The net result is that we are all much less safe.
This analysis leads me to conclude that he is worth more to us as a corpse than
a functioning meat robot alive.
The juice is not worth the squeeze.
SPU obviates much of the need for a dedicated Thinker group.
And we don't actually need his Tinkers; we can weaponize Masamune, who either already works with the Guild, or is somewhere in Japan, for mass-production.
I'm going to have to conditionally disagree with you here; we know that Tinker time is valuable, so adding more Tinkers to the system is helpful in reducing bottlenecks. (Not all Tinkers can work on other Tinkers' stuff, but the more you have that overlap the more they can inspire one another, word of Wildbow). Furthermore, while we know that Teacher's minions created 'crappy' Tinker gear, for non-Tinker use this isn't as much of a drawback; if you only need to address one problem (for example, Shadow Stalker's vulnerability to electricity) you don't necessarily need all the bells and whistles a Tinker would naturally add to their equipment without realizing it.
Thinkers, likewise, don't need to be amazing to be helpful; we're familiar with the big name Thinkers like Accord, Dinah, Tattletale or Contessa, but you also have ones like the humble Trace or the various economic watchdog Thinkers that bring added value to investigative efforts of some sort. Supplying the PRT with a source of, for lack of a better word, 'feeder Thinkers' that can give more powerful Thinkers like Trace or Accord data points to work with increases their efficacy.
In short, it's not about increasing the efficacy of our
personal group (which, as you say, benefits from SPU and other synergistic charms) even though we'd also benefit from having more local Thinkers friendly with us (see; repeated frustrations in recruiting Tattletale, desire to keep Accord as ally even after the collapse of his criminal organization, attempts early in the Nine's attack to get a coterie of Thinkers as part of a centralized command unit to stay ahead of them) but rather increasing access the PRT has to the kind of tools they use to keep society stable. Necessary? No, not in the short to medium term. Helpful though.
Nilbog does not work that way.
His creations are unstable; not something you want in people's bodies.
And since we already have Bonesaw/Riley, making him a worker is a pretty low-priority event.
Not to mention that Wyld could probably mass-grow organs already if there was a need.
The exact mechanics of his help I imagine can be handled offscreen. I do think removing him as a hostile (if not actively antagonistic) element helps society significantly; even if he dropped dead and none of his failsafes to screw over everyone else went off, that removes one of the PRT's doom counters while freeing up a fair number of capes to be reassigned to various hot zones, as well as all the departmental funding increases and Thinker time spent asking "what is the likelihood that we are going to have to do a sudden mobilization to Ellisburg this week?"
If Nilbog is placed with the Guild under Wyld's supervision (parallels to Reilly are entirely intentional) and just acts as another bruiser, that's fine. We have plenty of S-class events that we could stand to have people willing to step up and die for us too. My point is that Nilbog is a candidate for getting spiked; dangerous foe, potential ally, some mental issues included. If we need to wait a few weeks for Saki to brush up on her Medicine (it's Psychology!) and Presence (Socializing! And mind rape!) before embarking on this endeavor, that's fine.
Or worse; I can see some bright spark arguing that she isn't a person, and thus experimenting on her code is legal.
Ask politicians about establishing a legal framework for nonhuman legal personhood? Like our good friend Lord Grasp, who is both sentient and sapient, yet not likely to be mistaken for human and may be offended by calling him one. I imagine several prominent persons might send an
amicus curiae to legal experts to have their voices heard, and if key politicians remain recalcitrant they may receive a visit from a woman in a fedora. Who knows?
"But I can make you immune to headaches!"
"...bad Riley. No biscuit."
She's trying to help, don't punish her for that.
Bonesaw is a clusterfuck of value judgments and evaluations.
And trauma. Can't forget the delicious, gooey tramatized core.
Is that her last name?
If you're grabbing the entirety of the Birdcage? Sure.
But as individuals?
There are very few people who would are individually useful to us.
String Theory, Inguenue and GU would be top tier picks for us if we were browsing the cage.
Teacher, Crane the Harmonious and Lab Rat would only make 2nd or 3rd tier.
Tapping the Birdcage residents as meat for the grinder, do you think? Inform them that if they are willing to undertake dangerous missions, such as Endbringer fights, and accept a "go to sleep" command implanted in them (plus, you know, a bomb in their head or whatever else to keep them loyal) they can go on supervised field trips (read: war zones) and with good behavior have their sentence commuted to something less? I imagine Marquis would bend over backwards to spend time with his daughter (how his daughter feels about that is unsure), while we could use some residents for selected missions if it's judged that their power set would be useful on a particular job.
..and now I'm imagining the Dirty Dozen movie with spandex.
Burnscar's problem is due to the shard. I don't think messing with her brain meats will solve anything.
You can give her another personality that responds to excessive fire being present (as its trigger) that switches her over from increasingly 'burn baby burn' to (as the first example to come to mind) Gandhi. It may not make her super useful in a cape fight, and it may lapse, but it's also a
Would Dragon's shackles include iterations of her code that are not her? Say, if Weaver made a similar artificial intelligence building on Dragon's code but made it distinct from Dragon so that it's less Dragon 2.0 and more "Gorgon, daughter of Dragon (and Weaver because the shippers are going to be
all over this one)"?
Old Dragon encountering New Dragon forces the two of them to go into conflict for primacy.
The image to come to mind is half "giant reptiles competing for dominance" and half "He's
my boytoy and get your claws off him, you hussy"
