Lex Sedet In Vertice: A Supervillain in the DCU CK2 quest

[King crimson]

Seems like they didn't even try to study it, they just fused it to someone immediately. Also note that Tala was the one to get the "success" in doing this, so we probably need some form of magic for it to work out right.

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They did (General Goode's thinktank did, they just didn't get anywhere with it in time for it to matter during their attempts at integration), I just couldn't describe anything they learned about the device because it's currently schroedinger's Atlantean artifact (I didn't want to preemptively cut off options for you guys so because of that you have all the Atlantean artifacts available in the coming subvote. However as a result of that I can't know which artifact they used because it can't be the one that will be chosen in the future). As such due to the consequences of this I put next to nothing about studying the device in that section.

Tala did get it to succeed through magic through a little bit of conceptual shenanigans, I can confirm that much. It's not impossible to do without magic but it's significantly easier to do with it especially if you're like Project Damocles and still operating on an incomplete understanding of how it functions.

Of course he ran to Dakota City! He picked the place we were actively expanding in!

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If memory serves correctly Whale ran to Dakota City on turn 22 or so. He picked a place with a large gang presence, no real competition and no LexCorp. You just happened to follow him about a year and some change later. He was there first you actually arguably chose to expand in the place he'd already run to.

@King crimson is there an action to legally recruit him, put his skills to good use for society and use our Rogues as an example that we can "reform" people? Or does he need to sit in prison for a bit first?

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I can't answer on the actions that have opened up just yet. Keep in mind though that this is the "world's greatest con-man" Giovanni Giuseppe version of the Trickster, who both conned Neron and couldn't help robbing banks while needing to keep a low profile due to assassins being after him. In some ways he's the most dangerous of all the Rogues.

Huh. Superman rolled only a 74 on a Martial test. Interesting.

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Keep in mind that Superman got a 74 after dealing with Charger interference and his own contribution. there was a subtraction in the calculation.

Who's Billy Numerous?

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Other people have said it but I'll elaborate on it a bit. Billy Numerous is an unknown teenage supervillain with strong ties to the HIVE in the Teen Titans tv show (he first appeared in Brother Blood's HIVE academy and then was a member of Jinx's HIVE Five after a brief solo stint). He's a fast talker with a strong southern accent. He's got self-duplication powers with an unknown limit where once passed all his duplicates snap back to the original and he's effectively knocked out but he's capable of making well over a few hundred clones. He's made his way back into comics but he is most popular and well known from the show.

@King crimson this is a bit of a frustration for me. In-universe, we could quite easily ask her "Okay. What more do you need of this", and then decide to invest enough political capital to make sure that that's the thing that happens, and use whatever else we need elsewhere. In-quest, we need to guess what's necessary to keep her happy, and then guess how much effort will make that thing happen. Given that this is a "pay off an agreed-upon obligation" thing, I feel like the need for guessing is frustrating.

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I feel like there's no need for guessing on what Diana wants because it's more or less the same thing as the last turn and the turn before that. On top of that you can always ask me before the vote to ensure that you've got all the information needed to come to the right conclusion.

I don't see it as problematic but as a precautionary element to alleviate this potential problem I'll include a reiteration of exactly what Diana wants the final result to have in the subvote for allocating points to guarantee that you won't have to guess when investing political capital provided you read the section about investing political capital.

 

[Sirrocco]

So it was a fake Toyman. That was my first guess and cool to see it pan out. Also great to see the police viewing him as an active problem now. Tbh this further cements Toyman as a great proxy agent against Superman. Just a little help and he could do some real damage, but that may have to wait.

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No. No help. He's an even better proxy agent against Superman if there's no connection between us and him at all. We just... keep shaping the environment in ways that contribute to his success.

Dr. Moon, we got a job for you

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There's a thought. One to be considered judiciously, but definitely a thought. That DC was pretty freaking sky-high, though.

I don't mind that second deal. I think we could get him a spot with Count Vertigo or Queen Bee possibly. Both those countries would be hard to penetrate and because their dictators have such control over them.

We could also possibly host him in our Antarctic labs.

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Count Vertigo, maybe. There's this castle that we're being given, that we can just conveniently not send people to, and have Count Vertigo conveniently not investigate. I'd... rather not give him access to Queen Bee. Vertigo is more disposable.

