Thrice.Great
Full of Various Wiles (Verified God)
- Location
- the Noosphere
I feel like any time you go into an airport it is appropriate to say that.
Networking (Worm)
- Thread starter Thrice.Great
- Start date
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I dunno, O'Hare would be an exception....
Black Noise
Curious
- Location
- About 1AU from Sol
The nightmares and weird space remind me of Ra's Tanako world but it's missing the broken-glass earth and the space distortion isn't nearly weird enough.
That said this is seriously awesome and I didn't know how much I needed it in my life until now. Please write more.
That said this is seriously awesome and I didn't know how much I needed it in my life until now. Please write more.
From what Blasto said I think that this is just an Earth post-nuclear apocalypse. Or possibly the magnetic field of the planet weakened and radiation from space is bombarding the surface.
Either way it seems like it's not so much that the city is weird so much as the radiation is playing havoc with their brains. The buildings are normal, but their brains' ability to process their eyesight is failing.
This is a really great story.
1.5
Thrice.Great
Full of Various Wiles (Verified God)
- Location
- the Noosphere
Network 1.5
The darkness was not, as some might have put it, like a vast sea of ink. It was worse. Once the eye could adjust to the dim light it was a barely visible gloom, with light filtering in from the entrance of the tunnel and reflecting off of windshields and mirrors.
In pitch blackness, the mind would have created nightmare situations, but without visual stimulus those imaginings would be without any kind of anchor.
With the dim lighting, the eye picked out patterns and made monsters of them. Was there something behind that sedan, or is it a shadow? Did something move just out of sight? Faces appeared in the windows of dusty cars, leering and hideous, until they vanished when looked at dead on.
The concrete pillars and the ceramic tiled walls of the tunnel bounced sounds back strangely, and the cars broke the echoes up to create strange auditory illusions. Frequently they would halt, checking to see if the sounds coming behind them were the echoes of their tires crunching over broken glass or a creature just on the other side of a car.
Keeping aware and not dismissing a potentially real threat as a fleeting imagining was exhausting, and Blasto was slowly feeling it wear him down as surely as the knowledge that his body was literally falling apart at the cellular level.
Blasto knew he was imagining it, but he would swear that he could perceive each and every double-strand of DNA being torn apart. He could almost picture the runaway beta particle like a drunk driver, careening through a packed crowd of DNA pedestrians. He could imagine the gamma zipping by like errant bullets, puncturing and ruining the cells of his stomach, brain, heart…. Blasto suppressed another wave of nausea and drew his mind back to the present. 'Nothing to be done about it now anyway, no facilities, no supplies, no chance unless we get to that ToyBox location…'
Slowly, Defiant picked his way around cars and vans, easing the rickshaw as silently as possible through stopped lanes of traffic. At the midpoint of the tunnel, a tractor-trailer had overturned, cutting across every lane, leaving only three foot wide gap against the wall to squeeze through
Defiant pulled the rickshaw to a stop, dismounted and approached the gap. At Blasto's quizzical look, Defiant pointed two fingers at his face mask and then pointed into the gap. Blasto nodded and gripped his bottle of Pine-Sol and the spear-head dagger more firmly, eyes fixed towards the entrance of the tunnel.
Defiant, rebar held close to his body like a quarterstaff, vanished into the gap.
Blasto felt the prickle of sweat stand out on his forehead as he stared into the near darkness; his eyes strained and his neck muscles tensed as he cocked his head back and forth, sweeping like a radar dish, trying to catch any advanced warning that his eyes were about to get sucked out of his head by a nightmare straight from a Giger print.
Time oozed by, Blasto feeling more and more certain with every passing moment that Defiant was dead, and he was now alone in an alien environment, avoiding terrible monsters that wanted to tear him to pieces just for the opportunity to die an agonizing death as his biology was literally disintegrated by high energy particles. Irony.
