5065/Germination: Back, From Outer Space

Germination: Back, From Outer Space
Date of Scene:	31 July 2018
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	A meeting is held to determine how to use their new 'weapon' against the fungus, if at all.
Cast of Characters:	Stardust, Crusader, Nuala Duvall, Hulk, Raijin, Iron Man, Robin (Wayne), Wonder Woman
Tinyplot:	Germination

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Stardust has posed:
A short while back, the Titans had announced to the other groups that they had an unusual lead in the fungus problem besetting the earth. Information regarding the origin of the fungus, and some possible hints on how to deal with it. Diana, Tony Stark and Nuala came to the tower to discuss the information, and a plan was agreed upon, which involved Nuala taking a small group of Titans on a trip to Knowhere.

    Nuala and the Titans are back. Invitations have been sent out once again. This time, Nuala has brought in a contact of hers, Crusader. And Tony has brought in his biology expert. The Titans, for their part, are providing a meeting room. Placed on the table in the meeting room, in pride of place, is a Stark Industries biohazard containment cannister, containing a small fungal growth. The oh-so-familiar monstrosity that has been plaguing the planet, and in this form inside a Stark Industries containment cannister, familiar from many a lab.

    Except this is not quite the same. Where the fungal threat is death-gray, this one is almost cheerfully tinted, sporting watercolor hues across its surface.

    The visitors are all welcomed and offered seats, and drinks. There's a little bit of showmanship there, with the sample being left clearly in view but unremarked upon until the meeting commences. Which finally it does.

    "We've been to Knowhere," Colette announces. "That's a place, for those who don't know. With a 'K'. Weird place. Nuala very kindly gave us the use of her ship, for which she may have bent some rules slightly. We owe her our gratitude. Through her contacts, we were able to track down a suriving member of the species who created the mushrooms in the first place. And we were able to obtain from them a sample of the other kind of mushroom they made. This one..." she gestures towards the sample case,"...for those who didn't get the original briefing, is closely related to our problem 'shrooms. They are both derived from a shared ancestor. The key difference is this one is friendly. It consumes waste, and instead of sprouting monster eggs, it sprouts food. It also shares the same telepathic communication that the bad mushrooms do. As far as we can determine, they are capable of controlling the bad mushrooms. However it's not as simple as that. The bad mushrooms took over when their numbers grew sufficient. The alien told us it was something to do with the size. We suspect that the fungus has some kind of communal intelligence, and the loudest 'voice' wins."

Crusader has posed:
Crusader for his part was quite still, opting to stand as perusual. His eyes were on the unsual water-colored mushrooms. Though he didn't say it, he was glad that there was a 'good' version of these badies. Though he rubs his tendrilled beard as Colette speaks.
    "If that is the case, than this one lone mushroom is, with no offense to your efforts, nearly useless....but nearly is not completly. If this is derived from the same species - could we 'feed' it, to boaster the potential help it may have? Or even 'connect' with the mushroom and form a symbiotic relationship of sorts and add our voice to it's own?" he asks getting right to the point.

Nuala Duvall has posed:
    Nuala's suit sits in the corner, an alien looking vessel 9 feet tall. Nuala wears her slim suit, She lets the Titans take the lead in the conversation, they've earned it. She has coffee. A big coffee. She takes a sip, and then answers Crusader. "Yes, we can. This one won't hunt living creatures. Heat can still be used to bolster it. Previously some of us battled one of the malicious Oomycetans which was growing only in space. If we can feed this one energy, perhaps reproduce it with its own offspring and make several, we should have a way to subdue the invasive species, and even leave Earth better for the encounter."

Hulk has posed:
Sitting in his own chair, one Bruce Banner is hunched over, his arms wrapped around his legs as he watched the containment unit... not even looking up as Colette spoke. Dressed in casual blues and jeans, Doctor Banner could be mistaken for a statue as they listen, excepting his breathing.

At the end of it, Bruce narrows his eyes slightly at the unit. Frustration? Anxiety? It's hard to tell the cause, "You don't know if the fungus eating our planet and this are even on the same evolutionary league still, yet. I'd need to run some tests to confirm that either way. If they work the same way and dominate the eating fungus the same way though, this could take control of the problem and make it all dormant." A beat, "in theory. It'd be a matter of creating a big enough stalk to override all the others."

