i agree on this but it is a good to remember there is other forces in play other then ourselves but if we could resonably sway silco to a better path of zaun independence i'd be all for that
Yeah definitely, we obviously can't control everything (or anything other than Powder/Jinx) - but I'd just like to bear in mind that a disagreeable person fighting against the people occupying and oppressing them is still on the net probably better than the people doing the occupying and oppressing, even if those people are agreeable. Even if they might be more annoying to deal with. If we can, I'd like to steer clear of falling into the trap of thinking that while oppression is bad, but the real main villain is anyone who "goes too far" doing something about it, while the people complicit are just a bit morally grey as long as they vaguely feel that something should change eventually.
Violently resisting Piltover could in some situations be unwise strategically, but it isn't immoral. And I'd argue that some level of violence is and was almost certainly necessary.
Violently resisting Piltover could in some situations be unwise strategically, but it isn't immoral. And I'd argue that some level of violence is and was almost certainly necessary.
no arguement's here, on the likely necessity of violance in the future but the violence isn't what i took most worry from on silco in cannon i'm more worried about singed and his shimmer and the side effects it has on consumers after the benifits of shimmer wear off. but then again drugs are big money, illigal money, but big money so i suppose thats silco's horse's in the race of personality downside's drug lord let's call him the(shimmerbaron), and a revolutionary
no arguement's here, on the likely necessity of violance in the future but the violence isn't what i took most worry from on silco in cannon i'm more worried about singed and his shimmer and the side effects it has on consumers after the benifits of shimmer wear off. but then again drugs are big money, illigal money, but big money so i suppose thats silco's horse's in the race of downside's drug lord, and revolutionary
Shimmer is one of the things that's (IMO) very interpretation dependent. We see it act in a number of different ways in canon. It's clearly ruined Hux's body, and Deckard looks really fucked up and possibly addicted after the one dose (although he doesn't live long enough for us to see any long term effects). On the other hand, Sevika takes it several times during her fight with Vi and she doesn't have any mutations, Silco is microdosing medicinally, and when Vi takes it she's healed without any long term complications or mutations. Additionally, a lot of Silco's goons are taking it recreationally without turning into giant monsters at all. There's the Chem-tanks. And then there's Jinx.
So... is this different variants? Was it a matter of the early version being imperfected, or was Hux buying shimmer cut with something else for whatever reason, or is it something where you don't have any effects as long as you keep taking it, and then if you stop it all catches up to you? Some mixture of those or something else entirely? What the QM decides Shimmer is plays a big role in how bad it actually is and how we have to react to it.
Edit: Oh was also going to mention - but I love the decision to have Warwick be Vander's last name. Vander Warwick, Vi Warwick, Powder Warwick, and Jinx Warwick all go pretty hard as names.
[X][Mousers] Grenades For Everyone
[X][Willpower] Spend Zero
2d6: (2+2)-4 = 0
Failure
Did Vi seriously expect me to back off on this after I'd finally gotten the mouser bombs working? I'd put so much effort into them, put up with so many cracks about my useless gadgets and how I was a Jinx, and now she expected me to just give up when I'd finally gotten them right? Okay, grenades weren't toys, but Ekko knew what he was doing, while Mylo and Claggor weren't idiots. Well okay, Mylo was a bit of an idiot, but he wasn't dumb enough to blow himself up with a bomb.
I grinned and started handing out mousers to the boys. "Just be careful with them. They should be pretty safe, but things that big explosions are never completely safe, you know? I don't want you guys blowing yourselves up."
"Yeah, bombs aren't toys, even if they are cool," Ekko agreed.
I was gonna agree with him and give the boys a quick run-down of how to use the mousers, but I felt one of Vi's hands land on my shoulder. "Powder? Could I borrow you for a second?" Her voice came out tight and tense, without that extra bit of gentleness she usually put into it whenever she was talking to me.
Oh boy, she was gonna try and lecture me again. Might as well get this over with. "Yeah, okay." I sighed and resigned myself to what was coming as I let Vi lead me away from the group. Hopefully this wouldn't be too bad.
Once we were far enough away from the group and went behind one of the mostly still standing buildings to have some privacy, Vi didn't waste any time getting straight to the point. "So you're giving away bombs now. Do I even need to point out how dumb that is? I like Mylo and Claggor, but neither of them is qualified to be handling your mousers. If they do something stupid and blow themselves up..."
"They're not that dumb," I shot back. "If they wanna drop a bomb in one of the mining pits and watch it go off, why not let them? Or they could drop 'em into one of the flooded pits. I haven't seen how my mousers look when they blow up underwater."
