SW10/HCC: Time of the Crossovers #1: The Coming of the Super-Mage

[Scott Eiler]

On 8/8/2011 7:06 PM, Andrew Perron wrote:
> On Sun, 7 Aug 2011 03:49:54 +0000 (UTC), Scott Eiler wrote:
>
>> Ellipsis hates government and all forms of servitude to others.  Now he
>> serves The Combine which is increasingly hard to distinguish from U.S.
>> Government.  Increasingly he is in bondage.  Even from West Australia
>> he's been called back, because there is *still* none like him on Earth.
>>    But he's accustomed to that.
>
> Ellipsis is an interesting weirdo, in a way I suspect you didn't intend
> when you first created him.

Heh.  I'd intended him for Marvel Comics fan fiction, as a mutant who 
could fight Dark Phoenix.  But he got his interesting weirdo elements 
early on.


> He seems sort of like someone with
> supervillain-ish extremist motives who happens to fall into a hero slot
> more out of circumstance than anything.

He started out in non-Marvel adventures as a sort of paranoid 
survivalist genius.  It didn't take him long before he had to start 
blurring the definition of the hero slot.


> ...and hey, look who he's being paired up with...
>
>> Bride of Darkness
>> and her Best Man, channelers of Ultimate Darkness.
>
> Oho.  Haven't heard of the latter guy.  Is he the same one from "A Date
> With The Darkness"?

He's the one from the end of that story, not the one who went on the 
Misery Date.


>> The Darkness dissolves.  The shield and the mage are gone, swallowed by
>> Darkness.
>
> Oooooh.  Very good, and makes this matter, because...
>
>> The evil mages of Earth notice new magic power in their sky and on their
>> planet.  The source has disappeared, but the residual power remains.
>> They start to gather it.
>
> There's always a cost.  Awesome.

Hmm.  I'd intended all that power to be leakage from the Super Wizard 
from Space.  The crumbs of his power are like a feast for the mages of 
SW10.  But with power levels that high, there's bound to be some 
splatter from Ultimate Darkness as well.  I've already established that 
it's dangerous when little bits of it get isolated.  Now, what happens 
when a giant energy gong has a chance to ring there?  I hadn't given it 
a lot of thought, but Our Heroes probably weren't expecting the Super 
Wizard to just disappear into Darkness.


>> In the flush of his youth, Ellipsis would have grimly escalated to
>> overwhelm any opponent in a power duel.  But this is twenty years on.
>> He's older, sadder, and a bit wiser.  He's settled down to science and
>> power politics, as have most of the heroes he works with.  But it's good
>> to remember, there are things worth fighting for.
>
> I'm wondering if these are things the Super Wizard has yet to learn, or if
> he even could...

He's already altruistic enough to fight for the little fishies.  The 
main thing he might need to learn is how to defend instead of fight.


-- 
(signed) Scott Eiler  8{D> -------- http://www.eilertech.com/ ---------

Only their myths concerned peace and contentment, and that in such a
coercive, sullen package it was obvious that the Earth humans resented
the very idea.

- from "Passing" by Elaine Radford, Aboriginal SF, May/June 1987.