So after Marauders #5 and how directly it continues from Spider-Man 2099 Exodus #5....the thing I'm most interested in now that we've seen how closely Orlando's tying his present day stuff into his 2099 stuff....is the fact that he's made a point in his Spider-Man 2099 Exodus issues that the current 2099 comics are definitively set in the same timeline as the original run. He picked up events exactly from where those characters were last seen, the ones who did die in the earlier comics are still dead....it would have been very easy to soft-reboot the 2099 timeline and just treat it as a blank slate just using familiar characters, say that all the changes to the timeline had effectively made the 2099 era a free-for-all where its history could be anything current writers want it to be. But they've been very careful NOT to do that. Even while adding elements of the modern Krakoan Age into those stories, like mentions of 'the almost mythical mutant mystery metal, mysterium' as something that people obviously once knew as a thing at one point, but has been out of circulation long enough the average person in 2099 doesn't put a ton of stock in stories about it. And its that last part that's really interesting to me because given that there's obviously no Krakoa in 2099, no resurrection protocols, no Arakko....you'd think it SHOULDN'T be possible to integrate a whole Krakoan Age into 2099's history despite it not being a thing when that line was first introduced. Even with the way Cable's history or knowledge of history is explained by changes to the timeline and any subsequent ripple effects just folding themselves into his awareness or view of history, much like how we 'update' our view of past comics events that have been retconned....the whole point is Orlando's 2099 stuff has made such a big deal NOT to actually retcon anything. Even when it seems it would be EASIER to do that and just explain any changes the way Cable does, and just roll with it, its repeatedly been stressed that the history as 2099 mutants in current comics remember it is no different from history as mutants in the original 2099 comics remembered it. Suggesting that even those original 2099 comics could - and are now intended to - be viewed as though they could still happen just eight decades after the current era's events. Like I just mean....the 2099 era isn't just the possible future of a timeline where Krakoa never happened. Its blatantly being described as the possible future of even a timeline where Krakoa DID happen. So like I said, you'd think that the Krakoan Age SHOULDN'T be able to fit into the 2099 timeline's existing backstory, since it didn't exist yet as a thing that could inform/shape the original 2099 comics.....but the thing is, it actually slots into place very, VERY easily. And that's because in 2099's history.....most of mutantkind just up and fucking vanished at some point in the 2020s, and mutant births among the general global population didn't start happening again with any kind of frequency until well into the second half of the 21st century. [img][/img] The 2099 comics were always deliberately vague about the history of mutants before their present day....like there were frequent references to human/mutant conflicts throughout the late 20th and early 21st century, people definitely remember the X-Men, stuff like that. But then things get vague, become subject to rumors or conflicting stories, and nobody in 2099 seems super clear about what happened around the 2020s, what mutantkind was like then....just that there was one last big human/mutant conflict IN the 2020s specifically....and after that, the large existing mutant population seems to have just vanished overnight, with nobody seeming to know how or why. Mutants were a big deal, then the 2020s rolled around, and then no more giant mutant population, no more X-Men, no more known or named or recognizable mutant figures at ANY point after that....just sporadic mutant individuals whose powers manifested at some point AFTER that big disappearance and were subsequently kept safe by hiding in underground organizations like MUSE for the next fifty years. The 'modern' mutant population of the 2099 X-Men's era, the generation of mutants in their 20s and teens that we saw throughout those books....was literally the FIRST generation SINCE the 2020s, where mutants were born in large enough numbers that they were actually able to exist out in the open again, influence world events, etc. The 2099 books ran for years, and in all that time almost all mutants to appear in them were in their twenties at most, with only a handful of mutant characters older than thirty ever showing up and always being treated as outliers or a big deal in-universe when they did....because for the most part, there WERE no more mutants older than thirty at that time. There was always just a big gap in history that people danced around because they either didn't know what happened in that gap, or they didn't want to talk about it, something like that. And either way, the point of all this is I think its pretty significant that Marvel's not only greenlit Orlando in intertwining his 2099 stuff with the present day, bringing one of its most prominent characters to be a present day character like Bishop or Rachel....but they also seem to either be totally on board with how he's NOT retconning 2099's history....or alternatively, that could have literally been part of the directive given to Orlando when given the 2099 Spider-Man Exodus project. Like, rather than start fresh with that era, they've chosen to actively lean into the pre- existing history that's predicated on a mass mutant disappearance right smack