Lex Sedet In Vertice: A Supervillain in the DCU CK2 quest

[jonasquinn]

The influence you describe is kind of limited by the fact that people don't much care who their power company is. They won't feel it.

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They won't feel it unless we want them to feel it plus being able to cut people electricity bill will earn us a fair amount of goodwill, especially from those who are less well off

I am almost certain that that's not how it works. Kryptonite is great stuff, but if we're making it in a lab in appreciable quantities, it's not "power the entire city of Metropolis for decades" level.

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I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure we aren't making it in a lab, I don't think we ever took the option for synthetic Kryptonite soo the literal mountain of the stuff we currently have is all natural

Also I'm not 100% but I'm pretty sure @King crimson has said in the past that Kryptonite lasts for a very long time, which is a big reason why we pushed it so much as an alternative energy source

They don't have to come steal them. We can sell the things if they get that far. It's not like "attack the Earth and steal its stuff" is proving to be a particularly safe enterprise these days, and you know it's only going to get worse.

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I see two main issues with that

1) Most aliens so far haven't really been willing to negotiate, and the one who was was closer to extortion, and it's much easier for them to swing down, grab a Cold Engine and leave than a full on invasion. Not to mention it's be worth it for something that revolutionary

2) We don't really know what a Cold Engine is worth, especially when we're dealing with an interstellar economy centuries more advanced than we are

As for Kryptonite also being reality-breaking... well, yes. It is. That's my point. We have multiple unbeatable competitive advantages over any sort of mundane power supply company. That means that it's an utter waste to burn actions (which do have value) and even limited psuedo-heroes like Lance on trying to advertise when we have other things we could do with them (like adding to the PR push, even in small ways) that would support our main focuses (and we've got a fair number of them by now) rather than just getting an effectively inevitable win a little faster.

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Fair points, I do think now is the smartest time in universe to mak a push to swap over to Kryptonite energy but there are definitely other things we could be doing with that action and Lance that would also be useful

That's not it. First, we only really have 25 actions, because if we're not sinking two of them into double-down, we're doing it wrong. The supercomputer is maybe a 26th?

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Fair

Second, we have 37 full heroes. That drops to 35 once we send Edward off to hang with the assassins and have Cass training herself. It maybe bumps back up to 36 if we get to deploy Talia in return.

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Actually it's more like 33-35 because Rose is off doing stuff with her family for th next few turns and Pamela might be working for the EPA though hopefully not

Though it is theoretically possible that we might get a chance to grab some former S.T.A.R Labs units in the clean up of all this but we'll see

Now, we're going to want to do a fair amount of doubling up, and a few teams of tree or so, but it's still a fairly healthy hero-to-action ratio. While we do absolutely have *some* appetite for the little things, it's not but so large, and we have little things to spend that appetite on, anyway.

I also don't think that "very specific things" even remotely describes our decision-making process here. "what actions do we take" votes are a massive cat-herding exercise, and none of us are very good at herding cats.

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While I see where you're coming from I do think that this oversimplifies it somewhat, not all heroes or combination of heroes are equal and if there's an action we really want to do with a high DC it can theoretically mess up the whole equilibrium

You're trying to spread out our heroes so that we get small wins all over the place, rather than the big game-changers. Now, I'm not saying that we should go tilting at windmills here. High DCs are an issue, and they're a reason to avoid certain actions... but the major wins on difficult tasks are the thing that actually brings home the value for us, and draining away actions and hero assignments on minimally important stuff doesn't really do much.

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That's fair, admittedly I have an aversion to significant risk and would rather have a series of good victories on seemingly smaller things in the background with a few big projects we want to succeed massively on than taking risks with going for a lot of bigger projects

At this point, we shouldn't be bothering to advertise. We have a PR push to make, that we can use Lance for, and it's all about writing the narrative for what just happened with Brainiac. That's going to be *hugely* more valuable to our real long-term goals than trying to win a backyard advertising fight for "who provides your power" that we're winning based on tech advantages anyway. I mean, Metropolis is already enthusiastic about us owning a chunk of the police. We don't need our label on their power meter for the to know whose city this really is... and it's not like we'd exploit our iron grip on the city's power supply even if we got it.

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This might be a misunderstanding on what the power action actually does, potentially on my end I'm not sure

I didn't interpret that action as just a PR campaign to convince people to switch over their electricity provider but rather a plan to lobby the local government to change the city's power infrastructure so that all of Metropolis' electricity is provided by us, it's basically the difference between sending out pamphlets to try and get people to sign a contract and back room deals to fundamentally alter the infrastructure of the entire city

But yeah. I think that heroes are a limited resource. I also think that actions are a limited resource. We can be using both of them to push ourselves forward. Now, I admit that your last idea had virtues I didn't see at first... but it wasn't "dominate the agricultural market", it was "be the reason that this country isn't starving to death". That is the kind of influence we can take to the bank. When you try to think small, you burn resources doing small things, and then you can't do as many big things. We should be spending our heroes doing stuff that really moves the needle on our overall level of power and social control and ability to do stuff. We should be using our non-hero actions supporting that.

