With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

[kerleth]

No, no, Zinc man, he's brass, not bronze.



It was about slavery, but also state's rights. The Tariff of Abominations nearly provoked the Civil War 30 years earlier, and that said nothing about slavery. There was legitimately a strong disagreement about the proper extent of federal power, dating back to the Constitutional Convention; slavery was the primary flashpoint where the southern states disagreed with the Feds's majority, but not the only one.

It came down to economics, but that's hardly notable; war almost always does. War is expensive and destructive and so it generally only happens when there is a whole lot of wealth to be won and lost.

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Certainly it was about multiple issues. But I will note you didn't actually address the bulk of what I said. Which was evidence in the confederate constitution that when slavery and states' rights came into conflict, they prioritized slavery. I can say I value honesty and I value my family. But when they come into conflict the one I choose shows where my priorities are. The confederate constitution, through the use of multiple different clauses working in concert, specifically limits the ability of confederate states to outlaw slavery, even if the state decided to. So slavery was more important than states rights. Just like if I chose family over honesty in my other example. That is flat out proof that slavery was more important than states rights. Because in their own laws they prioritized slavery over the rights of the confederate states. People can say what they want, but the evidence of what they actually made law is right there to see.

So while, yes, the American Civil War had a whole bunch of complicated issues, it is still clearly shown by the Confederacy's own laws that slavery mattered more to them than states' rights. These aren't mutually exclusive. A situation can be complex, and still have evidence that one part is being treated as a higher priority than the others. Which the Confederacy did, by making laws that limited states rights when it came to slavery where the two were in conflict.

 

[hkim]

The South wanted to protect their power. The fact that their power came from slavery is secondary. The North could have chosen to put a high tariff on cotton and tobacco instead. The North could have pushed to increase the power of the Senate compared to the power of the House of Representatives. Those would have been effective at restricting the economic and/or political power of the South, but it wouldn't have given the North the appearance of the moral high ground -- indeed, it might have made the South's rebellion look more justifiable to outside observers. The South wasn't fighting to protect the institution of slavery because they thought slavery was a moral good (whether they actually thought so or not) -- they were fighting to protect their autonomy. Slavery was the battleground.

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"we didn't fight the evil sorceror because of his dark powers, we fought him because the source of his dark powers was ritual human sacrifice" dude what the fuck is this hair you're splitting, like yes things are more detailed on the geopolitical layer but if they hadn't been getting power from ritual human sacrifice are we saying the war would have happened anyway? prolly NOT

 

[Enochi]

You are wrong if only because Slavery was seen as so integral a part of Southern Society/Way of life, you can't be a "Gentleman of leisure" and a member of a sort of aristocracy as the elites of the Anti-bellum south saw themselves as if you don't have people to lord over as well as do all the actual work for you.
Also, basically EVERY state that left the union stated in plain language that they were leaving the union over slavery. Because they were convinced that Lincoln would take their slaves and knew that he would prevent the slavery from expanding any further.

The South left the union illegally and Fort Sumter was a federal military installation. They also didn't try diplomacy at all and the first half of the war took place almost entirely in Union Territory because the South invaded the North. Famous major battles were fought in freaking Pennsylvania!! Which doesn't border a single state that joined the Confederacy!

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Wow. Um your WAY off on that 2nd paragraph. 1. As I mentioned earlier the Guy who took over Fort Sumter wasn't actually in charge of Fort Sumter. He just took it over cause it was more defensible. 2. The they didn't try Diplomacy at all... Is a big fat lie. In fact the south sent Ambassadors to the North and offered to pay for the Federal land it took but Lincoln refused to recognize them as officials. 3. The first half of the war taking place in Union Territory is... Honestly I have no earthly idea where the hell you are getting that. The Maryland Campaign (Aka Lee's First invasion of the North) was in late 1862 and had 2 battles fought in Maryland. Lee's 2nd invasion that ended in Gettysburg was in 1863 and was the only one that made it to PA. Also PA at the time Did border VA. (Remember WV was considered part of VA at the time) Can I ask where you are getting most battles were fought in Union territory? Cause I really really have no clue where in the world you are getting that.

