Today in the Trinity Universe: She was young and dumb, she'd just turned 21...

[aberrantangels]

Hmm...

2006
[Aberrant] A progress report on nova development written at an unidentified Rashoud facility reflects on the problem of novas who lack the intelligence or social awareness to understand what constitutes an appropriate use of their powers. "To that end, this researcher must recommend continued pursuit of the proposed 'M-R lobotomy' treatment."

The report's author cites, as an example, "case UT-117-UK; Marjorie McCannagh. At 60 IQ, Marjorie was only marginally aware of her surroundings, so her power to sever organic molecular bonds and turn living things into puddles of carbon sludge posed more threat than advantage." (Admittedly, most eruptions improve the subject's body and mind both, cf. Hugo Pinella.) Earlier, the author drew parallels with star athletes, prior to N-Day and the decline of baseline sports, who "made a good deal of money, often with little more than cursory education [...] and insufficient socialization[, which] made for [...] 'hillbillies with money'".

The author recommends that "sociopathic, asocial and criminally inclined subjects" face cautery of the Mazarin-Rashoud node "as early in its eruption as possible", before its effects on the body's self-repair system render it potentially capable of regenerating from such damage.

Comments

*shudder*

[md_donighal]

...God's teeth, Thetis really was just the ultimate expression of the Utopian viewpoint, wasn't she? (Then again, we don't know that this wasn't written by a Protean, or that the facility where it was written wasn't Bahrain.)

MDD

Re: *shudder*

[aberrantangels]

No we don't. And I have to admit, with Proteus manipulating Utopia's agenda, the definition of "sociopathic, asocial and criminally inclined" could easily have been subtexted as "doesn't agree 100% or more with our ends and means". But I have to say, there were quite a few novas who actually did fit those descriptions.

Re: *shudder*

[md_donighal]

If you have something to say, Loomis, by all means say it.

Re: *shudder*

[aberrantangels]

As a matter of fact, I do have something to say:

James "Geryon" Booth.

Angela "Narcosis" de la Cruz.

Marcel "The Apostle" Delorimier.

Shelby "Caestus Pax" Eisenfaust. Okay, bad example there. From the hints you've dropped, I gather the Shelb has mellowed considerably since he quit lying to himself. But I've got more examples that are very much to the purpose.

Hector "Lash" Guzman.

David "Clarion" Hefflender.

Alison "Shrapnel" Hughes.

Dean "Eclipse" Johnson.

Barry "The Confederate" Meldrum.

And that's just in the first half of the alphabet.

Re: *shudder*

[maxwell_a_mercer]

Now, to be fair Austin, the "asocial, amoral, and criminally inclined" were hardly limited to Michael's contemporaries.

Scalper Dutch.

Doktor Manfred von Zorbo.

Lady Argentine "King of the World" de Winter.

"General" E. W. Caldwell.

Ms. Hephaestia Geary-Wexler and the rest of the Rational Experimentation Group.

The Ubiquitous Dragon.

None of them had anything to do with Michael, and they didn't even all have Mazarin-Rashoud nodes. No one is exempt from bad judgment or, I daresay, an evil heart. Whether we are seperate species or not, we all sprang from humanity and thus must deal with humanity's failings, writ large.

Re: *shudder*

[aberrantangels]

Now, to be fair Austin, the "asocial, amoral, and criminally inclined" were hardly limited to Michael's contemporaries.

...Point taken, Mr. Mercer. I happened, in this post, to be talking about novas, but yeah, all Inspired powers (or any other post-human abilities, whatever you want to call them) do is bring out what's already there (however it got there).

No one is exempt from bad judgment or, I daresay, an evil heart. Whether we are seperate species or not, we all sprang from humanity and thus must deal with humanity's failings, writ large.

*nods* I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. (Though I don't remember whether he wrote those words before, or after, James T. Kirk literalized them.)

Re: *shudder*

[md_donighal]

Thank you for sparing Shelby, but it's not strictly necessary. Yes, he's mellowed considerably, but he's acknowledged (when and as it comes up) what a champion jackass he was before our first meeting, and that's the Shelby you're talking about anyway. Hopefully, he hasn't reverted to that in my absence.

*sigh* And, since you're listing the "sociopathic, asocial and[/or] criminally inclined", I have to admit, nearly all the Terats you mention met that description as well. Certainly they all did by the time they came to the movement, and Alison and Dean were the only ones who didn't erupt that way. I'm not going to make any excuses for Dean — he simply got drunk with power — but Alison was a special case. The Crown took a lonely, frightened girl and made her a weapon; all we did was wrest that weapon from their hands.

MDD

I'm Suicida, point man for Gangreen.

[aberrantangels]

The Crown took a lonely, frightened girl and made her a weapon; all we did was wrest that weapon from their hands.

And she wasn't the only one; I forgot Charlie "Epoch" Benton (and Natalya "Swarm Queen" Dornova, but I don't know much about her beyond the names). Aberrant: Teragen mentions that a lot of the movement's early members started as elites; I wonder, did a life of war make them proof against the four-color Utopian Way image of novahood the way it did Marshal Law?

Re: I'm Suicida, point man for Gangreen.

[md_donighal]

...That sounds like a very interesting series. I'd never heard of it before; it may not even have existed back home. In fact, judging from the awe with which most baselines regarded novas for the first decade or two, it may be that none of the "revisionist" superhero comics existed on our Earth.

But yes, the Marshal does sound like a typical disillusioned elite. I see the "Gangreen" of your subject line also rate a mention in the Marshal's listing at International Hero (linked from the Wikipedia page); is "Suicida" another of that world's super-soldiers?

Re: I'm Suicida, point man for Gangreen.

[aberrantangels]

I dunno. It may be that they existed and, as in this world, just couldn't make any enough headway (mindway?) against the "Sock! Pow! Bam!" view of comics and supers.

And yeah, Suicida's another Zone vet. He gets quoted (as "Suicida Gangreen") in the second edition of Werewolf: The Apocalypse (quote courtesy of a webpage that appears to be in Japan):

I could say..."You can't turn me on and off like a tap, man." But what's the point? Just got to hit them, that's all. Smack them in the mouth.

It's part of an internal monologue about how they made him a weapon, but didn't make any real effort to readjust him to civilian life. So he reacts to things the way they taught him to: "I JUST WANT TO SMACK THE WHOLE FRAGGGIN' WORLD IN THE MOUTH!" (The phrasing "smack my in the mouth" is the webpage's problem, not the book's.)

[rfmcdpei.livejournal.com]

This is the problem with superhero types, it seems.

[aberrantangels]

Quite possibly. Universes with superheroes are nice places to visit, but I suspect it takes a special kind of person to live there.