Also this is going to be a great time for mid to low level criminals. As long as they don't get hit in the crossfire (hopefully the heroes save them) they can rampage with impunity almost. They could use the chaos, infrastructure damage, and general distraction to loot, attack key targets, recruit from those badly affected, infiltrate a place, etc.

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Delightfully, the local Metropolis criminals are few in number... and they know better.

Gotham, though? Gotham is in for a rather brutal ride of things, I suspect.

 

[Sirrocco]

My apologies for the double post.

I don't see it as problematic but as a precautionary element to alleviate this potential problem I'll include a reiteration of exactly what Diana wants the final result to have in the subvote for allocating points to guarantee that you won't have to guess when investing political capital provided you read the section about investing political capital.

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Great. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Basically, my experience last time was that I was looking at what my understanding was of what she wanted, and I was looking at the options we had available to us, and I couldn't actually tell in some cases - which requirements were basically already satisfied, and, of the unsatisfied ones, which options would satisfy those requirements and which options would actively oppose them. I mean, in many cases it was pretty clear, but in some it was not. I admit that I wasn't putting a huge amount of effort on it, but I did look back at some previous posts and put in at least a bit of thought.

 

[jonasquinn]

I know the business side of things shouldn't be our main priority right now but some things we should definitely do next turn are:

1) Start making our own video games to deny Wayne a total monopoly over that area, especially since Nygma can probably be put on it

2) Improve our computers, though with the subvote coming up I don't know if we'd need to take a actual action for that or it'll just happen this turn, if the former the DC should drop a fair bit

3) Finally release the Auto-Kitchen we designed years ago to knock Wayne's appliances out of the game

Improving our phones might be another one but that would have a high DC and I'm personally not overly worried about the PDA's and there's also Agora if we can spare Felicity but that's not as important

On a separate note @King crimson I'm a bit confused why Guy's actions have made people like Hal more? I get that by comparison he looks better but I feel like there would be just as many, if not more, people who would tar Hal with the same brush especially without him being there to defend himself and what we've done to sabotage him

Also will we have to repair the communication infrastructure or will it fix itself after Brainiac is beaten?

 

[Darkcore41]

We gotta work on Pharma, the sisters choose us over Wayne due to that. We shouldn't make then regret it.

Instead of fighting them in computers we should go back to roots and attempt a massive success for phones. Enough that they'd have to invest massively for them to challenge us again. Blow them out of the water or we'll be stuck doing it each turn.

 

[jonasquinn]

We gotta work on Pharma, the sisters choose us over Wayne due to that. We shouldn't make then regret it.

Instead of fighting them in computers we should go back to roots and attempt a massive success for phones. Enough that they'd have to invest massively for them to challenge us again. Blow them out of the water or we'll be stuck doing it each turn.

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The issue with making a huge pharmaceutical push is that it is going to be extremely difficult and we don't really have anything noteworthy in that field, when we can make the bone formula safe we will but right now we don't really have any options

As for phones, any huge successes there will be difficult because the DC will be very high and we already have blown them out of the water, we basically already have a monopoly on the phone market with our only kinda competitor being Wayne's much worse phones that only have a place in the market because it's impossible to have a 100% monopoly

 

[Alex Sol]

The issue with making a huge pharmaceutical push is that it is going to be extremely difficult and we don't really have anything noteworthy in that field, when we can make the bone formula safe we will but right now we don't really have any options

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We have pheromone spray though. With decent roll on improving it we may be able to modify it into something that can be used for legal pharma.

 

[jonasquinn]

We have pheromone spray though. With decent roll on improving it we may be able to modify it into something that can be used for legal pharma.

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Ehh, that seems unlikely to me

I don't really see any ethical way to use the pheromone spray

 

[Alex Sol]

Ehh, that seems unlikely to me

I don't really see any ethical way to use the pheromone spray

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What if for example it changed into something that can be used only on yourself? Like you use it and for the next ten minutes you can give yourself orders that you are more likely to follow, like don't smoke anymore or don't be afraid of heights.

 

[jonasquinn]

What if for example it changed into something that can be used only on yourself? Like you use it and for the next ten minutes you can give yourself orders that you are more likely to follow, like don't smoke anymore or don't be afraid of heights.

