The Last Hurrah (adventure for your use)

[Agent X]

> Infiltration through Deep Cover by Criminal Masterminds is too silly to use in
> a Champions Campaign?

The world's supposedly greatest supervillain mastermind spending that many years of his life for that little return? Yes, I do think that's too silly.

If the guy's supposed to be Ozymandias... ummm, we know durn well how much Ozymandias could get done in 6-8 years of hard work, and it was a helluva lot more than the subversion of one superteam for one plot that failed anyway.

Talk about a massive under-achiever. Yes, that's silly. It's as silly as using a howitzer to kill flies, and for the same reason.

> I don't think you're winning any friends by the way you are responding to
> Crackerjacker...

Agent X, you are the last person on the face of the planet qualified to give me etiquette advice, and you only annoy me further every time you try.

> or by trying to bait me - "First they deliberately pick a dumb bunch of
> already unstable nuts *glares at Agent X*

You spent two days implying that I was every kind of idiot for daring to say that originally, CJ's plot involved being people recruited already nuts because they were nuts... and then, when he finally posts to say that I was right on that point, you expect me *not* to glare? Get real. The more you gripe about my table manners, the more I know you're just trying to distract people from your own lousy cooking.

Edit -- in case you're congenitally incapable of taking a hint, stop dragging my alleged personal qualities or lack thereof into every discussion we have. You ought to know by now that it does absolutely not a gods-damned productive thing, but instead just leads to more wasted time. Sheesh. How many times do you have to stick your finger on the hot stove before the message gets through?

Debate the issue or don't debate at all, but quit talking about *me*. Fine. You don't like me. I already know, thank you, repeats are not necessary.

Assumption #1: Why are you assuming that in Crackerjacker's campaign that is all the German Mastermind was accomplishing while in Deep Cover?

Assumption #2: I wasn't implying you were an idiot. You are inferring that because you are making a big assumption, again.

I didn't bring up your personal qualities. I have stated something to the effect that I believe you overreached in your analysis of his posts and conveyed your assumptions in a rude manner.

You know, I finally did collect all of his posts together and place them in view for everyone to read sequentially. I've asked you and the others who were are sure that there are inconsistencies to point them out... and you haven't. I believe that your argument boils down to the idea that you knew "what he really meant" and that just isn't very compelling, at least for me.

[Chuckg]

> Assumption #1: Why are you assuming that in Crackerjacker's campaign
> that is all the German Mastermind was accomplishing while in Deep Cover?

Because being on active duty w/ the official government black ops superteam is a full-time job? And if you take too many days off, people might notice?

Remember, he wasn't just on the team, he was supposedly *leading* the team -- or at least, being their 'control' officer. For him to have a career as an active supervillainous mastermind elsewhere would be as logistically absurd as Cyclops leading a double life as Victor von Doom without the X-Men ever noticing.

> Assumption #2: I wasn't implying you were an idiot.

Agent X, in prior threads, you've *called* me an idiot to my face. I /know/ what your opinion is of me -- abysmally low -- and pretending otherwise only insults my intelligence further.

[snip]
> I didn't bring up your personal qualities.

My alleged politeness or lack thereof is not a personal quality? My alleged abrasiveness or lack thereof is not a personal quality? An alleged habit of always jumping to conclusions is not a personal quality? Quit pretending.

You think I suck. I /know/ you think I suck. Previously, you've /told/ me that you think I suck. And you know what? I don't care. So any attempts of yours to tell me this again are, purely and smiply, a completely waste of bandwidth.

So quit it, already.

[snip]
> You know, I finally did collect all of his posts together and place them in
> view for everyone to read sequentially.

Yes, and you didn't say a damn thing while doing it that you hadn't already alleged, and that we hadn't already answered. So we didn't bother repeating the second verse same as the first.

Oh, and BTW, since we turned out to *both* be wrong interpreting WTF he'd said what with this latest 'no mentalist, just mastermind' revelation, why are you beating the dead horse?

[Agent X]

> Assumption #1: Why are you assuming that in Crackerjacker's campaign
> that is all the German Mastermind was accomplishing while in Deep Cover?

Because being on active duty w/ the official government black ops superteam is a full-time job? And if you take too many days off, people might notice?

Remember, he wasn't just on the team, he was supposedly *leading* the team -- or at least, being their 'control' officer. For him to have a career as an active supervillainous mastermind elsewhere would be as logistically absurd as Cyclops leading a double life as Victor von Doom without the X-Men ever noticing.