in the decade we happen to be in, which is being treated as modern day within the comics as well. And thus now we have 2099 characters acknowledging elements of present day Krakoa stuff, the existence of mysterium but no mutants left that know how to make it, Cerebra's knowledge that something like the resurrection protocols DID exist in this day and age but are clearly no longer a thing in a future where mutants die all the time...but there's still enough mystery and also an element of discomfort when 2099 characters reference mutants from the start of the century, that like....its plausible that the reason this stuff doesn't get talked about more (or in the earlier 2099 comics) is just because nobody wants to dwell too much on stories or histories that clearly encompass both how much better everything once was for mutants, but also the fact that none of them are left, which suggests nothing good about their ultimate fate. So, to recap: We have most of the global mutant population concentrated in just one place on Earth, as well as on Arakko. In the 2020s. While setting the stage for a major human/mutant conflict. And meanwhile, in 2099’s history, we have the global mutant population all vanishing seemingly at once, in one mass disappearance or exodus, after the 'final' human/mutant conflict, and most if not all of mutantkind's major players with them. (Also in 2099, Mars is known just as Mars and looks about like you'd expect Mars to look, pre-Planet Sized X-Men....except for ruins that exist as evidence of some prior civilization and yet most people strangely reluctant to talk about Mars or displaying little curiosity about what SHOULD be a matter of great curiosity, proof of life on Mars....unless, say, everyone already knew a civilization had once existed on Mars and it wasn't even all that long ago and there's some OTHER reason Mars is a pretty taboo subject in 2099 that nobody wants to touch with a ten foot pole.) We also have Destiny over in the main X-Men title talking about a possible future she sees where mutants are going through a gate in large numbers and none of them come back...with this being a future she's convinced can ONLY be averted by Rogue stopping them. And meanwhile, in 2099, Orlando's current story about the X-Men of that era features the surviving mutants left from the original 2099 run, all of them in their twenties or thirties at most.....except now, along with a time-traveling Cable staying in that time period for his own reasons, those X- Men also include the one and only member of OUR 'modern day' X-Men to ever appear in that era. Almost like....the last one of her era that's left. And what character is that? Rogue. Almost as if....most mutants on Krakoa and Arakko vanished through a gateway they never came back from, and for whatever reason, she was unable to stop them but also didn't join them. But does that make her the last survivor of the current Krakoan nation? Or does that make her the one left behind....either by circumstance, or her own choice, or to perhaps fulfill some role or complete some task that require she still be present on Earth in 2099? And then we also have Orlando's present day title, which launched with an initial arc centered around the mystery of a two billion year old mysterium box somehow known to both Mystique and Emma, desperately sought by the latter, and which eventually leads the Marauders to learn of a long-vanished mutant civilization that not only possessed the means to try and send its population forward in time to SAVE it, but whose very presence - well before life evolved on Earth - heavily implies that mutant time-travelers started that civilization in the first place. And also of note....this mutant civilization is named Threshold. With a threshold of course being a way to describe the liminal space that exists between both sides of a doorway. Or y'know. A gate. Now, factor this thought in: The X-Office claims that its still following Hickman's overall outline or plan, and always has been...just taking different routes to get there. We’re all familiar with the theories that he rage quit the writer’s room because nobody got that Krakoa was supposed to be BAD, the whole point of the idea was a critique of nationalism and everybody was like no, Krakoa’s a mutant safe space, its much better that way and Hickman was like ugh you guys just don’t GET it. But like, BOTH Hickman AND the X-Offices are in complete agreement that they’re still using his outline, which is not a claim either HAD to put out there or comment on, especially if they didn’t part on the greatest of terms. There’s not a ton of reason NOT to believe that the X- Offices are still following plotlines he set in motion, affirmed by Ewing, by Duggan, by people individually confirming that not every idea in their books is their own original plot, some are just stuff Hickman never got around to...and I’m sorry but people who parted on at least AWKWARD terms because they had a fundamentally different view of the entire concept they were all working on together for years...they don’t go around opening themselves up to readers potentially crediting their plots to another writer whose whole departure slash beef was he didn’t like the direction everyone else was taking his idea. Obviously this is subjective and people will always follow their own gut one way or another here, but I really think its a stretch to assume everyone is lying about the X-books still following Hickman's original outline, just with a longer and more winding route from one major plot beat to the next. So even just to play this line of thought out, consider what happens if we do accept the possibility that they are