Successor (BTVS)

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[X] Reject the deal and dictate terms.
-Holland is in the hot seat and he knows it. He's antagonized a rising player, soured their relationship with the rat dimension, lost blackmail and electronic records and drawn the eyes of The Slayer. And what has he accomplished with all this? Well he's managed to drain the LA office of capital, and lost their hard power. He's emptied their war chest, and quite frankly the only thing preventing us from wiping this branch of the map is that it's more trouble then it's worth. He needs to salvage this before the senior partners decide to liquidate him. So here's the deal:
- Terms stay as is, but we remove first clause, and clause five is changed to only apply to members of Wolfram and their clients
 
I do think the money is actually pretty useful here. Xander has been buying STAB vests and guns and rocket launchers with the money we got from mercenary work, but that won't last forever. The town also is generally going to be in the red and we have to pay for it out of pocket periodically. If we don't take money here we are definitely going to have to periodically find work killing things for other factions.
 
There's a lot of discussion so I'm not going to vote yet.

Overall, unless I misread the contract, I would suggest taking it, then immediately going out and rolling another WRH branch to see what they do. As Holland has said, he's giving Buffy tribute, and this directly encourages more behavior to get the same deal, especially in regions we care less about.

This tentative plan also has a major benefit: it puts Manners in the spotlight and possibly crosshairs of other WRH branches. The Los Angeles division is almost certainly the only one that would normally make moves on the Hellmouth, and forcing other branches to care about that will constrain Holland significantly and leet magic hacking makes it harder for the enemy to coordinate plans without us knowing about it. Holland will have to move much more slowly if he has to worry about the reaction from other branches.
 
Man I hadn't even really considered taking the deal then smacking another branch with Willow to see what happens. Manners didn't make any sort of bargain to protect them after all.

@DeAnno what other WRH branches are there?
 
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WyldCard4 said:
I would suggest taking it, then immediately going out and rolling another WRH branch to see what they do.
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While Clauses 3 and 5 reference LA in particular, note that Clause 4 does not specify the LA branch, but WRH as a whole. Buffy thinks that if Willow hacked into other WRH branches and it was found out, Holland would cancel the contract (not that she's talking about this out loud or anything.) It is true however that the contract says nothing about what Buffy does physically outside of LA or who she kills, including at other branches.

As for where the other branches of WRH are, I'm going to look into that in more detail in a few hours when I get less busy. Some of the more comics-oriented branches in the area I see on the wiki might end up not actually existing.

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The closest actual other branch is the San Francisco branch, which also is known to do a lot of business in Silicon Valley and has a sub-office there (similar to what WRH LA wanted to put in Sunnydale with Gervais.) There is a casino owned by WRH in Vegas, but it isn't technically a branch. Some other branches in the country are all fairly far away: Chicago, NYC, Boston. Many other branches exist outside the country.
 
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[] Reject the deal and dictate terms.
-Holland is in the hot seat and he knows it. He's antagonized a rising player, soured their relationship with the rat dimension, lost blackmail and electronic records and drawn the eyes of The Slayer. And what has he accomplished with all this? Well he's managed to drain the LA office of capital, and lost their hard power. He's emptied their war chest, and quite frankly the only thing preventing us from wiping this branch of the map is that it's more trouble then it's worth. He needs to salvage this before the senior partners decide to liquidate him. So here's the deal:
- Terms stay as is, but the first clause lasts for 24 months, the second clause requires permission of Willow and Buffy, we remove the third clause, and clause five is changed to only apply to members of Wolfram and their clients.
 
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If agree does go through we will hopefully use part of the first payment to outfit Percy with whatever we think he could use, and maybe a few extras as 'replacements' that can just so happen to be handed off to Gunn.
 
So after some talk with @DeAnno, some thoughts on plan "accept the deal, immediately go trash another branch."

