In Need of Intellectual Discussion

[shipperx]

For fanfic purposes, I'm trying to puzzle out a post-apocalyptic BtVS/AtS world.  

A few hypothetical discussion questions:

* What would the world look like in 20 years if The First got what it wanted? The First wanted to take over, to make the world... what, exactly?  What did The First actually want? Control?  Anarchy?  Worshippers?  Everyone as its puppets with the sublimation of free will, Sleeper-like zombies, Andrew-like betrayers?  What?  We assume the world would be full of evil and populated with a Hellmouth quotient of Cro-Mag vampires. But what does The First get out of it? With all of its yak-yak-yak, what kind of world would The First be intent on creating 20 years down the road?   The First would probably be more defined by magic/supernatural, I guess.  What would the world in the The First's image be?

* Another question.  What would the world look like 20 years after Not Fade Away if Wolfram and Hart and the Circle got what they  wanted?  A world controlled by corrupt lawyers, what would that be?  A different sort of apocalypse from most, I would guess.  They are corporate evil and a Demon Mafia.   What would that world look like?  What would that apocalypse boil down to?  I tend to assume that the bad guys really don't want the destruction of the world so much as to take the world over and exploit its resources to... uh... what?  (I'd fail at evil overlord school).  But what would the world look like in 20 years if Wolfram & Hart had won?

* If both The First and W&H/Circle are at work, would they share similar goals or would the two be at odds with one another (bullies can have personality conflicts with one another, after all).  Could these folks work together?  Is it a fragile truce, dividing the world into their own provinces, or two enemies united by a common goal?  If The First and W&H were at war, what would that mean? Is it chaotic evil vs. ordered evil?  If they were in concert, would that mean something else?

* In a First vs. W&H Battle Royale, who would win?  Or would they never go against each other?  Could they be provoked into going against each other because they have fundamentally different goals, or is it simply We're Evil.  Evil Rawks.  So... yay?

* What's left of humanity in all of this?  What about lower innocuous demon orders such as Lorne and Clem?  Vampires (not the ones with souls)?

I guess I'm trying to do a Sims game exercise, mentally building a world, or actually theorize about several, try them on for size and see which is most intriguing.  It feels that a post-apocalyptic world should be based on the desires of the villain in question (although it could be augmented by human self-destruction -- global warming, religious wars, etc).

So what would the world be if The First could construct it in its desired image?  What about a W&H based world?  Any thoughts?  Ideas?  Theories?  ...Wild speculation?  

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Comments

[rahirah]

I've always thought that W&H was more symbolic of human evil, despite the fact that they used supernatural means. Their goal was to corrupt and suppress what was good about humanity in general and in individuals in particular. It would use a person's strengths against them to enslave or destroy them. And given all the stuff Lindsey said about the Black thorn, i think a W&H apocalypse wouldn't be any big battle. It would just be the world going on as it is. W&H would try to steer it along the worst-case scenario path where possible, and increase the sum total of human greed and misery, and decrease the sum total of hope and charity. Which is why, in the long run, the Annes of the world have a better chance of holding them off than the Angels do, because Anne, too, is about the long haul.

If the First Evil had been done in a subtle way, if it really had used every person's deepest fears against them, then I think it could have worked with W&H. For awhile, anyway. The question would be what the First would want to do once it had won. And that, I honestly don't know. I suppose that the Turok Han army suggests it was after some rather conventional hell on earth scenario, with humanity enslaved or eaten or something. But honestly, it's impossible to tell what the First wanted, which is one reason it lacks something as a villain. Its goals were too vague.

I could actually see a scenario in which W&H allied with the good guys to fight the First, because W&H would consider the First's apocalypse too destructive.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of intrigued by Liliaeth's point about The First and perversion/corruption. I suppose that W&H could be accused of the same thing, but I always had the feeling that W&H believed that humanity was wicked on its own. All they had to do was allow for opportunities. The First, on the other hand seemed to find whatever pleasure and incorporeal entity can find in forcing people to do things that weren't in line with their wants or their best interests. It convinced Andrew to kill his only friend. It forced a souled vampire to kill against his will. It talked young girls into suicide, etc. It seemed primarily about destruction -- of person, sanity, or will. It is destructive to inspire creatures to their own self-destruction, which could lead to The First ending up at odds with W&H.