Raijin has posed:
Arriving at the Tower in a sporatic burst of lightning from clear use of Super Speed, Rayner Vasusena arrives on the scene! Dressed in his superhero garb, he looks at all the faces there. Naemly faces like Tony Stark, Wonder Woman, and that chick he saw on TV one time. Was it Nuala? Either way, Rayner gulps a bit and nods.

Though he remains quiet, he falls into the background, fully happy to let others chat while he catches up in conversation.

Iron Man has posed:
"How do we know we aren't trading in one fungal overlord for a worse one?" Tony questions, with interest. He's scrolling through information available to him from the data they've collected on the sample seated on the table. "I mean, have we seen it act in this 'nice' way you've described, or is this more from the word of the alien? What's your read on that alien?" Tony asks. He isn't negative in tone, more curious or thoughtful. He's also eating from a little bag of chocolate covered raisins he's set near his datapad on the conference table.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Robin was sitting in a chair at one end of the table. He was looking quite accomplished, along with his fellow Titans. To not only him, but the others, this proved the Titans as a true super team in the world. He was proud of his team.

Wonder Woman has posed:
Wonder Woman is standing off to a side, not really looking to make a big fanfare, she's wearing a dark blue robe overtop of her armor and her dark brown hair is loose and laying softly about her shoulders. Her eyes are traveling over the individiaul faces here, though Colette's rundown of events garner a long look from the Amazon princess before she lets her gaze slip over to the others who're in attendance and speaking.

There are a lot of questions flinging around and some of them were questions on her own mind as well, so to keep the cacophony of inquiries at a minimum for now, Diana merely stands there and listens.

Hulk has posed:
"We don't." Bruce replies to Tony simply as the Doctor leans back into his chair, his arms wrapping around his torso instead. "If we want to know that answer definitively, we need to grow this-" hand one idly gestures to the containment unit,"-in a controlled chamber and see what it does. We get a baseline, then we compare it to the data on the hostile species. If they look fairly identical, we have options." Bruce nods back to the containment unit, "I'd be happy to design the test, if we're going to see what we have here."

Stardust has posed:
Colette tosses Crusader a small velvet pouch containing what feels like a rough pebble in it. "We also got this. Take a look, but don't let it be exposed to light for very long. It's called Slow Glass. Light entering it moves at a crawl. Like, you can outrun it. Well, you could if you were inside the... never mind. Anyway. Expose it to light, it re-emits that light slowly. Like a battery. Dump one near the sun for a few moments, and you have a massive heat output. We've got a stash of this stuff, which should help accelerating the growth. It'll need plenty of organic matter to feed on too. Maybe dead bad mushrooms?"

    "There's a limit to what we know," Colette replies to Bruce, "Because you try getting detailed information out of an alien who speaks in geometric shapes. And I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'evolutionary league', but these things are bioengineered from the same source. First the bad mushrooms, then this new and improved version. The aliens who made it were confident that they could use this one to defeat the bad mushrooms, but they ran out of time. They were at war with each other and used the bad mushrooms as weapons. The bad mushrooms spread everywhere, and took over the planet before they could grow enough good mushrooms to defeat them. We probably can't grow this thing fast enough to catch up with the bad mushrooms, but maybe we can find a way to compensate, by giving the good ones some kind of psychic boost?"

    Colette finger-snaps at Tony. Which is probably annoying, because normally he does that to other people. "Don't forget, I saw what their world was like before this all went down. They were farming the good mushrooms perfectly happily until the war broke out. So yes, I've seen it. What's more, they still use these good mushrooms, as a kind of personal support mechanism. Small ones, they wear around their faces. Filtering air and waste, providing nutrition I guess. But, worst comes to the worst? These guys don't make monsters. Easier to defeat."

Crusader has posed:
Crusader catches the pouch with a tendrill and gives it a light shake, his arms still crossed over his chest. "Hmmm, helpful indeed. We aregubly have the perfect sites to grow these mushrooms. Landfills are filled with all sorts of organic and inorganic matter. With the right equipment and energy, One imagines we could farm a great deal of these mushrooms" he says

He looks to Bruce "But if you really do feel we should get a closer look.." he looks around at everything gather than "One could give this sample here some juice and nutriants - get it growing for a closer look. Regardless it sounds like we have nothing to lose and the eye witness account is promising."

