Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

At least some of them are, as I understand it.
That doesn't really sound possible baring Author fiat. If the microscopic world is different then the cells humans have would be too. Like mitochondria are theorized to originally come from a specific bacteria before cells implemented them and established a symbiotic relationship. Then again an alien world straight up shouldn't have humans to begin with if we are assuming evolution here. Everything would definitely need to be tested trails yeah..
 
That doesn't really sound possible baring Author fiat. If the microscopic world is different then the cells humans have would be too. Like mitochondria are theorized to originally come from a specific bacteria before cells implemented them and established a symbiotic relationship. Then again an alien world straight up shouldn't have humans to begin with if we are assuming evolution here. Everything would definitely need to be tested trails yeah..
We know that both evolution and creationism are right at the same time. We saw with our own eyes humans evolving all the way from primordial soup, and, at the same time, them being a recreation of humans from previous ages. Our own human stock was both created by Molly at the moment of her Becoming, and seem to be descendants of the First Age preserved through acausal Exaltation and Primordial shenanigans, craddled in Molly's worldsoul.

Logically speaking, our humans should have entirely different ethnicities, gut flora, be exposed to entirely different pathogens, eat entirely different food. And yet they still seem to be able to pass for earthlings.

So, yeah, medical testing in the Sanctuary (which is likely already ongoing with the people we brought in), and then deployment to Earth through drug trafficking infrastructure might be a workable scenario.

EDIT: A lot of our medicine should be low key and not very low key magic. Which is more conceptual and wouldn't care about as many details.
 
Wait what? I don't remember that at all. I'll have to go back.
Here, we used the Crown on the Darwn's Origin of Species. Also, we discovered aliens in the same update. It's a fun one:
Later, way later, you you change the tab over to an electronic version of a book that set the whole world on fire a century and a half ago. How could it not have with the very catchy title On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

"How did humans come to be?"

A stygian hellscape, boiling black water below poisoned skies, deeper than deep, in the dance of amino-acids folding and contorting a spark of the divine, probability bent

...On a wave-wreaked coast crumbling to too sharp edges grey green pond scum clings

...Trees taller than redwoods dripping green shadows

...A Creature not quite fish, not yet not-a-fish gasps for breath in the heady air


Faster and faster the images come.

...Something that looks like a sharp-nosed mouse with deep grey fur and a mouth full of small sharp teeth scrambles onto the forest floor

...Things running, things climbing, eyes always the eyes looking out into the world with a growing glimmer of curiosity, faces shifting into compassion, twisting into malice

...The rain beats down on the savanna, trickles like coiling like serpents through the black earth. Miracles in small things, patterns in the chaos, footprints in the dirt


WHAT WAS WILL BE

The proclamation seems to shove your wandering gaze back in on itself, the colors of your room are once more the only things you can see around you. Even though you had never lost sight of your room during the... nature documentary crossed with LSD, you are going to say, it takes you even longer to acclimate to it. Evolution happened, you knew that already unless God was into playing really elaborate pranks with the fossil record, but there was also an ethereal aspect, spiritual to the time and the place when the Fallen Angel met the Rising Ape. But that last bit... patterns, molds.

A memory jars loose Ages of gold, ages of silver, ages of bronze and a rain of jaguars...

You are at least pretty sure that one comes from your 'coronation' back when you'd been more concerned with getting off the torture tree. That is one google search away from the Aztec myth... one that had the world and humanity recreated again and again by a different god.
 
[X] Appeal to his loyalty to his own people, no matter how good he is as long as he's just another criminal they are going to be exposed to danger, with your help he could become so much more and so could they
-[X] Empathy excellency
 
I really don't see what we need or want Marcone for.

He and people like him are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Empowering him in any way at all is a mistake. We should be destroying him and his organisation and reforming the state to prevent anyone filling that niche.

We should be influencing the Chicago municipal government and building up state capacity, not propping up an illegitimate competitor.

[X] Write in
- [X] Ask for his unconditional surrender and the voluntary dissolution of his organisation by appealing to his desire to continue existing.


