This is another aspect of the world we'll have to flesh-out. I, for one, enjoy games with teen characters as they're still discovering who they are, which leads to scads of entertaining role-playing.
So, Bob, did you have a location where you wanted the Academy was located?
How about "
a sprawling Edwardian estate some miles outside of London, England"?
I have a super-teens game going (on and off) and a week off next week, so I wouldn't mind taking a swing at this one...
--
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
Perhaps, more than one academy, rather than a single institute.
One for North America, one for Europe, on For Japan.... and so on and so forth, with each having slightly different characteristics. Of course, to properly promote internationalism, students are required to a minimum of one year at a 'foreign' academy of their choice.
Along with a number of private organisations of various ethos such as the International Centre of Talented Youth. (Yes, I did CTYI courses when I was younger....)
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
I was actually thinking somewhere in Australia or France. England is overdone and, at the time of the creation of the Academy, the US was hostile to the U.N. But, Bob may have a place he wants it.
We've also got our Teen Supers game, and MonkeyFist and I have been discussing a temporary change of venue to shock the teens. And I'm not sure Gold & Appel Inc's character, Bobby, would want to go home after that. I'm also developing a batch of new players for my off weeks . . . and was considering a little bit of this as the "ease into
GURPS" campaign.
Well, according to the expanded timeline:
Bobs history Wrote:Through an act of the United Nations, the IST Academy is established. Although primarily intended to groom future menbers of the Teams, it is open to all young metahumans regardless of their career plans.
That doesn't seem like more than one, but however Bob wants to do it. Also, more than one seems to be a little . . . excessive as there aren't
that many supers in the world. And, Academy teachers would insist that the students become fluent in the languages of the host country . . . which would require quite a few points for characters with an Academy background.
I'm sure, by 2000, most nations have created their own "super-school," but the IST Academy would still be the premier destination.
Depends on how you define 'Academy'... individual campuses could be part of the same single Academy bureaucracy. And there're definitive advantages to having multiple locations. Not only from a defensive standpoint, but practical educationally reasons. For a supposedly global force, and global perspective and a global identity would be ideal.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
You are completely correct about the definition of Academy.
There are as many advantages to having a diffuse structure as there are disadvantages--especially from a defensive standpoint. Feint to one location, when the defenders get there, attack two others. Now the defenders are confused, distracted and required to split their forces, leaving the real target free to be hit. A diffuse academy structure makes it significantly easier to abduct individual students. After a few attacks like the one I described, when any, one part of the Academy gets attacked, they'd have to send defensive teams to every satellite, putting a severe drain on manpower. A centralized location means fewer opportunities to slip through the cracks.
And, as a global perspective, I'm sure that having Embassies all over the world would allow for plenty of "field trips" anywhere on the globe.
That seems a more likely scenario: One, central Academy, but students travel to the various Embassies as their classes require, to be trained, on-site, for specific cultural events.
I think we'd best ask Bob a question before continuing this discussion:
What age are the students of the Academy? (Is this a college/university-equivalent institution, or something for younger students?)
--
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
Well, it does say "young metahumans." I'd assume it would be open to metahumans of all ages. Being as it's aimed at grooming people for IST service, it's more than likely a more military-styled institution. But, Bob will have to weigh in.
Oh, and, just to get it out there: We'll probably need a sidebar:
ISTOU
I'll let the ramifications of that sink in.
Having had a couple of minutes to think about this, coupled with Dartz's suggestion, there could be three schools in the Academy: One for students under 13, one for students 13-18, and one for higher education.
Mark Skarr Wrote:Oh, and, just to get it out there: We'll probably need a sidebar:
ISTOU
I'll let the ramifications of that sink in.
Shall I ask Beth McCoy to write it?
--
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'm trying to decide which disturbs me more:
ISTOU (International or Illuminati Super Teams University)
or
IOUST (Illuminati University Super Teams)
I'm sure Beth would run for the hills.
