Nemesis [Worm AU]

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BurnBright said:
The second was because the third strongest precog in the world, and the strongest known friendly precog, said it would work.
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And it did work, abet in a manner they weren't expecting.

I do wonder though, did Tagg or Rebecca ask Dinah about possible consequences of playing hardball during the interrogation? I assume not, or Dinah forgot to mention that "Yes, playing hardball will get Skitter on board with the Protectorate and eventually save the world, but you two won't be there to see it."
 
I remember someone asked once Charles Stross if he'd ever read Worm -- his answer was yes, briefly, and it's obvious the author has no idea whatsoever how law enforcement works. I agree.
 
Byzantine said:
Also that interrogation broke soooo many laws. Sooo many.
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You know very little about how police procedures/civil protections work in current US law, let alone in a US that's had capes and endbringers for 30 damn years.

fraa Jad said:
I remember someone asked once Charles Stross if he'd ever read Worm -- his answer was yes, briefly, and it's obvious the author has no idea whatsoever how law enforcement works. I agree.
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Yeah no. You don't know how law enforcement works. The author got it pretty fucking accurate. Since I'm actually taking the bar next month and have read the book, I can say with some sense of certainty Wildbow's law enforcement procedures wouldn't be too out of place in our US, let alone one that is collapsing.
 
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parnary said:
Yeah no. You don't know how law enforcement works. The author got it pretty fucking accurate. Since I'm actually taking the bar next month and have read the book, I can say with some sense of certainty Wildbow's law enforcement procedures wouldn't be too out of place in our US, let alone one that is collapsing.
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What? Perhaps you can point out the part of America where minors are allowed to be LEOs? Where pretending to kill people to threaten a suspect is legal? Where the Canary trial or sentence was legal? Where a suspect doesn't have the right to question their accuser during a trial?

Because in a decade of dealing with the law, police and trials as a forensic pathologist in four states, I've never found those places.


Edit; never mind, asking about this world is off topic.

In that case though, I would ask the OP if the actions of Canon are legal in their story.
 
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Jacen1 said:
My understanding it that Tagg's biggest mistakes were using unwise interrogation methods on Taylor and making the arrest that outed her while in a public school instead of when she was alone and away from potential hostages. The first was enabled by his former boss and showed a lack of wisdom when dealing with a master class parahuman. The second indicates a lack of knowledge of basic police procedures and a lack of respect for PRT procedures as established in setting. (Namely the bit about NOT making parahuman identities public knowledge in respect of the Unwritten Rules.)

Mind you, I've never read Worm directly and am going on second and third hand sources, so I may be wrong. Feel free to correct me.

In this specific setting, I expect Tagg would not go out of his way to antagonize Bumblebee, in part because she's a low danger, low priority threat, but mostly to KEEP her a low danger, low priority threat.
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The thing about Tagg is that he was specifically brought in to play hardball with Skitter, in a context where Skitter was the kingpin of the dominant criminal organization in the city.

Tagg was Mr. "We Don't Negotiate With Terrorists", and stuck with that, consistently. Unfortunately, his tenure coincided with a time when Skitter was the biggest threat around, and also really, really wanted to negotiate. Plus, we see things from her perspective.

From the non-villain side of things, he was an extremely dedicated cop who refused to compromise with organized crime, even when they tried to bribe him, threatened him, and threatened his family.

He wouldn't treat Bumblebee the same way, because Bumblebee is not the most powerful, influential, and ruthless organized crime boss in the area. He WOULD treat Kaiser or Lung the same way he treated Skitter. (They were all out of the picture by the time he got introduced, though.)
 
Forger1985 said:
You know, it does occur to me that if the PRT has even the slightest inkling of what Bumblebee can REALLY do they'll be praying to every deity known to man (both historical and fictional) that she STAYS a simple humor villain. After all, if Taylor got pissed off enough she's not simply a Biblical plague on par with the ones from Egypt, no, she's one of the goddamn riders of the Apocalypse (I'm using rider as the gender neutral btw in case anyone says anything, plus we still have to determine the other three).
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There's a good reason so many omakes make a point about not pushing Bumblebee to bee serious, and of her being mistaken for an Endbringer if she works at it.

