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

[King crimson]

What about the Three Ghosts of Batman?

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They're a very intense fringe case.

One of them became Azrael and the other two were pretty clearly villains. If we count them then the Joker and Two-Face and more enter the conversation and you've sort of missed the point of the "hero" label.

Like Thomas Carma's clearly not a hero even though he thinks he is and he's arguably better than Branca by a long shot. Lines kind of need to be set and I figured the three ghosts of Batman don't quite qualify as "heroes". Granted if you do count them then my point only becomes more true.

If we equate "Hero" to "Costumed Vigilante" one to one then Barbara doesn't even break the top ten in Gotham and that felt a little disingenuous to Jonasquinn's statement.

 

[jonasquinn]

You wouldn't need to study it, the effects would be a very minor DC tweak.

I tend to disagree with this heavily (although you can look at the Big Brother stuff that sometimes shows up and make an argument that she's more immoral). Barbara actually is nowhere near the most morally grey heroes in the setting. Hell I don't think she even cracks top 5 traditionally associated with Gotham (personally we've got Red Hood, who I like much more as an anti-villain than as a hero so I won't count him even though I thought to reference him, Huntress has a sizable body count to the point Batman kicked her out for not getting her anger and violence under control, Azrael's a lunatic with a body count, Katana's got a higher body count by wiping out several Yakuza branches, Anarky's sometimes played as a hero but I won't count him as a hero, Etrigan's kind of insanely evil if he slips Blood's leash, Creeper is actually insane and then we've got fringe cases like Catwoman and Man-Bat who sometimes play heroic vigilante).

She's nowhere near the top of "most morally grey heroes" unless you want to remove a good chunk of heroes from the conversation entirely and cherry-pick examples (Atom Smasher for example illegally overthrew a government in a coordinated assassination in a vengeance pact with Black Adam. I'd consider him worse than Barbara under most moral standards although you can discount him by claiming that he isn't a hero). She's by no means a moral paragon but she's not one of the darker grey heroes in the setting. I don't even think that she'd fall under "darkest grey hero who refuses to kill" (I'd argue Zatanna has a better claim to that then her).

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Yeah she's definitely not the most morally grey hero but she definitely occupies the grey area, especially when you consider some of those examples are closer to black than white

Barbara occupies a weird middle ground when it comes to Batman's sidekicks, she doesn't ultimately reject his intimidation tactics and brute force like Dick and Tim do but neither does she believe that he should be more brutal like Jason or Damian do

Instead she mostly agrees with the tactics Batman uses but is willing to go a little bit further with her Big Brother tactics and is willing to accept more necessary evils whereas Batman punished basically any crime in the end even if he's willing to ignore it temporarily in pursuit of a greater evil

Which is what makes her a good recruit

 

[King crimson]

Yeah she's definitely not the most morally grey hero but she definitely occupies the grey area, especially when you consider some of those examples are closer to black than white

Barbara occupies a weird middle ground when it comes to Batman's sidekicks, she doesn't ultimately reject his intimidation tactics and brute force like Dick and Tim do but neither does she believe that he should be more brutal like Jason or Damian do

Instead she mostly agrees with the tactics Batman uses but is willing to go a little bit further with her Big Brother tactics and is willing to accept more necessary evils whereas Batman punished basically any crime in the end even if he's willing to ignore it temporarily in pursuit of a greater evil

Which is what makes her a good recruit

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She occupies a gray area yes.

That being said she isn't particularly fond of Bruce's intensely violent brooding persona either and in fact in a decent number of continuities calls him out for being too extreme or too violent or too willing to do things he shouldn't in the name of Batman.

On top of that Batman's pulled a good number of "Big Brother" moments himself including, building Brother Eye, an AI that was basically meant to murder any Metahuman who Batman felt crossed to many lines and had protocols to kill every superhuman on the planet, and doing shit like wiretapping peoples cellphones and using them to secretly collect information. If anything Barbara actually goes less far than Bruce most of the time. Bruce has also done stuff like take Venom (in a moment of weakness but he still did do it) which Barbara has not.

