Are the Meek movement and InfraOrder/InfraCircle sympathetic? Spoilers

[throwaway46572946592]

@Goshman

The Meek could be easily compared to the Nazi party. They spotlight themselves as the unfortunate, the unpowered, the hopeless, the underdog against a major threat. At the same time, they have extremely wealthy members and powerful patrons. They manipulate the political systems and national moods in order to place key people in positions of power, and they use the same systems to place key people in positions of power in the industrial sector. They end up rich enough to finance and operate a floating city-state and construct legions of highly enhanced battlesuits, as well as equip unpowered people with the technology to imitate powers.

@Goshman

The InfraOrder is actually much closer to some kind of radical Bolshevik/Anarchist movement. They are the poor, the desolate, the working class. Despite their powers, they are the disenfranchised and the downtrodden. The question whether or not they are worse off than unpowered poor people is left in the air in the story, but one would assume that they would be around the same level. InfraOrder conducts terrorist and insurgent missions in populated areas, their ultimate goal to turn everyone into an image of themselves in a desperate attempt at creating solidarity.

The Meek movement and the InfraOrder/InfraCircle have intentions to help people at a disadvantage. Poor non-powered people and poor unwanted powered outcasts might join the Meek movement and the InfraOrder/InfraCircle respectively because they are downtrodden and treated unfairly by the government. To some of these Poor non-powered people and poor unwanted powered outcasts their only choices might be to let the corrupt government continue it’s ways or join the Meek movement and InfraOrder/InfraCircle and change the ways of the government.

@faewkless

Also where are people going to get cheap crime fighting gear?Last time I checked capitalism doesn’t care about ideals and such.Also they still need to train with said equipment which will cost money.

Also to fund the fringes that money has to come from somewhereEither by raising taxes.Or by moving money from a different district.Which alot of citizens would be against and raise the hate against the fringes.

And the point of a hero license is to keep tabs on all the heroes running about.Get rid of that system and anarchy intensifies.It allows them to effectively watch, discipline, advise, and prosecute heroes.

The government can subsidize “non-powered hero equipment”. Making a “hero” license required for powered people means that the middle class powered people and upper class powered people can easily afford the"hero" license while the unwanted powered outcast will have a hard time trying to afford a “hero” license. Letting non-powered people and unwanted powered outcasts defend themselves from bad guys isn’t anarchy.

@Goshman

Your point about government corruption is moot. We know the story takes place in the United States of America (albeit many many years in the future) and we all know the government there is corrupt, or at least incapable and gridlocked. That requires political action from the masses, whether that take form in a revolution or simply voting out the bad apples. That does not necessitate or condone genocide or mass mutation of the general public.There is also a gap in government involvement in the United States to what you’re advocating. The government does jack all about investing into poverty-stricken areas. That is very much a state issue, at least as far as I have understood how the US system works. Victon very much skipped the most important role in that way: he was never in state-wide politics, just Millenial City affairs and eventually federal-level.

A large amount of the people in Millennial city are middle class powered people, upper class powered people or fans of powered celebrity “heroes” and they might not agree with a political action against the corrupt government. The majority does not have the right to oppress the minority. The middle class powered people, upper class powered people or fans of powered celebrity “heroes” are probably likely to see the Meek movement and InfraOrder/InfraCircle as bigots and/or terrorists despite both the Meek movement and InfraOrder/InfraCircle having good intentions and legitimate grievances.

@Havenstone

Zach Sergi piled enough Nazi/Bond villain/Fred Phelps tropes on his villains that it’s hard to call them sympathetic, let alone good guys.

@Havenstone

An interesting game could be made in a superpower-verse which the heroes’ antagonists weren’t fascists but egalitarians: “Occupy Millennial City.” Probably best if you had the choice to be on either side of the conflict.

The Meek movement and InfraOrder/InfraCircle have the intention of improving the lives of non-powered people and unwanted powered outcasts respectively. The leaders of the Meek movement and the InfraOrder/InfraCircle might not be sympathetic but the intentions of the Meek movement and the InfraOrder/InfraCircle are sympathetic. In A Study In Steampunk there was the option to side with The Resistance which has sympathetic intentions even though The Resistance carries out terrorist attacks.

