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E.L.F, Extraterrestrial Lifeform
- Thread starter Shujin
- Start date
CrunchySharpie
Professional Harem Consultant
- Location
- Sharpie Factory
"Oh? These three girls locked some girl in a locker? Nah, that's something for the small timers. The girl in the locker knocked the locker over on someone in her attempts to escape and killed them? Let's sue her back to the stone age!"
About what I got from that little bit of dialogue too. Just because you have the name and face to someone who was locked in the trunk of a car that was driven by a trio of monsters doesn't mean she needs to be convicted for manslaughter when that car ended up rolling through a bunch of pedestrians. That's just... that's. Even involuntary manslaughter would be pushing it. She had absolutely no conscience control over her actions, hell she was unconscious for all of it.
Oh, lets just blame the coma patient for murder after they accidentally knocked a nurse over onto something sharp and pointy when they woke up violently. Nevermind they just had the absolute worst experience of their life and likely were reliving that horrific moment as they awoke. la dee daa, we're terrified of her, lets do the knee jerk dance and raise charges on the traumatized girl who clearly had a horrific experience if her fucking body was melting and her bones were exploding. Let's just make a circus out of it, maybe bring in a bearded lady and wolf man to complete the freakshow.
Ugh.
Imbeciles I swear. You are what they fear indeed.
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Khan_Panther
My Muse stole my Necronomicon & pen
- Location
- Huh, I'm right here trapped in these words of mine
Welcome to life
It sucks
It sucks
CaesriusPolybius
Worldgate Mechanic
- Location
- United States. Ish.
Belt-fed-FUBAR
The best way to predict the future is to create it
- Location
- The pale blue dot
During her trigger event an airplane with a number of people went missing in the maelstrom. That was the cause of the manslaughter charges. From there it looks like they just started tacking on additional ones as they arose.
Angurvddel
I am Large. I contain Multitudes
... But she's a parahuman, and she's skawwy!
It's worse than that really. What's really happening is that the general public has always been fearful of parahumans, and especially the potential for parahumans in her class of power. She's a natural lightning rod for that at the moment. But honestly, without other pressures, it'd eventually die down - especially if Taylor went somewhere else for a bit.
But no, the biggest actual driver for this is because of all the groups and people who are looking to use the fear for personal gain. There's a bunch of people and groups that want to be able to go 'See? We're doing something.' and thus gain support for themselves.
Which honestly is even dumber. Carrie went Carrie on a high school. Taylor's demonstrated the ability to go Carrie on multiple Zip Codes. At once.
Yarudazuigu
Frostbyte's overlord.
- Location
- Poland
It's something like :"Lets annoy Alexandria till she goes Siberian on us! Nothing can go wrong from waving our penises at her face till she snaps! She had a bad day? All the better!"
People are stupid, and I would be surprised if Dragon wouldn't propose Tayseer to move to Canada because in USA it looks like they prefer circus over sanity. And there Tayseer could brain-splode, from afar, Heartbreaker! Profit.
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Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
Of course if her trigger event had been one and done like every other trigger event observed then she could be excused. However, the PRT has only Taylor's word that she was unconscious the whole time. For something like the DA, what looks more likely? That she had a completely unprecedented protracted trigger, or that she triggered, locked herself safely away from her bullies and proceeded to lash out with her new powers?
serra2
Himouto! Sylvanas-chan
Yeah, If the storm thing had been a one and done, it probably could have been delt with easier. You could have painted it as a trigger event and be done with it. Because she produced another storm of greater power during her freakout with Sophia, that suggests an actual degree of control, and from there you can in fact assign blame to her.
Thief of Words
Trans lesbian librarian
- Location
- Best book girl
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Hey, the Sophia in my quest is still alive and at large as things stand.
But yeah, I see what you mean.
Czlyydwr Llrngwl
"Sell ya a door Learn gull," Czly/Celly for short
- Location
- Where the Beef is
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- Any
Has there ever not been a time when Sophia and the other bitches were prime revenge-fic material? I mean, even from the earliest chapters as Worm was being posted?
