thelegion | [Video, post-plots]

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Morning, culture lovers.

[Someone's in a chipper mood. Might have something to do with the fact that she's in the sim room, sitting alongside an oversized motorcycle that is in no way compensating for anything.]

So, I've been talking things over with the techs and Brainiac 5, and I've decided to simply open up Anywhere Machine access to my timeline for all Legion members. I just ask that you keep it to training purposes. If you try to nose into my private life, well. I don't really have one. You'll get bored. Sorry.

[She makes an adjustment and holo displays pop up around her. Dates, times, locations, what looks like an options list. Sharp-eyed viewers will see that the dates seem to be color coded.]

Using some algorithms that Brainiac 5 set up for me to account for Legion training standards, along with my own estimations, I've sectioned off portions of my life that I feel would be... instructive. Either to hone investigative skills, practice medicine, brush up on your rescue skills, enhance your understanding of stealth, or simply enhance your understanding of conflict. I've also encoded a number of these events with content warnings. I've handled nearly every form of crime you care to mention and consoled a number of victims. Some of you just aren't prepared for that, so please keep in mind your own limitations and read through the warnings before you engage.

[More adjustments are made. Holograms of her, her pistol, and the motorcycle pop up.]

If you should attempt a sim scenario, you'll get three options. One is to simply follow in my steps and see how things were handled. You'll have the option to pause and get context for anything you have questions for, rewind, or use any filters you'd like. Another is to go through it as a Judge, temporarily refusing to acknowledge your powers in favor of the full experience. [For some people, to put their money where their mouths are and show her a better way to handle things with her limitations.] If you decide to go this route, I would strongly suggest reading Dredd's Comportment first. The things you learn there might make things much easier for you. You'll be given the tools of a Judge, such as the lie detector, the Lawmaster motorcycle, the Lawgiver Mk II, and the helmet, especially valuable for its vision modes. When you arrest someone, you will be expected to sentence them on the spot, so I've compiled a common list of offenses and their usual sentences. At your discretion, of course, but if you're going that far you might as well get into the spirit of the thing.

[She filters through a few, laying them over the camera to display herself in each mode. Ultrasound. Infrared. Night vision. Killshot percentages. Disabling shot suggestions.]

Finally, you get the option to simply go in as yourself. Since you're still taking 'my' place, you won't be immediately targeted for illegal vigilante activities, and your powers will be treated as something usual. Brainiac 5 wished me to stress that he created the sim rooms and they're able to function with almost any powerset, including the psychic ones.

We talked about incentives and came to an agreement that passing out stickers for participation would likely be the most acceptable way to go about things.

[She grins again and holds up a roll of stickers covered in gold stars.]

Never say I don't keep you in mind.

In closing, I'll be happy to discuss any questions or concerns you might have about this. I haven't made the decision lightly, but I do believe that it could offer some... 'real world' incentives that other scenarios might not. Everything you will see is as raw and true as it can be, and everyone you will see was, or is, a real person, so keep those things in mind. This isn't one of the programmed sims where we rescue crash test dummies.

[She cuts out, but the links to The Comportment of a Judge, by J. Dredd and the list of dates remain up. Skimming through them, some scenarios are only minutes long, others hours or days. There's very few 'off' times, with only about four days coming up if someone skims back five years. In the past two years, a number of 'Council Meetings' take up chunks of her days during various weeks, but every other time slice is split into investigation, travel, interrogation, combat, escort, and chase sections. Three stretches of time are unusual. One is marked 'Chaos Day and Recovery', with the lead up to it being nearly entirely 'investigation' and the days surrounding it marked entirely as 'combat' or 'rescue'. Another is marked 'Block Judge Duty' and seems to be split into investigation, combat, and 'court duties'. The final one is marked 'Tour of Duty' and lasts for months on end, with 'training' making up the vast majority of her time.

Only fifteen minutes is relegated for sleep every day. An hour or two for meals. That remains standard over the past eight or nine years, at which point it suddenly switches to a more structured thing. Life at the Academy of Law. Much of the time is listed as 'training' for various things, except full nights of sleep, and it reaches back eleven years until she's five years old. She's stopped accounting for her time at that point.]

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[It's the tone that keeps her from snapping at him. What sort of society functions without those things? But at least he's asking.]

Almost any traditional form of entertainment is legal, within reason. Football, baseball, basketball, the old sports and the new ones. Eating competitions are popular. We've got books, movies, television, and, yes, art. Within the bounds of good taste. Religion is big. We encourage what hobbies are safe.

These are valuable sources of entertainment and employment. We'd have to be mad to ignore them entirely.

As for space travel, we have many colonies beyond our solar system. There was a bit of a war recently, but the Zhind have been beaten back and the rebelling 'free' colonies were... dealt with by the SJS.

[And boy, didn't that leave a taste in her mouth. Especially when she read how close they came to crippling Earth's entire civilization to make a statement.]

