A very final death, even with the powers at hand.
*Recording starts. Loud repetitious buzzing in the background like an alarm. Voice of Tomas Night.*
Definately didn't figure it would happen like this. Rather disappointing. I can just imagine the look of the bayou witch doctors face when he hears about it. *Sigh* can't even have a last cig.
*Long pause. two rifle shots. The faint sound of rockets in the background traveling away.*
Got to hand it to Brody's demon, I never expected the change after Ryan. I suppose I'll recount as long as the radio is in range. Maybe someone can figure something out. Though it seems unlikely.
I figured it was a bad news gig when the frilly pointy eared fruit showed up, but I never thought he would be the one to be my end. The prize was to be a new gun clip, one that was adaptable to the weapons I already used, plus the chance to hunt some bigger alien things he has sent me after before.
There was a ship of some kind that neared the earth extremely rarely… he gave numbers, but I didn't really care at the time. Something in the realm of thousands of years. It comes in, loops around earth, then shoots back out into space. It's only here for a day. We were to get on a rocket, meet up with this thing near the moon, get to the control center, and turn it on to discover how we win.
It was Brutus, I think, that altered my normal routine and ultimately stranded me here. Burtus was an oddity much to my liking. A lot like ol' Chuck, he was a tough feral creature, but with more mysticism about him. I'm not sure if Ryan has been flirting with him as a lure for pray, or if she has a real interest in him, not that it matters as I had called the hunt on him when I discovered the rules of the game.
The ship was said to once have been an arch of sorts, housing DNA and archives from all over the universe. It had been attacked by the undead alien things I was told about, and the owners were seeking it's remains. Activating the ship had set it to go home, but had also released the aliens. We had to escape. We were almost immediately separated, which is when I made the wrong call. The set up was Fun, and not very surprising out of this particular harbinger… that is until Ryan and I fought our way to the ship only to find it destroyed and covered in those things.
Byte, some hacker mage I had never met, had already discovered this through the ship's computer and had discovered 4 escape pods on the alien ship that were active and aimed for earth. Had I been trying to rejoin the others instead of establish a good hunt for Brutus, I would have found out sooner…. and would have discovered something else fairly critical that ultimately doomed me.
There were 2 pods on each side of the ship, so Ryan went with Byte, and I went with Brutus. It was then that Brutus' instincts caught my intent, and he took off for the pod before I could act, not that I would have yet. It was an amazing hunt. Not just Brutus, who used his magic to block my senses, generate armor, the aliens ambushed and stalked us both along each corridor. One had scored a lucky hit on Brutus, and paid quickly for it, though the act had provided me with blood. Using my own arts, I tracked Brutus easily to the escape room. He was trapped, but stood in front of the display window, thinking I wouldn't risk shooting out the window. Naturally, I used a soul bullet.
Now that little tidbit of information I missed… this was a ghost ship. My shot went through Brutus, then shattered the glass. My speed was the only thing that kept me from being sucked into space, and I barely managed to pull myself into the next room to seal the breach. But the escape pods were gone. That noise you heard was Ryan and Byte heading back to earth. In a couple minutes, this bucket will be launched back out to space… then the ghost enchanent will be lost… as I assume I will be. My only hope is to get back to our ship and hope the life support still works…. or the emergency kits have space suits or. ………………
*Recording cuts off as the ship leaves range*
Unfortunately, I'll be out of town Saturday. The timing is pretty bad for me; I'm slammed at the moment. Any week over the last 6 months would have been better than this week … .
Google hangout 10am Saturday to discuss going forward. Ed, try & be there.
I'll take a look.
I emailed you about Google Drive.
But also, in addition to making wiki changes, let me know what you think about the various things I proposed! I'm sure that there's plenty of stuff I wrote that's crap.
Look at that, signs of life!
If you use google drive, I can share the actual documents with you.
I'm still here. You're right that the wiki needs some tidying; I'll go through and clean it up.
I'll touch base with Spencer about your Lingering Questions.
Hello again, old dead forum! It's been a while. And I've got no idea whether or not I'm engaging in productive discussion or shouting into an empty cave, but what the hell, I like how my voice sounds, so here goes:
The Endgame came and went, and the world moved on. House Games 1.5 hit when no one was lookin'. Then all of a sudden, old friends told stories together once more.
