Emperor Cole at the end of the Power Loyalist Arc...

Goodness, please stop with the hyperbole. The Capital City does not equal the whole world no matter how much hysterical screaming.



They protect nothing other than the tyranny of the state. They act as nannies for a dictator. The heroes of Paragon act as deputies of a true law, a law created by the people being governed.

Again, all I can hope is that you're RPing here. Because if you can't see the differences between the United States and Praetoria, then you're deluding yourself.

Tell that to the ghouls or the seers or the people killed for speaking for their rights. They aren't being kept alive. The first two have their humanity stripped from them, possibly forever. The last are never heard from again, but you all keep ignoring them because it doesn't fit your lunacy that the responsibility path characters who support this nonsense are evil.

Killing a group of people engaged in oppression is neither evil nor unjustified. It's absolutely heroic.

There are no rules in Praetoria about legitimate targets. Next.

Gosh darnit, no they are not powerless. Normal people have always stood up and risen up to defend themselves. The Crusaders are mostly normal people, not super, but they found a way to fight.

The leader of the Resistance, Calvin Scott is just a man. Not a superman, just a man.


I think they're damaged people, but their damage comes from having to do horrific things to survive. The two you mention in particular have reasons for who they are.

The boy scouts are not going to defeat Cole.

Some of the Crusaders may stop once they've wiped out the city, but you yourself have said that you will not stop killing people as long as Cole remains in power. Since wiping out the city will not shake his power base in any way the only possible resolution is that you will continue ki9lling until there is no one left.

Now you're just being silly, doubly so since the LT /info boxes state the Syndicate trains the psychic abilities of their recruits.

There is a huge difference between a bunch of criminals, or even small gangs of them, and one huge monolithic criminal organization. The State created the latter.

N.b. as well that it is far from proven that all members of the Syndicate were criminals before joining.

In any case, as previously mentioned, there is no shortage of in-game dialog to the effect that Syndicate members are fighting to avoid Tilman's clutches. If it pleases you to ignore that, whatever.

People who send their daughters to be turned into Borg drones aren't heroes.

Let's say you could nuke Praetoria from orbit. You take out everyone but Cole since he can survive a nuclear blast.

You've now eliminated:

Mother - His psychic muscle and the means by which he locates opponents to his regime;

Maurader - His enforcer and most of his Powers division thugs with him;

Duncan - His girlfriend/dominatrix/progeny

Chimera - His master spy and black ops guy

Neuron/Anti-Matter - And these are the big ones, he loses the two guys who's inventions and science make all this possible.

Tyrant is a reasonably smart guy and he's immortal and super, but he can't do it all alone. He loses the capital he has to start all over and without his Lieutenants. That's not going to be easy. At that point the rest of the world would have to fend for itself completely while Cole tries to build up a new power base. And during that time, it's completely foreseeable that many will decide they don't need an emperor. Perhaps even rebuilding the countries that existed prior to Cole.

I ask again.

If the Resistance is not acceptable to you morally, then are you saying that Cole should simply be left in power? That with all the evil of his regime, it's preferable to a war to shake Cole from power?

I don't understand your reticence. Do you believe that there is a boy scout way to defeat Cole? I mean, sure, I suspect that's the plot of Issue 20, where our heroes, now powered up into Incarnates DO just beat Cole up and save the day without excessive bloodshed. But right now, what other options are there, given what information is available to the people of Praetoria?


(Because, I would note, that out of character, the smartest thing to do at the end of the Praetoria arcs is ask Statesman and his folks to just go in and beat Cole up. Perhaps bring a few hundred Primal heroes with them. But looking at the story chronologically, that option isn't available at level 5 or level 15 where all you know is what your own world is about.)

Correlation does not equate to causation. The "Syndicate" formed because Cole and his people set out a better equipped and more capable squad of officers to police the streets. They were still criminals before that. Everything that happened after that was a matter of escalation. The Seer Program started, psychics who became outlaws used their powers to hide and the Syndicate worked with them, becoming better hidden against the Police force's new tool: Psychic Detection.

The US Government didn't create the Mafia. Criminals banded together because they were stronger together than alone. They were criminals before they banded together, they're still criminals.

The sale of Ice Cream and the number of shark attacks across the globe both increase during summer months. That doesn't mean sharks are attacking people for the ice-cream on their fingers.

