Fighting makes a better story though, as opposed to running away. The steeper the odds, the better the book.
This is the problem with the scenario in general, I'd say. If your superman is truly omnipotent, then the rebellion was a fool's scheme to begin with - what's the point of fighting an enemy you can't possibly beat? So in order for any of this plot to make sense, he can't be completely impermeable to damage. There has to be some way to affect him, because otherwise, it would be like ants rebelling against a rainstorm.
Yes. I can't help but feel that he would simply be humoring the humans in their cute little "meetings". Would you suggest a sort of Kryptonite weakness?
Or another weakness - I mean, if this were a love story, his "weakness" could be his affection for his Lois Lane. He loves her, she wants him to follow the rules of the UN, so he follows the rules of the UN. The Kryptonite solution is tempting, but may make this feel too much like a Superman ripoff? I mean, obviously you wouldn't call it Kryptonite, but still...
Looking closely into Superman's weaknesses and limitations, besides Kryptonite, he is weakened under the light of a red star, since he gets his power from the light of a yellow or blue star. Your superhuman could be weakened by being removed or blocked from his power source. Additionally, Superman is only 1 person; he can only be in one place at a time. His enemies can run coordinated attacks simultaneously, and he has to choose which one to stop first.
A super intelligent alien would be capable of foreseeing the attacks by a rebel group. To address an above post, there is no reason that an alien would require something in return to be benevolent. To the OP, the plot falls into a category used time and time again. Marvel: Civil war (without aliens), Dawn of Justice, Dr. Manhattan... etc. View any of these (or read the comic books) to get an idea. Though I would be very careful to avoid structuring parallel to any of the above (asides from Watchmen), as the plots are sub-par to what would be expected in a work of literature intended for educated, adult audiences.
Hi Matt, It may do, but it's not a reason to fight. If the OP wants the MC to fight and the MC has a brain cell, he's got to be given some overwhelming reason to fight. Something that overrides keeping his skin in one piece. At which point I suspect there is no choice for him any more. The decision as to which side he has to fight for has been made for him. Cheers, Greg.
This may seem like a silly answer, but you need to ask your character. In other words, if you knew your character as well enough as you ought to, the answer of which side he would join would be obvious.
Why not? People make huge sacrifices all the time for the greater good without expecting any gain. What would be interesting though is if an apparent strength (in this case, the alien's pure benevolence towards humanity) is made into its greatest flaw as well. He would seek to protect humanity to the point of self-destruction. Darth Vader is a good example of this. In Star Wars III, we learn that his entire motive for turning to the Dark Side was love; he feared that his wife would die, and he'd already lost his mother, so going to the Dark Side would give him the power to prevent her from dying (or so he believed). The "evilness" Darth Vader succumbs to is merely a side-effect of this quest. Near the end of the movie, he erroneously assumes that his wife has betrayed him, causing him to accidentally kill her in a fit of rage. With her dead, the motive is erased, leaving in its wake the evil byproduct of his quest. The transformation is complete, and the hopeless and terrifyingly evil Darth Vader is born. That sort of thing makes for incredibly powerful drama, if done right!
For better or for worse, the ideas bandied about here remind me a lot of "Must There Be a Superman?" by Elliot S! Maggin. In brief, that story proposed a Superman who considers whether he's doing more harm than good by fixing all of humanity's problems, and ultimately decides to only help with problems humans can't handle themselves. http://www.supermanhomepage.com/comics/pre-crisis-reviews/pre-crisis-mmrs-intro.php?topic=c-review-pc-sup247 Come to think of it, the role taken in that story by the Guardians--to make Superman doubt the righteousness of his own path--could just as easily be taken by a rebel MC. Maybe he saves her, but in the process does or causes something that she can't forgive. Her quest through the story needn't be to destroy or unseat him, but simply to talk to him and get him to listen to her.
