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

[tri2]

hmmm possible responses @King crimson

Topic you want to hit A: Lex Luthor is a control freak who needs to micromanage everything to feel in control at the expense of others.
A1 Argument: Luthor has put his name on virtually everything in the company from the name (LuthorCorp to LexCorp to the brand). Clearly he is very heavily invested in the company. Signs indicate its not to a healthy degree at all, especially since he almost never leaves the building at all. You want to know what kind of mindset leads a person to act like this.
A2 Argument: Luthor has little social life outside of his work. Everything he actually does is kept secret from the public and even from the vast majority of his own workers. This indicates that Luthor has something to hide. You want to find out what.
A3 Argument: Luthor felt the need to install an incredibly paranoid surveillance and security system long before he was well known to the public. This indicates that he felt unsafe. Very quickly an attempt was made on his life. Did he make a deal with someone then renege on it which caused them to send assassins? It's unknown but you do know that he felt it was necessary to spy on his own workers to an incredibly extensive degree. Furthermore besides Luthor and his personal assistant Mercy Graves no one else knows the full security and surveillance layout of the building.

Click to shrink...

A1 Pride, admit you have admittedly excessive pride in both your name/brand/company
A2 Even for a genius it takes hard work hence lack of social, the lack of public knowledge is to prevent corporate espionage until my work/new product is done
A3 Corporate espionage and kidnapping, inevitable to successful people and their holdings

Topic you want to hit B: Lex Luthor's relationship with his father
B1 Argument: Lex felt it necessary to remove all traces of his father from the company
B2 Argument: Lex and Lionel were known to have an antagonistic relationship. Lionel sent Lex to boarding school at a very early age. Lionel supposedly died from a sudden stroke in the privacy of his own home. Lex quickly took up the reigns of the company. Lionel had a closed casket funeral. This paints an ugly picture.

Click to shrink...

B1 His age has past, the baton is in my hand now, so the company should reflect that, with him relegated to the history books.
B2 And this is just speculation with no real evidence to support any connection between these points to the end statement.

Topic you want to hit C: What went down in LexCorp and who are these assassins.
C1 Argument: There was an attack on Lex Luthor. Why would someone want to kill a cell phone mogul? Clearly there has to be a motive.
C2 Argument: Of the 24 different assassins who made an attempt on Lex's life there were four main groupings in the morgue of how they were killed. Most were shot to death, although some of them were shot many more times than the others. One was crushed to death. One had apparently choked to death. The five assassins who died in police custody appear to have been killed with a bladed weapon of some kind. Why is there such a discrepancy in the cause of death?
C3 Argument: Who is Ra's al Ghul and what does Lex Luthor know about him? There has to be some connection.

Click to shrink...

C1 no idea
C2 no idea
C3 no idea

Rebuttals to expected challenge
Challenge 1: Weapons were necessary to make people safe
Response 1: If that is the case why has Lex moved away from it?

Click to shrink...

Because for now the weapons are good enough, right now company must diversify its holding for long term stable growth.

Challenge 2: The security was used to keep his people safe in case of an attack.
Response 2: Why did Lex feel it was necessary to keep his people safe? There had never been an assassination attempt on this scale before

Click to shrink...

because i am not a idiot, i know what happens to those who come up with profitable ideas, and i have many many profitable ideas, no point in not preparing for the inevitable

Challenge 3: LexCorp is hiring the best scientists in the world to make it a better place
Response 3: Are they really? Anthony Ives is notably documented as being very obsessive and being very rude to others at his previous place of employment at S.T.A.R. Labs and one could argue that the man's terminal illness is only increasing what is wrong with him. Pamela Isley was described by Jason Woodrue, one of her colleagues at Gotham university as overly idealistic and claims she is almost megalomaniacal. Are these really the best people for the job?

Click to shrink...

that is because they do not know how to work with such people and have them function as productive members of society despite their eccentricities. Dr Ives obbsession is what makes him amazing at what he does, poor social skills should not be a reason to shun him despite his intelligence.