@UmbraLamia

I’d have to say, if those two faction weren’t at all about “destroying everything else”, I’d totally side with them.

Can you really blame the Meek movement and InfraOrder/InfraCircle for being extreme when the government overpays government backed “heroes” like the Millennial group, spends a lot of money on the Millennial city while leaving the Fringes to be underdeveloped, restricts unwanted powered outcasts from using their powers by requiring a “hero” license for powered people, restricts non-powered people from defending themselves by not subsidizing "non-powered hero equipment and is being unfair to poor lower class non-powered people and poor unwanted powered outcasts?

One man/woman’s terrorist is another man/woman’s freedom fighter.

The middle class powered heroes and upper class powered heroes might see the Meek movement and InfraOrder/InfraCircle as bigots and/or terrorists but the non-powered people(especially those who can’t afford “non-powered hero equipment” to defend themselves) might see the Meek movement as freedom fighters and the poor unwanted powered outcasts might see the InfraOrder/InfraCircle as freedom fighters.

Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters - TV Tropes

[Nathan_Faxon]

My opinion on this will be short and sweet.

Neither of them are the good guys, far from it. One wants to create mass genocide because of genetics and the other wants to forcefully mutate civilians to make a point.

I have not seen a single piece of evidence where they could be dubbed as a ‘good guy.’

That is all I have to say on the matter.

[TheTrueKing]

@throwaway46572946592

The middle class powered heroes and upper class powered heroes might see the Meek movement and InfraOrder/InfraCircle as bigots and/or terrorists but the non-powered people(especially those who can’t afford “non-powered hero equipment” to defend themselves) might see the Meek movement as freedom fighters and the poor unwanted powered outcasts might see the InfraOrder/InfraCircle as freedom fighters.

Hero equipment does not help you defend yourself; they lower the amount of Power you use to do certain things, and heroes protect the people so your point about non powered defending themselves is moot, and nobody is an outcast or unwanted; not having a license doesn’t mean you can’t use powers in self-defence, and you could always opt to use your powers away from the police.

[Goshman]

You keep saying the same thing. I’ve lost count how many times you’ve defaulted to using the same phrases in this thread so far. I already read that opinion, give us a proper response instead of regurgitating that same paragraph all over again. If you just want to push your own opinion over and over again, instead of debating about the core question, then there’s no reason for this thread.

Yes, some in the two movements may very well have good intentions, that does not mean the organizations themselves have good intentions. Helping the poor, the disenfranchised, the unpowered, those are all good intentions. Doing that by killing thousands, or forcefully mutating everyone in the general public, or killing any and all powered heroes or forcing them to lose their powers… That is no longer good intentions. That is using a legitimate cause to excuse genocide and other crimes against humanity.

Whether or not the government is corrupt, or the people of Millenial City wish to do something about it is irrelevant to the debate at hand. It would be a national issue and Millenial City =/= United States of America. If Millenial City is the heart of the powered, as it appears to be in story, the rest of the nation will be more than capable of overriding the opinion of the Millenial City populace.

Again, the reasonable action is political action, even in a corrupt nation. A wide-ranging political action that doesn’t work and exposes that corruption can turn into a full-blown revolution. We saw this throughout the Arab spring.
Organizations like the Meek and InfraOrder, instead of actually helping, use public sentiment to excuse their extreme and radical plans to enact what can only be called crimes against humanity. Hell, with the money and resources the Meek apparently have (since they can afford a floating city-state) they could help the people you claim they want to help. Instead they pour money and manpower to gear towards war, towards shaping themselves into some kind of strange fascist floating utopia, and further corrupting the system to push their agenda of powered genocide.

[throwaway46572946592]

@Goshman

core question

What is the core question?

[Prof_Chaos]

You’re the one who asked it. You wanted to know if they were the good guys. We have all provided reasons that they are not.

[Goshman]

“Are the Meek movement and the InfraOrder/InfraCircle the good guys?”

That was your original question, so it should also be the core question. Right?

Genocide, forced depowering of an entire section of people, forced mutation of the general public… Those do not a good guy make. If you use the freedom of others to excuse the oppression and death of others, you become a hypocrite and lose any and all moral high ground you could claim.

[throwaway46572946592]

@Goshman

“Are the Meek movement and the InfraOrder/InfraCircle the good guys?”

