Post by redsycorax on May 2, 2024 4:24:34 GMT
In this latest instalment of this alternate history series, two former allies come to an irrevocable parting of the ways...
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GOTHAM: 1970:
"That's it, Bruce! We're done! Now and forever!" Batwoman snapped, perhaps provoked beyond measure by the increasing divergence between the two former crime fighting allies when it came to methods and response to Gotham street villainy.
"Kathy... Batwoman... come on. Be reasonable!"
"Being 'reasonable' got Commissioner Barbara Gordon killed after only two months on the job! Jim would have wanted us to protect her, Bruce! Instead, we weren't there for her and so a good woman needlessly died!"
"Kathy, I'm sorry I even have to ask this. But you're not...?"
"No, damn you, Bruce! I am not back on the bottle. I've been clean and sober for over a decade. You're the problem, with your precious taboo against the lethal use of force in circumstances that warrant it."
"So we establish ourselves as judge, jury and executioner, is that it, Kathy?"
"Face it, Bruce. That sort of soft-glove approach might have worked back before the War, but this isn't that sort of world anymore."
"And we'll never get back to that kind of world if we succumb to authoritarianism, paranoia and punitive populism, Kathy."
"All I know is that violent crime has gone through the roof since the war. And you won't recognise that we need to change to combat that fact of life."
"Then I can't work with you as Batwoman anymore, Kathy. I'm sorry that it's come to this."
"I know, Bruce. So am I. But you're right. It is time I stopped being "Batwoman". There's something else. Oliver proposed to me a week ago. I said yes."
"Congratulations. Wait a minute. Does that mean...?"
"Yes, it does. With you still committed to your strategy of crimefighting, more good men and women like Barbara Gordon, Fergus O'Hara, Harvey Bullock and too many others over the years will continue to die needlessly. I know you well enough to know that you grieve and mourn for them, despite our ethical differences, but I cannot stay in this city. I'm moving to Star City and taking up a new secret identity. From now on, I'm Scarlet Arrow. I still respect you, but I can't keep on as Batwoman with that on my conscience."
WASTELANDS:
For some time, the 'Wastelands' to the east, west and south of the New American Union had been neglected, deliberately. To some, it might have seemed coldblooded, but while exceptions were made for excursions to devastated Washington and Philadelphia for the foundational materials of the former United States. In that context, it was easier to 'deal' with human mutants. The eugenics laws were quite explicit about the need for 'genetic vigilance'- no 'negative' variance from 'norms' was tolerated. Children with disabilities had not been born into this world for quite some time. As for mutants, infanticide was condoned, but in some areas of the Wastelands, it was not carried out. Oddly enough, ethnic differences were another matter altogether- racism had perished for good in the fires of the Third World War.
This is not a world where garish anomalously bodied humanoids emerged with abilities far beyond those of baseline humans under the guise of 'mutation.' It is a duller, perhaps more menacing one because of that- or perhaps not. Above them, a winged creature soared, descended from what had once been a hawk. It set its sight on the human prey below, and set itself to swoop downward, its talons glistening. Its feral eyes shone and its ravenous beak opened wide. In the twilight, there was a piercing scream and then another.
CHEYENNE:
Clark Kent waved at the form of Lana Luthor and her daughter Lena, named for her late husband's child. Despite the tragedy that had taken the life of the "First Gentleman", the NAU had prospered and grown in her years of office. Her husband's patented inventions had made her a rich woman, but she spent a great deal of time in philanthropy these days. What she might once have felt for Superman was long in the past now, and both she and he knew it. He ached inside for that.
However, at least one of Earth's two surviving Kryptonians had some opportunity at happiness and fulfilment. His cousin, Kara, now an adult Superwoman, had married her adolescent boyfriend Richard Malverne. Although their union would be childless unless someone perfected pantropic genetic technology and fused Terran and Kryptonian DNA together, they still had one another. And in this world, that was what mattered.
In the telepathic plug in his ear, Bruce's 'voice' sounded:
"Clark? We have to talk. It's Oliver. He's going to provoke a war unless we're not careful."
And after that, a familiar red and blue form streaked into the skies above the NAU capital and headed toward distant Gotham.
GOTHAM:
As Superman touched down, Batman was awaiting his arrival:
"So? What's Oliver done now?"
"Look, you're aware Star City's been expanding its territorial imprint, correct?"
"I don't like Obsidian Arrow's tactics anymore than you do, but Star City isn't an NAU constituent state."
"It's still a signatory to the United Global Covenant of Human Rights, Clark. Due process, trial. We're not vigilantes, no matter what Oliver... and Kathy... believe now."
"Damn. Bruce, I'm sorry. I guessed that might happen."