No? I mean, the Plane, yes. That could be involuntary manslaughter (maybe), but the rest would definitely be voluntary manslaughter, minimum, with maybe an extreme emotional distress argument.
But this isn't a car she is in rolling through a bunch of pedestrians. She's not being charged because the locker exploded and happened to hurt someone. She's being charged because, in her highly emotional state, she killed people. It doesn't matter, in the eyes of the law (or anyone sane) that you're having the worst moment of your life or a flash back to it. That's not actually a defense to killing someone.
She brought down a plane. She attacked Sophia and put her in a coma.
There's no evidence she was unconscious for it; in fact there's evidence that when she gets mad and is conscious she does exactly these kinds of things.
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- Location
- Lost amidst hungry sheep
- Pronouns
- They/Them
"Taylor Hebert you are accused of things!"
"Yes? Well, assuming I actually cooperate instead of dragging the whole continent into the Warp, what do you want to do? Put me in a facility where the fairy queen could add my power to hers?"
If only she accepted they were only Mon-Keigh and thus unimportant...
"Yes? Well, assuming I actually cooperate instead of dragging the whole continent into the Warp, what do you want to do? Put me in a facility where the fairy queen could add my power to hers?"
If only she accepted they were only Mon-Keigh and thus unimportant...
CrunchySharpie
Professional Harem Consultant
- Location
- Sharpie Factory
She was in what is effectively a cocoon, where, given the video shown in the story, a video the DA likely has access to, it's shown she was melting and her own bones were being turned into the shell. Right from the beginning this doesn't appear to be a standard trigger. A parahuman's powers generally don't hurt their user, that it was ripping Taylor apart and turning her into something that is clearly not human should be considered. The PRT could easily make an argument that the wraith bone was a cocoon and that like cocoons, needed time to finish what it started.
That Taylor created a second storm isn't as important as what those storms were doing. Her first storm where she was, given the cocoon argument, possibly unconscious and unmoving, could be considered a byproduct of the pain of her change. The second? Actively expanding and descending. This implies control, where her previous storm implies a pained defensive action extended out over several days because of the transformation. If they're going with that argument, the same can be made that if she was lashing out to try and kill her tormentors with the first storm she would have dropped that first storm on the city, damn the consequences. That the storm didn't move should be rather telling.
Now, that second storm, that could be considered a threat, but as the director said it caused very little, if any damage. That one seems more like an anger control issue and would be a better place to start to get charges to stick and have her in a controlled, medical environment getting help rather than trying to throw her into a prison cell which likely wont hold her and would only do to piss her off and make her an enemy. Which is what they seem to be treating her as because they're afraid of her, rather than the scared and confused teenage girl she actually is.
As for them finding out if she was unconscious or not, we don't have first hand accounts from the soldiers as they were mind whammied but Armsmaster's lie detector or any tinkertech lie detector could have been used during questioning or testing. Tinkertech lie detecting equipment, especially from someone like Armsmaster should at least be considered as evidence.
And there is likely precedent for triggeree's being suddenly and forcefully exposed to their triggerers and them losing control of themselves. This isn't just high emotional stress, most of these are psychotic breaks where they are subject to the absolute worst moment of their life and in the Worm universe that IS a good defense because in our world those kinds of moments don't give people mind altering superpowers. They would have to out Sophia but the argument could be made for insanity in the face of her triggerer. It wouldn't keep her out of an asylum or keep her from having mandatory therapy and anger management for the rest of her life but it's not nearly as bad as a murder or assault charge.
And speaking of threat.
What is their actual plan? Raise charges on her? On a being that could probably rip everything short of Scion and the Endbringers a new one? Who isn't Manton limited and could probably kill the Triumvirate will very little real effort, steal secrets from across the planet and drop every country into anarchy with the wave of her hand?
She is a Squishy Simurgh with a lot more powers and abilities, perhaps even more powerful than her in some areas with no Endbringer time-limit in between her attacks if she chooses to do so. Why are they poking her? Why are they giving her a reason to go Carrie when they know that she can create an eastern seaboard sized storm and drop it on them? I know a fear reaction is one thing but these guys are intentionally poking a dragon here. The Birdcage can't hold her as she can likely teleport. Restraints can't hold her as they could easily be removed with TK or brute force. Even things like a Bakuda head bomb can be worked around as she has farseer precog. And they can't keep her drugged up as Eldar physiology is completely alien and is liable to burn through anything they give her with ridiculous speed.
