If their insanity is caused by trauma, like Alec's sociopathy, it could possibly be reversed. And if it's a "curse" like C53 status, it could likely be similarly suppressed. Travellers will probably find him through Faultline if she can get access him, and he'll get on Ziz's radar by stopping Echidna.
Nope. There is a lot of red tape, and if that was the case Piggott would've already done that. They have to actually disprove the master allegations, which is why I think they were grabbing the people Aperion "mastered", but also to stop any plots, since he could be the thinker behind it all.
To be fair, by PRT protocol, any encounters between the Protectorate and PRT and Apeiron would always end with them having to take him in for "questioning". It's what Piggot set, way back since the start of the transcript business. It's this kind of confrontation that Joe is trying to avoid, considering the Protectorate has enough on their plates without them being wasted in failing to capture him.
The whole grabbing of "Mastered" people is publically considered a shitshow in the story, mostly because of how irrational it is in the perspective of outside departments. Dragon noted as much in her Interlude - the PRT confined Panacea under M/S protocols, and somehow that was Apeiron's goal? It was one thing if she was being made to do something against her will, but on the outside perspective Apeiron has nothing to gain from Panacea being confined and the New Wave splintering. The damage was not done by Apeiron, but by the PRT's response to Apeiron, and it's this kind of blame-slinging that has the local PRT being so maligned by other departments.
The stream went viral, they likely assessed what happened out of context, and it wasn't helped by the already-existing suspicion of mastering Amy.
You should remember that at this point of the story the attack on Canberra has already happened and overall opinion of Master powers have plummeted even lower than it already has so the initial reaction of the PRT could have been seen as justified by the public and the rest of the departments if in the context of a possible appearance of a master parahuman influencing Panacea who is the foremost parahuman healer the PRT has on hand. The issue is with how they handled it afterwards IMO because at that point they were already losing their justification for what they did as it became increasingly clear Apeiron was not a master cape
Except, if one studied how the Master allegation came about in the first place, it was due to 1) the incompetence of one of the people who managed the trinket that Joe gave to Panacea as proof of his Tinker skills (which didn't even work, because of Armsy's pride denying the possibility of some newbie in town being a better Tinker than him) and 2) the fact that the PRT was so corrupt that Coil was able to use #1 to direct PRT response towards being negative towards Joe.
I don't think anyone is denying that it's the PRTs (and by a small extension cauldron's) fault, but it's not entirely unjustifiable from what info they have is all I'm saying, and that seems to be Trevor's point aswel.
Indeed, the PRT failed to respond appropriately to the situation and when they realised this fact seemed to double down on it rather than try to solve the issue. Honestly, I think their actions were mostly influenced by how it would have been seen politically and publicly if the PRT admitted fault with how they handled the situation with an, at the time, unknown likely newbie parahuman. Publicly it would have caused people to lose some measure of faith in the organisation and give their detractors material to use against them. Politically it would be seen as much the same as they would be seen as failing their duty and being incompetent. So they instead decided to continue with their course of action to hopefully stall for time to figure out what their next best move would be get out of the mess with the least amount of harm to themselves and instead inadvertently dug themselves deeper into the mess and now have to deal with its consequences.
Lisa: yo, here's the inside scoop, the PRT thinks you might be a Master
Hasn't Joe already communicated with Armstrong and Weld before, since when was he forced to call the local PRT who specifically blacklisted him and with Coil screwing Joe over? Also I feel like you were exaggerating the reaction with Clockblocker and Vista being called in, which you know why he was in a rush and didn't feel like dealing with PRT bullshit. And you know why Joe has reasons not to join and be strongarmed into it. Yes he's practically invincible to them, but he doesn't like flexing his power like that, so he just avoids it. Joe has some blame, but certainly far less than you seem to think he does.
He's not obligated or forced to do anything, no.
I absolutely agree that the PRT is doing what police do, but I don't think that it's the correct response. I don't think Joe is morally free of blame, but I think there's just as much responsibility on the PRT's part for not trying to reach out to him as there is on Joe for not reaching out to them. It's a classic example of one of those drama plots that leave you screaming at your TV "JUST TALK TO EACHOTHER FOR 5 MINUTES".
Up until the PHO account was verified, there was no way to contact him. He'd just show up and disappear at random. Do you expect them to go on tv and be like "Hey Apeiron, we'd like to talk with you? Pretty Please Call Us?"
The thought of a Joe who just has the memories given to him by the forge terrifies me.
Yeah, Weld called Boston for Apeiron, and it was a very brief conversation, and he ended it the moment the call was traced, ENE had no way of contacting the dude until he got his PHO account verified, and there's probably a process to getting someone cleared to communicate with someone with Master Accusations, not to mention the State Of Emergency (Weld talked to him before the state of emergency, and was likely clear due to being immune to most master effects)
You underestimate the power the PRT can bring to the field too much too. Clockblocker and Vista is the easy option, but Miss Militia and Dauntless can hit pretty damn hard, especially Dauntless who can bring to bear exotic effects to some degree. And don't forget Dragon and the rest of the New Wave are around too. And while despite all that, Joe would still most likely walk away clean as a daisy, the potential collateral damage of such a confrontation could be immense, and Apeiron being seen as someone who would just walk straight up to PRT and demand things would most certainly cause things to further escalate.
My friend, you ignore the obvious option here, Garment XD
Part of the problem is that the people who a part of the Think Tank are already working on this, or more specifically they aren't being coordinated when working on this. It was mentioned in the Coil interlude that the members of the Think Tank were working on this issue in their spare time, causing a disorganized mess of analyses & predictions, which in turn leads to more confusion regarding the issue.
I did think of that, but unfortunately Garment doesn't have the political clout to act as the third party plus it's WoG that her being related to Apeiron would soon become an open secret anyway.
which is honestly something that makes a lot of sense, Thinker intelligence could be an amazing force multiplier and so their time is very valuable and taken by a lot of different things.
