#mutant insurrection

[cyphers-and-sunspots]

What is your favorite board game?

O’Anon

Hm, I actually don’t know. Board game? Definitely Isle of Cats or X-Men: Mutant Insurrection. Card game? Marvel Champions.

Thanks for the ask, O’Anon!

[warsamongthestars]

I became curious about something; how different do you think things would go if someone else but Crosshair had a 'functioning chip'? Say Hunter was the one 'loyal' to the Empire. Because then the rest of the Batch would suddenly stand leaderless for instance. Ignoring the bad writing of the show of course. (Sorry if you've covered this somewhere already.)

I prolly have covered it? I don't think so, but I also don't remember, and I am doomed to inevitably repeat things as all who forget their history are will to do...

I think that the situation is an interesting story to explore.

But if it followed TBB's logic, it would be one that, unfortunately, would inevitably done the same things that occur in TBB, without fail and maybe with only minor to insignificant one-line differences.

( Almost word per word, exactly like a fanfiction rewrite that spends a majority of its time just copy pasting lines word per word without taking it stories into new directions... just merely adding scenes that get a Mature Rating slapped on )

Because TBB is not, in fact, written to tell stories but sell you something for attention and subscription money. It was never going to be deep, it was only going to bank on hype, rush and attention-of-the-moment; and it was never going to follow any kind of character or character arc beyond how it affects their OC and the OC's rival character.

So to follow the lines of this logic, to follow TBB, is to place Hunter as Omega's anime rival... and it would be just like Crosshair's arc, if not exactly. Maybe a change of planet, maybe a change from sniper rifle to combat knife, exchange the energy bow for a vibrosword, but the result wouldn't be any different.

BUT.

If we were to follow the line of thinking, with the idea that unique characters make the plot, they are not made by the plot... And that means following the character as they are introduced and presented, with all implications in mind, with the world build of Star Wars and the set up of the Clone Wars...

And of course, adding the best parts-- human experience and human imagination in a beautifully gruesome mesh-like disaster...

It starts with the fact that the Bad Batch are killers first and foremost. They brag about putting down insurrections and killing the people involved [the Yalbec story from the Bad Batch arc of season 7. The implications behind their bragging are horrifying, so I grabbed popcorn.], as well as the fun additional information that suggests why there was an insurrection [ I'd be pretty pissed too if my giant bug mother was hunted down and killed because her stinger was delicious to some cultures, and even more so if the Republic we're apart of does nothing about it. ]

They all follow the Empire, because its easy. Even better, they're highly regarded for their skills, probably finally get a paycheck with benefits. To the bad batchers, there really isn't much difference between the Empire and the Republic, the Empire is just the Republic with the shackles off anyway, and they're just continuing what they've been doing since deployment.

But because the chip runs on regular clone genome, not their mutant modified brains, that's when conflict would begin arise.

That's the sciencey-bullshit explanation.

The narrative-bullshit explanation, is that the strongest parts of each character can break through the evil-artifact's influence, provided that what is strong about them isn't what the evil-artifact attaches / attacks.

That's a general set up. So let's add your suggestion as a spark point to get stories going moving forward. Setting up the setting is all nice and dandy, but we need Ideas now.

So let's add in the idea that while everyone knows something is probably wrong, but can't quite put their finger on it, they know that there is obviously up with Hunter.

He's colder, he's more vicious, he's not the anxious compulsive snarker now, he's seemingly more a perfect soldier than any reg. Orders are absolute and be damned to anyone in the way.

( It was already noticed that the regs are acting like that too, regardless if they were like that before, and this on the backburner of the minds of the Bad Batch. But because most of the Bad Batchers are "special" (save Echo, who is freaking out) they don't consider themselves to be as knee deep in the cacky as they actually are. )

Echo is the very first one to call it out. He knows something is wrong. His brothers aren't acting right, the Bad batch have been getting these odd headaches, and Hunter has done a total 180. But given that Echo is new, the rest of the Batch try to confront Hunter.

( The jedi are dead. Echo saw the massacre reports and recordings via his new built-in hacking skills. Rex is dead, Jesse is dead, Kix is dead--everyone he has ever known, is gone. And if they're not gone, they are certainly not them anymore. Echo wants desperately to trust his squad--they're the only ones left... )

They send Wrecker first, because its hard to do anything to Wrecker. Wrecker's general warmhearted rough housing, results in being yelled at and given a vicious cold shoulder. Wrecker leaves Hunter alone, and becomes depressed.

Then its Tech, who isn't a socialite by any means, and tries to break the ice, so to speak, with fun information facts he's learned. When Hunter ignores him, Tech skips right into direct confrontation, breaking down that there is something wrong going on and they're in the middle of it, Hunter shuts him down. Tech leaves Hunter alone, and copes by putting his mind to a nearby droid project, and never saying a word to anyone.

Then the big one, Crosshair. Second in command, confident and in control, and the biggest asshole when he has had it with someone. He straight up confronts Hunter, no preamble, though unlike the avoidant Wrecker or the bullheaded Tech in confrontations, Crosshair hits his marks.

"You weren't like this before." "You're acting like a Reg." "Since when did we care about Orders?" "Since when did we care about missions beyond surviving them and the GAR?" "You notice how the Empire is killing regs enmass?" "You're going to led us to our death with that attitude."

( It should be noted, that Hunter's original self, has just enough capacity over his chipped brainwashing to not report his brothers, nor to execute them for defying Order 66. )

( This is not enough, however, to stop him from retaliating with the full force of a wild animal. )

Hunter and Crosshair end up in a fight. Hunter, at his worst, is a vicious dirty fighter who uses his environment and flexibility and stealth, to take down an opponent. He is wicked wiht a knife and small arms, Crosshair's absolute weakness as a primarily long ranged fighter. Hunter, chip or no chip, does not attack to kill his brothers, but Crosshair is dragged to medical afterwards for an "incident with a training droid".

Echo has had enough. Lines have been crossed, he has been told to sit back and wait for the team to handle it, his own feelings are a chaotic mess, and now his alarms are going off.

Whatever is going on with the clone army and with Hunter, its not something that can be reasoned with, and its certainly not something that can be done about when under the scrutiny of these natborn officers.... These new officers who would order public staff executions, and gods knows what else they do to the planets they occupy...

The only decision is to run and maybe, find a way to help from the outside, because they're not doing shit here.