We really don't have to play nice here. He can't realistically defend himself against us and we could trivially easily destroy him.
 
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What common person on what common street? Serious question. Define the population you are talking about. Are they supernaturally aware? Are they human or a changeling or a whampire spawn? Are they a wizard-grade talent or a path sorcerer? What is your definition of "common person on the street"? Because Ordo members absolutely know what whampires are and know that they are prey to said whampires.

The common supernatural person on the street, who'd be interacting with the mafia hitmen we'd recruit as PIs. These people don't get a news alert about supernatural happenings.

Our interaction with the white court publicly included what our deal was, that was part of the point and the deal made for us to show up. Anyone who knows we showed up at the court's last party is highly likely to know why we were there.

This is getting off track, because moral evaluations of character aren't the same as in your face actions.


I am claiming that parts of the government don't exist, cannot exist under the current governmental framework in at least certain parts, and those roles can be filled by people like Marcone, and, in the post-masquerade world, those parts can and should be united
What you're doing is actively in conflict with your states goals. If you want a new governmental agency we should be working to get the government to spin one up.

Setting one out in a way hostile to their position will create a cycle of conflict. The mundane parts of the government will not stop targeting Marcone, they cannot be given the information to understand that. Parts of the supernaturally aware government won't be happy either, and that puts all of us in a very precarious position.

You're looking at the end state and not the immediate situation, but you need to navigate this step before you get to the next one.

For example; what do you think Daedalus would do about this even if they for some reason don't kidney stab the library over it?

This is exactly the thing that pushes the buttons of people like that; it's a challenge to the basic concept of their existence familiar enough to understand. One they can be the men in black to while easily apply more regular FBI resources.

The truth of the matter one way or another won't matter once they pull the trigger.

I also think that the mobsters will be an inherently bad fit for the job for a multitude of reasons, but even if they weren't this problem would still remain. Ignoring the system and society that already exists because it's inconvenient doesn't mean they will ignore you.

Edit:

More succinctly; this isn't mechanical engineering, it's surgery. Please check blood type before doing a bone marrow transplant.
 
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The common supernatural person on the street, who'd be interacting with the mafia hitmen we'd recruit as PIs.
No one is talking about recruiting Marcone's men as PI just using them as existing infrastructure which they are and unlike the Library of Congress actually have teeth and are willing to be used in such a blunt manner.
These people don't get a news alert about supernatural happenings.
If this is true how are they going to know that we're dealing with Marcone? Is he going to advertise that fact, are we going to?

what do you think Daedalus would do about this even if they for some reason don't kidney stab the library over it?
Are you sure you want to bring up the Daedalus here?
I'm of the thought due to the evidence that we have in story so far that the Library of Congress is a toothless non-enforcement agency and Daedalus is a complete near Bay of Pigs no oversight level special enforcement division.

Which every single appearance paints them as not just outright worse than most criminals in general because they are very least are concerned with not obviously being criminals but incompetent in most ways that matter not just a danger to themselves and others but to their very souls and The Souls of other people because they are meddling in things they cannot know and they refuse to know.

The mundane parts of the government will not stop targeting Marcone, they cannot be given the information to understand that. Parts of the supernaturally aware government won't be happy either, and that puts all of us in a very precarious position.
Marcone has been a "known" mob boss in Chicago for the better part of two decades now and you expect or believe the mundane parts of the government either aren't already subverted or will be able to conjure something quickly. If the government actually had anything that would be able to take him down they would have already moved in. No amount of continuous targeting can help them now because now he has distinct covert and overt Supernatural assistance.
Ignoring the system and society that already exists because it's inconvenient doesn't mean they will ignore you.
Except the Masquerade exists and the fact that the only human voices in the Masquerade as a whole are essentially bound and tied to us (White Council) that is exactly what it means actually we can ignore the system and society as far as we want. As we seemingly have both the personal and political will and power to flex and Bend the system as we wish.

The library only has a voice in an American city at all because of us, Daedalus is a joke, the white council is directly in debt to us.

