Trying To Suss Out The Old Geezer's Plan

One bit of fallout from rereading "The Descendants" is there are a lot of little pieces that seem odd that I can't put together. So I'm going to lay them out, and maybe you'll help me sort them out, OK?

- Let's start with Yalda. She and her son Parvez are allegedly high breed Descendants, meaning they (or their ancestors) are artificially created organisms indistinguishable from humans. Yalda appears to die protecting her son and Ant-Man. Later we see her on a slab in some sort of lab, her head detached as Father works on it. By the end of the story, she's absorbing the energy of the Sentinaught's self-destruction, protecting the Core while letting the Avengers think it was destroyed.

- According to the story Jim Hammond was told, the original Descendants were created by three scientists: Father, Mother, Brother. It was Brother who came up with the Orb of Necromancy, which was the key to giving them 'true life'. Brother took the Orb with him over disagreements about how many to create. That being the case, if Yalda was actually descended from one of these high-breeds, shouldn't she be beyond Father's capability to revive? She would have the 'true life', and he wouldn't have the Orb to restore it.

- Related question to that story: Why no "Sister"? Is Brother connected to Father, Mother, or someone else? To choose those specific names, with their connections, it has to mean something. Father keeps saying that it's his daughters who serve him best. Was Brother some earlier attempt Father and Mother made, who provided insight based on his own existence? Then he rebelled,as children are wont to do? It's really a question of whether that story is a complete load of malarkey, or if there are simply certain pertinent facts being excluded.

- Why are the Avengers so convinced the Deathloks they face are actually made up of their friends? Given they've already faced an Adaptoid with the power to make miniature versions of themselves, it's that hard to believe someone might make a cyborg that resembles the Wasp? How would they even have a body to use? The last time we saw her, she was 50 feet high and being vortexed into another dimension by Thor. Plus, she was about to explode. Would that even leave viable remains to use for a Deathlok?

- Also, what is it the Avengers did to mutants? Are they being blamed for House of M? That's Wanda's fault, and yes, she's an Avenger, but she's also a mutant. Actually, with the current fight over Hope and the approaching Phoenix Force, part of me wonders if the Core exists in the future, and this is in response to the Avengers fighting the X-Men. Somehow, the Avengers trying to get between Hope and the Phoenix will be disastrous for mutants, and Father's using that to keep his society terrified of the Avengers.

- More likely, it's just propaganda, playing off the fact Earth heroes don't have a great track record of respecting the lives of beings that exist outside a fairly narrow definition. Remember, it's OK to kill Skrulls who just want to live on Earth with humans, it's not OK to kill nutso Norman Osborn who's likely to get the entire planet burned to a cinder. Because he's human, or whatever. Frankly, the Descendants have reason to be afraid.

- We know Father expected the Avengers to show up in the Core. His surprise at seeing Ant-Man was only in the specifics of who they sent, not that one was there. We know that when convening his council of war with Emperor Doombot and the rest, he makes a big show of the need to cut the Avengers down before they can attack the Core en masse. Yet he is entirely unconcerned when the Avengers escape. Yes, he has a plant on the team now. Yes, the Avengers think the Core is destroyed, crisis averted, so on and so forth. But tricking the Avengers into thinking the threat is gone, so that they turn their attention elsewhere until you're ready, isn't the same as wiping out the group of them that learned of your existence.

- During that council, Father says Ultravision Commander said a tactician sees the need to gain advantage before war. If he said that, we never saw it. The only thing we saw him say was 'Origin, you and your Adaptoids were the ones who led these Avengers to the Core.' It's also significant that in between those two panels, Father states that he didn't call them here to listen to their opinions, but to give them their opinions. Given that, I find it significant the way Father places his hand on Ultravision's shoulder when asserting he said something we didn't hear. Wasn't there a mutant who could control machines? Machinesmith, or something like that. Is he still alive? This would be a pretty big step up, but a realm of nothing but machines to rule would be right up his alley.

- For all that Deathlok Miss America might contend no one's free will is messed with, I have my doubts. If that were true, why was Yalda suddenly willing to help Father? Answer, either he altered her, removing her free will, or she was never what she appeared to be. She was always a plant, designed to draw the Avengers' attention, to lure them into all this. Which suggests her son is part of it, too. It is rather convenient he demonstrated his powers not when he could have saved his mother, not when he could have saved O'Grady (who has since been replaced), but when he could save the Black Widow, to aid the remaining Avengers' escape.

- There's something that comes up in Burn Notice a lot, the idea that people are more likely to believe information they have to work for. The Avengers just ran into an entire society of artificial lifeforms that hate them, led by some looney old man. And the Avengers nearly died. But they didn't, they escaped - narrowly - and so they feel pretty good. They believe they succeeded, and they believe what they learned, because they came by it the hard way.

- My best guess, at this moment, is Father wants that Orb of Necromancy back. He isn't that concerned with getting the original high-breed Descendants back, because with the Orb, he can make more. And why not use the Avengers to do it for him, while he keeps his children happy and off the radar?