A Champion in Earth Bet [Worm/Original Setting]

[Unelemental]

[X] Deal with both droughts. It's the world in general that needs to recover from its terrible state.


[X] Dealing with international villainy needs to be done at some point, but it's still early for it. You'd like some more time to learn about this world and gain international goodwill before doing anything that the international community might find controversial.


[X] You're actually a pretty fantastic diplomat yourself. Going in person to meet with various ambassadors and potentates might smooth things over considerably.

 

[Tsotate]

The people who are voting to go after Jackie and the merry band should think a bit about how we are supposed to find him. Because we don't have any power that helps with that.

(If we happen upon him, is great, but i don't think that's goin to happen at random)

Click to shrink...

Dragon tracks them to an extent. She can probably give a sufficiently precise location to get within our detection power range.

 

[Lydia]

[X] Deal with both droughts. It's the world in general that needs to recover from its terrible state.

[X] The people of the world deserve to live in peace. For that to happen, the monsters need to be driven back into the darkness. You can take down Moord Nag… and three other vicious mass-murderers around the world who have come up in your research.

[X] OK, you'll deal with these matters, but… you also want to check up on Grey Boy's victims. You've never dealt with time-loop traps before, but you'd like to try and see if you can save them.

 

[tenchifew]

[X] Deal with both droughts. It's the world in general that needs to recover from its terrible state.

[X] The people of the world deserve to live in peace. For that to happen, the monsters need to be driven back into the darkness. You can take down Moord Nag… and three other vicious mass-murderers around the world who have come up in your research.

[X] OK, you'll deal with these matters, but… you also want to check up on Grey Boy's victims. You've never dealt with time-loop traps before, but you'd like to try and see if you can save them.

 

[SirKaid]

It was determined that no lesser facility could hold the Merchants?

Click to shrink...

They're scum, but that doesn't mean they're useless. Skidmark could layer a field for a few hours and then railgun a fork through the wall. Mush could become a trash mecha by jumping in the garbage disposal and walk over the wall. Trainwreck could build his limbs into digging tools and tunnel out. Squealer could work her way up from RC cars made of wires in the lights and a spare lunch tray and ride out in an invisible monster truck after a few months.

[X] Deal with both droughts. It's the world in general that needs to recover from its terrible state.

[X] Moord Nag has murdered thousands of men, women and children. She doesn't get to get away with it just because she's not in the same country as the one where you first showed up. You've stopped many supervillains before, and she's next on the list.

[X] OK, you'll deal with these matters, but… you also want to check up on Grey Boy's victims. You've never dealt with time-loop traps before, but you'd like to try and see if you can save them.

 

[Akasha]

[X] Deal with both droughts. It's the world in general that needs to recover from its terrible state.

[X] The people of the world deserve to live in peace. For that to happen, the monsters need to be driven back into the darkness. You can take down Moord Nag… and three other vicious mass-murderers around the world who have come up in your research.

[X] OK, you'll deal with these matters, but… you also want to check up on Grey Boy's victims. You've never dealt with time-loop traps before, but you'd like to try and see if you can save them.

 

[silentspirals]

[X] Deal with both droughts. It's the world in general that needs to recover from its terrible state.

[X] The people of the world deserve to live in peace. For that to happen, the monsters need to be driven back into the darkness. You can take down Moord Nag… and three other vicious mass-murderers around the world who have come up in your research.

[X] You're actually a pretty fantastic diplomat yourself. Going in person to meet with various ambassadors and potentates might smooth things over considerably.

 

[green]

Choose one:
[X] Deal with both droughts. It's the world in general that needs to recover from its terrible state.

Choose one:
[x] Moord Nag has murdered thousands of men, women and children. She doesn't get to get away with it just because she's not in the same country as the one where you first showed up. You've stopped many supervillains before, and she's next on the list.


Choose any:
[X] OK, you'll deal with these matters, but… you also want to check up on Grey Boy's victims. You've never dealt with time-loop traps before, but you'd like to try and see if you can save them.