> Assumption #2: I wasn't implying you were an idiot.

Agent X, in prior threads, you've *called* me an idiot to my face. I /know/ what your opinion is of me -- abysmally low -- and pretending otherwise only insults my intelligence further.

[snip]
> I didn't bring up your personal qualities.

My alleged politeness or lack thereof is not a personal quality? My alleged abrasiveness or lack thereof is not a personal quality? An alleged habit of always jumping to conclusions is not a personal quality? Quit pretending.

You think I suck. I /know/ you think I suck. Previously, you've /told/ me that you think I suck. And you know what? I don't care. So any attempts of yours to tell me this again are, purely and smiply, a completely waste of bandwidth.

So quit it, already.

[snip]
> You know, I finally did collect all of his posts together and place them in
> view for everyone to read sequentially.

Yes, and you didn't say a damn thing while doing it that you hadn't already alleged, and that we hadn't already answered. So we didn't bother repeating the second verse same as the first.

Oh, and BTW, since we turned out to *both* be wrong interpreting WTF he'd said what with this latest 'no mentalist, just mastermind' revelation, why are you beating the dead horse?

1. Maybe there is some dead time for a Black OPs team of that caliber in a fictional world?

2. One of us is trying to be civil and one of us remembers what really happened. I will remind you that I didn't call you an idiot. You said I did and I said that you construed my statement to mean what you wanted and it devolved from there. From what I can tell, if I disagree with you, that means I'm insulting you, which, if we turn that around, blows your defense for not only not being civil but for you to disagree with anyone, unless there are special rules just for you.

3. I hope other readers take the time to read that post. It did address the issue and your past responses are not an adequate defense of your argument that his posts contradicted one another. I believe your statement to be an evasion or you are too sure of your position to reflect upon his posts. You can wave your hand if you like but it won't make the truth about his posts go away. I would like you to do something you haven't done. Take the time to take two or more of his statements and show how they contradict one another while keeping them in context. In other words, I'd like to see you put your money where your mouth is without me being able to point out some statement he made that you omitted that explains your "apparent contradiction" away.

4. I don't remember calling him a mentalist and I don't remember thinking he was one. I tried to interpret his posts literally and not fill in any information that I didn't know without qualifying my assumptions.

[Chuckg]

> 1. Maybe there is some dead time for a Black OPs team of that caliber in a
> fictional world?

I used the X-Men example for a reason. They have 'dead time' too, remember? But do they have so much of it that Cyclops could have another costumed identity entirely, and one that's a world-conquering villain, without them ever suspecting? Only if they all had the brains of spongecake.

When you are potentially on-call 24-and-7 -- which, as a de facto super-military, these guys would be -- leading any kind of double life is hard. Leading a double life as a fully operational "A-list' supervillain is, well, you'd need Longshot's luck to keep it from being caught out sooner or later.

Hell, just having a part-time job while going to school is enough to guarantee that at least one time in four years, we're going to have a schedule conflict. Being Ozymandias while at the same time pretending to be Captain America? Bet me.

re: your point #2 -- You know, for a guy who claims that he doesn't make it personal, you are doing nothing but.

What part of I don't care did you fail to grasp? They were all one-syllable words. It's not that damned hard.

Whether or not you think I'm civil, whether or not I have your approval of my behavior, matters less to me than virtually anything else that I can think of. Every word you utter on this topic is wasted breath. I am not going to change my posting style no matter what you say. Maybe because of something that somebody else says, but not you -- because while I might respect their opinions and evaluations, I have long since lost any respect for yours.

Contrary to your claims, I'm not very "evasive". If I don't like somebody, or if I think somebody's full of it, believe you me -- they are told.

So play your holier-than-thou games with someone else, quote forger.

> 3. I hope other readers take the time to read that post. It did address the
> issue and your past responses are not an adequate defense of your
> argument that his posts contradicted one another.

[snip]
> I believe your statement to be an evasion

This from the guy who outright lied -- oh, excuse me, paraphrased -- evidence into existence to back up his claims.

Chutzpah, you don't lack.

> or you are too sure of your position to reflect upon his posts. You can
> wave your hand if you like but it won't make the truth about his posts go
> away.

*points up*

"So I was wrong for asserting the stupidity of the mentalist retcon -- as it never actually existed..."

