WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD - Mod Plot [Network post | 2]

[googledox]

Attention, Legion.

We've gathered intel and discussed plans. It's time for us to act. Please stand by for a full mission briefing.

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THE PLAN

[googledox]

I'm currently the only member of the team with enough functional knowledge to create such technology, and I believe that displacing Galactus to another universe using technological means is...currently beyond my capacity.

[Maybe in the past he would've tried it but not after accidentally displacing most of the team. It's not something he wants to risk trying again.]

We believe the most viable plan that arose in our discussions is potentially using the magical being known as the Spectre to displace Galactus from our universe.

The plan is as follows.

Dreamer will coordinate our efforts in the Mission Monitor room. Timber Wolf and Karate Kid are heading to Earth to appeal to the UP Council to recall the military. We believe this effort will be futile, but we have to at least make the attempt. Gates will be on standby for any emergency teleport requests for all teams.

As for the rest of us, we'll split into several teams:

Alpha Team, compromised of Kid Quantum, Bouncing Boy, Ferro, Umbra, Matter-Eater Lad, and myself will construct and defend a threshold gate cannon near Braal's sun that can direct its solar energy at Galactus. This is almost guaranteed to come under direct fire from Galactus himself, so it's likely that we'll only be able to get one or two blasts in before it's destroyed. However, this should be enough to damage Galactus' ship and forestall his destruction of Braal. This will buy the other teams more time.

Beta Team will confront and destroy Stardust, then collect her energies with two handheld threshold devices that will send them to containment units in two separate star systems, so that even if she breaks free of the units she can't easily reform. If possible, this team should attempt to get Stardust off the surface of Braal into an intercept position in orbit so that one of the sun cannon blasts directed towards Galactus' ship also hits her.

Gamma team will directly intercept the UP military fleet and infiltrate the ship with the general in charge of their mission and use any nonfatal means necessary to delay their attempt to attack Galactus head on.

Thanks to our allies on Sorcerer's World, we have a lead on potentially freeing a cosmic being native to this universe known as the Spectre that has the power to remove Galactus from this universe. Delta Team will follow this lead and attempt to free and appeal to the Spectre to come to our aid. They must also attempt to find out how he was contained in the first place so that we have a means to trap him again after our endeavors.

Team Epsilon will fight the Silver Surfer and prevent him from interfering in the fight against his co-herald Stardust. If she can be defeated, Epsilon will have to try to appeal to him to move Galactus away from Braal. Whether this is to redirect him to a world without sentient life or into a trap where he'll be faced with the Spectre depends on if Delta Team's efforts are successful. Epsilon will be given coordinates for both eventualities.

Team Zeta will be given psionic-blocking devices and investigate whatever is causing Braalian civilians to display unknown preternatural abilities and attack each other.

We have only a brief time to discuss any adjustments to the plan. Mission assignments will handed out momentarily.

[fourstars]

[ Something about this is both confusing and unsettling Gohan. ]

... Are we sure releasing the Spectre is such a good idea? I don't know anything about him, but... based on what I've heard, he didn't seem any better than Galactus.

[ringslinging]

The Spectre's merciless, but he works on a much smaller scale. Vengeance on the individual level, not targeting entire planets.

I'm not saying he can't be a problem, but he doesn't really operate as a force of mass destruction even if he has the potential to.

[fourstars]

[ This isn't really reassuring Gohan much, given he's pretty used to vengeance on an individual leading to entire planets being targeted. But he also doesn't know enough about the Spectre to really be making these kinds of judgement calls. AND YET. ]

But he's trapped, isn't he? Who's to say that after being trapped for so long, he hasn't changed?

[ringslinging]

I don't think divine forces change as easily as people.

[fourstars]

Well, maybe, but... can you say that for certain?

[ringslinging]

There are boundaries he can't cross without opening himself up to punishment by God. As loose as those boundaries can get, it's still more of a limitation than anyone's got on Galactus.

I don't know if the Spectre is still bound to a host at this point, and if he's been sealed away, my guess is he isn't, but if he is, that's another layer of limitations on him right there. His host can't really change his mission - I tried, it really doesn't work - but they can still give him a level of guidance and tone him down.

[fourstars]

[ Wait hang on he didn't remember that detail. Did he miss that? ]

-- Wait, host?

[ringslinging]

He's normally bound to the soul of someone who died unjustly. It's meant to keep him in check.

[fourstars]

B-But-- [ Okay, hang on, Gohan's losing track of how this Spectre guy is supposed to work. ] Okay, so... he's the Spirit of God's Vengeance. He can only affect living creatures, and he only goes after individuals who are responsible for a lot of unjust death, I imagine? Or... does he only do that because he's tied to another soul?

