Silvereagle21
Soaring through the Sky
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] Get down to the brass tacks, what's he asking for? Money? Weapons? Information? See how far his ambition goes and how far sense restrains him
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
We've been told multiple times that there is a limit to what good rolls can facilitate. The reason why crime exist is because people have Free Will. It probably would be possible to get rid of organized crime, since it has a higher bar, but not just with speeches. We'd have to threaten people then actually carry out some of them when someone steps out of line and tries to be sneaky about it.
I get thinking leaving Marcone alone is better than causing chaos by deposing him and moving on, but there's a difference between leaving him be and helping him grow.
From my perspective I think that if we're going to actually spend our time on this over our many other concerns we can do better than him.
For example, the mortal authorities have some serious momentum in Nevada right now and we just voted to buy real estate in Vegas. Why not build on good work and try firming up the clued in government's grip on that state?
The people who live there are no less deserving of our help than the ones closer to home, and if things go well it could turn into a case study for other states.
DP has shot that down and we've seen it fail entirely by the numbers on screen.
We could probably make crime a lot cleaner, but it would require some serious investment. Which we could get better returns on by applying the AP other ways.
[X] Refuse, you do not have the time to deal with him yet, but you have better offers of friendship than the crime boss of Chicago
We'd also still have rep problems since "we swear we turned over a new leaf" doesn't mean a lot to society at large coming from murderers and drug dealers, especially if they still live outside the law and can't explain what they're doing now.
From my perspective I think that if we're going to actually spend our time on this over our many other concerns we can do better than him.
For example, the mortal authorities have some serious momentum in Nevada right now and we just voted to buy real estate in Vegas. Why not build on good work and try firming up the clued in government's grip on that state?
The people who live there are no less deserving of our help than the ones closer to home, and if things go well it could turn into a case study for other states.
But Molly can't just social fu everyone in the state with a few rolls, which is what @Earth-Destroyer means. He makes that argument any time actions involving large numbers of mortals come up.
DP has shot that down and we've seen it fail entirely by the numbers on screen.
We could probably make crime a lot cleaner, but it would require some serious investment. Which we could get better returns on by applying the AP other ways.
[X] Refuse, you do not have the time to deal with him yet, but you have better offers of friendship than the crime boss of Chicago
Why would he ever want to do this? The man is a mobster and so is his organization. Not prime recruits for this sort of thing and keeping it together would be very effort intensive.
We'd also still have rep problems since "we swear we turned over a new leaf" doesn't mean a lot to society at large coming from murderers and drug dealers, especially if they still live outside the law and can't explain what they're doing now.
Why and what for is Marcone a mobster? Does he enjoy the thrill of the crime? Is he politically opposed to law and order? Is he trying to maximize his material wealth and creature comforts? Does he desire power over others and leadership positions in society? Unless it's one of the first two options, then being a criminal is means to an end, not the goal itself. If presented with an opportunity to obtain his goal by switching to more legal actions, and an implicit threat in case he doesn't, if Marcone is rational, he is likely to take the offer. If he isn't rational, we don't want to do anything with him.
We can use him because he is a talented manager and leader of men, he is deeply embedded in the local community, and, unless he is lying (we should probably check) he does provide a manner of law enforcement service to the supernatural community.
At least some of Jade dogs are murderers, and I am fairly sure cannibals. White Court, as we know, are an international criminal enterprise on the scale that Marcone cannot approach. Remember how we got Isabela? She was killing a law enforcement officer to enact a cover up and bury an investigation that would have shook the nation. There's no moral argument to not offering Marcone a new leaf, given those we have offered it to.
The cost in political capital is arguable, and depends on how much we advertise our relationship (which we shouldn't), in what way Marcone goes legit, and how fast he does so.
As to existing outside the Law - Jade Dogs mostly exist outside the law. Molly is, as far as the law is concerned, a criminal herself. We are moving slowly (in exalted terms, it's still blisteringly fast in real life or supernatural terms) to adjust society, so reintegration of the supernatural side might happen. But it hasn't happened yet. It's useful to have agents in the interim.
Then the entire world is run by organized crime as nothing the governments and people of the nation can do. Oh wait that wrong organized crime only exist where the people morals and government police are weak. It trivial to make a change for things people want to happen you just have to get the ball rolling, and the people will take care of the rest. Turns out people don't like being exploited and living in fear of criminals.
