Gumiho
Reach heaven through violence!
Ok now that i've read through the update, do we want to make an effort into securing Barbara's loyalty and talents?
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Lex Sedet In Vertice: A Supervillain in the DCU CK2 quest
- Thread starter King crimson
- Start date
- Superhero
Ok now that i've read through the update, do we want to make an effort into securing Barbara's loyalty and talents?
Lord Ultimus
Beautiful...
- Location
- Undisclosed Warehouse
I'm down, but we've had bad luck with finding Batgirl.
Damn, sorry to hear that I hope you feel better
Glad to finally have this information IC, though I'm not sure how we can actually use it
I suppose we could upload him into a Robot Decoy?
Good luck talking with Nygma Mercy
Though if we do upgrade our cyber security in preparation for Brainiac she might not have to
Poor Hal, when he finally gets home he's going to have a mountain of spam to sort through
Good to see Karl find an actual hobby to help him cope
That's our girl, even leisure activities can be used to improve yourself!
Not immediately useful but will be good for when we eventually get around to that
We could go for a Post-Brainiac redesign of Ultra-Violet and make Silver Banshee a good costume
At least it was only Roxy, who's probably Oswald's best friend
Good to see what Jinx is getting up to with Zatanna and some sleight of hand is always useful, especially when you're as good at Intrigue as Jinx is
I always feel bad for Marie and how much she wants to do legitimate campaigns to prove she can
Wow, Nygma had a genuinely good interaction with another human being
We're doomed
Always nice to see Mick trying to improve himself
Bad for Lucy but good for us, the more she's pushed out of the Lane family the more deeply she's pushed into LexCorp
After all, we actually trust her to do important stuff and see how valuable she is
Someone has their priorities straight
A well deserved celebration!
Have some fun for once in your miserable life!
I still have my worries about Vivian, she sounds like she wants to break Deux D'Aramis off from LexCorp
Which ain't gonna happen
Of course while the other two were finding healthy outlets the final member of the Therapy Trio was having a breakdown
I really do want to have Rene give Karl, Mick and Paige actual therapy but it's a difficult action to justify taking since, if I'm correctly remembering what @King crimson said, the other party actually applies a malus, which in Paige's case makes the end bonus -1, which makes the odds of it ever succeeding pretty low
Good old Janus, we should really have Rebecca cast that lion intelligence spell on him after Brainiac
I really want to get Snowy some Animal Man powers eventually
It could be good but I don't know how we'd do that or if it's worth it
Barbara's issues with LexCorp are things we're never going to change, how strict the security is, the lack of freedom for regular employees, etc, and the only action we have that actually effects her is finding out who Batgirl is and using that would just push her further away
As for if she'd be worth it, we'll probably never be able to get her to leave Batman and having an active member of the Bat Family working for us would be very dangerous
The best outcome with her is arguably having someone among the Bat Family who thinks well of LexCorp but hasn't drank the Kool-Aid, because if she had then Bats would get suspicious, to defend us from any suspicions or accusations Batman might levy at us
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- Location
- barking
I think babara has run her course she was useful for some actions I think but with her having problems that she has to much of a moral core (like lenord snart may not like us for the same reason he is willing to put that aside I don't see babara doing so)
Sirrocco
Pedantic
This is DC universe. This is Moon.
At first, I thought that "Kolo Mee" was a name.
We have at least a few do-gooders on the staff already. You have to work around them a bit, but it can totally be worth it. The issue is that if we don't know that she's Batgirl, then we have no way of realizing what to offer her to get her on board "for real"... and investigating Batgirl is apparently really, really difficult.
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
I mean there's a few reasons for this.
First off she operates in Gotham, the city who was literally designed to hide a criminal conspiracy and constantly makes info gathering difficult due to several different actors schemes constantly overlapping (if Joker drives a tank towards city hall it becomes easier to hide something somewhere else and to move unrecorded. Generally between all the different actors in Gotham a lot of information gets lost or scrambled).
Second, Barbara is in a position where she has access to most of the official information on Batgirl and the capacity to mess with it. There is obviously informational security in the GCPD but Barbara's father is literally the guy in the know about what's going on and Barbara is significantly better than him at using technology and thus can use him as a resource to figure things out and potentially mess with any digital records of Batgirl kept by the GCPD.
Third, she's got a paranoiac ninja billionaire backing her alter-ego and thus she's got a lot of support and resources behind the attempts to make it difficult to find out too much about her. Now you can say a lot about Bruce Wayne and Batman but he is remarkably good at intrigue and because Barbara has met with and is working with him he's going to make tracking her increasingly difficult so people can't catch him through her. This third issue is probably the biggest hurdle because Batman being involved makes things a lot more complicated. If Batgirl operated independently of Batman and hadn't become a potential security risk then it would be easier to investigate her since Batman wouldn't be nearly as invested in making sure people don't figure out who Batgirl is since if can lead to you figuring out who he is.
