The great takeaway from this is that humanity is being protected from knowledge.
Authors of real-world fantasy always have this decision to make: Does mankind generally know about the more powerful beings around them?
--To allow this knowledge enters genres like supers and speculative SF, because ordinary people would simply behave differently than we know them to.
tl;dr: Humanity is not alone, and not on top. And therefore, such a human society would be as alien to us as any from antiquity.
--To disallow ordinary people knowledge means the story must have an answer as to why. Because as Phix points out, it's a huge job to keep billions of people in the dark about their inferior position in the universe.
tl;dr: Humanity is herded like children. Paul has given us two examples in-story of what happens when Wapsi Earth
simians get a hold of big titanic ideas (Lanthis, the Etheitians), and has dropped a reference to the mythological touchstone for this concept, Prometheus, as frontrunner for becoming Shelly's b-i-l.*
Shelly's doubting her self-control is part of the core of her character, from her earliest awareness of her bullying, to her dented reunion with her mother. Monica, on the other hand, has doubted her
sanity, and has slowly progressed through veils of denial to finally accept the merry monster she is. Shelly knows she shouldn't scare the straights-- and doesn't want to. Monica
knows that she THINKS she doesn't want to scare the "civilians"-- but her adult life has been a string of feints and warnings and
signs of
abject terror of
her wrath.
Monica is in a similar position with the rest of mankind: Being kept in the dark makes her less dangerous . . . until she finds out how dangerous she is.
And all that leaves is finding out why.
*
Hm.
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ActionKermit wrote:Another possibility that just occurred to me is that M (and possibly Shelly) could get enrolled in a mandatory "immigrating to Earth 101" class as a warning, and wind up meeting Atsali as a classmate. Hmm...
I would like to see that.
donoho wrote:I don't think "punishment" is in order. They're good kids/adolescents/etc that caused a stir. Chalk it up to a movie demo/promo reel and call it a day.
Shelly and Monica's actions have forced production on an
Elektra sequel to be shot in Minneapolis. No, not a reboot: They have to learn the consequences of acting on folly in the midst of humanity.
May the gods have mercy on their tethered little souls.
