Stern Impact
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| File:SternImpact2.jpg | |
| Stern Impact | |
| Player: @EvilBenFranklin | |
| Origin: | Mutant |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Defender |
| Security Level: | 39 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Dr. Moira Elayne Stern |
| Known Aliases: | None |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 35 |
| Height: | 5'7" |
| Weight: | ...Would you like that in Imperial, Metric, or Newtons? |
| Eye Color: | blue |
| Hair Color: | black |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | British (Alt. Dimension) |
| Occupation: | Research Scientist & Associate Professor, PCU / Crimefighter |
| Place of Birth: | Cardiff, Wales, UK (Alt. Dimension: "Reichworld") |
| Base of Operations: | New Urban Legends' Base, Overbrook (Faultline), Paragon City |
| Marital Status: | Single (Widowed - Husband presumed dead) |
| Known Relatives: | None living |
| Known Powers | |
| Kinetic Manipulation and Kinetic Energy Blasts | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Teleportation, Acerbic Wit, Able to out-monologue most villains | |
| Equipment | |
| Trusty Revolver, Louisville Slugger, On-Hand Corporeality Reversal of Phase Device, Blackwand, Gas Pellets | |
| Citizenship status pending. Application filed at FBSA Office of Interdimensional Immigration. Doctorate Status has been accepted by Paragon City University after accreditation review by Board of Trustees and academic review board. | |
Stern Impact is a Defender on the Virtue server in the MMORPG, City of Heroes. Her primary power set is Kinetics, while her secondary set is Energy Blasts, currently supplemented by Teleportation as her primary means of long-distance travel.
Stylistically, Stern Impact is an homage to both alternate-history fiction and the popular pulp fiction of the 1940's, with some Indiana Jones thrown in for flavor. Her costuming generally disdains such "flash" as capes, masks, and other more modern superhero tropes in favor of leather jackets, jodhpurs, and jackboots for adventuring, and coats and skirts for off-duty wear.
Since the "Fallin' Angels: On Bloodied Wings" storyline, she's taken to wearing something resembling SAS assault gear for more dangerous missions, consisting of a flak vest, camo BDU trousers, and a sand-colored SAS beret.
Contents |
Affiliations
Guardian Angels New Urban Legends
Personality
Stern Impact speaks in a cultured British contralto that, depending on her mood, can range from soft to whipcrackingly snappish, but always sounds a little odd, as if her dialect were somewhat exotic. When extremely agitated, this carefully cultivated accent slips and she reverts to her native Welsh accent, complete with expletives. Scientifically-minded, but with a ready (and typically dry) wit, she often tends to use said wit to cover her true feelings on uncomfortable topics.
In single combat, she is methodical and precise, choosing her targets carefully and using her psychokinetic abilities to sap them of their speed and strength before returning them to their owners in the form of powerful bolts and blasts of kinetic force, often knocking her foes head-over-heels away from her in the process. When on a team, she tends to take more of a support role, focusing more on augmenting the abilities of her comrades whilst still taking a moment to hit targets of opportunity, or knock a cluster of enemies away from a potentially swamped ally.
When not "out gallivanting around," as she puts it, Dr. Stern tends to be a bit more on the quiet side, at times almost brooding, but still willing to engage in conversation, even if only for the distraction from her own thoughts.
She has an unreasoning hatred for the Council and especially the Fifth Column. If asked, she will explain why, but be prepared for a long story.
Recently, she has been informed by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth that should she ever wish to return to the homeland, she would be welcomed with open arms, and has been nominated for knighthood due to her heroic deeds. The Royal Special Air Service has also granted her the honorary rank of Chief Warrant Officer (WO4) for her bravery.
Biography
Real Name: Dr. Moira Elayne Stern
Identity: Public
Occupation: Scientist, research and associate professor, Paragon City University. FBSA Licensed Superhero.
Citizenship: Pending. Application filed with FBSA Office of Interdimensional Immigration. Offered citizenship by HRM Queen Elizabeth, UK, for outstanding valor.
History
"The difference between your world and mine is that here, freedom may be battered, it may be beaten, it may even occasionally be dragged into a dark alley and knocked unconscious for a few hours... but in my world, it never really had a bloody chance."
Dr. Stern hails from Cardiff, Wales, in the UK... in a dimension a few over from ours in the local multiversal "sheaf." In this alternate version of our own world, there are several differences, the end culmination of which was the rise of the Third Reich, and the failure of the Allied Powers to stop it from gaining dominance over most of the globe in what we know as World War II, but what came to be known there simply as "The War."
