I'm currently writing a fiction/ fanfiction (the character is powerful enough that in any other work, she would be called mary sue). Basically, she was travelling through hyperspace before crash-landing onto the planet. The planet has gone through a planet-spanning war, with the victors being a brand of superhumans called Superiors. Who then used genetic knowledge to create a race of loyal slaves who are slightly less superhuman, called servitors. And then there are the ordinary humans, named sapiens. The place was a complete shithole. Think of the worst excesses of rome and chattel slavery, mixed in with high tech and superhuman strength. There were work camps where people were worked to death to repair the destroyed environment from the war, dying on leftover chemical and biological weaponry. A sapien could be raped, killed, and mutilated by a superior and the superior would only get community service for it. Sapiens starved in ghettos, as superiors and servitors feasted and dined and took walks in parks. The plan was to genocide them all, slowly, until the only thing left was Superiors and Servitors. Made worse was the fact that superior and servitor psychology was very different. Servitors couldn't even conceive the concept of disloyalty to their masters, while superiors have increased aggression and decreased empathy, made for the war to take over the world, and have basically grown on the most toxic brew of race superiority ever (think nazis, draka, etc) backed by their superhuman bodies. The main character saw this, and grew angry. Very angry. Her first act was to kill two servitors pursuing a woman who had fled from the death camps. Her second, was to take over the satellite network. Her third, was to take over the death camp, heal everyone inside of it, and then take the inmates and arm them and throw them at the nearby city. Her fifth act was to fire a biological weapon worldwide which had a 100% infection rate, 50% death rate on all Servitors and Superiors. There were 10,000 superiors, 100,000 servitors, and 1 billion humans. The war that came next was brutal. Nuclear weapons were snuck into key facilities, installations, and detonated. The Superior government had its voicebox crushed, with the satellites now under enemy control, and then decapitated, its equivalent to the pentagon wiped out by a surprise nuclear strike. Wherever the MC walked, her enemies died en masse, as she walked onto military bases and government buildings and killed anyone that didn't run away fast enough. Cloning facilities were destroyed by surprise bombardments, and important personnel were killed by doppelganger suicide bombers. The quisling armies desert or turn on their masters, as loyalty officers are assasinated. At the end of the day, 9/10ths of the servitors were dead, killed because they refused to give up and stop fighting. Where there were once thousands of superiors, there were only hundreds left. A court is called. The Main character is there, alongside many others. The crimes of the superiors and the servitors are put out there. There is an argument, between those who say that they should give them mercy and not sink to their level, and those who say that the above are simply quislings and they should return the favor the Superiors gave to them. There is one tie breaker. The Main character. They look to her and ask her, what should they do? By this time the Main character had already killed tens of thousands, many of them who in any other circumstance couldn't even have scratched her. As time passed, she grew angrier and angrier, seeing the numerous abuses and mistreatments heaped upon the sapiens, getting more and more brutal with her killing and her treatment of the POWs. And now it has all come to a head. Does she give the order, and order the entirety of the Servitor and Superior race to be exterminated? Or does she give them a second chance, either isolating them from the rest of the population or making sure that they don't rampage against the rest of the populace?
Well, judging from the fact you said the superiors can't be peaceful, not really, with just rage and no empathy, plus all of the background of the main character, it follows she'd automagically vote to end them. She's got a pretty hefty bias going in to this court thing, and I don't think she'd give up that bias in order to be fair. That would go against her character. My original expectation was that she was going to be the one on trial and the question of Mercy or death was for her. That's a whole new ballpark because she's unleashed hell on these people, and she sees herself as in the right, when she just kind of invaded a culture. It wasn't necessarily a good culture in terms of morals, but she's destroyed a way of life. That's where I'd find it a bigger struggle to answer your main question.
OH no. Its not non existent. It's a spectrum, heavily tilted to one side. They were originally made to wage a war to take over the planet. Extrapolate from that. Wow. Well.... That certainly is a question. Not on the level of a trial, certainly. I'm not a fan of the "it's their culture!" talk. But you do make sense, in the fact that she's probably slaughtered a great deal of them. "Oh hero. You who called yourself the scourge of God, the avenging angel, you who purport to rescue these people. Many of the people here had not pain a single hand on a sapien before this. And yet, you who have slaughtered tens of thousands presume to judge us. Why are we in chains, and not you? You who have slaughtered tens of thousands of people who could not have opposed you at their greatest hour?" Because the superiors and Servitor are superhuman...but far less superhuman than the mc.
