Catching up.
Empathy, Etiquette, Intimidation, and Expression, are all social attacks someone, and all roll the same against another person's target number. WW does not have separate social defense values, for each social attack option. So rolling high on etiquette is the same as intimidation, or expression in game terms.
But Empathy requires the person actually care about something to work, IE if you want to help the homeless and the other does not care about them, Empathy does not work. Etiquette only works on people that themselves care about it. Intimidation leaves the other person at best fearful of you, at worse make them an enemy even if you succeed. While Expression has no inbuilt downside, or requirement, it is just straight up, make an argument that changes the other persons mind. And Expression can be used to mass social something the others lack.
That is not how Empathy use is supposed to work. Even psychopaths feel emotions about topics.
If you want to help the homeless and the person does not care about them, you play on their irritation at seeing people camping out on the streets along their jogging route and offer solutions to ensure the homeless leave, for example.
Or their desire to show someone else up.
Literally every society operates on some form of Etiquette that you need to understand and negotiate; the operating etiquette of headhunters in the Congo rainforest is as intricate and involved as that of the MS13 street gang, Middle America high school students in the 1990s and blue blood Old Money WASPs on the US East Coast.
Intimidation can be a lot more subtle and often a lot broader in application than your presumption. Sometimes doesn't even require the use of the Intimidation ability if stunted right. The average elementary school teacher intimidates her brats just by showing up. Your Appearance 5 supermodel intimidating a club full of young men from even approaching. The smart guy intimidating the rest of the class with his smarts. Rich, or connected guy intimidating law enforcement.
The fact that you are raising Expression being used for mass social as if its something unique tells me you've never actually seen a lynch mob worked up. Or a political rally for that matter. Donald Trump didn't become US president by making brilliant speeches; he rode a campaign of pure id and appeals to emotion all the way to the White House.
Honestly for me, most of this vote is now about Not getting Hellscry Chakra, not because I don't think it can detect Nemesis, but because you've convinced me that it might.
Lets say that you're right, it is the superhero decoder ring, it can detect Nemesis in all its forms, what then? How do we survive the attention of He Who Walks Beside? We are Essence 2, with a small towns worth of squishy dependents, and this is a being with possibly the best operational security in the setting, and active, powerful agents in every faction.
If we do this, and it works, all we gain is another secret it is too dangerous to know, one we cant act on without inviting immediate reprisal, because if we can detect it we cant be allowed to live, cant be allowed the time to compromise its network.
And this is not a secret Molly as a character could sit on, I think, its too big, too important, and we are the big, new, glowing variable in the equation, if the factions we have access to begin to act against the Walker, we are the point of divergence, and the single point of failure in shutting down the breach.
Hell, we were too afraid to warn the Blackstaff about what we learned about the Council for fear it would merely hint at the Crown, this? This is so much worse, so much more dangerous, and we are not ready. let the sleeping dog lie for now, allow us to remain one target among many, until we have a chance at surviving that level of focused hate, until we have the means of protecting our dependents.
Do Not Leeroy Jenkins one of the end game bosses while we are Essence freaking 2!
1)We are a known associate of Harry Dresden, known trouble magnet and Person of Interest to He Who Walks Behind since he was sixteen.
Our FATHER is a known longterm associate of Harry Dresden, a Knight of the Sword, a Dragonslayer and a noted killer of Outsiders during the ongoing vampire war; he canonically saved the lives of a whole set of White Court trainees and half the Senior Council members from a strike force of Reds with Outsider support.
Our very first outing after Exalting was killing a hit team of Red Court killers accompanied by multiple Outsiders who were trying to run down and kill the Blackstaff.
We looked a bunch of Outsiders in the eye without flinching, and stabbed them with an Agg-dealing demonsword.
Suffice it to say that Nemesis has us on a list.
Or rather, we were always on the List, even back when we were a mortal.
Our priority just jumped a couple tiers post-Exaltation.
2) Molly as a mortal 14 year old knew about and kept the secrets of
=The existence of multiple vampire types
=The existence of Knights of the Cross and Denarians
=Magic being a thing
The idea that important supernatural secrets are supposed to be new to Molly doesn't actually pass any sort of inspection.
3)We are already in the path of at least three canon Nemesis plots I can think of, just by existing.
Im not advocating seeking unnecessary trouble or pulling unnecessary aggro, but unilateral disarmament just plain does not work. This is not something we get to sit out.
And if you think Nemesis is going to leave us alone to operate or grow in peace just because we're Essence 2, I have a bridge to sell you.
4)We wanted to keep our unique ability to use the Crown secret. And ONLY the Crown.
We do not have any interest in hiding our general ability to gather information. In fact, we have repeatedly given the impression of having broad spectrum Divination capabilities to everyone from Gard to Murphy.
We will probably learn Divination as a Path specifically to act as a cover
As for the Council, we know OOC that at least one major functionary is a traitor who used a mistwraith to murder a lot of people in canon, and is using magic to mind control a lot of wizards.
So limiting our exposure until we know more is simply good sense.
5)Nemesis is powerful. Nemesis is subtle.