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That's fair, if I end up being wrong about the power action then you're absolutely right that that action would be better spent elsewhere

 

[Sirrocco]

I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure we aren't making it in a lab, I don't think we ever took the option for synthetic Kryptonite soo the literal mountain of the stuff we currently have is all natural

Also I'm not 100% but I'm pretty sure @King crimson has said in the past that Kryptonite lasts for a very long time, which is a big reason why we pushed it so much as an alternative energy source

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I'm pretty sure we did take that option, and when I went back to look at the options for the last turn, it wasn't available either under Learning or under Stewardship

Kryptonite is a fantastic energy storage medium, and lasts a ridiculously long time as batteries go. That lets us do absurd things like using kryptonite batteries in place of jet fuel for passenger airplanes. That's not "power metropolis for decades" levels, though.

I see two main issues with that

1) Most aliens so far haven't really been willing to negotiate, and the one who was was closer to extortion, and it's much easier for them to swing down, grab a Cold Engine and leave than a full on invasion. Not to mention it's be worth it for something that revolutionary

2) We don't really know what a Cold Engine is worth, especially when we're dealing with an interstellar economy centuries more advanced than we are

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1. Okay. Fine. Then let them. I mean, if we're mass-producing the things, then letting extremely powerful aliens steal one or two at a time just isn't that big a deal... especially when we'll absolutely have a superhero response to that sort of stuff.

2. True. Also irrelevant. If we're making them, and we're getting stuff that we find valuable for them, who cares if the rest of the galaxy thinks it's the equivalent of a handful of beads?

My point here is "Aliens might want them" isn't really a major reason to not produce Cold Engines.

I didn't interpret that action as just a PR campaign to convince people to switch over their electricity provider but rather a plan to lobby the local government to change the city's power infrastructure so that all of Metropolis' electricity is provided by us, it's basically the difference between sending out pamphlets to try and get people to sign a contract and back room deals to fundamentally alter the infrastructure of the entire city

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Okay. I suppose I can see that one.

I don't think Lance would necessarily be any good at that version, though. He's a model, not a lobbyist. If we put him on the job, it probably will be an ad campaign.

 

[King crimson]

I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure we aren't making it in a lab, I don't think we ever took the option for synthetic Kryptonite soo the literal mountain of the stuff we currently have is all natural

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Yeah, your current supply of Kryptonite is entirely natural. You do know what makes up Kryptonite (Sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide with Dhawan's particle in a set quantity. You also know that Red Kryptonite also includes trace amounts of iron if I'm remembering correctly).

 

[jonasquinn]

I'm pretty sure we did take that option, and when I went back to look at the options for the last turn, it wasn't available either under Learning or under Stewardship

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I might be wrong but I don't think we did, I feel like we'd have actions to create more artificial Kryptonite if we had

Kryptonite is a fantastic energy storage medium, and lasts a ridiculously long time as batteries go. That lets us do absurd things like using kryptonite batteries in place of jet fuel for passenger airplanes. That's not "power metropolis for decades" levels, though.

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It doesn't just store energy, the whole point of the power plants is that it generates a ton of the stuff when exposed to the right stimuli

As for the matter of how long it lasts, we might as well ask @King crimson about it at this point

1. Okay. Fine. Then let them. I mean, if we're mass-producing the things, then letting extremely powerful aliens steal one or two at a time just isn't that big a deal... especially when we'll absolutely have a superhero response to that sort of stuff.

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I am far more hesitant to just let any alien who wants to and can swoop in and steal one of the most revolutionary creations ever and either sell it themselves or use the literal infinite power it provide to do god knows what

2. True. Also irrelevant. If we're making them, and we're getting stuff that we find valuable for them, who cares if the rest of the galaxy thinks it's the equivalent of a handful of beads?

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We should care, we'd literally be solving energy crises across the universe. That's the kinda shir that we could probably get a planet or two for and just getting a bunch of tech we'd then need to reverse engineer is kind of a ripoff

My point here is "Aliens might want them" isn't really a major reason to not produce Cold Engines.

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I'm not against making more of them, just not as large scale replacements for Kryptonite Power Plants

Okay. I suppose I can see that one.

I don't think Lance would necessarily be any good at that version, though. He's a model, not a lobbyist. If we put him on the job, it probably will be an ad campaign.

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That's possible but I do think it's an action where you have to deal directly with the government itself rather than one where what the individual citizen wants factors in

 

[Sirrocco]

I am far more hesitant to just let any alien who wants to and can swoop in and steal one of the most revolutionary creations ever and either sell it themselves or use the literal infinite power it provide to do god knows what

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Ironically... that isn't what this is. The Cold Engine offers infinite work. It is not entirely inaccurate to say that it offers infinite energy... but it does not offer infinite power. For any given Cold Engine, you can get a certain amount of energy out of it per unit of time. It's just that it consumes nothing but local heat, and goes on forever. This makes it quite a lot less dangerous than it might otherwise be.

