I mean as a path to revealing magic it works but for the politics of the 90s its a not much of a win, beyond playing at traditional American values? Because politics was different then than it is now to a surprising degree. Especially when people start asking why they haven't heard about this before; this can very quickly shift from a victory to a self inflicted injury depending on how that question is answered. because saying/implying the government lied/concealed something from the American people while being one of the highest officials in the land is pretty bad PR. I also have to wonder what Bush plans to run on, given he apparently has something special this time around I highly doubt its something mundane.
I think Clinton's plan is to run as an outsider
against the conspiracy. This is aided by the fact that he has no prior involvement in federal politics, and can probably point to evidence that the federal government has been imposing the Masquerade on the states.
There's a risk of him doing damage to the government's credibility, but he's also ideally positioned to take advantage of that damage because he's running against the incumbent Bush.
Now I am wondering when will the Japanese government fall to a motion of no confidence. I assume that the government is probably getting flak for not handling the problem well enough and relying on vigilantes that can't be everywhere at once to solve the problem coupled with the fallout of the
recruit scandal. I can imagine that Kiichi Miyazawa is probably going for the sake and the opposition just circling like vultures right now.
You have a point. On the other hand, the government has the advantage that it
can claim three important points:
1) All knowledge of how to deal with this crisis has been systematically suppressed by the Imperial Ministry of Onogoro, a problem that affected all parts of the government and all parties equally for as long as anyone can remember.
2) The government jumped into action very quickly after the initial round of conspicuous incidents (the Crystal Seminar disappearances, the convention center explosion). Once it became clear that paranormal activity was involved, MCAT was up and running within a matter of 2-4 weeks.
3) Furthermore, MCAT had already reached out to and incorporated members of Japan's yokai population, was actively researching magical countermeasures, and importantly established formal relations with one of the hardest-hitting groups of vigilantes, partially regularizing their relationship with the government.
All things considered, the Japanese government is actually doing rather well. The only national government that we know is handling this sudden rise of hostile paranormal activity is the British, and
they weren't systematically being sabotaged by their own mage population. If Japan had had the IMO actually protecting Japan instead of tormenting youma, and Britain had the Spellblades actively conspiring to suppress magic, things would be quite different.
Thus, there is a viable path for the government to simply blame the IMO's
deliberate sabotage for the lack of adequate preparations, and claim that the government did the best it could under the circumstances.
Sure, I can understand an authoritarian using a real enemy to save the effort of making one up for their usual playbook. Demanding reparations just seems a lot less aggressive than he can get away with given the tendency of the Dark Kingdom to commit genuine demonic terrorism.
Nah, I mean, that's just
the first thing the Chinese are doing. And the thing they're doing in public. The PRC is a very secretive and kinda paranoid state at this point, so whatever else they're doing in response to Dark Kingdom activity, they're probably not letting the rest of the world find out.
Two words Tiananmen Square
China is reforming and opening up to the west and the recent Tiananmen Square protests really destroyed their image in the west and with the soviet union dead the chinese dont want the Americans to get any ideas on restarting the Cold War. by being a little more soft and not doing stuff that could hurt their pr they are trying to get people to trust china again and of course to make sure the west forgets about the fact that they used tanks and soldiers to kill defencless students
Also this.
Oh, if Tianamen Square was that recent, I guess I can understand overcompensating.
Just remember, it's 1992. You want recent history?
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
That's what's been happening in the past five years. It's been a pretty wild ride, what with the end of the Cold War and all.
Yeah, they're going to be difficult to handle. Every other Dark franchise is unambiguously evil, but with the Dark Liberators, we may be able to knock over that tower in Brazil, but we can't exactly walk into Mexico, say "hey, you know those guns your political power is growing from? They're harvesting your energy for a dark god and need to be destroyed," and then leave.
Maybe we can break the connection the energy is being funneled along? The guns aren't really our problem; the energy harvesting is.
Just did a lookup on Cure Dream and her series. It seems that Coco is the mascot for their series, who can take a human form. So we have an interspecies romance there. Not much more of note.
Also,
he's a Pretty Cure mascot who has a way to suppress the damn tic.
Which at this point is enough that
I'm half falling for the bastard and I don't even swing that way!
Lunaryon said:
Cure Dream...
...
...
...
Also known as the Cure of Intelligence, Cure Aqua...
Karen is stern and level headed, the member of the team most able to keep the differing thoughts and feelings of the group on task and focused towards their goals. She is a year older than the rest, and the daughter of a pair of world renowned musicians. All together, Karen isn't sure what she dreams for the future, but she knows she wants a job where she can be with whatever family she makes when she grows up.
I think we've found
both Usagi's
and Ami's new official Mini-Mes.
At the current time, the Kingdom has been desolated by a Japanese Corporation known as Naitomea who somehow managed to pierce the Dimensional Barrier because of the Kingdom's Crown Treasure, the Dream Collet...
The Royal Treasure of the Palmier Kingdom, given to them by the Queen of the Silver Millennium. Legend has it that if all 55 of the Pinky Spirits can be brought together, the Collet will allow their powers to be commanded and controlled in such a way as to grant any single wish. However, it has been the belief of the Palmier Royal Family that there is no need for such a power, for any dream that you can truly wish for can be achieved by one's own hard work and toil.
It is because of the Dream Collet's supposed ability to grant wishes that the Naitomea Corporation attacked the kingdom. What exactly the Corporation wants with a single wish is unknown, but given that they invaded and destroyed an entire kingdom to get it, it is probably not a super good thing.
The good news is, they're actually on
OUR side of the dimensional barrier. This is something of a change of pace, because the traditional Pretty Cure villain is some extradimensional asshole who's just as inaccessible normally as the Pretty Cure realm they menace.
While the Pretty Cure 5 probably can't do much about the Corporation themselves, being as how individually they probably only have Prowess in the mid-teens to low twenties
tops and the Corporation has extensive security forces and probably demons and monsters and shit on-side...
It's actually quite possible that we could short-circuit their entire plot (and validate the Palmier Royal Family's belief that magical wishes are unnecessary) by just walking over to the Naitomea Corporation's headquarters and blowing it the fuck up. We can probably even get MCAT and the public Japanese government on-side with this, because I'm
pretty damn sure the Japanese government didn't authorize a private corporation to singlehandedly form a paranormal PMC, invade and occupy a foreign country, and start a magical war.
One important reason to do this is that if we can convince the Precure 5
NOT to actually bother finishing the collection of their many many many MacGuffins...
We get to keep our sleep aid.
