Right, this idea is so conceptual in nature it's not even funny, all right? Imagine Midnight's Children meets the Global Frequency meets Metal Gear Solid 2, that's three fucking mediums right there, all balled up in one, you might get close. Here we go. We've got a culture, okay. It's developed, for the most part, like ours. We have animal people, sure. You want to throw a couple dragons in, knock yourself out. However, if there's going to be magic (and I mean like FF Firaga magic, not Crowleyian or Catholic), it needs to be highend. Like, magic and brain surgery, both equally difficult activities. I want this culture to develop SIMILAR to ours. Not the exact same, but similar. Okay. We've got a period after their version of Vietnam, a big war, computers and everything have been around and some guy making some version of C++ in silicon valley has just spilled coffee on his jockeys, and we've got this kid. Not our hero. In fact, this guy will be named Zero, for our purposes. Zero's got an IQ that would make Stephen Hawking choke on his Breakfast Melt from Hardees. He's human, on the side of the "good guys" of this World War. See, Zero's got the fastest fucking mind on the planet, so the military hires him. However, the war's over, and they let this kid go. He hasn't seen enough secrets to be worth killing, so they let him walk free. Not before, however, he's had the chance to think of something fun to do. All right, here's a little Steel Paladines factoid for you: near the beginning of the double 00s (our world obviously), we've got computer viruses, blah blah. Someone starts thinking of wetware hacking. Basically, subliminal messaging gone to a whole new level. What if you could overload the human mind? If you could introduce something so foreign to it that you could literally hack a person? An unprepared mind could look at, say, a single image, a printout, smell a scent, and it would REPROGRAM the person. This is all actual theory, by the way, not random shit I'm making up. It's called memes. Basically, viruses for the human body. Zero's bored, and he was never used in war. But he starts thinking about this meme shit. And so, at the age of 12, year...let's make it a nice number, 1980. Zero manages to keyjack into a satellite system and broadcasts, December 31st, 1979, one minute before midnight. He broadcasts a meme into everyone's head. He UNLOCKS people. He sends a meme out where he tells every person on earth to BE ALL THEY CAN BE. In other words, he tells everyone on the planet to be Superman. He thinks it works, because the next day, January 1st, 1980, also known as Death Day, heralds in a lot of firsts. Every pregnant woman, regardless of how far she is, gives birth. Most of the babies die in child birth. 10,000 children are born alive on Death Day, amid the forced abortions of their generation. Incredibly enough, this day also does not see a single death. Violence drops to 0 in every fucking nation in the world. Not a single accident. No old people die. Zero thinks that at the cost of those children, he's done something spectacular. But January 2nd ends up being a normal day, ignoring the outcry from yesterday. Nothing seems to have happened. See, Zero, the world's first wetware hacker, fucked up. He transmits a signal that ONLY BABIES IN THE WOMB HEAR. The 10,000 children grow up, as does Zero, who naturally makes billions with his overpowered brain. Time skip. The New Years children are all 20. One of them, a pretty popular guy in college, is the first to go Active. His power is the ability to emit enough anthrax from his skin to kill off the population of Manhattan Island. Two of the victims are Wolf Girl's mom and dad. The government carpet bombs the city; it's a lost cause anyways. And Zero, with that big statistic crunching brains realizes that his youthful exploits didn't exactly fail. 10,000 (well, now 9,999) people on the planet are all actual Baby Boomers; each with their own unique power that can be developed whenever. There is no warning; even his brain can't figure out when it happens. But people start going active. Wolf Girl does on the realization that her parents are dead. No idea what her power is; super strength, unbreakable skin, something pretty standard. And so, Zero sets up the Agency. A group of two thousand people from all over the nation, each available via a special phone or pager or something that connects them to the Agency head, Zero himself. Each one has a number, 1 to 2000. Some are Baby Boomers, each with unique powers. Others are just people. What separates them is that each one has his or her own unique ability. We've got an expert on guitar playing. Another on biological weaponry. Another on unarmed figthing. Another that's the best driver in the world. Another that has the best memory on the planet. 2000 of the most talented people on the planet, each with their own abilities, all devoted to stopping any further disasters and to stopping the Baby Boomers. Here's where almost limitless possibilities for missions comes up. Naturally, they'd have to go in order (no megamanlike choosing when the world is in danger RIGHT THEN) and you'd have to assign them groups (really, the only two characters we'll probably end up knowing the most will be wolfgirl and Zero), but holy christ. You can have one guy who can bring book characters to life. A woman who, aside from having super speed, eats anything and everything around her in a mile radius within minutes. A human atom bomb. A dog that incinerates anything it looks at. An ugly girl with the ability to control people's minds. Every fucking superhero you can think of, you could recreate, and every villain too. I can think of at least a dozen scenarios off the top of my head where I could develop one of the two thousand's personalities in each mission. Really, it would be like separate comic issues or like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (not nearly so gay). So yeah, you've got near limitless gameplay here. Naturally, I'm thinking there could be VAST BIGGER DANGER, like Zero's meme is actually EVIL ALIEN CIVILIZATION WHICH WILL COME TO FUCK OUR SHIT UP BADLEY, or just another Baby Boomer countering the Agency (maybe even Anthrax Boy, so we can bring Wolf Girl into this), but hey, it's your game your rules fuck everyone etc. We'll need some big final mission, yeah, but this has POTENTIAL imho. Also, all the above? SECRET SHIT. You don't start the game from here. All this backstory gets revealed