Gazing into the past - what happened?

[EMMA THE ROO]

Ello lovely members!

So Arie has suggested in the events thread that the Titans get sucked 400 years into the past, back to 2100, the time where the world transitioned from the utopia years of the Titans to the hell of wars between rival villainous gangs.

What i am putting to you guys however is what exactly do you think they would find back then? My mind went through numerous ideas when i was creating TTF but none of them really explained why the Titans would disappear, allowing bad guys to take over, nor why no new Titans or Heroes tried to fight back.

Some of my ideas included:

They grew lazy
Since TTF is set post most of the world villains getting the deep freeze, the real downfall of Heroes was the fact that the world didn't need them anymore. People for the good fight were everywhere, why would you rob a bank when 50 people would be on you in less than a minute? So crime would have stopped, and the Heroes would have gotten lazy in training the next generation as there really was no need to continue to be Heroes. It was not until crime rates started to rise at the end of 2100 as the last of the Titans died that they realized what a mistake they had made. But by then it was too late to fight back.

Evil overlord came down for the weekend
An enemy far stronger than the Titans combined, perhaps Trigon, came to Earth. They killed or banished all the heroes of the world and lorded over us for a short period of time. However they got bored, made like the aliens from war of the worlds and got a cold, or got called back to wherever they came from, etc. They leave Earth and the army of bad guys that had formerly worked as his minions are now free to do as they wish. They break up into groups, fight amongst themselves, and any order that had remained in the world under the dictatorship of the Trigon-like figure evaporated. Eventually they sort themselves out in NYC to form gangs, the most recent evolution of which are the Reavers and United.

Jealousy
After all the bad guys are put on ice by the Titans at the end of the series, things are ok for awhile. However quickly Titan central becomes ripped apart by arguments and jealousy. They split up and disappear somewhere. Without the Central Tower's leadership the other Towers fall into disarray. They start to fight against each other, Tower against Tower, city against city. Eventually the Titan wars get so bad humanity unfreezes the villains, tasking them to get rid of the Titans and stop the madness, promising in return a normal life for them without facing charges for their former crimes. The villains kill, banish, freeze, etc, the Titans. But they decide being evil is more fun now that the world is unprotected. With so many bad guys out there and no remaining heroes, the transition is quick to a world run by evil. For humans can't really do that much against people like cinderblock.

Evolution
The United and Reavers of 2500 are actually the new generation of Titans. Ohhh, plot twist! After their victory over evil and freezing of the bad guys, the Titans had no real enemies. The power went to their heads. "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Over the next hundred years the Titans turned from figures of justice to figures that had no purpose in life. When you have no one to protect a city from why would the city continue to waste resources supporting you? They turned to small crimes, originally to make the world think they were still needed when they appeared on scene and arrested a disguised fellow Titan or 2. But over time this evolved into legitimate crimes. By 2100 the Titans were no longer heroes. They were in fact the new bad guys. And with no one to stop them, they had no problem altering the balance of power in the world to put themselves on top.

I think i had a couple of other ones floating around up my sleeve, but this should do to kick you guys off. What do you think happened? Reply below and share your thoughts. Feedback and pointing out of holes in others answers is encouraged. I'm trying to make TTF seem as legitimate a future as possible.

[arie]

Okay, I think I like the Evolution idea... It seems to fit more then a giant war, which I can totally see happening, and is a huge plot bomb to drop on the Titans.

[cage]

I'll be completely honest, I also prefer the evolution idea but some of these are too good to pick over the others. Maybe a combination? I think the corruption AND the jelousy things would make a great combination. Here are my reasons:

1. The shock element for that to be what the players find out, that their enemies were actually Titans!

2. The jelousy thing also explains well why reavers, and united and other groups are still having turf wars. The history of that could have been between the titans in the first place, and now they no longer remember the origins of their fights. Overtime, names and stories changed and warped.

Also I feel like this would be extremely disturbing for those who have chosen to "fight the good fight" so to speak as they would be asking themselves which side is good. Major moral issues here. I love it!