- Location
- Texas
Great story so far
The Warcrafter
- Thread starter RHJunior
- Start date
So, found this posted here also (I've popped in on occasion to RHJ's AO3 page and read some of it there) but when I got to the point where Adrian had his face-to-face with Alexandria...
The biggest problem I have here is that Adrian is basically cutting Cauldron completely out of any of his plans.
Now, hear me out before anyone breaks out the torches and pitchforks, please.
Canon, Cauldron's situation can be summed up something like this:
You're on a spaceship. It's stupendously huge, with massive bays all over. Each bay is loaded with people, but is designed in such a way that they are unaware of the existence of the other bays (mostly, there's two bays that managed to drill a little hole in the wall and they can whisper back and forth between them) so most everyone goes about their happy little lives completely ignorant of what's happening beyond the walls of their own bay.
Given it's a spaceship, computers and networks are actually all over the place, and some people get minor accesses to those. But it's heavily limited access, and done in such a way that they are unaware of the larger networks out there, much as they don't know about other bays.
One of the things that all but two of the bays lack is any sort of connection to certain critical ship systems. You know, little things like the sensors which would tell you where you are in the galaxy, and the engineering systems that would allow you to make course decisions on where to go.
Those two bays are the co-captain's living quarters. One of which got damaged and the co-captain there was killed by some people, and the other co-captain is too depressed to go hunting for his counterpart's room and find out what's going on.
Now, there are people in the dead co-captain's quarters who have managed to just hack enough into the control systems that they can determine two things: one, they're never going to get access to the engine controls as all course changes require dual confirmation. This means that if they did manage to access those controls the other co-captain would become immediately aware of them and where they are.
This wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that the last course set is clearly visible on the sensor screens they can access: they're heading right for the event horizon of a black hole. Sensor images are a little wonky so they don't know exactly when they'll pass the point of no return, but if they do nothing everyone on the ship is dead.
Engines are out of their control. But they do have access to the bay doors of every room on the ship. And maybe, just maybe, if they blow out bays into space in the right order, at the right timing, it may be possible to alter the course of the ship, miss the black hole, and save some of the bays.
They just have to get around the other co-captain, who they've found is using his command access to fiddle around in one particular bay of the ship. Maybe if they can manage to back-track him from there they can kill him, and then have bays blow out their contents into space (yes, killing untold numbers of people) and the ship will miss the black hole.
This is canon Cauldron. They're got the word possible situation, little possibility of actually managing to do anything, and they know what the end game is.
Now, Adrian comes along. And he's got some hacking knowledge that may well turn the tide against the living captain and allow them to not have to murder countless people to stop what's coming.
What does Adrian do? He shuts them out completely. "Your methods are horrible, and even though they were the only thing you could possibly have to work with, I'm not going to let you in on an alternative that makes it so you don't have to continue to be monsters."
That, right there, is critical failure on Adrian's part, I feel. He's gathering together forces to try to resolve the issue without billions of deaths, but he won't allow even the possibility of Cauldron trying to revise their plans.
Ack wrote an SI story titled Security where something similar went down (though the SI there came in without any powers to give him a boost into the setting) but critically, there the SI actually made the offer to Cauldron to try to redeem themselves.
Here, Adrian is just flat condemning and casting out any possibility of working with Cauldron at all due to their past actions even though he should darn well know they're more than half in the dark with what little they've been trying to do and they know it and not even allowing them the chance to make a turnaround.
Really kind of hoping someone calls him on that, though given the current feeling about the "Alliance" seems to be "f*ck Cauldron and the horse they rode in on... seven times seventy"... I don't see that happening.
Which is a real shame, to be honest.
Really, all he should have to do to get Cauldron to stop and seriously rethink everything they've ever done following Contessa's Path is ask a few questions.