Heh.
As best as I can recall, I intended the Academy to be an analogue of Warriors Academy, which definitely takes elementary-school-age supers. But I do like Mark's idea of setting it up in three divisions.
And ISTOU is just twisted enough that I'm going to include it in the outline just to see what Evil Stevie says on seeing it.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
If IST Academy is going to be this big, it might end up getting split off into a separate e23 supplement... which would probably be a good thing.
We'll need a few sample characters, of course. I'll port over Wallflower (who has plenty of levels of Obscure and Stealth) and Kimidori (no code name - she can change the colour of anything she touches) from my own game. Shall we aim at making the sample characters 500-point characters, or is that too high?
--
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
Glad to be able to help. And to twist everyone into my own, personal vision of depravity.
As for Academy students: we should have options for every point cost. My group's existing Teen Supers game is 250-point characters (100 point characters, up to 150 points in super powers). And, between Gold & Appel Inc's Bobby and my Alice, they could defeat the Blue Demon. It would be extremely unorthodox, and probably add more emotional scarring to Bobby, but they could do it. Have to see if Gold & Appel Inc is interested in having Bobby listed.
MonkeyFist, after talking about this, thinks that IST is too light and friendly for our Teen Supers game. He's afraid that, even for a brief, reality-hopping change of venue, we could scar it forever. Other players like the idea of a "more normal" version of a teen supers game.
ETA: Yeah, Gold & Appel Inc has confirmed that having Bobby eat the Blue Demon would cause more emotional damage to the poor kid. And getting it into Bobby's mouth would be Alice's job. Being a "powerful" Illusionist, that's not that hard.
Another "issue" that came to my mind is that the Academy would have to offer "non-supers" curriculum. Though it's a place to send young metahumans, it would also, likely, be a place to send IST Team Members' children who have no powers, but their parents and the IST are worried about reprisals against their children. The added benefit would be that, if the children do have powers, they'll be in an environment that can assist with them.
As for IST Academy being another e23 release . . . I think that's putting the cart before the horse. Let's get IST25 done before we go putting another book on Bob's plate. (Don't stop with that idea, though--it's awesome!) I think our focus should be more on having it be a sub-section, like the individual embassies in the original book.
As for it being the actual Warrior's Academy . . . that seems quite small. I think a conservative estimate would put at least 100 students at each of the three schools. More if we accept non-super, IST Family members.
And they would have to be boarding schools . . . not that I think that comes as a surprise to anyone.
We'll set a lot of hooks for the Academy, with the hopes they'll catch a supplement after IST25 comes out, okay?
As for the point level, well, I see good arguments for both 250 and 500. I'll have to think on it; maybe 250 is elementary and 500 is high school...
And I like the idea about the unpowered children; if we want to go that way we could have a social divide between the supers and normals that would make the usual teen-movie jocks/cheerleaders vs. outcasts divide look like a set of squabbling buddies.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Well, I want to make sure we have something in IST25 about the Academy. Hopefully two-or-three pages with some good information so groups can run an IST Academy setting. An entire book would be great, but, since we're not there, and just working on the main book--it should be as complete as possible.
Honestly, I think that the Academy point-costs should be extremely fluid. 250-point supers can be extremely effective, even though they're fewer points that other supers characters. And, really, is IST going to "discriminate" against metahumans whose only power is to change the color of their urine at will? I think the Academy would be a good place to put lower-point, non-front-line IST members. It would be a great place to have a large number of non-combatant teleporters and a general assembly of healers. This would be a good location for pacifists and cowards to work (lets be honest, not every metahuman is cut out for crime-fighting, even if they're indestructible), while still helping out.
That was part of the idea behind the unpowered children. The parents/adults are placing them there for their own safety, even though it'll be a living Hell for the kids.
(A few thoughts...)