That was your original question, so it should also be the core question. Right?

Genocide, forced depowering of an entire section of people, forced mutation of the general public… Those do not a good guy make. If you use the freedom of others to excuse the oppression and death of others, you become a hypocrite and lose any and all moral high ground you could claim.

That depends on whether your definition of good guys include anti-heroes.

For example in Fallout 4 the Brotherhood of Steel and The Institute are considered to be good guys by some people even though the Brotherhood of Steel plans to kill all non-humans and the Institute enslaves synths and experiments on humans. .

I should have probably made the original question “Are the Meek movement and InfraOrder/InfraCircle” sympathetic?". Sorry if you think I am repeating my arguments English is not my first language.

I remember a conversation option that allows you to sympathize with Culic and I am searching for that quote at the moment.

“Despite the awful things Culic has done, I can see why he’d want to rebel.”(quote from Heroes Rise The Hero Project)

[Goshman]

Being a good guy and being sympathetic are two completely different things, and result in very differnet answers.

In your Fallout 4 example, there is no good guy. They’re all bad guys in very different ways. Even the railroad, who wants to free synths and plant them in the general public without consideration to how they end up eventually going haywire and killing a whole bunch of folks. All of them are sympathetic, however. To varying degrees.

InfraOrder would, to me, be very sympathetic. Although their end goal is extremely wrong and misguided, their cause is just and legitimate. Because of the way they try to achieve their end goal, and what their actual end goal is, they are definitely not the good guys and I would still not support them. I would find a more moderate and sane group with a similar cause.

The Meek are an autocratic powerhungry organization that masquerades as a defender of certain groups of people. They hold nothing in their cause or means that would make them sympathetic to me. They are a highly bigoted group that may at some point make sense, but only because they are also populists, and try to gather ignorant or misguided people into their ranks.

[anon85912742]

There are no good guys in this story. I believe in a gray and black morality, and there is of course the ocasional idealist. (Personally i let Black Magic to destroy the world, so i can be the god of a new one.)

[throwaway46572946592]

@Goshman

Being a good guy and being sympathetic are two completely different things, and result in very differnet answers.

In your Fallout 4 example, there is no good guy. They’re all bad guys in very different ways. Even the railroad, who wants to free synths and plant them in the general public without consideration to how they end up eventually going haywire and killing a whole bunch of folks. All of them are sympathetic, however. To varying degrees.

InfraOrder would, to me, be very sympathetic. Although their end goal is extremely wrong and misguided, their cause is just and legitimate. Because of the way they try to achieve their end goal, and what their actual end goal is, they are definitely not the good guys and I would still not support them. I would find a more moderate and sane group with a similar cause.

The Meek are an autocratic powerhungry organization that masquerades as a defender of certain groups of people. They hold nothing in their cause or means that would make them sympathetic to me. They are a highly bigoted group that may at some point make sense, but only because they are also populists, and try to gather ignorant or misguided people into their ranks.

There are actually videos on YouTube with names that claim the Brotherhood of Steel and Institute endings are good endings.

Your definition of good guys and someone’s definition of good guys might be different.

Since you don’t think the InfraOrder/InfraCircle and the Meek movement are good guys in Heroes Rise who do you think are the good guys in Heroes Rise?

[Goshman]

Of course the borders on what is good and what is bad is a very subjective and dependent on the situation. I tend to favour shades of gray thinking, but in this thread have tended to favour a classic definition of good guys and bad guys.

There are heroes that would count as good guys when compared to their villains, The MC can definitely be the very shining example of a good guy in the story, depending on choices made. Based on your objections to the status quo of the world in Heroes Rise, Static could be labeled as a good guy: he is the protector of the Fringe and doesn’t seem to follow the usual penthouse living of other famous heroes.
I think the story as written doesn’t actually have good guys, even though it has fairly obvious bad guys. The good guys all have major faults to them. It leaves space for the MC to define what a good guy is. Either the MC is the very definition of a good guy, or the MC goes for a fame-obsessed run through the story and there are other heroes that are much more of a good guy than the MC. But there is no single-minded good guy character in the trilogy. Rebellion could have been one before the big reveal in the Hero Project.