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I mean theoretically that would work but I also have absolutely no idea if that would work and it would be pretty easy to abuse

Not to mention it would make it much easier for people to reverse engineer it and get their own mind control pheromones

 

[HavocOrder0999]

I think we need to expand our catalog to really make a strong push for pharmaceuticals. Three actions we could take:
[ ] Begin producing cosmetics DC 17 (DC 7 if either D'Aramis sister assigned)
-easy success and more items to go alongside the medical products, may be why the DC goes down when we try to prep for the pharmaceuticals action
[ ] Learn about more biology DC 52
-one of the options when we first took this was basic medicine
[ ] Research alternative medicine DC 46
-We may come up with something really unique here that can't be replicated by our competitors, especially in the DC universe

@King crimson was there an action to start producing and marketing the hair removing gas in some way?

 

[Nurgle]

I think we need to quit going for a feud ex machine with pharmacy for now. Instead let's provide cheap antibiotics and anti-psychotic drugs for now. We just have to wait till we have a product that can give us greater market share.

 

[King crimson]

On a separate note @King crimson I'm a bit confused why Guy's actions have made people like Hal more? I get that by comparison he looks better but I feel like there would be just as many, if not more, people who would tar Hal with the same brush especially without him being there to defend himself and what we've done to sabotage him

Also will we have to repair the communication infrastructure or will it fix itself after Brainiac is beaten?

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My logic was that basically the new Green Lantern made enough of an ass of himself, whilst making it clear that he's a very different person than Hal, that a lot of people who already sort of liked Hal grew to like him even more and think better of him. The new Green Lantern has pointed out that he's a replacement because apparently "the old one's some big hotshot rookie with the corps" and so people are well aware that Hel is the "better" of the two. Yes people could tar them with the same brush but the new Green Lantern taking actions to distance himself from the previous one I felt would be enough to make it so that most people don't.

Regarding repairing the communication infrastructure, Brainiac's method of offlining everything doesn't actually damage things. As far as I know (I'm not a computer scientist or an expert on how phones work), a DDOS attack can't be fixed because it doesn't do any physical damage or interfere with how things are coded or anything along those lines and the other similar methods Brainiac used to affect everything else operate similarly. It bypasses a lot of defenses by using functions critical to the communication devices but requires active maintenance if you want a prolonged effect. As such all you have to do to undo what has been done to communication infrastructure is take out whatever Brainiac is using to actively keep things non-operational and then it'll all be back to normal.

@King crimson was there an action to start producing and marketing the hair removing gas in some way?

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There should be and if not I'll add it in next turn.

 

[jonasquinn]

My logic was that basically the new Green Lantern made enough of an ass of himself, whilst making it clear that he's a very different person than Hal, that a lot of people who already sort of liked Hal grew to like him even more and think better of him. The new Green Lantern has pointed out that he's a replacement because apparently "the old one's some big hotshot rookie with the corps" and so people are well aware that Hel is the "better" of the two. Yes people could tar them with the same brush but the new Green Lantern taking actions to distance himself from the previous one I felt would be enough to make it so that most people don't.

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Eh, I still feel like at the very least the number of people who would think better of Hal would be about the same as those who would regard the Green Lanterns as a whole negatively even with Guy trying to distance himself from Hal thanks to his actions, especially considering their very existence would probably be fairly controversial and Hal never actually accomplished much from what I remember

Regarding repairing the communication infrastructure, Brainiac's method of offlining everything doesn't actually damage things. As far as I know (I'm not a computer scientist or an expert on how phones work), a DDOS attack can't be fixed because it doesn't do any physical damage or interfere with how things are coded or anything along those lines and the other similar methods Brainiac used to affect everything else operate similarly. It bypasses a lot of defenses by using functions critical to the communication devices but requires active maintenance if you want a prolonged effect. As such all you have to do to undo what has been done to communication infrastructure is take out whatever Brainiac is using to actively keep things non-operational and then it'll all be back to normal.

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That's good to know, thank you

 

[Kir the Wizard]

Great turn! Good work, King!