'I'm still not even sure if that's Irony. Fucking Alanis Morissette….. What the hell is taking Defiant so lon-'
Suddenly, from the gap, there was a muffled shrieking sound and a metallic clang
Blasto waited for a long moment before quietly lowering himself out of the rickshaw passenger-bucket. On tip-toes, he crept up to the gap, gripping the spear-blade handle so tightly his hand ached.
"Defiant? You ok?" Blasto whispered.
He crept closer, the black gap open before him, the bulk of the truck cutting off the meager light trickling in from behind him, creating a shadow within the darkness. He stepped a little closer, back and face flat against the wall of the trailer, slowly edging around before he peeked his face around the corner.
A green skinned faceless monster stepped around the corner, hands outstretched and reaching.
Blasto swung the point of his makeshift dagger, blindly stabbing for something vital.
Suddenly the world spun 'round and Blasto was flat on his back, the dagger wrenched from his hands.
"What do you think you're doing?" Defiant asked the prone Blasto, his armored face plate staring down at him.
"Shit, I thought you were… I thought you needed…"
Defiant held the spear blade out to Blasto; "You really should not be trusted with sharp objects." As Blasto took the blade back (carefully) Defiant stepped aside into the small clearing in the lee of the overturned semi so that Blasto could come through. Blasto saw the source of the screech; a car hood had been wrenched open (Defiant's rebar-pike sitting nearby seemed the likely culprit), tearing the metal latch apart with a squeal of tortured metal.
Defiant reached in to begin jiggling something loose. After a moment there was a solid thunk of something giving way and Defiant pulled out a squat cylindrical machine part with a well-ventilated metal casing. Wires trailed after it and Defiant carefully wrapped them around their respective contact points before setting the part on the ground.
Having secured the part, Defiant moved to another vehicle, picking up his rebar-staff as he went. With a firm stab, he wedged the sharpened point under the hood of an SUV flipped onto its side and heaved. Under the full weight of the armored hero, the latch didn't stand a chance and ripped apart with another high pitched shriek.
Blasto instantly began to sweat a cold, stinky, fear-sweat. "Uh, Defiant, are you sure it's wise to stop here and make a shit ton of noise?"
Defiant walked back around to the now open hood and began detaching the battery. "Yes, the threat level here is minimal."
"Okay, not sure why you seem so confident about that… but seriously, what are you doing?"
Defiant gestured with the battery towards the machine part, "The alternator."
Blasto looked at him blankly.
Defiant chuckled, "God, if it isn't secreting something you Bio-Tinkers don't even give a shit do you?"
Blasto quirked a confused grin as his earlier words were echoed.
Defiant placed the battery alongside the alternator, "An alternator uses a magnet to produce alternating cur-"
"No, Defiant, I know what an alternator does, why are you taking one out of that car?"
"We need to start generating power if we are to make anything more complex than our vehicle. If we utilize adequate shielding around a workspace we can keep sensitive equipment from being damaged by the ambient radiation and we can begin to rebuild some of our respective infrastructures. The alternator is the first step towards getting that infrastructure set up."
Having stacked the battery next to the alternator, Defiant approached another car.
"Defiant…. we won't need it. The ToyBox site should be just on the other side of the bridge. We're, like, less than forty five minutes away on foot, probably only another twenty on the Frankenbike, less if you use that stored energy drive of yours." Blasto itched awkwardly at his mask.
".... Yes, so you said." Defiant began to work the rebar tip into the hood, cracking the latch.
Blasto watched Defiant as he worked, letting the echoing clanking of Defiant pulling free yet another battery fill the silence.
"Defiant… if we don't reach the ToyBox site ASAP I am going to die of radiation poisoning."
At that, Defiant stopped and turned to face Blasto head on, "That's an exaggeration. You certainly have enough time to work on ameliorating the worst of the effects. Given enough time and proper equipment you will undoubtedly be able to reverse the effects."
"Listen to me. I am a biologist, and I am telling you that I am going to die if I stay here much longer. We need to get to the ToyBox site; their dimensional specialist is the best hope we have of getting out of here before I suffer irreversible dama-"
"Dodge cannot access other dimensions," Defiant interrupted, "He creates spatial pockets within his own dimension and can manipulate where the pocket attaches itself to Bet. He cannot travel interdimensionally. It's in his PRT file."