"It's not important, Clark. Are you familiar with the accipiters?"
"I've...seen them over the Wastelands sometimes, Bruce. Are they sapient, do you think?"
"Look, I know the UG Covenant doesn't cover non-human sapients, but there is such a thing as enlarged moral compass. They're apex predators. And because they've attacked Star City merchants, Oliver wants to exterminate them wholesale."
"But if I intervene and I have no jurisdiction..."
"I'm sorry, Clark, but there's no other way. Either the NAU gets in a war with the Star City Autonomous Republic or SCAR either commits genocide against a threshold sentient species or triggers an interspecies war with the accipiters."
"Stark."
"Talk to the President about it, Clark. There's no time to waste."
CHEYENNE:
"...And so that's it, President Magnus."
Will Magnus nodded: "I agree with Batman's assessment of the situation, Superman. We cannot allow Obsidian and Scarlet Arrow to commit genocide. It's bad enough that cetaceans and higher primates perished in the aftermath of the War. Ethically and morally, it is criminal to willingly and deliberately undertake the deliberate extinction of another sentient species on the basis that it constitutes an existential threat to SCAR's trade routes."
"Then I have your authorisation, sir?"
"I know you place a premium value on sentient life, Superman. There's no-one I'd rather trust with a mission of this imperative importance."
STAR CITY AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC:
"Back off, Superman! And you too, Wonder Woman."
"Kryptonite arrows, Obsidian Arrow? Really?"
"We will not tolerate your intended genocide of the accipiters, Obsidian Arrow. It goes against every tenet of morality we used to hold in common. Or isn't that true for either of you, anymore?"
"That's rich. Where the hell were you and the Amazon when Star City was fighting for its survival? And where have you been while those winged savages mercilessly attack our traders, honest men and women trying to earn a living? Or when most of the West Coast went up?"
"You don't get to speak to him like that. You have no idea of what he went through in the months after the war."
"I'm sorry about Lois. And Steve, come to that, Diana. But the fact of the matter is that we have been left to fend for ourselves for the best part of two decades. The NAU has made it abundantly clear that its sole commitment is to the successor states and ignores the outliers and the 'wasteland'. It makes no attempt to pacify and control the latter areas. It's left them to wilderness and anarchy."
"I see Bruce isn't here. He doesn't even have the decency to do his own dirty work."
"I'm sure that isn't true, Katherine. Please. I know where this sort of darkness leads and what its outcome will be, given time."
"I'm my own woman, Princess. I make my own ethical choices. And right now, it's standing alongside Oliver here."
"Oliver, we used to share a moral compass. You realise I can't let you do this? What it will mean if it went unchallenged? Is there any hope of a peaceful resolution?"
"Nope, Clark. Sorry." And with that, war was joined.
Wonder Woman moved in front of Superman and she effortlessly deflected the arrows from their targets with her amazonium bracelets as their pace quickened and her motions became a blur. Over her shadow, Superman's heat vision shone over their bows, heating them intensely. To their surprise, the tactic failed:
"Nope, our suits are insulated and we've managed to perfect a skinlevel forcescreen."
"However, you're also out of kryptonite arrows."
"Not wholly, Clark. Use your telescopic vision."
Several miles above them circled a surviving bomber aircraft, with a kryptonite-salted nuclear device visible onboard to Superman's telescopic and x-ray vision.
Wonder Woman gasped:
"You cannot be serious, Oliver."
"Never more so, Princess."
"You would be willing to use the ultimate obscenity to maintain power at all costs and obliterate a whole species?"
"Well now, Diana, that's conditional. On your departure from the Star City Autonomous Republic and its protectorate."
"All right, Oliver. You win."
"Clark, you're willing to let this horror continue?"
Superman didn't speak until he was several miles above the wasteland and then produced a familiar device:
"Brainiac's shrinking ray gun?"
"And the answer to your question, Diana, is 'no'. I am not going to let them do this. However, it isn't safe for the accipiters on this world anymore. So... we alter the equation somewhat and..."
"And release them on a world where they can exert sovereignty as the dominant species and won't be threatened by speciesist genocide mongers. But Clark... while I agree with this, SCAR's tyranny cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. Eventually, if they're not stopped, they will become implacable barbarians. The question is, without any meta villains around us, who is supplying SCAR with its weaponry and insuring their technological prowess? And why can't Oliver and Katherine see what they've become?"
"Protecting their community has become their raison d'etre. However, for them, it's also become a question of survival overriding everything else."
"That doesn't excuse their actions. We lost people we loved too, Clark. I still cry at night for Steve. But there have to be moral absolutes. One day, there will need to be a reckoning between us and the Archers. And only one group of us will walk away in the end."
