212 KiB
Pokemon: The Origin of Species Chapter 6!
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Author: u/DaystarEld Pokémon Professor*
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URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9794740/6/Pokemon-The-Origin-of-Species
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Score: 10
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Created: 2014-02-25T23:05:54
Post:
Comments:
u/Anakiri [+6] (a day later)
I don't like Laura. It's sad her husband died, but that keeps interrupting her other thoughts, to the point where I'd recommend therapy. She worries about him more than she worries about Red, and she doesn't even seem have have any good thoughts about the guy!
I could understand "The house hadn't felt this empty since Tom's death."
I could understand "Red had been so excited about becoming a professor - some of his father's zeal coming through."
What you've got is "Red had been so excited about becoming a professor. It reminded Laura of losing her husband. She'd worked as a reporter once. It reminded her of her husband, who she lost. Sam had always been a good friend to the family. Like when Laura lost her husband. The death of Sam's daughter had been so sad. Maybe Laura could have avoided losing her husband. She thought about how her only living child is doing out in the wilderness - it made her miss her lost husband."
Christ, girl. Worse, this is the only thing I know about her. It's the only notable character trait I've seen. She talks about other things, but missing her husband is the only thing she does.
Daisy is worse. She doesn't do anything. She just provides pages and pages of meaningless small talk. She steers the conversation through school and taxes and she has so much screen time, and it feels like none of that is going to pay off. As soon as something interesting happens - Koga's deflecting allegations that he might be what? It's common knowledge that a storm might signal an attack? What's that about? - the plot drops that significant exposition in favor of taking us back to Daisy's small talk! Daisy is a vampire.
This is kind of a problem throughout. The key things I took away from this chapter: Containers exist. Laura misses her husband (more than she misses her son). Daisy prattles on for an eternity. Laura will be traveling as a reporter. Foreboding storm all the characters know about but I don't. Something is going on with a mysterious Dr. Fuji. Those last three points are actually interesting, but they have next to no screen time compared to the character development that makes me hate everyone.
I'm also not really feeling the worldbuilding in this chapter. The Container is fair enough. But I'm expected to think that a million million megajoules of mass is the easy part, but ten megajoules of thermal energy is supposed to give me pause? Either their mass-energy conversion factor is different from ours (possible, but not shown), or that actually makes the world make less sense.
There's talk of Pokemon on the news, which makes sense. Pokemon are immensely important. So much so that it should be really difficult to write a chapter where the only Pokemon that actually appears is a cooked bird! Is there a compelling reason Laura didn't wait at an intersection for a passing rhyhorn? Or why Oak doesn't have a tangela around trained to grab the dishes? Laura stops to chat with neighbors on her way - is there no friendly neighborhood raticate? (Why no, there's nothing unusual about a friendly giant rat that can rip out the sidewalk, why would there be?) A news report about tentacool can't support the universe by itself.
As others have mentioned, there's some problem with the flow. I think a large part of that is that every little thing makes Laura think of Tom for no obvious reason, but there's lots of little things too. I think you need to take care to spell out exactly how characters' thoughts lead to one another, in general, on a moment-to-moment basis. It's also good form to isolate most related exposition into distinct chunks, unless you want me to think their mind keeps going back to it. So this chapter is... kinda weak all around.
u/DaystarEld [+5] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
Alright, this is the kind of feedback I was looking for :) I try to refrain from voting on comments in my posts, but I'm making an exception in this case and upvoting yours to bring more awareness to it.
I don't like Laura. It's sad her husband died, but that keeps interrupting her other thoughts, to the point where I'd recommend therapy. She worries about him more than she worries about Red, and she doesn't even seem have have any good thoughts about the guy!
Good to know: I'll try to put in more redeeming qualities about her and their relationship. I actually cut back on some of her worry about Red, because it felt like too much: clearly I didn't see how much that unbalanced things :)
Daisy is worse. She doesn't do anything. She just provides pages and pages of meaningless small talk. She steers the conversation through school and taxes and she has so much screen time, and it feels like none of that is going to pay off. As soon as something interesting happens - Koga's deflecting allegations that he might be what? It's common knowledge that a storm might signal an attack? What's that about? - the plot drops that significant exposition in favor of taking us back to Daisy's small talk! Daisy is a vampire.
Hahaha. Okay, I definitely didn't think of it that way originally, but now I can see why that would be so annoying. You're right, she needs more presence: I'm going to overhaul the post-dinner conversation completely.
I'm also not really feeling the worldbuilding in this chapter. The Container is fair enough. But I'm expected to think that a million million megajoules of mass is the easy part, but ten megajoules of thermal energy is supposed to give me pause? Either their mass-energy conversion factor is different from ours (possible, but not shown), or that actually makes the world make less sense.
The perspective I had on it was that, if you have the ability to transmit matter to energy/data and reconstruct it into matter afterward, that the "million million megajoules of mass" is a "given." I can't really mess with that without removing one of the most singular aspects of the pokemon world.
But it still struck me as odd that, even if you have that data to reconstruct the molecules and cells and synapses, that the matter would come out containing exactly the same heat/energy as it did when it was copied. Body heat, after all, is the result of our metabolism, the chemical processes by which we burn our "fuel" like sugars. Why would those processes also be frozen and resumed exactly as they had before? Wouldn't they come out inert, which would be dangerously cold for most living things?
So yeah. It struck me as weird, so I put it in incase anyone else wondered about it: it could be that by mentioning it I'm just drawing attention to an issue most people wouldn't even have thought of, and maybe it's unnecessary either way :)
There's talk of Pokemon on the news, which makes sense. Pokemon are immensely important. So much so that it should be really difficult to write a chapter where the only Pokemon that actually appears is a cooked bird! Is there a compelling reason Laura didn't wait at an intersection for a passing rhyhorn? Or why Oak doesn't have a tangela around trained to grab the dishes? Laura stops to chat with neighbors on her way - is there no friendly neighborhood raticate? (Why no, there's nothing unusual about a friendly giant rat that can rip out the sidewalk, why would there be?) A news report about tentacool can't support the universe by itself.
Yes, this was basically something I tried to do intentionally that in retrospect might have been a mistake: while obviously pokemon are going to be the subject of news and conversation, they don't have to be a part of every single social interaction, the way they are in the games and anime. I'll probably roll this change in with the changes I make to Daisy.
As others have mentioned, there's some problem with the flow. I think a large part of that is that every little thing makes Laura think of Tom for no obvious reason, but there's lots of little things too. I think you need to take care to spell out exactly how characters' thoughts lead to one another, in general, on a moment-to-moment basis. It's also good form to isolate most related exposition into distinct chunks, unless you want me to think their mind keeps going back to it. So this chapter is... kinda weak all around.
Duly noted. I'll get to editing soon, and post when it's updated. Thanks for all the great feedback!
u/RMcD94 [+1] (a day later)
RE: heat. Heat is just movement, spawning all the matter and retaining its velocity already must happen inside atoms with electrons etc. Not hard to apply it on atomic level
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
Keeping those things still would be a different issue completely though, no? Even among inert, room temperature matter, the atoms and electrons are still moving.
u/RMcD94 [+1] (a day later)
Yes but I'm saying that if it was capable of taking the matter then spawning it without retaining heat like:
Wouldn't they come out inert, which would be dangerously cold for most living things?
That wouldn't happen. It wouldn't come out inert, it would come out and not exist in the way we know, because if you can't make the atoms move then you can't make the electrons (or anything else) move.
But if you can make electrons move, and thereby not destroying the structure of the atom and making it collapse, then where would the difficulty arrive in moving the whole atom?
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
My understanding of body heat is that it comes from a different mechanism than merely the acceleration of atoms, but at the same time I know that ultimately that's what all heat boils down to, so I'm not really sure what distinction I'm trying to draw :P Can you help me understand how the two are related or how the distinction is irrelevant?
u/RMcD94 [+1] (a day later)
Generation of body heat is certainly different from heat, in that you are correct that it requires molecular processes and the such.
However, that's not my point.
My point is that dealing with molecular processes is the least of your worries if you understand me. When Oak says that they managed to do it before but couldn't retain the heat that doesn't really make sense.
Because if they couldn't retain the heat it was because they couldn't retain the movement of atoms (since if they could all the molecular processes would still be going and generating heat, never mind ambient heat).
But if they couldn't retain the movement of atoms then how would they be able to retain the movement of electrons (and all the other things that happen in an atom)? (and when we get down to it this issue happens with molecules and atoms too when they stop moving because even solids vibrate)
And if they couldn't retain the movement of electrons then the atomic structure is going to collapse, and instead of getting something that is cold, you get something that no longer resembles anything coherent (I'm not actually sure what would happen if an electron lost all movement, a quick google gets this http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080826080342AAiT67G).
On the principle of the thing, why can't they retain the heat? Why do the processes stop?
I hope I did that well enough
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
You did thanks :) I guess my conception was always that atoms move just as a matter of being, so there's no real way to stop that just because the atom got reformed, but that the heat that results from the chemical processes of digestion wouldn't be retained or continued. I might just take it out though and keep the handwave-by-omission.
u/ArmokGoB [+1] (2 days later)
Reading this kinda ruined it for me. As I see it, the "energy" pokemon are converted to obviously is not electricity or heat or momentum or something, but rather about as stable and dense and useless as matter, and only qualifies is it in the sense that matter does, not the common usage. If these also tend to self assemble into their original configuration with only a little nudging needed to make sure the crystallization only starts in one place and isn't mirrored or something, it solves all the problems.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (2 days later)
Hm. So you would say better to just take out the mention of heat altogether, and not poke at the wibbly-wobbly spacey-waceyness of it all?
u/ArmokGoB [+1] (2 days later)
Than what you have now? yes. An actual good solution? no. Try instead to come up with an interpretation where things ACTUALLY makes sense without seeming contrived and being full of holes, then imply it. This almost certainly will not include actual force*distance=mc²
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (3 days later)
Rewrite complete! Looking forward to any new feedback you might have on it :)
u/DaystarEld [+4] Pokémon Professor (11 minutes later)
Feed me feedback nom nom nom
Edit:
Thanks to all the great feedback, I'm going to be doing some heavy editing of this chapter soon. I'll let you guys know when the update goes live: in the meantime keep it coming!
u/AmeteurOpinions [+2] Finally, everyone was working together. (an hour later)
Here's a tip: Go back and read through it again, this time looking for commas.
No, it's not that you have too many of them. Or too few. Thankfully you're better than that. But, they are all being used the same way. Almost every sentence will go "Something something something**,** something something something something."
Almost every time.
Still a good story though.
u/DaystarEld [+3] Pokémon Professor (an hour later)
Almost every sentence will go "Something something something, something something something something."
Made me laugh out loud. I think you've hit on another quirk of my writing from all the RP I do that I'm trying to overcome :) I'll give the chapter another read through and try to break up or streamlines sentences.
u/FeepingCreature [+2] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (5 hours later)
I like it! I think it was a good way to zoom out, sort of, and show the outside view of events that our protagonists may be encountering from the inside soon.
[edit] Also, Mr. Fuji. In the games, he was.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (6 hours later)
Mr. Fuji
Maybe it's his brother ;)
(totally kidding while at the same time not wanting to give anything away)
u/FeepingCreature [+1] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (6 hours later)
Well, I don't think it's a spoiler that hurts enjoyment. Like, it's a Pokemon story with Pokemon characters; unless it's a total AU you'll have a (very rough) idea of the outline of the story. The interesting bit is not the what, but how in particular you'll handle them. :)
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (6 hours later)
Agreed. I guess it's somewhat indicative if I only refuse to talk about the parts of the known canon that I plan on subverting somehow...
u/FeepingCreature [+3] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (6 hours later)
subverting somehow...
Please tell me Team Rocket have an actual Rocket. And a moonbase, from which they plan to terrorize the earth. Actually don't tell me. I'll just trust you. :)
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
O:)
u/TriviallyObsessed [+1] (a day later)
I've definitely been enjoying it so far, and hope to continue doing so. The only thing so far that really rubs me the wrong way is the use of present tense. I'm sure this must have been a conscious decision on your part, but it makes everything feel a little awkward to me.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
Thanks!
And yes, I completely get the present-tense aversion :) It's one of those things that many people just aren't used to, so it takes some acclimating.
Personally I've read so many books in both present and past tense that I barely notice switching between them when reading... but when writing, it's a huge stumbling block to switch back and forth, as I would be doing if I didn't write this in present tense (the novel I'm editing for publication is in present tense). I actually wrote the first chapter of this in past tense originally, but both it and my novel became so riddled with tense typos that it swiftly became easier to just rewrite the first chapter in present tense and continue in present.
In any case, I hope it doesn't spoil the enjoyment too much, and hopefully the next time you encounter a story in present tense it won't be so jarring :)
u/4t0m [+2] Chaos Legion (an hour later)
Not sure the interlude was successful. I wasn't really interested, and the present tense writing struck me as awkward in a way it usually doesn't. For example lines like "She doesn't want...", "She misses him.", and "["I hope everyone is hungry"], They are.". Also, there are a few weird spots with "she'd" or "she had" where really is should probably be "she has" to fit with the present tense. I admit that the sentences sound weird either way though. Some of what I perceived as boringness can be forgiven as it's clearly a foreshadowing chapter, but I think it's still worth knowing I got that impression.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (an hour later)
Definitely is, thanks! I'll see about reducing the awkwardness of some of the lines.
Also, there are a few weird spots with "she'd" or "she had" where really is should probably be "she has" to fit with the present tense.
Not necessarily :) It depends on what's being referred to, just like a past tense sentence sometimes has present tense, like "He ran for the door, heart hammering" instead of "He ran for the door, heart hammered."
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (an hour later)
Are there any specific parts that you felt were particularly a chore to get through? Were the characters not interesting, or was it more the setting they were in?
u/4t0m [+1] Chaos Legion (4 hours later)
Not sure about specifics. I'm not at all invested in the characters or what's going on with them in these scenes, but I have no idea how to change that, especially since her life sort of needs to start out seeming dull.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (3 days later)
Rewrite complete! Looking forward to any new feedback you might have on it :)
u/4t0m [+1] Chaos Legion (5 days later)
Sorry, just getting to reading it now.
u/PeridexisErrant [+1] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (12 hours later)
Love it, but if a suggestion is required... It seems criminal to be writing about gen one Pokemon now and forget a TPP reference.
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
Well they haven't gotten the fossils yet... ;)
u/None [+1] (16 hours later)
Do you read your work out loud? Might want to. It lacks what is nebulously called "flow," which means, "I don't know what exactly but you might want to try reading this out loud."
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
I do, usually to find the less obvious grammatical errors that slip by my speeding eyes. Is there a specific part you can point to that feels particularly bumpy or awkward?
u/The_Mad_Duke [+1] House Tremontaine (23 hours later)
Thank you DaystarEld, like the previous installments, I really enjoyed this chapter.
I think the interlude is valuable if only for highlighting that the world does not revolve around the protagonists and that Red's mom has a life of her own. I found the characters sympathetic and enjoyed their conversation and the glimpses into the functioning of the pokemon world it offered.
I find the story about the rationalist trainer and his scientific exploration of the world of pokemon far more interesting than the more conventional crime and mystery stories that are being hinted at. So I hope the story's focus will remain on the former (I think it is interesting enough not to be made subservient to the Team Rocket storyline and also that it is far more unique).
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
I find the story about the rationalist trainer and his scientific exploration of the world of pokemon far more interesting than the more conventional crime and mystery stories that are being hinted at.
I plan to keep this at the center of the story, but I think conflict makes for a more interesting character arc and plot :) Rest assured that crime-and-mystery is still related to the main motivations of the protagonists: Blue's desire to become a world-class trainer, Leaf's interest in learning about pokemon's origins, and Red's passion to understand pokemon and people.
u/RMcD94 [+1] (a day later)
Every family mentioned has had a death from the nucleus, husband, children. Is this delibrate because it seems like you're conveying a horrendous death rate but there is nothing around that would be caused. Like therapy for wives of rangers or parents of trainers, support systems.
Also how old is Daisy seems very confusing, sometimes seems like an adult other like a kid
u/None [+1] (3 hours later)
I think all these interludes and the like that you see in web fiction like this and Worm are generally a bad idea. They're usually either totally irrelevant to the overall plot and slow down the action, or, even worse, they reveal important information in a way that would be much less effective that how an author would do it if there was a strict or semi-strict limit on the word count (while still slowing down the action).
I think it's a temptation that should be resisted unless you have a wholly contained story to tell that would actually be interesting in its own right, like the standalone stories in the Sandman series. As it is, web fiction authors tend to use these "interludes" to...fill space? Provide "bonus" content? I've never seen it used effectively, or rather, if it is used effectively, it should feel like something more than a mere "interlude."
u/4t0m [+6] Chaos Legion (4 hours later)
I actually like them in Worm. They give the audience the chance to see different parts of the universe in a way that wouldn't be possible while staying within Taylor's perspective. That isn't to say I didn't rush through them once in a while though.
u/AmeteurOpinions [+2] Finally, everyone was working together. (12 hours later)
It helps when you've already been impressed by a character, and when you realize just whose interlude it is you do a big fist-pump and keep reading.
u/None [+2] (16 hours later)
We never got a Kaiser interlude or one from Bakuda's perspective, so meh. The one with Canary was pretty great though. Bakuda+Lung 4evah.
u/None [+1] (16 hours later)
Actually, one from Bakuda's perspective would probably suck. She's better seen through the eyes of others.
u/DaystarEld [+5] Pokémon Professor (5 hours later)
Hooray, the voice of dissent!
