Archeo Lumiere
The Prince's Archivist
- Location
- Lumiose City, Kalos
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
It's more about saying that the PRT and Protectorate are, in fact, doing their jobs.
Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)
- Thread starter Silently Watches
- Start date
- Location
- USA
Its specifically about saying that turning villains like Snow White into the Protectorate for arrest, rather than killing them, will actually keep them off the streets. Assuming they're actually charged and convicted....I'm eventually going to have to subject myself to Worm aren't I
just to understand the whole Gang thing.
- Location
- Italy
Hello, lurker here. Just wanted to put my two cents here, feel free to ignore it, as it is only my personal opinion as an avid RPG player and DM.
Sometimes, the story the DM creates doesn't go the way you hoped it would. Maybe you lose a vote or two, maybe you misunderstood a situation, maybe you underestimated the DM's warnings or didn't even remember them since they were so many sessions ago.
Does that makes the story bad? The DM a manipulator? Or maybe you don't want to change your position since you are one of the few that doesn't use meta-knowledge.
Thing is, you need to believe the DM and immerse yourself even more inside the fictional world. All the hints @Silently Watches is giving us? Apart from those which you would be aware of if you were the PC you're playing, they are all freebies; in real life, you don't need to be told that actions have consequences or deadlines, you know very little of what will happen next and randomness often makes or breaks you. Sometimes, rocks do falls and everybody does die.
I read a few people - sorry, I need to sleep soon so I can't go and check - talk about fake choices ("It would go against what we chose until now") and suspects and giving hints before and not now...
The last one I kinda agree, but meaning that I wouldn't have given them even before; it always ends with people expecting them every single time, and lamenting otherwise. Fake choices and suspects? In-character, is called "Changing your mind", and it happens all the time even when the previous direction was a lot different and long-standing: from giving up on college with two exams remaining or leaving for another country, to killing someone for the first time. If @Silently Watches gives us a choice, no matter how crazy it sounds, we can choose it. It may not be easy to do so, it may take a long time, and it may result in a failure. Leave the how and why to the DM, and trust him not to cheat you (not that a DM cheating for story purposes is wrong per se, just saying).
What the Questmaster is giving us is the choice of actions, not reactions. Those are his domain. He won't go as crazy as real life goes sometimes since it would make an unrealistic story (and isn't that funny), so he'll be coherent with hints and tips given. It's up to us not to misunderstand them, but if we do hey, sometimes things go wrong.
This, btw, is why I lurk, I tend to rant a lot. And, uh, loving the story @Silently Watches, keep creating worlds that keep spinning without the MC, let people make mistakes and you'll keep having my respect as a fellow DM.
Sometimes, the story the DM creates doesn't go the way you hoped it would. Maybe you lose a vote or two, maybe you misunderstood a situation, maybe you underestimated the DM's warnings or didn't even remember them since they were so many sessions ago.
Does that makes the story bad? The DM a manipulator? Or maybe you don't want to change your position since you are one of the few that doesn't use meta-knowledge.
Thing is, you need to believe the DM and immerse yourself even more inside the fictional world. All the hints @Silently Watches is giving us? Apart from those which you would be aware of if you were the PC you're playing, they are all freebies; in real life, you don't need to be told that actions have consequences or deadlines, you know very little of what will happen next and randomness often makes or breaks you. Sometimes, rocks do falls and everybody does die.
I read a few people - sorry, I need to sleep soon so I can't go and check - talk about fake choices ("It would go against what we chose until now") and suspects and giving hints before and not now...
The last one I kinda agree, but meaning that I wouldn't have given them even before; it always ends with people expecting them every single time, and lamenting otherwise. Fake choices and suspects? In-character, is called "Changing your mind", and it happens all the time even when the previous direction was a lot different and long-standing: from giving up on college with two exams remaining or leaving for another country, to killing someone for the first time. If @Silently Watches gives us a choice, no matter how crazy it sounds, we can choose it. It may not be easy to do so, it may take a long time, and it may result in a failure. Leave the how and why to the DM, and trust him not to cheat you (not that a DM cheating for story purposes is wrong per se, just saying).