Ravenwood240 said:
Where pretending to kill people to threaten a suspect is legal?
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It's perfectly legal to lie to a suspect, especially in the actual language used. The staged bodies definitely fall in the parahuman legal bailiwick, meaning there's no telling what is legal compared to our world, but Alexandria, as I recall, was careful to only imply things, not outright state them.

Ravenwood240 said:
Where the Canary trial or sentence was legal?
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The trial was legal. The sentence was legal according to the right interpretation of parahuman specific laws. The defense attorney should be disbarred for not challenging the various tactics used to make her look more guilty and ensure she got a fair trial. There was a lot that was immoral and unethical, but technically legal within that world's specific codes for dealing with a human grade Master.

Ravenwood240 said:
Where a suspect doesn't have the right to question their accuser during a trial?
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Are you still talking about Canary? Again, the defense failed on such a level as to be criminal, and the ruling likely would have gotten overturned in appeals if not for that whole "for life without possibility of parole or removal from the worst prison ever built even if later proven innocent" thing.
 
Wyrd said:
It's perfectly legal to lie to a suspect, especially in the actual language used. The staged bodies definitely fall in the parahuman legal bailiwick, meaning there's no telling what is legal compared to our world, but Alexandria, as I recall, was careful to only imply things, not outright state them.
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Doesn't matter. It's legal to lie to suspects. It is not legal to threaten to murder their friends if they do not comply. It is irrelevant if you actually intend to carry out that threat or not. Just the existence is illegal.
 
Byzantine said:
Doesn't matter. It's legal to lie to suspects. It is not legal to threaten to murder their friends if they do not comply. It is irrelevant if you actually intend to carry out that threat or not. Just the existence is illegal.
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in RL, some states are outlawing police from lying to minors.

not applicable here of course for at least two three reasons I can think of at the top of my head; but relevant.
 
Requiem_Jeer said:
Get your fanon ass out of here. Tagg was personable and reasonable even in the face of Flachette literally defecting.

Director West is the one that's actually as bad as fanon Tagg.
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My bad, I've never read the original Worm so all I have to rely on are the usual fan sources who tend to make Tagg look like Danzo from Naruto (willing to do absolutely anything to get his job done regardless of how many laws he tramples on or dead bodies he piles up).
 
Wyrd said:
The trial was legal. The sentence was legal according to the right interpretation of parahuman specific laws. The defense attorney should be disbarred for not challenging the various tactics used to make her look more guilty and ensure she got a fair trial. There was a lot that was immoral and unethical, but technically legal within that world's specific codes for dealing with a human grade Master.
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Incidentally, how many parahumans decided after hearing about Canary's kangaroo court decided that the only fate open to them was death or Birdcage? Even the newly triggered? How many of those decided that they'd take their murdererd with them, namely the PRT and Protectorate?
 
Ravenwood240 said:
What? Perhaps you can point out the part of America where minors are allowed to be LEOs?
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Not what I was talking about

Ravenwood240 said:
Where pretending to kill people to threaten a suspect is legal? Where the Canary trial or sentence was legal? Where a suspect doesn't have the right to question their accuser during a trial?
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I didn't say it was legal, I said law enforcement does it all the damn time. Did you only work for wealthy clients?
 
parnary said:
Not what I was talking about



I didn't say it was legal, I said law enforcement does it all the damn time. Did you only work for wealthy clients?
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I'm a forensic pathologist as I stated; I work for the dead, not the living of any wealth level. But I see trials from all sides, working with the police during the investigation, the DA's office , the defendant's lawyer and on those occasions when it's needed, giving testimony.

None of the stuff you claim to be "common" has ever been a part of any trial I've been part of. Perhaps you have some sort of evidence that such things happen, and aren't stopped as soon as people find out about them?

