Sojoboverse: X-League DC/Marvel Mashup

[Sojobo]

In preparation for a high level game here at the ATT, I'll be crystallizing my ideas for the X-League DC/Marvel mashup setting here.

[Sojobo]

World War II, Pacific Ocean

In the Pacific Theater, the aircraft carrier USS Avenger's radar picked up unidentified aircraft flying by. Since these aircraft could have been friendlies lacking Identification: Friend or Foe gear or a Japanese kamikaze strike force, a combat air patrol (CAP) was scrambled to intercept. The CAP was lead by Captain Steven Trevor Rogers, a scrawny man who had risen above the bullying of his past to prove through dedicated service that he was the bravest pilot on the Avenger.

Captain Roger's CAP found neither friendlies nor Japanese planes, but Nazi planes, using jet technology that should not have existed at this time. They seemed to be protecting a single, larger transport plane. Even stranger, these planes seemed to be engaged in a dogfight, chasing and firing after... nothing. It was only after a Nazi fighter managed to hit whatever it was aiming at that it became clear to the Americans that the Nazis were fighting with an invisible airforce.

Roger's CAP was sliced to ribbons by the Nazi's advanced planes, or else crashed accidently into the invisible craft. Roger's managed to gun down a Nazi fighter through luck and skill, but he could not keep his badly damaged Wildcat in the air any longer. With his cockpit fused and his ejection seat systems failing, Rogers braced himself for death as he plummeted toward the Pacific Ocean.

At this point, the large transport plane the Nazi had been defending flashed, unleashing a shockwave of light that spread outward. The shockwave passed through everything, and as it did so, the invisible flying chariots the Nazis had been fighting shimmered into view... as did an entire island, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.

Of course, Roger's plane was heading straight towards it.

Saturn

In another galaxy, the super advanced civilization of Krypton had made the mistake of allying itself with the "Gods" of Asgard and New Genesis, and in retribution, the evil, nigh-omnipotent Darkseid had sent Krypton a gift - the traitor-god Loki. Nothing remained of Krypton now but glowing shards of crystal, as green as Loki's eyes - and a single survivor, jettisoned into space before Loki's apocalyptic rampage.

Just past the icy, rocky rings surrounding Saturn, an alien lifepod was hurtling through space, containing the orphaned, infant child of a now dead planet Krypton. The shockwave from Earth defied all physics, a combination of Nazi mysticism and 40th century science, and was instantaneously spreading across the universe. When it reached the Kryptonian lifepod, it knocked it off its intended trajectory, and the little vessel reoriented itself towards Earth.

Gotham City

The shockwave literally passed through everything, including time. In Gotham City, 1970, it awoke a slumbering Bruce Wayne, 5 years old, and unknown to him, the shockwave opened a door in his mind. Moments before, Bruce had been having a nightmare - black bats had been chasing him through a dark cave - and he awoke, scared, looking for the source of the bright light.

Something in his mind, something that hadn't been there before, told him to be calm and go back to sleep, a soothing voice that told him that there was nothing to fear in the darkness. Feeling oddly at peace - the way an opium addict feels after taking a hit - Bruce sleepily lay back down and asked the voice who he was.

"I am the Shadow King," the voice said. "The darkness is now your friend."

[Sojobo]

Germany

Ever since Dr. Heinrich Zemo's prototype Uber-class U-boat, in its attempt to circumnavigate the world, serendipitously captured that high-tech submersible and its marine, human-like pilot deep in the Pacific Ocean during World War I, the Nazi occultist, scientist, and (now) SS officer Johann Schmidt had been obsessed with finding Atlantis and plundering its wealth. The technology Schmidt had gleaned from the vessel was amazing. A mix of science and sorcery, the Atlantean vessel was the key to Schmidt's ascendency into the Nazi party, and he knew that if he could find Atlantis itself, it would make him the most powerful man in the world.

At the height of World War II, Schmidt dispatched a secret Nazi aircraft carrier, equipped with experimental jet fighters and a technomagical device he had created called "The Dowsing Rod" into the Pacific. He hoped the activation of the device would help him find Atlantis, and he sent it to a location that his sensors had reported anomalous electromagnetic readings.

