I suppose we won't explode you. This time. *evil laughter*

Professor, I had this thought as well, though I have been a vocal proponent of the five member cap, I am anxious to view our results and judge from there.

In the case of the mutant mission, the price for failure could be high, both in terms of our lord's reaction, and in the damage it would do to our efforts to liberate this region in the name of Apocalypse.

With regard to the Galactus mission, it is my sincere belief and hope that the five of us will make positive difference on that front, and I think it may even be something of a free look at the mechanics of the mission. I believe this because of this passage in our instructions:



Thus it would appear that even if our combined might iis not enough this day to hinder his actions, at least Galactus will not "move one day closer" to our destruction.

And you will find the Vision at your side, battling with all the power he can muster!


ACCOMPANY SILVER SURFER ON GALACTUS MISSION

Reed, correct me if I am wrong (or don't, as you deem best) but I'd like to ask, do you have a special ability to create a mahine to help drive off the Eater of Worlds? One which requires you to spend days working at it?

If so, and if it is best that you decline this mission to have time to work on such a machine, I believe we can find another worthy companion to assist us.

[ooc] so who all has officially accepted to join the brotherhood of mutants? emma? colossus? i just did a search for brotherhood in the thread, but i didn't see acceptances from either of you. saw magneto, myself, and jean. [/ooc]

ProfX, that is the same group I see since the group was "re-formed" in Post #265. Prior to that, Colossus had also intended to join.

I've never seen EmmaFrost join either iteration of the team. No accept from Scarlet Witch either.


Teams, based on my version of events. Please chime in if I'm missing something:
1.) Brotherhood of Mutants: Magneto (#265), ProfX (#267), JeanGrey (#307), Quicksilver (#309)
2.) The Brethren: Firebird (#175), Nightcrawler (#176)
3.) Strike Squad: Vision (#189), Mr.Fantastic (#314), SilverSurfer (#315), Hulk (#328), HumanTorch (#350)
4.) SHIELD: Nick Fury (#338)

I got'd a bit lonely down in da bayou and it got'd me ta tinkin' I want ta be apart of a team as well. Would ya be tinkin' I could be wit da brethren? Dat team seems like it could be usin' some help.

JOIN FIREBIRD ON MUTANT FINDING MISSING

Fixed

Invite Gambit to Join Brethern


Welcome aboard my friend!

You are all yowamushi!

Weak, pathetic. You seek the company of the team for you fear your doom lies in your own inadequacy.

I am Silver Samurai. I seek my own counsel, and I work alone. I will not join a team.

But I will lead a team of like-minded individuals. We do not fight for each other. We fight for ourselves. But our goal is one, and in that way, we will be united.

That goal will be to stand as that stalwart force, that agency of power which will stand alone against the rebellion when those others to weak to stand long have fallen.

It is to our detriment that my earnest friend, my bitterest enemy, Wolverine, is not here with us now. He would decry your meek flocking as loudly as I. Only he ever stood as a strength in solitude as I do now.

Join my team, but remain yourself, not a slave to any one else's needs, but the call of our duty. We do not work together. We work alone. But in joining the team, we agree to focus our individual energies on the mission at hand, the elimination of the rebellion threat.

My team is CHIKARA.

The Force, in Japanese.

Any such attempt to ambush would be revealed after the fact and would inevitably reveal the traitor. I would consider a one-to-one trade off to be a very favourable result.

Given the time needed to properly implement this plan I think even with wholesale agreement it will be impossible to carry out now. Fortunately we have had some discussion today which should, at least, ensure that we are not flailing around completely blindly.

[ OOC - Is Kudos playing in this game then? Cool! ]

And that we cannot know for sure that there is not a traitor among the ranks of the Prelates.

So far I have only been able to ascertain that the following will take part in the respective missions. I suspect it is too late

Mutant recovery operation - Emma Frost (249), Magento (361), QuickSilver (369), Colussus (376), Beast (Ordered by Mimic - 388), Firebird (396), Gambit (407)

I can find no commitment by Jean but we shall find out soon enough whether she has decided to join our group.

Galactus Mission - Silver Surfer (391), Mr Fantastic (395), Vision (403)

Again the Human Torch or Hulk are going on the mission. If they aren't then this group probably require a few more members.

Join Brotherhood of Mutants

This.

The place - Tunisia

The force - Magneto, EmmaFrost, JeanGrey, Quicksilver, Colossus, Beast, Firebird, Gambit

The result - failure, the girl lives and is not aligned with your forces.


Additional details may be provided by those who were on the missions. But know that there will be consequences for failure ...

Upcoming deadlines:
Galactus Action - executed at 3PM
Day 1 "Lynch" - executed at 9PM

All times CST

How quickly your tone changes when you remember that I speak for The First One.

