With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

Tyrantviewer · Jun 10, 2022

Coda said:
That's... not more honest at all. :/ That kind of comparison trivializes the impact. Switching from driving yourself to work to taking the bus to work is something that isn't really all that hard, just inconvenient. It was a serious kind of bankruptcy that required heavy restructuring and a lot of losses along the way. Yes, overall, they were able to survive, but it isn't an exaggeration to say that the South was reduced to bartering because they were so bankrupt by the end of the war. Cotton production didn't halt, but it was dramatically reduced. And the only reason it wasn't worse is because both white people and black people had no choice but to enter into landlord-tenant relationships to keep the fields (both food crops and cash crops) from going unplanted and starving everyone. The resulting system was little better than the slavery that it replaced, and it took decades to end the cycle of poverty that the Civil War created.

Yep, and the forward thinking slave owners probably feared something like that, supported the war, and ended up with it anyway, instead of whatever slower, less extreme economic shift would have happened without the war to make abolishing slavery easier to pass. So The confederacy likely ended up hastening and worsening the result they were afraid of.

Coda said:
I'm not defending the Confederacy; I've been quite careful to point out their problems. I'm defending an accurate understanding of the events that transpired and the mindsets that motivated it. Knowing the historical events but attributing them to the wrong reasons leads to drawing incorrect conclusions. If we're going to learn a lesson from what happened in the past, we need to be honest about what happened instead of just reacting to it out of context.

Thank you for that, and once again for being so reasonable. I wasn't clear enough in my bit earlier, but personally people going "well the confederates weren't so bad" raises concerns about apologism and glorification of an era, ultimately supporting racism, ignorance and an us vs them mentality. You aren't doing that, but the association of people post facto justifying the confederacy, with certain modern sterotypes about southerners may be where some of the opposition you are facing comes from. Not going to go into modern politics on my life however.

Back to the story, Why did the Shinto react so violently to the Eagle of freedom? He said it was because of basically supernatural politics, but do they have an agenda? is something fishy about the eagle?

Anyone have some interesting ideas for new Olypians that Paul might recruit?

What is the most of the wall idea you have for where the heck John is?

Assblaster5000 · Jun 10, 2022

Tyrantviewer said:
What is the most of the wall idea you have for where the heck John is?

The Funny Papers, obviously.

Vaermina · Jun 10, 2022

Chaoswind said:
You missed the explanation...

She gets protection from one of the largest non monotheistic pantheons.

She is a minor elemental of flavored liberty, there are a large amount of things that would love to eat her and we saw exactly how fucked the American afterlife is. The Shinto gods/spirits aren't top tier, but they are very numerous and willing to accept outsiders, so by joining them she gets a fuck ton of low tier gods and a few high tier ones to get lost in the crowd.

Low powered elementals are little more than semi exotic ritual sacrifices.

That wasn't the American afterlife... It was a negative conceptual space...

Also while they are the largest, they are also the weakest, so that doesn't fly... Like seriously... In canon the entire Shinto pantheon got it's ass kicked by one Hero...

Mr Zoat · Jun 10, 2022

5th November 2282
09:24 CDT

"Hey, Mutie Chief?"

**If you want my attention, corporal, you can just think hard.** I glance at the man marching along behind me wearing the Mark One Advanced Power Armour. **You can think, right?**

"Yeah, cause you got crazy mutie magic, right?"

There's a degree of nervousness in his voice. I suppose that after a lifetime of being told that wastelanders are a different breed of human, it's a little unsettling to meet one who effectively is.

"ARE YOU BREAKING COMMUNICATIONS DISCIPLINE FOR A REASON, CORPORAL, OR ARE YOU MERELY TRYING TO MAKE ME ANGRY ENOUGH TO HAVE A BRAIN HEMORRHAGE?"

"Ah, Sergeant, I was wanting to ask how long Krono can stay out in the dust without power armour. Since that might be relevant to the mission. We don't have all that much Rad-Away and we're getting closer to the impact sites."

**Reasonable question, Corporal.** I reach up with my right hand and brush some of the accumulated dust off my visor. I can navigate reasonably well with my psychic abilities, and goodness knows I can't see much with my eyes in this dust cloud, but people get worried when I start walking around with no visible means of seeing my environment. **I am effectively immune to environmental radiation.**

"Psychic powers do that?"

Hm. **Aside from Sergeant Dornan, did any of you ever meet Special Agent Frank Horrigan.**

"Uh, who?"

"President Richardson's bodyguard. He died at The Rig. There aren't a lot of us still alive who met him."

**Come now, Sergeant. Be honest. Frank Horrigan was also an early example of the Enclave's mutant-friendly policies.**

"He was a-? Wastelander?"

**He was a Super Mutant.**

"Huh?"

**And I don't mean 'a mutant who was really super', I mean two and a half metres tall, green skin filled with muscle, immune to poison, disease and radiation.**

"That-. I don't-. S-sergeant?"

"Horrigan volunteered for some experimental medical procedures. Anything else is-. Was classified. Though since the terrorist traitor who destroyed the Rig and murdered the President wrote a book about it I don't suppose it's still classified."