"Powder." I felt Vi's grip on my shoulder tighten. "I'm really not sure about you working on your mousers anymore. Have you told Vander about how big their explosions are? What about letting Jayce check them over to make sure they're as safe as you think they are?"
"I've been working on the design for years, Vi. I know they're safe." I grinned and put my hands behind my head. "Though the boom was a little bit bigger than I expected it to be. I'm not sure if that's just 'cause I crunched the numbers wrong, or if it's something to do with the crater. Could be the shape of it channeled more of the explosion upwards, or there could be some kind of explosive gasses down there, or maybe even some old leftover chemfuel in one of the pieces of mining equipment down there that went off? I guess I'll have to test some more to find out for sure." I was already looking forward to that.
"Maybe you should ask Jayce if he knows what's going on instead?" Vi pressed. "There's no harm in getting an expert opinion on this kinda thing first."
I frowned back at her. "Uh, when it comes to mouser bombs the only expert on all of Runeterra is me." Jayce knew more about engineering than me, especially the more math-y and science-y parts of it, but as far as I knew he'd never built a bomb before. He could figure it out if he took some time to think about it, but I was pretty sure right now I had more practical experience.
I looked up at Vi. "What's going on? I thought you'd be happy for me. I've been working on getting my mousers working for so long, and you were always the one who said I should keep working on getting better with my gadgets. How come you're the only one who isn't happy that I can finally start blowing stuff up?"
"I never thought you'd actually get them working!" Vi all but shouted at me. "I didn't wanna stomp on your dreams when things have been so hard for you lately, so I didn't say anything, but you shouldn't be messing around with bombs at all! What if something goes wrong with them and you get hurt or die?"
"Nothing's gonna go wrong," I shot back. "I know what I'm doing."
"No. You think you do, but you don't." Vi groaned and buried her face in her hands, rubbing her temples. "Powder, you're my brilliant genius sister who can do more with tech than most adults, but you're eleven. That's way too young to be messing around with bombs. Why can't you just stick to something that isn't dangerous and won't blow and hurt you or other people if something goes wrong?"
I wanted to point out that the amount of energy we were playing with using Hextech was way bigger than anything in my mousers, but that probably wouldn't help my cause. "I am working on useful stuff to help people. The mousers are just kinda a hobby. And some emergency self-defense."
"Emergency self-defense?" Vi repeated, her jaw dropping open as she stared at me. "You can protect yourself with something way less crazy than grenades. If you set one of those off in The Last Drop you'd probably kill half the people in the bar. Especially if it's one of the ones you filled up with shrapnel first to 'really mess people up.' Where do you even get ideas like that?!"
I scoffed. "It's a pretty obvious part of how explosives work. The actual kaboom is dangerous, sure, but you can send bits of shrapnel going really far that increase the kill range by—"
"Powder!" Vi shouted, cutting me off mid-explanation. "You shouldn't be thinking about stuff like how to use your bombs to kill people at all! That's not—I've been busting my ass to try and let you have some kinda normal childhood, and now this comes out? Dammit, Vander and I have been—all you have to do is keep working on all this tech stuff, be a good lab assistant, and maybe you can get a few connections to actually get out of Zaun and have a good life."
"Get out of Zaun?" A second later I realized what she was actually saying. "Oh, I get it now." I glared at her. "I bet you were so happy when you found out Jayce wanted me to work for him. Finally, you had a chance to pawn your worthless Jinx of a sister off onto someone else! I bet you've been dreaming of the day that would happen!"
Vi took a step back from me, emphatically shaking her head. "What?! No!"
"Or maybe it's something else." I clenched my teeth. "Maybe you liked me better as helpless little baby Powder, your tagalong little sister everyone else just put up with 'cause it was the price of hanging out with you. Now you see me getting popular all on my own, and it doesn't feel good, does it? I don't see anyone inviting you to come hang out in Piltover now that your to weeks are done. I bet Caitlyn's gonna tell all her fancy snob friends about this big dumb uncouth Zaunite she was stuck hanging out with, and they're all gonna be laughing at you."
One of Vi's hands slapped onto the wall next to my head. "Powder! Shut up and let me talk!" She growled and closed her eyes, taking several breaths between clenched teeth before she actually said anything. "Look, I know you've been working hard on finishing your mousers, and I am proud of you for finally pulling it off, but I'm really—"
"If Sevika were here, she'd say that's one of those sentences where everything you said before the 'but' is a bunch of garbage," I pointed out.