Converting and making legitimate existing enforcement infrastructure is infinitely a better use of our time than trying to make any of the prior statements other than the white Council of course untrue.
 
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No one is talking about recruiting Marcone's men as PI just using them as existing infrastructure which they are and unlike the Library of Congress actually have teeth and are willing to be used in such a blunt manner
The PI thing was shorthand for the whole investigate and handle minor supernatural stuff.

Which he doesn't have the infrastructure to do on the scale proposed, that's why he wants our support.

The Library has issues, but they did good work in Vegas somehow. Working that end is more fruitful because we won't be setting ourselves up to fail.


Marcone has been a "known" mob boss in Chicago for the better part of two decades now and you expect or believe the mundane parts of the government either aren't already subverted or will be able to conjure something quickly. If the government actually had anything that would be able to take him down they would have already moved in. No amount of continuous targeting can help them now because now he has distinct covert and overt Supernatural assistance.
How long did it take to get Al Capone? The government is a massive beast and different parts react different ways to different situations.

Keeping the Mayor of a major city on your side is a big success, but subverting an entire state means getting into it with people who do not give one shit about that and will hang all of you if they can.

It's also a mistake to evaluate this as winning or losing a fight like it happens all at once and then nothing at all. The fight happening itself is a problem because it's damaging.A compromised immune system gets you killed by making you too weak to fight off other things.

The most likely scenario I see out of this is the negative forces in the government at large getting stronger because we effectively sabotage the ones who put trust in us, resulting in a feed back loop of stupid and alienating decisions. At some point an enemy like Nemesis or the even the Fomori stir shit specifically aimed at setting the whole situation on fire in support of another effort.


Except the Masquerade exists and the fact that the only human voices in the Masquerade as a whole are essentially bound and tied to us (White Council) that is exactly what it means actually we can ignore the system and society as far as we want. As we seemingly have both the personal and political will and power to flex and Bend the system as we wish.

The library only has a voice in an American city at all because of us, Daedalus is a joke, the white council is directly in debt to us.

Converting and making legitimate existing enforcement infrastructure is infinitely a better use of our time than trying to make any of the prior statements other than the white Council of course untrue.
The masquerade is part of the problem, because the whole organization we're talking about is wearing target as a mask.

The Masquerade doesn't mean people won't act on what they think is happening.

This is surgery; raw ability to rearrange organs doesn't equate to doing it being a good idea to do so. We are constrained by the nature of the patient.

There are better ways to do this, many of which we can start this turn when we return to Vegas.
 
Which he doesn't have the infrastructure to do on the scale proposed, that's why he wants our support.
No yet but close he almost certainly does just by numbers and guns alone he almost definitively has the infrastructure never mind the infrastructural (intelligence networks, made men, lackey) advantages he does have to possess as a Crime Boss.

The main thing he's lacking I assume would be essentially Capital because time spent patrolling is time spent not making money which as a criminal Enterprise with hundreds if not multiple hundreds of members is a rather pressing concern.
The Library has issues, but they did good work in Vegas somehow. Working that end is more fruitful because we won't be setting ourselves up to fail.
You keep saying that but when they are relying on us to do literally everything of consequence and then they just act as police what do we need them for. Special investigations is still here when we need actual cops when we need enforcement apparatus (muscle & Intel) marcone's men are actually useful unlike the Library of Congress.

You keep saying they did good work but the only comparative scenario is if we completely shattered the red court and then the Mexican Belize Peruvian Bolivian Etc governments swept in and dealt with all the Mortal collaborators. They did a good job after everything that might have been an actual threat to them has already been eliminated. It's not impressive and it's not even particularly helpful.
How long did it take to get Al Capone? The government is a massive beast and different parts react different ways to different situations.
Al Capone was a 6-year run from start to finish. Marcone has been the Crime Boss in Chicago for years prior to the storm front according to Dresden which takes place in 2000 and by the time story rolls around he's still The Crime Boss so... so far he's been a Crime Boss for at conservatively at least a decade of all of Chicago it's definitively implied that it's been considerably longer than that in the books.

