"D-Day" in Disverse | World Anvil
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"D-Day"

The 2018 Cape St. Joan terrorist attacks, locally known as D-Day (Doe day, after their perpetrator) were a series of terrorist attacks on the city of Cape St. Joan carried out from June to August of 2018. The attacks were carried out by a female criminal whose identity could not be verified after her capture and has thus been referred to only as Jane Doe .

Background

As Jane Doe's identity was never established by the authorities, much of her preparations and buildup to the attacks could only be reconstructed from her own accounts given under interrogation, as well as circumstancial evidence seized when her hideout was raided after she gave away its position.
While it is not known when Jane Doe began making plans for the attack, later investigations found that she has presumably arrived in Cape St. Joan over a year prior to the first bombing. It is presumed that by this point she was already in possession of either the explosives she used in the attacks, or the materials needed to build them. Establishing a hideout in The Gutters, she spent the following months rigging public parks and other open structures with explosives.
Doe used various disguises to accomplish her goal of covertly preparing her crime, posing as a construction worker, gardener and canal worker, amongst other occupations, to gain access to her targets. In late September 2017, she claims to have been detected by two police officers on patrol, who questioned her after seeing her conduct work in a public space where none was scheduled. While she managed to escape, she claims it was only due to the fact that the officers spotted her before she had time to place the explosives that her scheme was not uncovered then and there.

First Murder, Kidnapping & Suspicion

Continuing her preparations, Doe commited her first murder related to the terrorist attacks in Febuary 2018, when she assaulted and killed a homeless man who wandered into her hideout on accident, wanting to silence him. Doe claims to have cut the body into pieces and tossing the remains into the sewer system, but no parts of the body nor traces of the murder were ever found.
In early May, Doe assaulted and captured Trisha Newport, a local radio host living outside of town, and her family. Forcing Newport to call in sick at work, she had her prepare the messages she would later broadcast over the radio station to the entire town. Threatening Newport's children, she then forced her to keep on working and broadcast the messages at the designated time.
Coworkers of Newport became suspicious their colleagues behaviour in late May, reporting it to their employer, Cliffside Wave Radio. After talks with Newport proved inconclusive, they informed the authorities in early June.

First Attacks

After learning of Newport arising suspicion, Doe was forced to move "ahead of schedule" according to her testimony. On the 16th of June 2018, she instructed Newport to broadcast her message. Newport travelled to Cliffside Wave Radio station and as she went live on air around 10:30, sent Doe's message. As the message was still being broadcast, Doe murdered Newport's children and husband, and at 10:32 detonated a set of explosives placed in a parked car (stolen two days prior) in Merchant Town, injuring nine people, two of them heavily.
Ladies and gentlemen, silence please! What you are about to see is a demonstration. What you are about to witness is a manifesto. What you are about to experience is a lesson regarding your own lack of power. These things are beyond your control. There is no way to prevent what is about to happen. It is the natural conclusion of the path you have chosen. A preview of the end that awaits all of you, should you chose to keep living in blissful ignorance. This is naught but a wakeup call, that you may not sleep to experience a true nightmare.
— Jane Doe's Radio Message
After the broadcast, the police took Newport into custody, where she revealed Doe's orders to her. As Doe had never given a name for herself, the police designated her as "Jane Doe", her gender being the only known attribute about her. After searching Newport's house, a widespread search for Doe and the still considered missing family of Newport began.
The following day, 12:49, Doe detonated two more bombs, one hidden in a trashcan in The Block, the other placed (which presumably had also been placed in a trashcan prior) exploding on a garbage truck. This attack saw the first victim of the attacks proper, killing one garbage man working on the exploding truck.
Over the following days, Doe detonated four more bombs, causing increasing numbers of injuries and even deaths. By now, the press had picked up on the monicker of "Jane Doe" and spread it across town and beyond. As the search of the police turned up nothing in relation to Doe's current hideout, soon the city mobilised in an attempt to search for more remaining bombs instead. Both supers and civil forces aided in the sweep of the city, but as focus lay on recently placed explosives, most slipped through the net.
On the 29th of June, Jane Doe broadcast a message on police radio, threatening her biggest attack yet and making demands for money. The Cape St. Joan Superhuman Association for Public Security was able to triangulate the origin of the signal and sent a response team capture Doe. The signal turned out to be a pre-recorded trap, broadcasting from an otherwise empty building in the Harbour. Upon arrival of the sanctioned supers, Doe detonated the entire building, killing Hotshot and injuring Resh . A second, equally prerecorded police radio broadcast later that day taunted the authorities for falling into Doe's trap.

