[video] Welcome to Murderworld [modplot] (set on Day 3)

[relativityspeaking]

[Kid Quantum is grim-faced as she buzzes everyone on the comms. It's been a stressful three days of searching for their missing team members, and they've made no progress so far.]

Listen up, Legion. As most of you know, our people on the intelligence-gathering mission to Harrub went missing three days ago. So far there's been no contact, no new leads - and no plan of action yet, but we're going to fix that.

First, we have to decide what to do about the political situation with Harrub. Right now, Madame president is poised to get them to sign but any interference on our part might ruin that.

Then again, if they're responsible for our people going missing, that might be a good thing. But if not, it could be a disaster.

Our options are 1) let them sign it and openly investigate the planet after the fact, 2) openly investigate now and drop Brainy's lab on the delicate political situation, or 3) something else one of you comes up with. Shout out your ideas, I'm all ears.

Madame President, Winema Wazzo, has access to this conversation, and can provide some info for us on the political situation if needed.

Comments

[ringslinging]

I'm usually the one who'd be advocating going in guns blazing and to hell with the politics, but actually, I kind of like the idea of letting them sign and then using that as our justification to go in.

You want to officially join civilization, you play by civilized rules.

[relativityspeaking]

The instant they sign, they'd technically be open to any Science Police or Legion investigations. And if a Harrubian or the government itself is guilty of any crimes, they'd face legal consequences.

[ringslinging]

Legal consequences they agreed to. Which gives them a lot less of a leg to stand on if they don't like us blowing open whatever's going on.

[relativityspeaking]

Exactly. It could have its own consequences, however. It's going to make a lot of people mad and be considered deceptive. That could affect both the UP and innocent Harrubians.

[wherenoonegoes]

I kind of like the idea of letting them sign it. Mostly because I want to see the look on their faces when they realize how much trouble they managed to land themselves in because they did.

It sounds like our best bet anyways. Secretly investigating is what landed us in this mess to begin with. Unless we find any leads on how they managed to find out everyone was there in the first place, I don't think we have any other way of stopping this with it creating a massive political mess. I mean, it's going to happen anyways but the first option is where it's going to be the most limited.

[relativityspeaking]

You have some good points.

And one thing to consider is if they aren't responsible and a second team gets caught spying when they're innocent, it could blow apart everything the UP has tried to build.

[kingtyrantranger]

So you think that they might be responsible for our teammates going missing and you're still letting them join?

Secretly spying might've been breaking the rules, but it seems to me that getting them to join just so we can drop the hammer is in pretty poor faith. Especially since it'd come out that we had a team down there before they signed if we did that. I say we go in now. If they're not involved, they won't mind us being safe. If they're not, then we should find out before anything gets signed.

[relativityspeaking]

You're right that it is in bad faith. That kind of deception isn't isn't our usual MO and it goes against what we want the UP to represent.

Spying was too, though to be fair, it was in the spirit of making sure no one in their society was being victimized in some way.

I think right now we have to decide between the pragmatism of finding the others and possibly helping their world if there are problems, and what we want the UP to represent.

[kingtyrantranger]

I'm sorry, but you guys do mention an Espionage Squad in your constitution.

[Funny how it's 'we' when they're doing stuff he likes and 'you' as soon as he finds something distasteful.]

There's a big difference between asking around and getting a feel for someone you're about to bring into your group and asking someone to join a group so that they can't be angry that you were violating their trust beforehand, and plan to punish them for something they might've done to the investigators.

[Assuming, of course, that they were behind the disappearance of their friends. These aren't light accusations to sling around, but it's a lot more comfortable to direct your anger at the obvious target.]

[relativityspeaking]

The Espionage Squad mostly does undercover work infiltrating criminal and terrorist organizations and still adheres to Legion protocol while they do it.

[She looks thoughful.]

I do want to make this clear that it's not about punishment. The concern is that if our teammates were somehow kidnapped, there's a high chance that the reason they were kidnapped was to hide the fact they did find something worrying about how the Harrubians are treated by their own government.

And if there's some kind of widespread societal injustice, oppression, or genocide, outside intervention by a foreign government could cause a full-scale war. But if the Harrubian government agrees to follow the UP's rules, from the moment they sign they're agreeing to the Interworld Sentient Rights laws that would let us deal with the problem with arrests that would actually be legal, and fair trials.

The right choice might be accepting we have no right to intervene on their internal struggles, or that we should and risk war -- but there is a choice that has to be made.

If we destroy the UP's chance of convincing Harrub to sign, we will lose the ability to intervene on what our friends might have found in a way that's actually legal. We have to decide if that's the choice we want to make or not.

[walkingballpit]

That's what happens when you let the government screw around with a superhero team. They let the monsters join up alongside everyone else, because they're totally confidant that they can "keep an eye on them."