-Several clauses do apparently apply to Wolfram and Hart as a whole, not just the Los Angeles branch. Most specifically, Willow is not supposed to do her thing to any Wolfram and Hart stuff.
-Willow was vital in how well this attack went down, so not using her when charging off on another attack is a bad idea.
-If we use Willow, and say we're still abiding by the deal despite obviously not abiding by it, and insist our deal was only with the Los Angeles branch, then this might actually put Holland Manners in a worse bind then if we did something less complex. Insisting that we are abiding by the deal and refusing to admit we're wrong is going to make the situation even harder to deal with and explain.
-Not sticking to the letter or spirit of the deal but still hammering on it and insisting we totally can do this thing we aren't allowed to do is honestly a pretty Scooby move. I think this is the plan Willow and Giles would find appealing, but all the core people would be pretty down with it.

So, there's no way this plan doesn't have risks and downsides, but I still think it is a good idea.

Pros:
-The WRH spotlight is now on anyone who has to deal with the Slayer. The WRH spotlight does not encourage good decisions or increase life expectancy. Most people selfish enough to have power in WRH will do anything they can to avoid the Slayer being their problem after this.
-We can probably get cool loot and tribute from further raids.
-Anything that hurts Wolfram and Hart is probably a good thing.

Cons:
-Much more attention is now on Sunnydale.
-More people will be out for revenge on the Slayer.
-A more constrained and panicked Wolfram and Hart leader may pull out something far more dangerous than they would otherwise.
 
Right now we have 10 people voting and 5 want to take the deal. People should try to finish submitting plans soon so we can have a better look at where we are.

Anyone who wants to take the deal with the intent of immediately breaking the letter or spirit of it somehow should definitely do that as a different vote than just taking the deal; a simple vote to take the deal is going to be interpreted as a willingness to let the matter rest at least until something new comes up.
 
@DeAnno ok do they know how much information that willow got? Because willow got some pretty dawning information. Not just the literal kind but the kind that the IRS and those clients would like.
 
I'm good with not breaking the intent. We hurt them, got them to pay attention to us, but we're limited in the ways we can attack other locations (in the knowledge we have, how much Willow would be allowed to do, and how the travel would take away from our mayoral duties), and if we do try and 'get tribute' from anywhere else they might just give up on the ceasefire and more on the offensive if we show we can't be dealt with in good faith (and that might actually hurt us more with other groups and entities we have to deal with in the future more than what WR&H can do, which is a lot). We have a ceasefire and a good chunk of bonus revenue as well, I'm happy with that deal.
 
I'm fine with honoring the deal. Wolfram and Hart stuck their nose where it doesn't belong (our business) and we've given them a bloody nose for it. Trying for anymore is just going to lead to overreach and inevitable failure; they are simply too large for us to handle right now. It is time to quit while we're ahead.
 
[X] Take the deal on the table. It doesn't actually bind Buffy to anything, and the money could be a huge deal for defending the Hellmouth.
 
My main issue with the deal is the bribe seems very low. That might just be an issue of misunderstanding the economics of the verse though. @DeAnno, did Willow get any pay-scales of the assassins during her hack? Or even in general? If so where does this fall on it?
 
I don't think it's that low. For one, their not paying us to do anything, just to not attack them really. For two, this is money in 2000, not 2019, it's worth a lot more.
 
Nurgle said:
@DeAnno ok do they know how much information that willow got?
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It's unclear, though they seem to be taking a paranoid worst case scenario sort of approach with regards to Willow in general. No electronics or even telephones have been visible in the building, and the power was off for almost two days following the Thursday hacking attack.

