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Posts
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Quote:That's actually something that hit me a lot. I've played through ALMOST every arc in Praetoria now (only Anti-matter remains) and while I SEE the Resistance doing a lot of bad things, I'm TOLD about most of the bad things the Loyalists do. The vast majority of the crimes Cole has committed or that his Praetors have committed I'm just told by Resistance members and expected to believe them over what the Loyalists tell me. Take Mother for instance. The only people who talk against her are in the process of murdering people when they do it, save DeVore. Now, I understand out of character that DeVore's telling the truth, but in character, the only evidence that Mother is really the monster she's said to be is... What people say. We never see her really DO anything against anyone who doesn't totally have it coming.Or maybe the Resistance is lying, and Cole is as blissfully unaware of the evils being performed under his watch as George Bush was of the day to day activities of a family under the poverty line living in Idaho during his presidency.
-Rachel-
This isn't saying EVERY atrocity we don't see...The whole Destroyers incident we find out for ourselves, and we get a lot of information on the Ghouls (including the fact that people VOLUNTEERED rather than were drafted), but the whole thing of disappeared people and Mother being a monster we don't get much solid evidence for. -
Life without order is no life at all. Without order, life is nasty, brutish, and short, with violence and fear taking up our days. Absolutely freedom means that all are in danger.
Freedom is evil when it is used to hurt people. Freedom is not INHERENTLY good. If it were, anything done to restrict any freedom, such as locking prisoners in jails, would be evil.
I propose that the freedom that the Crusaders are fighting for is an Evil sort of Freedom. It is a Freedom to hurt, and a Freedom to kill. Perhaps they are fighting against an Evil sort of Order, but my argument is that all the sides are Evil.
Golden Girl, assume someone wishes to hit you in the face with a shovel. Is it Evil to inhibit their right to do that?
Golden Girl, I'm curious, what sort of Ethical System do you subscribe to? I studied my fair share of ethics in college, and the only method that seems to be able to even consider the Resistance to be the good guys would be the Utilitarians, but the problem with that is that the Utilitarians focus pretty heavily on the end game, which the Resistance seems to lack. So, GG, here's your questions...
-Is it evil to inhibit my freedom to hit someone in the face with a shovel?
-What ethical system allows the nuking of Nova Praetoria to count as a non-evil act?
-Assuming the Resistance's plans all work, what can the Resistance do to make life better than Praetoria and not get everyone eaten by Hamidon? -
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Toxa, there are few, if any, people who will seriously claim that Cole is the good guy here and that the Loyalists are straight up heroes. However, what the big argument seems to be is whether the Praetors' crimes warrant the Resistance's actions. That's the real heart of this debate. I, personally, believe that even with the government being corrupt, the Resistance's actions are not such as to make them Heroes, but instead make them an entirely different type of threat. The game pushes you to pick a side, yes, but in the long run you learn that ALL sides are evil, and Power is the side that's the most /fun./
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Quote:...You don't actually know how logic works, do you? Logic is a process by which one takes facts and evidence and reaches a conclusion from them. I'm asking you to give the facts and evidence you used to reach your conclusions. So let's try this again...I've had certain RL types demand something very similar when their idol and the crimes aginst humanity carried out by his followers are brought up - and the answer is the same - "logic"
Please provide evidence that ties Emperor Cole to the various crimes that are being committed throughout the government. I propose that Cole is uninvolved in both the Ghouls and the Destroyers, and has no absolute connection to the Seers being anything more than the Seers appear to be to common civilians. I also propose that Cole, while very charismatic, is far from more intelligent than all his Praetors and it would be entirely plausible for them to hide things from him much in the way that I know, from personal experience, Praetor Berry hides things from him. -
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Quote:In Evil Manticore's arc, he specifically states that Tillman screens targets out if asked by another Praetor.
The Seers' function could be served just as well by a volunteer corps. The slavery and systematic psychic cannibalism is still indefensible. Praetoria pretends to be a Metahuman Oligarchy with Cole at the top and the Seers works to give the normal masses someone to crap on and be afraid of at the same time.
