Re: Sister Psyche and Manticore

You're reading more between the lines than what's there. He "secretly finances a society known as Wyvern."
- financing doesn't mean you lead operations or gives orders.
- a "society" indicates a looser entity than a corporate hierarchy with a single head.
- their "official" organizational structure has no association with Manticore.

If you read the paragonwiki entries, which compile information in the game, you see that Wyvern is considered a paramilitary security company staffed by people whose "lives have been shattered at the hands of evil." They focus on "extraditing criminals back to Paragon City and targeting villains early in their career"-- no word on absolute killing, though they obviously will trend toward that if they think there's no other way.

Everything there suggests that Manticore doesn't try to say much about the day-to-day operations of Wyvern. He finds people whose lives were shattered by evil, like his, and gives them the resources and training to fight back in the same way he does.

Do they cross the line? Yes. That's one of the challenges with Wyvern- so many scarred people skirting so close to evil to battle evil that some will eventually go too far. Makes for good story hooks.

This brings us back to the original question:

Does he keep it secret from Sister Psyche?
NO.

Does she care about it enough to break up their relationship?
No.

The source of this evidence?
Their wedding vows.

Manticore: Psyche:

Dark_Respite's Farewell Video: "One Last Day"
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)

I may have to read the books at some point, or at least more of the CoXverse fiction.

So, yeah. I say thats pretty much /thread, here.

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.

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

Opposites attract. That's actual science

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.

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

With, like, magnets and stuff.

Yeah, that was from their wedding live event... which I recorded for posterity in the screenshot comic. I can understand why some wouldn't look there for OFFICIAL CoH lore, but that's straight from the devs. I can understand people wouldn't remember even if they read it, or were there-- people skim over large blocks of text. I, on the other hand, mulled over those vows for an insane amount of time:

"How the HELL am I gonna fit all that into the Comic Book Creator word balloons? Why the HECK is it leaving so much %#*(*(@#$ whitespace for? Whaddaya you mean my save from last night is corrupted? THE CAT JUST HIT THE DELETE BUTTON.... AGAIN!" and finally "wait- we need more room because the German translation text is 30% LONGER?"

So... yeah, I kinda know those vows a little bit more than your average - sane- fan.

Well, let's consider something: Sister Psyche is the world most powerful psychic, she's seen the horrors of a truly twisted and evil person's mind and soul, she has been in dark places where she has seen NO chance redemption for a person.
And all she can do is watch as Statesman, the one person who should understand, almost as well as her, simply sends them off to the Zig to be busted out or let out in a few years tops.
Then there's Manticore, rough around the edges, but he understands the horrors of the human (and non-human) mind, that dark underbelly of life that once you see, you can never ignore.
So what does Manticore do about it? He gets the job done.

So I think it might be more of a "Warts and all" love they have. They both relate on seeing the dark side of humanity, and unlike Statesman, are not pretending it doesn't exist.

Hell, Sister Psyche maybe HELPING Manticore with that kind of thing. After all, she'd also be the greatest asset, able to cloud the minds and visions of lesser seers or psychics, TOGETHER, THEY KILL CRIME DEAD!

*WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD*

On another note: Heroes, in canon, are allowed to kill (or the people who say whether or not you're killing are all heartless bastards).

In Eternal Nemesis finale, you're told to go find, and KILL Nemesis. They WANT you to kill him. They're EXPECTING you to kill him. And as we find out later, we do kill him, because there's a living, sentient Nemesis brain in every fake Nemesis.
On the note of Nemesis units: Ever notice that Humanoid black shape in the Warhulks? The one you don't see land on the ground when the hulk itself blows up? That's a person. And you kill them.
(On a purely speculative note, I bet Nemesis likes to mix up automatons with his regular soldiers in full uniform, just to mind screw a hero when they go full force on what they think is an Automaton, only to find someone's blood on their hands)

Oh, also, Tarantulas of Arachnos. They blow up half the time and are stated to be cyborgs, that there's people inside. Then there's Malta titans, there's apparently confirmation that Terra is the only Devoured they actually have you rescue, rather than just kill, Circle Mage souls tend to leave the body of their host and presumably kill said body since the original soul is in some crystal, if not used to fuel some horrible ritual.

So, by the time you hit level fifty, your heroes likely racked up a pretty shocking body count under their belt.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Never suffer the guilt for the evils of others. Down that way lies despair.

The lives ended by Joker were ended by Joker. Trying to assign blame any further is sadistic. Batman stops Joker's rampage and remits him to the justice system, just as any citizen arrest is supposed to be employed. He cannot simply end him or it ruins everything Batman stands for, and Joker knows it. Batman stands for justice, not just vengeance, and taking the law into his own hands is vengeance, even if justice is served by doing so.

