You've taken over the world. Now what?

[Karma]

Re: You've taken over the world. Now what?

 

Post Word Domination plan

Nicked almost wholecloth from Matthew Sernett

 

Step 1: Establish unified code of law, weighed heavily toward human rights

 

Step 2: Create economic incentives to invest in poorer nations in an attempt to increase the standard of living worldwide.

 

Step 3: Make standardised education available to all people for free.

 

Step 4: Develop a means to appropriately fund health care and higher education in an attempt to make them free to all.

 

Step 5: Establish economic incentives to reduce population growth and environmental damage worldwide.

 

Step 6: Desolve national borders, establish a world language (I'll have to be English since I *suck* at learning languages), and support the concept of a world culture in an effort to quash nationalism and ethnocentrism.

 

Step 7: Quell the inevitable rebellions against my magnanomous rule in as peaceful a way as possible.

 

Step 8: Begin to institute all the measures on the 'When I am an Evil Overlord' list with the exception of those that require me to actually *be* Evil.

[Enforcer84]

Re: You've taken over the world. Now what?

 

And now... Morgan Fairchild will be mine!

[austenandrews]

Re: You've taken over the world. Now what?

 

Now do the supervillians realize this or not? Part of the reason why my character is a hero is that he realized if he turned evil he'd get the stuffing beat out of him and thrown in jail' date=' unless he got his soul devowered by a demon or worse. Supervillians with an eye on world domination should have "overconfident" or "arrogant" psych lims if they think the can easily rule the world. Evil characters with realistic expectations are dangerous in a whole different ways.[/quote']

It sort of depends on how you define "world domination." The brute force "destroy all military resistance and force everyone follow my rules" method is entertaining but requires the continuous, widespread application of force to maintain. In that sense it's a logistical nightmare, and only a supremely overconfident villain would imagine he could hold off entropy indefinitely.

 

Then there's the classic "holding the world hostage" scenario, in which you wipe out a tremendous amount of land/people/resources with your doomsday weapon and threaten the same fate to any government that doesn't acquiesce to your demands. This only requires that your doomsday weapon remain untouchable, which is far less arrogant than assuming you can micromanage the entire world by force. Depending on what your demands are, you might not even be the only villain to achieve world domination. Maybe you could start a club.

 

One combination of the two is the "smoky back-room tyrant." This is where you exert just enough control on world leaders/governments, be it through resources, blackmail, military threat, etc., to coerce them into giving you what you want. It takes a lot of careful work and thus requires a high degree of (over)confidence, but it doesn't require nearly as much power as straight brute force.

 

A much easier variation of the brute force approach is "transforming the world into your plaything." This is where some plot device puts total control in your lap. Examples would be reverting mankind to the stone age, mind-controlling the entire human race, freezing time, etc. This doesn't require much arrogance at all. It does require an absurd amount of power.

 

In any case, while it breaks the mold, I think it would be interesting to have a world-conquering villain with little confidence in his own abilities.

[alexraccoon]

Re: You've taken over the world. Now what?

 

Rather than mind control how about a form of viral transformation, something that makes over their mindset in your image or to meet your desires. You could in theory eliminate the selfish and evil desires to create heaven (hell) on earth

 

Imagine a world where the characters are the only ones able to see whats wrong resist the transformation and everyone would be trying to subdue the evil insane types.

[David Johnston]

Re: You've taken over the world. Now what?

 

It sort of depends on how you define "world domination." The brute force "destroy all military resistance and force everyone follow my rules" method is entertaining but requires the continuous, widespread application of force to maintain. In that sense it's a logistical nightmare, and only a supremely overconfident villain would imagine he could hold off entropy indefinitely.

 

Isn't the answer to that problem just to get your own army of agents and appoint administrative quislings?

[austenandrews]

Re: You've taken over the world. Now what?

 

Isn't the answer to that problem just to get your own army of agents and appoint administrative quislings?

Sure. What could go wrong?

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: You've taken over the world. Now what?