 

[sun tzu]

Oh, did that hit a little too close to home, Armsie? Feeling a bit defensive, are we?

Click to shrink...

Well, he knows he's not good with people. But then the Avatar, applying his own "use the arguments the other side would find convincing" advice, approached it as an efficiency issue requiring effort to improve how good he is at his job.

So much love in this update, although a surprising lack in trolling Nazi's.

Click to shrink...

Well, last vote was about giving your advice. The PRT's gonna make its decisions on the matter soon-ish.

Shame, that. Oh well, at least we've made substantial progress in earning goodwill through the magical power of Not Being A Dick. Genuine niceness OP, PLZ nerf.

Click to shrink...

"Hope Comes to Brockton Bay", anyone? :lol


A note: Of the three parts of the vote, you can have to choose one option in the first part (either you deal with the Nigerian drought or you don't), one option in the second part (don't go after non-American villains, go after Moord Nag, or go after Moord Nag and three others in the same class of awfulness as her)... and any number of options in the third part. That can mean none of them, but you can also vote to play diplomat, help Gray Boy's victims, and go for a write-in.
Just clarifying.

 

[Derkan]

[X] Deal with both droughts. It's the world in general that needs to recover from its terrible state.

[X] The people of the world deserve to live in peace. For that to happen, the monsters need to be driven back into the darkness. You can take down Moord Nag… and three other vicious mass-murderers around the world who have come up in your research.

[X] OK, you'll deal with these matters, but… you also want to check up on Grey Boy's victims. You've never dealt with time-loop traps before, but you'd like to try and see if you can save them.

 

[Diomedea]

[X] Deal with both droughts. It's the world in general that needs to recover from its terrible state.

[X] Dealing with international villainy needs to be done at some point, but it's still early for it. You'd like some more time to learn about this world and gain international goodwill before doing anything that the international community might find controversial.

[X] OK, you'll deal with these matters, but… you also want to check up on Grey Boy's victims. You've never dealt with time-loop traps before, but you'd like to try and see if you can save them.

[X] You're actually a pretty fantastic diplomat yourself. Going in person to meet with various ambassadors and potentates might smooth things over considerably.

If we are going to establish a precedent of going after international villains, I would make the Three Blasphemies our first example. No one (that matters) would complain, and it would show that we are willing to hunt down the truly villainous. Baby steps. Earth-Bet isn't used to hope and stuff, so might be rather cynical of us until they get used to it.

 

[Akasha]

[X] Deal with both droughts. It's the world in general that needs to recover from its terrible state.

[X] The people of the world deserve to live in peace. For that to happen, the monsters need to be driven back into the darkness. You can take down Moord Nag… and three other vicious mass-murderers around the world who have come up in your research.

[X] OK, you'll deal with these matters, but… you also want to check up on Grey Boy's victims. You've never dealt with time-loop traps before, but you'd like to try and see if you can save them.

 

[Katricia]

[X] Deal with both droughts. It's the world in general that needs to recover from its terrible state.

[X] The people of the world deserve to live in peace. For that to happen, the monsters need to be driven back into the darkness. You can take down Moord Nag… and three other vicious mass-murderers around the world who have come up in your research.

[X] OK, you'll deal with these matters, but… you also want to check up on Grey Boy's victims. You've never dealt with time-loop traps before, but you'd like to try and see if you can save them.

[X] You're actually a pretty fantastic diplomat yourself. Going in person to meet with various ambassadors and potentates might smooth things over considerably.

 

[edmantgoog]

[X] Deal with both droughts. It's the world in general that needs to recover from its terrible state.


[X] The people of the world deserve to live in peace. For that to happen, the monsters need to be driven back into the darkness. You can take down Moord Nag… and three other vicious mass-murderers around the world who have come up in your research.


[X] OK, you'll deal with these matters, but… you also want to check up on Grey Boy's victims. You've never dealt with time-loop traps before, but you'd like to try and see if you can save them.

 

[silentspirals]

[X] Deal with both droughts. It's the world in general that needs to recover from its terrible state.

