dizzy_land | Town Meeting

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Town Meeting

John awoke at his usual early hour on the morning of the town meeting. He dressed with slightly more than usual care in his suit of clothes from home, broke his fast with a light meal, and headed to the Golden Horseshoe to ensure that things were the way he wanted.

The chairs and small tables were already perfectly arranged, but John dragged a podium he found backstage out to the front of the curtain. Then he bustled about in the kitchen area setting out drinks and whatever small snacks he could find back there.

Before long, interested citizens began filing in and he went up to the podium. There was no microphone because he'd never heard of such a thing, but John Adams never had difficulty making himself heard.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome. If you would please pick up any refreshments you'd care for and take your seats, we'll begin in just a few minutes."

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Rose rolled her eyes at Logan, and then looked up at Leon. "So why not leave the heroing to the heroes? I can guarantee you've got a few here, and some of us worked outside of government approval so we don't care if there's a central government or not... we're just out to help."

She looked over at Logan, and shook her head. "You're from somewhere with no meta's, huh?"

"You mean like, super heroes? Spiderman and the Fatastic Four and all that?" he blinked stupidly, then frowned. "Well, I mean, don't they usually work along side the police or something?" At least, they tended to in all the comics he had read.

"She means a little more like me, and her, and Static over there," Superboy said, shifting so that the S across his chest was displayed a little more prominently. "And sure, we work with the cops when we need to, but that's a little more the Bat and Robin's gig."

Rose blinked at him, and rubbed the white satin patch over her left eye before shrugging faintly. "I don't know who Spiderman is, but kind of. I mean, we've got Superboy, and I know where to find Robin, and... well, I'm sure there are probably a few other heroes, because Gods all know if anyone can get into trouble a hero can... But sometimes heroes can't work with the police. Batman's had APBs out on him before, because he's willing to skip red tape. And some of us are the ones who keep the cops in order."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean it isn't better to have the cops around," Virgil argued. As Static, he tended to work with the police when he could, and even though there were times when he preferred to go after a big bad without police interference, he didn't like to make a habit of it. "I mean, I've had trouble with them before myself, what superhero hasn't? But on the other hand, they're handy to have around when somebody makes an evil clone of you or something. Which, I dunno about you guys, but that happens to superheroes in my world more than you'd think."

Of course, the time it had happened to him, the police hadn't been able to stop him, but...

"Besides, you need superheroes to stop the bad guys, but at the end of the day, the police should put 'em away. I don't think it'd be right for the heroes to decide what to do with them."

Rose blinked when the new voice piped up, and sighed. "Sometimes I think that if daddy hadn't gone evil he'd be right." She shook her head, and shrugged. "Well, I put in my two cents worth. If I get outnumbered, well, I can work with cops, I guess, but no way in hell am I missing out on the fun."

"Oh, I have an evil clone running around, name's Match," Superboy agreed with one of the last parts first, and much as he hated to argue with his girlfriend, Static had a point.

"I'll even agree--kind of--about real authority needing to be around to deal with trouble... problem is the same thing the cop up there said and Logan said different, that there're too many different folks here.

"And I have nothing smart to say about how to get authority over so many different kinds of people, the Rave didn't bother, so I'm gonna shut back up."

Tim sat down next to Rose, having been watching the proceedings silently for sometime. He tried to sort his arguments into a logical form "My objections follow along from Rose's, although, Ravager, your father is evil. Also, when attempting to subdue those who are being belligerent comes into play, I don't know if you have considered it, but there are metahumans in this park. Very few normal people, like me, have any hope of stopping a fight between two or more metahumans. As well, how do you intend to determine for anyone whether the fighting is just your average heated sparring match or a true fight, especially amongst the metahumans? I know... from watching television, that their fights can get out of hand, with great property damage even when they do not wish to. And yes, the park does prevent oneself from killing oneself, accidentally or otherwise, so I would assume that it stops others from killing you.

