17 KiB
[D][Q] The Tragedy of General Zod
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Author: u/Nighzmarquls *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2v28v6/dq_the_tragedy_of_general_zod/
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Score: 11
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Created: 2015-02-07T04:24:43
Post:
Am I the only one who feels an utter tragedy is at play in the character of general Zod as depicted in man of steel?
As near as I can surmise from the cues of the fiction, he is a human like being, who by conditioning and or genetic pre-disposition been given a degree of scope insensitivity for the well being of his people and the preservation of his society.
There is so much heroism I see in his journey, he strives to overthrow a government that he see's has FAILING to save his people from certain destruction. His rebellion fails, but what he is trying to prevent ends up happening!
Then when by a miracle of infrastructure failure he and his few survivors are released from their imprisonment he, a human like being that is MEANT to feel the weight of such an event see's the destruction of all he exists to protect.
And then instead of giving up he manages to scrounge a plan to MAYBE find some SHRED of his people's survival.
And then he finds this traitor of everyone and everything he cares about, who is intrinsicly containing thesalvation of EVERYTHING he wants to protect.
And even a surviving means to bring back EVERYTHING about krypton that he feels as an aching loss and it's RIGHT there and this infant, this child who contains everything to restore the ONLY THING he ever was meant to protect.
Just...
There is such a terrible tragedy in this.
The conflict honestly feels surprisingly rational to me, I feel like it would have been a better narrative if they had dropped more of the trappings of the source material (like superman's weakness to kryptonian atmosphere).
Am I alone in having gotten this from the film?
Comments:
u/alexanderwales [+16] Time flies like an arrow (57 minutes later)
There were a lot of things that could have been done to make that movie better, and a lot of things that could have made it more rational.
- Make it so that the terraforming ship is damaged in such a way that it's not going to be able to move to another planet - it's terraform Earth or bust, which at least means that Zod has some incentive other than being a total dick.
- Have Zod make some token attempt at compromise before going psycho.
- Have Zod make a token attempt at trickery (a legitimate military tactic).
- Actually include some fallout from the near-total destruction of Metropolis. The Avengers at least made a token effort at this with the destruction in New York City, but Man of Steel basically didn't try to give emotional weight to the thousands that died.
Mostly the movie just sucked - it was a bunch of flashy, enjoyable action scenes that strung together nonsense.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+3] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (an hour later)
Mostly the movie just sucked - it was a bunch of flashy, enjoyable action scenes that strung together nonsense.
This is why I an avid superman fan haven't seen it; (superman is a good first step for transhumanity to aspire too, aside from his physical impossibility)
That said, this is an interesting idea that would be a very compelling morality tale if done right. Please do write it and give us a rational, but militant, General Zod's struggle to restore krypton.
If you do, as a "If bilbo is a Jedi, then Sauran must have a death star" I'd suggest Supes being orders of magnitude more powerful, including his speed of thinking, due to having spent all of his life in a yellow sun.
u/Nepene [+9] (9 hours later)
Or start up the sequel to Metropoliton man with General Zod arriving and announcing his intentions, and asking where Superman is.
u/Nighzmarquls [+3] (18 hours later)
That story should probably end with "where is superman?" resonating out of every sufficiently conductive wire or something else of that nature.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (23 hours later)
That story should probably end with "where is superman?" resonating out of every sufficiently conductive wire or something else of that nature.
I am confused, are you setting up Zod with Braniac, or imaging an application of Zod's power-sett to being applied with post-human level fineness?
u/Nighzmarquls [+3] (a day later)
Ah sorry still working of man of steel version zod crossed with the relatively low tech of the metropolitan man.
The whole "broadcast to earth" scene does not work as well with the lower tech of really 20s or so tech.
u/Nighzmarquls [+1] (2 days later)
I've started up another thread to brainstorm on what to consider for a fiction based on that: Kryptonian survivors Braintstorming
u/None [+4] (12 hours later)
(superman is a good first step for transhumanity to aspire too, aside from his physical impossibility)
Also Time Lords.
u/Someone-Else-Else [+4] Anti-Spiral (18 hours later)
Well, Superman isn't just transhuman-like, he's a superhuman who's not a dick. You aspire to him for his morality, not just his power.