Lois Lane
[ ] Publish an article detailing Superman's time in space
DC 0
Roll 97 (with hero bonuses factored in)
Outstanding success

Lois Lane has quickly reestablished why she is a thorn in your side as soon as she was released from the hospital. Her article on Superman's experience in space has proven to be a massive hit and while the positive PR for the alien infuriates you, you can't deny that it's both well-written and that the information contained within. The idea that there's a large interstellar democracy known as the United Planets, the apparent collector of civilizations Brainiac and just the general better sense of what's really out there is intriguing. You just wish that the information wasn't being filtered in such a way so as to make Superman look good. It's annoying how Superman earns international acclaim for an experience that only occurred because he failed. Regardless while you aren't fond of the result, you can begrudgingly concede that at least Lois Lane's article was well-written and interesting.

Results: Lois Lane earns a lot of acclaim as a journalist, the world learns that Lobo is the last Czarnian, the world learns of the United Planets and the "Legion of Superheroes" of which Superman has met Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy, the world learns of the alien collector Brainiac who Superman believes he killed when he blew up his ship, the world receives confirmation that the Green Lantern corps is an interstellar organization and that they are currently at war with a "Yellow Lantern corps", Nemesis guage +20, new options opened up

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Is there enough information in this article regarding Brainiac's particular motivations re:Superman? What I mean is, if the alien invader is identified as the same Brainiac, can there be sufficient information in Lois's article to say that Superman was the bait that led Brainiac to our world?

Wade Eiling
[ ] Push for laws meant to restrict Superman and other individuals like him
DC 30
Roll 41
Decent success

Wade Eiling has continued to support your political plays even if he's taken time to mostly focus on other endeavors. Eiling has informed you that he's going to be shifting to using his influence to deal with matters of international diplomacy for a while so he likely will not be continuing to aid you on this front. Still despite all of this Eiling has managed to do enough to support your aims for now and has continued to remain steadfastly committed to working with you as an ally

Results: Aided Lex Luthor's push

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So, does that mean that next turn LexCorp will have to take the "Push for laws" action themselves?

Diana Prince
[ ] Push for laws meant to restrict Superman and other individuals like him
DC 20
Roll 39 (with hero bonuses factored in)
Decent success

Diana Prince has similarly continued to aid your efforts in shaping the laws that will define the country's relationship with costumed vigilantes going forward. Diana's assistance is still contingent on you ensuring that her stipulations are put into place with the final law but it seems that she trusts you to carry out that part of the deal and has continued to aid you on that front.

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Wasn't there already a Battle for the Bill subvote, in which Diana's stipulations were supported?

He has also jokingly stated that he has a catalogue of castle's for you to pick

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Castles

Its by no means complete and the information

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It's

It appears that the Brotherhood of Evil has replicated the success of Dr. Magnus' Metal Men

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Magnus's (since it's a proper noun in singular, and not a plurality)

The Batman eventually managed to catch on to this scheme

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I think it's "catch onto" in this case, but not entirely sure.

Batgirl
[ ] Recapture Humpty Dumpty
DC 8
Roll 53 (with hero bonuses factored in)
Impressive success

Humphry Dumpler AKA Humpty Dumpty, is a man with severe mental issues who only wants to help fix things. However due to his own disabilities, his attempts at fixing people often result in serious injury or death as he uses an excessive amount of force to attempt to "correct" things. He recently ended up escaping from Arkham due to "the nice lady letting him out" and ended up wandering into an old folks home where he saw lots of people he thought were broken. Before Humphry could attempt to fix things and inadvertently murder someone, Batgirl confronted him. The entire altercation occurred non-violently and was caught on camera. Batgirl eventually managed to talk Humphry down and get him to willingly return to custody without putting up a fight. However Humphry's escape suggests someone deliberately let him out and there are currently no leads on that. Still Batgirl is currently being considered a hero for being willing to not just fight criminals but also to attempt to use diplomacy when possible when dealing with people like Humphry.

Results: Humphry Dumpler returned to Arkham for treatment, Batgirl recieves a substantial boost in popularity, it becomes public knowledge that someone deliberately released Humphry but not who.

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Is Batgirl part of Batman's team "officially", or only an ally? Do Batman and Dick know her secret identity?