during missions, post mission, and the occasional character building pre-mission (I'm planning on having this game work chapter to chapter, without any of the bullshit RPG LONG CONVERSATION UNDER THE STARS). But here's two sample missions. This would work well as the first mission. You start the game, black screen, we can see the text of two guys talking. And then of course, THINGS WILL GO DEADLY WRONG when one of them suddenly goes ACTIVE and the other starts screaming. Next sound is that of a cellphone, and someone picks up and says "This is 1," and finally screen goes lighted and we see Zero and a fuck load of computer monitors and he says something like "This is 0, from the Agency. We've got a situation," and he gives a summary. At some nuclear base (you can name these bucko) a soldier just went Active. Unfortunately, his ability seems to be replacing every bit of his skin with a metallic epidermis and in the process setting off every nerve in his body. While this is going on, make sure we're dropping that Zero's connected to everyone in the Agency, saying shit like "344 informs me that this new epidermis prevents him from conducting electricity. And of course, 1553 is chiming in with the fact that having all your nerves set ablaze like that will drive you insane pretty quick. And from our guys in military and nuke technology, I'm told that a carpet bomb is unfeasible unless we want to make that area and thirty miles around it uninhabitable for hundreds of years." So we send 1, who is of course, Wolf Girl, towards the base, and in the car, she gets to choose the agents that will go in with her. Now, here's the CLEVER part of the game. She can take three people in with her, and you give her like, six to choose from. See, it gives the illusion of freedom. Sure, she can take all the heavy hitters in with her, pound the shit out of Johnny Solider, and be home in time for flapjacks, but the chances of losing someone in battle will be pretty high. OR, she can take the master thief with her, and he'll notice some lockers which he picks and inside, hey, thermal grenades that you can use in battle. OR she can take the hacker, who notices the terminal, and electrifies the floor before Johnny joins the party, cutting off a fourth of his HP or limiting his skills or something. And of course, taking either of these guys weakens the overall fighting force, but gives other advantages. See, with a few global if then switches, you open the gameplay up so much. Anyways, they go in the base. There's not going to be any MINOR ENEMIES in here, by the way, just our boss fucko. 1 approaches Johnny (remember that the locker and electricity shit happens before this) and says that she's with the Agency and wants to offer him a job. Johnny, naturally, goes fucking insane, and we enter a battle. The heavy hitters all have skills of their own. One might be an expert at hand to hand, another might be a sniper, another might just have the fastest hands on the planet, another might be a magus. Either way, we kill Johnny off, and we have a little post-mission update, where 0 and 1 are off to the side of a funeral. They exchange words on how "You can't save them all, but we have to atone for our mistakes", you know, cryptic shit (obviously, all this gets explained bit by bit in parts like this or in parts that are like ON OUR WAY TO THE MISSION. But yeah, hooray first mission done. Another one, we can take an entirely different NON-BATTLE take without having to program a CBS or any shit. The agency rings up a guy in the middle of NEW YORK or whatever. Turns out he's a mental engineer; works on mental blocks, psychic cancers, that kind of fun shit. So they call him up, and he discovers that apparently the entire city has been taken over by something telepathic and he's the only sane mind in a ten mile radius (thanks to the mental blockers in place). 0 tells the guy "hey bucko do something to either stop the crazies or at least let some of us in". So we give player control. And here he can figure out how to get to the roof. Make it ADVENTURE GAMEish, like he has to oil the window in the bathroom and take the stepstool and climb on the fire escape or he can go out the front, see the big pile of garbage in the way of the roof (the way down is blocked by HUGE BRICKS THAT CANNOT BE MOVED) so he has to take a match and set it on fire so it goes away and whatever he gets to the top. At the top, he sees a broadcast antenna and after a bit of a fetch quest back to the room, he gets all his shit and broadcasts the mental block over the radius, but oh no what is this the people have not changed back. The guy (I AM GOING TO CALL HIM 355 BECAUSE I AM TIRED OF THE GUY) 355 does not have enough to incapacitate the city in his room and needs a delivery. Switch to Wolf Girl and, oh, number 1776. You can choose between the two. Wolf Girl will have raw strength, but 1776 is ACROBATIC, so instead of having to fight off people he can climb on boxes or even up to the roof itself. Wolf girl on the other hand can PLOW THROUGH PEOPLE on her way up to the roof much more readily. Either way, with a couple of if statements at the bottom of a box or pipe means you can have 1776 climb up shit. Either way, they deliver the equipment he needed, and he broadcasts a knockout signal across the city (they are protected because of mental fucko). Using the Agency, they discover where the original CRAZY MAN SIGNAL came from. You have a little bit more player control where they follow the map. And they find the apartment, and it is this REALLY OLD DOG. Ancient, pretty much. And around him are all these bones and dogfood things because the poor old bastard has Activated and his power was controlling people in a certain radius. So he asks them to bring him food. They try to get the dog to understand but it doesn't. POTENTIAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT; Wolf Girl draws a gun, and horrified, 1776 says WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING IT'S A FUCKING DOG. And she coldly explains the situation. Hell, you could even bring up DARK PAST here, where she talks about the Anthrax Incident that killed her parents, and even if people or things mean well, sometimes that isn't good enough, fade to black, gun shot, end of mission. Naturally, they don't all have to be that black and morbid. You could have a few where you RECRUIT the person into the Agency and a few missions later there is 2001. But yeah okay I am tired so fuck you.