Sorry, I'm trying to figure this out, but I keep getting confused.

[ringslinging]

Don't worry about it, I was it for a while and it's still confusing.

Things with souls is probably a better way to put it than living/dead, I think. I wouldn't say he does it because of being bound to another soul - he still acts without one, he just has less of a brake on his judgment. I tried to redirect him from vengeance to redemption - scare people straight, I guess. It...worked for a little while, but I couldn't keep him pointed that way.

[sir_vancelot]

I know that we don't have a lot of options here, but I'd like to point out that, as destructive as he is, Galactus actually does serve a purpose. He's...basically a storage battery that's meant to kick off the next Big Bang at the end of our universe. From what I understand, even he hates what he is and what he does, but that doesn't change the fact that he has to do it.

On the other hand, given that, he may well be glad of the Spectre's judgment.

[whyarewehere]

This doesn't make us any less screwed.

[sir_vancelot]

Didn't say that it made us less screwed. I'm not a fan of the decision that's been made but I know it's the only one that may be feasible considering the powers we have at hand. But just because I acknowledge that doesn't mean that I can't point out how the short term solution can have long term, unintended consequences.

I mean, it's entirely possible that it's a moot point and we'll all end up back in our own worlds, in whatever state we originally left them once this is done and Galactus will still be a pain in our collective asses back home.

[googledox]

The hope, albeit one that's very...thin, is that the two entities being similar in power levels will lead to the Spectre simply displacing Galactus from our universe.

[sir_vancelot]

Ah. I hadn't entirely gleaned that from the previous discussion. That's...that's going to be interesting to see play out. Here's hoping, at least.

[googledox]

I wish so much of this wasn't being left to hope. It isn't usually standard Legion methodology to sanction the idea of potential acceptable losses, not even that of the murderers the Spectre targets. But the Legion hasn't been the same since we lost so many of our numbers.

To ask all of you to attempt to stop Galactus via brute force is akin to asking you to commit suicide, and our other options are limited. We'll have to simply follow the plan and try to influence events towards the most optimal outcomes that we can.

The preferred outcome would be the Spectre forcing Galactus and his heralds out of the material universe without killing him, and the team finding a way to confine the Spectre again shortly after.

[deafleppard]

See, that would be easier for me to believe if it wasn't for that first impression he made just now.

You kind of don't come back from that.

[notwithoutafight]

Who says our universe has to end? It sounds like if we don't get rid of Galactus that he's going to be the reason the universe ends.

[googledox]

I believe Justice means his own universe when speaking of "our" universe. There are no known entities in this universe that perform such a function and current theories on the expansion of the universe -- including my own -- favor the theory that the universe will forever expand until it cools down so much that it can no longer sustain star formation -- and therefore no longer sustain life as we know it.

If his universe is doomed to a fate of the metric expansion of the universe reversing until it collapses into singularity, then perhaps Galactus' role is to ensure that each time this happens in that universe, it leads to a new Big Bang and the creation of a new universe instead of a permanent collapse and end to that universe's existence that leads to nothing else.

These concerns are on such a macro level that I'm not sure that they should be factored into our plans, however. While the continued existence of life in a universe is something to aspire to, and while we're hoping our plan with the Spectre will simply displace Galactus from this universe, if we had the option of a permanent non-fatal cessasion of Galactus' feeding activities, that would be ideal -- perhaps at the expense of his universal function.

It's true that it might mean that a universe might not continue to reform into new universes and create new life but the suffering it would prevent...

Mind you, it's all hypothetical. Unfortunately, we simply don't have the resources to stop Galactus permanently, but if we did, it still would be perhaps be preferable. The lives that Galactus feeds on exist now. Future universes and the beings that might perhaps come to exist in them are an intangible. Not yet reality.

[notwithoutafight]

I'm not hearing anything here that sounds like a permanent solution against Galactus. And if our timetable has changed from months to days, then we really need some more ideas here.

[kingtyrantranger]

He just ate a star. I don't think enough gun exists to do anything permanent.

[notwithoutafight]

Maybe not a gun, but something. [ If only she had some ideas what "something" was. ]

[kingtyrantranger]

Maybe we can send him to a black hole? Or, I dunno. Find an asteroid field and use threshold gates to throw them at him?

[Jason's still a fan of the giant robot idea.]

[googledox]

I don't know that there is a permanent solution. At least not with the resources we have.

Using what resources we have to displace him from this universe may be the best we can hope for.

All that said, we should attempt to achieve the best possible outcome that we can. If we can convince the Spectre to displace Galactus into another universe where he can cause no harm to sentients...