Beyond that, you seem to be ricocheting back and forth finding disadvantages from completely different contexts. Let's look at the context that we're actually in. Our context is, basically, the Earth, and maybe the solar system at some point. We're unlikely to have any real extrasolar assets at any point, and our game goals don't really care about them. So in that context....

- We will be developing the ability to create Cold Engines. Doing so can and will revolutionize energy production in the earth, if we do it right. It's a major game-changer in lots and lots of ways, and highly beneficial for a number of things that we care about.
- If we do this thing, there is a nonzero chance that some aliens might find out about it, and come to steal one or two. Well... okay. Replacing the occasional Cold Engine lost to extraterrestrial theft is perhaps annoying, but not actually that big a deal. Having individual aliens out there in the greater galaxy who are powering their whatever with a stolen Cold Engine is even less of a big deal. Why do we care?
- If we do this thing, there is a nonzero chance that some aliens might find out about it, and come to buy some. Well, okay. Customers are good. Now, the deals that they have to offer are likely to be weirdly skewed, because both we and they will be trading goods that are Out of Context for the other side. It is highly likely that the aliens in question will make out like bandits as far as their own profitability. That's okay, though. That does not harm us. It's not a reason to not mass-produce Cold Engines, and it's not a reason to not trade with aliens, because the existence of suddenly-rich aliens out there in the greater universe doesn't harm or hamper us in any meaningful way... and in the meantime, we can make sure that whatever they do trade is highly valuable to us, even if it's not that big a deal to them.
- It's possible that someone out there in the galaxy will take a Cold Engine (stolen or sold) and reverse-engineer the thing... which still isn't that big a deal to us. All it really does is cut own on the chances that aliens show up to steal/buy our stuff.

Basically, none of this is in any way a coherent argument against mass-producing the Cold Engine.

As far as the overall power thing... the ideal power system is one where we use Cold Engines as large emplaced power sources, and then use kryptonite as storage and distribution. We'd probably want to have our power plants contain *both*, actually - the Cold Engine for the overall steady flow, and the kryptonite to handle the variations in demand over the course of the day/night and yearly cycles. I mean, I'm certainly not trying to suggest that we should put up power plants that don't have enormous amounts of kryptonite in them. Perish the thought!

 

[jonasquinn]

We're unlikely to have any real extrasolar assets at any point, and our game goals don't really care about them.

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To be fair that depends, if we develop FTL there's all sorts of different directions we could go and interstellar colonisation would be a viable way to expand, hell we could join the United Planets if we wanted to

If we do this thing, there is a nonzero chance that some aliens might find out about it, and come to steal one or two. Well... okay. Replacing the occasional Cold Engine lost to extraterrestrial theft is perhaps annoying, but not actually that big a deal. Having individual aliens out there in the greater galaxy who are powering their whatever with a stolen Cold Engine is even less of a big deal. Why do we care?

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The main concerns are twofold:

1) Lex would be furious about someone stealing just about anything he owns/created

2) Any damage that's done during the theft will probably be blamed on us, especially if the Cold Engine malfunctions

Admittedly in hindsight they're relatively minor concerns

care?
- If we do this thing, there is a nonzero chance that some aliens might find out about it, and come to buy some. Well, okay. Customers are good. Now, the deals that they have to offer are likely to be weirdly skewed, because both we and they will be trading goods that are Out of Context for the other side. It is highly likely that the aliens in question will make out like bandits as far as their own profitability. That's okay, though. That does not harm us. It's not a reason to not mass-produce Cold Engines, and it's not a reason to not trade with aliens, because the existence of suddenly-rich aliens out there in the greater universe doesn't harm or hamper us in any meaningful way... and in the meantime, we can make sure that whatever they do trade is highly valuable to us, even if it's not that big a deal to them.

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That's fair

Basically, none of this is in any way a coherent argument against mass-producing the Cold Engine.

As far as the overall power thing... the ideal power system is one where we use Cold Engines as large emplaced power sources, and then use kryptonite as storage and distribution. We'd probably want to have our power plants contain *both*, actually - the Cold Engine for the overall steady flow, and the kryptonite to handle the variations in demand over the course of the day/night and yearly cycles. I mean, I'm certainly not trying to suggest that we should put up power plants that don't have enormous amounts of kryptonite in them. Perish the thought!

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Those are fair points, I suppose I'm just worried that something this revolutionary will have drawbacks were not aware of yet

Plus it seems a shame after all the work we put in to make a Kryptonite power plant to immediately replace it

EDIT: I'm editing this to avoid double posting but I had a thought and couldn't contain my curiosity

@King crimson if Lex were to marry Queen Bee would he still be able to run for President? From what I can tell there's no law forbidding the president from being married to a foreign ruler but a lot of discussion I've seen on a situation like that uses the British monarchy as an example where you can't really marry into it but is that also the case in Bialya or would Lex be a full on King?