Even if we're making a direct Al Capone reference then he's meeting him bar for bar just on the time in Canon has been going on so far from storm front onward he's already at the same level as Al Capone with nowhere near as much legal both local and National scrutiny.
It's also a mistake to evaluate this as winning or losing a fight like it happens all at once and then nothing at all. The fight happening itself is a problem because it's damaging.A compromised immune system gets you killed by making you too weak to fight off other things.

The most likely scenario I see out of this is the negative forces in the government at large getting stronger because we effectively sabotage the ones who put trust in us, resulting in a feed back loop of stupid and alienating decisions. At some point an enemy like Nemesis or the even the Fomori stir shit specifically aimed at setting the whole situation on fire in support of another effort.
You keep insisting there's a fight when there really isn't there's no sanctioned or existing infrastructure there is no immune system. Daedalus isn't worth mentioning the Library of Congress isn't an enforcement arm they have no ability outside of... nothing actually they just have nothing.

There is no feedback loop because that implies there's some level of flow from anyone else we are the be all and end all of Supernatural policing at the moment and that will still be true in Vegas because yet again we are supplying both the Manpower and the armaments as well as purchasing the infrastructure.

There's no weak point or efforts the femori or nemesis could hit because that would imply there's someone worth mentioning that isn't us which there is not.
The masquerade is part of the problem, because the whole organization we're talking about is wearing target as a mask.

The Masquerade doesn't mean people won't act on what they think is happening.

This is surgery; raw ability to rearrange organs doesn't equate to doing it being a good idea to do so. We are constrained by the nature of the patient.

There are better ways to do this, many of which we can start this turn when we return to Vegas.
This is very explicitly not surgery it is triage this is practicality the reality of the situation is the Library of Congress has nothing, Daedalus is less than nothing, Marcone has existing infrastructure for both information gathering and enforcement. The choice is clear subverting him to our purpose is infinitely more efficient and more likely if we can move him above board to save lives both mundanely and magically both of which are better than trying to forge something from nothing or in daedalus's case less than nothing.

Moving away from the surgery metaphor. Real resources are better than clean nothings any day of the week. Which is the only thing the Library of Congress can actually offer us at any given moment. One of those things saves lives and helps kill our enemies the other does well... nothing.
 
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[X] Appeal to his loyalty to his own people, no matter how good he is as long as he's just another criminal they are going to be exposed to danger, with your help he could become so much more and so could they
-[X] Empathy excellency


We should be influencing the Chicago municipal government and building up state capacity, not propping up an illegitimate competitor.

I think that once you find yourself in a position, where you can influence the local government and choose whether to build up it's capacity or not, then *you* are already pretty much an illegitimate competitor to it anyway.

For example, if Marcone called our bluff and we had to carry out your proposed threat, then that would mean we would effectively declare ourselves the sovereign judicial power over even the mundane Chicago. Because Marcone and his organization are all local vanilla mortals outside of Gard, and not working for any higher supernatural villain.

I'm not saying we should be Lawful Stupid - the opposite - I'm just saying we have no room to condemn someone for being a law-breaking competitor to mundane authorities
 
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He and people like him are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Empowering him in any way at all is a mistake. We should be destroying him and his organisation and reforming the state to prevent anyone filling that niche.
Yeah, that's why the currently winning vote. It's a vote for him to step down from being a crimelord, and to bring his whole organization with him.
 
Adhoc vote count started by Anaja on Dec 20, 2024 at 11:25 AM, finished with 54 posts and 9 votes.

  • [X] Appeal to his loyalty to his own people, no matter how good he is as long as he's just another criminal they are going to be exposed to danger, with your help he could become so much more and so could they
    -[X] Empathy excellency
    [X] Appeal to his loyalty to his own people, no matter how good he is as long as he's just another criminal they are going to be exposed to danger, with your help he could become so much more and so coould they
    [X] Write in
    - [X] Ask for his unconditional surrender and the voluntary dissolution of his organisation by appealing to his desire to continue existing.
 
