Fanservice

It may not be perfectly supported (But what war is?) but to think they're doing it against the will of the world is incredibly unlikely. Especially with a 'Kill 'em all' attitude when practically every NPC you get notes on from Longbow show they're hard working, hero minded and determined to help.

The Longbow in Mercy voice, hesitantly that sometimes they wish they could just ... wipe people out. Which is the exemption that proves the rule that they DON'T kill people out of turn. They probably use rubber bullets, gel packed bullets, sonic disablers, muscle relaxing, whatever bullets to take people in without killing.

Recluse has also got his hands on WMD's. The Web wasn't a new form of internet!

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AFAIK, the US does not recognize the government in the Etoile Islands.
Longbow are a private mercenary force. They're neither a federal organization or military.

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"The strength of their ideological conviction, coupled with the advanced training and munitions provided by NATO, render the Longbow soldiers a force to be reckoned with."

Gotta wonder why NATO continues to supply and train them if they're committing a very public, very blatant international crime.

Probably because they're not and the war on Arachnos is actually supported on the international stage. Because Recluse is a crazy person and his removal is key to the Defence of its members.

They are a member of Freedom Corps but they seem to also be be working for, or at least very closely with NATO.

It's just silly to think Longbow is committing a hugely illegal and fairly public war and no one calls them on it. You think at least one person would mention it in the game at some point. But it's never brought up in CoV, not once. Now sure because it's never explicitly stated what the politicians decision was you could pretend that it's all hugely illegal. But that's so out of character for Ms. Liberty and Longbow itself! That's why I pointed out the Vanguard thing, because it was trying to incorrectly paint them as people who break the law just to be petty.

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They attacked Vanguard forces purely because Vanguard was upstaging them on the nice guys in uniform stage. Yeah they are terrorists.

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When? The only time they come to blow with Vanguard is when Renegade Vanguard take one of their Rikti diplomats (And kill him too) and they later beat said renegade Vanguard down. Because of this they tell the main Vanguard they can't be trusted, which is a fair point as Longbow DON'T have a crazy splinter faction to deal with right now. They then go on and say Vanguard should get on board Longbow's initiative so they can be trusted or stand down.

Vanguard then send you to attack a Longbow listening post to get information on the Renegades rather than allow this shift of power. This was completely unprovoked, the only people Longbow had attacked up till then were Renegades and you who they confused to be a Renegade at the time. In fact attacking you is a little odd in the mission, it's played as a misunderstanding as Tefu is entirely nice to you after you win, even calling you friend and trying to help explain the situation. It seems like the fight was oddly unnecessary and even Tefu says so if he knocks out a player. I guess his mission was to capture all Vanguard forces in the base and that'd included you.

But back to the main point rather than try be diplomatic, they actually raid the longbow base to seize information. Longbow were admittedly spying on Vanguard by this point, but again, Vanguard troops had just taken and murdered one of their Rikti Diplomats and they knew some weren't playing by the rules. They thought Vanguard were destabilizing peace talks so the war wouldn't be ended non violently and so couldn't trust them, hence why they weren't handing the data over. Not checking on them would have been naively stupid.

When you do clear Vanguard's name from the kidnapping by proving that it was a splinter faction and ending them, Longbow back off. Being entirely reasonable about it all although still justifiably wary of Vanguard. Again, Vanguard have had a very, very crazy splinter group try seize power of an armed force to commit genocide, Longbow haven't.

Not sure how everyone is getting 'No reason' out of all that. It's clearly part misunderstanding and part completely justifiable mistrust once some of Vanguards troops go off the rails. Longbow never attack the Main Vanguard but simply extend their control over the area and ask for them to stand down.

Longbow even assist Vanguard later despite all this by loaning their Portal technology. If anything Longbow are practically saints through this whole mess.

Also worth noting was Longbow were prepared to finish the fight with or without Vanguard's help. So they weren't leaving the world at risk by butting heads here. In fact if they hadn't clamped down on Vanguard and the Renegades the situation likely would have got worse as you wouldn't have been able to locate them and take them out. Vanguard might well have been dissolved as it was torn apart form the inside after the Renegades kill Lady Gret or the entire world when the Renegades bomb the portal and rip apart the very fabric of the universe.