Curriculum
The Academy teaches all of the usual skills - nobody graduates without basic literacy and arithmetic skills, a grounding in the humanities and sciences, and knowledge of various popular sports and pastimes - but the Academy is also part of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, which cannot be completed by memorizing facts and writing tests. The core IBD requirements are Theory of Knowledge (how we know what we know), Creativity, Action, Service (awareness of one's self, including how one fits into society), and Extended Essay (a 4000-word essay on an approved subject). Thus, high-school and college-undergraduate students are also taught how to learn, how to fit in, and how to correlate knowledge across specializations. (In GURPS terms, all Academy graduates have the Research skill at IQ or higher, and most have some Social advantages related to society.)
Metahuman students are also taught how to use their abilities - and how (and when) to not use their abilities.
Campuses
There are five Academy campuses around the world. Students are expected to attend at least two of the campuses during their school years, so that they are exposed to ways of thinking other than those in their home countries. (In GURPS terms, this is the Cultural Familiarity advantage; all Academy graduates have at least one CF other than their native one.) None of the campuses are located within the territories of the permanent members of the Security Council.
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada: Classes at the Winnipeg campus are taught in English and French, although Cree and Ukranian classes are offered as electives. The city has a strong artistic and social-justice history, which is reflected in the campus' offerings. Metahuman college students are expected to help allievate damage caused by the annual flooding of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, which makes the Winnipeg campus popular amongst students who take Creativity, Action, Service seriously.
Kyiv, Ukraine: Classes at the Kyiv campus are taught in Ukranian and Russian, with Polish, English, and Yiddish courses offered as electives. The campus draws upon the city's rich historical, cultural, and technological knowledge for its major courses of study. The Kyiv campus is the only one in a federal capital, and thus the only one with ready access to an IST Embassy; students who want to join the IST but who do not have metahuman abilities often complete their Adademy years in Kyiv.
foo: TBD
bar: TBD
baz: TBD
(each campus should be in a different CF)
--
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
robkelk Wrote:Metahuman students are also taught how to use their abilities - and how (and when) to not use their abilities.
A thought on this - some people are going to end up with powers that are a hopeless mismatch for their personalities. (One example would be a person who's severely afraid of heights getting some form of Flight.) Part of this education might be psychological...
--
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've spent over 30 minutes trying to get this posted. Yuku is having serious connection issues today.
There are only two cultural familiarities native to IST Earth: Eastern and Western. That’s an artifact of a powerful U.N. Check pg 23, and the history of IST. The world isn't that culturally diverse (not in a bad way, read the section). The Muslim world just isn't that powerful, and would probably fall into the Eastern familiarity. I would go so far as to say we could probably define them as “U.N. Member” and “Non-U.N. Member.”
It’s more likely that Odessa became the Capital of the Ukraine as opposed to Kiev, as there was an IST Embassy located there, and not in Kiev, to drive tourism and city growth. Otherwise, unless the U.N. felt like yanking the Embassy out of Odessa and relocating it, the Ukraine doesn’t qualify for two embassies.
And, again, 5 campuses is a dispersed target that can be attacked easily, and would be difficult to defend. Which schools are for young children, which are for teens and which are for adults? Sticking with three is significantly more focused and easier to have curriculum pertinent to the students. Not to mention
drastically easier to defend.
Also, while Bob hasn’t said, I think a student body of between one and two thousand is what to expect, and five campuses would be too many. Unless we want to consider keeping the “manufactured metahuman” practice around and make it safer, so, in 2015, people can pay to have the procedure done on them to become metahumans. But, personally, I don’t like that idea much.