I don't think you can make an effective argument that Barbara is any more morally grey then Batman is. Whether or not she's morally grey enough to be effectively manipulated into being a good recruit is a separate question but Barbara Gordon of the comics is in no way one of the darker members of the Batman family.

 

[Zale]

A) She notes that she still needs to get a break in the Killer Moth case and find the perfect moment for her big debut but she hasn't done so yet, that's probably what would've happened if we hadn't interrupted her in the computer room so she probably won't figure it out now, or at least not in time to actually debut how she otherwise would

B) Barbara is a clever girl who is more than smart enough to recognise that she can't be running around as a vigilante in Gotham while also doing an internship in Metropolis

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B) Is she? She is dumb/righteous enough to want to be a costumed vigilante independently of any organizational support. That doesn't scream a willingness to stop to me. I think her getting an internship won't really change anything. Ultimately her big want is to be a hero. Not work for a company. She will still do Batgirl stuff even if she gets an internship.

Hell Batman is a perfect example of her probably being able to do it. Batman runs a company, fights crime, pretends to be Matches Malone, and maintain public appearance as Bruce Wayne. Barbra can probably go to school, fight crime and have an internship. Maybe she doesn't dedicate as many actions as she planned to fighting crime, but I bet she still does it.

 

[Sirrocco]

I have to wonder why Selina Kyle?

We've already attended her gala and spoken to her.

We really should meet new people to seek more opportunities.

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deepening the connection. If there had been four others there who I particularly wanted to spend time with, I might have... but there weren't. Given that, she's significant enough that investing a bit more seems worth doing.

I'm surprised Selina is so popular to. For sure her faction is going to be a powerful force if they don't fall apart in the next 3-4 turns from every heroic faction in Gotham focusing on them and the Court of Owls pressuring them. But uh....they might also just die? Certainly a gamble.

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Nope. Pretty much regardless of what happens, a chunk of her faction is going to be alive and well and working at LexCorp. If everything goes completely to hell for them, we could even suggest that she might wish to be alive and well and working at LexCorp. There are opportunities all the way up and down that outcome spectrum.

Ragman is odd. I've not read stuff with him (at least not as a character with focus) so I only know him from wiki searching. Seems kinda op for a Gotham hero. Not sure there are many people who could really fight him head on. Would have to overwhelm him or fight a really dangerous combatant like Batman, Croc in sewers, Scarecrow etc. Also Batman might have a problem with him stealing people's souls. That seems not cool.

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He doesn't steal them. He binds them for a time, until they work off their debt, and then the get released. At least, that's my understanding.

 

[HavocOrder0999]

I'd like to make the case for my write-in
[ ] [Opportunity] Write-in - Offer Barbara an internship at LexCorp, follow up with an offer to Barbara of a large sum of money in exchange for the blueprints of her jury-rigged computer

It might lead to us making Barbara a corporate sponsored hero down the line. This option would get her used to using funds from us for her crime fighting activities. She operates in Gotham so it won't be a problem for us, and we'll have someone projecting our influence in another city and getting us info without having to build a Lexcorp building in the city. It also promotes the idea we're not against heroes, just vigilantes working outside the law, but we'll give an opportunity for a vigilante to go legit with our help.

I know I'm skipping some steps in this scenario but I really want to see if Batman would even be willing to recruit Batgirl as a sidekick if she is an effective hero, but it is in part due to working with Lex Luthor. It could turn out she doesn't use the funds for anything related to being Batgirl, but it costs us nothing and we get a little DC reduction and rep boost with someone who would make a very good ally.

For those making the argument not to do this due to canon reasons, well that would be the same argument for not recruiting Pamela Isley due to how she turns out in numerous media. We took her in early and now she is loyal to Lex even with her powerset (which she could have used to crush us easily if we didn't earn that loyalty).