Blasto rocked back on his heels, mouth flopping open and shut like a fish.
"W-wait. So we're fucked?! You mean to say we're going to die here anyway?!"
"No, as I said, with sufficient infrastructure I may be able to-"
"Fuck that! You knew that this was a waste of time! Why did you even bother going along with it?!" Blasto advanced on Defiant, hands clenching and unclenching underneath his chin.
"....Any tunnel was more likely to be insulated from atmospheric radiation, thus providing a possible source of functioning electronics or car batteries. I figured you would be more willing to accompany me if you thought-"
"You ASSHOLE!!! I thought I was going to live!" Blasto cocked back a fist and punched Defiant square in the face.
Defiant rocked slightly back on his heels, but otherwise took the punch head on.
"Fucker!"
Blasto spun around and dropped into a squat, his throbbing hand held limply by the wrist between his chest and his thighs.
"You fucker… I thought we were getting out of here together…"
Defiant stepped forwards, one hand raised awkwardly towards Blasto's turned back.
"I-"
The architecture of the tunnel turned the warbling scream into an eye-watering piercing tone.
"They found us." Defiant began snatching up batteries and the alternator, and thus burdened began hustling back through the gap. In moments, he had wheeled the rickshaw through the narrow space and pulled it alongside Blasto.
"... Are you ready to get moving?" Defiant asked, his faceplate obscuring whatever expression might have been on his face.
Blasto held his hand to his chest as he stood, eyes downcast, head low. "... Yeah. Let's get moving."
He climbed up and over the wall of the passenger bucket, careful to avoid his injured hand and foot, nudged aside the batteries littering the floor of his standing space, and secured himself.
"Alright. Let's go."
Defiant kicked the flywheel into gear, and the bike lurched forwards.
The darkness was not, as some might have put it, like a vast sea of ink. It was worse. Once the eye could adjust to the dim light it was a barely visible gloom, with light filtering in from the entrance of the tunnel and reflecting off of windshields and mirrors.
In pitch blackness, the mind would have created nightmare situations, but without visual stimulus those imaginings would be without any kind of anchor.
With the dim lighting, the eye picked out patterns and made monsters of them. Was there something behind that sedan, or is it a shadow? Did something move just out of sight? Faces appeared in the windows of dusty cars, leering and hideous, until they vanished when looked at dead on.
The concrete pillars and the ceramic tiled walls of the tunnel bounced sounds back strangely, and the cars broke the echoes up to create strange auditory illusions. Frequently they would halt, checking to see if the sounds coming behind them were the echoes of their tires crunching over broken glass or a creature just on the other side of a car.
Keeping aware and not dismissing a potentially real threat as a fleeting imagining was exhausting, and Blasto was slowly feeling it wear him down as surely as the knowledge that his body was literally falling apart at the cellular level.
Blasto knew he was imagining it, but he would swear that he could perceive each and every double-strand of DNA being torn apart. He could almost picture the runaway beta particle like a drunk driver, careening through a packed crowd of DNA pedestrians. He could imagine the gamma zipping by like errant bullets, puncturing and ruining the cells of his stomach, brain, heart…. Blasto suppressed another wave of nausea and drew his mind back to the present. 'Nothing to be done about it now anyway, no facilities, no supplies, no chance unless we get to that ToyBox location…'
Slowly, Defiant picked his way around cars and vans, easing the rickshaw as silently as possible through stopped lanes of traffic. At the midpoint of the tunnel, a tractor-trailer had overturned, cutting across every lane, leaving only three foot wide gap against the wall to squeeze through
Defiant pulled the rickshaw to a stop, dismounted and approached the gap. At Blasto's quizzical look, Defiant pointed two fingers at his face mask and then pointed into the gap. Blasto nodded and gripped his bottle of Pine-Sol and the spear-head dagger more firmly, eyes fixed towards the entrance of the tunnel.