**Before the War, the United States was afflicted by a disease they called the New Plague. Various groups were working on a cure, but one team decided that rather than killing the disease directly, they'd try altering the human body so that it wasn't vulnerable to the disease. They had some positive results, reported it to their investors and… Then the US Army got involved. Because if the tailored virus they were using could make people immune to the New Plague, could it do other things? Like making them stronger? Tougher? Immune-.**

"Are you saying the Government invented super mutants?"

**Not on purpose. They were failed test subjects. And the War ended before there were any complete successes.**

"Oh. Except you now, right?"

**Me and this guy from Los Angeles called Ton Barracus. He probably died when the Master died, but it's hard to find bodies to check after a nuclear blast. If things had gone a little differently, all American soldiers would have had abilities like mine… Minus the psychic powers.**

I suppose Mister Barracus is proof of the infinite monkeys postulate. Mister Moreau tried throwing as many people as he could into the vats and he got an actual supersoldier purely by luck. I wonder if he knew what he'd done, or if he considered Ton an irrelevance beside the glorious super mutant race?

"Like..?"

I look around, then spot a lump of concrete laying on the ground. It's roughly a metre long along its longest axis and about half that on its other two. I walk over to it and pick it up without much effort.

"Huh. Okay, but-."

I shove my hands together, the lump shattering and spraying dust and shards of concrete out like a fragmentation grenade!

"Whow!"

**The pre-War government was surprisingly pro-transhuman. If it gave them an edge against the Chinese, they were all for it.**

"Where do I get something like that?"

"ARE YOU SAYING THAT YOU WANT TO BE A MUTANT, CORPORAL?"

"No, Sergeant! I mean, I-. The President was okay with his own bodyguard using it, and the old US government wanted to use it on the army. It's not like he got tentacles or supercancer or anything."

"THE US GOVERNMENT OF THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY DID NOT APPROVE IT FOR USE! ARE YOU SAYING THAT A BUNCH OF MUTANT WASTELANDERS KNOW BETTER THAN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT?"

"No, no Sergeant! Unless-! I mean, if the Government did most of the work and some of the more intelligent wastelanders used Government equipment, maybe they could finish it?"

**No. Stabilising the Forced Evolutionary Virus like this required-** A power ring. An orange power ring, to be precise. I'm not exactly sure how I got even a tiny charge off the Guardian's corpse, but I'm not complaining. **-an expendable resource I can't replicate. President Anderson fried his drives before we could get hold of his research and the late President Eden was only interested in using FEV to kill super mutants and ghouls. I suspect that further FEV work will have to wait until the United States of America has been reunified.**

"Huh."

The squad and I continue through the dust storm, the occasional flash of ionic lightning overhead and the lights from their armour being the only sources of illumination. We're heading south towards the former site of Cedar Rapids. If we find nothing of note there, our next stop is Des Moines. Then there's a short list of pre-War government bunkers. But-. Uh. There's no real reason why a private citizen couldn't have built their own, and if that's what happened then we won't have a record of it. We're half-hoping that checking the houses of rich pre-War citizens might result in us picking up clues, because the state is a large place to search on foot.

**Sergeant, I have a question.**

**Good for you, mutie. I bet it's a real nice one, too.**

**This is narrowcast. The rest of the squad aren't hearing it. Would you mind telling me why you supported Anderson over Granite?**

**I was following President Richardson's last orders. Anderson's plan was closer to that than what Granite wanted. It was an Enclave plan.**

**That's certainly factually correct. The chance of it working didn't factor into it?**

**President Anderson was an intelligent man who knew plenty about mutie culture. I trusted his judgement. You don't know that Granite's way would have worked out any better.**

I nod. **True. Though you-.**

"Hey, Mutie Chief?"

**Yes?**

"Can you do something about the dust? It's messing up my V.A.T.S. system."

**Sergeant?**

**It would be useful if we can see where we're going.**

**Then I'll see what I can do.**

I push outwards and down, about a third of the dust being pulled to the ground. Visibility improves… A little, and from further away we shouldn't be much more visible.

**Bett-?**

Yellow lights appear in the distance-.

**Cover!**

Darko · Jun 10, 2022

ForeverShogo said:
Hmm. For some reason it's looking like some people have started falling over themselves trying to defend the Confederacy.

Also, because someone else mentioned the spirit of Liberty there's a question I've been meaning to ask.

So for whatever reason the Japanese pantheon is just able to poach things outside their purview. Whatever. They have Liberty because some comic said Liberty was one of the things they poached. Also whatever.

What I've been trying to figure out is why she went along with it. Like, I get what the Shinto gods get out of it. She's one more thing for them to leech off of for their own benefit, but what the hell does she get out of the deal? She didn't magically become a Japanese goddess worshipped by the followers of Shinto. They're leeching off of whatever she gets just by being an American symbol. It sounds like it benefits them to her detriment.

The Eagle of Freedom mentioned that it's tough for a spiritual being to find success in a largely monotheistic country like the USA, so maybe the Shinto convinced her that she could find better success on their country than in America.

Chojin Patriarch · Jun 10, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
5th November 2282
09:24 CDT

"Hey, Mutie Chief?"

**If you want my attention, corporal, you can just think hard.** I glance at the man marching along behind me wearing the Mark One Advanced Power Armour. **You can think, right?**

Ah, Krono. Out looking for the Battle-Bots, are we? I suppose the Ohio Colony pushed for it, given they're a clear danger, and have useful tech they can recover. Getting in touch with their maker is probably a bonus objective.