( with dragging of feet and looming disaster in their minds ("We're just, leaving Hunter behind!?"), it doesn't take much for Echo to convince the remaining squad that they can't handle Hunter right now, but maybe, just maybe, they can find help and get him later. )

( "He'll be fine, he has to be fine, they aren't going to kill him because of our failure, that'd just be a... waste of resource," says Echo, "We just need to sell it like its a mutiny." )

They do. Hunter is hard to deal with one on one, but collectively (well, minus a wounded Crosshair) its easy to cause a scene and punch his lights out in front of cameras.

The tricky bit is running to the Havoc Marauder. They are, of course, successful, but not without some strange, unseen, outside help from a blond haired clone cadet we haven't seen up onto this point. To CF99, it just seems like coincidence that the blast doors reopen as they're closing, and that training droids are suddenly flooding hallways.

They fly off.

And that would be... well, at least the first five episodes maybe? No TV show movie or 1 hour episode start, just, full on first quarter of season 1.

This is just my idea of it... but it starts with setting Echo up as the leader of the Bad Batch, and it does not involve Omega having center stage, but merely being an implied part of plot to be revealed later.

As for what happens going forward, that depends on what we want them to face. Do we want them inevidably heading to Wayland? Does Wayland even exist as it does in TBB or is it something else? Does Pabu exist or maybe are we canonizing old media planets into the Disney verse? Does Cid exist or is someone else around?

The best thing about a over arching episodic story... is that you can literally do anything, as long as you know the world build and the rules of the "game". There's a lot more that can be done in the STar Wars sandbox than just rehashing familiar shit for kudos and likes.

But we can set up a few things from what we know prior and from what this set up already has.

Rex is out there, starting the Rebellion, and he's working to free clones--which is perfect in order to get Hunter back. This also sets up the reveal of the chips as well as the fact that it was Fives who discovered them, and it was only by slim chance, that Rex ever escaped in the first place.

Crosshair would understand the logic of leaving Hunter, but the emotional impact of leaving a brother for potential dead, would immediately make him a rival challenging character to Echo. The writing rules of this situation, however, is to make him merely a rival, not a saboteur. Just because someone is a dick, doesn't mean they're going to unscrew the ship engine and tell the enemy where you're at. This is very important to keep in mind.

Each Bad Batcher would have an episode to come to terms with leaving Hunter, facing what their relationship with him meant to them, and dealing with the possibility that he may or may not come back. Part of this is returning to a post-battle Kamino and finding 99 was killed, which would play into why each Batcher is anxious.

Just as well, for emotional character scores that doesn't involve the plot or grief, each Batcher gets an episode to face the galaxy on their own merits, potentially leading them to a finale arc later on for when this initial over-arching plot is over, as a way to either allow the next over-arching plot or to retire the character for now. Rule of writing? It has to bee on their merits alone, not detailing their relationship with their team.

Of course we're going to have team episodes that help define to the audience what kind of relationship with batcher has with one another.

And we're gonna need episodes where the Bad Batchers butt heads with Echo as Echo leads a team that he wasn't a vital part of, and didn't share much history with.

Obviously we have to save Hunter. None of this 3 years separation-dangle-him-in-your-face shit. And Just as the other batchers get their own character episodes, both for their histories and themselves facing the world--Hunter needs those too without the looming threat of the chip. But before we get there, we're going to have fun with his chip episodes but allowing him to have an evil arc with obvious internal conflict--as his true self fights with the evil outside forces controlling his life.

I know I don't like her as she's treated in TBB, but Omega would be an interesting character to use without putting her in the spotlight. We do need someone around who knows their medical. Just maybe she's integral to freeing Hunter...

Because I love a dose of self indulgence, and every writers needs that in their stories, each Batcher gets a Chip episode or Chip Arc in some fashion. Enough to ensure character conflict and growth, and also to inspire fans to create their own Chip AUs. Could be that, because of how CF99 was made, removing their chips are a lot more complicated than just a brain operation on a derelict ship.

New Clones introduced of course. Perhaps those who would've filled in for clones who died in TCWs--like, since Commander Ponds die, who was Windu's new Commander for the rest of the war? And those from TBB, cos let's face it, thems were awesome too. Mayday might just survive this time!

No Guest Characters. If there are, they need to have a serious connection to clones, other wise, someone is robbing story and character for cameo rights, and that's not how you make a story. This is a clone story.

If we're gonna have Rex, we need Cody. Cody needs to be totally chipped as a foremost example of how bad the chip gets. He's meant to serve exactly as he's intended, as he's done in all his appearances, and in this case, he needs to additionally be Rex's rival and antagonist character.

And the final writing rule, the most important one...

Clone stories need to have an element of tragedy and finality. You don't have to kill a main character to get it, but there is no happy ending here.

The happy ending is performed by Luke Skywalker in "Return of the Jedi".

We can only achieve Bittersweet, at best. Everyone can live, and still lose.

Its by this rule, that Order 66 really is the tragedy its born to be and not just an excuse for the plot to get rid of all the Jedi characters.

We should see its direct effects as a clone story, and not just some one handed episode that never becomes relevant again. When this story ends, the loose ends should be on purpose as a message of "Because of the events leading to this story, this rope is permanently cut and can never be tied again. This is not a place of honor, we are survivors of the worst and the world cannot be fixed."

...

I wasn't expecting to write a full episode with a concept board attached, but damn, here you go, a full novel for your question.

[cryptovalid]

The politics of Operation Zero Tolerance

If you've followed X-men '97, you know that's it's more than competently executed nostalgia-bait. It's a deconstruction of the original ideological framework of the X-men. I'll be riffing off of the way that Operation Zero Tolerance mirrors real world alt-right ideology and where the show might lead this theme. Spoilers ahead up to episode 8. It's a long one.

So the reflections of the January 6th insurrection, Great Replacement conspiracy and stochastic terrorism are pretty spot on. But what do the Prime candidates actually believe?

Mutants are constantly referred to as 'the next step in human evolution'. This frightens some non-mutants, who see themselves being replaced. Their solution is to subjugate mutants.

I want to focus on some of the ways this doesn't make sense first.

1. Evolution doesn't have well defined 'next steps': every new generation is slightly different from the previous, so that over time new traits will emerge and become common, and others will become less widespread. In the comics, this is not why mutants exist: the are the result of alien tampering with human dna: the Celestials implanted the X-gene in some humans. So 'mutants' are demonstrably just a strain of humanity, and the main reason humans have mutant babies is that their own genes are getting expressed in a new way.

2. No amount of control or violence can stop this. The rate at which mutants appear isn't even dependent on their own reproductive success since most mutants have human parents.

We don't know why more and more mutants are being born now, but OZT will not stop this. It's not even their goal. When they say human being are being 'replaced', they actually mean replaced as the ruling class of the planet. Bastion's 'utopia' doesn't have less mutants being born, just used as slave labor.