Given how you've described the situation, I don't see why the MC would spare them. She has drunk deeply from the chalice of hate and has been pushing for genocide this whole time, so I don't see why she'd stop when so close to achieving it. But ultimately what it comes down it is what sort of message do you want to send with your story. If she does order their extermination then your story is essentially pro-genocide. Or at least could easily be misidentified as such. The problem is that if she is willing to use biological warfare to decimate them to unsustainable levels, then it doesn't really matter should she, after the fact, decide that wiping them out completely is wrong. She already did so much damage that it's a choice between immediate or delayed extermination rather than should they be spared or not. Especially since it's unlikely that the Sapiens who want their eradication will just stand aside should say no. They will be inspired more by her actions (which are genocidal) rather than her words. Basically if you don't want it to come down to genocide, you'll have to rethink how your heroine approaches the conflict. Because as it is written here, her voting for their eradication is the only likely option and even if she votes for mercy, she has reduced the Superiors power so much that they would be slaughtered after she left anyway. (At least that is my take on it, I can't speak for anyone else.)
Yeah, that just sounds like genocide to me. Two wrongs don't make a right, you know? Hardly a likeable MC But to your original question, it makes no sense for a character such as you've described to even consider the possibility of mercy. Also that doesn't sound like a very fair trial to me.
It reminds me of the Peacekeepers from ... Farscape. A bit. I think I misread what you'd said originally, sorry. Thank you for the clarification. Why would it not be on the level of a trial? She's committed atrocities against a group of people simply because their way of life made her angry. I'm not trying to say "it's their culture" in the sense I agree with what they've done, but surely they've reached the point where they've become the oppressed now? With the destruction you've described her doing, she's become the oppressor. In my opinion, anyway. Again, I'm not trying to sound like I'm on their side, but it's hard to say one of them is in the right when both groups have done seriously wrong things. In the end, I do think she'd be on the side of wiping all of them out, but then I think that makes her a bit too predictable. If she errs on the side of mercy, it'd be unexpected, but then she could use the remainder of the population as servants to the humans, or something. She could make their lives hellish even more so as revenge for the humans already abused by the people she sees as inferior.
Oh no, it most certainly wasn't her brightest hour. Or frankly, a good hour in any case. It was pretty much a complete shitshow from start to finish. Hmm... this turned out a lot darker than I thought. The case was for the MC, who by the way is in a universe who's very laws of physics and past dictated that the most cherished words of the enlightenment, 'All men are equal', are manifestly untrue. The MC is very much not-like her compatriots, coming from a planet (ours) that hadn't had any supernatural happenings before in the mainstream, with the ordinary values that westerners have (all men are equal, racism and persecution is bad), in a universe where people with powers like hers are viewed as gods/ demigods/ bodhisattvas/ saints and are worshipped. There's even an entire religion that states that her kind is here as a messiah and that she can do no wrong. The crux of the matter is this: Will she continue on with the path of fire and blood, push her powers to the full extent, and bring what she views as 'order and prosperity' to her section of the universe, or will she decide to go on a more peaceful, merciful approach? Hmm... I'll probably have to re-approach this scenario. Maybe I made it too one-sided.
Mercy has been and always shall be the greatest show of power. For if a person is so overwhelmingly strong that an opponent can't possibly win, why take them seriously enough to kill them?
Given the genetic disposition for aggression and lack of empathy, especially when combined with super strength, leaving them alive on planet seems risky. The survivors will likely attempt to regain their lost position at a later time. I would suggest 2 options: 1). Can the genetic modifications that increased the aggression and lack of empathy be undone? Maybe not for the current generation, but for their children or grandchildren? 2). Failing item #1, put all the survivors of the superiors/servitors on a spaceship. Give them basic colonization/terraforming tools. Disable their navigation systems so they can't find their way back and shoot them off into space in a random direction.If you want, have them all in deep sleep pods for the first couple weeks to make sure once they come awake they are well out of the system and unlikely to find their way back. Essentially you are giving them the chance to survive in space or find another world to colonize on their own.
Yes. Yes she can undo the genetic modification. But the survivors would decry them. Let it be known that they really dig the whole 'master race' and 'evolution' thingy. Removing the gene mods would make them cry out that it is genocide (not much help, considering what she's already done). Imagine draka-esque or nazi-esque or southern chattel slavery, but worse. 2). She doesn't have access to a space ship. Or any method of building one. Wartorn world, remember? Frankly speaking, it was a miracle of luck that she won at all, since she banked on a combination of a disgruntled population, bioweapons, cyberwarfare, and unstoppable momentum to get the ball rolling. Yes. But I'm wondering if there is a line between anti-hero and villain.
