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Lex Sedet In Vertice: A Supervillain in the DCU CK2 quest
- Thread starter King crimson
- Start date
- Superhero
- Location
- Fifth Dimension
A reminder that Lex never sold his exo-suit in comics. For a reason. Same with Iron Man. Or Doom. Or Panther, or Reed Richards, etc. No one sells their stuff to the gov't.
Even President Lex didn't do that.
That's about all I wish to address tbh. The rest is just clear disagreements.
Gumiho
Reach heaven through violence!
And? What does other version of Lex, and other peoples actions have anything to do with our version of Lex?
Sena Kumo
The Tenth Wandering Cloud
- Location
- Portugal
Nothing, just common sense.
- Location
- barking
Not to be a downer on this but it is likely that the government is prob building suits of their own or got plans to thanks to Intergangs power armour and Ignitions armour.
- Location
- Fifth Dimension
They're all geniuses?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Of course giving the US government an incentive to view our company and to ensure we stay in business as one of their main suppliers of advanced military tech would be stupid. Of course.
I mean seriously, a commensal relationship with the US government is a huge asset in our position. It gives us a way to turn the government and legal system against Superman. It gives us connections we can fall back on if we get in trouble with the law. It gives us power to manipulate organizations so large not even Lex Luthor's wealth could create or duplicate them.
Remember, we've actually significantly upgraded the mobility (by adding flight capacity at all) and protection (armor) of the suits as it is. The weapons are the main things we haven't updated.
This.
If we're so worried about hoarding our tech that we don't use it- either in combat or in attempts to gain allies by sharing our weaponry- then in the long run, the tech isn't very valuable to us.
The thing is, there's going to be a significant engineering difference between the self-destruct and other systems on the exosuit. All the other systems will be designed to 'fail safe.' An accidental activation or software glitch will have to contend with deliberate safety features. Whereas the self-destruct device is going to have to be designed to 'fail deadly,' or at least to be very easy to activate as a deadly device. Since, to do its job, it has to be designed to either:
1) Detonate automatically under certain conditions, even when the exosuit is badly damaged and nonfunctional, OR
2) Detonate on remote control regardless of anything else that may have been done to the suit, which presents obvious security hazards, OR
3) Be easy to quickly detonate manually, say as the operator is scrambling out of the suit and preparing to take cover against enemy machine gun fire.
...
Basically, there are reasons why in real life military equipment doesn't come with self-destruct charges pre-emplaced. The odds of something going wrong with the self-destruct system over the entire lifespan of the unit greatly exceeds the odds of some contrived disaster scenario where the enemy captures your military hardware intact.
It's the kind of thing supervillains do, not because it's reliably useful, but because it makes it easier to hoard their secrets- which is a compulsive behavior on their part given that most of them are quite capable of inventing new stuff on the fly quickly and easily.
Yes, and this pretty directly limits their influence and options for interacting with and affecting the public. I see no reason why we should be obliged to suffer from the trope of Reed Richards Being Useless.
Er, who is that addressed to?
Because you're being all cryptic here. I don't think I believe the theory that hoarding our tech makes us reliably stronger. It also isolates us, you see.
Think about it. What's the difference between Lex Luthor and Dr. Sivana, and why is the latter a 'mere' A-list member of one superhero's rogue's gallery while the other is one of the pre-eminent and most memorable supervillains of all time?
Sivana's scientific aptitude is probably equal to Lex's- but Sivana is nearly alone, with only his immediate family to help him, and they're basically sidekick-tier material. Lex has a knack for making powerful allies and controlling vast resources and having connections. But to have connections you have to earn them, and one of the best ways to earn them is to supply them with things they must have and only you can provide.
I want the US military to be addicted to LexTech, to the point where it becomes almost unthinkable to the military-industrial complex to have LexCorp broken up or disrupted significantly.
Yes- and I want us to be working to compete with that, match that, and eventually outstrip that. Which we're not gonna do by breaking our ties to the government and hoarding our "advanced" tech while all the other big players use their own, also-advanced tech to make our equipment look obsolete.
- Location
- Hala
... Tony Stark? Let's talk about all the heroes and villains in comics who were not stupid enough to sell their tech to the government.
And? How does that matter here? US military ain't absolute. For all, you know there could be dozens of moles in US govt servers. Hell Batman hacks into it every Friday.
Supplier? At the cost of giving away the secrets to a fully functional Exo-Suit? No, that's not... no.
Holding this tech over governments head to draw out favor or make a path to "President" Lex, now that is smart, not this.
Get funding of our own? Wait? Since when do we need funds?
If govt. is already near completion of their project why risk Lex by making him show his hand?
- Location
- Fifth Dimension
Lex has never given the gov't or other bodies like that his tech. And yet he remains above SIvana. In fact, Lex DOES hoard his tech and yet remains influential so...
As for Reed Richards is useless...we're selling our tech to make lives better, which is what that refers to. We SHOULD NOT sell super weapons though? Would you sell AMAZO to people?
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Gumiho
Reach heaven through violence!