The War Between the States: South 1, North 0
The American Civil War ended differently in the dimension that some at Portal Corp have nicknamed "Reichworld." Hard-pressed by the Northern States' industrial power, the South recruited slaves into the Confederate Army in return for their freedom at the suggestion of Major General Patrick Cleburne. This in turn led to a general emancipation, and the recognition of the Confederacy by other nations. These and other factors ultimately contributed to the South winning the war, and establishing the Confederate States of America, albeit with a weaker industrial base than the United States in our own world had in later years.
At first glance, this would not seem to have had much of an effect on later events. In reality, it made all the difference, as the CSA would not have the industrial or economic power to withstand the Second World War's devastation, later on.
The War
Events here differ little from our own world at first, save for that on Reichworld, Adolf Hitler seemed to be less afflicted by insanity, or at least had better advisors than our own version did. This made his campaign for dominance far more calculating and ruthless, and in the end, far more effective.
The war started sooner but slower, in fits and starts, not really gaining momentum until the late 1940's, when whole countries began to fall before Hitler's forces. Once the Reich had established dominance over most of the continent, there was a lull in the war for decades, as they worked to suppress insurgencies and fully seat themselves in their conquests. Meanwhile, each side worked to develop their weapons and researched secret programs from atom bombs to super-soldiers.
Rumors abounded on the topics of the Reich's black projects: Cybernetics, death rays, immortality drugs that caused the users to thirst for human blood, and the Nachtwulfen Project, which purported to turn ordinary soldiers into werewolves. It would also seem that Hitler's quests for certain powerful artifacts such as the Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, and the Spear of Longinus were successful in this timeline, and may have been what turned the tide in this dimension's war.
On the Allied side, there were similar, if less dark programs: Super-Soldier serums, armored battlesuits, armies of automatons to augment the Allies' atrophied arsenal...
In the end, it didn't really matter... at least, not for the English. The one thing everyone had was Atomics, and the Reich had more of them than everyone, and the will to use them when and where it saw fit.
The Bombing of England
From Dr. Stern's journal:
I remember being a child in Cardiff. The streets were busy, full of energy, but always tense. Everyone was always watching the skies. As an adult, I recall the day of the last bombing... the night of the Exodus, when one sun-bright flash after another sparked over the landscape in the distance, accompanied by the telltale mushroom clouds of atomics being used. I remember my mother grabbing my hand as we ran away from the explosions, the drone of planes and the thrum of ship engines mixing with the hellish whine of what later were known as V5 Atom Rockets as they rained down on the entirety of the Isles. They started in London, carving the heart out of the European resistance even as they carved that grand city out of the landscape with their bombs. Edinburgh was next, then Dublin, and finally Cardiff.
...That morning, the sun rose in two places, as England burned.
Project Bolthole
After escaping the wholesale destruction of her homeland, Ms. Stern came to America, and signed on with their military research division, and obtained her doctorate in astrophysics while working on various projects. She had also discovered that some mutation had granted her the ability to manipulate kinetic potentials, and became involved in working with other "psykers" as part of her duties.
Eventually, she was reassigned to the Dark Plateau Research Facility in Nevada as part of the staff for Project Bolthole, which centered around a ring-like device recovered from the Reich's forces in Egypt. The project's purpose: To determine the device's function, and how it could be used against their foes.
As it turned out, the ring was a dimensional gate, long-buried on Earth for millennia. Dr. Stern and her colleagues had managed to turn it on, but had difficulties with the coordinate and targeting systems; Anytime the gate was switched on, it "dialed" a random dimension, sometimes with comedic results, sometimes not so much. The Project's focus turned to finding a way to locate a better world to evacuate to, or to seek allies from. Given enough time, they would almost certainly manage it.
Unfortunately, time was not something they had in large supply.
The Fall of Dark Plateau
From Dr. Stern's journal:
You know, when entering someone's top secret research base, it is often considered to be quite polite to knock on the door before actually setting foot over the threshold. Unfortunately for us, the Fifth Column's idea of knocking politely was to drop a penetrator nuke on the upper levels and dig out the mountain like a child playing at a beach with a pail and shovel...
It was a relatively quiet day at the Plateau when the entire mountain shook with titanic force as the missile struck home and blew most of the landscape off. Hot on its heels, radiation-suited super-soldier commandos stormed the base, slaughtering all resistance.
