I think I kinda like this chapter?
I personally think the presentation of the Vegapunk character arc suffered from the convoluted rules of memory syncing and the satellites not being explained very well, and the non-chronological telling of Vegapunk's journey.
But I think we have enough right now to understand what Oda was going for with Vegapunk, he started out as a maverick genius that's only out for himself and his science breakthroughs (he even pissed off MADS with his flower gunpowder thing), any cause that didn't provide gratification for his selfish greedy ambitious side was discarded (like Dragon's offer to join the Revos), you can also see it in how he talked to Clover, Vegapunk simply couldn't understand why Clover would put himself and his friends at risk for some void century secrets. The York in him was simply too strong for him to understand, thus, he followed the easiest option for massive scientific achievements every time.
Now old man Vegapunk is an almost entirely different person, he's a person with regrets, and furthermore, he meets THE most selfless character in One Piece: Kuma.
Kuma's influence on Vegapunk is immense, he is a man who always chose personal suffering for the greater good over anything else, and that clearly hit a chord with the old man.
I think it's no coincidence that a lot of Vegapunk's actions later on in life are driven by extreme guilt: he makes Bonney the highest authority over the Kuma-shaped Pacifistas because he regrets what he did to Kuma, he continues Clover's research into the Void Century, and he ends his life with a stream that brings the void century, Joyboy, the ancient weapons, the flooding of the past world..etc into public consciousness. Everything he does as an old man is essentially an attempt to fix something he did when he was younger.
You also have to look at which Vegapunks are doing what in the arc: Vegapunk's greed is the literal villain here. And I think it would be an interesting exercise to go back and re-read what each Punk's role in the story is, and see how it thematically ties into what attribute of OG Vegapunk they're embodying.
Like in this chapter, Old Man Vegapunk, Shaka (Good) and Pythagoras (Wisdom) develop a counterplan to mitigate what York's (Greed) plan was gonna do, and give the good guys a fighting chance. Vegapunk's Wisdom and Good fought his Greed to save the world.
How Oda got there is flawed for sure, but any alternative that's supposedly better or more logical needs to hit some sort of thematic to beat it in my book.
I have a lot more to talk about tbh, but it's 1AM and I'm tiiiiiired, so maybe tomorrow.
@Robby said in Chapter 1123: The Void Fortnight:
My guess is Yamato stops a giant rampaging boar or some such, like Oden before him.
Holdem is still out there, and Yamato's actual journey began through saying good bye to O-Tsuru (who had a burn on her face that he's most likely responsible for too).