Independance Day aliens vs Loki and Avengers

[Axton]

Axton, the point of a "versus scenario" isn't to see who can play the "heroes win!" narrative trump-card hardest, loudest, or first. This is commonly seen in Trekkies when their answer is "but on the show, they do some cool, last-minute, pseudo-science-y thing and ta-dah! they WIN! So that will happen in THIS match-up!" (This is what happened in ID4, in case you didn't work it out: nothing they showed us in the movie explained why suddenly they were able to bridge a Macbook to an alien computer system that had only been reactivating in the last couple of days. David's inspiration is not the work, just the idea.)

Except that that's exactly my point, and exactly why the "heroes win" theme, in fact, does work in vs scenarios. If we focus on in-universe explanations only, then the "big bad" ID4 aliens are incompetent clowns, in universe, because in universe they were beaten by people who were far less skilled and far more under-gunned than the people our vs scenario is pitting them against.

In universe, the ID4 aliens got beaten by a politician, a few FA/18 pilots, one decent fighter jock, a nerdy cable guy, and an elderly drunk.

Put the Avengers in their place -- and go ahead, leave out a basically indestructible android powered by an Infinity stone -- we don't even need him. Instead of a politician, a few FA/18 pilots, a decent fighter jock, a nerdy cable guy, and an elderly drunk, we have:

-A genius engineer with a miniaturized nuclear reactor powered body armor that can single-handedly destroy a T-90 tank with one shot, fly -- and in flight exert sufficient thrust to alter the trajectory of a nuclear missile by a full 90 degrees, among other things

-An alien who can, among other things, gather electricity from the atmosphere and redirect it onto any target he chooses, exert sufficient centrifugal force with his hammer to fling himself to any destination he likes, mimicking flight

-An archer who is admittedly not terribly useful in this scenario

-An assassin who is, again, not terribly useful in this scenario, but who knows

-A man whose emotional upset turns him into a creature that can't be killed and that, every time anyone tries, results in him only getting more angry and more powerful

-A tactician on the order of any of the best minds human militaries have produced, ever

And finally, because it's in the thread title, yet another of the Norse gods, who directed the enemy force that all of the preceding characters whomped the crap out of.

Remember, the vs scenario the thread proposes isn't "ID4 aliens AND the Chitauri vs the Avengers". It's "ID4 aliens versus Loki and Avengers." Loki was using the Chitauri. So it's "ID4 aliens versus all of them."

And the ID4 aliens -- again -- were beaten by a politician, a fighter jock, a cable guy, and a drunk. Put them up against the Avengers, let alone the Avengers and Loki with his +1... sorry, his +1 or 2 thousand, and their defeat would be comical. And sad. But mostly sad.

Yes, they've got kilometer-sized spacecraft. But in this scenario: So. Fucking. What. That didn't do them any goddamn good in their own ficton, it sure as shit won't help them here.

[Khaat]

No, "heroes win!" works in fiction. That default is discarded first, in a versus scenario. If you don't know the difference, you're on the wrong board.

You show your work in a versus scenario.

[NecronLord]

My point in showing up the narrative element is this: No matter how competent the bad guys are, in any ficton, they lose.

Here's an example of a film with a positive ending (despite its lack of artistic merit in some respects, in many people's opinions) where the antagonists who are built up to be the ultimate military power, who can't be defeated, aren't; from The Matrix Revolutions. The protagnoist's sacrifice to save the machine city results in the machines ceasing their attack on all free humans, repatriating his body and talking about how they'll free everyone else who wishes to leave the simulation world.

Not every story which has an antagonist with superior military power has to have that power undermined. That is not inherent to the concept of narrative.

Say what you will about the artistic quality of the film, it's an easy example of a film where the major military power starts out as an 'the bad guys' and aren't defeated, at all. They're on the verge of defeating the last free humans when they accept an overture of peace, and the notion that a human will die to help them makes them abandon their policy of revenge. Their military power certainly remains as efficacious in the end of the films as it does at the start.

Want another?