Thomasfoolery said:
My main issue with the deal is the bribe seems very low. That might just be an issue of misunderstanding the economics of the verse though. @DeAnno, did Willow get any pay-scales of the assassins during her hack? Or even in general? If so where does this fall on it?
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First of all, remember this is 1999, so mentally multiply all the dollar amounts by 1.5 to get to something approximating modern values. Second, low level random hitmen actually don't get paid very much; $10,000 for a job isn't a bad guess. Demon assassins of various stripes would command more, but the violent atmosphere of the dark side of BTVS means they also get a lot more work and the risk of police involvement is less. The figures of some of the higher class of assassin like Raven DeMorte could get well into the six digit range, while pond scum like random M'Fashniks might do a job for a couple grand. Other assassins like the Mohra might not even work for money, and instead were contracted based on other considerations, sometimes ancient pacts or random stuff like that.

Ultimately though, remember this is a bribe in 13 installments totaling almost 2 million dollars, and it's not for a job, it's essentially to leave them alone and stay away. Even in the context of the numbers they saw being thrown around in the Special Projects records, it's not a small amount, even if it's not outrageously large.
 
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[X] Negotiate in Bad Faith
- Stunt Buffy reads and laughs a little.
-"You really don't know how much willow got on you guys. Willow got enough information on you that every alphabet organization down to the local dog catcher would be out for your blood. Also if the public finds out well they really may be out for your blood. I have been making some friends, so here is how it is going to go we will drop 3 completely and I promise for those 13 months not to actively go after any of your clients And Willow will not release any of the information to the public. Now I can't make my friends not go after your clients but I will not give them a list of who and where your clients are. Or we can escalate these and I bring in the allies you don't know I have been talking to, publish your dirty laundry and watch as things burn."
-Buffy smiles and leans on her hammer at him.

The point of these is to keep him off balance and drop 3 completely. Now they are playing these as a worst case scenario and well Buffy is a young psycho who came to LA and negotiate by killing as much demonic muscle as possible. @DeAnno these work out?
 
It really is too bad we didn't find out about the conduit to the senior partners and the white room in the basement. If we had I would be suggesting we kill Holland and take advantage of the lack of leadership to go kill the conduit. This is also clearly something they were worried about enough that they made sure to keep us out of the elevator which is the only way down to it. As is I dont see much we can really do here damage wise and WRH were never going to be our main concern so I will switch my vote over to accepting the deal.

[X] Take the deal on the table. It doesn't actually bind Buffy to anything, and the money could be a huge deal for defending the Hellmouth.
 
Nurgle said:
The point of these is to keep him off balance and drop 3 completely. Now they are playing these as a worst case scenario and well Buffy is a young psycho who came to LA and negotiate by killing as much demonic muscle as possible. @DeAnno these work out?
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I can't say if your threats will work or not, but Buffy can follow that general plan of threatening government exposure and offering safety. Buffy thinks that an organization as blatant as WRH wouldn't normally take threats like that seriously, but Buffy does have the legitimacy of a (soon to be) elected official, as well as rather more hard evidence than most people do, so that may change the calculus.
 
This seems like a cool enough plan

[X] Negotiate in Bad Faith
- Stunt Buffy reads and laughs a little.
-"You really don't know how much willow got on you guys. Willow got enough information on you that every alphabet organization down to the local dog catcher would be out for your blood. Also if the public finds out well they really may be out for your blood. I have been making some friends, so here is how it is going to go we will drop 3 completely and I promise for those 13 months not to actively go after any of your clients And Willow will not release any of the information to the public. Now I can't make my friends not go after your clients but I will not give them a list of who and where your clients are. Or we can escalate these and I bring in the allies you don't know I have been talking to, publish your dirty laundry and watch as things burn."
-Buffy smiles and leans on her hammer at him.
 
A lot of people just want to roll over and let him dictate terms Buffy.
Adhoc vote count started by Nurgle on Oct 31, 2019 at 9:16 PM, finished with 59 posts and 12 votes.
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I guess I just don't really get the appeal of the bad faith vote. I don't necessarily want to knuckle under for WRH, but if the deal as is isn't going to win I'd honestly rather just kill Holland and go rooting around in their basement for cool stuff. Threatening WRH with the government is a weird escalation to me because it plays into their strengths. That would eventually end up in court, and once something is in court they win.
 
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