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crabby_lionessFic: "The Practical Limits of Limitless Powers: What You Can Get Away With Before They Call Out the Avengers" by E.M. Lehnsherr
Author: CrabbyLioness
Fandom: Marvel X-books
Characters: Magneto and Hope
Summary: Basically, "Nietzsche meets Nancy Drew". Follows this scene from UXM 524: http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/1895166.html
Rating: PG for philosophy.
Disclaimer: Marvel owns everything, no money being made, this is just my brain's idea of fun.
Word Count: 1,984
"Some homecoming," Hope muttered, looking around the dingy grey room. Cable had come here to talk with the leader, Cyclops. The two men were bent over a digital map. The woman in white who called her "Darling" had brought her to a table to one side before being called away. People scurried past, throwing Hope odd looks when they thought she wasn't looking. She wasn't sure how she felt about being a "Darling" or a curiosity.
"What were you expecting?" said a voice from the shadows. Hope started. She hadn't realized someone was sitting in the chair at the far end of the table. Cable would tear a chunk out of her hide for letting someone get the drop on her like that, even if this was supposed to be "home".
She peered closer and made out the features of the old man from the lab, the one Cable and the doctor had watched so closely when he spoke to her before. They had acted like they couldn't trust him with their backs, yet here he was literally behind Cyclops' back and the backs of the rest of the leaders, and those leaders were ignoring him. Either Cyclops was a bad leader, in which case why would Cable trust him so, or there was a mystery here. Hope earnestly wanted it to be a mystery, something she could ferret out the clues for and solve all by herself while waiting for the grownups to do something useful for a change. In the back of her mind, she opened a Casebook on the old man.
"I don't know. I thought it would be some place where I could -- fit in for once, not stand out. I mean, I'm used to people staring at me, but that usually means they want to kill me. Not this not being what they want me to be." Hope paced along the table, moving closer to the old man.
"Yes, the burden of their expectations, their dreams, their salvation," the old man nodded. His face was dim in the shadows, but his eyes were unwavering in their examination of her. He stared intently like the others did, but openly and with a different expression from theirs. Eric, his name was Eric. Where had that name appeared in Cable's stories?
"Yeah, and I don't even have any stupid powers!"
"I wouldn't say that just yet. You're only 16. It's not unheard of for mutant powers to manifest even later than that."
"Oh yeah? When did your power show up?"
"What makes you think I'm a mutant? Not everyone here is one."
Hope cocked her head to one side. "I don't think Cable would be as wary of you if you weren't dangerous. What can you do?"
That earned her a fleeting, wolf-like grin. "Good, although ‘mutant’ and ‘dangerous’ are only synonymous in the popular imagination. As for what I can do, I built this island."
Hope looked around, mentally entering "builder" in her Casebook. "Okay, that's a bit impressive. But couldn't you have chosen another color scheme?"
"I'll keep that in mind," Eric replied, deadpan. "As for your first question, I honestly don't know when my powers first showed up. I had a hard childhood that didn't leave much time for self-reflection, and the first time I noticed I could do something really unusual I was about 19."
Hope’s interest grew. A hard childhood was something she knew about. "What happened when you were a child?"
"I grew up in a time of poverty and war. My people were persecuted, and my family spent many years on the run before I was captured and sent to a prison camp."
Hope studied Eric's face. "You don't have an M", she noted, adding “refugee” to her mental list.
"Hmm? No, they weren't into facial tattoos back then. The Nazis gave us individual “inventory control numbers” and made us wear a patch on our clothes that identified which persecuted group we belonged to.” Eric held out his arm. “It’s faded over time, but you can still make it out.”
Hope looked at the man’s forearm. In the dim light she could barely see what might have been writing on the underside.
“Besides, mutants were so new back then that no one knew what they were. With their veneration of Nietzsche it would have been interesting to see what the Nazis made of real Übermenschen –“
“Wait,” Hope interuppted. “You mean real Nazis?”
“Of course. What did you think I meant?”
“That’s just something people say when they mean ‘evil’, especially if the people they’re talking about commit wholesale discrimination and genocide.”
“’Ethnic cleansing’ is the term in vogue at the moment, but I meant real Nazis. Complete with brown shirts, swastikas, goosestepping, ‘Triumph of the Will’, ‘Horst Wessel Lied’,” he shrugged, “the works.”
Hope entered ‘Nazis’ to the Casebook of Eric, underlining the word. “People say they were more evil than anybody else ever.”
Eric laughed, the sound jarring in the somber atmosphere of the control room. Out of the corner of her eye Hope noticed that several people jumped and stared at them. For once she didn’t mind.