From Babylon 5. The Battle of the Line; where the Humans are completely defeated militarily, after having been driven back to earth, and the Minbari cease their attack because the they discover (via thier rituals, and influenced by the Vorlons) that one of the humans has the soul of their prophet.

"They cannot harm our ships, but they continue to try..."

You are very sheltered if you believe all fiction must follow the 'powerful bad guys are outwitted and defeated' trope. These are just examples of one alternate story - where the powerful, militarily triumphant bad-guys are convinced to abandon their prejudices, rather than defeated by force.

And the fact that the narrative has them ultimately being defeated means that some derpy little yokels find a way to defeat them.

Once, not that they'll do it every time.

The MCU is not populated, protagonist-wise, by derpy little yokels.

If a politician, a few fighter jocks, and an alcoholic Vietnam vet can beat the ID4 aliens, you can bet both your testicles the Avengers can pull off the same job without breaking a sweat.

Tell us how this will happen. Provide evidence from an in-universe perspective.

The antagonists from Skyline, Falling Skies, and Stargate have no bearing on the question of this specific vs scenario. They're red herrings. The antagonists from this scenario are the ID4 aliens who, in universe, were bested by one fighter jock, a hilarious nurd with a laptop, and a drunk -- and that was after said antagonists had just about decimated terrestrial infrastructure. They still lost. Hilariously.

Put them up against the Avengers and you might as well slit the ID4 aliens' throats in their sleep. It's that much of a mismatch.

You said 'in any fiction.'

Nerd is spelt with an e.

[Lord Revan]

the thing is that the concept of narative concept of "protagonist" doesn't exist outside of fictional narative and the narative concept is "protagonist wins" not "hero wins". There's no protagonists in real life and no clear heroes either (one man's hero is another man's villain after all) if you cannot grasp that then you're in the wrong place as Khaat said

EDIT:and as Necronlord pointed out win doesn't always mean "defeat the antagonist militarly" but it can mean "convince the antagonist to not fight anymore" is just as valid

[Axton]

And we're still dealing in fictional narratives here. We're dealing with the ID4 aliens versus the Avengers. If we discard the fictional narrative, we're dealing with "realistic capabilities" -- but those realistic capabilities are still defined and limited to what we saw on screen.

So the ID4 aliens lost. Even if we discard character shields, they still lost. To a politician, one decent fighter jock, a cable guy, and a drunk. They still lost. To people like that.

So sub in the Avengers. The ID4 aliens' capabilities still don't outclass a politician, a decent fighter jock, a cable guy, and a drunk. And you think there's even a chance they'd prevail over a guy wearing a nuclear-powered full body Swiss army knife, a pair of world-class assassins, a master tactician, a Norse god, and a gigantic rage monster?

The only way the Avengers can't do what the original team to defeat them did is if you play a seriously large piece of favoritism, IOW, if you "character shield" the ID4 aliens just because they've got gigantic ships that give you superweapon chubbies.

[Crazedwraith]

If you give them prep time. Maybe te Avengers can duplicate Jeff Goldblum's virus skills. How do they deliver it to the Mothership given the MCU has no trojan horse fighter?

This ignores the fact the scenario starts them off fighting the Battle Of New York with a city-killer approaching. How do the Avengers survive being at ground zero of blast from the city killer?

[Axton]

If you give them prep time. Maybe te Avengers can duplicate Jeff Goldblum's virus skills. How do they deliver it to the Mothership given the MCU has no trojan horse fighter?

This ignores the fact the scenario starts them off fighting the Battle Of New York with a city-killer approaching. How do the Avengers survive being at ground zero of blast from the city killer?

Why would the MCU not have a trojan horse fighter? The trojan horse fighter was a function of the existence of the ID4 aliens. If the ID4 aliens are there, so is the trojan horse fighter.

And how do they survive? By not being on the ground. The ID4 city destroyers, if you rewatch the film, don't do anything to the atmosphere over the cities that is visible in the footage. They destroy what's on the ground. Couple that with the demonstrated ability of Stark's AI to detect weak points in alien technology and they'd spot the weakness of hitting the weapons array without having to have a Vietnam vet drunk smash a plane into it.

