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I was thinking Harry Porter or Henry Potter.

"Henry Potter" might be too close to the name of the head of TAMI, but a name that's a different common profession is something that could work.

On second thought, best to change both names - just to be on the safe side...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Yeah, I had come to that conclusion as well. Henry Porter. Make him French: Henré?

I think I'll not worry about the intersection with the head of TAMI and leave it as "Harry Potter". (Although I had considered "Tommy Riddle" instead after the initial objection. )
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

1998 (early): Truly Amazing Metahero Investigations, Inc., on behalf of its president Harrold Potter, sues Joanne Rowling for trademark infringement.

1998 (middle): Truly Amazing Metahero Investigations, Inc. vs. Joanne Rowling is thrown out of court as a nuisance suit, since "Harrold Potter" and "Harry Potter" are not the same phrase. The publicity surrounding the court case draws attention to Ms. Rowling's book, making it a bestseller.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

I like. Other reasons to throw it out of court: Unless TAMI's Potter actually trademarked his name before 1997, there's no trademark to infringe on. And there's obviously enough difference between his history and the character's that he can't argue that it's an unauthorized biography, and thus it's not an attempt to cash in on his reputation.

Plus in general fictional characters usually get a pass on name overlap things like this, because for most works outside of SF/Fantasy it's pretty much impossible to come up with a name someone somewhere hasn't used already in the real world. In television and advertising the usual practice is to find someone with the same name as the character and offer him a token payment for its use -- like $1 -- as a defense against exactly this kind of lawsuit. ("Your Honor, the character in question cannot be based on the plaintiff, because we paid Person X for the rights to his name two years ago. We respectfully submit the signed and dated contract to the court as Exhibit A.") Case in point: Mr. Whipple of the old Charmin commercials was named for George Whipple, president of the advertising agency which created the commercials, for which he received IIRC exactly $1.
Of course that doesn't stop people from launching these kinds of suits, but it sure makes it hard for them to get past the first hearing on the merit of their case. 
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

He was doing buisness as "Harold Potter, Private Investigations' well before 1997--as the book is written in the past tense and was published in '89 or '90.  So, it would have been trademarked.  Also, it's not an attept to cash in on his story, but a case could be made that it's trying to cash in on his name, being both easily recognizable, easy to remember, and famous for the metahuman connection.

While "Harold Potter" and "Harry Potter" are not exactly the same, they are close enough to cause confusion, whether deliberate or accidental.  See the Mike Rowe Soft cases.

It is also possible, due to the fact that Harold Potter is fabulously successful in the late eighties and early nineties, and a voracious reader, that he's already had a line of "Harry Potter, Criminal Investigations" books written. 

I think the best way to do it would be the Tom Riddle books, instead.  Joanne working with Harold to write the series of books is another option.  He's a voracious reader, and getting a series of stories "based" on a fictional, child-version of him, where he can help with some useful investigation and procedural information might be successful.  Or even her just asking to use his name.  He'd probably be honored.

Also, while the law does state that you can always use your name to do business no matter what, if your name happens to be remotely capable of causing confusion with an existing brand--you can expect a large number of (sometimes) justified lawsuits until you come up with a way to differentiate and disassociate yourself from the product(s) in question.  Look into the Olympics--they sue the pants off of anyone, especially existing businesses, who have any name remotely associated with "Olympics" in any town they come to.  Again, look for the Mike Rowe Soft lawsuits.  Joanne Rowling couldn't have survived the first lawsuit.  And, finding someone with a famous name to sell you the rights to it for $1, doesn't work.  It is seen as an attempt to capitalize on the existing name by a legality trick and have your defense thrown out of court.
To get a better idea, consider using the titles "Scott Summers and the Sorceror's Plot," "Bill Cosby and the Sorceror's Plot" or "Chris Bale and the Sorceror's Plot."  None of those would survive the lawsuit.  The owners of those names would have practically no trouble winning a lawsuit, even with the "we paid X, $1 for the use of their name" defense.  It's a blatant attempt to cash in on a well-known name.  And they'll have a lot more, better-paid, lawyers than a starting Joanne Rowling would.
The problem isn't in using a "common" name, it's in using a name that's already trademarked, associated with the Metahuman community, and has recognition.  Whether or not her plan was to use it as advertising, that's what she's doing.  And that's punishable in court.  With Supertemps being international . . . she'd probably pull a FASA and change the name without too much argument.

Thinking about it in the shower, I don’t think Harry Potter would be "wildly" successful in the IST world.  And, honestly, there’s no reason it should even be remotely successful.