The Time Lords are not like that.
u/Nighzmarquls [+4] (18 hours later)
Also the time lords leave lots to be desired in their optimization of time travel to "any use"
u/Empiricist_or_not [+2] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (23 hours later)
I'm guessing you are basing this on the new Doctors. As far as the good wizard coming from the sky, or the blood soaked trickster god who will change/optimize your entire societies value system, I agree.
As for canonical Galifrey. . . um, no the time lords basically have a elder civilization prohibition against acting, and make stupid exceptions, for space opera plot reasons, but then again I side with new Chaos over the prime directive in the Open Door.
u/None [+3] (a day later)
Actually, I was basing it on how the older Time Lords don't play Sanctimonious Intergalactic Colonialist.
Remember, when you talk about those later Doctors, you're speaking of someone who would probably wipe out the Culture claiming that Humanity Is Not Ready. He's got some kind of hate-on for anything beyond the 21st century baseline humanity he likes.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (a day later)
Remember, when you talk about those later Doctors, you're speaking of someone who would probably wipe out the Culture claiming that Humanity Is Not Ready. He's got some kind of hate-on for anything beyond the 21st century baseline humanity he likes.
I'm going to have to think about that and look at the doctor in a more critical light. I'm not sure if this is the character or the BBC always focusing on what they thinks makes the future relate-able, but I think your right from the perspective of the doctor actively opposing attempts to uplift humanity, and not doing it himself. From that perspective he is a lazy bastard.
But you did bring up my favorite trans-humanist example culture Minds. Yes they are story AIs and not good speculative AIs. I know Bolstrom has his arguments against super-intelligence via modding human intelligence as a potential existential threat. But some day, if it were safe, say approved by post-human intelligence working on CEV, if we could get there and maintain our identity it'd be very nice to think on those levels.
u/None [+4] (a day later)
I'm going to have to think about that,
And remember how they devoted an entire episode to the Doctor telling a human that Humanity Isn't Ready for regeneration/rejuvenation, and that it will always Go Horribly Wrong, and immortality is just shite anyway and we humans should accept Nature's will? Except for how The
Emo KidDoctor has this terrible burden of flying around in a transdimensional space-and-time ship meeting interesting people, saving worlds, and causing hilarity to ensue everywhere he goes.I know Bolstrom has his arguments against super-intelligence via modding human intelligence as a potential exitental threat. But some day, if it were safe, say approved by post-human intelligence working on CEV, if we could get there and maintain our identity it'd be very nice to think on those levels.
Couldn't we try to find out about the actual science of human cognitive enhancement before declaring that it will inevitably Go Horribly Wrong? Normally I'm early to the party on saying transhumanism should have caution and display ethical scruples, but declaring everything, including human beings, an "existential risk" (reason for scare quotes: risk to what?) until proven otherwise seems... well... dare I say this... kinda ignorant.
Point being, I think when we understand the mechanisms behind human cognition, we'll understand quite well how to enhance it without destroying "our essential humanity" or whatever the philosophers have conned themselves into believing in this year.
u/CeruleanTresses [+2] (a day later)
Oh god, yeah. That fucking episode. I like how it just conveniently turns out that the regeneration tech ALSO turns you into a slavering scorpion abomination who eats life energy. "See? Immortality is bad. It turns you into an evil scorpion. The Doctor was right, neener neener."
u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (a day later)
Couldn't we try to find out about the actual science of human cognitive enhancement before declaring that it will inevitably Go Horribly Wrong? Normally I'm early to the party on saying transhumanism should have caution and display ethical scruples, but declaring everything, including human beings, an "existential risk" (reason for scare quotes: risk to what?) until proven otherwise seems... well... dare I say this... kinda ignorant.
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies is really worth reading. The essential argument is that getting to a superintellegence is a get it right the first time, or you probably go extinct problem. Human modification is probably the easiest way to get to making a superintellegence, but all things being equal it is very hard to be certain what the value structure of the resulting super-intelligence will be as human value structures are mutable, so you are probably going to get it wrong. In general he lays out what the paths are, and how far we are from them, though you can see from the beginning that he has already decided that CEV (Coherent Extrapolated volition) is the only way to go.
Edit: I started a new thread for good fictional examples of transhuman and posthumans, because your points on the doctor are well taken, and I'm interested to see which other fictional idols shatter under assault from the community.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Human modification is probably the easiest way to get to making a superintellegence, but all things being equal it is very hard to be certain what the value structure of the resulting super-intelligence will be as human value structures are mutable, so you are probably going to get it wrong.