Likewise most characters can still change especially younger characters who are still growing up. Barbara is almost certainly going to become Batgirl at this point but who Batgirl is will be determined by the upcoming events in Gotham.

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There is no reason to stop her, if anything lets help her, but definitely keep her away from our more shady operations until she gets a more adult outlook to life. Something Gotham will take care of for us if we're being honest.

 

[Zale]

Nope. Pretty much regardless of what happens, a chunk of her faction is going to be alive and well and working at LexCorp. If everything goes completely to hell for them, we could even suggest that she might wish to be alive and well and working at LexCorp. There are opportunities all the way up and down that outcome spectrum.

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Eh those are people that explicitly want out of the life. They don't want to be involved anymore. Maybe some will end up being spies so still fully with Selina, but I imagine it won't be a big enough number to really maintain the faction with. The orphans will probably still be fully Menagerie, so I guess that counts. Would be quite a terrible force to build the faction out of though, but I guess your technically right. But again this is only the worse case were they get absolutely destroyed in the next couple turns which I'm hoping won't happen.

He doesn't steal them. He binds them for a time, until they work off their debt, and then the get released. At least, that's my understanding.

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That seems fine then. Although I'm not sure Batman will exactly trust him on his word about that. I really hope this doesn't lead Batman into start investigating and tuning into magic. That would be bothersome.

 

[FourmyleOfCeres]

(Half serious) Look, if we do try to recruit Babs, it's actually probably for the best because we also have the D'Aramis Sisters, Vixen, and probably some other Good Guys I'm not thinking of right off. So, if it comes to that, we can essentially have two teams, The Light and Dark Sides. Just play it up as a Mr. Negative sort of thing. It's a regrettable truth that business requires doing a lot of immoral things. That's what they're there to offset. Our legacy will have more Light than Dark, if we can help it.

Moon, if he weren't working for us, would be off killing. We can't entirely prove that other people would have worse ends without us, but we can damn well show that their lives and the lives of the people around them are better for us being there.

So the two teams. The Paragons of the Crimson Fox, Vixen, Batgirl, whoever else. And the Redeemers consisting of the Rogues and whatever else. Getting your life back on track.

(This is a terrible idea. But an attractive one.)

 

[Andmeuths]

[X] [Opportunity] Offer Barbara an internship at LexCorp

 

[jonasquinn]

She occupies a gray area yes.

That being said she isn't particularly fond of Bruce's intensely violent brooding persona either and in fact in a decent number of continuities calls him out for being too extreme or too violent or too willing to do things he shouldn't in the name of Batman.

On top of that Batman's pulled a good number of "Big Brother" moments himself including, building Brother Eye, an AI that was basically meant to murder any Metahuman who Batman felt crossed to many lines and had protocols to kill every superhuman on the planet, and doing shit like wiretapping peoples cellphones and using them to secretly collect information. If anything Barbara actually goes less far than Bruce most of the time. Bruce has also done stuff like take Venom (in a moment of weakness but he still did do it) which Barbara has not.

I don't think you can make an effective argument that Barbara is any more morally grey then Batman is. Whether or not she's morally grey enough to be effectively manipulated into being a good recruit is a separate question but Barbara Gordon of the comics is in no way one of the darker members of the Batman family.

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Oh I don't mean to imply that Barbara is one of the darker members of the Bat Family, Jason, Damian and Cassandra clearly represent that demographic, I just meant that the Bat Familynitself tends to be one of the greyer groups of the straight up heroes and Barbara hasn't hesitated to participate in that in the past if not as much as some of her Bat Siblings

B) Is she? She is dumb/righteous enough to want to be a costumed vigilante independently of any organizational support. That doesn't scream a willingness to stop to me. I think her getting an internship won't really change anything. Ultimately her big want is to be a hero. Not work for a company. She will still do Batgirl stuff even if she gets an internship.

