We're actually thinking of addressing these questions together, in that working up his status as a religious figure and putting together a following is what will get him the social media follows and attention. To be clear, these religious fanatics are not the same as the original cult, who is anti-technology, so they won't have any qualms about following him on CoolTalk or wherever else.
As far as who exactly he could appeal to for this religious following, we were thinking that some of the discharged UNA soldiers might be a good fit. To give you some background on this, the UNA soldiers were recruited into the army usually at a young age, around 18-20, and were specifically picked out because they had shown that they were the sort of person who would fall into line and do what was told, no questions asked. While in the army, they were heavily conditioned and even had implants that allowed them to function as a unit -- a sort of hive mind. There is more information about UNA training here, to give you an idea of their background.
Following the simulation that Judas imposed upon New Amsterdam, all UNA soldiers were discharged because it was revealed that the AI was responsible for a lot of their tech. Given the bad associations that AI has in this world, and how Judas terrorized people with the sim, the UNA soldiers were essentially viewed as "spoiled goods" and cut loose. With their sense of personhood so compromised and no one telling them what to do, most of them are now lost and drifting. Obviously they would handle this situation in different ways, but we wanted to lay this out for you as we think they're a group that Homelander would be able to appeal to and exploit. (If you want to read more, we have additional details here, though with a somewhat different approach.)
If you agree and have some ideas for how he'd do this, let us know! We're down for it.
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We're actually thinking of addressing these questions together, in that working up his status as a religious figure and putting together a following is what will get him the social media follows and attention. To be clear, these religious fanatics are not the same as the original cult, who is anti-technology, so they won't have any qualms about following him on CoolTalk or wherever else.
As far as who exactly he could appeal to for this religious following, we were thinking that some of the discharged UNA soldiers might be a good fit. To give you some background on this, the UNA soldiers were recruited into the army usually at a young age, around 18-20, and were specifically picked out because they had shown that they were the sort of person who would fall into line and do what was told, no questions asked. While in the army, they were heavily conditioned and even had implants that allowed them to function as a unit -- a sort of hive mind. There is more information about UNA training here, to give you an idea of their background.
Following the simulation that Judas imposed upon New Amsterdam, all UNA soldiers were discharged because it was revealed that the AI was responsible for a lot of their tech. Given the bad associations that AI has in this world, and how Judas terrorized people with the sim, the UNA soldiers were essentially viewed as "spoiled goods" and cut loose. With their sense of personhood so compromised and no one telling them what to do, most of them are now lost and drifting. Obviously they would handle this situation in different ways, but we wanted to lay this out for you as we think they're a group that Homelander would be able to appeal to and exploit. (If you want to read more, we have additional details here, though with a somewhat different approach.)
If you agree and have some ideas for how he'd do this, let us know! We're down for it.