Okay, so I can understand this perspective, but it's one I personally don't agree with at all :) More of something I love is more of something I love, and while obviously I'll have preferences of some parts of a story or characters over others, the whole is made stronger by all of its parts. I don't think extra characterization or world building are ever unnecessary, as long as the writing and story and world are compelling.
Of course, there's the crux of the matter: I'm no Stephen King or GRRM, so maybe I just wasted everyone's time with a badly written interlude that most people will find boring. But that's more my failing than the nature of interludes as a concept.
I do feel these interludes are integral to the story though, which means if I've got readers who find them boring and unnecessary, then I'm doing something wrong, and I need to figure out what it is.
As it is, web fiction authors tend to use these "interludes" to...fill space? Provide "bonus" content?
Maybe the latter, but not at all the former. Writing is hard. I've never met a writer that wanted to spend hours of their life just "filling space." If they write something, it's because they think it's important, even if they get it terribly wrong.
But it's not always just "bonus content" either. Stories written from only one perspective inevitably suffer, I feel, from bias and limited scope.
The whole point of writing from more than one character's perspective is to provide another view on the events and world that the first character wouldn't notice or care about, which should, when done well, make the story feel more "real."
One of the many reasons HPMOR feels so much more "real" than the canon Harry Potter series is that it jumps to other perspectives. And not consistently either: EY doesn't use the word "interlude," but there are clear instances where we are basically getting a one-shot perspective from a character who may be important, but not important enough to be a "main character."
Even stories from one perspective that I love, like the Dresden Files, I feel are improved by added perspectives. My favorite Dresden File short stories are the ones from Thomas and Murphy and Marcone's perspectives, because no matter how much you love Harry, the wise-cracking wizard's voice can get old after awhile. Staying in only his head can start to feel repetitive: you begin to already anticipate what he's going to think for a given situation, how he'll react to a bit of information. New characters can refresh the whole world by giving you new eyes to look at it through, and while these examples are "complete stories" as you mentioned, the could have been just as effective in the main Dresden File books as lone chapter shifts if it didn't happen to be written from a first-person perspective.
So all that said, in my case specifically, I wrote this interlude because there's just too much about the world and story to tell from Red's perspective. If I don't occasionally jump to others' perspectives, getting some of this information would require incredibly convenient happenstances or drastic shifts in narrative tone.
Furthermore, it's hard to foreshadow from one character's perspective when you intend that character to be intelligent: there's just no way I can imagine Rational!Red would hear about certain things during the normal course of his adventure, and even if he did, the rational response would be to immediately begin investigating them until he figured them out, which means I would have to put artificial barriers in his way to make him give up and go back to moving the story at a decent and coherent pace.
Instead, this way there's the main story arc of Red's adventures, but I can flesh out the world he lives in and its various layers while also introducing some of the other major characters that won't necessarily be with Red throughout his journey, because they're part of the wider story arc.
Does any of that make sense?
u/None [+2] (16 hours later)
Switching perspectives is fine. That's different from...whatever these interludes are, exactly.
First of all, there's the problem that many of these interludes (I'm thinking Worm and this) simply don't work as self-contained stories. But they're also not part of the ongoing narrative. As a result, they tend to lack any kind of real emotional impact (and the effect they have on the plot is even worse, but I'll get to that).
If you compare it to the interludes in Gaiman's Sandman, the interludes are all really cool and interesting stories. They work as standalone tales totally separate from what's going on in the main storyline, which isn't to say that they don't contain interesting and important information that is relevant to the main plot. The interludes in Worm, however, and apparently here as well, are more like unnecessary conversations between minor characters. It's...neat, in a DVD extras sort of way, but if you had to turn these web fictions into books, imposing a word and page limit, those interludes would get cut and cut fast, and the story wouldn't suffer in the slightest. Sandman, on the other hand, would be much poorer without the standalone stories.
Then there's the unfortunate effect the interludes have on the main plot, which is, they tend to steal the main story's thunder. I'm thinking specifically of the Slaughterhouse 9 interludes, which for the most part were totally unnecessary and reduced the impact of the real introduction of the Slaughterhouse 9. The author's choice to reveal the Nine's goals and powers in a way that was cut off from anything resembling tension or emotional engagement made it more or less impossible to feel the Nine's arrival. Between that and Skitter's pwning of Mannequin, the Nine quickly lost the feel of being a particularly special or dangerous threat.
Two other problematic interludes have been the interlude from Alexandria's perspective in arc 15 (I think), and the interlude introducing Armsmaster reborn as Defiant from Triumph's perspective (also 15?). The former sets up a future plot point (presumably), but in a way that tells me most of the plot before the actual plot has gotten to that point. I am sure that when whatever Alexandria and the Doctor are up to becomes relevant, it will have much less impact than if the author himself hadn't gone out of his way to spoil the plot for no benefit. The Triumph interlude, similarly, basically just spoils the arrival of Dragon and the impending battle between Coil's team and the local heroes + Dragon.
Then there's simply the issue of reducing the average quality of your work. I'm having trouble with this myself--by my estimate, I get to about 300-400 pages of writing in my LoK fic before the first arc really even begins. This isn't because my world is that huge or my characters that complex. It's because nothing I've written is so bad that it demands to be cut. And since I'm not compelled to cut by physical limitations, the result is a work that goes on for far too long, with character and plot development occurring very inefficiently and a low average quality even if there are good moments here and there. But at least I'll know to avoid the temptation of interludes. The format of web fiction makes it too easy to dilute one's own work.
u/None [+2] (16 hours later)
To give an example, the best interlude hands down in Worm (up through arc 15), is the one from Canary's perspective. There are two reasons for this:
It has Lung and Bakuda in it, two of the best characters in Worm, Lung for his tension-enhancing power and Bakuda for her clear, vibrant tone in a story that is too grey and flat.
It has an actual self-contained story and isn't just minor characters spoiling the plot because the author has too much freedom. Bakuda is trying to bust out of the prison. That's the plot. It's an actual story. A character is trying to do something --> There are obstacles --> The character tries to get around the obstacles --> The character loses (in this case). As a result, it's an actual interesting read and one that doesn't even need to spoil the plot to hook the audience's attention.
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (17 hours later)
It has Lung and Bakuda in it, two of the best characters in Worm, Lung for his tension-enhancing power and Bakuda for her clear, vibrant tone in a story that is too grey and flat.
This is purely subjective: I liked Lung, but Bakuda was nowhere near what I'd consider one of the "best characters in Worm." She was bland and stereotypical and predictable, and I much preferred interludes with Armsmaster/Defiant and Dragon, whose character arcs I think were beautifully written even through just a few interludes spread out over the story.
It has an actual self-contained story and isn't just minor characters spoiling the plot because the author has too much freedom.
I think you're confusing "spoiling the plot" and "setting up the plot in a way people might be able to predict." Without any set up at all, many of these plot points, when they arrive, would seem completely out of nowhere and arbitrary, like a fired Chekhov's gun that appeared nowhere earlier in the script. There's a careful balance between surprising your audience with a plot twist and pulling a scooby-doo plot twist that there's absolutely no way they could have seen coming. I don't know about you, but the latter angers me as a reader :P
Without a common reference pool it's hard to draw good examples, but we could use my own story, as it would be a good learning experience for me: what do you believe I've spoiled from my story from this chapter?
Bakuda is trying to bust out of the prison. That's the plot. It's an actual story. A character is trying to do something
I'm not denying that interludes as self-contained short stories aren't engaging, I'm saying limiting oneself to only those types of interludes is like leaving a tool in your toolbox. I'm not quite sure how you're distinguishing between an "interlude" and just having perspective shifts every few chapters, like many books do. Those shifted chapters are often part of their own character arcs and are still related to the main plot, but you seem to be saying that any deviation from the main character that isn't a self-contained plot is unnecessary. I couldn't disagree more.
I know you've said that publishing authors would be forced to cut more than web-serial authors, and in many respects that's true, but I'd argue whether that's always necessarily better. If you've read The Stand by Stephen King, you might be aware that there are two version, the originally published, and the uncut version released years later with a lot of extra content King couldn't originally include due to publisher limits.
The original is about 800 pages I believe. The uncut is over 1100. Some people like the cut version better: perhaps you would be one of them. To most though, reading the cut version is like watching the non-Extended Lord of the Rings movies : a streamlined bit of entertainment that's missing the details and character development that fills out the heart and soul of the story.
u/None [+1] (18 hours later)
Think of it this way: suppose that at some point in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix there was chapter from Voldemort's perspective that
a) Had no tension, no action, nothing was happening, just Voldemort chatting with some people, and
b) They were talking about Horcruxes.
Wouldn't that have really sucked, added absolutely nothing to the 5th book, and made the 6th book worse?
You make it sound like these interlude things are a necessary or just useful tool, but you'll notice that no author uses them the way they're used in Worm or this fic. Because spending a chapter not telling a story in order to give ham-fisted exposition before that information is even interesting in a way that just serves to undercut and reduce the impact of the natural development of the story from the protagonists' perspective is a bad idea.
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
Think of it this way: suppose that at some point in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix there was chapter from Voldemort's perspective that
a) Had no tension, no action, nothing was happening, just Voldemort chatting with some people, and
b) They were talking about Horcruxes.
Wouldn't that have really sucked, added absolutely nothing to the 5th book, and made the 6th book worse?
Yes it would. Unfortunately for your argument, this analogy is in no way comparable :)
but you'll notice that no author uses them the way they're used in Worm or this fic.
I'm sorry, but you're just wrong there. As I mentioned, Stepehen King is one of the most successful authors in the world, and he regularly switches perspectives from main characters during most of his stories. And Goerge RR Martin does this as well, devoting whole chapters to characters we've never seen before and sometimes never see again, just to give us an added bit of worldbuilding, a new perspective, or foreshadow something from the plot.
Many authors do this. I understand that you personally dislike it, but implying that all authors "know better" or that it's a universally, objectively bad thing is just not supportable.
in a way that just serves to undercut and reduce the impact of the natural development of the story from the protagonists' perspective is a bad idea.
Implying that there is one "natural" way for a story to progress when you don't even know what that story is seems a bit rash :)
Also, you still haven't mentioned what you believe this interlude spoils, and I'm starting to feel like if I hadn't used the word "interlude" your objection would be far less vehement.
u/None [+1] (18 hours later)
Or imagine if we were getting chapters from HPMOR's Quirrell or Lucius Malfoy's perspective. Or even Dumbledore--there's a reason it's usually McGonagall when important things are being discussed. We get brief scenes from Snape's perspective, but they're a) brief and not meant to be a full chapter and b) serve to add another layer of meaning and significance to a storyline that has already begun and can exist on its own without those scenes.
u/AmeteurOpinions [+1] Finally, everyone was working together. (a day later)
It's important to note that most of the Worm interludes were Donation Bonus Chapters. I think you described as "DVD-Extras" somewhere in the thread and that's actually kinda accurate.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
First off, we DO get perspectives from Quirrel a number of times. They're limited, and we don't always get his full thoughts, but they're still there.
Second, you're drawing a distinction that isn't there when you bring up Snape. The things you listed can also be applied to mine, unless you want to quibble about what "brief" means.
u/AmeteurOpinions [+2] Finally, everyone was working together. (16 hours later)
I have to start putting artificial barriers in his way to make him give up
Um, why not just let him investigate?
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (17 hours later)
Because unlike the video games, in the world I have in mind an inexperienced 11 year old trainer would meet a swift end if he really started poking around to find a secret criminal organization's hideout :)
u/None [+2] (18 hours later)
So solve that problem. What you're describing sounds like padding at best. Throwing BS at the protagonist to keep him out of the plot is going to make for a dull story, and your audience will lose interest--if you don't lose interest first.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
Throwing BS at the protagonist to keep him out of the plot is going to make for a dull story
Which is exactly why I'm not doing it.
u/The_Mad_Duke [+2] House Tremontaine (a day later)
Because unlike the video games, in the world I have in mind an inexperienced 11 year old trainer would meet a swift end if he really started poking around to find a secret criminal organization's hideout :)
Maybe Rational!Red could be smart enough to realize this?
I love the scene in HPMOR were Harry tells McGonagall about the spell on the Sorting Hat and what he would do if he would discover the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.
If Red would similarly decide not to stick his nose too far into the whole Team Rocket business, I think it could be both funny and an interesting chance to discuss rationality.
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
Yes, but that still requires learning about them in a way that's personally affecting, but still safe, first :)
Canon!Harry didn't learn about how to access the Chamber of Secrets until Ginny was already captured inside it, and his impulse was still to go to a teacher (though for fairly convoluted reasons that never ended up happening), so he felt he had no choice but to dive in and save her.
Rational!Harry learned about it in a manner that gave him the time and space to think about what the best way to deal with the unique knowledge he had would be.
u/Nepene [+2] (a day later)
there's just no way I can imagine Rational!Red would hear about certain things during the normal course of his adventure, and even if he did, the rational response would be to immediately begin investigating them until he figured them out
Because unlike the video games, in the world I have in mind an inexperienced 11 year old trainer would meet a swift end if he really started poking around to find a secret criminal organization's hideout :)
Contradiction. If it's obvious that he would die, then it would be irrational to investigate them.
The obvious solution is for him to learn this, carefully try to investigate them without exposing himself, and see someone else who tried to investigate them get brutally murdered by pokemon, and then back off.
That would be a fun scene, would explain their character very well, and would remove the need for artificial stupidity.
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
Contradiction. If it's obvious that he would die, then it would be irrational to investigate them.
You're assuming he would know that it was obvious when he started investigating.
The obvious solution is for him to learn this, carefully try to investigate them without exposing himself, and see someone else who tried to investigate them get brutally murdered by pokemon, and then back off.
Sounds somewhat like an incompetent secret criminal organization to me, neh? An 11 year old boy finds out about them and gets close enough to witness something like that without being taken out himself?
The bottom line, from my perspective, is that my conception of an intelligent Team Rocket run by a real criminal mastermind is not one that would go around in the open doing dastardly deeds. The only reason Oak is suspicious of one is because he's in a unique position to have known one of the people affected (as implied in the chapter, they only target those that wouldn't be easily missed) and is in a position to have learned of other such disappearances.
Which isn't to say he's the ONLY person who suspects such an organization may exist, but he's one that's close to the protagonist :)
u/Nepene [+2] (a day later)
You're assuming he would know that it was obvious when he started investigating.
It is fairly obvious.
Sounds somewhat like an incompetent secret criminal organization to me, neh? An 11 year old boy finds out about them and gets close enough to witness something like that without being taken out himself?
Murdering children is already a sign of an incompetent secret criminal organization. Killing people prompts huge investigations. It's like a spy who tells everyone he's James Bond.
I'd as such assume one of two things.
Their secrecy is "investigate us and you die." and they're open about it.
They have alternate ways of avoiding investigation.
Fuck ups from minions are possible with either.
The bottom line, from my perspective, is that my conception of an intelligent Team Rocket run by a real criminal mastermind is not one that would go around in the open doing dastardly deeds.
Except wanton murder of children apparently.
Anyway, criminals tend to need to do dastardly deeds in the open. They need cash, are impulsive, and often act psychophysically.
The only reason Oak is suspicious of one is because he's in a unique position to have known one of the people affected (as implied in the chapter, they only target those that wouldn't be easily missed) and is in a position to have learned of other such disappearances.
It doesn't sound like a very interesting organization then. One only scientists encounter.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
It is fairly obvious.
In the hypothetical scenario you've mentally constructed as the only legitimate one, sure :) If you'd like to share it, that might help, but my conception of Team Rocket is not that blatant in their actions.
Murdering children is already a sign of an incompetent secret criminal organization. Killing people prompts huge investigations. It's like a spy who tells everyone he's James Bond.
It's 2: In this world, disposing of bodies is as easy as putting it in a box and and sucking that into a Container ball.
Also, wild pokemon kill people fairly often: not hard to deposit the body in the wild and let people make the natural assumptions.
Fuck ups from minions are possible with either.
Sure, and I'm not going to have every single minion never fuck up. At the same time, I don't see how the whole thing coming to light because of a convenient minion-fuck-up is particularly compelling :)
Except wanton murder of children apparently.
"In the open" being the more relevant part of that :P
Anyway, criminals tend to need to do dastardly deeds in the open. They need cash, are impulsive, and often act psychophysically.
And those criminals tend to get caught. Why on earth would I make the major human antagonists of the story that poor a breed of criminal?
It doesn't sound like a very interesting organization then. One only scientists encounter.