Expect it is the case the rules for Exalted VS mortals over a period of months not normal social combat, is the Exalted wins. A mortal might win 1 social encounter, but not 100 the law of averages always favor the Exalted. An Exalted given time can chip away at the support and thought patterns of any idea, destroy them and replace them with what they want.
Inherently unless you're talking about things like trafficking or actual violent crimes you are inherently talking about unjust governmentation.
There is a market for drugs there's always been a market for drugs always the idea that the government can regulate that out of existence is fucking stupid and has been stupid since the dawn of time the only way to meet or lower the demand for drugs is to have them be available and solve the issues that make people want to do them like Switzerland's four pillar policy a lot of other countries and the amount of people that are in prison for drugs also plummet.
The same argument holds for sexual institutions. Marcone because he's a Crime Boss indulges in a lot of things that are actual just straight up criminal Behavior but to pretend like he isn't fulfilling a need that is always and has ever been present is completely false.
They will always be crime because people that try to govern via principles that are orthogonal to human needs will always create laws that are inherently unjust to The Human Condition.
Getting Marcone to expand his no kids to a list of crimes as long as he works with us an unabashed and unequivocal good unless we actually plan on being involved with Mortal Society no amount of reinforcing the cops will actually fill the need that he's needed for no amount of Charity will reinforce the need that he is meeting only directs change in society will and thus far we have shown no interest in doing so.
[X] Get down to the brass tacks, what's he asking for? Money? Weapons? Information? See how far his ambition goes and how far sense restrains him
[X] fictionfan
[X] Plan streetwise Hercules
Thanks. It just seemed like a very natural place to actually use our new ancient sorcery spell. And I do want to see it used. Otherwise, I am not sure where it would really fit.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
His organization is dogwater and provides next to nothing for us in particular. Marcone though if nothing else is a rare sort of competent individual when he isn't being pants on head stupid by becoming a Denarian. So the only real benefit would be that they don't have to answer to the gov, while not requiring Hand Agents, and that Marcone is a rare gacha unit I guess.
Okay I really don't like how your taking these bits out of context.
The Jade Dogs are ghouls. They didn't have much of a choice in the matter in regards to what kind of people they turned out to be. Ghouls require around 50 pounds of meat a day or they die. Not too many ways you can get that and they may or may not have urges to kill people, I forget. We tolerate the White Court because there are bigger fish to fry and getting rid of them would give even worse factions that the Whampires fight, more of a foothold. Like the Formor. We don't actually help the WC out with their crimes off-screen acts.
Isabela was raised by a culture that justifies rape by dehumanizing humans to cope with what they are while at the same time coexist with humanity so they don't have to fight them all like the moronic Reds are planning on doing and get themselves killed with the help of an Angel for. Marcone does what he does not because if he doesn't he'll starve to death and not because he was raised in a culture that dehumanizes people, combined with a demon in his body that reinforces that conditioning.
Completely different context.
I'm not going to say that the authorities are perfect, anyone with eyes can see they're not, but this is going a bit too far. Even if it was true keeping the law honest is less difficult than keeping mobsters wholly disinterested in justice honest.
To frame things another way; does anyone think that, however bad shadowy public law enforcement is, that shadowy pseudo-privatized "law enforcement" would be better?
Cause that's what we're talking about here; at best forming our own black water out of guys who murdered their way to the top of the black market and setting them to enforce order. At worst we'd be hiring them all but unchanged for the same purpose. We're just trusting ourselves with power as the CEO.
Let's accept that trust as valid in principle for a moment. How much time does everyone really want to spend on this? Cause even if we screw Marcone's head on backwards his organization would still be the same. Perhaps we could dig into it and make the necessary changes, but that isn't a small ask purely on a logistical level.
Further, consider what this would be like to people on the ground. The agents we'd have on the ground would be hitmen, drug dealers, and extortionists among other things. The clued in community is already demonstrably upset about being unilaterally dictated to by the Wardens. How should they feel when the guys who threaten to break their arms if they can't make an "insurance payment" start investigating people for potential supernatural crimes?
Even if they stopped tomorrow the reputation would remain. Remember that Dresden was shut out by the minor talents of Chicago for years based on the rumor that he killed people for Marcone. How's that going to go for people who actually did?