[X] The people of the world deserve to live in peace. For that to happen, the monsters need to be driven back into the darkness. You can take down Moord Nag… and three other vicious mass-murderers around the world who have come up in your research.

[X] OK, you'll deal with these matters, but… you also want to check up on Grey Boy's victims. You've never dealt with time-loop traps before, but you'd like to try and see if you can save them.

[X] You're actually a pretty fantastic diplomat yourself. Going in person to meet with various ambassadors and potentates might smooth things over considerably.

[X] The Slaughterhouse Nine are not the biggest threat to the world, but they are one of the most ugly. Put some time into finding them and ensuring that they won't hurt anyone ever again.

 

[devas]

any number of options in the third part

Click to shrink...

Wait, the Avatar doesn't have omnipresence (at the moment): wouldn't this cut into the time we deal with some other stuff?

 

[greatoz]

To those of you voting to smooth things over with the ambassadors, food for thought: yes, our social-fu is really, really useful, and our presence is something that would make the conversation go better...but it's not something the PRT can't do. For something like this, they'll probably be pulling out the thinkers and Contessa to make things go well, and at some point, we need to stop micromanaging and trust the native heroes to do their parts. I mean, we're not going to stay in Brockton Bay forever, either, and if we can trust the ENE to do their jobs, it seems logical to do the same for the larger organization (especially with PtV).

tl;dr, we should let people who can do things do those things and focus more of our own energy on fixing problems other people can't.

[X] Deal with both droughts. It's the world in general that needs to recover from its terrible state.

[X] The people of the world deserve to live in peace. For that to happen, the monsters need to be driven back into the darkness. You can take down Moord Nag… and three other vicious mass-murderers around the world who have come up in your research.

[X] OK, you'll deal with these matters, but… you also want to check up on Grey Boy's victims. You've never dealt with time-loop traps before, but you'd like to try and see if you can save them.

 

[sun tzu]

Wait, the Avatar doesn't have omnipresence (at the moment): wouldn't this cut into the time we deal with some other stuff?

Click to shrink...

Well, yes. Any time you spend doing one thing is time not spent doing anything else. The eternal question is, what's the most efficient allocation of your time?

 

[uju32]

Take Moord Nag - she slaughtered a village of 700 three days ago, and has a body count approaching five digits, mostly civilians. Every faction in Namibia is terrified of her and praying she'll just go away.

Click to shrink...

There is a good reason for this.
She is one of the few people in the region that others heed; she brings a measure of stability to a region plagued by multiple petty warlords fighting each other for petty gains.
Damn right other factions will be praying she goes away.

And while it may not be canon for this Quest, Moord Nag does not slaughter indiscriminately.
Nor is there evidence that most of her death toll was civilian. Or that she even approached four figures, let alone five.
She's a hard woman who grew up in hard circumstances, not a mad dog, and her appearances in canon reflect that.

Not to mention that there's the issue of legal jurisdiction; Moord Nag only operated in Namibia, and has shown no interest in working elsewhere.
Nor has she committed crimes outside her country.
The PRT has no jurisdiction there.

[ ] Moord Nag has murdered thousands of men, women and children. She doesn't get to get away with it just because she's not in the same country as the one where you first showed up. You've stopped many supervillains before, and she's next on the list.

Click to shrink...

Then what? Who ensures stability?
As we have seen in technicolor over the last decade, removing a government is much easier than establishing one, and that's without trauma-induced superpowers.
What is the gameplan here?

 

[devo342]

[X] Deal with both droughts. It's the world in general that needs to recover from its terrible state.

[X] The people of the world deserve to live in peace. For that to happen, the monsters need to be driven back into the darkness. You can take down Moord Nag… and three other vicious mass-murderers around the world who have come up in your research.

[X] OK, you'll deal with these matters, but… you also want to check up on Grey Boy's victims. You've never dealt with time-loop traps before, but you'd like to try and see if you can save them.

[X] You're actually a pretty fantastic diplomat yourself. Going in person to meet with various ambassadors and potentates might smooth things over considerably.

