Chojin Patriarch
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To be fair, anyone wanting to get in touch with you could try a phone call, contact the League, or otherwise poke the super-powered community. And given how often you're off-planet, it's not impossible that attempts to get in touch could go unanswered for days or weeks.30th December 2012
16:14 GMT -5
"Hm-hmmmm-hmmmm hm hmm-hmm-hmm-."
I frown as I pick up the letter in the letter basket inside Jade's flat's door. From the Alliance, apparently. Not sure why they're writing to me. My home address isn't a exactly a secret, but I've been spending more time in my own home in Bir Tawil lately. I've had a few people writing to me, but for the most part they don't bother.
Hey, be glad it's not a sheaf of bills to be paid. I expect the apartment is functionally independent of all city services, though...That's actually a little sad. I know that letter writing has dropped off immensely since the invention of e-mail, but surely there are at least a few people desperate to write to me? I honestly get more advertising fliers than requests for help.
Quick check for anything untoward-
The joy of direct transport. For all you knew, someone could have been laying dying at the door one of those nights, and you'd probably not have noticed... Unless the Ring has standing programming for that sort of thing.Letter clear.
-and I open it up. Ah… Oh, the first part of their teleportation array is going to be put into operation tomorrow. When was this-? Ah, yes, I suppose that I haven't been checking the door-. I mean, if I'm just coming here to sleep I just appear in the bedroom, so…
...I mean, it's probably not going to be a useful offer, given all your other options. But if you're trapped on Earth one day, without a ring or access to the Honden, like last Christmas...I sigh.
Not only am I invited to the grand unveiling, but they want to give me access to their network just in case I ever need it. I've got a big enough reputation that they think a background check is redundant; I'm clearly not going to use it for cheap holiday travel or anything.
Yeah. And you never know... After all, you are the crazy prepared guy...And I haven't RSVPed.
I mean, I don't need it, but it's a nice thing for them to do.
Plus, government controlled super-teams tend to end up getting subverted or misused by whoever ends up in control of them. Or simply rebel against said bad leadership and go independent.I turn to the second page. The itinerary. It's… Only a couple of hours, start to finish. I should put in an appearance. I mean, I'd honestly prefer it if this sort of international effort was organised by a government, but I spend most of my time in America. The superheroic tradition here is passionately independent, and… So am I. And if the private sector wants to fill a need the government won't, good for them.
Ring, contact Alpha Centurion.
...If occasionally concerning on other aspects of their behaviour <cough>White Dragon<cough>. But that sort of thing tends to be self-correcting thanks to peer pressure.Compliance.
Might be worth me checking in with Blitzen beforehand. I honestly don't think there's any skulduggery going on. At least, no more than in any large organisation. Everyone I've looked at who's joined the Alliance has been pretty well motivated-.
If only for them to have an example of what can go wrong, anyway.I need to nag Batman about the Small League model again. And probably the others. With another organisation doing the Big League model, the choice of the correct way to organise the League is…
More obvious. Should I give Vincent Edge a copy of the JSI's files? He doesn't seem like the sort to create that sort of organisation, but he's an old man, and the people around him might… Not be malevolent, exactly, but they might want to focus on efficiency at the expense of morality…
Never make assumptions. Who knows what he might be thinking at any moment. Or any of the people under his leadership.I still haven't really worked that one through in my own mind. But I don't think that someone as afraid of Old Testament retribution as he is will go too far wrong deliberately.
"Alpha Centurion."
And it has been a few days since the last time we saw him. I guess nothing special-slash-screen-worthy happened in that time...
I imagine the international postage costs would be a bit rough, if nothing else. And using a courier might be a challenge."Yes. Um, sorry, I just picked up my post-."
"Did you know that there's no postal carrier in the world that delivers to Bir Tawil?"
Well, he can always show it's safe to use, if nothing else. ...He should have a backup clone ready on Earth, right?"I didn't, but I'm not surprised. As I said, sorry. If it's not too late, I'd like to attend."
"Not at all. We'd be delighted to have you. Could we persuade you to use the relay system itself?"
Pfft. As long as you're careful and the system has good safety programming, you should be safe enough."I don't really… Yeah, yeah, okay. I can do that. Are you having problems with people not wanting to use it?"