 

[King crimson]

Sorry for taking way longer to get to finishing this update, Law School stuff cropped up and kicked my ass in terms of productivity. I should finally be finishing things soon.

@King crimson if Lex were to marry Queen Bee would he still be able to run for President? From what I can tell there's no law forbidding the president from being married to a foreign ruler but a lot of discussion I've seen on a situation like that uses the British monarchy as an example where you can't really marry into it but is that also the case in Bialya or would Lex be a full on King?

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So, if Lex married Queen Bee he could theoretically run for president of the US perfectly legally. There's no specific clause denying this and while we've never had a President married to a foreign leader we have had foreign first ladies in the US before. What would definitely happen is that Lex would near constantly be slammed with accusations of conflict of interest over and over and over again. It doesn't outright deny Lex the capacity to run for president but it makes it a whole lot harder to an insane degree.

That being said the additional complexity is that Lex would 100% have to step down from any position he has in government in Bialya in order to run for president. He cannot be both king of Bialya and president at the same time.

Also, the rule in Bialya is pretty much whatever Queen Bee wants it to be. Traditionally Bialyan royalty could be married into but Queen Bee could very easily move the appropriate levers to overturn that policy. She's mind-controlled so many key positions and has enough control over the country that the laws are effectively whatever she states they are even on institutions like the monarchy.

That make sense?

 

[jonasquinn]

That make sense?

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Yes it does, I don't think it really changes anything since I think it was pretty unanimously agreed that being president would be more of a limitation than a benefit and having near total control over Bialya would be more advantageous anyway but I was curious

 

[Negation]

Even if we don't run for President, the State Department would still come to us as an "unofficial backchannel"

 

[Gumiho]

Yes it does, I don't think it really changes anything since I think it was pretty unanimously agreed that being president would be more of a limitation than a benefit and having near total control over Bialya would be more advantageous anyway but I was curious

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We have to spend 75 million dollars on a false presdidential campaign atleast once though to just to tick Superman off.

 

[Negation]

I still preferred Lexor City. It cut Superman far more deeply than anything Brainiac has ever done so far in-Quest.

 

[jonasquinn]

I still preferred Lexor City. It cut Superman far more deeply than anything Brainiac has ever done so far in-Quest.

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Unfortunately that tactic really only works if Lex and Superman's dynamic has gotten so antagonist that he ignores all evidence to pursue him

 

[Sirrocco]

Unfortunately that tactic really only works if Lex and Superman's dynamic has gotten so antagonist that he ignores all evidence to pursue him

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Yeah... and not only that, but it has to be the kind of openly antagonistic that has Superman thinking that Lex Luthor will do moustache-twirlingly evil things to random bystanders just because. It's a hilarious plan, and I love it... but it would require so much fail from us to get to the point where it was in any way workable.

On the bright side, the VAA (once it comes online) is going to mean that we can more effectively hit him with a "death of a thousand cuts" version of this. We just... find ways to push Superman into throwing around the collateral damage, or busting up labs that are working on legitimately secret but still ethical things (ideally on behalf of the government). Then we present the bill to his sponsor.

Wait! We have pheremones. You know what those are great for? Those things are fantastic for making people you don't like believe things that appeal to their deep-seated preconceptions. Lois Lane doesn't like or trust LexCorp, and she doesn't like or trust the military in general. So we get some contract from the government that has us doing something that's very hush-hush, but also legally and ethically clean. We hit Lois with pheremones in such a way to convince her that this secret project in this specific lab somewhere is Doing Something Terrible and Needs To Be Stopped (or at least Investigated). We cram it full to the gills with kryptonite-based defenses and unsavory-looking ex-convict guards. We make sure to vet and pay said guards well enough to make sure they're willing to behave, and then we tell them about Lois Lane in particular, and that we want them to scare the **** out of her if they find her trying to infiltrate, and ideally capture her for the police, but (preferably) not actually hurt the woman. Then we wait.

It's the perfect nemesis action. There's basically no risk of meaningful failure, and we set our enemies up for potentially severe reputation damage, and all that it takes is that they act the way they always act.

Maybe not immediately, though. I feel like this is the sort of nemesis action that we might want to assign some heroes to, and that's not really in the budget for the "immediately post-Brainiac" period.

Also, arguably it could be two nemesis actions - one to set up a Deeply Suspicious Lab, and the second to lure Lois and/or Superman into it.

 

[King crimson]

It's the perfect nemesis action. There's basically no risk of meaningful failure, and we set our enemies up for potentially severe reputation damage, and all that it takes is that they act the way they always act.

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I mean I don't know if you consider it "meaningful failure" but I can think of a few ways it goes wrong. The example I'll give is that Lois, not thinking straight because she's been influenced by pheromones, continues to aggressively act against the guards causing them to panic and shoot her which results in her death. The death of Lois results in Superman and General Sam Lane actively hating you and being motivated to stop you/cause you as many problems as possible as well as Lucy resigning due to guilt (Lucy dislikes her sister but doesn't want her to die and so having LexCorp kill Lois is going to severely sour her relationship with them even if the death wasn't intentional).