Yeah, the Manhattan Project was totes uninteresting ;P
u/Nepene [+1] (a day later)
In the hypothetical scenario you've mentally constructed as the only legitimate one, sure :) If you'd like to share it, that might help, but my conception of Team Rocket is not that blatant in their actions.
People generally have an aversion to murder, kidnapping, and criminals, and so when someone says "This person is a psycopath" members of polite society tend to avoid them.
It would be like saying "This area has a high crime rate, and several people have been mugged and killed there." The rational response wouldn't necessarily to be to go, as an 11 year old, to that area where people are vanishing or dying. Likewise with a criminal organization.
It's 2: In this world, disposing of bodies is as easy as putting it in a box and and sucking that into a Container ball.
That isn't the main issue with doing crimes effectively, body disposal.
With phones and such, people tend to stay in contact with their family members. They inform them of the location where they are going. If you try to kill anyone who goes to your area you're likely to have several screw ups.
People are going to escape, due to strong pokemon or fast pokemon or luck or minions who don't have a killing instinct.
A basic autopsy is going to reveal that the person didn't die from pokemon local to the area, and probably that they have brain damage from being put in a ball.
Having minions sufficiently murderous to quickly kill anyone who comes close means having impulsive psychopaths likely with a criminal history on your pay, which is risky.
Also, if a police officer (with strong, well trained pokemon and a gun) makes some attempt to investigate it and gets killed you are risking escalating the situation up to swat teams.
Sure, and I'm not going to have every single minion never fuck up. At the same time, I don't see how the whole thing coming to light because of a convenient minion-fuck-up is particularly compelling :)
You wouldn't necessarily have the whole thing come to light, just that if you investigated it you got beaten up.
"In the open" being the more relevant part of that :P
In an era with mobile phones it's not easy to avoid things being in the open, especially if your first response to an inquisitive child is murder.
And those criminals tend to get caught. Why on earth would I make the major human antagonists of the story that poor a breed of criminal?
Because the job of an antagonist, generally, is to interfere with the protagonist's goals in some manner. They should generally cross paths and antagonize each other.
Also, that's why rich people who want to get criminal aid hire local criminal organizations to do their dirty work. If it all goes wrong they take the fall. It tends to mean a better breed of criminal too. You get good at crimes by doing crimes a lot, and that means sometimes getting caught. If your inner circle of people knows a lot about you when stuff goes wrong and the police catch them everything will go badly for you.
Yeah, the Manhattan Project was totes uninteresting ;P
For Japan, for most of the war, yes. Nothing really happened, then they got curbstomped.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
People generally have an aversion to murder, kidnapping, and criminals, and so when someone says "This person is a psycopath" members of polite society tend to avoid them. It would be like saying "This area has a high crime rate, and several people have been mugged and killed there." The rational response wouldn't necessarily to be to go, as an 11 year old, to that area where people are vanishing or dying. Likewise with a criminal organization.
Again, this is assuming the danger is clearly known from the outset, and the Rocket of my world is not that obvious.
With phones and such, people tend to stay in contact with their family members. They inform them of the location where they are going. If you try to kill anyone who goes to your area you're likely to have several screw ups.
Getting into the area would be pretty improbable: far easier to kill them before they get to that point, when they're still snooping around to find it.
People are going to escape, due to strong pokemon or fast pokemon or luck or minions who don't have a killing instinct.
Again relying on the incompetency of the antagonists to propel the plot.
A basic autopsy is going to reveal that the person didn't die from pokemon local to the area, and probably that they have brain damage from being put in a ball.
Assuming enough of the body is left to do a thorough autopsy, even putting aside postmortem wounding to obfuscate. Also, the brain damage has to be something you're looking for: just like we don't autopsy everyone who dies without a reason to suspect foul play, why would they autopsy every apparent pokemon death?
Having minions sufficiently murderous to quickly kill anyone who comes close means having impulsive psychopaths likely with a criminal history on your pay, which is risky.
"Sufficiently murderous" is meaningless in this context: willing to kill people who threaten their health and safety and freedom? Kind of goes along with organized crime. Why would they need to be any more likely to be "impulsive psychopaths?" Do you think only impulsive psychopaths can be cold-blooded killers? Because those are more likely to be sociopaths, and they are not particularly well known for being impulsive.
Also, if a police officer (with strong, well trained pokemon and a gun) makes some attempt to investigate it and gets killed you are risking escalating the situation up to swat teams.
No guns :) But other than that, the police would need something to investigate first. "Secret" in this sense doesn't mean what it does in Saturday Morning Cartoons.
In an era with mobile phones it's not easy to avoid things being in the open, especially if your first response to an inquisitive child is murder.
You make it sound like inquisitive children are just stumbling all over the place trying to find these guys, getting murdered left and right. Once again: Secret. Organization. There's no reason any random child would know about them, which is why there's no reason Red should at this point either.
Because the job of an antagonist, generally, is to interfere with the protagonist's goals in some manner. They should generally cross paths and antagonize each other.
So I should make my bad guys stupid just to ensure the world revolves around Red? Maybe it'll help if you think of it this way: Red isn't the protagonist, Team Rocket is. Red is their antagonist: he just doesn't know it yet.
Also, that's why rich people who want to get criminal aid hire local criminal organizations to do their dirty work. If it all goes wrong they take the fall. It tends to mean a better breed of criminal too. You get good at crimes by doing crimes a lot, and that means sometimes getting caught. If your inner circle of people knows a lot about you when stuff goes wrong and the police catch them everything will go badly for you.
Calling Team Rocket in my world "organized crime" is actually a misnomer: their acts are criminal, but their goals are not what one would normally associate with most criminals, which means they don't care about being hired by rich people to do crimes, especially when they're being bankrolled already to pursue their actual goals.
For Japan, for most of the war, yes. Nothing really happened, then they got curbstomped.
If only they'd had access to an interlude...
u/Nepene [+1] (a day later)
Again, this is assuming the danger is clearly known from the outset, and the Rocket of my world is not that obvious.
If he discovered their existence, presumably he'd have some knowledge that they do crimes, such as kidnapping. Because people who kidnap are scary he would feel some emotional fear of getting close.
Getting into the area would be pretty improbable: far easier to kill them before they get to that point, when they're still snooping around to find it.
They would still, presumably, be asking questions about the right sort of thing, and so someone investigating their death would realize that they repeatedly searched some scientist's name before their death or something.
Again relying on the incompetency of the antagonists to propel the plot.
Actually, it's more relying on the basic competency of people in general.
You are proposing a group with a 100% success rate in something, murder, and are arguing to me that anything less than a 100% success rate would indicate that they have the idiot ball. When I propose that other groups would have basic competency (e.g. they would autopsy bodies), you argue against that basic competency. I could challenge your points on technical grounds such as how destroying evidence is evidence of its own, but there is one other point that is more important. This is reading a lot like a mary sue character. They twist the world to make no one discover their evil ways, are perfect, and are apparently the real protagonist of the story.
And perfect characters aren't very fun. It would be a lot more fun to see a rational character interact with them and display some basic competency (which may mean not doing more than the most surface of investigations) than to hear about how their crimes are perfect and undetectable.
willing to kill people who threaten their health and safety and freedom?
Killing people is psychologically hard, and it takes seconds to speed dial the police. So again- you have a perfect villain who makes everyone around them incompetent.
Once again: Secret. Organization.
One who takes actions which aren't very secret, and just secrets away any problems.
Beggars disappearing is easy to conceal. Respectable members of the middle and upper classes is harder to conceal.
If only they'd had access to an interlude...
Then they'd probably have the same issue we have- they want to learn about the Manhattan project, not about how incompetent everyone but the Manhattan project is.
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
If he discovered their existence, presumably he'd have some knowledge that they do crimes, such as kidnapping. Because people who kidnap are scary he would feel some emotional fear of getting close.
There's a huge difference between "they do crimes, such as kidnapping" and "they're an incredibly powerful and dangerous organization willing to kill to keep their secrets."
They would still, presumably, be asking questions about the right sort of thing, and so someone investigating their death would realize that they repeatedly searched some scientist's name before their death or something.
Sure, but like I said it's not particularly hard to cover up murder in this world, and people don't generally write everything they do in journals for others to find when simply into everything: at most they'd be thinking they're just looking into an isolated incident that might have foul play from a single actor. In such a situation, leaving behind a journal of their suspicions and actions for people to find in case they die is pretty contrived.
Actually, it's more relying on the basic competency of people in general.
You are proposing a group with a 100% success rate in something, murder, and are arguing to me that anything less than a 100% success rate would indicate that they have the idiot ball.
Well now you're attacking a strawman: I've admitted they don't need a 100% success rate: you're just refusing to accept that making mistakes shouldn't automatically result in them losing their secret status, or that this mistakes should conveniently allow an 11 year old trainer to safely find them.
When I propose that other groups would have basic competency (e.g. they would autopsy bodies), you argue against that basic competency. I could challenge your points on technical grounds such as how destroying evidence is evidence of its own, but there is one other point that is more important.
If you want to read it that way, I'm not really sure how else to convince you otherwise: you seem to have made up your mind before even hearing my arguments.
By which I mean you seem inclined to insist that this secret criminal organization should not be able to remain secret within a chapter of it being revealed, and rather than wait to see how it will be revealed through the course of the story, phrase your arguments in such a way that your perspective must be the only proper one.
This is reading a lot like a mary sue character. They twist the world to make no one discover their evil ways, are perfect, and are apparently the real protagonist of the story.
Seriously? I said this mostly in jest to shake up your perspective of "the way things have to be." If I'd known you'd immediately jump to "Mary Sue," I'd have been more careful about deconstructing your argument without humor.
You just called something a Mary Sue without a single character representing it appearing "on screen," as it were, because you disagree with it. Do you think that helps make your argument?
And perfect characters aren't very fun. It would be a lot more fun to see a rational character interact with them and display some basic competency (which may mean not doing more than the most surface of investigations) than to hear about how their crimes are perfect and undetectable.
The only reason you're hearing about it in this hypothetical regard is that you continue to insist that the story you haven't read yet is illogical or irrational for not playing out exactly as you think it should... for no particularly logical or realistic reasons, I might add, despite your insistence of realistic representation. I'm sorry to say that even with our modern technology and forensics, there hae still existed highly successful secretive criminal organizations and conspiracies that were not discovered for years later.
I can't really respond to what would be a "lot more fun" to read or write when I haven't even gotten a chance to write the story as I envision it yet. Simply put, your judgements seem premature.
Killing people is psychologically hard, and it takes seconds to speed dial the police.
Once again, in your hypothetical scenario where a person knows they're soon to be in danger and is carrying their phone in their hand ready to dial the police, you fail to recognize the context being anything different than you imagine, like them a) not even knowing that they've caught the attention of dangerous people yet and/or b) being ambushed while doing something otherwise innocuous.
So again- you have a perfect villain who makes everyone around them incompetent.
God forbid competent villains exist in fiction as they do in reality, where many heads of organized, murderous crime syndicates live successfully for decades before being caught, if they ever do.
One who takes actions which aren't very secret, and just secrets away any problems.
This judgement being based on what evidence, exactly? The musings of Professor Oak based on his idle guesses and worst fears? See again: premature judgements.
Beggars disappearing is easy to conceal. Respectable members of the middle and upper classes is harder to conceal.
You're envisioning people being pushed into a truck in broad daylight, or smuggled out of their houses in the middle of the night. I really can't repeat myself enough in this regard: stop jumping to conclusions and not recognizing that you're making judgements off bad or incompletely data.
Then they'd probably have the same issue we have- they want to learn about the Manhattan project, not about how incompetent everyone but the Manhattan project is.
Be right back, editing my chapter to be 50k words longer and reveal all the major plot-relevant information :)
This has been an entertaining and interesting debate up until this last post, where I feel you were no longer engaging in "good spirit." To me this argument has been a fun hypothetical discussion of the way things might be, but it seems you are taking it as license to not just jump to conclusions based on bad evidence, but to insist that any deviation from these conclusions is objectively bad.
I'm less interested in a discussion like that, so please try to draw back a bit on the strawmen and ad hominem.
u/Nepene [+1] (a day later)
There's a huge difference between "they do crimes, such as kidnapping" and "they're an incredibly powerful and dangerous organization willing to kill to keep their secrets."
There is a huge difference, but not in terms of danger to an eleven year old. They're both going to be dangerous criminals to him.
at most they'd be thinking they're just looking into an isolated incident that might have foul play from a single actor.
Again, a lack of basic competency from anyone investigating.
Suppose Red investigated after his mother or someone told him about the situation.
A basic investigation technique- call the victim's mother.
"Did Red have any enemies?"
"Well, he was investigating something- a lot of scientists have gone missing."
They could then pull his phone records, see he called a few scientist's assistants, talk to them. It wouldn't be that hard to unravel the conspiracy.
Well now you're attacking a strawman: I've admitted they don't need a 100% success rate: you're just refusing to accept that making mistakes shouldn't automatically result in them losing their secret status, or that this mistakes should conveniently allow an 11 year old trainer to safely find them.
There's a limited amount you can do, rationally, to cover up murder, kidnapping, and mass surveillance of anyone who investigates you. Those are incredibly overt and obvious actions. What you are describing is a very overt and non secretive organization being secret through competency and the police being stupid.
My preferred change would be that you either bring the organization out into the open or have them display actual competency rather than just having the world twist around them to hide their actions.
By which I mean you seem inclined to insist that this secret criminal organization should not be able to remain secret within a chapter of it being revealed, and rather than wait to see how it will be revealed through the course of the story, phrase your arguments in such a way that your perspective must be the only proper one.
Actual stealth does require some effort to make things stealthy. If you have people do overtly obvious things like mass kidnapping or murder it stretches credulity. It stretches credulity further when you say that they are such masters at crimes that autopsies reveal nothing. It stretches credulity beyond even that when the police make no effort to investigate this beyond assuming it is all an isolated incident.
It is very possible to do actual things to make it seem more secret- say have there be some sort of front organization that these scientists supposedly join, so they don't seem to have just vanished. They could even be made to call their friends at gun point and leave a message saying they're fine. You're just not doing that.
You just called something a Mary Sue without a single character representing it appearing "on screen," as it were, because you disagree with . Do you think that helps make your argument?
More because of the way you described it.
I'm sorry to say that even with our modern technology and forensics, there hae still existed highly successful secretive criminal organizations and conspiracies that were not discovered for years later.
So, by your logic, I am exaggerating the benefits of technology, as similar organizations have existed in our world.
Sure. Could you name an organization that killed people who investigated it and kidnapped some sort of middle class person en masse without being discovered? Or some similar level of crime.
The only thing I can think of is the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, but they actually had a front purpose, treating black people for bad blood.
Once again, in your hypothetical scenario where a person knows they're soon to be in danger and is carrying their phone in their hand ready to dial the police, you fail to recognize the context being anything different than you imagine
Not really. My issue is more that you seem to assume they instantly and perfectly kill people with no one finding out.
They might manage it once or twice, but if it's their go to response then someone is likely to survive the first attack (perhaps with fatal injuries) and get their pokemon out to defend them for a while, or the shot might miss, or a passerby might help them.
There are a lot of random variables in these things.
God forbid competent villains exist in fiction as they do in reality, where many heads of organized, murderous crime syndicates live successfully for decades before being caught, if they ever do.
Could you name a crime organization that existed for decades doing a similar level to your one and was undiscovered?
This judgement being based on what evidence, exactly? The musings of Professor Oak based on his idle guesses and worst fears? See again: premature judgements.
Evidence.
Scientists and engineers are vanishing en masse.
There is apparently no plausible reason for them vanishing.
People who investigate this are murdered.
You're envisioning people being pushed into a truck in broad daylight, or smuggled out of their houses in the middle of the night. I really can't repeat myself enough in this regard: stop jumping to conclusions and not recognizing that you're making judgements off bad or incompletely data.
Actually, I am envisioning the end result. Someone vanishes, someone who is useful to someone else (e.g. they owe them money for bills), and they kick up a fuss with private investigators and the police to find them.
Be right back, editing my chapter to be 50k words longer and reveal all the major plot-relevant information :)
There is some middle ground between that and people mass murdering investigators and having no one find them out.
This has been an entertaining and interesting debate up until this last post, where I feel you were no longer engaging in "good spirit." To me this argument has been a fun hypothetical discussion of the way things might be, but it seems you are taking it as license to not just jump to conclusions based on bad evidence, but to insist that any deviation from these conclusions is objectively bad.
I haven't said anything of the sorts, so I can't really reply to this. If you have some issue with something I say, that's fine, but if you put words in my mouth then I can't guess what you mean that easily. I haven't said "Any deviation from these conclusions is objectively bad." or anything of the sorts so I can't really change my behaviour since you have given me nothing tangible.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
This entire conversation has spiraled completely away from what it originally was, which was "why isn't Red finding out about these people and investigating them."
Once again, the answers are:
That's not the story I have in mind: I intend a couple years to pass at least before Team Rocket's activities are forced into the public consciousness.
I don't think it would be realistic for Red to find out, investigate, and not die against an organization as powerful and well run as my conception of Team Rocket.