"Yeah, cause you got crazy mutie magic, right?"

There's a degree of nervousness in his voice. I suppose that after a lifetime of being told that wastelanders are a different breed of human, it's a little unsettling to meet one who effectively is.

Especially if he's got any obvious 'not pure human' traits, like altered skin, bigger muscles or giant throbbing skill veins (because psychic.)

"ARE YOU BREAKING COMMUNICATIONS DISCIPLINE FOR A REASON, CORPORAL, OR ARE YOU MERELY TRYING TO MAKE ME ANGRY ENOUGH TO HAVE A BRAIN HEMORRHAGE?"

"Ah, Sergeant, I was wanting to ask how long Krono can stay out in the dust without power armour. Since that might be relevant to the mission. We don't have all that much Rad-Away and we're getting closer to the impact sites."

Ah, the Sarge. Still in fine voice, I see.

**Reasonable question, Corporal.** I reach up with my right hand and brush some of the accumulated dust off my visor. I can navigate reasonable well with my psychic abilities, and goodness knows I can't see much with my eyes in this dust cloud, but people get worried when I start walking around with no visible means of seeing my environment. **I am effectively immune to environmental radiation.**

"Psychic powers do that?"

...Not by themselves. This might actually make the sergeant pop a blood vessel...

Hm. **Aside from Sergeant Dornan, did any of you ever meet Special Agent Frank Horrigan.**

"Uh, who?"

Heh. Big lad, ain't he?

"President Richardson's bodyguard. He died at The Rig. There aren't a lot of us still alive who met him."

**Come now, Sergeant. Be honest. Frank Horrigan was also an early example of the Enclave's mutant-friendly policies.**

Who some of the more hard-liner anti-mutant types would probably rather be forgotten.

"He was a-? Wastelander?"

**He was a Super Mutant.**

And a real nice guy, if you didn't piss him off, too.

"Huh?"

**And I don't mean 'a mutant who was really super', I mean two and a half metres tall, green skin filled with muscle, immune to poison, disease and radiation.**

Yeah, pretty much the Enclave's equivalent of an Astartes, if you didn't mind the colouring.

"That-. I don't-. S-sergeant?"

"Horrigan volunteered for some experimental medical procedures. Anything else is-. Was classified. Though since the terrorist traitor who destroyed the Rig and murdered the President wrote a book about it I don't suppose it's still classified."

...Let me guess: a Player Character?

**Before the War, the United States was afflicted by a disease they called the New Plague. Various groups were working on a cure, but one team decided that rather than killing the disease directly, they'd try altering the human body so that it wasn't vulnerable to the disease. They had some positive results, reported it to their investors and… Then the US Army got involved. Because if the tailored virus they were using could make people immune to the New Plague, could it do other things? Like making them stronger? Tougher? Immune-.**

A logical enough idea. Pity things went tits-up before it could be perfected.

"Are you saying the Government invented super mutants?"

**Not on purpose. They were failed test subjects. And the War ended before there were any complete successes.**

By which time, making super-soldiers took a back seat to surviving.

"Oh. Except you now, right?"

**Me and this guy from Los Angeles called Ton Barracus. He probably died when the Master died, but it's hard to find bodies to check after a nuclear blast. If things had gone a little differently, all American soldiers would have had abilities like mine… Minus the psychic powers.**

Those would probably have been reserved for advanced special forces.

I suppose Mister Barracus is proof of the infinite monkeys postulate. Mister Moreau tried throwing as many people as he could into the vats and he got an actual supersoldier purely by luck. I wonder if he knew what he'd done, or if he considered Ton an irrelevance beside the glorious super mutant race?

"Like..?"

Now, if he could have reliably reproduced it, things might have been very different.

I look around, then spot a lump of concrete laying on the ground. It's roughly a metre long along its longest axis and about half that on its other two. I walk over to it and pick it up without much effort.

"Huh. Okay, but-."

A good few hundred kilograms, at least? Impressive, but doable in power armour...

I shove my hands together, the lump shattering and spraying dust and shards of concrete out like a fragmentation grenade!

"Whow!"

...That, on the other hand, is not.

**The pre-War government was surprisingly pro-transhuman. If it gave them an edge against the Chinese, they were all for it.**

"Where do I get something like that?"

Keep in mind, you aren't bulletproof, corporal.

"ARE YOU SAYING THAT YOU WANT TO BE A MUTANT, CORPORAL?"

"No, Sergeant! I mean, I-. The President was okay with his own bodyguard using it, and the old US government wanted to use it on the army. It's not like he got tentacles or supercancer or anything."

Good answer, kid. That probably saved you from being busted back down to private.

"THE US GOVERNMENT OF THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY DID NOT APPROVE IT FOR USE! ARE YOU SAYING THAT A BUNCH OF MUTANT WASTELANDERS KNOW BETTER THAN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT?"

"No, no Sergeant! Unless-! I mean, if the Government did most of the work and some of the more intelligent wastelanders used Government equipment, maybe they could finish it?"

In other words, 'it's okay if it's our wastelander muties doing it'?

**No. Stabilising the Forced Evolutionary Virus like this required-** A power ring. An orange power ring, to be precise. I'm not exactly sure how I got even a tiny charge off the Guardian's corpse, but I'm not complaining. **-an expendable resource I can't replicate. President Anderson fried his drives before we could get hold of his research and the late President Eden was only interested in using FEV to kill super mutants and ghouls. I suspect that further FEV work will have to wait until the United States of America has been reunified.**

"Huh."