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I mean yes she is, she genuinely wants to help people and currently believes that emulating Batman is the best way to do so but she isn't going about it stupidly, she's gathering information and preparing for her debut in a sensible, intelligent manner and her plan is clearly to attract Batman's attention with her investigation and combat skills in order to work with him which isn't an unreasonable plan considering Robin has been around for a while

She isn't so stupid as to throw all her research and preparation aside in a rush to be a superhero before she starts her internship, especially over something as relatively small as Killer Moth

Hell Batman is a perfect example of her probably being able to do it. Batman runs a company, fights crime, pretends to be Matches Malone, and maintain public appearance as Bruce Wayne. Barbra can probably go to school, fight crime and have an internship. Maybe she doesn't dedicate as many actions as she planned to fighting crime, but I bet she still does it.

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Except Barbara doesn't know that and Batman isn't nearly as successful at that as you claim he is

Bruce Wayne is a vapid playboy that doesn't have any responsibilities or work other than going to a party every now and then and leaves running his company almost entirely up to Lucius Fox and the Board and even then Batman is only capable of keeping up his double life due to sacrificing anything even approaching a healthy lifestyle or social life, not allowing anyone to know who he truly is, his vast amount of wealth and him having a butler that brings him food, drink and medicine and who forces him to sleep the bare amount necessary on a good day

Compare that to Barbara who has school, friends, a loving family that knows her well, including a high ranking police officer and now an internship on another city and also doesn't have anywhere near the resources or drive to give up as much as Batman does

 

[Torgamous]

The Paragons of the Crimson Fox, Vixen, Batgirl, whoever else.

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Our daughter is also a Batgirl, so keep in mind that that's now a very ambiguous name.

 

[Negation]

They're a very intense fringe case.

One of them became Azrael and the other two were pretty clearly villains. If we count them then the Joker and Two-Face and more enter the conversation and you've sort of missed the point of the "hero" label.

Like Thomas Carma's clearly not a hero even though he thinks he is and he's arguably better than Branca by a long shot. Lines kind of need to be set and I figured the three ghosts of Batman don't quite qualify as "heroes". Granted if you do count them then my point only becomes more true.

If we equate "Hero" to "Costumed Vigilante" one to one then Barbara doesn't even break the top ten in Gotham and that felt a little disingenuous to Jonasquinn's statement.

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This is beautiful. It gives us the perfect PR avenue to attack Superman.

If they are in costume, they should be prosecuted for Vigilantism according to the Law.

If they want to do Good Samaritan acts, they should be uncostumed and unmasked.

 

[King crimson]

This is beautiful. It gives us the perfect PR avenue to attack Superman.

If they are in costume, they should be prosecuted for Vigilantism according to the Law.

If they want to do Good Samaritan acts, they should be uncostumed and unmasked.

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Um no not really. The comparison relies on drawing comparison between some very unlike things. The Three Ghosts of Batman were trained by the police and then manipulated by Simon Hurt. They are not really equivalent to Superman in most senses of the word.

Like you're kind of making the equivalent of this argument: Al Qaeda has guns so no one lese should have guns because then they'll be like Al Qaeda. It is not at all a perfect PR knockout at all because it's immediately easy to poke holes in it as a comparison. Super broad, sweeping all encompassing attacks are going to get pushback because generalizations tend not to hold up well in any sort of argument and when the implicit crux of the argument being made is that "all costumed vigilantes are the same" it'll come toppling down fast.

You're also kind of twisting my point which is that the Three Ghosts of Batman do not fall under the same category as a "superhero" unless you use the broadest and most sweeping and all encompassing terms possible that don't really hold up to much scrutiny. The general PR campaign could work but bringing in the Three Ghosts of Batman as a relevant point of comparison actually hurts your argument more than helping it as it becomes immensely clear you're committing the Strawman fallacy

TLDR: The point I made is godawful for the PR attack you are attempting to use it to justify. In fact it's so bad it actually weakens the argument you'd make rather than strengthen it.

