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Get Jinxed: A Tale of Mental Instability and Poor Decisions (Arcane/League of Legends)

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Torgamous said:
Independence is good sometimes.
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They won't ever have it. Even if they gain independence in name they'll lean on the resources and influence of Piltover. If Piltover ever totally pulled out Zaun would collapse into anarchy.

Immortal Lurker said:
[x] Even Better, What If We Snuck Out and Went to Zaun in Disguise?

I don't think this is the optimal choice. I think it's a Jinx choice. Stick it to the man, do good, and have a fun time with your new friend.

Going openly is risky. Silco might use this to start another bloody conflict. Ekko doesn't have the muscle, and enforcers don't have temperament.
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Jinx has massively changed from canon. So I don't think this is the Jinx choice. She went out with her friends covering her last time. She learned to trust a bit more. She has contact with Ekko.

If she wants to help she needs to know who to help. She needs to be able to guard her resources. She was a Zaunite she knows the difficulty of protecting loot by herself.
 
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armentho said:
coming from a real politiks aspect,they are 2 cities living next to each other doors,there is no scenario where independence doesnt devolve into a de dacto apartheid (tho it already is one tbf) combined with cold war
they share services,infrastructure,logistic etc

best case scenario is a form of political and economic union EU style

because rivalry and mutual opposition lead to grindlock and low intensity war for generations to come
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The problem with framing it as rivalry and mutual opposition is that only one side actually gets to set the tone for the relationship. Zaunite gangsters don't go to Piltover and beat up escorts, but Piltover gangsters do go to Zaun and beat up prostitutes. Zaun can either accept this or fight to change it.

Piltover decides whether or not the river is poison. Zaun can either accept its decision or fight to change it.

Piltover decides whether or not the air is poison. Zaun can either accept its decision or fight to change it.

Piltover decides whether or not Lux gives Zaun food, unless Jinx makes the decision for it.

Piltover deciding to stop poisoning the river is nice, but as long as that decision is Piltover's, the next Council or budget or new technology could change its decision back. The only say Zaun has in the matter is how much Piltover values avoiding a riot.

Nothing about this relationship is mutual. It's much more colonialism-shaped.
Darkcore41 said:
If Piltover ever totally pulled out Zaun would collapse into anarchy.
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If anarchy was that easy, anarchists would've won by now.
 
Torgamous said:
Nothing about this relationship is mutual. It's much more colonialism-shaped.
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i wholly agree that the relation is colonialist in nature,my expansion on that take is that there isnt much of a solution and independence will not change/fix that

the geography itself makes it so that their relation will always be colonialist shaped
zaun is a underground city,their access to water,air,trade etc can only come from external sources and the surface inmediatly outside them is occupied by pilltover,meaning no matter what pilltover has the say on their lifes

the only way for that to change would be if zaun wasnt on the underground or if pilltover didnt exist

a zaun that is independent cant change those geographical facts
pilltover will always hold a knife to their throats by just existing in the surface over them

water treatment?,has to be installed on the surface
air? has to be pumped from the surface
trade? has to go through hex gates or sea (going through the surface)
food? grown in the surface or traded (wich still has to go through the surface)

independent or not,pilltover will be the ones getting a said on it just by their geographical position

you cant molotov cocktail your way out the fact clean air can only come from infrastructure that will be installed on the surface and ergo necesitates cooperation with piltover


so if going full independence trying to cut ties to pilltover isnt just an option,that leaves 2 option to get influence over the vital assets zaun needs

>subjugate pilltover (war)
>befriend/scare pilltover

silco is trying to scare pilltover,making occupation of zaun too politically costly but he isnt trying to cut all ties (he relies on the pilltover surface ports to make money,and his deal with jayce mentioned access to the trade routes)
 
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Chengar Qordath said:
Her eyes flicked towards the Zaunite side of the harbor.
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I mean, it sure sounds like Zaun isn't fully physically beneath Piltover and could do trade on its own. Is, in fact, currently doing trade on its own, unless the Zaunite side of the harbor is just an empty beach. Really a lot of the descriptions of the two cities' geography sound like they're more an opposite sides of the river situation.

Geography isn't what's poisoning Zaun. What's poisoning Zaun is that Piltover wants to put its mining, chemical processing, and other various messy industries somewhere else, and Zaun is a convenient somewhere else that doesn't have the political power to say no. And cleaning up the poison could've easily been a thing Zaun was doing, if Piltover hadn't insisted on keeping that infrastructure on its side of the river.

