Since I have am of the belief that if you have a problem, solve it, and I like the independent option, I came up with this 'plan' sort of thing.
Crazy independent plan:
What do we need?
-Allies
-A way of communicating with said allies
-A plan for the organization (basically what are we trying to accomplish, and how will we, generally speakings, go about accomplishing it).
-For getting allies, it was stated earlier on that Brockton Bay had a rather large number of capes and an unusually high number of capes per capita. It would hard to believe that there aren't any independent heroes that aren't part of the Protectorate who we could approach. Browbeat was one such, and if she didn't have a PR problem, Purity would be one as well. This may require OCs if we wanted to go this route. As for how, some of them likely have a PHO presence, and we could start having one of our own. We also have a certain amount of street cred; beating Oni Lee tends to do that (the public doesn't know about our second encounter). If we really needed it, we could try to figure out where other heroes were active and approach them that way.
-The reason communication and organization could be difficult is if we wanted to have a common meeting space. Unless someone had the space or was willing to let us meet in there home, we would have to procure a hideout of sorts, not at all dissimilar to a supervillain lair. The first has the hazard that it could compromise our CIDs. I know that the unwritten rules say not to go after capes out of costume, but rules only work if people follow them, and not all capes are so scrupulous. The second has the problem that we would have to find or procure the darn thing and, admittedly, I have no idea how to go about doing that. Maybe some IC research? That said, actual communication could be carried out with cell phones and the internet, so that part wouldn't be too hard.
-This is the hard part because there is, objectively, no right answer. The main thing here is, the Protectorate exists, but there are heroes, and if we are taking this route that includes us, who didn't join, so why is that? Why doesn't everyone join the Protectorate? My best guesses are general distrust of authority, an increased desire for either personal or operational freedom, or they just aren't that serious about it. This last one is basically what happened to Browbeat. The question then is, why aren't we joining the Protectorate? If we aren't joining because we don't trust the Protectorate to do a good job of keeping people safe, what will we do differently that will give people more reason to trust us? If we aren't joining because we want more freedom, what do we want to do that the Protectorate does not do or would not let us do that we think is worth while? The last one doesn't apply to us as it is being presented right now, so if we choose to go independent, it is because we turned down the Protectorate. Whatever our reason, it will come to shape the organization and all aspects of it, so this isn't a question we should take lightly. That said, it is possibly the most important question we can ask, so it is definitely worth our time.
I, for one, am in favor of going independent in part to keep the Protectorate honest. Right now, the Protectorate has a monopoly on justice, and by and large, monopolies don't improve or change their ways because there's no one around who can call them on their faults and make it stick. If we got to the point where we became a threat to the local Protectorate's ability to recruit new capes, they wouldn't be able to let little things, like we used to be, slip through the cracks. We wouldn't necessarily be doing it out of any great dislike for the Protectorate, but rather because we want things to get better, faster for
all of the people of Brockton Bay.
Also, and depending on how much Taylor knows about economics and sociology this may or may not be an OOC reason, but as Songless said in
Revenant, "You can't solve poverty by shooting it with lightning, feed the hungry with forcefields or punch people into employment," and, Protectorate focuses on lightning, forcefields, and punching people.