Post by redsycorax on Jul 19, 2023 4:43:41 GMT
Would you kill a defenceless infant if you knew that infant was going to become a murderous tyrant who would order the deaths of millions? Does the end justify the means?
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EARTH-381: On this dark alternate Earth, Nazi Germany developed nuclear weapons first and dropped them on Moscow, Leningrad, London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Glasgow, Bristol, Carlisle, Oxford, Cambridge, New York, Washington, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas, Miami, Houston and Austin. Its Resistance Society of America vowed vengeance.
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BRANAU AM INN, 20 APRIL 1889:
Superman barrelled out of the time vortex high above the snow-covered streets of the Austrian border village, hoping that he wasn't too late. He alighted on a non-descript street where the wail of an infant echoed through its silent depths. His telescopic vision homed in on the run-down, dilapidated tenement where an exhausted Clara Polzl Hitler lay supine after the marathon effort of giving birth to her child, Adolf. And then he saw it, the shadowy form that stalked toward the midwife holding the infant in her arms, calmly and deliberately applying choloroform to their quarry. He leapt upward and in through the tenement window. The figure held the quailing infant in her arms as Superman softly said:
"Don't do it, Diana."
"Don't you think I haven't weighed this in my mind, Clark? Don't you think I regard this whole situation with gravity and revulsion? There is no other way."
"There must be. Diana, we don't kill defenceless newborn infants. It's against everything we stand for."
"Clark, this is no ordinary infant. He will become the tyrannical head of an aggressive military power and end up slaughtering millions on the battlefield, in cities and in barbarous concentration camps. In the future, he will show no moral hesitation in condemning countless other innocent infants and children to death without conscience or moral compass. It is better that that nightmare never began in the first place."
"Why does it have to be this solution? What about kidnapping the infant later in his life and having him raised in an orphanage on another continent? And what about the other circumstances that led to the rise of Nazi Germany? He didn't invent fascism or anti-Semitism. He wasn't the only one in his country who wanted territorial aggression against its neighbours and ultimately, the rest of the world."
"Clark, once again, what about what this infant will do if he is allowed to grow into twisted adulthood? Racist identification documents, violence against Jewish businesses, concentration camps, gas chambers, nuclear weapons? It's all very well to fixate on the infant that he is now, but he will not always look like this or be this defenceless."
"What if someone else steps into that role and takes his place? You'll have blood on your hands and will have achieved nothing."
"What about the nuclear holocaust that this infant will unleash when he reaches adulthood? What about Lois? What about Steve? We couldn't save them, Clark. Do their deaths mean nothing to you?"
"Of course they do. But is this any way to bring them back? Would Steve have wanted this?"
"He died when the Nazis obliterated Washington, just as Lois did when Metropolis was incinerated, Clark. As much as his death broke my heart-"
"It doesn't entitle you to behave like a modern day Medea, Diana."
"If you're going to use classical allusions, Clark, then what about Oedipus, Laius and Jocasta? If Oedipus had died in infancy, then untold pain would not have ensued for Thebes and personal tragedy for Oedipus, Jocasta, Antigone and Creon in his wake when he unknowingly married his own mother and unleashed a devastating plague on his adopted city."
"Would Hippolyta approve of this?"
"She isn't here and I am."
"Merely because you can doesn't mean you should, Diana."
"What if failing to act insures a future nightmare, Clark? Have you thought about that possibility?"
"Who are we to decide? Are we somehow better than baseline humans merely because we have great power? With that comes great responsibility."
"What about our responsibility toward Hitler's future victims? Once again, consider who this infant is going to become. He will use perverted oratorical skills to harness the power of a great nation for evil ends. He will commit genocide. He will launch a nuclear war against his country's opponents."
"What if someone else more strategically competent and prudent replaces him, Diana?"
"That's a counterfactual, Clark. What if the Nazis fall apart without his galvanising presence? There's a difference between potential and actual evil. In the future we have both witnessed, Adolf Hitler is responsible for the deaths of millions."
"But his actions lie in the future."
"Exactly, and we've both seen the nightmare that our own present day has become with his presence in it. It's all very well to say that a newborn infant like Adolf Hitler is now doesn't have the power of volition and deliberative choice that he will have later on. He will choose evil, Clark. He will choose profound evil."
"All right, how do you know the act of killing Adolf Hitler here and now won't fatally disrupt the whole integrity of space and time through aborting that sequence of events?"
"I'm sorry it had to come to this, Clark. Believe me, I am. But I cannot let you stop me." From her pouch, Wonder Woman produced a small green kryptonite meteor. As Superman fell to his knees, Wonder Woman prepared to perform her epochal deed. Or is that a euphemism for infanticide? The details of what happened next have been omitted because no sane, rational or compassionate individual wants to experience the horrific mental imagery that the deliberate killing of an infant produces. However, at its end, still and lifeless, the corpse of the infant Adolf Hitler lay motionless and open-eyed on the floor, forever stilled.
Several seconds later, Superman and Wonder Woman faded from the scene of the fatal act before them, into an unknown future. In it, there would be no adult Adolf Hitler. As to what that future would have been like, there is no way of seeing what happened in its stead. That should be left to the reader to imagine for themselves.
