OK, laying out my thoughts.
[ ] [Offer] Count Vertigo will attempt to best match however much money you contribute to the analysis of powers like his own
I'm a bit confused about what this offers, but am cautiously optimistic about it.
[ ] [Offer] Count Vertigo will provide a location for you to do tests involving the acquisition of superpowers in exchange for him getting regular updates on the results of these experiments
[ ] [Offer] Count Vertigo will provide you with human test subjects in exchange for performing research on replicating and enhancing powers.
These are related and potentially desirable- note that "a place to hide the brutal human experimentation overseas" is something we're specifically after these days.
[ ] [Offer] In exchange for all the information you have on the League of Shadows, Count Vertigo will give you all of the information he has on the League
A reasonable cooperative measure. The League has a lot of power, and Count Vertigo has little or no special defense against being murdered in his sleep. I don't think we should get careless about striking at the League, but gathering information on it would be no bad thing.
[ ] [Offer] In exchange for being able to use Serial Peacemaking to root out any political opposition to himself Vertigo will keep Vlatava open as a safe haven to any member of LexCorp you need to keep out of scrutiny
I'm not strongly opposed to this except that it's likely to attract attention to the ties between us in a bad way. Our PMC may not be super-badass but it can probably handle this. The problem is that "Vertigo's goons" will almost certainly attract foreign media attention, and will be traced back to us.
[ ] [Offer] In exchange for enhancing his power Count Vertigo will allow you to do research on his unique ability so long as it doesn't involve invasive surgery.
I'm fine with this and learning to duplicate the ability would be
really useful given what a huge swath of metahumans and normal human enemies it can weaken. The only problem is that I'm not actually sure we
can enhance his power; we may try and fail. Especially if, say, his power involves a hearing implant that we can't replace without surgery.
[ ] [Offer] In exchange for developing Vlatava Count Vertigo would give you a monopoly in the fields of your choosing
No problem here.
[ ] [Offer] In exchange for assisting the legitimacy of his reign Count Vertigo will align Vertigo to whatever political ambitions you have.
I... don't really have any political ambitions in mind here? I'm tentatively positive about it, but it'd have to be a long term "you owe me a favor" deal, since we don't have a plan for how to
use his support.
OK, for the land offers, we need to remember our priorities:
1) Magical locations, sure.
2)
Really fucking remote locations, because we're looking for a place to stash Dr. Moon's secret evil laboratory. That is a very high priority for us.
3) Places of strategic interest, in that controlling this land may give us access to opportunities in new countries and new markets of significant size that we have a realistic hope of developing.
Let's be mindful of those three priorities, and not get them mixed up.
For example, land near Salem, Massachusetts is magical presumably, but it's
not in any stretch of the imagination remote. Salem is part of the massive, sprawlingly suburban greater Boston metropolitan area.
I am ok with everything except this one. First, our PMC is nowhere near ready for deployment. Second, we are not his personal bully boys; it's one thing to have a
Cadre of Foreign Bodyguards, its another to publicly play Brown/Blackshirt.
If I weren't worried about getting caught, I wouldn't mind.
EDIT:
@King crimson can we counter-offer this with providing him intel on his political opposition?
We don't have the tools to reliably gather intelligence on his opposition anyway. Our cell phone network only helps so much without other supporting tools. We have the
ambition of being in a position to gather Big Data like Google or Facebook, but we don't really have the tools for that yet.
For the real estate I'd focus on as many low cost locations as possible, just to have lots of places to set up operations/hide-outs, but overall I have no idea what to get. The only place I would specifically vote for is Suicide Slums just for this:
Let me see if I can work something out along these lines.
[ ] [Offer] Count Vertigo will provide you with human test subjects in exchange for performing research on replicating and enhancing powers.
No, at least on face value, don't want to be caught doing this in a foreign country, may give him blackmail material. Unless they are volunteers or his soldiers.
You're right to point out the potential for blackmail.
[ ] [Offer] In exchange for all the information you have on the League of Shadows, Count Vertigo will give you all of the information he has on the League
No, just hard no, last thing we want is to be talking about Ra's and his operations behind his back. The man can and will find out and it won't end well.
OHHH.
Hm, you're right. That's a fair point. For all we know, Count Vertigo has prior ties to the League and may even be willing to inform on us to Ra's for advantages. Especially since we know he has political enemies and it would be very convenient if some of them disappeared.
@King crimson
How about another counteroffer for Count Vertigo:
[ ] [Offer] You will provide the services of a discreet assassin to undermine political opposition to himself. In exchange, Vertigo will keep Vlatava open as a safe haven to any member of LexCorp you need to keep out of scrutiny.
We can hire Lady Vic to do this, Count Vertigo gets some of his more difficult opponents to disappear, and the whole thing can't be so easily tied to us.
Actually probably not in this timeline. She's head of a fair-sized federal agency; I bet you she lives somewhere near DC.