It's by no means perfect and there are still risks of meaningful failures in my honest opinion. That's not to say it can't work but I do want to point out that even as presented there are ways for it to blow up on you if things go horribly wrong (Lois dying is a very unlikely option but it's still possible and so that risk at the very least still exists).

 

[Sirrocco]

I mean I don't know if you consider it "meaningful failure" but I can think of a few ways it goes wrong. The example I'll give is that Lois, not thinking straight because she's been influenced by pheromones, continues to aggressively act against the guards causing them to panic and shoot her which results in her death. The death of Lois results in Superman and General Sam Lane actively hating you and being motivated to stop you/cause you as many problems as possible as well as Lucy resigning due to guilt (Lucy dislikes her sister but doesn't want her to die and so having LexCorp kill Lois is going to severely sour her relationship with them even if the death wasn't intentional).

It's by no means perfect and there are still risks of meaningful failures in my honest opinion. That's not to say it can't work but I do want to point out that even as presented there are ways for it to blow up on you if things go horribly wrong (Lois dying is a very unlikely option but it's still possible and so that risk at the very least still exists).

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Well... from a doylist standpoint main character protection suggests that that's highly unlikely, and, honestly, having Lois die might be worth it even so, especially if we have her on camera obviously provoking armed guards and can clearly demonstrate our lack of fault to people who aren't personally invested in her.

...and since the entire point of this process is to make Superman look bad by having him target actually innocent LexCorp holdings unjustly, and he'd have lost his best spin doctor... I mean, it's not ideal, in some ways, but I'd certainly call it workable.

 

[King crimson]

Sorry for the constant delays everybody (law school stuff and phone issues ate up a lot of time). The update is coming soon and if I don't get it up today I'll have something else fun up later. Thank you all for your patience and understanding.

 

[King crimson]

So this is something. I don't know how much people would like it but I did promise to try and get something up. As such I hope people enjoy what I'd consider an interesting little peak into the greater Metropolis dynamic.

King Crimson Rambles about Various Metropolis Villains
Toyman
Toyman's a great villain in my opinion because he's not only able to vary the type of threat Superman faces by being a mad scientist, but his theming naturally lends itself well to creative set ups and he's naturally always got a slightly creepy vibe to him.

I also like my own take on the character and his motivations and personality. I've mentioned this before but Toyman is essentially a child who never properly grew up and as such fixates on external problems and causes for why he isn't happy and then attempts to remove and destroy them. However the real reason Toyman is incapable of being happy is that he's incapable of moving on past the "wrongs" done to him and childishly lashing out, while at the same time refusing to live on anyone's schedule but his own or acknowledge his own faults and mistakes. Toyman fixates on Superman but even if there was no Superman for him to fixate on he'd still inevitably find someone to blame for what goes wrong in his life and attempt to destroy them.

This in turn plays into how Toyman is both one of the most social and least social of all of Superman's rogues. He can work well with people but at the same time he requires an outside enemy to focus on as the objective and he's liable to blame others for everything going wrong. Toyman wants to be loved and interact with people but his general demeanor and personality, lack of social skills and childishness leads to him pushing people away which in turn causes him to double down on his problematic aspects and hate people who aren't his "toys" even more.

Toyman functions in the Metropolis underworld as a semi-predictable powerhouse who can be reasoned with and worked with. Toyman doesn't often go out of his way to interact with large groups of people and while he'll single-mindedly fixate on his goal, he does engage in some level of exchange with those who'd aid him. Toyman does build his own workforce whenever possible but his skill in robotics enables him to essentially sell his talent to more common criminals in order to get an initial level of build up. What few surviving gangs exist in Metropolis generally don't want to touch Toyman due to his tendency to inevitably go after Superman but they are occasionally willing to barter with him.

Toyman and Metallo get along weirdly well due to them both having a hyper-fixation on killing Superman but at the same time he and the Ultra-Humanite would likely despise each other and be incapable of working together long term.

Ultra-Humanite
Ultra-Humanite is an interesting entity. They are currently the most notorious supervillain in Metropolis and as such that grants them a certain sort of status in dealings with the greater whole.

A lot of Superman's villains come from very working class backgrounds and are not very refined in their behaviors. It might sound weird considering that Superman's most recognizable supervillain (Lex Luthor) is a billionaire, but once you start actually looking at his Metropolis-based villains you see that they are janitors (Parasite), soldiers (Metallo), toymakers (Toyman), radio and tv hosts (Livewire and Prankster), derranged scientists (Blackrock) and literal hobos (Madness) more often than they are ultra-rich, high society individuals. As such a lot of Superman's foes are naturally more boorish and unrefined. Ultra-Humanite is an exception to this rule and that has helped them to stand out in the world of supervillainy.