Dr Isley is not megalomaniacal, just idealistic with no one to take her ideas seriously to either properly and logically support or disprove her ideas, and like Dr Ives, she is skilled in her field of study.

 

[bioticgrunt]

hmmm possible responses @King crimson

A1 Pride, admit you have admittedly excessive pride in both your name/brand/company
A2 Even for a genius it takes hard work hence lack of social, the lack of public knowledge is to prevent corporate espionage until my work/new product is done
A3 Corporate espionage and kidnapping, inevitable to successful people and their holdings


B1 His age has past, the baton is in my hand now, so the company should reflect that, with him relegated to the history books.
B2 And this is just speculation with no real evidence to support any connection between these points to the end statement.


C1 no idea
C2 no idea
C3 no idea


Because for now the weapons are good enough, right now company must diversify its holding for long term stable growth.


because i am not a idiot, i know what happens to those who come up with profitable ideas, and i have many many profitable ideas, no point in not preparing for the inevitable


that is because they do not know how to work with such people and have them function as productive members of society despite their eccentricities. Dr Ives obbsession is what makes him amazing at what he does, poor social skills should not be a reason to shun him despite his intelligence.

Dr Isley is not megalomaniacal, just idealistic with no one to take her ideas seriously to either properly and logically support or disprove her ideas, and like Dr Ives, she is skilled in her field of study.

Click to shrink...

Damn, these are solid arguments.

 

[veekie]

The League of Shadows guys' insult meant "you are a vagina" in Arabic.

Click to shrink...

Very basic of em

 

[Qudrim8054]

Damn...that's why Lois is a politzer prize winning reporter. She is the best of the best and this interview is going to be brutal.

 

[LordEdric]

My idea for C1-c3

C1: there are several reasons why someone might want to kill me. If I die, my competition will try to tear this company apart for profit. Or someone died to one of the weapons I supplied to the government and they want revenge.

(We're rich with no heirs, someone will try to get at it)

C2: My security forces carry guns, Miss Lane. Of course assassins trying to break in will be shot. The who was crushed attempted to scale an elevator shaft and was hit. Lastly, I cannot be held responsible for what happened to criminals in police custody .

(Be honest, but condescending)

C3 : I have no idea who this Ghul person is, I have never heard of him before this. Rest assured, that I will be looking into anyone who threaten me.

(Subtle threats work wonders)

 

[Pathetic King]

Random reactions, since I missed the vote.
The League of Shadows guys' insult meant "you are a vagina" in Arabic.

Click to shrink...

So they were calling us pussies basically.

 

[King crimson]

Sorry this took so long to write. It is hard to write to genuinely smart competent individuals conversing and have it come off as natural. The dice rolls didn't work out well in your favor (I'll post the exact results some time tomorrow I figured you'd want this up ASAP) so Lois has gathered enough to paint you in a bit of a bad light. It won't destroy your reputation but she knows where to start digging now and she managed to bait you very well. Lois is likely going to keep being a problem for a while now.

Interlude: Lex Luthor meets Lois Lane
Lois Lane
This was probably going to be the most interesting interview of Lois' career. She had spent the last three months in disguise in Santa Prisca talking to informants and breaking into secure facilities the Priscian government didn't want people to know about. What she heard and saw there was horrifying but if she didn't find the ugly truth those in power would continue to cover up these abuses and inflict more horrors on innocent people. Lois was glad she managed to publish the article on what was happening in Santa Prisca. It meant that the people of the world could no longer pretend as though everything was alright in that country. Lucy had yelled at her over the phone about how she had made things worse and how she could have called her father, the "esteemed" general Sam Lane and he would have solved the problem. Lois rolled her eyes over the phone at her sisters naivete. Lois remembered her father well. If he could keep the human testing off the books he would have kept up the gruesome human testing and experiments the Priscian government was conducting with it's venom serum in his hopes of making super soldier. People in power couldn't be allowed to keep the people in the dark or they'd run roughshod over the common man in pursuit of "the greater good".