Also not every state left over slavery. Lincoln's call for volunteer's to put down the rebellion... was ill-advised. That action cause more states to succeed. Including VA and NC who provided the majority of the CSA's man power.

Now in regards to Slavery. Yes the south did think it was a critical institution. But the issue was much more nuanced then just racial superiority. 1. It had become very profitable. See until the late 1700s and early 1800s slavery was on the decline until the gotton gins wide adoption which made cotton an amazing cash crop. 2. The hatian revolution specifically the Massacre of the French in 1804. That was very scary for the south and the impetus for many of the restrictions placed on the southern slave population. 3. The fear was further heightened by the Nat Turner Rebellion in 1831.

 

[Tyrantviewer]

Wow. Um your WAY off on that 2nd paragraph. 1. As I mentioned earlier the Guy who took over Fort Sumter wasn't actually in charge of Fort Sumter. He just took it over cause it was more defensible. 2. The they didn't try Diplomacy at all... Is a big fat lie. In fact the south sent Ambassadors to the North and offered to pay for the Federal land it took but Lincoln refused to recognize them as officials. 3. The first half of the war taking place in Union Territory is... Honestly I have no earthly idea where the hell you are getting that. The Maryland Campaign (Aka Lee's First invasion of the North) was in late 1862 and had 2 battles fought in Maryland. Lee's 2nd invasion that ended in Gettysburg was in 1863 and was the only one that made it to PA. Also PA at the time Did border VA. (Remember WV was considered part of VA at the time) Can I ask where you are getting most battles were fought in Union territory? Cause I really really have no clue where in the world you are getting that.

Also not every state left over slavery. Lincoln's call for volunteer's to put down the rebellion... was ill-advised. That action cause more states to succeed. Including VA and NC who provided the majority of the CSA's man power.

Now in regards to Slavery. Yes the south did think it was a critical institution. But the issue was much more nuanced then just racial superiority. 1. It had become very profitable. See until the late 1700s and early 1800s slavery was on the decline until the gotton gins wide adoption which made cotton an amazing cash crop. 2. The hatian revolution specifically the Massacre of the French in 1804. That was very scary for the south and the impetus for many of the restrictions placed on the southern slave population. 3. The fear was further heightened by the Nat Turner Rebellion in 1831.

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I am glad the discussion about this is being so reasonable so far, but part of the reason people keep bringing up slavery as the focus is because of the myth of the lost cause

In short from the beginning the focus on slavery was obvious and prominent in the reasons confederate leaders gave for the war, but after they lost people tried to retroactively justify the war by recontexualizing it as being about state rights. This and the glorification of confederate leaders, and the downplaying of the horrors of slavery, is a dangerous historical revision that encourages racism and ignorance to this day.

 

[Vaermina]

"Not… Not really? I know that most people think of green as the 'right' colour, but as soon as my scan showed me that it was just the copper patina I couldn't think of that as the 'right' colour any more. It'll change back in twenty or so years."

He rolls his eyes and glances my way.

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Sure is nice LePaul is going to suffer none of the negative consequences that come from destroying a loved American landmark...

"I don't think that purgatory actually exists as a distinct place. It's more… That you're further away from unity with the Source if you were a bit of a low level sinner as a matter of degrees." I shake my head. "I'm a little concerned that he'll get stuck in there when Doctor Mist seals the entrances."

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And this is just full up wrong.

 

[Wivk]

The war didn't end slavery, it just made everyone into equally indentured servants to an over powered federal government that no longer need fear legal secession as a consequence of its constant over reach.

 

[PDV]

. This is a dangerous historical revision that encourages racism and ignorance to this day.

