A world with Five Supermen

[jonclark]

Sept 14, 2021 1:52:02 GMT redsycorax said:

I think we're missing the kryptonite question here. Eventually, one or other of the armed forces will discover its existence but then realise that they can't use it against rival Supermen without opposing armed forces doing so reciprocally to theirs. And remember what happened in Kal-El's mind when the sand-imprint Superman from Quirrm fought him in the seventies after the chain reaction that transformed all contemporary kryptonite then on Earth into iron- their powers cancelled each other out, but the resulting combat destroyed all life on the planet. Although that wouldn't happen if the power level was kept to the 1940s Earth-Two Kal-L level... although there would be a lot of 'bursting shells' around in aerial combat, so it'd be a question of finding the optimal power level.

As for the European and Pacific theatres question, the same would apply to the Soviet Superman. He'd have to travel between northeastern Siberia and the European USSR to combat the German and Japanese Supermen. The British Superman might be deployed exclusively against the Nazi version, given the immediacy of the threat to the United Kingdom, while there could have been a tacit agreement between Churchill and Roosevelt to utilise the US Superman against the Japanese in the Pacific theatre when and if that priority arose. If they'd heard about it, Hitler and Tojo might have arranged something identical when it came to the Axis Supermen. As for the reverse engineering situation of the various Kal-L's starships, what if that meant that each side had access to intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons several years or decades earlier than on our Earth? Or provided advanced weaponry options and accelerated technological development?

Remember that on Earth-2 Superman never knowingly encounter kryptonite until over a decade into his career. No reason other than convenience to assume it appears earlier here.

Plus I always thought that kryptonite became far too convenient.  I'll buy the Earth-1 bit where Kal-El's rocket left a permanent rift allowing stuff to easily drift from Krypton's solar system to Earth. But I never bought the more recent idea that the US government (or anyone short of Lex) should be able to mass produce the stuff for weaponry.  That strikes me as lazy writing designed just to allow conventional forces to stand a chance against the modern Superman.

I prefer the DKR level where Bruce Wayne took 20 years to create enough kryptonite for a single arrowhead.   

[redsycorax]

As I said, though, the bursting shell issue presents problems of its own, which would present difficulties for all of the Supermen if they undertook aerial combat. That seems too powered down for narrative purposes and would create some inconsistency narrative anomalies eg. Kal-L catches a large unexploded Nazi bomb and flings it away from its original target, but he could be seriously harmed or even killed if the bomb exploded too near him? Perahps it would be advisable to increase the threshold for their invulnerabilities to (say) nuclear weapon detonation level or (if that's too high) chemical weapon use. While chemical weapons weren't used extensively in WW2 OTL due to their repeated use and harmful effects in WW1 OTL, the presence of Supermen on the battlefield might overcome those scruples and memories.

[jonclark]

Sept 14, 2021 23:35:07 GMT redsycorax said:

As I said, though, the bursting shell issue presents problems of its own, which would present difficulties for all of the Supermen if they undertook aerial combat. That seems too powered down for narrative purposes and would create some inconsistency narrative anomalies eg. Kal-L catches a large unexploded Nazi bomb and flings it away from its original target, but he could be seriously harmed or even killed if the bomb exploded too near him? Perahps it would be advisable to increase the threshold for their invulnerabilities to (say) nuclear weapon detonation level or (if that's too high) chemical weapon use. While chemical weapons weren't used extensively in WW2 OTL due to their repeated use and harmful effects in WW1 OTL, the presence of Supermen on the battlefield might overcome those scruples and memories.

Actually if you took it literally a bursting shell is only the starting point. It's not that such an explosion does serious harm, it's that anything else won't even phase him. 

I go by the Gladiator novel that "supposedly" influenced Siegel where Hugo Danner survived a direct hit from a World War I artillery shell that tore his fellow soldiers to shreds.  Hugo had a head wound and possible concussion but still managed to in a berzerker rage take out dozens of German troops before collapsing from exhaustion.  So in my mind unless Superman took multiple hits from German bombs he probably comes out no more damaged than someone who went a few rounds with Ted Grant in a bareknuckle bar brawl.

[dans]

I don't think may people would be able to go a few rounds with Ted Grant - most of us would be knocked out at the first punch. So would the explosion of a bomb against Superman's body knock him out? Given that he can't fly on his own yet, it would certainly throw him a long way. Given the initial strength level we are discussing, once he is unconscious, it may be possible to restrain him somehow. So it is possible that a well-planned and executed sneak attack might end up with Superman imprisoned in some way that he is unable to escape on his own.

I wonder if the 5 Superman might recognize their kinship and refuse to join in human battles - or maybe decide to end the war with their powers? Maybe even decide to become the Ruling Council of the World...