So naturally Lois was surprised when she heard that the enigmatic head of the newly dubbed LexCorp had taken the company away from the weapon design that was the company's bread and butter when his father was running the company and instead entered into several civilian business sectors. As far as Lois could tell the stuff he was making was good. His bank and payment service was legitimate if rather underutilized, and his prosthetics were of a quality never seen before. Of course if one was going to talk about Luthor's contributions to new industries one had to talk about the Lex-Phones (or L-Phones for those who weren't being pretentious like Luthor) and the effect they had on society. They had revolutionized the world. Lois Lane had still been in Santa Prisca when they had first come out so when she returned to Metropolis everyone had been talking about how great these new devices were. Wanting to see what all the fuss was about Lois had gone and bought herself an L-Phone. She had to admit the thing was definitely better than the cell phone she had previously owned by a significant margin so she could see why people were so enamored with them.


Lois had been willing to give Lex Luthor the benefit of the doubt. She had made it no secret that she had never really liked the man finding him arrogant (who names that many things after themselves?), overly paranoid (his security had seemed utterly ridiculous and completely overkill at the time Lois had written her article on the man's rebuilding of LexCorp tower), and overly enigmatic (no one knew what he actually did on a day to day basis). Still he appeared to be making a genuine attempt to be better.


Then assassins attempted to kill him in his own tower. The world was still clamoring over the chaos of the event when the five surviving members of the group that tried to kill Luthor were mysteriously killed in police containment with a mysterious message being written saying "Ra's al Ghul, no more hiding in the shadows". No one knew what to make of this.


Smelling a story Perry had assigned Lois to interview the man of the hour. And so Lois submitted all of the official forms to schedule an interview with Lex Luthor. With her newfound credibility after winning the Pulitzer prize he could hardly turn her down without looking immensely suspicious himself.


In the time before the interview Lois had been investigating the history of Luthor and those who worked with him. What she found set off all of her well-honed skills as an investigative reporter that something more was going on here. The removal of all traces of Lionel Luthor for the company, coupled with the why in which he supposedly died shortly before Lex took over the company was incredibly suspicious. The fact that only a few months after Lex had installed his new security and surveillance systems in his tower and equipped his forces with better gear, there was the first documented assassination attempt on either Lex or his father right after Lex had taken the company into a direction that had improved public perception of him seemed too convenient. The differences in the ways the assassins were dispatched (which she learned after taking a trip to the city morgue) were interesting as it hinted something was going on behind the scenes. And what was said about two of his newest hires was not exactly comforting. Lois had no real proof that any wrongdoing was going on but all the pieces of the puzzle that had surfaced made her wonder how deep dark and ugly the truth that lay beneath was. Lois Lane was going to do everything in her power to make sure everything came to light.


Of course she doubted that she'd be able to get much out of Lex. A man as smart as him had doubtless thought of ways to cover all of his bases and make his company come out of it smelling like roses. She'd love to expose what was wrong in LexCorp right off the bet but she doubted she'd be able to do so. Rather Lois was going to take a different approach. She was going to make the man uncomfortable and throw him off of his game, while still remaining within the bounds of professionalism in order to start pulling at the threads Luthor would unintentionally leave for her to find and begin investigating LexCorp from there.


With her gameplan in mind she strode through the lobby of LexCorp tower. All the guns and cameras she saw reminded her of the internment camps and prisons in Santa Prisca. She was also sure that unlike in Santa Prisca for every gun and camera she did see there were two that she could not. It seems she was right in comparing Luthor to a wannabe dictator only the actual dictators were somehow less paranoid than Luthor.


Luthor's personal assistant took her up in an elevator to meet with Lex Luthor. He sat at a large imposing wooden desk. He wore a dark tailored suit no doubt more expensive than half of the homes for rent in Suicide Slums and his room was rather tastefully decorated in a modernistic fashion but Lois didn't really understand enough about design to really get all the details of the room.


"Miss Lane" Luthor rumbled out as he stood to greet her. He was surprisingly tall and well built for a scientist. Lois wouldn't have been surprised if Lex was the type to compulsively exercise non-stop due to his need to be "perfect" in all things. "Can I offer you something to drink".


