Scaling Up

[Kryslin]

Greg is currently Garyx's avatar, just an extremely low powered one, because Garyx doesn't have a whole lot of power ATM.

Beyond being a young adult red dragon, Greg's got two main powers : Complete Immunity to Heat and Flame, and the ability to create and use primal fire. That has already been shown to burn the water in a bucket, and leave the bucket unharmed. If Greg every gets access to magic...<shudders> Greg considers what happens a wash. Sure, he's a dragon now. But his neurochemical imbalances have been sorted out (or are improving), so he's pissing fewer people off (and he even apologized to Amy and Vicky for his behavior towards them).

 

[Kryslin]

With regards to what happened with Missy:

Waaaaaaaaay back in Missy's first excursion to Sigil, some wag in the peanut gallery (ie, one of you readers out there) mentioned an awesome idea : Vista's and Hookwolf's shard were on the same alternate earth. It makes sense that the two would be in competition with each other for resources and that would spill over into Stabbypuppy's encounters with Vista. Well, when Hooky got terminated with extreme prejudice, Vista's shard manage to absorb Hooky's shard. With her deeper connection due to a second trigger and [DATA!!!] from Sigil, Vista's shard -- with approval from the network's admin -- is helping its host a bit more than usual. Still the [DATA] keeps coming, so it's all good.

 

[Kryslin]

There are four ways this could happen... All start with the assumption that Vista can retract them, and does so.
1) Taylor requests Regenerate as her one 7ᵗʰ level spells, gathers the material components, and casts it. Wait two minutes, limb is back, Missy gets re-certified and everyone is happy.
2) Amy uses her power to do so.
3) Othala does the same -- she's rebranded into the Protectorate, and now works out of New York.
4) They find a Ring of Regeneration and wait 2-7 days for the limb to regrow. Body horror ensues.

However, if the first assumption is incorrect, and the bladed appendage can't be retracted/withdrawn...

That leads to the following:
1) The bladed arm is actually the replacement for the arm, and can't be pulled back.
2) The bladed arm can't be withdrawn until Stabbypuppy's absorbed power regenerates it. Which is probably within the 2-7 day range.

Keep in mind I haven't made a decision which way to go.

And, why did the Githyanki captain succeed in penetrating Vista's barriers when the normal foot soldiers didn't?

The foot soldiers used Misty Step, where as the captain used Plane Shift. Vista's power messed with the distances for the former, and they materialized within the layered distortions and became instant corpses, no water needed. The Captain bypassed that by going Astral, and then dropping out next to Vista. And normal Silver Swords are Swords of Sharpness.

The one knight they had, who had a Silver Greatsword, got blown up in a magazine detonation.

 

[Kryslin]

I was going to write out a long reply but then I said to hell with it.

PRT is a paramilitary civilian LE agency. No court-martials, just administrative tribunals.

If Tagg screwed up enough to be fired from a regional directorship, AND it involves physical harming people or violations of civil rights, those are criminal violations. Busting him from director to private on the wall at Ellisburg is just a cover-up.

And the last thing you want is to give a person like that a gun and stand guard duty, especially a possible Ziz bomb.

As amusing as busting him is, either fire him completely or throw him in prison.

Click to shrink...

Tag was busted down, awaiting the processing of his dishonorable discharge, which basically makes him unemployable by the Federal government.
He gets to keep his pension when he retires, but gets nothing else.

His position, for the 30 days from being found out to being booted out, was an administrative one.

Whatever happened to him after that, I have no clue, as it isn't important to the story. Criminal charges and time in a medium to high security prison are possible.

The PRT in Scaling Up is a part of the military that isn't, if that makes sense. Military for the access to things like cruise missiles and IRBMs, but not because of Posse Comittatus laws. They have their own Unified Code of Justice, and face tribunals that are carried out much like Court Martials are. Capes are considered paramilitary assets, and are held to the same rules and regulations.

A basic rank structure for the PRT would be Recruit, Trooper, Sergeant, Lieutenant, Captain. After Captain are the deputy directors (Majors), and regional directors (Colonels). The ranks are equivalent to the amount of power they'd have. Some directors in charge of Containment Zones / Quarantine areas may be referred to by that rank, having transferred sideways from an appropriate branch of service (Like Emily Piggot (USMC) and James Tagg (Army)) and are in a more combat oriented role.

When in the field, Emily was referred to by several flag officers of the US Military as Major Piggot during Leviathan's Attack.

Those directors and deputies who have no military service are referred to as "Director", or "Deputy Director", respectively. Many will have law enforcement experience of some kind.

The point I'm trying to make is that the PRT and Protectorate's structure and systems are a hot mess that is anyone's guess as to how it keeps functioning...
Which is typical of anything that Cauldron has set up and tries to micromanage.