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Pretending that it was entirely a myth is also dangerous historical revisionism. Reversed stupidity is not intelligence; reversed lies are not truth. The philosophy of state's rights has very clear antecedents dating from before the Revolutionary War and was a glaring, consistent, and continuous dispute from Jefferson forward. Disputing federal power vs. state independence was a political war that did not end until the shooting war did, and remained a low-key active political struggle even afterward. The success of the abolitionists made the prime battle of that political war laws about slavery for several decades. Jim Crow followed it, which is predictable, but then abortion became the primary battleground, which is not. If you assume there is no truth to the claim of "state's rights" you will fail to predict or understand what happened after the Civil War ended.

 

[Stsword]

Pretending that it was entirely a myth is also dangerous historical revisionism. Reversed stupidity is not intelligence; reversed lies are not truth. The philosophy of state's rights has very clear antecedents dating from before the Revolutionary War and was a glaring, consistent, and continuous dispute from Jefferson forward. Disputing federal power vs. state independence was a political war that did not end until the shooting war did, and remained a low-key active political struggle even afterward. The success of the abolitionists made the prime battle of that political war laws about slavery for several decades. Jim Crow followed it, which is predictable, but then abortion became the primary battleground, which is not. If you assume there is no truth to the claim of "state's rights" you will fail to predict or understand what happened after the Civil War ended.

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Oh please.

"States have the right to nullify laws they don't like" while at the exact same time they made the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that allowed them to just legally kidnap people out of Free States, ignoring a state's actually legal right to determine if they were a free or slave state.

So if you somehow missed the real argument is "You can't tell us what to do but we can tell you what to do" then you are the one with a failure to understand or predict.

 

[Coda]

Now in regards to Slavery. Yes the south did think it was a critical institution. But the issue was much more nuanced then just racial superiority. 1. It had become very profitable.

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This person gets it.

As I said before: Yes. It was about slavery. But it wasn't about slavery.

When modern people say that the American Civil War was about "slavery," they're almost universally viewing it through the lens of modern social mores. They're thinking that it was a battle fought over slavery as a moral issue, They're thinking that the South wanted to defend the institution of slavery because they were white supremacists that thought that black people were subhumans whose only value was to serve their masters.

While it's true that lots of people in the South were that kind of white supremacist, that's not why they went to war.

Slavery was the core of the Southern economy. The articles of secession, the Confederate constitution, and all of the other defenses of slavery were written because sudden emancipation would have been horrifically destructive. It would have unilaterally harmed Southerners on a scale of what would today be the equivalent of billions if not trillions of dollars in seized property, lost revenue, and damages.

Imagine if the government of the US issued a proclamation tomorrow saying that, because car-related accidents and diseases are among the leading causes of death in the nation, it is now illegal to own a car. All existing titles of car ownership are null and void. Anyone caught in possession of a car would be charged with a crime. How well do you think that would be received?

Would people fight to keep their cars because they're driver-supremacists? Because owning cars is good and proper? Because driving cars is the way things should be?

Or do you think they would fight to keep their cars because without a car they can't go to work so they can't make money to buy food? Because their cars are their property that they invested in? Because the government shouldn't be allowed to take your belongings without giving you something in return?

 

[Enochi]

I am glad the discussion about this is being so reasonable so far, but part of the reason people keep bringing up slavery as the focus is because of the myth of the lost cause

In short from the beginning the focus on slavery was obvious and prominent in the reasons confederate leaders gave for the war, but after they lost people tried to retroactively justify the war by recontexualizing it as being about state rights. This and the glorification of confederate leaders, and the downplaying of the horrors of slavery, is a dangerous historical revision that encourages racism and ignorance to this day.

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I too am glad about that. However I believe even in my original post about this issue I stated that the state's right argument was about money in the end. Same as the slavery issue. The political elite was made up of the Plantation Class by and large. Their wealth required cheap labor and they thought slave labor the easiest form of that. So they made sure that in their new constitution no one would be able to take that away.

 

[Windona]

What sort of person deliberately makes their chocolate taste like a dog's arse?

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From what I understand they once accidentally made chocolate with fermented milk, then the customer liked it so they kept on doing it. (I know, I would assume it was a way to keep milk lasting longer before use).