No points for claiming that I'm dodging, evading, or trying to prop up an unsure position, Agent X -- the instant that CJ posted *genuine* proof (as opposed to your made-up crap) that I was wrong, I admitted it. I don't need you to keep me straight, I can do that on my own. You're the one needed watchdogging.

You are not smarter than anyone. You are not better than anyone. You are not in any moral or intellectual position to be lecturing anyone on either proper behavior or proper thinking. And every time you try, I think you look like a pompous [bleep].

So off the high horse, poindexter. The issue of mentalist vs. non-mentalist was settled an hour ago, while you so busy warming up to your major-league pontificating here that you weren't noticing. Now we're discussing the issue of how plausible it is for a world-conquering supervillain of this guy's cailber to spend so much time pretending to punch a time clock for the US government.

> I don't remember calling him a mentalist and I don't remember thinking he
> was one.

You did remember to hedge your words very carefully, I'll grant you that much.

[Agent X]

> 1. Maybe there is some dead time for a Black OPs team of that caliber in a
> fictional world?

I used the X-Men example for a reason. They have 'dead time' too, remember? But do they have so much of it that Cyclops could have another costumed identity entirely, and one that's a world-conquering villain, without them ever suspecting? Only if they all had the brains of spongecake.

When you are potentially on-call 24-and-7 -- which, as a de facto super-military, these guys would be -- leading any kind of double life is hard. Leading a double life as a fully operational "A-list' supervillain is, well, you'd need Longshot's luck to keep it from being caught out sooner or later.

Hell, just having a part-time job while going to school is enough to guarantee that at least one time in four years, we're going to have a schedule conflict. Being Ozymandias while at the same time pretending to be Captain America? Bet me.

Maybe he has an organization getting other things done. Maybe he has some of his agents infiltrated into government positions as well. We don't know. That's why I don't buy your assumption that he (a)wouldn't be able to get much done, or (b)would be wasting his time.

re: your point #2 -- You know, for a guy who claims that he doesn't make it personal, you are doing nothing but.

What part of I don't care did you fail to grasp? They were all one-syllable words. It's not that damned hard.

Whether or not you think I'm civil, whether or not I have your approval of my behavior, matters less to me than virtually anything else that I can think of. Every word you utter on this topic is wasted breath. I am not going to change my posting style no matter what you say. Maybe because of something that somebody else says, but not you -- because while I might respect their opinions and evaluations, I have long since lost any respect for yours.

Contrary to your claims, I'm not very "evasive". If I don't like somebody, or if I think somebody's full of it, believe you me -- they are told.

So play your holier-than-thou games with someone else, quote forger.

Oh, I know you aren't evasive about telling someone how you really feel. I'm talking about your posted response that you had already essentially 'proven your case' [notice the marks meant to show that I'm paraphrasing, thus I'm not misquoting you as I'm getting to the meaning of your statement with different words. It's not deceptive, that's what the marks are for.] You didn't 'prove your case' in the sense of responding to the challenges to your assumptions. You did respond to the posts but not to any specifics, except by taking a snippet of his posts without framing them in context and then assuming the snippet could mean only one thing, what you decided it meant. As to me making it personal, I'm not. I'm simply debating the point about how to treat others who are posting their ideas. If you think this is some sort of "beef" with you, you're wrong. I debated the point with Kirby as well and he's pretty new.

> 3. I hope other readers take the time to read that post. It did address the
> issue and your past responses are not an adequate defense of your
> argument that his posts contradicted one another.

[snip]
> I believe your statement to be an evasion

This from the guy who outright lied -- oh, excuse me, paraphrased -- evidence into existence to back up his claims.

Paraphrasing isn't deceptive. I assumed the reader would understand what those marks meant. If they didn't, they could simply look it up or ask.

Chutzpah, you don't lack.

> or you are too sure of your position to reflect upon his posts. You can
> wave your hand if you like but it won't make the truth about his posts go
> away.

*points up*

"So I was wrong for asserting the stupidity of the mentalist retcon -- as it never actually existed..."

No points for claiming that I'm dodging, evading, or trying to prop up an unsure position, Agent X -- the instant that CJ posted *genuine* proof (as opposed to your made-up crap) that I was wrong, I admitted it. I don't need you to keep me straight, I can do that on my own. You're the one needed watchdogging.