Defiant, rebar held close to his body like a quarterstaff, vanished into the gap.
Blasto felt the prickle of sweat stand out on his forehead as he stared into the near darkness; his eyes strained and his neck muscles tensed as he cocked his head back and forth, sweeping like a radar dish, trying to catch any advanced warning that his eyes were about to get sucked out of his head by a nightmare straight from a Giger print.
Time oozed by, Blasto feeling more and more certain with every passing moment that Defiant was dead, and he was now alone in an alien environment, avoiding terrible monsters that wanted to tear him to pieces just for the opportunity to die an agonizing death as his biology was literally disintegrated by high energy particles. Irony.
'I'm still not even sure if that's Irony. Fucking Alanis Morissette….. What the hell is taking Defiant so lon-'
Suddenly, from the gap, there was a muffled shrieking sound and a metallic clang
Blasto waited for a long moment before quietly lowering himself out of the rickshaw passenger-bucket. On tip-toes, he crept up to the gap, gripping the spear-blade handle so tightly his hand ached.
"Defiant? You ok?" Blasto whispered.
He crept closer, the black gap open before him, the bulk of the truck cutting off the meager light trickling in from behind him, creating a shadow within the darkness. He stepped a little closer, back and face flat against the wall of the trailer, slowly edging around before he peeked his face around the corner.
A green skinned faceless monster stepped around the corner, hands outstretched and reaching.
Blasto swung the point of his makeshift dagger, blindly stabbing for something vital.
Suddenly the world spun 'round and Blasto was flat on his back, the dagger wrenched from his hands.
"What do you think you're doing?" Defiant asked the prone Blasto, his armored face plate staring down at him.
"Shit, I thought you were… I thought you needed…"
Defiant held the spear blade out to Blasto; "You really should not be trusted with sharp objects." As Blasto took the blade back (carefully) Defiant stepped aside into the small clearing in the lee of the overturned semi so that Blasto could come through. Blasto saw the source of the screech; a car hood had been wrenched open (Defiant's rebar-pike sitting nearby seemed the likely culprit), tearing the metal latch apart with a squeal of tortured metal.
Defiant reached in to begin jiggling something loose. After a moment there was a solid thunk of something giving way and Defiant pulled out a squat cylindrical machine part with a well-ventilated metal casing. Wires trailed after it and Defiant carefully wrapped them around their respective contact points before setting the part on the ground.
Having secured the part, Defiant moved to another vehicle, picking up his rebar-staff as he went. With a firm stab, he wedged the sharpened point under the hood of an SUV flipped onto its side and heaved. Under the full weight of the armored hero, the latch didn't stand a chance and ripped apart with another high pitched shriek.
Blasto instantly began to sweat a cold, stinky, fear-sweat. "Uh, Defiant, are you sure it's wise to stop here and make a shit ton of noise?"
Defiant walked back around to the now open hood and began detaching the battery. "Yes, the threat level here is minimal."
"Okay, not sure why you seem so confident about that… but seriously, what are you doing?"
Defiant gestured with the battery towards the machine part, "The alternator."
Blasto looked at him blankly.
Defiant chuckled, "God, if it isn't secreting something you Bio-Tinkers don't even give a shit do you?"
Blasto quirked a confused grin as his earlier words were echoed.
Defiant placed the battery alongside the alternator, "An alternator uses a magnet to produce alternating cur-"
"No, Defiant, I know what an alternator does, why are you taking one out of that car?"
"We need to start generating power if we are to make anything more complex than our vehicle. If we utilize adequate shielding around a workspace we can keep sensitive equipment from being damaged by the ambient radiation and we can begin to rebuild some of our respective infrastructures. The alternator is the first step towards getting that infrastructure set up."
Having stacked the battery next to the alternator, Defiant approached another car.
"Defiant…. we won't need it. The ToyBox site should be just on the other side of the bridge. We're, like, less than forty five minutes away on foot, probably only another twenty on the Frankenbike, less if you use that stored energy drive of yours." Blasto itched awkwardly at his mask.