Heroes Rise as a trilogy is fairly odd in that sense. It has a wide selection of shades of gray, and then adds a pinch of black, without actually including the other extreme unless the reader chooses to go there with the MC.

[throwaway46572946592]

@Goshman

Of course the borders on what is good and what is bad is a very subjective and dependent on the situation. I tend to favour shades of gray thinking, but in this thread have tended to favour a classic definition of good guys and bad guys.

There are heroes that would count as good guys when compared to their villains, The MC can definitely be the very shining example of a good guy in the story, depending on choices made. Based on your objections to the status quo of the world in Heroes Rise, Static could be labeled as a good guy: he is the protector of the Fringe and doesn’t seem to follow the usual penthouse living of other famous heroes.I think the story as written doesn’t actually have good guys, even though it has fairly obvious bad guys. The good guys all have major faults to them. It leaves space for the MC to define what a good guy is. Either the MC is the very definition of a good guy, or the MC goes for a fame-obsessed run through the story and there are other heroes that are much more of a good guy than the MC. But there is no single-minded good guy character in the trilogy. Rebellion could have been one before the big reveal in the Hero Project.

Heroes Rise as a trilogy is fairly odd in that sense. It has a wide selection of shades of gray, and then adds a pinch of black, without actually including the other extreme unless the reader chooses to go there with the MC.

Sorry for the misleading title I am still learning english.

Static joins the Millennial Group in Hero Fall. The Millennial Group works for the corrupt and unfair government after President Victon has been arrested/killed. Can Static really be considered a good guy when he works for the Millennial Group? What if the Millennial Group start arresting ex-members of the InfraOrder and the Meek movement who joined because the corrupt and unfair government made them desperate? Would that really be justice? Would that be what good guys do?

[Nathan_Faxon]

@Emptiness

(Personally i let Black Magic to destroy the world, so i can be the god of a new one.)

Going off topic but you can do that!?

[throwaway46572946592]

@Nathan_Faxon

Going off topic but you can do that!?

You either have to be mean to Black Magic or romance Black Magic as well as have a high unleash percent(over 70% or 45%) to let Black Magic destroy the world. If you romance Black Magic instead of being mean to her you also need a high lawless percent(over 70% or 45%). After you choose the option to destroy the world your lawless and unleash percent increases by 25% so I am not sure if over 70% or over 45% is needed for lawless and/or unleash percent.

[Nathan_Faxon]

Brb, gonna become a god.

[anon85912742]

Yep! That is the best ending. Too bad is so short.

[throwaway46572946592]

@TheTrueKing

Hero equipment does not help you defend yourself; they lower the amount of Power you use to do certain things, and heroes protect the people so your point about non powered defending themselves is moot, and nobody is an outcast or unwanted; not having a license doesn’t mean you can’t use powers in self-defence, and you could always opt to use your powers away from the police.

Null, Summit and Inherit use hero equipment(including weapons) and they can defend themselves well.

[faewkless]

You keep saying the millenial group is evil.
But pay for risk plus having an elite well armed power force to solve all of our problems.
They’re kinda like some freelance powered special ops group.
Capable of fixing any problemp

[throwaway46572946592]

@throwaway46572946592

(“Powered Heroes have eclipsed movie stars and music icons to set the standard for A-list celebrity” “Even the lowest-level group members(When referring to the Millennial Group) make half a million dollars a year. That’s…insane” (quotes are from Heroes Rise: The Prodigy)).

@throwaway46572946592

To be a powered “hero” a “hero” license if required and a “hero” license cost money. “Non-powered hero equipment” are expensive. The government can make things more equal by making “Non-powered hero equipment” cheaper and letting powered people use powers without a “hero” license. By requiring powered “heroes” to have a license and letting “Non-powered hero equipment” stay expensive the government is letting inequality happen.

@throwaway46572946592

It would lead to unwanted power outcasts and non-powered heroes taking out bad guys which would make groups like the Millennial Group not needed which is a good thing since the Millennial group are overpaid. The unwanted power outcasts and non-powered heroes can then be employed for high risk jobs.

The government can just put up bounties for bad guys instead of relying on the Millennial group. The InfraOrder and Meek movement was destroyed by the end of Hero Fall so there are probably many ex-members of the InfraOrder and Meek movement that have the equipment, training, skills and powers to take down bad guys.