I'm not seeing the logic here. I'm seeing someone who's trying to be "The hero" against all these scawy pawahumans and isn't thinking about the consequences, especially if the person went willingly with a government agency. If they're painting her as so much the villain, why would she go willingly with the heroes? There may be evidence against her but evidence can be made right back that things aren't so cut and dry.
And this isn't taking into account that Contessa might be in the background working her PtV magic to keep Taylor out of prison and on Cauldron's side. Taylor is probably the biggest weapon they have against Scion now, it would be foolish of them not to PtV an ending that had Taylor free and more under their thumb.
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Quoting responses from the SB thread so it doesn't have to be repeated:
RoboJesus said:
One of the things people forget is that not everyone has all the information.Shujin said:
Taylor doesn't yet have all the data, there is info she has that she's not sharing with the PRT, and the PRT has information it's not sharing with the public.
The fact that some things are obvious to us does not mean they are to people in-story.
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CrunchySharpie
Professional Harem Consultant
- Location
- Sharpie Factory
Everything I listed could be found out through evidence available and simple logic.
The video? Already mentioned in story to possibly be out of their control to censor. The DA would have copies of this if looked into hard enough.
In the video Taylor is being ripped apart and turned into what she is, several assumptions and arguments could be made over this.
Taylor assaulting Shadow Stalker for, reasons? This is the only thing outside of her thinker and trump ratings that would be nebulous and unknown to the DA because of PRT involvement.
Both Storms. They were likely both scanned by Tinkertech and mundane equipment. All it would take for the DA to figure out that something was clearly different between the first and second storm is a moment to collect the information from a local weather station and compare; how big/fast each storm grew, how energetic the storms were, if they were ascending or descending, etc.
"until her ratings are revised to Shaker WTF, Thinker Yes, Trump ????."
She already should be Shaker WTF. She created a storm the size of the eastern seaboard in the span of a few minutes to an hour. That's something that any weather station could show and is a size that only Leviathan could reasonably be considered close to matching with it's sinking of New Foundland.
She has also been shown able to make these storms on demand and, with meteorological equipment showing this, able to descend these storms at a rate that would have them covering vast tracts of land in a space that no one can say is safe or not. Labyrinth could transform, at best, a square mile over a short period of time into a fun house of terror and that got her a Shaker 12. Taylor's power created a storm roughly the size of a hurricane with unknown effects and shown the ability to drop this on a populace in the hundreds of millions. Shaker: WTF, should be the default and even without knowing about her Thinker and Trump ratings should be treated as such, so the DA poking this creature expecting it not to bite back is kinda... yeah these people are winning Darwin awards here.
But, I DO see your point on the lack of some information causing some problems.
"until her ratings are revised to Shaker WTF, Thinker Yes, Trump ????.'
I do happen to like those ratings though, highly amusing.
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Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
Her first storm covered urban Brockton Bay. The second stretched to Boston. The eastern seaboard thing is Dragon's extrapolation from rate of expansion coupled with observed effort. The same extrapolation in a report Rebecca is stalling on it becoming available. However, yes, both storms show up on any meteorological scan. That it even could descend is why it's getting revised. Until then it was a 'thunderstorm' classification that was only to threat to anything flying at the time in its range. 6-7ish. Not a threat to ground bound troops, no defensive applications, inflated rating because of size.
Officially, mind you. Before revision.
It's highly possible her actual range is a lot smaller. Parahuman powers can be quite arbitrary like that. It could also be argued that the second expanded quickly in a show of 'force' because it was trigger event related. Power boosts during emotional situations associated with original trigger conditions are documented. Perhaps her 'normal' range is just Brockton Bay and she burned hard and fast and short the second time for reasons.
