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Hostage Situation [Worm AU Fanfic]

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I'm just waiting for a person with enough legal authority to order Dragon to help out in convincing Amy to heal again. This could trigger her "Must Obey Legal Authority" clause and force her to buckle to Amy's demands.

Not likely, but funny to think about.
 
Franklymydear said:
"Gee wiz, it sure is nice to be part of a team of heroes who don't care about hiding their identities."
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Or, perhaps, they'd be forced to deal with the issue in the same way that every other city with Wards has to handle if they get hurt? Although, admittedly, I had the impression that the Wards in Brockton Bay are put into the line of fire (and thus get hurt) more often than they were supposed to be...

Franklymydear said:
1 minute of thinking gives:
3 decades of parahumans, at least 2 decades of children of parahumans, laws would have changed, parahuman children have different laws that apply to them.
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I didn't think that Amy had triggered by the time that she was adopted. Or did you mean "children of parahumans" rather than "parahuman children", but that may open a different can of worms.
 
Wow, just realized a major reason why the PRT should avoid getting Amy anywhere near a courtroom or any sort of conflict.

As the child of a lawyer Amy knows what she needs. She wanders over to New York and into one of the most prestigious law firms in the city. As Panacea is well known it should only take a little bit to find a way to talk to minor partner where she can offer the firm a deal. They take her on as a lifetime client and she de-ages them, and their immediate families, to around 30 again and they also get put on her priority patient list.

Can you imagine what a major law firm like that would do with an offer like that on the table? We're looking at a dozen or more major lawyers with decades of experience, contacts up the wazoo, deep pockets, and god knows what else, all looking at recapturing and keeping their youth. In exchange they need to take on a very simple client and keep her happy. She isn't even asking them to do anything illegal, she just wants them to find a way to get her father out of jail.
 
landcollector said:
These statements are rather contradictory, don't you think?
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Nah, you can legally get people out of jail. It happens fairly regularly. Maybe his court case had a technicality. Maybe someone violated a warrant somewhere, invalidating evidence used to convict him. Maybe a judge made a improper call or a jurist was someone who has a provable bias.

She doesn't even need to tip her hand on the immortality bit. She just needs to find a lawyer and or rich person who's wife/husband/child/person they care about has cancer. Offer their firm the best health insurance plan ever.
 
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Fouredged Sword said:
Nah, you can legally get people out of jail. It happens fairly regularly. Maybe his court case had a technicality. Maybe someone violated a warrant somewhere, invalidating evidence used to convict him. Maybe a judge made a improper call or a jurist was someone who has a provable bias.
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Or maybe they're appealing their conviction or suing for wrongful prosecution or applying for parole and they have to be temporarily outside the prison in order to, you know, show up for the hearing.

You know, all those procedural things that may or may not have been explicitly declared inapplicable to people sentenced to the birdcage, and which, even if there is such a law, could be subject to constitutional challenge (being permanently denied the ability to communicate with a lawyer as part of your sentence could even be considered cruel and unusual punishment)
 
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Random832 said:
Or maybe they're appealing their conviction or suing for wrongful prosecution or applying for parole and they have to be temporarily outside the prison in order to, you know, show up for the hearing.

You know, all those procedural things that may or may not have been explicitly declared inapplicable to people sentenced to the birdcage, and which, even if there is such a law, could be subject to constitutional challenge (being permanently denied the ability to communicate with a lawyer as part of your sentence could even be considered cruel and unusual punishment)
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As I mentioned somewhere, I consider the Birdcage to be equivalent to Guantanamo Bay. The area where it's built has probably been declared extraterritorial, so the standard laws don't hold there. Non-capes don't really care who goes there, because they aren't capes , so they won't be going there. Most capes don't pull the crap that would get them Birdcaged, so they're okay with it, mostly. And once you go there, you're unlikely to ever be seen again.
 
Ack said:
As I mentioned somewhere, I consider the Birdcage to be equivalent to Guantanamo Bay. The area where it's built has probably been declared extraterritorial, so the standard laws don't hold there. Non-capes don't really care who goes there, because they aren't capes , so they won't be going there. Most capes don't pull the crap that would get them Birdcaged, so they're okay with it, mostly. And once you go there, you're unlikely to ever be seen again.
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A normal US court would not be able to sentence a US citizen to Guantanamo Bay.

Also, it's a question of whether they've actually given it the special status you're ascribing to it (and even then, the constitution still applies - the prison itself being extraterritorial doesn't get the courts that send people there off the hook), or whether they're just relying on "once they're in there we won't let them talk to their lawyer and anyone else who sues we'll claim they don't have standing".
 
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Random832 said:
A normal US court would not be able to sentence a US citizen to Guantanamo Bay.

Also, it's a question of whether they've actually given it the special status you're ascribing to it (and even then, the constitution still applies - the prison itself being extraterritorial doesn't get the courts that send people there off the hook), or whether they're just relying on "once they're in there we won't let them talk to their lawyer and anyone else who sues we'll claim they don't have standing".
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I think they're depending more on "nobody will actually care about the scary-as-fuck supervillains we've got locked away in there."
 
