10-03-2018, 09:39 AM | #61 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Revolutionary Supers
I don't think that can be stated as a general rule. Lots of revolutions that used coercive methods have gone on to create postrevolutionary societies that were equally coercive, or more so. France, Russia, China, Cuba, and Cambodia are all cases in point. The American Revolution is something of an exception in modern history.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
10-03-2018, 09:44 AM | #62 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Revolutionary Supers
I think that a lot of old revolutionary regimes would have done a lot better if the revolutionaries had retired after the revolution.
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10-03-2018, 09:53 AM | #63 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Revolutionary Supers
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But I wouldn't call an employer who did so a heroic figure. And this is a thread about revolutionaries as superheroes. That requires a certain measure of respect or even admiration for the means they use to pursue their ends, even if I disagree with those ends. And it seems to me that someone who says, "Okay, you've got a nice cancer-free lung there, be a shame if anything happened to it," doesn't merit my admiration.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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10-03-2018, 10:47 AM | #64 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Bristol
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Re: Revolutionary Supers
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Within 6 weeks of the French 1789 revolution Serfdom was abolitioned. The peasantry would no longer accept Serfdom. The revolutionaries also made it mandatory for everyone to learn French and the Metric system. About 20% actually spoke French and there were a myriad of measurements being used too. Maybe the Heroes could have shown up at the Battle of Valmy against the Austro Hungarians? Napoleon represents a conslidating force. Similar to Washington and Cromwell. The Imperial Guard could be Super Tough Troops that could heal from their wounds quickly? Russia 1917 in February there was no 'Super' Lenin or Bolsheviks the Kerensky Government continued with what the Tsar did which lead to the October events. Lenin was still fairly marginal, Trotsky had a name in the Soviets. There was freedom for Finland (their revolution was quite a contrast to what happend in Russia), votes for all (but a ban on secret ballots), marriage and divorce liberalised, homosexuality decriminalised, teaching reading and writing. Eventually it goes a bit wrong all of the gains were reversed by Stalin? Maybe the Heroes would fight in the Civil War - there were at least 5 sides! Even post 1928 there could be a sinister force at play to coerce the population (the reality was the working class was nigh destroyed and the peasantry were not (historically never) capable of challenging authority). The Chinese experience was one of a specialised group of intellectuals. With a mass peasant army. 1949 saw Mao take power by asking everyone to continue working (the working class and the police force). Maybe the Heroes were good at marching, a 1,000 or so Super Heroes of immense stamina? During the Cultural Revolution Mao actually swam the river quickly and other Red Guard units were Super powered fanatics? Likewise in Cuba, Che and Castro entered Havana without any help from the working class or much resistance. 800 or so 'liberators' took over Cuba. Maybe the Super Heroes were good at hiding and fighting in small groups to arm the peasants? The term Revolution should be prefixed with an adjective: Bourgois, Political, Social and also the Coup d'etat which is a form of Political Revolution along with National Liberation. Effectively each Revolution needs to be looked at what it tries to achieve and what it achieved. However you may wish to ham it up or take a more nuanced approach. The biggest risk of Revolutionary Supers is the cult of personality. |
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10-03-2018, 11:23 AM | #65 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Revolutionary Supers
Quote:
Supers participated in the known historic revolutions, and contributed to their known outcomes. In this version, supers are not actually "super"; they're more like cinematic or folkloric concretizations of the conflicts that were going on among normal human beings, akin to "Liberty Leading the Masses" or Captain America, but they don't have historical agency in their own right. Supers are powerful enough to exercise agency in their own right, and to change the course of history—the "great man" theory of history written even larger. In this case you don't have the same revolutions, or not only the same revolutions. The measure of a movement's power may be not its ability to recruit large numbers of people to support it, but its ability to recruit, or even create, superhumanly powerful beings who can wield the power of an army or a state without having the population of a state. Of course this implies a different model of social organization: not merely aristocratic but more like the way a mere handful of Mongols could dominate the whole of China. "Concerning gods we have the belief, and concerning men the certainty, that . . . the strong do what they can, and the weak do what they must," as Herodotus had the Athenians say. It seems to me that "cult of personality" doesn't quite come to grips with this latter form; it envisions a situation where in reality you have the former model, but you have the illusion of its being the latter model, and that illusion is itself perhaps a tool of power (as if the "man of steel" were not Clark Kent but Joseph Vissarionovitch Djugashvili). But what if the key actor were not merely a human being playing a superheroic role, but an actual superhuman? (As Spengler put it in his speech about National Socialism, not a heroic tenor but a hero?) (David Brin's "Thor Versus Captain America" addresses this, in a way.)
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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10-03-2018, 02:13 PM | #66 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Revolutionary Supers
Since we seem to be getting further afield from the idea of a current-day revolutionary superhero, I'll note another source that can be used to look at a possible revolutionary super - Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion. The titular character isn't a traditional superhero, but has the ability to force anyone making eye contact with him to follow a direct order... once. He leverages this alongside, in GURPS terms, his high IQ, Leadership, Strategy, and Tactics skills (amongst others) to take over a weak revolutionary group and transform it into a world-altering organization.
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GURPS Overhaul |
10-03-2018, 03:02 PM | #67 | ||
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: Revolutionary Supers
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You ignore that most revolutions have periods of war and other forms of civil strife. Place a pro-revolution Superhero in the mix and they could prevent a lot of needless death and speed the revolutionary victory. Quote:
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Per Ardua Per Astra! Ancora Imparo |
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10-03-2018, 03:44 PM | #68 | ||
Join Date: Jul 2005
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Re: Revolutionary Supers
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But you make a good point about the ignobility of the proposed magical healer. It is even more like creating a perfectly workable program... with built in bugs and back doors. A trick that we all have reason to fear nowadays. You have persuaded me on a small point! Well done!
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Michael Cule,
Genius for Hire, Gaming Dinosaur Second Class |
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10-03-2018, 04:07 PM | #69 | |
Join Date: Feb 2011
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Re: Revolutionary Supers
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10-03-2018, 04:32 PM | #70 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Revolutionary Supers
Well, only the USA has been willing to give health insurance companies that much power, and the health care sector is now over 20% of its GDP, which is evidence of an absurd economic imbalance. By comparison, Canada, with a health care system that exceeds the USA on every performance metric (especially in the prevention of maternal and child mortality), spends half as much money on health care and provides quality health care to all of its citizens. The health care costs of the USA are a massive private tax on the economy, hindering individual and business investment, and really only benefitting the administrators and investors of the health care sector.
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