Scanners: The Third Revelation [F for Any]

[Le Immortelle]

Scanners
Note: The advert is courtesy of RonDonVolante who was kind enough to allow me to use it, you are awesome!
There are seven billion people on Earth. Six thousand of them are Scanners… and they’re winning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42z2KTPfe-s

Between 1993 and 1996, a company called Avco Pharmaceuticals created a drug called Apremilide to assist with morning sickness for pregnant women. The drug, funded by a then small hedge fund and created by a group of researchers who were new to Avco, was a modest success before being discontinued for more cost efficient drugs. Used by approximately 25,000 mothers in the US and Canada, it was a footnote until the mid 2000s when the children of the women who taken Apremilide were in full blown puberty. About forty percent of those children would have incredible intellect and prodigal talents but would also develop serious mental health issues as teenagers. These diseases ranged from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, to Antisocial Personality Disorder, to full blown paranoid schizophrenia. When the now multi-billion dollar Avco discovered this, and saw evidence linking Apremilide with several suicides and murders committed by these new mentally disturbed individuals, it began a ruthless destruction of any trace of the drug. They were only partially successful. While nearly any record of Apremilide has been destroyed and every reporter or inspector who knew about it had been paid off, mislead, or killed there were some loose ends that get less and less tidy by the moment.

For instance, the mysterious hedge fund that had supported the research had vanished without a trace as did the group of researchers who created the drug. Additionally, nearly every Apremilide child reported delusions of magical (or psychic) powers. Avoc’s “cleaners” kept an eye on the situation until one of them discovered a number of Apremilide children, now grown up and dubbed “Scanners” based on the recurring claim of psychic abilities. Two Scanners, in particular, grab Avoc’s attention and their fear. Not just for Avoc but for the entire world...

Inspiration for Scanners (Warning: Gore)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqvPviqbb4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy6I9ydBSWc

The Third Revelation
You homo sapiens inferior are a disease of this planet. And I am the cure.

Nikki Plainview was born in 1994 to upper middle class parents, one a fashion photographer and the other a makeup artist for models. Her mother, Tracy, used Apremilide but never linked it to her youngest daughter’s… oddities. By the time little Nikki was sixteen she had graduated high school, due to being an intellectual prodigy, but rather than going on to college she worked as a “social media” consultant to the fashion magazine her parents worked on. Her vlog, Lizzy’s Fashion Spot, became a large internet sensation and by the time she was twenty one she was a major name in the fashion world with a platform across social media (Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter etc.).

In reality, Nikki is an incredibly powerful Scanner, perhaps the most powerful one alive. So powerful, in fact, she has been able to embed psychic commands not only in her videos to her “fans” (though she prefers the term “pawns”) but her digital pictures and even her tweets and facebook messages as well. Now, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of her pawns have trigger words buried deep in their subconscious waiting to be used as part of her master plan for a huge power grab.

A sadistic megalomaniac, Nikki has classified herself and other scanners as homo sapiens superior while the rest of humanity are homo sapiens inferior: an unwashed animal herd that is in desperate need of both wrangling and winnowing down to a manageable size. With her power base growing she is slowly, but surely, Nikki is becoming an incredible threat to the freedom of the entire world…

Inspiration for The Third Revelation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFHey3utk0I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOi6v5DD_1M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRhRFOu-hRA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI-mDTdeKR8

Pictures of Nikki

Potential character options for my partner are:

The Loyal Follower: This can be someone who is quite the simp for Nikki, enamored by her seductive social media presence. Someone who is transfixed by the subliminal messages and would do anything for their deity and she decides to have her share of fun with him.

Avco Cleaner: Someone contracted by Avco to hunt Nikki down after previous attempts have failed. A person who specializes in taking out Scanners, a mercenary looking for ultimate thrill etc. Alternatively they could be leading a team who are doped up on a variant of Apremilide that’s being tested again but on adults this time round.

The Lover: Someone whom Nikki picks to be her mate and with psychological traits she deems compatible with numerous psychological disorders she has. Will probably end up being destroyed eventually in some nasty scheme of hers. This will feature a dark ending for YC.

Another Scanner: Potentially a Scanner who either wants to kill Nikki or comes looking for her to recruit her in yet another scheme/her recruiting them. Presents prospect of some massive Scanner showdown!

GM: If you wish, you control the universe for Nikki. In this case, I would be more than happy to share some load of NPC's and such to craft a rich and compelling world with you.

These are the basic ideas. There’s more I can expand upon with potential partners. These stories will definitely be extreme and there will be good bit of humiliation, violence, gore and darker themes but at the same time I would like to stress that the story isn't solely about that but an exploration of twisted and warped mentality that a Scanner can possess and how this sudden and unforeseen evolutionary step from Homo Sapien to Homo Superior can affect the surrounding world.