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

[Alex Sol]

Thanks for info. If dropping briefcase requires intrigue check then hero unit can fail it too, right? Not sure how risky it would be for our hero unit to do it, then.

I guess I can do both variants for the start and see if people prefer one way or another, of if anyone suggests anything better.

[] [Card] Contact the police personally and provide them with the information you have obtained. Inform them that LexCorp would not have any heavy hitters available at the moment and suggest contacting Superman for assistance. Have them covertly drop off a briefcase with money at the defunct industrial plant and use it as trap for Joker.

[] [Card] Contact the police personally and provide them with the information you have obtained. Inform them that LexCorp would not have any heavy hitters available at the moment and suggest contacting Superman for assistance. Have Arthur Villain covertly drop off a briefcase with money at the defunct industrial plant and use it as police trap for Joker.

Arthur have higher intrigue that Mercy and less known for his ties with LexCorp, so he is better candidate unless he decides to play his own game. And even if he attempts some scheme it is still better than risking Joker taking Mercy hostage.

[] [Observe] Have Eve and Siobhan follow Superman and continue spying. Have Jinx leave the rooftop and secretly use her magic to cause bad things to happen to Superman.

Finally our chance to jinx Superman. Don't pass it.

 

[King crimson]

Thanks for info. If dropping briefcase requires intrigue check then hero unit can fail it too, right? Not sure how risky it would be for our hero unit to do it, then.

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Yes but the bigger problem is personality. Since it's not a specific hero unit I can't say for sure "they would never do this", and you do generally have a solid hold on the police, but asking the police to sneak into a known infamous supervillain's base undetected and leave them with money and not attempt to make an arrest is going to be difficult for them. Yes it's part of a bigger planned sting operation of sorts but sting operations in and of themselves are difficult to do well and there's always a chance the police officer sent out will just roll the dice and decide to disobey orders and try to capture the Joker now.

With hero units like Arthur Villain or Mercy, you don't have to worry about them going "I'm going to disobey orders and try to capture the Joker on my own". With the police that's much more of a concern.

While the intrigue check is a risk, the bigger risk is a different check I'll be making is if the police even follow your plan in the first place and don't try to go for the more "easy" immediate win by trying to take down the Joker immediately.

Edit: To make it clear, the plan as initially presented could work no problem, I'm just informing you that having the police leave the briefcase of money for the Joker introduces an additional check that needs to be passed that can immediately derail your plan that Lex Luthor would be aware of. It's not a plan that has no chance of working, it just has an additional potential complication I thought you should be aware of.

 

[Alex Sol]

Yes but the bigger problem is personality. Since it's not a specific hero unit I can't say for sure "they would never do this", and you do generally have a solid hold on the police, but asking the police to sneak into a known infamous supervillain's base undetected and leave them with money and not attempt to make an arrest is going to be difficult for them. Yes it's part of a bigger planned sting operation of sorts but sting operations in and of themselves are difficult to do well and there's always a chance the police officer sent out will just roll the dice and decide to disobey orders and try to capture the Joker now.

With hero units like Arthur Villain or Mercy, you don't have to worry about them going "I'm going to disobey orders and try to capture the Joker on my own". With the police that's much more of a concern.

While the intrigue check is a risk, the bigger risk is a different check I'll be making is if the police even follow your plan in the first place and don't try to go for the more "easy" immediate win by trying to take down the Joker immediately.

Edit: To make it clear, the plan as initially presented could work no problem, I'm just informing you that having the police leave the briefcase of money for the Joker introduces an additional check that needs to be passed that can immediately derail your plan that Lex Luthor would be aware of. It's not a plan that has no chance of working, it just has an additional potential complication I thought you should be aware of.

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I thought we have better control of police than that, especially with Lex talking with them personally.
Where all our donations went?

Should I write-in Mercy and Mary into diplo team to convince police not to rash into Joker or would it occur naturally with them not mentioned for any other activity?

 

[King crimson]

I thought we have better control of police than that, especially with Lex talking with them personally.
Where all our donations went

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You have really, really good control of the police, it's just that you have mostly top-down control and not bottom-up. The people in the Metropolis police who say "this is what you're assigned to do as a police officer" or who make the general policies and media representations are all basically in your pocket. Broadly speaking as an organization you can get the police to officially do anything so long as it's not outright treasonous and you have enough pull that you can basically use the police to cover up your crimes.