And a very,
very important fact is that not everyone is good at learning languages. Sure, my buddy Xaiax learned a 3 year Japanese course in six months and a 2 year Chinese course in three months, and my friend Sol's father taught himself both Arabic and Vietnamese (simultaneously) in three months (did I mention that he's also 85!), and both had them at a conversational level by that time (Xaiax, went to Japan for two years to teach English shortly after that class). While, I, have tried to study both Spanish and Russian for years I simply can't grasp them. When I stopped programming, those languages leaked out my ears faster that I would have ever thought. If I didn’t use English every day, I’m sure I’d be at the grunt and point level within hours (waking up is hard on me). Not everyone will be able to learn foreign languages, and since these schools aren't
just for IST members . . . the mandatory languages aren't that useful, in fact, they will actively discriminate against people who have a hard time learning languages.
Also, keep in mind the two, official, languages of the U.N. and IST are English and French. Those would be the primary languages at
any IST Academy. And, I could see them having "Frenglish" as a student-created language. I could see that an IST Academy Graduate (starting as a teen or earlier) would have both English and French as languages, in addition to their native and destination language, but beyond that, it’s really a wasted effort.
robkelk Wrote:Metahuman students are also taught how to use their abilities - and how (and when) to not use their abilities.
As for the last part of that, in my Super San Diego game, set at the school for metahumans, the school headmaster (Ezekiel), mandates an ethics class for every metahuman student, every year. He teaches the senior year students.
As for the first part, I constantly envision Arthur, from the first episode of
The Tick cartoon:
“No. No. No. Changed my mind. Want to come down.”
I
like characters who don’t fit their powers. I have several of them. Most of them, eventually, grow into them. It also assumes that someone there can understand and help them with their powers. Hence, Pink was never sent to the Academy. A constant ethics class, taught by Argurous, was the best they could do for her.
Mark Skarr Wrote:I've spent over 30 minutes trying to get this posted. Yuku is having serious connection issues today.
There are only two cultural familiarities native to IST Earth: Eastern and Western. That’s an artifact of a powerful U.N. Check pg 23, and the history of IST. The world isn't that culturally diverse (not in a bad way, read the section). The Muslim world just isn't that powerful, and would probably fall into the Eastern familiarity. I would go so far as to say we could probably define them as “U.N. Member” and “Non-U.N. Member.”
That's far too much of an oversimplification, IMHO. Our world is not that homogeneous (no matter how hard Hollywood has tried to make it so), and the IST world only diverged from ours seven decades ago.
Mark Skarr Wrote:It’s more likely that Odessa became the Capital of the Ukraine as opposed to Kiev, as there was an IST Embassy located there, and not in Kiev, to drive tourism and city growth. Otherwise, unless the U.N. felt like yanking the Embassy out of Odessa and relocating it, the Ukraine doesn’t qualify for two embassies.
Which they might have - it isn't up to the UN where a country decides to put its capital.
Mark Skarr Wrote:And, again, 5 campuses is a dispersed target that can be attacked easily, and would be difficult to defend. Which schools are for young children, which are for teens and which are for adults?
I was thinking they all were. They're Academies, not public schools, after all.
Mark Skarr Wrote:Sticking with three is significantly more focused and easier to have curriculum pertinent to the students. Not to mention drastically easier to defend.
Also, while Bob hasn’t said, I think a student body of between one and two thousand is what to expect, and five campuses would be too many. Unless we want to consider keeping the “manufactured metahuman” practice around and make it safer, so, in 2015, people can pay to have the procedure done on them to become metahumans. But, personally, I don’t like that idea much.
I thought we had agreed that not all of the students were metahumans ...?
Mark Skarr Wrote:And a very, very important fact is that not everyone is good at learning languages. Sure, my buddy Xaiax learned a 3 year Japanese course in six months and a 2 year Chinese course in three months, and my friend Sol's father taught himself both Arabic and Vietnamese (simultaneously) in three months (did I mention that he's also 85!), and both had them at a conversational level by that time (Xaiax, went to Japan for two years to teach English shortly after that class). While, I, have tried to study both Spanish and Russian for years I simply can't grasp them. When I stopped programming, those languages leaked out my ears faster that I would have ever thought. If I didn’t use English every day, I’m sure I’d be at the grunt and point level within hours (waking up is hard on me). Not everyone will be able to learn foreign languages, and since these schools aren't just for IST members . . . the mandatory languages aren't that useful, in fact, they will actively discriminate against people who have a hard time learning languages.
