Badass citizens

The City, the main setting of my story, is populated with Badasses for some reason.

Someone stole a purse and ran away? Someone will chase him down and clotheline him. Someone is robbing a bank? Everyone inside will gang up on the robbers and maul them, armed or not. Monsters terrorizing the city? Quick evacuation of non combatants and instant mobilization. In fact, almost all citizens are part of The Neighborhood Watchers, an online group that is dedicated to protecting the city from any threats.

This results from the city getting attacked by hordes of magical creatures near monthly and formerly being a cit of criminals.

The question is, what kind of social developments usually results in citizens like that and would there be any need of extremely competent police force in a city like that? Would there be any frequent crime at all? Also, if everyone is so competent, would the threat of serial killers and massive outbreak of demonic virus be undermined?

Maybe everyone got military-style training as part of their schooling.

Crime might stay at the same level on an individual victim level, since the element of surprise is one of the biggest factors there. But yeah, things involving multiple people at once like robbing banks would be harder.

A police force will probably still be needed, everyone can do "defense", but even within the range of "everyone" there will be the best, who will take defense on as their job because that's not a job everyone should be constantly doing.

If the city organizes most of its population in a militia, it doesn't need much of a police force. Yeah, they'd need detectives for homicides'n'stuff, but not much else. Considering that police forces are made of Expensium, they would be cut.

As for the crime rates, it depends on the kind of crime:

• Crimes relying on the element of surprise and sneakiness would stay about the same: Burglary, shoplifting... You name it. These wouldn't be affected either way, except the consequences of being seen could be far more serious (cue militiaman's rifle poiting at your face).
• Crimes relying on overwhelming force would be much lower, since potential victims are much more dangerous.
• Crimes relying on intimidation would be nonexistent, especially robberies.
• Victimless crimes and vice in general would skyrocket after the inevitable defunding of the regular pigs.
• I can't tell you whether first-time rape attempts would go up or down, but I can tell you what the repeat rape rate would be: Zero. If most people carry a couple of weapons and are trained in self-defense, most rapists would be killed or maimed either while they assaulted their victim or while they ran away.

A city could have arrived to the militia situation in several ways:

• It's a civic tradition, there's been a militia since the founding or some specific time.
• The city has a disproportionate number of retired veterans, so setting a militia was far more cost-effective than a police force.
• A war, a revolution a breakdown of law and order or a government shutdown had the citizens organize, and they kept up.
• It's a city-State that keeps a militia instead of a standing army. They can't hope to stop a real army in a war, but they can sure as Hell put up a bloody insurgency afterwards.

The city would be a Wretched Hive of vice, but it would be a safe one. It'd get the best of both worlds, really.

edited 11th Oct '11 3:22:06 AM by SavageHeathen

Ummm, if everyone is a badass wouldn't the criminals be too? Wouldn't that necessitate individuals like police?

What for? If the city is protected by a militia, at any given time when you're not in a deserted place there's multiple armed (and able to shoot straight) people guaranteeing your safety.

Beat cops would be unheard of. The local police force would be pretty much investigation services only.

Criminals can well be badass, but the only ones I can envision making a successful career in that environment are swindlers, drug dealers and cat burglars. Aside from that, a bunch of thugs could gang up on some dude in deserted areas, but that's about it.

The citizens aren’t trained in military or anything like that, it’s just that they are, compared to average bystanders depicted in fiction, quicker to respond to threat and organize in number. That and they are very actively against crimes and don’t believe in the Bystander Effect, but that’s about it.

The problem this poses is that the main plot of the first arc starts due to wide spread of PCP-like drugs that become popular among the teenage populations, especially those who are in gangs, which causes the rate of violent crimes to skyrocket, in addition to a case of serial murder. Like I said before, I haven’t come up with any solid reasons, other than its brief history with criminals and small time cosmic horror beings’ invasion. Also, one of the main characters’ character arc involves his past with the gang mentioned above.

Is there any way for a gang made of teenagers be terrifying in a city like that?

edited 11th Oct '11 3:32:10 AM by dRoy

Oh, if the city is the only place that experiences this kind of total citizen training, a group of criminals would just run their operations outside city bounds, and still become a problem for the city. This happens in drug trade, ALL the time.

edited 11th Oct '11 3:31:00 AM by OuthouseInferno

Serial killing wouldn't be much affected, since most serial killers rely on surprise. An unremarkable dude nonchalantly (and non-threateningly) approaches you... and he strongly whacks you in the side of the head with a blunt object. If the blow lands solid, you've got yourself an instant knockout. Next time you wake up, it's in a soundproofed cellar.