You've provided no alternatives beyond simply asserting again and again that such an organization couldn't exist. I hate to use the "agree to disagree" line, but at this point it seems the only thing I can do, as this is the best you can bring forth for "Evidence" of your perspective:
Scientists and engineers are vanishing en masse.
Incorrect: A limited group of scientists and engineers faded from public life about a decade ago, as implied in the story. This is what I mean by you constructing strawmen and leaping to conclusions: you keep taking things I say and then extrapolating them in a way that implies your perspective the only reasonable one to hold.
There is apparently no plausible reason for them vanishing.
"Apparently" being the key word. This organization has been hinted at by one person in the story, at the end of one chapter: jumping to the conclusions you have from that is entirely premature.
People who investigate this are murdered.
People who would investigate could be murdered, as I've said. Which is why Red investigating them and surviving would be a pretty poor story for a realistic fiction, and your points of "well he could get away by enemy incompetence" or "it's hard for people to feel a killer instinct" are just not compelling arguments that this wouldn't be making the enemies needlessly incompetent, for no other reason than to force Red into a part of the story he has no reason to be involved in yet.
That his death by a professional hitman might result in Team Rocket being investigated and revealed is irrelevant: he'd still be dead. It's not about the police force being incompetent either: that's like saying the Aurors or the Order of the Phoenix is just incompetent because they didn't stop Voldemorte. The whole point of having a threatening over-arching antagonist is that the status quo isn't able to handle them, however competent.
And while I could jump him into the Team Rocket plot early and just bend the universe to ensure that Red's safe by any number of artificial means (any way you try to slice it, a criminal organization that can't effectively kill a child without revealing itself is utterly incompetent), I don't want to do that, and see no reason to when I could tell the story in what I view as a better way over a longer time line.
u/Nepene [+1] (a day later)
I described several failure modes for the organization- discovery upon murder, investigation by police or private investigators, autopsies of killed people, the use of phones. Your response was basically to assume the worst possible investigation possible and blatant stupidity (e.g. not leaving notes behind when you go to investigate a dangerous criminal organization).
"Muggle researchers have found that people are always very optimistic, compared to reality.
That is what you are doing- you are assuming the best of all possible worlds for your criminal organization, even as they risk themselves a lot, numerous times.
There is an obvious alternative. Have a front organization to deflect initial probes that doesn't openly murder people. The more you murder people, the more likely you are to make mistakes and have people die. A smart group would have other options.
A limited group of scientists and engineers faded from public life about a decade ago, as implied in the story.
Ah, I misread that. Still, back then, you'd expect these investigations to have been done.
This is what I mean by you constructing strawmen and leaping to conclusions: you keep taking things I say and then extrapolating them in a way that implies your perspective the only reasonable one to hold.
Actually, you are changing what the story says- no one can get in contact with them- so they did vanish en masse, in a group. That remains in your story. They didn't just fade from public life, they are impossible to contact now.
"Apparently" being the key word. This organization has been hinted at by one person in the story, at the end of one chapter: jumping to the conclusions you have from that is entirely premature.
That is why people investigate these things and find out more. Then apparently get murdered.
People who would investigate could be murdered, as I've said. Which is why Red investigating them and surviving would be a pretty poor story for a realistic fiction, and your points of "well he could get away by enemy incompetence" or "it's hard for people to feel a killer instinct" are just not compelling arguments that this wouldn't be making the enemies needlessly incompetent, for no other reason than to force Red into a part of the story he has no reason to be involved in yet.
With the lack of a killer instinct, that would be a rational thing. If you avoid killing lots of people then you risk your organization less. It is useful for most.
It's not really incompetence to not have perfect surveillance of everything. People see weird things all the time. They would presumably keep the worst of it behind closed doors, but he could find some scary stuff that would scare him off without them being that incompetent.
It's not about the police force being incompetent either: that's like saying the Aurors or the Order of the Phoenix is just incompetent because they didn't stop Voldemorte. The whole point of having a threatening over-arching antagonist is that the status quo isn't able to handle them, however competent.
Do you remember Quirrelmort invading Azkaban with Harry? Even though he was a super antagonist, his intended result when someone discovered them was to kill them. He was ok with that fuck up and saw it as normal. Till Harry stopped him. Even powerful antagonists make mistakes. People see them. You are proposing something beyond that, a murderous dangerous organization that no one knows about.
any way you try to slice it, a criminal organization that can't effectively kill a child without revealing itself is utterly incompetent
I note how, despite my requests, you didn't reveal any real life criminal organizations that murdered people and abducted people without being discovered. Could you name some, proving your point?
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
I described several failure modes for the organization- discovery upon murder, investigation by police or private investigators, autopsies of killed people, the use of phones. Your response was basically to assume the worst possible investigation possible and blatant stupidity (e.g. not leaving notes behind when you go to investigate a dangerous criminal organization).
All of them the result of gross incompetence by the organization (not a minor slipup, but outright incompetence) or a resolution so easy that the common police force is able to achieve it... leaving what room, exactly, for the protagonists?
That is what you are doing- you are assuming the best of all possible worlds for your criminal organization, even as they risk themselves a lot, numerous times.
And your insistence that no criminal organization could remain hidden while engaging in acts you have no real knowledge of similarly strains credulity. You keep saying things like "they could just call the police if they're in danger." Right, because every murder victim in our modern age that has a cell phone does that? No, they don't. Even common criminals can murder someone without them getting a phone call off first, but you think it's unrealistic for elite organized criminals to do so.
Again, "agree to disagree" seems the only option here.
There is an obvious alternative. Have a front organization to deflect initial probes that doesn't openly murder people. The more you murder people, the more likely you are to make mistakes and have people die. A smart group would have other options.
You don't know what their other options are: all you know is what you've assumed based on bad information and my hypothetical response to your "just have Red look around, what's the worst that could happen? It's not like they'll kill him, that's stupid."
Since when is killing people who know too much stupid, exactly? Since you assume that obviously it would be figured out. Well, that's assuming the most optimistic of possible worlds for your scenario, as mentioned.
Ah, I misread that. Still, back then, you'd expect these investigations to have been done.
The point of staggering them over years was so it wasn't as suspicious. Oak only noticed now after over a decade of retrospect.
Actually, you are changing what the story says- no one can get in contact with them- so they did vanish en masse, in a group. That remains in your story. They didn't just fade from public life, they are impossible to contact now.
You misunderstand: "vanish" implies that they're having a completely normal and social life one day, and are suddenly absent the next. When I say "fade," I mean how long it takes for them to lose contact with friends and family: the end result is the same, but the lead up of isolation and withdrawal makes it far less suspicious.
That is why people investigate these things and find out more. Then apparently get murdered.
In every investigation of every criminal organization in all of history, there began a moment where the people who eventually unraveled the conspiracy first suspected it existed in the first place to even begin investigating.
This is that moment, as far as the protagonists are aware. You keep trying to insist that it should have come earlier and that other people should be in on it: I've seen no reason why this is the case.
It's not really incompetence to not have perfect surveillance of everything. People see weird things all the time. They would presumably keep the worst of it behind closed doors, but he could find some scary stuff that would scare him off without them being that incompetent.
Sure, but that scary stuff wouldn't necessarily lead to "there's a secret organization of criminals up to no good," which is what an investigation into Team Rocket would require. Even if he encounters criminals up to no good, that doesn't automatically mean conspiracy. And Red IS going to run into their plots and the symptoms/results of those plots, but he's not going to know from the beginning what's really behind them, and not just because there won't be people wearing black shirts with a big red R on them running around.
Do you remember Quirrelmort invading Azkaban with Harry? Even though he was a super antagonist, his intended result when someone discovered them was to kill them. He was ok with that fuck up and saw it as normal. Till Harry stopped him. Even powerful antagonists make mistakes. People see them. You are proposing something beyond that, a murderous dangerous organization that no one knows about.
I do remember that: I also remember that Quirrelmort told Harry he had intended to push the man out of the way if he didn't dodge on time, reasonably pointing out that if he'd really wanted to kill him, the would have done so immediately.
Of course maybe he was lying, but KNOWING how much he needed Harry's trust, there's no particular reason to think he was: it wasn't a mistake on Quirrelmort's part, it was a lack of trust on Harry's. Which of course still translates to a mistake on Quirrelmort's part for overestimating how much Harry would trust him and underestimating what, if anything, Harry could do about it if he suddenly didn't.
But it's still not a mistake the way you're painting it to be.
And again, for the third time at least: I'm not saying Team Rocket doesn't make mistakes. I'm saying I see no reason for your insistence that these mistakes be immediately crippling to their secrecy. Clearly they've already made one mistake we're aware of, one that took years to be recognized: if Dr. Fuji hadn't told Oak that he was working on a new project, it would be harder for Oak to conclude that he had been recruited to something, rather than dropping out of his work altogether.
I note how, despite my requests, you didn't reveal any real life criminal organizations that murdered people and abducted people without being discovered. Could you name some, proving your point?
Even putting aside what relatively few CIA and other national intelligence agency operations have come to public light, since we're talking about criminals: The American Mafia?
With our modern hindsight, it seems like people have always known about the Mafia, and its major loss of power seems obvious. but the Mafia existed in some form for decades, and wasn't even recognized as such as massive criminal conspiracy until the late 1950s.
Obviously police knew that organized crime as a concept existed, but the extent and influence of their crimes took years to even become aware of, let alone investigate and prove. Until then, any time some operation was uncovered or criminal was arrested, they would simply be considered lone actor or at most part of a small crew.
And that's exactly what I mean by "Team Rocket makes mistakes, but those mistakes don't automatically mean their secrecy is blown." Say one of the engineers that they tried to coerce or kidnap (or whatever they did) fought back and was successful: do they necessarily know everything they need to to suspect a massive criminal conspiracy? Of course not: at most they might just be aware that someone had tried to kidnap or blackmail them. Even if the criminals were caught, a basic lie about their motivations and it's a closed case: not a giant red flag that there's a region-wide criminal organization behind the curtain.
So what's the cutoff point for you for Team Rocket getting away with hypothetical murder/kidnapping? 3 times is okay? 5 times? 10 times stretches credulity? How long do you think a secret can be kept? 3 years? 6? Because the Mafia got away with estimated hundreds over fifty years before a bunch of their leaders were found in a room together in 1957ish (Apalachin Meeting I think), which tipped police off of just how big an organization they were, and utterly changed the way law enforcement investigated and approached organized crime.
Providing any such concrete numbers would make your argument a bit more interesting, but without it you are simply asserting an extreme that's not only fairly easy to dismiss, but making assumptions about how long Team Rocket has existed and how many people, if any, it's killed or disappeared, AND its methods for disposing bodies without drawing suspicion.
u/Nepene [+1] (a day later)
All of them the result of gross incompetence by the organization (not a minor slipup, but outright incompetence) or a resolution so easy that the common police force is able to achieve it... leaving what room, exactly, for the protagonists?
discovery upon murder, investigation by police or private investigators, autopsies of killed people, the use of phones.
Could you describe to me how any of these need gross stupidity?
And your insistence that no criminal organization could remain hidden while engaging in acts you have no real knowledge of similarly strains credulity.
Because it has never happened.
1/6 , perhaps less, of gun injuries lead to death. Humans are tough to kill. The majority of people who are shot survive to tell their tale-a phone isn't even needed. Murdering people is hard.
even common criminals can murder someone without them getting a phone call off first, but you think it's unrealistic for elite organized criminals to do so.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearance_rate
Over 50% of murders and aggregated assaults are solved. It is unusual for murders to go uncovered. That average is dragged down by bad areas in cities. It would be higher for a rural area like pallet.
Over 90%
So yes, it does stretch belief using murder and people not investigating much. There is a 9/10 chance they'll be found out by statistics.
You don't know what their other options are: all you know is what you've assumed based on bad information and my hypothetical response to your "just have Red look around, what's the worst that could happen? It's not like they'll kill him, that's stupid."
I never said anything like that. Please don't make things up.
since when is killing people who know too much stupid, exactly?
See earlier, statistics.
"vanish" implies that they're having a completely normal and social life one day, and are suddenly absent the next. When I say "fade," I mean how long it takes for them to lose contact with friends and family: the end result is the same, but the lead up of isolation and withdrawal makes it far less suspicious.
I am not implying anything- people care where others are. If nothing else, they want to divide up their possessions. Once these people did vanish they would still make an effort to find them for money purposes, for friendship. If someone is missing you can't get their stuff easily.
In every investigation of every criminal organization in all of history, there began a moment where the people who eventually unraveled the conspiracy first suspected it existed in the first place to even begin investigating.
That moment is generally just before they hear about the crime, which provides evidence to their existence.
Even if he encounters criminals up to no good, that doesn't automatically mean conspiracy.
That is good, and sounds fun. It is exactly what I wanted with regards to red interacting with them.
Of course maybe he was lying, but KNOWING how much he needed Harry's trust, there's no particular reason to think he was: it wasn't a mistake on Quirrelmort's part, it was a lack of trust on Harry's.
I might think that initially, but the centaur incident made me distrust him- it looked a lot like he killed him and made him into a blank eyed inferius. He could lie because he wanted harry to trust him. Either way, there would be evidence of his crime, a dead or unconscious auror. That is what crimes produce. Evidence.
Clearly they've already made one mistake we're aware of, one that took years to be recognized: if Dr. Fuji hadn't told Oak that he was working on a new project, it would be harder for Oak to conclude that he had been recruited to something, rather than dropping out of his work altogether.
Unless he is a body double, that is his mistake. If he is a double, I mean with the high risk murders that fail most of the time and are cleared 90%+ of the time.
Even putting aside what relatively few CIA and other national intelligence agency operations have come to public light,
Such as?
With our modern hindsight, it seems like people have always known about the Mafia, and its major loss of power seems obvious. but the Mafia existed in some form for decades, and wasn't even recognized as such as massive criminal conspiracy until the late 1950s.
That is exactly the sort of thing I would like to see in there that would sound rational. I suggested it earlier on how to do crimes and get away with it. The central organisation uses local criminals who are expendable. Everyone knew the black hand ( I think that was what they used to be called) was doing crimes, but they didn't connect them to the larger organisation.
"Team Rocket makes mistakes, but those mistakes don't automatically mean their secrecy is blown." Say one of the engineers that they tried to coerce or kidnap (or whatever they did) fought back and was successful: do they necessarily know everything they need to to suspect a massive criminal conspiracy? Of course not:
That is totally fine, and sounds rational. It is far better than assuming autopsies don't work.
It would be very worthy of an intermission. A story from an engineer of beating up some criminals, a lie from them as to their motives. We readers would only see a tiny bit of the picture and most would not see through the levels of the conspiracy.
So what's the cutoff point for you for Team Rocket getting away with hypothetical murder/kidnapping? 3 times is okay? 5 times? 10 times stretches credulity? How long do you think a secret can be kept? 3 years? 6?
You are talking of separate issues. People were aware someone was killing and abducting people. They weren't aware some people were having meetings or phoning each other. Murder is more open than friendly conversations. It has an over 50% solve rate.
u/demobilizer [+1] (a day later)
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u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (2 days later)
discovery upon murder, investigation by police or private investigators, autopsies of killed people, the use of phones. Could you describe to me how any of these need gross stupidity?
All of which require foreknowledge of conspiracy, which means the criminals did nothing to hide the conspiracy's existence. And you keep mentioning cell phones. I don't know why, presumably your cell phone has a nigh-magical auto-dial-on-event-of-life-endangerment, but as I've explained multiple times, having a cell phone is meaningless if you're killed before you can use it, which is why most people who are murdered do not call the police mid-murder.
Because it has never happened.
What has "never happened?" Killing people and not getting caught? An organization killing people and not being revealed? Seriously?
1/6 , perhaps less, of gun injuries lead to death. Humans are tough to kill. The majority of people who are shot survive to tell their tale-a phone isn't even needed. Murdering people is hard.
Gun injuries that we know of. Gun injuries where they receive medical attention, including gun accidents. Not gun injuries by hitmen, a far smaller sample with far higher mortality.
Furthermore, all of that is irrelevant, as I said before: no guns. There are a number of pokemon that are particularly good at killing people, and those are the kinds of pokemon competent criminals would use to kill someone.
It would be higher for a rural area like pallet.
What in God's green earth gives you the confidence to say "a rural area like pallet?" Why would they have killed someone from Pallet?
So yes, it does stretch belief using murder and people not investigating much. There is a 9/10 chance they'll be found out by statistics.
You just abused statistical interpretation so badly that I'm swiftly losing any interest in this conversation: you're not only twisting facts to suit your argument, you're not even doing it particularly well. Take the most forgiving statistics without controlling for variables and context, and use them to generalize against an entire slew of situations whose details you either make up or ignore?
I never said anything like that. Please don't make things up.
I really don't want to get into a "he said she said": I'm sorry if I've misunderstood or am mischaracterizing your argument, but it seems very much to me that you have indeed been saying something "like that" by implying numerous times that Red could investigate such a thing without getting killed, as it would be stupid of criminal organizations to kill children, even assuming they could muster up the killing instinct to do so.