Piltover cleaning up after itself and allowing someone else to give food to Zaun is better than the alternative, but this can never actually be resolved by Piltover deciding to be more charitable, because:
Chengar Qordath said:
There was plenty of that in Piltover too, rich jerks who'd give money to some kind of charity project, but only if they got their picture in all the papers and a building named after them. Their money also tended to dry up pretty quickly after they were done looking good.
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Zaun needs a system that doesn't dry up when it stops being convenient.
 
Torgamous said:
I mean, it sure sounds like Zaun isn't fully physically beneath Piltover and could do trade on its own. Is, in fact, currently doing trade on its own, unless the Zaunite side of the harbor is just an empty beach. Really a lot of the descriptions of the two cities' geography sound like they're more an opposite sides of the river situation.

Geography isn't what's poisoning Zaun. What's poisoning Zaun is that Piltover wants to put its mining, chemical processing, and other various messy industries somewhere else, and Zaun is a convenient somewhere else that doesn't have the political power to say no. And cleaning up the poison could've easily been a thing Zaun was doing, if Piltover hadn't insisted on keeping that infrastructure on its side of the river.

Piltover cleaning up after itself and allowing someone else to give food to Zaun is better than the alternative, but this can never actually be resolved by Piltover deciding to be more charitable, because:

Zaun needs a system that doesn't dry up when it stops being convenient.
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Admittedly the geography of Piltover and Zaun is a bit inconsistent in Arcane. From what I understand, in League lore Zaun is more of a literal underground city located beneath Piltover, while Arcane portrays it as more like a shabby sister city on the other side of the Pilt with lots of underground areas due to all the mining. At the same time some elements of the show make a lot more sense if Zaun is underneath Piltover rather than across the river. Sometimes people cross a bridge over the to get from Zaun to Piltover, while other times the journey is a lot more vertical.

All that said, Zaunite independence would definitely be complicated. Piltover and Zaun are economically entangled and dependent on each other, so they could never put up a hard border. Plus a Piltover still ruled by rich merchant families while Silco and the chembarons run Zaun feels more like a changing of the guard than a real revolution.
 
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I imagine that, while there's technically a clear divide with the river, things blend a bit at the border region, and what any given person might consider real Zaun/proper Piltover may start quite a bit of descending/ascending away from said river.
 
Chengar Qordath said:
Admittedly the geography of Piltover and Zaun is a bit inconsistent in Arcane. From what I understand, in League lore Zaun is more of a literal underground city located beneath Piltover, while Arcane portrays it as more like a shabby sister city on the other side of the Pilt with lots of underground areas due to all the mining. At the same time some elements of the show make a lot more sense if Zaun is underneath Piltover rather than across the river. Sometimes people cross a bridge over the to get from Zaun to Piltover, while other times the journey is a lot more vertical.
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Janna's backstory has Zaun trying to Panama Canal itself and dropping half the city into a sinkhole, which feels like it could cover both the horizontal and the vertical? Maybe?
Chengar Qordath said:
Plus a Piltover still ruled by rich merchant families while Silco and the chembarons run Zaun feels more like a changing of the guard than a real revolution.
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No argument there.
 
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[X] Make a Firm Commitment to Visit Zaun
[X][Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls
 
Torgamous said:
I mean, it sure sounds like Zaun isn't fully physically beneath Piltover
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is both under piltover and across the river



pilltover is composed by 2 peninsulas and a water pass between them
most of the surface is what we would consider ''pilltover''

zaun is located in the souther district,mainly existing as a city build on the caves and canyons of the fissures

and it has 3 levels:



the promenade is the level of the fisures that leads into the surface,the gorge/gate of the fisures



entresol is the medium layer and where most of the ''zaun'' is located at



the sump is the bottom where the mines with toxic gases are located,as well the hobbos and destitute (even by zaun standards) go to die alone

the core issue here is that the majority of zaun is actually underneath piltover,with most its surface acess still boxed by the alcove and other more 'pilty' districts

 
Torgamous said:
Independence is good sometimes.
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Realistically, if some charitable rich ass councilor had given Zaun full independence back when Vander in the gang first tried for it, where would they most likely be now? The answer is, they'd most likely be occupied by Noxus, or one of the other nations who would see them as nothing more than a stepping stone to piltover. It comes back to what Vander always knew ever since his friends died on that bridge. Independence for Zaun would cost generations of blood, sweat, and tears.