As each of the upper levels fell, Dr. Stern was faced with an unpalatable choice:
There I was, klaxons going off all around me, people running about like headless chickens. Scientists, folk who had never seen anything resembling combat. The mission orders were very simple, and nondiscretionary, but I certainly wasn't about to go out without getting at least some of us to safety.
...I leaned over the console, threw the activation switches for the Gate, and started to key the base self-destruct command into the computer as the ring spun up...
Now Arriving at Paragon City, Gate One...
I awoke on a cold concrete floor with a painful bump on my head, a blank spot in my memory, and several men and women in unfamiliar uniforms pointing rifles at me. Something was different, though - this wasn't the Plateau, and those weren't CSA or Reich uniforms. I could only surmise that one of my colleagues had dragged me through the portal half-conscious behind them as we ran for our lives, pell-bloody-mell...
When Dr. Stern and her party arrived at the Portal Corp facilities on Peregrine Island, it caused some consternation, as any unexpected travellers do. The entire group was placed into quarantine until FBSA agents could arrive to interview them, and ensure that they were not Rikti spies, Nemesis automatons, or one of any number of other potential threats.
Upon being cleared by the FBSA, Dr. Stern and those of her colleagues with psyker abilities were offered the opportunity to test for superhero licensing. Of the fifteen men and women who escaped Reichworld, only Dr. Stern accepted the offer.
Powers
Stern Impact's powers stem from a mutation of thus-far uninvestigated origin that allows her to affect kinetic potentials in other persons and objects. This can take the form of reducing someone's speed in order to boost her own, neutralizing inertia for short periods of time, or a general boost in metabolism.
Energy Blasts: Kinetic Force
Stern Impact's energy blasts aren't so much energy as kinetic force. She stores up kinetic potential with each motion she makes as part of her mutative ability. At need, she can unleash this potential in the form of damaging blue-white bolts of force that can toss her targets about.
When asked why kinetic bolts look so similar to those of other superheroes' energetic blasts, she replied, "Don't ask me, it's your bloody universe. I'm still learning all the physical laws around here."
Teleportation
Dr. Stern's ability to teleport has nothing to do with ripping holes in time and space. She has described it as a "mass multimolecular cohesive translocational kinetic shift, or if you want it in the layman's terms, I tell all of my molecules, or your molecules to go THAT way, REALLY FAST." She has also learned to keep herself slightly out of visual phase on rematerialization for as much as two minutes after translocation, granting her some limited stealth at need.
Tactics
In single combat, Stern Impact prefers to take on groups of foes ranging from one to four at a time, relying on her limited stealth to obtain a proper sniping position. That done, she quickly saps her initial target's combat strength and speed, and turns it on either that foe or their compatriots, doing similarly for their health or stamina as needed. She has also been known to teleport tactically around a combat zone, maneuvering herself out of snares or into better firing positions where the force of her kinetic attacks can be used for maximum effect, often firing during rematerialization.
When on a team, her tactics tend to adapt, lending supporting fire where she can but primarily focusing on augmenting her teammates through boosts to their speed and metabolic rates, transferring kinetic potential to them from enemies, and so forth. It is not uncommon for her to teleport herself straight into a fray beside a beleaguered comrade, or yank them out of danger in a similar fashion.
When powers fail her, Dr. Stern is not afraid to use her trusty .38/200 S&W Victory Model service revolver, when she needs to. As she says, "Villains may monologue, thugs may threaten, but when Vickie speaks, people tend to perk up their ears a bit, wot?" She has so far refused comment on the number of ammunition requisitions she makes after missions involving the Council and the Fifth Column.
Weaknesses and Limitations
Stern Impact's powers depend primarily on line of sight and accuracy. Despite being called a psyker on her homeworld, she is vulnerable to psionic attacks, and has no psychic training nor any natural defenses against such assaults. She also tends to tire easily during extended fights, as her own metabolism cannot always keep up with the demands she places upon it. In addition, she has little inherent resistance to damage on her own, and while she has received basic combat training from her time during the Endless War, it was that: basic.
Her one major personality flaw stems from her deep-seated hatred of anything resembling that which she escaped from. Thus, she will typically attack Council or Fifth Column members on sight, even if she faces overwhelming odds.
Her past has made her somewhat abrasive to work with at times, though she will typically remain polite even to those she considers to be complete and utter fools. After all, manners are important.
Contact Info
In game: @EvilBenFranklin
Forums: EvilBenFranklin