This really puts the anxiety of OZT into focus: they want to maintain privilege. They aren't really being 'replaced', any more than older generations are always 'replaced' by younger generations. They are primarily afraid that mutants will render them obsolete in the labor market. But if mutants can be forced to do unpaid labor for their benefit, that doesn't threaten them.

The way this parallels the rhetoric of the alt right is striking. Obviously, the reasons why jobs are moving overseas are different: colonized populations are more exploitable by capital. But the fears are the same: my children are different from me, and if I'm not valued for my labor, I will become poor. Like OZT, the alt right also chooses to enact violence even though it won't solve either of these issues. the MAGA-crowd threatens non-conformity and asserts its dominance to maintain its relative privilege over other groups. This is why it's all culture war stuff. The alt right isn't interested in striking to improve conditions for workers, it will attack immigrants and minorities they perceive as competition. Never the bosses that make the hiring decisions. It's scapegoating.

Even child and slave labor are on the table. Because again, this 'economic anxiety' isn't triggered by other people doing the work, just by other people getting money, care and respect that they feel they are owed.

It's not the solution that matters to OZT or the alt right: it's the catharsis of violence and control. It's interesting that OZT actually has a better point: mutants are inherently better at some jobs, some mutants ARE inherently dangerous. Their anxiety is way more warranted.

And I think that is what makes OZT hit so hard as an allegory: it is a steel man version of every bigot's rhetoric, and it is horrifying.

Where might the show take this theme? I don't think the show will end with the X-men fighting Magneto, as that would undermine the show's thematic support for his ideals. Magneto might be defeated, but that will not be the finale. I think the institutional support for OZT will be the closing statement.

The events of episode 8 will be blamed on the X-men. There's just too many ways that a sleeper that Wolverine cut to ribbons can be spun and Bastion has stated multiple times that he understands the optics of martyring mutants. In my opinion this explains how the primes failed to kill a single X-man, even though Trask could take down the whole team.

This twist will (I think) be used to set up the Avengers as the final threat: the X-men try to reason with Magneto, the Avengers attack him, and maybe Xavier erases Magneto's memory as a prelude to Onslaught.

Onslaught can then lead into Heroes Reborn; when Onslaught threatens to kill the Avengers and Fantastic Four, Franklin Richards creates a parallel universe, where they live out their lives in blissfull ignorance of mutants. I believe this could explain why the MCU does not have mutants: it's the Heroes Reborn Universe (The FF could live in a separate universe).

So how to put a button on OZT? I don't think that they will end as a political force (these ideas will remain relevant in the fiction as in the real world). I think the show will obviously set up a fight with Bastion, but the ideological refutation will have to come from Mrs. Da Costa. She is the poster child of an apathetic liberal, who will only support mutants in fashionable ways. If she ends the series giving up her social status to save her son, perhaps even dying, it will thematically reinforce the need for allies to be traitors of their own privilege.

This ties in with my final speculation. This is a weird one and a reach. We have not seen Roberto Da Costa's father. We also don't know where Bastion's father is (who is essentially Nimrod). Is it possible that they are half-brothers? Emmanuel Da Costa is a prominent anti-mutant member of the Hellfire Club, and it's strange he hasn't shown up yet. Honestly, this could possibly explain why Roberto is so light-skinned. Which I do not want to make excuses for otherwise.

[swartzmark]

"She is a gender mutant not part of any known world, and horrified because of it. Karloff's Monster likes himself, no matter his limitations, but the Bride seethes in distress--she has come into this world with hatred and misgiving like a feral child snatched from a state of antinature. She is arresting yet at war, entirely trans, with no fixed emotional abode. The making of her seems like a rape. This is one of the first films with a feeling for gender insurrection." --David Thomson on The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) in Sleeping with Strangers: How the Movies Shaped Desire, published 2019 but anticipating Poor Things (2023)

[indigosabyss]

Your proposal of a Hunger Games arc for the Champions is intriguing. But who would ultimately win?

See, this is interesting. I have a lot of the major events and deaths planned out, but things really take a turn when the Terrigen Mist is released, something which was meant to make things harder for the mutants, but unknowingly awakens the latent abilities of the Inhumans.

At the moment, I have it whittled down to six survivors, but I would say Lunella Lafayette would come out on top. Smartest person in the world and a dinosaur to back her up? Pretty hard to beat.

(In here Devil Dinosaur is a muttation whose control chip she manages to break from prior experience working with livestock controlled like that)

Of course, that all said, the Games are going to fall apart before they've all murdered each other. Might as well spoil the ideas bc idk if I'll even write it.

Already mentioned Kamala's Terrigenesis would eject her tracker and her early shapeshifting she has would mean that not even the GameMakers know where she is. (Maybe with pieces of the cocoon left they think she got turned into ash from the Mist?) So she's completely rogue, but has no way to communicate with anyone else.

Viv is going through her own dramatic arc regarding her turning off her emotional processing for the Games, so when Tommy (who joined to keep her safe) kills Gabby (another top contender for Victor) before she can damage Viv, she goes for the 'logical' action and kills Tommy. Because he's the closest to her. Distance wise.

Anyways, the grief of this leads to her snapping and taking over the broadcast system. She doesn't have a plan of attack. She isn't thinking about a large scale Rebellion. She just wants the viewers to see what they have done and be sickened by it.

And of course, there's Sam Alexander, who got sent a helmet by "Sponsors". A very special helmet. That could break any containment on the Arena.

Also, btw, there's another very important little guy in the final survivors squad. One Pinpoint aka Qureshi Gupta. The child who could've left at any time but was too scared to reveal his powers.

I can't sit with myself and make the Games play out as they were intended. But I also can't make this a happy ending.

Something I want to contend with during the 'third-act' of this story is the feeling of being trapped. Could they all turn around and walk out of this? Sure. But what would they have? Where will they go?

There are people depending on them. Families and friends and strangers who have no obligations towards them but still deserve to be helped. You can't run from that.

In the end, I think they would all be killed to make sure they don't inspire insurrection. First Games to never have a Victor.

Maybe Qureshi would make it. If his loyalty to himself outweighs his loyalty to these strangers.