See earlier, statistics.
Sorry, you spinning them in the most favorable way for your argument doesn't work against people who have actually studied the statistics even a little bit.
I am not implying anything- people care where others are. If nothing else, they want to divide up their possessions. Once these people did vanish they would still make an effort to find them for money purposes, for friendship. If someone is missing you can't get their stuff easily.
Once again, ignoring or forgetting the selective targeting of people who have no remaining social ties.
That moment is generally just before they hear about the crime, which provides evidence to their existence.
...what? They learn about a conspiracy before they hear about a crime? Do you actually think this way, that conspiracies are unearthed, not from the connection of crimes and information, but by thinking up a conspiracy first, and then fitting crimes to a preconceived theory? Where do you think that they hear about the conspiracy in the first place? Who tells them? Someone has to hypothesize it first.
You need to look into how actual police work is done, my friend.
I might think that initially, but the centaur incident made me distrust him- it looked a lot like he killed him and made him into a blank eyed inferius. He could lie because he wanted harry to trust him. Either way, there would be evidence of his crime, a dead or unconscious auror. That is what crimes produce. Evidence.
Crimes produce evidence, but not evidence that can be easily found, and not evidence that always points to clear answers.
Unless he is a body double, that is his mistake. If he is a double, I mean with the high risk murders that fail most of the time and are cleared 90%+ of the time.
You can't actually think that all murders are cleared 90% of the time. You just quoted statistics that say otherwise: not the ones in rural ares, where the vast minority of people live, but cities, where the majority of murders take place. You do know the difference between per-capita and flat statistics, yes? 90% of 100 is less than 40% of 3,000.
Such as?
MK Ultra, Iran Contra, dozens of WWII and gulf war activities... look it up :P
That is exactly the sort of thing I would like to see in there that would sound rational. I suggested it earlier on how to do crimes and get away with it. The central organisation uses local criminals who are expendable. Everyone knew the black hand ( I think that was what they used to be called) was doing crimes, but they didn't connect them to the larger organisation.
Yes! I know! Which is why, for the fourth time at least, I have said that Team Rocket members making mistakes =/= Team Rocket being revealed as an organization!
sighs Now we're getting somewhere, I hope :P
You are talking of separate issues. People were aware someone was killing and abducting people. They weren't aware some people were having meetings or phoning each other. Murder is more open than friendly conversations. It has an over 50% solve rate.
In our world and our technology it may be 50%, but not necessarily in the pokemon world.
u/Nepene [+1] (2 days later)
All of which require foreknowledge of conspiracy, which means the criminals did nothing to hide the conspiracy's existence.
I was talking more of, discovering the murder. You were initially arguing that they could kill a person perfectly with no risk- autopsies would reveal nothing, the person wouldn't escape, they wouldn't be leave any messages. We were talking about Red investigating the and getting killed.
If they have left no hints of their crimes, then him trying to investigate them would do little, and he would likely only get small hints that wouldn't lead to death. That would also be fine. You were initially implying that he could investigate them, just that the result would be death.
which is why most people who are murdered do not call the police mid-murder.
People don't die instantly when someone attacks you. It takes a while to bleed out, and most gun shot wounds don't kill. Your assumption, that most murderers kill somewhat instantly, is false per the statistics I gave you.
What has "never happened?" Killing people and not getting caught? An organization killing people and not being revealed? Seriously?
What you were previously describing- an organization kidnapping people en masse and murdering anyone who investigates them without people knowing that there are kidnappings and murders.
What you are now describing, an organization that does the above and is discovered but the true crime bosses of it aren't discovered, that is possible.
Gun injuries that we know of. Gun injuries where they receive medical attention, including gun accidents. Not gun injuries by hitmen, a far smaller sample with far higher mortality.
Whether they receive medical attention is immaterial. If they can limp to a hospital, they can spill their guts out to the police. My point was, people often survive seemingly fatal injuries for a while, which would give them enough time to phone someone.
Furthermore, all of that is irrelevant, as I said before: no guns. There are a number of pokemon that are particularly good at killing people, and those are the kinds of pokemon competent criminals would use to kill someone.
Using these pokemon would make it obvious in an autopsy. If their body has been blasted by a hyper beam from a gyrados, people will notice.
If they hide the body you have the issue of missing people. Search parties would likely go out, attracting more attention.
Again, with both cases, even assuming their pokemon hits perfectly (and missing is common in pokemon) they are causing more issues that make it likely that a reasonably competent police force would think something was up.
What in God's green earth gives you the confidence to say "a rural area like pallet?" Why would they have killed someone from Pallet?
Most of the world is rural in pokemon, and Red is normally from Pallet. I read the start of your story a while ago, I can't remember if he is also from Pallet.
You just abused statistical interpretation so badly that I'm swiftly losing any interest in this conversation: you're not only twisting facts to suit your argument, you're not even doing it particularly well. Take the most forgiving statistics without controlling for variables and context, and use them to generalize against an entire slew of situations whose details you either make up or ignore?
I'm not abusing statistics, I am using them as intended.
They raise a very good point. The police are good at discovering who murdered people. It's not incredibly hard. As such, you shouldn't generally expect murder to go undiscovered, as a matter of course. Especially if it happens a lot. In our world it is very abnormal for murders to go unsolved.
but it seems very much to me that you have indeed been saying something "like that" by implying numerous times that Red could investigate such a thing without getting killed, as it would be stupid of criminal organizations to kill children, even assuming they could muster up the killing instinct to do so
It would be stupid of them to murder him.
Their first impulse, likely, would be to threaten him. Then to beat him up. Then, if he refused to shut up, kill him. They could kill him, but they likely wouldn't open with it, since murder tends to draw unwanted attention. That is the normal way to overcome your aversion to murder. Escalate until you're in the mood.
Once again, ignoring or forgetting the selective targeting of people who have no remaining social ties.
Lacking social ties doesn't mean your monetary ties would vanish. Your children and partner would want your property, your money, utilities would want money for bills. Other scientists would want to write papers with you, students would want internships.
...what? They learn about a conspiracy before they hear about a crime? Do you actually think this way, that conspiracies are unearthed, not from the connection of crimes and information, but by thinking up a conspiracy first, and then fitting crimes to a preconceived theory? Where do you think that they hear about the conspiracy in the first place? Who tells them? Someone has to hypothesize it first.
You're moving from one issue (can you hide murder perfectly) to another one (can you hide conspiracies perfectly) and are implying that because I disagree with you on the first issue, I disagree with you on the second.
Crimes produce evidence, but not evidence that can be easily found, and not evidence that always points to clear answers.
No, but when people talk about it they might say "I do not know what really happened, but I fear Voldemort's mark." or "I do not know what really happened, but I fear these dangerous criminals." not I wonder why all these people have vanished and died for no discernible reason. They know that a dangerous criminal did it.
You can't actually think that all murders are cleared 90% of the time. You just quoted statistics that say otherwise: not the ones in rural ares, where the vast minority of people live, but cities, where the majority of murders take place. You do know the difference between per-capita and flat statistics, yes? 90% of 100 is less than 40% of 3,000.
I don't, just, Pallet is generally considered a rural area, and Red is from there, and he was the one we were talking about being murdered.
MK Ultra
They used universities as fronts, they were pretty open about testing on humans, just not about being run by the CIA.
To extend the analogy- it would be clear that someone, or some groups, were abducting scientists, though it wouldn't be clear if they were working together.
Iran Contra
I don't think anyone has every questioned that the Iranians were aware that they were being sold weapons.
Yes! I know! Which is why, for the fourth time at least, I have said that Team Rocket members making mistakes =/= Team Rocket being revealed as an organization!
I don't believe I ever said that team rocket making mistakes means team rocket being revealed as an organization. You were originally claiming that they couldn't make any mistakes in murder, and that police investigations would be abysmal.
In our world and our technology it may be 50%, but not necessarily in the pokemon world.
I dunno, I would expect it to be higher in the pokemon world. Better medical tech, cheaper autopsies.
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (2 days later)
People don't die instantly when someone attacks you. It takes a while to bleed out, and most gun shot wounds don't kill. Your assumption, that most murderers kill somewhat instantly, is false per the statistics I gave you.
One of these days you're going to learn the difference between generalized statistics and specific circumstances, but someone who has the intent to kill you is not going to shoot you once, then sit back and watch you slowly bleed out and perhaps call the police while you're at it.
Even less likely would someone with a deadly pokemon merely have them take a bite out of you then call them off, especially when they need to dispose of your body afterward.
What you were previously describing- an organization kidnapping people en masse and murdering anyone who investigates them without people knowing that there are kidnappings and murders. What you are now describing, an organization that does the above and is discovered but the true crime bosses of it aren't discovered, that is possible.
That was actually what I was always describing, as I have noted multiple times now: you were simply getting caught up in the optimistic perspective that most crimes are solved and solvable and Justice Finds a Way :P
Whether they receive medical attention is immaterial. If they can limp to a hospital, they can spill their guts out to the police. My point was, people often survive seemingly fatal injuries for a while, which would give them enough time to phone someone.
It's really, really not "immaterial," and I can't even begin to understand what makes you think this. The entire medical infrastructure and emergency response vehicle system, with trained EMTs capable of helping someone survive an injury until they reach the ER, exists exactly because it helps people survive things like gunshot wounds.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324712504578131360684277812
And, again, as should have been obvious from the beginning, criminal hitmen who have the explicit intent to kill someone do not merely injure them then walk away and hope they don't 1) go to a hospital or 2) call the police.
Please just admit you were drawing incorrect conclusions from logic and data that do not apply to the specific situations referred to by this conversation, because at this point you're just sounding silly. I won't think less of you if you say "Yeah, I guess that is a different situation than I had in mind," but this rigid clinging to your overgeneralized conception of mortality rates in the face of deliberate hitmen is making me suspect that you simply enjoy arguing more than you do having an intellectually honest discussion.
Using these pokemon would make it obvious in an autopsy. If their body has been blasted by a hyper beam from a gyrados, people will notice.
Sounds like a stupid criminal to me.
If they hide the body you have the issue of missing people. Search parties would likely go out, attracting more attention.
Right, and they'd find the body killed by pokemon.
Again, with both cases, even assuming their pokemon hits perfectly (and missing is common in pokemon) they are causing more issues that make it likely that a reasonably competent police force would think something was up.
...What? "(and missing is common in pokemon)?" Seriously, now? You're using a game conceit to justify your absurd premise and dogged insistence on your version of hypotheticals?
No, missing isn ot commong in pokemon. The vast majority of pokemon moves are 90-100% accuracy, and only the most powerful moves miss often, and there's no reason whatsoever to use a Hydro Pump to kill a human when you can just bite their head off.
This isn't remotely interesting anymore: your arguments are becoming weaker and weaker.
Most of the world is rural in pokemon, and Red is normally from Pallet. I read the start of your story a while ago, I can't remember if he is also from Pallet.
"Most of the world" =/= "where most people live," and again you are jumping to conclusions to fit your hypothesis.
I'm not abusing statistics, I am using them as intended.
No you're not, you're misapplying data to un-similar circumstances and constructing your own conclusions that they don't support.
They raise a very good point. The police are good at discovering who murdered people. It's not incredibly hard. As such, you shouldn't generally expect murder to go undiscovered, as a matter of course. Especially if it happens a lot. In our world it is very abnormal for murders to go unsolved.
Huge oversimplifications that you just made aside: in our world being the key difference that you insist on ignoring when convenient for your argument :)
It would be stupid of them to murder him. Their first impulse, likely, would be to threaten him. Then to beat him up. Then, if he refused to shut up, kill him. They could kill him, but they likely wouldn't open with it, since murder tends to draw unwanted attention. That is the normal way to overcome your aversion to murder. Escalate until you're in the mood.
Holy Raptor Jesus, you're really still using this argument. You're really still insisting that when someone is told they need to kill someone, and they study their schedule and movements with the intent to quickly kll them and then hide the evidence, they need to "work up" to it on the scene, maybe "beat them up" a little.
I can't tell if your perspective is that warped by literature and movies meant for children, or if you just don't want to admit that you're wrong that badly. I really don't care which it is anymore: you're wasting my time with strawmen.
Lacking social ties doesn't mean your monetary ties would vanish. Your children and partner would want your property, your money, utilities would want money for bills. Other scientists would want to write papers with you, students would want internships.
Children and partner folks! Unconnected scientists who have children and partners! Yep! That's what that word means! Utility companies are so hard to fool, I'll tell you what! Their Super Secret Criminal Conspiracy Radar would go off the second a bill is paid late: No way a competent crime organization would forsee and take care of something like that!
You're moving from one issue (can you hide murder perfectly) to another one (can you hide conspiracies perfectly) and are implying that because I disagree with you on the first issue, I disagree with you on the second.
No, see, you keep conflating the two: I'm the one that has been telling you from the beginning (go back and check if you'd like) that making mistakes in one does not automatically imply the other.
But you keep insisting that you can't get away with murder, that police are supermen and humans are made of adamantium steel, and that as long as you can come up with a hypothetical situation where murderers have to beat up their targets first and then just walk away and hope they die, perhaps making a call to the police or getting to a hospital along the way, then clearly everything's smooth sailing for the Forces of Good.
I'm exaggerating your argument now, by the way, because it's rather ridiculous, and I'm tired of debunking it again and again and having you insist that the law of averages will always side in the favor of your hypotheticals.
So let's just agree to disagree, because if you have such a naive and simpistic view of how crimes work, and are so bad at applying new information to generalizations that you honestly believe a hitman with specific purpose wouldn't stick around and ensure a swift kill of their target, we have nothing further to discuss: we're just living on two different planets for how logic and reasonable hypotheticals work.
No, but when people talk about it they might say "I do not know what really happened, but I fear Voldemort's mark." or "I do not know what really happened, but I fear these dangerous criminals." not I wonder why all these people have vanished and died for no discernible reason. They know that a dangerous criminal did it.
Again, ignoring previous parts of our conversation to insist on your original premise. Next!
I don't, just, Pallet is generally considered a rural area, and Red is from there, and he was the one we were talking about being murdered.
And yet he's not there now. So you think he's going to go back for some reason before being murdered? You think "being from a small town" is some kind of magic aura that surrounds a person their whole life, so that if they're murdered their homicide is that much easier to solve?
Quick answer: that's not how statistics work. Or magic auras, for that matter.
Next!
They used universities as fronts, they were pretty open about testing on humans, just not about being run by the CIA.
To extend the analogy- it would be clear that someone, or some groups, were abducting scientists, though it wouldn't be clear if they were working together.
Which is why Oak had multiple guesses, and didn't automatically believe the third.
Next!
I don't think anyone has every questioned that the Iranians were aware that they were being sold weapons.
Not the argument :)
Next!
I don't believe I ever said that team rocket making mistakes means team rocket being revealed as an organization. You were originally claiming that they couldn't make any mistakes in murder, and that police investigations would be abysmal.
You surely did make that connection in your multiple disparate threads of argument a number of times.
Next!
I dunno, I would expect it to be higher in the pokemon world. Better medical tech, cheaper autopsies.
Pokemon are more lethal than guns, and the technology to hide evidence is far more powerful.
Well this has been a fun use of 20 minutes, but if you insist on continuing it, fair warning: I'm going to ignore any parts of your response that simply repeats yourself or raises a point that I've already addressed :)
u/Nepene [+1] (2 days later)
One of these days you're going to learn the difference between generalized statistics and specific circumstances, but someone who has the intent to kill you is not going to shoot you once, then sit back and watch you slowly bleed out and perhaps call the police while you're at it.
And someone who is shot once isn't going to stick around to be shot again. They're going to run away, bring out pokemon. That was my original issue with your argument. You were assuming only the criminals could be competent. The people they attack couldn't be competent and try to dodge the attacks.
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/PressRelease/pressReleaseId-110177.html
That isn't what research on hitmen says happens. A lot of them bungle it or fail to do it (as I said, killing people is hard) and those that do it often do it in public. The best generally come in from another region and do it, and have few ties to the region. If you stay in one area to scope someone out you're more likely to get caught.
That was actually what I was always describing, as I have noted multiple times now: you were simply getting caught up in the optimistic perspective that most crimes are solved and solvable and Justice Finds a Way :P
It's not really optimism, just statistics.
The entire medical infrastructure and emergency response vehicle system, with trained EMTs capable of helping someone survive an injury until they reach the ER, exists exactly because it helps people survive things like gunshot wounds.
And that's great for them, though it doesn't really address my point that if people can survive to the hospital, they can survive to make a phone call.
Please just admit you were drawing incorrect conclusions from logic and data that do not apply to the specific situations referred to by this conversation, because at this point you're just sounding silly. I won't think less of you if you say "Yeah, I guess that is a different situation than I had in mind," but this rigid clinging to your overgeneralized conception of mortality rates in the face of deliberate hitmen is making me suspect that you simply enjoy arguing more than you do having an intellectually honest discussion.
You don't really have any special intellectual credit over me- you are just saying "Hitmen are always or mostly successful" without actually referring to the research on them.