Because anyone can claim shit happens, but what it sounds like without evidence is the jaded opinion of someone that doesn't believe most people are decent. If that's your opinion, fine, but I'm into evidence, solid facts that can be proven.

Do you have those?
 
Ravenwood240 said:
None of the stuff you claim to be "common" has ever been a part of any trial I've been part of. Perhaps you have some sort of evidence that such things happen, and aren't stopped as soon as people find out about them?
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Well, if a police officer threatens to kill your family, then the testimony they get out of you cannot be used in court. I have yet to find any kind of required punishment for that at all. On the other hand, it took nationwide protests for an out and out murder to result in a firing so...

edit: missed your edit, this is off topic.
 
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Byzantine said:
Doesn't matter. It's legal to lie to suspects. It is not legal to threaten to murder their friends if they do not comply. It is irrelevant if you actually intend to carry out that threat or not. Just the existence is illegal.
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Revising the statement to more closely align with Worm world's system: "You are a criminal. Your friends are criminals. They have arrest warrants out for them that include an authorization for lethal force clause because of the danger their powers pose. If you do not give them up, now, we will find them, and will be far more likely to die." Leaves room. Time passes. "You now have one fewer friend for us to catch. Are you sure you do not want to comply?"

That scenario isn't all that far from what real police have done to pressure people later found to be conclusively innocent(such as by proving they could not possibly have done it because of some new information, such as incontrovertible proof that they were elsewhere) into confessing to crimes. The lengths they can go to, legally, are absurd, and even when they have been found to go beyond what the law permits, they tend to get a slap on the wrist. Lying about what other people are saying, lying about where other people are, lying about somebody being dead because you didn't turn them in and talk them into surrendering to the police, is ALL legal, at least in some states. All that is without there being literal superpowers and walking abominations with body counts so high that it is really easy to spin the narrative in the PRT's favor.

It is immoral. Unethical. Reprehensible. And yet, it is still legal. Any attempts to reform that tend to die to politicians playing the "X is soft on crime!" card, or to fear of the same.
 
While fascinating this isn't about Nemesis please start a new thread for this before someone reports the derail and the thread gets locked, cutting off all new omakes.

For Nemesis specifically I think Tagg would still hate having to let a humour villian run loose but would see the utility of it and would be fine with it as long as a soft-sell recruitment was kept up.
 
Bobismeisbob said:
While fascinating this isn't about Nemesis please start a new thread for this before someone reports the derail and the thread gets locked, cutting off all new omakes.

For Nemesis specifically I think Tagg would still hate having to let a humour villian run loose but would see the utility of it and would be fine with it as long as a soft-sell recruitment was kept up.
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Warlord Skitter definitely pushed a lot of buttons for Tagg that Bumblebee would not. As long as she sticks to pretty much victimless crimes*, seems to be intentionally letting people foil her acts, and is being incredibly careful about ensuring no bystanders get hurt, she would be around the bottom of his list of villains to go after. Uber and L337 would be a bigger priority for him.

*She only succeeds in her "theft" when what she is stealing is not actually worth much, monetarily.
 
Wyrd said:
Frankly, she should be categorized as a rogue "performance artist" rather than a villain, since she puts on so much of a show while being careful not to be actually villainous.
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the worst things she's done besides resist arrest is graffiti a statue in a way that made the owner money and that they actually made use of.

might as well have been retroactively been agreed to by the owners if your actively selling tickets to see the graffiti.

don't get me wrong, totally possable for the law to get on your rear about that (if they wanted to)...but they can do that regardless so who cares.
 
Dragon_352 said:
the worst things she's done besides resist arrest is graffiti a statue in a way that made the owner money and that they actually made use of.

might as well have been retroactively been agreed to by the owners if your actively selling tickets to see the graffiti.

don't get me wrong, totally possable for the law to get on your rear about that (if they wanted to)...but they can do that regardless so who cares.
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actually; did she do anything wrong in the school-bit?

not sure if theres anything legally wrong (albeit sus) with showing up at a school and asking permission to play with kids.
 
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