As they said, Batman and Robin, as well as the rest of the Bat folk do tend to work with closely with some of the police, most notably the Commissioner and the two directly below him, but Gotham is a relatively meta free area. Batman doesn't like metas, nor does Gotham herself. Their job is a bit more detective work than the average superheroes, and the reason they work with cops are because so much of Gotham's police force is...less than honest...in their dealings, and evidence that the commissioner does not have has a habit of being...misfiled. Most heroes simply drop the bad guy, and the evidence at the station and that's the extent of their interactions." Tim frowned thoughtfully.

"Also, if you intend to detain them, how do you intend to do so? Where do you intend to place them? If you intend to detain them, you had best have at least some form of law code that is agreed upon by the citizens of the park otherwise you are practicing unlawful containment and the heroes of the park will be forced to work against you, as their ethical codes will not let them do otherwise. Heroes, you see, work for the justice of all, not simply in line with police work.

Also, simply letting heroes do their jobs would probably be far more beneficial anyway...Cops are trained to use lethal force if necessary, which will not be allowed by the park. Heroes are trained to not kill no matter what, therefore o...their methods would simply be the most useful over all."

"Speak for yourself..." Rose muttered, sinking lower into her seat and rubbing at that eyepatch again.

"I am." Tim replied calmly. "He messed you over, he messed Nightwing over...he's tried to kill the Titans on any number of occasions. And that's just some of what's he has done." He squeezed her hand though. She wasn't her father and he did like her, now.

Kon said softly to his best friend, "Nice argument. This's gonna go nowhere fast, though."

Pippi craned her neck to see back at the older kids talking about super heroes.

Super heroes are cool.

Logan winks at her. He might not have any powers, but he likes kids.

Pippi wonders if the winking guy has super powers.

She's bored and no longer actually listening despite the fact that she and Rukia are sitting up front and everybody can see her fidgeting.

She waves at the winking guy who doesn't seem to like policemen.

Just phenomenal powers of emo and bouncing back from said emo. Veronica's the Batman in his world. (Does this make him Catwoman? That's...fairly disturbing. And yet accurate.)

Logan waggles his fingers back at the little redheaded girl. Something about her sticky-outy braids seems familiar, but he can't quite place it. Anyway. Cute kid.

~~Michelle Pfiffer Catwoman or Holly Berry Catwoman or Julie Newmar Catwoman or Eartha Kitt Catwoman?~~

Pippi held up the piece of cake she was eating and pointed at it as if to say "Have you tried the cake? It's amazing!"

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The kid in the leather jacket and S-shield spandex grinned back at her, flicking his hand in a wave. Cute little thing.

Spandex and a leather jacket was an interesting choice...

He's either a super hero or a pro wrestler.

She waves back.

"Our group will be based more on investigation than anything else," Leon said. "My first and foremost priority is to get out of this park, or at least find out why people are disappearing. However, my entire life has been dedicated to protecting people, and I'll continue to do that, and if the situation arises, that will most likely be more important than finding a way out." A part of Leon told him that that wasn't the case, that the most important thing, no matter who got hurt, was to figure out how to get back to D, but the rest of him would hear no part of it. He had always protected people, and he always would, their needs were more important than his own."

"I know how corrupt cops can become. Hell, I've worked in the LAPD for seven years, I've seen it all, but I will do my best to stop that from happening in our force.

"We've heard that people cannot be killed by eachother as well, so our goal isn't to stop that, as the park can do that. It's to stop people from harming one another. Sometimes wounds heal and leave nothing but scars, and othertimes they leave permanent damage. As far as I've been informed, we don't have real doctors here who can minimize the damage, so we've got to stop it from happening in the first place.

"In my seven years on the force, I've never had to kill a human." His hand shook a little bit at that, and he closed his eyes. He'd had to watch people die, but he'd never killed them. The one person who he had killed hadn't been human, but had threatened to release a virus that would kill every human on the face of the planet. "Despite what you might see on TV, there are very, very few cases where police have had to resort to killing the suspect.