Edit: Ed said it shorter. But there's the full thing.

You're trying to apply real life due process and laws to a world that not only legalised Vigilantism, but whose Heroes stopped the cold war escalating by disarming both nations. It's usually hand waved. How often do our characters spend giving testimonies in court? Exactly.

Not to mention they're both armed and trained by NATO as mentioned in a few of the mob Bios. Who you think would realise they're doing illegal war considering war with Arachnos is pretty much ALL they do. It's fun to call Longbow nothing but glorified thugs IC, but they're not OOC. They really are trying to do the right thing, within the law. Whether it's the correct course of action is up for debate, but they're not hosting an incredibly obvious and highly illegal war. Someone would probably have mentioned it by now....

Longbow are light boys (And girls), they wouldn't be shooting to kill unless it's the only option.

The Underwater base and then taken to the Zig sounds good. 90% of the Villains on RI have committed some crime State side after all!

"Back away please, this could be dangerous" Horizon yells at the rubbernecking crowd that is quickly forming.

Sadly a man in a buisness suit ran out of the crowd to open the door, yelling about how irresponsible Heroes were these days. Leaning round the edge of the door with one eye half closed in fear of what she'll see, Horizon lets out a sigh of relief when she sees the stasis field with the young girl trapped inside.

"Please back away, I'm the one with the sword here. If you want to help go grab a pair of tights first." then pressing on the communicator in her ear, magically protected from her own special technophobia, she starts to call out on the UV channel for a bomb specialist.

That... was lucky.

Damn! Should have seen that coming, well no time to check.

Pulling a book out of a concealed backpack below her cape, she fluttered through the pages quickly, cutting a intricate symbol into the vans wind shield and then chanting quickly from a she'd come to a stop at. After about thirty seconds the symbol glowed and the whole van shimmered intangibly with a yellow light. The hasty ward had put it slightly out of phase with the world for now, meaning if it did explode no one was going to get hurt at least.

The other van had a head start, but it had to navigate traffic a lot more carefully. Taking off at high speed Horizon flitted between cars,coming up behind the second run away van and pulling alongside the driver window. She took out the glass with her sword and then reached in to grab at the laptop, her own innate ability to scramble electronics hopefully killing the PC driving the thing.

I think you need to work out where the character is going before he gets banished. He's very much fallen off the hero wagon recently and it should really go out in a way that people would feel satisfied with.

Sadly if he is just a mad dog now, that'd be taking him behind the shed with a shotgun! Which is hardly a big way to go out I'll admit. Maybe he needs to sit down and do some soul searching. Perhaps this could be why it ends for him, someone finally lays down his problems and where he strayed and he decides that atonement can never really be achieved for all the betrayl, so a sacrifice would have to do as second best.

Alternatively you can have his madness build up and then finally collapse all around him, going down in a sparking lab, fire all around and yelling about how "I cannot die yet! My Work is yet to be complete!", a proper mad scientist send off.

A quick run to Independence port, Soaring Horizon had dodge along the Metro lines nimbly keeping her feet away from the electric cable while vaulting the carts. She even managed a long jump to change over to the Green Line, attracting a few disbelieving looks from the people walking below.

A brown van would stick out luckily, although this seemed so strange. More one of that demon's Mechano's tricks than any rational person. Still, it's an odd colour for a van and eventually she spotted one circling the north end of the area dodging through traffic and not really going anywhere. She waited for it to pass near the metro track before landing on the bonnet, sword stabbing through the thin metal and right into the engine block. Holding on in case it came to a violent stop Horizon looked through the windscreen.

Oh no, it just means i'll have to think up of an even more insane and unlikely combination for what needs to occur (Or not, depending on the fickleness of players)

I'd love to see someone trying to steal canapes from a party in an overly blown tomb raiding thriller manner incidently.

"You go up the aisles, watch out for conversational traps and death hugs, i'll swing under those tables and try disarm the spiked punch so the drunks will clear out getting us a clear shot at the pastry rolls. Have the motorcycles ready."