Now tell us what happened on your mission.

First, Prelate Mimic, I thank you for your faith in me. I would certainly aqueisced to accompany those attempting to detain the telepath with a simple request on your account, but as I was not in a physical position to respond, I happily and respectfully followed your directive [ooc] i went to bed[/ooc]

However, due to causes that we are unable to specify at this time, the mission was unsuccessful.

We were met not only by a psionic force that was powerful enough to overwhelm my somewhat substantial skills at aeronautical flight prior to reaching our destination, but upon alighting through the assistance of Magneto, without whom I can only imagine we would have perished, we were also assaulted by a force of humanoids.

I refer to them as humanoinds, as opposed to humans, as they were bipedal primates of the Homo Sapien species. "Were" is the operative term in that statment, as whatever humanity they once possessed had been stripped away, along with their eyes. They assaulted our position relentlessly and without regard for their own safety. It is unknown at this time who or what was in control of these creatures. It is known that they prevented us from reaching our goal.

*nods grimly toward Emma*

I'll be in and out of the thread today. Tyrith should have pretty good coverage. Please make sure to include him on any PMs so he has the opportunity to answer any questions, process actions, or whatever else us moderators do.

Mission summary:
Beast has trouble landing craft, forced to do so under (or due to?) difficulties.
Magneto prevents this from being total diaster.
Emma and I attempt to keep the psychic pressure at bay, but it is too much and still effects the team.
Collosus and Firebird fight men with no eyes who are undead. As we are fighting our way to the mutant, there suddenly is no storm and the mutant is gone.

Only person who comes out good here, I feel, is Magneto. The rest of us, it is hard to judge the performance of.

It sounds like you each, to some degree, were responsible for fighting off some of the adversity. Is there a particular point in the mission where any of you guys/gals thought that things were ultimately turned against you or was it too much from the get-go? I think I made that question clear, but basically I'm asking where you thought the tipping point was, it might be a place to look.

As for the undead, I can only say that I wish I would've been there to whip them back to Hell where they probably belong. Damn undead.

I am stunned that the combined might of some of Apocalypse's finest failed in this mission. Does anyone have any insight on the nature of these strange humanoids the team encountered?

And I'm still looking to either form a scientific-based team or if there continues to be no interest, joining another team.

It is unfortunate that the mission went poorly for us. It is pretty important that we learn what we can from this experience so we can prepare better for the next mission. Can we learn a few things regarding how the missions in general will function that can prepare us better next time? What I mean is the following:

1) Did the results seem fairly random, or did the mission results correspond well with the amount of energy that each of the members spent? Magneto it sounds like performed admirably, but did he also spend the most energy to do so?

2) Those that had the worst performances, was it also energy driven? As was mentioned one of our prelates ordered an unprepared member to the team at a late date, and without any chance to put in orders otherwise, I assume the default expenditure of 1 energy point resulted in a poor performance on their part?

3) Since no one mentioned any public acts of sabatoge, are we to assume that this mission failure was simply that we were less organized, less prepared for this mission than those that opposed us?

4) Any idea if a bad guy who ends up on a mission can have a "good result" due to random rolls or point expenditure and buy trust similar to what has happened in other parallel universes previously? (ooc: ie: spawn games)

Based off of the fairly short descriptions of the mission report that have been provided thus far, it sounds more of a case of us defeating ourselves than anyone else stopping us. Hopefully we can learn and be ready for the next mission as it comes up.

I spent about 1/4 of my starting energy points on the mission. My read of the mission results is that it was less any one person stopping us and more of a case of lack of energy or people. I think the mission group was not large enough, for one thing, and there probably wasn't enough energy spent as well.

Very good analysis Reed. It was more than likely my fault that I ordered Beast to go with them when I should've done it earlier in the day; however, I was waiting on a response from Magneto or Charles which I never received.

That being said, I would guess that it was at random who piloted the ship. Hank said that he was overwhelmed by a psionic force and that was why he had trouble landing. Did the landing affect the mission in the long run? Probably not, as Jean and Emma were fighting to keep the psychic presence at bay and they seemed to be ineffective in fighting the humanoids.

I agree Magneto comes off as being good in this mission. I will take my magnifying lens off him but keep an eye on Xavier.

Can someone clarify whether you were fighting towards the mutant or defending your position? Based upon Beast and Jean's descriptions, they seem to differ in that regard.

We all received the same message nad I can tell you we were definitely fighting towards our target. We made progress, just not quickly enough.

I find it odd, that I was mentioned as being part of the mission, but that is all. I spent a reasonable amount of energy, but seemed to do nothing. unfortunate!

Well that is a shame. I think that what we have learned from this is what I feared - that our groups to accomplish missions may have to be larger, although that does open up the risk of sabotage of course, until we can clear more people.