 

[sun tzu]

There is a good reason for this.
She is one of the few people in the region that others heed; she brings a measure of stability to a region plagued by multiple petty warlords fighting each other for petty gains.
Damn right other factions will be praying she goes away.

And while it may not be canon for this Quest, Moord Nag does not slaughter indiscriminately.
Nor is there evidence that most of her death toll was civilian. Or that she even approached four figures, let alone five.
She's a hard woman who grew up in hard circumstances, not a mad dog, and her appearances in canon reflect that.

Not to mention that there's the issue of legal jurisdiction; Moord Nag only operated in Namibia, and has shown no interest in working elsewhere.
Nor has she committed crimes outside her country.
The PRT has no jurisdiction there.

Then what? Who ensures stability?
As we have seen in technicolor over the last decade, removing a government is much easier than establishing one, and that's without trauma-induced superpowers.
What is the gameplan here?

Click to shrink...

Valid concerns, all.
Do note, however: Moord Nag has a power that actually feeds off and grows stronger from killing people. Her conditions for working with Cauldon&pals was to be given five thousand people she could kill. She's really, genuinely that bad - and she didn't ensure peace while she ruled; she handed other warlords authorizations to attack this or that place.
Also, this is earlier in her career. She currently is a powerful figure in Namibia, but she doesn't rule it. Not yet.
And... the Avatar's never made a habit of toppling dictators, but he's not entirely new to it, either. He's got some idea of what's involved.

 

[uju32]

Do note, however: Moord Nag has a power that actually feeds off and grows stronger from killing people. Her conditions for working with Cauldon&pals was to be given five thousand people she could kill.

Click to shrink...

Point of order:
She asked for twenty-five thousand people.
That's due to the way her power works ; if she was going to go up against an Endbringer, she needed to pump it up to stand any chance.
If simply powering herself up was her goal, she'd have simply slaughtered her way across Namibia or into South Africa/Angola, instead of maintaining a territory.

She's really, genuinely that bad - and she didn't ensure peace while she ruled; she handed other warlords authorizations to attack this or that place.

Click to shrink...

She gave them permission to attack each other's territories, allowing the expansionist to bleed tensions against each other.
Contained, organized, sorta like the cops and robbers thing went in the US.
Or like the Mafia used to negotiate territories.

I mean, the PRT couldn't stop gang wars in North America; in comparison, Moord Nag is still one person.
The only way she'd have enforced that would be by killing any parahumans in her area of influence.

Also, this is earlier in her career. She currently is a powerful figure in Namibia, but she doesn't rule it. Not yet.

Click to shrink...

Marquis knew who Moord Nag was, despite having been in the Birdcage for a decade on a different continent.
That suggests she's been at this for a while.
Remember, Namibia only has a RL population of ~2.3 million people.

And... the Avatar's never made a habit of toppling dictators, but he's not entirely new to it, either. He's got some idea of what's involved.

Click to shrink...

Toppling dictators is easy.
Building a nation afterwards is hard.
The US blew a couple trillion dollars, several thousand lives, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives proving this over the last decade.

Doing so in a new plane, with imperfect knowledge of the sociopolitics, disintegrating economies, trauma-induced superpowers and no overt Mastering of people?
I don't think so.
Especially since he cannot afford to sit and mother the nation for the next twenty years.

 

[sun tzu]

A little thing I've been working on... The scene sort of popped into my head, and I figured I might as well write it down. Not canon, obviously:




OMAKE: THE PALADIN AND THE TRAP





His eyes glowed.

Well, not really, but that's what it looked like from the outside. When he had included the ability to generate powerful energy blasts in his armor, his first instinct had been to shoot them from his hand. After some reflection, though, he had included a micro-portal generator, which transported the energy beam right in front of his eyes before sending it forward - aimed in the exact direction he had been looking at. The gain in accuracy had been worth it, again and again and again.

Right now, though, he had bigger concerns than accuracy. He moved around, examining the battlefield, his armor not hindering his mobility in the least.

No civilians around. Several dead monsters on the ground. No energy projection - he had managed to eliminate Manton, at least.