"You were about to stab the silver monster dead. What happened to your power?" (Eden dropped a blind to entities on Contessa's shard)
"You turned to the 'Doctor Mother' and she took the knife and went to make the stab. What did the silver monster do? Oh, it died? Without making another move even though moments before it dropped a blindspot into your power, it did nothing at all to your power when you managed to pass critical knowledge to another person to accomplish the deed? How sure of that are you?"
The biggest problem I have here is that Adrian is basically cutting Cauldron completely out of any of his plans.
Now, hear me out before anyone breaks out the torches and pitchforks, please.
Canon, Cauldron's situation can be summed up something like this:
You're on a spaceship. It's stupendously huge, with massive bays all over. Each bay is loaded with people, but is designed in such a way that they are unaware of the existence of the other bays (mostly, there's two bays that managed to drill a little hole in the wall and they can whisper back and forth between them) so most everyone goes about their happy little lives completely ignorant of what's happening beyond the walls of their own bay.
Given it's a spaceship, computers and networks are actually all over the place, and some people get minor accesses to those. But it's heavily limited access, and done in such a way that they are unaware of the larger networks out there, much as they don't know about other bays.
One of the things that all but two of the bays lack is any sort of connection to certain critical ship systems. You know, little things like the sensors which would tell you where you are in the galaxy, and the engineering systems that would allow you to make course decisions on where to go.
Those two bays are the co-captain's living quarters. One of which got damaged and the co-captain there was killed by some people, and the other co-captain is too depressed to go hunting for his counterpart's room and find out what's going on.
Now, there are people in the dead co-captain's quarters who have managed to just hack enough into the control systems that they can determine two things: one, they're never going to get access to the engine controls as all course changes require dual confirmation. This means that if they did manage to access those controls the other co-captain would become immediately aware of them and where they are.
This wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that the last course set is clearly visible on the sensor screens they can access: they're heading right for the event horizon of a black hole. Sensor images are a little wonky so they don't know exactly when they'll pass the point of no return, but if they do nothing everyone on the ship is dead.
Engines are out of their control. But they do have access to the bay doors of every room on the ship. And maybe, just maybe, if they blow out bays into space in the right order, at the right timing, it may be possible to alter the course of the ship, miss the black hole, and save some of the bays.
They just have to get around the other co-captain, who they've found is using his command access to fiddle around in one particular bay of the ship. Maybe if they can manage to back-track him from there they can kill him, and then have bays blow out their contents into space (yes, killing untold numbers of people) and the ship will miss the black hole.
This is canon Cauldron. They're got the word possible situation, little possibility of actually managing to do anything, and they know what the end game is.
Now, Adrian comes along. And he's got some hacking knowledge that may well turn the tide against the living captain and allow them to not have to murder countless people to stop what's coming.
What does Adrian do? He shuts them out completely. "Your methods are horrible, and even though they were the only thing you could possibly have to work with, I'm not going to let you in on an alternative that makes it so you don't have to continue to be monsters."
That, right there, is critical failure on Adrian's part, I feel. He's gathering together forces to try to resolve the issue without billions of deaths, but he won't allow even the possibility of Cauldron trying to revise their plans.
Ack wrote an SI story titled Security where something similar went down (though the SI there came in without any powers to give him a boost into the setting) but critically, there the SI actually made the offer to Cauldron to try to redeem themselves.
Here, Adrian is just flat condemning and casting out any possibility of working with Cauldron at all due to their past actions even though he should darn well know they're more than half in the dark with what little they've been trying to do and they know it and not even allowing them the chance to make a turnaround.
Really kind of hoping someone calls him on that, though given the current feeling about the "Alliance" seems to be "f*ck Cauldron and the horse they rode in on... seven times seventy"... I don't see that happening.
Which is a real shame, to be honest.
Really, all he should have to do to get Cauldron to stop and seriously rethink everything they've ever done following Contessa's Path is ask a few questions.