As for the gang... Well, people on PCP typically don't respond to pain. If they're extremely high and extremely reckless, a band of teenage raiders could be somewhat scary.

edited 11th Oct '11 3:51:23 AM by SavageHeathen

About the drug...it's something of a magical PCP that has effects of:

• Hallucination (varies between very trippy and colorful ones and making everyone look like a monster)
• No sense of pain
• EXTREME AGGRESSION
• Reinforce of muscles reflex

Regarding rapists...I'm not sure there would be a zero rate of repeat rape, but it would take a very dedicated rapist to continue (they would basically need to adopt serial killer tactics, and the majority of rapists are just your standard sline idiots, so most wouldn't). You wouldn't need a police force for its usual function of maintaining order, but there would still (probably) need to be some equivalent of SWAT teams as well as detectives for when a crime is unsolved, and depending on your judicial system prison guards and such.

Most rapes are actually planned in advance. It's very much like serial killing in that regard.

Let's see, we've got the Bad Ass Bystander who have a Bad Ass Police Force to protect them from the Bad Ass Criminal. Oh, and the city mascot is a Bad Ass...wearing Bad Ass Sunglasses...and a Bad Ass Leather Jacket. I also take it there will be the Bad Ass Teacher who teaches her Bad Ass Students in Bad Ass Arithmetic And Spelling as well as a Bad Ass Road Side Contruction Crew that deals with Bad Ass Motorists.

Weeell, some of the most high-calibre magician in my verse are teachers, including the Big Bad and the Big Good and the city is frequented by bikers...

The problem is, I'm planning an apocalyptic invasion of demonic plague, and would the suspense factor be significantly decreased if everyone reacts in such organized and competent way?

I think you could actually increase it. Show the rest of the world succumbing, or at least somwhere normal to set up a baseline. Then have them invade Badass City... and let your readers watch in horror as they figure something out: All of that organization and competence? All of that asskicking ability? Everything the city prides itself on? Worthless. Yeah, it's basically the Worf effect, but that can be done well.

That sounds good. The problem, however, is that the invasion starts at the city and the citizens, aside from stopping bank robbers, aren't shown that much competence until then.

The important thing is to show that these guys are prepped and equipped to handle things far beyond what you'd expect, and have them get curb stomped in spite of that. For maximum impact, you want to build up the city as much as possible and have the battle be either as fast and efficient as possible or as intentionally drawn out and sadistic as possible, whichever you feel is more effective.

You could probably have them do something where they beat back what looks big enough to be the entire invasion force with only minor trouble... and then realize that those were just the scouts. Cue Mass "Oh, Crap!" and Curb-Stomp Battle.

edited 1st Nov '11 8:16:00 PM by KyleJacobs

In one of the stories I'm working on, what initially appears to be a bartender suddenly turns into a Humanoid Abomination and eats the people who crashed through the bar. No one in the room was expecting that.

Anyway, in situations where everyone in town is a badass its actually really believable that they would have fighting tournaments and stuff. Yay tournament arc!

edited 1st Nov '11 8:25:43 PM by NoirGrimoir

Actually that sounds like a fun idea. Maybe I could have annual Martial Arts Tournament. Then again, Jiho would wipe the competition...

The smaller and more independent the community, the higher the "badass" percentage. Also the smaller the community, the less likely a police force is needed because the community will essentially be its own police force.

A society that glorifies active participation in war and defense, and in retribution also helps.

I wouldn't say that the frequency in crime would rise or fall, because the community is small. The idea of a community the size of even a modern American town being its own police force is simply unrealistic to me. Since you're aiming for realism apparently, I won't even consider a community the size of a city.

Yeah, you know the Square-Cube Law? It applies to communities, too.

Depends on the environment outside the community. Serial killers wouldn't be a problem inside the community for their extreme rarity. If a serial killer did come in and started killing people, though, I think they'd be disposed of very fast.

A massive outbreak of some kind of virus sounds like it could take them down easily, though.

edited 1st Nov '11 10:38:18 PM by annebeeche

Would it be redundant to have both extremely well formed neighborhood watch/crime prevention system and hypercompetent police force?

That depends on how you handle the criminals. With this PCP thing you have going on, a dedicated police force would be a good thing. If this sort of thing is somewhat common, then definitely not redundant.