Strong Female Protagonist (No Relation to Hark! A Vagrant!)

But she's a tryrant, because she did it unilaterally. Had she followed a legal process (were there a legal process for her to follow), the professor would have ended up wrong.

That is my point, yes.

Allison has realized that she's strong enough to force people to do what she wants, the exact thing she didn't want when her professor was fired.

A page or two back, someone theorized that this could be the start of Allison Jumping Off the Slippery Slope. This time her plan worked perfectly to obvious benefit to the entire world with only a very minor negative for one person. But what about next time? Or the time after that?

The problem with dictatorship isn't that it's automatically evil. It's that no one person always makes perfect decisions, and yet the system relies on that one person always making perfect decisions. Everyone gets annoyed at the endless debates of democracy or bureaucratic red tape, but both greatly increase the chances of someone being around who can point out the stupidity of a bad plan.

So the great weakness of that professor's instructional approach was that he entirely failed to teach Allison a lesson.

Well, moreso that she was too stubborn to understand it in spite of how blindingly obvious it was. She and Max are rather similar in this way; both are very stuck in their beliefs, and unwilling to compromise even a bit without being given a personally compelling reason; Alison has been calmed down by a close friend asking her to stop (when threatening the crowd after the attempt on Feral's life, and I suspect she'd had given up on pushing Max if someone like Brad or Feral protested), and threats of violence coerced Max in spite of his protests (after all, he could have just not used his powers if he was so inclined when presented the opportunity).

And everyone lived happily ever after and there were no regrets...

I am generally opposed to utilitarian and consequentialist philosophies, but in this particular case I think Allison did the right thing, because the positive outcome was so large (both for Feral and for the hundreds of thousands of people getting organ donaions) and the negative effect on Max was so trivial. Other situations would need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

I didn't realize Max could permanently boost other people's powers. I thought the effect was temporary. This makes it even easier for Max to have a positive effect, and makes him even more of an asshole for refusing to exert even a minor effort to benefit thousands or millions of people.

In a normal situation you could just offer Max something he wanted in return for him exerting that effort, but there weren't any positive incentives to use on him (money wouldn't be effective, as he already has basically unlimited funds), and all he wanted was to be a dick to Allison.

The ideal solution would be for Max and Allison to be able to switch powers, in which case they'd both have what they want (though the idea of a literal objectivist Superman is disturbing, to say the least), but there doesn't appear to be any way of achieving that in the world of SFP.

edited 29th Oct '16 12:07:07 PM by Galadriel

And what happens when Allison decides to do the right thing in something more complex than saving Feral from a life of unending, painful surgery by exploiting a rich libertarian jerkface?

Like I said, case-by-case basis. I can't judge whether I would consider her hypothetical actions right or wrong until I know what those actions are.

I agree that the precedent is troublesome, but in this case I think the good done by Allison's actions is so large that it outweighs the harm. One detrimental factor is that Max could be an extremely dangerous enemy if he decided to use his powers to help biodynamic bad guys in order to get back at (or protect himself from) her. Or if Max was murdered by the conspiracy as a result of this, I would have to reevaluate my support for Allison's action.

edited 29th Oct '16 12:17:21 PM by Galadriel

It's cool that tyranny is okay as long as it's for a good cause.

I think it's a little excessive to call taking up an hour or so of one guy's time to save thousands of lives "tyranny".

Yes, suborn the will of others to your personal desires.

So that's how it is now - the thread will keep going in circles with this for all eternity.

Yes, suborn the will of the threads to your personal arguments.

Until Max is assassinated by the conspiracy, and it turns out that was what he was afraid of all along.

Or worse (well, for the world at least), because Max never used his power much, the effect it has is unpredictable even by him, and the fact that people's powers seem to be growing causes it to so massively enhance Feral's regeneration that she starts growing into some kind of horrifying flesh monstrosity, possibly forcing Alison to personally deal with her. But then, that's just me feeling like there's gotta be some kinda catch to this.

edited 31st Oct '16 8:02:17 PM by Alfric

I honestly hope not. I think it'd be far more fascinating to explore Allison's descent into fascism, rather than just "fascism is bad because it turned Feral into the blob monster from Akira."

Or, just maybe, perhaps, by happenstance... Things don't go so hamfistedly bad?

Seriously, guys: the scenarios you've been contemplating recently would make even a Bolton back off. :/

New page

( ...Fascism?)

edited 1st Nov '16 2:17:04 AM by StateOfBedlam

Feel that contrast, Allison, feeel it.

New page

Well, that's subtle.

Unless, of course, Paladin's next reaction is to pull out a gun and shoot Feral, snarling that she finally got the person who murdered X and that she's been holding onto that anti-regeneration pistol for just about forever.

I thought Feral was hot for Allison (not that that has any chance at all).

Yeah I'm getting the romantic drama feel from Feral's expression.

She is, but she knows Alison's not interested.

That's one way to put it.