What's a Vigilante to you?

Okay, the following is prompted by me writing a piece where Nitoichi (hero) turns Vigilante (now designated as happening sometime around July, it would seem), and BeyondReach's responce to that story (particularly in this thread: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=208633) which, thinking about it, is quite interesting.

First of all, from what I could gather at HeroCon, the official in-game view of a Vigilante is someone who takes the law into their own hands. Officially, we have not been able to act like that in CoH: we arrest people and they go through the court system. We may have roleplayed Vigilantism, but the game did not support it. With GR, it will.

But what are our views on this kind of thing?

With Annette/Nitoichi, I wrote up this piece (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=208508) to show the moment where Annette chooses to cross the line. (If we're being all Matrixy, it's actually the moment she understands the choice; the choice itself was made far earlier.)

Now, this is hardly the first time she's killed someone. Early in her career, she killed a Hellion who invaded her home. She has killed many a Rikti in the war zone. I've written up two stories in the last couple of months where she has assassinated people; the last one was pretty blatant and is done with a sniper rifle, as in Decisions of Import.

However, I believe all those are different because they fall into totally different categories of activity. The Hellion was self-defence, humans are at war with the Rikti, and most of the other cases are under orders from people like Crimson and Indigo.

Decisions of Import is the first time Annette sets out to find someone, hunt them down, and terminate them because she believes they have done things so bad that they deserve justice which the law is not going to provide. That's the point she turns toward the dark side (Luke).

Your thoughts?
Your views on what makes the difference between the good guys and the not-so-god guys?

The thing is, it all gets very subjective.
I'm probably going to be wandering into grey territory with Wolf as well, given how much his mind-set has darkened since the 2nd Rikti War.

The main thing is, I guess;
Who says the Vigilante's are actually wrong?
Yes, an eye for an eye is not the most efficient form of justice ever. However, who's to say someone who kills, say, a mass murderer, when the court and justice system refuse to do so; who is to say s/he is wrong? They've probably saved the lives of many other people and potential victims. They may be judged 'wrong' by having 'stooped to the level of evil' and all that.

It depends on the character. If they get to the point where they are killing with the view 'I am right, I am above the law' and not listening to any plea against this, then thats treading the line between Vigilante and Villain.
On the other hand, you have those who kill villains, fully accepting they are doing so, with the view of 'Better the guilt on the head of one man than on the head of many."

I'm now rambling but, it's complicated. Always will be.

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

To me, a Vigilante is someone that fights for justice (or what they perceive as such) without involving the law enforcement agencies of the country they fight in. This may subsequently be classed as an illegal action, but they'll carry on for what they believe is for the greater good.

They may utilize extreme actions to get their point across, or as a tool of fear and a deterrent. Execution may also be a tool if they feel that 'the system doesn't work' or that the criminal would be out soon to reoffend, or never convicted in the first place.

I'd say that killing doesn't necessarily count in tipping someone from Hero to Vigilante. A hero may have to kill, and it should be something they'd only consider as a last resort. Granted Zortel is not the most heroic of heroes (She'd love to take over the world, make it into her vision and colonize the solar system.) but the few times she has taken a life (That wasn't Rikti) it's been for reasons such as "This thing is going to kill me/my team mates first.)

Alraune is more of a Vigilante. She works for a hero group as counselor, but undertakes black ops missions at the behest of the group's AI dealing with threats and situations that other, more heroic heroes might not stomach. When you're plugged into the Internet and always a searching, it's easy to find the darker side of humanity and deal with that in meatspace, as it were.

Interestingly, that's something Annette is aware of, and she even offered to cover when Alraune was pregnant with her first child.

IMHO Vigilante at the most basic level is someone who operates outside of the existing criminal law enforcement organisation/s .They seek to punish law breakers who have , by what ever means , not been punished by the societies system .

This means they hold the societies criminal code to be the rule of Law , and the target of their vigilantism is a clear cut law breaker , in other words the Vigilante is not making up their own , new , laws .

