I think this makes sense for chaff, but not meaningful NPC enemies.
I think that quote was for mortals fighting each other, but fair enough.
I have to say that I don't see any point to BronzeTingue's write-in. It doesn't send any useful message to Emma-O or anyone else that might here it.
It's just empty posturing that accomplishes nothing.
There is no real message to send here.
We have to sell the fight and its aftermath for Emma-O and that's all there is.
We can't send any message here that will have an impact.
The message that might get through is soul-killing the greater Akuma after we are done with this theatre.
Basically this, though I'd also point out that the message too Emma-O serves a much more useful purpose in impressing the point on Eiko, who didn't take a real loss here and could use some encouragement to shoot straight with us.
The message we could send here is to other supernatural powers that we are a party they can negotiate with.
That's why I propose that Emma-O can returns the hostages and pay reparations, as that.
We do not want to get into a war to the knife with a Yama King. A single combat focused greater akuma could go through Molly and her current allies like a hot knife through butter.
And this is particularly true for a Yama King we may well want to help redeem.
I disagree with pretty much all of this.
To start out, Emma-O is inherently untrustworthy independent of being an awful bastard. He sent his agents here allegedly to set up a meeting to talk about our supposed debt that was only ever a front to attack us. It wasn't a back up plan, it was the goal.
Contrast that with someone like Mab. She's pretty nasty when it suites her, but one thing she doesn't do is establish meetings under the presumption of neutrality and then turn them into traps. She might set you up some other way, but so blunt a betray is the sort of thing that stops people from doing business with you.
Which is why she's makes a point of acting that way; it's not honor or something, it's business.
This is what divides nasty you can work with from nasty you can't if you're willing to set mortality aside for one reason or another.
I have zero faith in the idea that we can sit down with Emma-O's reps and not get overtly attacked at the first plausible and profitable opportunity or that his organization would keep to any terms they weren't actively and consistently forced to comply with.
Negotiating with him right now is an even worse idea, because they've demonstrated a willingness for immediate hostility and already acted on it. If we stop to negotiate they'll stall and stab us in the back.
If we want to deal in the future, which I think is a bad idea on multiple levels, then we still benefit from this approach because we need to stack enough bodies to make clear it's not worth fucking with us before it's even marginally likely to go anywhere worthwhile.
As to going through us like a hot knife through butter; still skeptical on that. Even if I'm wrong we have a knight of the cross with us. Micheal can and has killed at least one guy in Emma-O's own weight class.
The conditions have to be right, but our deal with Uriel made certain aspects of his relationship with us Company Business. I'd bet that keeping a demon king from tearing apart Molly's soul for power is a qualifying event for that.
Greater Akuma can get ten dot disciplines (the, 'Oops, was that Bangladesh?' scale), throw around stupidly large dice pools, and the like. Even if you cut that and restrict them to having nine dot disciplines, they're still going to be able to throw down things like nine dot Black Wind, Iron Mountain, Kai and the like. Elder level Kai includes such effects as 'You take seventy unsoakable unparryable levels of damage' aka, you just die without a perfect defence.
They're basically walking apocalypses by the rules we have for them.
This isn't WoD, it's DF using stuff borrowed from it. Greater Akuma operating like that doesn't fit the setting very well, so I think it's unlikely that they'll be that out of scope with everyone else.
I keep trying to vote for it, but there is a large majority of the thread that doesn't want to do anything that might even possibly look sketchy.
That's an exaggeration. What we're trying to avoid from my perspective are things that are excessively immoral, excessively out of character for Molly, or excessively stupid.
A significant number of the quick asshole paths to power are traps. Not in the sense of the charms themselves betraying us, but in that they have costs beyond the immediate essence involved. For us a significant part of that would be reputation.
PR isn't hand wringing over of strangers like us out not, it's a tool for influencing the benefits available to us from interacting with society at large.
For a non-exalt example, take necromancers. Fantastically powerful, incredibly dangerous, and ultimately shattered by their own incompetence and people they looked down on.
Kemmler was a threat, but his cult couldn't cooperate well among themselves or with others so they ended up dead or scattered to the four winds by the council.
Jumping straight into building a Fomor army that looks suspiciously like the pathfinders isn't something that would make us stronger in the long term, it'd restrict our access to willing and widespread allies by playing into their biases.
I'm not against them with the clarifications we've gotten and within certain practical boundaries, but it's something they needs handled carefully to avoid compromising an incredibly valuable resource in the supernatural world: being known to be powerful and safe to deal with.