"You were about to stab the silver monster dead. What happened to your power?" (Eden dropped a blind to entities on Contessa's shard)
"You turned to the 'Doctor Mother' and she took the knife and went to make the stab. What did the silver monster do? Oh, it died? Without making another move even though moments before it dropped a blindspot into your power, it did nothing at all to your power when you managed to pass critical knowledge to another person to accomplish the deed? How sure of that are you?"
- Location
- UK
Well, thats sort of true, they are desperate...but they are also kidnapping random people, letting known monsters run around because they MIGHT be useful, running experements on the same people they claim to protect, has psychopaths working for them and are basing their entire plan on one come up with by something they KNOW that their enemy can influence and desires the highest amount of conflict available. Perhaps Adrian was foolish for cutting them out completely, but I dont blame him in the slightest, not when their likely response would have been to dismiss the idea of a different plan and shoot him in the head.
Yeah but their plan works. Without Cauldron worm would have been fucked, the only reason they had a chance against Scion was Cauldron.
- Location
- UK
That doesnt make them a GOOD option. Its really a matter of whether you believe that the ends justifies the means and when you consider that the aftermath was a huge number of worlds wiped out and more being reduced to rubble with the survivors having to scratch out a living in a post apocalyptic environment, can you blame Adrian for considering them to be a dead end? I dont fully agree with the authors views of the Cauldron, but I do agree that just about any alternative is better
I'm not saying they're a good option. I'm not attempting to justify or excuse any of the absolutely monstrous things they did, with the sole exception being that they are literally doing the only thing they have any indication of being a possible solution.
It's not possible, not by a long shot, but they don't know that.
My gripe centers on Adrian not even giving them the option of changing. He's basically telling them they're horrible monsters, so go on and keep being horrible monsters, he's not going to make any attempt to show them a better path.
That right there in my opinion puts Adrian in a very bad light.
I mean without Cauldron then its not just some worlds getting screwed over but literally trillions of earths all dying. I don't blame him for thinking its not the best option, but Warcraft magic isn't really strong enough to beat Scion without author fiat. If this was 100% realistic this choice would just end up killing more people.
- Location
- Marietta, OH USA
One might retort that it's "author fiat" that in the original canon the Entities are omnipotent, unstoppable gods, and that the only way to beat them is to stoop to every despicable method possible "for the greater good..."
I also have to point out that even in canon the omnipotent unbeatable God Mode Villain Sue wasn't beaten by Cauldron or any of its conniptions, dirty tricks and byzantine plans, but IN SPITE OF THEM-- by one lone girl running athwart their plans who sacrificed her own mind and sanity just to get all of humanity to work together long enough to defeat him.
The moral of the story, children, is that selling your soul to the Devil only works out in the Devil's best interests.
And as to "showing them a better path..." dude. They're an invisible, world wide conspiracy that's been running the world from behind the scenes since Scion arrived. They've committed atrocities by the thousands, and been co-conspirators in countless more. Even if they were still of a mind to genuinely regret their actions, they're deep into the sunk cost fallacy by DECADES. Their first reaction to even the faintest hint of someone uncovering them is to go straight to blackmail and MURDER. It was their FIRST MOVE when Bayleaf started telling Faultline the truth about case 53s... send Contessa to assassinate them all.
You expect this egotistic, paranoid collaboration of thieves, traitors, torturers, murderers and megalomaniacs to give up their decades-old plans and their fig-leaf delusion of moral superiority on the word of a lone Cape who looks like a talking dog?
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You would need to completely change the setting for the entities not to be incredibly strong. They are the source of all the parahumans, how could they logically be weaker than parahumans if they created parahumans.
Also if Cauldron wasn't holding the world together Taylor wouldn't exist in the first place as the world would have turned into anarchy. Their methods weren't 100% perfect, but without them worm verse is completely doomed.
Kellcat
Occasional Ex-Lurker
- Location
- Texas
Welp. Okay; feedback:
It's got good features and bad; overall I mostly enjoyed reading it, despite some persistent warts and a few outright cringeworthy aspects. Again: stating up front that I did enjoy most of it, but you asked for feedback, and.. I can be kinda blunt.
