Tales of the Parodyverse >> View Post |
|
| ||||||
Subj: Re: Sounds like my publishers summarising sales. Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 at 08:58:05 am EST (Viewed 801 times) | Reply Subj: Sounds like my publishers summarising sales. Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 at 04:57:50 am EST (Viewed 3 times) | ||||||
Quote: But ultimately, yes, the Hood is flawed. He is, after all, a murderous archvillain who has caused a great deal of misery and suffering in service to his lofty goals.That's where I have to clarify that Faite refuses to accept that excuse. She believes the Hood is smart enough not to be a slave to his madness, and he only needs his thoughts provoked enough to understand his own slavery. Of course with any deep enough obsession, what finally does it is usually one particularly humiliating failure, barring any sudden moments of clarity. But the danger to it happening *that* way is he then becomes obsessed with making someone pay. Quote: I'm not sure Lara or anybody in the PV knows much about the other side of the particular barrier that the Wonderwall defines. Lara has come from (in our terms) another fictional reality to the fictional reality known as the Parodyverse. Other visitors have appeared from time to time, including superhroes from fictional realities we know as the Marvel and DC comics universes; there has literally been an Avengers-LL team up. Some characters have "escaped" from the Parodyverse into fictional realities of their own, for example AG's vampire children.Lara has two pieces of information, though: She *has* left the Parodyverse, and returned, and therefore has the best chance of making an educated guess at what's behind the wall, and she had someone more knowledgeable than her give her a hint. She *has* heard something about artifacts similar to the Wonderwall from Shema. She was told never to violate protective artifact barriers like that, because they don't protect what's outside, they protect what's *inside*. On the outside of that barrier, she was told, she has no substance, and would simply disappear forever. That's about as close to the 4th wall as she gets. She was also told that it's very insistent on protecting from that, so it's also possible she'd just mock the Hood and dare him to try breaking through it. He might be very suspicious of that dare, because he probably knows she's a little bit devious, and maybe she wants him to disappear. Quote: The Hooded Hood has become obsessed with this. His grand folly is to try and breach the Wonderwall, but really to breach the barrier between fiction and what we define as reality, so that he can seek out the Parodyverse's creators and wreak vengeance for what they have done to him and others. You and I know that is impossible - we hope - but from the Hood's side of the storybook it seems like a grand and glorious objective.I wonder how he would react though, if residents of the Parodyverse, including Faite, would keep urging him to stop, but the one person who *has* travelled through universes dares him to go ahead and see what happens. Would that make him start questioning whether his planning is enough? Quote: Elsewhere on the board I was discussing the Tower of Babel with Al B. The very brief Genesis story of humanity's attempt to build a great tower that rouses God's ire and is cast down has since had all kinds of theological explanations. The one that makes most sense to me is based upon the then-current view of heaven and earth, that heaven was literally in the sky hidden behind a canvas where the stars twinkled. The builders of Babel thought that a high enough tower could reach that barrier and allow them access to the realm of God direct, perhaps even allow invasion and conquest. From our end of time we see that as being absolutely ridiculous, but to the builders of the tower it must have been a noble and lofty goal.The irony is that when an alien civilization comes here to investigate long-dead Earth, they'll probably find that story, see some of our massive skyscrapers, and then believe we never stopped trying to reach god. Quote: That would open her up to assault charges, to litigation about illegal use of allegedly stolen technology, to questions about her brain's mental fitness, and to demands for her expulsion from a government-sanctioned crimefighting group for actions in contravention to proper legal process. And so on. Anything she did right then would have been of value to the opposition. They were looking for grounds to launch a legal attack.So many people use "assault" incorrectly these days on TV and Youtube. Actually, Yuki would be open to battery charges. The entire group, including Hatman, are already guilty of assault by standing on the doorstep and making threats. Quote: You have to figure that the Baroness has defences roughly equivalent to those on the Lair Mansion (minus the cosmic elements). She also knows Yuki's specs and character. By now she's probably upgraded her stronghold to exclude ghosts and Griffin, androids with light-distorting tech, micro-sized intruders, plane-shifting, and all the other stuff that Yuki amongst others has worked out to shield the LL's base.Yes, Yuki would know that, and while she is kind of an action junkie, years of working as a P.I. have taught her that sometimes the light touch works better. During the conversation with Mr. Sneek, she would have already figured out who the weak link is on the property - perhaps a gardner or a maid - and then visited again with some excuse of why she needs to come in and check