And that could be decades away. No super-soldiering for you, Corporal America.

The squad and I continue through the dust storm, the occasional flash of ionic lightning overhead and the lights from their armour being the only sources of illumination. We're heading south towards the former site of Cedar Rapids. If we find nothing of note there, our next stop is Des Moines. Then there's a short list of pre-War government bunkers. But-. Uh. There's no real reason why a private citizen couldn't have built their own, and if that's what happened then we won't have a record of it. We're half-hoping that checking the houses of rich pre-War citizens might result in us picking up clues, because the state is a large place to search on foot.

Yeah, you'd have better luck searching for a needle in a big haystack. Without a magnet or fire.

**Sergeant, I have a question.**

**Good for you, mutie. I bet it's a real nice one, too.**

Still not comfortable with the head-talking, huh, Dornan?

**This is narrowcast. The rest of the squad aren't hearing it. Would you mind telling me why you supported Anderson over Granite?**

**I was following President Richardson's last orders. Anderson's plan was closer to that than what Granite wanted. It was an Enclave plan.**

And if the men in charge said do it, you do it?

A good little soldier, huh?

**That's certainly factually correct. The chance of it working didn't factor into it?**

**President Anderson was an intelligent man who knew plenty about mutie culture. I trusted his judgement. You don't know that Granite's way would have worked out any better.**

And if not, there's always some other plan?

I nod. **True. Though you-.**

"Hey, Mutie Chief?"

Ah, someone's spotted something?

**Yes?**

"Can you do something about the dust? It's messing up my V.A.T.S. system."

Oh, right. Because that gameplay mechanic is an actual in-universe thing.

**Sergeant?**

**It would be useful if we can see where we're going.**

On the other hand, the dust is good cover. Unfortunately, that works both ways...

**Then I'll see what I can do.**

I push outwards and down, about a third of the dust being pulled to the ground. Visibility improves… A little, and from further away we shouldn't be much more visible.

To human eyes, at least...

**Bett-?**

Yellow lights appear in the distance-.

**Cover!**

...Pity the folks they're looking for aren't using human eyes to see.

Well, looks like their trail just got hot. Now, have the Battle-bots seen them coming, or is this just a chance encounter? Hopefully, the militia troops can take the heat from the enemy's beam guns, or this is going to end very messily...

If delicious-smelling. If nothing else, a psychic ally's going to be a big force-multiplier...

DrThoth · Jun 10, 2022

Darko said:
The Eagle of Freedom mentioned that it's tough for a spiritual being to find success in a largely monotheistic country like the USA, so maybe the Shinto convinced her that she could find better success on their country than in America.

Reminds me of this Youtube series on American Civil Religion (if faith doesn't require specific self-acknowledgement that you're a religion).

I wonder if this incident gets publicized that Russia, China and other places are going to do their best to locate their national personifications to mitigate any metaphysical political manipulations. Though given that Captain Nazi was known to be the embodiment of Germany (by a top-ranking German government official, but I feel like foreign intelligence would still be able to get that info), maybe they already are.

Would be interesting to see the effects of the Sheeda Harrowing and other major events on the anthropomorphic personifications of countries. Like does Kahndaq have one or does Teth Adom's pseudo-divinity enable him to become a focus of the natioal psyche?

My questions also apply to the magical mindscape/reflections of the countries, which I'm assuming are some stable locations in the Dreaming.

hkim · Jun 10, 2022

Coda said:
As I said before: Yes. It was about slavery. But it wasn't about slavery.

While it's true that lots of people in the South were that kind of white supremacist, that's not why they went to war.

"we didn't fight the evil sorceror because of his dark powers, we fought him because the source of his dark powers was ritual human sacrifice" dude what the fuck is this hair you're splitting, like yes things are more detailed on the geopolitical layer but if they hadn't been getting power from ritual human sacrifice are we saying the war would have happened anyway? prolly NOT

(yes I posted the same response, and will likely continue to do so as long as people post this nonsense. once you start using ritual human sacrifice for your own power, your precise motivations stop mattering, at all, you are now the villain of the piece and whatever valid points you may or many not have also had are now tainted, good job)

Bramble Thorn · Jun 10, 2022

Megaolix said:
...

Your story go in strange places, Zoat.

it all ended up aright though. The confederate avatar got eaten by the metaphor for corporate opportunistic predation.

hkim said:
(yes I posted the same response, and will likely continue to do so

You are kind of being an ass here. Please remember rule 1:

1: Play nice with the other members on the forums.

Spamming the thread by repeating yourself in post after post because you disagree with the other guy, is not that.

Old Knife · Jun 10, 2022

.....Are we going to see Uncle Sam end up in Fallout? Or is John Constantine taking a vacation in this radioactive wonderland?

Stsword · Jun 10, 2022

Bramble Thorn said:
it all ended up aright though. The confederate avatar got eaten by the metaphor for corporate opportunistic predation.

Actually I don't think Zoat was aware of the term "vulture capitalist" from his response when someone first brought it up.

I think, and I might certainly be wrong, that Zoat was going for the opposite of the Eagle.

Eagles, in common perception, are these fierce highflying birds.

Vultures? "Lowly" scavengers who pick on the dead and the dying.