“There was at least half a century when I would have wholeheartedly agreed with that statement. But I’ve seen a lot of things, and I can honestly say that they weren’t the most evil people I’ve ever met. They were simply the most German of the evil people I’ve met.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Hope, get away from him,” Cable called out behind her, glaring at Eric. “I told you not to talk to him.”
“No,” Cyclops told Cable. “Listen.” Cable turned his glare on Cyclops for a moment, but Hope was impressed. There weren’t many people who could stop Cable with two words.
“The Nazis were not the worst people the world has ever known. I’ve since seen other dictators who were far more vicious but far less competent. The Nazis were Germans though, and the Germans had spent centuries figuring out systems that would allow them to do any given task in the most competent and efficient manner possible. That efficiency gave them great power. Previously that power had been turned to engineering, farming, music, manufacturing, philosophy, education, army-building, child development, war, art, and banking with remarkable results. This time it was turned to genocide, with equally remarkable results. Their great power did not make them inherently more evil, but it made them better at accomplishing their evil goals. That is a distinction the public usually misses.”
Now it was Hope’s turn to glare. “So what are you saying? Are you trying to lecture me about using my non-existent ‘great powers’ for good and not evil? I’ve heard it before.”
“No doubt, but I will leave that job to others who can do it more convincingly. If you will allow me, I merely wish to give you a koan, a thought experiment.”
Cable growled. That was all Hope needed to know. “Yeah, I know what a koan is. I’m not stupid. But first answer a question for me.”
“All right.”
“See, I grew up in a time of hardship and war. Cable said we were going to get away from that, that we were going some place peaceful. Only you said you grew up in a war, and all I’ve seen around us since we got here is war. So, did Cable lie to me?”
“Hope, no!” Cable cried out in more distress than Hope had heard from him after multiple gunshot wounds. He started toward her, but Cyclops held him back.
The room was dead quiet. Everyone had turned to look at them.
“I’m sorry about your childhood. That is – most interesting.” Eric raised an eyebrow at Cable, who glared back. Cyclops sighed. “But I’m an old man. The events I spoke of happened long ago. At this time, most of the world is at peace. The pattern is a persistent one, easily recurring in times of stress or great opportunism. But it is not constant.”
“You said most of the world is at peace.”
“Yes.”
“But not here.”
“Not here, or in a few other places.”
“Right. That figures. So what’s your koan?”
“Imagine that you woke up tomorrow morning with the power to do anything you wanted to do. With a wave of your hands,” Eric gestured and energy crackled between his fingers; Hope entered “showoff” in the Casebook, “you could end war, poverty, hunger, and disease. Imagine that you do so, and are proclaimed as the great Messiah. What happens next?”
“Um, party?” Hope replied, feeling stupidly optimistic.
“And after that?”
“Gosh, I don’t know. You want me to tackle ignorance, insanity, and old age next? What do you think would happen?”
“I think that within five minutes people would reinvent war. Poverty and hunger would exist again by the end of the week, and someone would invent a new disease with six months.”
“People would do that?” Hope asked, shocked. “They would actually invent new diseases?”
“The doctor who examined you earlier did just that in her younger days.”
“But why?”
The room seemed to hold its collective breath. Eric’s eyes bored into Hope with an intensity that made her skin crawl. “Because while you have eliminated the effects and perhaps even the underlying causes of these maladies, you have not removed the impulses that generated them or the habits that promoted them from within the people themselves. Old grudges will erupt; old patterns of apathy, abuse, and dependence will reassert themselves; and the Time of Troubles will soon return. Only this time they will know that you are a Messiah who can stop it all in an instant. They will be angry at you for their own failure to maintain the gift you gave them, and they will lash out at you in rage in between calling for you to do it again and again.”
“Okay.” Hope took a deep breath. “So in addition to fixing everything I have to stop them from screwing it all up again. Wonderful. How?”
“I don’t know. I never figured that one out,” admitted Eric. “There are two obvious solutions, but both of them are problematic. The first is to subjugate them and take away their ability to cause trouble. This solution inevitably leads to complaints about the loss of free will and either rebellion, "liberation", or both. The second is to re-engineer them until they no longer have the capacity to fall into negative patterns of behavior. This solution leads to even greater complaints, and both solutions result in the Messiah being labeled a monster.”
“That’s because you are a monster!” Cable growled, grabbing Hope’s arm and jerking her backwards. “Scott, what is he even doing here?”
“Eric, could you excuse us?” Cyclops asked. Cable wrapped his arm around Hope’s waist.
Eric nodded. “I’ll see what can be done about the planes. It was a pleasure to meet you again, Hope.” He inclined his head in her direction.
