The biggest problem with The Unwritten Rules is that they only work if everyone obeys them. That's the most important part. A smaller, but still important, issue is that once caught villains should be subject to the same legal proceedings as any other criminal. Sure there may need to be some allowances for the differences in containing them, but ultimately there should be actions that revoke the "protection" of The Unwritten Rules such as multiple homicides. In canon the heroes and villains are basically playing by 2 separate sets of rules, such as how the E88 is apparently free to murder other capes with no repercussions while the PRT has to bend over backwards to use non-lethal measures against Hookwolf.
the cops don't wear masks thing doesn't actually hold water when in our world american and mexican cops leave their place of work in a manner that lets them hide the fact they are cops and use many techniques to hide their family and friends from being targeted by their work. the unwritten rules created by wildbow are reflections of the rules of comic books but those rules are a reflection of our world and more specifically appeared in comics as the al capone style criminal was removed from criminal society leaving only those criminals willing to go after a cops family. heroes need masks because of the jack slash of the world
I agree with these two quotes here. In an ideal system, masks would be a privilege given to heroes and rogues, but not villains, precisely because of the sort of thing that happened to Jess. In an ideal system, villains should be unmasked upon capture, precisely so that they will no longer be able to hide behind a secret identity if they escape.
That being said, if the only way to get other "heroes" to stop playing cops and robbers is to unmask themselves, I can't be less than impressed with New Wave for at least trying to be a voice for change.
Obviously it's preferable for everyone that society isn't destroyed, but if the options are "surrender", or "end the world", people (especially the self-selected villains) are going to end the world. This is how mutually assured destruction works, the promise that I will kill us all rather than let you win, and it's actually a perfect analogy for the situations that result in the supposed break down of the Unwritten Rules.
The Protectorate and large villain organisations are nuclear states. They can only skirmish, they can't go to war, with each other because it'll result in mutual destruction. Smaller groups like New Wave and co are non-nuclear states, the nuclear states can do break the rules against them with minimal consequences, because other nuclear states aren't going to end the world to protect someone else, even if they're sympathetic to the victim and oppose the aggressor.
I'm struggling to explain this, and I don't want to derail the thread, so I'll stop here.
And this is the counterargument to Sarah's argument above. I don't think anyone on either side disagrees with Sarah's assessment that the Unwritten Rules are basically a safety valve to keep heroes and villains from pursuing fights to their conclusion, the question is just whether the heroes could win the fight if the Rules weren't in place. Granted the villains would undoubtedly lose (either due to being defeated by a heroic crackdown, or by having the civilization on which they prey destroyed by collateral damage), but the heroes might lose as well.
Actually, I think that's the real difference between New Wave and the Protectorate here. Both sides acknowledge that the current system is broken and corrupt, both sides acknowledge that one possible alternative is a total collapse that is even worse, but New Wave still has hope that a
better system might be attainable if we are willing to fight for it.
Also, on a totally unrelated note, I would like to propose Constellation for Taylor's hero name. It sounds heroic, kind of fits New Wave's light-based theme, and I think it also fits the power.