For some reason the ideas bubbling in my head cause me to think of Farscape. I could see W&H as a form of ordered evil not entirely different from The Peacekeepers or Star Wars Empire, in as much as their true pursuit was their own power, exploiting whatever they came across in order to increase that powerbase, and having a certain appeal to certain factions of the masses in that they offer order, profit, and a -- albeit repressive -- safety as opposed to anarchy and fear.

I think the Farscape feel for me is coming from the concept of Crichton/Aeryn/Moya Crew standing between two opposing, evil forces -- The Peacekeepers and the Scarrans. Not that W&H and The First are Peacekeepers and Scarrans, but just that set up of our heroes as outlaws of a kind stuck in an impossible position between a rock and hard place, two equally unacceptable options.

And I'm too tired now to make much sense of my ideas. Hope this post makes some sense.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I could see W&H as a form of ordered evil not entirely different from The Peacekeepers or Star Wars Empire, in as much as their true pursuit was their own power, exploiting whatever they came across in order to increase that powerbase

That's a darn good point; W&H are very organized corporate evil, they want their "i"s dotted and their "t"s crossed and everything filed in triplicate. It's an organization built to feed on and exploit existing human weaknesses, and as such it largely autopilots itself, absorbing whatever it can, eventually including Angel and his team. In that way, it does have quite a bit in common with The First - as liliaeth said, what we actually see onscreen suggests that it was manipulating Buffy into doing its work for it, to taint and corrupt the greatest number of people. The only place The First seems to veer off that path is when it reveals an eleventh-hour motive of wanting to "feel" - wanting to make the transition from being the puppet master in the shadows, ala Wolfram & Hart, to something that could experience every bloody act directly. So maybe that's the key - to emphasize that difference, between the detachment of W&H (Peacekeeper-like) and the visceral, emotional (Scarran-like), internal threat of The First, where W&H want to let humans turn their own world into hell on earth that they would then look on and file reports over, and The First as wanting to execute a full-scale Exorcist-style possession of all of humanity... getting in moreon the ground floor, so to speak.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Think Dawn's 'Key' ness could come into play (Dawn participation is part of the fic request). The First using her in some way somewhat parallel to the Scarrans wanting wormholes to go to earth to harvest birds of Paradise. This could be what brings Buffy/Spike to a common goal 20 years into the future (actually time-wise I'm thinking more along the lines of 15-17 years post "Chosen"). The fic challenge listed Dawn as an element, and I'm needing a way to work her in. Making her a weapon of mass destruction could be useful.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Hm, yes, definitely. I do like the idea that Buffy's decision to sacrifice herself for Dawn as the real reason that the Slayer line was somehow upset. Buffy's resurrection never really made sense for that, in terms of summoning The First's attention, but perhaps Dawn, as a latent "gate" to other dimensions, other possibilities... that thought has some legs to it. Maybe Dawn - not so much by anything she does, but just by existing in the universe as a corporeal being - could be throwing off some kind of major celestial equilibrium. And The First does try to isolate Dawn from Buffy, which works well if you view The First's actions during S7 as trying to provoke some specific effect (opening the Hellmouth, etc.) that it wants Dawn to be apart from. Perhaps Dawn was being held in reserve, for later use in some larger plan.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'm really liking the idea of Dawn's keyness playing a big role in this. I was having a difficult time working her into my concept, and she's actually a requested element. Having her be essential to the plot is a really big plus for me. And I had forgotten about The First trying to isolate Dawn from Buffy. Good point. (Sheesh, there were so many dropped plot lines from Season 7.

Recently, when reading Stephen King's "On Writing" he wrote about plotting as 'unearthing an artifact', saying that it feels like the story is there and the writer's job is to recognize that there's something hidden and to carefully excavate it.

Sometimes it feels like Joss left a lot of artifacts scattered around.

[quinara]

Sometimes it feels like Joss left a lot of artifacts scattered around.

He'd probably reckon that was a good thing...

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Do you think Dawn could be 'worm hole technolgy'? (Going with the Farscape metaphor here.