Vaermina · Jun 10, 2022

Darko said:
The Eagle of Freedom mentioned that it's tough for a spiritual being to find success in a largely monotheistic country like the USA, so maybe the Shinto convinced her that she could find better success on their country than in America.

More success then a figure that represents hope and liberty to hundreds of millions of people?

Mr Zoat · Jun 10, 2022

Old Knife said:
.....Are we going to see Uncle Sam end up in Fallout?

No.

Or is John Constantine taking a vacation in this radioactive wonderland?

No. He'd be in Fallout: London.

Cuchulin · Jun 10, 2022

Enochi said:
Wow. Um your WAY off on that 2nd paragraph. 1. As I mentioned earlier the Guy who took over Fort Sumter wasn't actually in charge of Fort Sumter. He just took it over cause it was more defensible. 2. The they didn't try Diplomacy at all... Is a big fat lie. In fact the south sent Ambassadors to the North and offered to pay for the Federal land it took but Lincoln refused to recognize them as officials. 3. The first half of the war taking place in Union Territory is... Honestly I have no earthly idea where the hell you are getting that. The Maryland Campaign (Aka Lee's First invasion of the North) was in late 1862 and had 2 battles fought in Maryland. Lee's 2nd invasion that ended in Gettysburg was in 1863 and was the only one that made it to PA. Also PA at the time Did border VA. (Remember WV was considered part of VA at the time) Can I ask where you are getting most battles were fought in Union territory? Cause I really really have no clue where in the world you are getting that.

1. The Fort was Federal Property which was the important bit and if they did try Diplomacy they didn't do it very well.
2. Sending Ambassadors to the North and offered to pay isn't something that ever came up in anything I've read and heard. At least not that I remember.
3. The first part of the War had the North firmly on the defensive, at least in the East and the South was very much the Aggressor as they had been even before the war on the issue of Slavery. I also recall there being battles in Ohio, but the parts of the Civil war fought in the west don't get much attention.

Enochi said:
Also not every state left over slavery. Lincoln's call for volunteer's to put down the rebellion... was ill-advised. That action cause more states to succeed. Including VA and NC who provided the majority of the CSA's man power.

No, every state that left did so over Slavey. Which is also why various parts of the South like West Virginia and the "Free State of Jones" rebelled against the Confederacy, they resented the power of the plantation owners and how slavery hurt the ability of small farmers to make a living or have any political power. Which happened mostly in places like Appalachia and the Ozarks.
The "Solid South" is another myth created after the civil war.

Enochi said:
Now in regards to Slavery. Yes the south did think it was a critical institution. But the issue was much more nuanced then just racial superiority. 1. It had become very profitable. See until the late 1700s and early 1800s slavery was on the decline until the cotton gins wide adoption which made cotton an amazing cash crop. 2. The Haitian revolution specifically the Massacre of the French in 1804. That was very scary for the south and the impetus for many of the restrictions placed on the southern slave population. 3. The fear was further heightened by the Nat Turner Rebellion in 1831.

Yeah, but they came up with a fairly elaborate racist ideology of racial superiority to justify why only Black people were slaves. I mean there was a book a read about the Black middle class in the Antebellum South, which was small and pretty much only in a few places like Charleston and New Orleans, that had a section discussing how a visitor was baffled by New Orleans complex Racial politics as he could understand why one person of with some African ancestors was classified as being "Black" while another that (to him at least) looks to have even more African ancestry was see as being White.
Also, like I said they banned Black Literacy and Black preachers even teaching that Heavan for Black people would be as House/Kitchen servants.
So clearly while this flowed mostly from the economics of Slavey it didn't even comes close to stopping there and lead to various pseudo-scientific at best justifications of enslaving only Africans, along with why White people were superior. I mean I did mention John C. Calhoun and his twisted justifications for things like Slavery?

Coda said:
As I said before: Yes. It was about slavery. But it wasn't about slavery.
When modern people say that the American Civil War was about "slavery," they're almost universally viewing it through the lens of modern social mores. They're thinking that it was a battle fought over slavery as a moral issue, They're thinking that the South wanted to defend the institution of slavery because they were white supremacists that thought that black people were subhumans whose only value was to serve their masters.
While it's true that lots of people in the South were that kind of white supremacist, that's not why they went to war.
Slavery was the core of the Southern economy. The articles of secession, the Confederate constitution, and all of the other defenses of slavery were written because sudden emancipation would have been horrifically destructive. It would have unilaterally harmed Southerners on a scale of what would today be the equivalent of billions if not trillions of dollars in seized property, lost revenue, and damages.
Imagine if the government of the US issued a proclamation tomorrow saying that, because car-related accidents and diseases are among the leading causes of death in the nation, it is now illegal to own a car. All existing titles of car ownership are null and void. Anyone caught in possession of a car would be charged with a crime. How well do you think that would be received?
Would people fight to keep their cars because they're driver-supremacists? Because owning cars is good and proper? Because driving cars is the way things should be?
Or do you think they would fight to keep their cars because without a car they can't go to work so they can't make money to buy food? Because their cars are their property that they invested in? Because the government shouldn't be allowed to take your belongings without giving you something in return?

