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

What sort of tone should I shoot for with this Quest?

  • Go as crack fueled as you can we want Ambush Bug, Snowflame and Duckseid

    Votes: 30 7.7%

  • Go for something silly but keep a little bit of reason

    Votes: 31 7.9%

  • Adam West Camp

    Votes: 27 6.9%

  • Balanced as all things should be

    Votes: 195 50.0%

  • Mostly serious but not self-involvedly so

    Votes: 73 18.7%

  • Dark and brooding but with light at the end of the tunnel

    Votes: 12 3.1%

  • We're evil and we don't want anyone to be happy

    Votes: 22 5.6%
  • Total voters
    390
  • Poll closed .
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Torgamous said:
Looks like America to me. "Grim gray twin" being the Confederates.
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In hindsight you're probably right. The man with the pen is uncertain to me then but this is a very roundabout Uncle Sam POV probably. The electricity stuff through me off alongside the fact that I was looking for a DC character who it could be rather than a more literal personification of the nation.

Thanks for pointing it out and clearing up my confusion (I was right about missing something pretty obvious with hindsight).
 
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King crimson said:
This is good. The ending is ominous...
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The ending is ominous... to the enemies of FREEDOM!!!

:p

and I'm not quite sure who the final POV is from (I wanted to guess the Telephone god but I'm not certain).
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The telephone god is Alexander Graham Bell's monster, not Samuel Morse's. This scene is taking place in 1869, several years before the invention of the telephone. But...

Torgamous said:
Looks like America to me. "Grim gray twin" being the Confederates.
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You figured it out.

Uncle Sam's a bit obscure, but AMERICA (patriotic chords) has an anthropomorphic personification in the DCU. Since King mentioned in an earlier post regarding metahumans aligned with the US government that Uncle Sam exists in the DCQU, specifically, it seemed like an obvious choice to bring him in at a historic national moment.

King crimson said:
In hindsight you're probably right. The man with the pen is uncertain to me then but this is a very roundabout Uncle Sam POV probably. The electricity stuff through me off alongside the fact that I was looking for a DC character who it could be rather than a more literal personification of the nation.

Thanks for pointing it out and clearing up my confusion (I was right about missing something pretty obvious with hindsight).
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I'm confirming that it's an Uncle Sam POV.

See, I thought about it like this.

Getting split into Billy Yank and Johnny Reb must have been rough for him. And canonically he first incarnated in his current form in 1870.

So what happened after the end of the Civil War, very shortly before 1870, that could symbolically pull Uncle Sam back together into a state capable of carrying out his usual duties?

The Golden Spike ceremony.

The dialogue in the brief Promontory Point scene is from the DCQU version of the ceremony. Jack isn't Jack Graves; he's the telegrapher who happens to be on the scene. The name's a coincidence (I picked the first male name that popped into my head).

The 'clicks' and 'clangs' are from the hammer driving in the spike that symbolically tied ocean to ocean, with telegraph wires transmitting the impacts all over the country- it was, in a way, the first event in US history to be 'broadcast live.' And the word 'DONE' was, historically, transmitted over the same wires from the ceremony, again nationwide, confirming that the Transcontinental Railroad was connected.

Leland Luthor, without knowing it, just participated in an act of probably-accidental ritual magic that bolstered Uncle Sam and helped him recover from the lingering scars of the Civil War.

Incidentally, the reference to Uncle Sam 'dropping his weapons' is also going to refer forward to events a chapter or two from now, inspired by historical events but dropping a very noticeable steampunk butterfly in events in Europe.

...

As to the rituals in Philadelphia and Montgomery, well... again, canonically he was summoned by the Founding Fathers, so that's one. Montgomery, I have my own ideas about.
 
King crimson said:
On top of all of this stuff it's very easy to see where things went wrong with hindsight but not in the moment itself. You'll probably be able to point out a mistake that was made much later in the quest when Cassandra gains more independence from Lex.
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Granted, we're still doing better then Lionel did with Lex. And we're at least making sure she has friends. Admittedly, there's nto many in her age group, but that's a way difficult thing to consider.
 
King crimson said:
You as a thread/questgoer or Lex Luthor himself (cause those two things are different)?