"A few. You and I both know that the technology is safe, but almost everyone speaks of 'telefragging'."
Yeah, coordinate drift isn't going to be too big of an issue at the local scale. A few centimetres at most? Best to have them pop into mid-air and drop a bit than appear too low, and... Pop."When if anything goes wrong what would actually happen is the person being transported and any local matter being turned into an undifferentiated plasma field."
"That's hardly likely, within the confines of a single planet and with a network of towers to regulate the terminus."
And given the travelling habits of some capes, I'd be more worried about falling from a rooftop anyway."I know. But if it did… "
"And they could be knocked down by a car crossing the street. Are you truly concerned about the safety of the system?"
Since the Alliance probably isn't going to be working with multi-talented individuals on the scale of Superman, after all."No, no. It's not the system I would have gone for, but I know it has clear advantages."
Mostly, in that it makes mass deployment from varying locations far easier. The League's more of a 'one riot, one hero' organisation, but if you need teams for everything then it's actually a better system.
...Well, that sounds reassuring enough."Is this actually the first time that it's been used, or..?"
"Of course not! This just marks it being put into service. We've sent both test samples and superheroes a dozen times now. It would be extremely foolish of us to risk anything going on at the public unveiling!"
To be fair, I doubt security could stop him if he wanted in anyway. But that goes for just about any superhero with more-than-human capabilities... Barring the guards having their own powers."Yes, I suppose it would. So should I just turn up..?"
"Yes, I'll let security know that you're expected. I appreciate you putting in the time."
One Lantern would be good. Two? Well, if anything goes wrong...
I could see them inviting every big name cape they could, just on principle. Wonder what the League's collective opinion on it is?Compliance.
"Hey Paul. Forget something?"
"No, I just found out that I've got an invitation to that… Alliance of the Just unveiling, and I was wondering if you were going?"
After all, it's not the first time you'd have suffered total physical dissolution."I thought I might as well. Everyone on the League got an invite, though I don't know how many are actually gunna turn up. Are you going?"
"Yes. Alpha Centurion's even going to let me go through. I've never been teleported in this exact way before. And if there are any problems, I'm probably the best person to find them."
...God, I can just imagine him putting a genetic sensor in it that denies people with active metagenes or nun-human DNA."True. You know, something like this happening was kind of a dream for me, back in the forties. And now, rather than Captain Comet or Superman doing it, it's Vincent Edge of all people."
"Would you prefer it was Lex Luthor?"
Though others have explained it better, the choice of a single small, power-heavy squad versus a distributed low-power, local-focused large organisation just feels a bit too binary. If nothing else, it's probably a good idea to have close ties between large- and small-scale groups to avoid any misunderstandings..."God, no. And I'm glad that Edge has found religion and straightened himself out. It's just not how I saw it happening."
"Did you ever read that thing I wrote for Batman about structures for the League's expansion?"
I expect he'd be more on the side of small units. He remembers the larger organisations during World War II, of course. But that represents a wide spread of power levels, and it's easy fro the big names to dominate operations..."Paul, everyone on the League reads everything you send us. Fool us twice… Let us fool ourselves twice, shame on us."
"Did you have any thoughts on it?"
So, keep the Big 7 as the core, with a rotating guest seat, and send the rest off to local branches?"That's a worryingly vague way to put it."
"I mean, now that the Alliance has gotten this far, I think that the Small League model is the one to go for."
And to be fair, an ordinary guy with a bow and arrow... Won't be useful in a lot of the situations the League tends to find themselves in."A small, elite team? Yeah, I see what you mean. You wanna tell Ollie?"
"If he doesn't want to augment himself, he can just… Be grandfathered in."
New Year's Eve, huh? I guess 2013 will be a big year for capes."Honestly? I prefer it the way the Alliance is handling things. But if they're doing that then I guess you're right. See you tomorrow?"
"See you tomorrow."
Well, there's a big event that's just begging for all manner of things to go wrong. Place your bets now, readers: How will things 'pete tong'? Teleport accident? Secret plot by someone involved in the group? Random dimensional intrusion? 5th-Dimensional Imp trickery? Some unknown write-in? So many possibilities, and so many ways for Mr Zoat to defy all our expectations...