I suspect it's part of why Belgian and Swiss chocolate are associated with higher quality in the US.

And everyone in the US grows up with Hershey's so that's how chocolate tastes, so it continues.

 

[Stsword]

Or do you think they would fight to keep their cars because without a car they can't go to work so they can't make money to buy food? Because their cars are their property that they invested in? Because the government shouldn't be allowed to take your belongings without giving you something in return?

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Cotton picking remained an industry in the South for the following 80 years after the war without slavery.

Oh noes, people would have to actually pay for services rendered, the horror, the horror! Here let me play the world's smallest violin.

And the number of families who owned slaves is about the same as the percentage of people who own luxury vehicles nowadays.

So a more honest analogy is that the South went to war so that SUV owners wouldn't have to take the bus.

As I've already mentioned, it was a rich man's war while it was a poor man's battle, and even the poor schmucks going to war and dying so that rich people wouldn't have to GASP! pay wages knew it.

 

[woweed]

This person gets it.

As I said before: Yes. It was about slavery. But it wasn't about slavery.

When modern people say that the American Civil War was about "slavery," they're almost universally viewing it through the lens of modern social mores. They're thinking that it was a battle fought over slavery as a moral issue, They're thinking that the South wanted to defend the institution of slavery because they were white supremacists that thought that black people were subhumans whose only value was to serve their masters.

While it's true that lots of people in the South were that kind of white supremacist, that's not why they went to war.

Slavery was the core of the Southern economy. The articles of secession, the Confederate constitution, and all of the other defenses of slavery were written because sudden emancipation would have been horrifically destructive. It would have unilaterally harmed Southerners on a scale of what would today be the equivalent of billions if not trillions of dollars in seized property, lost revenue, and damages.

Imagine if the government of the US issued a proclamation tomorrow saying that, because car-related accidents and diseases are among the leading causes of death in the nation, it is now illegal to own a car. All existing titles of car ownership are null and void. Anyone caught in possession of a car would be charged with a crime. How well do you think that would be received?

Would people fight to keep their cars because they're driver-supremacists? Because owning cars is good and proper? Because driving cars is the way things should be?

Or do you think they would fight to keep their cars because without a car they can't go to work so they can't make money to buy food? Because their cars are their property that they invested in? Because the government shouldn't be allowed to take your belongings without giving you something in return?

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OK, but hear me out: that's a bad thing to want, and no nation calling itself a democracy should allow slavery. I don't give a rat's ass about their economy: if your economy can only sustain itself via the keeping's of other humans in bondage, your economy doesn't deserve survival, it deserves disinfection. Also, seriously, stop equivocating. "Some of them may have been White supremacists", they were. The war was about perserving not just slavery, but the hierarchy of Whites as superior it represented.

 

[Megaolix]

The war didn't end slavery, it just made everyone into equally indentured servants to an over powered federal government that no longer need fear legal secession as a consequence of its constant over reach.

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I would strongly suggest you keep it to the civil war instead of current times... Even if I lack context as to why people are talking about the civil war here anyway.

 

[Darkstep]

Great chapter man.
Btw how long have Paul and Jade been together now?

 

[thebishop8]

Great chapter man.
Btw how long have Paul and Jade been together now?

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They pretty much got together when Paul got back from his first trip into space. That was in episode 64, more than a year ago in the story.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Even if I lack context as to why people are talking about the civil war here anyway.

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An incarnation of Confederate America turned up in the story a few days ago.

 

[Megaolix]

An incarnation of Confederate America turned up in the story a few days ago.

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...

Your story go in strange places, Zoat.

 

[Darko]

...

Your story go in strange places, Zoat.

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You just noticed that now?

 

[Chaoswind]

...

Your story go in strange places, Zoat.

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Blame DC writers and their nonsense.

 

[ForeverShogo]

Hmm. For some reason it's looking like some people have started falling over themselves trying to defend the Confederacy.