"I'm afraid not" Lois replied as she set her suit jacket down on the chair Luthor had gestured for her to sit in. "I'm here for business not pleasure"


"I find that the best kind of business always has some sort of pleasure in it" Lex replied as he sat back down and poured himself a drink "You don't mind if I drink myself do you? I just had a very vigorous debate with one of my scientists on how to further revolutionize the phone and I'm afraid I'm a little parched"


Lois nodded in assent. She saw no reason to deny Luthor a drink. Let him think he bought into the air of affability he was presenting.

"So Mr. Luthor let's begin the interview" Lois said as she pulled out a notepad and a pen. A small plasticy smile (she could also fake affability) was on her face as she continued "How do you stay on top of it all? You have quickly taken LexCorp and turned it into a household name. People have stated that you are closely involved in virtually all projects that occur at LexCorp".

Luthor's smile almost imperceptibly widens for a second as he respond "Well as you said I like to get involved in almost everything. I find that when trying to change the world its best to get a view from multiple angles. Take for example the Lex-Phone which as virtually everyone knows has changed the way we live our lives. But none of that would have been possible without coordination from the various teams at LexCorp from the designers to the coders to the marketers to the financiers to the lawyers all working together in sync to make it the best product possible. I personally believe that it is the duty of the head of the company to get involved with every aspect of his business and lead rather than just sit around on your money content to have others do your job for you and never personally risking anything like so many other rich company heads unfortunately like to do."

The speech is smooth and polished filled with excellent quotable lines and very difficult to spin in a negative light. Lois genuinely can't tell if Luthor had practiced this speech or if he just made it all up off the cuff. It was almost terrifying how easily and seemingly effortlessly the man oozed charisma and knew how to answer in all the right ways.

"Well isn't it possible to go a little too far in that direction Mr. Luthor?" Lois countered. Luthor had a brief look of confusion on his face as though he couldn't comprehend that his involvement in something could be a bad thing before he schooled his face into a more neutral appearance.

"You're rarely ever seen outside of LexCorp tower and you name is attached to virtually ever project to have come out of the company in the past five years. Furthermore, I've heard that you record everything that your employees do in your tower so that you can review it later. That can't be good for your health to be so invested in your company like that?" Lois asks in faux concern. She left two traps in that question (one much more obvious than the other) so Lois wonders which if any Luthor will fall for.


"You are correct miss Lane it hasn't been the greatest for my health. The job has come close to killing me less than a month ago." He replied in a jovial tone. Lois was incredulous. Somehow by joking about his own assassination attempt he had left his own trap for her to write about in her article. If she had quoted him as admitting to have had his obsessive working schedule negatively impact his health she would look like she was obviously trying to slander the man by taking quotes out of context. Even the fact that Luthor had indirectly admitted to monitoring everything his employees did was difficult to pin down since it was tied to that minefield of a quote. Lois had severely underestimated the man. Luthor chuckled.


"More seriously though I am aware that I cannot do everything myself. That is why I have recently hired some new division leaders to help ensure that LexCorp stays at the top of its field." Luthor continues. "Take for example the recently hired Dr. Isley. She has many new and innovative ideas to advance previously neglected divisions of LexCorp forwards and help us make the company go green in an economical and ethical way."


Lois saw her chance to throw things off the rails. "Ah, let's speak about Dr. Isley for a second. Are you aware that a former colleague of hers Dr. Jason Woodrue described her as "like a little girl on a power trip, a megalomaniacal short-sighted woman who is not really suited for important work in the real world"? Do you think that this is the kind of person we should have helping to run one of the world's titans of industry?"


Lex scowled his previously handsome features quickly turned ugly as the anger became apparent on his face "I have not heard these statements from Mr. Woodrue and I am sure that they are nothing but baseless slander and lies. In the brief time Dr. Isley has been here she has shown impeccable character and come up with many quality ideas which we plan on implementing to make LexCorp a more ethical company."


