Did Birthright's Krypton know about alien races?

[Loren]

In Superman: Birthright #1, Jor-El and Lara have this exchange:

Lara: "I've programmed his ship's navigational intelligence to seek out some other world where life might thrive."

Jor-El: "'Thrive' in what primitive sense? Lara, look behind me. For how many centuries have Krypton's computers been searching in vain for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence? Probing for even the faintest transmission on the starwinds? Straining to find any proof at all that we are not uniquely advanced in the universe?...He'll die out there. Alone. Suffering."

Later in the issue, Jor-El seems to discover Earth at the last moment, and chooses to send Kal there.

However, at the issue's start, on the page before the above conversation, we see this:

http://img165.exs.cx/img165/1261/birthright4qm.jpg

What is happening in that second panel? Are those alien spaceships? How does that jive at all with what Jor-El says on the next page?

I've also been told by one source that a later Birthright issue established that Krypton had been involved in interstellar wars with other worlds. Is that accurate? If so, then why does Jor-El talk like Krypton is alone?

Loren

[Matt]

Well, I don't think Birthright made all that much sense to begin with ... ugh.
It was not a good story by any measure.

[Smokey]

werent kryptonians said to be secluded from the rest of the galaxy? but with the many planets we know of in the DC universe, its hard to believe their tech couldnt find any

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I didn't think that bit made sense either. Waid had clearly put a lot of thought into Birthright (probably too much, actually), but I think he screwed up with his "Krypton didn't know if intelligent life existed elsewhere in the universe" retcon. It doesn't really add anything particularly interesting to Krypton and prevents other creators from telling plenty of interesting stories in the future.

[lonewolf23k]

I think the point is that when Jor-El said "Intelligent Life", he probably meant life as civilized as Kryptonians, meaning a race of people who've managed to grow beyond war, etc. So he probably doesn't count war-mongering interstellar civilisations as "Intelligent".

But that's just my theory.

[Loren]

werent kryptonians said to be secluded from the rest of the galaxy? but with the many planets we know of in the DC universe, its hard to believe their tech couldnt find any

Well, Waid did relocate Krypton to the Andromeda Galaxy, so it makes sense that they wouldn't have picked up transmissions from planets in the Milky Way. However, I find it hard to believe that the DCU Milky Way could be chock full of alien races, but the DCU Andromeda would be home to just a single alien race (and a human-looking one, at that).

I think the point is that when Jor-El said "Intelligent Life", he probably meant life as civilized as Kryptonians, meaning a race of people who've managed to grow beyond war, etc. So he probably doesn't count war-mongering interstellar civilisations as "Intelligent".

I heard that suggested before, but I just don't see Jor-El's dialogue leaning in that direction:

"Probing for even the faintest transmission on the starwinds?"

"He'll die out there. Alone." (regarding launching his son in a rocket designed to seek out life)

And then he turns around and sends his son to a planet that he knows next to nothing about. (If he *did* have any data on Earth's population, it would have said that Earth was a planet with cavemen.)

He's got a funny ethical system if he's tempted to let his son die on Krypton than die in space, but ends up sending his son to a planet that hasn't even discovered language yet rather than one that has war. And because he picked a planet so far away, we're shown that the power nearly ran out on the ship. Had he picked a planet in his own galaxy, he wouldn't have run that risk at all.

Loren

[Loren]

I didn't think that bit made sense either. Waid had clearly put a lot of thought into Birthright (probably too much, actually), but I think he screwed up with his "Krypton didn't know if intelligent life existed elsewhere in the universe" retcon. It doesn't really add anything particularly interesting to Krypton and prevents other creators from telling plenty of interesting stories in the future.

I think Waid was trying to give a reason why none of the DCU's multiple alien races came to Krypton's aid, but I think he created more trouble with his solution.

If nothing else, it eliminated one of the sorta funny moments from Byrne's Krypton, when Lara is repulsed by the image of the primitive Earth farmer. (As far as Birthright Jor-El knew, he was sending his son to a planet of intelligent insects.)

Loren

[kane]

And what about the eradicator (the machine, not the human). The eradicator leaved Krypton with the alien priest, what now?

[west3man]

And what about the eradicator (the machine, not the human). The eradicator leaved Krypton with the alien priest, what now?
Oh crap. For a second, I thought this post was from Loren. I did a freakin' triple-take.

