That’s still not gonna make me fight the King. As far as I’m concerned, he’s entitled to break (and reheal) Gloria’s legs ever since he decided to send soldiers into the tomb. For tearing it apart, I’d be willing to let him have his neck.
I mean, I’ll probably try to talk him out of it, because Aki would probably be sad if I didn’t, but still.
He will just poking a stick at them and all hell breaks loose because he’s impatient
Well for me, I just wanna fight to see how strong he really is. Gonna lean in heavily on the battlelust for the story if Jc will allow it since I went with the option of having MC liking to fight now. But Gloria? Man… he’s not in the story for long but I can already tell he’s gonna fuck up on something soon.
I mean, narratively speaking, he pretty much has to, even if I DIDN’T think he was a little Ozymandias shit, except more selfish and self-important. “The dude who’s in charge makes all the right calls” isn’t narratively satisfying.
Well he’s not completely wrong to try and do something since the attack happened. A lot of people were injured or dead because of the cult but going in guns blazing in a bad idea
But the point is that while the Cult is about the Broken King, the Broken King doesn’t care about the cult. Also, it’s almost assuredly a DIFFERENT BK cult than the one that’s taken up station in Crete around the Queen’s tomb, because there’s no way the same people who did what they did are ALSO the same people who’d just go “you guys shouldn’t go in there” when talking about the Queen’s tomb and leave it at that.
How interesting you chose quite a character for comparison with Gloria. Considering Ozzy boy technically pulled a black flag operation to force the US and the Soviets to unite against Dr. Manhattan.
I swear at this point, you’re making me think that Gloria is gonna pull the same shit and make Crete look like a bunch of bad guys when they aren’t.
What do you think the point of him showing those photos at the G7 was?
Blackmail.
No but seriously, I didn’t think much of that scene until now. Gloria did admit that it was a secret investigation that had no affiliations with any government that would recognize them so he definitely has the ability to pull off some black flags. Plus he’s a solider with some pull within the armed forces that most likely respects him for his actions in his service. The guys he sent in the mountains were probably mercs so he also gets plausible deniability.
True is he a well respected war hero so he has everyone’s trust and respect. He can easily use that to do what he wants. Those guys definitely have to mercs that were send.
See, I think it’s to predispose the G7 against Crete.
“Hey, people I called here to talk about a violent cult. Look at all these people in a CRETAN mountain.”
“Is that an army?”
“No, no, not army. Clearly not part of the CRETAN army, even though they’re in CRETE. It’s a, y’know…”
“A cult?”
“That’s right, now that you hapen to mention it. A cult. In CRETE.”
Note that HE’s not the one that says that those people are a cult. Make other people think things are their idea, and they’ll be much keener on it.
Didn’t he also say that Crete sold/gave the mountains and the surrounding lands around it to the BC or someone else?
Also I’m gonna go slightly off topic here and mention that I thought it was a really nice touch to have a different superhero that isn’t part of the League giving advice to MC on how to handle themselves in a full blown battle. If possible, I’d like to find her after the battle and thank her for that advice.
Yes, Golden Glider girl seemed nice.
Saw that edit, yo. But at least she said it first and the Other You was like “oh yeah she’s right. I forgot to say that.”
You might get the chance to, if things go the way I plan them.
She’s actually rather pissed about this whole battle, you know. She was supposed to have lunch with a family friend and the girl he’s seeing.
insert joke about her missing the D
There is another way, but it comes with a certain…cost. And leaves a delicate political situation.
The story is clear that Stratton has not been permanently removed from office:
And now, at 34, after Stratton was basically forced into “temporary leave” with Dark Star as his guardian, Marcus Gloria became Acting President of the United States.
The only way this is possible is through the 25th Amendment, Section 4.
Paragraph 1:
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
So, pretty clear. Gloria and either the Cabinet or some other Congressionally-authorized body sent a letter to the two presiding officers of Congress to the effect that Stratton too vulnerable to mind control to continue to serve. Stratton was immediately suspended from office. However, there is a second paragraph to Section 4
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
tl;dr If POTUS has been removed from office by the VP + Cabinet, he can send a letter to the two presiding officers of Congress that he’s fine, in fact. The Acting President + Cabinet then have 4 days to send a letter to the effect that no, really, the President’s not okay - or else the President automatically resumes his powers. Once the Acting President + Cabinet send that letter, then Congress must convene within 48 hours to consider it, and they must render a verdict within 21 days. 2/3 of each house of Congress must vote to keep the Acting President in place, or else the President returns. The President is free to send another declaration that he’s okay immediately after the vote, which would restart the whole process.
We can assume that Stratton has already sent such a letter by now, and Gloria + Cabinet have certainly responded. Since Gloria is still around (and confident enough to attend the G7), we can assume that 2/3 of each house have voted to keep him around.
So Stratton has 2 ways to get back in office:
A majority of the Cabinet (all of whom are Stratton appointees and presumably loyal Liberationists) declines to sign Gloria’s letter to the Congressional presiding officers.
35 Senators and 146 Representatives vote against maintaining Gloria in office as Acting President.
And Stratton gets a chance to roll this die at least once a month for the rest of his nominal term.
So Gloria has to keep his Cabinet very happy, or else he’s toast, because Stratton will not be pleased with him.
If they even like Stratton which as far as I’m aware of, not many does. So I’m sure the politicians are going to end up voting to keep Gloria in the Oval Office because to them, he probably doesn’t present any risk of constant trouble. Even some leaders in the G7 meeting subtly said dealing with Gloria is much preferable rather than to deal with a guy who hops on social media and rags on everything he doesn’t like.
The new chapter 1 definitely has some big improvements especially the flow of it seems alot more natural.
The pronouns in this segment should be her though.
I found another one as well
Ok, there’s two things about this.
The first, is that NOBODY that had to deal with Stratton in the regular likes him, or so Mars tells us.
The second, is that that article has been written mostly concerning stuff that can be checked by doctors, which isn’t the case here. “The president has to temporarily step down because he has cancer and he’s about to take so much chemo to the face he’s going to spend half of every day vomiting his guts out” is something that Congress can ask a doctor to check if the president is, in fact, no longer going to be spending half of every day vomiting.
But here the case is that the president has been compromised. He’s been under the control of an enemy agent, and he might still be, because as far as we know there’s no way to check if the Controller put in any trigger phrases ready to blow. The actual unfitness is that the president cannot be trusted (more than usual, I mean), so him going “I can totally be trusted, you guys, I swear” doesn’t carry any weight.
So even if the cabinet wanted Stratton back instead of Gloria (and from what we know that is not the case - we meet literally one person who likes Stratton, and that’s Dark Star), odds are that Congress is going to answer any claims of fitness with “uh, how about no” until the cult is handled, at the very least.