Cause if we look at things Lex taught her some things (special people are meant to be turned to your side or destroyed, lying and manipulation is okay to do to non-Luthors so long as it gets you what you want and you don't get caught, you are more important than common people etc.) aren't exactly healthy things to teach a child.

On top of all of this stuff it's very easy to see where things went wrong with hindsight but not in the moment itself. You'll probably be able to point out a mistake that was made much later in the quest when Cassandra gains more independence from Lex.
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Overall I think the biggest thing is the example we set. Our subordinates do what are clearly wrong things and we would give them several chances, provide all the help possible to let them recover and improve from it....

...but if they persist...Ivo.
Cassandra very likely understood what happened there, even if she doesn't know how.
 
Torgamous said:
It is convenient that we've got someone else to direct any patricidal impulses towards.
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You've got potential outlets to direct Cassandra to for patricidal, matricidal and fratricidal (it's still fratricide if it's a half sibling right?) impulses.
veekie said:
Overall I think the biggest thing is the example we set. Our subordinates do what are clearly wrong things and we would give them several chances, provide all the help possible to let them recover and improve from it....

...but if they persist...Ivo.
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I don't really think all the people LexCorp employs can be considered "recovering and improving". Helfern and Ivy got worse, Moon's stuck to "only" conducting horrific experiments on animals and illegally brewing alcohol although that might change now that he has live human test subjects, and Nygma has put forth no effort to change and still sees what he did to Mockridge as the right thing.

Ivo ultimately died because of convenience and him becoming erratic compounding his immoral behavior (his mad scientist behavior wasn't good but it wasn't a problem until he became a liability who wouldn't change. People didn't like him but the reason the plug got pulled was because his erratic failures were causing you problems rather than any moral issues with his behavior).

Morality isn't exactly a requirement to work at LexCorp so much as being useful to Lex is.
 
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Maybe we should take the upcoming trip to Gotham to poach a psychiatrist from Arkham. Someone who can deal with our mad scientist stable and not be shocked by the shocking bits like Parker was.
 
Night_stalker said:
But why? Literally anyone stupid enough to take a job at Arkham isn't someone I want in contact with any of our people.
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They don't need to make good life choices, they need to have psychiatric training and moral flexibility. Picking up Harley as an inmate would be ideal, but since our current guy isn't sticking around long enough for that I'm not opposed to settling for the staff.
 
King crimson said:
Morality isn't exactly a requirement to work at LexCorp so much as being useful to Lex is.
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As it should be, as Lucy has previously stated so long as they get results, dont interfere with others work and dont negatively impact our image. I dobt care what they do as long as its poonted at acceptable targets.
 
I knew this came up before!
King crimson said:
I get what you mean though Arkham still has problems with trying to recruit from it. You can certainly visit it if you fly to Gotham but recruiting specifically from an asylum with a fairly poor reputation is a bit of an odd choice. There won't be an option to specifically hire from Arkham but you can either go to Gotham and visit Arkham to try and pick up a hero unit or you can recruit a psychiatrist and hope the rolls work out in your favor.
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So yeah, despite my dream of company therapist Harley Quinn we're probably still better off just recruiting a therapist the normal way.
 
Simon_Jester said:
--[] Rose Wilson is to fly off to take command of the hospital defenses in case the crab mecha makes it that far.
--[] Leonard Snart is to pick a platoon of 30 Serial Peacemakers to act as a 'flying column.' As soon as we have credible information on the whereabouts of Lois Lane and/or the other hostages, the flying column is to move out and attempt rescue operations.
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Switch Leonard and Rose, and add as many stealth vehicles as you're comfortable drawing from other tasks (as long as that's not between 100 and 125). We're safe until we crack 400, which thanks to Catman we no longer can.
Simon_Jester said:
---[] Have some of the HQ troops in Mk III armor rotated out to guard any prisoners in Centennial Park that we lack the transportation to move quickly, freeing up more Peacekeepers to fight.
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This was also rendered obsolete by the combat engine. Guarding the armor shipment might still be a good idea, though, since trouble can happen at the destination.
 
Torgamous said:
They don't need to make good life choices, they need to have psychiatric training and moral flexibility. Picking up Harley as an inmate would be ideal, but since our current guy isn't sticking around long enough for that I'm not opposed to settling for the staff.
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I was more implying the kind of shrink who works at Arkham is the kind who might not be the most.... qualified.
 