Yeah, except that the Confederate states basically built their entire economies and society around plantation slavery even though they realized before all that long that it was unsustainable. Heck part of the reason it wasn't a bigger issue when the nation was found is that it at least seemed slowly dying out everywhere until the invention of the cotton gin as it just wasn't the profitable. It also kept bring them into conflict with the rest of the US and them breaking deals like the Missouri Compromise once they started being disadvantages to the South. Also, for years shortly before the war you had Pro-Slavery Congressmen going around carry knives and bullying others with threats of duels.
So, it's really not like your example at all.

jasonh23761 · Jun 10, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
Hm. **Aside from Sergeant Dornan, did any of you ever meet Special Agent Frank Horrigan.**

"Uh, who?"

"President Richardson's bodyguard. He died at The Rig. There aren't a lot of us still alive who met him."

**Come now, Sergeant. Be honest. Frank Horrigan was also an early example of the Enclave's mutant-friendly policies.**

"He was a-? Wastelander?"

**He was a Super Mutant.**

Good old Frank Horrigan, not just a super mutant but a super mutant in custom power armor with a buffed turbo plasma rifle and a buffed combat knife that honestly was the size of most swords. Also a spiteful, genocidal murderer who detonated the Oil Rig in an attempt to kill you.

As an aside, it's kinda funny trying to reconcile this version of Granite who appears in Enclave Reborn as opposed to the new Granite I was just dealing with in 4.0 in Eureka. I haven't finished it out yet but I hope some of their mercenary mechanics get ported to Gente Del Sol because I think they fit the Generalissimo very well.

Honestly, Gente Del Sol is my favorite nation to play but the Alamo Chapter is a close runner-up. Also what little time I got with the overhauled West Hills Chapter was a lot of fun.

Bud-E · Jun 10, 2022

Mr Zoat I don't know if this was ever discussed for real but Paul and the team visiting the canon YJ timeliness sounds fun. Paul mentioning the invasion by The Sheeda and Heaven, Artemis and Robin seeing themselves with superstrength, Brazil being controlled by a Super Dryad leading a tribe of native supers, and Nabu ooof Nabu.

LazySloth13 · Jun 10, 2022

It was mentioned that Paul wouldn't meet Zatanna until the near end of the story, listed as Victory Lap, but he didn't mention the rest of the team meeting their Canon counterparts. It also wasn't mentioned especially when in the timeline they would meet so I could see the current paragon version of the team meet their older counterparts at least by season 3 Outsiders or season 4.

It would be jarring for them to learn how much of a benefit it was to have Paul intervene in their lives as well as shock the Canon crew by having them learn of the more dangerous and esoteric the Paragon Team has faced and won, save for a few moments. There's should be a scene of the Lights trading notes only for Paul to show up because the Canon Light didn't have the anti-scry measures, or at least have them discuss how much Paul's efforts to uplift humanity made them look like fools and make them worry since Paul doesn't pay by regular hero rules, and if push come to shove he will plan their deaths and follow through.

I can definitely see Wally complain about his death only for someone to mention that Paul probably has half a dozen plans to revive him if he didn't move on to the afterlife. Canon Artemis would be shock to hear her sister went to prison, decide to change careers, and has a loving relationship though sadden to hear Lean doesn't exist, or isn't likely to be born, or how her mother can walk again.

Mr Zoat · Jun 10, 2022

jasonh23761 said:
As an aside, it's kinda funny trying to reconcile this version of Granite who appears in Enclave Reborn as opposed to the new Granite I was just dealing with in 4.0 in Eureka. I haven't finished it out yet but I hope some of their mercenary mechanics get ported to Gente Del Sol because I think they fit the Generalissimo very well.

I've found 4.0 to be kind of a damp squib. Sons of Kaga had a good story but after the first war I never felt threatened and half the tree is generic. Sisters of Steel lacks any unifying theme to their focuses. Cult of Renewal looked interesting but as far as I could tell their teleportation mechanic didn't work and their unique advisor failed to appear. And I got halfway through NCR before I realised that the special forces I got from the collapsed Mojave Territories had locked templates which is a hard no for me.

Honestly, Gente Del Sol is my favorite nation to play but the Alamo Chapter is a close runner-up.

I played Gente Del Sol once. I thought it was mediocre. It's functional, has war focuses (looking at you Vault 37) and gives a clear idea of the General's character but it's kind of short. I prefer RRG (Rosado only), Iron Mongers and Alamo Chapter, though I was rather hoping that they'd finish the Alamo Chapter's tree with this update.

Also what little time I got with the overhauled West Hills Chapter was a lot of fun.

Do you mean the Lost Hills Chapter? The one where you spend in-game years digging a hole in the ground and the tree is not even finished and sometimes you get randomly annexed due to a bug?

Bud-E · Jun 10, 2022

LazySloth13 said:
It was mentioned that Paul wouldn't meet Zatanna until the near end of the story, listed as Victory Lap, but he didn't mention the rest of the team meeting their Canon counterparts. It also wasn't mentioned especially when in the timeline they would meet so I could see the current paragon version of the team meet their older counterparts at least by season 3 Outsiders or season 4.

It would be jarring for them to learn how much of a benefit it was to have Paul intervene in their lives as well as shock the Canon crew by having them learn of the more dangerous and esoteric the Paragon Team has faced and won, save for a few moments. There's should be a scene of the Lights trading notes only for Paul to show up because the Canon Light didn't have the anti-scry measures, or at least have them discuss how much Paul's efforts to uplift humanity made them look like fools and make them worry since Paul doesn't pay by regular hero rules, and if push come to shove he will plan their deaths and follow through.