...... seriously, thats your argument?
Frankly, id prefer to become the premier provider and make the Ud Goverment depwndent on us for their technogical needs.
- Location
- Fifth Dimension
Yes? Should we not try to act like other geniuses? Does this not make sense to you?
And what happens when we go after Superman and the US Gov't disagrees? And our own tech is turned on us? Or if someone frames Lex for a crime? Or if Lex, does villainous actions like the villain he is? You still for giving our possible enemies our tech?
Here's one, what if someone just hacks or robs the US Gov't? And now they have our tech? Here's a kicker, what if they reverse engineer it and make it better? Or worse, find a way to counter it or infect it, rendering us useless?
Then what?
Gumiho
Reach heaven through violence!
Thats is the entire point of becoming indespenable to the US government. So that the price of turning on us isnt worth it.
As to the other part, that is always a risk. What if our people are killed whilst using our tech in the field? Other people can easily pick it up. And use it. Exaxtly like we did to intergang.
Your assuming that people arnt doing that right now. Hoarding our tech and hoping that people arnt working on thier own versions, or working out how to counter what we already have is stupidly arrogant. Or working out how to use ourvtech for their own ends, like the brain and his buddies jave done to our phone network.
How many scientists have created robots, russia had a working exo suit long before we started ours, the US government is working on their oqn version right now.
The thing is, anyone who thinks they are going to take a swing at Lex Motherfucking Luthor is going to know they need a serious weapon to do that. If they don't use a suit we make available somehow, they'd get a S.T.R.I.P.E suit, or a Rocket Red Suit, or whatever, and it might not be as good but it'll be comparable. More problematically, taking serious steps to keep these suits out of other people's hands might mean not arming all our security with them, or police with them, or otherwise reducing our own effectiveness.
There are some technologies worth keeping very secret, even if it reduces our ability to exploit them, but exosuits are the furthest thing from that because they are so widely pursued as a technology. It'd be like keeping a new car tech secret- sooner or later someone will create somethjng comparable because we're not the only genius pursuing it.
The only way these exosuits will be useful against Superman is if they use kryptonite. If we supply the US government with hundreds of kryptonite powered exosuits and they lose them to crooks... Hooray? A blow against Superman achieved?
There are some technologies worth keeping very secret, even if it reduces our ability to exploit them, but exosuits are the furthest thing from that because they are so widely pursued as a technology. It'd be like keeping a new car tech secret- sooner or later someone will create somethjng comparable because we're not the only genius pursuing it.
The only way these exosuits will be useful against Superman is if they use kryptonite. If we supply the US government with hundreds of kryptonite powered exosuits and they lose them to crooks... Hooray? A blow against Superman achieved?
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- Location
- Fifth Dimension
You can never be indispensable to the US Gov't. They have their own tech and Captain Atom. And once you've given them our tech, they can simply reverse engineer it. All they need to be is above everyone else. Once there, Lex is no longer needed. And if he does something against them, they can turn on him. With his own tech.
As for our people being killed....?? I'm literally voting for a way to stop that by making it remotely detonated.
Except Lex's exosuit in the comics is useful against Superman, Larfleeze, Brainiac, etc. Without Kryptonite. So...wrong.
- Location
- Hala
Govt. doesn't work like that. Not unless Lex is holding some Dark Govt Secrets above their head.
So we better it before having our folks use it...?
Maybe they are maybe they are not. Lex should be concerned with upgrading his personal tech so that it stands absolute in the competition of others.
And again, govt is not gonna go be all dependent on Lex if he gives them the exo-suit. Y'all are severely underestimating them. Especially if people like Amanda Waller exist.
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Sena Kumo
The Tenth Wandering Cloud
- Location
- Portugal
Then we potentially are screwed. Easy like that.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
LexCorp is a weapons manufacturer. That means Lex makes weapons to give to the government in exchange for currency, which can then be converted into goods and services for use against Superman. A weapons manufacturer who does not sell their tech quickly finds themselves not manufacturing much of anything.
Like the blacksite we adopted our daughter out of?
Of course not, they're making their own exosuit right now. The real source of dependency is the battery we voted to sell last update, because they're not developing a competitor to those.
- Location
- Fifth Dimension
And still he manages to literally never give them a single piece of advanced tech that he himself uses. Interesting how he does that.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yes, comics are silly.
Addressing your points in order, while yes he's a weapons manufacturer, lex has always kept his best stuff to himself, and for good reason. He's able to sell his goods far and wide, and I think if the U.S military ever refused to buy our stocks they know we'd have dozens of competitors clambering for lexcorp goods. We have no real worries in that department, and even then we have a sturdy connection to the army.
Adopting a daughter isn't really something they wouldn't turn their head away from. But eh.
I can't agree with dependency but giving the suits isn't something I'd like. But there isn't a need for our battery in particular and this is something to address. Our battery is effective, but by no means the only one. It may be time consuming but they don't need out batteries to function.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
They do until they develop another one, which is why selling them was important. When you've got a monopoly on wheels you don't want anyone reinventing them.