Even in this situation, if you told the police you wanted it done, the decision and policy makers would pretty much line up what you wanted and get things moving. Officers would be sent out with the specific instruction to follow the orders you'd laid out (though it would be presented as the police coming up with this plan on their own).

The catch with this specific situation is that the people on the ground, (who are the people whom Lex generally didn't personally meet with because they're the most replaceable), could decide to try and be a hero and go for immediate pay-off. For a sort of metaphorical comparison, you're telling someone to cut a single wire on a bomb so that you can definitely disarm it later when it's moved. Even if the person believes you and will generally listen to you, they'll always be tempted to try and disarm the bomb now since they've already gone to the work of locating it and cutting a single wire.

Your donations have given you a ton of control over the police, the moment you remove the temptation to compromise the sting operation, the police would willingly go along with your plan, meaning there isn't much of a moral objection or an objection to following orders. Additionally while I mentioned that having the police leave the briefcase for the Joker was likely to fail because of this, the police officer who caused this to fail would almost certainly be drummed out of the police force due to insubordination. That's just cold comfort for the plan.

Edit: To give you an idea of your level of control of the police, if you told them "I want Lois Lane in jail on trumped up charges for 24 hours" the police would probably go along with that. If you told them "I want 90% of your forces to exclusively patrol in neighborhoods which LexCorp has a strong presence" you could do that. You have a massive amount of control and sway over them, it's just that certain situations can loosen the control ever so slightly and lead to people trying to make decisions to achieve the goals you laid out for them in a manner inconsistent with your plan. Even with the police officers potentially bungling the plan you've presented, the threat is not quite "the police will not listen to you" and more "the police might think they have a better understanding of how to capture the Joker as you've told them to do, and so they'll act on their own plan instead of the one you gave them".

Edit #2: To give a metaphorical comparison for the situation when you tell the police something like "make me a cake following this recipe" the way things can potentially get derailed is never going to be the police declaring "we will not make you a cake". Instead it's going to be an officer on the ground looking at things and going "man it'd be easier to make a cake for LexCorp if I followed a different recipe from the one I was provided". It's not out and out disloyalty, it's attempting to achieve the goal you've presented by making on the ground judgements of the best way to go about doing something.

Should I write-in Mercy and Mary into diplo team to convince police not to rash into Joker or would it occur naturally with them not mentioned for any other activity?

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Anything not written out will generally be left to my discretion. If you think it's necessary then you should write it out. I generally try and make sensible decisions on distribution when not given all the details but I might not necessarily make the most optimal decision or the exact decision you want. Stuff like Jinx and Eve going p to the top of a building to observe Superman while Siobhan stays low to the ground and in disguise I think is generally fine but it's also an example of me making specific distributions as I think they make sense.

Ultimately it's your call on whether or not you want to include them or not.

 

[Alex Sol]

The catch with this specific situation is that the people on the ground, (who are the people whom Lex generally didn't personally meet with because they're the most replaceable), could decide to try and be a hero and go for immediate pay-off.

Edit #2: To give a metaphorical comparison for the situation when you tell the police something like "make me a cake following this recipe" the way things can potentially get derailed is never going to be the police declaring "we will not make you a cake". Instead it's going to be an officer on the ground looking at things and going "man it'd be easier to make a cake for LexCorp if I followed a different recipe from the one I was provided". It's not out and out disloyalty, it's attempting to achieve the goal you've presented by making on the ground judgements of the best way to go about doing something.

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I think it is acceptable outcome? I mean if they see that Joker already on scene and try to arrest him immediately then it is just as good as luring him in with a briefcase. Especially if Superman is already on scene to assist. If Super is not here, then any result is something that we can blame him for too as long as police made at least some attempt to contact him. The only issue I can see if Harley takes briefcase and police jumps her without waiting for Joker, but are they really that stupid?

 

[jonasquinn]

All in all pretty good, it's unfortunate that Kara will be keeping her distance and that Zod will be making his move soon but we've managed to keep things relatively close to our chest and captured Parasite who is arguably the largest threat of Superman's current rogues gallery.

He was family and maybe the only person in the world who could understand what it was like living with the shame of having one of the worst criminals in all of Krypton's history as a father.