-Rachel-

Crusader act amount to murder because of impatience. Right now, in the real world, my hands are trembling in anger at the very idea of causing suffering and death simply because you can't have your way RIGHT NOW. It is the VERY DEFINITION OF EVIL.

And even though I've said this several times, I'm going to try once more.

NOT KILLING PEOPLE NOW DOES NOT MEAN, AND HAS NEVER MEANT, THAT THERE WILL BE NO FIGHTING EVER.

What it means is that when Cole is toppled, there will actually be people alive to enjoy freedom. Your 'character' has given me no indication that he will ever stop killing.

So...is this an OOC conversation about what's actually in the game or an IC conversation?

Well, we do it without that whole mass-murder-slavery-torture-thought-police-drugged-citizens-disappearances thing, so it's not quite the same.

In fact, if we hadn't already been told that it was all just shades of gray and not pure evil, we might even think that all that stuff wasn't needed to protect the people, and was in fact only there to keep Tyrant in power.

Like if we didn't already know that it was all just shades of gray, we might think that when the heroes of Paragon City manage to protect the city and fight and defeat threats ranging from street level crime to alien invasions without turning the place into a fascist dictatorship that Praetoria might be able to function without being a fascist dictatorship too.

You must find Tyrant and his dead city disgusting then

That's just not true, and if you're going to ignore what's actually said in the game then there's no point in continuing the discussion.

Since it started in Sicily, I should hope not.

Protecting people by mass-murder, disappearances, torture, slavery and drugged water supplies? That's kinda like saying Arachnos protects the people of the Rogue Isles

Wardog is one man, one the players can choose to stop him, you're the moral fulcrum there. The game demonstrates repeatedly that the Wardens work to keep a handle on the Crusaders, but the Crusaders (and the Destroyers and the Ghouls) are used directly by the Loyalists for propaganda purposes.

And if you're so disgusted, then I hope you're not absolving Cole of letting the Devouring Earth overrun Rome and of using the Devouring Earth to make examples of his enemies.

You missed the "within the confines of teh law" part, didn't you?

A) Tyrant's end goal is preserving the life of the citizens. As long as they are still alive, there is the possibility to break Cole's hold over their souls.

B) Even if that was his goal, it looks like Tyrant wouldn't even get the chance to kill everyone if EvilGeko gets to them first.

Not everyone has the "Knows the Turth" badge

The law in Praetoria is pretty much unconfined

Here's the problem: Golden Girl mentions that the Wardens supposedly try to prevent the more extreme acts of the Crusaders. If that's they case they where were they when the city was threatened by nukes? At no time, in EITHER arc, did I see any Resistance member say "gosh, think this might be a bit much?"

And for the last time, I have said that Tyrant is evil. However, it does no one any good to try to stop him if the Resistance comes through and kills everyone before we have the chance to defeat Cole.

I'm not going to argue with what you said above, although I do take issue with that characterization. I ask simply,

What do you do? How do you fight Cole and ensure no one will ever get hurt? Are you saying that it's OK for Cole to remain in power?

What do you mean by fighting? Is the only acceptable fighting against Cole and the Praetors?

Read This and tell me how it sounds. It doesn't read as "Psychics trying to avoid being eaten" it reads as "Generic Criminal Group"
[/quote]

-Rachel-

BULLPOO!

Tyrant allowed cities to burn to serve his agenda. You're just making stuff up. Tyrant does not care about the people of Praetoria. He was ready to let half the City burn to prove a point. His end goal is simply for him to run everything.

The PC is the Engine that makes the entire plot work. Without the PC, the entire operation does not happen. The PC is the more than superhumanly capable entity that mows down everything in opposition to Wardog's "dream." Tyrant made the nukes and left them lying around. It's the PC's work that makes the nukes a threat and it's the PC's decision to undo it.

The PC is the moral agent.

I have killed Wardog every time.

If anything, the PC's are the problem.

There are two instances in game of Wardens working actively to stop the Crusaders. One is Cleopatra working undercover and the other is the Luke Larsen arc. There's no evidence that the Wardens even know about everything the Crusaders do, but there's direct evidence that they are kept in the dark about some things.

You hold the Wardens responsible for everything the Crusaders do whether they know about it or not, but do not hold the Responsibility folks liable for anything Cole and his mad Praetors do even though you're doing it at their behest.

How can you reconcile this because it screams hypocrisy to me?