FICTION: MetaWar Chapter Fourteen

Pulsar does most of the Chapters. Thor gets the last one of the current year though. Psyche and Speed are just not good at telling stories so I did not try to do much with them. Psyche's mental state gets increasingly unbalanced over time because of her powers. Speed of course finds it harder and harder to relate to normal people.

Zippy is completely and utterly beyond Human control. This is true for many other Metas but the powers of the Speedsters are just a whole order of magnitude more. He knows that nobody can touch him and he simply does what he wants with no thoughts of the consequences. The vast, vast majority of the deaths and injuries he causes are totally accidental.

To me this makes him more scary that your typical psycho. Zippy will kill you without even seeing your face. Humans matter less to him than ants do to us. There are some people who won't step on an anthill out of respect for even tiny life but they are rare. But almost none of us worry if we accidentally kill an ant.

Future plans...

I originally wrote this wanting to do away with some of the conventions that go along with SuperHeros. I avoided the whole Origin side of things which was one of those. Another was that I did not want to write a story where the Villains were more interesting than the Heros. The stories are supposed to be Hero stories but the bad guys get to have all the fun.

That is why there are no chapters done from the point of view of the Villains. I can do them and make them properly interesting but I wanted to keep the focus on the good guys. So by making the entire Story based on 'transcripts' of people telling the tales I avoid the normal structure of a novel.

But what I have been doing of late is working on little bits of Villain lore. The transcript of the interview of Mad Mongo is one way I can get some of their point of view into the story. I think I will end up doing more things like that and attaching them to the Chapters.

I have one new Chapter in the works that features Shadow and the Team he works with. He is a key member of PsiInt but he is also on a combat Team too.

We will see how much of that actually makes it into the Story.

NEXT UP: Philadelphia

A very dangerous situation. Some Metas literally have the power to destroy the Planet or perhaps just kill every living thing on it. Few have realize this at this point (with one notable exception being Loki) but Pulsar and the Olympians know. This makes some fights a lot more dangerous than they might otherwise appear.

When Pulsar heads to Philly he knows that one of the people he must face is a world-wrecker but there is another that he does not know about.

great dude keep it coming and cant wait for the shadow chapter

Pulsar has been walking the line for a while now. He sees himself in a situation where most of the normal rules simply do not apply ie War. What matters to him in the end is that Humanity gets to go on living. He sacrifices a lot of his own soul to try and ensure that.

I should point out that reaching out to other Metas is actually the #1 priority at Olympus, MetaSearch they call it. Speedsters, Sensors, and Telepaths work together to find each Meta and then make contact. It is hard to conceive of a more effective way to make contact. Telepaths have the best shot at saying what people need to hear to agree to the Pact. Olympus pays people to play nice.

In all honesty I do not see what more Pulsar could do to try and make peace with other MetaHumans.

From his point of view a peaceful meeting is one thing but people in the midst of crime is just another. Meta combat is not like normal SuperHero fights where people constantly get bashed around and then jump up at the end to talk about it. In a Meta fight people are going to die no matter what you do. Exactly like in a gun fight really. So when it comes to that point there is no holding back.

Back when Pulsar said not to leave dangerous Metas alive after a fight? What he was doing was trying to take the blame for what was going to happen onto himself. No matter what the orders if Metas do battle then people are going to die. But with Pulsar's standing order he have given others someone to blame. THEY are not responsible for the deaths they cause it is PULSAR'S fault. I see that as a bit noble on Pulsar's part actually.

Pulsar does get his lesson in humility. Not sure how much it affects him in the end but he gets one.

Darque, I respect Pulsar's method of making contact, especially that he doesn't use the Psychers to alter one's will. The pay-to-play-nice incentive is quite genius in its simplicity as well. It's his treatment of offenders that is so cold. I don't see every negative interaction being one where the offending Meta is causing harm to people. Additionally, not all of those particular Meta's can be convinced to join Olympus. In this regard, what is done with the ones who simultaneously use their power for gain(maybe they feel entitled to more than Olympus offers, but their employment of powers for personal gain are in conscious effort to not cause casualties), use it as lethal force in personal defense(which raises the question of how many are killed in misunderstandings, even with Psychers present), or even those Meta's possibly manipulated by outside means(Psyche is wicked powerful, what of any evil opposites ). I'm aware these are circumstance, but things like this have yet to be addressed, while Pulsar's mandate remains remarkably clear. Then there are those Metas who would reject Olympus solely on the basis that Pulsar will kill to achieve his goals. While these types certainly wouldn't present any issues, Pulsar's methods ensure that they exist.

It just occured to me that these methods are part of the catalyst putting Psyche in her downward spiral.

I really enjoy how each individual is essentially treated as an elemental force within their power set. I don't think it really occurs to even many seasoned comics enthusiasts that many characters powers extend beyond the obvious applications. I could go on forever as to the extent of Gambits mastery of kinetic energy or how every part of Angels anatomy is engineered for flight and you really give that same impression with many characters. Geo and Pulsar have endless application and it's fun to consider them.

By the Way, I want more Geo! I'm sure his intelligence and curiousity combined with his awesome power on par with Pulsar himself could certainly conceive some interesting things.

Ibz, That is basically what I'm getting at. There must be another Meta, at least one insanely powerful one, who operates on a deontological moral compass, as Pulsar is clearly a consequentialist.

@TheMyth

You are correct that Psi manipulation is not used to get people to accept the Pact. The goal is to keep Metas from killing and destroying. Anything less than that is accepted. Some Metas have found jobs as bodyguards and others are finding ways to put their powers to use. The tradtional 'it is wrong to use your powers for personal gain' idea from the comics holds zero weight with Pulsar.

You are correct that accidents have and continue to happen. When many first discover their powers they have little to no control. I think once an Olympus Telepath with their support Speedsters and such are on the scene things usually go pretty well. The Psi takes the lead in the discussion and by then they know exactly how to talk to the new Meta. Nothing is perfect though. I would say that a few first contacts have gone bad. Olympus would learn from those and work hard to make sure the mistakes are not repeated.

I find few people in the real world who do not understand that there is a time when killing is the right thing to do. In the comics that tradition is barely questioned but that is mostly a matter of history. I realize it is not something everyone would easily accept though.

The level of work required of all the Olympus Telepaths is hurting them all. Psyche suffers the most because she has done the most. By the end of the first year none of the girls are free of problems.

Geo is part of the next Chapter.

I think the one thing that will always separate Pulsar from Magneto is that Pulsar sees Humans as important. He loses much of his own humanity in the MetaWar but he never stops believing in co-existence.

To do MetaWar I spent a lot of time thinking about what superpowers would mean in the real world. Could a SuperHero even exist the way they do in the comics? It is hard to answer that question but it would be far, far more challenging than the comics ever portray. They get by with all sorts of little cheats that I won't use.

Just one tiny example is the Mask. Nothing less than a full face-covering mask will work at all. If your eyes are not behind polarized plastic and your teeth are not behind a mesh you will be easily identified. This has been true for the last decade or so. Give me one picture and a computer and I could identify Batman in a few hours at most.

The masks of Olympus are as I described above and they include varying little extra strips of cloth to break up the exact facial structure as well. Nobody is going to draw a comic with everyone in full identical masks but that is the only way it would work in the real world.

What Pulsar hopes is that once all the existing Metas have been either absorbed, found to be neutral, or defeated that MetaHumans can become the guardians of the planet. There is so much that Metas and Humans can do together if they ever get the chance.