Sister Psyche knows that Manticore finances Wyvern. She also knows that he had a good feeling that the sonic arrow he shot into Protean would certainly cripple the shapeshifter (which is why she also knows he had no clue it would melt the villain). She knows what he's thinking and the intentions he has behind his endeavors. She can see his noble soul, which is why she loves him. He does what he must to make a better world, and he's doing everything he can to avoid piling mountains of bodies in his wake.

I don't think it's vengeance if you're not personally benefiting from it. Vengeance is a personal thing.

And I *do* think Batman shares the responsibility *and* the blame for Joker's subsequent murders. The first time Joker is apprehended and gets away, okay, I can buy that as unforeseeable (to the character, not the reader). But the second time? No, sorry. Those people would still be alive if Batman had Batmanned up and iced the Joker. The Joker *will* kill, he has no choice in the matter. He can't be cured, he can only be incarcerated. The jail never holds him for long. He's such a significant danger to innocent people that hiding behind an "I don't kill because it's bad" stance is ridiculous. In this case, the lesser of two evils is to kill Joker.

Doubly so if it means the eradication of the Longbow. I hate those *******.

Gaussian is Vanguard. They aren't, per se, heroes. (they also accept villains into their ranks, remember?)

Actually the tip missions generally indicate that vigilantes kill, and heroes don't.

And killing the joker can be done by the legal authority that reserves the right for itself... which Batman does when he hands him over. If Batman was imprisoning the Joker himself... if he denied the legal authority the right to make the decision... then I'd see it.

And yes, the Joker is insane, but no, that wouldn't mean that he'd be treated by the judicial system like that. In most real-world jurisdictions, his madness wouldn't matter one whit-- it's the wrong kind of "insanity" for use as a legal defense. He could still be found guilty and sentenced to die, if the jurisdiction had the death penalty.

I really want to hear more of it to see what exactly they're arguing about

I don't know if it does. Anyone know that status of Gotham City's legal system, especially regarding the death penalty?

Regardless, he keeps getting out before anyone kills him, whether it's the state or a fellow inmate.

She's complaining that her hair is in her eyes and he asks how that can possibly be since it won't even move in the damn breeze?!

It's always the little things.

Seems pretty clear to me, she wants to retire and have kids, he wasn't to continue making the world safe.

This - I was going to say, the OP might not have been at the ingame wedding. I was, and I never got the impression that they were anything less than dedicated to one another (all right, it was both the writing and the fact that it was two real people repeatedly renewing their own commitment to one another, but the vows as quoted by Chase are correct). I never got the impression that she cared what was in his past - they weren't there to harp on each other's pasts. After all, SHE is a body-stealer... Like the Circle of Thorns in a way... So. No, I don't see anything amiss here. It's neither a secret nor an issue for them.

You know in one story, the Joker was sentenced to Death in Texas, when he got arrested there, but Batman proved his innocence and got him saved ¬_¬

Needless to say, I'd like to see at least one, long running continuity of Batman where the Joker is used VERY sparingly and killed by the third or forth encounter for real.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

I think they could do both

She's a telepath with twice his life experience, who has no ethical qualms about using her powers to alter the minds of others. If she wanted Manticore to change, he'd change ... whether he wanted to or not.

(There's a villain arc where you find out that Shalice used her powers to take away the super genius of a villain.)

I'd argue that Statesman isn't all that much less gray than Manti, either. Remember, he's the guy who used lethal force in the first Rikti War, and who allowed Siren's Call to remain as it is just to keep an eye on Arachnos.

Positron (and surprisingly Synapse) are really the two most conventionally heroic guys in the Freedom Phalanx to me.

Here's a thought to toss out about killing in the COXverse: we know there's an afterlife. We fight ghosts. (The COT, the ghosts in Croatoa, Scrapyard in Sharkhead, etc). We rescue ghosts in Dark Astoria.

How much does death matter in a universe where there's a chance your victim might come back as a spirit?

more accurately, the joker survives and keeps killing because the fans love him, so they can have increasingly strained rationalizations for why he escapes, but ultimately you can only impart so much logic to the situation, joker lives and goes free because hes cooler than killer croc, the riddler and the penguin. But again, the batman is a detective, he is not the entirety of the Gotham criminal justice system, and really so long as the people of gotham value their self-determination, that is how it is, if they decide to go the "kingdom come" route and abdicate responsibility to a "hero" as the entirety of their justice system, its when they admit they are unfit to govern themselves, so maybe the plot armor excuse is a bit more polite to the continuing fiction.

I do recall that in both "hush" and "killing joke", commissioner gordon specifically requested that bats does it by the book, maybe he realizes the implications of abdication of civil responsibility to a un-elected official.