You could always weight the scenario even further into the "OMG they have huge ships fapfapfapfapfap" camp, though, by having all of the Avengers de-powered, I guess. Stark has no armors. Captain America is still a scrawny kid from Brooklyn. Bruce Banner is just a scientist unaffected by gamma radiation. Black Widow is still just a little Russian girl. Hawkeye just likes plinking tin cans in his backyard with a bow and arrow. Thor isn't around at all.

But even then, the Avengers are still no less impressive than the gaggle of people who did defeat the ID4 aliens.

[Borgholio]

If you give them prep time. Maybe te Avengers can duplicate Jeff Goldblum's virus skills. How do they deliver it to the Mothership given the MCU has no trojan horse fighter?

This ignores the fact the scenario starts them off fighting the Battle Of New York with a city-killer approaching. How do the Avengers survive being at ground zero of blast from the city killer?

Why would the MCU not have a trojan horse fighter? The trojan horse fighter was a function of the existence of the ID4 aliens. If the ID4 aliens are there, so is the trojan horse fighter.

If the fighter exists it's in Area 51, which was only revealed after the specific characters in ID4 were on Air Force One following the attack. None of the Avengers would be on Air Force One so they would not be made aware of the existence of the fighter (at least until after New York was already destroyed...but possibly never at all).

It could be possible for the fighter to be under the control of SHIELD...but it still wouldn't come about until after NY was destroyed.

[Axton]

If you give them prep time. Maybe te Avengers can duplicate Jeff Goldblum's virus skills. How do they deliver it to the Mothership given the MCU has no trojan horse fighter?

This ignores the fact the scenario starts them off fighting the Battle Of New York with a city-killer approaching. How do the Avengers survive being at ground zero of blast from the city killer?

Why would the MCU not have a trojan horse fighter? The trojan horse fighter was a function of the existence of the ID4 aliens. If the ID4 aliens are there, so is the trojan horse fighter.

If the fighter exists it's in Area 51, which was only revealed after the specific characters in ID4 were on Air Force One following the attack. None of the Avengers would be on Air Force One so they would not be made aware of the existence of the fighter (at least until after New York was already destroyed...but possibly never at all).

Considering that S.H.I.E.L.D. is involved with artifacts of alien origin including the Tesseract, it seems highly unlikely that the organization would be out of the loop on a crashed alien vehicle from the 1940s.

It could be possible for the fighter to be under the control of SHIELD...but it still wouldn't come about until after NY was destroyed.

So an organization that's been actively studying an alien artifact recovered in the 1940s (the Tesseract) would just... not bother with another one (the ID4 fighter)?

No. I don't see that happening, and I doubt you see that happening, either.

[NecronLord]

And we're still dealing in fictional narratives here. We're dealing with the ID4 aliens versus the Avengers. If we discard the fictional narrative, we're dealing with "realistic capabilities" -- but those realistic capabilities are still defined and limited to what we saw on screen.

So the ID4 aliens lost. Even if we discard character shields, they still lost. To a politician, one decent fighter jock, a cable guy, and a drunk. They still lost. To people like that.

So sub in the Avengers. The ID4 aliens' capabilities still don't outclass a politician, a decent fighter jock, a cable guy, and a drunk. And you think there's even a chance they'd prevail over a guy wearing a nuclear-powered full body Swiss army knife, a pair of world-class assassins, a master tactician, a Norse god, and a gigantic rage monster?

And if the way the guys in Independence Day lost was 'melee combat,' I'd be right with you. They didn't, though, they lost to a trojan horse with a nuke, a system exploit, and a combined worldwide offensive of all remaining aircraft the human race had.



"The largest aerial battle in the history of mankind."