1. With the IST Academy having opened in 1995 the market would be inundated with child/teen/young adult novels set in a “super school.”     a. The subject matter would be old hat.     b. Lawsuits over children trying to activate their metahuman abilities would be running rampant through the news and roughshod over publishers and authors alike.     c. His story, honestly, is going to be a rehash of a dozen other stories written before it and thousands that come after it.          i. Metahuman child=minimum level for entry          ii. Sole-survivor orphan=drama          iii. Metahuman enemy=more drama          iv. Bigoted relatives=even more drama          v. No idea of his heritage=top notch drama          vi. Did we mention that he’s “the Chosen One?”          vii. All a rehash.2. The U.N. would be defending its IPs vigorously.3. Books written by (and about) actual metahumans and metahuman kids would be significantly better received.

More interesting would be a group of non-metahuman students having to defeat the metahuman nemesis.  That would be a shot in the arm for non-metahuman children and it would be an untapped market.

Oh, and if I'm coming off as a bit surly, I apologize--I'm dealing with some boneheads at Ouya for sending out form letters instead of dealing with issues.

The more I think about it, the more I think that a version of Harry Potter identical to the ones released in our world would do significantly better than ones “localized” for the IST world. A localized one would fall into the “been there, done that” market and be overlooked. But, one like our version would be more unique to them. A secret, magical world without supers? Brilliant!

For us, sure, the idea of an “alternate” world where fantastic things can happen is common place. But, in the IST world, the fantastic is commonplace. Mundane worlds would be rare things to have written about. The novelty would probably help the sales.

Plus . . . White Star Trading could easily provide the manuscripts to Joanne Rowling, to have her “write the books” on the IST world.

I’ve been having a talk with a couple of my gaming friends, who have read the Harry Potter books.  They all agree that Harry Potter wouldn’t do well in a world with actual super heroes (and they’d do abysmally on Merlin-1).  They all admitted that, if people like Harry Potter actually existed, the books wouldn’t have meant anything to them.  One of them (who is admittedly OCD) said that they still would have read all of them, but then moved on to something more interesting.

A world with just Superman, sure they’d do well.  A world like Marvel, with supers all over the place, but only a few publically known supers . . . still, probably not.  A world where there are enough super heroes to support a supers-placement agency . . . waste of time.

They even shot down my idea of our world’s Harry Potter novels—it would help, but too few children would be able to grasp the idea of a world without supers.  It might be popular with adults, and young adults, but it wouldn’t be successful with children or teens.

Now . . . put a copy of the Hypnotoad on the title page and it’ll sell like hotcakes.

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!

Hopefully you've enjoyed Evil Stevie's company tonight while I deconstructed the Harry Potter in IST situation.

Seriously, someone come in and help it. I keep trying to find a way (other than Word of God fiat) to get it in, and I keep finding better reasons to remove it.

Actually, family issues are preventing me from both meeting up with Steve and finishing up the IST25 proposal. I've already been in touch with him about it; I'll be submitting the proposal through the usual channels when I've completed it.

But damn if I'm not annoyed that I can't post a pic of me handing the thing to him at Dexcon.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Weaksauce.

Well, I'm sorry for the family issues.

So am I, believe me. And it's only going to get worse before it gets even remotely better.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Anything I can do to help?

Let me get my act back together and I'll let you know.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

2008-Stock Markets around the world crash due to the US banking system floundering.
A series of tornadoes savage the Southern United States, leaving more than 60 dead. IWO agents report that this is fallout from the Chinese weather controller’s damage, and to expect worse weather as the Earth recovers.
Terrorists severely damage the wooden pagoda atop the Sungnyemun, in Seoul.
A suicide bomber detonated in a lecture hall in Northern Illinois University. 24 people were killed and more than a hundred were injured.
Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia and petitioned the U.N. for admittance.
Fidel Castro retires.
Upon the government returning to Thailand, the Prime Minister is arrested on corruption charges.
Armenian police forces violently break up a group of protesters, peacefully protesting the recent election. Eight protesters are killed. U.N. peacekeepers are deployed to ensure human rights are protected.
Bhutan’s first general election ends with it officially becoming a democracy.
IST Houston assists in the raid on the YFZ Ranch in Texas. More than 500 women and children are taken into protective custody.
Mynamar is hit by Cyclone Nargis. Even with the IWO reducing the strength of the cyclone, more than 100,000 people are killed and millions are rendered homeless. The Blue Demon appears, raising the death toll by another 30,000 before it vanishes ten days later.
The Chaiten Volcano, in Chile, erupts. More than 4,500 people are evacuated, but less than 10 are killed.
A massive (8.0) earth quake in Sichuan, China devastates the surrounding area and kills nearly 70,000 people. The Blue Demon appears having only vanished from Mynamar hours ago. The large concentration of IST Peacekeepers in the area drives the beast off before it can wreak too much havoc.
Nepal officially becomes a republic, ending the 240-year Shah Dynasty.
A military junta in Mauritania overthrows President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz asks the U.N. to administer the country in the interim and arrange for presidential elections.
Georgia prepares to launch an attack against Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway nation South Ossetia to reclaim the area. The U.N. immediately recognizes both South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent nations and offers them full U.N. and IST support. Control of the Russian troops defending the areas is willingly handed over to U.N. peacekeeping duties. Georgia files several complaints, but backs down from aggression.
The US Government nationalizes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two, largest, mortgage companies in the US.
(At CERN, in Geneva Switzerland, the LHC is powered up for the first time)-Really need to do something with that!
The IWO manages to disperse Hurricane Ike before it strikes Galveston Island, Texas.
The first, privately-owned spacecraft, Falcon 1, is launched into Earth Orbit by SpaceX.
Following further collapse in the American banking market, international stock markets continue to fall. Meeranon groups and the U.N. together bail the market out with an astounding one-trillion-dollar bailout.
Ten suicide bombers detonate in Mumbai, India, killing more than 400. The Blue Demon appears.
Thailand’s new Prime Minister resigns amid political crisis.
---ETA:  The CERN statment, while being a complete sentence was not the complete sentence it was supposed to be.