Tim swore softly in a couple of the languages he'd picked up during his years as Robin, including a rather vile string of Italian that Huntress had taught him. "By limiting your investigation force to a set number you're both allowing it to disappear as apparently the park does toss people out eventually, as well as not taking into account that everyone has different experiences to contribute and eventually you will be causing factionalism and dissent amongst the masses, leading to a state of anarchy that isn't peaceful. Once you insert unneeded and unwanted authoritarian figures you also insert the need to rebel against them. Most of the people I've so far met have been teenagers and we are at the age where rebellion is second nature."

Tim rolled his eyes at the LAPD remark. "LAPD is to Gotham what a bonfire is to hell."

"Trust me, they can't. I nearly was. It didn't work. And I again point out the fact that unless you're hiding some metahuman control devices, as well as a way to actually get them to wear them, your task force would be screwed at the first meta fight, and you're the only ones who'll be injured and months recovering. The metas might feel bad...but you'll still be straining resources in a hospital bed"

"COngratulations on not killing anyone. However, you are trained to have that option available to you. And I live in Gotham, we don't have to watch TV to see police at work. Generally, walking out the door works just fine. Have you even considered yet how you will contain the 'criminals' what laws you wish to enforce? How you intend to enforce them with metahumans, or whatever else the park has? What about when a good ninja shows up? It seems to me, you are trying to put the cart before you even started bidding on the horse." He really hated dealing with amateurs. He was too jaded if he considered a policeman with seven years on the force an amatuer.

"We're not limiting it to a set number, actually," said Leon. "We're keeping the ranks open. If someone wants to join, they're free to come to Carrot or I, and ten to one we'll dub them an officer and give them a badge, unless we have a good reason to turn them away.

"Honestly, I at least hope that we get some 'metas' to join us," he said, scratching his cheek. Truth be told, he didn't know he had fucking superheroes here, but now that he did he might as well use the resources given to him.

"We've got a prison to contain them in, and the only laws we wish to inforce are those of physical abuse. And personally, I'd rather have something set up long before it's needed. Setting things up at the last moment never work out well. If we start now, before it's needed, at least we can iron out the kinks when something like a good ninja shows up."

Rose held up a finger to Kira for a moment, wanting to address what had been said to Tim.

"Look, I don' know if this whole idea will work. I'm not saying it will or it won't, at least you're smart enough to want to work with metas, unlike a certain tall, dark, and gloomy. That aside, why not just have the protocols in place, instead of the actual force? Think one of those volunteer fire departments like some small towns have..."

"Kinda agreeing with the girl on that one," he said, glancing at her. He didn't actually know her name, just that she was hot, had an eyepatch, seemed pretty smart, and was apparently a superhero, so damn. "I mean, investigate away, but we probably don't need a big police force on duty when there's no much conflict going on. But hey, if you make it like, a volunteer thing, consider me in."

"While political doublespeak may be good enough for the masses, you have yet to address my points in a coherent manner. I want to know why you think this is necessary suddenly, what the point of a closed task force is if you wish to leave it open, how you want to determine what violence is unnecessary and how you will determine that it is true violence, how you intend to fight the metahumans who don't wish to join your task force, and where you prison is, how you made it superhuman strength, magic, any of the kinetics, as well as simple lock picking proof, who intends to try those who are jailed, how you intend to determine their guilt or innocence, what the punishment will be. There's a reason most metas do not choose to join police forces, as it is quite difficult to regulate every single one, and they are far more effective when not bound by the constraints of fifteen different forms to fill out in triplicate." Tim stayed calm through his entire speech, but he was just about ready to leave as well. He was used to working with and without the police, and he really didn't see a reason for the police here. Maybe if things were more unruly, if there'd been rampant cases of sexual harrassment, or rape, or somesuch. However, from the arguments going on, the worst that had happened was some fighting.

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