Dun Dun DAAAAA

I was kinda right. ^_^

Suddenly, I hear the Overlord going "My give a damn's busted" in regards to Titan.

Awesome plot twist though :D

Nice tie in to your inspirational material as well.

Intruging.

Suddenly, some of Darius' comments to Beryl and the other torturer makes a lot of sense.

I kinda feel sorry for the Highbloods in general, though I think that's more the American and Christian in me than anything. I don't like societies where your lot in life is determined by who you're born to. I think it holds a lot of wonderful, awesome people back, and sometimes promotes those who've no other reason to hold positions of power.

I just hope the gladiatorial games are non-lethal for the most part. I would prefer all of it be non-lethal, like our own sports, but I doubt any of them would listen to lil ol' me. =P

I do feel sorry for the highbloods and in drawing Titan skewered on crystals... i did feel bad for him. Bearing in mind Titan at this juncture was merely tempermental but not outwardly homicidal. ten years of asserting his dominance drove him insane knowing all the while he'd never receive backup and that in the end he always suspected Darius knew the truth but was too afraid to confront him when titan wasn't helpless. This has also led Titan to look for any excuse for ten years to get rid of darius for fear that one day he'd grow a backbone (something that was very likely with caring for someone, Titan was afraid that darius might suddenly decide that being a father was more important than being his commander and rally the troops against him. for TEN YEARS titan has been silently but constantly hammering it into the minds of the crew that Darius may be his second in command but untrustworthy. in the same reasoning that megatron keeps starscream around for no other reason than he's really good at his job.

Another thing to note is that alot of the highbloods were and are bullies either intellectually or physically toward the races like darius and below. While they were more or less complacent with that heirarchy for awhile thier ruler decided enough was enough and did away with the caste system entirely by naming a lesser blooded individual as his sucessor, expecting it to be taken peacefully when he died, it didn't it was the highbloods who rebelled but the lesser bloods who defended thier new ruler and had innumerable contigencies in place just in case a riot broke out. They were thier own undoing because of thier temperment.

As for gladitorial combat, well.. it depends like anything on what is allowed in certain sections of the planet, in some places it may be a fight to first blood and in others a fight to the death, there are different localized cultures with a large recursive culture.

Yeesh. Yeah, a lot of villains seem to be people who just lost control of their lives at some point and have been trying to wrest it back ever since. Others have control, but fear losing it every day to someone stronger or more clever. The irony being that if they didn't focus on control so much, they'd be able to live long and healthy lives, with the right amount of comfort and danger to keep things both interesting and refreshing. Hope some of the Highbloods figured that out. The Law of Averages kinda gives me hope for that.

And a good point on the gladiatorial thing. I guess it's up to the authorities of their interstellar empire to determine whether to rewrite the local laws or not. So long as there's forgiveness among their worlds, I think they'll do okay. Vengeance and grudges always seem to lead to trouble.