I've updated the part about the prisoners. Still figuring out things regarding the Lois rescue.

Night_stalker said:
But why? Literally anyone stupid enough to take a job at Arkham isn't someone I want in contact with any of our people.
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The big problem with Arkham isn't that the psychiatrists are stupid, it's that the place is too easy to escape. We're not a prison, so we're not worried about that, we just need someone who won't have a meltdown when they find out that Dr. Helfern is doing terrifying experiments on bone mutant bunny rabbits or that Dr. Moon even exists or that a nontrivial fraction of our inner circle is a personality cult.

I mean, that's a big part of why I'm specifically hoping to poach Harley Quinn, because she is:

1) Unshockable enough to have built up a positive relationship with the Joker, which means unshockable enough to deal with any of our people, and

2) Capable of insane misplaced loyalty to a supervillain, which is an extremely valuable trait for us because, well, Lex Luthor. :p

The company psychiatrist is, by the nature of things, going to learn a lot of the weirdest and most horrible things our company does, in the process of being effective. Having an unshockable company psychiatrist is important. Ultimately that's why Parker is a washout for us; he's too shockable to do his job for us given that we have a habit of hiring criminally insane mad scientists.

Torgamous said:
So yeah, despite my dream of company therapist Harley Quinn we're probably still better off just recruiting a therapist the normal way.
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Well, the thing is, two things have changed since King said that.

1) We are now already committed to going to Gotham anyway, which means it's a lot more convenient for Lex to visit Arkham. From Lex's perspective, finding a psychiatrist at Arkham is now one-stop shopping, combining two trips, killing two bats with one stone, whatever.

2) Lex has been specifically inconvenienced by having a shockable company psychiatrist. He now has reason to want to find an unshockable one, one who has experience dealing with people whose insanity could readily escalate into downright criminal extremes... because we have several such people on payroll.

Night_stalker said:
I was more implying the kind of shrink who works at Arkham is the kind who might not be the most.... qualified.
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As noted, the problem is that we have multiple qualifications. Take Dr. Helfern. We need a psychiatrist who is capable of helping Dr. Helfern deal with his grief... but ALSO one who won't run away screaming and blow the whistle when it is revealed that Dr. Helfern has performed appalling war-criminal-tier human experimentation with the bone growth formula.
 
Simon_Jester said:
I've updated the part about the prisoners. Still figuring out things regarding the Lois rescue.
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While you're at it, try to keep our recon forces in each area under 100. There's a massive malus at that threshold that our drones might not have time to make up by 150.

...Or maybe not. @King crimson, do our spy drones count against the stealth unit limit, and if so what's their intrigue score?
 
Torgamous said:
While you're at it, try to keep our recon forces in each area under 100. There's a massive malus at that threshold that our drones might not have time to make up by 150.

...Or maybe not. @King crimson, do our spy drones count against the stealth unit limit, and if so what's their intrigue score?
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OK, @Torgamous , with the withdrawal of the stealth vehicles from most of the city, the recon forces are mostly under 100. I'm not going to worry too much if there's somehow a screwup and some more recon drones get swatted. The stealth vehicles have, in the edited plan, been told to make ready for a rescue. I was nonspecific as to where in the city they'd go because we don't know where the hostages are, but hopefully will know soon once Cerise casts her spell.

Please look over the plan with an eye to the words 'stealth vehicle' and 'rescue' and see what you think.
 
Simon_Jester said:
@King crimson

I need some time to make those changes sorry, I forgot.
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I'm not going to be able to update until Saturday and even that's starting to look iffy. You have time regardless of what happens since most likely I won't be able to update this week.
Torgamous said:
...Or maybe not. @King crimson, do our spy drones count against the stealth unit limit, and if so what's their intrigue score?
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Yes they do. They have an intrigue of 11
Simon_Jester said:
The big problem with Arkham isn't that the psychiatrists are stupid, it's that the place is too easy to escape.
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There's also the problem that the psychiatrists at Arkham have a nasty habit of turning out to be evil or going insane (I can think of at least six separate individuals who worked at Arkham and went on to commit crimes of some manner). That's more a problem of why no one actually gets rehabilitated at Arkham admittedly but still it's there.
 
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