Selena Kyle
[ ] Campaign for public office
DC 0
Roll 38 (with hero bonuses factored in)
Significant success

Selena Kyle has continued her endeavors to run for public office in Gotham. Whilst a lot of her proposed policy implementations have scared off the richer members of Gotham from voting for her, she's proven to be immensely popular with the poorer people of Gotham. Her constant donations and giving away of money to other people has solidified her as the "people's candidate". She's by no means universally beloved as some people consider her a hypocrite or a potential danger but she is managing to make waves in Gotham's political scene.

Results: Selena continues to gain popularity as a candidate, Selena earns the ire of Gotham's wealthy elite who absolutely do not want her to win

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Selina

Regarding business decisions: aside from the discussed points there is also:
1) Kord trying to expand their online storefront TWICE. That's something that should be rectified.
2) With the Pharmaceuticals D'Aramis already hinted that they were tempted to jump onto the Wayne ship. This requires success ASAP, or they might as well leave.
3) A number of services haven't been opened yet. Perhaps the taxi service could help to expand the kryptonite car market, if it's managed by LexCorp? Even though there is a risk that on the opening roll the services won't be "planetary successful", one can see with Wayne games and Kord pads that opening new, untapped markets is useful by itself.
4) Maybe go back to making the banking service better?

 

[King crimson]

Is there enough information in this article regarding Brainiac's particular motivations re:Superman? What I mean is, if the alien invader is identified as the same Brainiac, can there be sufficient information in Lois's article to say that Superman was the bait that led Brainiac to our world?

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No. Lois Lane's article contains enough information to identify Brainiac as an entity that collects things and destroys planets and civilizations and that he claimed that was responsible for the destruction of Krypton. The article itself doesn't contain sufficient information to conclude that Brainiac has some unique connection to Superman beyond being responsible for the death of his people.

You could make the argument that Superman was the bait that led Superman to Earth with the information provided but that's nowhere near conclusive and there are decent counterarguments against such a position.

So, does that mean that next turn LexCorp will have to take the "Push for laws" action themselves?

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No. You already have the action and in fact took it this turn

[ ] Continue pushing for laws meant to restrict Superman and other individuals like him
DC 0
Roll 57 + 19 (Oswald Loomis diplomacy stat) + 5 (Oswald trait) + 10 (Diana Prince contribution) + 5 (Eiling contribution) = 96
Outstanding success

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Eiling's contribution is the +5 to your roll this turn.

Wasn't there already a Battle for the Bill subvote, in which Diana's stipulations were supported?

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Yes but it's not over. Until the bill is finished there's always a chance that things can be overturned and the stipulations Diana wants put in place could be overwritten. Diana's basically agreed "I'll help you push your agenda for this bill provided you make sure that X, Y and Z, which is important to me, is included" and so her help is contingent on you making sure those elements remain intact.

Castles

It's

Magnus's (since it's a proper noun in singular, and not a plurality)

I think it's "catch onto" in this case, but not entirely sure.

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I'll make the corrections for "castles", "it's" and "onto" but in the case of Magnus' I'm fairly certain what I wrote is correct (grammatically both "James' birthday" and "James's birthday" are valid and mean the same thing)

Is Batgirl part of Batman's team "officially", or only an ally? Do Batman and Dick know her secret identity?

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I won't answer most of this but Batman definitely knows Batgirl's secret identity.

Selina

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That is a dumb mistake on my part that I'll now correct

 

[Zale]

I think people are overreacting on the business side. As long as Lexcorp has its success in phones (small challengers) and the military industrial complex (no challengers as far as I can tell) it can fail in every single other endeavor and still be the 2nd biggest company. No reason to overreact that Wayne is having some success.

However, having said that I do think the one area of actual concern would be our Pharma company. I don't think we have to be dominant in that field, but keeping it going nicely to help secure the Twin's loyalty would be good. I don't think going super basic drugs is the way to go though, because obviously Wayne can compete with us there. What we should do is pivot to novel drugs that we can patent, or drugs Bruce would be unwilling to produce, that he literally can't compete with us on because he can't or won't produce them.

We should roll out Sharp and Venom as easy low DC options to help secure our footing. Wayne either can't or won't produce those drugs and they are an easy way to give us a permanent foot in the market. I know there will be objections with Venom, but just because we produce it doesn't mean we have to use it. Just sell it to the US government and other people who will abuse it like Count Vertigo. After that (or concurrently) we should put the Twins on researching something new to give us a unique angle to further push ourselves in the market. Also as Havoc mentioned we could open a cosmetics branch of D'Aramis to help supplement their income as we pivot the pharma company.