I think this very much depends on what you mean by "human value structures". Are we talking about the underlying cognitive machinery behind our morality, or are we talking about the airy-fairy philosophical objects labeled "moral values" and conjured into nonsensical consideration the same way dualistic consciousness is and for the same reasons?
The former could be altered as a side-effect of intelligence enhancement, but that's why you work to understand what's going to happen before you actually go and enhance someone -- you also leave no avenues open for recursive enhancement without cooperation and pro-social behavior. If all your avenues to cognitive enhancement seem likely to destroy a person's moral character, then you simply don't use them.
Of course, if you're talking about the latter, the philosophical ghosts usually called "values", then they will be altered or destroyed by everything, because that's simply what happens to large masses of nonsense when exposed to reality.
Edit: I started a new thread for good fictional examples of transhuman and posthumans, because your points on the doctor are well taken, and I'm interested to see which other fictional idols shatter under assault from the community.
Neato!
u/MugaSofer [+1] (a day later)
Actually include some fallout from the near-total destruction of Metropolis. The Avengers at least made a token effort at this with the destruction in New York City, but Man of Steel basically didn't try to give emotional weight to the thousands that died.
My personal prediction is that this will be the sequel.
It would be a surprise, to me, if they deliberately went out of their way to emphasize the destruction - rather than sanitizing it like The Avengers did - only to be surprised when people questioned whether Superman was actually a good thing. Especially considering the obvious sequel-potential with Batman and/or Luthor bringing this up as their motivation.
Unfortunately, I suspect it wasn't worth it, since the sequel sounds like it's trying to cram in too many characters a la Amazing Spiderman 2. But we'll just have to see.
u/scruiser [+14] CYOA (34 minutes later)
In the film, I thought it was implied he could have picked another planet to terraform, but picked earth pretty much just to be a dick and punish superman's father vicariously through superman and the people of earth.
u/abstractwhiz [+5] Friendly Eldritch Abomination (2 days later)
The biggest problem with that movie, at least from a rational fiction point of view, is that there is really no reason for the fundamental conflict. Had Zod been acting sensibly, he could simply have popped down to Earth to meet Clark, explained the situation, asked him to help restore his species, and then terraformed Venus or something. He could have literally achieved every one of his goals had he simply decided against exterminating the human race for no good reason.
I'd almost go as far as saying that Zod fails at being a level 1 intelligent character -- if not for the fact that people with power frequently do act like this, committing atrocities simply because it is convenient and satisfies their more ugly human urges. I remember reading somewhere that the true human relation to power, subconsciously recognized by everyone, is the ability to inflict injustice without consequence. Add to that the research demonstrating that power and wealth bias humans to higher levels of callousness and ethical laxity.
For this reason, I generally think Zod mostly qualifies as a level 1 intelligent character. The bit that I find a little doubtful is his pointless decision to kill off a technologically inferior species that had nothing to do with him or the losses he suffered. I suppose he could plausibly be considered to be mad with grief and/or power, but you'd think that this elder race would at least have learned how to condition their military commanders, no?
On a lighter note, how the hell is Jor-El, a Kryptonian bred and conditioned for scientific research, able to beat the shit out of multiple trained soldiers (okay fine, he had the element of surprise, but dat kung fu), and then take on Zod in single combat and win?
I think I'd have been happier watching the movie Jor-El: Science Badass instead.
u/Someone-Else-Else [+5] Anti-Spiral (2 days later)
Jor-El's clearly the Kryptonian Number Man. He calculates the physics necessary to beat them.
u/Nighzmarquls [+1] (2 days later)
I'm thinking zod probably could have been called a combination of literally not caring about anything but krypton/it's preservation and in basis of that he was already insane in trying to accomplish anything after it's destruction.
Any act he took was desperation.
Killing humans just was not something I saw he cared about at all except how it related to superman. He was killing them because it was more convenient then spending a few moments to move to venus far as I could tell. Although as was mentioned earlier, this entire plot weirdness that really does hurt it would be relatively fixable with just making the terraformer ship unable to make a second trip.
If either the terraformer or the arc ship with the clone production facility were unable to be moved from earth then the conflict will remain.
But no one ever clarified if this was the case far as I can tell and zod kind of jumped onto obliterating all of humanity a bit fast.