Quote:Mark Skarr wrote:

---

2008-

(CERN, in Geneva Switzerland, is powered up for the first time)-Really need to do something with that!

I assume that you mean the Large Hadron Collider here; it's not the only particle acclerator they have.

You are correct.

I blame stupidity for not having that line complete.

2009-A fire at the Santika Club in Bangkok, Thailand broke out during New Year celebrations.  Nearly three hundred people were killed.  The cause was tracked back to a batch of jugo being used by some of the celebrants. 

The Volcán Poás volcano in Costa Rica erupts, killing hundreds.  IST San Jose aids in the rescue and drives off the Blue Demon when it appears.

An oil spill leading to fire in Molo, Kenya kills more than a hundred people.

Greenpeace ecoterrorists sabotage a US Navy cruiser causing it to run aground off Oahu, Hawaii, damaging a coral reef.  Greenpeace issues an official message saying that the cruiser was going to use the reef as a target for war games.

The Bangladesh Rifles seize their headquarters in a mutiny.  The Bangladesh government asks IST Dhaka to mediate.  Deliberations break down almost instantly, leading to the mutineers killing many of their hostages.  IST Dhaka manages to seize the headquarters and quell the mutiny before it can spread to other regions.  More than 100 people, on both sides of the mutiny, are killed.

A suicide bomber kills the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan. 

A battle between IST Bonn and the Megavillain Blaklite, causes severe damage to The Historical Archives in Cologne, Germany.  The building collapses during the battle, allowing Blaklite to escape.

IST Khartoum carries out the International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.  Wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the three day battle between IST Khartoum and the presidential guard ends with al-Bashir in custody, being taken for trial in Hauge.

The Statue of Liberty reopens after being closed, for security reasons, since the UN/IST NY attacks.

Typhoon Ketsana, after having been weakened by IWO forces, still makes landfall across Southeast Asia.  Nearly a thousand fatalities are caused.  The Blue Demon does not appear, as the fatalities are spread across a very wide area.

A series of suicide bombers detonating over the course of three days, kills more than two-thousand people in China.

US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan explodes in Fort Hood, Texas killing nearly two-hundred US soldiers. 

A powerful storm in Jeddah Saudi Arabia drops the equivalent of three-year’s worth of rain in four hours.  Occurring during the Hajj, more than 200 pilgrims are killed.  Due to the floods, they are stranded when the Blue Demon appears.  IST Riyadh manages to drive the monster off, though only after it had tripled the death-toll.

A suicide bomber in Beijing kills more than 500, and injures several thousand.  The Blue Demon appears but is quickly brought down by IST Peacekeepers.

Northwest Airlines flight 253 explodes above the Atlantic Ocean.  All 290 passengers and crew are killed.  The cause of the explosion is unknown.

A suicide bomber detonates in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 43 people.

Quote:Mark Skarr wrote:

---

2008-
Upon the government returning to Thailand, the Prime Minister is arrested on corruption charges.
Bhutan’s first general election ends with it officially becoming a democracy.
Mynamar is hit by Cyclone Nargis. Even with the IWO reducing the strength of the cyclone, more than 100,000 people are killed and millions are rendered homeless. The Blue Demon appears, raising the death toll by another 30,000 before it vanishes ten days later.
Thailand’s new Prime Minister resigns amid political crisis. 