THE END: [3.45 PM, MAY 6, 2024]
++
GOTHAM: 1970:
"That's it, Bruce! We're done! Now and forever!" Batwoman snapped, perhaps provoked beyond measure by the increasing divergence between the two former crime fighting allies when it came to methods and response to Gotham street villainy.
"Kathy... Batwoman... come on. Be reasonable!"
"Being 'reasonable' got Commissioner Barbara Gordon killed after only two months on the job! Jim would have wanted us to protect her, Bruce! Instead, we weren't there for her and so a good woman needlessly died!"
"Kathy, I'm sorry I even have to ask this. But you're not...?"
"No, damn you, Bruce! I am not back on the bottle. I've been clean and sober for over a decade. You're the problem, with your precious taboo against the lethal use of force in circumstances that warrant it."
"So we establish ourselves as judge, jury and executioner, is that it, Kathy?"
"Face it, Bruce. That sort of soft-glove approach might have worked back before the War, but this isn't that sort of world anymore."
"And we'll never get back to that kind of world if we succumb to authoritarianism, paranoia and punitive populism, Kathy."
"All I know is that violent crime has gone through the roof since the war. And you won't recognise that we need to change to combat that fact of life."
"Then I can't work with you as Batwoman anymore, Kathy. I'm sorry that it's come to this."
"I know, Bruce. So am I. But you're right. It is time I stopped being "Batwoman". There's something else. Oliver proposed to me a week ago. I said yes."
"Congratulations. Wait a minute. Does that mean...?"
"Yes, it does. With you still committed to your strategy of crimefighting, more good men and women like Barbara Gordon, Fergus O'Hara, Harvey Bullock and too many others over the years will continue to die needlessly. I know you well enough to know that you grieve and mourn for them, despite our ethical differences, but I cannot stay in this city. I'm moving to Star City and taking up a new secret identity. From now on, I'm Scarlet Arrow. I still respect you, but I can't keep on as Batwoman with that on my conscience."
WASTELANDS:
For some time, the 'Wastelands' to the east, west and south of the New American Union had been neglected, deliberately. To some, it might have seemed coldblooded, but while exceptions were made for excursions to devastated Washington and Philadelphia for the foundational materials of the former United States. In that context, it was easier to 'deal' with human mutants. The eugenics laws were quite explicit about the need for 'genetic vigilance'- no 'negative' variance from 'norms' was tolerated. Children with disabilities had not been born into this world for quite some time. As for mutants, infanticide was condoned, but in some areas of the Wastelands, it was not carried out. Oddly enough, ethnic differences were another matter altogether- racism had perished for good in the fires of the Third World War.
This is not a world where garish anomalously bodied humanoids emerged with abilities far beyond those of baseline humans under the guise of 'mutation.' It is a duller, perhaps more menacing one because of that- or perhaps not. Above them, a winged creature soared, descended from what had once been a hawk. It set its sight on the human prey below, and set itself to swoop downward, its talons glistening. Its feral eyes shone and its ravenous beak opened wide. In the twilight, there was a piercing scream and then another.
CHEYENNE:
Clark Kent waved at the form of Lana Luthor and her daughter Lena, named for her late husband's child. Despite the tragedy that had taken the life of the "First Gentleman", the NAU had prospered and grown in her years of office. Her husband's patented inventions had made her a rich woman, but she spent a great deal of time in philanthropy these days. What she might once have felt for Superman was long in the past now, and both she and he knew it. He ached inside for that.
However, at least one of Earth's two surviving Kryptonians had some opportunity at happiness and fulfilment. His cousin, Kara, now an adult Superwoman, had married her adolescent boyfriend Richard Malverne. Although their union would be childless unless someone perfected pantropic genetic technology and fused Terran and Kryptonian DNA together, they still had one another. And in this world, that was what mattered.
In the telepathic plug in his ear, Bruce's 'voice' sounded:
"Clark? We have to talk. It's Oliver. He's going to provoke a war unless we're not careful."
And after that, a familiar red and blue form streaked into the skies above the NAU capital and headed toward distant Gotham.
GOTHAM:
As Superman touched down, Batman was awaiting his arrival:
"So? What's Oliver done now?"
"Look, you're aware Star City's been expanding its territorial imprint, correct?"
"I don't like Obsidian Arrow's tactics anymore than you do, but Star City isn't an NAU constituent state."
"It's still a signatory to the United Global Covenant of Human Rights, Clark. Due process, trial. We're not vigilantes, no matter what Oliver... and Kathy... believe now."
"Damn. Bruce, I'm sorry. I guessed that might happen."
"It's not important, Clark. Are you familiar with the accipiters?"
