Checkmate?

[Barbara Gordon]

I'm just wondering what (if any) Checkmate plans are in place. In one of my RPs there are crates of stuff labeled "top secret CHECKMATE" in a warehouse (in Steph's post) and I'm just wondering why a QC warehouse is holding them.

Ultimately it won't really effect how I approach my post, I'm just curious as to the larger picture if there is one.

[Stephanie Brown]

I, uh, totally just made that up as something sinister going on. I figured Checkmate is using QC as an asset, so would do something like that to hide their stuff.

But I mostly just made it up to add mystery. I can edit it if it's a problem.

[Droo]

I'd be surprised if an organisation like Checkmate plastered their name all over incriminating evidence. It would be a bit like finding boxes labelled "Property of MI5. Please return to Thames House, London. Ask for M." That's just my humble opinion.

[Oliver Queen]

I doubt that something would be explicitly labelled Checkmate. They're like the Men in Black (both in the sense of the movie, and the conspiracy theory it's based on). They're a government agency that "doesn't officially exist", that is secret to the point that a lot of people haven't even heard of them. (Edit: what Droo just said - though M is from MI6 Droo, for shame!)

You're more likely to have found something labelled as one of the mysterious vanished subsidiaries. Finding a crate labelled "Tyler Chemical" might be a good option, since that's the company that Green Arrow explicitly mentioned to Barbara.

* * *

In terms of the Checkmate plan at the moment, there's two aspects of it that have been "revealed" thus far (ie. two that we are focusing on):


1) Mirakuru. Rex Tyler, the Golden Age hero Hourman, got his powers from a "Miracle" pill. It basically worked the same way as Captain America's supersoldier serum, giving him enhanced strength/reflexes/etc, except that the chemical broke down after one hour (hence his superhero name). You could only take the pill once per day as well, else you risked overdosing on the chemicals, and there were all manner of side effects and addictive properties that ended up meaning Rex Tyler had to retire; and he has spent the years since trying to perfect the drug - make it last more than an hour (permanently?), make it more potent, try to make it enhance mental attributes, etc.

Part of that research has involved experimenting with the Venom serum that Bane uses. Bane is going to show up soonish, enhanced in such a way that he can go toe to toe with Supergirl and Superboy. This is also one of the main things that Checkmate will be testing on homeless people and drug users in the Narrows: they'll add ingredients to regular drugs to see if there are any side effects, they may end up testing versions of the Mirakuru compound to see if homeless people develop powers (and if so for how long), and that sort of thing. That may mean people are taking drugs and having superpowered smackdowns against each other... it may mean they're snatching people off the streets, experimenting on them, and then dumping their OD'd bodies in a gutter somewhere.

You may be able to unravel this by following drug shipments to the facility where QC is mixing in their special ingredients... but don't rush through it too quick. This is one of the main Checkmate things at the moment, so if everything gets blown wide pen in the space of two or three threads, that's not gonna leave much for everyone else to go on... and it'd also put Barbara squarely in the crosshairs of Checkmate, at which point she would likely be a corpse floating in the river by the end of the week.


2) Cadmus Labs. One of Queen Consolidated's mystery subsidiaries is Cadmus, who are the ones who made Superboy. While Rex Tyler is attempting to give superpowers to humans via chemicals, Cadmus is trying to unlock powers via genetics, which involves a lot of experimenting with alien and metahuman DNA. This doesn't just involve Kryptonians like Superboy: there'll be a long history with the Martian Manhunter which will come into play in the fullness of time as well. They'll also have a lot of interest in stuff like how/why metahumans have particular abilities, in trying to recreate the circumstances of their transformations, etc.

In terms of stuff explicitly happening in Gotham, there's two angles. On the one hand, we have (or will have, eventually, when Dee posts) Oliver beginning to investigate Checkmate from the inside: because of his encounters with Superboy thus far, Cadmus is going to be one of the strands that Oliver will be investigating. On the other hand, there's Cadmus and their military allies who are going to want to get their Superboy asset back, which may mean throwing some of the other Cadmus genetic experiments at him, and/or drawing on assets from other QC projects - for example, borrowing Bane from the Mirakuru side of things.