Of course when they fail to exchange the snacks for a Tofu alternative without activating the trap the giant disco ball releases and they must run to safety. Oh and go back for the hat if needed.

Can't we come to a happy compromise?

Say... if you've unlocked Capes and auras with 5 characters, then it unocks them at level 1 permenantly since by then you're going to be pretty sick of doing it.

Thus pleasing the people who believe games should be irritatingly repetative and those who want just want our capes and auras!

Curses! I was planning to do something like this for Horizon. Now i'd just be feeling like a shill (Not that it'll stop me doing it though, she's been banging on about it!).

Still it was very good, nice to see the looting of ancient culture is still kept up. It's a time honored tradition you know.

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Beth looks over from her pile "Now that's a nice find. Any idea how we're getting in?"

"A few" says Emily, looking between Beth and Molly "You two finish, it's not going anywhere though."

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One hour later

Both wearing blacked out googles Beth and Emily One were crowded round the safe. Beth with her finger lit up in a thin lance of fusion energy was busy melting a set of holes all along the joins of the safe, while Emily stood in between her and Molly to avoid blinding anyone.

Brushing her brow Beth stands up and gives a smile to Emily. "That's it" she says "Get the plasma charges set and let's hope they work as well as the Bunnies promised and that we don't get in too much trouble for this"

With a soft white glow, Emily One calls down the small cylindrical charges from her pre-stocked teleportation storage arrays using her eye mounted display. Fitting them into the holes Beth had slaved over, she quickly adds detonators into a slot in the charges and pulls the arming tabs.

"We do as needs must, he can afford a new safe. Stand back. All clear." Emily one says tersely, the thirty second timer giving them plenty of time to stand clear. The explosives were an unusual design and a by product of the Omega Chief clones powers, a small sample of stored fusion energy was crushed in a minor gravimetric field and then released the resulting expansion ripping apart anything in contact with it at an atomic level. It probably broke at least ten different laws of physics, but it worked.

The explosives make short work of the supports pinning the safe in place. Rather than a bang their only real sound is a loud hiss as the metal is atomized and then the door starts to fall, Emily and Beth rushing to meet it and with groans of effort managing to get it on it's side against the wall.

Looking inside the safe they see an old looking suit similar to the one Infinitron commonly wears, a discarded helmet with several nasty looking bullet holes in it and vacuum packed bodybag. Beth pales at this a little, because the bag is currently occupied.

Quickly leaning down to cut it open wit ha small flick knife, Emily One pats over the body "He's FBI, they've been looking for him I managed to get the briefing when.. well that doesn't matter right now. Molly finish up fast, we're going to have to call this in sooner than I'd have liked"

You can go to Bloody Bay at 15.

PvP'ing before 15 is a little pointless!

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when it turns out how, actually, Longbow are nothing but a group of vigilantes and headcases wrapped up in their own egos...

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Actually that seems like a good description of most Heroes too.

The group of three didn't take long to find the office. It was locked, but that was a minutes work to solve at best. Pushing open the door, the room felt slightly musty with a very thin layer of dust settling on everything. It was a standard office, with a large mahogany desk a computer and even a small coffee table stacked with magazines and papers and sofa for meeting with valued costumers at a more personable level.

"I'll search for electronics, you go over the normal Beth. Molly, the computers all yours if you want it." says Emily One, whipping out a small electronic wand that crackles as she sweeps for hidden devices starting with the lighting fixtures.

"Same as always, I'll be sure to check the trash this time" said Beth started to industrially go over the room using a small camera to photograph practically everything and then piling things onto the sofa as she finished to keep them out of the way. She even made good on her words and picked through the trash, placing a small crumpled post it note on the table along with a week old paper bearing a front page of Dr Mechano claiming responsibility for the InfiniCorp murders, the picture was crossed out in red pen.

"What's the note?" enquired Emily

"Not sure on all of them but Rachel Strauss is head of KGN for Paragon, Philip Donahue we've helped before he runs the Public Access, I think it's a list of TV executives. Would fit in with the message that went out. Maybe he actually paid for it, that's a trail worth checking on."