Even if the avengers can pull off the hack, they can't deliver it to the mothership (it only works in the mothership remember), as they have no space-ships, they don't have nuclear weapons to destroy the space ship, and they can't coordinate a global strike, and it would buy them a few minutes to shut down the shields in which to try and hit all the saucers and the mothership, before the aliens patched it, as per the original film.

[Axton]

Except that the Avengers have all the resources the original ID4 protagonists had, and then some. That's what you don't seem to be getting. Everything the ID4 protagonists had, the Avengers have. Plus.

This vs scenario only subs in more powerful protagonists. It's going to go the same way it already went, except quicker.

[NecronLord]

Except that the Avengers have all the resources the original ID4 protagonists had, and then some. That's what you don't seem to be getting. Everything the ID4 protagonists had, the Avengers have. Plus.

This vs scenario only subs in more powerful protagonists. It's going to go the same way it already went, except quicker.

No, that's not how vs scenarios work. Every vs involving the death star doesn't immediately grant the opponent the death star plans that the rebels had. Unless otherwise explicitly stated by the thread's original poster, S.H.I.E.L.D./Hydra/Stark/PymCo do not have the Area 51 fighter.

[Crazedwraith]

If you give them prep time. Maybe te Avengers can duplicate Jeff Goldblum's virus skills. How do they deliver it to the Mothership given the MCU has no trojan horse fighter?

This ignores the fact the scenario starts them off fighting the Battle Of New York with a city-killer approaching. How do the Avengers survive being at ground zero of blast from the city killer?

Why would the MCU not have a trojan horse fighter? The trojan horse fighter was a function of the existence of the ID4 aliens. If the ID4 aliens are there, so is the trojan horse fighter.

It's not included in the OP's scenario. No reason to assume it does exist. The fighter was not depicted as being the sole reason an invasion occurred.

And how do they survive? By not being on the ground. The ID4 city destroyers, if you rewatch the film, don't do anything to the atmosphere over the cities that is visible in the footage. They destroy what's on the ground. Couple that with the demonstrated ability of Stark's AI to detect weak points in alien technology and they'd spot the weakness of hitting the weapons array without having to have a Vietnam vet drunk smash a plane into it.

The airborne first lady was killed by a city-destroyer. Simply being airborne is no defense. First most of the Avengers are not mobile enough to escape the blast range on foot. Their only transport was destroyed early in the battle and they are currently fighting Chitauri who won't just do nothing and let them escape. It's also out of character for the Avengers to flee the area and leave civilians to die. They will be at ground zero of that blast and that will at the very least kill Cap, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. At the very least.

You could always weight the scenario even further into the "OMG they have huge ships fapfapfapfapfap" camp, though, by having all of the Avengers de-powered, I guess. Stark has no armors. Captain America is still a scrawny kid from Brooklyn. Bruce Banner is just a scientist unaffected by gamma radiation. Black Widow is still just a little Russian girl. Hawkeye just likes plinking tin cans in his backyard with a bow and arrow. Thor isn't around at all.

Now you're just being a wanker. How does being a spygirl or owning a bow and arrow or shield protect you from nuclear level firepower being deployed directly over your head? How does an Iron Man suit or a Hammer stop you being mobbed by shielded fighters? How do you stop ships all over the world and in space by being a green rage monster?

[Axton]

If you give them prep time. Maybe te Avengers can duplicate Jeff Goldblum's virus skills. How do they deliver it to the Mothership given the MCU has no trojan horse fighter?

This ignores the fact the scenario starts them off fighting the Battle Of New York with a city-killer approaching. How do the Avengers survive being at ground zero of blast from the city killer?

Why would the MCU not have a trojan horse fighter? The trojan horse fighter was a function of the existence of the ID4 aliens. If the ID4 aliens are there, so is the trojan horse fighter.

It's not included in the OP's scenario. No reason to assume it does exist. The fighter was not depicted as being the sole reason an invasion occurred.

No, but it was depicted as being a pre-existing artifact of the aliens who invaded. If we're going to simply remove all their potential vulnerabilities as part of the favoritism game, we might as well just conclude the OP with "the ID4 aliens win no matter what, so neener neener boo boo peas."

