"I'm not sure that your colleagues would agree with that." He gestures to the chair to his right. "Please, take a seat."
"Thank you." I.. walk around the room and sit down.. in the extremely comfortable and expensive chair. "Ah… Firstly, I'd like to apologise for Kara's throwing arm."
Right, well he should. Though is it safe to be using her given name? I mean... She doesn't exactly have a
secret identity here, but still...
He gives me an interrogative frown. "I'm… Sorry, I'm not sure what you're alluding to."
"The New God belt buckles she threw through your window. On her original Earth, their Alexei Luthor is a notorious criminal, so throwing things at 'you' is fairly instinctual for her."
Hmm...
That narrows down her universe of origin down a bit. an Earth-Two variant, then. No wonder she's sort of naive, if her world is grounded in the more pleasantly
childish nature of mid-golden-age comics.
"Is there a reason why the young woman isn't apologising herself?"
"She thinks you're a squirrel." His frown goes from 'stern authority figure righteously offended' to 'genuinely confused' "Don't-. Don't ask. I used a metaphor and she… Took it and ran with it."
And who knows, some 'funny animal comic' version of Luthor might well
be a squirrel anthropomorph. There's a
Lemur one, for example...
"And I was a squirrel in that metaphor?"
"It was about assuming that things from one parallel universe are the same in other parallel universes. Like the obvious differences between your.. brother and you?"
"His hair's synthetic." He smiles wryly. "I asked. But I understand your point. Superman is far more intelligent than that brute Ultraman was."
Surprising how few Luthors wear wigs. I guess they just decide to
own their baldness.
"Right."
"Well, I… Think she should still apologise herself, even if I understand why she made the error that she did, but… You may consider the matter closed. I assume that you want them back?"
I mean, it's been a couple of days, if he hasn't learned a ton from them by now, he's not trying hard enough.
"That's…"
"The Justice League does have supreme authority on disposing dangerous materials of that type. I understand that you were responsible for that provision being added to their charter."
Huh. That's a detail from way back.
I-. Oh. Yes. Not long after I joined the team I mentioned.. that confiscation orders might be useful to get dangerous arcane artefacts out of museums. I hadn't realised that this legislation was an outgrowth of that, though I… Suppose that it makes sense.
"I suppose I was. At the.. time, I was really thinking about magic weapons, but I… Suppose that it's not that big a stretch."
And, to be fair, most people just assume that the capes would know how best to deal with them anyway.
"You..? Didn't know?"
"I didn't know that the two were related. Ah. I have to admit, I've rather stopped paying attention to national governments."
Joy of moving up the scale of threats and political powers.
"And state governments, if I remember your interview correctly." I shrug. "So I can keep it? What did I do to earn that?"
"Basically, if you're a squirrel, then you've probably got examples of New God technology already. And if you're not- "
Nice, using 'squirrel' as metaphorical shorthand for 'supervillain' without saying something he could get sued for.
"Ah." He bows his head slightly.
"-a squirrel, then you might find a way to do something useful with it. Heck, you… Might anyway."
A power source for personal power armour, perhaps. Something more compact than his usual battlesuit specs.
"Has something happened?"
"I got an update from Batman and Mister Atom. I didn't… Realise how close to collapse some countries were."
And while that's probably not common knowledge, anyone with the numbers and the intelligence to put them together probably could work that out for themselves. I presume Lex simply hadn't thought to yet. Or he's dissembling in hopes of useful intel.
"By some measures America has collapsed. It no longer has a functioning currency, for example."
"No, not governments. Countries. If the Federal Government vanished tomorrow then life just about everywhere except Washington would carry on unimpeded. I mean-. Before the Anti-Life broadcast. But countries who were more centralised are having a worse time of it."
True, the American states
did organise themselves to limit the effect of national government, both positive and negative. Though I imagine they'd miss the revenue from national projects...
"Particularly the tyrannical ones."
"Depending on your definition of 'tyrant'. Teth Adom is doing fine. And places that didn't rely on their governments for anything anyway don't have that problem."
He nods. "I believe that I know which countries you are referring to."
Heh. More than a few of which the Light have as potential targets for takeover, I suspect.
"And even if you do turn out to have been a squirrel, I'm not sure that there's much damage you can do. I-. Hah, I read a book once where a would-be world conqueror noted that the first step in conquering the world was turning the world into something that could be conquered."
You mean something where he could conquer easily without spending his entire life in the metaphorical saddle.
"In what sense?"
"Political unification. If the world is inhabited by stone age tribes with no transportation or communication technology, then even if they theoretically bow their heads to a single emperor, how much control could he really exercise?" He nods. "And in practice, with humans, how much culture do they share that they'd be prepared to accept someone from outside of their society as a ruler?"
That is a very good point. A lot of history has involved empires formed from conflicting cultures that fragment in short order when the empire in question weakens.
"Has Adom converted to Islam?"
"No, but he's gone out of his way to avoid openly going against Islamic custom-. Aside from the ones he breaks by existing. And they.. are aware that his magic powers are the whole reason why he can do what he does for them. Plus, he's… Made a point of maintaining as much of the old democratic structure as possible while keeping it honest.
Which is kind of sensible of him. It limits the impact an immortal god-king could cause through his actions or lack of them...
My point is, at the moment, the world needs to be put back together, and I don't think… Worrying too much about exactly how makes sense when anything would be better than the total collapse that's being threatened in some places." I shake my head. "But… Once the world is functioning again… I imagine that people will start looking at the means used and…"
He smiles. "Start complaining about it."
It's human nature. Either to say 'pfft, I could have done it better' even when they couldn't, or 'Why didn't you do it this way instead?' or any other number of laments, complaints and derision.
"Almost certainly. I mean, Hugo Danner took over most of South America by stopping the sheeda, but he doesn't get much thanks in Rio today. And that's fine, that's expected. But… It would also be… The point at which.. people with.. divergent visions, might resume their competition. There was a… Section in a book from my home parallel, doesn't exist here. Something like 'we may view the nation as a ship; everyone agrees that the voyage is important, and we may occasionally fight over control of the wheel or the sails, but only a complete maniac tries to saw a hole in the hull'."
Which Lex
could take as a subtle poke about maniacal super-villainy and trying to
destabilise things.
He nods, perhaps thinking that I'm going to get to the point.
"And… People may.. given the extreme circumstances, make decisions which make their contemporaries uncomfortable. I know the old line that there's nothing so permanent as a temporary government program, but if the program is staffed by libertarians that might actually be true."
Since there's a point at which temporary becomes defacto permanent, and not one person could agree on exactly when.
"Am I to understand that there is a disagreement amongst the members of the Justice League about the form reconstruction should take?"
"No. But… Some are more happy than others about what the way it's being done might mean in the future. And… It might be advantageous if alternative approaches were tried, if only so the unpalatable methods could be repudiated later by those who depended upon them. Because… At the end of the day, it's about the good of the human species, not about getting recognition."
And we all know that's usually what Lex
really wants whenever he tries this sort of thing. It's not about raising humanity up as it is
him getting credit for it.
He nods slowly. "Is there somewhere in particular you thought could benefit from an alternate method?"
"Chong-Mai was the place that came to mind. But there are probably others."
"Well. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I might just know some people who could take up some of the League's burden."
I'll bet he does. Why do I get the feeling the Chong-Mai region is about to face some
villainous interference, ideally in the name of stability and peace?
