You are all my subjects now!

Three reasons:

1) This is only roughly the second day this has been going on, there hasn't been much time for anyone outside Cambodia to react beyond issuing statements of protest/support.

2) Cambodia has no supers, almost all of them (this guy included) are the products of futuretech-experiments gone wrong; those are concentrated in the West and so too are the supers. All the Asian supers to date are found in China, Taiwan, and Japan.

3) The government has so far refused all outside aid, both governmental and super-powered, they want to show they can handle this themselves.

I still wouldn't really know what to think. It's great he's liberating people like that, and that those people want to be free - however, there's people getting hurt at the same time and it keeps escalating. I can see this isn't going to end very well though.

As for Australian news, I have to keep in mind that they usually make very little mention of incidents like these apart from maybe a brief segment on it. It's possible they might not have very much information at all since they're always a couple days behind. I always hear slightly more important news on here first before I do through normal media.

"Oh, brilliant, now he's started a bloody war!"

That'd probably be the first thought in my head. I'm not sure how much mention the US news would make of it, being more fixated on celebrities and domestic measures (random question: is there still an Iraq war in this setting?) and since I don't follow the American media much anyway, but I'd still be trying to keep on top of this and discuss it with people offline. I'm still convinced that this is just going to make everything worse, either when he fails or the instant he leaves, and would make this point to everybody I talk to. Besides, who the hell is he to make other countries' affairs his business just because he has powers? Arrogant piece of crap, isn't he?

"Oh criminy, I feel another deployment coming on."

KGarrett wrote:

I'm not sure how much mention the US news would make of it, being more fixated on celebrities and domestic measures

If it were to this scale, there would definitely be broadcasts about it, and doubly so since the leader and super behind this whole thing is American.

All right, then I'd probably also be following it on the main news channels.

My thoughts on the first scenario would be, "Okay, he rescued a bunch of abused people. Awesome! Then he kicked a bunch of unrelated third parties out of their homes. Really, really not awesome." And now, with this second scenario, he's started an armed conflict with a foreign military, "What the hell is this guy thinking?!?"

This guy sounds like a total loose cannon with next to no impulse control. I invision absolute, total disaster for him.

I would watch the news and wonder one of three things:

1. What are the political ramifications of his actions? Is this guy going to just hand this new found power over to the Cambodian people or is he going to think that handing power to the same people, who caused this perceived 'mess', is wrong and either take power himself or appoint a Super with close cultural ties to the area to power?

2. What are the neighboring nations going to think? Will they treat the event as something outside their sphere of concern or are they going to be wary of this 'Yank' perceiving their government as 'unjust' and move on to their country as well?

3. What is going to be the world's reaction to this Super? Assuming that stability is returned to Cambodia in a short period of time, will the fear of this 'Yank' taking them down make them paranoid of any Super within their countries? Will the 'Yank's' urge to cleanse Cambodia of injustice become a crusade to cleanse the world of 'Injustice'?

I would still stick to the same sort of "Christ, only an American" thinking. He's gone off in a blaze of glory and arrogance without thinking things through at all. I might become a little more interested in the news segment, but only because I want to be watching when the whole thing comes down on his idiotic head.

...yeah, I'm harsh.

I admit, my first impulse when I read it was "Wooo! Yeah, down with oppression!" but yeah, after giving it some thought, it was pretty futile and fucked a lot of other things up. That was reckless, and this guy didn't think of the consequences to his actions. He just made everything worse for those people.

Mythandariel: Congratulations! You win the award for Most Psychic Post! :D

On that note...

Scenario #3:

"BREAKING NEWS: We have an update on the Cambodia situation. The American psychic and his army of disaffected Cambodians have seized Phnom Penh. The Cambodian military had expected them to continue their march from one factory to another and left only a small force guarding the nation's capital. The rebels now control the seat of government and are claiming jurisdiction over all of the country. They have also claimed to have captured the king and prime minister but we cannot verify that at this time. We'll give you more details as they come into our newsroom."

Who is really claiming jurisdiction over the country? Is it the liberated Cambodian people or is the 'Yank' still pulling the strings?

They took over a country? At this point, I would be very concerned at how quickly one crazy guy was able to lead a military coup. Three days ago we'd never even heard of this guy and now he's in charge of Cambodia! That's insane. I would be calling my congresspeople to find out what, if anything, they intend to do about all this.

To make things clearer:

"In a statement issued today, the American psychic admitted that he was leader of the rebel forces but that he was, in essence, a figure head.

"'It's other Cambodians who are will be making most of the governmental decisions, the detail stuff. After all, they're natives and have some idea of what's going on. I'm their leader but that basically just means they tell me what's best for the country and then I use my powers to make sure it happens. And of course my telepathy ensures they can't lie to me to make things better just for themselves.'

"He is expected to have a full press conference later today."