I can definitely see Wally complain about his death only for someone to mention that Paul probably has half a dozen plans to revive him if he didn't move on to the afterlife. Canon Artemis would be shock to hear her sister went to prison, decide to change careers, and has a loving relationship though sadden to hear Lean doesn't exist, or isn't likely to be born, or how her mother can walk again.

Also Superboy's reaction that he was adopted by Wonder Woman and Match is perfectly sane in this timeline.

jasonh23761 · Jun 10, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
I've found 4.0 to be kind of a damp squib. Sons of Kaga had a good story but after the first war I never felt threatened and half the tree is generic. Sisters of Steel lacks any unifying theme to their focuses. Cult of Renewal looked interesting buut as far as I could tell their teleportation mechanic didn't work and their unique advisor failed to appear. And I got halfway through NCR before I realised that the special forces I got from the collapses Mojave Territories had locked templates which is a hard no for me.

Yeah, that's a fair view. I'm happy they got it out but a lot of it feels a bit short for me. Like they expanded too wide but without enough depth to it. I'm hopeful for the future though. I personally want another light special forces focused nation, perhaps up in Canada. Also locked templates are the bane of my existence, they totally killed the Rogue Ranger playthrough I was doing because I couldn't change my unit composition for >60% of my army.

Mr Zoat said:
I played Gente Del Sol once. I thought it was mediocre. It's functional, has war focuses (looking at you Vault 37) and gives a clear idea of the General's character but it's kind of short. I prefer RRG (Rosado only), Iron Mongers and Alamo Chapter, though I was rather hoping that they'd finish the Alamo Chapter's tree with this update.

Exactly, giving Gente Del Sol the merc volunteer mechanics will help give them more to do I think. Personally I like their characterization but there isn't much for them to do, really. A nation of mercs and arms dealers makes sense in Fallout but having them side with the Legion is just so odd for me. I can see them going somewhere allying with the RRG or the NCR against the Legion. Alamo Chapter is a lot of fun but once you beat back Santa Anna there isn't much to do unless Lanius comes knocking and even then, at that point you should have oodles of Sentinel power armor divisions.

Mr Zoat said:
Do you mean the Lost Hills Chapter? The one where you spend in-game years digging a hole in the ground and the tree is not even finished and sometimes you get randomly annexed due to a bug?

Yep, those guys. I find the alternate mechanics interesting but you're honestly depending on the AI's stupidity for those chapters to still be around to where you can help them. I like what they're setting up for later releases but still. Also the MacArthur AFB Enclave are such a tease because of how unfinished they are and what they hint at for the Chicago Enclave.

NightmareWarden · Jun 10, 2022

Have we seen Manchester Black, the telekinetic spy, in the Paragon timeline yet? Is it possible Black and Constantine are settling the "demon politician" problem that Paragon!Paul missed?

The biggest problem with this is the idea that Constantine is fighting a war silently, without destructive fallout making waves. I also had this paranoid theory Constantine might come up with… Paul used to use demons (and he still has the hellwraith). Paul does morally ambiguous things. Paul is pretty observant when it comes to investigations. Paul seems to hail from the UK, even if he spends a lot of time in the US. So Constantine gets it in his head that Paul has been working with (or is controlled by) the cabal of sadists and demon-summoners (the ones we saw Grayven take out).

Ngamer11 · Jun 10, 2022

NightmareWarden said:
Have we seen Manchester Black, the telekinetic spy, in the Paragon timeline yet? Is it possible Black and Constantine are settling the "demon politician" problem that Paragon!Paul missed?

The biggest problem with this is the idea that Constantine is fighting a war silently, without destructive fallout making waves. I also had this paranoid theory Constantine might come up with… Paul used to use demons (and he still has the hellwraith). Paul does morally ambiguous things. Paul is pretty observant when it comes to investigations. Paul seems to hail from the UK, even if he spends a lot of time in the US. So Constantine gets it in his head that Paul has been working with (or is controlled by) the cabal of sadists and demon-summoners (the ones we saw Grayven take out).

Manchester Black was mentioned but never appeared in the Paragon timeline. Also, the corrupt British elite was cleansed in holy fire by the angels when they invaded Earth.

Mr Zoat · Jun 10, 2022

jasonh23761 said:
Yeah, that's a fair view. I'm happy they got it out but a lot of it feels a bit short for me. Like they expanded too wide but without enough depth to it. I'm hopeful for the future though. I personally want another light special forces focused nation, perhaps up in Canada.

Fucking Canada, man. I got all excited about playing a communist robobrain, and then found out that not only does a nation run by a robobrain and whose focuses specifically state that he's kidnapping people to turn into robobrains not know how to build robobrains, but when you complete the visible focus tree... That's it.

Also locked templates are the bane of my existence, they totally killed the Rogue Ranger playthrough I was doing because I couldn't change my unit composition for >60% of my army.

Did you also notice that unlike Texas you can't boost the effectiveness of that unit type?

The dev explanation is that because you get a division whenever you core, you can't be allowed to change them. Personally, I don't see why it can't just refer to a template for generating them and then let you change the new ones to a new template.

