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A Champion in Earth Bet [Worm/Original Setting]

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Jarrik32 said:
Sharing the load in regards to transferring staff let alone Parahuman isn't going to work. Not only are people not interchangeable cogs to be swapped out and replaced as needed but everyone is varying levels of screwed, no one really has a surplus. So how would they decide who gets their resources stripped and given that losing people near guarantees death and destruction the local directors would probably fight it even if on paper the benefit outweighs the cost.
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Let me give a barebones, off the top of my head example of this.

Imagine Brockton Bay. We have Lung and Hookwolf who if I remember right, has a mark already. Can't recall if it was a kill order or just straight to Birdcage (Three Strikes being a stupid notion but also not relevant here), but that doesn't matter in this case.

So, we have 'acceptable targets', primed for being taken down by a Protectorate led (or by whoever as long as it isn't part of the local department) team specifically geared towards taking said target (or their allies) down. Aside from the Thinker and tactical brains needed to manage that situation, along with briefing whoever gets chosen of the details, no major distruption is needed in the organization (or maybe from foreign asset in some sort of exchange) as a whole due to how spread out their available resources is.

And even if this theoretical group is only mobilized onces a year, that still culls off the worst of the villain offenders since their target needs a Straight to Birdcage (again, Three Strike's mere existence being absurd) or Kill Order to even qualify.

Imagine if they just sent a sniper to just down Heartbreaker. Either a tinkertech weapon, or a power allowing for a ridiculous Thinker derived solution to off him would work wonders towards dispelling the Parahuman Warlord image. And this is just the first idea to pop into my head.
 
TimEd said:
Imagine if they just sent a sniper to just down Heartbreaker. Either a tinkertech weapon, or a power allowing for a ridiculous Thinker derived solution to off him would work wonders towards dispelling the Parahuman Warlord image. And this is just the first idea to pop into my head.
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"Just do X, and nothing else, will magically solve all your problems" is exactly the backwards mindset Dark as Silver is saying will make things worse. Because hey, how do you know the Master hasn't set up a bunch of human deadman switches who'll launch shooting sprees if he doesn't check in daily? Oh wait. We do. Heartbreaker was someone Dragon noted as specifically causing more chaos on his death than it was worth, keeping the lazy slimebag alive was the less-bad option nobody liked. If you're actually trying to flip the table and change this equation up, maybe think outside the box a bit?

Now, as for your actual idea:
TimEd said:
So, we have 'acceptable targets', primed for being taken down by a Protectorate led (or by whoever as long as it isn't part of the local department) team specifically geared towards taking said target (or their allies) down. Aside from the Thinker and tactical brains needed to manage that situation, along with briefing whoever gets chosen of the details, no major distruption is needed in the organization (or maybe from foreign asset in some sort of exchange) as a whole due to how spread out their available resources is.

And even if this theoretical group is only mobilized onces a year, that still culls off the worst of the villain offenders since their target needs a Straight to Birdcage (again, Three Strike's mere existence being absurd) or Kill Order to even qualify.
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You want the Guild. That's what you're describing. A group of Thinker-backed high-class capes that chase high value targets, that's what we've been building the entire quest. So let me ask you this: Does the Guild have the people to spare for an "can happen at any time" raid on a pre-designated individual who could be in any location within the city surrounded by who knows what capes, fortifications, or suicide traps? But maybe you want something made within the Protectorate to act as a flying crisis squad, and not waste our already AP-Hell Guild time resources. You want to pull a rabbit out of a hat, start with figuring out where a shop that sells rabbits can be found. Who are the people we're putting on this nation-sized crisis team? What makes them qualified for that, but not better served in the Guild?

Are you starting to see how jumping off with a half-cocked idea before getting the full picture or finding out what resources are even present is maybe, just maybe, a path to playing into the villains' hands?
 
The obvious step one here is to look a little deeper to figure out just what the situation actually is.
After that we'll probably need to do at least a little bit of direct heroing in Jacksonville, and help come up with a more long term solution based on what we find out.
 
Anaja said:
The obvious step one here is to look a little deeper to figure out just what the situation actually is.
After that we'll probably need to do at least a little bit of direct heroing in Jacksonville, and help come up with a more long term solution based on what we find out.
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True. The woman he met certainly seems like the sort of person the Youth Guard should be recruiting and promoting (which is nice, but I don't know what interpretation of YG sun tzu uses, either in general or for this fic), but that doesn't mean that she doesn't have bad information, or isn't exaggerating the problem. The first thing to do is find out more from other sources, so that we can make a properly informed decision.
 