Nuala Duvall has posed:
    "In theory, it should work without a hitch," Nuala says. "I believe we might even be able to grow them large enough to defeat the Oomycetans. We have ways of keeping them at bay through the poisons that have been developed. If we could grow a large army of them, I think they could be very effectively used.
    She takes another sip of her coffee. "Crusader, you perhaps are better versed in the absorption of energy than anyone else here. I would defer to you regarding the most efficient ways to help this grow."

Iron Man has posed:
"All right," Tony says, seemingly unaware or uncaring that he got finger-snapped at. He is easygoing usually, and now isn't any different. He does rub his forehead a little bit, something he has been doing ever since the previous evening. Nursing some monstrous headache.

"I'm... really well equipped to channel a /lot/ of energy, once we're confident we do want a giant one of these things. Particularly after our study from what we saw in outer space, Nuala," Tony says, gesturing towards her, to indicate their battle with the enormous one in orbit. "So I'm glad to contribute on that end, unless you have this handled. We've got a monster, probably their 'queen', that we're identifying in Mexico."

Raijin has posed:
Rayner simply keeps his arms crossed. though now he notices Bruce when he speaks up. Oh. SHIT. that's the Hulk right? or the guy who's supposed to be the hulk? Huh....hope he stays nice and NOT GREEN. Either way, he still remains quiet even as he comes into view, moving to stand next to Colette as she speaks. Though he does look at Tony and he nods. "I can contribute to help with that if you like."

Before he looks to Crusader as Nuala defers to his judgement regarding to the situation at hand. He also notices Wonder Woman being quiet, and he can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Hulk has posed:
"I've had many, many gift horses go horribly wrong for me in my attempts to control or separate The Other Guy from me, because I was too eager to /make/ it work." Bruce looks over to Crusader, his eyes frowning slightly; a little of the decades long battle with the Hulk showing through, now. Then, Nuala gets a glance, "I've had plenty of experience with that field myself." Bruce states subtly, matter of factly, before he looks to Crusader, "I'd be happy to work with you on this, if you'd like."

Wonder Woman has posed:
Diana continues to stand and observe, her eyes falling on Doctor Banner for a moment as he was a face she hadn't seen before, but yet again Colette's rundown of the information pulls her attention to her.

Diana starts to walk softly around the room then and she approaches where Colette is and while some others are speaking she waits to make eye contact with the younger one. "You said that this new sample of mushroom makes 'food'?" Diana asks, her voice calm and quiet.

"What sort of food does it produce, food for its own kind? Or food for... something else?"

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     "The sooner we can grow a colony of these, the better." Robin chimes in, looking to the group of them. Before pointing at Crusader. "He's right. If we set up a nursery at a landfill we can give them all the organic matter they can handle, along with the energy they need. It's a long play, but it is the best we have to take out the Queen."

  "And after this, they could possibly be beneficial for our world, a quick source of food for humans, and would reduce world organic trash."

Stardust has posed:
"I think we should concentrate on the psychic angle," Colette says. "The bad mushrooms can be talked with psychically. We should try that with the good mushrooms. And if our speculation is correct about there being some kind of loudest voice, or democratic vote thing going on, then we should look into psychic amplification, or even psychic duplication of their signal?"

    There's a small frown, then Colette adds, "A word of warning though. We've been warned that the bad mushrooms are cunning. 'They lie', that's what the alien said. The good mushroom may be a bit naive. Be cautious of trusting its judgement or feedback. Particularly if it thinks it has won. It has been wrong about that before."

    Colette gives a quick nod to Rayner, then adds, "One other possibility we have. It's well known that loud noises and shockwaves disturb the mushrooms for a short time. Theory: it interferes with their communications. Raijin here has a team working on something to try out. Subsonic generators, with rapidly shifting frequencies so the mushrooms don't have time to adapt. If that works out, it will make defeating them a lot easier. And if we can figure out a way to tune it so it impacts the bad mushrooms but not the good ones? Maybe that gives the good ones an instant veto in the fungal election stakes."

