Do we help? I remember once, when I was named Regina.....I remember Regina's fear of gangs...of people destroying her work in Perez Park, before so much of this trouble started. I know Regina would say we help, the hope we bring is more valuable then anything- a hope for tomarrow.
-The Grey Lady
The big picture is real ugly.
Focus on the small victories and it will seem a lot less daunting, that and setting a clearer goal then "I'll make the city crime free!" are sure ways to keep your santiy.
Two quotes came to mind when I read your post, Hailstorm...
"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
We make a difference just by standing up and saying "No. You won't do this. Not today. Not here. Not while I have something to say about it."
Also, I remember this annecdotal story...
Once upon a time there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.
One day he was walking along the shore. As he looked down the beach, he saw a human figure moving like a dancer.
He smiled to himself to think of someone who would dance to the day. So he began to walk faster to catch up.
As he got closer, he saw that it was a young man and the young man wasn't dancing, but instead he was reaching down to the shore, picking up something and very gently throwing it into the ocean.
As he got closer he called out, "Good morning! What are you doing?"
The young man paused, looked up and replied, "Throwing starfish in the ocean."
"I guess I should have asked, why are you throwing starfish in the ocean?"
"The sun is up and the tide is going out. And if I don't throw them in they'll die."
"But, young man, don't you realize that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it. You can't possibly make a difference!"
The young man listened politely. Then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves and said --
"It made a difference for that one."
Maybe we can't push all the crime out of Paragon City. But I did make a difference to the woman that I saved from having her purse stolen. And the guy I saved from the rituals of the Thorns. I don't try to think that I can irradicate the 5th Column. But I can make sure that the one base that I was told about gets cleared out and doesn't become a stronghold for more of their radical agenda.
No, we arn't making a difference. For all the back slapping and good jobbing, if anything, things are getting WORSE. I saw trolls in kings row, the other day, fighting with outcasts.
However, there is something to be said for being a dam. We arn't "Cleaning up the streets." But we are keeping things from getting any worse.
Thanks for the perspective, folks. I suppose this is an important part of the "hero job" as well -- having a good, strong community between heroes, so we can help support each other when the going gets rough.
Thank you all, and stay safe out there.
~Hailstorm
I have to go with the glass is half full on this one:
Thing how much worse things would be if we DIDN'T do anything!
I don't know about you - but I defeat a good 150 to 200 thugs a session (not counting clockwork.) If there are 1000 heroes on my server all performing at the same rate that is 200,000 daily. Assuming it takes ... let's say it takes a week for them to be out on bail and recovered enough to start doing crime again. That is 1,400,000 guys! Where are all these kids coming from?
BTW - are there any girls that do crime in this city?
Yeah, have you ever seen those disturbingly sexy female Eidolons?
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I don't know about you - but I defeat a good 150 to 200 thugs a session (not counting clockwork.) If there are 1000 heroes on my server all performing at the same rate that is 200,000 daily. Assuming it takes ... let's say it takes a week for them to be out on bail and recovered enough to start doing crime again. That is 1,400,000 guys! Where are all these kids coming from?
BTW - are there any girls that do crime in this city?
[/ QUOTE ]
There are about enough jobs in liberty city to cover 80 % of the population.
And, a week to get out of jail??? Are you kidding me!!! You "Superheroes" are bringing in gang members for simply congregating in an area, blasting them from a block away and then delivering them to the PD. If you would wait for them to do an actual CRIME they might actually go to PRISON. You can't just attack someone for being in a gang, trample their rights to free assembly, and then expect them NOT to get off.
Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but every notch I put on my father's shotgun is one less thug on the streets. One less meta to mess up the lives of normal, decent people.
- Martin Thorne
Excuse me, I couldn't help overhearing your conversation. My name is Piercella and I just wanted to share something with you all.
That I am mutant was obvious from birth as you can tell by the blueish skin tone and the little hornlike appatures on my forehead. In my youth I despised my self, and thought to myself there was little wonder why my parents wanted nothing to do with me; Even I thought I was grotesque and hated myself; In fact I hated everything and everyone.
Eventhough I hated myself I was constantly in fights as a child, responding to all the name calling and belittlement. Maybe I was a freak, but I didn't have to stand to be reminded of it every waking hour of my life.