in fact still following the same blueprint he laid out, just in a more drawn out away. That still begs the question....if there was this fundamental ideological divide between how Hickman and every one else, writers and editors alike, viewed the very POINT of Krakoa, with the latter seeing it as a good thing they wanted to keep around for years and develop further in a positive way while Hickman himself never intended it to be viewed positively and meant it as a screed against nationalism from day one to the very conclusion of his story..... Why on EARTH would all the writers and editors who disagree with him that Krakoa is wholly unsalvageable because its MEANT to be, who according to most theories deviated from his plan in the FIRST place because they viewed it as a waste of Krakoa's potential as a good thing for mutants and saw positive aspects of it they wanted to dig into and build up over the course of years of their own work and stories... Why would they then go BACK to following the same outline that led to the conclusion they fundamentally disagreed with for Krakoa and was allegedly the whole reason Hickman left after they all missed the point of Krakoa and didn't want it to go down in flames as a symbol of nationalistic hubris and nothing more? Hickman's already gone! Nobody gains anything from still adhering to a map that leads somewhere they don't think it should go, so the only reason that really makes sense for why they'd still want to end up in the same place even if they did take longer to get there, is if regardless of how long they spent getting there....they still DID see value in aiming at THAT specific destination, at the end of it all? And if the endpoint was always to burn Krakoa down as a failed experiment, a great mistake that the characters never should have wasted their time on and now regret, flawed from its earliest foundations in ways that never actually had a CHANCE to be shored up or transformed for the better, if the whole point was always to bring it all down.... Doesn't....circling back to this particular conclusion just....undermine literally everything the other X-writers wrote after Hickman specifically BECAUSE they saw promise and value in the Krakoan concept that he didn't? Isn't this still them eventually saying oh but forget everything I spent years writing about how Krakoa could be good, actually....obviously that wasn't true and it was never going to happen that way, even though the whole reason we didn't just go straight ahead with this blueprint in the first place, while Hickman was still on board, because we didn't think Krakoa HAD to be a bad idea? Like this isn't the kind of situation where everyone can get what they want if they're all just patient enough and give everyone a chance to play before bringing everything to a close....when Krakoa = good/Krakoa = bad is the literal core of the alleged conflict and only one of those was ever going to get to be substantiated in the form of Krakoa either still standing at the end, maybe flawed but enough good to be worth still moving forward with it....or Krakoa destroyed at the end, because there wasn't enough that was good about it to withstand everything that was wrong with it? Like these are COMPLETELY contrary goals that directly clash. People who want one CAN'T just be patient or make room for the other to happen first.....because the issue has nothing to do with how much time is spent pursuing a positive direction before finally returning to an intended negative direction...the issue is the FINAL direction regardless of how long or short a time it takes to get there. If that was where Hickman wanted to go and they're still headed there, he still gets the outcome he wanted but quit because they weren’t getting to that point soon enough....while everyone else, who allegedly got what they wanted by Hickman quitting instead of getting to follow through to his intended conclusion.....for some reason decide to still only entertain their preferred direction for a few more years, write as many stories as they had in mind that stemmed from their belief that Krakoa was good for mutants...and only after building this direction up YEARS longer and WAY further than Hickman ever intended before pulling the rug out from under the whole concept with a definitive 'no. Krakoa bad.' - they're committed to doing the exact same thing anyway. But now in an even more heightened way...because of all the time put into exploring the idea that things didn't HAVE to go this direction, specifically because THEY DIDN'T AGREE THIS HAD TO BE THE FINAL DIRECTION. I mean. I just. People say this with such confidence but I really do not get how that is supposed to make ANY kind of sense. So instead, let me put forth an alternative interpretation of Hickman's run, that doesn't actually revolve around the question of is Krakoa fundamentally a positive or a negative for mutantkind...and in fact, might suggest that Hickman never actually wanted to make a definitive ruling on Krakoa's morality. Hickman launched his run with the story of not just continuous or inevitable human/mutant conflicts, but with the entirety of his run geared around the looming threat of some FINAL human/mutant conflict that's unfolded across multiple timelines and lifetimes in all kinds of different ways. But that ultimately is treated as some kind of inevitable hinge point, to such an extent that everyone - on all sides of the conflict - views its outcome as the only variable that can be changed, its never actually a question of whether or not it even happens at all. It was Hickman who built up Destiny's return as pivotal to the future of his ongoing plots, suggesting he had some