Meanwhile, between the World Wars, Zemo had been busy as well. The battle with the Atlantean vessel had left him horribly scarred, both mentally and physically. His sacrifice had been all but ignored by Schmidt and the new Nazi's, and so Zemo secreted himself away, tapping into his vast personal wealth to form HYDRA, a technoterrorist group. Zemo himself was forced to wear an iron-lung like suit to survive, and began calling himself Baron Manta. He was obsessed with finding Atlantis as much as Schmidt was, but his plans didn't hinge upon scientific conquest - it was bent towards revenge.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Let me just say that even if I can't follow every single reference this is one of the most awesome things I have ever read.

[Sojobo]

Prehistory

Long before Earth, long before Krypton and New Genesis, long before life had even become a repeating motif in the ever expanding universe, there was Paradise. There, over millions of generations, a race of bipedal simians transcended their base, physical limitations. Their culture spanned eons, and eventually they mastered nature and science itself and ascended to a higher plane of existence. Creatures of pure energy, they called themselves Gods and with their limitlessness powers spread across the universe, carving out their own empires and kingdoms. Physical needs like territory or resources meant nothing to them; they instead craved worship, and fought not with weapons but with ideas.

There mere existence was enough to influence lesser species; the mere passage of the Warden God through an isolated sector of space instilled a desire for universal peace and order on the planet of Oa, and set its primitive blue-skinned people on a path that would, trillions of years later, eventually culminate in the Lantern Corps.

A pair of Gods, twins and forever seeking to better each other, influenced countless worlds. They are not "good" and "evil," nor "light" and "dark", nor "order and "chaos" - they are none of these. They are simply Opposites. The echoes of their ideological war still reverberate through the cosmos, and have given rise to hundreds of conflicts amongst the star-faring races: the savagery of Thanagar vs. the collected calm of the Shi'Ar, the individualistic, shapeshifting Skruldurlans vs. the hive-minded Reach of Kree.

But the very first salvo in the war between the Twins was the creation of the planet of Genesis. There, the Twins pitted the indigenous sentient race - so similar to their previous, un-Ascended forms - against each other, pawns in their ideological war. With the Twins influence, the people of Genesis grew in the same footsteps as the ancient race of Paradise, and even ended up calling themselves Celestials. However, the conflict the Twins fomented on Genesis would eventually rip the planet asunder, with the most powerful Celestials dying in the conflagration. The lesser Celestials, now calling themselves New Gods, were forced to flee and colonize new worlds: the heroic world of Asgard, the wondrous crystalline Krypton, the splendor of New Genesis, and the hellfire pits of Apocalypse.

A pair of New Gods, the two strongest, fled even further, coming upon a quaint little stellar system. Discovering sentient life upon at least two of the planets, the two New Gods, like the Twins before them, decided to "play god" and began influencing life upon their worlds. One New God actively uplifted the green-skinned shapeshifters of its planet, instilling in them a policy of survival of the fittest. This strategy would eventually lead to tragedy, as the strongest member of that race - En Sabah Nur - followed that Darwinian mandate to its logical conclusion, killing the New God, destroying their civilization, and turning their verdant world red. The survivors banded together and managed to chain the insane En Sabah Nur deep within the planet, but at great loss; only one of the green Martians survived. He stands vigil over En Sabah Nur's tomb to this day.

The other New God decided to be more subtle with its blue and green world; it created a race of beings in its own image (and therefore in the image of the Twins before it), and lent its power to some of these creatures, instilling them with the subconscious memories of its New God brothers and sisters. It then sat back and watched.

We know these children of the New God as our own historical gods: Zeus, Brahma, Odin, etc. They, in turn, would influence the humans of planet Earth, not knowing that in doing so they would eventually draw the attention of their most powerful "ancestor" - the Lord of Apocalypse, Darkside.

[Sojobo]

The Gods, Atlantis, and Themyscira

The masters of all they surveyed, the gods of Earth had their hands in human civilization from the very beginning, spawning the (highly exaggerated) stories of our mythology and culture. Unbeknownst to them, Darkside, God of Evil and Lord of Apocalypse, one of the most powerful survivor of the Celestial world of Genesis, had tracked his relatives down to our solar system. Driven to conquest and understanding the concept of Anti-Life, Darkside rankled at the thought of entities not under his thumb. When he discovered that other New Gods had colonized our solar system, he vowed to destroy them; however, caught in continual war against his brothers and sisters on Asgard, Krypton, and New Genesis, he could not act directly against his lost siblings.