Nix on the underwater exploration, however. The oceans are too polluted for most. The Atom War, as well as the various nuclear missiles that have exploded in the Black Atlantic since then.

[She's mentioned leisure, yes, but not work.]

What kind of jobs do people get to have? Is it like where everyone gets it assigned or do they get to choose what line of work they get into?

[If he sounds like someone trying to trouble-shoot a civilization like someone would troubleshoot a broken PC, he is a little bit. It's not the first time he's prodded his nose in and asked about a world that's rebuilding itself after catastrophe.]

Unemployment's down to 95%.

[Helps when so many citizens are dead.]

Jobs are... very difficult to come by and jealously kept. Since the introduction of robots and automation, it's been cheaper and, often, safer than hiring actual humans to do manual labor. Many citizens refuse to work more than a ten hour work week, anyway. And those that do are at higher risk for Future Shock Syndrome, often when they're replaced or they see something in the course of the job that causes them to go Futsie.

[Honestly, the probing is just such a welcome change from the usual screaming, accusations, and dirty looks that she doesn't mind talking so much.]

The most common jobs are, of course, the ones that require the human touch. Mattress testers, chefs, window models, pencil pushes, tax collectors, artists, designers, and the like. But there's never enough to go around.

Window modeling? Mattress-testing?

Blue blazes, no wonder they're going stir-crazy.

[He still doesn't sound judgmental. It's not her fault there's a 95% unemployment rate. She -- and the system she serves -- are just the result.]

Your society reached nearly full automation and didn't do anything to compensate? There are some non-Earth societies back home that've completely collapsed over less.

Edited 2017-04-21 04:26 (UTC)

There are other jobs, this is just off the top of my head.

I will say that, when I was exiled to the townships, there was less trouble. Still trouble, but less of it. Of course, there were also very few robots and only a few thousand citizens to deal with. And the muties were willing to work.

[Not that they had a better option.]

But, yes. We have to be careful when someone announces a job opening, to prevent riots. Though, if they're prisoners, it also takes them out of the running for jobs. Which is a plus.

[If a poor one.]

I'm gonna assume "muties" are mutants, and just...politely point out that we have some people here who are mutants. And that "muties" back home for us is pretty much a slur.

[He's trying to be diplomatic about it. Different worlds, and what matters most is how she reacts to him saying this.]

So I'm going to just have to ask you to maybe use 'mutants.' And as long as you're okay with that, we'll just...keep on with this conversation, because I'm curious about your world. But I'd be a bad friend if I didn't point that out.

Edited 2017-04-21 05:05 (UTC)

At least the mutants like to work, then.

[It's just a minor change, after all.]

You've mentioned nukes and big cities, and townships and mutants (I'm assuming the thoroughly-irradiated kind) so I'm thinking everyone in the cities is all crammed in, right?

Give people a little space and some room to build and actually do something productive and it makes a world of difference. There's a reason New Yorkers are so angry all the time back home -- cram a few million people in one small space and toss an alien invasion at 'em every other week -- and a meta fight every other day -- and it makes people a teeny bit cranky.

These townships still irradiated?

Edited 2017-04-21 05:31 (UTC)

Something like that. Are you familiar with the term 'arcology'? The vast majority of our citizens live in blocks, which are largely arcologies that fit about fifty thousand citizens each.

Thankfully, we do have a bit of space. The Chaos Day rubble is still out and about, but we're cleaning things up and there's no longer a housing shortage. We range from... Pardon, my pre-Mega-City geography isn't the best, but I believe Vermont down to northern Virginia. So there is some room.

[Namely thanks to those hundreds of millions who died. Hurray?]

Yes. Not as much as they could be, they're not in the heart of the Cursed Earth, but the fallout from the various nuclear attacks won't be going away any time soon. We selected the most habitable areas we could find. Had to. We were exiling cits.

That said, I still got rad-rash. Got sent back to the Meg for it. Mutants have a higher radiation tolerance, though.

Look, comics don't lead people to street gangs where I'm from. They just don't. If anything they give kids an outlet for their energy, or put dreams in their heads of making a difference -- in a world where they can.

[He tries to find the words.]

Thing is, your world could be that way again, too. Where comics are just stories and not a gateway drug. The tech you could take back from this universe -- I mean they terraform here -- could make that possible. And Brainiac is smart enough to custom-build things they probably haven't even dreamed up yet -- and I bet he would, if it'd make someplace better. You know, when this is all over and he's got less on his plate.

[He's getting off subject.]

I guess what I'm trying to say is, some of us keep butting heads with you because everything is so rigid where you come from, but the things that make people think it needs to be that rigid don't have to stay the same, and if you ever want any help with things that might make your world better, where it doesn't have to be that kinda place, some of us might have some ideas that could help.

[He shrugs.]