[anarcho-occultism]

Khan Noonien Singh

Khan Noonien Singh (August 15th, 1947-disappeared June 4, 1996) was an Indian activist, politician and dictator best known for his rule as Prime Minister of the Republic of India from 1984 to 1991 and as Khan of the Great Khanate of India from 1991 to 1996. Singh was born in 1947 to Adhar Singh and Hira Dakkar on the very date India officially became independent. Dakkar, notably, was the granddaughter of the famed Indian pirate/revolutionary and member of Britain’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Prince Chhatrasal Dakkar, better known as Captain Nemo. He was one of several hundred ‘midnight children’ born at the very moment India gained independence and like many of them was a metahuman. Singh, in particular, possessed latent psychic abilities that enabled him to quickly understand the emotions and intentions of those around him, a tool which greatly enabled him both as a child and into adulthood. Singh, owing to these abilities, would be discovered, kidnapped and forcibly recruited into the Chrysalis Project, a program intended to develop superior humans. The Chrysalis Project was the brainchild of the post-World War II incarnation of Hydra and was overseen by Wilhelm Strasse, a Nazi scientist smuggled out as part of Operation Paperclip who remained loyal to the ideals of that system. Singh’s treatment at the hands of the Chrysalis Project, which de facto raised him from 1950 to 1958, was extraordinarily mixed as was the case with many metahumans part of the project. On one hand, they were idealized as incarnations of a new super-race that would one day rule the world by the Hydra scientists running the program. On the other hand, the fact that so many Chrysalis subjects were not in line with Hydra’s Nazi racial ideals meant many were subject to physical violence and abuse and the project often tasked the metahuman children with a wide array of dangerous tasks.

Singh in particular was put in a number of heavily perilous situations at the behest of the Chrysalis Project. He was tasked with obtaining Kanamit technology during the brief lull between their departure from Earth and the world’s governments seizing their technology. Singh managed to pilfer only a single device, which was nonetheless enough to allow the Chrysalis Project to rapidly analyze human DNA. Singh was also sent to the underwater city of Rapture in 1959 to obtain plasmids, managing to sneak both in and out undetected thanks to playing off different factions within the city against each other. Hydra viewed the plasmids as a potential tool to augment their own ranks and avoid the need for the likes of Singh to directly father children. Singh also was tasked with carrying out contact with various other large criminal and terrorist cells to offer Hydra’s covert support to the likes of SPECTRE, THRUSH and KAOS as part of efforts to provoke global instability. By the time he reached age 13, Singh had already had dozens upon dozens of brushes with death and killed over 30 people personally. However, at this age, Singh finally came to question the Chrysalis Project’s intentions, recognizing the contradictions that his youth had caused him to ignore before. Singh would lead a small insurrection against Hydra in India, burning down the local Chrysalis Project facility and murdering several of those he knew were operating on Hydra’s behalf within India, most notably the mad scientist Dr. Cyclops. In the years that followed, Singh was somewhat aimless and unsure of what to do next, absent other direction. In other circumstances, he might have become a superhero and he initially did hold the likes of Superman in high esteem. However, in the early 1960’s, the emergence of the mutant community helped push him in a different direction.

The global backlash towards mutants was largely sparked by a belief that being born with superpowers was a result of literally mutation at birth. To many who hated them, mutants were as abominable as any kaiju and for similar reasons. The hostility to metahumans in general was pervasive, but there was a sense that for those who had become superhuman there was some attachment to baseline humanity left. However, mutants did not have to have that attachment and thus, in the view of anti-mutant activists, a distinct threat. In response to this backlash came the rise of Erik Lensherr, known better as Magneto. Magneto advocated a doctrine that mutants were the next stage of human evolution and should seek to take their rightful place as dominant over the rest of humanity, echoing the beliefs of John Wainwright. Singh would quickly come to embrace this mindset, though he welded it with unique elements of his own country’s circumstances. Seeing the destitution and poverty so many experienced in India firsthand–himself having lived through it after fleeing the Chrysalis Project–Singh came to believe that a part of why mutants should dominate was out of a sense of duty to uplift ‘lower’ humanity’s station. In this sense, Singh’s Augment ideology can be understood as a spiritual successor to Gellert Grindelwald’s perspective of wizard supremacy for the good of wizards and non-wizards alike as well as the even earlier conception of ‘white man’s burden’ that was popular in the 19th century. Singh wrote a series of letters to Lensherr outlining his beliefs of this sort and, while Lensherr never formally replied, a number of his later attitudes reflected heavy similarities to Singh’s thought and were a blueprint for his governorship of Genosha in the 1980’s.

Singh was able to lie low until the late 1970’s, when like many other Indian metahumans he was designated an enemy of the state by Prime Minister Priya Duryodhani. Duryodhani, seeking to seize dictatorial power for herself, used fear of civil unrest and metahumans as a tool to justify taking on emergency powers that enabled her to suspend elections and quash dissent by force. Most relevant to Singh, however, were the efforts of Duryodhani’s government to eliminate the Midnight Children and other metahumans. Hundreds of them were taken into government custody and subjected to abusive medical procedures that left most of them depowered and sterile. Singh himself was imprisoned and subject to this horrendous treatment, but managed to escape with some portion of his powers remaining. Singh was reportedly hidden by a man named Raghaven, who due to a psychotic break perceived Singh as his own son Raghu whom had been a victim of police violence during the Emergency. Eventually, the Emergency ended in 1977 and Duryodhani was removed from power in subsequent elections, but an embittered Singh vowed vengeance. He concluded the only way to protect metahumans in India was for them to seize control of the state apparatus. Singh over the next several years worked to build a power base, making contact with outside metahumans such as the Tomorrow People and Lensherr’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in a bid to gain support for his plans to seize political power. Within India, Singh recruited the bulk of surviving Midnight Children to his side and additionally built support among opposition to the regime, in particular focusing on dissenting government officials like Indu Sarkar and Vikram Malhotra (whom Singh gained the loyalty of by having a mutant ally of his heal a series of physical and mental injuries inflicted upon him by police).

Singh himself, meanwhile, used his charm to infiltrate the Kaurava Party and get close to Duryodhani. By the time of her 1980 return to power, Singh was a part of Duryodhani’s personal guard. By repeatedly halting (staged) assassination attempts, Singh has made himself seem a loyal supporter of Duryodhani. Singh continued to bide his time and build a covert power base of mutants and baseline humans alike within India while waiting for the opportune moment to claim full power. That moment would arrive in 1984, when World War III broke out after, in the wake of most American-based superheroes being abducted by the otherworldly beings known as the Beyonder or the Monitor, President Cyclops/Webster made a poorly-timed joke that convinced the Soviets to activate Project Koschei and invade large swathes of Europe and North America. While the rest of the world was distracted by trying to use Gojira to contain Cthulhu, the ongoing fighting in Germany, Hawaii and the Rockies and British Prime Minister Jim Jasper’s proclamation of a fascist ‘English Socialist’ regime in Britain after usurping Joan Carpenter, Singh had a perfect opening to organize the assassination of Duryodhani and her followers. Singh personally struck down the Prime Minister and allies embedded throughout India made quick work of fellow Kaurava Party members. Not only Kaurava Party leaders were targeted, Singh also eliminated a number of key opposition figures, high-ranking figures within the Indian military and even prominent businessmen and actors whom he deemed a threat to his rule. Singh’s proclamation of taking power in India occurred only after well over 1,000 men and women whom could have stood in his way were eliminated by his followers. The official story Singh provided was that Soviet operatives had sought to decapitate the Indian government as they had already done in neighboring China, which already was beginning to collapse into civil war. Singh’s assumption of the role of Prime Minister of India was thus framed as an effort to maintain stability.