There is, but it's blurry. I'd simplify it done to ends vs means. So for a Hero and Anti-Villain, their end goal is selflessly for the greater good. A Villain and an Anti-Hero's end goal is inherently selfish, it may not be necessarily evil, but they definitely don't care about the greater good. A Hero will take good means to get to their goal. Not only do they strive for the greater good, but all of their actions are morally right. An Anti-Hero takes it a step darker. They will, for the most part, not care about doing what is right (or wrong) but ultimately they help more than they hurt. They will often be brought onto the heroic path because they grow to care for a heroic character. Or their goal just happens to align with the greater good at the time. An Anti-Villain will pursue their heroic goal using whatever means necessary. Their actions will be unforgivable, even if the reader can understand why they might think they have to take those steps. A Villain will only care about their own well being and interests. If they ever do anything morally right it is only for selfish reasons. Mostly they will not care about who gets hurt by what they do. Now these are just some definitions I came up with while trying to simplify it for my own sake. But from these definitions I'd classify your MC as an Anti-Villain. She has good goals, but is too extreme in trying to meet them.
This is the time, I reckon, when you need to start to recognise your overall theme, @Accelerator231 . What is it that YOU want to say about this situation? That forgiveness and rehabilitation is possible? Or that crimes must always be punished to the fullest extent? Do you want your MC to walk away from this story having been tainted by the decision she makes? What you you want to leave the readers with? I like the fact that this is not going to be an easy decision for you. Maybe try several different endings (in your head ...you don't necessarily need to write them yet.) But what happens next, if she orders them all put to death? What will the consequences be? For her? For her society? For anyone still out there who may object to this kind of solution...for personal OR philosophical reasons? And ditto if she decides to show mercy. What happens next? Will her authority be diminished or strengthened? What do you think she should do? More importantly, for the story, what do you think she WILL do? You have made this character. So what will her endgame be? To get you going, you might want to read about the Nuremburg Trials, after WW2. This is where the fate of the surviving Nazi hierarchy was debated and decided. There will have been similar issues, and you might want to learn about how these decisions were taken. And learn about the steps Germany and the world took afterwards, to ensure this would 'never happen again.' (Which, of course, is already falling apart, to some extent. Look into why. I think it's safe to say that THOSE Nazis—the individuals who were punished as well as the ones who were let off the hook—are not personally responsible for the new fascism of today. How do you kill an idea? Can you ever ensure that bad stuff will never happen again?)
I apologise for cutting away part of your post. But I must give some background context for the fiction I'm writing (Its fiction). So at the start, the gods were created by the titans. As eternal slaves. Being slaves and created with free will and their own hopes and dreams, they didn't quite like this. And the titans being somewhat genre savvy, encoded them with a geas to never raise a hand to their creators. And so instead, they empowered humans, the one race so utterly pathetic and weak that they were never geassed, and let them loose against the titans. The closest equivalent is that somehow, a culture of yeast in some guy's backyard brewery somehow got access to weapons, and proceeded to wage war against the human race, and then won. These were called the Exalted. Built from the ground up to be able to singlehandedly grind down entire armies of ordinary foes and force reality-warping titans to take notice of them. And as time passed, the Exalted became corrupt. The strongest ones, Solars, becoming the worst of all. Exaltation doesn't just give you martial power. It also gives you power in any form of human endeavour, as long as you are willing to put in the time and effort. The after effects were completely predictable. The main religion of the utopia they built was that an exalt could do no wrong. They rerouted the entirety of the reincarnation cycle so that anyone who was killed by an exalt would reincarnate into a better life (No guesses on how that turned out). It got so bad, that in the end, the Solars were toppled, the majority sealed away, and the remainders and their escaped consorts demonised and hunted down. The story starts when you awaken as a Solar, and then start deciding what to do with your power. At the start, you can do shit like mind control an entire nation to love you, topple an army, cure the black death, or whatever. The key part is... 'Well, you got all this power. Good luck making the world a better place! Because trying to change the world for the better is a really fucking tough job!' I say the theme of this is that the MC dearly, dearly, wishes to make the world a better place... and is a staunch idealist with refusal to compromise. People compromise all the time, because, well, that's how you get things done. You play politics, you give concessions, etc. Not this MC. Here, she has realised that she is a giant among ants... and is currently stomping on them because she thinks they must die. People compromise because they don't have enough power. Not the MC. She has the power, and she shall impose her ideology and her morality... even if she has to carry out a genocide. The last part of the war is to be planned to have her storming the bunker, smashing apart entire armies of bodyguards and tearing open reinforced steel doors, even as the voices on the intercom change from cursing her, to making negotiations, to trying and appeal to her better nature and cultural relativism, to simple base pleading as she slowly stalks towards the last bastion of resistance. I guess I'm really goddamned conflicted, because I myself am not sure what she's doing is right or wrong. The institution I've written up is complete shit and is something that really needs to be torn down.... but if the MC was on trial for warcrimes, there would be a fucking laundry list. Starting with the firing of a biological weapon with a 50% death rate. What I want readers to go away with? I guess thoughts like: "Wow, it's really nice to have a superhero go out and beat up bad guys!" "Dear fucking god, she slaughtered all those people and got away scot free. Superheroes are terrifying." "We really don't need idealists here. Scratch an idealist, and a monster bleeds." "Fucking finally. Someone with the power to stand up to wrongs and rights them with the appopriate force." "And here we see the futility of morality. The superiors were about to get away with everything, until someone more superior than them put them down. In the end, the efforts of normal man are but dust in the wind." Something like that? Sorry, @jannert , if its rambling?