You could say that isn't the sort of work they'd be doing, but finding problems is going to involve looking into things for people who don't have the crown of eyes.
Suppose you're a minor practitioner running an old folks' home for the talented and these guys show up to check if you're actually a pathfinder plant. How do you think you'd react?
Since things wouldn't change on a dime even if we were involved there'd almost certainly be bad actors preceding as usual for at least a little while too, further complicating things.
Marcone is selling us a bad solution to the problem at hand that would cause long term problems with doing something better simply by staining our reputation through association.
This kind of scenario has been specifically nixed. We might be able to try brain washing people, but not with the ease or certainty you claim.
Just point blank ignoring the QM doesn't make your argument more viable.
He is rational, but you're trying to make law enforcement out of criminals. Marcone is only part of the problem and even a wholehearted change of character in the majority of his organization wouldn't be a fix for all of issues with trying.
The Jade Dogs and the white court have their issues, but also their mitigating circumstances. In any case we're not trying to use either as a law enforcement tool.
Getting Marcone to flip and try to be better isn't the same as trying to ignore who and what he's been.
It a fundamental aspect of the Excellency, the bigger dice pool on average wins. Any exalted can do this given some time, and it not something special or unique to exalted its a core feature of WW games in general.
A vampire using Presence can do the same with, werewolf, changing etc. It a fundamental feature of supernatural charisma, in all of WW.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
Your acting as if people haven't already done this. Speeches alone aren't eliminating organized crime. Again, DP has already made it clear that the effects of good rolls are limited. It would require more investment on our part than some speeches.
Charity is doing pretty well, and the context of those rolls matters too.
From that ruling I don't think we're going to be afforded the opportunity to roll against entire organizations at once on anything like the same terms of a regular social encounter.
The justification for this, as I see it, is pretty clear from a fluff perspective. Designing the exact right message in all the details down to posture and tone of voice for one person is way easier than doing it for a large number of people you can't even individually focus on at once.
Accounting for the differences in reaction would blunt your ability to hit all the right buttons for all listeners.
The context I was using these examples is not a moral one, but a societal perception one. Specifically, I was referring to this:
I was objecting to this argument about having nothing to do with Marcone. We are regularly dealing with people who mortal society, and at least some parts of supernatural society would perceive as worse than Marcone. For example, from a White Council perspective, Marcone is a human, and original Jade Dogs are ghouls who prey on humans. Which makes Jade Dogs worse. Etc.
I am not saying that there aren't extenuating circumstances. I am saying that we regularly and successfully take in those that would be shunned or persecuted by society, and make them start their life anew. The only difference here is that Marcone approached us while assuming that he gets to remain a criminal.
Marcone is saying that is acting as law enforcement already. This part here is Marcone acting as, essentially, White Council Warden axillary:
He is policing the supernatural side of the society, and at least parts of mortal criminal side of the society by keeping his rivals out.
We want him to keep doing that, but stop doing crimes on his own (or at least crimes we object to).
White Court is a much worse criminal organization than Marcone. Even from just a purely mundane criminal point of view. I refer you to this update:
We have knowledge that White Court is running a massive international human trafficking ring, and is using it to blackmail and coerce politicians and other powerful people. This alone makes them worse than Marcone. Not to mention, you know, actually eating people.
I am not proposing we ignore who he is or was. I am proposing we say "if yo want these benefits, you will do these things that you are already doing, and stop doing these other things I object to as soon as you reasonably can without harming yourself". We did this multiple times in the quest already, both on the individual level, and on the organizational level. Marcone just seems to be more distasteful, probably because he's more mundane, and we the readers cannot mentally ignore his crimes.
If all Marcone wants is political and personal magical power, that can be arranged, over a period of time that is of little consequence to Molly.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
You said there is no moral argument to offering Marcone a new leaf in the very next sentence, same paragraph, after giving those examples. What I gave you are several valid moral arguments.
Ok, lack of extenuating consequences is a thing, yes. That makes it different, agreed. We do not fully know how Marcone became a criminal though.
Other way around it much easier to change the masses opinion over a single person.
The first few speeches invigorate the people already doing what you want. The second round get the people that wanted to do it, but where putting it off joining up in the movement. Third round the people that support the idea in general, but never thought about it start helping out moving. 4th level the people the just liked the idea in general, show up to do things. 5th round the movement picked up steam and now people are joining for personal benefits.