What the Questmaster is giving us is the choice of actions, not reactions. Those are his domain. He won't go as crazy as real life goes sometimes since it would make an unrealistic story (and isn't that funny), so he'll be coherent with hints and tips given. It's up to us not to misunderstand them, but if we do hey, sometimes things go wrong.
This, btw, is why I lurk, I tend to rant a lot. And, uh, loving the story @Silently Watches, keep creating worlds that keep spinning without the MC, let people make mistakes and you'll keep having my respect as a fellow DM.
- Location
- Canada
Mhm, let me hit off a few basic points and explanations for you;Its specifically about saying that turning villains like Snow White into the Protectorate for arrest, rather than killing them, will actually keep them off the streets. Assuming they're actually charged and convicted....I'm eventually going to have to subject myself to Worm aren't I
In Worm, we have the classical Heros Dont Kill moralizing. Unlike most super hero settings theres a reason for that. Basically, Endbringers. Kaiju with superpowers of their own (of the superman teir). Theres three of them and they hit cities three times a year, once each, roughly four months apart. EBs are so much more powerful than Bet's parahumans that the worlds most powerful heros (the Triumvirate and similar) can do little more than inconvenience them while they are sandbagging. To this end fighting EBs is basically equivalent to throwing as many parahumans as possible into the grindstone and hoping you jam it for long enough that it gets bored and goes away again. To accomplish this they need as many parahumans as possible to fight Endbringers. Heros and Villains. Particularly because lots of paras die every EB battle, and it was only heros dying the imbalance between heros and villains (which already favours the villain side quite strongly) would get completely unsustainable. This lead to the creation of the Endbringer Truce... basically everyone cooperates to fight EBs, if you turn up to help you get amnesty until its over and you go home. Break it and everyone will gang up on you and murder you dead. This also forms the basis for other forms of cooperation between heros and villains, such as the joint up to take on Cajo and Co in this fic.
Partly due to this, and partly due to relics of when Scion was around (and Cauldron needed every parahuman, no matter how heroic or villainous for a hypothetical future battle with scion) capes developed a sorta code duello called the Unwritten Rules. These are pretty basic'; No Killing, no unmasking, no attacking anyone in their CID, no going after their families, no rape. Most parahumans are capable of destruction on a massive scale if they turned their powers loose without any kind of restraint (canon taylor could probably have depopulated the city with effort, as a example), and if you back them into a corner where they have no choice... they will do exactly that. So the Unwritten Rules form the basis of the whole no-killing moralizing, because if they didnt offer each other this token level of respect, they would tear cities apart in their battles on a regular basis, and there would be no one to fight the Endbringers when they show up.
Its all very bad for the heros who want to help people, but its also bad for Villains who just want to conduct business and otherwise are not complete psychopaths. The Rules keep things lowkey. Allow civilization to continue. Break any of them and they no longer apply to you either. Kill and they will kill you.
For similar reasons, capes are handled somewhat differently than normal criminals. Capes get a three strikes law... they go to normal prison three times, where it is basically a given at this point they will either escape under their own power, or be rescued by their allies. This is where references to the PRT having a 'revolving door policy' for villians. Catch one and they will be back on the streets within weeks at most. Those statistics you wanted to list? Actually kinda bad. Very bad. Wouldnt help convince them thats for sure. After three strikes through, they are sent to the Birdcage, a tinkerprison managed by Dragon and impossible to escape. If they actually stay in custody long enough to get shoved down that tube, they are never coming out again. Ever.
The other option are Kill Orders, is basically a trial in absentia where the punishment is execution. To qualify for a kill order you basically need to be the worst of the worse, a murdering psychopath who breaks the Rules and kills indiscriminately, messing up both the operations of other Villains and the carefully constructed idea of safety that the heros offer the population. And so like a rapid dog they need to be put down. This typically results in a bounty being placed on the nut jobs head, to be collected by hero (or more often, villain) who kills the subject of the Kill Order. Fulfilling a Kill Order is not considered a violation of the Rules.
So this is how things work here. Bear in mind all of that only applies to America, Canada and possibly Mexico and UK. Most of the world operate differently, and have their own traditions with regards to cape behaviour. For example... i think its India? They instead of have 'hot' and 'cold' parahumans. 'hot' ones basically act like 60s heros and B movie villains, cheesy and bombastic for all to see, no one gets hurt. While 'cold' ones are more like blackops, killing each other in the dark and not letting the public know anything at all.