Counting morality? Medicine. We almost certainly have medicine in the Courts that doesn't exist on Earth. FDA approval takes a lot of time, the infrastructure and logistics for medicine distribution should resemble that for drug distribution, and since we know for a fact the medicine works, there's no moral quandary. It seems like the most logical way to coopt drug trade.
Trading one sort of drugs for another has a certain sort of poetry to it, I admit. We'd probably have to sit down and really hammer out what counts as medicine because anything our Courts developed over their long but instantaneous ages probably started blurring the lines that we... Earth's humanity... falsely assumes are at least somewhat clear cut.

A treatment for chronic depression bleeding into recreational drugs bleeding into performance-enhancing drugs bleeding into a psychological crutch or new-personality-in-a-bottle. Lots of things that are normal there but which put lie to the objective concept of normality. And a lot of things might legitimately be perfectly safe when properly applied but which have the potential to be improperly applied.
 
A general all purpose ointment to promote healing, and improve recovery rate does not need FDA approve if it listed as herbal remedy.

The FFC has mass production of 1 dot alchemy everything which is just flat out better then their none magical counterparts. By their nature we will out compete other companies products.
 
Sorry I missed this last night:

So, I'll assume for now that we don't have any more foci for Marcone (he's not magical at all at this point, so he doesn't generate foci a lot). @DragonParadox would it be possible for Murphy to access Marcone's organized crime casefile (I assume it exists) without arousing suspicion?

You could ask her, but it is worth keeping in mind that SI doesn't have any jurisdiction on things like organized crime.
 
No yet but close he almost certainly does just by numbers and guns alone he almost definitively has the infrastructure never mind the infrastructural (intelligence networks, made men, lackey) advantages he does have to possess as a Crime Boss.

The main thing he's lacking I assume would be essentially Capital because time spent patrolling is time spent not making money which as a criminal Enterprise with hundreds if not multiple hundreds of members is a rather pressing concern
And you think American law enforcement lacks guns of all things? That the guys able to get us spy satellite photos to back trace an intrusive power from another continent in less than an hour and had a delivery van for imprisoning vampires available for us to borrow on the spot can't do information games or whistle up help?

They are in a much better place to start and don't carry the same sort of problems.


You keep saying that but when they are relying on us to do literally everything of consequence and then they just act as police what do we need them for. Special investigations is still here when we need actual cops when we need enforcement apparatus (muscle & Intel) marcone's men are actually useful unlike the Library of Congress.

You keep saying they did good work but the only comparative scenario is if we completely shattered the red court and then the Mexican Belize Peruvian Bolivian Etc governments swept in and dealt with all the Mortal collaborators. They did a good job after everything that might have been an actual threat to them has already been eliminated. It's not impressive and it's not even particularly helpful.
The Library ended the flesh trade in Vegas after keeping a political lid on the idiots, got the information we needed in Boston, and the back channels we needed to head off the financial crisis of 2008.

They have done a lot of good for us that the mob simply couldn't. An association with the mob will make all of that more complicated and sets us on a collision course which will weaken all parties involved.


You keep insisting there's a fight when there really isn't there's no sanctioned or existing infrastructure there is no immune system. Daedalus isn't worth mentioning the Library of Congress isn't an enforcement arm they have no ability outside of... nothing actually they just have nothing.
He is a common goddamn criminal who literally has his own FBI task force hunting him. A task force that won't pack up and go home cause we decided he's nice. They won't even go home if he stops committing crimes because they won't believe it.

The mortal government will see this and treat it like what it looks like based on what they know even without the supernatural players.

When you bring them in we then have the Library, affiliated with the Mob through us but unable to explain why, versus Daedalus who we know want to take over and fight this battle themselves.

That leaves the Library stuck in a difficult spot, and makes weaponizing the system against the mobsters trivial. Which will eventually leave us to choose between losing something we've come to depend on or pushing around the legitimate authorities to keep them around.