There's also going to be a tech-based side of things (ie. simulating superpowers through technology) which will open doors for cybernetic and robotic stuff, as well as people with freeze rays and that sort of business. That side of things is probably going to factor in with Booster Gold and the DEO, but I haven't quite sussed out who (player-wise) is involved with that side of things, so I haven't really spun those ideas out much just yet.

[Barbara Gordon]

Ok, that sounds good. Thanks for the info! And Leah I guess yes to editing it to Tyler Chemical? If they look older that's better, as it's a vanished company. ^_^; :)

[Supergirl]

Well I was actually referencing Raiders of the Lost Ark >.>. Right down to the number on the crate, just with 'Army Intel' swapped out for 'Checkmate Intel' <.<. But I can change it.

I kinda think it's comic books. You know, like how in Agents of SHIELD HYDRA's secret bases have their logo everywhere?

[Oliver Queen]

Except that HYDRA didn't have it's logo everywhere, initially. Before The Winter Soldier, it's existence was utterly secret. SHIELD had no idea it had been infiltrated by HYDRA, because as far as they knew, HYDRA had ceased to exist after WW2. They were really, really good at hiding their existence: that's why the reveal was a shock to absolutely everyone, IC and OOC.

It wasn't until they were outed to the world in the aftermath of The Winter Soldier that they started slapping logos everywhere. At that point, there was no reason to try and maintain secrecy, because the secret was already ruined.

Checkmate is still in that initial phase, where people aren't supposed to know it exists.

[Stephanie Brown]

Except in the flashbacks to post-WW2 in AOS where they literally had 'secret' bases with ten foot high metal logos sticking out of them :p

But okay, I've edited. So don't worry :p

[Oliver Queen]

Well sure, they had logos everywhere when they were being all overt and Nazi about it. :p


...in fairness though, when Checkmate showed up in Smalllville, they did kinda have their logo painted on the wall a bit. :lol

Edit:

The floor was painted like a chess board, too. It was classy.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8500/8283625544_03e3ba2345.jpg

[Dick Grayson]

Go big or go home with your company theme!

[Stephanie Brown]

Yeah, see, that's not subtle :p. At least here it's in a restricted warehouse and printed on the side, and meaningless if you don't know what it is :p.

[Oliver Queen]

*shrug* Regardless, our version of Checkmate is super-mega-secret, and probably wouldn't be quiiiiiiite that stupid. They're supposed to be pretty good at the whole secrecy thing. If you think it's daft to have a name/logo plastered everywhere, then our version of Checkmate would probably realise that too. Thought I'd managed to convey that with what I'd explained so far, but apparently not - my bad! :)

[Droo]

The way I look at it is that, in a way, they're a potential Big Bad pulling the strings behind the scenes. Secrecy is their thing, and the thrill, for me at least, is in peeling away the layers of conspiracy to get to the truth. And to out them in such a way, so early into the game, would be a bit like Tony Stark approaching Captain American in the first Avengers movie, and saying "Hey, do you reckon Thanatos might be behind all this?"

[Stephanie Brown]

Ignoring for the moment that I've already edited, meaning that you're kinda arguing for me to change something I've already changed (and also ignoring it's 'Thanos', not 'Thanatos' :p), I was more thinking of this as being sorta like in the first episode of Sherlock, where Sherlock learns the name 'Moriarty' without having any idea who he is or what it refers to. Seeing the word 'Checkmate' would be meaningless. But it would be a hint that there's something else going on.

[Droo]

I'm not arguing for you to change anything. I was expounding upon a point I made earlier, because it's important you understand that, when I say things like that, it's not because I'm trying to dictate to you how you should play in a shared sandbox, but because, in our shared sandbox, we collaborate, and share ideas and perspectives so we're all on the same page.