".... Yes, so you said." Defiant began to work the rebar tip into the hood, cracking the latch.
Blasto watched Defiant as he worked, letting the echoing clanking of Defiant pulling free yet another battery fill the silence.
"Defiant… if we don't reach the ToyBox site ASAP I am going to die of radiation poisoning."
At that, Defiant stopped and turned to face Blasto head on, "That's an exaggeration. You certainly have enough time to work on ameliorating the worst of the effects. Given enough time and proper equipment you will undoubtedly be able to reverse the effects."
"Listen to me. I am a biologist, and I am telling you that I am going to die if I stay here much longer. We need to get to the ToyBox site; their dimensional specialist is the best hope we have of getting out of here before I suffer irreversible dama-"
"Dodge cannot access other dimensions," Defiant interrupted, "He creates spatial pockets within his own dimension and can manipulate where the pocket attaches itself to Bet. He cannot travel interdimensionally. It's in his PRT file."
Blasto rocked back on his heels, mouth flopping open and shut like a fish.
"W-wait. So we're fucked?! You mean to say we're going to die here anyway?!"
"No, as I said, with sufficient infrastructure I may be able to-"
"Fuck that! You knew that this was a waste of time! Why did you even bother going along with it?!" Blasto advanced on Defiant, hands clenching and unclenching underneath his chin.
"....Any tunnel was more likely to be insulated from atmospheric radiation, thus providing a possible source of functioning electronics or car batteries. I figured you would be more willing to accompany me if you thought-"
"You ASSHOLE!!! I thought I was going to live!" Blasto cocked back a fist and punched Defiant square in the face.
Defiant rocked slightly back on his heels, but otherwise took the punch head on.
"Fucker!"
Blasto spun around and dropped into a squat, his throbbing hand held limply by the wrist between his chest and his thighs.
"You fucker… I thought we were getting out of here together…"
Defiant stepped forwards, one hand raised awkwardly towards Blasto's turned back.
"I-"
The architecture of the tunnel turned the warbling scream into an eye-watering piercing tone.
"They found us." Defiant began snatching up batteries and the alternator, and thus burdened began hustling back through the gap. In moments, he had wheeled the rickshaw through the narrow space and pulled it alongside Blasto.
"... Are you ready to get moving?" Defiant asked, his faceplate obscuring whatever expression might have been on his face.
Blasto held his hand to his chest as he stood, eyes downcast, head low. "... Yeah. Let's get moving."
He climbed up and over the wall of the passenger bucket, careful to avoid his injured hand and foot, nudged aside the batteries littering the floor of his standing space, and secured himself.
"Alright. Let's go."
Defiant kicked the flywheel into gear, and the bike lurched forwards.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hang on, how long has it been since they got dosed?
Armsy managed to juggle three different parahuman gangs for years, without any one gang really gaining anything. He was always a leader, he just sucked major ass when it came to interpersonal relations.
Khepri14
Thus kindly I scatter...
- Location
- Following the wind
Not really. Honestly, all the PRT did was serve as a background reminder of not to go too far while the E88 and ABB countered each other and the Merchants did their usual scummy shit in the background. There was no "juggling three different parahuman gangs for years", the gangs did it themselves.
Thrice.Great
Full of Various Wiles (Verified God)
- Location
- the Noosphere
Barring fanon, we have only a vague picture of what happened before Lung went apeshit.
It strikes me as overly confident to act as if they played no part.
It's like claiming that cancer medicine does nothing because you still look like shit.
Khepri14
Thus kindly I scatter...
- Location
- Following the wind
As I said, they served as a background reminder not to go too far/out of control, but they never actively "juggled three different parahuman gangs for years". The gangs countered themselves, like I said. The E88 and the ABB countered each other, one by quantity, the other by Lung. The Merchants hung in the background doing their scummy shit, and the only reason why they are in the top is due to their size as a gang and thanks to having some parahumans(Skidmark and Squealer and Mush and later on, Trainwreck). The PRT just hung in the background and was passive. They are a reactionary force. They don't have the numbers to take out the E88, the firepower to take out the ABB, and they have the unwillingness to remove the Merchants from play as it'd invite gang warfare in the gangs trying to take over the new amounts of territory. There was no "juggling three different parahuman gangs for years".