Ultra-Humanite is a person who is classy and enjoys the trappings of high society. They have opinions on art and opera and so much more. Their diction is refined and erudite and Ultra-Humanite, despite having the body of an albino gorilla maintains a sort of politeness in all of their interactions. What separates Ultra-Humanite from individuals like the Penguin is that Ultra-Humanite very well could integrate into high society fairly easily and yet they still choose not to do so.

Ultra-Humanite seeks to improve society at large and as such sees transgression of physical form as a necessary advancement. They are very much both a mad scientist and a mad philosopher as they do have a worldview that justifies undermining and attacking "society" and straying outside the bounds of civility in order to improve it as a whole. For a sort of metaphorical comparison I see Ultra-Humanite as being similar to an old fashioned courteous noble who got it into their head that the current class system is wrong so they decide to go on a murder spree to force others to confront their issue of choice only Ultra-Humanite does it through mad science.

Also, to address something that may not be clear but I have been doing for a good while, Ultra-Humanite is neither male nor female in quest. They would be using they/them pronouns and while other characters will pretty regularly misgender Ultra-Humanite (and I'll sometimes do so unintentionally), the broader intention is that Ultra-Humanite has largely sidestepped identifying with any gender in particular (due in part to the abandonment of the necessity of a corporeal form). Ultra-Humanite is not meant to be representative of people who are non-binary (they're weird as hell in terms of brain state) though they are non-binary to some extent and I do intend to include and account for that.

To return back to Ultra-Humanite as an individual in the quest, their own genuine politeness and willingness to negotiate on non-critical issues makes them quite capable of working with outside individuals when possible. That being said Ultra-Humanite's preferred state of cooperation with others is either with people who genuinely share their ideals or with those who have been coerced and thus are unable to effectively turn on him.

Parasite
Parasite is an almost literal murder-hobo, driven by envy and greed. Unlike most of Superman's rogues, the criminal elements of the city don't bother negotiating or working with him. Parasite is functionally persona non-grata because he's terminally incapable of not feeding on others if he has the opportunity to do so. Parasite still prioritizes getting to feed on certain individuals over others but at the same time it's incredibly annoying and a massive risk trying to work with someone who will turn on you and kill you the moment they decide that they might as well do so given that they have the opportunity right in front of them.

Parasite is fun for me to write because he's kind of an idiot. He's borderline incapable of long-term planning, he actively wastes and misuses what would be an incredibly dangerous top-tier ability and ultimately undoes his own success. A lot like Toyman, Parasite does want to be respected admired and loved though unlike Toyman he thinks that power is the way to do that and that he needs to step over others to get that power. This in turn causes Parasite to feel the need to feed and as such gain power which in turn drives people away from him due to him acting as little more than a monster. This then causes a vicious cycle where as Parasite feeds he feels he needs to feed even more and ultimately gets further away from the initial goal of why he wanted power in the first place. He's unintentionally Sisyphean in his behavior and it's interesting to see that in a villain.

The only supervillains Parasite is capable of working with long term are those who are almost never worth draining (like Metallo whose cyborg nature naturally makes him highly resistant to being drained by Parasite).

Metallo
I don't have too much that I feel would be particularly interesting to add about Metallo. He's single-mindedly murderous but at the same time he is capable of working with others and engaging in cooperation. I do think it is neat that of all of Superman's foes in Metropolis, minus maybe some of the people working directly under Lex, Metallo is very clearly the foe with the greatest amount of combat training. While his new cyborg nature kind of renders a lot of the information moot or redundant, Metallo is one of the few Metropolis Superman villains who could pick up a gun and fire it at a target a fair distance away fairly accurately. Metallo also has more knowledge on CQC than almost every other villain (and definitely the most of everyone on this list).

Metallo is interesting in that he's potentially set up to become a mercenary once again due to having a need for money (to buy more kryptonite) and the skills to do so, but he's unwilling to do so due to his current fixation. Metallo is also notable in that unlike almost every other villain listed above he's just straight up incurably driven to violence and madness. Every villain listed above could hypothetically be talked down from being a supervillain with a good enough invincible therapist. Metallo cannot be talked down as the fundamental sensory deprivation and agony he survived has caused him to fairly firmly cement his hate to the point where he cannot move past it while still remaining functionally himself.

Metallo is only loosely familiar with Metropolis due to not actually being a local but he does know a good few places to hide and he's remarkably capable of working with the criminal elements in the city dumb enough to cooperate with him. Metallo does have no desire to lead though and only works with others to gave the resources or upgrades he feels are necessary for his own plans to kill Superman.

Blackrock
Blackrock also isn't a character I have a ton of interesting things to say about. I will say that like a lot of the villains listed above, his goals and behaviors are inherently self-defeating but in Blackrock's case that's due to a literal drug addiction and thus it's not really unique (I imagine that acting on an addiction is inherently self-defeating because it will only ever get you more addicted or dead). He doesn't really have much presence or command in the city and can't really cooperate with others

Luminous
Again, this is less about the crimes and careers of the character and his effect on Metropolis as Luminous is currently very much a nobody but I do think I have an interesting little bit of dramatic irony regarding him that I think is interesting to talk about.