If any of the many intrigue factions meddles at all it will get worse faster, because they barely need to do anything to move the pieces around.


Al Capone was a 6-year run from start to finish. Marcone has been the Crime Boss in Chicago for years prior to the storm front according to Dresden which takes place in 2000 and by the time story rolls around he's still The Crime Boss so... so far he's been a Crime Boss for at conservatively at least a decade of all of Chicago it's definitively implied that it's been considerably longer than that in the books.

Even if we're making a direct Al Capone reference then he's meeting him bar for bar just on the time in Canon has been going on so far from storm front onward he's already at the same level as Al Capone with nowhere near as much legal both local and National scrutiny.
Al Capone didn't try to take over a state.


This is very explicitly not surgery it is triage this is practicality the reality of the situation is the Library of Congress has nothing, Daedalus is less than nothing, Marcone has existing infrastructure for both information gathering and enforcement. The choice is clear subverting him to our purpose is infinitely more efficient and more likely if we can move him above board to save lives both mundanely and magically both of which are better than trying to forge something from nothing or in daedalus's case less than nothing.

Moving away from the surgery metaphor. Real resources are better than clean nothings any day of the week. Which is the only thing the Library of Congress can actually offer us at any given moment. One of those things saves lives and helps kill our enemies the other does well..
Marcone has less existing infrastructure, he barely has a presence anywhere he wants to expand into. The mortal government factions are changing policy to be more active because of our actions, that's what the letter they sent to the pope about Molly said outright.

Given the same support they can do better and don't have the same problems.

It seems to me that you're refusing to leave your own biases aside when looking at how other people will see things. You're projecting the beliefs it would be most convenient to us for them to hold onto factions who have no reason to have them.

The whole world won't stop on a dime and change how it feels because we want it to.
 
To be honest I feel a bit like Cassandra here; I have a pretty good track record of correctly identifying motives for this sort of thing, not perfect but pretty good.

The most recent examples being the bulk of the Dragonblooded thing and our negotiations with the council.

Considering the number of times we've argued about this sort of thing only for something I've predicted would be a problem to come up could you extend a little trust to the idea that there's serious potential for a problem here?

From my perspective these decisions are being made on a "wouldn't it be cool if?" basis. The motives for the people involved don't matter; they're just dolls we can move around.

On a step by step scale, what do you all think this looks like? When the pimp and extortionist currently exploiting people in their neighborhood gets new marching orders how will they feel about it? What about the people in the community we're relying on their connections to?

In the government what will the mundane police monitoring mundane mobsters believe is happening given what they know? How will they respond, assuming they don't trust hit men and heroin dealers to have good intentions?

From the grand political perspective, what does it look like to that Senator who had to choose between trusting the Library's read of our intentions and the sweet lies of Daedalus on their ability to handle things when someone draws the most obvious conclusion in the world?

How about a red court agent or Outsider spy who really wants us distracted? If you wanted to cause maximum damage what levers would you pull?

To entertain a more direct hypothetical, suppose some months down the line after we've come to depend on their work DA backed by Daedalus launches a sting on some of these guys while they're working on something for us.

The charges? Stuff they actually 100% did at some point, ones with bodies and victims who want justice. Damn if we don't need them out right now though. AP and manpower are tight, and we've got a lot happening at the moment.

We could probably get them out, but is that a situation you want to be in?

Sure we can use political power to do it without violence, but what impression - and recourse - does that leave everyone else with?

These questions are the reason I think this a bad idea; the grand image of a system is blocking the view of the people who're supposed to make it up.
 
Marcone is a mortal more then that a parasite of a mortal. Their no reason to ever deal with or condone his actions. On top of being morally bankrupt, yes he deals drugs, the money in organized crime is 90% drugs, which requires he does or he get stomped on by those that do.

[X] Write in
- [X] Ask for his unconditional surrender and the voluntary dissolution of his organisation by appealing to his desire to continue existing.

This is what we should be doing, Marcone is a insect that was always doomed to be stomped on by the larger powers.
 
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