Instead, he sent the most subtle of agents to do his dirty work, born on harmless-seeming meteors, which crash landed on both Earth and Mars. The meteors contained single-celled lifeforms, Darkside's cacobacteria; the Martians technology allowed them to eradicate the cacobacteria, but not before one infected the one called En Sabah Nur, brainwashing him into thinking he was the Harbinger of Apocalypse and leading to his eventual destruction of Mars.

The cacobacteria that landed on Earth rapidly colonized the oceans, spreading everywhere and spewing a new poison into the atmosphere: oxygen. The accumulation of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere lead to a mass extinction of most of the life on Earth; some Gods, fearing for their creations' lives, sequestered ancient humans in different parts of the Earth in the hopes of saving them.

One cadre of these ancient humans were the Atlanteans; the god Poseidon hid them deep beneath the oceans, held in stasis until automated servants could perfect the genetic engineering necessary to allow them to breathe oxygen.

Another group was brought to the caverns beneath the Moon; subterranean catches of a mutagenic gas altered them, turning them all into something altogether Inhuman.

Still another group were the Amazons; Poseidon's sister Hera used her intrinsic "magic" to spirit away their island of Themyscira, but not before all the male Amazons died out. Not wanting her creations to die out, Hera blessed the surviving Amazons with immunity to oxygen, longevity, and magical artifacts, and ordered them to isolate themselves from the outside world.

Knowing that the cacobacteria was only the first in Darkside's salvo, the Gods of Earth withdrew to other places, in the hopes that Darkside would ignore Earth and follow them. They still keep tabs on their creations, influencing things through visitations by avatars and other subtle communication, but for the most part, Earth was left on its own.

Eventually, the indigenous bacteria of Earth would evolve to survive in the oxygen rich environment, and over countless generations would eradicate the cacobacteria - mostly. Life would repopulate Earth, following the evolutionary path the gods had set up previously.

History as we know it begins.

Fast forward to the 1900's...

The Atlanteans awaken from their stasis, finally able to breathe oxygen; believing the surface world is infested with Darkside's creations, they cautiously send out scouts under the command of Namor, the Aquaman of Atlantis. One scout is attacked by the German Uber-class U-boat; despite Namor the Aquaman's attempts to save the vessel, it is captured, but not before seriously damaging the U-boat and its brilliant but devious pilot/inventor.

Fast forward to World War II, the Pacific Ocean. Drawn by bizarre electromagnetic interference, Johann Schmidt sends his Dowsing Rod device, built from stolen Atlantean technology, to the Pacific, convinced that he has found Atlantis. Unbeknownst to him, Johann Schmidt is one of the many humans to have been infected by the ancient cacobacteria, which continue to work towards Darkside's ends. Influenced by the cacobacteria, Schmidt overlays Apocalyptic technology over the Atlantean, and his Dowsing Rod is for more powerful than eve he imagines.

When the Dowsing Rod is activated, it unleashes chaos magic across the known universe. The transport plane carrying the Dowsing Rod explodes, and the Rod itself melts and reconfigures itself - into a cube. The cube falls into the ocean.

The Dowsing Rod's activation is catalyst for an unknowable number of events - aligning of the Speed Force Dimension with our own, releasing the Shadow King from the Astral Plane, increasing the number of mutations in human DNA, inspiring a plan for lasting order in the Lantern Corpsman Sinestro, awakening of En Sabah Nur on Mars, etc. The chaos magic shockwave is so powerful it continues to ripple through time and space; for example, an echo of it passes back through upper Earth orbit near the modern day, irradiating a crew of four intrepid astronauts and giving them fantastic powers.

Its immediate, effect, however, is dispelling the massive number of protective and concealing enchantments Hera had placed on Themyscira, revealing it and its protective squadron of invisible, shape-changing chariots. This, of course, is the island that materializes before Captain Steve T. Rogers eyes as his Wildcat plummets from the sky.

[Sojobo]

@Silvercat: Thanks, I didn't even notice your comment till now!