Also, because someone else mentioned the spirit of Liberty there's a question I've been meaning to ask.

So for whatever reason the Japanese pantheon is just able to poach things outside their purview. Whatever. They have Liberty because some comic said Liberty was one of the things they poached. Also whatever.

What I've been trying to figure out is why she went along with it. Like, I get what the Shinto gods get out of it. She's one more thing for them to leech off of for their own benefit, but what the hell does she get out of the deal? She didn't magically become a Japanese goddess worshipped by the followers of Shinto. They're leeching off of whatever she gets just by being an American symbol. It sounds like it benefits them to her detriment.

 

[Deadring]

"States have the right to nullify laws they don't like" while at the exact same time they made the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that allowed them to just legally kidnap people out of Free States, ignoring a state's actually legal right to determine if they were a free or slave state.

So if you somehow missed the real argument is "You can't tell us what to do but we can tell you what to do" then you are the one with a failure to understand or predict.

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This is the main point right here, and has always been a big issue with the argument of "State's rights", even when you ignore literally everything else. Slave states have always made themselves out to be better than everyone else, race be damned, and it makes it abundantly clear that those who argue for those state's positions don't actually practice what they preach. You know, slavery aside.

 

[Vaermina]

Hmm. For some reason it's looking like some people have started falling over themselves trying to defend the Confederacy.

Also, because someone else mentioned the spirit of Liberty there's a question I've been meaning to ask.

So for whatever reason the Japanese pantheon is just able to poach things outside their purview. Whatever. They have Liberty because some comic said Liberty was one of the things they poached. Also whatever.

What I've been trying to figure out is why she went along with it. Like, I get what the Shinto gods get out of it. She's one more thing for them to leech off of for their own benefit, but what the hell does she get out of the deal? She didn't magically become a Japanese goddess worshipped by the followers of Shinto. They're leeching off of whatever she gets just by being an American symbol. It sounds like it benefits them to her detriment.

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An excellent question.

That is not at all addressed in story.

 

[Chaoswind]

Hmm. For some reason it's looking like some people have started falling over themselves trying to defend the Confederacy.

Also, because someone else mentioned the spirit of Liberty there's a question I've been meaning to ask.

So for whatever reason the Japanese pantheon is just able to poach things outside their purview. Whatever. They have Liberty because some comic said Liberty was one of the things they poached. Also whatever.

What I've been trying to figure out is why she went along with it. Like, I get what the Shinto gods get out of it. She's one more thing for them to leech off of for their own benefit, but what the hell does she get out of the deal? She didn't magically become a Japanese goddess worshipped by the followers of Shinto. They're leeching off of whatever she gets just by being an American symbol. It sounds like it benefits them to her detriment.

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You missed the explanation...

She gets protection from one of the largest non monotheistic pantheons.

She is a minor elemental of flavored liberty, there are a large amount of things that would love to eat her and we saw exactly how fucked the American afterlife is. The Shinto gods/spirits aren't top tier, but they are very numerous and willing to accept outsiders, so by joining them she gets a fuck ton of low tier gods and a few high tier ones to get lost in the crowd.

Low powered elementals are little more than semi exotic ritual sacrifices.

 

[Coda]

From what I understand they once accidentally made chocolate with fermented milk, then the customer liked it so they kept on doing it. (I know, I would assume it was a way to keep milk lasting longer before use).

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It wasn't accidental, and it wasn't to make the milk last longer. A preservative was added to make the chocolate last longer in military rations, but that preservative had the side effect of souring the flavor of the milk. The soldiers got used to the flavor, and the chocolate provided one of the few morale boosts they could get in a war zone, so they kept buying it when they got back home.

So a more honest analogy is that the South went to war so that SUV owners wouldn't have to take the bus.