Laurelin said:
Also, @sun tzu , this is something I've been wondering for a while now: purely hypothetically speaking, if the Avatar could have brought one or two of his colleagues along for this Earth-bet job, who would he have picked and why? My personal guess would be Techno-Paladin and/or Causality for their scientific knowledge, but how close to the mark am I with those?
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Bleu-Blanc-Rouge though, for them super-brains
LightLan said:
The threat alone to have the Avatar dismantle you if she decides you are too much trouble is a powerful tool in her hands.
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A valuable threat, but a threat you never unleash loses its teeth. Especially if people know you only have one shot left, making you more unwilling to part with it.
TimEd said:
Imagine if they just sent a sniper to just down Heartbreaker. Either a tinkertech weapon, or a power allowing for a ridiculous Thinker derived solution to off him would work wonders towards dispelling the Parahuman Warlord image. And this is just the first idea to pop into my head.
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Imagine killing heartbreaker and his thralls destroying most of the province in revenge. Now you have what we in the business call, a real bad idea.
 
sunsunsunsunsun said:
Imagine killing heartbreaker and his thralls destroying most of the province in revenge. Now you have what we in the business call, a real bad idea.
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Not just most of the province. He has thralls everywhere, implanted everywhere. To take him down risks destroying large portions of the PRT's credibility and secret information, to a ridiculous degree. And they likely would be tactical, not just lashing out.
 
I know he creates a web in the neighborhood of where ever he is currently running around, but does he actually do sleeper agents in that vein?
 
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Imagine allowing Heartbreaker to keep his slaves and make more people like Cherie and Alec and consider it a good idea?

The only reason it was understandable for canon PRT to allow those things to happen is due to the fact that status quo was already fossilized using PtV. Both the good and the bad were managed like plants in a garden.

Now, not only is the balance shifted to one side, I assume the PtV is also no longer keeping the old, conflict alligned status quo.
 
sun tzu said:
"With that in mind, there are two things you absolutely must do. The first is to dismantle the current Belo Horizonte police department - confiscate their guns, their badges, their uniforms. Everyone currently a member of that department was complicit in the cartel's rule to one degree or another; while I'm sure some were good people trying to make the best of a bad situation, it is practically guaranteed that the majority of people left there were dirty and taking advantage of the situation. Best to create a new department from scratch, recruiting locally, getting trustworthy people to review the credentials of every potential recruit to ensure the new department is relatively clean."

She winces. "Do you realize the sheer bureaucratic overhead of recruiting an all-new police for a city this size? Especially if we're putting this much effort into ascertaining the worth of each individual recruit? Even under the most optimistic projections, this would mean several weeks before Belo Horizonte has its own police force. It'll be chaos."

"Not necessarily, Madame President.
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There's actually a RL precedent for this. Several years ago a city in Eastern Europe - I forget which - fired it's entire police force and the crime rate actually dropped like a rock. Turns out most of the crimes in the city were being committed by the police themselves who were abusing their authority to get away with it.
 
TimEd said:
Imagine allowing Heartbreaker to keep his slaves and make more people like Cherie and Alec and consider it a good idea?

The only reason it was understandable for canon PRT to allow those things to happen is due to the fact that status quo was already fossilized using PtV. Both the good and the bad were managed like plants in a garden.

Now, not only is the balance shifted to one side, I assume the PtV is also no longer keeping the old, conflict alligned status quo.
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Let us consider two scenarios. In the first, we maintain the status quo. In the second, we secretly sign a kill order and order Dragon to carry it out.

The first is bad, but over a long period of time. The second is bad, but it's bad right now. If Heartbreaker dies then all the sleeper agents he's created over the years, and he absolutely has them, he would have been killed a decade ago if Thinker support had said he doesn't, go apeshit.

Now, tell me. Your husband, and everyone else in the bakery, is dead because someone shot Heartbreaker. This story is repeated in a few dozen cities. Instead of one new person every month being hurt by a notably lazy rapist, hundreds of people are hurt and killed all at once.

This is a bad trade.
 
Use the Avatars Bullshit Thinker powers to listen in on Heartbreaker for a week or two, identify and either isolate or reprogram any victims depending on the situation. Once this is done and as many sleepers as possible are neutralized, capture Heartbreaker and keep it off the news while thinkers dig out any sleepers who will only activate on his death.

Probably not going to catch EVERY sleeper agent, but it should get most.
 
Everyone does remember that Heartbreaker has already been caught, right? During the Avatar's first world tour, he took out Moord Nag, the Purifier, Wyld Hunter and Heartbreaker, and managed to deprogram Heartbreaker's thralls in the process.

Getting back to the topic of the Jacksonville Wards being sent out too often, I think the Avatar needs to take a look firsthand before making any judgments.
 
TimEd said:
The PRT are the monsters here, the villains are just background hazards.
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Dark as Silver said:
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The 'monsters' are doing this because of the background hazards...
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My analysis would be that it's a bit like a bonsai, with the material circumstances of the region as the wires guiding the growth of this particular branch. The Jacksonville Director started doing this because of the out-of-control villain activity, but by this point it's probably become thoroughly normalized to them and to a decent swathe of the local PRT/Protectorate. Having superpowered teens and kids go out to fight isn't really that extreme an example of "weird shit societies have managed to convince themselves are totally normal".

