feeling a tiny bit better, at least emotionally. "Any I've been working with Strange. I know when I get too tired to keep that precision. And, I think today, I'll need to be stationary to do it. But yes. I can control it that minutely."

Does he like the implications of what he could do with this ability? Not remotely. He'd swap back for white magick in a heartbeat, thanks.

[helpdesk_hero]

It's never been quiet for David. Not at all. But he will let it go for now.

"I... guess I an accept this. I don't like it, but I don't think I can walk easily without it," he admits, frowning.

Honestly he feels like he's likely to fall over if he tries.

[portolan]

Balthier would very much like to help quiet some of those thoughts. David has too much in his head yelling all the time.

At David's response, he very carefully maneuvers a hand to David's leg, squeezing his thigh through the fabric. "I don't particularly like it either. But I like you this miserable and stranded less. I'll be back."

He extracts his hand then rises. Fresh nausea rolls in his stomach, and he has to steady himself for a moment. But then he's opening the door, leaning against the frame as he leans his head out.

Sorry, couple who is walking down the hall. He takes a few steadying breaths again. It's harder when he isn't one of the transference subjects. But he takes the tiniest bit of David's physical exhaustion and throws it, one at a time, one the couple. They'll be fine after a good night's sleep.

[helpdesk_hero]

There's an infinite pain spreading in his head, and it keeps growing, and David can't help it, not while his pain is so deep, his powers so overloaded, that he can't even get his walls up.

David's left alone in the dark, and with Balthier gone, space given intentionally or otherwise, the grief wells back up. Not his fault that he's drying. Probably. Maybe.

[portolan]

Sometimes all there is to be done is give into the winds until they calm. Balthier meant it when he said maybe today is for being broken.

His range is not excellent, so he perches by the door a bit longer, waiting for another few people to pass by, siphoning off just a little to each. Since he's not in the exchange, he can't tell how well it's working, but he sees at least one person wince and massage their forehead.

"Dear one," Balthier calls lightly, "Tell me when I can help you stand and I'll move us back downstairs." And then siphon more off before he even attempts to get him to the hotel.