Someone explain Longbow/Legacy Chain to me?
By
Blueeyed,
Posted on: 2005-11-28 08:44 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I'm not certain exactly how Longbow, the Legacy Chain, and Wyvern managed to gain a foothold in Nerva. I was sort of hoping to find that out myself. However, I do want to say that I'm pretty sure the Might for Right act was overturned, so someone with super powers doesn't HAVE to register as a hero. In fact, that's one goal of the Malta: To bring the Might for Right act back. By the way, you arrest the Outcasts because they're part of a known criminal gang, not because they're unregistered mutants.
My arcs:
Title: Blitzkrieg
Arc ID: 3416
Title: Soldiers of Fortune
Arc ID: 4431
Title: The Rikti Accession
Arc ID: 278757
First, the Right for Might act was a law passed that allowed the Goverment to force super powered indviduals to fight for them durring the Cold War. This act was later found unconstitutional and was repealed. The law that lets heroes beat up Villains is the Civilian Crime Fighting Act which legalized and systemized vigilanteism.
On to the more important bit.
Longbow and Legacy Chain have no offical ties to the US goverment. Ms. Liberty took the already existing group of heroes called Freedom Corp, created by her mother, and founded a more active branch called Longbow. Created solely to fight Recluse, Arachnos, and hunt down villains escaping to the Rogue Isle. This is legal for them as they aren't a govermental force, but a civilian force. Though there is no doubt some complications. And since the US has a law allowing this as do most nations, they can get away with it. Ms. Liberty is taking advantage of the Civilian Crime Fighting act.
Now the Legacy Chain is different. As far as I can tell, they're actually natives to the Rogue Isle or atleast people who have moved there. As such they are officaly outlaws by Recluse's law.
Now we come to Recluse, he is reconized as the sole ruler of the Rogue Isle with UN protection and everything. Only that protects him from the US goverment from invading him without reason. But Heroes don't always follow these laws, most are looking to do what they know is right. Especialy when he invaded their city. While we don't know the US goverment's esponse, and possibly it hasn't decided what to do yet, Heroes took the initative and took over half of Nerva.
Alright, it's alittle wierd how it works. But look at it like this, Heroes and Villains are fighting a war. They aren't looking to politics much, they're looking to stop the other. One through any means nessacary and the other wants to do it by the book, granted, somewhat abridged.
((Great. Now I have to have one of my toons yell "Geneva Convention! GENEVA CONVENTION!" whenever a longbow flames him
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I'm not certain exactly how Longbow, the Legacy Chain, and Wyvern managed to gain a foothold in Nerva. I was sort of hoping to find that out myself. However, I do want to say that I'm pretty sure the Might for Right act was overturned, so someone with super powers doesn't HAVE to register as a hero. In fact, that's one goal of the Malta: To bring the Might for Right act back. By the way, you arrest the Outcasts because they're part of a known criminal gang, not because they're unregistered mutants.
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Forgot about that, yes, it seems that not all heroes need to regeister. Basicly, if you don't use your powers for crime, you're fine, no one will touch you. The Outcast are a gang, and since we, as Heroes, don't need a warant or even probably cause, we can thrash them. Because we know they're up to no good. The city does as well. Especialy in the Hollows which is pretty much a war zone.
Though the FBSA appears to be a way to bring some accuntablity to vigilanties. If I understand it correctly, they head out and investagate questionable Heroes. They probably maintain a most wanted list for Villains.
I have to say that I generally agree with everything that's been said here, both from the OP's perspective on things to the posts that people have made saying that if you take heroes, Nemesis, and the Rikti War into account, public opinion will very much be on the side of Longbow -- even if they are a generally ethically ambiguous organization. 
That having been said, I think you can incorporate these issues into your RP. For example, Longbow is interesting right now because it fits in with one of my SG's plotlines. The Templars on the whole strongly dislike to outright hate Longbow (and now Ms. Liberty by her association), because they're prosecuting a war that they feel is unjust if not outright illegal. The further fact that Longbow seems to be devoted to stopping "superpowered threats," whatever those are, is being taken very badly by this cadre of individualists.
As for the Nemesis Council, well... for their part, Longbow is just one more nail that needs to be hammered down.
Damn straight flamethrowers is inhumane... doesn't it throw fire at a temperature at literally cook and boil your insides on contact? When you're hit with that thing, you stay covered in flames, even if you drop and roll and it takes smothering the flames to put it out.
It's a bit obvious that finding a fire blanket to cover yourself while you're buring is the farthest thing on your mind.
In the Arena of Logic, I fight unarmed.
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What's more, for all but a few of them, their "super power" is that they're wearing Kevlar and carrying military infantry weapons. Is that all it takes to be considered a "tech hero" now?
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I'm suprised those Minigun-toting Longbow Girls don't also have Super Strength attacks. You gotta be superhumanly strong to actually hold and fire a minigun without getting knocked into the next room from the recoil, not to mention all the ammo and batteries you have to carry.