Luminous initially hid as long as he did because he wasn't especially notable. He was easily over-looked and ignored and that let him fly under the radar for a very long time. In order to combat this Luminous desired the spotlight and as such began sending Lois information. When Luminous' craving for attention was not fulfilled in a way he liked and people started looking into him and what he did, Luminous grew vicious and tried to get revenge on Lois. Then he attracted Superman's attention just long enough to be seen by the city and labelled a supervillain and then promptly disappeared into a dark hole (place with no light) by Sam Lane, an individual tied to both the military and Lois Lane, both of which Luminous tried to do damage to in his quest for recognition and remaining in the limelight. Since then he's become not really remembered and on a meta-level even I sometimes forget about him.

I do think it's an interesting little recursion of the whole "supervillains having self-defeating behavior" as his behavior almost consistently backfired due to Luminous making assumptions that were wrong as well as powerful enemies. Luminous could have made a living in Metropolis as a supervillain if he'd been given enough time to dig into the city but because his early work was so attention grabbing he was unable to actually gain any contacts with the Metropolis underworld

 

[jonasquinn]

Ultra-Humanite

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If it weren't for the fact that their views on society and culture are very elitist and cause them to look down on a lot of our products like the LexPhone and therefore dislike us I'd really like to work with Ulta-Humanite

 

[Simon_Jester]

Metallo is interesting in that he's potentially set up to become a mercenary once again due to having a need for money (to buy more kryptonite) and the skills to do so...

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Honestly, I imagine his need for maintenance is more of an issue. These days, in the DCQU version of Metropolis, you can get more kryptonite just by finding the right car and ripping open the hood to pull the battery out. It's not exactly hard.

but he's unwilling to do so due to his current fixation. Metallo is also notable in that unlike almost every other villain listed above he's just straight up incurably driven to violence and madness. Every villain listed above could hypothetically be talked down from being a supervillain with a good enough invincible therapist. Metallo cannot be talked down as the fundamental sensory deprivation and agony he survived has caused him to fairly firmly cement his hate to the point where he cannot move past it while still remaining functionally himself.

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True. On the other hand, if there were anyone he trusted enough to upgrade his body and improve his sensory capabilities, he'd probably be very loyal to that person and might greatly change his behavior and motivations after that was done.

 

[King crimson]

If it weren't for the fact that their views on society and culture are very elitist and cause them to look down on a lot of our products like the LexPhone and therefore dislike us I'd really like to work with Ulta-Humanite

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I by no means think it's impossible to work with people who dislike you if you want to put in the effort for the character. Ultra-Humanite's interesting in that a lot of groups would have no issues with them if it weren't for very specific parts of their personality and ideology. Ultra-Humanite very easily could have been a businessperson, a superhero, a monster or a critic but in the end they chose none of those paths. I think it's almost sort of natural to look at this person who is genuinely brilliant and cultured and sane and semi-reasonable and think of how unfortunate it is that they ultimately chose to be a supervillain.

Honestly, I imagine his need for maintenance is more of an issue. These days, in the DCQU version of Metropolis, you can get more kryptonite just by finding the right car and ripping open the hood to pull the battery out. It's not exactly hard.

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I mean to some extent this is true. I'd personally argue Metallo still would probably be better off anonymously purchasing kryptonite than stealing it himself (he's not exactly easy to miss in terms of appearance). It's likely still true that it's not exactly hard but I do think that for Metallo it's significantly easier to go and noticeably act as a mercenary for unscrupulous individuals and then pay anonymously for stolen kryptonite than it is for him to go and steal the kryptonite necessary for his maintenance himself (mostly because theft requires subtlety and Metallo's condition naturally makes him better as a cleaver than a scalpel).

Additionally, his need for maintenance generally isn't all that much of a problem for him. True, he'd outright struggle with replacing anything that is removed but Metallo's built to take punches from Superman and so he's naturally pretty durable. Furthermore, in most situations where Metallo get's damaged he's also going to be taxing his kryptonite "heart" and using up its energy in order to get out of said situation.

Considering he can function without most of his body, I think prioritizing kryptonite is reasonable. Kryptonite isn't the most valuable cost of functioning for Metallo but it is the most critical as literally every other part but his brain doesn't hypothetically prevent him from getting those repairs later (Metallo could theoretically fix missing arms, eyes and legs if he had his kryptonite still powering his body. The reverse is not true). As such the reason why I would consider him having the motivation for more money to be primarily for buying more kryptonite is that having a large supply of kryptonite enables him to push his body to achieve whatever else he wants to get done.

That make sense?

On the other hand, if there were anyone he trusted enough to upgrade his body and improve his sensory capabilities, he'd probably be very loyal to that person and might greatly change his behavior and motivations after that was done.

