This week's Poll Position asks you to make some trade-offs:
{democracy:196}
Discussion to follow!
So the main rule here is, "no supers". That means no Iron Man in charge of SHIELD and no Abe Sapien working for BPRD. Dr. Who, however, is not really a "super hero" so would still be part of the deal with the Celestial Intervention Agency.
- SHIELD & HYDRA: On the plus side, flying helicarriers and Samuel L. Jackson leading our elite fighting force. On the minus side, HYRDA's pretty bad-ass and much more capable of mass destruction than anything we have today.
- STAR Labs & LexCorp: In the DC Universe, STAR Labs is at the cutting edge of some truly awesome tech that would make our world a lot better. And LexCorp is ruthless, but not really the "blow up the world" kind of group. However, STAR Labs is a research institution, not at all oriented to fighting something like LexCorp. The others on the list are direct combatants, but this is the only choice where you're bringing in an evil without a directly opposing good organization to fight it, even if the evil isn't as potentially threatening as some of the others. An interesting choice.
- Celestial Intervention Agency & Daleks: I don't know a lot about Dr. Who, so I'll leave this choice up to you all to defend in comments.
- G.I. Joe & Cobra: Cobra's pretty hapless in the grand scheme of things, while G.I. Joe is a fairly effective force. Plus, we could use them in more conventional engagements.
- UNCLE & THRUSH: This is really, really old-school. As in, before even my incredibly ancient time. In other words, l don't know much about it so you're on your own. Think of this as the "Texas A&M" choice -- sure to lose, but you gotta fill out the roster somehow.
- BPRD & The Black Flame: One way to look at this is that we're introducing a whole set of alternate (meta)physics into our world, which would require BPRD to defend us from it. The world seems to be getting along fine without ghosts and beasts and demons, and I don't think a group who exists purely to fight an evil we don't already have is a good trade-off.
- MiB & various aliens: The main appealing aspect to this is the idea that there really are aliens out there, which is awesome as a sci-fi fan. However, you can make the same argument against this as you would against BPRD -- why import a group that doesn't share its tech with the common man just to fight another group we wouldn't have if we didn't bring them in?
For me personally, I think the best trade-off of "we get cool stuff" versus the risk of the enemy you'd be bringing in would probably be STAR Labs and LexCorp. We already have corporations who serve their own ends against all else, and agencies in place to fight them off. What we don't have is a research group capable of the kinds of fantastical tech STAR would bring to us.
What about you, what would you choose and why?
