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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Sesparra said:
Wow, people got really… invested in this vote huh?
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It is a major decision, with major philosophical and moral implications and concerns, and one that hits close to home for a number of people, because of how real and close to real life Marcone is, as a person and a problem.

EDIT: It also has a low entrance barrier - you don't know to need mechanics, or be confident in tactics and intricacies of combat or lore to really participate. And it's a vote of what to do, not how to do it. So, yes, a lot of factors converge to make a lot of people participate.
 
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[X] Plan streetwise Hercules

[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

I think it's silly to avoid the impression of connections to organized crime, when we are a sovereign goddess operating extralegally on American soil anyway.
 
Artemis1992 said:
I'm not overly concerned by the drug dealing, neither on a moral level (it happens anyway, enforced organization can at least keep it from kids), nor on a practical level (people who care about the American Law will soon find greater issues with us).
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In terms of scale, yeah to those aware of the supernatural anyway. This is just like the tax issue back in Vegas. It would definitely increase the difficulty of what we are doing.
 
Yog said:
We are a largely unaccountable by anyone shadowy force operating on USA soil. Our words are backed by Nuclear Weapons, and things that make nuclear weapons look tame in comparisons. We have engaged in large scale military warfare, and are guilty of multiple warcrimes. We have committed political assassinations in pursuit of personal vengeance. We claim the domain and jurisdiction of "Safeguarding Creation" by no other right than that of our sword arm, a claim that directly puts us in rivalry with USA government. Whatever we do with Marcone is not even comparable to whatever we do by ourselves. It's much less fantastical, much more street level and mundane, and because of that is less palatable. We talk about preferring SI to Marcone, and I do, by a lot, but we actively prefer Library of Congress (a much more rogue operation), and Winter Court (an inhuman-run operation with mind-warped leaders from ancient times) to Daedalus.

Just to make my position clear
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Something I think you too readily discard is the importance of perception to action, even when it doesn't conform to some objective measure of the truth.

Marcone has a history, whatever the objective truth of the matter is about different factions you can't expect a positive reaction to a guy who has his own well earned FBI task force.

Those reactions inform behavior and policy that impacts the world we have to live in.

I'm concerned that engagement of this type with a person in Marcone's position will sour our mortal connections and make it easier for idiots like Daedalus to gain ground in government policy. It would be painfully ironic for us to poison the most successful initiative of the sane supernatural management factions in the government and then need to deal with the stupid ones making messes because we decided the government was stupid and left instead of trying to make it better.

What you do, how you do it, and who you involve are all variables that matter.

Being righteous in a way that makes the world fight you while you try to save it is trading effectiveness for self satisfaction.


Yog said:
Who do we get to find and kill or take into custody minor talents that do lawbreaking? Who is going to go after Red Court spies, Black Court thralls, Outsider cultists? That, as I understand, is what Marcone is saying he's doing
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Marcone says he's doing that, but it's not his primary concern.

As to who we get to do it? Bits and pieces can be done on our side because the context of our organizations are different, but primarily I'd want to start with the Library and SI style police.

We're going to Vegas this turn, here's my specific proposal:

- We buy land for our embassy and look into how things are going.
- Set up a staff to work with the Library and help them address supernatural issues.
- Depending on what's happening, create openings by stomping on mid grade problem areas.

This is a complicated topic, I think there's value in expanding on areas where we've succeeded and using that at a case study on how to do this properly.
Artemis1992 said:
[X] Plan streetwise Hercules

[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

I think it's silly to avoid the impression of connections to organized crime, when we are a sovereign goddess operating extralegally on American soil anyway.
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The truth matters, but perspective is a funny thing that can get twisted in knots and not everyone has the full picture anyway.

Just to illustrate one way this can be a problem:

Suppose Daedalus wants to make another play against the Library. They pick up on this connection, because we're all being watched very closely and this would be pretty obvious connection to make if we provide serious support.

