Longbow .. Friend? Foe? or whatever

They're (mostly) not loose cannons and they're (technically) not vigilantes. They're security contractors. I keep saying it: Longbow is the Blackwater (or whatever they're calling themselves this month) of the City of Heroes universe, a private security company that acts as a semi-official branch of government in conflict zones.

Think of the Longbow who behave badly as equivalent to that Blackwater convoy in Iraq, years ago, that heard a car bomb six blocks away, thought it was their convoy that was under attack, and killed every Iraqi civilian in sight -- and who were then cleared of wrong-doing by the Provisional Authority and the State Department because, hey, accidents happen. Put ordinary people in constant combat, outside the normal military chain of command, and a certain number of really really bad judgment calls are inevitable.

The way I view Longbow as a player of both redside and blueside and having a few characters who's bio ties into working in or closely with heroic organizations like Longbow, Wyvern and Vanguard...

You have to have a certain level of vigilantism to want to join Longbow. Why else would one feel the need to join a para-militant organization like Longbow but *not* join the Army/Marines, PPD etc? You don't think the meta superheros are thwarting villains properly? Why would one think they'd have to go so far as to carry grenades, assault rifles and flamethrowers just to 'help'?

It's one thing to dawn a cape and tights and jump in to bust up some villains, and it's another to exercise martial law when there's a perfectly capable police force. If the PPD step out of line, they're subjected to the laws and punishable by the government. I doubt Longbow can say the same.

So yeah, if anyone in Longbow are 'heroes' and want to join an organization to help the city, they should be in the PPD. End of story.

PS: And before one asks "Well why don't all blueside characters join the PPD?", I'll say not all blueside characters want to join a larger organization that enforces the law on an entire population. Some just want to do what they can. If you're going to be the workhorse for an agency that enforces the law, join the right one. Otherwise stick with the cape and non-committed agencies that don't break laws where they're convenient.

The sad thing is that they attached Longbow to Freedom Corp and turned it from a kind of hero version of the Red Cross/National Guard into a paramilitary fighting force under the direct control of a signature hero.

To top it off, we have Wyvern which languishes because it's the same concept done right - A private fighting force, but one posing as a security force for rich people and fighting a covert war on super crime. It makes perfect sense for Wyvern to be under the thumb of Justin Sinclair. It's his personal army.

Yet, Wyvern gets hardly any action at all, while Longbow shows up everywhere and the US government and, apparently, even the United Nations aid and abet a one-woman crusade against a bordering sovereign nation.

But, hey, it's comic book reality so we just ignore that because that's how it is in comic books.

In any case, Wyvern and Longbow are attempting to fill the same niche for the most part, so Wyvern get bupkiss while Longbow continues to be the poster children for the seamy underbelly of heroism.

My personal thought on longbow is that when cov was coming together, they initially wanted them to be a good guy organization, but they fell prey to a trope that was common around then (when gta and god of war were a lot more popular) they wanted to make player villains, but they werent going to commit fully to the player character being fully evil and doing outright "wrong" stuff that might turn off players who didnt want to be outright horrible, so they muddled it up and went with a cynical setting where the bad-guys are kind of justified because the heroes are just as corrupt as the villains. Its a story style that i despise, but it was huge at the time.

The result is that longbow is something i kind of gloss over, they are a boring organization, their costumes are boring spandex silliness, their powers are uninteresting and dont change much from 1-50, and they fall on the lame crutch of being the bad good guys.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Longbow's problem is that they really don't get politics. They're a large scale paramilitary organization that has the mentality of a twelve year old boy borrowing his daddy's gun so he can fight crime. Sure, in theory they mean well, but they're not nearly responsible enough to handle operating on a scale larger than a neighbourhood or two. I mean, in the Rikti War Zone arc they basically declare war on the UN.

Longbow's problem is that they think they are above the laws because they are pursuing "Villains"

Except that Paragon's Laws support Heroes to some extent.

And doesn't the Manti TF start off as a bit of Cloak and Dagger?

Oddly Manti's group Wyvern actually go about their business in the Isles appropriately, whereas Longbow blatantly grabs for power.

The problem with Longbow is how they've been handled. They were first introduced as an particularly unpleasant faction for villains to fight, which made villain players resent them on a principle level. Then they started showing up as stand-ins for heroes, but branding about a sort of childish "Stop in the name of the law!" mentality which made heroes resent them, as well. Then at some point they started being written as meddling foils for heroes and villains alike and it went downhill from there.

See, Longbow are genuinely intended to be the pure, true-blue good guys, but this has really mostly been used to their detriment. When they're puppy-eyed heroes, villains hate them for meddling and heroes hate them for being sappy. And when they're NOT puppy-eyed heroes, they're jaded vigilantes that want to murder people. There are at least three separate Tip missions with pretty much this exact plot to them.

Like the Freakshow, I feel Longbow were just mishandled. Everything they do is wrong, everything they try fails, every one of their agents is either childishly naive or stomach-churningly irritating, and they end up as this faction that really doesn't belong anywhere. And it's a real shame. Longbow have the manpower, the firepower and the conviction to be a major player for the forces of good. They're just never really used like this. At best, they're "Those meddling kids!" and at worst they just get in the way. How are we suppose to treat them BUT as an obstacle?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Heh, yeah The game used to use Longbow as a stand-in for heroes in PvP. I resented this, but at least it was a positive representation of Longbow. However, like how the Freakshow became a joke and Nemesis became a meme once the writers bought into forum shenanigans, Longbow have become just a foil since players resented them so much. They foil villains by opposing them from an irritating moral standpoint and they foil heroes by getting in their way from an irritating self-righteous standpoint.

It feels like the writers saw players on the forums hated Longbow and figured "Meh, if they hate 'em, let's make 'em worse and let people kill 'em." To me, that's just the wrong approach because it simply robs a faction of its credence. It's a lot like what happened with the Freedom Phalanx in SSA1 - they got humiliated, painted as horrible people and pretty much killed. Now, the reasons for this are many and varied, but undoubtedly one of them was to play to people's malice against the group. To me, that just misses the point, because there really SHOULD be some factions in this game that are truly good and truly great.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Freedom Corp is a PMC (Private Military Company) much the same as Blackwater USA (... err. "Xi"... err.. "Academa",) Hambright, or Raytheon. The main difference between Hero Corp and Freedom Corp is that HC seemed to be avaible to anyone with a checkbook while FC restricts it's operations to private "para-military" contracts (as far as we've seen in the canon.) They do seem to have some form of sanction/agreement/contract with Paragon City (or Rhode Island or possibly even the US) to allow them to operate as a para-military militia within the borders of the city/state/country. This is why they can do things like conduct (read as: invade) sovereign nations (Like the Rogue Isles) with impunity, (or use flame-throwers as "law enforcement" tools.)

Longbow as a specialized unit within the Freedom Corps PMC currently tasked with the destruction of Arachnos.

They're not "good guys" or "bad guys," They're mercenaries.

So, to answer the OPs original questions of "Longbow .. Friend? Foe? or whatever" "Whatever seems to be the proper answer....

... Unless Ms Liberty convinces the Freedom Corp Board of Directors that you're the next threat.

It's 106 miles to Grandville, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing faceless helmets

... Hit it ...