Singh’s swift action and prepared excuses were crucial to giving his regime the legitimacy it needed early on. In the name of anti-communism, Singh was able to continue to purge potential threats to his rule. Singh did not, however, only have an iron fist to offer the people of India. He also pursued investment in infrastructure, education, healthcare and entertainment for the public, something that was both a logical outgrowth of his philosophy and a crucial act to wooing an uncertain public to his side. Singh spent the first three years of his reign largely focused on this consolidation of power, but after the 1986 general election allowed Singh loyalists to sweep Parliament, Singh felt comfortable enough to begin looking outward once more. His first priority was India’s large neighbor: China. Chinese-Indian relations had long been frosty, with a number of border skirmishes being fought with the country under their previous leader Chairman Peng Guoliang. But now Peng was dead, a victim of a Soviet first strike on Beijing, and a country with hundreds of millions was in the middle of a bloody struggle for power not seen since the 1930’s. Chinese refugees fled into Southeast Asia and India alike and Singh was easily able to make the case that intervention to restore order in China was a matter of India’s national interest. Both the Soviets and the United States also viewed restoring stability in China as important, but even after World War III formally ended in 1985, neither side was willing to trust the other in the country. India, in a sense, would be a nice, neutral compromise in the minds of American and Soviet leaders who agreed to Singh’s plan. Singh selected the warlord Wu Qinghua as the ideal candidate to manage China, ostensibly due to her ties to the old government coupled with a reformist bent. However, in reality, there was another reason for choosing her. Wu Qinghua was closely aligned with the Chinese criminal masterminds Fu Manchu, Shen Yu, and Zhang Tong–all three of whom were closely tied to the supernatural elements of Chinese history. The three figures were de facto immortal and possessed a number of heightened physical and mental abilities. Singh viewed them as natural allies to his own belief system and, as it turned out, they agreed.

By 1989, Indian support and the supernatural arsenal of the 3 ‘hidden hands’ behind Chairwoman Wu enabled China to once again be under one government (outside of Taiwan and Zheng Fa, which stubbornly clung to independence). With an ally/de facto puppet state secured in the North, Singh next sought to recruit additional allies across the globe. His vision had cleared considerably thanks to learning more of the supernatural world from Zhang–the Augment world would not only be run by mutants and superhumans, but by wizards, witches, cyborgs, vampires and any others whom had, by birth or by growth, transcended the domain of ‘normal’ humans. Singh invested a lot of time drawing former subjects to psychic research programs like the Athena Plan, Project Firestarter and the Zener Project to India, offering not only protection but a chance for vengeance. Singh also engaged in overtures to supernatural beings he considered potential allies, to mixed success. Lucius Malfoy and other remnant Death Eaters in Britain cordially received his overtures, but did not sincerely plan to taking much action to align with him. Queen Beryl’s Dark Kingdom comparatively was more open to such an arrangement, though Beryl herself harbored ambitions to rule the world on her own and viewed Singh as disposable. On the other hand, the ancient vampire known as Sariel who held those he fed upon in an unusually strong thrall, rejected the prospect of any alliance outright, vowing to conquer the world on his own. Singh quickly realized he could not solely rely on unusual humans as allies and by the time he officially proclaimed the Great Khanate of India he was ready to form alliances of convenience with mundane humans.

One of Singh’s first mundane allies was Kazakh dictator Ivan Radek, who infamously helped orchestrate the hijacking of Air Force One in 1991 while President James Marshall was aboard it. The extent to which Singh was in favor of such an action remains uncertain, but it is known Singh publicly condemned the hijacking and cut off Radek with little fanfare. He had his other allies Zateb Kazim and Heinrich Krull act with more discretion moving forward. The formal beginning of the conflicts dubbed the Eugenics Wars would only begin in 1992 following the assumption of power by ultranationalists in Japan. Japan’s existing pro-American government had been badly weakened by the destruction of Tokyo by the entity known as Akira in 1989 and order was restored largely at gunpoint by ultranationalist General Ryoichi Yoshi, who was deeply nostalgic for Japan’s imperial past. Singh viewed Yoshi as a potential ally and privately urged him to form a military regime, but Yoshi instead stood aside in favor of Mogataru Koga. However, an economic crisis allowed the collapse of his government and the ascension of Hiroshi Goto as Prime Minister, who began implementing Yoshi’s far-right policies including responding to rising violence in schools (demonstrated primarily by 1989’s Akademi High School murders) by forcing teenagers into deathmatches. For the Goto government, the United States was a particular enemy and, with Singh’s support, Japan launched an open war on the United States in 1992. The war was brief, owing to Japan’s comparatively weak military footing. Most of the potential aces in the hole–the use of mechas, weaponization of Monsterland kaiju or large-scale intervention by Japanese superheroes–were stymied by antiwar sentiment on the part of those whom could have introduced them. In the end, Japan was defeated and the Singh-aligned government collapsed (though not before killing US President Florentyna Kane in an attack on the US Capitol).

Singh was undeterred by the failure of his Japanese allies. Indeed, he ramped up the Great Khanate’s support to sympathetic factions across the globe. When South Africa collapsed into civil war amidst a coup by hardliner Karl Voster, Singh made sure to provide Vorster with large amounts of weapons and even some metahuman support. Singh also provided manpower and weapons to M. Bison’s regime in Panau as it began invading neighboring island nations such as Banoi, Lilliput and Patusan. Genosha proved to be a natural ally of Singh’s government, acting as a hub from which Indian-made weapons and volunteers provided by Singh could flow to various allies of convenience. The terrorist organization Cobra also partnered with Singh out of convenience, ramping up the threat posed by the group considerably since the denting given to it by 1980’s counterterrorism efforts. Cobra was Singh’s preferred proxy for installing Khanate-friendly governments in Southeast Asia, which succeeded in Sarkhan and Laos even as it drew Vietnam, Vietmahl, Cambodia and Thailand to unite against them. Even ostensible opponents of metahumans were willing to form alliances of convenience with Singh’s government. When Ayatollah Daryaei’s Iran annexed Iraq, proclaimed the formation of the United Islamic Republic and invaded Kuwait, Qumar and Asran simultaneously, India and their puppet government in China were the nations who blocked a resolution condemning their actions at the United Nations and funneled heavy amounts of aid to the country. The period from 1992 to 1994 was characterized by these small-scale proxy conflicts.