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It's ironic that Raven would probably sympathise with Kara a lot here if they knew each other better,

Here's what I'm thinking for the votes:

[X] [Card] Have Mary contact the SCU to share Mercy's findings and organise simultaneous raids on the two locations. While Mercy, equipped with an exosuit, leads a security team, also wearing exosuits, to raid the factory have the SCU raid the farmhouse. Be sure to have Villain equip people with any antidotes he's developed and be ready to help in case of a medical emergency.

[X] [Card] Have Arthur Villain covertly drop off a briefcase with money at the defunct industrial plant and use it as police trap for Joker. Contact the police higher-ups personally and provide them with the information you have obtained. Inform the higher-ups in the police department that LexCorp does not have any heavy hitters available at the moment and suggest contacting Supergirl for assistance as this would be a good way for her to make up for any publicity issues she's recently suffered from. Assist them in contacting Supergirl if desired.

[X] [Observe] Have Eve and Siobhan follow Superman and continue spying. Have Jinx use her shadow to cast magic on Superman to make bad things happen to him while she tries to find the source of the illusions. Have Siobhan ready to interfere to save people should Superman or Jinx's magic endanger anyone.

@King crimson do these work? I'm a bit unsure about what Jinx's shadow can and can't do. Also I'm assuming I should probably still refrain from the Wayne vote?

 

[Fight Club 20]

Does anyone else have an opinion on Talking to Wayne Subvott?

 

[Alex Sol]

[X] [Talk] Attempt to wrap up the conversation with Bruce Wayne

[X] [Observe] Have Eve and Siobhan follow Superman and continue spying. Have Jinx leave the rooftop and secretly use her magic to cause bad things to happen to Superman. Use her shadow to find the source of the illusions. Have Siobhan ready to interfere to save people should Superman or Jinx's magic endanger anyone.


[X] [Card] Contact the police personally and provide them with the information you have obtained. Inform them that LexCorp would not have any heavy hitters available at the moment and suggest contacting Superman for assistance. Have Mercy on comms with policemen directly involved in operation to rapidly adjust plans in case of anything unexpected happening and hopefully to prevent any unauthorized actions. Have Arthur Villain covertly drop off a briefcase with money at the defunct industrial plant and use it as police trap for Joker.


After some thinking I decided that involving Bruce with anything alien related risks him becoming more interested in Superman which we don't want. Since there was no write-in for Talk yet I'll go with wrap up conversation for now. I may change it if there is write-in I find useful of course.
Also hopefully changed Card plan mitigates mentioned problems with police. I definitely don't want Mercy fighting Joker.
Edit:Changed observe vote

 

[King crimson]

captured Parasite who is arguably the largest threat of Superman's current rogues gallery.

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I'll say that outside of maybe Atomic Skull (who isn't really a regular), Parasite is the most dangerous to a civilian on the street. Blackrock avoids people until provoked, Luminus specifically targetted Lois, Toyman targets Superman or people of importance, Metallo focuses on Superman, and Ultra-Humanite is careful not to rack up too much collateral damage too quickly.

Parasite is pretty much the only villain who goes out of his way to target noncombatants as part of his general method of operation (he drains people in order to build up a solid amount of strength/vitality/durability in order to get the drop on someone with even more power). As such he's almost certainly the "largest threat to the average civilian in Metropolis" because of how he operates.

[X] [Card] Have Mary contact the SCU to share Mercy's findings and organise simultaneous raids on the two locations. While Mercy, equipped with an exosuit, leads a security team to raid the factory have the SCU raid the farmhouse. Be sure to have Villain equip people with any vaccines or antidotes he's developed and be ready to help in case of a medical emergency.

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This is fine. I'll say right now that you could cut the "vaccines" entirely and be fine (the Joker is not going to be using diseases as a vector of attack) but this is good as is.

[X] [Observe] Have Eve and Siobhan follow Superman and continue spying. Have Jinx use her shadow to cast magic on Superman to make bad things happen to him while she tries to find the source of the illusions. Have Siobhan ready to interfere to save people should Superman or Jinx's magic endanger anyone.

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So this is fine as is but I should explain a bit how Jinx's shadow works.