Before I get too wrapped up in pretentious narration, I'll get to the point instead. I've been compiling all the information from the wiki and a couple of forum posts to try and put together some player's guides. Which we do have already, but, no offense Ed, I thought it would be useful to have something that was a bit more user-friendly (and particularly new-user friendly) than our own personal Magic the Gathering Comprehensive Rules.
In doing this, I've also found a ton of places where the Wiki is still out of date for the 1.5 rules, as well as a number of places where things just needed to be cleaned up or redone a little bit. I'm not done with the actual guides yet, still got more non-rules based content that needs writing, but I've made a list of changes to various rules and systems that I think would be smart, as well as a list of thus far unresolved issues that I'm not sure how to resolve yet.
So obviously none of this is set in stone, even if I had that kind of authority I don't have that much faith in my abilities. So if anyone is still out there, I'd love some input!
General changes:
1) Removed all references to:
a) Manipulation
b) Intuition
c) Humanity/Morality
d) Virtues
e) Study points
f) Aggravated Damage
And replaced them with
a) Generally Wits or Intelligence, but uses Stamina when paired with Meditation
b) Either Awareness or Occult
c) Willpower and Traumas
d) Temporary Willpower rolls
e) Nothing, fuck study points
f) Nothing, fuck aggravated damage
2) Changed the wording in many cases to help with grammar and sentence structure, as well as to aid in being written well
Specific Changes:
1) Earning experience
a) Removed line about how other characters (retainers and the like) gain xp, that info should be found on the relevant merit/flaw page
2) Abilities
a) Fields
- Normalized all fields to 1 per rank except Linguistics
- Removed fields from Survival and Performance
b) Secondary Abilities
- Adjusted some of the connections to base abilities, some of them didn’t make sense
- Re-categorized skills that had previously used Intimidation, Intuition, Psychology, Culture, or Engineering as their base ability
- Eliminated several that were just stupid and inane
- Took all secondaries with only one base ability out of the big list and made several small lists on each of the Ability pages. Left a single list at the end with abilities that can have multiple different base abilities.
- Took the long list of different realms off of the Cosmology description, since those are cell-dependent
c) Changed the description of Brawl 2 so it no longer described beating on women
d) Changed mythos lore from restricting your starting morality to restricting the number of dice available for Trauma rolls
3) Merits
a) Added several merits
- Status (1): You may not be famous, but within your field you are highly respected. Choose a field of work or area of influence (must be consistent with your character). Your social interactions with people in that field will be positively affected by your Status, and any social rolls that come up will be at -2 difficulty.
- Beautiful (2): You’re quite the specimen! Rolls that rely on physical appearance in some way are at -2 difficulty, and social interactions should be roleplayed with this Merit in mind.
- Contacts (2): You know someone in a particular area of influence that is otherwise tricky to access. You must specify the details of your contact and obtain GM approval (things like the Pope’s inner circle will most likely be off-limits unless your character is already a bishop or cardinal).
4) Flaws
a) Added several flaws
- Brittle Bones (3): Your body just isn't capable of deal with impacts effectively. Each attack that does bashing damage to you gets one automatic success on the damage roll.
- Notoriety (3): You got your fame, but for all the wrong reasons. Whether because of a heist gone wrong or a high profile murder, you have a hard time staying anonymous in public. If people recognize you, bad things happen.
- Underage (3): You are far too young to be doing this sort of work, a preteen at the oldest. People treat you distinctly differently because of your age, and your starting Strength and Stamina are limited to 3.
- Tainted (5): An unlucky ancestor or an unfortunate brush with a dark power you didn’t understand has left you tainted and marked by the Devil. You begin with a Demonic Taint Autonomy pool, starting at 2 points instead of 1.
- Blacklisted (2-5): You pissed off the wrong people somewhere down the line, and now you’re being shut out. At two points, a single group or corporation (must be relevant to your character) has Blacklisted you. At 3 points, the entire industry refuses to do business with you. At 4 points, there’s not a business in the country that would dare affiliate with anyone by your name, and 5 points organizations the world over give you the cold shoulder, forcing you to deal with black market groups. Come up with a compelling reason why this happened to you! You must get GM approval before taking this Flaw. 5 points is VERY rare.