It was 1995 that would see the conflict really ramp up in intensity thanks to the crashing of a meteor near the Tiber River carrying the element Tiberium. Singh, wishing to seize the material for his own use, convinced his ally Hank Scorpio to mount a coup in the United States. Scorpio was able to temporarily seize the Eastern Seaboard and forced President Jack Stanton to resign in favor of his Vice President Bud Hammond. In Russia, a coup was likewise attempted by Ivan Tretiak, a Russian hardliner seeking to restore the USSR by ousting Russian President Sergei Karpov. While these coups were ultimately repelled, they delayed the securing of Tiberium. Singh would form a common cause with the Brotherhood of Nod, whom under the command of their enigmatic leader Kane wanted to seize Tiberium as well. Singh’s support for Scorpio, Tretiak and Nod would at last force the world’s hands, with Russia and the US agreeing to implement crippling sanctions on India and China. China’s government yielded first, with Wu Qinghua being forced to stand down in favor of Lian Ma. Meanwhile, Singh’s hold in India, for the first time in a dozen years, faced dissent. Strikes and protests that could have been crushed with little backlash in previous years now escalated to riots, the people of India no longer believing in Singh’s promises of a brighter future for India. Singh still resisted launching outright war until 1996, when the Global Defense Initiative announced an intervention into India to remove a Brotherhood of Nod cell within the country. Singh ordered the Indian Armed Forces to resist the intervention, which they did for a time but the outcome was never in doubt. Singh vanished from New Delhi alongside his closest allies and followers on June 4th. Lakshmi Rupavathy, the leader of Singh’s previously-impotent opposition, would become Prime Minister of what was now once again the Republic of India.

The fact Singh disappeared has led to no shortage of theories about what became of him. Some believe Singh, much like the earlier would-be conqueror Adenoid Hynkel, committed suicide after realizing his failure to fulfill his ambitions. However, the additional disappearance of so many of his core allies–many of whom were also well-known figures–has meant many are dissatisfied with that explanation (though something like the Jamestown mass suicide is theoretically possible, it would be difficult to destroy all the bodies involved). Some claim Singh and the Brotherhood of Nod’s leader Kane had in fact been the same person and Singh had simply gone to join the Brotherhood in full as his rule in India collapsed. Due to the lack of resemblance between Kane and Singh, this theory is largely the provenance of cranks. Some claim that Singh escaped back in time or to a parallel reality–with declassified documents indicating Singh had made contact with a parallel world dominated by a nation calling itself the Domination of Draka serving as fuel for this belief. This is a theory that, while possible, has little other evidence going for it. One of the most popular theories is that Singh and his followers escaped to outer space, either to find another planet to settle upon or simply to wait to return to Earth. Many who believe this theory claim that Singh and his followers may have been responsible for directing the Harvester fleet towards Earth or launching the Wolf-Biederman asteroid (sometimes also known as ‘Dottie’) at the planet, citing that the meteor appeared to change trajectories before heading towards the planet, unlike the previous near-miss of the Hamner-Brown comet. Despite doubts about the veracity of that claim, declassified documents from Singh’s rule do indicate a robust investment in space travel technology. Of all theories, this may prove to be the most credible, but remains unconfirmed to this day. Despite the frequent brutality of Singh’s rule, a number of people in India actually hold Khan Noonien Singh in high regard, owing to his investments in public services and his efforts to increase India’s international standing. A cult venerating Singh as a living god has a shockingly high following in India, with it being estimated the vanished dictator is worshiped by just under 1 million people.

Star Trek, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Midnight’s Children, Marvel Comics (Captain America, X-Men, Secret Wars, Iron Man), Wolfenstein: The New Order, To Serve Man, Bioshock, James Bond, The Man From UNCLE, Get Smart, Shikari (1963 film), DC Comics (Superman, Crisis on Infinite Earths), Odd John, Harry Potter, The Great Indian Novel, Piravi, The Tomorrow People, Indu Sarkar, Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi, Whoops Apocalypse!, Murder in the White House, A Colder War, Red Storm Rising, Red Dawn, Hotline Miami 2, 1984, The Devil’s Alternative, The Shoes of the Fisherman, The Red Detachment of Women, The Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu, Evil Genius, Phoenix Wright, Terror in Resonance, Firestarter, Second Sight, Sailor Moon, The Strain, Air Force One, Sahara, The Simpsons (Cape Feare, You Only Move Twice), Akira, I Was Born But…, Jack Ryan Series (Debt of Honor, Executive Orders), Yandere Simulator, Battle Royale, Godzilla, The Prodigal Daughter, Vortex, Mortal Combat, Just Cause, Dead Island, Gulliver’s Travels, Lord Jim, GI Joe, The Ugly American, Destroy All Humans!, The West Wing, Full Metal Panic!, Command & Conquer, Primary Colors, Political Animals, The Saint, Maanagara Kaaval, The Great Dictator, The A-Team (Children of Jamestown), The Domination Series, Deep Impact, Armageddon, Lucifer’s Hammer

[seth-suffers]

We're playing x-men mutant insurrection at a friend's house and we're calling our team the himbo brigade and describing it as a disastrous stag night

[pieman1112]

What does 'being human' actually mean? RP with cinemachaos

With the Human-Covenant war over for the past decade, Humanity had reached a true peace. New ships were being constructed, planets that were glassed were being cleared and rebuilt, and new forces were being trained to rebuild the UNSC's might. But old rivalries and hatred threatened to destroy this new peace that humanity found itself in.

Before the Human-Covenant war, there were two major problems that plagued the UEG. Mutants and the Insurrection. The official policy regarding mutants was that they could serve in the UNSC as long as they followed the orders given to them and could pass the requirements that were in place for all of their soldiers. For the most part mutants were accepted by their peers in the UNSC. The soldiers would work together and train as units. Not all of this acceptance was of good intention however. Some leaders saw these mutants as weapons to be used.