Likely because the research also shows a reasonable failure rate for hitmen too.
Sounds like a stupid criminal to me.
The issue is that the pokemon that are especially good at killing don't necessarily frequent the locations you are suggesting. For example, you seem to be getting very annoyed at me for saying that the solve rate for rural murders in high when most people live in cities, but at the same time you're saying that these hitmen are going to kill their victims in the wild where pokemon live, aka a rural area. Wild pokemon don't tend to exist much in the cities. Most wild pokemon are often not great at killing anyway (otherwise people would avoid that region) and so if a hitman wants to kill someone in the wild they would have to use a more effective pokemon from another region, which would show up on the autopsy.
Right, and they'd find the body killed by pokemon.
Killed by pokemon that are very good at killing, and probably aren't native to that region.
"Most of the world" =/= "where most people live," and again you are jumping to conclusions to fit your hypothesis.
You're suggesting they kill them in a city (where most people live), and then take their body to a rural area where wild pokemon attack and dump it?
That sounds quite high risk. A lot of camera around, and people would know that the person was in the city. It would look incredibly unnatural.
Huge oversimplifications that you just made aside: in our world being the key difference that you insist on ignoring when convenient for your argument :)
And in your world, the mary sue organization is much more successful :)
And improved technology only works for them, no one else can benefit.
Hence why I am challenging you. I'd prefer to see hyper competent police and criminals, not just hyper competent criminals. It's annoying seeing people hold the idiot ball.
You're really still insisting that when someone is told they need to kill someone, and they study their schedule and movements with the intent to quickly kll them and then hide the evidence, they need to "work up" to it on the scene, maybe "beat them up" a little.
Have you actually read up on any accounts of real life criminals, or hitmen, or murderers?
Hitmen do have a high failure rate, so working up to it is easier.
It's also good to avoid killing, because killing has a high failure rate, and is often discovered.
Children and partner folks! Unconnected scientists who have children and partners! Yep! That's what that word means!
Do you remember what you wrote in your chapter? He lost his daughter, and his wife divorced him. So they can have children and he has an ex wife, who may well want his home if he dies. He could easily have had other children, or children that abandoned him. If not, he could have siblings who didn't talk to him much.
So let's just agree to disagree, because if you have such a naive and simpistic view of how crimes work, and are so bad at applying new information to generalizations that you honestly believe a hitman with specific purpose wouldn't stick around and ensure a swift kill of their target, we have nothing further to discuss: we're just living on two different planets for how logic and reasonable hypotheticals work.
I really think you should read up on actual hitmen. It would help a lot.
I'm exaggerating your argument now, by the way, because it's rather ridiculous, and I'm tired of debunking it again and again and having you insist that the law of averages will always side in the favor of your hypotheticals.
Debunking it would require you actually making some arguments against it that were coherent- e.g. the solve rate for crimes is much lower in the cities, so they could kill people in the cities more easily.
But then you forget other parts of your argument, like that they have to be killed by wild pokemon who live in the wild.
They might get away with it some number of times, I just wouldn't describe them as competent if murder was their go to tool for solving problems. Their competency is an implied attribute rather than something we see in the story.
Utility companies are so hard to fool, I'll tell you what! Their Super Secret Criminal Conspiracy Radar would go off the second a bill is paid late: No way a competent crime organization would forsee and take care of something like that!
So they are paying the utility bill after they vanish? That's also evidence.
Which is why Oak had multiple guesses, and didn't automatically believe the third. Next!
Other people would likely also be competent and realize what had happened, and other scientists and engineers, being afraid for their lives due to the obvious evidence of people vanishing, would beef up their security measures.
Not the argument :) Next!
As I've said, I have no issue with the conspiracy remaining hidden, just with people vanishing and no one realizing, or people being murdered without being discovered.
You surely did make that connection in your multiple disparate threads of argument a number of times.
No, I just said that people would discover that scientists were vanishing, likely due to criminal activity.
Pokemon are more lethal than guns, and the technology to hide evidence is far more powerful.
And medical tech is better (e.g. magic healing sprays), and the technology to discover evidence is far more powerful too. It is an arms race, and both sides have new advantages.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (3 days later)
That isn't what research on hitmen says happens. A lot of them bungle it or fail to do it (as I said, killing people is hard) and those that do it often do it in public. The best generally come in from another region and do it, and have few ties to the region. If you stay in one area to scope someone out you're more likely to get caught.
Once again, taking specific information and generalizing it in a way that most benefits you. The article you linked to specifically mentions the "class" of hitman, and your arguments might apply if we weren't specifically talking about career criminals with specialized training in murder.
See: competent criminal. But you look at the 200 dollar novice and say "Well, hitmen just suck, so of course Team Rocket couldn't get away with it."
but at the same time you're saying that these hitmen are going to kill their victims in the wild where pokemon live, aka a rural area.
Wrong: I said they would relocate their bodies to places where it's feasible that a pokemon would commit the act.
And again, sixth time now: evidence of murder =/= solved murder =/= blown conspiracy. I think we've established that last part, at least, but you're still insisting that any imperfection in the method of the murder or coverup should result in a solved crime. It's simply not the case.
Killed by pokemon that are very good at killing, and probably aren't native to that region.
Again, drawing assumptions out of lack of knowledge: what there are pokemon very good at killing in just about every region.
And in your world, the mary sue organization is much more successful :)
And improved technology only works for them, no one else can benefit.
Hence why I am challenging you. I'd prefer to see hyper competent police and criminals, not just hyper competent criminals. It's annoying seeing people hold the idiot ball.
I would be more inclined to believe this if you weren't so quick to use bad evidence and twist statistics to back your arguments, because you continue to do this, as evidenced by the "the data doesn't back up competent hitmen" generalization.
Have you actually read up on any accounts of real life criminals, or hitmen, or murderers?
I spent a year and a half studying forensic psychology, so yeah, it's kind of one of my major interests, which is part of why I find your insistence on your misuse of data to back your assertions so frustrating. Especially when you say things like this:
I really think you should read up on actual hitmen. It would help a lot.
When your arguments are all based on badly applied overgeneralizations of data, and special pleading to ignore any contexts or factors that make your proposed scenarios less likely.
Do you remember what you wrote in your chapter? He lost his daughter, and his wife divorced him. So they can have children and he has an ex wife, who may well want his home if he dies. He could easily have had other children, or children that abandoned him. If not, he could have siblings who didn't talk to him much.
And in your continued insistence on ignoring the concept of a competent criminal, you, a usual, ignore the idea that if any of that were the case, they wouldn't have targeted him.
But then you forget other parts of your argument, like that they have to be killed by wild pokemon who live in the wild.
As I explained above, this was your mistake, not mine, because you keep assuming things, sometimes due to misreading what I say.
For the record, incase this isn't clear: "wild pokemon" are indistinguishable from "captured pokemon." You keep bringing it up like there's no overlap, and jumping to the most extreme, absurd examples like "Gyarados hyperbeam" to support your argument.
They might get away with it some number of times, I just wouldn't describe them as competent if murder was their go to tool for solving problems. Their competency is an implied attribute rather than something we see in the story.
You haven't even seen them in the story. That's part of what makes your arguments so easy to dismiss: you are literally shooting in the dark and hoping you hit the right answer based on your preconceptions of how the world and story work.
So they are paying the utility bill after they vanish? That's also evidence.
...Yes... They're paying the utility bill...
Obviously that's the only rational path a competent hitman can take on the problem of "how do I not arouse suspicion."
Wait, no, there aren't any of those, I forgot. sighs
Other people would likely also be competent and realize what had happened, and other scientists and engineers, being afraid for their lives due to the obvious evidence of people vanishing, would beef up their security measures.
Three prepositions based on unfounded arguments based on bad evidence. I think that's your record.
No, I just said that people would discover that scientists were vanishing, likely due to criminal activity.
Except they're not vanishing, as I've said multiple times, and recently clarified. But you refuse to accept the idea of a competent ciriminal, so back around the merry-go-round we go.
And medical tech is better (e.g. magic healing sprays),
Useless without the chance to apply it.
and the technology to discover evidence is far more powerful too.
Evidence of this in any pokemon game or media whatsoever? I'd love to add it into the story, I just have no idea where you're pulling this assumption from.
u/Nepene [+1] (3 days later)
See: competent criminal. But you look at the 200 dollar novice and say "Well, hitmen just suck, so of course Team Rocket couldn't get away with it."
Even competent hitmen are often caught.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hojo.12063/full
The vast majority of those convicted had just one kill, giving evidence to my claim that murders often get solved.
The sort of killer who they note isn't captured is described as such- geographically mobile, killing their victim from a distance, and having no connections to the victims.
That would be a big issue for your sorts of killers. You want them to kill the person with pokemon (which lack the range of sniper rifles) and to hide the evidence (meaning they contaminate the crime scene) and move the body and not be seen which means following the routine of the person.
You're adding a lot of variables to the kill which make it less likely for them to not be caught. It's a lot easier to just kill someone and run. That is what good hitmen do. You're describing hitmen who tend to get caught by their behavior.
but you're still insisting that any imperfection in the method of the murder or coverup should result in a solved crime. It's simply not the case.
I'm pushing forward a more limited case- people should be able to tell what happened in the world. If someone is killed, they can tell by what pokemon, they can tell who was killed, they can tell what the job of the person killed was and talk about it with their companions.
If they do overt things like kill everyone investigating them, that is somewhat risky- a reasonably competent police force could investigate the people who were killed and work out what they were doing before death. They do all the basic stuff a reasonably competent cop would do- do an autopsy, ask what the person killed was doing before they died, talk with colleagues.
If people were stalking them for a while, especially in a city, there's a good chance they could discover that.
It would be good to not leave that evidence, hence why killing everyone who investigates them is risky. And like with the mafia, there likely would be evidence of their crimes and the police would be aware of their actions. They just wouldn't be aware they were working for some common purpose, I agree with you on that.
Again, drawing assumptions out of lack of knowledge: what there are pokemon very good at killing in just about every region.
You need pokemon that can effectively kill people from a distance, or those people are likely to dodge or draw out weapons or call someone. There aren't effective long ranged pokemon in every region. That means you have to get close and personal, that means you have to get the crime scene dirty.
as evidenced by the "the data doesn't back up competent hitmen" generalization.
I can see why from your perspective I would have flawed judgement, but since I never said "The data doesn't back up competent hitmen" your perspective is inaccurate. You are making up arguments for me, strawmen. This is why I regularly quote you- if you have some disagreement with me it's a lot easier if you express that when I say something, rather than making something up later.
When your arguments are all based on badly applied overgeneralizations of data, and special pleading to ignore any contexts or factors that make your proposed scenarios less likely.
This statement would be a lot better with concrete evidence. You generally just make vague statements like 'the hitmen wouldn't be discovered if they killed someone as the autopsy would just reveal it was a wild pokemon.' you're giving me somewhat incomplete contexts and factors that don't really follow through fully.
Let's take a hypothetical scenario. Someone goes to Cerulean City, and talks to Bill, he gives them some information on a lost colleague. They then investigate an abandoned house, searching for evidence of a crime done. This house is abandoned because a scientist was taken from in by the crime team, so they want to kill him.
How do they kill him. Do they attack him in a back alley? Do they follow him around for a while to find a good time? How do they avoid cameras? What do they do if he has a pokemon out to protect him? What if he has a companion? Where do they transport him to in the wild when they kill them? Do they fly there or walk, what if one route is monitored? How do they avoid being discovered in the wild? What if he is expecting to meet someone?
There's a lot of variables to that problem. You're not showing me any clear way to accomplish that, you're just saying it happens because competency.
Because of all those variables, that is why master hitmen don't try to conceal their kills. Or if they do, they pick vulnerable people who come to a location of their choosing like an abandoned factory. Too many variables means killing is likely to fail.
And in your continued insistence on ignoring the concept of a competent criminal, you, a usual, ignore the idea that if any of that were the case, they wouldn't have targeted him.
It is an established part of canon that he has an ex wife, so that ship is sailed. If he died, she would likely want all his stuff so she could have money. That is what relatives do- they try to suck money from you. You being an antisocial person won't stop them doing that.
For the record, incase this isn't clear: "wild pokemon" are indistinguishable from "captured pokemon." You keep bringing it up like there's no overlap, and jumping to the most extreme, absurd examples like "Gyarados hyperbeam" to support your argument.
I was presuming you meant relatively dangerous pokemon, which don't frequent common areas, not common pokemon which aren't hugely dangerous in immediate ways.
You haven't even seen them in the story. That's part of what makes your arguments so easy to dismiss: you are literally shooting in the dark and hoping you hit the right answer based on your preconceptions of how the world and story work.
It's not really that necessary, your descriptions are quite clear.
...Yes... They're paying the utility bill... Obviously that's the only rational path a competent hitman can take on the problem of "how do I not arouse suspicion."
Paying the utility bill initially lowers suspicion, but later raises it when people wonder why the utility bill is paid when the person isn't there.
Three prepositions based on unfounded arguments based on bad evidence. I think that's your record.
It's fairly well founded- people are no longer there. There may have been incidents with criminals abducting them. Someone paid their utility bills after they vanished.
Except they're not vanishing, as I've said multiple times, and recently clarified. But you refuse to accept the idea of a competent ciriminal, so back around the merry-go-round we go.
At some point, they did. They may have reduced their social ties, so they talked to people less, but at some point they, apparently, vanished. I'm not claiming they didn't reduce their social ties, just pointing out that at some point they stopped answering any calls, stopped buying food, stopped ordering things, and people would notice.
Useless without the chance to apply it.
Suppose there's an 80% chance of killing someone in the first attack. Then that 20% is suddenly a lot more important. Healing increases the failure modes.
Evidence of this in any pokemon game or media whatsoever? I'd love to add it into the story, I just have no idea where you're pulling this assumption from.
They have instant healing technology, and the ability to upload people into data. They at several times modify these bits of data, with polygon say. Both would imply very good scanning technology, in that they can very easily manipulate flesh and identify problems and the fact that they can convert things into data and then do stuff with that data.
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Glasses
They also have xray glasses that let you see through walls. That would be a great boon for any doctor.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (3 days later)
Let's take a hypothetical scenario. Someone goes to Cerulean City, and talks to Bill, he gives them some information on a lost colleague. They then investigate an abandoned house, searching for evidence of a crime done. This house is abandoned because a scientist was taken from in by the crime team, so they want to kill him.
Abandoned house answered below: an innocuous member of the organization lives there now. "When did he sell it to you?" "About a year ago." "Did he say where he was going?" "Don't quite remember, somewhere in Unova I think? Sorry I can't be more helpful."
How do they kill him. Do they attack him in a back alley? Do they follow him around for a while to find a good time? How do they avoid cameras? What do they do if he has a pokemon out to protect him? What if he has a companion? Where do they transport him to in the wild when they kill them? Do they fly there or walk, what if one route is monitored? How do they avoid being discovered in the wild? What if he is expecting to meet someone?
At this point we're assuming someone is investigating, not just a murder/disappearance, but a criminal investigation. There's no particular reason for them to do so in most cases, as we've agreed that even if someone suspects murder/kidnapping, that doesn't mean there's a conspiracy.
But let's say they do think it's a conspiracy: the only reason to kill them is if they actually unearth information. Having a lone conspiracy theorist out there isn't a big deal: clearly there are a number, for Oak to have heard of some of them. Most are probably completely off, but some might be right.
So how to murder someone in the pokemon world? Depends: do they live alone? If they do, sneak into their house while they're not home, wait for them in their bedroom with your Hitmonlee, and the second they walk through the door, order a kick strong enough to shatter stone. Chances of survival upon contact are negligible, and even if you survive, you're a broken mess, ready for a finishing blow.
Now you put their body in a commonly used box for Containers, absorb the body, and clean up whatever evidence there might be. If you want them to "disappear," drop the Container into the ocean. If you want their murder to be known, go to a secure, private location (where you can easily clean up any mess) and have your Nidorino (or Arcanine, or Graveler, or whatever) savage the body a bit: crush or bite their head off, trample/chew on their body a bit. Now bring the body to some nearby area where Nidorino/Arcanine/Graveler/etc are found and release the body.
Is it foolproof? No. Maybe someone notices inconsistency in the marks. Maybe someone notices less blood than there should be. But "I think this person might have been murdered" is a whole new hurdle to jump: I'm just presenting one possibility of countless.
Because of all those variables, that is why master hitmen don't try to conceal their kills. Or if they do, they pick vulnerable people who come to a location of their choosing like an abandoned factory. Too many variables means killing is likely to fail.
Paying the utility bill initially lowers suspicion, but later raises it when people wonder why the utility bill is paid when the person isn't there.
That was actually sarcasm >.> Sorry, it was a moment of exasperation and dwindling patience. My actual response is it's far more likely that they simply have one of their associates buy the house or apartment themselves.
I'm not claiming they didn't reduce their social ties, just pointing out that at some point they stopped answering any calls, stopped buying food, stopped ordering things, and people would notice.
