The whole Herringcarp Gothic storyline made clear that the Hood has now so thoroughly retconned his origins that he is effectively a gestalt entity, compounded of madman, visionary, murderer, humanitarian, scholar, De Sade-style nobleman, comic-book villain and many others. He also remembers everything that has happened to all the "variant" Hooded Hoods in different versions of reality; they are all the same man. So in several ways the Hood is very far removed from "normal" perspectives and morals, and from humanity.




The Hood has technically conquered the Earth twice and the Parodyverse once. So he's been there and done that, and could probably do it again if required. Now, like Alexander the Great, he seeks "new worlds to conquer"; except that conquest isn't an end in itself for the Hood, but rather a mechanism used to establish what he would consider a more just and reasonable creation.

Great archvillains require great hubris.




Laurie can leave Beth for a short whole and could even possess someone else who was unconcious or brain-dead for a few minutes. She can also exist in her ectoplasmic intanginle form for a short while remote from Beth. The danger is that if she can't return in time she would be destroyed.

And as noted in our previous conversation, the Beth/Laurie co-residency is a middle-term fix. Eventually it will have negative consequences on both of them. So there's still a final solution to be found at some stage. Unfortuately, just cloning or otherwise creating a new body for Laurie wouldn't work because she's still entangled in Herringcarp curse.




Indeed. The Baroness knows enough to know how bad it could get.

And even she doesn't know the half of it.




The Baroness is very rich with very good connections. The police wouldn't shrug when they got successive calls from the Governor, the Supreme Court, and the White House, followed by directed attention from half the legal firms in the US and all of the media outlets.

Hatty would be smart enough to warn Yuki that breaking into Schloss Schreckausen riight then would be a gift to von Zemo. Yuki would be smart enough to see it.







I suspect the dead worlds of the former Shee-Yar Imperium depopulated by the Carnifex are sources of significant interest to many interstellar races. Those worlds still have mineral assets, for example. There is a wealth of salvage, including jewels, art, and technology. And there are still-habitable plaetary systems with repairable infreastructure suitable for colonisation.

Imagine what would happen in our world if, say, Russia was suddenly depopulated of every living thing. Think of the mad scramble to claim bits of it that would follow after. That's the situation in Shee-Yar space about nine months after it died.




Here's where the Hood and his consortium are being smart. They are using the minimum neccessary agrression. If there are diplomatic dels to be done, that's how they do it. if there are economic routes, that's the deal. Only when they are met with force are they responsing with greater force. I haven't written yet about how they manage it, but right now the New Empire has about a quarter billion metahumans fighting in its front lines. The LL are seriously outnumbered.




It's a good story driver that should add some drama to the Traders ongoing plotlines.




The parallel model might be 17th and 18th century British trading fleets which were backed only when neccessary with the Royal Navy's ability to bring overwhelming force to bear if pushed to it.




Also, a society that really believes that trade is the way to success probably looks down on force as a crude and unsatisfying short-term solution. There are better, more profitable, more satisfying ways to win.