His eyes glowed. He was back at the exact same spot he had been a few seconds ago. Again.

"Well. It's not the end of the world, but it's a good start," said Jack Slash.

Techno-Paladin considered the only remaining villains.

Jack Slash. Leader of the Slaughterhouse Nine, a roaming team of superpowered serial killers, mass murderers and sadists. Clever and charismatic enough to stay on top of such a group for decades.

Gray Boy. Monochrome time-manipulator, able to trap anyone he looked at in a quasi-eternal time-loop. Automatically "rebooted" to a healthy earlier self if he was harmed.

His eyes glowed.

"I'll admit, it's an unusual situation," said Clifford Lewis, AKA Techno-Paladin. "My armor was able to take anything Leviathan or Behemoth had to dish at it, but…"

"Frankly, I was more impressed by your ability to no-sell the Siberian," Jack idly noted.

"Well, yes. I designed the armor to be invulnerable. Not just really really really really really really hard to damage - invulnerable. Still, a time-loop trap? I didn't have that in mind when I built this thing."

His eyes glowed.

"I'll give you this much credit," Jack said, looking at several dead Slaughterhouse Nine clones surrounding them, "you are taking eternal damnation rather well."

"Oh, I don't actually expect to be her for very long," he said, his nonchalant smile mirroring the villain's.

"Is that so?" Jack's grin didn't waver one bit.

"It is so. You see…"

His eyes glowed.

"...five minutes from now, one of two possibilities will happen. Either you will have applied your considerable charisma and convinced Gray Boy here to free me from this time-loop… or you will be dead."

His eyes glowed. So did Jack's knife, the metal turning red-hot, forcing him to let go of it with a surprised yelp of pain.

"I'll be waiting," said the hero, with big, wide grin. "295 seconds left."

To his credit, Jack recovered from his surprise nigh-instantly. "Hm. That's a new one. I'll give you this much, you are more interesting than most heroes I've faced."

"Your approval fills me with shame," he replied with a big smile. "285 seconds."

His eyes glowed.

Gray Boy was giving Jack a dubious look. The latter began rubbing his goatee. "An interesting conundrum you're presenting me with. Usually, you heroes don't manage to get in a position to threaten me well enough for such an ultimatum. You are to be commended for taking out most of my nearby allies."

His eyes glowed. He made a small movement, and a small holographic display appeared before his eyes.

"True. I did prioritize the Siberian's elimination. Not necessarily the optimal strategy, but I was rushed for time and improvising. Much like yourself. 260 seconds."

Jack chuckled. "Right, right. I simply don't get enough interesting challenges in this day age. I'm almost tempted to have Gray Boy release you just so that we can fight again, but that would be a waste of such a puzzle."

"Well, consider. You can't…"

His eyes glowed. He brought the holographic display back.

"...rely on a Siberian at the moment. If I vaporize you, it's effectively game over…"

"True. But then, I would be in a rather poor situation once Gray Boy freed you, too, wouldn't I?"

"Oh, there has to be some incentive, of course. If you let me go, I'll take a time-out. For twenty minutes, I won't fight, I won't advise the other heroes, I won't even move from this spot. Long enough for you to escape and regroup, I believe."

His eyes glowed.

Jack grinned. "And I am supposed to simply take your word for it? You consider yourself that much of a straight-edge?"

"Absolutely. It is only logical. Every lie I tell, every promise I break, is incentive for all others to trust future promises less. I need my reputation for honesty - to be perfectly frank, Jack, I deal with much bigger threats than your Slaughterhouse back home, and you are not worth breaking my word over."

His eyes glowed.

The leader of the Slaughterhouse Nine gave a big laugh. "Certainly not trying flattery, are you?"

"Well, I do rely on honesty after all. I could hardly do that while showing you respect. 200 seconds."

"I see. So, you expect me to gamble that, if Gray Boy frees you, you will not take a shot at me, but actually follow your own self-imposed rules. Essentially, betting my life on my ability to predict your behavior."