- Dependent (2-5): You have a dependent whom you must take care of at all times. Your dependent is required to attend every game with you. Come up with a reason for this: you’re being forced to watch them constantly by a vengeful mob boss, you’ve got a kid with severe mental disabilities, your wife is paraplegic and you can’t afford a caretaker, etc… You must also come up with an appropriate consequence should they die while on a game. The severity of this is dependent on the nature of your relationship with the dependent, as determined above. For example, if the dependent is your child, the consequence will be extreme: losing 6 permanent willpower would be appropriate, or gaining 4 Permanent Derangements. The point value of the flaw will depend on the severity of the punishment. A member of your immediate family will usually be 4 or 5 points, while someone forced into your care might only warrant two or three. The specifics of this flaw are quite flexible but it is subject to GM approval if you wish to take it at creation.
b) Renamed “disfigured” as “ugly”.
5) Willpower
a) Changed how willpower is regained, is now Stamina + Meditation
6) Derangement
a) Temporary derangements are now bought off at a flat cost of 10xp, in addition to requiring appropriate roleplaying.
7) Other Sources of damage
a) Fire Damage
- Removed soak difficulties for different sources of fire damage
- Fire changed to Lethal Damage
- Unsoakable unless armor specifies that it is flame retardant.
8) Feats of strength
a) Changed the chart to spencer’s cooler chart from a forum post
9) Computer rules
a) Added the computer system that was on the forums from way back when, listed as optional
10) Augmentation
a) Removed Humanity Index, Replaced with Autonomy pool
b) Revised all things that impacted humanity index to have roughly the same impact on the Autonomy pool
11) Advantages
a) Tolerance
- Revised to function based on Autonomy
12) Pools
a) Autonomy
- Made slightly more general. Now is used for any fight for control against an intruding force. Taint and Augmentation both use this system now, since they were already basically the same anyway.
- Instead of using the same triggers for gaining points for each type of Autonomy, that is now variable and should be worked out by the GM when this pool is given in a flavorful way
b) Pathos
- Low pathos score now requires a temporary Willpower check at increasing difficulties to resist pursuing your Passions, replacing the increased Self-Control difficulty
c) Taint and Torment
- Folded into autonomy
13) Templates
a) Psy-Stalker
- Lethal Soak dice from Stamina changed to ½ Stamina rating, rounded up, of Lethal Soak
14) Teaching Powers
a) No longer uses Study Points. Instruction is now accomplished by the teacher rolling Intelligence (or maybe Charisma) + Power Rating at a difficulty of 10 - the student’s Intelligence, with successes reducing the cost of the level to be purchased. That level must be purchased in the same Downtime as the Instruction.
Questions that linger
- Blind fighting is listed as a Secondary Ability AND as a maneuver, should we pick one?
- How to solve the Management problem?
- Examples of Permanent derangements?
- Still need a write-up of how to properly make and give Gifts
- Therapy, both for Augmented characters and for dealing with Derangements, needs to be looked at
- Regeneration Augments need to be rebalanced with the removal of Aggravated Damage
- Need to fix Retainer systems
- Mythic Attributes need to be looked at and potentially changed
- Should Autonomy be a template?
- Chi needs to be entirely redone
- Negative side-effects of Rage are enlightenment based, need replacing
- True Faith is Enlightenment-gated, something else needs to restrict access
- What to do with Bestiary + relevant Forum posts, including Antagonists?
Et tu Zimbabwe?
There is much celebration around the world on this day as the world-infamous, Hyper-Terrorist Alexander Weimar has been captured by a crack team of United States Special Forces operatives and Speznaz super-soldiers in the southern part of the congo after being tipped off by Zimbabwean officials surveying the area for a new resort. Living in shambles, the weakened Alexander put up no fight due to his prolonged stay there having exposed him to malayria and typhoid. The infamous dictator was executed aboard the U.S.S. Romney by beheading by his own choice with no final words and only a tired look on his face as life exited the defeated tyrant's body. He was given a seaside burrial the same day in hopes the New Roman line ends with him. There are talks among nations to declare the day "Global Freedom Day" in honor of the vanquishing of the Despot that caused the death of over 125,000 men, women, and children and the countless others who still suffer from homelessness, famine, and radiation poisoning. While the dictator may be gone, the hate for him still burns true among the people of the world as his victims still suffer in the FEMA camps of surrounding states.