Then one day walking through the streets of Kings Row I saw some Skulls ganged up on a helpless girl. People were ignoring the whole thing. Some just threw up their hands and ran the other way. It made me sick and I felt empathy and sorrow for the girl.
Something inside of me began to burn, and I had to do something. I quickly closed on the Skulls to be greated by the familiar phrases: Freak and Monster and that's when it happened; Spikes and thorns errupted from my body and a dark cloud embraced me threatening to consume the villians. Then I unleashed on them and they fell. As the last one was incapacitated, the young girl with tears in her eyes, looked up and said the strangest thing. She said: I don't know what I would have done without you. and she hugged me thorns and all!
From that moment on I've been helping people just like her and in a way helping myself. I actually even like myself now 
Spines/ D A lvl 50 Scrap, stone/wm lvl 50 tank, Kat/reg lvl 50 Scrap
Grav/Kin lvl 50 Cont, Fire/Enegry lvl 50 Blast
Warshade lvl 50, PB lvl 39, nightwidow lvl 50, crab lvl 42
plant/thorns lvl 50 dom, ice/fire lvl 40 dom, grav/nrg lvl 41 dom
Help? The Astro Creep is only in this for the fame, the money and most importantly, the "affections" of your earth women.
Difference or not, I am designed to do this. It is the only thing I have ever know. I will stop evil when I see it.
My point is, just because you have some "Contact" who tells you he knows of a werehouse he's suspicious of, doesn't mean you can form a posse, kick the door in and just start knocking people out left and right. It's called "Just Cause."
You know what's going to happen eventually? One of you is going to kick in the door of some citizen's home and kill someone. It's all well and good for you, I mean you get to hide your identity and wear a mask.
It's public servants like me that can't get the equipment or training we need because of lawsuits paid out for "Cape" assaults...
It's only a matter of time, really, before we heroes begin to question ourselves. I often wonder why I bother continuing the good fight, when I could spend the time working on my standup. But the bottom line is, nobody's gonna be laughing at ol' Raggy's jokes if a bunch of punks in flea-infested gettups are running rampant around the city. That would ruin my job in comedy. 'Sides, there's nothing more gratifying than smacking some punk in the head. Nothing. Well, except maybe two punks to smack. Yeaaaaa.
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My point is, just because you have some "Contact" who tells you he knows of a werehouse he's suspicious of, doesn't mean you can form a posse, kick the door in and just start knocking people out left and right. It's called "Just Cause."
You know what's going to happen eventually? One of you is going to kick in the door of some citizen's home and kill someone. It's all well and good for you, I mean you get to hide your identity and wear a mask.
It's public servants like me that can't get the equipment or training we need because of lawsuits paid out for "Cape" assaults...
[/ QUOTE ]
You should come by my office some time. I have a stack of applications from Paragon City PD officers that sound just like you.
We have the money and the backing to outfit them properly. The city has already leased out a few of the tamer areas to my operatives to see how they handle it... It's thus far gone really well. The public are happy, the criminals are in jail, and some decent law enforcement officers earn a day's pay for a day's work. Not only that, but they have the equipment to do the job properly.
You're comments are right of course, which is why First Strike works the way it does.
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My point is, just because you have some "Contact" who tells you he knows of a werehouse he's suspicious of, doesn't mean you can form a posse, kick the door in and just start knocking people out left and right. It's called "Just Cause."
You know what's going to happen eventually? One of you is going to kick in the door of some citizen's home and kill someone. It's all well and good for you, I mean you get to hide your identity and wear a mask.
It's public servants like me that can't get the equipment or training we need because of lawsuits paid out for "Cape" assaults...
[/ QUOTE ]
You should come by my office some time. I have a stack of applications from Paragon City PD officers that sound just like you.
We have the money and the backing to outfit them properly. The city has already leased out a few of the tamer areas to my operatives to see how they handle it... It's thus far gone really well. The public are happy, the criminals are in jail, and some decent law enforcement officers earn a day's pay for a day's work. Not only that, but they have the equipment to do the job properly.
You're comments are right of course, which is why First Strike works the way it does.
[/ QUOTE ]
First Strike? Arn't you being funded by the Mayor's "Safe Streets" grant? I'm working under a similar program, in Kings Row.
"Safe Streets"... Snicker... More like "Mugged Citizens rarely vote for me" grants.
Glad to see someone is using the constitution for more then part of a costume...
