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The Rising of the Shield Heroine

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"You can't prove a negative", even in the event of Overwhelming comparison to known cases of the Contrary. It's dicey to even try, because someone can always scream "Circumstantial Evidence". Even in the case of @Bezzerker's postulation that the "Vast Majority" of "un-findable" Coronas belong to C53's, that only means that the "Vast Majority" belong to C53's and Doesn't Rule Out non C53's as Outliers. Testing for Coronas for Sports is the same as testing for Steroids. It's only a benchmark, there's no guarantee that the person Doesn't have powers somehow, and there are ways to spoof the test, but it's the best they got so it's what they use.

The only way to "Prove" that you received powers from an outside source would be to have some form of monitoring whenever it was you were "Empowered/Augmented/Grafted/Whatever" to receive your "Powers" that you could submit to a court, as well as having some form of proof that you Didn't have powers beforehand (again, trying to prove a negative) and were just faking it for the sake of subverting the legal tomfoolery. This Maybe works for "Future Soldier" programs where the test-phases have the subjects in lab-settings where they're trying to collect as much data as possible, the subjects are Thoroughly vetted and monitored the whole way through, possibly for Years, and in the event of success, later on where mass rollout starts occurring not only would every "Future Soldier" more or less all have the same capabilities within a reasonable margin of error, but the empowerment process would be equally documented.

On the other hand, say some of the "Super Soldier Serum" got into the black market, and some kid bought it and now they have a minor brute/mover/thinker package before dressing up in spandex and going out to beat up gangsters. Unless that kid tries to get into the Wards or later tries to join the Protectorate where they would have to submit a blood test and the genetic augmentation would be noticed, so long as they don't tell anyone about where they got their powers (not hard to imagine considering the taboo on discussing Triggers), no one would be able to point to them and Definitively say "They're not a Parahuman", despite their abilities similarities to the documented Super Soldiers.

Going back up to my example of Open Sourcing Magic earlier, yeah, sure it's open source, and the PRT can go and buy the book and point out how the "Spells" could be made to prevent their own troopers from being turned over to the Protectorate, but that doesn't stop any Civilian from learning magic, putting on a domino mask and a wizard's hat, and the Courts pointing at Myrdin and saying "Well He calls it 'Magic' Too". The only way to even attempt to "Prove" that they aren't a "Parahuman" would be if there is some way to explicitly detect "Magic Use", but that still runs into the "Outlier" issue of "But what if their 'Parahuman' power just uses the same underlying principals as this 'magic' everyone else is using."
 
sunsunsunsunsun said:
It's Lowercase c conscription. "you don't have to work for us, but using your powers working for anyone else is a crime." If you want to have a job as a cape, it's crime or the protectorate (at least in the US.)
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So what about New Wave? Or all the other rogues and vigilantes out there? What the Protectorate does isn't "work for us or go to jail" it's "here's a bunch of benefits for working for us and not being a Rogue of Vigilante."
 
Crazael said:
So what about New Wave? Or all the other rogues and vigilantes out there? What the Protectorate does isn't "work for us or go to jail" it's "here's a bunch of benefits for working for us and not being a Rogue of Vigilante."
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New Wave's "Cape" activities are entirely Non-Profit. Carol works a normal~ish day-job that requires no use of her powers, and the Pelham's are the same. Vigilantes likewise aren't being paid to be such, and aren't even really recognized as "Independent Heroes" unless they sign on to the program to be registered as such with the PRT/Protectorate, but even then, unless they get a special circumstances contract like Taylor did in This story, they aren't getting Paid for it. Parian running a shop where she uses her powers to make clothes is entirely Fanon, and the Canon advertising she does where she uses her powers to animate puppets and such, just like with any "Corporate Hero Teams", is all Contracted from the business she does such for. Those businesses are grinding through ALL of the NEPEA-5 and other Parahuman Employment laws, which were made to be as discouraging as possible while leaving just enough "loopholes" to fall Just short of "impossible", to draft up those contracts. It's not something you do without a lawyer, parahuman law is deliberately labyrinthine and contradictory, most businesses don't have the budget for the legal expenses, and those laws also make Self-Employment/Incorporation by the Parahuman more or less a crime on its own without even More loopholes that tend to boil down to "whatever the verdict in court is sets the new precedent because fuck if any of us know what any of this actually means."
 
Crazael said:
So what about New Wave? Or all the other rogues and vigilantes out there? What the Protectorate does isn't "work for us or go to jail" it's "here's a bunch of benefits for working for us and not being a Rogue of Vigilante."
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Like Almech said, being an independent vigilante is not a job, and NEPEA-5 and the Elite are worldbuilding elements deliberately designed to force parahumans into "being capes". And since being an independent isn't a job, either you join the protectorate, struggle to manage a double life, or become a villain. (Corporate teams exist somewhere in there I guess, but since we never see any in canon 🤷)
 
...so I just looked at the line quoted from Torch in context; and it appears that it's retconning some details regarding the Coronas that were given in Worm.