in discussion Gaming Details / Gaming Records » Working for Big Brother
IF YOU PLAN TO PLAY IN THESE AVOID THIS THREAD DUE TO SLIGHT SPOILERS
in discussion Gaming Details / Gaming Records » Working for Big Brother
What once was a time of great celebration, the defect of an entire century of New Romans into the fold of Big Brother, now is one disappointment and anxiety. Tasked with securing the Oasian city of Pazzio, the New Roman conscripts and Comrades found themselves in an all too familiar situation with one small difference: fighting with controllers. Seeing themselves as all powerful war gods and seeing the controllers as weak excuses for warriors, the defectors, after breeching the city walls, killed the controllers holding the portals that let through the enemy's defences stable. This action by the defectors had grave consequences: without the protection of the controllers, the portals were open for any entity to enter into their reality including the gods and demi-gods of the nation they had just betrayed. While the higher ups of Big Brother would love to see this unholy justice play out, they would rather not let the entire armies of hell out, especially since they're not on their side; so RM-113 is ordered to use the High Rollers to close the portals and get out.
Will the players infiltrate the city, demolish the gates to the hellish dimension known as the Aether and Nether and avoid the fallout of a conflict having nothing to do with them or even Big Brother?
Or will they make a wrong turn and find themselves staring down a higher demon of Coty looking for revenge and himself only seeing morsels in his unholy feast of traitorous souls?
in discussion Gaming Details / Gaming Records » Working for Big Brother
A controller has fallen into enemy hands and a High Priest of Kane will arrive in the morning to extract all the delicious information he can about Big Brother's plans. RM-113 has summoned housegamers to fix this problem. Being already comprimised to the New Roman filth, the controller is better dead than back in their possession. The controller lies in one of the scores of tents in the command camp. While it is usual of High Rollers to go in guns blazing and ask questions never, the only problem with this tactic is that there is a whole legion in the valley below.
Can the players get around the nightwatch, stealthily neutralize the controller, and get out before the sun shines over the land?
Or will they come under fire, comprimise the mission, and arouse an entire legion from a night of peaceful sleep?
I greatly approve of the concept which has no bearing as to the fact that I was one of the people who helped shape this lore.
in discussion Gaming Details / Gaming Records » Working for Big Brother
This thread is about a series of games in which players are hired by RM-113, a Greatest Controller in the ranks of Big Brother, one of the many factions in a dystopian future where no ties of the old world exist.
This future is one in which nuclear fire cleansed the earth of all governments, laws, and borders leaving a blank slate for the survivors to etch their story into.
While these are not the only nations of the land, they are the most active in the region in which players shall go.
- The first faction is New Rome, a loose confederacy of cities expanding over several of the new continents bound together by an ever growing hunger for resources and even hungrier gods. There being few guns in the land, and those that exist, far too expensive to operate, New Rome has decided to take it back to the basics and train their men in an ancient imperial Roman fashion and win by the folds in their armor and the tactics in their heads rather than the numbers to their rear or the technology in their hands.
- The second faction is Oasiana, an even farther expansive empire than New Rome operating under an Oligarchy of nobles, barons, and lords. Their forces consist of anything from peasantry with pitchforks to colonial era redcoats who know that while they might not have the greatest weapons or the strongest men, they have the sheer numbers of men needed to fight any opponent.
- The third, and most illusive, faction is known as Magnus Frater by the New Romans in their tongue and as the Dark Ones by the Oasians who live in only a few visible cities that lack all color and minimize architectural creativity through their famous Grey box method, is Big Brother. Anyone planning to visit his cities should plan to have their minds eroded into dust as the walled hell produces energies that even the high priests of New Rome can barely explain. They utilize the most modern weaponry and technology available to produce the most awe inducing army made of flesh and blood this world's ever seen. However, unlike New Rome or Oasiana, they have no known origins and their cities (like their enemies) seem to appear and disappear as the moonlight does. Few who are attacked by this malevolent force are ever seen again, assumedly turned into a dreaded controller: a man infused with wire and circuit to such a degree that he is more machine than man or brainwiped to be a standard conscript.
- Another factions of note is The Wanderers, groups of scourging raiders that have no alliance to anyone besides themselves and their pack. While not a unified fighting force by any means, they are useful in that they will sell out anybody for a price, including their fellow wanderer
This is the future gamers find themselves in and are hired by RM-113, a Greatest Controller of Big Brother, to perform various attacks on all of the rival nations and peoples
Put to the test, will the players emerge victorious, drenched in the blood of Big Brother's enemies, or shall they feed the very real cackling gods of men greater than they?