Precedent for confronting your triggerer? Not likely to be as flexible as you're thinking. If you trigger as a Brute while being attacked for example, self defense case. However, say someone triggers as a Tinker after being bullied by coworkers. Are you saying there would be a precedent for that Tinker building a ray gun out of scraps then when they come across the person involved in the trigger soon after and shooting them in cold blood, they can get let off with a warning? That's what it sounds like you're saying. Currently the law doesn't go 'oh guess you had a real beef to pick with him!' as an okay to actually assault them. Even if they committed criminal acts against you before as it would tell you 'go to the police, don't take justice into your own hands.'
Especially since at the time, Sophia wasn't attacking her. No one was.
The 'mind altering' is very subtle as well as not a known public fact at all. I doubt the laws would change that much because you're essentially legalizing getting revenge for no other reason than super powers. If people magically got a gun put into their hands after hitting a low point, the onus is still on them not to shoot somebody.
Omake: In which Taylor stops giving any fucks.
Prosecutor: Given my evidence...
Taylor: Okay I've had enough, Dragon turn on the video feed.
Dragon: Video on.
Prosecutor: (mouth being held shut by TK)
Taylor: What your seeing is a view of the Slaughterhouse 9's current location and my dealing with them.
Cue meteor impact directly on top of Jack Slash.
Taylor: Anyone feel like suing the girl who knows who you are, where you are and has star system wide telekinesis?
(dead silence)
Taylor: Thought not.
Prosecutor: Given my evidence...
Taylor: Okay I've had enough, Dragon turn on the video feed.
Dragon: Video on.
Prosecutor: (mouth being held shut by TK)
Taylor: What your seeing is a view of the Slaughterhouse 9's current location and my dealing with them.
Cue meteor impact directly on top of Jack Slash.
Taylor: Anyone feel like suing the girl who knows who you are, where you are and has star system wide telekinesis?
(dead silence)
Taylor: Thought not.
Roadie
A plate full of blins and a cat nearby.
Well, there is some legal difference there. For example, in real world New Hampshire, first degree assault requires "purposely causing serious bodily injury to another", while second degree assault only requires "knowingly or recklessly causing serious bodily injury to another".
- Location
- Lost amidst hungry sheep
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Eh... do remember that she's apparently only a Saim-Hann farseer (and so a scrub compared to other farseers).
CrunchySharpie
Professional Harem Consultant
- Location
- Sharpie Factory
Fair enough.
It would honestly come down to the nature of powers. Would a Tinker building a raygun after their trigger out of spare parts be considered reactionary in defense or premeditated in murder? It would depend on how long it took to make the raygun, what their mental state was at the time and if there was an acceptable amount of time that the person felt their lives were threatened that they could do so.
That Taylor was unconscious for the period of time in the locker even if her power was active means that the period of time where she felt she was threatened can be extended to the point where she "woke up." This would all depend on if they could sell the "unconscious in the cocoon while power defended her." angle but it could be done.
Now, as for her attack on Shadow Stalker that isn't "Tinker builds raygun." timeframes, it was an instant "OMG this is the person who tried to kill me, get away from me! RUN!" The mental state of the person involved in this should at least be taken into account. Taylor's potential murderer and at the very least captor/kidnapper was standing in front of her, completely free and possibly able to do so again considering Shadow Stalker's powerset. It could be argued that Taylor felt threatened and reacted violently to a threat that had already proven itself capable and willing to restrain and even kill her if the locker was any indication. It would be a very iffy thing but a case could still be made in light of the situation. The only thing that would probably doom such a thing was the amount of force Taylor used to remove herself from the situation and render the perceived threat to her person a non-threat. With Taylor's powers, non-lethal was an option that she didn't choose, she went with what is essentially lethal brain death in all but name. That would be a very large strike against her when she could have force pushed the threat away and walked away from it instead.
The insanity defense is a thing, it can be used, especially because powers are involved. Powers are known to be mind altering in some cases or at least exacerbate existing mental conditions as we see with Nilbog which was a well known trigger and some of the other"crazies" like Glastig Uaine or even people like Myyradin could be used as examples that mental disorders could be exacerbated by their powers. They might not know they're semi-sentient conflict balls but they do know that powers can cause problems with people's minds or even erase key parts of them if Case 53's are any example in-universe.