So they mark us down as a known associate and make a point of playing it up. Then they trace that connection back to the Library. Not all of the government is clued in, so now they have to explain why their mob connections are okay without explaining why they're actually okay.
 
BronzeTongue said:
Something I think you too readily discard is the importance of perception to action, even when it doesn't conform to some objective measure of the truth.

Marcone has a history, whatever the objective truth of the matter is about different factions you can't expect a positive reaction to a guy who has his own well earned FBI task force.
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I'm not. I am saying, repeatedly, that based on what I have read in the quest, the books, and my own understanding of how thenworld works, what we are doing, and who we are associating with is likely perceived worse than any potential association with Marcone, both by the people on the street, and politicians. You disagree, but I am not convinced by your arguments.

BronzeTongue said:
As to who we get to do it? Bits and pieces can be done on our side because the context of our organizations are different, but primarily I'd want to start with the Library and SI style police.
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The Library was very explicit about not wanting to do this. That's the whole reason daedalus exists. SI, even properly equipped, cannot handle this, and shouldn't be handling this - we would need to set up special SI judges, disperse with the whole trial by jury of your peers, write special magic-related laws, and set up special magical prisons for this to be handled by police. Otherwise you end up with Judge Dredd judges, cops who are also judge, jury and executioner, and I don't think this would be perceived much better than getting Marcone to do the dirty work. You are talking about corrupting and subverting whole police departments.

Or you end with Daedalus. They are already there. If you want government black ops squads instead of mafia executioners, the most reasonable move is to back Daedalus.

BronzeTongue said:
We're going to Vegas this turn, here's my specific proposal:

- We buy land for our embassy and look into how things are going.
- Set up a staff to work with the Library and help them address supernatural issues.
- Depending on what's happening, create openings by stomping on mid grade problem areas.
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This I agree on, but please remember that the Library doesn't want to be a law enforcement agency. The likely and to me expected outcome of this is that at some point we'll be interacting with Daedalus and working on reforming and improving them. They are the governments honest attempt at supernatural combat teams.


The thing we agree on is that this is a very complicated topic. It's a time of transition, the system is broken, but has huge momentum. Making the switch to post masquerade world habitable and friendly to humans, and good from the modern western liberal moral point of view is a huge and very hard task. I hope we can come up with something good.
 
[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] Plan streetwise Hercules

Shit or get off the pot. Either deal with him as a person and institution or deal with him with a sword... and I'd prefer not to have the god queen removing heads unless somebody forces her hand. The worst option is leaving him on the outside where he can get squirrely.
 
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Vote closed
Adhoc vote count started by Nyarky on Dec 18, 2024 at 2:00 PM, finished with 133 posts and 30 votes.
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Arc 15 Post 23: When Private Eyes are Blind New
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    • When Private Eyes are Blind ​

    28th of December 2006 A.D.

    As you continue to ponder what to do about Marcone and just how far practicality can take one you look over a more personal matter that had led certain Molly Carpenters back to Boston. As it turns out she wasn't the only Carpenter involved. She chose to enlist Daniel somewhat to your surprise. After all as far as you know you're the only one of the kids Mom had talked to about that, but thinking about it for a little longer it makes a lot of sense. They are his grandparents too after all, and he's certainly old enough to deal with the history there. Not to mention it was probably a good idea to have a sounding board on how to approach them. Half your social instincts are still 'fake it 'till you make it' and the other half is the imperial grandiloquence Usum bequeathed you and while you may be learning to trust the latter a bit more in matters of state family's different even if part of that family thinks it's later day aristocrats.

    As it turns out Regina Hamilton nee Winthrop reacted to the loss of her only daughter by adopting a new one, in a gesture your other self couldn't decide if she should call callous or charitable, though Daniel had pointed out that if they just wanted a replacement kid for 'dynastic' reasons they would have gotten a boy. Things slid slowly down the slope into the uncanny when they realized that the new daughter Prudence Hamilton was also sixteen and might have looked something like Mom did, at least within the abilities of the adoption agency.