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That's... not more honest at all. :/ That kind of comparison trivializes the impact. Switching from driving yourself to work to taking the bus to work is something that isn't really all that hard, just inconvenient. It was a serious kind of bankruptcy that required heavy restructuring and a lot of losses along the way. Yes, overall, they were able to survive, but it isn't an exaggeration to say that the South was reduced to bartering because they were so bankrupt by the end of the war. Cotton production didn't halt, but it was dramatically reduced. And the only reason it wasn't worse is because both white people and black people had no choice but to enter into landlord-tenant relationships to keep the fields (both food crops and cash crops) from going unplanted and starving everyone. The resulting system was little better than the slavery that it replaced, and it took decades to end the cycle of poverty that the Civil War created.

OK, but hear me out: that's a bad thing to want, and no nation calling itself a democracy should allow slavery. I don't give a rat's ass about their economy: if your economy can only sustain itself via the keeping's of other humans in bondage, your economy doesn't deserve survival, it deserves disinfection. Also, seriously, stop equivocating. "Some of them may have been White supremacists", they were. The war was about perserving not just slavery, but the hierarchy of Whites as superior it represented.

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I'm not going to disagree that it's a bad thing to want. Yes, of course it's bad. And you are entitled to your opinion of what the parties involved "deserve" -- though you need to recognize that it's an opinion.

But what's also bad is to misrepresent people you disagree with, whether they're in the present or in the past. It's intellectually dishonest.

People are people. You may disagree with them, but they're still people, with strengths and flaws, with sins and virtues, with lives and needs and desires and values of their own. If you want to understand what happened, you need to look at it from the perspective of those complex, nuanced people in their own context.

Hmm. For some reason it's looking like some people have started falling over themselves trying to defend the Confederacy.

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I'm not defending the Confederacy; I've been quite careful to point out their problems. I'm defending an accurate understanding of the events that transpired and the mindsets that motivated it. Knowing the historical events but attributing them to the wrong reasons leads to drawing incorrect conclusions. If we're going to learn a lesson from what happened in the past, we need to be honest about what happened instead of just reacting to it out of context.

 

[Tyrantviewer]

That's... not more honest at all. :/ That kind of comparison trivializes the impact. Switching from driving yourself to work to taking the bus to work is something that isn't really all that hard, just inconvenient. It was a serious kind of bankruptcy that required heavy restructuring and a lot of losses along the way. Yes, overall, they were able to survive, but it isn't an exaggeration to say that the South was reduced to bartering because they were so bankrupt by the end of the war. Cotton production didn't halt, but it was dramatically reduced. And the only reason it wasn't worse is because both white people and black people had no choice but to enter into landlord-tenant relationships to keep the fields (both food crops and cash crops) from going unplanted and starving everyone. The resulting system was little better than the slavery that it replaced, and it took decades to end the cycle of poverty that the Civil War created.

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Yep, and the forward thinking slave owners probably feared something like that, supported the war, and ended up with it anyway, instead of whatever slower, less extreme economic shift would have happened without the war to make abolishing slavery easier to pass. So The confederacy likely ended up hastening and worsening the result they were afraid of.

I'm not defending the Confederacy; I've been quite careful to point out their problems. I'm defending an accurate understanding of the events that transpired and the mindsets that motivated it. Knowing the historical events but attributing them to the wrong reasons leads to drawing incorrect conclusions. If we're going to learn a lesson from what happened in the past, we need to be honest about what happened instead of just reacting to it out of context.

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Thank you for that, and once again for being so reasonable. I wasn't clear enough in my bit earlier, but personally people going "well the confederates weren't so bad" raises concerns about apologism and glorification of an era, ultimately supporting racism, ignorance and an us vs them mentality. You aren't doing that, but the association of people post facto justifying the confederacy, with certain modern sterotypes about southerners may be where some of the opposition you are facing comes from. Not going to go into modern politics on my life however.


Back to the story, Why did the Shinto react so violently to the Eagle of freedom? He said it was because of basically supernatural politics, but do they have an agenda? is something fishy about the eagle?

Anyone have some interesting ideas for new Olypians that Paul might recruit?

What is the most of the wall idea you have for where the heck John is?