“Wait, what’s the rest of your name?” Hope asked.
“Eric Magnus Lehnsherr, known as –“
“Magneto, Master of Magnetism,” Hope finished. “Magneto the terrorist. Magneto the Butcher.”
“Yes.” He nodded again in farewell before leaving, while Cable held Hope tighter.
“Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s just a sick, deluded, old man.” Cable touched Hope’s hair and turned them back towards Scott.
Oh, great. That’s just wonderful, Hope thought. The first person who treats me like I’m real, who says things that actually make sense, turns out to be a mass murderer. And what does that say about my life?
And what else had he been about to say?
One thing was certain. Sorry Cable, but she would have to find the time for another conversation with “Eric” when she got the chance.
Author: CrabbyLioness
Fandom: Marvel X-books
Characters: Magneto and Hope
Summary: Basically, "Nietzsche meets Nancy Drew". Follows this scene from UXM 524: http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/1895166.html
Rating: PG for philosophy.
Disclaimer: Marvel owns everything, no money being made, this is just my brain's idea of fun.
Word Count: 1,984
"Some homecoming," Hope muttered, looking around the dingy grey room. Cable had come here to talk with the leader, Cyclops. The two men were bent over a digital map. The woman in white who called her "Darling" had brought her to a table to one side before being called away. People scurried past, throwing Hope odd looks when they thought she wasn't looking. She wasn't sure how she felt about being a "Darling" or a curiosity.
"What were you expecting?" said a voice from the shadows. Hope started. She hadn't realized someone was sitting in the chair at the far end of the table. Cable would tear a chunk out of her hide for letting someone get the drop on her like that, even if this was supposed to be "home".
She peered closer and made out the features of the old man from the lab, the one Cable and the doctor had watched so closely when he spoke to her before. They had acted like they couldn't trust him with their backs, yet here he was literally behind Cyclops' back and the backs of the rest of the leaders, and those leaders were ignoring him. Either Cyclops was a bad leader, in which case why would Cable trust him so, or there was a mystery here. Hope earnestly wanted it to be a mystery, something she could ferret out the clues for and solve all by herself while waiting for the grownups to do something useful for a change. In the back of her mind, she opened a Casebook on the old man.
"I don't know. I thought it would be some place where I could -- fit in for once, not stand out. I mean, I'm used to people staring at me, but that usually means they want to kill me. Not this not being what they want me to be." Hope paced along the table, moving closer to the old man.
"Yes, the burden of their expectations, their dreams, their salvation," the old man nodded. His face was dim in the shadows, but his eyes were unwavering in their examination of her. He stared intently like the others did, but openly and with a different expression from theirs. Eric, his name was Eric. Where had that name appeared in Cable's stories?
"Yeah, and I don't even have any stupid powers!"
"I wouldn't say that just yet. You're only 16. It's not unheard of for mutant powers to manifest even later than that."
"Oh yeah? When did your power show up?"
"What makes you think I'm a mutant? Not everyone here is one."
Hope cocked her head to one side. "I don't think Cable would be as wary of you if you weren't dangerous. What can you do?"
That earned her a fleeting, wolf-like grin. "Good, although ‘mutant’ and ‘dangerous’ are only synonymous in the popular imagination. As for what I can do, I built this island."
Hope looked around, mentally entering "builder" in her Casebook. "Okay, that's a bit impressive. But couldn't you have chosen another color scheme?"
"I'll keep that in mind," Eric replied, deadpan. "As for your first question, I honestly don't know when my powers first showed up. I had a hard childhood that didn't leave much time for self-reflection, and the first time I noticed I could do something really unusual I was about 19."
Hope’s interest grew. A hard childhood was something she knew about. "What happened when you were a child?"
"I grew up in a time of poverty and war. My people were persecuted, and my family spent many years on the run before I was captured and sent to a prison camp."
Hope studied Eric's face. "You don't have an M", she noted, adding “refugee” to her mental list.
"Hmm? No, they weren't into facial tattoos back then. The Nazis gave us individual “inventory control numbers” and made us wear a patch on our clothes that identified which persecuted group we belonged to.” Eric held out his arm. “It’s faded over time, but you can still make it out.”
Hope looked at the man’s forearm. In the dim light she could barely see what might have been writing on the underside.
“Besides, mutants were so new back then that no one knew what they were. With their veneration of Nietzsche it would have been interesting to see what the Nazis made of real Übermenschen –“
“Wait,” Hope interuppted. “You mean real Nazis?”
“Of course. What did you think I meant?”
“That’s just something people say when they mean ‘evil’, especially if the people they’re talking about commit wholesale discrimination and genocide.”