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- Location
- Erebus
Thank you. It's a relief Taylor understands.
[X] Help Snow White
[X] Take the wounded to the Protectorate. They have medical staff on hand.
This'll get her, probably better care than Tim, (no offense) and not have the trouble of the Privateers trying to kill her again in our workshop. Unless she has a linker core, it'll also be useful to unload her on them because they'll likely recruit and relocate her. Fairyland is the least objectionable of the gangs after all.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
...good god. Nope, you are absolutely right. Until this Arc I was calling him Ramirez, and somehow his name mutated in my head.
That's been fixed now. Thank you for catching that screw-up.
Its specifically about saying that turning villains like Snow White into the Protectorate for arrest, rather than killing them, will actually keep them off the streets. Assuming they're actually charged and convicted....I'm eventually going to have to subject myself to Worm aren't I
To add just one more detail to Chaotic's explanation: remember how Chevalier called ALL Philly's villains and heroes together before the final push against Cadejo and the the Beasts? I mentioned OOC that part of his reasoning was he wanted to establish a couple of ties between whatever capes got along to encourage more villains to come to Endbringer fights. That was a major behind the scenes motivation.
[X] Racoras
Solving the problem one way or another.
What the Privateers are doing is literally how gangs like the E88 originally form, because fighting crime, surprisingly, doesn't pay shit, and so you're going to go increasingly more aggressive to fund the crime fighting and justify your actions.
So take them off the streets. If they want to run around shooting people dead, they can go explain that to the cops themselves
Solving the problem one way or another.
What the Privateers are doing is literally how gangs like the E88 originally form, because fighting crime, surprisingly, doesn't pay shit, and so you're going to go increasingly more aggressive to fund the crime fighting and justify your actions.
So take them off the streets. If they want to run around shooting people dead, they can go explain that to the cops themselves
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- Location
- Oregon
[X] Help Snow White
[X] Take the wounded to the Protectorate. They have medical staff on hand.
Because last I saw, Tim was busy with Dragon stuff, and I'd rather not bother him. I would not be terribly surprised if the Privateers didn't go to him (because accountant, not doctor) or if he'd just lock his workshop and get back to time sensitive work. Let the idiots beat on what is probably a neigh impenetrable nanoha-tech security door for a while.
[X] Take the wounded to the Protectorate. They have medical staff on hand.
Because last I saw, Tim was busy with Dragon stuff, and I'd rather not bother him. I would not be terribly surprised if the Privateers didn't go to him (because accountant, not doctor) or if he'd just lock his workshop and get back to time sensitive work. Let the idiots beat on what is probably a neigh impenetrable nanoha-tech security door for a while.
Indeed. They are trying to abuse the bonds of friendship we have for them that they so neglected. We can teleport and they still won't call us for backup unless we follow along and mother-hen them ourselves.
Sadly escalation is unlikely to solve problems here. The Hostile Privateers are already using it to make problems. Having the bigger laser doesn't let us boost their sanity points, except insofar as our Barrier Jacket means we can safely argue with them even as they draw ever-closer to shooting at us.
- Location
- Canada
If lasers are not solving the problem then we are just not using enough of them.
And that would be awesome. I mean wrong.If lasers are not solving the problem then we are just not using enough of them.
- Location
- Chicago
[X] Help Snow White
[X] Take the wounded to the Protectorate. They have medical staff on hand.
Also, I feel like doing irreversible major elective surgery on a minor without anyone's but the minor's consent would get Tim labeled a villain immediately, and I think Vista would understand that as an objection to letting her do the mod without talking to anyone about it.
[X] Take the wounded to the Protectorate. They have medical staff on hand.
Also, I feel like doing irreversible major elective surgery on a minor without anyone's but the minor's consent would get Tim labeled a villain immediately, and I think Vista would understand that as an objection to letting her do the mod without talking to anyone about it.
The thing is, there's going to be no external visual indicator unless Vista is wearing the combat arm.
And, as Vista has pointed out, her social position - and Tim's social position - are... weird.
Tim is registered as a hero but is outside the normal approvals process... sort of.