It's not a serious 'fic, but is instead more of a romp; fairly shallow, but also quick moving. That does a good job of keeping attention, for the most part, and kept me generally interested in where things were going next. Things do not stick to the stations of canon, which is nice.
Things never seem to quite edge out of "romp" territory into "stomp" territory, though sometimes the story's riding close to that edge. I have mixed feelings on how easy things remain... On the one hand, the story just doesn't stop moving, and the characters and plot don't bog down into failure and despair, but on the other hand, things are just going too smoothly for the heroes, and even the failures come up roses.
Having additional 'warcrafters' was rather jarring, when it happened, given the stated restrictions at the beginning of the story. That said, having "the nieces and nephews show up and help" has got to be the most original method I've seen of pushing those changes; the story/SoD suffered for that happening, but at the same time, how it was done was amusing, and the characters are still seeing use, afterwards.
One of the more persistent cringeworthy aspects is that some of the characters just... how to put this. Some of the characters just aren't treated with respect. It doesn't quite hit Harry-Potter-Ron-is-a-jealous-git-outright-bashing territory, but it gets uncomfortably close. I'm pretty sure I skimmed past an argument on Contessa, so I'll not go into detail there; Armsmaster and Alexandria are also ill-treated in story - as best I can see, simply because the author dislikes them. Alexandria may be overconfident, but has a Thinker power, and is highly competent. Blind spots or no, I find it difficult to believe she would confront Bayleaf in such a hamfisted way; that entire scene was... uncomfortable, and broke SoD. The constant abuse of Armsmaster is jarring, as well - made even more so by the occasional "well, yeah, I hate him, but let me show him as competent, too" scenes. It even breaks Bayleaf's stated character too - the moralizing and "do the right thing"ing interspersed with "and let me harass Armsmaster for the hell of it." (The bit where he met the ferrets, on the other hand, was closer to amusing - no real harm done, not being done by the SI, etc.) tl;dr: Even if you dislike a character, having nasty things happen to the character 'just because' or having them hold the idiot ball breaks SoD, breaks characterization, and is generally off-putting.
...And being careful with phrasing on this last one in the hopes of not starting flamewars on the very topics that I'm pointing out shouldn't be happening: The other cringeworthy aspect that more than once lead me to skimming past large sections of text is when the writing drops into Author Filibuster / Character Filibuster mode.
When the SI or 'setting text' is ranting about some barely-applicable highly contentious political position...that's... For one thing, this isn't a story about politics, and I rather doubt anyone is reading it for that. And when the Author Filibuster devolves into outright insulting a portion of the readerbase, that's...well.
The Author may, of course, have opinions and political views, and so may the characters - the characters should have political views that fit their backgrounds and experiences. But at the same time, either the author's or characters' political views being expressed in ways that aren't relevant to the story, or that end up preachy or insulting or...? That can lead to anything from annoyed skipping-past-the-politics to outright closing the browser. Dropping into lengthy political rants is...bad form.
I'll leave it at that to hopefully avoid triggering any sort of discussion (flame war ban-fest) on any of the topics. :/
So yeah - there's room for improvement, though I reiterate that I did overall enjoy it. It's generally a fun romp that made me laugh out loud several times - thanks for sharing it.
aaand.. end wall of text.
- Location
- Marietta, OH USA
"Just because the author doesn't like them"--- sort of implies that 'the author' doesn't have legitimate reasons for finding them, oh, just a tad dislikeable.
You know, other than the fact that, canonically, Armsmaster was a self-serving, spotlight hogging DICK who repeatedly backstabbed Taylor to fluff up his own limp, sagging career, and nearly got hundreds of innocents KILLED trying to kill an Endbringer singlehanded so he could hog the glory...
