Sonic smiled pretty immediately after Alec spoke. Honestly, he was just glad there was something of a voice of reason. He, she, reminded him of a much younger Sally a bit - though even then, she was a little more resistant to being flustered. He wasn't sure if he agreed to all this - at least no one had made some sort of power play, he was terrified someone might try that.
Given it was mostly Alande's ideas, the hedgehog bet that shifty scientist had something in mind, but that was a road to travel down later. After a moment's hesitation, Sonic gave Alec a smile. "Sounds good enough to me!" He didn't unfold his arms though, and his smile was far from the most certain he'd given that day.
Batman didn't speak, clearly mulling over the new situation. It was a rare situation where the dark knight didn't feel in control, but in truth, he already knew he wasn't meant for this degree of order. He worked best in its cracks, chasing the rats into their hiding holes. Alec seemed like a good enough man, or woman, to lead this group. They'd need help, advisors - a role Bruce didn't fear filling, but he assumed many others would volunteer for the job, or be chosen before him. For the best, probably.
Jeremy noted Abby's leaving. On the one hand, he was surprised she didn't care much for politics, but on the other, she was Mr. House's agent, not his advisor - at least, as much as he'd gathered. Still, it disappointed him a little bit, and he couldn't figure out why, until realization struck him - she was probably the closest thing he had to a friend, and he wasn't sure if she had supported him in this debate. It was a reminder they weren't as close as he'd assumed, given their shared origin - and a reminder that he was just about all alone when it came to backup.
He stared at Alec for a moment, letting others voice their approval, thinking over what had happened here. It was a fairly military-style of organization, yet he still thought having the civilian government merely be a single branch of the military was, in nearly all ways, foolish. Fear overwhelmed the ranger as he realized these people had no idea the conflict they were entering, the logistical burdens they were about to face, the wailing mothers and bleeding children clutching at their boots, begging for a safe place to go.
He had seen war, waged on a long since soulless Earth. Not just individual battles, the brutality of gunfights, the ripping of blades, the mental scarring of bashing another man's head in with a rock - but war. Warehouses of munitions, the manufacturing of those munitions, the securing of resources to be refined and sent to those plants.
He had seen villages sprout up in the sands of the Mojave, a great stream of people marching west from Arizona and Colorado, draped in basic garbs and hide. They survived on lizards, gecko hunted at dawn, cups of their blood, powders of morning awakening and other tribal recipes. In an hour, he had seen these people completely gather their things and begin to move.
They were clipped at, from the sides, by all manner of vermin. Fiends, from the south. Powder Gangers and Khans from the west. The monsters of the wasteland from the north. Legionaries from the east. He and his rangers, his troopers, did what they could to give the migrants safety, leading them to Bitter Springs, for resettlement.
Every day, this mass of nearly two thousand people continued to move, leaving behind at least a dozen bodies, the people who had perished in the night or the previous day. They had had no time to give their dead proper burial.
By the time they had arrived at Bitter Springs, three hundred were left alive. Most managed to book passage to California, but some couldn't - they had to make due in Freeside, North Vegas, and Jeremy was confident they had all died in the few years since.
He remembered his time in Bitter Springs, fending off opportunistic slavers, Legion-hired bounty hunters seeking to reclaim their 'property', and Fiends, who were likely just fighting for the rush of killing and death.
He and his squad, low on supplies as they were, continued fighting. They were shored up by those of the refugees who were strong enough and capable enough to fight, using heirloom firearms, machetes and spears. As ammunition became ever scarcer, they often fended off one raiding party with the previous' dropped equipment. Then, as all sides, began to run out of bullets and laser charges, battle was dominated by hands, feet and blades.
Jeremy remembered the crunching of bone beneath his leather knuckles, the wet snap of skin abruptly cut. Fathers, mothers, sons and daughters all had rushed to their deaths beside him and his troops, bringing fighting like animals in the nights of slaughter. Bitter Springs once again ran red with innocents. The ranger remembered the screaming of women dragged from the battlefield, their legs crippled, Jeremy too occupied or injured to save them.
Perhaps their new enemies were not like the Fiends or the Legion, but the cost of war was never laid at the feet of just the military apparatuses involved. Their single civilian branch would soon be overwhelmed, crumbling under the weight of those they are burdened to save. They were fools if they thought things would be so simple. This wouldn't stay a quiet war. Their enemy had the resources, presumably, to wage war across universes.
As territory is lost, and the Pathfinder the only interdimensional nexus under the control of the 'good guys,' the responsibility of saving refugees will fall to them. Jeremy saw, in his darkened imagination, refugees from a hundred worlds, a thousand worlds, marching as a great stream, chased down by their robotic enemies and whatever vermin they manage to rally to their cause.
Not only all this, but it would be Alec in charge of their fate. He could see it now, clearer than anything else. This was not the birth of merely some order of heroes, this was the birth of a nation - one ruled not by equals, but by specialists, the elite. The civilians, the people, would not matter as much as the oligarchic directorate. He was the one who called this meeting, the one whom all seemed to listen to. Even now, he would have the final word here - his word, made into law.
Such power, in the hands of a man - or a woman - so clearly unwell...
Such a story was not uncommon in the wasteland, and often a strong, singular vision was required to endure the wastes' many challenges, but Jeremy's humble origins didn't blind him to the scale at which this organization would operate at, the consequences of the war they were joining. He knew what one man, educated and intelligent, could craft in a third of a lifetime, with nothing but the dunes of Arizona. If everyone in this room alone followed Alec's command, and if he became wise and clever enough to use them all to his advantage, winning this war could very well not be worth it.
The ranger nodded gently to Alec, his solemn acceptance masked by the front of his helmet. He mustered no words of approval however, for he had too many concerns left for his approval to be truthful. Yet he knew voicing them would merely bounce off deaf ears. The room sorely lacked patience, or humility. He knew, tragically, that they would have to be shown horror in order for them to accept its presence.