Jinx's shadow is semi-independent in that Jinx directs it but doesn't quite control it on the most macro-level. For a sort of metaphorical comparison, the shadow is a drone with a bunch of preprogrammed stimuli. Jinx tells it were to go and has given it, either consciously or unconsciously, a suite preprogrammed responses that it operates autonomously under.

Say Jinx sends the shadow to help Cassandra find something. Jinx gives the shadow a general directive (help Cassandra find something). The shadow then independently finds Cassandra and then scans the nearest location and moves outwards in a sort of spiral pattern. Jinx doesn't have to specifically direct the shadow to look on shelves or under tables, the shadow does so automatically due to Jinx having unconsciously programmed it to incorporate that into "how do you look for something". If Cassandra says something to the shadow, it will automatically respond in a method Jinx has already determined before sending it out, without Jinx needing any conscious input or awareness to make use of.

In addition the shadow cannot physically interact with things so much as it can just move and reshape itself. As such it also can't be hit or stopped through physical force. It cannot produce sound but it can identify objects and recognize sights and sounds that it otherwise shouldn't be able to (the shadow can't make noise but it you hold up an airhorn and then make noise with it, the shadow can react to both the visual and the audible stimulus).

The shadow can't really be used to cast magic independently. What it can do is move out to find something, pass the information on to Jinx, have her cast the magic and then move back to check the effects of said magic. The shadow is fairly fast (it can outrun cars on the ground) so while there would be a little lag time it wouldn't be too much.

The set up you've provided would be the ideal for ensuring that Jinx is not detected casting against Superman, but if you had Jinx observing Superman to cause him to have bad luck while the shadow searches for the source of the illusions, you'd cut down on the chances of Jinx's magic causing complications due to lag between the observation and the action.

I hope that sort of clarifies things for you. I can elaborate if you'd like things done a bit further in depth.

Also I'm assuming I should probably still refrain from the Wayne vote?

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Yeah I'd appreciate you continuing to refrain from the Wayne vote. I don't foresee this lasting much longer as the "A Metropolis Welcome" event should be wrapping up in an update or two and then you're free to talk about things.

 

[Fight Club 20]

After some thinking I decided that involving Bruce with anything alien related risks him becoming more interested in Superman which we don't want. Since there was no write-in for Talk yet I'll go with wrap up conversation for now. I may change it if there is write-in I find useful of course.

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Mmm, maybe talk about Brainiac attack.

 

[jonasquinn]

The set up you've provided would be the ideal for ensuring that Jinx is not detected casting against Superman, but if you had Jinx observing Superman to cause him to have bad luck while the shadow searches for the source of the illusions, you'd cut down on the chances of Jinx's magic causing complications due to lag between the observation and the action.

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Hmm, that's a tricky decision to make.

On the one hand we really don't want Superman to realise Jinx is messing with him and potentially blame her for the illusions as well and her magic might make it easier to find Encantadora but in the other hand the shadow is arguably best suited for finding Encantadora due to its ability to go pretty much anywhere, Superman is already distracted and Jinx having finer control over what exactly she's doing would be nice…

What do people think?

 

[Fight Club 20]

[X] [Talk] Continue talking to Bruce Wayne about the Brainiac invasion

[X] [Card] Have Arthur Villain covertly drop off a briefcase with money at the defunct industrial plant and use it as police trap for Joker. Contact the police personally and provide them with the information you have obtained. Inform the higher-ups in the police department that LexCorp does not have any heavy hitters available at the moment and suggest contacting Supergirl for assistance as this would be a good way for her to make up for any publicity issues she's recently suffered from. Assist them in contacting Supergirl if desired.

[X] [Observe] Have Eve and Siobhan follow Superman and continue spying. Have Jinx leave the rooftop and secretly use her magic to cause bad things to happen to Superman.

 

[Lopezelpesado]

Ooh yeah, some mayhem is brewin allright.

 

[jonasquinn]

I really don't see the point in getting Superman involved with the Joker situation or bringing in the briefcase of money. Neither option really contributes anything as far as I can tell.

We also don't need a heavy hitter to deal with the Joker, he's just a regular guy. Just Mercy in an exosuit should be enough to at least mitigate any problems he might cause.

 

[Fight Club 20]

Another drawing from me this time Lexcorp caught a symbiote.