I fought in a war that killed entire planets. I've seen more than one world have to rebuild itself out of the ashes. I know a lot of the pitfalls, and I've seen some of the good ideas, too.

Edited 2017-04-21 06:09 (UTC)

[Vance has been keeping track of these conversations. He does tend to keep an eye on things, even if he doesn't always have much to add.]

[This time, though, he at least has to add something to what Rich is saying.]

I can honestly say that my life would have been very, very different if comic books hadn't been available to me.

You mean you wouldn't have gone into a life of illegal vigilantism without comic books?

[There's... No hostility there. Maybe a bit of wry amusement, but her tone seems neutral other than that. No fights, an honest question.]

[That gets a quicksilver smile and a huff of amusement, but neither reaches Vance's eyes. This isn't a subject he likes talking about, after all.]

Nah. I probably still would have done that. I didn't need comic books to show me that was something that I could do. All that I needed for that was the six o'clock news.

[A pause, then, as his face settles to something more serious again.] Rich, Robbie. Nita, if you're watching. I'm taking this private with America. [They already know the story, after all. And he's not ready for the entirety of the Legion to know it.]

[Private]

[Once he changes over the settings, Vance settles back. He's out of uniform at the moment, so there's nothing blocking his face or any part of his expression.]

Okay. Bit of background. My father was an abusive asshole. Mostly because his father had been an abusive asshole. Cycles of violence that you still see in a lot of families, no matter what their socio-economic station. Dad hated anything that was different. He hated being seen as different. I think we were the only Jewish family I knew that celebrated Christmas more than Chanukah because he didn't want to be the only house on the street without a Christmas tree.

As far as he was concerned, different was wrong. If I didn't conform as a child, I was beaten. And it only got worse once my powers showed up.

[He rolls his shoulders, trying to alleviate some of the tension there. Even after so long, it's something that is difficult to talk about.]

Comics were my escape hatch. Even before my powers, they gave me a look at a world where being different wasn't so bad. Where the bullies got what they deserved and where the little guy could be a hero because of the strength of his heart over the strength of his muscles.

Comic books didn't push me to become a vigilante. But they did help me figure out the type of person that I wanted to be, with or without the powers. And they helped me realize how to break the cycles of violence in my own family, so that I wouldn't become the same man as my father.

I've been looking into their terraforming.

[She's got multiple hard drives of data stored in her room. She's copied the entire Legion library, even if she hasn't read it. Something would be valuable.]

I've noted people tend to clash heads with me more easily than the actual soldiers and murderers on the team. I'm not sure if it's because it's because I wear a badge or because they're too lazy to find out the facts. You know you're one of the few to actually discuss my world and not simply tell me how I'm wrong right off the bat?

[Say you believe in instant justice and suddenly all you get is people talking about how many you kill rather than how many lives you save.

Granted, she's not without sin there, but Locus is a criminal. The only other time she's told someone they were wrong was when she called people out on not spending every moment of their day training rather than unnecessary things like sleep. Or team bonding. Or resting.]

I don't mind a fair trade of ideas and an honest discussion. But I'll tell you one thing, it's only professionalism and the fact that the multiverse is at stake that I'm still here. I've had it up to here with people assuming they know everything about what my people do without trying to understand what makes it necessary.

I'm going to be honest with you. Your world sounds pretty screwed up and it sounds to me like the way the law has responded to how screwed up it is might be keeping order, but that doesn't mean it's doing it the best way it could be.

That said, I also know sometimes it's hard to have things be ideal, after they get really broken. During the Annihilation War, it sure would've been nice to have things like Geneva conventions, or the ability to take prisoners. It would've been nice to not need to nuke planets to oblivion or use biological warfare. It just wasn't that kind of war -- and that's something I'm sure the people of the UP wouldn't understand if I had to talk about it.

But -- and here's the but -- when I had to make those hard choices, when I had to choose the things that I knew were wrong, but had no better choices, I never stopped seeing them as a sign it was all broken. They never started being right. I never started talking about them like they were normal.

I understand why you're frustrated. If you're just eating your Wheaties in the mess, nobody should be coming up to you and picking a fight. And I think even when we are talking about your world, it'd be a lot more productive to just help you find things you can take back to help it.

But you also talk about all of it like you can't even imagine it being different. Like comic books are a natural opiate of the masses. Uniformly. Objectively. Like there's one rigid truth. And there's not. That's what people are reacting to. [He shrugs.] Plenty of people eat sugar without getting addicted. Drink alcohol. In some worlds, kids read comics without ever dreaming of joining street gangs.

If I were to say that in every single world, superpowered vigilantes should absolutely be necessary, when even in my world it's necessary but not ideal, how would that sound? I'd sound crazy for treating that as some kind of objective truth. "Every world needs superheroes" -- when not all of them have the same problems, when some of them might have the same problems but better systems set up to handle them.

Edited 2017-04-23 04:27 (UTC)

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