[Stephanie Brown]

Yes, I understand. As I said before, that's not quite what I was trying to do, but it doesn't matter. I've edited, we're good. I think I might just stay away from the Checkmate stuff. There's plenty of other crime.

[Oliver Queen]

Can I make a request at this point?

I would really appreciate it if for now we could focus on Queen Consolidated in our investigations, and not Checkmate. There is plenty of material to work with there: what is Queen Consolidated up to? What is their connection to the gangs? Where have these disappearing companies gone? What are they putting in people's drugs? Why are they doing this? That should be plenty to be going on with in the meantime.

I do really like the idea of Checkmate being a Moriarty-style name that no one knows what it means... but I'm really concerned that if we speed off too quickly down the Checkmate side of things before I've had an opportunity to get Oliver properly established, it's not actually going to leave me with anything new/interesting for Oliver to discover. I haven't even managed to get him working at Queen Consolidated yet, because I'm still waiting on people... but there won't be any point, if you guys have already found out about Checkmate and started to investigate it for other reasons. There's no point me investigating stuff from the inside, if the answers are easy to find from the outside.

So yeah, if we could limit our investigations (for now) to what Queen Consolidated is up to, and give me the chance to actually get Oliver up and running before we bring Checkmate into stuff... it'd make me considerably less anxious.

[Stephanie Brown]

I'm going to back off this arc for good so I can't screw it up further. You guys seem to know what you're doing with it :).

[Oliver Queen]

...no one is asking or expecting you to do that? o_O

Like I said, there's still a whole butt ton of stuff to be getting on with on the Queen Consolidated side of things. There's no reason to "back off this arc for good" just because I'm asking people not to mention one particular word for a little bit. ^_^;

[Stephanie Brown]

I'm not saying I've been asked. I just think it's for the best. I feel like there are lots of little rules or things already decided with this that actually make it far more complicated than I think even you guys involved realise, but in truth, it's not free form to write with. And I feel like I would now be so paranoid I'd have to double check everything. So I think it's safer to avoid it entirely.

[Oliver Queen]

You weren't on the same page as the rest of us as far as Checkmate goes. Now you are, and all you had to do was edit one word in one post. That is all that has happened here. No big deal.

If you want to avoid this story arc, that's your prerogative, but I think you're blowing this out of proportion. Being on the same page as your fellow writers is important - that's how writing in a shared sandbox works. Sometimes there are little hiccups along the way, and it's no big deal. If we'd shown up at the Fortress of Solitude, and I had started talking about there being cages full of alien zoo animals, and caves and tunnels like you get in the comics and the cartoons... you would probably have said "oh hey, I was imagining it more like the crystal fortress in the movies", and I would have gone back and edited my post, and it would have been no big deal. Stuff like that happens occasionally.

Me asking people not to mention Checkmate not yet? That's not a rule, that's a favour. I've been waiting three weeks for a reply in the thread that is laying the groundwork for Oliver's stuff, and I am asking my fellow writers to be patient and let me get myself situated before we jump into Checkmate reveals. That's not me trying to stifle everyone's creativity, that's me being stuck in a sucky position, and asking the people I write with to do me a solid for a few weeks. That's all.

There's nothing to be paranoid about. This is a mole hill, no need to make a mountain out of it.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Don't go anywhere ^_^; *clings* I'm sorry I'm taking so long to post :(

[Stephanie Brown]

Honestly, had you done the Fortress thing, I'd of just rolled with it, because I always see that kind of thing as a joined writing effort. The only time I'd ever want to change if it's something very personal to a character and very wrong, but that's just how I am.

I understand that you feel I'm being overdramatic, but I'm not trying to be. It's just that I don't think even you realise quite how heavily planned you've got this really. It's actually very rigid and I feel very stressed writing anything involved in case it's wrong. I just feel it'd be better to step back and write other stories.

[Oliver Queen]

There's not really anything planned, though. I don't get why you think there is?