Spoiler: My Drawing

 

[King crimson]

Another drawing from me this time Lexcorp caught a symbiote.

Spoiler: My Drawing

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So I'll be sharing some thoughts on this. Some of this will be my very uneducated opinions on drawing so take it with a grain of salt (the only thing I think I can truly draw well is octopi).

First of all the praise. Amorphous things are really, really hard to draw without a lot of shading. This might be a more compositional note than anything else, but I feel like the way you drew the symbiote really managed to land that feel without shading so I'm pretty impressed. Additionally you managed to draw the biohazard symbol on a curved surface in such a way that the symbol was readable and it was clear and visibly curved. Its really impressive to me.

The last thing I want to praise is the detailing on the suit. Suit's are a bitch and a half to deal with not only have you managed to draw a good suit jacket with lapels and a collared shirt, but the tie is remarkably clean and you even gave him a little pocket square (I think that's what it's called) in the shape of an L as a neat little touch. The detailing on this is really good especially considering how hard suits are to draw.

Now my minor critique. The tank is very clearly not designed in such a way that would make sense for Lex to be looking up at it. The tank is well designed and the composition broadly makes sense but the overall design of the tank indicates that it should be at floor level. It's not badly drawn, this issue wouldn't exist if it was attached to the floor, but because it has a very visible bottom at the height of Lex's chest, it read a little weird to me. I think this issue could have been resolved by either extending the tank so the bottom isn't visible or by curving the bottom and making it more rounded. Take all of this with a grain of salt (I'm not a particularly good artist) but that's my thought on a potential way to improve a piece like this.

All that being said this is still really good and it easily earns 400 exp. I always feel a bit awkward presenting criticisms of fanart because it is both a labor of love and it is genuinely better than anything I could have drawn. I hope this came off well.

 

[Alex Sol]

I really don't see the point in getting Superman involved with the Joker situation or bringing in the briefcase of money. Neither option really contributes anything as far as I can tell.

We also don't need a heavy hitter to deal with the Joker, he's just a regular guy. Just Mercy in an exosuit should be enough to at least mitigate any problems he might cause.

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So here is more detailed explanation for my reasoning.

First stage of operation is Arthur scouting of industrial plant. Briefcase in this case is needed to give him a cover. Imagine for example him running face to face with Joker. In this case briefcase full of money will explain what Arthur doing here and even clown is unlikely to kill man who brings him millions dollars straight away and promises to deliver more. So Arthur enters plant, leaves briefcase and exits and his safety is more or less secured by having money on him. This also allows us to check insides of industrial plant for any preinstalled traps, so policemen is not immediately ambushed if they spring into action. Ideally police and Superman attacks only after Arthur is back to the safety and can report what he saw there.

On the other hand let's assume that industrial plant is empty. Then we leave briefcase there. Perhaps there are some hidden cameras installed. Then potentially Joker will arrive to retrieve it. Or one of his minions regularly checks this place. Then seeing money they will go straight to the boss and Superman or police follows them to the Joker real hideout. Then we don't need to split focus between two locations.

Now why we need Superman. First of all option to attack Joker with our own forces was during hero vote when we decided between Clown Hunt and From Gotham with Hate mini-events. Sending our heavy hitters after Joker was Clown Hunt option. Arranging some kind of confrontation between Joker and Superman was From Gotham with Hate option. From Gotham with Hate won and after it, trying to arrange LexCorp confrontation with Joker regardless, only with less strong hero units available is decisively suboptimal. Again event to hunt Joker on our own involved bringing in our heavy hitters, Mercy in exosuit is definitely not in the same category

Joker being a normal human logic would just result in much whining afterward when he decisively beats our troops. I actually would not be surprised if he comes out on top in his first confrontation with Superman, let alone against only police and Mercy. Especially if he is with Harley and they have crazy coop score together. They would absolutely match Superman martial mechanically. And narratively it is first Superman fight with such enemy, if it was cartoon show hero would never win this fight straight from the start.

Is it possible that there are better approaches? Definitely. I made few adjustments to initial version after input from QM and there is still angles not covered. Perhaps it is better to not overcomplicate things and just pay Joker, canon Lex get away with it without much problems. Or maybe involving Lois is not such bad idea after all. If she is saved by Batman instead of Superman perhaps she will lose even more trust in Super. We definitely have alternative options. I just don't think that Mercy in exosuit is a match for Joker. Unless it is some kind of 4D chess move where we allow Joker to take Mercy hostage to allow Joker take over LexCorp resources and use them against Superman without repercussions. But at this point i think I am definitely overthinking it.