Lex was clearly caught off guard. He had come up with an excellent dodge but Lois still caught the dodge nonetheless. Repeating earlier statements to avoid answering a question you do not want to was avoiding the truth 101. Lois was going to keep pulling this thread and see what unraveled.


"Alright then, I'll move onto the other recent major new hire of yours a Dr. Anthony Ives or as he has recently been calling himself "Professor Ivo". Were you aware that the man had been fired from his previous workplace for being obsessed with personal projects and his incredibly rude behavior towards everyone else? Furthermore its well known that the man is suffering from a crippling terminal illness which could easily lead to him exhibiting even more unstable behavior. Is this the kind of man who gets to lead at LexCorp"


Luthor grimaced. It was clear he did not appreciate having to defend good old Ivo. Lois idly wondered how bad he might be that even the man's ethically dubious employer felt uncomfortable praising his good character.


"While Ivo is a rather prickly individual he can still produce things which will benefit society as a whole. The man's body is crippled but his mind is still as sharp as ever. We here at LexCorp believe in giving others second chances and allowing our scientists to pursue their passions" Luthor responded


"So long as you get to monitor all of their work and make sure they don't deviate from the company line" Lois added in her head. She had gotten what she wanted from this track so she was going to change things up.


"So what was your relationship with your father like? It's well documented that you changed the name of the company from LuthorCorp to LexCorp and that you and your father would often fight? What kind of home environment produced the man who changed the whole world with something as small as a cell phone" Lois was definitely pushing it with this question but if anything would cause Luthor to crack it was this question. This was the question that lead to all sorts of interesting implications about how moral the head of LexCorp actually was. If she could throw him off balance enough to answer the question in a manner that implicated him of some wrongdoing Lois would be able to show the world that Luthor wasn't quite as clean as everyone made him out to be.

"I refuse to answer this question. My relationship with my deceased father is deeply personal to me and I'll thank you not to overstep your boundaries in this interview about my company" Luthor intoned in a flat voice with just a hint of menace at the end. Lois had definitely pushed too hard too fast. Still it wasn't a total waste of time it had helped her figure out what kind of person Luthor was. He was the kind of man who when he couldn't win flipped the table and refused to play the game.

"Alright I apologise if I've caused you any discomfort" Lois lied. "Onto the next subject, the people of Metropolis would like to know what exactly was going on with the assassins who came after your life? Who were they and what were they after?"


"I'm not sure who they were. They mentioned being part of a league but for the most part they just spewed insults in arabic" Lex Luthor responds clearly glad to be talking about something he is comfortable with again. "They seemed to want to kill me for some imagined sin against the earth which I incurred by being a successful capitalist businessman. It was very convenient that our security was more than capable of taking care of them."


"Yes especially considering that there had never previously been a documented assassination attempt on your life or your father's life retroactively justifying all of your security measures. Or did you know in advance and were rightfully terrified for your life." Lois interrupted. Luthor glowered at her with a look of pure hate. Lois continued onwards ignoring the rage that was practically wafting off of the man. "Why would someone want to kill an innocent cell phone mogul though?"


Lois then went in for the death blow. "Of the recovered assassins they were dispatched in a few different ways now obviously all but five of them were killed invading your property correct?"


"Yes" Luthor gritted out. He had given up on giving full answers.

"Were you aware that the five who were killed in custody were killed by a method that was distinct from those killed on your property?" Lois pressed on.

"No" Luthor responded. "I had made it my priority to figure out who they were and how to ensure that it never happened again."

"Excellent" Lois responded "so you'll be able to tell us who is Ra's al Ghul? The world wants to know?"


Out of the Shadows
[ ] [answer] Tell the truth and out Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows
[ ] [answer] Lie to Lois Lane and the world

This brings the interlude period to a close. I had fun messing around with it and trying to write stuff (even if it did cause me to slip up on the schedule I had set. Please let me know which interludes you liked by voting (this is a way for me to informally poll what people liked) for
[ ] [Good interlude]
You can vote for as many as you like and if there was an interlude you disliked please let me know. Thank you for being patient and waiting since I was delayed.