[Sojobo]

World War II, Later Years

After World War II ended and the United States and Germany became diplomatic allies in the modern era, certain events - especially the events surrounding the Dowsing Rod explosion in the Pacific - were covered up and remain state secrets. The official line, parroted by both nations, is this:

The rogue SS scientist Johann Schmidt, on Hitler's orders, was transporting dangerous radioactive material to their Japanese allies, perhaps to allow them to develop their own atomic weapons. Captain Steven T. Roger's CAP intercepted and managed to shoot down the transport convoy. The subsequent explosion of Schmidt's device irradiated and killed everyone - the exception of Captain Rogers, who through a fluke was gifted with superhuman strength, agility, and reflexes. According to the story, Captain Rogers, adrift in the Pacific Ocean, swam all the way to California.

The truth is that Captain Rogers crash landed on the hidden island of Themyscira, where the Amazons found him, badly injured and dying. The Amazons had little use for technology, considering their natural gifts and magical artifacts, but with the chaos shockwave temporarily negating most of their magic, the Amazons in their now visible flying chariots were no match for the machine guns of the advanced German fighters and were being shot out of the sky. Bombers began strafing the island; things were extremely dire for Themyscira.

When the Amazons found Rogers, he refused their help and expended his last few breaths to radio to the USS Avenger to scramble their entire fighter wing to defend Themyscira. With the help of the Avenger, the Nazi fighter jets were routed and Themyscira was saved.

Captain Rogers died from his extensive wounds.

It was therefor a tremendous shock to him when Rogers awoke a few days later, completely healed and now in perfect physical health. Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons, had anointed his corpse with panacea, a magical ointment that not only returned him from the dead, but gave him his superpowers. Grateful, and smitten by Hippolyta's beauty, Rogers stayed with the Amazons for a short time - until his own sense of loyalty forced him to steal away from Hippolyta one night and swim back to America and his duty. He promised to himself he would find a way to return once the war was over.

Once he was debriefed and his superpowers became known, he became the patriotic propagada symbol Captain America we are all already familiar with. He served valiantly in World War II, dismantling the clandestine military science organization of Johann Schmidt. Driven to vengeance, Schmidt managed to capture Captain America in the last days of the war, and taking him to Berlin, created a supersoldier serum from his blood. Taking the prototype serum gave Schmidt superpowers identical to Captain America's. The serum reacted with Schmidt's cacobacteria infection, horribly disfiguring him into the Red Skull; driven near insane with megalomania, the Red Skull planned to detonate an doomsday device and take out all of Europe.

In a brazen rescue mission, the Blackhawks, an international freedom fighting aerial squadron, managed to fight its way through the Luftwaffe defenses of Berlin and airdrop the Howling Commandos right on the Red Skull's doorstep. With their help, Captain America escaped and fought the Red Skull over the controls of his doomsday device. The Red Skull's fortress exploded; it is assumed that Captain America was lost, sacrificing himself to save the world from the Red Skull's insanity.

World War II ends.

The Fallout

Baron Manta steals much of the Red Skull's research for use by his HYDRA organization, and continues his search for Atlantis.

The secret of the supersoldier serum survived the explosion, and managed to get into the hands of Project Cadmus, a secret military science organization that used it as the basis for something they call the Weapon Program.

The Red Skull secretly survived; he plots the downfall of America and the rest of the world to this day.

Captain America, of course, also survived. Disillusioned by America's usage of him as a gaudy jingoistic symbol, and remembering his promise to return to Hippolyta, he stole away before America could turn him into a test subject. Perhaps he found his way back to Themyscira, perhaps he didn't.

On Themyscira, Queen Hippolyta gives birth to a baby girl, the first Amazon born since the day the island was hidden away. She is named Diana, after Captain Roger's mother.

[Thrincold]

This is massively impressive so far. Now if only I knew enough about the DC-verse to follow more of it.

[Sojobo]

Gotham City

The Wayne family tragedy played out, as expected. A night out with the family, to watch Bruce's favorite swashbuckling hero movie. A shortcut through a rough neighborhood. A desperate criminal. Gunshots. Two corpses and an orphan.

As a 9 year old Bruce Wayne watched the blood pooling out around his parents' bodies and silently asked the world "Why?," the Shadow King, who had ridden silently in the back of Bruce's mind all these years whispered, "Because this is what people do to each other."