"Oh for fu—" Vi cut herself short with a frustrated growl, closed her eyes again, and when she opened them she looked completely different. Her voice came out softer too. "Okay. Look, I know I'm not handling this great, but I just want to make sure you're safe. I know you probably know more than me about how your bombs work. Maybe I'm just freaking out over nothing, but when I hear you talking about wanting to use them to mess people up it's hard not to..."
She kept talking, but the words started fading into the background as something finally clicked for me. It had always bugged me how Vi talked to me differently from other people. She'd be bit more crass and rough around the edges, but whenever it came to me there was always this weird kind of softness to voice and words. I'd always chalked it up to me being different 'cause we were family, but watching her made something click into place. It reminded me of simpler times, when I was a little kid having nightmares or getting sad about stupid kid things and Mom would show up with this soft smile on her face and...
"Are you ... are you trying to talk to me like you're Mom?!" I growled and shoved Vi away before storming past her, ignoring when she called out after me. The last thing I wanted to do was hear her try to explain why she'd just tried to pull that nonsense.
I was still annoyed at Vi a few hours later when I was headed for the bridge to meet up with Jayce and Viktor. At least everything else in my life was still going great. Working on some Hextech sounded like a great idea to distract myself from my big dumb sister being a big dumb stupid-head. Hopefully she'd stop being done before we figured out all the details for moving HexTech to the undercity. Vander had been talking about having her hang around as our extra muscle for security since she wouldn't attract as much attention as someone like Sevika. Most Zaunites would figure she was keeping an eye on her sister, not protecting some big expensive tech collection.
Ugh. Normally I wouldn't have minded having her around, but right now the last thing I wanted was to see even more of Vi. Until she could get her head out of her butt and stop being such a poop head I'd rather have someone like Sevika scaring off any thugs.
And speaking, there was Sevika right now. She was standing near the bridge along with her crew, looking over everyone before waving them through. What was going on? Some kinda shakedown? Gangs had tried to charge people going across the bridge for 'protection' before, but that kinda thing never lasted long. Vander wouldn't stand for it, and once the Enforcers caught wind of it they'd usually cross just long enough to break it up. Not to mention that kinda move was way too low and scummy for Sevika. It'd be like Heimerdinger helping me with my mousers.
Sevika spotted me and waved me over. "Powder? What're you doing here? Shouldn't you be back with Vander, or hanging out with the other kids?"
I shrugged. "I'm going across the bridge for work. What's going on?"
"I thought you and your sister were done with that crap." Sevika grimaced. I guess she hadn't heard that I'd turned my temporary job into the whole Hextech partnership thing. I guess that figured, we weren't telling everyone in Zaun about it yet.
One of Sevika's heavies cleared her throat. "Hey, boss? We need to start locking down the bridge if we want things clear before the big show. You said you wanted it clear of civvies before we made our big move."
Sevika glowered at the thug. "Yeah, sure, blab about our plans in front of everyone." She sighed and shook her head. "Okay, Powder, you're the last one across the bridge." She raised her voice. "Everyone else, start locking down our end of things. I wanna give everyone on the bridge a couple minutes to get across and clear out before we send our little piggy back to market. We don't know how bad the Enforcers are gonna freak out, but it seems like a safe bet they're gonna be pretty pissed.
She turned back to me, a scowl on her lips that at least didn't seem to be aimed at me. "You heard me, Powder. Get on that bridge, get across, and don't look back. The shit that's about to go down ... that bridge is gonna be no place for little girls."
What the heck was going on here? On the one hand, if Sevika was being this serious about not wanting me to know what was going on, maybe I should listen to her? On the other, if she was locking down our end of the bridge and trying to clear it of any civilians that had to mean something big was about to go down. I wanted to know what it was.
Current Stability; -1
Willpower: 3
[ ] Get Across the Bridge, Don't Look Back
Costs 1 Willpower as Powder suppresses her curiosity.
[ ] Get Across the Bridge, but Find Somewhere Safe to Watch
Find out what Sevika's up to.
It sucks but the entire system is built around Powder's trauma have tangible effects. I'm not trusting that she'll be able to positively influence anything that could happen and knowing anything important is going to lead to difficult decisions about who to inform.
"It's a pretty obvious part of how explosives work. The actual kaboom is dangerous, sure, but you can send bits of shrapnel going really far that increase the kill range by—"
For those unaware a fragmentation range of an old defensive grenade can be as far as 100m in the open field. You can't throw it that far, so you have take cover after throwing it, therefore "defensive".
Edit: [] Get Across the Bridge, Don't Look Back
Edit 2:
Retracted my vote, can't decide