If they used Panacea's findings on the matter it would also be rather telling. Taylor's entire body, including her mind, changed over a short period of time. If the cocoon defense is used it could be said that she was either unconscious, or if they don't buy that then temporarily insane during the use of her powers during the first storm.
The second use of her powers were shown to be far more controlled and greater in scale and power which would actually help her defense on the manslaughter charges some as it shows that her control over it was greater the second time around when she was conscious and able to control herself more. That it also didn't hurt anyone shows a greater mastery and control, which would point to her having no actual control over her power during her time in the locker and this was it's default state. It was 'on' but not being directed by a conscious mind, which points to an unintended use of her powers.
All of this might not throw out the case but it would lessen the charges and show the prosecution that they are prosecuting a 15 year old girl who was just locked in a locker for 5 days, had her entire body melted and turned inside out into something alien and then was brought into the same room as the person who pushed her into that locker, Rather than the WMD wielding mass murderer they seem to be treating her as.
Czlyydwr Llrngwl
"Sell ya a door Learn gull," Czly/Celly for short
- Location
- Where the Beef is
- Pronouns
- Any
Laws vary from place to place of course, but my admittedly vague memories from civics class in New Hampshire say that you can't plead innocent by reason of insanity, only guilty by reason of insanity and hope it's considered as a mitigating factor in your sentence so you get sent to mandatory counseling etc. with appropriate measures taken (being put in a secure ward or whatever) to prevent being a further danger to yourself or others while undergoing treatment.
Of course, Worm runs on comic book logic, so... whatever fits the narrative, I guess.
Of course, Worm runs on comic book logic, so... whatever fits the narrative, I guess.
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CrunchySharpie
Professional Harem Consultant
- Location
- Sharpie Factory
In Taylors assault that is somewhat nebulous, I don't know how that would go. most of my argument was on the fact that they were charging her with murder/manslaughter over something that happened during her "trigger." I was giving examples and defenses that cover the unusualness of her Trigger and why it is a valid defense.
They're charging her because they think she did this all intentionally, the defenses that I've given were that she did this all unintentionally, which would either a. Get the case thrown out or b. Have the charges lowered to where community service, inclusion in the wards, constant surveillance on her mental state and whatever-annual visits to a therapist or anger management class would be mandatory. That she's in trouble isn't the issue, its the kind of trouble they're directing her way that is. There are many factors that they don't know and are assuming when they shouldn't be, they just see big scary parahuman whose power dwarfs a city and are coming down on her in the only way they know how which is, as I said, stupid.
But humans are stupid whey they're scared, so I haven't really been complaining about story direction but that the fact that people in said story are being reasonably stupid. Which... is kinda sad now that I think about it.
I think I'll go sit in my corner and sulk now
.
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Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
The problem with this is that you are assuming powers are known to do X. Nilbog is a Columbine Shooter equivalent, except his took out a city. How do people know he wasn't 'disturbed' before Ellisburg? How do people know Glastig Uaine was perfectly psychonormal before her trigger? Case 53s come with tatoos they didn't put there themselves. What we see with Faultline's Crew, no one in universe really believes their powers wiped their own memory, as opposed to someone else doing it to them. Their origin is the actual 'case.'
This is where precedent would fuck with that. Some capes do come with biological changes. Every Breaker for example, who go from normal human hardware to something distinctly not. Fog, Shadow Stalker. Others grow/change into something else. Aegis, Lung. Biological changes are not new. Retreating due to pain? Sure. Unconscious use of powers? Uncommon, but not unheard of. Unconscious for over two days? Pushing it. Retreated for five days? Now you start asking why and taking a second look at the rest of it.
It didn't hurt anyone because Brockton Bay and surrounding had a No Fly zone enforced. If they had assumed that now she was awake and under control and cooperating with the PRT, planes could fly again, they could have been missing several hundred more people. That's not a point in her favor.
Or rather prosecuting a 15 year old WMD who runs a real risk of bringing Might Makes Right doctrine up to the forefront at a time when America can look at other countries and their governments that fell apart, trampled under the feet of parahumans. Fear is a lovely thing.