You are confusing my statement with some other tangent. I'm talking about your assumption that there were Retcons going on that you could prove by showing contradictions, contradictions that to this point have not been provided or have been shown not to be contradictory, unless you take them out of context or pretend there is only one possible conclusion to come to by the given statement.

You are not smarter than anyone. You are not better than anyone. You are not in any moral or intellectual position to be lecturing anyone on either proper behavior or proper thinking. And every time you try, I think you look like a pompous [bleep].

I'm responding to these posts because I want guys like Crackerjacker to feel free to post their ideas and they should expect a friendly discourse about what they've come up with. I'm not trying to prove my moral or intellectual superiority. I'm trying to make sure I have as much access as possible to the ideas that other gamers have had. Are you worried about my moral and intellectual position?

So off the high horse, poindexter. The issue of mentalist vs. non-mentalist was settled an hour ago, while you so busy warming up to your major-league pontificating here that you weren't noticing. Now we're discussing the issue of how plausible it is for a world-conquering supervillain of this guy's cailber to spend so much time pretending to punch a time clock for the US government.

I was merely clarifying that your assumption that I though Utopian was a mentalist was just that, an assumption.

> I don't remember calling him a mentalist and I don't remember thinking he
> was one.

You did remember to hedge your words very carefully, I'll grant you that much.

Another assumption. Think about it. Why would I have hedged my remark as to whether or not he was a mentalist? It was a non-issue to me. All that mattered is that Utopian was the last straw in the corruption of the team. The point was to illustrate that he was distancing Reagan from the actual corruption of the team where some seemed to be accusing him of placing some sort of culpability on Reagan for that.

[Agent X]

I'm going to stop this before it gets more out of hand but I reserve the right to post again should I feel a challenge to some statement needs to be made concerning Crackerjacker's posts.

[Chuckg]

> Maybe he has an organization getting other things done.

... and where does he find time to run it, supervise it, check up on it, and make sure that it hasn't decided to go into business for itself during his chronic absences? This is the villain business, after all. If the Evil Minions have too much time to themselves, they get ideas.

> Maybe he has some of his agents infiltrated into government positions as well.

Didn't this team report directly to President Reagan? Did he infiltrate /there/, too? Are his mad infiltration skillz so l33t that even POTUS himself couldn't notice that his right-hand metahuman man had a different day job? Hell, if he's already got that all set up, WTF isn't he already ruling the world now?

> We don't know. That's why I don't buy your assumption that he (a)wouldn't be able
> to get much done, or (b)would be wasting his time.

Anybody who's tried to work two jobs at once knows that even if you're talking about mundane things, it's still a scheduling conflict pain in the butt. Here, you're talking about one man simultaneously being both Captain America and the Red Skull. Neither of them simply has enough vacant hours in their day!

[snip]
> Paraphrasing isn't deceptive.

It is when nothing even remotely like the 'paraphrased' text exists, which I proved via a rather extensive text-search. As well you know.

[snip]
> I'm responding to these posts because I want guys like Crackerjacker to feel free to
> post their ideas and they should expect a friendly discourse about what they've
> come up with. I'm not trying to prove my moral or intellectual superiority.

Right. You're indulging in this huge-ass discussion about my alleged mental and personal flaws just to give newbies a more encouraging environment to post in. There is absolutely nothing personal or nothing to prove here what-so-ever.



Let me know when Elvis gets here, all right?

[snip]
> Another assumption. Think about it. Why would I have hedged my remark as to
> whether or not he was a mentalist?

The usual reason anybody hedges anything -- so that no matter which way it breaks out, they can claim they were right? That's why they /invented/ hedging, after all...

[snip]
> I'm going to stop this before it gets more out of hand [snip]

You're about two days too late, seeing as how it got 'out of hand' about five minutes after you first butted into this thread. Still, better late than never. Don't hurry back.

[Crackerjacker]

Agent X, I really dont mind letting ChuckG's comments stand.

and ChuckG, you do have valid points but you have put Agent X on the defensive (on my behalf, strangely)

Not that I dont appreciate this debate, but I think that you should both just agree to disagree and let this go.

[Agent X]

Agent X, I really dont mind letting ChuckG's comments stand.

and ChuckG, you do have valid points but you have put Agent X on the defensive (on my behalf, strangely)

Not that I dont appreciate this debate, but I think that you should both just agree to disagree and let this go.

I pretty much did.