And Alexandria is a ruthless criminal who poses as a superhero while collaborating with a star chamber of serial killers and mass murderers "for the greater good" for the sake of a plan so stupid that if it was a dog I'd shoot it.
Yes, Armsmaster is a little bit of a buttmonkey for Adrian's pranks in this story--- if anything it's become a running gag at this point. Keep in mind that circumstances have excised the worst of his canonical asshole moments. Still, even mellowed out he's got an enormous stick up his keester, which only makes him a favorite target of anyone with a prankster streak. And yeah, Bayleaf is pushing it a bit... Taylor's going to be taking him to task on that.
And Alexandria... Ham-fisted? Compared to canon, this was SUBTLE for her. In canon she tried to blackmail a fifteen year old girl by pretending to murder her family and friends and drag the body-bagged corpses past her. And the immediate consequence was that she was killed with BUGS, remember? BUGS. She's neither sympathetic, nor infallible. So she CAN make, how shall we say, lethally stupid mistakes.
Her secret Base? Blown full of holes. Her untouchable, omniscient masters? reduced to quivering wrecks. Her all-seeing minions? Half-blinded. Her unfathomable resources? Crippled. Her own invulnerable flesh? SKEWERED.
Let's just take a wild leap and just say that Alexandria's not on her A-game.
...Assuming she's even got one. Whether as the leader of the Triumvirate or the Chief Director of the PRT, she's used to her word being law and people being too terrified of her to even protest. It's amazing how fast such people crumble when they AREN'T the 800 pound gorilla in the room anymore.
So noooooo, I don't think I'm going to apologize for taking such characters out to the woodshed.
And...
"Cauldron is a clandestine organization of murderous fanatics that has spent thirty years committing unspeakable crimes against humanity and MEASURABLY MAKING THINGS WORSE. Why doesn't Adrian give them a chance to help?"
All y'all... you know who you are...
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Can you point to anything where they measurably made things worse? Without cauldron the world devolves as it lacks any real governing body, and scion stomps on everyone when he eventually goes insane because they were the only people who knew he was a problem"Just because the author doesn't like them"--- sort of implies that 'the author' doesn't have legitimate reasons for finding them, oh, just a tad dislikeable.
You know, other than the fact that, canonically, Armsmaster was a self-serving, spotlight hogging DICK who repeatedly backstabbed Taylor to fluff up his own limp, sagging career, and nearly got hundreds of innocents KILLED trying to kill an Endbringer singlehanded so he could hog the glory...
And Alexandria is a ruthless criminal who poses as a superhero while collaborating with a star chamber of serial killers and mass murderers "for the greater good" for the sake of a plan so stupid that if it was a dog I'd shoot it.
Yes, Armsmaster is a little bit of a buttmonkey for Adrian's pranks in this story--- if anything it's become a running gag at this point. Keep in mind that circumstances have excised the worst of his canonical asshole moments. Still, even mellowed out he's got an enormous stick up his keester, which only makes him a favorite target of anyone with a prankster streak. And yeah, Bayleaf is pushing it a bit... Taylor's going to be taking him to task on that.
And Alexandria... Ham-fisted? Compared to canon, this was SUBTLE for her. In canon she tried to blackmail a fifteen year old girl by pretending to murder her family and friends and drag the body-bagged corpses past her. And the immediate consequence was that she was killed with BUGS, remember? BUGS. She's neither sympathetic, nor infallible. So she CAN make, how shall we say, lethally stupid mistakes.
Her secret Base? Blown full of holes. Her untouchable, omniscient masters? reduced to quivering wrecks. Her all-seeing minions? Half-blinded. Her unfathomable resources? Crippled. Her own invulnerable flesh? SKEWERED.
Let's just take a wild leap and just say that Alexandria's not on her A-game.
...Assuming she's even got one. Whether as the leader of the Triumvirate or the Chief Director of the PRT, she's used to her word being law and people being too terrified of her to even protest. It's amazing how fast such people crumble when they AREN'T the 800 pound gorilla in the room anymore.