Which then moves on to the punishment fitting the crime . In the Cox world I don’t think we at looking at the repeat offending of getting a parking ticket , more it is a case the major crime boss , the untouchable assassin , the crazy scientist , the Psychopathic billionaire , the corrupt City hall official . These being the sort to have committed crimes on such a scale and/or being so beyond the power of the courts that there is zero chance of them serving time in the Zig , thus the punishment become death . Unless the Vigilante has their own Zig on their private island /space station / alternative Earth .

A Vigilante will admit that they are guilty of breaking the law , that there actions are there own and not justified by some other means , and that they would stop if the legal system worked as it is intended to .

It should also go with out saying that the Vigilante should not gain anything by their actions .


To answer Tech ‘s “Who says the Vigilante's are actually wrong?”

The simple answer is everyone .. as they are breaking the codes of the society that they live in , remember where Paragon is …

From the internet ..
The last execution in Rhode Island was in 1930 and the death penalty was abolished in 1984.
..and I don’t remember anything in Game to refute this .

I like Z and Rock's answers. I tend to de-rail and go rambling off into the sticks with posts like this, heh ^^;

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Originally Posted by Rock_Powerfist To answer Tech ‘s “Who says the Vigilante's are actually wrong?” The simple answer is everyone .. as they are breaking the codes of the society that they live in , remember where Paragon is From the internet .. The last execution in Rhode Island was in 1930 and the death penalty was abolished in 1984. ..and I don’t remember anything in Game to refute this .

Well, yeah...but who's to say 'Everyone' is right? This all gets into 'What IS right?' and suchnot. Is it more of a crime to kill a killer than to let him slaughter more people? The letter of the law might say so. What about the 'spirit' of the law, and justice? In my opinion, thats the sort of line that the Vigilante walks along, and sometime crosses over.

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I intend to create one of my characters as a Villain who becomes a Vigilante when GR comes out. Although, this character was never truly a Villain. He was merely born in the Rogue Isles, and from his inception he fights for freedom and against injustice. But this doesn't make him a hero. In my opinion, the reason this doesn't make him a hero is the fact that he treats killing a person as nothing. He sees the world in the light of 'The War', the war between the soldiers of justice and freedom and those who wish to damage those two precepts. He believes that no mercy should be spared for those who damage those precepts. For example he would just easily kill a corrupt court official as a serial killer, but that is unlikely to occur considering the fact that he isn't like a vigilante at all in a traditional term. He doesn't "punish" people, and fight criminals unless they cross his path, he's more concerned in fighting the wider war.

He isn't a regular hero in that he doesn't see things in individual terms, he is like Hague looking over a map of the Somme Battlefield. He moves around the soldier figures representing regiments and knocks them down as he sees the battle progresses, and this doesn't make him flinch in the slightest. This may seem evil to some, but he isn't a Rogue because what he fights for is unselfish. And that gets to the core of the matter.

A Vigilante is a Hero who breaks the rules, or throws them out the window, but ultimately, his motives are unselfish.

I think a Vigilante can have selfish motives. Killing criminals who caused you past pain is probably the most common type we see in comics and killing them to make yourself feel better is a fairly selfish act. It also rarely works as they slowly lose their marbles in their own personal crusades.

The Punisher of course is probably the archetype for this sort of character, but there's plenty others!

Well, the defined Vigilante does things that are in conflict the established laws of a society, which may not necessarily involve actions against what that said society views as right (not that human society has ever unanimously agreed on what was right and wrong, but I digress), so a textbook vigilante is someone who operates outside and perhaps against the laws of the society they are a part of by taking actions that may be illegal, but deemed by a majority of that society to be morally correct.

Batman, for instance, is a defined vigilante even though he does not kill (not accounting for the accidental or self-inflicted deaths of) his criminal adversaries. He is not a police officer, not part of the justice system, not part of legal law enforcement, and he operates by means and methods not sanctioned by the laws of the society of which he is a part.

