[FFML] [Firefly][ATLA] The Powers in the 'Verse

[Lawrence Chu]

> There's "rule by non-benders", and then there's "bending
> isn't done even by servants".  The revolution was about
> the former; nobody was suggesting or favoring the latter.

The Equalists seemed pretty hell-bent on ridding the world of bending altogether. It may not be the common sentiment, but presuming radicals manage to have a voice in government…

> 
>> They would, but do you think they'd let the public at large know? All we know, Alliance would have bender-powered tech in the Core, but again as slave labor.
> 
> Only if they had managed to redevelop it in secret.  Otherwise,
> word would filter in from the Rim.  (Even word of the Reapers
> has filtered in; the only reason the Alliance has gotten most to
> dismiss them is that the Reapers are confined to the Rim.)

Obviously if Mal's narrating this bit, word floats around the outer territories, but that doesn't mean they're anything but urban legend to people in the Core. Kidnapping and experimenting on Benders the way they did on River seems like a possibility.

>> I'm pretty sure it's established that Chinese are the lower-class working people in Alliance territory (hence our only seeing white people on Alliance ships and the use of Mandarin as the language for most expletives).
> 
> Not universally.  In fact, of the two "first among equals" worlds
> in the Core, one is English and one is Chinese.  It's implied
> that the upper reaches have ample amounts of both - and then
> there's crossbreeding.
> 
>> I'm also imagining that for some reason it's only Asian people with the genetic predisposition towards bending.
> 
> Again, cross-breeding.  The genes can be anywhere in the
> population by now.
> 
> Of course, given how little we see of the Core, it is entirely
> possible that benders mainly stay in the Core (which
> appreciates their service and elevates them - and actively
> tries to relocate Rim benders to the Core).

I could see that, too.

>> I was thinking more a Gaia-appointed Avatar, not a council-elected one. Each planet senses the people inhabiting it and chooses one.
> 
> The Alliance would still try to appoint one, perhaps convincing
> the Avatars of other Core worlds that they aren't actually
> Avatars.  ;)
> 
> Alternately, they might recruit that one per planet into a special
> task force, and to heck with the planet they're from.

I wrote a reply to Sky about my line of thought re: planets and Avatars, but I can imagine the Alliance still trying to take Avatars off-planet for training and such.