Well, now that the government has been taken over, I'm sure the Australian media will be over there reporting on it. Our own government would be taking immediate action to evacuate any of our people from the country (judging from previous situations like this). And they'd still probably mention that they're behind the US in any decisions they're yet to make on this.

Right about now I'd be getting a lot more worried about how far this will be taken. Other countries surrounding Cambodia would certainly be getting edgy about having someone like this as their next door neighbour. If someone can take over a government in only a few days from such a minor start, that's definitely a cause for suspicion.

Well, now I can tell he has good intentions, but I'm not so sure about this. For now, I'd still keep an eye on it, and what the US plans on doing about it, but I just have a really bad feeling about it; whatever the Yank (is this a nickname that'll catch on with the public, or do we know his name by now?) makes of the situation, the former Cambodian leaders won't be happy about being the victims of a coup d'etat, and that entire region's about to get a lot less stable as his behaviour makes the other nations nervous. I wouldn't be surprised if this little incident provokes an invasion, honestly.

Yes, you know his real name by now; I just haven't thought of it myself.

KGarrett: You and Mythrandiel need to get yourselves tested for psychic powers...

I think I'd be facepalming, and still blaming it all on Americans. Because letting a group of completely untrained workers run a country, that's worked out well in the past.

Thanos6 wrote:

Yes, you know his real name by now; I just haven't thought of it myself.

KGarrett: You and Mythrandiel need to get yourselves tested for psychic powers...

Not psychic...just politically savvy.

It would be at this point that I start freaking out a little.

Important question: have there been any other supers who have taken over a country?

I would predict that this has a high potential to turn into a scenario that keeps playing out again and again in Africa.

Basically, this doucher overthrows the people in power with a bunch of workers. Oh, yay. Good for the proles. The problem is that when you do that in a third-world country, you wind up slaughtering the only educated people. The people who know how to get shit done. The country will dissolve into civil war and genocide for generations to come.

Okay, so, being a little meta for a while, Thanos - this guy is supposed to take over the entire world? He'd better get his act together quick, 'cause this will not gain him the kind of trust it would take from the public to be a peaceful take over like some sort of election, and if it's gonna be like him staging a coup to TAKE OVAH THAT WORALLLLD, then he damn sure needs to get a better following than most of the world scratching their heads and saying, "WTF is this idiot up to?"

InkWeaver wrote:

Okay, so, being a little meta for a while, Thanos - this guy is supposed to take over the entire world? He'd better get his act together quick, 'cause this will not gain him the kind of trust it would take from the public to be a peaceful take over like some sort of election, and if it's gonna be like him staging a coup to TAKE OVAH THAT WORALLLLD, then he damn sure needs to get a better following than most of the world scratching their heads and saying, "WTF is this idiot up to?"

It certainly won't be peaceful, but he'll have a few tricks up his sleeve besides pure conquest to win followers...

rae: No, this has never happened before. There have been your usual supervillainous "And then I WILL RULE THE WORLD!" attempts, but nothing at all successful.

Oh, also:

Penguin: There's no mass slaughter of an entire class going on here. "The Yank" sees himself as a superhero (just operating on a different scale) and as such does not kill nor allow his followers to kill. If someone happens to die during one of their battles, it's unfortunate, but it probably couldn't be avoided. But after they've won, no purges or anything like it.

Thanos6 wrote:

Oh, also:

Penguin: There's no mass slaughter of an entire class going on here. "The Yank" sees himself as a superhero (just operating on a different scale) and as such does not kill nor allow his followers to kill. If someone happens to die during one of their battles, it's unfortunate, but it probably couldn't be avoided. But after they've won, no purges or anything like it.

No way is any country going to just roll over and let somebody take over. The displaced Cambodian army is reorganizing for a run at taking back over. The UN has sent several threatening letters at this point and I would also surmise that the US, Canada, the UK, China, Russia, and probably Germany and France (at least) are all saying that unless he stands down within the week they are going to get together and make him stand down. He's thrown an entire country into utter chaos and has no plan for restoring stability there.

It doesn't matter that he's not killing people, either. When you create chaos like this, people are going to die. A lot. Let's start with all those folks he evicted from their homes that first day, for example. Some of them probably died from exposure. And since they were somewhat wealthy folks, others were beaten to death by looters. And all this is before they got rid of the government. Now they've set up what will, by necessity, be anarchy in most parts of the country. Because there's no military to speak of any more, and the police are probably in a similar state. What's happening with hospitals? Or mass transisits? What about airports? Seaports? Border control? How is he going to end the looting that's happening everywhere? Because it is happening everywhere. People are turning up beaten to death, dead of sickness that all the meds for have been stolen, dead of exposure...

None of this is going to fly on the world stage. Never minding that Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Malayasia could all invade any time they liked. I can't even count the number of laws The Yank has shattered, and that's all ignoring how terribly irritated the US government is at him for acting unilaterally like this. He's seriously screwed. Leik woah.