For those with characters, contacts, ect. in or around New Orleans, all civilians were been evacuated from the city as soon as the National Guard was called
New Romans in New Orleans?
A prolonged fight between collective gang forces in New Orleans and the United States National Guard has ended with the detonation of a WMD in New Orleans resulting in the death of 125,000+ individuals and growing numbers of sick, maimed, or injured from radiation poisoning and the initial blast with the culprit being Alexander Weimar, leader of a previously unknown terrorist organization known as New Rome. This following days after a terrorist attack on a local police station involving a chemical nerve agent killing at least twenty local officers and one federal official. Reports also implicate an illegal arms dealer by the name of Sergei as a possible supplier of the nerve agent as well as weapons that fueled the fighting in the days to come before the attack. Forces were dispatched after televisions everywhere broadcasted Weimar's victory speech in which he described the events in New Orleans as "insurrectionists under his rule begging for the cleansing of [the city]" however, reports indicate there were no tracings to the organization in the city. The Ancient Roman Catacombs in which this terrorist organization has been operating out of have been raided by NATO forces and been collapsed. "The price to pay… for a future of peace." said Italian prime minister to the EU on Tuesday. No body of the leader of the terrorist organization has been found in the ruins. A reward price of five-hundred Million dollars has been placed on any information leading to the recovery of the leader's body.
The International Space Station has been destroyed by a meteoroid impact, and all six astronauts have been killed. The crew included two Americans, one Canadian, and three Russians.
The meteoroid that struck the Space Station was about 50 feet in diameter and 7,000 tons, and hit at a velocity of 40,000 miles per hour. The impact had the force of a 300- to 500-kiloton nuclear bomb, and the flash shone momentarily brighter than the Sun. Neither the crew nor ground control had any warning of the approaching meteor. The deaths of the astronauts were instantaneous.
Both NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency confirmed that the meteor strike had nothing to do with 2012 DA14, a 150-foot-wide asteroid that passed within 17,200 miles of Earth – closer than some communications satellites. “The fact that the two objects arrived on the same day is only a coincidence,” said Dr. Richard Lee of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The Pentagon and the Russian Ministry of Defense also released a joint statement denying any connection with the Shelk, or with the recently reported Spider-Aliens. “This was not the result of hostile action by either aliens or human belligerents,” said Pentagon spokesman George Little. “It was a tragic coincidence. We deeply regret the loss of life and will take appropriate action to minimize the chances of a recurrence.”
The loss of the Space Station has brought the human presence in space to an end – the first time in more than 12 years that there have not been humans in space. China maintains the Tiangong-1 station, but it is not manned and is scheduled to be deorbited later this year. However, China has announced plans to accelerate the launch of Tiangong-2, with the intention of having it in orbit before the end of the year.
Neither the United States nor Russia currently has plans for a new space station. However, Bigelow Aerospace, a Nevada space technology company, intends to launch the Bigelow Commercial Space Station in 2014.
Scientists report that the asteroid 2012 DA14 will pass within 17,200 miles of Earth this Friday. There is no possibility that it will strike the Earth, though it could hit a communications satellite. Even this is extremely unlikely, however.
Scientists have never before had the opportunity to observe such a narrow miss. “It's not a dangerous event, but it is an extraordinarily interesting one,” said Dr. Richard Lee of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “We plan to take full advantage of it. Every instrument we have will be trained on DA14; we expect to make some fascinating observations.”
NASA expects to learn about the asteroid's composition and structure. Such information could prove useful should it ever be necessary to remove the threat of an asteroid impact.
in discussion Journal Entries / Portland Records » William Etheridge, M.D.
The envelope contained a reservation for the World Cup in Sao Paulo, a grainy photograph of a bearded wild-eyed man, a smaller sealed envelope which I was directed not to open at this time, and an invitation to a Game. It was from Bratovitch. Naturally.
I was meeting with Nicodemus Rhinehart anyway, and it turned out that he had been invited as well. Sissy and Ackroyd seemed to be the only other members of the Battle Network who would be attending. Ackroyd confirmed that of his cell, Coleman and McGuire had received invitations. At least six of us, then.