Before I go further, I'll ask: what is this based on?
And "they didn't wipe them out and they're still around therefore PRT is passive" is not necessarily true. Police can be active and relatively successful against an entrenched problem like crime without necessarily destroying it.
But this is a question because there's an ambiguity in your language that is also confusing. Are the PRT passive by doctrine or by fact?
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
2 days.
OK, let's se
Under 2 Grays? Really Blasto? That's only a really big LONG TERM issue.
OK, let's se
Under 2 Grays? Really Blasto? That's only a really big LONG TERM issue.
Thrice.Great
Full of Various Wiles (Verified God)
- Location
- the Noosphere
Why do you assume that it's only two grays? Is there a limit to the amount of radiation the human body is capable of absorbing in a single day?
Why do you think the radiation is so low? It's sufficient radiation to have crippled Defiant's battlesuit's systems and induced aphasia in the person inside.
Also a one time exposure to 4 Grays will kill half of healthy adults to radiation poisoning. Prolonged exposure of this sort will take a lot less to kill you.
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Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
For starters, they aren't shitting their guts out.
I'd push it up to 6 tentatively, but that's it. Past that, that's one of the big symptoms.
See for yourself.
Fredo
Climbing Mt Doom
Got dosed? I thought the exposure was ongoing.
Well, Blasto is exhibiting some of the lower level GI symptoms, but no diarrhea yet, which suggests exposure in the 2-6 Gy level. That would do suggest they probably have a few weeks until they die, but if exposure is ongoing (1-3 Gy/day?), this delay is going to drop rapidly. And they are in hardly optimal conditions for supportive care.
Edit: Imped.
The problem is not the dose. It's duration. Even 2 Grays of continuous exposure will kill you very quickly. You're trying to claim it's only a long term problem:
Unless you're defining long term as a week you've got problems. 2-6 Grays doing that stuff is from you being exposed to 2-6 Grays once for a short time. Like if you were near a radiation source then taken away from it.
That's not appropriate for you staying in the radiation.
None of those charts are available for days of exposure. It's not something that we've got a lot of research on.
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Khepri14
Thus kindly I scatter...
- Location
- Following the wind
To make it clear, the PRT(as a whole) is supposed to be an active force in doctrine. It is their job to crack down on/cut off/stop parahuman crime, but the reality is in the Bay, that they can't, by dint of simple fact(I'm not saying they were never successful outside of Brockton Bay, clearly they were, but here, I'm talking about the Brockton Bay PRT division). The PRT in the Bay is outnumbered by the E88, overpowered by the ABB(really Lung), and doesn't deal with/displace the Merchants for fear of a gang war between the E88 and the ABB and anyone else wanting to join in, in wanting to claim the territory the Merchants had. If the Directors had listened to Piggot's requests for more parahumans/parahuman support a long time ago, they would have been able to take it to the gangs, but because they never did, she had to make do with what she had.
And yet the E88, Merchants, and ABB all continued to expand, the drugs the Merchants sold continued to circulate, the ABB had that "Farm"(which was never specified to be a prostitution ring or something else I believe, but hints to it.), the E88 were able to continue their hate crimes, smuggling in weapons, dog fighting rings, etc... So I'm not really seeing any evidence that the PRT was "relatively successful" in Brockton Bay.