Their left-behind garbage is one of their vulnerabilities, so it must figure into this VS scenario.

[Axton]

Now you're just being a wanker. How does being a spygirl or owning a bow and arrow or shield protect you from nuclear level firepower being deployed directly over your head? How does an Iron Man suit or a Hammer stop you being mobbed by shielded fighters? How do you stop ships all over the world and in space by being a green rage monster?

Well, we can see how a politician, a fighter jock, a cable guy, and a drunk did it. Do you think the Avengers can't do what those people did, at minimum?

Again, this is playing favorites. This is a game of bigger-bigger-bigger-bigger wankwankwankwank. Stop it. The ID4 aliens, for all their bigger-bigger-bigger-bigger game, got punked by people who would be far outclassed by the Avengers.

[Crazedwraith]

It's not playing favourites. You've not explained how they can beat the aliens, you're just handwaving it because the Avengers are more capable than selected ID4 protagonists. Ignoring everyone's points about how lucky they were, the resources they have that the Avengers didn't and how they were at ground zero fighting someone else when the hammer fell.

[Lost Soal]

And of course we have to leave out Deadpool. We have to. Otherwise the ID4 aliens aren't just fucked, they're fucking sodomized.

And then there's The Regulator. Y'all completely forgot about that character. Basically, it's a built-in Marvel Universe Wins cheat character. In the even of an extra-ficton intrusion, the native characters win whatever the context is. Fight to the death, nuclear armageddon, game of checkers, doesn't matter.

When you brought the Avengers into it, you invoked The Regulator. MCU wins. Default. Uncontestable.

Lets make this clear since you apparently didn't understand the first time.
This is the Avengers as of the First Marvel Avengers Movie.
This is not the comics.
The Regulator, whoever the fuck that is, doesn't exist.
Deadpool doesn't exist and he couldn't do fuck all to a 5 mile wide spaceship anyway.
There are no X-Men in this universe so there's no Magneto to tear the ships apart & no Xavier to mind rape them.
Stark does not have an army of iton man suits to throw at them nor can he magically hack any device with his mind as he can by the time of World War Hulk (No idea what that ability was or where it came from)

Its just what we see in the first movies. Now try some rational arguments which don't consist of the win Because.

Computer Virus.
If ID computer language is the basis of Earth programming languages then I have no doubts that Jarvis has the ability to create a similar virus as we see David come up with this on the fly after an off the cuff remark, therefore both Stark & Jarvis could do the same.
The interface is the key. I have no idea how David interfaced with the fighter, whether he jury rigged it himself or if it was ready made. The Aliens are using some form of wireless network since they were all linked via the satellites in orbit giving a potential route into their system.

If they can interface then the can knock down the shields so now we come to the imprtant part, taking out the ships.
This is the park of the film which makes no damn sense at all. What fucking message did theUS send around the world? What part of that suiside run did they determine was key to knocking out the ships?
Do you have to simply blow up the main weapon?
Blow it up as its powering up?
Physically intervene in the beam so that the blast wave blows it up?
None of this makes much sensesince we saw ships getting downed in empty deserts where there is nothing to blow up and the piss poor air to air missles aren't getting through the hatch when its closed.

Recreating events from ID do we assume that their moving over the city to attack rather than waiting around for a day then they will open up the hatch to fire giving both Thor and Stark clean shots at the weapon and their weapons can match that of a colliding jet.

[Axton]

It's not playing favourites. You've not explained how they can beat the aliens, you're just handwaving it because the Avengers are more capable than selected ID4 protagonists.

That's not handwaving. It's built into the vs scenario. We know who can defeat the ID4 aliens because we watched those people do it. We know the Avengers are overpowered compared to the people who succeeded already. Therefore we know the Avengers can do the same thing, except more easily.

[Crazedwraith]

It's not playing favourites. You've not explained how they can beat the aliens, you're just handwaving it because the Avengers are more capable than selected ID4 protagonists.