 

The New World Anthem - "Macarena" (Imagine Millions of Citizen doing the Macarena together.)

http://www.angelfire.com/al/aserio/macarena.html

 

ROFLOL

 

QM

[bigdamnhero]

Re: You've taken over the world. Now what?

 

http://www.galactanet.com/comic/438.htm

[OddHat]

Re: You've taken over the world. Now what?

 

Most supervillains have no political power base, no philosophy beyond "Bow Before {Name Here}", and no reason for anyone to follow them other than cash. They don't even use that cash to build the limited real influence it could.

 

The world remains free because world beating Supervillains are morons.

[David Johnston]

Re: You've taken over the world. Now what?

 

Sure. What could go wrong?

 

Not much as long as you make sure you are personally way tougher than your flunkies.

[Alverant]

Re: You've taken over the world. Now what?

 

It sort of depends on how you define "world domination." The brute force "destroy all military resistance and force everyone follow my rules" method is entertaining but requires the continuous, widespread application of force to maintain. In that sense it's a logistical nightmare, and only a supremely overconfident villain would imagine he could hold off entropy indefinitely.

 

Then there's the classic "holding the world hostage" scenario, in which you wipe out a tremendous amount of land/people/resources with your doomsday weapon and threaten the same fate to any government that doesn't acquiesce to your demands. This only requires that your doomsday weapon remain untouchable, which is far less arrogant than assuming you can micromanage the entire world by force. Depending on what your demands are, you might not even be the only villain to achieve world domination. Maybe you could start a club.

 

One combination of the two is the "smoky back-room tyrant." This is where you exert just enough control on world leaders/governments, be it through resources, blackmail, military threat, etc., to coerce them into giving you what you want. It takes a lot of careful work and thus requires a high degree of (over)confidence, but it doesn't require nearly as much power as straight brute force.

 

A much easier variation of the brute force approach is "transforming the world into your plaything." This is where some plot device puts total control in your lap. Examples would be reverting mankind to the stone age, mind-controlling the entire human race, freezing time, etc. This doesn't require much arrogance at all. It does require an absurd amount of power.

 

In any case, while it breaks the mold, I think it would be interesting to have a world-conquering villain with little confidence in his own abilities.

 

Great post. This made me realize another important aspect of world domination: motivation. Why does someone want to take over?

 

Ego: These are the guys who think it's their destiny or are somehow entitled to rule the planet. They usually don't plan too far after "take over world" so they're easy to topple and may actually surrender/quit when they realize the complications involved. If you can get the team mystic to send them to "The Garden of Earthly Delights" or another "dream fulfillment" dimension, all the better. (Dr.Destroyer)

 

Agenda: On the other end of the spectrum for some it's what they'll do after they take over the world is their motivation for doing in the first place. Enviromental, religious, revenge, social, whatever they want to change the world and controlling the planet is just step 1. This gives the ultimate "ends don't justify the means" moral lesson. Sure Earth's biosphere will be restored when Dr.Bad ultimate plan is complete, but the human population will undergo a 5.5 billion reduction. On the plus side, you may be able to trick some of the more witless bad guys into believing they got their way. (Viper and Genocide)

 

Next the Universe: Earth is just a stepping stone to the rest of the galaxy. This could be an alien with advanced tech and may beneficial for just about everyone, but a tyrannt is still a tyrannt. Someone who conquers by force usually isn't a peaceful ruler.

 

Scorched Earth: It's like Agenda, but the agenda is so horrendous it should be listed seperately. The world this one villian leaves behind isn't worth living in. Demon and Mechanon are prime examples.

 

It's cool!: Like Ego but more lame. If this guy became Emperor, it would be like those decadant Roman Emperors we've read about. Just find a way to keep them happy and out of the way. Better yet, let them try. They'll either become frustrated or interfere with an acutal threat. This also includes those where taking over the world because it makes their real desires easier. Human experimentation is so much easier once those pesky laws are out of the way.