THE END [4.45 PM, JULY 19, 2023]
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EARTH-381: On this dark alternate Earth, Nazi Germany developed nuclear weapons first and dropped them on Moscow, Leningrad, London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Glasgow, Bristol, Carlisle, Oxford, Cambridge, New York, Washington, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas, Miami, Houston and Austin. Its Resistance Society of America vowed vengeance.
++
BRANAU AM INN, 20 APRIL 1889:
Superman barrelled out of the time vortex high above the snow-covered streets of the Austrian border village, hoping that he wasn't too late. He alighted on a non-descript street where the wail of an infant echoed through its silent depths. His telescopic vision homed in on the run-down, dilapidated tenement where an exhausted Clara Polzl Hitler lay supine after the marathon effort of giving birth to her child, Adolf. And then he saw it, the shadowy form that stalked toward the midwife holding the infant in her arms, calmly and deliberately applying choloroform to their quarry. He leapt upward and in through the tenement window. The figure held the quailing infant in her arms as Superman softly said:
"Don't do it, Diana."
"Don't you think I haven't weighed this in my mind, Clark? Don't you think I regard this whole situation with gravity and revulsion? There is no other way."
"There must be. Diana, we don't kill defenceless newborn infants. It's against everything we stand for."
"Clark, this is no ordinary infant. He will become the tyrannical head of an aggressive military power and end up slaughtering millions on the battlefield, in cities and in barbarous concentration camps. In the future, he will show no moral hesitation in condemning countless other innocent infants and children to death without conscience or moral compass. It is better that that nightmare never began in the first place."
"Why does it have to be this solution? What about kidnapping the infant later in his life and having him raised in an orphanage on another continent? And what about the other circumstances that led to the rise of Nazi Germany? He didn't invent fascism or anti-Semitism. He wasn't the only one in his country who wanted territorial aggression against its neighbours and ultimately, the rest of the world."
"Clark, once again, what about what this infant will do if he is allowed to grow into twisted adulthood? Racist identification documents, violence against Jewish businesses, concentration camps, gas chambers, nuclear weapons? It's all very well to fixate on the infant that he is now, but he will not always look like this or be this defenceless."
"What if someone else steps into that role and takes his place? You'll have blood on your hands and will have achieved nothing."
"What about the nuclear holocaust that this infant will unleash when he reaches adulthood? What about Lois? What about Steve? We couldn't save them, Clark. Do their deaths mean nothing to you?"
"Of course they do. But is this any way to bring them back? Would Steve have wanted this?"
"He died when the Nazis obliterated Washington, just as Lois did when Metropolis was incinerated, Clark. As much as his death broke my heart-"
"It doesn't entitle you to behave like a modern day Medea, Diana."
"If you're going to use classical allusions, Clark, then what about Oedipus, Laius and Jocasta? If Oedipus had died in infancy, then untold pain would not have ensued for Thebes and personal tragedy for Oedipus, Jocasta, Antigone and Creon in his wake when he unknowingly married his own mother and unleashed a devastating plague on his adopted city."
"Would Hippolyta approve of this?"
"She isn't here and I am."
"Merely because you can doesn't mean you should, Diana."
"What if failing to act insures a future nightmare, Clark? Have you thought about that possibility?"
"Who are we to decide? Are we somehow better than baseline humans merely because we have great power? With that comes great responsibility."
"What about our responsibility toward Hitler's future victims? Once again, consider who this infant is going to become. He will use perverted oratorical skills to harness the power of a great nation for evil ends. He will commit genocide. He will launch a nuclear war against his country's opponents."
"What if someone else more strategically competent and prudent replaces him, Diana?"
"That's a counterfactual, Clark. What if the Nazis fall apart without his galvanising presence? There's a difference between potential and actual evil. In the future we have both witnessed, Adolf Hitler is responsible for the deaths of millions."
"But his actions lie in the future."
"Exactly, and we've both seen the nightmare that our own present day has become with his presence in it. It's all very well to say that a newborn infant like Adolf Hitler is now doesn't have the power of volition and deliberative choice that he will have later on. He will choose evil, Clark. He will choose profound evil."
"All right, how do you know the act of killing Adolf Hitler here and now won't fatally disrupt the whole integrity of space and time through aborting that sequence of events?"
"I'm sorry it had to come to this, Clark. Believe me, I am. But I cannot let you stop me." From her pouch, Wonder Woman produced a small green kryptonite meteor. As Superman fell to his knees, Wonder Woman prepared to perform her epochal deed. Or is that a euphemism for infanticide? The details of what happened next have been omitted because no sane, rational or compassionate individual wants to experience the horrific mental imagery that the deliberate killing of an infant produces. However, at its end, still and lifeless, the corpse of the infant Adolf Hitler lay motionless and open-eyed on the floor, forever stilled.
Several seconds later, Superman and Wonder Woman faded from the scene of the fatal act before them, into an unknown future. In it, there would be no adult Adolf Hitler. As to what that future would have been like, there is no way of seeing what happened in its stead. That should be left to the reader to imagine for themselves.
THE END [4.45 PM, JULY 19, 2023]