specific plans in mind for her visions, or for a specific vision he intended her to have. Many readers complained about how random it felt when Duggan had Rogue offhandedly mention some vision Destiny was hyping as a huge deal for the future of mutantkind, given that she only brought it up as kind of a throwaway line in her very last issue as a main cast member of his title, with Duggan making no effort to build it up as a big deal in the eleven previous issues he had her on his cast. Almost like it wasn't in his plans for Rogue at all and he just squeezed it in at the last second because its inclusion was mandated but he didn't want it taking up any more of his pagetime with Rogue than the bare minimum. Y'know, like it was a plot point from someone ELSE'S outline, with that outline regarded as important enough it can supersede Duggan's own outlines for his cast, at least enough that hitting certain plot beats on that other outline is non-negotiable. (Also of note: Hickman always said he wanted to do more with Rogue, especially in conjunction with Destiny, but that he didn't have room for Rogue in Inferno. And if longterm plans he had for Destiny are still being followed, it seems quite likely that some of those plans might naturally include certain directions for Rogue's character as well). And it was also Hickman who seeded the mystery of the two billion year old box of such importance Mystique was able to use it to bribe Emma onto her side in Inferno, after it was initially teased at the first Hellfire Gala. Many readers also complained how random the box and its importance to Emma ended up feeling by the end of Inferno, since Hickman kept bringing it front and center without us ever getting a look at what was IN it as of the time he left. But it certainly suggests he had SOMETHING in mind for the box, longterm, and if it was as big a deal to his plots as he kept treating it, and his overall outline is still being followed....its actually pretty likely that the mystery of the box ended up being EXACTLY what Hickman had in mind for it all along. Which means....Orlando didn't pull "oh maybe its a message from Kate to herself that she sent two billion years in the past, with just some obscure message about first blood spilled" out of his ass in the Marauders Annual because the X-Offices were like hey we need you to come up with something that makes this box feel like a big deal. Its actually maybe even more likely that when the X-Offices gave Orlando the Marauders book, which is centered around Kate, it came with a mandate to follow the overall shape of a plot already outlined for Kate and the box. Whose contents were never a mystery to the X-Offices and who thus didn't actually need or want Orlando to make something up himself, as to why it was a big deal. Which also suggests that this sprawling time-travel story....and the heavy importance it placed on the Shi'ar and their history....wasn't actually a hard sell for Orlando to make to the editors at all. Because maybe he didn't sell them on it at all - it was the other way around, and at most they just asked him to pitch how he'd go about writing a story built around certain specific plot beats. The time travel/Shi'ar arc that seems such an odd and risky choice for the relaunch of a satellite book with a new writer....is a little less of an odd choice when considering it was greenlit specifically to use that satellite book as a vehicle for laying certain plot groundwork they didn't have room for in other titles. (Not to mention, hey, who else do we know who likes to make a big deal about the Shi'ar and their place in the X-mythos/connection to mutants, even had an Imperial Guard series he wanted to write but never got to, also launched the current New Mutants book with an arc that took them to Shi'ar space despite that seeming an odd choice to a lot of readers at the time too, with this all tying into his longterm plans for the Shi'ar and their relationship with mutants, like how it was an alliance between the two that led to the defeat of the Dominions in Omega Sentinel's future, and how the only mutants to survive one of Moira's past lives were the ones who had a colony in Shi'ar space....hmmm...interesting coincidence....) And to add to all of that....its Hickman whose entire run and CONCEPT for the current era revolved around not just Krakoa and its society and whatever themes he built into things there....but also just as central to his X-Men work was the idea of closed loops of time. The intertwining of past and future, between past lives and precognition and reincarnation and time travel, all taking characters down slightly different roads that keep leading them to the same places...at which point they always return to start and try all over again and again and again with it becoming a never-ending cycle, a closed circle of life and death and war and genocide where everything is different each and every time while fundamentally still always being the same. Now, like mentioned earlier, obviously there’s the interpretation that takes for granted that Hickman's overall longterm plan was to just show mutants as hubristic and self-defeating, use Krakoa as a cautionary tale, and burn the whole thing to the ground and then return everything to the status quo that existed before he started his run. Except...that's not the only possible interpretation, especially when scrutinized next to the circular, self-defeating nature of the endless cycle of violence everyone in his work seemed confined to. The flaws he built into Krakoa definitely were varying degrees of troubling and uncomfortable from the start...but also, most of them could be argued as being carefully