When the Insurrection came into full swing, some used it as an excuse to attack the mutants since a lot of mutants signed up with the Insurrection of the outer colonies. Some even defected from the UNSC to the Insurrection as they fought. This war was the catalyst for project Orion, a super soldier program that would give the UNSC an edge against the Insurrectionists. When the covenant attacked Harvest and started the Human-Covenant war, the UNSC and Insurrection joined forces in an uneasy peace in what looked like the possible extinction of humanity.

The UNSC was always on alert for those who would threaten the peace that was achieved. While the integration of the covenant species into the UEG had eased some tension between humans and mutants into becoming more tolerant. There were still some who saw themselves as superior and had made it a mission to bring this superiority to a new age. Remnants of the Covenant, mutant supremist groups, human supremist groups, and insurrectionists seem to be popping back up again. The Office of Naval Intelligence was looking into these groups to see if a military response would be needed and to see if they threatened any ONI operations.

Spartan-197, a veteren of the Human-Covenant war, was chosen as the one to recon a new group called the brotherhood of mutants. Their leader was a charismatic mutant named Magneto and could possibly threaten the UNSC and the UEG with his magnitism. For this 197's armor was retrofitted with nonmagnetic alloys. It reduced some of the armor capabilities but he wouldn't have to worry about the suit being torn apart should he run into the leader.

He would be dropped via pelican jump near where the suspected meeting would take place. He would fall for a good distance before activating his jump jets to soften his landing, all timed to not draw suspicion from anyone there.

"Beginning mission." Hunter said into his comms after landing in a secluded forest.

Unfortunately for him and ONI, there were some sympathetic to the group that had leaked the information to the brotherhood. The whole meeting was poised to be a trap for the super soldier and Rogue would be chosen as the one to find out why this super soldier had arrived.

@cinemachaos

[inpryno]

ALL FIRE ⅋ ALL DESIRE!———MADELYNE JENNIFER PRYOR: INFERNA. WRITTEN AS AN ELDTRICH HORROR ⅋ AN OMEGA-LEVEL MUTANT; WITH HORROR INFLUENCE. TELEPLAY BY VENDETTA. USER OF X-KIT ⅋ LOCKED TO BETA-EDITOR. 🔥⠀[CARRD, PINTEREST, MEMES, GRAPHICS].

i.     dead dove themes apply: musings include - insurrection v. resurrection., cannibalism., scientific extermination of the human mind / body., trauma (mood / personality / trauma disorders)., eldritch horrors & things beyond human comprehension., hypersexualization., pyromania / arson / fire., the loss of a child., death / blood / gore / murder..  absolutely no minors beyond this point.

ii.    triggers will be tagged, 'cw content' & 'tw content' to keep my followers safe from harm; if my content & tagging system fails, be sure to let me know. i will gladly adjust my posts ⅋ / or delete them.

[lil-purple-mouse]

Anyone else notice how we all kinda forgot about the Bermuda Triangle? Like all we talked about was how scary and mysterious it was for decades and then we forgot about it.

So much crazy stuff has happened. We've lived through an insurrection AND a pandemic. This is not the historical event I wanted to live through. I wanted to be a funny outlaw in a post apocalyptic world with my partners and our mutant cats!

[never-sated]

Trying NoDa's new Fusion Series Imperial Hazy IPA with tangerine, along with X-Men Mutant Insurrection (aka Elder Sign 2.0).

Yes, I'm playing as Rogue.

[herochan]

X-Men - Mutant Insurrection: Magneto Showdown

Art by Daniele Afferni Daf || IG

[warsamongthestars]

How to do I view TCWs Bad Batch...

Cos its not a secret that its personal. All this, comes from a personal place, even if its cut down to snark, rage, or just plain analysis. Personal motivations are the best motivators after all.

We start with the set up.

They are, by all accounts, set up to be the odd ones out. If there are weird mutant clones, these are the guys. If you're looking for the super special awesome squad made of underdogs, its them.

( As the former Weird Kid from childhood, who later grew up into the weird adult, I immediately grew attached to them. I broke the Jedi code folks, please don't kick me off the council Mister Windu )

And from there, it all became very complex, and yet, so simple. Because when you've been there, you get it.

Now we start with the perspectives.

So I saw...

... The Bad Batch as those who teeter on the edge of wanting normalcy whilst also rejecting convention. These boys have been rejected for things all their life, from appearance, to skills, to attitudes, to innate abilities and to simply not fitting in / being regulation.

Crosshair is the one who learned to strike first, and the first strike should be the final strike. He's the confrontational one. (Very in line with his sniper job). If you strike first and its always the mortal blow, you avoid getting struck. ( This doesn't work, because he's a verbal lasher, and that hasn't killed anyone yet--so he'd get a punch to the face and invite combat among allies )

Tech is the one who learned to back down and be unconfrontational one. Let the aggression pass, it is temporary. This has probably cost him with injury and items stolen from confrontation (because if someone wants to make a problem, they will make a problem and they will do it to the easiest target).

Wrecker is the boisterous one. He wants to directly fit in so things are either not a big deal or he exaggerates to a point where its become habit (a simple fear of heights becomes a ridiculous series of panics straight out of a cartoon that even Tech rolls his eyes over). In this way, he's a kind of people pleaser who needs to find excuses to confront people he has a problem with.

Hunter is the quiet one who wants to given space to process. But is never given time. To him, people are complicated and he needs time to puzzle them out, but at the same time, he's still trying to puzzle himself out. So everything either comes out as a sarcasm or it comes out as anxiety, because in truth, he's not sure how to react to situations and was never given the communication or time to develop that understanding--and has to practice based on experience [ CF99's plan system ] because otherwise he gets overwhelmed with him. ( But in such lack of processing, the stuff he has had time to process? He can weave through fluently and adaptively. He knows not to give more information than is necessary even in friendly conversation with strangers, because he knows the effect it would cause. )

The word "Hyperempathy" comes to mind.

But in such additions...

CF99 as a whole, as they lie outside of the regulations, have developed an nonchalance over things that would be alarming in any circumstance, odd one out or not.

The Yalbecs, mentioned in CF99's introduction, are an implied Insectoid sentience that follow a HIve structure (with the Queen ontop who can produce pheromones to encourage reproduction). The yalbecs were performing an Insurrection on their planet, Yalbec Prime. As the Republic had gotten involved by sending CF99, that means the insurrection was against the Republic, meaning that the Yalbecs were, prior to the war, a Republic peoples.

If I had to give a reason for this insurrection, it would probably because the yalbec queen's stinger is used as food on other planets / by other cultures.

Two and two together, the yalbecs were insurrecting because their queens (and potential mother figures) were being hunted down for food, and the Republic was doing nothing.