 

[King crimson]

Joker being a normal human logic would just result in much whining afterward when he decisively beats our troops. I actually would not be surprised if he comes out on top in his first confrontation with Superman, let alone against only police and Mercy. Especially if he is with Harley and they have crazy coop score together. They would absolutely match Superman martial mechanically. And narratively it is first Superman fight with such enemy, if it was cartoon hero would never win this fight straight from the start.

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Nope, Joker pretty definitively loses to Superman even with Harley. He straight up cannot win because one of Superman's traits would negate any damage he could potentially inflict.

You have helped aid the Joker significantly in having a decent match against Superman (proliferation of Kryptonite makes things significantly easier) but generally speaking, mechanically Superman wins every time in a white room fight against Joker, all of his minions and Harley.

The Joker straight up cannot beat Superman in a martial confrontation. That being said the Joker also generally shouldn't even try to win a martial confrontation and instead should shift the terms of the encounter to something else. The basics of there being two hideouts (beyond it completing the dropped card theming as there are generally two Jokers in a standard 52 card deck) is designed to work on this principle. By potentially being at two different locations, the Joker forces people to either guess which location he's at, or to split their forces in trying to catch him. Joker isn't confident he can beat Superman or the Metropolis Police Force in a straight fight so he has begun taking steps to make it harder for them to find him.

The more he can misdirect, bamboozle and force people to waste time and energy covering multiple possibilities, the more effectively he can tilt the odds in his favor. In other words, he's going to do everything in his power to try and turn it into an Intrigue based confrontation and not a martial one. The moment he gets cocky and makes it a straightforward fight he loses straight up.

Edit: For another example of the Joker relying on trickery more than straight up lethality and combat prowess, one of the main benefits his gas gets him is that it doesn't straight up kill people instantly. Beyond the branding and reputation benefits, the Joker doesn't use something that's straight up as lethal as possible because it buys him time (gassing someone and running away is a viable tactic for the Joker because the police and Batman are obligated to act to save the injured person or else they'd be letting someone die on their watch. It's not a perfect strategy but it does give him a fairly decent escape option). The Joker's a good enough chemist to make his uniquely lethal gas, so there's no reason why he couldn't come up with a Sarin variant or something and just kill people outright. He compromises on lethality and combat potential in exchange for showmanship and manipulative tricks.

 

[Alex Sol]

Nope, Joker pretty definitively loses to Superman even with Harley. He straight up cannot win because one of Superman's traits would negate any damage he could potentially inflict.

You have helped aid the Joker significantly in having a decent match against Superman (proliferation of Kryptonite makes things significantly easier) but generally speaking, mechanically Superman wins every time in a white room fight against Joker, all of his minions and Harley.

The Joker straight up cannot beat Superman in a martial confrontation. That being said the Joker also generally shouldn't even try to win a martial confrontation and instead should shift the terms of the encounter to something else. The basics of there being two hideouts (beyond it completing the dropped card theming as there are generally two Jokers in a standard 52 card deck) is designed to work on this principle. By potentially being at two different locations, the Joker forces people to either guess which location he's at, or to split their forces in trying to catch him. Joker isn't confident he can beat Superman or the Metropolis Police Force in a straight fight so he has begun taking steps to make it harder for them to find him.

The more he can misdirect, bamboozle and force people to waste time and energy covering multiple possibilities, the more effectively he can tilt the odds in his favor. In other words, he's going to do everything in his power to try and turn it into an Intrigue based confrontation and not a martial one. The moment he gets cocky and makes it a straightforward fight he loses straight up.

Edit: For another example of the Joker relying on trickery more than straight up lethality and combat prowess, one of the main benefits his gas gets him is that it doesn't straight up kill people instantly. Beyond the branding and reputation benefits, the Joker doesn't use something that's straight up as lethal as possible because it buys him time (gassing someone and running away is a viable tactic for the Joker because the police and Batman are obligated to act to save the injured person or else they'd be letting someone die on their watch. It's not a perfect strategy but it does give him a fairly decent escape option). The Joker's a good enough chemist to make his uniquely lethal gas, so there's no reason why he couldn't come up with a Sarin variant or something and just kill people outright. He compromises on lethality and combat potential in exchange for showmanship and manipulative tricks.