It turned out that our seats were widely dispersed around the stadium, amongst a crowd of nearly 100,000 people. Sissy left Tharcinn concealed outside, since bringing him in seemed impractical.
The opening ceremony went surprisingly smoothly, with none of the anticipated problems manifesting. At the end, several people – celebrities, perhaps? – went out onto the field for the singing of the Brazilian National Anthem. I stiffened slightly when I noticed that one of them was the man in the photograph. I looked at him more closely. Yes; there was no mistaking it. He was an extraordinarily powerful Mind Melter.
He was also a talented singer. He began singing the National Anthem in fluent Portuguese. I waited tensely for the Game to begin.
There was a blinding flash, and suddenly everyone in the entire stadium was standing naked inside a huge dome made of coral. We were on the Spider-Alien world.
A flare of energy erupted from the other side of the dome. It burst upwards and smashed into the ceiling, blasting a hole through which water began to gush.
The ceiling began to collapse. McGuire immediately used his powers to stem the flow, but he wasn't going to be able to hold it for long. He reported that we were in the ocean, at a depth of about 500 feet.
He also reported that the energy burst had come from a middle-aged man with a scarred face and seething fire where his left eye should be. I recognized the image immediately: Raslow. So, there were seven of us on this Game.
Raslow inscribed an extradimensional circle while McGuire set up an air bubble, just before the dome crumpled inward. Between them they managed to save about 25 civilians. The rest – nearly 100,000 people – were quickly crushed or drowned. Soon bizarre marine fauna were tearing into the corpses in a feeding frenzy.
Coleman explored outside the dome and detected the approach of siege crabs. In moments they would be in firing range, and I knew the effects of their cannon. There was no time to waste.
Raslow dispatched a trio of Hunting Horrors to slow the Spider-Aliens while McGuire ferried people to the surface. Meanwhile, Coleman continued scouting and identified a second dome about half a mile away. Rhinehart interrogated the coral and verified that it was the way back. Reaching it would not be easy; Spider-Aliens equipped with air bubbles of some sort crawled over the surface, and siege crabs guarded the approaches. If that wasn't enough, he quickly determined that the approaches were mined with some sort of biological mine I hadn't previously encountered. Numerous mines were already in place, and a number of smaller domes in the surrounding area were continuing to release them.
We needed to reach the exit dome before the situation deteriorated further. First, we needed to know what was inside. Coleman teleported into it to find out. Just that quickly, he was gone, back to our world.
Well. At least that told us that all we needed to do was enter the dome. McGuire put together a torpedo-shaped cylinder of air large enough to hold all of us. We made preparations, and he launched us toward the dome. McGuire was at the back, propelling us forward at rapidly increasing speed; Sissy was at the point, ready to smash through the dome; and the rest of us lined up along the sides to repel the enemy's attacks.
Energy weapons opened up as we approached the dome, but Ackroyd, Raslow, and I were able to dissipate the blasts. This made the fusillade of spears just before we hit that much more difficult to block, however, and several got through. They exploded on impact, sending shards everywhere.
Abruptly we were back in our seats. The stadium was eerily quiet as one hundred thousand Spider-Aliens gathered their bearings. We used the time to open the sealed envelopes we had been given. The instructions contained therein were simple: Do not allow even one of the aliens to escape alive.
The aliens. Rhinehart had determined in the course of questioning the coral that the transference ritual required a human psychic. That meant we didn't have to kill the Mind-Melter to win, which was just as well, since we couldn't prevent him from escaping and also deal with a stadium full of Spider-Aliens. We had no choice but to let him go while we dealt with the immediate problem.
We dealt with it. Sissy triggered a series of earthquakes; McGuire brought down a flood; Raslow summoned Daoloth right in the center of the stadium; Coleman used explosives to bring down the stadium exits, while I assisted in collapsing them with telekinesis; Ackroyd summoned a horde of Desh to herd escapees back into the kill zone.
But there were still a few leakers. We patrolled the area, hunting them down and blocking every attempt to break out. In the end, McGuire had to flood most of Sao Paulo, and Sissy had to rock the entire area with quake after quake, shaking buildings into rubble and smashing transit systems. In the end, there may have been as many as a quarter of a million civilian casualties, but we had prevented a larger disaster: The fall of Brazil to the Spider-Aliens. We had forestalled their invasion, at least for a time.
Long enough for the world to prepare for invasion? Time would tell.