Nemesis is not all-powerful, nor does not have unlimited resources, or an unbroken record of success. Dresden beat He Who Walks Behind for the first time when he was still 16, and the second time a couple years ago in Blood Rites.
We do not need to huddle in a defensive crouch because it exists.
Rashid the Gatekeeper has been walking around with an Outsider-detecting magic scanner eye in his head for more than a thousand years.
I disagree, violently, with almost your entire post. This is both exactly like our fight with the Akuma, and at the same time nothing like it. Because that fight represented the attention of a great, hostile power on Molly and her people, it was difficult not as a matter of pure force brought to bear against a moderately combat focused Exalt, but because it explicitly was not a challenge wholly focused on Molly.
We have dependents, and we can not at this time adequately protect them, we had to go into magical debt the last time for that very reason. As an Exalt we are a combat threat to near everything in the setting, even at Essence 2, that is not the same thing as being an established Power in this setting. We lack the infrastructure, powerful subordinates, and protections to draw this level of hate, because here's the thing about this that's not like the Akuma, its not going to end.
If we reveal Nemesis, it wont be one encounter, one foe, one challenge and then its back to school, He Who Walks Beside will assign what ever level of force is required to plug the leak before it can compromise the network. Which means multiple peer or greater level threats working together to put us down, and if the first strike doesn't work, then there will be a second, and a third, and so on, not an arc or two latter, but probably within a day, or less given magical means of travel, because it won't have a choice.
Secrecy is its most powerful asset, it cant allow a means of detection to exist, as such we are an existential threat to it plans. It will come at us with force, it will come at us with guile, it will target us directly, it will target our friends, our family, our dependents and it will do so both all at once, and with overwhelming force, expending whatever assets it has too to end the threat to the network.
Yes, Harry is a target of Nemesis, we likely are now too, but that is not the same as being a true threat to it. Not remotely the same thing as being enemy number one.
I am not saying wait until Essence 4, this is not about being too small ride, as I understand it, mechanically one Essence level is much like another in this version of the rules, I'm saying, as Essence level is linked to xp expenditure, that we lack the breadth of ability to face this challenge as we are. There are too many holes in our build that can be exploited, too many areas of weakness, too few strengths.
My read on Molly's character says if she knew Nemesis existed, she would feel compelled to act, regardless of the danger, as Michael would to a threat like this, so yes, in this instance, ignorance is bliss.
Darn it, too slow.
Okay, let me break this down.
As things currently exist, these are the points where Nemesis and its fellow infiltrator Outsiders directly impinge on our lives and those of our loved ones:
NEMESIS
1)Molly was
personally involved in a Nemesis plot as a mortal.
The resolution of
Proven Guilty explicitly involved Molly being used as bait to have Dresden throw Summer fire into Winter's heartspring which drew all Winter's discretionary force back home to their capital, allowing Nfested Maeve to trap them in a time trap for a full mortal day.
We still don't know everything Nemesis did in that time period. I suspect we won't be thrilled when we find out.
2)The plot of
White Night, which is already currently in progress? Is explicitly a Nemesis plot.
Vittorio Malvora, son of Lady Cesarina Malvora, head of House Malvora? Who was the guy working for Cowl who opened the Way for uberghouls to attempt to decapitate the White Court's leadership was explicitly canonically possessed by an Outsider.
3) Madrigal Raith, the dumbass fucking noble who tried to sell Dresden on Ebay in
Proven Guilty, and who just tried to have Agent Sarah Greene murdered by Isabella's Uncle Leinth? Is a close ally of Vittorio Malvora,the Outsider-possessed son of the head of one of the three major White Council Houses.
When we stepped in to save Greene's life, we'd already set ourselves in direct opposition to a Nemesis scheme.
4)Thomas Raith's girlfriend Justine canonically got Nfested. Thomas is
a)Dresden's brother
b)Helped save Michael's life in Grave Peril
c)Helped save Molly's life in Proven Guilty
d)An operative of the True Venator, fighting the Oblivion War
e)The only living male child of the White King, and thus a significant political figure in the supernatural world
f)Is currently Molly's financial/business manager, and is thus as entitled to her protection as any member of the Jade Dogs
5) Molly's rescue was used by Nfested Maeve to build her credibility with Lily.
Who she then manipulated and gaslit into first resenting Dresden, then into helping her attack Demonreach later in the future.
All this despite Lily managing to remain untouched by Nemesis.
6)Since a major, repeated target of Nemesis is Demonreach(they tried to get at it with Maeve and Lily in Cold Days, then again tried to sneak an Nfested Justine into the facilities in Battle Grounds), we cannot avoid involvement even if we cut all ties with Dresden and all our current associates.
Especially since Demonreach is just outside Chicago, and its fail-deadly self-destruct charge of banefire has been repeatedly described as big enough to obliterate the heart of North America.
===
The Nemesis metaplot does not operate to our schedule.
Nemesis gives zero fucks about whether we want trouble or not; it will bring it to us anyway when it suits it.
And unilateral disarmament offers us no benefits.
We have consistently operated at only 1-2 degrees of separation from Outsider bullshit in the quest so far.
It's there and affecting us, whether we choose to see it or not.