This is based on canon. Since when have the Brockton Bay PRT been successful? The Teeth were driven out by the Slaughterhouse Nine, the parhumans(Skidmark, Squealer, etc...) of the Merchants were killed by the Nine, The Nine wiped out the Pure(Purity, Night, Fog,etc..), Marquis was attacked by New Wave in his home in his civvie ID and they only won due to Marquis trying to protect Amelia/Amy, Skitter took out Coil, Noelle got killed by Sundancer and Krouse was killed by Zion while the rest of the Travelers headed back to Earth Aleph, Kaiser and Fenja was killed in the Endbringer Arc, Leet died in the Cockroaches Arc, Othala died by Zion, Hookwolf was recruited by the Nine and killed by Foil, Oni Lee was transformed into Hack Job by the Nine, Bakuda was killed by Lung, it was the gangs that took down Lung and Bakuda during her rampage, Jack Slash was Grey Boy'd, Shatterbird was captured and puppeted by Regent, Blasto was killed by Bonesaw, Crawler and Mannequin are killed by Bakuda's bombs, Grue kills Burnscar, The Nine killed Cherish, Cherish killed Hatchet Face, Grey Boy was killed by Glaistig Uaine, King was killed by Jack Slash and Harbringer/Number Man, etc... That's all off the top of my head here. None of it was done by the PRT.
The only thing the BB PRT did was help against the S9000 and reveal Skitter's identity to the world.
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Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
With good reason, getting volunteers has become rather tricky.
Fredo
Climbing Mt Doom
I believe you are mixing up rate and exposure. A Gray is a measure of total exposure - joules of ionizing energy absorbed per kilogram of matter - the time interval is not specified. Gray/hour would be one exposure rate unit. It's like energy vs power (joule vs watt).
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First off: no one cares about the Merchants. They specifically take land that no one wants. they don't actually even "hold" territory. IF someone else wants it they run is all. So it's not a destabilizing force to take them out. Whether this works for your argument or works against it I don't know, but I do know that this was explicitly stated.
As for the PRT, yeah, they don't do well in the few months of canon. Who exactly knows what was happening before? There are a few set points we know about (Marquis, etc.). What do we know about the E88 capes that are not still around (Wildbow says that they come and go)? The ABB before Lung? If you want to pull all the way from before Marquis to the end of canon you see the things we missed. What gangs started and were stopped? (Also, they put down Bakuda, if that counts for anything and they were an invaluable part of the effort against S-class threats.)
I don't really think it's a policy.
Because it's not just BB there's a section of the story with Taylor meeting the Vegas wards that says that things are also hard there, staunching the flow is just difficult, despite variance in personnel. Times are hard. Gangs are difficult to put down, especially when you have to deal with the issue of some of their closest associates not even knowing who they are and having to navigate Thinker powers and the rules.
Perhaps it's not a surprise that most of these people die during S-Class events (opening the way for Taylor) less rules, less restraints by beings that don't have to nominally act like a police force and everyone is out in the open and can't really run back to a hidey hole.
Khepri14
Thus kindly I scatter...
- Location
- Following the wind
Problem is, it's still territory and if the Merchants are taken out, neither the E88 or the ABB wants or would want the other side to have it. Even if it's shitty territory, it's still territory to take and use, gain money from, etc...
Well, the status quo was still going on before Taylor entered the cape scene. The E88 and ABB were doing their thing and sniping at each other from time to time and the Merchants were still peddling their drugs and shit. The E88 broke up into two groups during canon and the Pure were all stuck in Grey Boy's time loops. Fenrir's Chosen survived the Nine after they took Hookwolf and were lead by Menja. The ABB were disbanded after Lung and Bakuda were taken down and Oni Lee was killed by the Nine and became part of Hachet Face. The Merchants were also disbanded after the Nine killed all their parahuman leaders/members.
It was hard due to Vegas having a lot of Thinkers, Tinkers, and Strangers. There's not much physical violence so much as money laundering ops and stuff like that. Quote from Drone 23.2: "Vegas employs a group of unsponsored thinkers and tinkers to monitor the venues, much like the PRT does with the economy, ensuring that everything is above-board, that everything is being conducted fairly and that the numbers add up. Vegas changed as a result, developed a different cape dynamic. In Los Angeles or New York, it's the people who can blow down buildings that are seen as true 'heavy hitters'. Here, they're trying to game the system, and the heroes are trying to game them. In Vegas, it's thinkers, tinkers and strangers who rule the underworld."
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