Synaesthesia Jackson

Context

Top Ten was a 1999-2001 series by Alan Moore and Gene Ha. It was successful enough to get a few spin-off limited series – mostly on strength of its quality, and Moore’s name.

It takes place in a strange mega-city where almost everyone has some super-hero-like powers or assets, and the culture comes from living in a comic book world. Most stories follow police detectives working this difficult beat, the titular Top Ten precinct. They use a TV-style police procedural format.

Background

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Neopolis

Neopolis is a town in Florida, on the same Earth as Tom Strong. It was created when it was noticed after WWII that science heroes tended to somehow greatly increase the number of fellow science heroes, science villains, monsters, supernatural things, etc. where they were operating.

Thus, Neopolis was a place where all the weirdness could live without bothering other people.

It was built on plans drawn mostly by captured Nazi super-scientists and assorted mad scientist-type villains. Although the architecture is extremely varied (as are the vehicles, people, businesses, etc), some elements are still reminiscent of National Socialist architecture.

Neopolis is a pretty big city. It’s not unlike Manhattan or Gotham. But since many things and people can fly, Neopolis is much taller and built to accommodate three-dimensional traffic.

Everyone has one or more super-powers or one or several piece of unique and advanced equipment in Neopolis, and most everyone has picked a science hero name for themselves.

When aliens, gods, robots, giant monsters, etc. visit they tend to come to Neopolis, following the law of sympathy.

The general tech level seems on par with Judge Dredd’s Mega-City one, with numerous aberrations.

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Transdimensional activity

Likewise, when contact was made with parallel realities, it occurred in Neopolis. The city is part of a system of at least 134 parallels, which are interconnected by a system of paying public transport. It resembles a train station.

Each parallel is quite different, but all seem fantastic.

• One was a Classical place with lots of Satyrs, Fauns, Centaurs, etc. and the equivalent of New York City all in modernized Classical architecture. It is called Nova Roma and seems to be the hub of the administrative systems and public transit system.
• One was a somewhat absurd generic fantasy place.>/li>
• One (“Turingville”) is populated by highly advanced robotic AIs.
• One is a Steampunk  Victorian parallel.
• One is populated by mechanosaurs.

The parallels seem to work much like Torg’s cosms . They have varying tech axiom levels (for instance electricity cannot work in Smax’s native dimension), social axiom levels, etc. as well as a set of narrative rules. Neopolis’ axioms and rules are super-hero ones, and thus fit nicely with the normal DC Heroes RPG rules and Genre Rules.

Similar reality and narrative rules have been discovered by Tom Strong when he investigated parallels on his own.

Discipline and punish

The Precinct Ten police station (aka “Top Ten”) is part of a centralized, multiversal police force, which issues them their budgets and policies and to whom they report. The H.Q. of that police force seems to be Nova Roma, aka Grand Central.

Although it covers an entire town, Top Ten is considered to just be a precinct station in terms of staffing , organization, ranks, etc.. This system was adopted in the mid-1980s after more than 25 years of failure at policing the highly chaotic town. The cops from other Earths had the experience that the Earthlings were missing.

One of the main points of the multiversal system is to view Neopolis as a single place extending not only in four physical dimensions, but also vibrating along the fifth. Most realities have their own equivalent of Neopolis. That is how each version of Neopolis ends up being considered a precinct in a greater whole, a virtual, transdimensional city.

Of course, the heavy traffic across the various versions of Neopolis has both made them all even weirder, but has also given them a common identity and subtle commonalities in culture.

Powers and Abilities

Synaesthesia’s senses are crossed. She perceives sounds as colours, and smells as sound. However, her acuity with those senses is remarkable. Furthermore, she is very good at memorising sensory inputs. This gives her an unique investigative edge.

She is also a skilled police detective. But doesn’t seem to have any combat ability – she always stays clear of any confrontation. When you can call on officers who are invulnerable or have thermonuclear missiles, this is not much of a problem, though.

History

Nothing is known about Detective Jackson before she joined the NPD at the Top Ten Precinct.

She once dated Smax, but that was a mistake and they broke up several months ago.

Description

Jackson is petite. Which is even more noticeable as many precinct guys such as Smax, Hyperdog or King Peacock are real tall.

Personality

Despite her strange senses, Jackson seems to just be a normal, dynamic young woman. She’s pretty cool and easy-going, and smells… sorry, sounds like somebody you’d enjoy hanging out with.

She seems quite experienced as a detective, and has no problems directing teams of officers and coordinating and conducting investigations. She is very confident in her senses. When the unthinkable happens and she recognized Commissioner Ultima’s scent, she did act, although she was obviously shaken. She swears a bit, but no more than most cops.

Syn is apparently the type of young woman who is cute, vivacious and somehow always end up with Mister Wrong while everybody else can tell her she’s making a mistake. She was dumb enough to date Smax, and is attracted to her partner, who happens to be a married devil worshipper with an happy family.

Due to her super-synaesthesia, her speech is sometimes surprising. She’ll refer to what she hears in terms of colours and what she smells in terms of sounds – see the quotes.

Quotes

“What was that ? Li’s voice was black and yellow.”

“This smell… it’s a bit like Beethoven. Daa da da da daa da da da… which symphony is this, incidentally ?”

DC Universe History

DC’s closest equivalent to Neopolis might be Superbia, the high-tech city built by the Ultramarines and hovering high above the ruins of Monte Video. The opening of relations with other realities might explain why things have been very quiet there.

Syn Jackson would presumably work at Metropolis’ SCU, and would have been recruited by Maggie Sawyer as investigative support personnel.

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Top Ten series by Alan Moore.

Helper(s): Roy Cowan.