This is very disconcerting. We sent seven of our number, some very powerful, and seemingly well-suited for the task, yet they met with failure.

I would appreciate any feedback from the participants as to what precisely went wrong. By which I mean, did we not send enough force, or was the mix of skills insufficient?

I am not necessarily sure that larger is better. Throwing more people at a mission would provide more energy, but it also keep people away from doing other various functions that they might be better served at. We know there are ways to get bonuses with things such as missions. Instead of throwing more people at the issue, lets try to be better prepared and more organized instead. If people are not joining teams for likeminded interest, why are they joining teams?

Perhaps we should focus on having teams going out on an away mission together, and utilize that bonus. That would leave other members to use their abilities or powers in other useful manners.

I am having a second consideration regarding the Galactus mission currently as lack of preperation I feel will lead us to the same result here as well. I am wondering if we do not receive the group preperation prior to departing that is required, if it would be better to withdraw from it, and focus my energy elsewhere for today to perhaps research a tool that might be useful in future missions instead.

My belief is preperation is more important than numbers on these missions.

This is most surprising indeed, and contrary to my expectations, to be sure.

I recall a... suggestion... that Professor Xavier accompany the mission, I am curious why this did not happen?

Very concerning indeed.

One of the questions, and mainly this is because this is the one area I could help, is would more brute force in the mission help? It actually looks like we needed a little more of everything, but I, for personal reasons, am most interested in that angle.

Now that I am caught up, yes, this is the feedback I was looking for. I am interested in Charles' refusal to participate after our lord's suggestion. Also, as Quicksilver has said, the absence from the detailed report of action by any participant might also be instructive.

Disappointing showing on the mission. My sources say the failure was due to improper planning and execution and not due to sabotage.

Another day goes by and we're still yet to accomplish anything. My agents and I are going on a mission later to find out more about this girl Mr. Sinister warned about and how this mission failure may affect our ability to squash the resistance.

Ghost Rider, do you have a light?

Reasoning for why I did not go on the mission: It was suggested by many that having all of our powerful telepaths on one mission together might not be the optimum course of action.

Emma and Jean believed that they brought particular skills to the mission that would cause it to be successful. Emma was forced due to circumstances to commit early to the mission. Jean announced her intention to undertake the mission, and at that point I pulled out, out of a desire to not expose all of our telepaths on one mission.

Upon seeing the suggestion by the glorious Apocalypse I had hoped to have another opportunity to converse with Jean regarding which of us should undertake the mission, but that conversation never happened.

[ooc] i'm also not sure -- do we think that Apoc has "inside information" on the missions that tell him who would be best suited to complete it, or was that just his suggestion based on my character? [/ooc]

It seems pretty clear that just being part of the mission isn't very helpful. If we are going to do these missions, we'd better do them right and throw some energy into it. I hope everyone on the coming Galactus mission takes note and brings their A-game.

Whatever your reasons may be, your inaction is not helping.

I also remain unconvinced that a particular "skill mix" has an impact on the success of the mission. We are all talented individuals in our own right, and I feel that it is likely that the success of the mission is tied to the effort we put into it moreso than the particular individuals who undertake it.

[ooc] unless it is in the rules - as i was just saying i need to go back and print out the post with the rules [/ooc]

Dr. McCoy and Prelate Jean Grey have given fundamentally accurate recounts of events.

I would like to clarify -- Dr. McCoy was not affected by the psionic energy, the plane itself was. I was able to use my power to maintain the integrity of the craft; the Doctor was then able to land it.

The psionic storm was far more than we anticipated. Prelate Grey and Emma Frost -- two of the strongest telepaths we have ever known -- were unable to entirely mitigate its effects. For the remainder of the mission, I could feel it pull at me.

The eyeless, shambling horde of...things...that came at us were seemingly endless. Colossus and Firebird fought them with great strength and deserve mention for this.

We reached the center of the storm and -- nothing. There was no sign of the girl.

I saw no evidence of direct sabotage on anyone's part. Several members of the Brotherhood attended, but I saw no evidence that being a team provided us with benefit. As the team is newly formed, I can only guess that we need more time together.

Some have asked if the amount of energy devoted to the mission was important in this case. I believe that the answer is yes.

Young Storm speaks wisely. For once.

Ok, so we need to get more organized here it seems. And bigger in numbers and/or energy on the missions.

I"m ready to help. I saw a couple pages back that Vision invited me to a team, is there still a spot? If so, let me know and I'm in.

After seeing this, I will reverse my previous belief that small teams were better and easier to manage/monitor. It sounds like larger teams must have greater benefits.

This makes sense to me -- perhaps a third every three days might be best, using full energy each time, then building up more when you're not on a mission?

Not even going to give me a light off your head.