Ack said:
I think they're depending more on "nobody will actually care about the scary-as-fuck supervillains we've got locked away in there."
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Right, but we're talking about what happens when someone does, and if they actually have the ability to keep it going once a relative with access to expensive lawyers actually materializes. "Nobody will care" only lasts until someone does care.
 
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Random832 said:
Right, but we're talking about what happens when someone does, and if they actually have the ability to keep it going once a relative with access to expensive lawyers actually materializes. "Nobody will care" only lasts until someone does care.
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This is true.

And having an internationally-known hero with a reputation like Panacea's to be the one to show up ... probably not something they envisaged :p
 
Ack said:
This is true.

And having an internationally-known hero with a reputation like Panacea's to be the one to show up ... probably not something they envisaged :p
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I have an uncle who did some probono work at Guantanamo. "I just don't care" actually lasts a REALLY long time, even after the lawyers show up. So long as the forces that be can bounce it off of "Well, our lawyers say such and such, and no court has jurisdiction", then the situation can last a really long time.
 
Fouredged Sword said:
I'm just waiting for a person with enough legal authority to order Dragon to help out in convincing Amy to heal again. This could trigger her "Must Obey Legal Authority" clause and force her to buckle to Amy's demands.

Not likely, but funny to think about.
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This reminds me of a different idea I had about that.

Dragon getting Amy to be her official doctor. Therefore, granting Amy the authority to proscribe treatments to her. Then asking Amy for help with her 'body'. At this point Amy has authority over Dragon, can help make her a perfectly human body, - san's brain, Amy "can't" do brains, but that is okay as its the one part Dragon might want to keep as a computer, and then using her required obedience to Amy to work her way free of, or out from under, the proscriptions from her creator. It actually works a little better if she can get Amy to do a brain for her, but still... just an odd idea I once had.

Starting somewhere along the lines of Amy being flown up to help Dragon for medical reasons, being officially recognized, by dragon, as her physician, and then exposed to one of those organic control brain baby body things, at which point Amy can take over the rest of the process and find out shes an ai etc.
 
Marquis is in the Birdcage, in a position of 'Cell Block Leader' currently, correct?

If he does get approval to be released, could other inmates learn of it before he is released and try to 'hitch a ride' out with him?

I just had the image of Teacher perhaps trying to arrange something.
 
Fouredged Sword said:
I have an uncle who did some probono work at Guantanamo. "I just don't care" actually lasts a REALLY long time, even after the lawyers show up. So long as the forces that be can bounce it off of "Well, our lawyers say such and such, and no court has jurisdiction", then the situation can last a really long time.
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This is fairly true in most cases, but there is a large difference between a probono lawyer and a motivated high end law firm that does Supreme Court cases with some regularly. One can be put off fairly easily. The other can probably force a hearing in a fairly high Federal court or end run the whole mess and call a few buddies like Jim the Senator, who happens to be on the correct subcommittee to negotiate a backroom deal everybody likes.
 
Fouredged Sword said:
The thing is they can't. There is not clause that lets someone use their discretion to choose. Just because you are part of the government doesn't mean you can break the law
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What alternate reality are you living in? Government officials break their own laws all the time. And this is Worm, which is even more hopelessly corrupt then the real world.
 
Merior said:
I didn't think that Amy had triggered by the time that she was adopted. Or did you mean "children of parahumans" rather than "parahuman children", but that may open a different can of worms.
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I meant it as a generalization for all relevant circumstances and not just Amy's since I was talking about situations that would have encouraged the laws to change in the past.

So, both children that are parahuman and children of parahumans that aren't parahumans yet themselves.
 
Rihtan said:
This is fairly true in most cases, but there is a large difference between a probono lawyer and a motivated high end law firm that does Supreme Court cases with some regularly. One can be put off fairly easily. The other can probably force a hearing in a fairly high Federal court or end run the whole mess and call a few buddies like Jim the Senator, who happens to be on the correct subcommittee to negotiate a backroom deal everybody likes.
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He has actually argued before the supreme court twice.

Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services v. Illinois Council on Long Term Care, Inc., 120 Sup. Ct. 1084

and

Harris v. Reed, 489 U.S. 255

It doesn't matter. Bureaucracy was designed to dissipate blame and be impossible to remove.
 
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Hmm another thought: Why is everyone assuming the government is going to be against this?

High end teenage Biokinetic who normally heals people and works for free, but is very powerful wants something. This isn't a problem for some government types, this is a giant gold plated opportunity.

I see it much too likely that somebody shows up with a plan letting her "rehabilitated" father shift to a house arrest situation with bodyguards/guards if Panacea "works" with the government to "enhance" the "efficiency" of who she heals. With a standing kill order waiting in the wings if Marquis takes one step out of line.
 
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