I really like that statement. It's kinda the defining line between democracy and other forms of government, isn't it? Compromise and inclusiveness is what makes a democratic system work—but it's not always efficient, because not everybody agrees. So there either needs to be a solution that everybody can live with—which takes a lot of time and effort and good will on both sides to produce—OR the 'winning' side just takes what they have earned through votes, and the other side is left with nothing much at all. And resentment seethes, plots are hatched, etc. Which is where we are at the moment in the real world, isn't it? An autocratic power figure who is at the top of the wheel can take any decision he or she wants. However, the downside (or upside, depending on who is in power) of an autocratic system is that that person or ideal is ripe for overthrowing, once the opposition has gathered enough power. So once it's consolidated its power, the next thing an autocracy usually does is make damn sure no potential usurpers are allowed to live, etc. It's one of the problems I always have with the notion of 'superheroes.' They don't actually exist, so the solutions they come up with aren't always relevant to the world. They are often just what we WISH would happen. But get to the bottom of that wish ...and you might find some surprising anomalies. You might wish that all 'bad people' are removed, and only the 'good' are allowed to carry on. But the trick is, who makes that determination? And on what basis? If you believe that most people exist in shades of grey and that nobody is perfect, it's not easy to draw that immovable line.
I also have this going on in my story. The responsibility for ultimate power. Given the path already taken, they're all dead, Actions always have repercussions, and more than supes have died and more has been destroyed, just through momentum. This is more like Deathproof. The end is death, just by inertia, or quickly. Based on what you describe, the nerdy kid stomps on the school bully's face. Roll credits, take your award for Best Romp. LOL Or, instead of being a repeat of Thanos, find a lesson. Let's say destruction can be undone, but never completely. Let's say rebuilding succeeds, but never totally. So every iteration is but a slow path to oblivion. The question becomes, why stop at the enemy if the next iteration will be the same? And it will. Just get it over with? What's the alternative? That much power would certainly enable creation? My disappointment in Endgame was that it wasn't any endgame at all. What comes next? The real enemy is Entropy, I guess? I hate Greek tragedy. Inane babbling complete, resume program. Carry on.
Well, seeing what your MC has done up to that point, and from how her personality seem to be, there is only one answer. Extermination.
Well, this is going to be really frigging dark. I wonder if such an action irreversibly taints a character.
...No offense, but what is your story even about? Like, what's the thematic statement here? What are you trying to say with it? I honestly can't discern it from your synopsis. It mostly sounds like your character just got mad and started killing people. And hey, I'm not against gratuitous violence, but I think it kinda has to serve a larger narrative purpose or it comes across as rather pointless. What's the conflict? I mean, obviously there is the literal conflict what with the nuclear war and massacres and so on, but what do you intend your protagonist to learn from it? How does she change along the way, and for what purpose? What is the conclusion you want your readers to draw from all of this? A hopeful one, the ending bittersweet if not happy? Or is this a classical tragedy, where the protagonist is brought to ruin by her own actions? Some kind of "those who fight monsters may become the monster" type of thing? Because you can't just flip a coin with this sort of stuff, you know? Whatever decision your character makes must be part of the plan. So, what is your plan?