    To Diana, Colette more quietly adds, "They looked like fruit. The creators, the Mycotektons, farmed it. I don't know any more than that. I guess we'll have to grow them and find out. Best case scenario? After we defeat the bad mushrooms, we can use the good mushrooms to turn pollution into food for the starving masses. Fingers crossed, huh?"

Crusader has posed:
Crusader hmmms a moment and says to Damian "Keep in mind - that many a hero, One self included, inadvertedly helped the bad-shrooms spread due to our lack of knowledge. There is every possibility that are purposful spreading of the good-shrooms can be very quick"

He than looks to Bruce "One would be glad to work with you in insureing that growing these mushrooms are a good move. Though one must stress that we are running out of time - the sooner we can start the better"

Likewise his attention turns to Tony "With all due respect Tony, your help is better suited to the field. There are many energy and heat based heros who are unable to help as effectively as you are due to their powers. One would recommond enlisting the help of Johnny Storm for any energy needs, among others. One might..." he hesitates "Call in his daughter if needed to help with growing. Her and Johnny ability to produce both heat and light, along with the Slow Stones that Stardust here brought should be more than enough" he says giving his two cents on the matter. "And you may even be able to offer your expertise to Raijin here to help with the seismic emitters" nodding towards Rayner

Iron Man has posed:
"From the telepaths that we have, we've gotten an outline of a pyramid structure, not a voting system. The biggest, baddest of them rules them all, that sort of thing. Strongest will, maybe. Even if we could just hold power with one of these for a little while, it could cripple the whole system and we could take them out," Tony says, at ease. He grins a little at Crusader's attempt to not insult him. Tony doesn't look insulted. So, success.

"I'm /more/ than happy to leave this fungal-feeding task to you guys. We've got a world covered in these things to organize a response to, so, one less thing for me to wrangle? Absolutely. All yours." A wink is passed to Crusader.

"Last night we saw the fungus being called to Mexico, moving through portals, burrowing -- everything's getting a lot worse. I have a team there...." Tony checks the time. "now, in fact. They've landed. To look into what horror is brewing. The sooner we get this thing up and running, the better, if we're all really confident about it."

Wonder Woman has posed:
Diana's dark eyebrows raise up and she shows a small smile that fades rather quickly to Colette's response to her. "Fingers crossed." Diana replies to her then with a slight dipping of her pointed chin in a nod.

A moment later and Diana is walking again, moving slowly still as she circles the table to stand on the opposite side from where she'd originally started. Her eyes are continuing to move from face to face, listening and observing. She knows that these people have come together to solve these problems as a whole, and this is the sort of thing that Diana Prince is very happy to see... Earth defending itself as a united group effort against a threat that must be stopped.

Nuala Duvall has posed:
    Crusader's mention of a daughter catches Nuala off guard, and for a moment, she doesn't seem to be able to operate. She gives him a quizzical look, and then files the question away for later.

    "I..." she starts, still a little off balance mentally. She rights herself. "If the Oomycetan finds a volcano, or underground line of magma," she says carefully. "We may not have very much time at all." She arches a brow. "Maybe we should throw a few of the good spores in a volcano and see what happens," she counters her own fear.

Hulk has posed:
"With respect, tossing this thing into a gigantic buffet without knowing if it's even on the same psionic playing field as the hostile species here is playing with fire." Bruce replies to Damian after a moment, "We need a kill switch if this species is just as bad as the one already here. It shouldn't take long to confirm either way with a telepath to monitor things." Bruce notes.

Then, he looks over to the others, "By 'evolutionary league' I mean sharing enough DNA key points that they can talk to each other still." Bruce raises a finger, as if in punctuation, "We don't know how far removed our hostile fungus species is from this friendly variety. Could still be related... could be distant cousins at best. We won't know until we've run tests."

Then, Bruce gives a 'are you serious?' glance to Nuala... but says nothing. Seems Bruce isn't prepared to validate that response.