So noooooo, I don't think I'm going to apologize for taking such characters out to the woodshed.
And...
"Cauldron is a clandestine organization of murderous fanatics that has spent thirty years committing unspeakable crimes against humanity and MEASURABLY MAKING THINGS WORSE. Why doesn't Adrian give them a chance to help?"
All y'all... you know who you are...
A lot of criticism of writing such characters seems to forget just what the originals were like.
I'm not entirely sure that's fair. Criticizing her for working with Numbers Man / Harbinger seems to neglect the fact that, so far as I know, he *wasn't* going around slaughtering people anymore. He never faced justice or anything, but he was functionally reformed. Employing a former S9 member was creepy as fuck, but it was neither evil nor stupid. Not that Cauldron didn't have plenty of both.
Though, to be fair, while I'm guessing that that's a major part of what you mean by the "serial killers and mass murderers" bit, I could well be wrong there. Certainly plenty of other Cauldron activities resulted in illegal deaths, it's just that that phrase really sounds like you're talking about Harbinger.
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- Location
- Marietta, OH USA
SO, if I, say, machine gun down a busload of nuns and then tell everyone I'm terribly sorry for it and never do it again-- I get a free pass?
And yes, they're actively making things worse. They've let the s9 run free... they CREATED several of them in fact... they're dumping mindwiped case 53s in back alleys then standing back to watch the chaos (think of how many innocents died with poor Sveta's debut alone)... they're FINANCING VILLAINS through the Numbers Man... they CREATED Coil and BACKED him... they've hobbled and castrated both the Protectorate and the PRT... just how long a list of unforgivable crimes do we have to list here, really? They've paved a six-lane highway to Hell with their "good intentions," folks. They're damned.
Where there is life, there is hope. No one is damned if he will repent. That is part of what it means to be Christian, bathed in the blood of the Lamb.
That being said, Number Man's interlude implied that while he reformed, he never repented... so yeah. Southbound train, probably. The only character out of the whole conspiracy who might get a pass is Contessa, because she functionally never developed agency. No free will, no sin. But this is definitely a 'might'.
I didn't say or imply that. In regards to Numbers Man specifically, Cauldron really didn't do very much wrong. They took a guy who was actively slaughtering people, and facilitated his change in to a guy who was NOT actively slaughtering people. That's... rather limited compared to what they were easily capable of, but a good thing so far as it goes. Sure, Contessa could have killed Harbinger and Bonesaw instead of arranging for them to stop their crimes, but there's no reason to believe that the world would have been better off had she done so.
And selling people superpowers does not necessarily make Cauldron responsible for everything people do with those superpowers, any more than a healer granting people health is responsible for crimes they commit that they could not have done without their health. Likewise, someone stealing powers form Cauldron (ie Siberian) doesn't make Cauldron responsible for what the thief goes on to do with them. Unless you're saying that they deliberately orchestrated one or more of the Nine becoming a mass-murdering torturer? I'm not aware of Cauldron having done any such thing.
(as Hazard pointed out below, they did some indirect support for the S9)
Of course, Project Nemesis is a very different matter indeed... on that, and other matters, I'll completely agree that Cauldron was often somewhere in the triangle defined by the three points of evil, absurd levels of pragmatic ruthlessness, and desperate incompetent fumbling.
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OTOH, Cauldron attempted to interfere in operations to oppose the Slaughterhouse 9 to facilitate the escape of several of its members. That's not a crime of failing to do something, that's actively assisting serial murderers whom past history has shown are extremely likely to continue their murdering ways.
And...
"Cauldron is a clandestine organization of murderous fanatics that has spent thirty years committing unspeakable crimes against humanity and MEASURABLY MAKING THINGS WORSE. Why doesn't Adrian give them a chance to help?"
All y'all... you know who you are...
Critical failure: but did they know there was any other alternative to their plan?