 

[King crimson]

So a lot of this event has been me experimenting with stuff (longer updates, weird time shenanigans on events, being more dialogue heavy and less action oriented etc.). This might be jumping the gun a little bit but have people been enjoying this latest event?

The climax is approaching soon so I'd like to get people's thoughts on this style of event and if you want more of it. Also this is slightly unrelated but are people interested in me trying to run more contests in game? If so what kind? Your feedback helps me to continue to improve this quest and even if I adapt to things slowly I am listening to you and trying to improve things.

Thank you for your understanding, following the 25th updates will return to their regular rate or even potentially a little faster (you might get three updates in one week).

 

[Zale]

She isn't so stupid as to throw all her research and preparation aside in a rush to be a superhero before she starts her internship, especially over something as relatively small as Killer Moth

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Killer Moth is small to us, not her. Killer Moth is her big break. It is her big dam hero moment. As soon as she has a break through in the info gathering she will will go after him.

Compare that to Barbara who has school, friends, a loving family that knows her well, including a high ranking police officer and now an internship on another city and also doesn't have anywhere near the resources or drive to give up as much as Batman does

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But she doesn't have to sacrifice as much as Batman to crime fight. She can do it as a part time thing compared to his full time thing. She can commit like 1-2 actions to it and probably maintain a pretty normal life and not hurt her other life aspects. Thats what she is probably doing right now since she is just gathering info.

I predict she will continue to gather info on the side until she has a big break and than the turn after she gets that info she will debut as Batgirl to capitalize on it so it doesn't go cold. I will concede that the internship could hurt her action economy enough that for example she drops from 2 actions investigating to 1 action. However, if on that 1 action she rolls well enough to make the break through? She will debut the next turn. So a delay could happen in that she spends less actions on crime fighting, but I doubt she would stop spending actions on it entirely and I really doubt she won't capitalize on any information she gains to debut as Batgirl.

 

[Negation]

But she doesn't have to sacrifice as much as Batman to crime fight. She can do it as a part time thing compared to his full time thing. She can commit like 1-2 actions to it and probably maintain a pretty normal life and not hurt her other life aspects. Thats what she is probably doing right now since she is just gathering info.

I predict she will continue to gather info on the side until she has a big break and than the turn after she gets that info she will debut as Batgirl to capitalize on it so it doesn't go cold. I will concede that the internship could hurt her action economy enough that for example she drops from 2 actions investigating to 1 action. However, if on that 1 action she rolls well enough to make the break through? She will debut the next turn. So a delay could happen in that she spends less actions on crime fighting, but I doubt she would stop spending actions on it entirely and I really doubt she won't capitalize on any information she gains to debut as Batgirl.

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I think us having Barbara as an intern under Felicity would inspire her to become Oracle directly bypassing her Batgirl phase-story route. It would likely save the Gordon Family much heartache all round.

Now an Oracle friendly enough to pass information to us would be an invaluable asset even if she does not choose a corporate career in LexCorp.

 

[veekie]

So a lot of this event has been me experimenting with stuff (longer updates, weird time shenanigans on events, being more dialogue heavy and less action oriented etc.). This might be jumping the gun a little bit but have people been enjoying this latest event?

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Its pretty neat. Much more digestible I think.

 

[Reader of all]

@King crimson can we please have an action to gets rid of the ballistic missiles near lexcorp.

 

[Sirrocco]

@King crimson can we please have an action to gets rid of the ballistic missiles near lexcorp.

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Perhaps to quietly hand them off to one of the generals we know?

 

[Reader of all]

Perhaps to quietly hand them off to one of the generals we know?

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I would rather we just take them apart and use the metal and components for other projects.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Given that the ICBMs are simultaneously super illegal and almost useless to us in any normal situation, it would be kind of nice to have a choice about whether or not to have missiles.