    "At that point we didn't know if we were looking at something spooky, or just regular creepy," Daniel picks up the story when you ask him about it "But the more we looked into it the more normal it seemed. Prudence married an oil executive in 1990, she had two kids, they are our age now, Mrs Hamilton is in retirement as much as you can retire from hosting parties and charities, Mr Hamilton retired to an honorary position in the private equity fund he ran for most of his life. But then we did start finding some loose ends... They never stopped looking for her. When we looked up Charity Hamilton in Boston we got a line to a detective agency and there's even a bounty still posted for information on her whereabouts, which is very weird since Mom didn't change her name..."

    "Well she did when she married," Dancer in Glass Shadows points out.

    "Thank you Captain Technicality, now there's more of you too, what am I gonna do?" Daniel rolls his eyes, though there's no more heat in the gesture than normal. "What I meant to say is Mom didn't go out of her way to hide who she was, she still has the same social security number and stuff. A detective agency should have been able to find her by the time she married dad or got into college, basically as soon as she was on the grid again. At first we thought that maybe it's just her not wanting to be found and he waves his hand vaguely heavenward, but I don't think God's into preventing family awkwardness. I can think of some Bible stories that would've turned out different if He was."

    You snort in laughter, half-unwilling. "Daniel!"

    "What, I'm sure God appreciates that we didn't mistake all too human doings for his hand," Dancer in Glass Shadows backs him up. "See I phoned the agency and told them who I was... fifteen minutes to sunrise. Just long enough for them to send out an email before the memory faded, not so long that it would risk them sharing with anyone else and since we'd already hacked their email we now knew who the message was for. Turns out James Hamilton did know where Mom is and what he's about, but he paid the agency to not tell his wife and pretend they can't find anything and he also asked them to message him if anyone from her side of the family showed up. I deleted the message just so it wouldn't set anything off. But the question now is... should we set something off. If grandma Hamilton, that still feels weird to say, is looking us she deserves to know we exist at least."

    "Being charitable he could've done it to protect her," Daniel adds after the silence had started to grow uneasy. "Mom did say that Regina was the most worried about her Seeing things. He could have just figured it would be better if his daughter had a life somwehre else."

    "And what gave him the right to...?"

    You do not even finish the question before he raises his hands. "Hey, hey, it's still wrong that he did it, just saying he might not be a complete asshole."

    What do you do?

    [] Tell Mom everything they found

    [] Go talk to your grandparents
    -[] Regina
    -[] James
    -[] Both

    [] Write in

    OOC: The questions about Marcone will be handled afterwards. I started writing this when the vote was still going on because otherwise I would not have been able to finish an update in time today. Hopefully the juxtaposition isn't too distracting, it does feel thematically interesting, considering working with criminals as you are also embroiled in family matters.
     
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    • Ok, so there's still a range of possibilities in regards to Charity's mother. If I recall correctly, and I do, uju32 regularly noted that magical talent is passed through maternal lines in Dresden Files. So, Charity's mother might be a talent, or might well be like Charity - someone who turned their talent against itself for some reason. Possibly religious ones even for the bitter irony of it (Because she named her child Charity, and then adopted a Prudence)?

    We could investigate further - look into how well-adjusted Prudence is at least, and approach her, or even her kids first, and then work our way up from there? This way we gain most information. If Regina is just an old sad woman looking to make amends, we can do that. If she's a religious zealot who will never approve of anything to do with magic, that's probably a good source for Charity's potential character growth. If she's a creepy cultist of some kind, Molly gets to snack on whatever patron she has.

    This seems like another loaded vote. I'll have to think about it.
     