[johnreiter902]

Sept 15, 2021 11:09:50 GMT dans said:

I don't think may people would be able to go a few rounds with Ted Grant - most of us would be knocked out at the first punch. So would the explosion of a bomb against Superman's body knock him out? Given that he can't fly on his own yet, it would certainly throw him a long way. Given the initial strength level we are discussing, once he is unconscious, it may be possible to restrain him somehow. So it is possible that a well-planned and executed sneak attack might end up with Superman imprisoned in some way that he is unable to escape on his own.

I wonder if the 5 Superman might recognize their kinship and refuse to join in human battles - or maybe decide to end the war with their powers? Maybe even decide to become the Ruling Council of the World...

But they all came to earth as babies, and were raised by rural farmers to embody the values of the 5 different cultures. Superman has always been incredibly human, considering he in an alien.

[shlomo]

Only the elseworld Supermans were raised to 'embody' values.  Kal-L just had an average, lonely life, even if his parents did expect him to one day use his incredible talents in the service of mankind.
Nazi Superman would definitely say "hey, there're five of us, we're the master race, phooey on the Germans and everybody else!"  We'd probably wind up with a mini-war within-a-war that would leave the rest of the world going along as it was on Earth-Prime, with the Nazi and Japanese Supermen versus the American, British, and Soviet ones .  A bit like Captain Marvel vs. the Monster Society.
Now, a real elseworld-type ending would be with their collective discovery of kryptonite and return to Krypton, a la Superman 61.  There, American Superman shows Nazi Superman how Krypton was a flourishing race of Supermen, yet democratic and free, who care for the weak, and...something helps them get along with the Soviet and Japanese ones, and they set off to travel the universe looking for survivors.

[redsycorax]

I think the respective Supermen would also be shaped by their local cultures- Japanese Superman would be taught to venerate the Emperor Hirohito and his elders and that Western powers had cheated Japan of its rightful East Asian empire, Nazi German Superman would experience the crushing poverty and political disorder during the Weimar Republic and Nazi authoritarianism, as well as Nazi cultism after they took over, British Superman might imbibe humanist and liberal social values from his parents and Soviet Superman would be a true believer in the dictatorship of the proletariat, communist social order and state control of the economy and society. Not all the Supermen in this thought experiment would be brought up with liberal democratic social values- probably only the British and American Supermen. And even that depends on whether or not Kal-L's rocket landed in Kansas. If it was the Deep South, things might have been very different indeed.

[johnreiter902]

I've been giving some thought as to how the 3 Supermen raised in dictatorships would be treated.

Japanese Superman would see it as his duty to pledge his powers to the service of the Emperor. Naturally, he would almost never be allowed to see the Emperor, but would be informed of the Empire's needs from a variety of high ranking government functionaries. These officials would be relaying the wishes of the Japanese military dictatorship, alternately the Army and the Navy. The Japanese army and navy hated each other, and would each have a long list of operations they needed Superman to help with. Also, they would deliberately try to interfere with each other's plans, as a matter of pride.

Stalin would keep the Russian Superman close by his side at all times. He would never trust Superman out of his sight more than absolutely necessary. He would certainly use Superman's powers for his own purposes, mostly to eliminate his innumerable enemies, but he would always summon him back quickly afterwards. Stalin would be secretly terrified of Superman. He would be convinced that Superman was plotting against him and planning to overthrow him, and would devote a huge portion of the USSR's research budget to finding a way to kill Superman before Superman killed Stalin.

Hitler would see Overman as the living example of the Ubermensch, and a symbol of the superiority of Nazism. He would parade him all of Germany, at party rallies and public events, and also would have a long list of grandiose projects for him to complete for the glory of Germany. As the war goes on, and the situation becomes more hopeless, Overman will become Hitler's go-to solution for all his problems. Whenever his advisors tell him what he wants is impossible, Hitler will say "O, thorw Overman at the problem. He can do anything."

[redsycorax]

One reason Nazi Germany failed in the end was the infighting between the various factions- the Nazi Party hierarchy, SS, Gestapo and armed forces were all bound together by Hitler and ultimately, they perished with him after Stalingrad when the war turned against him. One reason the USSR was hit so badly just after Operation Barbarossa (the Nazi invasion of the USSR) in 1941 was precisely because Stalin had been such an idiot and purged his military hierarchy due to paranoid suspicions about their loyalty to him, thus resulting in a military leadership crisis when Hitler turned on him in 1941. If Hitler and Stalin went too far with their Supermen, they might risk accelerated decrepitude of their respective countries insofar as the Second World War went.