deliberate flaws that had plenty of room for growth. Nothing that couldn't be improved upon or transformed in various ways, by characters learning from past mistakes and DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY when given the opportunity, instead of just doubling down on their first instincts having been right all along, or committing to their belief they're the good guy of their story and thus inherently right or moral... (And regardless of personal opinion on Krakoa's overall morality, again, if considering the possibility that the very fact the editors and writers saw opportunities for extending Hickman's foundation for Krakoa-based stories longer than he'd originally intended, WHILE still maintaining they're sticking to his longterm plans....suggests that actually Hickman and the rest of the X-Offices WEREN'T on different pages when it came to their views of Krakoa....this actually reframes a LOT, the second we stop assuming his intentions for the island and taking it for granted that he intended Krakoa to be irredeemable. Like I said, if he really thought “umm no, Krakoa is clearly BAD, y'all" then it is kinda weird that editors and writers who disagreed enough to want to play in that sandbox longer would still WANT to commit to a longterm plan that says btw Krakoa was always bad and anyone who felt otherwise - like us - was wrong all along. So we stop taking that as fact or as good as....and explore the idea that Hickman's original plan WASN'T inherently any more geared towards an ultimate fall for Krakoa...and he could have had different themes/motivations in mind for why he wrote it the way he did. For instance: could it also be that Hickman always intended for Krakoa to start out with clear, obvious flaws and troubling undercurrents, to keep the moral stakes of the era’s stories high... but he wasn't intending to reveal it as inherently rotten and corrupt and needing to be scorched to the ground so much as to make it realistically a question of IF mutants could learn to grow in better directions when given a jolt of something entirely new to try...or if even with a huge paradigm shift and tons of possible directions, they'd still find their way back to the same flawed paths they'd walked countless times before? If it wasn’t a foregone conclusion but a question posed as to whether they would end up just defaulting to what was familiar and thus repeating or imitating the mistakes they and others before them had made....or if maybe they’d take a leap into truly uncharted and risky territories to break out of old patterns and ruts and in doing so find their way to making something better? Was maybe the outcome of the Krakoan experiment MEANT to be in doubt, readers uncertain which way it would go, given the cracks in the foundation....but the goal was never to engineer an outcome that said no, this outcome was never in doubt, there was never a plan for a possible future in which the characters actually DID change things for the better?) Because coming at things from a different angle, I'd argue that an outcome where Hickman was ALWAYS going to burn Krakoa to the ground before he was done and put everything back exactly the way it was....it kinda actually doesn't really track with what I feel are the actual themes of Hickman's entire run? Like. At all? Because his stuff might have cast the moral direction Krakoa would end up going in doubt, with him spotlighting key problem areas and saying yeah this IS bad and will likely lead bad places that should be avoided and the question is WILL the characters manage to course- correct.... But his stuff WASN'T vague or unclear at all, about the futility of self-defeating cycles where everyone repeats the same mistakes just in different ways and nobody ever does anything different and thus the cycle never gets broken and nothing ever matters and everything always ends up the same. He was actually VERY clear on this point: THAT, for sure, is DEFINITELY bad. Just say no to the existential prison of circular reasoning and destructive deja vu. Dare to be different! Take a risk on someone you're not sure you can trust! Good question, Xavier and Mags, what if mutants DID try making peace with machines as well as humans, could THAT lead somewhere new? Now there's a thought, let's explore more along THOSE lines, like oh say, the symbiotic bond between Doug, Warlock and Krakoa which Inferno thematically spotlighted as a literal gamechanger, a plot twist that caught BOTH 'I know everything because I've lived through everything over and over in the world's worst Groundhog Day remake and I'm so jaded' Moira AND 'I know everything because I see all and my wife who is also my publicity manager and number one hype woman makes sure everyone knows it' Destiny completely offguard and threw off both sides' plans? Isn't it noteworthy that every single thing mutants knew about the mutant/human/machine conflict and planned to do about the mutant/human/machine conflict....came from literally two people, each with their own source of intel that they thought made them all but infallible, and their choices - even if not right - at least the best POSSIBLE choice, with no better option existing or else they surely would have seen it or lived through it by now? Moira, who represented the past, with all her knowledge stemming from hers, and Irene, who represented the future, with all her knowledge stemming from her view of it. And these two women were quite literally LOCKED into a never-ending loop they both tried to escape, Irene by killing Moira and threatening her into fighting for mutantkind, Moira by blocking Irene's resurrection and considering a return to her original idea for