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- Location
- Canada
Also known as 'Fuck you, I'm a magic man.'
So on the topic of planning what to do about the Privateers - I think we absolutely want to ensure that the Smart Faction has opportunities after leaving. A lot of them may actually be okay with joining the PRT, if we can provide proof that the PRT in Philadelphia is actually functional in all the ways the Brockton Bay PRT wasn't. The fact that they've been lightly associated with several heroes may be a point in their favor there - so long as we catch things before the Hostile Faction ruins the Privateer/PRT+Protectorate relationship. We should also look into civilian jobs for them - we know that Annette was able to retire from being lightly associated with a cape gang, and it might be doable for the same to happen here.
Problems we need to head off...
1) The biggest one for us is probably making sure that Tim can and does get out of things okay. He seems to be a pretty smart guy and willing to listen to us, so I think we can avoid the three biggest problems we'd be likely to see - Tim becoming a proto-villain with the Hostile Faction doesn't seem likely, Tim getting taken hostage or all his work getting stolen by the Hostile Faction are things he can probably deal with on his own and a case where our Bigger Laser (and Wide-Area Search) would actually solve things, and Tim getting pulled forcibly into the Protectorate as an alternative to being charged with crimes for helping the Hostile Faction for a while should be something we can head off so long as we start recovering his tech from them immediately. I'm not sure how to get the Hostile Faction to stop, though, so we might need to ask the Protectorate for help and establish closer ties with them to get that help... thankfully, Chevalier's a good guy and a clever guy, plus Alexandria sort-of likes us and definitely covets our power and position in relation to the TSAB, so that's not likely to be too onerous. We'll see what happens.
2) It's comparatively minor for us personally, but - Danny was the one who made the money coming in look legitimate. With him gone, eventually someone is going to check up on the Privateers, and as the Hostile Faction gets worse we really can't afford to cover for them anymore when things go wrong.
Although in a more practical sense, what really makes Tim totally unlike a Tinker is that his blueprints aren't from a spacewhale trying to use him to do some random testing - they're from a spacejewel that has already tested these blueprints.
Problems we need to head off...
1) The biggest one for us is probably making sure that Tim can and does get out of things okay. He seems to be a pretty smart guy and willing to listen to us, so I think we can avoid the three biggest problems we'd be likely to see - Tim becoming a proto-villain with the Hostile Faction doesn't seem likely, Tim getting taken hostage or all his work getting stolen by the Hostile Faction are things he can probably deal with on his own and a case where our Bigger Laser (and Wide-Area Search) would actually solve things, and Tim getting pulled forcibly into the Protectorate as an alternative to being charged with crimes for helping the Hostile Faction for a while should be something we can head off so long as we start recovering his tech from them immediately. I'm not sure how to get the Hostile Faction to stop, though, so we might need to ask the Protectorate for help and establish closer ties with them to get that help... thankfully, Chevalier's a good guy and a clever guy, plus Alexandria sort-of likes us and definitely covets our power and position in relation to the TSAB, so that's not likely to be too onerous. We'll see what happens.
2) It's comparatively minor for us personally, but - Danny was the one who made the money coming in look legitimate. With him gone, eventually someone is going to check up on the Privateers, and as the Hostile Faction gets worse we really can't afford to cover for them anymore when things go wrong.
More that he's an independent, but also a hero.
Although in a more practical sense, what really makes Tim totally unlike a Tinker is that his blueprints aren't from a spacewhale trying to use him to do some random testing - they're from a spacejewel that has already tested these blueprints.
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- Location
- Ekaterinburg, Russia
Assuming all of the above is true - what about Marvel Civil War over the issue of superpowered people registration? I've heard he did quite a bit of questionable stuff at the time (like faking Thor's support etc). Just curious, though.
This, on the other hand, is something I have stronger feelings about. But it's all been mostly rehashed already, so it's in spoiler to spare the others.
On one hand, fair enough. We had the option.
On the other hand, not quite fair enough. Previously, time-sensitive options were highlighted in yellow. Yes, current crisis of Privateers was implied to be time-sensitive, but it was implied in the "needs to be done before the end of this plot arc" manner, as opposed to "needs to be done before the end of the week" manner.