What's important to me is that I go to work on Monday and there are criminals for me to defeat, and at the end of the week I get paid for my efforts. It's cut and dry people, fight crime, get paid...life is good. Isn't any career the same? Are we really making a difference? Who cares, do your job, go home, rinse and repeat.
~Sena'l, First Strike Security Agent (Magic Blaster, Virtue)
Two things...
Yes, even Superheroes must obey the law.... to that end, I have made it a point to run slower than cars, only jump off of properly inspected buildings, and I never, ever use my atomic bomb within city limits.
And Yes, I am being sarcastic.
Come on, people... I don't know about you but being a super hero was what I dreamed about as a kid.. I smash into warehouses, bust evildoers, and fly across the city with an eye out for trouble. No one asks 'are professional baseball players doing any good'? No one says 'Gee, when I grow up, I want to be a short order cook at City of Gyros'.
I, for one, am living my dream. I am not such a dork that I attack civilians and I make sure to contain every radioactive blast so as not to harm the environment. But when it comes right down to it, I don't think that the question should be 'Are we doing any good?' I think it should be 'What more good can we do?'
I will continue to fight evil in all its forms, from psychotic gang bangers from Hell, deadly robotic automotons, or even the living dead. I like to think of it as the world's biggest game of 'Whack-a-Mole(tm)' with the bad guys always springing up when you least expect it and us Superheroes as the big foam mallet of Justice.
Yeah, there are always more bad guys... but no one said this job was going to be easy.
Stockpile - Proud Mutant Defender, Pinnacle
Six String
That would be correct, although we have just began taking city contracts for patrol routes. I was doing the work "pro bono" previously, but the additional money lets me hire additional operatives... makes the whole thing more efficent and lets me focus my efforts in boomtown or other more dangerous areas.
In anycase, it only makes sense to try to work with the law as much as possiable. I do have an advantage though... I don't need a confession to know if someone is guilty.
I don't understand the debate that this has turned into. In Paragon City, we heroes are licenced law enforcement agents. If any of you are out there unlicenced, that's different -- but I make sure to take my exam and renew my licence every six months, show up to court on cases involving my work, and keep my paperwork in order. The city has *asked* us to do this, to help out in this way. We aren't breaking the law, we're defending it.
~Hailstorm
Hmmm kicking in doors, and hauling away people based on information from informants in the middle of the night. Sorry, but there is already a group that does that. They are called the 5th Column.
I am from a future where the heroes of the great cities have long
since vanished.. I came to Paragon looking for heroes that my people have only dreamed about... Finding that along with the greatest living beings in the universe the crime that exists here frightens me to my very essence. When the time came for me to make my trip back to my world all I could do was let it slip by they needed me here and I will wait to find my way back. Time Gates are everywhere you just need to know where to look some day I will get back but till then evil beware I will deal the blow.
*adjusts his sunglasses musingly*
I do this because, really, when I was chosen, it became clear to me that with power, comes responsibility.
I theoretically could have just put the suit back, never touched it again, and let the bond die. But, in reality.. I couldn't. Not at the zoo, when I was seven years old, and not today.
The suit and I have been together for twenty years now. I've got the power to make a difference - and if I can, I will. I won't stop. Not even if.. she.. asks me to. When it comes time to tell her about this, I'll tell her true, but I won't give it up for her.
As for criminals.. Most of the folk I bring in have a rap sheet a mile long that they still haven't been tried for. And, at the moment, I think the city is a bit too crippled to be tied up in court cases all the time. Perhaps were this not the time we live in, I might agree with the notion of being a detective, but as it stands, no.
The Silver Wing
A Passionate Heart of Virtue
Dawncaller - The Circle of Dawn
Too many blasted alts to list, but all on Virtue.
I wonder sometimes.
I mean, thousands of new heroes have answered the city's call, and that's wonderful. But...
Atlas Park is still overrun with Hellions. The Skulls own Kings Row. The Outcasts in Steel Canyon, the Trolls in Skyway City... Everywhere you turn, you see more of them. How can they even be recruiting faster than we put them in jail?
Is it that shyster lawyer you see the ads for all over town? Is he getting them all sprung on technicalities?
I'm especially burned by the Fifth Column. Once a shadowy, underground organization who didn't dare to show their faces in the light of day, now they stand there on every other street corner in Steel Canyon, spouting their fascist rhetoric, unafraid.
Heroes, I ask you: Are we even making a difference?
~Hailstorm