Emily mumbled approval as she started to go over the desk, trying to keep out of Molly's way. The wand picks up a buzz and leaning down to look under it she finds a small concealed button behind a tiny wood panel. Pressing it a section of the wall slides away, revealing a heavy blast door, keypad, retinal and fingerprint scanner.

Beth looks over from her pile "Now that's a nice find. Any idea how we're getting in?"

"A few" says Emily, looking between Beth and Molly "You two finish, it's not going anywhere though."

Hearing the sliding of the main entrance, Emily turns to look at the new arrival. Beth on the other hand makes herself busy looking through the doorways, working her way along corridor as she searches for the Office they want.

"Ah, Miss Longstaff. Would you care to join us? We were just about to take a look around." says Emily with a very laid on formality.

Emily knew Molly.EXE, but not too well. She seemed a good soul and ignoring her would just hamper the investigation. Plus she had a way with technology that even Beth couldn't match.

A short while after the rooftop watcher left a Toyota Hilux drove into the parking lot and found a space. There were plenty to choose from, the facility had been near abandoned for months following a mass murder of staff. Only one remained and that was where the truck was going later.

Out of it climbed two figures, Emily One now dressed in a black, professional buisness woman's outfit. Close range teleporters helped her a lot with looking the part these days, if you didn't mind the thought of losing a bit of skin if something went wrong. Her passenger was another woman, pale white and dressed as a personal assistant. Plain black jacket, pencil skirt and a black binder tucker under one arm. Her name was simply Beth, one of twenty female clones of Omega Chief her dour and calculating outlook on life left her a perfect match for Emily One. The two looked across the unkempt lawn at the large unfurled banner of Mechano.

"Are you certain this is worth our time?" asked Beth "Edward Mechano is too public. We won't get along with press well"

"Never certain" replied Emily "But keeping this going even more to the press is important. People are scared enough as it is about this Vigilante."

Falling silent, the pair enter the foyer of the building approaching a Reception Bot which stands listlessly behind the front desk. It brightens up seeing it has people to serve at last.

"Hello! Can I help you Ma'am?"

"I'm Emily Vickers. I'm here to review the place, weekly inspection of the staff"

"We currently have no staff Ms. Vickers. I was not aware of an inspection."

"Check with your temporary staffing contractor, you'll see this is authorized."

The robot clicks as it accesses some files, before nodding Emily through.

"Unusual, but you are scheduled. Have a nice day Ms. Vickers."

"Thank you. You too." smiled Emily. This whole thing had been arranged in the last few hours and taken a few favours, luckily good will was something you quickly amassed when playing as a Hero, even a hired one, especially one which mainly took missing persons cases.

So far things were going well, but it was early days yet.

It was early in the morning and Emily hadn't got much sleep. This in itself wasn't that unusual, she spent far longer awake than asleep these days. But even with the body modifications Dynamo WeaponsTech where paying her to test (Or at least that's how the story went) keeping her keen and alert for days on end, Emily had hit one of those times where she knew sleep would help and yet she couldn't relax enough to get it.

She'd always worried that one day someone was going to topple the set up Heroes had. Whole groups of Super Powered individuals, legal vigilantism and almost no oversight was a set up so good for someone so in love with independence as Emily that when someone did try to topple it, they lost sleep.

"Idiot" she said out loud as she went over the cork board she'd set up, coloured string joining scraps of information and articles to visualize her over crowded thoughts on the matter. "If it is him." Emily One had met Infinitron a few times and he didn't seem the sort to flip so easily. Until evidence of something traumatic turned up, it was better to assume Infinitron himself was MIA and someone else was wearing the mask.

Tracking the killer through the materials were useless. Ammunition was easy to find and didn't take up a lot of space. One van could keep him supplied with enough to make a sea of corpses and if he just took off the mask and put on a different one he could buy more with no paper trails at any of the less desirable districts in the city.

The video was useless too, no background clues, no reflections other than the camera itself, voiced garbled beyond descrambling Emily had access too and anything else had been picked over on the internet. All it did was confirm intent.