ending human/mutant conflict once she thought Irene was off the gameboard.... And yet, despite their best efforts, they still ended up in a repeat of their very first encounter. Irene and Raven about to kill Moira because her cure was the problem and killing her the solution, Moira now insisting once again that her cure was the solution and killing her was the problem.... Almost as if none of their choices made any difference in avoiding this one hinge point. They always were going to end up here sooner or later....because for all their knowledge, they both kept being SURE that they already HAD the solution, and it was just Other People preventing them from implementing it that was the problem. THEY were right. THEY weren't the problem. And thus there was no reason FOR them to make different choices, no matter how many times they ended up here, right? Because their choices obviously weren't the problem....and neither was confirmation bias, taking everything they did live or see through and filtering it all through a lens that insisted on viewing it as proof they were right all along! And thus all of Hickman's work up to Inferno led up to one pivotal moment....the one Moira had spent his whole run trying to avoid. With the irony that her own preemptive actions were what had Raven and Irene sure she COULDN'T be worked with, find common ground with. And likely the only way Moira TRULY could have avoided ending up there is if she'd never tried to block Irene's resurrection, had given her (and asked for) the same blank slate all other mutants were expected to have with each other, and started fresh even if it was a risk to trust the other...but with the potential gains being the chance to combine their knowledge of past and future in ways they'd never tried before, instead of working at cross purposes. In the spirit of the era’s mutant technology, the theme of being able to do things together they never could apart...there was always the potential for Irene and Moira to combine their knowledge and unique perspectives of time via a mutant circuit of precognition and reincarnation, a way to look at the WHOLE picture all at once, rather than both just operating off of their one piece of it and limited awareness of when things like time travel might have altered events they regarded as hard data points. And Irene and Raven, of course, first chance they got, they went right to the same endpoint they'd arrived at the first time they encountered Moira in an earlier life. When they had also had the chance to risk the unknown and trust that Moira could be worked with WITHOUT making an example of her in one lifetime and threatening her in all others, convinced that fear and intimidation were the only true routes to avoiding a future where Moira tried to make her cure a reality again. Only to end up with Moira ultimately more convinced than ever that she had it right the first time, that was always the way to go. Two women, past and future, both convinced of their rightness and that their inside source to the universe and space/time continuum gave them the 411 on all the info RELEVANT to a certain choice or crossroads. And if there was a possibility they hadn't considered, it was obviously only because it was just not worth considering. Both women so used to everyone else being convinced of their infallibility and deferring to their knowledge and perspective....and with this affording them a particularly unique power over others, that they're both aware of given that they both have a tendency to edit the information they share so that the conclusions others draw based on it...inevitably match up to the conclusion they already decided should be drawn. Thus meaning everyone else only has the ILLUSION of choice in matters where they've steered them to certain inevitable choices....and also meaning neither woman ever actually gets an actual INFORMED third party perspective on the REAL situation in front of them, an interpretation of ALL available data that reaches a different conclusion and could actually have the potential to change their mind and decide someone else has a better plan. And the one thing that NEITHER of them saw coming, that truly blind-sided them....was Doug, the only other person who had all the relevant information aside from them....and solely because he didn't rely on either of them to BE his source of information. He found his own path to information via his close connection and covenant with BOTH Warlock AND Krakoa....and one that just as importantly...all three parties benefited equally from. None of them have more info than the other. All three work together to glean ALL available information sources and interpret the data together. Throughout Hickman’s run we constantly loop back to the same endless cycle of conflict between THREE parties, not two - humans, mutants AND machines, with the current iteration of that cycle citing this timeline's conflict between machines and mutants as being the current most relevant ‘side’ of that....and with both mutant prophets and the machine oracle, time- traveling Omega Sentinel Karima....all locked into their already decided upon courses of actions, and all LIMITED to just their own personal source of knowledge. And with these different sources of knowledge, even about the same lifetimes or timelines, leading them to vastly different conclusions - because the angle they were viewing events from mattered just as much as the events themselves. No two people view the same sight in the same way...when viewing it from two different angles or directions. And thus all of them were focused on the exact same conflict...yet to Moira, that conflict was one she believed ALWAYS