The next update will be on the 25th at 10:00 PST since I have a lot of organizing to do.

 

[tri2]

[X] [answer] Tell the truth and out Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows

Give her what she wants~ No matter how many people will be hurt!

 

[Nystical]

It seems odd that the tell the truth option seems to convey information we don't know? I thought Lex didn't know much about this group.

[] [answer] I honestly couldn't tell you what this League of Shadows group is, let alone this "Ghul" figure. But I have a hunch - a group of neo-Luddites that want human culture and progress to regress to needless violence. Which is why I'm committed to protecting LexCorp employees and families.

or maybe

[] [answer] I honestly couldn't tell you what this League of Shadows group is, let alone this "Ghul" figure - but LexCorp will be cooperating with the authorities to find out everything we can to prevent any threats to the safety of the world. Which is why I'm committed to protecting LexCorp employees and families and beyond.

Maybe we could also do an action to provide protection to families of LexCorp employees? That could also be a good idea long-term because it could prevent groups from blackmailing / extorting employees by putting their families in danger.

 

[ThatGuyWithIdeas]

Ok, we NEED to run damage control on our next turn to prevent Lois from ruining our reputation here (and possibly exposing unsavory things about us). Buy the Daily Planet and assign both Lex and Mercy on that action; also Hire Ex-Cons and Donate to Injured Veterans so that we can boost our reputation even further.

 

[RandomDwarf]

no middle ground eh? it seems that whoever wants to drag him out really wants to screw us over...so lets do a middle ground...

maybe allude that we don't know what this assassin's guild in modern times are, but most likely seems to be some form of personality cult based on assassination of prominent individuals trying to change the world for the better. In fact push the issue that we don't know WHY those men were brutally killed, as it indicates another force out there is trying to indicate this league while staying in the shadows...so we might be in the cross-fire of some old feud between assassins as ridiculous as it seems.

edit: Godammit Lois...you cant leave well enough alone with your idiocy can you? there are REASONS you go to the proper authorities and only blow the whistle if shit really goes down! Seriously, now that country can freely expand its venom supplies and go off on a rampage of pure madness because of this rather then face international pressure until the government breaks down from inspections...then you release the killing blow of information to get as many people there as possible and free those poor bastards.

 

[Erumpet]

[X] [answer] Lie to Lois Lane and the world
[X] out of the shadows and into the light

the matter with the league of shadows is an matter a should be dealt with as such

in the regard to my favorite interlude I enjoyed the first two due the all the different choices that voters made. One issue I did find was the last interlude which while an interesting format was rather complex which is what I think led to there being only one plan presented. while I thought the plan I made was good I want to ensure that everyone voice is heard.

 

[TimEd]

[X] [answer] Tell the truth and out Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows

If Lois is gonna be a pain, then let us make sure that she keeps all her findings to herself by giving her too much news to ever be able to do any investigating reguarding Lex and LexCorp.


[X] Louis Lane Meets Luthor

I like the back and forth. And Lex's failures were more the voter's fault for not fortifying him with ready statements against the attacks.

 

[Nystical]

Maybe we could put a cash reward or a bounty on information related to the League of Shadows? We might be able to attract dissidents who feel like we could provide the resources to actually 'disappear' them once they betray the League.

But mainly for a PR spin - "Lex - The world hero that will drag the League of Shadows into the light!"

[X] [answer] Tell the truth and out Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows
[X] [Extra] Announce cash reward & protection on information/defection from League of Shadows.

 

[King crimson]

It seems odd that the tell the truth option seems to convey information we don't know? I thought Lex didn't know much about this group.

Click to shrink...

He knows that someone named Ra's Al Ghul leads a group called the League of Shadows and that they were targeting Lex alone. This is more than the world knows so letting out even that small an amount of details is a pretty major leak (the public doesn't know that there is more to this than just 24 crazy people so outing the shadows in this capacity is still a big deal)

So they were calling us pussies basically.

Click to shrink...