    Yog said:
    I'm not. I am saying, repeatedly, that based on what I have read in the quest, the books, and my own understanding of how thenworld works, what we are doing, and who we are associating with is likely perceived worse than any potential association with Marcone, both by the people on the street, and politicians. You disagree, but I am not convinced by your arguments
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    The difference is in the nature of the association and the context of the environment we're operating in. Especially in terms of the divide between who's clued in and who isn't. Our association with the white court isn't anything like actually providing material support to expand their operations. Moreover, they're so ubiquitous that being involved in their politics to at least some extent is too common to be treated the same way.

    The other factions in these considerations aren't parsing the situation the way you are. You need to account for how they'll feel about what limited information they have, not just how they "should" feel about factual reality.

    Doing a favor for Lara isn't the same as expanding organized crime for the same reasons - and in the same way - that getting the right to a posting what's effectively an embassy/military base in a major city isn't the same as asking for a discount on our taxes.

    The objective importance of a thing isn't the same as the magnitude or nature of the reaction to it.

    Yog said:
    The Library was very explicit about not wanting to do this.
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    They still did it in Vegas though. Maybe we'll need to revisit Daedalus, or shake loose a different group to compete with them within the FBI, but it's a place to start.

    What you're asking for is a lifetime mobster to turn into private law enforcement and take his organization of criminals with him. This is not a small ask, and even if he goes for it stopping the whole thing from going bad is the sort of thing that should take a lot of attention.

    So it's unlikely to succeed, expensive to maintain, and even if it by some miracle does work we suddenly have a problem with political fallout.

    If nothing else you're building an autoimmune disorder into the new anti-supernatural defenses by making it from people being hunted by mortal law enforcement.

    Any competent hostile actor will exploit that, and each time we need to make a choice about say defending an hitman who moonlights as a vampire hunter from the consequences of murdering people or letting them get arrested when they're in the middle of dealing with a blamp problem the tension will get worse.
     
    BronzeTongue said:
    The difference is in the nature of the association and the context of the environment we're operating in. Especially in terms of the divide between who's clued in and who isn't. Our association with the white court isn't anything like actually providing material support to expand their operations. Moreover, they're so ubiquitous that being involved in their politics to at least some extent is too common to be treated the same way.

    The other factions in these considerations aren't parsing the situation the way you are. You need to account for how they'll feel about what limited information they have, not just how they "should" feel about factual reality.

    Doing a favor for Lara isn't the same as expanding organized crime for the same reasons - and in the same way - that getting the right to a posting what's effectively an embassy/military base in a major city isn't the same as asking for a discount on our taxes.

    The objective importance of a thing isn't the same as the magnitude or nature of the reaction to it.
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    White Court eats people. They are supernatural predators and known as such. We have white court minions, go to Lara's parties, and order her brother around. To a person on the supernatural street, we are allies. That we aren't actually providing her with weapons is inconsequential, as you say. To a common outside observer on the street, we are an ally of White Court, or at least someone they negotiate with. TO an even less informed observer, we are a supernatural monster in charge of supernatural monsters - someone to command ghouls, vampires of various kinds, including those never seen before.

    Hell, remember that certain members of Order of Cauldron work for Marcone. Not deal with him, work for him in subordinate position.

    The context we operate in is one where supernaturally aware humans are prey to supernatural predators. Predators that we either seem to be friendly with, order around, or outright eat.

    I am not saying how I think people on the street should feel. I am not making an objective analysis at this point. I am saying that you are wrong. That I feel you are mistaken about how people would feel about our association with Marcone, and about how they are feeling about our current associations.
    BronzeTongue said:
    What you're asking for is a lifetime mobster to turn into private law enforcement and take his organization of criminals with him. This is not a small ask, and even if he goes for it stopping the whole thing from going bad is the sort of thing that should take a lot of attention.
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    This is pretty much how all the governments started. We are just doing the natural work of making this banding stationary, basically.
    BronzeTongue said:
    So it's unlikely to succeed, expensive to maintain, and even if it by some miracle does work we suddenly have a problem with political fallout.
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    It worked throughout pretty much whole history.
     
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