This isn't to say it can't happen, but Ideally, Zaun needs to be in a much better place before that sort of thing can occur and not end poorly. In general, both cities need to build out so they have the room to spare for a neutral zone between them.
 
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Torgamous said:
Geography isn't what's poisoning Zaun.
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nah,geography is definetly poisoning zaun,sometimes in a very literal sense (with the toxic gases from the sump mines)
it sets zaun with a losing hand against pilltover

when most of their population leaves into the isolated cave/canyon region that relies on the surface infrastructure of the mostly 'pilty' districts,they are in a losing position,this isolated position combined with need for infrastructure to be livable make it expensive and prone to poverty

independence or not nothing stops pilltover from cutting them off from their lifelines (bombarding the surface air filters for example)

zaun cant really change that at a fundamental level,pilltover will always have easier access to the surface than zaun will,yet zaun vital infrastructure has to be surface based

is from this reality that solutions have to be planned
 
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I'm still standing by my plan for Bilgewater to fund Zaunite development and Piltover relocation efforts so they can both grow apart enough for the split
 
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Currently less than half the people voting are voting on will power.
Chengar Qordath said:
[ ][Charity] Clear it With The Enforcers First
Issues: Daughter of Zaun (-1), The Other Side of the Pilt (-1), Powder (-5)
Failure Result: Jinx Comes Across as Not Caring About Charity

[ ][Charity] Make a Firm Commitment to Visit Zaun
Issues: Trauma (-3), Abandonment (-3), The Other Side of the Pilt (-1)
Failure Result: Jinx Annoys the Council by Overstepping

[ ][Charity] Ditch the Guards Completely, The Firelights Can Handle Security
No Roll Needed

[ ][Charity] Even Better, What If We Snuck Out and Went to Zaun in Disguise?
No Roll Needed
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This vote will tally better as a task vote, so I've made task vote style versions of the vote options.

[X][Charity] Make a Firm Commitment to Visit Zaun
[X][Willpower] Spend Zero
 
[X] Ditch the Guards Completely, The Firelights Can Handle Security
[X][Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls
 
Randino Treviani said:
Currently less than half the people voting are voting on will power.

This vote will tally better as a task vote, so I've made task vote style versions of the vote options.

[X][Charity] Make a Firm Commitment to Visit Zaun
[X][Willpower] Spend Zero
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Thanks for that. I meant to set it up as a task vote, but looks like that got lost in the shuffle at some point while I was configuring it.
 
[X][Charity] Make a Firm Commitment to Visit Zaun
[X][Willpower] Spend Zero

Independance for Zaun is almost impossible and not really a desirable outcome for several reasons. Zaun and Piltover are not seperate cities, they are districts of the same city that became culturally and economically divided with the First Industrial Revolution with the bourgeois merchant houses and inventors of the city concentrating in the districts that would become Piltover, whilst the proletariat laboured in the factories and mines that today mostly fall in the undercity/Zaun. Before this revolution the whole city was just Zaun without such a major cultural and economic divide.

With the Hextech Trio set to lead the Second Industrial Revolution we could reverse that divide by leveraging our monopoly on hextech technology. If a business wants to use hextech we can demand they hire Zaunites, pay fair wages, and maintain good working conditions or they don't get the tech. With us being the gatekeepers of the technology that will reshape the industry and economy of the city we have immense soft power in that regard, even without flexing our council connections. Plus all the profits from sales we can re-invest back into the community to gradually mend the divide. The First Industrial Revolution shattered Zaun, but with the Second we have a real opportunity to restore the unity the city once held, even if the old guard on both sides of the Pilt refuse to see it and will stand in our way.
 
[X][Charity] Make a Firm Commitment to Visit Zaun
[X][Charity] Ditch the Guards Completely, The Firelights Can Handle Security
[X][Willpower] Spend Zero

Updated my vote for task counting
 
[][Charity] Make a Firm Commitment to Visit Zaun
[x][Charity] Ditch the Guards Completely, The Firelights Can Handle Security
[x][Charity] Even Better, What If We Snuck Out and Went to Zaun in Disguise?

Still approval voting everything but asking for permission.

EDIT: Nah.

[x][Willpower] Spend Zero

"Sometimes working in the realm of international trade and politics means accepting unpleasant realities. And Zaun is a super unpleasant reality. You gotta accept that shit."
 
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