I don't know you well, but I know your writing when I don't see it.

[west3man]

In Superman: Birthright #1, Jor-El and Lara have this exchange:

Lara: "I've programmed his ship's navigational intelligence to seek out some other world where life might thrive."

Jor-El: "'Thrive' in what primitive sense? Lara, look behind me. For how many centuries have Krypton's computers been searching in vain for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence? Probing for even the faintest transmission on the starwinds? Straining to find any proof at all that we are not uniquely advanced in the universe?...He'll die out there. Alone. Suffering."

Later in the issue, Jor-El seems to discover Earth at the last moment, and chooses to send Kal there.

However, at the issue's start, on the page before the above conversation, we see this:

http://img165.exs.cx/img165/1261/birthright4qm.jpg

What is happening in that second panel? Are those alien spaceships? How does that jive at all with what Jor-El says on the next page?

I've also been told by one source that a later Birthright issue established that Krypton had been involved in interstellar wars with other worlds. Is that accurate? If so, then why does Jor-El talk like Krypton is alone?

Loren Hopefully, that was just a computer simulation of what they thought might happen or might be able to happen at a certain point in time and space... the ship loses power the shields weaken, bad guys go boom boom...?

[Loren]

Hopefully, that was just a computer simulation of what they thought might happen or might be able to happen at a certain point in time and space... the ship loses power the shields weaken, bad guys go boom boom...?

I think you're right. At the top of the page, Jor-El says "Alter trajectory... Project new course." That makes a lot more sense as a simulation than as an actual test-run. And the "Again" remarks after each failure sound a lot more reasonable in response to a failed simulation than an actual destroyed ship.

Plus, now that I look at that scene in that context, a lot of it makes more sense. Jor-El is looking at a computer. The 'ship' panel has curved corners like a screen. If the ship was close to Krypton, it would mean malevolent alien races were practically in orbit. If it was far away, Jor-El would have no way to get a visual.

And perhaps most importantly, it would mean that Jor-El had been launching multiple ships. But everything else points to him having built only one.

Thanks,
Loren

[west3man]

Glad to be of service.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I'm not sure how available Mark Waid is for questions from fans, but, if you have his e-mail, he might be willing to clear this up for you...

[Kojiro]

All the more reason to hate Birthright.

[Matt]

I think Waid was trying to give a reason why none of the DCU's multiple alien races came to Krypton's aid

Tomar Tu, the Green Lantern, was present at Krypton's destruction.

http://www.glcorps.org/tomar-re.html
Soon after completing his probationary period, Tomar-Re was dispatched on a mission to rescue the population of Krypton. The Guardians had at this point considered making the Green Lantern Corps independent of Oa. They prophesied the offspring of Jor-El and Lara of Krypton in Space Sector 2813 would be genetically perfect, and an ideal future leader of the Corps.

The Guardians had discovered that Krypton was due to explode due to radioactive instability in the planet's core. Krypton would not be saved by the Green Lantern Corps. If the world was not annihilated within a short number of years, Krypton's erratic magnetic field would disrupt many of its neighboring stars leading to even more death. Tomar-Re was assigned to delay the planet's destruction until the Kryptonians could discover their plight and act upon that knowledge.

Evacuation of the population was not an option. Two hundred fifty thousand years ago, a device called the "eradicator" was developed as weapon against alien intervention. The eradicator created a defect in the natives' genetic structure designed to "tie" the Kryptonians to their homeworld. The Green Lantern worked unseen by the natives of Krypton.

Tomar-Re scoured the sector for the element "stellarium", which would absorb the radiation that threatened to tear apart Krypton. It took months to gather enough of the element, but Tomar-Re worked feverishly to complete his task. It was in the Ariel star system that Tomar-Re found a deposit of stellarium. As he mined the element, Tomar-Re had failed to notice Ariel itself was unstable. The star went nova, and would have killed the Green Lantern but for the power ring's protection. Tomar-Re was blinded by the nova's yellow radiation.

He flew blind through space with the stellarium in tow. The power ring guided him across hundreds of light years. Tomar-Re was confused and exhausted by his virtually non-stop work. Unfortunately, the Xudarian Green Lantern was too late to save Krypton. His vision returned in time to see the planet explode in a ball of radioactive fire.