The First Generation

Third Options

He wasn't the first person to want to change the world.

Of course he wasn't the first person to try something like this. This entire plan, this whole idea, this... Movement - It was a movement, Izuku supposed. Or at least, it had the beginnings of one. If it grew in the way that he wanted it to grow, it would become a movement. Maybe it would set its roots in Japan, but it would grow. That was the goal.

A movement that would change the face of the world. That would liberate the Quirked all over Earth, and let them live free and dignified and equal lives. That had been what he'd worked for... For years now.

There had been many people who had tried to do the same. Some had succeeded. History was full of people who had make incredible changes to the world. Some good, some bad, some.... Horrific. Some in large ways, some in small ways that stacked up on one another.

....There were lots of failures though.

That was probably the thing that made Izuku shiver the most as he read over the many failed experiments and social attempts to instigate change throughout history. So many times before now, people had felt the oppressive heel of injustice against their backs, and pushed to change it, only for those who maintained that injustice to crush them in order to maintain the status quo, to let them carry on in whatever actions they saw fit to... Do whatever it was they did to feel the oppression of these groups was necessary.

Hundred of examples littered that demographic. Hundreds of attempted uprisings against oppressors, and hundreds of times they had been beaten back down to continue as normal. All over the world, the same story repeated, over and over and over. There were exceptions – Sometimes these uprisings did lead to positive change. Sometimes those oppressed rose up and won their freedoms and rights. But that was rare in terms of sheer numbers.

There was a major difference this time though.

And that was the existence of Quirks.

In every example Izuku had read, there had never been a huge, world changing event that would fundamentally rewrite the course of Human history in place before. Something that no matter how hard the higher ups tried, would never, ever go away. They were trying their hardest as well. Hoping that if they just moved everyone with a Quirk somewhere else, stuck their fingers in their ears, and slowly kept eroding away their rights as people, that this issue would just go away.

It never would though. Izuku had to wonder if they knew this, but continued like this anyway because they saw acknowledging it as a distraction. He wondered if they felt they would be unaffected because of their standing and power.

He wondered if they even cared about the hostility and tensions and pain they caused by burying their heads in the sand.

....If history was anything to go by, he knew that they wouldn't.

And yet, those people would order their institutions – The police, the army, the social workers, the national guard – Whatever it was they had, to maintain what they called 'order' – To maintain the status quo in the face of change.

To suppress the needs of the population in a changing, dying world.

Which was what this world was doing. Dying. Dying in the face of a change it couldn't hope to stop or prevent from spreading. Quirks were inevitable. And there were two choices now – To use them to build a better world, or to beat them down, to try and maintain the old one.

So many had chosen the latter. So many.

Afraid of those changes, wanting to hold onto the way the world worked in their heads, denying it to try to preserve their sanity. Afraid to face the new world. And for those in power, it was about maintaining their hold over world that was changing beyond their reach.