Their are always people willing to buy a message, especially one backed by supernatural charisma.
There's a vast gulf between having nothing to do with the guy and becoming his supernatural backer. Just as there's a gap between turning over a new leaf and trying to hop from mob boss to police chief.
Context is important, taking in ghouls and vamps to work inside an organization we built and to perform "internal" tasks and taking over own with a well established reputation before trying to use it on public facing stuff are not the same. This is the difference between hiring a guy who worked at Twitter and renaming the platform to X.
This is a substantially worse diplomatic and organizational problem than you're presenting it to be.
Yeah, but you're talking about expanding and refocusing the organization on this stuff then putting our name on it. Marcone is a mob boss, the people being upset when he gets involved locally isn't a huge problem for him and doing mob style shit to keep people compliant is business as usual for him.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
You are considering such things in isolation. There are IRL organizations that directly benefit from their country being a wartorn crime infested cesspit. Movements are things we have records of. Some places have less organized crime than others but there isn't a place with none of it. Speeches alone aren't enough, you are refusing to acknowledge Free Will which also means that those same people who'd be supporting your positive movement can change their minds accordingly of their own FW.
I really don't see how. I mean, if nothing else, Odin is doing much worse, and no one seems to have any issue with him supporting Marcone without getting Marcone to change any of his policies.
We are supporting brotherhood of St. Giles, who are revolutionaries. On terms of USA politicsz that's worse.
Where have I said anything about putting our name on it?
Edit: let me ask you a counter question. What should be done with Marcone?
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
I would not be at all surprised if 90% of Marconi's economic activity was completely legal and legitimist. That is actually really common with organized crime. Selling stolen goods, laundering money, bribing politicians are all far easier when you have a lot of legal businesses.
Good night guys.
I don't understand how you're missing it.
To start, we aren't Odin and he isn't trying something like this. The people who would have a negative opinion of these actions would also have a negative opinion of him, but they don't see him or matter to his operations because of how he conducts them.
The morality and ethics of this aren't really the point here. This is about how people see things and not some objective measure of fact. Unfortunately for all of us people don't have to be right, or even fully informed, to make decisions which are other people's problems.
Marcone matters because he's known and who he's known to, because of the nature of his business and how the history around it. Remember taxes and the library; everyone at the table in Vegas knew that Uncle Sam's pocket change was the least important thing on the agenda and they had to draw a line there anyway because perception of the facts by others mattered.
In terms of US politics the sad truth of it is that things happening in the states matter dramatically more than things that happen outside of them. We were at war in Afghanistan for twenty years and the number of drone strikes each president during that period ordered is essentially an obscure Snapple fact to 90% of the population. For the middle stretch it essentially became vaguely surprising background noise to a lot of people.
Not that people are completely apathetic, but as ironic as it sounds there's always been an isolationist streak to US politics. A general feeling of the rest of the world being "over there" to our "over here". Personally I blame the Atlantic and Pacific.
It wouldn't matter nearly as much as you'd expect.
Backing of the scale he needs isn't the sort of thing you can totally hide, the movers and shakers would find out.
Illinois has a population of 12.8 million and is the 5th largest economy in the US at a GDP of $1.132 trillion all on its own.
You can liken this to proposing taking over all criminal enterprise in a midsized European country and turning it into a policing arm without anyone connecting you to it.
Personally I think that he's very low on the list of problems. I'd prefer to focus on all the people being eaten by supernatural predators and the larger threats to human civilization before getting into this sort of stuff.
He's trying to sell himself as a solution to those problems, but he isn't an effective one and making use of the option would make later efforts to improve things harder.
- Location
- Right Where I Am
I want us to take Marcone down eventually, and not just because of him being our hometown mob boss. He's a guy who wants to become the boss of our home, and I definitely do not want to share that with him.
So, building him up before tearing him down feels counterproductive.
So, building him up before tearing him down feels counterproductive.
This too. I don't buy Marcone's hype enough to go along with him. I'd rather call up Lara about trying to reform the White Court if we were to do something like this.
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Chicago is currently the main distribution point for the entirely of the Mexican cartels. End organized crime and the number of addicts falls across the entire continent.