An interesting Elseworlds offering.
Being familiar with Buffy, and Angel, (though not a fan); and having seen the old Forever Knight series as well as the new Moonlight one, and the varied assortment of vamps in the Dreseden Files books, I can accept just about any variation you wish to provide.
It seems to me that there is no reason that vampires, like normal people, can be either good guys or bad guys in general.
There is one problem that I saw in your initial story post. You make the claim that vampires were benevolent, then go on to say they only kill a small percentage of humans. Huh? What am I missing here?
I can accept the vampire with a conscience who turns his back on killing people to get his sustenence and tries to make up for a past that he is ashamed off. But when feeding requires that you kill innocent humans, no matter how infrequently, therein lies the contradiction. As a race, such creatures can never be called benevolent.
Even given the attitude that vampires might think of themselves as the 'top of the food chain', it doesn't excuse their actions from a human standpoint. After all, I doubt that cattle would consider us benevolent as their are being led off to the slaughter house.
Hopefully, as this story progresses it will better define for us exactly who and what your vampire race is and how they function in the rest of the world. And more importantly, how Clark fits in with both that world, and the human one he has chosen to live in.
Bottom line, (at least from what you've inferred)vampires are still killers, even if they be reluctant ones. Someone who goes around killing killers isn't necessarily on the side of right, but from a human viewpoint, the guy ain't all bad either.
Tank (who thinks this fic could be very entertaining, but feels that the question of who is and isn't a sympathetic character will be interesting to watch unfold)