Remember, Contessa's BS I-win power is horrifically effective from their point of view. And even though she pops up blind spots in certain places, well every thinker power has blind spots relating to Zion and the Endbringers. But she can mostly get around those with character modeling ....
I said it before - they have an terrible situation, and they're doing the only thing they know - don't forget, before Eden dropped a whammy on Contessa the Path to Victory was legit showing exactly how to successfully kill both entities with presumably any addition requirements Contessa would think to add such as "as close to single digit human fatalities as possible.
This is the thought process of Cauldron's members now ==> "I had the entire plan, we would successfully kill both monsters with very few deaths. Then the first monster fuzzed it all up. The Doctor Mother was able to end run around the fuzz and we successfully killed the first monster. Just need you guys to feed me the right questions so we can repeat that with Scion."
This is my problem with your thought of taking them out to the shed and shooting them in the head. They literally 'know' they're on the right path to succeed and they know that billions are going to die making it happen because they can't get the Path sufficiently un-fuzzed.
That's why I'm kinda upset that Adrian didn't take the time to give them the critical nudge toward understanding that no, they're not actually working on something that might succeed, they're just blindly following along to the slaughter house like every other parahuman.
If they continued to hold to their chosen course once they know that the outcome thereof is just more death and murder and no entity kill? Then and only then should it be "yes, cut them out."
Adrian doesn't even have to give them details of his plans that they could then mess up. As posted earlier, a couple simple questions would lodge doubt in the PtV's I-win button, and then he can focus on Alexandria and Eidolon and start talking about chaos theory and why the entities are not just stupid non-creative but ignorant of basic universal function, and yes, he does have a plan that will succeed.
And by the way, that means a critical part is all you Cauldron idiots doing your utmost to ameliorate all the damage you've done before facing official judgment and sentencing for your crimes.
Ack didn't show it in Security but SirWill had the first steps of it in his closing scenes to Queen of Blood with some court scenes.
If they refuse the chance to make restitution? Then sure, they're part of the problem that needs to be cut out.
They're just stuck on this as the only option they see that has any chance at all of succeeding (you know, JUST LIKE CANON HAD) but show them it's never going to work and show proof that you've got something better (and the way Adrian's tech is definitely poking holes in everything they do that would be easier than boiling water) and they swing into line? Then let them help and make sure they know they'll have to face tribunals for what they did, though anything they can do before the endgame is complete to make amends and fix the damages they've done will be taken into consideration for reduction (NOT ELIMINATION) of sentence.
I am not and never would call for full and free pardon / exoneration of what they did. But they have to be given the opportunity to see that what they had ever reason to look at as the only valid way to go was really absolute garbage.
- Location
- Marietta, OH USA
A person who murders ONCE makes the world a shittier place just by being in it. Harbinger and Bonesaw murdered thousands! You're honestly saying the world would not be better off WITHOUT such monsters breathing its air?
They didn't just "fail to stop them." Cauldron, through Alexandria/Director Rebecca Costa-Brown and their own clandestine manipulation of the governments of the world, obstructed efforts to incarcerate violent supervillains (it's pretty clear their manipulations were responsible for the fact that the PRT was so incompetent at locking Capes up that they were all but operating a 'catch and release' program). They even obstructed efforts to end the Slaughterhouse Nine. Furthermore they withheld information that would have saved lives... for example, how many innocents, how many oh-so-important capes died because Cauldron hid the fact that Manton was alive-- and that the indestructible Siberian was his projection? (talk about shooting yourself in the foot..."we need capes so bad, let's let this homicidal maniac one kill all the GOOD ones!")
...which goes to prove my point: they were evil and incompetent (and the overlap between those two concepts is pretty comprehensive. Evil, in the end, is the first resort of the incompetent-- because it LOOKS easier, or faster, or more effective, when its the exact opposite of all of those things.) cauldron's plan wasn't a "poor option," it was just... plain... wrong. And TERRIBLE.