The Shadow King has been waiting for this moment. It had entered this world weak and nearly powerless; the host it was forced to cling to, this coddled, spoiled boy living in the lap of luxury and love, starved him of the negative emotions it needed to grow strong. Finally, after 4 years of lying dormant, the Shadow King had sensed opportunity; it had psychically influenced Thomas Wayne into taking that reckless shortcut.

And now it fed on Bruce's rage and despair, in abundance. It grew stronger. When Bruce asked himself "What can I do?" the Shadow King was ready with an answer. "Vengeance."

When Bruce asked "How?" the Shadow King replied "Become the night."

Batman was born.

Smallville

The lifepod of Kal-El, the last survivor of the New Gods known as Kryptonians, knocked off course from its intended destination by the chaos shockwave, eventually crash lands in the farmlands of Smallville, Kansas. The lifepod is damaged in the crash, and the infant Kal-El, despite being a New God, is injured. In an attempt to save the child's life, the lifepod's autonomic systems attempt to regenerate the damage, but with its crystal memory damaged by the crash, does not have a genetic record to base the regeneration upon.

A kindly couple, Jonathan and Martha Parker, discover the lifepod, and the lifepod discovers them. Biologically scanning them as they rush to the flaming wreckage, the lifepod heals Kal-El - with human DNA. When the Parkers manage to reach Kal-El, he looks to all the world like a normal, healthy human baby boy. They adopt him as their own, naming him Peter.

[Sojobo]

Peter Parker

Not wanting their adopted son to be stuck in a poor farm community, the Parkers sent Peter to live in Metropolis with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May, where he attended school with his neighbor (and secret crush) Gwen Lang. Peter would return to Smallville for holidays and the summer, and had the wholesome, idealistic upbringing that two sets of moral parents could instill. He was a good student, interested in science but also valuing hard work and the pleasures of working the land, and decided he'd become an agrarian scientist.

But teenagers are teenagers, and Peter went through his rebellious phase. He became impetuous, moody, feeling trapped, and pushed the concerns of his parents away. His only source of calm at that point was talking with Gwen Lang, but because she was so popular at school Peter often felt jealous at the attention she got from the meatheads and jocks.

Peter's Kryptonian heritage lay dormant this entire time, shielded by his human DNA, until the day his class took a field trip to STAR Labs. While examining Dr. Emil Connor's collection of neogenic spiders (which had been irradiated by an exotic green crystal that had fallen to Earth), Peter begins to feel ill. He collapses into the arms of Gwen Lang and is rushed to the hospital, his vitals dropping rapidly.

The Parkers tap into their savings and fly overnight into Metropolis to be with their son, along with Uncle Ben and Aunt May. They secretly bring with them a white crystal, the largest part of Peter's old lifepod, in the hopes that it will help him.

Bruce Wayne

Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne set himself on the path to becoming the Dark Knight. His quest for useful knowledge was insatiable, and his nearly unlimited resources let him travel the world to seek out teachers: Shang-Chi, Zatarra, Henri Ducard, the Sensei. He purchased supplies of super-exotic materials like adamantium and vibranium for future use, and took on the persona of the Bat, his childhood fear.

The Shadow King was beside itself with pleasure; Bruce Wayne was shaping himself into a most desirable host, and the glut of negative emotions pouring off the obsessed Bruce kept him well fed. As the Batman began his crime-fighting career in Gotham City c1990, numbing the hollowness within himself through violence, the Shadow King reached out to the truly fringe members of Gotham society and decided to give Batman worthy adversaries to fight and follow into madness...

[Sojobo]

Peter Parker and the Professor

The lifepod's main crystal healed Peter - and activated his latent Kryptonian powers.

When Peter finally wakes up, the first thing he sees are the concerned faces of his parents and uncle and aunt. Looking around, he realizes he is floating above his bed - he is tethered to it with wrist and ankle restraints. In a panic, he struggles to get free - and his super-strength sends his bed hurtling across the room. His heat vision kicked in, scorching and slicing half the room.

The worry Uncle Ben had felt when Peter had fallen into a coma, followed by the startling revelation of Peter's origins once Jonathan and Martha Parker lay the lifepod's main crystal on his chest, had worn the old man out, and now seeing his beloved nephew in a panic was too much. Uncle Ben's weakened heart gives out.

