Avenger's Infinity War *Spoiler* Discussion

[MarkB]

I wonder what the next film’s title will be. “Avengers Assemble” seems appropriate but almost too optimistic given the current state of things.

"Avengers - Some Assembly Required"

I wonder why everybody doesn’t have Mjolnir+ level artifacts. According to giant Tyrion, it only takes a few minutes and one guy to make one when the forge is running.

According to Odin in Thor: Ragnarok, Mjolnir was never a source of power for Thor - it merely channeled his innate powers.

 

[Jhaelen]

"Avengers - Some Assembly Required"

Damn! That's exactly what I was going to post :-D

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I wonder why everybody doesn’t have Mjolnir+ level artifacts. According to giant Tyrion, it only takes a few minutes and one guy to make one when the forge is running.

It seems the problem is that most simply cannot wield such items, so it's really more something for the... cosmic players on the level of Thanos and Thor, and they probably have a weapon like that already.

 

[Istbor]

It seems the problem is that most simply cannot wield such items, so it's really more something for the... cosmic players on the level of Thanos and Thor, and they probably have a weapon like that already.

It also seemed like finding the place was difficult, as Rocket thought the place was a Myth. Making it seem like only some are aware of how to get there in the first place.

 

[Umbran]

Think about what happens if, overnight, 150 million Americans just turn to dust.
Suddenly, there's job openings across the board. With fewer people for every occupation, everyone has their pick of employment and has an instant choice. They can ask for a higher salary and get it, because the demand is there.

No. It isn't that simple. I mean, realistically...

First, all your cities burn down. Because half of all the aircraft in the air crash - some of them into cities. We've seen what happens when planes meet skyscrapers. And the roads are clogged with half the cars crashed into the other half. So the first responders (now only half as many) can't get anywhere. And the cities burn.

In general, you now have loads of infrastructure, but only half the people to operate it and maintain it. Power and water systems fail. You probably have some ecological disasters as nuclear plants melt down, refineries blow up, offshore drill rigs are undermanned and not capped off. There are only half the people you expect watching over the nuclear and chemical weapon arsenals in the world.... It gets ugly, for a while.

There's probably massive economic depression. There's not enough people to make the world as we know it function. It will take some time to adjust.

But, we don'e have time. And this is why Thanos is not the Mad Titan. He is the Dumb-as-a-Rock Titan. More on that in a bit.

The bureaucracy is upended and there's not enough time to bother with the rules and regulations of a proper election. Anyone can get elected. This shakes the two party system.

And that's just one country. Half the world's dictators are gone. Half the people in charge of oppressing nations. Half the warlords. Half the drug barons.

Yeah. The other half the warlords and barons are still there, and there's not enough people to run proper elections... You don't see a problem growing there? People are *SCARED AS HECK* because *HALF OF EVERYONE THEY KNOW JUST TURNED TO ASH!* This is not what we call a recipe for new and enlightened political systems.

His plan is insane. He is the Mad Titan. But it's also just crazy enough to work...

Ultimately, no it won't. Someone needs to teach Thanos some math.

If the Universe is using up its resources too fast, and you cut the population in half, you really only double the time until we use up those resources. It slows down the problem, but does not stop it.

But, much more importantly, the population won't stay halved!. Specifically, even at very modest rates of growth (like, under 1% growth per year), your population still doubles in less than a century. All this work, fighting, pain, misery and loss, and we will be back exactly where we were in less than a hundred years.

This bugs me, because as Thanos monologues to Dr. Strange about the whole thing, Doc asks him, "And then what?" and Thanos says he'll retire. And I was just waiting for Doc to bust out that Thanos was a dunderhead, because people keep frelling having babies, and unless he's setting himself to cut the population in half every century or so, forever, there's no point to what he's doing at all!

But, no, they missed that opportunity.

 

[Hussar]

There’s an even nastier problem as well. With half the population gone, you just massively cut the gene pool, resulting in all sorts of nasty stuff down the line.

And when we cut half the populations, where is the cutoff line? Technological races? How advanced? After all, humans conquered the planet with stone axes. And probably did some spectacularly bad things to the ecosphere.

So is it anything with intelligence? Or even just potential intelligence?

In any case it’s a bloody stupid plan.

 

[Umbran]

There’s an even nastier problem as well. With half the population gone, you just massively cut the gene pool, resulting in all sorts of nasty stuff down the line.

On that score, I think it is okay. Cutting a gene pool in half is dangerous when the population is already small. But going from a gene pool of 7+ billion, to 3.5 billion? YOu still hae plenty of the genes you need. The chances of completely losing something important, or forcing inbreeding with a population that's still that large isn't significant.

 

[megamania]

Depends on what part of the pool remains. If its the shallow end......

 

[Umbran]

He did state that it was randomly chosen.

 

[Hussar]

He did state that it was randomly chosen.

But, that's the thing about randomness. Sure, you might get an even distribution, but, there's no guarantee of that. It's equally possible that you get group in random choices, meaning that you might wind up wiping out everyone with any medical training, for example, simply through random chance.

It really is a mad idea.