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The problem with that is that Barbara is arguably more difficult to work around than any of our other do-gooders
Kate is a genuinely good person who would protest a lot of the shadier things we're doing but her time in the military means she's more morally ambiguous and Lex taking her in when she was at her lowest, having just left the military and struggling with her sexuality, and her being in a relationship with Pamela, Lex's number one supporter, make her strongly inclined to think the best of him
Mari is somewhat of a do-gooder but has always been more morally grey, probably at least somewhat to do with coming from a war torn nation, has no desire to dig into LexCorp's shadier business and owes her success to Lex
Felicity would also protest a lot of what we do but as a former hacktivist can't really point fingers and isn't interest in digging up secrets
And finally the D'Aramis sisters care more about running their company and don't particularly have the skills necessary to find out our secrets
Whereas Barbara possesses a strong moral core, would be against a lot of what we do, is both far more inclined to investigate shady stuff and has the skills to do so and has at least two people she could give those secrets to that would do a lot of damage to us
Not to mention her working directly under the CEO of one of our biggest competitors
Kkutlord
Prince of Breath
- Location
- Indianapolis, Indiana
@King crimson: Is there any reasonable way we could possibly find Rex the Wonder Dog? Cause I totally want to reverse engineer his powers. Though in general, the Bureau of Amplified Animals sounds like something worth finding. Trained Meta-Animals sounds interesting, especially if we can give them enhanced intelligence.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
That was delightful, @King crimson
I can't help but wonder what Paige would do with disguise magic? Or shapeshifting?
Probably endlessly invent new problems with her new appearances and never actually quite settle on any one look, endlessly oscillating slightly around a single central point.
If she were a straight-up brawler like Katherine Kane, I'd be all for it. But she's Oracle as much as she is Batgirl.
A do-gooder with muscles is someone we can work with.
A do-gooder with a natural bent for getting into any and every part of a computer systems and the hacking chops to get past Edward Nygma's security protocols? Not so much. Because the thought of what Barbara could do to us if she went all Edward Snowden on us doesn't bear thinking on.
I can't help but wonder what Paige would do with disguise magic? Or shapeshifting?
Probably endlessly invent new problems with her new appearances and never actually quite settle on any one look, endlessly oscillating slightly around a single central point.
I'd rather not.
If she were a straight-up brawler like Katherine Kane, I'd be all for it. But she's Oracle as much as she is Batgirl.
A do-gooder with muscles is someone we can work with.
A do-gooder with a natural bent for getting into any and every part of a computer systems and the hacking chops to get past Edward Nygma's security protocols? Not so much. Because the thought of what Barbara could do to us if she went all Edward Snowden on us doesn't bear thinking on.
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By the way @King crimson if we wanted to cast the lion intelligence spell on Janus what action would that be?
I think you said in the past that it's the language spell but how would that work since we can't assign Janus to it?
I think you said in the past that it's the language spell but how would that work since we can't assign Janus to it?
- Location
- Germany
Hope you're well soon, boss.
Also, have I said how much I like the personal actions? Not just because of the not-a-beach-date. But these little, for the most part inconsequential actions make our people more plastic. Giving them a life outside of LexCorp is just, I dunno, inspired. I can't remember another quest taking this approach, but it's working mighty fine.
(Also! Almost-beach-date!)
Also, have I said how much I like the personal actions? Not just because of the not-a-beach-date. But these little, for the most part inconsequential actions make our people more plastic. Giving them a life outside of LexCorp is just, I dunno, inspired. I can't remember another quest taking this approach, but it's working mighty fine.
(Also! Almost-beach-date!)
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yeah.
Especially since I'm pretty sure the beach in question is like an hour or hour-and-a-half drive away (unless Rebecca can get her sports car out onto back roads and really open it up while avoiding any speed-trap cops on the Eastern Shore).
The place has the DC-appropriate name of "Ocean City."
Especially since I'm pretty sure the beach in question is like an hour or hour-and-a-half drive away (unless Rebecca can get her sports car out onto back roads and really open it up while avoiding any speed-trap cops on the Eastern Shore).
The place has the DC-appropriate name of "Ocean City."
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
In the plan vote where you're assigning heroes just make a not that you want to cast the spell on Janus and I'll alter things as appropriate.
I'm glad you're enjoying the personal actions! Considering the fact that they weren't in the initial planning of the quest the personal actions have sort of become one of my favorite parts as well. Even without people trying to use omakes or write-ins to push for personal actions this section has grown to be a lot of fun as it gives me an opportunity to characterize the cast a lot more. Like even with someone like Louise Lincoln who has literally done about one personal action over and over and over again there's a lot of mileage to get out of the personal actions in terms of just defining who they are. Little things like Carl's melodramatic side, Nygma's personal brand of arrogance, Lisa's sneakiness, Oswald's sudden bouts of rage and Roxy's impulsiveness and a massive amount other things that probably wouldn't show up all that much all get to be highlighted and demonstrated in this section. You even get to see some character dynamic stuff beyond the flavor text of the coop scores get put into practice and so it's a lot of fun to work at. I honestly can't imagine a quest without personal actions now and if I ever run another CK2 style quest I'll probably implement them there as well.
