Alright, so this is a pitch for a story at DC about Superman using the Kryptonian propensity for Energy Storage as a way to grew and sell living beings as batteries.
So the setting is like this. Centuries before Krypton was poisoned and Kryptonians could still leave the planet without special aids a “Tropey” Grey Alien is found kidnapping Kryptonians of every station and house. The Grey Alien ignores their indignation, some of them talk about a truce or an agreement with “the Grey” and the Alien just turns away and proceeds to stretch them on a medical device to the point they call out in pain and several devices appear from arms around them and extract matter from every part of them. They scream or complaint, the Grey looks on dispassionately, gesturing to a machine that displays “memory alteration” and we see the Kryptonian returned to where they presumably came from, like they had stumbled or had a bad dream.
Earth, START LABS YEAR CURRENT -5 a scientist has been sequencing Kryptonian DNA from samples from Superman when he has been de-powered here and there (they are all over the place if you look!) and has determined that while cloning a perfect copy is out of the question due to handwaved technology limits for the story. Buuut, there is the possibility that they could tease out a few features of Kryptonian Physiology, namely the ability to absorb and retain solar energy in order to use that stored energy to “Dealers Choice of Supermans Powers” only one power at a time, but you could potentially be super strong, or have eye blasts, or something, but there’s no way to control it.
So we’ve set up two threads.
Somewhere in Sector 7821 Green Lantern Grtan of The Osmis Cluster runs into a space cruiser stuck in a null sector, a sector of space with a negative infraction ratio it absorbs light like a black hole. It has shut down the craft. On investigation the Green Lantern digs in the bowels of the craft and discovers a humanoid baby inside a massive solar reactor,. Grtan ignites their ring and orders it to create a stable yellow sun radiation field. At which point the child appears to swell as it absorbs the light, slowly at first and eventually to a grotesque extent, until it’s flesh touches a contact point on the reactor and THE REACTOR LIGHTS!!!
The craft explodes from the Null sector, the Green Lanterns corpse is expelled from the craft by an unseen person and the spacecraft zooms into the stars, leaving Grtan floating in space. A ring distress signal summons “Dealers Choice Green Lantern” who takes Grtan to a nearby planet.
STAR labs has some test subject, animals that have been given one each of Superman’s powers, so they have a dog that can fly and horse that can stomp and cause damage and a cat that is VERY fast, but it has to be coated in a special suit because it keeps tearing it’s fur out. Jimmy Olsen comes across a mouse that seems to be able to find treats no matter where they are hidden, and discovers a tattoo on it that leads back to start labs. The little mouse escaped the lab (because it has Superman’s prodigious senses) and so it was able to navigate to the open air where Jimmy Found it and snatched it up and “saved it” from being stomped on by a passerby.
So we have two threads, Earth Scientists are using Superman’s Genetics to create potential weapons and the Grey who has turned Kryptonian Clones into batteries.
Neat!
Mark Rober and the Awful Joy of Tech Optimism: A Short video
Published by NiteMayr on April 13, 2023Mark Rober is being used to talk about the way that some Tech Optimism is bound up with replacing humans with machines and not presenting any alternatives for those Humans, but being REALLY excited about it anyway.