 

[Assblaster5000]

What is the most of the wall idea you have for where the heck John is?

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The Funny Papers, obviously.

 

[Vaermina]

You missed the explanation...

She gets protection from one of the largest non monotheistic pantheons.

She is a minor elemental of flavored liberty, there are a large amount of things that would love to eat her and we saw exactly how fucked the American afterlife is. The Shinto gods/spirits aren't top tier, but they are very numerous and willing to accept outsiders, so by joining them she gets a fuck ton of low tier gods and a few high tier ones to get lost in the crowd.

Low powered elementals are little more than semi exotic ritual sacrifices.

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That wasn't the American afterlife... It was a negative conceptual space...

Also while they are the largest, they are also the weakest, so that doesn't fly... Like seriously... In canon the entire Shinto pantheon got it's ass kicked by one Hero...

 

[Mr Zoat]

5th November 2282
09:24 CDT

"Hey, Mutie Chief?"

**If you want my attention, corporal, you can just think hard.** I glance at the man marching along behind me wearing the Mark One Advanced Power Armour. **You can think, right?**

"Yeah, cause you got crazy mutie magic, right?"

There's a degree of nervousness in his voice. I suppose that after a lifetime of being told that wastelanders are a different breed of human, it's a little unsettling to meet one who effectively is.

"ARE YOU BREAKING COMMUNICATIONS DISCIPLINE FOR A REASON, CORPORAL, OR ARE YOU MERELY TRYING TO MAKE ME ANGRY ENOUGH TO HAVE A BRAIN HEMORRHAGE?"

"Ah, Sergeant, I was wanting to ask how long Krono can stay out in the dust without power armour. Since that might be relevant to the mission. We don't have all that much Rad-Away and we're getting closer to the impact sites."

**Reasonable question, Corporal.** I reach up with my right hand and brush some of the accumulated dust off my visor. I can navigate reasonably well with my psychic abilities, and goodness knows I can't see much with my eyes in this dust cloud, but people get worried when I start walking around with no visible means of seeing my environment. **I am effectively immune to environmental radiation.**

"Psychic powers do that?"

Hm. **Aside from Sergeant Dornan, did any of you ever meet Special Agent Frank Horrigan.**

"Uh, who?"

"President Richardson's bodyguard. He died at The Rig. There aren't a lot of us still alive who met him."

**Come now, Sergeant. Be honest. Frank Horrigan was also an early example of the Enclave's mutant-friendly policies.**

"He was a-? Wastelander?"

**He was a Super Mutant.**

"Huh?"

**And I don't mean 'a mutant who was really super', I mean two and a half metres tall, green skin filled with muscle, immune to poison, disease and radiation.**

"That-. I don't-. S-sergeant?"

"Horrigan volunteered for some experimental medical procedures. Anything else is-. Was classified. Though since the terrorist traitor who destroyed the Rig and murdered the President wrote a book about it I don't suppose it's still classified."

**Before the War, the United States was afflicted by a disease they called the New Plague. Various groups were working on a cure, but one team decided that rather than killing the disease directly, they'd try altering the human body so that it wasn't vulnerable to the disease. They had some positive results, reported it to their investors and… Then the US Army got involved. Because if the tailored virus they were using could make people immune to the New Plague, could it do other things? Like making them stronger? Tougher? Immune-.**

"Are you saying the Government invented super mutants?"

**Not on purpose. They were failed test subjects. And the War ended before there were any complete successes.**

"Oh. Except you now, right?"

**Me and this guy from Los Angeles called Ton Barracus. He probably died when the Master died, but it's hard to find bodies to check after a nuclear blast. If things had gone a little differently, all American soldiers would have had abilities like mine… Minus the psychic powers.**

I suppose Mister Barracus is proof of the infinite monkeys postulate. Mister Moreau tried throwing as many people as he could into the vats and he got an actual supersoldier purely by luck. I wonder if he knew what he'd done, or if he considered Ton an irrelevance beside the glorious super mutant race?

"Like..?"