Exactly, giving Gente Del Sol the merc volunteer mechanics will help give them more to do I think. Personally I like their characterization but there isn't much for them to do, really. A nation of mercs and arms dealers makes sense in Fallout but having them side with the Legion is just so odd for me. I can see them going somewhere allying with the RRG or the NCR against the Legion.

I know that they always go Legion when the AI does it, but I seem to remember that they get the option to go with RRG?

Alamo Chapter is a lot of fun but once you beat back Santa Anna there isn't much to do unless Lanius comes knocking and even then, at that point you should have oodles of Sentinel power armor divisions.

Really? Because I always get attacked by RRG, Tlaloc's sons and Texas.

Yep, those guys. I find the alternate mechanics interesting but you're honestly depending on the AI's stupidity for those chapters to still be around to where you can help them. I like what they're setting up for later releases but still.

I think they should have let them keep their territory from version 3, but made it non-core so they have a choice between working to get it under control or giving it to the NCR to improve relations.

Also the MacArthur AFB Enclave are such a tease because of how unfinished they are and what they hint at for the Chicago Enclave.

MacArthur doesn't appear to have a final stage, from what I could see. Like Sisters of Steel, the focus tree doesn't conclude so much as stop.

Darko · Jun 10, 2022

Bud-E said:
Mr Zoat I don't know if this was ever discussed for real but Paul and the team visiting the canon YJ timeliness sounds fun. Paul mentioning the invasion by The Sheeda and Heaven, Artemis and Robin seeing themselves with superstrength, Brazil being controlled by a Super Dryad leading a tribe of native supers, and Nabu ooof Nabu.

The final episode should include Paul going to canon.

NightmareWarden said:
Have we seen Manchester Black, the telekinetic spy, in the Paragon timeline yet

Nope.

Ngamer11 said:
Also, the corrupt British elite was cleansed in holy fire by the angels when they invaded Earth.

At least the demon worshippers were killed.

The ones that didn't engage in demon worship weren't killed, so they may still be doing their corrupt activities.

However it's possible that some have changed their ways since they don't want to be killed by an Angel.

Vaermina · Jun 10, 2022

Good news everybody!

We finally found the real Earth 16 Supergirl!

dw7thdoctor · Jun 10, 2022

Vaermina said:
Good news everybody!

We finally found the real Earth 16 Supergirl!

Where was she?

Vaermina · Jun 10, 2022

dw7thdoctor said:
Where was she?

Stuck in the Phantom Zone.

hkim · Jun 10, 2022

Bramble Thorn said:
Spamming the thread by repeating yourself in post after post because you disagree with the other guy, is not that.

v0v

they repeat nonsense, I repeat nonsense, it's only fair

Someguy Somewhere · Jun 10, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
Fucking Canada, man.

Coda · Jun 10, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
I can navigate reasonable well

reasonably

hkim said:
"we didn't fight the evil sorceror because of his dark powers, we fought him because the source of his dark powers was ritual human sacrifice" dude what the fuck is this hair you're splitting, like yes things are more detailed on the geopolitical layer but if they hadn't been getting power from ritual human sacrifice are we saying the war would have happened anyway? prolly NOT

Uh... No, I said exactly the opposite of that. To follow that metaphor, we fought the evil sorcerer because his dark powers were a huge threat. The fact that it was powered by ritual human sacrifice is a detail that doesn't really change anything, because we still would have fought the evil sorcerer even if his powers ran on AA batteries.

The South fought the North because the North was trying to deprive them of billions of dollars worth of business investments. The fact that those business investments were slaves was, in the eyes of Southerners at the time, beside the point, and they would still have gone to war if their economy has been based on anything else that the North wanted to deprive them of.

Too much modern discussion treats the American Civil War as if it were a comic book, enlightened noble heroes going to war to punish the obviously irredeemably evil villains for their crimes against humanity. But even if the North's motivations align with our modern morals, the North's behavior wasn't all noble, and the majority of the people in the South who suffered as a result of the conflict weren't the ones who were participating in the slave trade. Innocent people, black and white alike, were driven into decades of poverty because of powerful white men in the North violating their own laws.

This isn't just an academic matter, either. This misrepresentation of history has led to ongoing discrimination in the modern day, and aspects of the modern state of politics resemble the politics of the mid-1800s in dangerous ways, but I will refrain from elucidating upon either of those out of respect for the rules of this forum.

Cuchulin said:
Yeah, except that the Confederate states basically built their entire economies and society around plantation slavery even though they realized before all that long that it was unsustainable.

It wasn't unsustainable. It was actually quite sustainable. If it had been allowed to continue, it would have eventually stopped being competitive, sure. It hadn't yet proven to be better at that stage because it wasn't clear that agricultural industrialization was going to be profitable; it wasn't obvious the increased production from mechanization would outweigh the significantly higher investment and upkeep costs. Pantation owners didn't expect industrialization to be as ridiculously, game-breakingly effective in the long run as it was -- a big reason the North phased out slavery in the first place was because they were able to replace human labor with machines.

Kind of like how a lot of companies in the 20th century were sustainable and didn't expect this newfangled "Internet" thing to obliterate their ability to compete. At first, computers were difficult and expensive and didn't reach enough people to make it obvious that it would be better than continuing to do things the old way, but we all know how that turned out. Rapid technological change upends economies. That's a thing that happens, and the more you have invested into the old way of doing things, the harder and more expensive it is to pivot to the new way.

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