 

[jonasquinn]

I think people are overreacting on the business side. As long as Lexcorp has its success in phones (small challengers) and the military industrial complex (no challengers as far as I can tell) it can fail in every single other endeavor and still be the 2nd biggest company. No reason to overreact that Wayne is having some success.

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I wouldn't say that deciding to take a couple of actions to try and outdo one of our main competitors is overreacting, especially when they would be relatively low DC ones

Finally releasing the auto-kitchen we designed years ago is only an 18 DC action and would easily allow us to compete with Wayne's new appliances, we're about to make some seemingly major breakthroughs in computing which would allow us to fairly easily compete with them there and even making our own games, which is we succeeded well enough would almost certainly allow us to make our own console, is only DC 24 I believe and I'm sure Nygma would love to get back to his roots

Basically it would be pretty damn easy and profitable for us to do it

We should roll out Sharp and Venom as easy low DC options to help secure our footing. Wayne either can't or won't produce those drugs and they are an easy way to give us a permanent foot in the market. I know there will be objections with Venom, but just because we produce it doesn't mean we have to use it. Just sell it to the US government and other people who will abuse it like Count Vertigo. After that (or concurrently) we should put the Twins on researching something new to give us a unique angle to further push ourselves in the market. Also as Havoc mentioned we could open a cosmetics branch of D'Aramis to help supplement their income as we pivot the pharma company.

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Personally speaking I'm not comfortable rolling either Venom or Sharp out until we've studied it properly, the former is an extremely dangerous steroid created by a criminal kingpin and the latter was made by a corrupt businessman that couldn't care less about casualties

 

[Serpentine]

I agree with studying and trying to lessen the side-effects of Venom and Sharp before putting it on the market. I wouldn't want to waste too many actions on them though. Unsure about cosmetics and gaming industries, mainly because I'm concerned about spreading ourselves too thin. Computers would be worth it considering their use in information, weapons, and everything, and I'm leery (paranoid) of using computers made by others.

 

[Zale]

Personally speaking I'm not comfortable rolling either Venom or Sharp out until we've studied it properly

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I think you are overly cautious. We don't need to study it more, we have the data from Vertigo. Just be upfront with what it does to the people that want it. As for Sharp, I assume the company that made already ran the test and trials. We should have that data when we bought it from them. @King crimson Do we have the data and studies on Sharp from Stag Industries? Where they up to par medical trials? If so I see no problem producing it now.

 

[jonasquinn]

I think you are overly cautious. We don't need to study it more, we have the data from Vertigo. Just be upfront with what it does to the people that want it. As for Sharp, I assume the company that made already ran the test and trials. We should have that data when we bought it from them. @King crimson Do we have the data and studies on Sharp from Stag Industries? Where they up to par medical trials? If so I see no problem producing it now.

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Firstly has Vertigo studied Venom? You might mean Bane but even then I'm hesitant to trust that he worked out all the side effects of it

Secondly as it stands now Venom is completely undesirable even to the military, who are the onky people who might buy it from us unless you're willing to make your soldiers literally monstrous addicts and that is not a good look for us

And thirdly the company that made and tested Sharp was Stagg Enterprises, they don't exactly scream trustworthiness and responsibility

 

[King crimson]

@King crimson Do we have the data and studies on Sharp from Stag Industries? Where they up to par medical trials?

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You have data and studies on Sharp from Stag Industries. They were enough to form a concrete idea of how Sharp works and functions but not quite enough to be released for medical trials. However a part of the action of "Producing Sharp" actions work is to clear the necessary bureaucracy to start making the drug. Unless you fail the action by a fair margin you wont start selling a product that could kill people en masse to the public. You might miss some stuff about it (like how it interacts with things) but you'll be selling it in the safest most legal method possible for the roll you get.

Does that sufficiently answer your question?