Also general question open to the people, I try to make a lot of the personal action "voices" unique and distinct from one another, are there any that people particularly like or think are good?
- Location
- Philippines
So with the cold engine done what's keeping Lincoln from just retiring what can we do to secure her loyalty?
Louise strikes me as the type of person who would never be happy in retirement and would much rather keep working on potentially interesting projects
- Location
- Philippines
I don't get that feeling from her I feel she is the type to now that she has made her mark on history isolate herself from everyone.
Oh I definitely think she would completely isolate herself if she could but she would have done that while she was working on the Cold Engine anyway and she seems like the kind of person who would find everything other than research mind numbingly boring
- Location
- Germany
If you're meaning Ivo? Yeah, no. Ivo's biggest problem was that he couldn't be handled. The guy had the ego to make even his genius a sunken cost. He's dead, and I consider that a really good thing for us.
I mean, Ivo had an ego but his main issue was the frequency he demanded to be put on Amazo, which was hard to justify with the massive DC's on it, and that his illness meant we either had to actively kidnap people to use as organ donors or accept that we were going to lose him eventually anyway
The good news is that if we brought him back in a robot decoy or something that should theoretically help with both those issues since he doesn't have to worry about dying again
- Location
- Philippines
So i wonder if we are going to get a bonus to recruiting star labs scientists from the cold engine completion. Lincoln was well known in her old workplace and it must annoy her old coworkers that she has succeeded with the imposible while they keep having to politik their way to getting more funding.
Actually it just occurred to me that we might have two ways of bringing Ivo back depending on how much effort we want to put into it
If we want to go with the Robot Double then only have to find a way to upload Ivo into it and maybe take an action to improve them first, the advantage of this being that it's the easier option and Ivo always intended to have a robot body eventually but the downsides are that it might be missing some sensations, might hit the uncanny valley and could still result in him wanting to be uploaded to Amazo at some point
The second option would be learning how to make our own homunculi and uploading him into that, the advantage of which would be that it would look human, have all the human attributes and might make Ivo happier having an actually healthy human body with the disadvantages being that it would take longer to learn how to do that and might require us to design a cybernetic brain implant to which we can download him
If we want to go with the Robot Double then only have to find a way to upload Ivo into it and maybe take an action to improve them first, the advantage of this being that it's the easier option and Ivo always intended to have a robot body eventually but the downsides are that it might be missing some sensations, might hit the uncanny valley and could still result in him wanting to be uploaded to Amazo at some point
The second option would be learning how to make our own homunculi and uploading him into that, the advantage of which would be that it would look human, have all the human attributes and might make Ivo happier having an actually healthy human body with the disadvantages being that it would take longer to learn how to do that and might require us to design a cybernetic brain implant to which we can download him
Silvereagle21
Soaring through the Sky
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I just want to say that I do not want to bring Ivo back. We are better off with him dead. He has a massive ego and cannot be trusted and I certainly would not want to put in a position to get AMAZO or anything remotely close to it. That is just asking for him to go rogue which would have serious negative consequences for us. He is dead and gone and I fully support completely mindwiping his memory record.
Non-Canon Omake- Tales from Beyond: Ivo's Rage
- Location
- Germany
Tales from Beyond: Ivo's Rage
Static falls away, showing a man, the renowned Professor Ivo, standing in a laboratory. The equipment is an eclectic mix between high-end technology and hastily cobbled makeshift tools. A humanoid figure is in the back, barely visible in the dim light, cuffed on a vertical table.
Lex Luthor is a fool. Yes, indeed, he was interested in my tech, but what I thought was genius was simply a preposterous charade. The man is all money in his heart, and he does not understand the promise of true power.
I do. I am Professor Anthony Ivo, and I have worked on the pitiful projects that the businessman has forced me to do for too long. All while the sickness is tearing through my guts. But no, the businessman said, it isn't worth working on my amazing android program. Better, he said, to labor on useless, small-thought ideas like an electronic storefront or a kryptonite car. Hah! As if that would propel me to glory. As if that was the secret of true success.
But not that it matters. Amazo is complete! I did it! Myself! Without any help! Over months and months, I have pilfered equipment and tools. I admit the internal security made it more difficult, but thankfully, sweet Marie distracted that moronic Scudders. With that red-headed vixen off to work in the government, he seems to need a female to impress. He could have chosen far worse, but still, I shudder at the trepidations she must have suffered.