To wit, my understanding is that based on what is in Worm, someone who has triggered is much easier to tell from someone who merely can trigger; namely, someone who triggered has two unique brain structures, not one. The Corona Pollentia, the part that shows you can trigger and is somewhat akin to installing a Network Interface Card; and the Corona Gemma, the part that only shows up after you trigger and seems to be the equivalent of an individual's user profile.

After writing the above, I reread the part from Worm where most of the info comes from, and it's somewhat vague on whether there are two different things in a person's head or one. But, the Gemma is well known enough that by people that they know what the function of it is and can identify it as something separate from the Pollentia. Which makes it seem rather unlikely that the Gemma is as hard to see as Ward is implying.

Which would make it seem easy to identify a Parahuman; if they have a Gemma they're a cape, if not they're not.
 
Bezzerker said:
After writing the above, I reread the part from Worm where most of the info comes from, and it's somewhat vague on whether there are two different things in a person's head or one. But, the Gemma is well known enough that by people that they know what the function of it is and can identify it as something separate from the Pollentia. Which makes it seem rather unlikely that the Gemma is as hard to see as Ward is implying.

Which would make it seem easy to identify a Parahuman; if they have a Gemma they're a cape, if not they're not.
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The thing is that they're not two seperate structures, or at least thats my reading. The Gemma is an Extension/Development of the Corona, and because every Corona looks different, it's not exactly easy to see what's an untriggered pollentia and what's a full Corona with pollentia and Gemma.
 
Just found this and read the whole thing. Very nice! You did an excellent job of this, and the Gamer stuff doesn't feel clunky or bloated at all.
 
@Tale Swapper what happens if she presses the NO button and declines a quest?

I mean the implied but weird result would be that the failure result simply doesn't happen and the entire quest possibly gets put on hold.

Otherwise the question becomes what distinguishes forced acceptance quests from "accept: y/n" quests
 
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sunsunsunsunsun said:
Like Almech said, being an independent vigilante is not a job, and NEPEA-5 and the Elite are worldbuilding elements deliberately designed to force parahumans into "being capes". And since being an independent isn't a job, either you join the protectorate, struggle to manage a double life, or become a villain. (Corporate teams exist somewhere in there I guess, but since we never see any in canon 🤷)
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It should be noted that NEPEA-5 wasn't Cauldron's fault; that was entirely the US Government being themselves and getting Shocked Pikachu face over that directly leading to the creation of the Elite, the biggest and most expansive gang in the US.

Also a reminder that Piggot is inherently a bigot; her reaction to anyone with powers is going to be to try to either jail them or get them under her thumb.
 
darkoda said:
It should be noted that NEPEA-5 wasn't Cauldron's fault; that was entirely the US Government being themselves and getting Shocked Pikachu face over that directly leading to the creation of the Elite, the biggest and most expansive gang in the US.
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You say that, but everything we know about the US Goverment in canon supports the idea that they're functionally run by Cauldron. Including Alexandria getting to keep both of her jobs, being Alexandria and Chief Director, while training her replacement, until SHEs ready to step down (or in this case get killed)
 
sunsunsunsunsun said:
You say that, but everything we know about the US Goverment in canon supports the idea that they're functionally run by Cauldron. Including Alexandria getting to keep both of her jobs, being Alexandria and Chief Director, while training her replacement, until SHEs ready to step down (or in this case get killed)
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To be fair they are keeping that secret and when the whole Cauldron thing got out, it ended up being way too much of a pain for someone who had control over the Government.
 
darkoda said:
To be fair they are keeping that secret and when the whole Cauldron thing got out, it ended up being way too much of a pain for someone who had control over the Government.
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How was it a pain? They basically were all in on "the world ends in two years" plan anyway, the Triumvirate got messed up, but Contessa, DM and Number Man basically ignored it.
 
If the guy who robs Taylor in every Worm story shows up, I can totally imagine this version of her going, "Are you...robbing me?"

And we all know what happens when a young lady says that!
 
darkoda said:
It should be noted that NEPEA-5 wasn't Cauldron's fault; that was entirely the US Government being themselves and getting Shocked Pikachu face over that directly leading to the creation of the Elite, the biggest and most expansive gang in the US.

Also a reminder that Piggot is inherently a bigot; her reaction to anyone with powers is going to be to try to either jail them or get them under her thumb.
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Funnily enough, that would be the second time, at least, that the government in cracking down on something caused a criminal empire to rise up. With the first being prohibition and the mob.
 
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