Lowering the temperature of the conflict in Jacksonville would probably reduce the deployment of Wards, but it could also prompt the local PRT to try a decisive push for control of the region, in which the Wards would still be sent out under the rationale that the 'best' way to secure their safety longterm is to secure Jacksonville's safety longterm. It wouldn't even be a particularly crazy decision, if you asked me. Shit be fucked right now, and the idea of the villain scene festering its way back to the previous status quo after Avatar leaves would absolutely haunt the waking hours of any PRT Director.

Optimally, the plan here should probably be to do some villain stomping with an eye toward the strategic impact of a given cape's removal, then sit down with the Director and work up a plan for how to capitalize on the Avatar's work in a way that won't necessitate continued militarization of the Wards. Give them a path to security which explicitly doesn't require the Wards to be put at risk, so that if they keep doing so it's 100% on them.
 
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Vote is up:

[ ] You are extremely valuable to the Protectorate, both strategically and PR-wise. Bring the matter to the Chief Director's attention, and make it clear you wish to see it resolved.
-[ ] Clarify that you are willing to donate some of your time to assist.
[ ] After acquiring permission, do a highly visible patrol in Jacksonville to scare the villains… and inform the local Director that they can call upon you, conditional upon leaving the Wards out of combat situations.
[ ] Ask the Guild and its contacts to spend a day or two cleaning up the town after Goiânia is handled.
[ ] For now, do nothing directly. Over the rest of the week, when opportunities arise and other matters aren't monopolizing your resources, gather intel on the Jacksonville PRT and villains.



Laurelin said:
Also, @sun tzu , this is something I've been wondering for a while now: purely hypothetically speaking, if the Avatar could have brought one or two of his colleagues along for this Earth-bet job, who would he have picked and why? My personal guess would be Techno-Paladin and/or Causality for their scientific knowledge, but how close to the mark am I with those?
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It's a toss-up between Techno-Paladin (extremely intelligent, can come up with a variety of technological solutions), Causality (scientific genius, extremely versatile magic), and Mimic (got a power for every occasion).

LightLan said:
If she's smart she'll keep one of those three fights in reserve for when she'll really NEED it.

The threat alone to have the Avatar dismantle you if she decides you are too much trouble is a powerful tool in her hands.
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She wouldn't have come to rule 10% of Vietnam if she wasn't smart. ;) (Granted, being a Tinker 8 helped, but she was starting from scratch.)
 
[X] For now, do nothing directly. Over the rest of the week, when opportunities arise and other matters aren't monopolizing your resources, gather intel on the Jacksonville PRT and villains.

Taking action on one person's word alone is a bad idea. Even if she's being completely honest from her own perspective, there may be things she's not seeing. Best to understand what is actually happening before muscling into a situation. Ideally we can solve it in a way that doesn't depend on the Avatar's personal muscle, whether that be social or physical.

....

I have to say, I'm starting to really see the downside of taking the Avatar as the POV character. Powerside it's easy street, but the Avatar is... well... boring. As a protagonist, I mean. He's devoted to heroism above all else and thinks of nothing else, but that means he doesn't really develop a bunch of complicated relationship subplots. I don't know; I'm just finding myself kind of uninvested in his story beyond the fixfic power fantasy.
 
[X] For now, do nothing directly. Over the rest of the week, when opportunities arise and other matters aren't monopolizing your resources, gather intel on the Jacksonville PRT and villains

No point in rushing this to be honest.
They might really need the wards to fight the villains.
 
[X] For now, do nothing directly. Over the rest of the week, when opportunities arise and other matters aren't monopolizing your resources, gather intel on the Jacksonville PRT and villains
 
[X] For now, do nothing directly. Over the rest of the week, when opportunities arise and other matters aren't monopolizing your resources, gather intel on the Jacksonville PRT and villains

Yeah, let's examine this situation carefully.
 
[x] For now, do nothing directly. Over the rest of the week, when opportunities arise and other matters aren't monopolizing your resources, gather intel on the Jacksonville PRT and villains.
 
[X] For now, do nothing directly. Over the rest of the week, when opportunities arise and other matters aren't monopolizing your resources, gather intel on the Jacksonville PRT and villains.
 
[X] For now, do nothing directly. Over the rest of the week, when opportunities arise and other matters aren't monopolizing your resources, gather intel on the Jacksonville PRT and villains.
 
[X] You are extremely valuable to the Protectorate, both strategically and PR-wise. Bring the matter to the Chief Director's attention, and make it clear you wish to see it resolved.
-[X] Clarify that you are willing to donate some of your time to assist.

sun tzu said:
It's a toss-up between Techno-Paladin (extremely intelligent, can come up with a variety of technological solutions), Causality (scientific genius, extremely versatile magic), and Mimic (got a power for every occasion).
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No B-B-R?
 
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