First of all, you seem to have lots of faith in politicians to think they won't go for that.
Secondly, in my own country we recently had a criminal get presidential pardon and a high ranking position in the government law enforcement agency. So Marquis getting a pardon and being allowed to walk around free is nothing unusual or unheard off compared to RL.
I have faith that a politician isn't going to want to commit political suicide. This is the makings of an epic scandal.
I think he means that they undermine the legitimacy of the government by using PtV to get whatever Cauldron wants by Contessa and holding two positions that should be separate by Alexandria. Many countries separate various powers for a reason.
Well, yes. But the PRT, by and large, doesn't know this. The problem is when something like this
goes public.
And the Cauldron would not win without her jailbreaking Skitter. The PRT is all about what Cauldron wants, the mandate is just for show to appease the public and politicians. The very fact of Alexandria being chief director of PRT throws their mandate out of the window.
Except that wasn't Cauldron's plan, so you're now asserting that Cauldron is going to give in to Amy for the sake of a plan they never actually came up with and hasn't yet been formed by
anyone yet, barring
perhaps the Simurgh.
So yes, I can believe that Piggot will tell Amy to get lost, then she will get a call from Costa-Brown who, depending on what Contessa will say, might want to negotiate. Governments do that all the time, it's called 'compromise' and it does not destroy their legitimacy or anything. Worst case scenario Maqruis will die and 'John Smith' will be allowed to live with Amelia, governments also do that all the time, lie I mean, killing supervillains is apparently a big no-no in Worm.
It's possible, perhaps, but there is little to no evidence that Amy is held up as all that important outside Brockton Bay. She's a minor local celebrity, perhaps a better healer than most, notable for healing for free.
The people who care are the locals in Brockton Bay, but they wouldn't have the power to give her what she wants. The people who have that power are at the national level and have little to no reason to
care.
Again, they're looking at the choices of "do without a volunteer healer who we didn't rely on before and shouldn't be relying on anyway" or "release a multiple murderer from the inescapable prison and
hope she continues volunteering, even though doing so offers zero guarantees that she'll actually hold up her end of the bargain and continue healing once he's free, and the moment the public catches wind of this, they will crucify us."
EDIT:
Also also: you remember that conversation Taylor had with the nurse after the fight with Leviathan about capes couldn't sue due to permanent damage incurred from Endbringer fights? If there were more healers capable of fixing such injuries, why did they need that law?
Well, obviously, the law couldn't
possibly date back to when the cape population was much lower. *rolls eyes*
Also also also: It's already established in canon -- hellooooo, Alexandria package -- that certain types of powers are more common than others. There are PLENTY of reasons for keeping a full-on bio-kinetic like Panacea willing to do what you say. Methods range from blackmail with a strangely competent woman in a fedora backing you up to getting on her really good side.
You mean the strangely competent woman in a fedora who is
explicitly staying out of Brockton Bay for their little experiment?
That woman?
And yeah, some powers are more common than others. Got any evidence that powers with healing applications are among the rare ones? Not necessarily saying they aren't, but I am curious if any such evidence actually exists, or if it's just implied.
There is a lack of evidence that they did -- and this being Worm, the generaI assumption is that they didn't because 'It Gets Worse'. You also failed to notice my other points.
Didn't see your edits. So the fact that they talk about deploying PRT squads in Venom 29.9 isn't evidence the PRT survived? I'm curious what you would consider "evidence," then.
The central point remains: Would the people who actually have the power to release Marquis from the Birdcage feel it's worth it?
The PRT has no guarantee Amy will hold up her end of the bargain if they give in. They have no reason to believe they can't do without her; they've done so before, when they had fewer capes and therefore fewer healers, after all. Cauldron currently has a hands-off policy toward Brockton Bay, so there'd be no intervention from them. The PotUS has the authority, but he has to weigh the potential PR nightmare that would come from this. The local PRT would want her help, but even
they survived the "bad old days" without her. For these reasons, I don't think they would. You disagree. That's fair, but it does rely on a federal organization being incompetent enough to have become reliant on a single point of failure that has only been around for a few years, tops,
openly ignore their official mandate of "nonhuman authority over parahumans," risk a major PR disaster, and all for a service they would have no means of guaranteeing they would receive if they
do give in. And that people who are not directly affected by her services would agree to all that.