Sinclair asks that they're screened because it's special ops. It's not quite the same thing. Sinclair's men are supposed to be off the grid entirely. And I'm not saying Tillman /can't/ tell them to ignore certain men, I'm saying I'm not convinced she knows what Marauder and Duncan are doing.
But yes, the Seers could be volunteer corps, but then they'd be in an even stronger position to abuse the system than the regular PPD. Don't get me wrong, I fully agree that Slavery is wrong and Immoral. I'm personally in favor of installing those devices they've got throughout town to completely shut off all psychic activity within the city. I'm opposed to the Seers AND I'm opposed to PPD's Psi-Cop division, but I'm also opposed to letting telepaths just run around being telepaths.
And Rachel, yeah, I'd really wonder just how much Cole does and does not know. I think it's safe to say that nobody told him about the Destroyers. -
Quote:Seers aren't there for anyone's safety. The story arcs clearly state that Seers are part of a computer network that Tilman controls. She can tell them to not find people. The Destroyers are the prime example. They are Praetor Duncan's and Praetor White's unofficial terrorist group. They do the same theing the Resistance does, except they do it on Praetor's orders. The seer's ignore them on her orders.
While I know that the Seers are misused for a lot of purposes, they are ABSOLUTELY responsible for keeping people safe. They alert the police of hostile activity in the Responsibility arcs, and when you're finally given the opportunity to destroy them in the Warden arcs the Narrration tells you directly that they help keep people safe. Whether they're often misused or not, it is fact that they regularly aid in keeping people safe from harm.
Also, I'm not sure if the Seers ignore the Destroyers on Tilman's orders. We're given reason to believe that the Praetors don't really know what each others secret projects are. While Tilman probably knows by virtue of being a super psychic, it's likely that White and Duncan's Destroyers aren't sanctioned by Cole. I don't remember even being given evidence that the Seers actively ignore ANY threat, but I may just be missing it. -
Quote:Primal Earth seems to cope with psychics without havng to become a fascist dictatorship
Really? Because Primal Earth, as far as I can tell, is a hellhole where criminals outnumber civilians, a woman can't walk down the street without getting her purse nabbed, and aliens and zombies fill the streets regularly. And the most dangerous woman in the world, Countess Crey, happens to be one of the world's strongest psychics. And then there's the Carnival.
Anybody who tries to argue that "Primal Earth does fine without resorting to Cole's tactics" hasn't been to Primal Earth lately. At least in Praetoria muggings are rare and civilians are rarely /randomly/ killed. Yes, some get 'disappeared' for doing stuff they knew they shouldn't be doing, but nobody gets attacked, killed, and sewn up as a walking corpse.
As far as I can tell, Praetoria is no more dangerous to Civilians than Paragon City. -
Or else Orbital Laser. What else?
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I think the issue with Seers and Syndicate Psychics is one that we're lacking a lot of information on here. Let's think about the following...
-The syndicate is made entirely of people with "psychic potential"
-The syndicate includes the remnants of the Tsoo.
-The syndicate includes telekinetics and pyrokinetics in addition to telepaths
-The seers are all telepaths
-Arachnos seems to have no shortage of psychics.
-Fortunatas are considered to be of NATURAL origin
-Tub Ci says that Mr. Yin "unlocked within me my true potential."
-The syndicate seems to outnumber the seers significantly
I propose the following: psionic power is something that normal people can just have, and certain psions, such as Mr. Yin, are capable of making someone more psychic than they would have been naturally. On top of this, the syndicate is happy to recruit people of a much wider variety than Mother Mayhem is.
I may not be entirely right here, but it seems to me that even if the Syndicate is in part a group of psychics trying to not get their brains eaten, it also includes a great number of people who were not actually in any danger of being taken.
Now, lets add to this another note. While Mother Mayhem certainly crosses the line of what she does to psychics, think about what Psychics can do. Think about what the Syndicate can do with its psychics. Is it really in question that telepaths, more than pyromancers, martial arts masters, bioelectric eel-men, and a cowboy with a pair or revolvers need to be regulated by the government and kept under precise control?