Stardust has posed:
"Feeding energy is not a problem," Colette says with a wave of her hand. "We can charge the Slow Glass up by sending it close to the Sun for a few minutes. Several of us can just pump it full of energy, too, Johnny Storm isn't the only one. What we are going to want to do though, is not just dump this stuff in a garbage heap with the Slow Glass. It's going to need protection. Because as soon as the bad mushrooms get a sniff of it, they are going to try to take it over. It'll need some psychic shielding during the early growth stage, and probably some heavy duty telepaths uh... wrangling... it, as it gets bigger."

    Colette turns to Rayner. "What do you think, Raijin, do you think you could get a sonic cannon or three to Mexico for some field testing? At the very least, it might slow things down."

    "They absolutely can communicate psychically," Colette confirms to Bruce. "We were warned to keep the samples well apart. Without the shielding in the cannisters, these good mushrooms would already have been taken over by the bad ones. The two species have co-existed for a significant amount of time. At first the good mushrooms were on top. Then the bad mushrooms took over when they grew enough."

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian rises, looking at the group. "We have the T-jet we can load instrumentation on to observe and measure what these spores would do in a volcanic environment."

  The teenager looks to Banner before he replies. "It's being prepared. You make contingencies and be prepared for either outcome. If these spores aren't what we think they are, we don't accelerate their growth. But we HAVE to be prepared to boost them into overdrive should they be exactly what we are hoping they are. Now, if you want to take the lead on the safe route, be my guest. But my team is going to be the one at the ready to grow these in the quickest manner possible when you get your confirmation."

Crusader has posed:
Crusader doesn't respond to Nuala quizzical look, but does to her comment "Nuala, the heat waves emitted by the volcanos would just send the spore flying up into the atmosphere."
    He than consider Colette statement and hmmms "If such is a case, we wll need J'onn, the phoenix or an equally as powerful telepath or group of weaker ones to act as a shield...that or we must be prepared to protect them ourselves. Another option" he glances to Diana and than back at the group "Is to completly burn down the aberterium in The Watch Tower - an enviroment far enough from earth, shielded and still in range for transport to shuttle to and from earth if we cannot find a telepath to help us"

Iron Man has posed:
"I've got telepaths. I'll get that to happen, and help on the sonic tech, and continue to protect the world. Titans are on finding the most energy they can, with Crusader. Dr. Banner, make sure we're not making things one hell of a lot worse. All right? Diana, will you help me network world response and protection, so I have enough time to eat my dinner?" Tony gets up, after rattling off the items. He grins, though.

"....Good meeting. Let's get this started. No time like right now."

Raijin has posed:
Rayner does't seem to respond to anything, but he does smile. "Sounds like we have a plan, and a sturdy one at that." Rayner smiles then, leaning against one of the walls. Honestly, he was a little overwhelmed by all the star power, so to speak, of the presence in this room.

"Sounds good to me." and he helps where needed.

Stardust has posed:
"Additional point, and when I say additional, I mean repeating myself," Colette says, smirking slightly. "Psychic amplifiers. Tony says strongest will, king of the heap. Well, maybe we don't actually need to make this one all that big if we can give its signal a big enough boost. And then if it turns bad, we just pull the plug on the amplifier thingy, and we're good. People always forget about pulling the plug."

Iron Man has posed:
Tony orients on Colette as he starts to exit. Colette gets a snap-point back at her. "Psychic amplifiers. I have 'a guy'. We'll get you that." One Xavier is about to get another visit from Stark.

Hulk has posed:
A hand moves up to his forehead and rubs as Bruce listens to Damian, "fine, but not a second before. I appreciate we're on a tight timetable." Bruce concedes to the teenager, his calm demeanor never wavering, "I'll get back to everyone as soon as I have a definitive answer for people." With that, Bruce stands up and walks over to the containment unit... his arms moving to wrap around it and pick it up. "I shouldn't take more then a day. Crusader, I have a lab away from the city for this, if you'd follow me." Bruce asks of the Enforcer as he starts to step out of the room.

Crusader has posed:
Crusader stands "Of course" he looks to the Titans "Be prepared, One will deliver the Unit back to you once Mr. Banner is finished with his tests" he tells them before following the man out. Crusder gives pause and tosses the Slow Stone back to Colette before he forgets.