Invisible Neutrino

Hello, I've been reading the Do Over and Dawn of Tears stories. I originally registered to review the story, and now here I am posting on your forum. *waves hello*

Ok, I got to the end. Chapter 33 was rather... sudden But at least the basics are now revealed - Dylan and Henry, among others, were products of a high-risk experiment designed to induce mental powers in human beings. Since the basic origin of it is electromagnetic, it stands to reason that they can interfere with the electromagnetic patterns of other peoples' brains. Thus the various mechanisms of control. Also revealed are that two power-hungry teens manipulated the pre-Crisis world leaders and plunged the planet into nuclear war. Only the sheer chaos that followed probably prevented them from carrying through their plan, as did some fortuitous chance (as revealed when President Jacobs refused to fly to the Middle East and instead made bellicose threats the first time). Now I think I read somewhere on a different thread that in fact President Jacobs was directly complicit in the deaths of Dylan's family. The question is, why? Did he want two manipulators at his hand instead of one? There is some back story here that has still not been revealed and I look forward to seeing what gets shown to us if ever the story is taken back up. I have to say, I really like the way this story didn't compartmentalize characters into little boxes. President Jacobs was obviously deeply religious, had his vindictive side, but was open-minded enough to realize that orthodox right-wing ideology would not, or could not, continue to carry the day in a world so drastically transformed in which every bite of food, every kilowatt-hour of electricity, every drop of fuel, had to be tightly rationed and controlled by the decisions of the government, and in which money has become worthless either because a stopgap was to simply print enough money to meet the immediate demands of government, or because of the outright collapse of the banking system (or both). And yet, even people who are willing to be flexible and pragmatic in their approach to politics and economics can have far-reaching agendas that have little to do with respecting religious freedom, as it's clear the President wishes to establish a de facto theocracy in the USA. Corollary: It's interesting how Dylan's thoughts seem to be almost exclusively focussed on God as a prime mover or originator for his existence and it strikes me as a bit odd that he would be so fervent, even given that he had experienced repeated traumas in his teenage life. It's also a bit worrisome, IMO, that his thoughts started warping along the same lines as his 'fellow travellers'; as benign as he thinks establishing religious law in the United States might be, it's still placing one branch of one religion prime above all else, and in the process he also is starting to feel contempt for those he feels are too inferior to him. I'm reminded quite vividly of Khan Noonien Singh, one of the perpetrators of the Star Trek era Eugenics Wars. Much of his thinking ran along the same lines: that he and his fellow-supermen were destined to rule and he saw himself as benevolent. Definitely fascinating as a story. I'd almost want to write a book report on it, except I'd have no-one to give me a grade

I've also been reading DoT avidly since I came across it, and while also not wanting to spoil anything, I have to say a few things stood out for me as I stand at chapter 18 (and I'll come back when I'm done, too ) - first, Dylan's family seems to have mysteriously ALL disappeared and Dad Jacobs seems to have known what happened in each case. Given that the intial stages of Dad Jacob's introduction to Dylan revealed a slightly sinister and fanatic side to him, it niggles at me that he might have had something to do with them "disappearing". Another thing - this "power", and the senior Jacobs's odd equanimity at seeing homosexual acts being done in front of him - what's that all about? Hmm. Finally, just HOW long did he and his friends have this plan in the works? To have been spending years planning against the faint likelihood of a possible catastrophe seems unbelievable. Did he have Henry working for him already? 'Cause his rise in the ranks was pretty fast...!

I really got a prophetic vibe from this as well - and it's 2010, well past a possible danger point with "W"'s behavior towards the rest of the world. Still, it's not hard to imagine that the world's oil routes breaking down would cause widespread panic. I'm a Canadian, and live in an area that tends to not be noted for widespead gun ownership. Freely admit I would probably not be in great shape if the world crashed down around me! (But I can accept that in a much less kind world, 'survival of the fittest' takes on a renewed importance and it'll be those who are most fit to survive who'll carry us past the crisis point and into a different world)