(Yes, miniguns are not infantry weapons. They are vehicle mounted guns, even in Predator and Terminator 2 they had a hidden power cable and were using reduced-powder blanks for when they shot the scenes featuring the minigun.)
boy am i glad that i don't have to watch movies, discuss comics/book, or in fact discuss any form of entertainment with you.
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I'm suprised those Minigun-toting Longbow Girls don't also have Super Strength attacks. You gotta be superhumanly strong to actually hold and fire a minigun without getting knocked into the next room from the recoil, not to mention all the ammo and batteries you have to carry.
(Yes, miniguns are not infantry weapons. They are vehicle mounted guns, even in Predator and Terminator 2 they had a hidden power cable and were using reduced-powder blanks for when they shot the scenes featuring the minigun.)
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Hellllooo?
I dont know about that high-falutin book-learning stuff youre flapping on about up there, but I saw Arnold on the TeeVee using one of those mini guns things youre going on about and he didnt have no power cable doohickey thing plugged in to it. And I could tell by the way the alien blew right up that it werent no blanks he was firing. Reducerated powder my sweet a... Were you even watchin the same movie?? And I know that if I did a few curls with them weights I could be as strong as Arnold. So ifn you got it in your head that I couldnt shoot no mini gun, I think I just done proved I could. Not meaning to start a feud or nothing but sometimes you gots to use logically directed thinking there, son.
This is exactly the kind of well thought out and intelligent critique that leads to people being burned at the stake.
There has been a lot of interesting back and forth discussion about laws, nations and treaties but I can't get past the fact that we have people debating the laws of a world where Nazi Germany attacked the U.S.'s east coast in a suprise attack. Somehow, I don't think any of you took Paragon City Civics.
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((Great. Now I have to have one of my toons yell "Geneva Convention! GENEVA CONVENTION!" whenever a longbow flames him
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LOL
'If Champions Online is what "CoH was supposed to be", I'm glad that I have what I have rather than "what it was supposed to be".' - The Alt oholic
"I solo'd Hamidon...but I also totally cheated." - Back Alley Brawler
"It is still early. Someone is going to get stabbed tonight I can feel it." - Ishmael (said in Jello Shooters chat)
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And finally, the US is signatory to a treaty prohibiting the use of napalm or other flamethrower like weapons against human beings. The description on Longbow Flamethrower troops admits that they try not to fire those weapons in front of civilians or the media. Where did Longbow get the impression that they were exempt from the Geneva Conventions?
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This is a really common mistake. The Geneva Convention only warns against the use of Napalm and other incendiary devices when there's a high risk against civillian targets, as to :
Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects
...Protocol III on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons prohibits, in all circumstances, making the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects, the object of attack by any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons through the action of flame, heat or a combination thereof, produced by a chemical reaction of a substance delivered on the target.
This makes incendiary weapons, when used against a target such as an officially sponsored member of a foreign country, slightly legal. After all, you've been kept in one piece by Arachnos personel, including gear, communications equipment, and objectives all given by high-ranking Arachnos operatives. Also notably, the US did not sign this protocol, only providing ratification. That's a whole seperate kettle of fish, though. It's not a great thing to be proud of, but it lets us get around a lot of technical limitations that other armies suffer from, particularly lighting-wise. We don't tend to use incendiaries as anything other than illumination, though - HE tends to do the trick much better, although without the psychological effect. Mostly we now use an airborne delayed ignition aluminum/oxidizer mix, which is a lot more efficient at taking down structures and personel without the same danger.
So, technically speaking, Longbow could use napalm (or, more likely, MK-77 mod 5, nobody's used napalm itself for military purposes in a long time). They certainly didn't sign the treaty themselves, many/most of them may have come from a country that didn't sign this treaty, and even if they did sign this treaty, there's certainly ways to argue that they're not intentionally targetting civilians.
Surprisingly, nearly all of the weapons involved in the Longbow operations are legal to purchase as a civilian, although generally there's a bunch of hoops to jump through. Most burst/auto weapons can be bought with the use of a Class III firearms liscense, which in our world takes about 6 months and $300 (not to mention a record clean enough for the bATFE to agree with). High explosives and weapons systems related to them are more difficult to get a liscense for, as you have to prove that you have adequate protection and storage capabilities, but are likewise possible.
Okay, at the risk of it just being my computer, I have to ask :
What the hell happened to this thread? It was well into the double digits last time I came by, and now it's down to two.
Even a redname post promising a site update about Longbow has disappeared! In fact, before this post, the 'last post' link pointed to a post by Cipher. No longer reachable.
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Okay, at the risk of it just being my computer, I have to ask :
What the hell happened to this thread? It was well into the double digits last time I came by, and now it's down to two.
Even a redname post promising a site update about Longbow has disappeared! In fact, before this post, the 'last post' link pointed to a post by Cipher. No longer reachable.
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Ya this thread poofed alot away. My replies as worthless as they normally are, are also gone...
Let's Dance!
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Okay, at the risk of it just being my computer, I have to ask :
What the hell happened to this thread? It was well into the double digits last time I came by, and now it's down to two.
