Puerto Rico and the future of the Legion
What is the Legion Universe?
When I started writing Legion, my plan was for D247 to be a universe which was pretty much the same as the canon Dariaverse, with the addition of superpowers. However, any writer knows that when you start seriously worldbuilding, a universe becomes a living, breathing thing that, like a child, goes wherever the hell that it wants to go.
Here are the aspects of the D247 verse as I understand them.
* The Dariaverse.
* A reinterpretation of the old Superboy/LSH comic books from DC comics. The Legion is influenced in its structure and powersets by those old DC writers.
* BG's build of the "Axeverse", which has now been merged with the above.
* The "Uncleverse" which I think BG added first to D247.
* Parts of the DC television canon, but probably not all of it chapter and verse.
* The Ringbearer universe (which I think Lobinske created - I've never followed that 'verse strongly, so BG can correct me if I'm wrong)
* Parts of the Marvel comic book verse, but once again, not all of it.
* Other things that random writers (Wassersauefer) have added to it, with a bunch of Mini material that I honestly don't remember.
(Regarding the latter: in the great mystery, "Zombies of the Gene Pool", the runners of a science-fiction convention warn their friends about a certain fantasy author: namely, not to ask detailed questions about his fantasy series because more often than not, he's forgotten what he's written. That's me.)
Now that we're branching out, CM brings up an interesting question about Puerto Rico. If the Legion can go to Mexico City, why aren't they going to Puerto Rico?
Armalin allowed the Legion to go into Mexico City due to the limited timeframe associated with search operations - if the Legion wasn't going to find anyone alive and overlooked they'd find them in the first 36 hours; after that either a) they'd be dead or b) they'd never find them. The issue was very simple - go in, get the job done, leave.
Puerto Rico is several orders more complex than Mexico City. To wit:
a) The rescue effort by the US has been, bluntly, fucked up on a New Orleans scale. If a conspiracy theorist wanted to claim that the effort was deliberately botched, it would be hard to refute the assertion.
b) The damage to the entire island is quite significant. Much more infrastructure has been destroyed.
c) The Jones Act crippled the recovery effort. The Jones Act basically says that any foreign ship landing in Puerto Rico would face US tariffs and taxes, and that any cargo sent from America be transported on a ship that is American-built, American-owned, and crewed by US citizens or permanent residents. Long story short, US shippers didn't want the Jones ACt lifted.
d) It's easy to do a rescut in Mexico - that's another country; the US can be the "good guy". But in Puerto Rico, the US controls the currency, banking, trade, communications, customs, the military and the legal code. Puerto Ricans are American citizens. Sending the Legion in would be like the US government signing a confession that they couldn't do the job.
e) There are a lot people getting rich of off Puerto Rican sovereign debt.
https://theintercept.com/2017/09/27/puerto-rican-debt-holders-respond-to-catastrophic-hurricane-by-offering-puerto-rico-more-debt/
The plan of these debtholders is to basically offer Puerto Rico [i]more debt[/i]. Puerto Rico was on an austerity regime before the disaster hit.
Long story short: the Legion going into Puerto Rico brings them in conflict with a lot of powerful people who see Legion interference as an incursion into their prerogatives.
The Legion could certainly go by itself. They don't really need anyone's permission, and the impression is that Armalin won't use force to stop them. (Re his comment about "fighting the battles he can win".) If there were a NL President, and he or she directed the Legion to go to PR, they would go.
(Even if they did go, they need some recuperation time after Mexico City, an experience that physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting. Helping out in Puerto Rico would require the Legion to stay longer and it would be much more taxing.)
Sooner or later, however, the Legion is going to have to choose between The Masquerade and being there to help.
Every reader knows exactly which choice the Legion is going to make.
And then, it's gonna be Hellzapopping Time, and the Legion becomes another story entirely. The way I see it is from that point, the D247 universe will look less and less like the universe that you or I live in. It's going to be a radically different universe.
* It will have different legal customs.