But when the time comes when you kill the killer, what makes you any different from them?

It's a hard thing to judge really, it might lead to a slippery slope, it might not and in some cases I can see where there'd be no other choice.

But I digress from the question, a vigilante to me is someone who's crossed the line between hero and villian, but for now they target villian groups and other 'bad guys'. But they're still over that line, they could kill the wrong person, kill someone who could have reformed or nto reoffended because they don't see the point and ultimatly if someone who is other wise a good person makes a mistake or a wrong move a Vigilinate might end up taking them out.

But that's just my thoughts on the idea, but you know me, I'm the crazy guy with some characters who won't even kill Rikti >.>

Interesting responses, thank you.

As for that last one, it'll be interesting to see where the game mechnics take us. I can very much see Annette oscillating along the grey line because I think it requires extremes to make her enact her own punishments rather than allowing 'society' to deal with the perps. As Zortel pointed out, she has been willing to go that little bit too far for a while, though it's still generally been at the behest of someone else rather than off her own bat. The situation in the story falls into that category of selfish motivation: she wants to nail this guy as much because his minions killed someone she felt she had responsibility for. She might well go the same way if someone hurt or killed one of her UV team mates, though at that point I suspect Zortel (the character) and BODI might be lending considerable assistance. The UV looks after its own.

What will be interesting to discover is how some of the more heroic characters respond to this kind of thing, should they find out. I could see Liberty Girl, for example, being fairly conflicted. Not to mention that Annette has always been more worried about Libby's reputation than her own and may find herself conflicted if she's falling too far.

Now I'm rambling as well. I'll shut up.

I plan on having that sort of moral conflict break out amongst the Sabre team (Chief, Vixen, Wolf and Fox)
Vix is very much anti-vigilantism, although she does fight in the Warzone (its a war after all, but she is a medical officer too)
Fox is quite destructive at times, but he tends to be more about shock and awe, rather than actual killing, despite how he may come across.
Wolf, on the other hand, has been sniping too long, and is firmly in the grey, now.
Chief is...undecided, and possibly actually gonna be the one caught between this the most.

Its an interesting point, either way.
/Ramble

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Oddly, the one member of my set of characters most initimately familiar with switching sides is the one who almost certainly won't. Jason Caine has spent 8000 years wandering between good guy and despotic villain as he tries and fails to seek his redemption and finally gain his mortality.

Currently, he's in a good phase and it would take something drastic to push him over the edge. Considering that he knows, quite intimately, where that edge is, he's better placed than many to keep away from it. A hero could slide into vigilantism almost by accident, or even for the best of reasons. I think that's where Annette is going. Jason, on the other hand, is always conscious of his moral position. If he goes bad, it'll be because he wants to.

Not to mention Heroes killing people in Comics makes everyone mopey, the world gets grim dark and even more crime ridden. Thighs get larger, feet dissapear and the pouches.... my god the pouches...

Vigilante = Dark Knight
As Jim so rightly put it; They aren't the Heroes the people want. But they are, sometimes, the Heroes the people need.
To do all the darker things that the 'Good Guys' wont, sometimes because someone has to.

*shrug*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Vigilante = Dark Knight
As Jim so rightly put it; They aren't the Heroes the people want. But they are, sometimes, the Heroes the people need.
To do all the darker things that the 'Good Guys' wont, sometimes because someone has to.

*shrug*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I agree with the idea that Vigilantes do things the good guys won't, but saying 'because sometimes it needs to be done' is getting into a philosophical and political territory that I really don't think that we should get into on a game forum.

But the idea that Vigilantes think that's what they are, I'm completely happy with.

Whather it's valid to discuss it here or not, I think that the Vigilante's perception of it is the point of discussion here. Vigilantes believe they are doing the right thing and that the wider view of society is less important than getting 'the job' done.