The TV is playing the news. Superman has vanquished the dolphin-obsessed alien. Luthor is interviewed from Taiwan on the revolutionary new chip his brilliant mind developed and that he is now producing en masse.
No one knows that the chip was my final revelation to LexCorp from the Amazo project. No one - except a few in the inner circle - knows how much of the computer science division - the one that makes money hand over fist - owes its existence to my breadcrumbs.
There is a wrecking cough, and Professor Ivo bends over double, profusely sweating before he manages to stand straight again.
But tonight, that ends. All of it ends - my wrecked body, Lex Luthor's snobby attitude, the idea that mankind needs to bow before the alien. I will transfer my mind into Amazo, and then all who have laughed at me, all who have despised me will rue the day they erred so severely. It is but the first step on the ladder of transhumanism, but what a first step it is! Now it is time for me to leave fragile humanity behind and become more, become more fantastic. The businessman considered it too risky, too expensive, too fraught with danger.
I have painstakingly checked and re-checked all my calculations, and I can confidently say that the only danger Amazo poses is for those in my way.
This is Professor Ivo, and the next time you will see me, you will see the true supremacy of the mind over the body.
In shocking news, LexCorp Headquarters has been attacked by an android tonight. At least a dozen employees died, including security captain Leonard Snart and heiress to the company Cassandra Luthor, when an artificial man broke into the main lobby and started killing indiscriminately while wailing in inhuman pain. Security forces managed to stall the armed and dangerous android for ten minutes, buying time for experts to arrive, when an apparently malfunctioning power source exploded unexpectedly and destroyed two floors of LexCorp HQ as well as the attacker. Lex Luthor has not yet commented, though his PR speaker has assured us that an in-depth investigation will follow. I am Lois Lane for Daily Bugle TV, and citizens of Metropolis, please stay safe.
Static falls away, showing a man, the renowned Professor Ivo, standing in a laboratory. The equipment is an eclectic mix between high-end technology and hastily cobbled makeshift tools. A humanoid figure is in the back, barely visible in the dim light, cuffed on a vertical table.
Lex Luthor is a fool. Yes, indeed, he was interested in my tech, but what I thought was genius was simply a preposterous charade. The man is all money in his heart, and he does not understand the promise of true power.
I do. I am Professor Anthony Ivo, and I have worked on the pitiful projects that the businessman has forced me to do for too long. All while the sickness is tearing through my guts. But no, the businessman said, it isn't worth working on my amazing android program. Better, he said, to labor on useless, small-thought ideas like an electronic storefront or a kryptonite car. Hah! As if that would propel me to glory. As if that was the secret of true success.
But not that it matters. Amazo is complete! I did it! Myself! Without any help! Over months and months, I have pilfered equipment and tools. I admit the internal security made it more difficult, but thankfully, sweet Marie distracted that moronic Scudders. With that red-headed vixen off to work in the government, he seems to need a female to impress. He could have chosen far worse, but still, I shudder at the trepidations she must have suffered.
The TV is playing the news. Superman has vanquished the dolphin-obsessed alien. Luthor is interviewed from Taiwan on the revolutionary new chip his brilliant mind developed and that he is now producing en masse.
No one knows that the chip was my final revelation to LexCorp from the Amazo project. No one - except a few in the inner circle - knows how much of the computer science division - the one that makes money hand over fist - owes its existence to my breadcrumbs.
There is a wrecking cough, and Professor Ivo bends over double, profusely sweating before he manages to stand straight again.
But tonight, that ends. All of it ends - my wrecked body, Lex Luthor's snobby attitude, the idea that mankind needs to bow before the alien. I will transfer my mind into Amazo, and then all who have laughed at me, all who have despised me will rue the day they erred so severely. It is but the first step on the ladder of transhumanism, but what a first step it is! Now it is time for me to leave fragile humanity behind and become more, become more fantastic. The businessman considered it too risky, too expensive, too fraught with danger.
I have painstakingly checked and re-checked all my calculations, and I can confidently say that the only danger Amazo poses is for those in my way.
This is Professor Ivo, and the next time you will see me, you will see the true supremacy of the mind over the body.
In shocking news, LexCorp Headquarters has been attacked by an android tonight. At least a dozen employees died, including security captain Leonard Snart and heiress to the company Cassandra Luthor, when an artificial man broke into the main lobby and started killing indiscriminately while wailing in inhuman pain. Security forces managed to stall the armed and dangerous android for ten minutes, buying time for experts to arrive, when an apparently malfunctioning power source exploded unexpectedly and destroyed two floors of LexCorp HQ as well as the attacker. Lex Luthor has not yet commented, though his PR speaker has assured us that an in-depth investigation will follow. I am Lois Lane for Daily Bugle TV, and citizens of Metropolis, please stay safe.