The opposition is always a problem. I think boiling the frog would ultimately prove more effective than unleashing an immediate galvanizing threat in that regard.
Have there ever actually been examples of qualitative changes to systems that worked like this in history? Honest question. As far as I recall, there have always been a war / revolution / death involved.
We 'just' need to be better than them in a conflict they're not familiar with rather than triggering magically enhanced ww3.
Why would a force that has an institutional advantage meet us on the field where we are better at? Why wouldn't they trigger magically enhanced WW3 if the result of not doing so is losing?
I feel pretty confident in saying that we won't maintain total control if we start facilitating the release of the exaltations, and that the consequences of losing any of them are substantially worse than losing a handful of nuclear weapons per head.
I feel that the position that we need total control is frankly misantropic, self-centered, and paranoid in the classical sense of the word.
Self importance isn't the driving factor; this only tangentially about Molly.
The universe rolled the dice and passed the DC for a good celestial. This doesn't change the risk of making another random draw. Not all of them would be bad, but the consequences of anything short of all of them being good could be catastrophic.
Then to top it all off, even if no Kemmlers exalt, you end up with the situation @Exmorri outlined while the exalts start to push their different agendas on the world. Then we'll either end up fighting each other or forming a new deliberative equivalent and become a de facto autocracy.
No. These aren't independent probabilities. The outcome of each previous exaltation in regards to the character of the exalt affects the odds of the next exalt ending up similar to previous ones (or at least within tolerable limits). Existence of a politically active E5 Molly in the setting would acts as both a difficulty adjuster and dice adder to the extended roll of "does the new infernal end up on the side of angels?". Difficulty adjuster because with sufficient prep the forces prevalent in the world (White Council, fey courts, various human organizations) would know to refer the exalt to Molly. And dice adder in the sense that a cool sempai E5 Molly consistently spending multiple dice to make the new exalt see the global situation her way, or at least in a way comparable to her morality would be very hard for said new exalt to resist. I mean, Sidereal fellowship and indoctrination worked even in the Age of Sorrows.
And, again, all your concerns fully apply to humans with full wizarding talents. In fact, they apply more to them than to exalts:
1) There's no easy way to detect a wizard, unlike new exalts (or even most older exalts).
2) The number of full wizards is not limited, known, and is ever expanding. New wizards can be born to anyone, regardless of previous connections (see Charity, Elaine).
3) Even completely untrained wizards are capable of brainwashing people, and, from what I understand, summoning demons (not outsiders) is, if not easy, then possible for someone untrained.
4) Even not very strong wizards are capable of producing great effects, and killing people from afar (see the villain of the first book, Victor something, I forget the name - and yes, I know, he was connected to Nemesis)
5) Wizards can be infected by Nemesis, or tainted by other outsiders
6) Wizard magic is self-reinforcing in a way that makes one misstep very likely to lead to a path to full-on moral monsterhood and soul corruption, unlike exalted charms
7) Wizards at high level are capable of feats even individual exalts would struggle with (time travel, Demonreach is quite impressive)
8) Besides full wizards you also get minor talents, who are also dangerous (more so to themselves in many cases), and ae even harder to locate.
If White Council as an organization has been proven viable for wizards, then I don't see why something similar cannot be set up for exalts. Yes, quite possibly with
dragonblooded wild hunt wardens who chop off heads of new exalts who break certain Laws.
Again Molly's judgement is abnormal and not truly standard because she is the player character in a quest. Otherwise I would 100% agree with you here.
I am sorry if what I say next is offensive, but bullshit. If we are using doylist perspective, then
we the players are not special. We are not paragons of morality. We are not saints, geniuses, and examples of the best of the best of humanity. Most of us are not good enough to be exalted. Almost certainly a theoretical amalgamation of all our virtues with only a mean value of our vices is not good enough to be exalted. The stakes we are playing for are far lower, the choices less weighty and the decisions less measured than what an exalted would face.