[kingtyrantranger]

I'm sure there's some point. They let the Russians in on the UN before the Cold War ended, after all.

[And if there were any pre-Rita Repulsa bad guys in the world, it was definitely the USSR. Rocky IV was proof of that.]

[walkingballpit]

Dude, the UN isn't all that powerful, in the grand scheme of things. They're off in a corner cutting ceremonial ribbons while Doom and Magneto take over countries.

It's all so they can play nice in public, which is exactly what happens if they force Harrub to join the UP and if it hypothetically turns out they executed our squad.

[relativityspeaking]

That's not what this is about.

[Her voice is gentle, though. She knows the displacee Legionnaires are from a variety of worlds and situations, and not all of them are pleasant ones.]

Even if the UP government wanted to take a conservative position of 'wait and see,' the Legion wouldn't abide by that. If there's some kind of injustice going on, it wouldn't just be watched or left alone. Grife, even the Science Police probably wouldn't sit on their hands at least point -- they've been fairly rebellious lately when it comes to any unreasonable political pull.

To provide some context, I know you have organizations like the United Nations in your time.

[Cosmic Boy's constant history nerding meant she had a little context here.]

This is something like having to decide whether or not we potentially ruin the chance of having a whole nation agree to join an organization like that -- and agree that they're legally culpable if they violate any universal accords on sentient rights. They'd be agreeing that intervention on sentient rights issues are not grounds for war.

It might be best for us to make the the choice to ruin that chance, but it's still a choice. We have to at least consider the consequences of preventing a whole world from agreeing to universal sentient rights.

[Voice]

[walkingballpit]

[ After the past few days, Robbie's not feeling chipper enough for video. He's stressed out, and it's easier to not sound miserable than not look it. ]

It's not going to get less delicately political after they sign, because then everyone's going to feel like they'll look foolish to immediately launch an investigation. Just drop the bull, and ask them what the heck happened to our team.

You know, someday there'll be this magical day where words like politics and superhero teams don't combine in the worst ways possible.

[Voice]

[relativityspeaking]

Jason had a good point about the deception involved. We have to take care of our friends and we have to decide what we want the UP to be.

No...we have to decide what we want the Legion to be. There's the long game to consider -- whether or not people in their world are facing some injustice.

But then again, there's nothing that says we can't try to right any injustice we see, regardless of what government is ruling Harrub. The divides between world governments and nations has never stopped us from helping people before.

[Wryly.]

As for that magical day, I hope it happens sooner rather than later. Navigating inter-world politics will be the death of me. I can feel the gray hairs coming on as I speak.

[Voice]

[walkingballpit]

I like the second one better. I know the Legion is government-chartered - or sanctioned, or whatever, but you can't worry about that. The only thing you need to worry about is what the Legion is. If civilians crash-landed on Harrub and then went missing, I don't think anyone would be asking if we could look for them. We'd look for them. At least, I hope we would. I would.

I don't like the idea of 'dropping Brainy's lab' on them. I've seen a lot of the lab, and I'm pretty sure the metaphor's basically some sort of explosion. I - explosions are a last resort. I just want my friends back, and I don't want to wait around for whatever press conference crap is needed to have Harrub sign up officially.

Also, nobody knows why they went missing. I wouldn't put it past anyone to try and forcibly make their own Legion, so I wouldn't sign up with Harrub until we figure that out.

[bachido]

If we let them sign and they've done something to our friends that they don't want us to know about, why would they sign in the first place?

Don't they know signing means we can investigate them? Are they expecting us not to?

[kingtyrantranger]

People like that don't think they'll get caught. They always do, though.

[bachido]

Then we should have them sign right away, and catch them sooner rather than later.

[At least one of his friends is there, and he wants to see her again.]

But . . . if they're distracting us from the people who REALLY did something to them . . . that could be bad, too.

[As a storyteller, he knows the value of a good red herring.]

video

[justicecrusader]

[ This does not make Battle Grandpa happy. ]

I am not much of a diplomat, but it seems to me that our allies are in potential danger, and that that should be our first priority.

video, locked to Reinhardt so the president can't see

[relativityspeaking]

It wouldn't be the first time we threw caution to the wind -- or the politicians under the hover cruiser.

Gods know they sure love doing it to us.

[leverageintceo]

Depends on how long getting them to sign is going to take. If they're not signing before the day is out, I say we go in and light things on fire until we find our people and information that retroactively excuses the fire.

[kingtyrantranger]

Parker, there aren't any potatoes involved. You don't have to have something burning this time.

[leverageintceo]

Fire is versatile. Just because things don't have to burn doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

I mean, Potato Job, aside, I once prevented an act of biological terrorism with a blowtorch. Versatile!