At the risk of this being yet another nitpicking post from the smart-alec policy research minion based in Asia, a few thoughts:-

On Thailand: If this is a dig at the political uncertainty Thailand's seen in recent years, the real-world stuff really has less to do with corruption per-se, and everything to do with the ordinary people/elites and urban/rural divide in the country. You need to understand the full timeline here. Thaksin is a political outsider and upstart, but very popular with the people. He gets elected. 'Elites' don't like this. Thaksin starts to make poor choices regarding security and the economy. He's eventually kicked out. New 'elite'-backed government comes in - but isn't popular with the people. Elections happen again...and Thaksin's sister gets elected. 

In an IST setting, there isn't necessarily any impetus for this. Why would there be a power struggle? All the background stuff I've mentioned above wouldn't have happened. So what's the trigger for a leadership crisis? Finger-pointing for letting the country be badly hit during war with China? It's tempting to always have direct analogues for significant real-world events in the IST timeline, but since this one is all down to particular local politics, it might simply not happen.

Bhutan: I have absolutely no doubt the royal family of Bhutan would be totally chill with handing power over to democratic rule. They are incredibly awesome people. I just kind of doubt that people would actually vote to get rid of the monarchy, even if they stick around afterwards as constitutional monarchs or whatever. People actually like the monarchy, and by and large are pretty happy with the way things are. Mostly, people are really chill and laid back in Bhutan. They don't sweat the small stuff, dude.

Also, education and expertise in Bhutan regarding things like politics and economics is pretty thin on the ground as well. The folks from Bhutan that I've met are incredibly smart, but relatively few have a solid overseas education like that. 

You have to understand, Bhutan's pretty much an example of something that's still a functioning old-fashioned kingdom, and there's reasons for that, even if the King is on Facebook and Skype nowadays. No really. He is.

Myanmar, Cyclone Nargis: One of the things with Cyclone Nargis was that the Myanmar military government was pretty resistant to allowing foreign aid and assistance on the ground in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. It's entirely possible they may have been stubborn enough to resist IWO assistance as well in the IST world, given that it's a UN agency - they may not have allowed IWO supers into their territory or airspace to do their thing. Because inviting more foreign supers in is bad news, y'know. 

It's worth noting that the present state of politics in real-world Myanmar is really genuinely reform and openness-focused; this sort of institutional paranoia thing wouldn't happen anymore. But Nargis was before that change.
-- Acyl

Acyl Wrote:At the risk of this being yet another nitpicking post from the smart-alec policy research minion based in Asia,

Considering this is for a GURPS supplement, and GURPS makes a note of its real-world fact-checking, I'd say we need more of this sort of thing...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Just as an update for everyone -- whom, by the way, I thank greatly for their contributions be they fact-checking or fiction-making -- I've finished outlining the text section for the 1990s, which will be entitled "The Crazy Years" in the book (and which are varying very slightly from the website timeline). I have to do everything before 1990 and after 1999 in equal detail yet, although the earlier period is just a matter of summarizing existing stuff from the original IST.

Now, what I'm going to do next is flesh out the earlier period, so that gives us some time to finalize the broad geopolitical strokes of the recent era, which for the book will be 2000-2015. (To be called "Over The Wall".)

Here are a few things I've decided, based on working on the 1990s and musing over various postings here and in other threads, particularly Mark's timeline entries. (Which I need to assemble into a single file and read as a whole for a better overview because it's hard to keep all those separate bits in mind together; once I do so I may change my mind -- again -- on some of the below.)

First, I'm backpedalling on the Tech Level. TL as of 2015 will be 9, not 10 as I'd suggested somewhere.

I definitely want a World War III (mostly non-nuclear, although has been pointed out there is more than enough precedent for battlefield nukes). China's the bad guy. It starts effectively in 2000, with the Seige of Hong Kong (as described in one of the last items in 1999 on the web timeline) turning into The Millennium Attack. Mark's TL has it ending in 2007, but I think I'd rather see it end around 2005, which gives a decade for recovery before the new "now".

I'd like to see the Middle East start to rise again, perhaps as an analogue to the "Arab Spring", probably more messily. What flavor of rise -- new democracies or theocratic dictatorships -- I haven't decided. Whatever happens, it will be directly influenced by Iran and Iraq having glassed themselves into permanent disaster areas in the middle 1990s.

I still haven't decided on the political course for the US. During the 90s it goes whole hog right-wing isolationist conspiracy-theory whackjob -- do I send it further down the rabbit hole, or does the pendulum swing back during the 2000s? I'll entertain arguments either way.

More thoughts later, after I assemble and digest whole Mark's offerings.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.