A horrifying set of circumstances, made worse when the Republic sent a commando squad to handle the situation once it had become violent, and the result was, yet again, the death of another Queen and possibly her entire court.

... especially when that said Commando Squad began to brag about it afterwards.

This is a "funny" contrast to the hyper-empathy argument, and that is the total lack of empathy. Suggesting that CF99 primarily only cares about what a particular group (the "regular" clones) thinks about and tries to bring attention their successes to that group; but inevitably alienate themselves by sheer misunderstanding of both themselves, others, and the situation. Its the fantastical fantasy narrative equivalency of "my cat tried to show affection by bringing me a dead bird" or "I told a self deprecating joke about my childhood, and everyone looked at me with horror"

The "Total Lack of Empathy" is less inherent problem, and more akin to, learned impersonality, which can be a common problem when it comes to empathy.

Now this is starting to sound like "playing Psychology with fictional characters who can be written to do anything". I ain't diagnosis shit, I'm just pointing out a potential pattern, by drawing from experience.

Don't you just love how fiction can get personal.

Anyway.

In such inbetweens...

The Bad Batch have formed strong interpersonal relationships, only vaguely hinted at during their Clone Wars run.

From backing each other up, no matter who does what (from Crosshair's overly confrontational nature being immediately defended by Wrecker lifting someone up by the necktie and Tech's Goggles glare and Hunter stopping the person that Cross is confronting)...

... To Crosshair immediately stepping up to block an officer from yelling at Hunter...

... To Wrecker interrupting and teasing Tech, but then immediately quoting Tech to officers...

... to how proud Hunter is over his team, or Crosshair's indirect silent compliments in regards to Wrecker...

... to trusting Tech's strategies and intelligence, no matter how crazy, or how much he's teased afterwards, near immediately...

... to the various list of plans they perform practically on trust and instinct alone...

... and to giving the new odd one (Echo) a chance, even if they verbally distrust him.

The world these boys must have behind closed doors and off duty, is one of intimate trust, obvious communication and communal understanding, and each of them, no matter how they express it, share values.

They're playful and competitive with each other, and their various strong personalities do bump against one another, but its less destructive and more akin to knowingly being pieces on the same board. ( billiards comes to mind and everyone has a pocket. )

Its those hints of history and personality beyond their job, is what I wanted to see more of (and probably others too). Its those conflicts and bonds between themselves, the world and others that would've made a show.

( Character Development isn't necessarily that the character themselves changed--its often just that the Audience now knows more about a character. Character Development is more often than naught, a change in perspective from the audience's point of view. )

Introducing Echo would've been a fine way to learn more about them, by allowing the audience surrogate to be a main character lead, whilst also going off on fantastical sci-fi adventures in the Galaxy Far Far Away.

Applying personal interpretation and experience is often how you can make a story more interesting, as it allows both yourself and the audience to further understand themselves.

Yeah, its telling a familiar story, but often that's what's needed. And you freely can want what you also need.

[papasmoke]

wait, isn’t Trump though being seriously actually investigated now for the insurrection? and in that probably disqualifying him from running again for obvious reasons

or did they just forget about that after saying it, or don’t truly care enough

I remember the only update I heard from what happened on that January 6th was what was the obvious which was proof enough of the Proud Boys planning part of it and member(s) being charged

Trump has been under "serious investigations" since he was inaugurated, I'll admit I haven't been paying much attention to this latest wave of "serious allegations" and "damning indictments" but if they're anything like the previous ones nothing's going to come of it.

Like no shit Trump tried to get his army of petite bourgeoisie losers to keep him in office through political violence that was obvious from day one. In my mind if there were going to be any serious repercussions for anyone but the hogs on the ground it would've happened already.

idk maybe I'm wrong and orange bad man gets barred from office. Congratulations, mission accomplished. Now you have DeSantis or Mike Lindell or some other mutant freak instead.

[thereadingaddic7]

(Badly) Designed Future

Coming back to (modded) Tiberian Sun after Twisted Insurrection, and it's amazing how I can sort of start to see Nod's point about Tiberium and GDI. Tiberium is, of course, a hostile terraforming agent designed to wipe out all or most indigenous life on whatever planet it lands on, but as the various mutants prove, it's not inherently fatal to non-Tiberium lifeforms and can be beneficial to those that are.

Human life in both timelines is a pretty shitty lot. Locked into walled off cities crammed full of refugees fleeing Tiberium expansion, scarce food and drinkable water as governments collapse into anarchy, Warlords and Nod reign supreme. Outside of that though, the worlds are day and night. Twisted Insurrection Earth isn't the Earth we know, it's a hellscape hostile to human life and liable to rip your throat out and lay eggs in your stomach, but it's an alive hellscape. Tiberian Fiends and Raptors compete for glowing green and blue fields to make their nests, Wyverns patrol the skies seeking out the alone and unwary, Whalloons drift among blossom trees feeding on the spores like whales on krill, veinholes cover the ground for miles and miles, and the very earth itself shakes when the Mantis colonies march off to war. It’s a dangerous and untamed frontier, but as the Forsaken demonstrate, it’s not *untamable*.

Tiberian Sun's earth on the other hand is a dead rock drifting through space. Most landscapes are blasted deserts with scattered dying trees. There's practically no native life to be found beyond the armies fighting over the scraps, but Tiberium life is also shockingly absent. Fiends and Forgotten are around, the two mutants working closely together for mutual survival. Veinholes are cultivated by Nod who use their veins to craft Tiberium based chemical weapons, Visceroids pop up every now and again but there's no way to tell if they've been there a while or if they're some poor bastard who just turned, and Floaters don't even show up until the expansion pack where Nod has to go to the most heavily Tiberium infested region on the planet and *call* them out.

Tiberium resulted in massive social and ecological collapse, it's arguably on par with real life mass extinction events, but where Nod embraced the new normal and actively utilizes Tiberium and Tiberium based life in an attempt to become a Tiberium based humanity (and who's efforts contributed to the collapse), GDI are arguably causing a collapse of their own in their attempts to turn back the clock. If we treat Twisted Insurrection as a genuine "What If?" scenario, then the absence of Tiberium Lifeforms that were cropping up in the immediate wake of the First Tiberium War is likely because GDI has been doing their best to kill them off before they can amount to anything, leaving nothing to fill in the niches left behind.

[obscuregambit]

I go an opened box of X-Men Mutant Insurrection today, so I can get some scans of the Gambit inside. Several Gambit cards are in the game, along with a game piece, and art in the instruction booklet.