"I've...seen them over the Wastelands sometimes, Bruce. Are they sapient, do you think?"
"Look, I know the UG Covenant doesn't cover non-human sapients, but there is such a thing as enlarged moral compass. They're apex predators. And because they've attacked Star City merchants, Oliver wants to exterminate them wholesale."
"But if I intervene and I have no jurisdiction..."
"I'm sorry, Clark, but there's no other way. Either the NAU gets in a war with the Star City Autonomous Republic or SCAR either commits genocide against a threshold sentient species or triggers an interspecies war with the accipiters."
"Stark."
"Talk to the President about it, Clark. There's no time to waste."
CHEYENNE:
"...And so that's it, President Magnus."
Will Magnus nodded: "I agree with Batman's assessment of the situation, Superman. We cannot allow Obsidian and Scarlet Arrow to commit genocide. It's bad enough that cetaceans and higher primates perished in the aftermath of the War. Ethically and morally, it is criminal to willingly and deliberately undertake the deliberate extinction of another sentient species on the basis that it constitutes an existential threat to SCAR's trade routes."
"Then I have your authorisation, sir?"
"I know you place a premium value on sentient life, Superman. There's no-one I'd rather trust with a mission of this imperative importance."
STAR CITY AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC:
"Back off, Superman! And you too, Wonder Woman."
"Kryptonite arrows, Obsidian Arrow? Really?"
"We will not tolerate your intended genocide of the accipiters, Obsidian Arrow. It goes against every tenet of morality we used to hold in common. Or isn't that true for either of you, anymore?"
"That's rich. Where the hell were you and the Amazon when Star City was fighting for its survival? And where have you been while those winged savages mercilessly attack our traders, honest men and women trying to earn a living? Or when most of the West Coast went up?"
"You don't get to speak to him like that. You have no idea of what he went through in the months after the war."
"I'm sorry about Lois. And Steve, come to that, Diana. But the fact of the matter is that we have been left to fend for ourselves for the best part of two decades. The NAU has made it abundantly clear that its sole commitment is to the successor states and ignores the outliers and the 'wasteland'. It makes no attempt to pacify and control the latter areas. It's left them to wilderness and anarchy."
"I see Bruce isn't here. He doesn't even have the decency to do his own dirty work."
"I'm sure that isn't true, Katherine. Please. I know where this sort of darkness leads and what its outcome will be, given time."
"I'm my own woman, Princess. I make my own ethical choices. And right now, it's standing alongside Oliver here."
"Oliver, we used to share a moral compass. You realise I can't let you do this? What it will mean if it went unchallenged? Is there any hope of a peaceful resolution?"
"Nope, Clark. Sorry." And with that, war was joined.
Wonder Woman moved in front of Superman and she effortlessly deflected the arrows from their targets with her amazonium bracelets as their pace quickened and her motions became a blur. Over her shadow, Superman's heat vision shone over their bows, heating them intensely. To their surprise, the tactic failed:
"Nope, our suits are insulated and we've managed to perfect a skinlevel forcescreen."
"However, you're also out of kryptonite arrows."
"Not wholly, Clark. Use your telescopic vision."
Several miles above them circled a surviving bomber aircraft, with a kryptonite-salted nuclear device visible onboard to Superman's telescopic and x-ray vision.
Wonder Woman gasped:
"You cannot be serious, Oliver."
"Never more so, Princess."
"You would be willing to use the ultimate obscenity to maintain power at all costs and obliterate a whole species?"
"Well now, Diana, that's conditional. On your departure from the Star City Autonomous Republic and its protectorate."
"All right, Oliver. You win."
"Clark, you're willing to let this horror continue?"
Superman didn't speak until he was several miles above the wasteland and then produced a familiar device:
"Brainiac's shrinking ray gun?"
"And the answer to your question, Diana, is 'no'. I am not going to let them do this. However, it isn't safe for the accipiters on this world anymore. So... we alter the equation somewhat and..."
"And release them on a world where they can exert sovereignty as the dominant species and won't be threatened by speciesist genocide mongers. But Clark... while I agree with this, SCAR's tyranny cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. Eventually, if they're not stopped, they will become implacable barbarians. The question is, without any meta villains around us, who is supplying SCAR with its weaponry and insuring their technological prowess? And why can't Oliver and Katherine see what they've become?"
"Protecting their community has become their raison d'etre. However, for them, it's also become a question of survival overriding everything else."
"That doesn't excuse their actions. We lost people we loved too, Clark. I still cry at night for Steve. But there have to be moral absolutes. One day, there will need to be a reckoning between us and the Archers. And only one group of us will walk away in the end."
THE END: [3.45 PM, MAY 6, 2024]