“’Ethnic cleansing’ is the term in vogue at the moment, but I meant real Nazis. Complete with brown shirts, swastikas, goosestepping, ‘Triumph of the Will’, ‘Horst Wessel Lied’,” he shrugged, “the works.”
Hope entered ‘Nazis’ to the Casebook of Eric, underlining the word. “People say they were more evil than anybody else ever.”
Eric laughed, the sound jarring in the somber atmosphere of the control room. Out of the corner of her eye Hope noticed that several people jumped and stared at them. For once she didn’t mind.
“There was at least half a century when I would have wholeheartedly agreed with that statement. But I’ve seen a lot of things, and I can honestly say that they weren’t the most evil people I’ve ever met. They were simply the most German of the evil people I’ve met.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Hope, get away from him,” Cable called out behind her, glaring at Eric. “I told you not to talk to him.”
“No,” Cyclops told Cable. “Listen.” Cable turned his glare on Cyclops for a moment, but Hope was impressed. There weren’t many people who could stop Cable with two words.
“The Nazis were not the worst people the world has ever known. I’ve since seen other dictators who were far more vicious but far less competent. The Nazis were Germans though, and the Germans had spent centuries figuring out systems that would allow them to do any given task in the most competent and efficient manner possible. That efficiency gave them great power. Previously that power had been turned to engineering, farming, music, manufacturing, philosophy, education, army-building, child development, war, art, and banking with remarkable results. This time it was turned to genocide, with equally remarkable results. Their great power did not make them inherently more evil, but it made them better at accomplishing their evil goals. That is a distinction the public usually misses.”
Now it was Hope’s turn to glare. “So what are you saying? Are you trying to lecture me about using my non-existent ‘great powers’ for good and not evil? I’ve heard it before.”
“No doubt, but I will leave that job to others who can do it more convincingly. If you will allow me, I merely wish to give you a koan, a thought experiment.”
Cable growled. That was all Hope needed to know. “Yeah, I know what a koan is. I’m not stupid. But first answer a question for me.”
“All right.”
“See, I grew up in a time of hardship and war. Cable said we were going to get away from that, that we were going some place peaceful. Only you said you grew up in a war, and all I’ve seen around us since we got here is war. So, did Cable lie to me?”
“Hope, no!” Cable cried out in more distress than Hope had heard from him after multiple gunshot wounds. He started toward her, but Cyclops held him back.
The room was dead quiet. Everyone had turned to look at them.
“I’m sorry about your childhood. That is – most interesting.” Eric raised an eyebrow at Cable, who glared back. Cyclops sighed. “But I’m an old man. The events I spoke of happened long ago. At this time, most of the world is at peace. The pattern is a persistent one, easily recurring in times of stress or great opportunism. But it is not constant.”
“You said most of the world is at peace.”
“Yes.”
“But not here.”
“Not here, or in a few other places.”
“Right. That figures. So what’s your koan?”
“Imagine that you woke up tomorrow morning with the power to do anything you wanted to do. With a wave of your hands,” Eric gestured and energy crackled between his fingers; Hope entered “showoff” in the Casebook, “you could end war, poverty, hunger, and disease. Imagine that you do so, and are proclaimed as the great Messiah. What happens next?”
“Um, party?” Hope replied, feeling stupidly optimistic.
“And after that?”
“Gosh, I don’t know. You want me to tackle ignorance, insanity, and old age next? What do you think would happen?”
“I think that within five minutes people would reinvent war. Poverty and hunger would exist again by the end of the week, and someone would invent a new disease with six months.”
“People would do that?” Hope asked, shocked. “They would actually invent new diseases?”
“The doctor who examined you earlier did just that in her younger days.”
“But why?”
The room seemed to hold its collective breath. Eric’s eyes bored into Hope with an intensity that made her skin crawl. “Because while you have eliminated the effects and perhaps even the underlying causes of these maladies, you have not removed the impulses that generated them or the habits that promoted them from within the people themselves. Old grudges will erupt; old patterns of apathy, abuse, and dependence will reassert themselves; and the Time of Troubles will soon return. Only this time they will know that you are a Messiah who can stop it all in an instant. They will be angry at you for their own failure to maintain the gift you gave them, and they will lash out at you in rage in between calling for you to do it again and again.”
“Okay.” Hope took a deep breath. “So in addition to fixing everything I have to stop them from screwing it all up again. Wonderful. How?”