Which is exactly why courses in English are available at the Kyiv campus.
Mark Skarr Wrote:Also, keep in mind the two, official, languages of the U.N. and IST are English and French. Those would be the primary languages at any IST Academy. And, I could see them having "Frenglish" as a student-created language.
Speaking as someone who lives in Ottawa (where both languages are used in all aspects of life), I can't see that.
Mark Skarr Wrote:I could see that an IST Academy Graduate (starting as a teen or earlier) would have both English and French as languages, in addition to their native and destination language, but beyond that, it’s really a wasted effort.
robkelk Wrote:Metahuman students are also taught how to use their abilities - and how (and when) to not use their abilities.
As for the last part of that, in my Super San Diego game, set at the school for metahumans, the school headmaster (Ezekiel), mandates an ethics class for every metahuman student, every year. He teaches the senior year students.
As for the first part, I constantly envision Arthur, from the first episode of The Tick cartoon:
“No. No. No. Changed my mind. Want to come down.”
I like characters who don’t fit their powers. I have several of them. Most of them, eventually, grow into them. It also assumes that someone there can understand and help them with their powers. Hence, Pink was never sent to the Academy. A constant ethics class, taught by Argurous, was the best they could do for her.
There's more to Creativity, Action, Service than just ethics, though.
--
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
robkelk Wrote:That's far too much of an oversimplification, IMHO. Our world is not that homogeneous (no matter how hard Hollywood has tried to make it so), and the IST world only diverged from ours seven decades ago.
But,
GURPS goes with the oversimplification. Read page 23. Word of Kromm has even said that
our world can be broken down into two: Eastern and Western, on multiple occasions. GM’s are specifically instructed to keep it to a minimum. For Fantasy games “Human” covering ALL human cultures, no matter how diverse, is valid.
robkelk Wrote:Which they might have - it isn't up to the UN where a country decides to put its capital.
While that’s true, Kiev isn’t likely to be as large in the IST world as Odessa. And, if the entire infrastructure is already in Odessa (which it would be, due to the Embassy) it would be easier to put it there. Just because it happened in our world, doesn’t mean it happened in theirs. It makes more sense, from both an infrastructure and political standpoint to have the capital in Odessa.
robkelk Wrote:I was thinking they all were. They're Academies, not public schools, after all.
Bob liked the idea of splitting them up by ages. Keep in mind, that, being academies, they’re NOT universities. They’re military-formatted.
robkelk Wrote:I thought we had agreed that not all of the students were metahumans ...?
We have. However, that still doesn’t mean that there will be that large of a student body. Not everyone in the U.N. will send their kids there, and not every metahuman on the planet will attend. One- to two-thousand students is a large number. Being a military school, there will be a lot of metahumans who
don’t attend the school.
robkelk Wrote:There's more to Creativity, Action, Service than just ethics, though.
There’s also less to it. From my research it’s more about serving than the questions of why. And that, for a metahuman, is the most important thing to understand. You consider ethical implications of your actions, but you’re never required to think about why, for you, that is the wrong thing to do. Just from a societal standpoint.
Metahuman ethics would be an entirely new field (which is what Ezekiel was teaching).
Let me clairify one thing:
I have no problem with the IBT requirements for IST Academy. My comment was based on a High School level, not a university level. Ezekiel's school only handled K-12 in the U.S. with a handful of non-American students.
Ezekiel's goal was not to create a team of super heroes (he'd already done that), but to teach them to be ethical with their powers, in whatever they chose to do with them.
It looks like we have very different definitions of the word "academy"... I'm thinking of places like Edinburgh Academy or Deerfield Academy, while you appear to be thinking of West Point.
--
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