Slavery is certainly bad, no denying that, but I can say, for one, that I would not feel very safe in a world where psychics of power could roam free uninhibited. I'd be wearing a tin-foil cap daily. Just think to yourself, if telepaths were real, wouldn't you want them carefully regulated by the government?
On a completely unrelated note, people keep talking about Enriche and drugging the population, and all that badness. Well, on the one hand, drugs are bad, sure, but... Enriche makes the world taste better. I don't know the /specific/ effect it has, but as far as I can tell, it's like drinking rainbows and hugs, making all the pain go away and letting you relax despite knowing that the sewers are full of dangerous terrorists.
But how strong is this drugging? We know that Enriche is the ONLY source of clean water, which means we need to assume that people like Luke Larson and Cleopatra are consuming it, and they seem to function against the Emperor. I propose thus that Enriche doesn't force anyone to be a loyalist, and it doesn't drastically change the functions of the brain, it just helps people relax and care a little less about the crazy that's happening in the world. Really, it seems to me that even if there WERE other forms of clean water, Enriche would still be the beverage of choice. Gods know I loves me some alcohol.
And finally, I just have to agree that the biggest problem with the Resistance is a lack of an endgame. From what I've seen in the arcs, their endgame plan seems to be
a) World in ruin
b) Syndicate Wins!
c) Martial Law under Longbow or Vanguard
d) "New Rogue Isles"
If someone can come up with another idea, I'd love to hear it, but remember that the U.S.A. had our Declaration of Independence before we won the war. I propose that if Calvin Scott really wants a new world, he and his circle of elites need to put together a New Declaration and post it around town. And it needs to include a method of keeping the Hamidon from eating everyone. -
I'm in favor of buying tips, but you should seriously raise the price to buy them. 100 inf is trivial. Up it to something like 50,000. That'll make people think twice, while still being low enough to be a non-issue at the highest levels.
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Why do they even delete on alignment switch? It's not like you can use them if you're not a Hero anyway.
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So very Signed.
It could be the power in the Tech 2 Super Booster, if we are indeed getting a second Origin cycle. -
I'd like some seriously purchasable temp powers. I like how all the new temp power recipes are out and about, but I'd like to be able to just BUY them instead of having to hope they drop or use the market. I say make all temp powers, with a few exceptions like TF rewards and Vanguard temps, available as purchasable items. Especially because there's no way to get the Chain Gun back once you've used it all up.
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Ah, right, 500,000,000 is the same as "1/2 billion"
How about 555,555,555 then? -
I have 1.8 billion, but I can't afford Gladiator's Armor +3... Can I blame evil marketeers for that?
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While I DO approve of Niche packs and even all-emote packs, I find this pack lacking intensely. I would happily buy a pack with all emotes... If there were more emotes than this and the emotes were more useful. The dances are very cool, but other than that... I'm a die-hard roleplayer and while I like the dances, I can't see them being worth eight dollars for the pack. The thing is, I do want the dance emotes, but while others are comparing them to snacks, I compare them to my /other/ addiction: Magic the Gathering cards, things that will last for years and potentially increase in value. I also collect plush tigers. And I totally just got a plush tiger the other day for four bucks that is probably about as lovable as this pack.
Cut the price in half, or double the emotes, and I'll buy it. And I've bought all five origin packs and the valk pack, so yeah, if you go back to the standard formula, I'll buy those, too. -
Well, that was a fun party, and seeing the party pack emotes in action, I can safely say... They're cool, but not worth even close to eight dollars.
But thank you for a wonderful time, Avatea. You were a very pleasant host and a lot of fun to talk to.
~Yaphet Tariq -
They refer to destroyers as "Raspberries"
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She is all kinds of fun.
Gotta say, my favorite updated NPC is Shock Treatment, though. Anyone with a battlecry of "FOR MY TOOTHBRUSH" is okay in my book.