Again, yes, things tend to happen if we don't involve ourselves. What we usually didn't see happen is the, well, instant consequences in the situations where we didn't choose immediately urgent options. In the situations we did involve ourselves in, we were either the instigators (like when we went fishing for wreckage with Dragon), or were there in the nick of time while it was a time-sensitive option (like when we went clubbing and were attacked by the Beasts, or the entire gang war Ramirez kicked off).
Additionally, while it may not apply to others, I was previously of the opinion Privateers were handled by the Captain. That they were supposed to be handled by him, led by him, and that he, personally, was responsible for the Privateers-Calamity Witch coordination - if there were any. And, though we were affliates who tended to go off do our own thing... I don't recall them reaching out to us for those several plot arcs either. Unlike Adepts and Vista, if I might add.
We're guilty of not getting involved with them. But their leader was equally responsible for not trying to involve us as well. And of explicitly asking us to stay away from that weapons deal, IIRC.
And when you used this method with Snark Hunt, you also gave us an explicitly time-sensitive option to address it - even if we weren't aware of it at the time. On the other hand, if we take a look at options presented in 9.5:
Tickets to Gangland were implied time-sensitive by the "hold a press conference" tidbit. Long Live the King... Not so much. Not only did the option lack indications of an external timer - but the very end of update was us witnessing Privateers splintering and arguing each other to the point no constructive developments were possible. Rereading them now, I get the impression of it's better to let them cool off for a week - something that would imply that taking LLtK Pt2 immediately would have led to it backfiring. I'm quite certain that's what my impressions were at the time, as well. It's called sending a mixed message, I believe.
[X] Racoras
Not that I'm happy with this option, but it seems surprisingly close to being neutral, or at least, conveying we're explicitly unhappy with everyone involved - as opposed to taking someone's side of those immediately present.
- Location
- USA
This does seem like a thing to wonder/worry about.... bet the Privateers wish they'd kept us in the loop on things, huh? Not our fault if handing in Martimerez brings heat on that too, when we didn't know it was a pressing issue lately.
On the other hand, Tim is the one we know to be an accountant.... has he been handling this crap for them? Does he still have an actual accounting dayjob (would it be aided by AI until he gets a junior-partnership offer from Numbers Man xD ? ) ?
- Location
- Britain
Hey, there's a point - we know Contessa and Dr Mother are almost certainly Sting-flavoured red mist at this point, as are the S9, but whatever happened to the Number Man @Silently Watches? Did he just sorta keep doing his accounting thing, or did he walk in to Scion sudoku-ing over Eden and get a bad case of the vaporisation?
Given that Number Man didn't venture much out of Cauldron's Base until near/post timeskip, he's almost certainly so much free floating particles like Contessa and DM.
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Racoras
- Location
- Erebus
EVERYBODY was acting freaking weird during Civil war. Honestly the closest analogy I could make to it is the last 7 years social justice furor, but that's tame in comparison.
As to his actual arguments on it... they weren't horrible. Stark had been pushing for Supers to be put through proper power testing, safety training and team training on a national and international level for years in comic timeline and almost two decades by ours. He essentially wanted the PRT and Protectorate in Marvel, with SHIELD and The Avengers expanding their rosters to play those roles. Interestingly, like Cap, he as against the forced conscription bit, but decided to go along with it because things could be worked on later, while Cap went with Principle and said it was too far and needed to be fixed before hand.
It's not as if the US hasn't had a fairly long history of offering Criminals a choice of The Army, or Prison. That was actually stopped relatively recently.
Everything else was fairly standard for Marvel's over-the-top-WTF-are-you-doing-how-does-this-make-sense story arcs. Stark's individual actions have always been a mixed bag of he's obviously right, he's totally indefensible, and well, it's up for debate. Civil war was really no different in that regard. It's honestly why I like the character. He's human and internally consistent.
Right up until Ree REE Williams.
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Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Tim still did a little accounting on the side, but a lot of the work was taken up by Margaret, the Dockworkers' old union manager who stayed on to help out the Privateers. She's been taking more of a part-time position on that score because she's gotten a legitimate job in Philly now too.
Oh, you can still find Number Man. Go to Cauldron's old base, and you'll find him over there, over there, down there, over there, and up there.
Short version: oh yeah, he dead.