We have some vague ideas of where we want to go, yeah. We have some ideas of the style of spy agency that Checkmate is, yeah. But there's no rigidity at all. Were you there the other day in the chat, when Holly was saying "I don't know, you'd have to ask Jace", and I didn't have an answer either, because there's no plan?

I know that Checkmate isn't incompetent. You yourself keep kidding about how putting your logo everywhere is stupid. I know that the characters I have in Checkmate aren't dumbasses, so I know they wouldn't do anything that we all agree is a stupid thing for a secret organisation to do. But that's it. That's the extent of our plan: the knowledge that Checkmate aren't dumbasses, and a couple of vague ideas of what might maybe be going on, but nothing that is rigid or immutable.

I don't think you realise how heavily unplanned this all is. If there's extensive planning, I sure as heck don't know what it is. All I know is what I'm doing in the threads immediately in front of my nose. There's no plan.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

My understanding is that Checkmate just wouldn't have a pile of crates marked with their name emblazoned on it - the people with characters in the organization say that would be kind of out of character for Checkmate to do that.

Of course, I expect their HQ to be totally decked out with checkerboard flooring and giant logos, that's just a given. ;)

[Stephanie Brown]

There's a difference between 'planned' and 'rigid'. You may not have it planned, but you have a very clear idea about the kind of thing that is going on and who they are. And it's got nothing to do with just the logo. I just don't feel comfortable writing about something so specific when I'm not on the same wavelength, even if you tell me. I just don't think like that. So I think it's safer to keep my distance.

[Oliver Queen]

Whether or not I have a rigid idea of Checkmate (I really don't) isn't relevant, though.

The story arc that you are stepping away from is about Queen Consolidated, and I have been 100% flexible on that. Holly wanted to do something with drugs, so there's a drug thing. You want to have boxes of sensitive intel stuff, and as long as Checkmate isn't written on the side, you can do whatever the crap you want with that. You suggested that in the thread with Deathstroke, the case contains kryptonite, and I'm going along with that without question, and have ideas for how I can factor that into stuff. Droo is writing Superboy, so I chatted to him about how that fits in with things. Queen Consolidated, which is the actual thing you're writing about... it's a big evil corporation that's experimenting on people. That's it. No plan, no rigidity. If you're seeing anything other than me being unilaterally accommodating to anything that anyone wants to do... you're imagining it.

All I'm asking is that we don't use Checkmate's name yet. That is not remotely unreasonable.

[Stephanie Brown]

Didn't you suggest the kryptonite thing? :p

And I'm not saying it's unreasonable. I'm just saying I don't trust myself and find it stressful writing something people have solid ideas for.

[Oliver Queen]

I thought it was your idea, but if it was mine... explains why I thought it was such a good one. :P

If you find it stressful writing for something people have a solid idea for though... how do you write anything, ever? People are always going to have a clear picture about certain things. That's just how it works.

From the sound of it though, all you really need to be doing is saying "Hey Jace, I want to do X, would that make sense?" which takes all of five seconds. It's what we all do, that's why we have the AIM chat, that's why we have PMs - or heck, in threads like this, which Holly started because she wasn't sure about stuff. This isn't some sort of exam where you have to do everything on your own without conferring with anybody. If you're not sure, check with someone. It's what I do, it's what everyone else does, and it's easy-peasy. You were saying the other day that you felt left out, but this stuff, this possibility that someone may have thought A, or established B in a thread that you happen to not have read, is always a danger when you collaborate with people. You're in the middle of us chit-chating on AIM every day, you see how much we check with each other to make sure we've got our facts straight - and we do even more in separate AIM convos, in PMs, and all that.

Don't stress over it. Don't back away from stuff. Just ask. We're a team. It's a collaboration, not a contest, you're allowed to lean on the other person for help.

[Supergirl]

You suggested it. I suggested Slade gets away with it after it cracks open :p.

I think I'll just wait and see. I just don't feel like it atm.