* It will change the nature of the relationship of human beings to each other.
* Power structures will have to shift to accommodate these changes.
* A lot of people who have power will lose that power, and they will have that power taken from them kicking and screaming, the way that anyone with power acts when it's removed.
* The technology available to every day people will change.
* There could be several changes that the writers don't see, but that the readers will be glad to point out.
Obviously, this is a very ambitious undertaking. Basically, one is creating an entire science fiction/alternate reality universe with strong superhero tones.
Unfortunately, this can't be done easily, and my argument is that it shouldn't be done now. The Legion has been getting ready for this moment. Mexico City, in my mind, is the first instance that the Legion were really the Legion. It was a dress rehearsal for that they are destined to become.
But even then, Daria and the other Legionnaires know that they are falling short. Armalin hasn't gone over what happened in Mexico City; he will offer some very strong criticisms. Daria is trying to close the gap with the "Legion Academy" but they haven't even graduated the ten weeks of basic training yet. And even with this extended training, it's not quite ready yet.
Things are moving in a fast pace, but if the Legion came out of the closet now? They wouldn't be ready.
Of course, the obvious question is, "Okay, but if you wait for the Legion to be perfectly ready, then they'll never be ready." That's Daria's gripe. Even The Alliance is not perfectly ready, because no one can be.
David Allen would probably answer, "No, we're not perfectly ready, but we're more ready than most. Our training is more extensive than that of the Legion." And Daria know that that's true. (That doesn't mean that it doesn't irk her. Daria is a teenager.)
After the Legion completes its Academy training? They'll be "as ready as they'll ever be". And then there will be an NL president, a non-superpowered human who will represent what the Legion is working for and hopefully provide not just an idealistic perspective, but a down-to-earth one as well.
After that?
"Let fire the earth confound."
When I started writing Legion, my plan was for D247 to be a universe which was pretty much the same as the canon Dariaverse, with the addition of superpowers. However, any writer knows that when you start seriously worldbuilding, a universe becomes a living, breathing thing that, like a child, goes wherever the hell that it wants to go.
Here are the aspects of the D247 verse as I understand them.
* The Dariaverse.
* A reinterpretation of the old Superboy/LSH comic books from DC comics. The Legion is influenced in its structure and powersets by those old DC writers.
* BG's build of the "Axeverse", which has now been merged with the above.
* The "Uncleverse" which I think BG added first to D247.
* Parts of the DC television canon, but probably not all of it chapter and verse.
* The Ringbearer universe (which I think Lobinske created - I've never followed that 'verse strongly, so BG can correct me if I'm wrong)
* Parts of the Marvel comic book verse, but once again, not all of it.
* Other things that random writers (Wassersauefer) have added to it, with a bunch of Mini material that I honestly don't remember.
(Regarding the latter: in the great mystery, "Zombies of the Gene Pool", the runners of a science-fiction convention warn their friends about a certain fantasy author: namely, not to ask detailed questions about his fantasy series because more often than not, he's forgotten what he's written. That's me.)
Now that we're branching out, CM brings up an interesting question about Puerto Rico. If the Legion can go to Mexico City, why aren't they going to Puerto Rico?
Armalin allowed the Legion to go into Mexico City due to the limited timeframe associated with search operations - if the Legion wasn't going to find anyone alive and overlooked they'd find them in the first 36 hours; after that either a) they'd be dead or b) they'd never find them. The issue was very simple - go in, get the job done, leave.