Okay, but I still think you're heavily overestimating how social everyone must be, or heavily underestimating how little strangers take note of strangers. Again, I'm not saying they could get away with it every time, but about 2300 people go missing a day in our world, and not all of them are ever found.
They have instant healing technology, and the ability to upload people into data. They at several times modify these bits of data, with polygon say. Both would imply very good scanning technology, in that they can very easily manipulate flesh and identify problems and the fact that they can convert things into data and then do stuff with that data.
The idea of uploading a corpse into data and analyzing the code is interesting, actually, and not something I considered before, but it still requires a) suspicion of foul play (going back to the "we don't autopsy every corpse" idea, not all deaths are treated like homicides without apparent reason first) and b) is still something that can be accounted for: my Hitmonlee hit his chest and head with the killing kicks? Better make sure my Nidorino particularly savages those parts, so there's all the original damage is overriden by the new one (or the flesh removed altogehter).
Definitely an interesting idea though, so thanks for bringing that up :)
They also have xray glasses that let you see through walls. That would be a great boon for any doctor.
Okay, there are definitely no x-ray specs :P First off, that item is from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, which isn't even canon in the standard canon, and secondly the description doesn't even imply that you could see through things with it: it just happens to be called "x-ray specs" for no particular reason.
u/Nepene [+1] (3 days later)
At this point we're assuming someone is investigating, not just a murder/disappearance, but a criminal investigation. There's no particular reason for them to do so in most cases, as we've agreed that even if someone suspects murder/kidnapping, that doesn't mean there's a conspiracy.
But let's say they do think it's a conspiracy: the only reason to kill them is if they actually unearth information. Having a lone conspiracy theorist out there isn't a big deal: clearly there are a number, for Oak to have heard of some of them. Most are probably completely off, but some might be right.
At this point, your position has substantially softened from your initial one. As such, Red could investigate their crimes and see some stuff and not be killed. He would simply be seen as a conspiracy nut. That is definitely something that would be fun for people to see.
So how to murder someone in the pokemon world? Depends: do they live alone? If they do, sneak into their house while they're not home, wait for them in their bedroom with your Hitmonlee, and the second they walk through the door, order a kick strong enough to shatter stone. Chances of survival upon contact are negligible, and even if you survive, you're a broken mess, ready for a finishing blow.
Assumptions.
They are the first person to come in, not a friend or family member or a pokemon.
They don't hear the person inside the house. This is a very unreliable thing- they may have ultra sensitive hearing or smell, or have a pokemon with ultra sensitive hearing or smell. They may even have a zubat, which sees with ultrasound.
They are the first one in their room. If their pokemon goes in first there will be problems.
Their security systems don't warn them, neighbors don't see them enter.
Their pokemon doesn't leave any marks when they kill the person and are silent. If they smash up the person's house or leave it splattered with blood or make a massive noise they are likely to draw attention. This is why I was assuming you would use a less physical pokemon. This would be a bloody, noisy attack, and very reliant on luck. I wouldn't expect it to have a high success rate.
Those are a lot of ifs that you can't really control for easily.
If they are really unlucky and did that to Red, they might meet Oak.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcayQInka-c
Who in a cut fight, had the strongest pokemon in generation one.
There's also the forensic issue of pokemon. It will look very weird that their pokemon haven't been beaten up.
Now you put their body in a commonly used box for Containers, absorb the body, and clean up whatever evidence there might be. If you want them to "disappear," drop the Container into the ocean.
A person has mysteriously vanished, and a white middle/upper class kid too, which will likely spark a manhunt.
If you want their murder to be known, go to a secure, private location (where you can easily clean up any mess) and have your Nidorino (or Arcanine, or Graveler, or whatever) savage the body a bit: crush or bite their head off, trample/chew on their body a bit. Now bring the body to some nearby area where Nidorino/Arcanine/Graveler/etc are found and release the body.
Fine, except for the smashed/ indented wall in their house, which the hitmonlee kicked them into, the large amount of blood sprayed everywhere which their forensics turns up despite scrubbing, and the decaying corpses of the mother and prof oak who wandered into that room along with the explosions and damage of the home from his fight with them, and his missing friends (see-canon) who died along with him when they came home with him.
This was why I was assuming you'd use a less physical pokemon. Melee confrontations are risky. There are a lot of things that could go wrong with your plan.
That was actually sarcasm >.> Sorry, it was a moment of exasperation and dwindling patience. My actual response is it's far more likely that they simply have one of their associates buy the house or apartment themselves.
If someone had explicitly said that, that when they called the person's house the person said 'This person moved, they are not there anymore, they moved to x place' that would be a lot less suspicious than them just vanishing. There would be a cover story for them that was entirely plausible.
Okay, but I still think you're heavily overestimating how social everyone must be, or heavily underestimating how little strangers take note of strangers. Again, I'm not saying they could get away with it every time, but about 2300 people go missing a day in our world, and not all of them are ever found.
You are misusing the data.
For example, the federal government counted 840,279 missing persons cases in 2001. All but about 50,000 were juveniles, classified as anyone younger than 18.
So, the vast majority of missing cases are angsty teenagers. Older males, engineers and scientists vanishing, is much rarer and so is statistically distinct.
Of those who aren't young people.
About four out of 10 missing adults are white, three of 10 black and two of 10 Latino.
A lot are racial minorities.
elderly citizens suffering from dementia make up other significant subgroups of missing adults.
Or people suffering from dementia, which these scientists presumably weren't, since they are being recruited for some evil scheme.
So it would be weird. People do take note of rich/middle class people vanishing.
Definitely an interesting idea though, so thanks for bringing that up :)
You're welcome.
my Hitmonlee hit his chest and head with the killing kicks? Better make sure my Nidorino particularly savages those parts, so there's all the original damage is overriden by the new one (or the flesh removed altogehter).
I'm not sure this would be something you'd need to do. Nidorino can learn tackle and double kick, which would look like this. My main issue with this plan is the high level of luck it requires, and the blood stains coating the cracked wall of their house.
and secondly the description doesn't even imply that you could see through things with it: it just happens to be called "x-ray specs" for no particular reason.
From what I can read, the implication is that when you are in a dungeon with walls you can see in all directions as though there were no walls, hence you seeing all trainers and items.
Anyway, while they are in slightly separate canon, they did have an anime episode. They are a useful guide as to how the creators see the pokemon world technology.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (3 days later)
At this point, your position has substantially softened from your initial one. As such, Red could investigate their crimes and see some stuff and not be killed. He would simply be seen as a conspiracy nut. That is definitely something that would be fun for people to see.
I would argue this isn't a softening actually, as I definitely said early on that he would HAVE to investigate it if he saw something (which would eventually make him a threat) so I would have to artificially impede his progress to keep him in the "conspiracy nut" category, and I don't want to artificially do that.
Those are a lot of ifs that you can't really control for easily.
I know, which is why I said it was a particular hypothetical on a particular hypothetical. But you're asking an impossible task if you want me to prove that any crime possible in every potential situation can never be done perfectly, and I see no reason to assume the opposite when you can't even counter the hypothetical I DO present without saying "well what if it hadn't happened that way?" What if it had? I don't need to prove a 100% efficiency rate, just like you don't need to prove a 100% inefficiency rate: I'm just arguing that it's probable, with a lot of effort and competency, to get away with murder, and as the unsolved murder rate that you love to throw around so often (no matter how little it actually applies to the pokemon world) happens to agree with me, I don't really see why you're continuing this argument.
http://www.8newsnow.com/story/12593189/report-shows-high-number-of-unsolved-murders-in-us
21% in Detroit, 22% in New Orleans. Fair of me to use those statistics instead of your 90%? Of course not, because both are completely irrelevant to the matter at hand. I just wish you'd recognize that, instead of insisting that you have the best grasp of what's possible and likely because you found some statistics to misinterpret in your favor.
If someone had explicitly said that, that when they called the person's house the person said 'This person moved, they are not there anymore, they moved to x place' that would be a lot less suspicious than them just vanishing. There would be a cover story for them that was entirely plausible.
You, again, for what, the fifth time now? Continue to use the word "vanishing." But now suddenly it's okay to have a cover story? You can't even admit that you didn't think of that possibility earlier? Nope, incompetent criminals can't get away with murder or kidnappings, gotta go for the most obvious and suspicious paths of crime.
You are misusing the data.
Sucks, doesn't it? I'll stop when you do.
For example, the federal government counted 840,279 missing persons cases in 2001. All but about 50,000 were juveniles, classified as anyone younger than 18.
So, the vast majority of missing cases are angsty teenagers. Older males, engineers and scientists vanishing, is much rarer and so is statistically distinct.
Woah, woah, woah there, Happy McOptimism. Did you just dismiss hundreds of thousands of missing persons "angsty teenagers?" You do recognize that just from the data you listed, there's no way to tell how many of those people under 18 were murdered or sold into sex slavery, right? You're just assuming "Ah, some kid got angsty and ran way from home, that doesn't count." Stop twisting data! I really don't know what you think you're accomplishing by it.
A lot are racial minorities.
Which is only relevant because it means investigations are less enthusiastic for them, which falls into the "need to have probable cause to commit a full investigation," and "I haven't seen my old friend in a few years, last I heard he moved to another region but I can't find him" doesn't qualify.
Or people suffering from dementia, which these scientists presumably weren't, since they are being recruited for some evil scheme.
...you do know that assuming missing people are suffering from dementia is a plausible response to their disappearance, right? Meaning it's a perfectly rational reason for why the police wouldn't investigate someone like Dr. Fuji's case, especially if he'd lost his daughter, been left by his wife, and stopped returning contact with all his friends?
So it would be weird. People do take note of rich/middle class people vanishing.
In the limited reference pool you've just brought up for the sixth (seventh? I lost count) time ignoring the idea of only targeting people who wouldn't be missed, sure.
sighs I said I wouldn't address or repeat things I already have, but I keep doing it.
I'm not sure this would be something you'd need to do. Nidorino can learn tackle and double kick, which would look like this. My main issue with this plan is the high level of luck it requires, and the blood stains coating the cracked wall of their house.
Point taken on them knowing kicking. But luck can be mitigated against by planning (which is why there are actually things like highly coordinated capers and heists that can go off without a hitch), and I already said that they could clean up whatever blood there might be. Furthermore, you're assuming that he would kick the wall: why not just kick the person and cave their chest in? See how easy it is to play "what if?" from both sides?
But all I'm saying is "this is realistically probable," and you're saying "no it's not."
Which is a far harder burden of proof to meet in something as basic as "can competent people commit pre-planned crimes without getting caught?" Especially when you keep bringing up irrelevant "proof" like "X% of all murders, varying by region, including all the people who get drunk and shoot someone, or people who confess, or people who have absolutely no experience committing crimes and simply act on impulsive anger or jealousy, get caught, therefor it's improbable that your competent preplanned murders can do it without getting caught."
Special pleading, to the nth degree.
u/Nepene [+1] (3 days later)
I would argue this isn't a softening actually, as I definitely said early on that he would HAVE to investigate it if he saw something (which would eventually make him a threat) so I would have to artificially impede his progress to keep him in the "conspiracy nut" category, and I don't want to artificially do that.
There are other ways. For example, you mentioned that the solve rate was lower in drug filled/ gang areas. The evidence for the crime could lead to one of those, and he could rationally decide, perhaps after a bad experience, that it was too dangerous for him to go into and investigate further.
But you're asking an impossible task if you want me to prove that any crime possible in every potential situation can never be done perfectly
It's not really that, it's that your crime idea is one of the riskiest crimes he could possibly do, and is incredibly different from what real world competent hitmen do. In story it is incredibly likely that it would go wrong- if his mother walked into his room or one of his friends walked up or if one of his pokemon got cold feet it would go very badly for everyone.
It is about as stealthy as leaving a mine on a sidewalk and hoping it kills him, except less so since the owner is there.
I'm just arguing that it's probable, with a lot of effort and competency, to get away with murder.
But their actions aren't competent- they are waiting in a somewhat public place for someone to come to them. This looks a lot more like one of those rural murders than a city murder. Like some angry partner waiting in the person's room with a shotgun, waiting to blow out the brains of whoever enters first.
21% in Detroit, 22% in New Orleans. Fair of me to use those statistics instead of your 90%?
If you follow the explicit conditions mentioned in those statistics, sure, that it is cities with a lot of drug and gang warfare.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gangs-drugs-blamed-for-unsolved-murders/
They can't have any personal connection with the person (which means no going to their home) they can't have an obvious motive like that the person was investigating a crime, and both users have to be drug users/ gang members so the police probably don't care. It has to be a drive by pokemon shooting style kill.
Acceptable terms?
You, again, for what, the fifth time now? Continue to use the word "vanishing." But now suddenly it's okay to have a cover story? You can't even admit that you didn't think of that possibility earlier? Nope, incompetent criminals can't get away with murder or kidnappings, gotta go for the most obvious and suspicious paths of crime.
I did. I considered a way to do it. That you have the scientists supposedly recruited by an organization so that people would 'know where they were' just not be able to reach them due to bureaucracy. I didn't think you'd want suggestions.
It's great to have a cover story. The fact that the criminals didn't in your story, that he just vanished without anyone knowing where he went, was a sign of the gang's incompetence. If the gang was more competent Oak would have said something like "Yeah, everyone said he went to Unova to become a pokemon master. Poor guy. I think he finally snapped."
Woah, woah, woah there, Happy McOptimism. Did you just dismiss hundreds of thousands of missing persons "angsty teenagers?"
Unrelated, but no, I just called them angsty teenagers, since teenagers tend to be angsty.
That said.
About half of the roughly 800,000 missing juvenile cases in 2001 involved runaways, and another 200,000 were classified as family abductions related to domestic or custody disputes.
Only about 100 missing-child reports each year fit the profile of a stereotypical abduction by a stranger or vague acquaintance.
The vast majority don't look hugely like them being sold into sex slavery, they look like family disputes. I'm not twisting data, it states that explicitly in the source.
Also, I doubt it's that common to sell old scientists into sex slavery. Your irrelevant diversion doesn't change my point- most of those who vanish in America are not the sort who vanish in your story, they are younger people.
Which is only relevant because it means investigations are less enthusiastic for them, which falls into the "need to have probable cause to commit a full investigation," and "I haven't seen my old friend in a few years, last I heard he moved to another region but I can't find him" doesn't qualify.
You should edit in this justification which you have just now come up with and are using to beat me over the head with as though it was your intention all along. It would make your story a lot more rational.
...you do know that assuming missing people are suffering from dementia is a plausible response to their disappearance, right? Meaning it's a perfectly rational reason for why the police wouldn't investigate someone like Dr. Fuji's case, especially if he'd lost his daughter, been left by his wife, and stopped returning contact with all his friends?
More so if they actually had evidence. Fuji could have acted increasingly deranged in his later times when he was replaced by the Ditto or whatever, and Oak could mention that as a possible reason for him vanishing.
In the limited reference pool you've just brought up for the sixth (seventh? I lost count) time ignoring the idea of only targeting people who wouldn't be missed, sure.
When people do that they normally pick people with no reputable contacts in the world, like prostitutes and homeless people, or runaway kids. The sort who no one cares about People who are moderately wealthy inherently have contacts to the world which aren't easily removed even by being antisocial.
You can't just extend the "Serial killers can easily kill prostitutes" meme to middle class scientists with them just being antisocial.
http://boston.com/community/blogs/crime_punishment/2011/04/why_killers_target_prostitutes.html
?For a number of reasons, prostitutes are the most frequent victims targeted by serial murderers. Foremost is their easy accessibility to these predators. A sexual sadist can hunt the streets of the city or browse the ads on Craigslist, seeking out an available woman (and sometimes the man), looking selectively for the one who he finds most appealing, the one who can best satisfy his violent fantasies. And for money or drugs, the unfortunate prostitute will willingly participate in making his dream a reality, until it becomes too late to escape.
From the killer's perspective, it is also psychologically easier to prey upon those he devalues. Seeing them as "sex machines," programmed to please, he feels little hesitancy or remorse. By dehumanizing his victims, he is killing someone that he views as beneath humanity.
Most important, however, is that the killer who victimizes prostitutes can count on a slow response from law enforcement and minimal attention from the general public. Were he to abduct and kill some middle-class co-ed, the police response would be intense and immediate. But the disappearance of a known prostitute is not necessarily considered foul play, at least not until the remains of several victims are discovered in a remote dump site.
Prostitutes have unique characteristics, like homeless people, that make them harder to investigate- a social stigma, high mobility, a lack of a home, the willingness to come to a particular location to be abducted- you can't emulate those characteristics just by making the scientist antisocial. He will still be a relatively respectable member of middle class Kanto who isn't normally mobile and isn't going to go to a crime filled area to be abducted, and who likely will have people being financially dependent on him.
But luck can be mitigated against by planning
Competency isn't a cure all magic band aid.
The more you plan and stalk a person to find out how to kill them, the more evidence there is that you were stalking them and trying to kill them. It's better to just kill them.
which is why there are actually things like highly coordinated capers and heists that can go off without a hitch
This would be a lot easier if you named these well publicized capers and heists that no one knew about till later. When I asked you before you just named the mafia and intelligence agencies that did crimes in the open but didn't reveal their hidden leadership. You didn't name any hidden crimes.