The best hope she had for a start would be at InfiniCorp itself. Somewhere there was a schematic for the suit and with that came opportunities to catch it out. After that came searching his home and office for clues, he'd likely not left a helpful note explaining where he'd gone but at least evidence to what caused this break might turn up.

She'd get her gear on the fly from Dynamo's teleport network a little thankful that she'd taken the time to set that all up. Having a rifle on the streets today would cause problems.

Flicking off the light to her home and taking the tactical visor from the hook by the door, affixing it over her head with a satisfying 'Kachunk' Emily stepped out into the early morning. She didn't have an appointment at InfiniCorp, but she found in times like these that didn't really matter.

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So... Just the actual rules of the forum then?

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The Irony in that post when you read Rule 1 at the start made me giggle.

Wavering on her feet in the lobby of the UV, Soaring Horizon drops her muffin into a side bin, not much point eating it now it tasted like dishwater. The gasses had been vented, meaning she got little more than a buzz off all the gas and she wasn't even too happen about that.

"If I get my hands on him I'm going to banish that demon somewhere unpleasant so hard he'll have to dig to get back to the surface"

Breathing in a few gulps of the fresh air that replaced the musty gas Horizon goes to tend to anyone who wasn't fairing so well, planning who to bother to get in on the inevitable retaliation.

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I think in the long run going back to shadowes post any character can be given some kind of cosmic shattering power, its how you humanise them to the point of having the potential but not the inclination/knowledge to use said powers keeping them rooted as it were, these weaknesses are what makes characters interesting, and their battles to fight even when unable to use said powers is what makes them heroic.

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I realize there's some characterization in the whole thing but sometimes I really do wonder why people do this. You could have pretty much the exact same thing by just being at that 'held back' power level and forget about the untapped reserve. Unless it's an integral part of the character (And it rarely is) it's just not needed.

The argument seems to be 'It's fine to be vastly powerful, providing you never ever use said power' which I guess is right and fine and all but just smacks of 'Well then why bother?'. Nothing turns me off more to a character than one hinting that they might blow up the whole city, mainly because it just seems a little insane for them to be in a populated area if this was true.

Plus it's a no consequence thing, they can say that they have the IC power to do it, but we all know it will never actually happen. Any plot revolving around it is predetermined as a disaster averted, simply because you can't have the character use their full power without breaking the setting.

So where am I going with this? Well a character that lives in fear of losing control is perfectly fair game and can be compelling, although really would winding it down to just a city block be so bad? (Hell to just a street? Or even people within ten feet?) At least then I'd be able to think it could actually happen and any time it was raised it wouldn't feel so... out of touch.

I think some, not all but some, people like to use this just because it gives a nice back up pool of power to 'call' on when they need to pull off a 'I'm better than you/your NPC' in RP, or use it to brow beat people in RP by either having a problem so huge it practically demands attention or being able to unreasonably threaten people with it to get them to back down or just so they can be all Emo over it and their incredible 'responsibility'.

Cut out all of those and we're left with the scant few who actually pull it off, but I still think those characters would still have been almost entirely the same with a far lower power level and more importantly a lot less likely to break the hell out of any plot they touch!

As I said, I find Tim Buckley himself far more entertaining than his web comic.

I guess I just hate comics where the main character is a self centred jerk, which I'm somehow meant to find lovable when they treat innocent people like total [censored].

I wouldn't care if it was just a joke, but there's some kind of continuity to it all and he tried to be serious with it. Which just doesn't work, Ghandi wouldn't put up with that kind of jackassery.

But I stray off topic, so i'll leave it at that. I could go on longer, because it's fun to hate.

Ctrl-Alt-Del is certainly good at stirring up controversy though. I'll admit I read it through the miscarriage arc just to see how badly Buckley would tank the whole storyline.

Like a grisly car crash, you know it's wrong and horrible. But you just can't look away.

I just did it to show it's not just characters that are gods, or have relations to them that are the problem. The only justification I need to do for a character is how I get away with Schro's powers being by their nature undefinable ^^