Panic & Response

With the news of Hotshot's death, panic quickly spread in the city. For the first time, speculation about Jane Doe being a super herself was floated around. As attacks kept occuring, the city began considering more drastic measures to keep the citizens safe. After a bomb attack on a mall in East End, killing five people in and injuring over twenty, the mayor issued a nightly curfew for the entire town. On the 5th of July, the FBI took charge of local investigations. On the 10th of July, in response to these measures, Jane Doe detonated a civilian house in Cliffside. While no one was injured as the house was empty at the time, it still got widely publicised and lead to a growing sense that not even one's own home was safe.
Three days later, an explosion destroyed what was later found to have been an outpost used by The Crew . In response, on the 15th, under the mediation of Parrot , a local independant super, a truce between sanctioned and unsanctioned supers was proposed. It went into effect on the 17th, after an attack on a road bridge in Downtown during rush hour caused a further eleven deaths, forcing the authorities to relent on their strict stance against cooperation with the local rogues.
Over the following days, Doe's attacks became increasingly frequent and vicious, targeting larger and larger groups of people and places of import. By the 23rd, every following day would see at least one attack. With the aid of Parrot, Cloud and Dedun , it became possible to narrow down Doe's location. She had already been changing locations frequently ever since her attack began, but with a combination of Thinker-powers and a newly built tracking device that was attuned to the chemical elements used in Doe's bombs, progress was being made. The origin of the explosives was futher linked to Bombshell , a European bomb-tinker who Doe later admitted had supplied her with some of her weapons.
On the 25th, the police discovered one of Doe's hideouts, containing the deceased family of Trisha Newport, who committed suicide the same day after hearing of her family's demise.

D-Day

On the 1st of August, Doe detonated her biggest bomb yet, killing 32 people in Riverside. Fearing the authorities on her trail and with panic in the population reaching new heights at the seeming powerlessnes of police and supers against Doe, on the 2nd of August, Doe detonated a bomb in a school, killing an additional four. The bomb had been placed in a little-used part of the school, minimising damage. Doe's plan was to cause a panic sufficient to facilitating the final step of her plan.
On the 3rd of August, Doe made her way to an abandoned warehouse in the harbour, hiding out in the building's cellar. From there, she broadcast her final message of the attacks, calling a local tv station known for sensationalist reporting.
Ladies and gentlemen! Silence please! I am afraid that your time to learn is over. Now, we shall burn this lesson into your memory. [...] Countless schools, hospitals, skyscrapers, civilian homes - there is no place safe from my reach. You have three hours before all of it will vanish in a blaze. Prisoners at the bar, have you anything to say in your defese?
— Jane Doe's final message to the public

Following the bomb threat, many people tried to flee the city in panic, while even more crowded the public parks and other open areas that had been designated as official evacuation zones, far from any buildings and presumably safe from Doe. However, it was these precise places that Jane Doe had rigged to explode upon signal long in advance during her year of preparation.
Tracing Doe's call, supers both sanctioned and illegal quickly arrived at the scene of the warehouse. In trying to enter it, they found themselves confronted with a multitude of traps, mines and explosives set up to kill as many intruders as possible. Leading the charge were The Bucklers , a group of vigilantes who were considered ideal for dealing with the threats posed by Doe's methods. After a disastrous attempt to charge the building that left most of the Bucklers dead or maimed, it was a joint charge of Friction's Suits and the Knights of Arc that was successful in breaching the perimiter and taking Jane Doe into custody. However, moments before her capture, Doe detonated her final set of bombs.
Over 2000 people perished in the resulting explosions that destroyed various parts of East Park and various smaller evacuation spots, injuring as many as 10,000 in the initial explosion and the following fires.

Aftermath & Trial

As the injured were being treated and rebuilding began, Jane Doe was taken into custody and interrogated. While answering no questions regarding her person or motives, she did share various details regarding her attacks and their preparation. Charges were soon brought against her, with Doe pleading guilty on every count, though her self-confessed murder of the homeless man could not be proven.
A jury found Doe guilty of terrorism, mass murder, assault, kidnapping and the illegal possession and use of military-grade non-sanctioned tinker technology. Shortly thereafter, the sentencing phase of the trial found that Doe was elegible to recieve the death penalty, an effective life sentence as no death penalties had been carried out since the finished construction of North Branch , to preserve equal treatment between super and non-super criminals. However, complications arose from the question whether the "golden rule" should waived in light of the nature of Doe's crimes and questions as to the existence and extend of her superpowers.
After months of debate, an official medical checkup found Jane Doe to be in possession of superpowers, thus explaining her stunning success against all odds during the attacks. However, her powers were deemed to be of such a low threat level while contained, that an incarceration at North Branch was considered excessive and costly. Plans for her execution were considered but eventually put on indefinite halt as various sanctioned supers around the country spoke out against damaging the careful balance created by the "Golden Rule". As such, Doe was instead imprisoned for life at Port Joan High Risk Detainment Center .

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