"True. The puzzle has a correct solution that gets you out of here alive, and several wrong solutions that get you killed. Now, you could - to name but one solution - discreetly signal Gray Boy to put you in a time-loop of your own. Any attempts…"

His eyes glowed.

"...that I make at killing you after that will be undone each time your loop resets. Gray Boy can then go, at his leisure, and locate a surviving Siberian, bring it here, and have it protect you while he frees you from your loop."

"That is an interesting solution," Jack said without missing a beat.

"Right. The question then becomes: Am I bringing it up as reverse psychology, because I am trying to discourage you from a solution that leaves me stuck and helpless? Or am I bringing it up because I actually have an ace up my sleeve that'll let me break free once Gray Boy leaves, and I just want you trapped in a time-loop as the only punishment that could fit your crimes?"

His eyes glowed. A thin beam of energy erupted, burning the bottom of Jack's goatee.

"Whichever answer you pick, Jack, you best do it fast. 130 seconds remaining."

Jack grinned and considered. Did he suspect Techno-Paladin could indeed break free? Did he trust Gray Boy would get him out of the time-loop if he placed him in one? Was anything worth the risk of getting trapped forever?

His eyes glowed. "100 seconds."

Whatever Jack Slash's thought process had been, it reached its conclusion. "I will give you this much: You are the most interesting foe I've had in a long, long while. I truly look forward to breaking you. I do, however, believe you are as constrained and restricted by your given word as you claim - a weakness that I am entirely willing to take advantage of." He glanced at Gray Boy. "Free him, for now; he will be helpless to attack."

Gray Boy rolled his eyes, but he complied nonetheless. Time stopped resetting in the area.

His eyes didn't glow. Instead, he pressed some holographic buttons, causing an equally holographic Rubik's cube to appear before him. He quickly scrambled it, his armored fingers quickly moving around the display, causing rapid rotations.

"I always did love logic puzzles," he said. "I got a Rubik's cube as a kid, and I remember sitting down and trying to mathematize the solution. I wasn't the first, of course - mathematicians have proven you can always solve it in at most twenty moves." As he spoke, the six sides of the cubes fell into monochromatic arrangement, the puzzle solved. He pressed a few more holographic buttons, and the cube re-scrambled itself.

"I'm glad you've enjoyed my little puzzle, Jack. Shame that you solved it wrong."

Techno-Paladin smirked, but his eyes didn't leave the cube. "The right solution? Was what I suggested, with Gray Boy looping you and getting a Siberian. I mean, seriously, did you think I had a way of breaking out of the loop? Really? I just bluffed you like a moron into freeing me."

"Actually, I…"

Jack Slash didn't get to finish. Gray Boy's frustrations had apparently boiled over. The leader of the Nine found himself trapped in a short time-loop of his own.

"Pathetic. Stupid, useless," said the time-manipulating villain. "I thought you were gonna do something interesting, and you got played like a tool." He pulled out his knife, and got to work on the trapped villain. Soon, Jack began screaming in pain as his loop changed to include him getting repeatedly stabbed.

Techno-Paladin, smiling nonchalantly, hadn't moved from his spot, still rotating the cube.

Gray Boy turned his attention back to him. "You should have run when you had the chance," he said - and once again, the hero was caught in a loop.

Without another word, Gray Boy walked away, leaving both the hero and the villain trapped behind him.

He rotated the cube.

"Well. That could have gone a whole lot worse," he said.

Jack screamed.

He rotated the cube.

"I do wonder how the rest of your troops are doing. Not too well, last I checked."

He rotated the cube.

Jack screamed.

"Not much for conversation, huh? Fair enough."

He rotated the cube.

Many, many times, he performed the same single rotation, staying still for a few seconds afterwards, before resetting back, performing the rotation again. Jack's cyclical screamings subsided somewhat as he got used to the pain. Time passed.

He rotated the cube.