- Location
- UK
Alright, we can argue about whether or not the Cauldron are evil or just incompetent all day, but I think we can all agree that the way they went about their plan is TERRIBLE! Between creating Villains responsible for unfathomable suffering, getting in the way of stopping said villains and pretty much relying on a mix of dumb luck and the enemies own weapons to save the world, it really is amazing that they didnt accidentally destroy the world well before Zion did.
- Location
- England
You could, but I don't think you should. Not in this thread anyway.
- Location
- Mountain View CA
Here's my view on redemption: At some point the evil you've committed means that redemption is a long road for you. A human lifetime may not be long enough to repent and in our world resources are limited.
Why should Adrian spend his limited amount of time and effort trying to redeem Cauldron, when that effort could be spent building up people who are innocent and who won't constantly try to undermine him? When that time could be spent helping their thousands of case 53 victims still locked up in their basement. That Adrian doesn't help them due to a lack of power or whatever is the real tragedy.
Additionally, this touches on one of the tropes I despise, where hero kills hundreds of mooks but offers the big bad redemption. The people most deserving of the second chance are the relatively innocent mooks, not the figure responsible for ordering all the evil. Just because the audience is familiar with you doesn't mean you deserve redemption.
Why should Adrian spend his limited amount of time and effort trying to redeem Cauldron, when that effort could be spent building up people who are innocent and who won't constantly try to undermine him? When that time could be spent helping their thousands of case 53 victims still locked up in their basement. That Adrian doesn't help them due to a lack of power or whatever is the real tragedy.
Additionally, this touches on one of the tropes I despise, where hero kills hundreds of mooks but offers the big bad redemption. The people most deserving of the second chance are the relatively innocent mooks, not the figure responsible for ordering all the evil. Just because the audience is familiar with you doesn't mean you deserve redemption.
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- Location
- So near, yet so far
I believe Cauldron's purpose when letting Manton (and rest of S9 and similar threats) was both because having something that powerful would be useful in the future if they found a way to attack Endbringers or Sscion (They probably plan to use a human master.) and because it was a proven fact that S9 and similar dangers were causing considerably more triggers than they kill capes and they push people to the necessity of PRT.
But yeah, let's finish this morality of Cauldron debate. It can be thought both ways because I don't believe Wildbow gave enough statistics. Yes, it was mentioned (I think) that Cauldron keeps the order in the US (and other places) and preventing them to go by the way of Africa but it's also established they didn't let threats end (they protected S9 for example) or prove if it would really be as bad as Africa (I mean even the real world Africa without any Illuminati-like groups or parahumans are bad enough at some places).
They definitely did many immoral things but that's also about where you are on the ends vs. means slide. Some people like the Author believe everything dies eventually and while some smaller things like killing in self-defense can be okay (or at least morally grey enough that there won't be many objections) but committing atrocities to maybe it can save people on the smallest chances isn't okay while some others consider how many countless trillions and future generations they are trying to save and cut a bigger (okay a lot bigger) slack.
Still, I don't think there was any indication in the source material that they were actively malicious (that is; they didn't cause atrocities or pain because they want it, they merely did it with cold logic).
Arimai
Curmudgeon
The Christian in me would accept the repentance. The soldier in me would kill, without hesitation the murderer who just massacred a busload of nuns. Even if you apply theocratic authority as it was done in the Middle Ages, the Church would still sentence all of Cauldron to death.
But would they jump right to trying that or would Alexandria, at least, told that there's an alternative that means untold billions don't die in the process, and having shown proof the PtV is very likely compromised, go for the alternative? The Warcrafted would even have good odds of picking out whether or not she would lie to their faces.
It is, in the end, not a reason for me to drop the fic but I'll always be wondering the what-if. After all, Cauldron might well have their heads so far up their own butts they would deny the possibility of an alternative but there remains a chance (the percentage i will not speculate other than to say it's unlikely to be flat zero) they'd go for the alternative.