Peter's superpowered panic would have taken out all of STAR Labs had they not fortunately had a visiting researcher from Oxford University. Calmly stepping into the bedlam in Peter's room, the man reached out and touched Peter Parker's mind.

"Calm your mind, Peter. My name is Charles Xavier, and I am going to help you."

[Sojobo]

I was having difficulty wrangling with the timeline, so I altered some things.

I moved Peter Parker's crash landing and Bruce's birth (and therefore possession by the Shadow King) farther up, around 1965; and I can do this because the Dowsing Rod/Cosmic Cube's chaos shockwave moves through space AND time! Good thing I gave myself that loophole.... hell, maybe it travels back through time and kills off most of the cacobacteria, allowing life to restart on Earth. Why not, I'll just have it go back further and knock that giant planetoid in the Earth billions of years ago, forming the moon. Hell

He's therefore around 50 at the start of the game; old enough that he can still be a cranky Xavier analog, but young enough that he can become active as Batman in 1985-1990, have potential sidekicks, and get crippled by the late 1990's. He starts the Xavier school in early to mid 2000, and has a hand in the formation of the X-League in present day.

I also corrected some of my WWII references.

[Arthur Eld]

Timeline (Under Construction)

1926 James Buchanan Barnes is born.
1942 Bucky begins working with Captain America fighting the Nazis and Fascists in Europe.
1944 The Lord of Magic arrives on Earth and meets his host, Silas Grenier, and the two come together when Grenier puts on the helmet. Silas travels to Themsicyra and aids the Amazons against monsters warped by the chaos shockwave. He is present for Diana's birth.
1945 Bucky Barnes and Captain America lead a team of Marines to recover a blue scarab from a HYDRA outpost. Shortly after, Silas begins working with the duo as they make inroads into Germany. Before Captain America is captured, Silas leaves the group to stop a magical crisis in Berlin. In a final battle with Schmidt, Bucky Barnes is frozen, and Captain America retires to return to Themyscira.
1950-Barnes is recovered by a German geological team. Arnim Zola, known as Commandt Immortus during the war purchases his ice-covered body, mind-wiping the geologists.
1955-Bucky Barnes is given to the Red Skull by Zola.
1981 Kate and Beth Kane are born.
1982 Matt Murdock is born.
1984 Katherine Gordon is born. Silas Grenier meets and joins Charles Xavier and Superboy as they fight and foil a plot by the Ultra-Brainiac (Ultron/Ultra-Humanite/Brainiac) to take over the world's computer and related systems with a copy of its programming, called 'Big Brother.'
1987-Carol Lynn Danvers is born.
1993 Kate and Beth Kane are kidnapped. In the ensuing rescue mission, Beth is killed, along with the girls' mother.
1995 Katherine Gordon begins fighting crime as Shadowbat.
2000 Post Xavier's death, Silas is disheartened enough to take on a 'mundane' life hidden in society for the next few years. This is where he spends more and more time studying theater and drama as a solace, forming the basis for his teaching job at the Xavier Institute when Bruce Wayne seeks him out.
2004: Lexcorp makes its foray into space with a craft incorporating alien tech. The craft fails in mid-flight and Carol Lynn Danvers gains her powers at age 17. Lexcorp is sued. A lot. USAF pilot Nathaniel Kane undergoes Project X to bond his body with Dilusteel.
2005-Silas Grenier begins working at the Xavier Institute as a drama teacher. Kate Kane begins fighting crime as Batwoman. Kane's evidence against General Eiling, director of Project X, results in the General being arrested and stripped of his rank.
2007 Batwoman's sidekick, Flamebird appears. Matt Murdoch graduates from law school.
2008 Carol Lynn Danvers makes her first public appearance as Marvel Girl in Metropolis.
2009 Flamebird is killed by man-animal hybrids working for Intergang. Batwoman gains power from Anansi, the spider god, and becomes Black Widow. Matt Murdoch is beset by Intergang thugs, but is saved when he is chosen to be the newest Green Lantern. Before accepting this, he removes the ring and is blinded by radiation from Abin Sur's ship.
2011 Lex Luthor and the Red Skull recover Bucky from cyrogenic suspension. They begin experimenting on him to give him Superboy's DNA and powers for six months. Eventually he escapes and returns to America, where is given the name Superman.

[cbwjm]

Gotta say, I've enjoyed reading this and I look forward to more of it.