Marvel Heroic Roleplay

So I got my MHR in the mail, swicked cool, and while I'm sad it's gone, I'm pretty happy I was able to grab the Basic book.

I know that one day I will be running a Strikeforce Morituri game utilizing it. Strikeforce Morituri would be a great Convention one-off game....read below to find out why. I know that the original comic has been combined into a graphic novel series in several volumes recently, I will pick them up eventually.

After the insanity that is my current writing life (I did some golemmech design once I got home from the store today for example. Quite a lot actually. Though the rest of the weekend needs to be used to 'verify the current GMechs can be built with the new rules.) I will be posting what direction the SM: San Diego Connections. (Characters will be natives who weren't in SD when it was taken out by the Horde...Named after locations in SD!!!)

From the Wiki article: 

     The premise is that aliens have invaded Earth and nearly succeeded in conquering it and stripping it of its resources. A scientist discovers a process which can provide humans with superhuman powers, effectively creating a group of defending superheroes. However, the process would also ensure that the empowered humans would die within a year of being empowered. The series thus focused on the heroism of the main characters in fighting the invaders, while living with the knowledge that their fates were sealed regardless of whether or not they prevailed.

     The title comes from the Latin phrase "Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant" ("Hail Caesar, those who are about to die salute you"), asalute that according to popular legend (although not academically agreed) was uttered by Roman gladiators before battle in the arena. The subtitle of the comic was "We who are about to die".

     In 2069, an alien race called "the Horde" arrived in Earth's solar system (it was later revealed that the actual name of the race was the 'Va-Shaak'). Although they were technologically advanced far beyond humanity at that time, they were extremely savage. Examples of this savagery include the retaliatory slaughter of human slaves (this was shown after the victory of the Black Watch), the nuclear destruction of San Diego (also in response to the Black Watch's assassination of the Earth Commander of the Horde Forces), and the decapitation of children (especially by literally ripping their heads off) in order to establish dominance over newly captured human slaves (one particularly brutal terror-tactic favored by the Horde early in the war was to capture large numbers of humans in order to take them just outside the Earth's atmosphere and then eject them from the ships, allowing them to burn up in re-entry so watchers on the ground could see the streaks representing their burning forms. This tactic became known to humans as 'a Highdive').^[1]

     It was later discovered that they had stolen their technology from a kindly alien race that visited their planet who were attempting to rescue the Horde species. The Horde had caused severe environmental damage to their planet due to excessive pollution which laid much of the world an uninhabitable wasteland. After pulling the Horde back from the brink of extinction the aliens planned to leave the Horde planet in peace once their rescue mission was accomplished. Before they could leave, however, the alien pacifists were ruthlessly and mercilessly attacked and slaughtered by the Horde. The Horde stole the aliens' ships and advanced technology for themselves and set out into space to establish their savage and war-like empire.^[2] The Horde traveled the galaxy in order to steal resources, food, and technologies, since they had no knowledge of how to fix the ships they used. They viewed the Earth and other such planets as a resource to be plundered and discarded once all resources have been used up. If the Horde had wanted to completely conquer mankind, then they could have easily done so. Instead, they satisfied themselves with brutal raids that left the Earth functioning, but reeling under their vicious onslaught. The Padeia Institute, which governed the entire planet at the time, began to organize Earth defenses against these attacks. 

     Humankind's best hope was discovered in 2072, when Dr. Kimmo Tuolema perfected the Morituri Process. This was a two-step process that allowed people with a specific type of genetic structure to have a new metabolism overlayed on top of their original one, granting them enhanced physical attributes. The second phase of the process would allow for unique superhuman powers. However, there were three mitigating factors inherent in the use of the Morituri Process:

• The process was compatible with very few persons; the estimate was that fewer than 5% of all humans had a compatible physiology for metahuman conversion through the Morituri Process.

• The optimal age for subjects for the Morituri Process was between 18 and 21; older subjects who underwent the process would suffer a significantly reduced lifespan than expected from optimal subjects (measurable in weeks).

• The nature of the energy-based metabolism was such that, within one standard year, the human body would reject it. The rejection of the Morituri metabolism by the human body is 100% fatal. In most cases, the subject's death was indicated by massive upsurges in the subject's power and ability levels.

     The first group of test subjects, later known as "the Black Watch", were volunteer soldiers. Of the five members, two died before seeing active service during a power activation exercise in a specialized testing area known as 'Biowar Facility Alpha' (nicknamed 'The Garden'). The remaining three had their first field test in Cape Town, South Africa, taking on Horde forces there; though they were successful in battle, none of them survived (one was killed in battle, another succumbed to the Morituri Effect as they were escaping, and the last was killed with a Hordian nuclear device moments afterward). Commander of the program, Beth Luis Nion, had also secretly undergone the Morituri Process, after starting an affair with a member of the Black Watch, although she kept her powers a secret. Tuolema later deduced that the older the subject, the quicker their system would reject the process - it was at this point that Dr. Tuolema realized recipients between 18 and 21 were the optimal choice regarding maximized life expectancy.