The climax is approaching soon so I'd like to get people's thoughts on this style of event and if you want more of it.

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It's been good, and I would be happy for it to happen again some time, but I wouldn't want it happening often. Like, once in an in-game year maybe?

 

[jonasquinn]

Killer Moth is small to us, not her. Killer Moth is her big break. It is her big dam hero moment. As soon as she has a break through in the info gathering she will will go after him.

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Killer Moth is smalltime in general not specifically for us, compared to everybody else in Gotham his worst crime is arson and he's not exactly subtle, if he was a genuine problem Batman would have already dealt with him

Barbara is being smart by having her first target be a low risk enemy that hasn't drawn anyone else's attention but if she fails to catch him he won't suddenly escalate or cause undue damage

But she doesn't have to sacrifice as much as Batman to crime fight. She can do it as a part time thing compared to his full time thing. She can commit like 1-2 actions to it and probably maintain a pretty normal life and not hurt her other life aspects. Thats what she is probably doing right now since she is just gathering info.

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She doesn't have to sacrifice as much as Batman because she doesn't have the same all consuming drive but she also can't afford to sacrifice much at all due to her various other responsibilities

And if she's spending 1 or 2 actions just in investigating Killer Moth she'd have to spend even more to fight him, especially if she wants to fight more threatening foes down the line

I predict she will continue to gather info on the side until she has a big break and than the turn after she gets that info she will debut as Batgirl to capitalize on it so it doesn't go cold. I will concede that the internship could hurt her action economy enough that for example she drops from 2 actions investigating to 1 action. However, if on that 1 action she rolls well enough to make the break through? She will debut the next turn. So a delay could happen in that she spends less actions on crime fighting, but I doubt she would stop spending actions on it entirely and I really doubt she won't capitalize on any information she gains to debut as Batgirl.

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Keep in mind that as an intern she'll be spending less time in Gotham and more in Metropolis and so long as we let her work with the Metropolis PD or otherwise target criminals we can control her heroic urges

Given that the ICBMs are simultaneously super illegal and almost useless to us in any normal situation, it would be kind of nice to have a choice about whether or not to have missiles.

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We also happen to have the perfect opportunity! We can just tell the government that they were on the submarine that Cobblepot acquired

 

[King crimson]

@King crimson can we please have an action to gets rid of the ballistic missiles near lexcorp.

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I don't want it to cost you an action since it was something I gave but that people have clearly not wanted and so it doesn't feel fair in my eyes. I'll probably get rid of them though since people have consistently been unhappy about them (even though I've recently come up with a few nemesis ideas involving them). That being said I'm going to give you the option to engage in these nemesis actions at least once and then I'll get rid of them.

She doesn't have to sacrifice as much as Batman because she doesn't have the same all consuming drive but she also can't afford to sacrifice much at all due to her various other responsibilities

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So a brief point I wanted to talk on because I think it's interesting. Lets look at what Bruce has sacrificed for being Batman.

• His education (Bruce is technically a dropout who never completed high school. Any of the degrees he has are honorary. While he is by no means unintelligent he hasn't gone through all that much education and thus missed out on a lot)
• His relationships (Bruce is pretty consistently unable to maintain close relationships with people who aren't also crime fighters. There are exceptions to the rule but by and large he isn't able to maintain anything resembling typical relationships)
• His respectability (In exchange for having a good cover Bruce had to end up somewhat tarnishing his own name and looking bad to the people in his life)
• His health (Being Batman's not exactly a good way to live a long life)
• His company's profits (One of the smaller things but Wayne Enterprises is surely making less money because Bruce cannot focus on it fully)

There might be a few other things as well but those are the sacrifices that I think line up best with what Barbara would potentially have to sacrifice. Now the degree as to which things would have to be sacrificed could very well be different (Dick for example currently has been making sacrifices regarding his education and his relationships but he hasn't gone anywhere near as far as Bruce did) but I think these are the core issues that would have to be considered.