“I don’t know. I never figured that one out,” admitted Eric. “There are two obvious solutions, but both of them are problematic. The first is to subjugate them and take away their ability to cause trouble. This solution inevitably leads to complaints about the loss of free will and either rebellion, "liberation", or both. The second is to re-engineer them until they no longer have the capacity to fall into negative patterns of behavior. This solution leads to even greater complaints, and both solutions result in the Messiah being labeled a monster.”
“That’s because you are a monster!” Cable growled, grabbing Hope’s arm and jerking her backwards. “Scott, what is he even doing here?”
“Eric, could you excuse us?” Cyclops asked. Cable wrapped his arm around Hope’s waist.
Eric nodded. “I’ll see what can be done about the planes. It was a pleasure to meet you again, Hope.” He inclined his head in her direction.
“Wait, what’s the rest of your name?” Hope asked.
“Eric Magnus Lehnsherr, known as –“
“Magneto, Master of Magnetism,” Hope finished. “Magneto the terrorist. Magneto the Butcher.”
“Yes.” He nodded again in farewell before leaving, while Cable held Hope tighter.
“Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s just a sick, deluded, old man.” Cable touched Hope’s hair and turned them back towards Scott.
Oh, great. That’s just wonderful, Hope thought. The first person who treats me like I’m real, who says things that actually make sense, turns out to be a mass murderer. And what does that say about my life?
And what else had he been about to say?
One thing was certain. Sorry Cable, but she would have to find the time for another conversation with “Eric” when she got the chance.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-06 10:29 pm (UTC)Aww, is that Cable's verdict, and hence the verdict of history on Magneto? I would have hoped that he would be remembered at least a little positively for the things he tried to do. And did accomplish, even if they ended badly. ::waves a tiny Genoshan flag::
Got to agree with Cyclops, though, she needed to hear his point of view, even if it isn't the whole story. Magneto, as charmingly idealistic as he is, gets the dynamics right but the analysis wrong. People don't exist in a vacuum, beset by hardships and moral choices, their environment, society, even their tools and homes make some actions easier and some harder. The third option, not changing people or their power, but the bonds between them and the places they live, never occurred to him. And probably never should occur to him, he came out of the Holocaust with a massive case of survivor's guilt, and the sure knowledge that human nature determines the world. He's forever looking at individuals.
Woah, where did that come from? This story is clearly too great for my little mind.
I've friended you, in case you write more, I hope you don't mind.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-06 10:48 pm (UTC)Magneto is of course skewing things in his direction and by his experiences, but he has more to say on this subject. There will probably be a Part 2: Teaching Through (Bad) Example and maybe even a Part 3: Surviving as the Next Great Hope, but I need to see more canon Hope first.
Friend away! I enjoy writing fanfic when I feel I can do justice to the voices.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-06 11:14 pm (UTC)Your theory works, and I can imagine Cable glossing over a lot of history in favor of more practical lessons and skills, but what a wasted opportunity. I may show my nerdy colors in that if I had a time machine, I would immediately begin making notes for the most perfect and earth-shattering history book ever.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-08 02:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-06 11:13 pm (UTC)Oh, he's got some pretty strong opinions on blood law.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-06 11:35 pm (UTC)(Man, I'll never forgive Morrison for just blotting Genosha out the way he did. So many storylines, lost, like tears in rain..)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-07 06:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-07 09:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-08 12:39 am (UTC)The Necrosha storyline supposedly includes a bunch of Genoshans getting resurrected, but I haven't read it yet, as I trade-wait. I'd guess they re-die, leaving individuals important to us around.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-08 02:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-08 02:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-07 06:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-07 09:44 pm (UTC)But it can't be coincidence that Hope and Magneto's background is so similar. The parallels simply sceam out.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-08 02:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-08 02:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-10 02:12 pm (UTC)I love it
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-10 03:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-11 04:03 pm (UTC)Do you have plans for more Hope/Nancy Drew stories? Where would you like to see the actual canon go with Hope?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-11 04:26 pm (UTC)Thank you. That was fairly easy to do by following the conventions of the Stratmeyer Method, since superhero comics only modify it.
Do you have plans for more Hope/Nancy Drew stories?
Look higher up in the comments.
Where would you like to see the actual canon go with Hope?
"The reason why children are so drawn to mystery stories is because they are spending all their time figuring out the Real World." That's from an analysis of the popularity of Stratmeyer's works. Realistically, Hope has a lot of things to figure out about herself, the world, and her place in it.
While there are many parallels between Hope and Magneto, her closest RL counterpart is Jiddu Krishnamurti. That would suggest that the first time she experiences the death of a loved one she's liable to go off in a direction that her followers predicted, but which nonetheless leaves them floundering in the dust of her wake. Of course, that might be asking a bit much of Marvel in the literary department.