Especially when you keep bringing up irrelevant "proof" like "X% of all murders, varying by region, including all the people who get drunk and shoot someone, or people who confess, or people who have absolutely no experience committing crimes and simply act on impulsive anger or jealousy, get caught, therefor it's improbable that your competent preplanned murders can do it without getting caught."
I would understand it if you learnt from the lessons of master hitmen, and so got yourself in their reference class. Your suggested crime was basically to wait in their room with a loaded shotgun (loaded hitmonlee) and wait for the best. That is the kind of behavior of drunk impulsive people.
Furthermore, you're assuming that he would kick the wall: why not just kick the person and cave their chest in? See how easy it is to play "what if?" from both sides?
If you kick someone hard enough to cave their chest in they will fly back and smash into the wall or floor, depending on how powerful the kick was. They might smash through several walls of the house if it's a strong enough kick and they are a small kid who is much lighter than the normal people the pokemon kicks.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (3 days later)
They can't have any personal connection with the person (which means no going to their home) they can't have an obvious motive like that the person was investigating a crime, and both users have to be drug users/ gang members so the police probably don't care. It has to be a drive by pokemon shooting style kill.
Going to their home to commit the crime isn't a personal connection, and "the person was investigating a crime" isn't an obvious motive: we're still talking about the difference between suspicion and solving, remember? It doesn't matter if some people think someone was murdered: if they have no suspects and no leads, that's called "getting away with murder."
And having a pool of people with no connections at all to the person they're going to kill is something of an advantage for large crime syndicates.
The fact that the criminals didn't in your story, that he just vanished without anyone knowing where he went, was a sign of the gang's incompetence. If the gang was more competent Oak would have said something like "Yeah, everyone said he went to Unova to become a pokemon master. Poor guy. I think he finally snapped."
sighs But Oak DID say something like that: specifically he said that he figured Fuji just gave in to his depression and faded. That was the cover he had originally, and that's why Oak didn't suspect foul play.
It was only after years later of putting together other such dots that he questioned the original premise: that Fuji sank into a deeper and deeper depression and eventually just cut everyone off. Now that Oak suspects otherwise, he's questioning how much of that apparent depression was real, and how much was a carefully constructed cover.
Also, I doubt it's that common to sell old scientists into sex slavery. Your irrelevant diversion doesn't change my point- most of those who vanish in America are not the sort who vanish in your story, they are younger people.
Good, now you're getting it: taking statistics and twisting them to fit your narrative without considering specifics or contexts is a silly thing to do. So don't do it :P
You should edit in this justification which you have just now come up with and are using to beat me over the head with as though it was your intention all along. It would make your story a lot more rational.
As I said above, I already have such a justification: you just didn't see it or recognize it. Which might be my fault as a writer, but you are the only person who seems to be making a big deal about it, so maybe not :P
This would be a lot easier if you named these well publicized capers and heists that no one knew about till later. When I asked you before you just named the mafia and intelligence agencies that did crimes in the open but didn't reveal their hidden leadership. You didn't name any hidden crimes.
Not all are a perfect fit because their targets are so public (meaning even though they got away with it, obviously people noticed the end results, even if they had no idea who did it or how to catch them) but #6, #5, #3 and #2 from this list prove the basic point: you can find others online if you want.
I would understand it if you learnt from the lessons of master hitmen, and so got yourself in their reference class. Your suggested crime was basically to wait in their room with a loaded shotgun (loaded hitmonlee) and wait for the best. That is the kind of behavior of drunk impulsive people.
A drunk impulsive person wouldn't fall foul to all the risks you listed above, like "what if someone else comes in?" If you don't have the competency to mitigate something like that by shifting observers on a household to get a sense of the person's schedule and habits, you don't really deserve to be called a "competent criminal organization."
I appreciate that you're probably just trying to get me to think of and include more specifics of how such a crime would work, but if that were the case you should probably stop bringing up ridiculously obvious problems as "handwaved competence." Anything that takes less than 10 seconds to think of a solution to is not a "handwave" to call competence, which is what makes it a catchall term for the thousands of possible scenarios and factors that might go into any given crime.
Also, you bring up bizarre things like this:
If you kick someone hard enough to cave their chest in they will fly back and smash into the wall or floor, depending on how powerful the kick was. They might smash through several walls of the house if it's a strong enough kick and they are a small kid who is much lighter than the normal people the pokemon kicks.
Now you're just being ridiculous. "Several walls?" How about none. Reality isn't like cartoons or movies, where a body is going to smash into a wall and just keep going. Most of the force of the kick is absorbed by the body (otherwise it wouldn't do much damage), and the remainder is what sends them flying back. A kick to break a wall might be possible because of how concentrated the force is in a specific area, but unless the wall is made of cardboard, a body is far softer than the wall, and has enough surface area that it's just going to bounce. Maybe there'll be a crack where the head or pelvis hits, but nothing noticeably "human body shaped." Maybe someone looks at it and says "Foul play!" but far more likely is the understanding that sometimes, walls have cracks.
Also, Force = Mass x Acceleration. Smaller body = less force.
u/Nepene [+1] (3 days later)
Going to their home to commit the crime isn't a personal connection
Your plan involved stalking them for a while, finding out where they live, the schedule of their movements, then going to their home at a particular time. That's pretty personal. It's also not what master hitmen do- they don't stick in one area for a long time.
It's not as personal as being friends with them, but it's still higher risk.
"the person was investigating a crime" isn't an obvious motive
It's a basic, ask their friends, "Did he have any enemies" sort of motive. "Yes, he was afraid of this criminal syndicate he was investigating that he got too close to."
I>t doesn't matter if some people think someone was murdered: if they have no suspects and no leads, that's called "getting away with murder."
They do have the people who stalked them, and the person who entered their house. If they live in an area without many accomplished hitmen, you have the strange foreigner hanging around the area and stalking a small child.
It's relatively easy to acquire more force than a person, but any time you try to be stealthy you are risking a lot more as it just takes one wrong glance to find you out.
sighs But Oak DID say something like that: specifically he said that he figured Fuji just gave in to his depression and faded. That was the cover he had originally, and that's why Oak didn't suspect foul play.
Fading away is a euphemism for dying, and you can easily learn about deaths by reading obituaries. People don't just disappear into the aether when they're sad.
So no, this isn't a cover story.
Good, now you're getting it: taking statistics and twisting them to fit your narrative without considering specifics or contexts is a silly thing to do. So don't do it :P
I did consider specifics and contexts, they just didn't really favor your side of the argument. Your twisting of statistics directly contradicted what the articles said.
As I said above, I already have such a justification: you just didn't see it or recognize it. Which might be my fault as a writer, but you are the only person who seems to be making a big deal about it, so maybe not :P
The top voted criticism of this chapter is that it's slow and boring (and irrelevant) and that the characters are annoying and depressed. This whole thing arose because people wanted a more exciting story where Red confronted criminals. My exact criticism is unique, like pretty much everyone else who has their own unique criticisms, but it's along the same line as others- it's more fun to see dramatic scenes and there are good reasons for you to write dramatic scenes.
Not all are a perfect fit because their targets are so public (meaning even though they got away with it, obviously people noticed the end results, even if they had no idea who did it or how to catch them) but #6, #5, #3 and #2 from this list prove the basic point: you can find others online if you want.
To be precise, none of them are a perfect fit. All of them were public crimes where it was clear what the motive was- steal something and sell it for money or notoriety.
That is what I am saying people in pokemon land could do. Observe the result crimes and deduce what had happened.
It would be best to avoid doing crimes that might expose the conspiracy by their results as such. For example, if Red was investigating them in a bad part of town, it might be better to kill him and make it look like a mugging than try to go to his house and kill him there. Make a clear and unambiguous motive.
A drunk impulsive person wouldn't fall foul to all the risks you listed above, like "what if someone else comes in?" If you don't have the competency to mitigate something like that by shifting observers on a household to get a sense of the person's schedule and habits, you don't really deserve to be called a "competent criminal organization."
Having a large number of people watching a person's house isn't very stealthy. It also increases the risk that someone will mess up, by involving more people.
There's no real easy to avoid the prongs of this issue. The more you watch someone, the more risk your watchers will be found out. The less you watch someone, the more risk your kill will have. You can try to find a good compromise but it's always going to be risky, and have a substantial risk of something going wrong and exposing you.
Now you're just being ridiculous. "Several walls?" How about none.
I don't know how hard your hitmonlee is kicking, or for how long given its extendable legs. Presumably pretty hard, if they're killing with one hit.
Most of the force of the kick is absorbed by the body (otherwise it wouldn't do much damage), and the remainder is what sends them flying back.
Well, it can do damage and send them flying back. Send a compression wave through a person's body, shaking about their bones, spin their head.
A kick to break a wall might be possible because of how concentrated the force is in a specific area, but unless the wall is made of cardboard, a body is far softer than the wall, and has enough surface area that it's just going to bounce. Maybe there'll be a crack where the head or pelvis hits, but nothing noticeably "human body shaped."
I was thinking of one of a modern Japanese wall. They often just have a fairly thin wooden wall, which breaks pretty easily.
Still, with a hit powerful enough to kill someone in one blow, you may well get a hole, especially if the wall stops their blow.
Also, Force = Mass x Acceleration. Smaller body = less force.
Actually, mass1*acceleration
So the hitmonlee has a certain mass and acceleration. They will impart this acceleration to whatever they hit, which will have the same force. The greater the mass of the object it hits, the less it will accelerate.
Maybe someone looks at it and says "Foul play!" but far more likely is the understanding that sometimes, walls have cracks.
Since he is a kid, and lives with his parents, they would likely remember any cracks.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (4 days later)
The top voted criticism of this chapter is that it's slow and boring (and irrelevant) and that the characters are annoying and depressed. This whole thing arose because people wanted a more exciting story where Red confronted criminals.
Not really, no: there has been a lot of legitimate criticism of the pacing and content of this chapter, which is why I drastically rewrote it. But you are really the only person (and have been for quite some time now) who's making the argument of "I want to read a crime thriller where Red investigates Team Rocket," let alone the various ways you're trying to argue your perspective's unique legitimacy.
The first part is fine; your preference is your preference. It's the second part that I find exasperating, as the angle of your arguments and shoddy data should not fill you with such strong and rigid conviction.
u/Nepene [+1] (4 days later)
This whole thing started with someone else saying.
"Um, why not just let him investigate?"
And.
"Maybe Rational!Red could be smart enough to realize this? I love the scene in HPMOR were Harry tells McGonagall about the spell on the Sorting Hat and what he would do if he would discover the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. If Red would similarly decide not to stick his nose too far into the whole Team Rocket business, I think it could be both funny and an interesting chance to discuss rationality."
Those were the comments that sparked them.
Your many, many contrived reasons why no one can investigate team rocket without dying are a commonly complained issue- people want to see violence, feel fear, see crime. The chapter would be a lot better with more of that and less of "I am sad my husband died."
The first part is fine; your preference is your preference. It's the second part that I find exasperating, as the angle of your arguments and shoddy data should not fill you with such strong and rigid conviction.
Emotionally, your team rocket is annoying because they make everyone around them hold idiot balls.
People being smart is a big thing of what makes rational stories fun. You see very intelligent evil people do bad things. Then you see very intelligent good people try to counteract those bad things. You see moderately intelligent people in both sides make the best of the options available to them to survive.
Now, your case for your Team Rocket being able to do those crimes isn't very good. For example, you were not able to name any crimes similar to yours where the people weren't immediately discovered. But let's assume it is. Let's suppose they hacked government surveillance cameras, and they can see everything. They can produce convincing doubles with ditto, teleport people out with kadabra.
Kidnapping a person is simply a matter of finding them on the cameras, teleporting in, replacing them with doubles, and telling those doubles to take a train to a faraway land.
If your team rocket was far enough above our world to do something like that then your story would be pretty dull without similarly powerful people on the opposite side. You have given team rocket a death star without giving frodo a lightsaber.
And that doesn't make for a very fun story. It's boring seeing Oak not know what is happening and not try to do much to find out.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (4 days later)
Those were the comments that sparked them.
Yes, those were honest questions, and I gave my honest answers. Neither commenter followed up, which leads me to believe they accepted those answers and that reasoning.
Your many, many contrived reasons why no one can investigate team rocket without dying are a commonly complained issue
And your many, many contrived reasons and terribly skewed and spun data for why Team Rocket can only be competent in the specific way that you define as competent, not to mention that anyone not being able to stop them is "holding the idiot ball," all the while strawmanning and dismissing any other interpretation, is simply not making your case.
people want to see violence, feel fear, see crime. The chapter would be a lot better with more of that
The first part of this is a major assumption on your part. The vast majority of feedback I've gotten says the opposite, so I hope you'll excuse me if I don't follow specifically your preferences as opposed to all of theirs :)
and less of "I am sad my husband died."
These criticisms I accepted and agreed with, as previously mentioned. The arguments and criticism presented by anakiri and others were reasonable and convincing, which is why I spent a few hours rewriting the chapter. Simply put, yours have not been.
You have given team rocket a death star without giving frodo a lightsaber.
Sorry, but in this analogy you've seen the first 5 minute of star wars and are already complaining about why Luke doesn't have a lightsaber. Maybe stop jumping to conclusions, basing your arguments off strawmen, and in general acting like you know better than anyone how everything works?
I can't even argue most of your points, because I'm intent on keeping it all hypothetical to avoid spoilers, and you're intent on using each and every possible hint of uncertainty as proof positive that your perspective is the only possible one.
To call it arrogant would be overstating things: in truth you honestly just seem oblivious of it.
And that doesn't make for a very fun story. It's boring seeing Oak not know what is happening and not try to do much to find out.
And again, you are basing all this off of... the very first chapter that they're mentioned, as a passing possibility of potential concern.
You can insist all you wish what story you'd rather read, and what story others may rather read. Obviously you know your preferences best, and no doubt there are others who may agree with you.
But it's not the majority of the feedback I've gotten, at all. And you are singular in your insistence that the hints of Team Rocket that have been revealed so far are unrealistic or boring: most people have expressed interest and anticipation. I can link to their comments if you'd like, but really, I think I've spent enough time trying to convince you of something you seem intent on not being open minded about.
shrugs Don't really know what else there is to say. I'm sorry if the story as it's been so far is not the story you'd like to read. Hopefully you still find smething to enjoy in it, but "11 year old Red vs Team Rocket" is not and has never been the story I intend to tell.
u/Anakiri [+1] (4 days later)
The top voted criticism of this chapter is that it's slow and boring (and irrelevant) and that the characters are annoying and depressed. This whole thing arose because people wanted a more exciting story where Red confronted criminals.
Top voted critic here: Nuh-uh. Every one of my criticisms was addressed, and I got what I wanted. Since my unabashed praise of the revision of this chapter received just as many upvotes as my criticism here, plus or minus fuzzing, I'd guess several people agree with me.
Without going too far into the specific issues either of you have raised, Red confronting criminals would be a difficult story for me to believe. Personally, I'd prefer to see Laura confront criminals, in a mostly non-action way. But I wouldn't be disappointed if it goes in a different direction. The ride has hardly started!
u/The_Mad_Duke [+1] House Tremontaine (a day later)
I note how, despite my requests, you didn't reveal any real life criminal organizations that murdered people and abducted people without being discovered. Could you name some, proving your point?
Your request reminds me of this (very funny) bit from HPMOR:
Harry had unthinkingly started to repeat back the standard proverb that there was no such thing as a perfect crime, before he actually thought about it for two-thirds of a second, remembered a wiser proverb, and shut his mouth in midsentence.
What do you think you know, and how do you think you know it?
If you did commit the perfect crime, nobody would ever find out - so how could anyone possibly know that there weren't perfect crimes?
It does not seem very reasonable to demand examples of organizations that got away with murder. If they really did get away with it, we wouldn't know. It might make more sense to ask how many murders remain unsolved. According to Wikipedia in 2007 the unsolved murder rate in the United States was 39%.
u/Nepene [+1] (a day later)
It does not seem very reasonable to demand examples of organizations that got away with murder. If they really did get away with it, we wouldn't know. It might make more sense to ask how many murders remain unsolved. According to Wikipedia in 2007 the unsolved murder rate in the United States was 39%.
That rate is biased by high crime urban areas.
Rural areas have a much higher solve rate.
u/None [+1] (14 hours later)
Semi-agreed. An interlude would normally be "short and sweet", but if it's sweet enough to justify including in the first place, it's sweet enough that this aspect of your story/world should be fully developed and included in the primary, secondary or tertiary storyline. Doing so does require more work on developing characters, locations, devices, etc and giving them full-blown plots of their own, but it's more rewarding for the reader.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (3 days later)
Rewrite complete! Looking forward to any new feedback you might have on it :) I know I probably won't win you over to the idea of non-self-contained chapters of alternate perspectives, but hopefully you find this one far less "space filly."