That's not handwaving. It's built into the vs scenario. We know who can defeat the ID4 aliens because we watched those people do it. We know the Avengers are overpowered compared to the people who succeeded already. Therefore we know the Avengers can do the same thing, except more easily.

Except as has been pointed out numerous times. They can't. Because they don't start in the same positions and the same resources as the ID4 crew. They start off fighting the chitarui right under a city-killer.

[Axton]

Which is stacking the deck. It's like saying, "Okay, who would win in a fight between Muhammed Ali and Mike Tyson if Muhammed Ali wins?"

Nope. No deck stacking.

[NecronLord]

Now you're just being a wanker. How does being a spygirl or owning a bow and arrow or shield protect you from nuclear level firepower being deployed directly over your head? How does an Iron Man suit or a Hammer stop you being mobbed by shielded fighters? How do you stop ships all over the world and in space by being a green rage monster?

Well, we can see how a politician, a fighter jock, a cable guy, and a drunk did it. Do you think the Avengers can't do what those people did, at minimum?

Again, this is playing favorites. This is a game of bigger-bigger-bigger-bigger wankwankwankwank. Stop it. The ID4 aliens, for all their bigger-bigger-bigger-bigger game, got punked by people who would be far outclassed by the Avengers.

I like how you keep saying 'a politician' rather than 'the President of the United States, commander of all its armed forces, which participated in the plan.' Because beyond being a trained fighter pilot (like George W Bush, in fact, so hardly unrealistic, I can even imagine him doing much the same things, though probably his unrehearsed speech wouldn't be as good) the politician's chief asset in the film is his ability to use the influence of his office and the armed forces under his command. You keep describing it as though President Whitmore punched the aliens out of the sky.

The drunk is also a veteran fighter pilot, whose personal failings are ascribed to alien experimentation. The film's protagonists are 'three qualified fighter pilots one of whom is President, and a computer genius' if you want to describe them more practically. And indeed when they fight, all those characters use the weapons they're proficient with. The ID4 aliens fall in a scenario that requires computer smarts - which Stark and possibly Banner and Widow could certainly do - and flying planes and captured fighters.

Which SHIELD could no doubt manage with the right resources. But not if they just show up unannounced while they're already fighting an entirely seperate battle.

No, I have no bias. I like both films. I like the MCU, lots. I have even lately posted on another thread saying that logic suggests that Cap would tear the villains from a couple of Star Trek films a new asshole.

[Crazedwraith]

Which is stacking the deck. It's like saying, "Okay, who would win in a fight between Muhammed Ali and Mike Tyson if Muhammed Ali wins?"

Nope. No deck stacking.

So effectively you concede the Avengers would lose in the described scenario.

[Terralthra]

My point in showing up the narrative element is this: No matter how competent the bad guys are, in any ficton, they lose. And the fact that the narrative has them ultimately being defeated means that some derpy little yokels find a way to defeat them.

And his point was that you're factually incorrect.

So the protagonists of ID4 didn't win? Because it seems to me that they did. Or do you and he have a sooper-seekrit cut of the film where they lost?

You didn't say "the antagonists of ID4", you said, "No matter how competent the bad guys are, in any fiction, they lose." (emphasis mine). Figure out what your argument is, don't keep changing it in response to evidence.

[Axton]

So... wait. If I do change it in response to evidence, that's bad? Wouldn't it be worse if I don't adjust my position in response to evidence? You had a point, are you now saying I'm not supposed to acknowledge that point and moderate my stance accordingly?

So okay, yes, sometimes the "bad guys" come out on top.

It didn't happen in ID4. The ID4 aliens lost. Hilariously.

They'd lose again, because in the scenario presented, they're fighting more powerful "good guys."

[NecronLord]

You kept saying that no fiction exists where powerful bad-guys aren't overcome with force; which yeah, you seem to have abandoned that. Good on you.

There are many sorts of power. President Whitmore has more politial and military power than any of the Avengers (except maybe Thor, but he's cut off from his power base at this point) and that really does matter. Lots.