Even a redname post promising a site update about Longbow has disappeared! In fact, before this post, the 'last post' link pointed to a post by Cipher. No longer reachable.
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Ya this thread poofed alot away. My replies as worthless as they normally are, are also gone...
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My post about the perils to the 4th estate in Paragon City and the disappeared journalists was itself disappeared. Sad irony.
/e flees to the Rogue Isles
I remember in one of the missing posts it was discussing the governemental backing of Longbow. I pulled this directly from teh longbow discription on the cov site:
"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. This righteous fervor has driven Longbow agents to establish strongholds across the Rogue Isles, interfering in Arachnos operations at every opportunity."
That kinda tells me that they have governmetal backing considering that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed by governments signing a treaty to solidify military backing incase of attack. If the Organization is providing for Longbow it would need permission from the countries involved with the treaty.
OK, as best as I can tell, US law regarding superpowers in the CoH universe works like this. If you acquire superpowers through birth, accident, skill, or technology, you can use those skills perfectly legally to fight crime, so long as you register with the Federal Bureau of Superpowered Affairs (FBSA) first, because of the Might for Right Act. If you don't register with the FBSA, you're technically a super-villain and subject to being thrown into the superpowers wing of Ziggursky Penetentiary (or other prisons, some of them federal? we're never told) if you use your powers. (I know that in CoH I busted plenty of Outcasts in the Eastgate neighborhood for no crime other than standing around in public wearing a t-shirt that proclaimed them as unregistered mutants and maybe using their powers in public.) At least two chains of pawnshops, two chains of occult shops, and not a few labs and engineering firms in the Paragon City area sell ultra-tech weapons gear, supersoldier serums, do-it-yourself genetic modification kits, and small talismans to the public. We're not told that they require you to show an FBSA license to buy this stuff, but I've been assuming so.
So what's the deal with Longbow (and to a lesser extent, the Legacy Chain)? Even assuming that I'm not successfully killing them, that they're being med-evac teleported, patched up, and sent back into the field, there have to be thousands of these guys in the red and white pajamas! What's more, for all but a few of them, their "super power" is that they're wearing Kevlar and carrying military infantry weapons. Is that all it takes to be considered a "tech hero" now? Does each of these guys have his or her own FBSA license?
If not, can anybody show me anything in any of the game's back story that suggests that the Might for Right Act authorizes Ms. Liberty (Longbow) and Azuria (have I got that right? I know somebody at MAGI runs the Legacy Chain) to raise their own private armies?
Now let's consider their deployment to the Rogue Isles. Does the US have diplomatic relations with the Rogue Isles? Are the US and the Rogue Isles officially at war? I'm assuming that whoever authorized Longbow to militarily occupy half the Nerva Archepelago (I'm sorry, Agincourt Base creeps me out) did so in response to Archnos terrorist attacks on Paragon City, the brief military occupation of the whole city in issue 2 of the comic book and their base in Siren's Call -- but is it a declared war? Did Congress authorize military action against the Rogue Isles? If so, where are the regular military? If not, are the Legacy Chain, Longbow, and their "civilian contractor" employees from Wyvern operating under CIA auspices or under their own Presidential covert-action finding? Or did they occupy the Nerva Archipelago before Lord Recluse attacked Paragon City?
Remind me again what year Recluse staged his coup d'etat -- how long has he been the ruler of the Rogue Isles? Does the US recognize the Recluse regime and/or the Arachnos "Party" as the legal government of these islands? Or is there a government in exile somewhere that the US considers to be the real ruler, who maybe asked for or hired Longbow/Wyvern/Legacy Chain military intervention? Or is it a situation like Afghanistan before 9/11, where the Taliban were in more or less undisputed control all but a few tiny parts of the country but the US didn't recognize any government in Afghanistan? But even then, the CIA and US special forces had to operate a lot more quietly and secretively than Longbow is in the Rogue Isles, or there would have been a huge backlash.
Does the US media know about and report on the war in the Rogue Isles between US "superhero" forces and forces loyal to the Recluse regime? BBC World News? Does the US public support the war? The UN Security Council and/or General Assembly? I know already, from remarks I've overheard from Longbow employees, that real FBSA-licensed superheroes who visit the Rogue Isles in support of Longbow "aren't supposed to" be there (according to who? Congress? the President? the FBSA? the UN?), but if that's true, how is it not true of Longbow itself? Those FBSA-licensed superheroes I've fought, like the Sea Witch and Golden Sphinx and Aurora Borealis, is there some reason why Arachnos isn't publicising their invasion of his islands for propaganda reasons? Or have I just not seen it yet?
And finally, the US is signatory to a treaty prohibiting the use of napalm or other flamethrower like weapons against human beings. The description on Longbow Flamethrower troops admits that they try not to fire those weapons in front of civilians or the media. Where did Longbow get the impression that they were exempt from the Geneva Conventions?
This is not me nit-picking, these are questions about the story that make it hard for me to roleplay.