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This is correct but the change in personality likely won't be the cleanest. Just fixing his sensory issues outright could potentially put him into sensory overload and because his brain is so used to not smelling or tasting or touching anything even the smallest stuff could theoretically be too much. It's very, very difficult to get it cleanly and because of that any attempted cure of Metallo that doesn't work out perfectly runs the risk of a mentally addled person who near constantly stayed angry and enraged for years on end having the motivation and situation to lash out violently.

 

[jonasquinn]

I by no means think it's impossible to work with people who dislike you if you want to put in the effort for the character.

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The issue is that when you're dealing with supervillains is that unless your goals align near perfectly you can't trust them not to screw with you in some way

 

[Simon_Jester]

I mean to some extent this is true. I'd personally argue Metallo still would probably be better off anonymously purchasing kryptonite than stealing it himself (he's not exactly easy to miss in terms of appearance). It's likely still true that it's not exactly hard but I do think that for Metallo it's significantly easier to go and noticeably act as a mercenary for unscrupulous individuals and then pay anonymously for stolen kryptonite than it is for him to go and steal the kryptonite necessary for his maintenance himself (mostly because theft requires subtlety and Metallo's condition naturally makes him better as a cleaver than a scalpel).

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You're not wrong, but what I was really getting at is that kryptonite is easy to source these days in the DCQU.

Like, you basically just need connections to a ring of car thieves, and while there's no doubt good money in those kryptonite batteries, that places a practical upper limit on how much it can cost. I'd expect Metallo's robotics (which are likely to include a lot of custom stuff) to be more expensive in this setting.

Additionally, his need for maintenance generally isn't all that much of a problem for him. True, he'd outright struggle with replacing anything that is removed but Metallo's built to take punches from Superman and so he's naturally pretty durable. Furthermore, in most situations where Metallo get's damaged he's also going to be taxing his kryptonite "heart" and using up its energy in order to get out of said situation.

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I was thinking more in terms of routine maintenance, not "repair battle damage;" the two are different. But maybe Metallo is lower-maintenance than I expect given that he's a high-end high-performance cyborg body originally designed by a guy who had no real interest in making the body long-lived as long as it lasted long enough to assassinate Superman.

 

[Sirrocco]

I was thinking more in terms of routine maintenance, not "repair battle damage;" the two are different. But maybe Metallo is lower-maintenance than I expect given that he's a high-end high-performance cyborg body originally designed by a guy who had no real interest in making the body long-lived as long as it lasted long enough to assassinate Superman.

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Well, Toyman has played with it since, and who knows what other adjustments he's managed?

 

[King crimson]

You're not wrong, but what I was really getting at is that kryptonite is easy to source these days in the DCQU.

Like, you basically just need connections to a ring of car thieves, and while there's no doubt good money in those kryptonite batteries, that places a practical upper limit on how much it can cost. I'd expect Metallo's robotics (which are likely to include a lot of custom stuff) to be more expensive in this setting.

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I more or less agree with what you're saying here. I will say the one caveat that drops the cost of these things is that Metallo knows at least somewhat how to make and work with the custom stuff meaning the overhead does drop somewhat

I was thinking more in terms of routine maintenance, not "repair battle damage;" the two are different. But maybe Metallo is lower-maintenance than I expect given that he's a high-end high-performance cyborg body originally designed by a guy who had no real interest in making the body long-lived as long as it lasted long enough to assassinate Superman.

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It's less that he's "low maintenance" and more that there are mitigating costs to his routine maintenance, namely that a lot of the more simple stuff is stuff he can attempt on his own (he doesn't need to pay a specialist to fix the most basic stuff since Vale explicitly implanted skills in him including the skill for self-maintenance), relevant technology in exo-suits and LexCorp prosthetics also exist meaning he has access to parts he can use for specific things (not as much as kryptonite but the robotics materials are also less rare in the DCQU than they are IRL) and the key point that Vale wasn't really interested in a short-lived body either (Metallo is explicitly stated as a proof of concept for future "mechanized soldiers" as well as an "advancement of humanity" while that's not concrete evidence that Vale desired him to be particularly long-lived, I think it suggests that he wanted Metallo to last a decent amount of time beyond just being able to assassinate Superman).

TLDR: I think Metallo's robotics definitely are more expensive but the question would be how often does he need to go and repair himself/conduct maintenance versus how often he wants more Kryptonite to keep himself running better in order to determine what he's more likely to put money towards and thus by extension come to value money for.

 

[Sirrocco]

Huh. So it sounds like we might have Metallo break himself out of the warehouse we put him in after resupplying with the copious spare parts we left readily at hand... as well as giving him easy access to a whole bunch of supply for future refueling and self-repair.

It *also* suggests that working on developing our exo-suit/cybernetics/robot tech further (especially in Superman-unfriendly ways) might help Metallo power up. That sounds pretty good to me, honestly.

Though, to be clear, I don't think this is anything we should be putting effort into soon.