My understanding is that this is significantly ruder in Arabic than it is when literally translated from English (granted my understanding of Arabic is pretty limited)

 

[veekie]

[X] [answer] Tell the truth and out Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows

 

[Qudrim8054]

[X] [answer] Tell Lois that the investigation is ongoing and any information provided may harm the investigation or endanger people. When we get actionable information, we will hand it over to the appropriate authorities who can determine in what manner they can safely disseminate the information.

I agree with TimEd that maybe if we give this to Lois we will manage to get it to overshadow whatever bad light she would put us at in her article.

Edit: Changed my vote.

 

[Erblue]

Lois Lane is using L-phone or just bought it to see what the fuss is all about? If yes, then we will be able to paint her in more negative light, by collecting information and releasing in a way that would hurt her reputation.

 

[invictus1829]

Lois Lane is using L-phone or just bought it to see what the fuss is all about? If yes, then we will be able to paint her in more negative light, by collecting information and releasing in a way that would hurt her reputation.

Click to shrink...

BREAKING NEWS! LEAKED TEXT MESSAGES BETWEEN LOIS LANE AND HER BOYFRIEND SUPERMAN!!!

 

[MysteryCPU]

We probably shouldn't use any Lex-Phone information against her: she'd start wondering where the info came from. And probably figure out that Lex can bug the Lex-Phones and then that would be bad news for LexCorp.

Really, she didn't do that much damage. She knows that Lex hires some scientists who aren't good with people (potentially unstable people), that he has daddy issues, and that when things don't go his way in an interview he clams up. (I disagree with her assessment that he's the type of guy to flip over a table as much as it was a legitimate tactic to get terse, but its her PoV). Really, what she just has is her suspicions which she believes were confirmed. But, let's be honest: they were probably going to be confirmed to her anyway.

Its probably best not to exacerbate the situation by doing something quite as obvious as to spy on Lois or buy the Daily Planet now that we're getting bad press (we should do that after some time has passed to avoid the appearance of throwing our wealth around). Instead, let's take this as a lesson learned and hire a PR department to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again- either by making people give a list of quesitons before hand or have an intermediary who is more charming then Lex and not quite as knowledgeable about everything in the company (plausible deniability). Let's actually keep Lex fairly enigmatic- people like ideals and figureheads rather than the actual people.

May I suggest a third option:

[X] [answer] Tell Lois that the investigation is ongoing and any information provided may harm the investigation or endanger people. When we get actionable information, we will hand it over to the appropriate authorities who can determine in what manner they can safely disseminate the information.

The standard "no comment" comment. But, it doesn't require us to lie.

[X] [Good interlude] out of the shadows and into the light​

[X] [Good interlude] Lois Lane and Lex Luthor​

 

[Pathetic King]

[X] [answer] Tell Lois that the investigation is ongoing and any information provided may harm the investigation or endanger people. When we get actionable information, we will hand it over to the appropriate authorities who can determine in what manner they can safely disseminate the information.

 

[Qudrim8054]

Okay, if MysteryCPU's write-in is approved, then I'm switching to that, but until then I'm keeping my answer as it is.

 

[Redhead222]

[x] [answer] I honestly couldn't tell you what this League of Shadows group is, let alone this "Ghul" figure - but LexCorp will be cooperating with the authorities to find out everything we can to prevent any threats to the safety of the world. Which is why I'm committed to protecting LexCorp employees and families and beyond.

 

[LordKill90908]

[X] [answer] Tell Lois that the investigation is ongoing and any information provided may harm the investigation or endanger people. When we get actionable information, we will hand it over to the appropriate authorities who can determine in what manner they can safely disseminate the information.

 

[King crimson]

[ ] [answer] Tell Lois that the investigation is ongoing and any information provided may harm the investigation or endanger people. When we get actionable information, we will hand it over to the appropriate authorities who can determine in what manner they can safely disseminate the information.

Click to shrink...

If you want to vote for this sure go ahead (I'm not giving 100 exp for this though) . It will be counted as a legitimate voting option.