Puerto Rico is several orders more complex than Mexico City. To wit:
a) The rescue effort by the US has been, bluntly, fucked up on a New Orleans scale. If a conspiracy theorist wanted to claim that the effort was deliberately botched, it would be hard to refute the assertion.
b) The damage to the entire island is quite significant. Much more infrastructure has been destroyed.
c) The Jones Act crippled the recovery effort. The Jones Act basically says that any foreign ship landing in Puerto Rico would face US tariffs and taxes, and that any cargo sent from America be transported on a ship that is American-built, American-owned, and crewed by US citizens or permanent residents. Long story short, US shippers didn't want the Jones ACt lifted.
d) It's easy to do a rescut in Mexico - that's another country; the US can be the "good guy". But in Puerto Rico, the US controls the currency, banking, trade, communications, customs, the military and the legal code. Puerto Ricans are American citizens. Sending the Legion in would be like the US government signing a confession that they couldn't do the job.
e) There are a lot people getting rich of off Puerto Rican sovereign debt.
https://theintercept.com/2017/09/27/puerto-rican-debt-holders-respond-to-catastrophic-hurricane-by-offering-puerto-rico-more-debt/
The plan of these debtholders is to basically offer Puerto Rico [i]more debt[/i]. Puerto Rico was on an austerity regime before the disaster hit.
Long story short: the Legion going into Puerto Rico brings them in conflict with a lot of powerful people who see Legion interference as an incursion into their prerogatives.
The Legion could certainly go by itself. They don't really need anyone's permission, and the impression is that Armalin won't use force to stop them. (Re his comment about "fighting the battles he can win".) If there were a NL President, and he or she directed the Legion to go to PR, they would go.
(Even if they did go, they need some recuperation time after Mexico City, an experience that physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting. Helping out in Puerto Rico would require the Legion to stay longer and it would be much more taxing.)
Sooner or later, however, the Legion is going to have to choose between The Masquerade and being there to help.
Every reader knows exactly which choice the Legion is going to make.
And then, it's gonna be Hellzapopping Time, and the Legion becomes another story entirely. The way I see it is from that point, the D247 universe will look less and less like the universe that you or I live in. It's going to be a radically different universe.
* It will have different legal customs.
* It will change the nature of the relationship of human beings to each other.
* Power structures will have to shift to accommodate these changes.
* A lot of people who have power will lose that power, and they will have that power taken from them kicking and screaming, the way that anyone with power acts when it's removed.
* The technology available to every day people will change.
* There could be several changes that the writers don't see, but that the readers will be glad to point out.
Obviously, this is a very ambitious undertaking. Basically, one is creating an entire science fiction/alternate reality universe with strong superhero tones.
Unfortunately, this can't be done easily, and my argument is that it shouldn't be done now. The Legion has been getting ready for this moment. Mexico City, in my mind, is the first instance that the Legion were really the Legion. It was a dress rehearsal for that they are destined to become.
But even then, Daria and the other Legionnaires know that they are falling short. Armalin hasn't gone over what happened in Mexico City; he will offer some very strong criticisms. Daria is trying to close the gap with the "Legion Academy" but they haven't even graduated the ten weeks of basic training yet. And even with this extended training, it's not quite ready yet.
Things are moving in a fast pace, but if the Legion came out of the closet now? They wouldn't be ready.
Of course, the obvious question is, "Okay, but if you wait for the Legion to be perfectly ready, then they'll never be ready." That's Daria's gripe. Even The Alliance is not perfectly ready, because no one can be.
David Allen would probably answer, "No, we're not perfectly ready, but we're more ready than most. Our training is more extensive than that of the Legion." And Daria know that that's true. (That doesn't mean that it doesn't irk her. Daria is a teenager.)
After the Legion completes its Academy training? They'll be "as ready as they'll ever be". And then there will be an NL president, a non-superpowered human who will represent what the Legion is working for and hopefully provide not just an idealistic perspective, but a down-to-earth one as well.
After that?
"Let fire the earth confound."
Yeah, so they're not ready to go in and help. And TPTB are being complete dicks about it and screwing over those Puerto Ricans with their profit motives getting ion the way of actually helping the people there—is that about right?
ReplyDeleteAs Alchemist would say, "That sucks, I mean, it totally sucks! I mean, back when I was a Feral I was a vigilante and a lawbreaker—but at least I was helping people in trouble and I slept good and I could look at myself in the mirror without flinching! Now? Not so much—so let's get going on some serious rescue training while I still have a shred of self esteem left!"