 

[Zale]

Firstly has Vertigo studied Venom? You might mean Bane but even then I'm hesitant to trust that he worked out all the side effects of it

Secondly as it stands now Venom is completely undesirable even to the military, who are the onky people who might buy it from us unless you're willing to make your soldiers literally monstrous addicts and that is not a good look for us

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Vertigo has studied Venom extensively in his attempts to make super soldiers. I can double check to help ease your doubts though. @King crimson Do we have all the data from Vertigo in his testing of Venom? I know you said we have his data of combining the Bone Formula and Venom in the past.

Whenever we do a stewardship action relating to drugs it usually means we sell it to somebody. That fundamentally means someone is looking to buy Venom right now, because the DC is extremely low. Ignoring this low DC action when it could be an uncontested part of our Pharma industry seems unwise since Wayne seems to be looking to block out that company. It is a product that Wayne will never touch creating a section of our Pharma company he can't compete with.

@King crimson For this action:
[ ] Begin production of Venom
DC 3 The formula given to you by Bane is fairly easy to replicate and could prove quite useful. Venom while a steroid, is not yet a controlled substance in the US. As such you could begin to produce the substance to then sell to others now. If you are really lucky then maybe you'll even be able to sell the Venom back to Bane to make back the money you paid him for the formula.

Do we have an idea for the success tiers? Who would be buying? Also would it have an effect like the action "producing Sharp" where if we hit a certain success tier we will make a safer version or something?

Tbh I'm also wondering why its so low. That indicates its a huge untapped market that someone really wants. Hell maybe like the action says, we don't even sell it in the US. Just sell it back to Bane and to other less scrupulous people like ARGUS, Count Vertigo or Queen Bee.

 

[King crimson]

@King crimson Do we have all the data from Vertigo in his testing of Venom? I know you said we have his data of combining the Bone Formula and Venom in the past.

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Yes. Vertigo is not really a chemist and most of his data comes from testing the use of Venom in conjunction with other things but that is something you have access to.

@King crimson For this action:
[ ] Begin production of Venom
DC 3 The formula given to you by Bane is fairly easy to replicate and could prove quite useful. Venom while a steroid, is not yet a controlled substance in the US. As such you could begin to produce the substance to then sell to others now. If you are really lucky then maybe you'll even be able to sell the Venom back to Bane to make back the money you paid him for the formula.

Do we have an idea for the success tiers? Who would be buying? Also would it have an effect like the action "producing Sharp" where if we hit a certain success tier we will make a safer version or something?

Tbh I'm also wondering why its so low. That indicates its a huge untapped market that someone really wants. Hell maybe like the action says, we don't even sell it in the US. Just sell it back to Bane and to other less scrupulous people like ARGUS, Count Vertigo or Queen Bee.

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Well I'm not going to hand you the complete chart but I can give you a general overview of some of the reward. The first thing that comes into play is the production of Venom to then be sold to others. Then you get to distribute it to various buyers and make money off of it then you get to keep more for yourself, then you get to potentially improve the formula and then you get to sell it back to Bane. This is a vast oversimplification of the rewards but I feel like that ought to be sufficient to give you an idea of how things might play out.

Venom is low because it's hilariously easy to modify and a lot of people would happily make use of it or its modified versions. A short list of people who have taken Venom or Venom derivative/related substances in various media includes but is not limited to, Batman, Joker, Lex Luthor, Scarecrow, Colin Wilkes, Scandal Savage, Hourman, several high school athletes, Mammoth, Gorilla Grodd, and Wolf. A lot of people would want to make use of it and as such there are a lot of buyers for it. Nobody in particular wants it incredibly badly but a ton of people would be willing to buy it from you (a short list of potential buyers includes Tobias Whale, Black Mask, Bruce Wayne, ARGUS, Simon Stagg, Kobra, Wade Eiling, Project Damocles, Queen Bee, Count Vertigo, Baron Bedlam, the Brain, Thaddeus Sivana, Jonathan Crane, Veronica Cale, HIVE, Talia al Ghul, Lawrence Crock, Penguin, Metropolis street thugs, STAR labs, Hourman, Daizo Uehara and more). That make sense?

 

[Kir the Wizard]

Alternate Costume Fanart Contest

• Circe
  • Sorcerous helmetless hoplite

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Not entirely happy with the result, but I deliver you: HELMETLESS Hoplite Circe!

Spoiler: Hoplite Circe