I look around, then spot a lump of concrete laying on the ground. It's roughly a metre long along its longest axis and about half that on its other two. I walk over to it and pick it up without much effort.

"Huh. Okay, but-."

I shove my hands together, the lump shattering and spraying dust and shards of concrete out like a fragmentation grenade!

"Whow!"

**The pre-War government was surprisingly pro-transhuman. If it gave them an edge against the Chinese, they were all for it.**

"Where do I get something like that?"

"ARE YOU SAYING THAT YOU WANT TO BE A MUTANT, CORPORAL?"

"No, Sergeant! I mean, I-. The President was okay with his own bodyguard using it, and the old US government wanted to use it on the army. It's not like he got tentacles or supercancer or anything."

"THE US GOVERNMENT OF THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY DID NOT APPROVE IT FOR USE! ARE YOU SAYING THAT A BUNCH OF MUTANT WASTELANDERS KNOW BETTER THAN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT?"

"No, no Sergeant! Unless-! I mean, if the Government did most of the work and some of the more intelligent wastelanders used Government equipment, maybe they could finish it?"

**No. Stabilising the Forced Evolutionary Virus like this required-** A power ring. An orange power ring, to be precise. I'm not exactly sure how I got even a tiny charge off the Guardian's corpse, but I'm not complaining. **-an expendable resource I can't replicate. President Anderson fried his drives before we could get hold of his research and the late President Eden was only interested in using FEV to kill super mutants and ghouls. I suspect that further FEV work will have to wait until the United States of America has been reunified.**

"Huh."

The squad and I continue through the dust storm, the occasional flash of ionic lightning overhead and the lights from their armour being the only sources of illumination. We're heading south towards the former site of Cedar Rapids. If we find nothing of note there, our next stop is Des Moines. Then there's a short list of pre-War government bunkers. But-. Uh. There's no real reason why a private citizen couldn't have built their own, and if that's what happened then we won't have a record of it. We're half-hoping that checking the houses of rich pre-War citizens might result in us picking up clues, because the state is a large place to search on foot.

**Sergeant, I have a question.**

**Good for you, mutie. I bet it's a real nice one, too.**

**This is narrowcast. The rest of the squad aren't hearing it. Would you mind telling me why you supported Anderson over Granite?**

**I was following President Richardson's last orders. Anderson's plan was closer to that than what Granite wanted. It was an Enclave plan.**

**That's certainly factually correct. The chance of it working didn't factor into it?**

**President Anderson was an intelligent man who knew plenty about mutie culture. I trusted his judgement. You don't know that Granite's way would have worked out any better.**

I nod. **True. Though you-.**

"Hey, Mutie Chief?"

**Yes?**

"Can you do something about the dust? It's messing up my V.A.T.S. system."

**Sergeant?**

**It would be useful if we can see where we're going.**

**Then I'll see what I can do.**

I push outwards and down, about a third of the dust being pulled to the ground. Visibility improves… A little, and from further away we shouldn't be much more visible.

**Bett-?**

Yellow lights appear in the distance-.

**Cover!**

 

[Darko]

Hmm. For some reason it's looking like some people have started falling over themselves trying to defend the Confederacy.

Also, because someone else mentioned the spirit of Liberty there's a question I've been meaning to ask.

So for whatever reason the Japanese pantheon is just able to poach things outside their purview. Whatever. They have Liberty because some comic said Liberty was one of the things they poached. Also whatever.

What I've been trying to figure out is why she went along with it. Like, I get what the Shinto gods get out of it. She's one more thing for them to leech off of for their own benefit, but what the hell does she get out of the deal? She didn't magically become a Japanese goddess worshipped by the followers of Shinto. They're leeching off of whatever she gets just by being an American symbol. It sounds like it benefits them to her detriment.

Click to shrink...

The Eagle of Freedom mentioned that it's tough for a spiritual being to find success in a largely monotheistic country like the USA, so maybe the Shinto convinced her that she could find better success on their country than in America.