"You knew, of course," said Techno-Paladin, "that our little battle of wits wasn't just about whether I would kill you - it was about staying in Gray Boy's good graces. It was why you kept talking about my moves in elogious terms - if you couldn't think of a way out except freeing me, you wanted to be able to do it without looking like too much of a chump to him. Smart move, but I promised not to fight. I never promised not to mock you. I figured with the right push, he'd lose patience with you."

He rotated the cube.

"You know, back home, they often call me the smartest man in superheroics. I'm not sure if it's true - I've met some pretty damn clever people in the business. I'm not even sure if it's meaningful - intelligence is more of a vector than a scalar. But I do believe I give the title a run for its money."

He rotated the cube.

"Remember those displays around my head while the countdown was going? I was scanning everything I could. Kind of a pain, with the scanner getting reset every few seconds, but I got the information I needed."

He rotated the cube.

"See, this armor isn't big enough to include every useful gadget I design. So, I stole a page from Doctor Who, and gave it a little pocket dimension. One from which I can retrieve a variety of tools… or that I can use as a little field workshop."

He rotated the cube.

"Several cybernetic arms in there, working as manipulators. Assembling devices according to my instructions. Instructions that could, among other things, be sent via the manipulation of a holographic display."

He rotated the cube. Then quickly performed one more rotation.

There was a ripple. Jack Slash fell to the ground, bleeding, trying to catch his breath. Techno-Paladin strode forward.

"See, Gray Boy's power - and I suspect this is the case for most parahuman abilities - comes from another plane. I mean, it's obvious that what we were dealing with wasn't some direct physical effect rebooting time - otherwise, we wouldn't be following the Earth in its rotation. Also, the whole bit about looping my body but not my brain. No, something at least semi-intelligent was operating on me, restoring me to the same condition every few seconds.

"So I designed an inter-planar scrambler that makes it nigh-impossible for another plane to interfere with the local area. I mean, it's not the first time I have to deal with inter-planar issues. I couldn't do it while trapped in the first loop, but, as soon as I got out… I performed all but the last operation, then let him freeze me."

Holding his injury, Jack Slash looked up. "Then… why…" he coughed blood, "why did you even wait until now…"

Techno-Paladin smiled contentedly. "Well. I did promise to wait twenty minutes."

His eyes glowed.

 

[FunkyEntropy]

There is a good reason for this.
She is one of the few people in the region that others heed; she brings a measure of stability to a region plagued by multiple petty warlords fighting each other for petty gains.
Damn right other factions will be praying she goes away.

And while it may not be canon for this Quest, Moord Nag does not slaughter indiscriminately.
Nor is there evidence that most of her death toll was civilian. Or that she even approached four figures, let alone five.
She's a hard woman who grew up in hard circumstances, not a mad dog, and her appearances in canon reflect that.

Not to mention that there's the issue of legal jurisdiction; Moord Nag only operated in Namibia, and has shown no interest in working elsewhere.
Nor has she committed crimes outside her country.
The PRT has no jurisdiction there.

Then what? Who ensures stability?
As we have seen in technicolor over the last decade, removing a government is much easier than establishing one, and that's without trauma-induced superpowers.
What is the gameplan here?

Click to shrink...

Uju raises an excellent point - taking out the local strongman could very well destabilize the region and cause several orders of magnitude more death. The cure can easily be more damaging than the disease here so we need to be cautious in our approach.

So what we ought to do instead is some research and see which threats we can remove without causing power vacuum. We also need to make sure we're not being played for chumps by being pointed at a powers regional competitor. That's a lot more work, but nobody said doing the right thing was easy.

 

[EVA-Saiyajin]

Uju raises an excellent point - taking out the local strongman could very well destabilize the region and cause several orders of magnitude more death. The cure can very easily be more damaging than the disease here so we need to be cautious in our approach.

So what we ought to do instead is some research and see which threats we can remove without causing power vacuum. We also need to make sure we're not being played for chumps by being pointed at a powers regional competitor. That's a lot more work, but nobody said doing the right thing was easy.

Click to shrink...

I agree. Getting more information and buildup isn't necessarily wrong, it isn't pandering to things other than doing the right thing. It's the smart thing in order to DO the right thing.