What about Contessa? She can run a path to turn anyone into scum if given enough time and if she can actually path them. Don't say she's an exception, she actually exactly a perfect example. The argument is that thinkers bring you into lows but that's something you choose to do. PTV works with that as well ultimately, if it is possible, even with a 0.00000001% chance of happening, she'll make it happen.
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I'm not really saying Uber and Leet are fully innocent, but I want others to realize that things like this aren't so clear cut and trying to rationalize by simplifying things in order to justify more extreme actions is partially the kind of thing that put Taylor into a downward spiral in canon.
If Contessa runs a path to turn me into a scumbag, then more so than with any other thinker's involvement, I am now a self-assured, card carrying piece of shit. God help anyone who wants me to be redeemed, who thinks I ought to have a second chance due to power based influence on me, because plot device fedora said no. Being awful is now assuredly my fate.
In the case of Leet, a hypothetical redeemed future version of him ought to be happy that Uber was not that strong and that Marche was not YET a discount contessa. That's the only reason any good in him would have managed to survive long enough for him to turn his life around.
I wouldn't say it's an undue rationalization to say Leet perhaps ought to face some harsh punishment for what's he's done. But yeah, anyone of the mindset that that punishment ought to be delivered onto him forcefully as he cackles maniacally, because he's just too far gone and "I" need to take him down a peg, is kind of missing the point. He ought to accept punishment onto himself if it comes to him, but beyond that he ought to work to atone in appropriate ways if he wants to be better, because punishment for punishment's sake in any scenario is just stupid. I know the worm setting isn't exactly going to offer any rehabilitative support, so I'd say Leet's best chance is to get offered a PRT rebranding on the grounds of his new apparent potential and then to be assigned a therapist. Though with their weird rotating therapist schedule thing, Leets still gonna have to pick up most of the slack for his self-betterment on his own.
And if he doesn't want to change, he just ought to be taken down quickly, without anyone else's moral opinion of him overcomplicating the process with weird punishment fantasies or ill-justified extreme actions. I agree there. I think that would indeed contribute to a downward spiral in this case. It doesn't seem exactly inappropriate to get a bit extreme, though, while Leet is in the midst of aiding terrorism and trying to Tron download a city of people.
Edit: and to avoid double posting, I think I'll mention that Toy Box usually tries to recruit new Tinkers that show promise... what happened to their recruiter? Is he wandering about the Bay even now, rushing around every time Apieron makes an appearance only to arrive too late to make contact? Also, it would seem to me Apieron is perfect for the Elite as well... (well, from their viewpoint at least).
Toybox could just digitally contact him at this point. I'd say we're looking at a few possibilities:
1. No one at Toybox is interested in bothering the powerful mega-tinker while he's in the middle of an 8-way gang clusterfuck.
2. No one at Toybox wants to be made obsolete within their business by including an apparent "whatever the fuck I want to build" tinker who seems to be happy enough already doing "mercenary work" on his own. This doesn't preclude them hiring him for specific tech issues and a short term basis.
3. No one at Toybox wants the attention bringing in Apeiron would level at them, because he's kind of become a Big Deal recently to the PRT.
4. The people of Toybox think he's a gradually degrading mad scientist, or a master, or any other such negative theory casting Apeiron in a light where they wouldn't want to work with him as a person.