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I don't specifically remember trait description, but would not Kryptonite simply negate it? Joker should have one on hand if he visited Metropolis, and even more so if he done so with plans to kill Superman. Obviously I assumed that the fight happens in the real life conditions and not in the white room environment, there is no need to offer Superman additional advantages.

Also notice for example that I have not stated that Joker directly beats Superman in martial ( I said matches). My assumption is that their numbers with Harley assist may be more or less comparable and even if due to Superman trait he can't beat him, he can still not lose. For example Superman attacks, they roll martial, Joker have a bit better roll and thus is not immediately defeated. This presumably will allow him to switch to intrigue where he can get his win. Nowhere I stated that I expect Joker to kill Superman straight away. Joker running away successfully, leaving Superman look stupid is still Joker coming out on top in my understanding of situation. Sorry if I was not exceptionally clear about it.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Jinx wanted Eve to open up a portal to the top of a nearby building so that they could watch Superman from there. It was risky, if either of them fell from the top of the building, they were goners...

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I mean, Siobhan can fly, can't she? She could probably catch one of you two. Maybe not both, granted.

"It was real weird, I went to the bathroom and suddenly I come back and one of our regular reporters starts screaming uncontrollably about spiders, another starts acting as though armed guards have entered the room and one person started shrieking as they were convinced the floor had given way and they were falling" Jimmy explained "Superman shows up shortly afterwards and starts evacuating people. Everyone stops hallucinating and everything seems fine. Ten minutes later Superman's flying around seemingly randomly and no one can figure out why."

"You have any ideas on what caused this?" Siobhan asked, hoping to get a little more information. Jimmy shook his head.

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Well, the obvious angle is "whatever happened to the people at the Daily Planet started happening to Superman too..." But that's not exactly specific.

Also for my favorite joke that I will now proceed to explain because it amuses me too much to let it fly over people's heads, the "American name" Siobhan comes up with herself is an absolutely awful alias. Jane is apparently an equivalent to Siobhan (I don't know I don't get name etymology all that well) and "Jane Harrison" is actually the name of one of the first ladies of the United States. It's like a less exaggerated version of if a guy called "Odysseus" trying to come up with a stereotypically "American" name and said his name was "Ulysses Grant".

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Honestly, it's not actually that bad. "Jane" is an extremely common American name, and very few people would link it to "Siobhan" if they were looking up official records the way that someone might link, say, "Cathy" and "Caterina." And "Harrison" is a common surname. It may be the name of a First Lady from the 19th century or whatever, but not anyone famous enough that the name is blatantly false.

I'd say it's no worse than picking a name like "Steve Carpenter," which is definitely the real name of plenty of real people.

The catch with this specific situation is that the people on the ground, (who are the people whom Lex generally didn't personally meet with because they're the most replaceable), could decide to try and be a hero and go for immediate pay-off. For a sort of metaphorical comparison, you're telling someone to cut a single wire on a bomb so that you can definitely disarm it later when it's moved. Even if the person believes you and will generally listen to you, they'll always be tempted to try and disarm the bomb now since they've already gone to the work of locating it and cutting a single wire.

Click to shrink...

It's worse than that, from Lex's point of view.

Because if you tell a cop "cut this specific wire on this bomb, and we'll take care of the rest," they will probably assume you know more about bombs than they do and let you go ahead with making the decisions. They don't want to risk being blown up trying to improvise in an area they don't understand very well.

If you tell a cop "we're going to do a sting operation on the Joker," they may very well try to arrest him. Because they have reason to think they understand the job of putting the Joker in handcuffs a lot better than they understand disarming a bomb.

Edit #2: To give a metaphorical comparison for the situation when you tell the police something like "make me a cake following this recipe" the way things can potentially get derailed is never going to be the police declaring "we will not make you a cake". Instead it's going to be an officer on the ground looking at things and going "man it'd be easier to make a cake for LexCorp if I followed a different recipe from the one I was provided". It's not out and out disloyalty, it's attempting to achieve the goal you've presented by making on the ground judgements of the best way to go about doing something.