ended with mutants losing. Omega Sentinel was equally convinced the very same conflict was destined to end with mutants winning. Doug's cooperation with a machine intelligence, Warlock, was what caught him up to speed and let him impact this cycle, intrude upon it as a new player whose actions in saving Moira from Irene and Mystique while sending Moira on the run....were the catalyst for change, breaking the cycle wide open and allowing for new possible futures to unfold.....especially if Moira and Irene had actually CONSIDERED his third party perspective and the existence of information and a POV not filtered through them and their confirmation bias. If they'd done that, maybe if Irene and Mystique had just let Moira go, if Moira left but didn't feel hunted, didn't have cancer, never had Raven track her down to confirm her gut assumption they'd still come after her, if Moira had in turn been open to the possibility they might listen to Doug and not hunt her down, that she was safe, even if everyone had just fucking WAITED a week before going all Kill Bill sirens and Magneto and Xavier came back while things were still salvageable and could broker a ceasefire between Moira and Raven, bring both back to the table, or if Emma didn't wait a week because she was pissed about their manipulations and wanted to pay them back in turn like see how YOU guys like being left in the dark.....so many ways things could have gone differently in all that. But ONLY if the various characters had gone against type, broken free of old patterns, and taken a chance on making a different choice from the one they’d usually make, the familiar, reliable, COMFORTABLE choice. Naive as many readers called Doug for giving everyone a chance to do something DIFFERENT this time, and thus change things for the better.....Hickman's goal with that part of the narrative was pretty clear, I thought. Doug's offer of a third path, one not to either Moira or Irene's liking because it was a risk, it put the power in someone else's hands, it required trust and they don't do that, but it was still something new.... Like, Doug's decision to trust both parties to give his suggestion a try DID bite him in the ass, but like....that was kinda the point of the whole thing? It was always going to be a risk, but that's what trust is. That's what it costs. And however naive some people consider Doug for thinking the chance of it paying off was worth the risk it wouldn't....the fact remains that Mystique, Irene and Moira all still made their own choices in the aftermath. That's still on them. And look what happened? The first real opportunity to break the cycle they'd literally been locked in to some degree or another for seven lifetimes, the first time someone pointed out a path that WASN'T based on Moira's past lives or Irene's visions, when they were told hey maybe you don't know everything.... And they all ignored it and doubled down on doing what they'd always done. Making the same choices they always make. Based on the same information they already had. Doug came in at the eleventh hour and rightly or wrongly did something none of them expected and kicked them off course at the CRITICAL moment that looped them right back around to a reminder of the moment that started this eternal conflict between them in Life Three, gave them an out.... And they all said hard pass, went with the familiar, their gut choices, as though their gut never steered them wrong even though they KNOW its steered them down this path time and again. Even starting from a brand new point none of them had ever actually been at or seen before, because it took a new variable (Doug) to shove them out of the loop so they could even end up there.....they went right back to responding to everything past this fresh start point with all the same choices and behavior and thus in no time at all THEY WALKED THEMSELVES RIGHT BACK ON TO THE PATH THEY'D JUST BEEN KICKED OFF OF AND RESTARTED THE VERY SAME CYCLE WITHOUT MISSING A BEAT. And parallel to Doug and Warlock's unprecedented bond of mutant/machine cooperation...I always found Xavier and Magneto's question to Moira "what if we tried allying with the machines" not just ironic from that vantage point....but also the one where you consider that their enemies had that same option too. They're locked in this cycle as well, with Omega Sentinel coming back in time to stop it and change things and potentially locking her own side into the very conflict she's trying to win....by overwriting her past self, Karima, in the process. Karima of course being notable for her history as a human turned into a killing machine against her will....and only AFTER that becoming one of the X-Men's staunchest allies for awhile. If only Omega Sentinel hadn't cut off HER possible perspective on all this, by insisting her POV and source of intel/her future knowledge, was all she really needed to end this conflict HER way. The ironies abound. As - I'm fairly sure - they were meant to. So yeah. However you feel about Krakoa, however you think Hickman viewed it, I still say its a very safe bet that his view on self-fulfilling prophecies and eternally looping time loops where everyone does the same thing over and over and never tries anything new....I'm preeeeeeeetty sure he's got a firmly negative outlook on that kinda thing. Like, thematically, he's like....that shit is bad, and stupid, and self-defeating, and the goal should be to NOT DO THAT. If his run has one single underlying message to it, I'd argue it has nothing to do with Krakoa's morality or mutant hubris....its that doing the same old thing a million slightly different ways will always lead back to the same old place. I