 

[Zale]

So a lot of this event has been me experimenting with stuff (longer updates, weird time shenanigans on events, being more dialogue heavy and less action oriented etc.). This might be jumping the gun a little bit but have people been enjoying this latest event?

The climax is approaching soon so I'd like to get people's thoughts on this style of event and if you want more of it.

Click to shrink...

This might be recency bias and the fact I'm actually voting for options, but from my time catching up with the quest I think this has been one of my favorite mini-turn events that have been this length. The only other two that are comparable in length are Intergang's Metropolis Attack and Inside Markovia. I've enjoyed this event more than both of those. I've also liked it more than the original Gotham trip or similar events like Lexpo. However, like @Simon_Jester stated I think having an event that is of this length isn't an every turn (or even every 2 turns) thing. Once every 3-5 turns sounds about right for an event this size. Of course we won't always get a say in that if the dice decide something else.

As for the writing itself I like the more dialogue focus nature of it. Lex, Talia, Seline, Oswald, Paige, and Tyme have all been intresting characters to hear just speak. Especially as they bounce off of each other.
Some great moments so far for me:
-Seline's internal dialogue and how she bounces off of Lex and Talia
-Lex's interactions with Talia and her slowly getting a better grasp of his social machinations
-Lex's manipulations of others and the public perspective, this is most obvious in his interactions with Oswlad and Paige this trip
-Paige's perspective was just great. The display of her warped thought leading her to think she got one over Luthor when we as players really know who was manipulated was *chef's kiss* even if it leaves me feeling kinda bad
-Tyme and Talia's interaction was just fun to read. It was the perfect picture of a bumbling magician who knows just enough to get himself in trouble, but has no social grace to leave it alone. And Talia's reaction was exactly right for someone who just had a one of their greatest secrets hinted at to a tenuous ally that she suspects might exploit it. I didn't comment on it to much on the time, but that was just one of the great character interactions on this trip.

 

[jonasquinn]

I don't want it to cost you an action since it was something I gave but that people have clearly not wanted and so it doesn't feel fair in my eyes. I'll probably get rid of them though since people have consistently been unhappy about them (even though I've recently come up with a few nemesis ideas involving them). That being said I'm going to give you the option to engage in these nemesis actions at least once and then I'll get rid of them.

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There are definitely ways that they could be useful but those ways also require being far more overt than we like to be and would probably cost us a lot of our good will

Plus if we ever get a space laser they would be made pretty redundant

So a brief point I wanted to talk on because I think it's interesting. Lets look at what Bruce has sacrificed for being Batman.

• His education (Bruce is technically a dropout who never completed high school. Any of the degrees he has are honorary. While he is by no means unintelligent he hasn't gone through all that much education and thus missed out on a lot)
• His relationships (Bruce is pretty consistently unable to maintain close relationships with people who aren't also crime fighters. There are exceptions to the rule but by and large he isn't able to maintain anything resembling typical relationships)
• His respectability (In exchange for having a good cover Bruce had to end up somewhat tarnishing his own name and looking bad to the people in his life)
• His health (Being Batman's not exactly a good way to live a long life)
• His company's profits (One of the smaller things but Wayne Enterprises is surely making less money because Bruce cannot focus on it fully)

There might be a few other things as well but those are the sacrifices that I think line up best with what Barbara would potentially have to sacrifice. Now the degree as to which things would have to be sacrificed could very well be different (Dick for example currently has been making sacrifices regarding his education and his relationships but he hasn't gone anywhere near as far as Bruce did) but I think these are the core issues that would have to be considered.

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It's also worth noting that the only people actually in Bruce's life, Alfred and Dick, know he's Batman and actively help him in his work and keeping it secret whereas Barbara would have to keep it secret from her police commissioner father, her mother, her future serial killer brother and any friends she has

Admittedly she succeeded at that in canon but now she has to do all that while juggling an internship at Lexcorp and interacting regularly with far more people