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This is compounded because the Metropolitan Police Department isn't only obeying LexCorp, of course. From their point of view, putting the Joker in jail (or in a grave) sounds like a great idea on general principles, so they'd probably hate to miss an opportunity to do so, even if it means not following a plan from LexCorp.

Because they take orders from Lex, but they don't only take orders from Lex the way someone like Mercy does.

 

[drake_azathoth]

If we're going to call in assistance to have someone outside Lexcorp help fight the Joker along with the Metropolis PD, might I suggest Supergirl instead of Superman? She doesn't have a Nemesis score with us like Superman does, and it'd be a useful way to evaluate her capabilities. It might also give her a bit more interest in cooperating with the Metropolis PD in the future, which means cooperating with Lex.

As pointed out, it's likely that Joker WILL lose such a confrontation, he can and does lose and get imprisoned frequently and his Martial score reflects that. But he's likely to escape eventually too, so if we don't want him as a Nemesis a patsy would be helpful.

 

[Fight Club 20]

If we're going to call in assistance to have someone outside Lexcorp help fight the Joker along with the Metropolis PD, might I suggest Supergirl instead of Superman? She doesn't have a Nemesis score with us like Superman does, and it'd be a useful way to evaluate her capabilities. It might also give her a bit more interest in cooperating with the Metropolis PD in the future, which means cooperating with Lex.

As pointed out, it's likely that Joker WILL lose such a confrontation, he can and does lose and get imprisoned frequently and his Martial score reflects that. But he's likely to escape eventually too, so if we don't want him as a Nemesis a patsy would be helpful.

Click to shrink...

Do we even contact her in the first place?
Edit
I'm willing to switch when you make your plan

 

[Alex Sol]

If we're going to call in assistance to have someone outside Lexcorp help fight the Joker along with the Metropolis PD, might I suggest Supergirl instead of Superman? She doesn't have a Nemesis score with us like Superman does, and it'd be a useful way to evaluate her capabilities. It might also give her a bit more interest in cooperating with the Metropolis PD in the future, which means cooperating with Lex.

As pointed out, it's likely that Joker WILL lose such a confrontation, he can and does lose and get imprisoned frequently and his Martial score reflects that. But he's likely to escape eventually too, so if we don't want him as a Nemesis a patsy would be helpful.

Click to shrink...

To call Supergirl is interesting proposal. Main risk is that Superman will involve himself regardless or she invites him herself and they will get opportunity for further bonding while beating Joker, but there are benefits too. This would be a greatly different write-in, where we likely will want more people on site to offer direct support to her too. Overall I like the idea but not quite enough to switch to it myself. If more people are interested I say go for it.

 

[drake_azathoth]

[X] [Card] Have Arthur Villain covertly drop off a briefcase with money at the defunct industrial plant and use it as police trap for Joker. Contact the police higher-ups personally and provide them with the information you have obtained. Inform the higher-ups in the police department that LexCorp does not have any heavy hitters available at the moment and suggest contacting Supergirl for assistance as this would be a good way for her to make up for any publicity issues she's recently suffered from. Assist them in contacting Supergirl if desired.

[X] [Observe] Have Eve and Siobhan follow Superman and continue spying. Have Jinx leave the rooftop and secretly use her magic to cause bad things to happen to Superman.

I think this balances out risks and rewards fairly well. It's a good possible tie to Supergirl, if she works closely with the police in the future she's effectively working for us - and if we reveal through the police that we're trying to stop someone who was planning to kill her cousin she's likely to be grateful. She's not currently Lexcorp affiliated so Joker is not as likely to focus on Lexcorp thwarting him.

And frankly if the Joker gets impossibly lucky and hurts her badly, we'll be in a great position for the police (and Lexcorp) to nurse her back to health and give us another go at a close tie. There are still plenty of ways things can go wrong, (such as Superman getting involved and taking full credit), but I think it covers the angles a bit better than having Superman get immediately involved or the police trying to do it themselves.

For the Superman and likely fear gas thing, chances to take a shot at him deniably don't grow on trees and Jinx is very deniable. We should go for it. If it pays off, between that and the pheromone dose we gave Lois it might actually sour her opinion of him to a degree.

 

[Fight Club 20]

@King crimson, when is voting is close?