something. The action part would be escaping once the staff figures the ruse out. Quote: However, what she hasn't and probably can't stop is Yuki's other skillset: asking questions. Like all criminals, the Baroness relies upon keeping her dealings somewhat secret. More, she's still on bail for a number of tied-up-in-the-courts offnces dating as far back as her takeover of the planet during the Parody War. What Yuki can do (with the enthusiastic support of Citizen Z and the less-enthusiastic input of Silicone Sally) is start shining a light on every corner of the Baroness' enterprises.She also knows (part of the story I'm gradually posting) that the Psychic Samurai still has a lot of criminal underworld connections, and can seriously poison the Baroness' entire business model by making sure no one wants to touch anything from her. Quote: From Yuki's POV, the best part is that there are probably people out there who would pay her to conduct that kind of case.Pretty much *everyone*, from that point of view. Quote: Of course, that kind of detective work almost inevitably leads to the villain putting out a kill order on the detective. So that's another plus from Yuki's perspective, because there's another thread to pull in the unravelling von Zemo enterprises.It wouldn't be the first time. She probably still has active kill orders out there for her. Quote: Quote: Quote: I suspect the dead worlds of the former Shee-Yar Imperium depopulated by the Carnifex are sources of significant interest to many interstellar races. Quote: Quote: That's probably true, but it's also highly contested. The Alliance members generally aren't willing to fight wars over resources, but only because they have so many worlds to source them from.Quote: There's the other side of trade, buying the salvage from the scavengers. In a "find" of that magnitude it is probably a buyer's market, which is what the Traders would exploit.They do tend to buy up large quantities of resources and cornering the market when the opportunity comes up. Quote: Quote: The Alliance approach would be to explore the section the part that's unguarded, and take possession of it briefly, and then leave before conflict becomes part of it. Saves a lot of money that way. If no part is unguarded, they're unlikely to fight for it.Quote: It's also possible that they would sub-contract specific salvage collection missions, possibly even "to order" for identified clients. That's got to be a story hook for some characters.They might sub-contract, as long as it's not from someone too aggressive who can turn against them or hold the product hostage and cost more money. The Alliance Traders generally like to keep the upper hand. Quote: Quote: It's quite possible that the Hood's consortium is currently trading peacefully with the Alliance. That would be smart too, since, like I mentioned, they're reluctant to fight when trade is at stake. If the LL and its allies attack the Hood's consortium, the Alliance is most likely to defend their trade route and ignore the rest of it.Quote: The Hood may even be, through some cutout intermediaries, one of those clients with "to order" requirements.If he pays enough and gives them a clear enough path to get it, sure. Quote: Quote: Essentially the Trading Alliance was a bunch of well-behaved pirates operating under a code and generally cooperating for the sake of profit. Once they started breaking the rules and fighting, the "navy" had to step in.Quote: Licenced pirates operating under a code with authority from a government are technically "privateers".Quote: In the early days of British sea supremancy, Queen Elizabeth I licenced such sailors as Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake in this way. Their licence specified that she got a 10% cut of whatever goods they "legitimately" liberated from Spanish gold ships.The Galactic Government does that through taxing commerce among the Trading Alliance worlds. They've been piling up this tax money for eons, which is how they could afford to build a fleet so suddenly. Quote: Quote: They have a very solid belief, even taught in schools, that the Trading Alliance would be nothing if it resorted to war and aggression. That their prevalent technology and comfort everywhere would have never been possible.Quote: That makes perfect cultural sense.It's also something of a falsehood, because they then obliterated one of their own worlds over a trading dispute. Quote: Quote: Of course, they also learn that most other societies in the galaxy are savages who fight over resources and neither profit from it nor advance.Quote: Almost every dominant culture has its prejudices and opinions on why its society is superior to others. We all do it. It's only natural.That kind of learning also creates a sort of cohesive bond, powered by fear - which is dangerous. If some faction boldly attacks a bunch of Trading Alliance civilian ships, the fear sets in among the Alliance that the savages have turned on them. The Galactic Government sends a fleet to completely crush them before they ever have a chance to fight back. It does take a while to reach that point, though. If some faction attacks one or two Trader ships, generally the company that owns them will try to solve the problem themselves first - because it's worth a lot of money to show potential customers that they won't take that kind of crap on their trading routes. They'll send a dozen heavily armed civilian ships to crush the interference decisively. If *that* fails, then they'd give in and ask the government for assistance. | |||||||