CardboardMoon

anyways this is still only partly thought-out but I’ve been cooking up ideas for the purpose of eliatrope wings, why eliatropes insist on wearing hats to hide said wings even around their own people (despite living on a planet when they were the only people/species for a time) etc etc

it’s hardly original but just like how oropo basically forced him and yugo to combine into one body, I thought that maybe the wings act as extensions of an eliatrope’s spirit and can go beyond the body in order to connect or reside elsewhere

basically the wings act as gateways to the mentalities of others

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Like???

I just have to go for the big guns immediately. I see no other way that wouldn’t involve some mind control or manipulation or blackmail or other extenuating circumstances that remove him from the blame. And I can’t have that for this. I gotta play it straight.

Nods nods nods.

I gotta lay out what about this fucking invasion’s lead up is actually vital and what isn’t, because all these moves and counter moves and contingencies are great for plot but not for what we’re doing here. Occam’s Turbo Pulse!!

Because while they tell each other they’ll stop at nothing to get Jim back, it’s entirely possible the majority of the harm that’s happening is just property damage, with some exceptions.

If they’re doing smash and grabs for the parts they need then at worst they’re knocking some NTek heads or scaring civilians guards into standing down. They’re probably also beating up villains that won’t uphold their ends of deals. That’s definitely happening.

The thing about their goal that’s shakiest to me is that they need Makino to bring Jim to them because they don’t have a ship (until after they’ve their big plans.) So they have to grapple with the risk that if they fail to save Jim, the earth is doomed. It’s a heavy thing and it probably drives them to the brink of abandoning the mission or turning on each other a couple times before they solve it.

Of course, the solution to that is the Turbo Star. And with it their resolve and their bond gets dangerously strong.

Their father believed it would work. Dredd thinks it’ll work. If they can make another one or- or find its pieces, if Dredd is really telling the truth this time, then they can just use that to take down Makino!

The rest of his fleet might be a problem afterwards, but maybe they’ll bail when their leader’s defeated? Or NTek will let them help clean up the mess they’ll have made before arresting them. They’ll cross that bridge when they get there.

In any case, they still need Makino to come here. Preferably in a hurry so he gets here sometime this decade.

Which means a lot more betrayal.

Goodbye global defense network. Hello massive fucking portal over THI! Wait, no, ughhhh NTek killed the portal! What’s plan B? Let Steel do the talking to some Ultralinks and play at a “change of heart?”

…wait.

It occurs to me their biggest threat in this AU isn’t NTek, it’s Ven-Ghan.

Max is gonna be out here negotiating with Toxzon and jail breaking Elementors and even giving Dredd his Turbo energy just to save Steel from this guy who refuses to see the big picture.

You wanna bring in rogue Ultralinks? There’s millions of them on the way, pal! Can you wait like three months?? We got a dad to free!

There’s potential in a lot of their early quid-pro-quos with bad guys being Steel’s ideas and Max getting dragged along. That phase of their villainy ends with Max convincing Steel those team-ups are a waste of time after too many of them go south. How is helping Toxzon gas a building going to help them save his dad?? Why is Extroyer’s feud against Dredd their problem??

And then Max turning around and promising these same people anything if they help him get Steel back. Does Extroyer want a rare bird of prey dna sample? Toxzon needs help getting Fishy back from NTek? Show him where the batteries are, Dredd, and just keep that ship from leaving their atmosphere!!

Max is still putting saving a life before his mission. And that’s absolutely still being exploited.

They can get a lot done if you cut out NTek stuff and heroics, but Villain Team Up IOUs can also get costly.

They can’t even call Ven-Ghan the bad guy because they know what they’re doing looks so bad. But they have no intention of stopping, soooo—

(Steel, angrily shooting some netting scraps eleven times: I might just have to kill this guy, Max!!

Max, who’s at the end of his rope trying to get this man’s life spared: …we could- maybe- Gah! We could try and get Toxzon to make him help us fight Makino?

Steel, imagining it gleefully after spending all night in an orb: I’m listeniiiiing!!)

The gap in their morality is gonna get Max to bend on ten thousand things besides murder. If it’s anything short of murder, Steel can probably get Max on board. He’s getting better at that by the day. (And Max is just kind of getting worse night by night, tbf.)

Joy and whimsy!!