UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

[Guest rbezold]

Has anyone ever given this some thought? I'm not talking about who has the best gadgets, agents, point totals, etc. That's not important.

 

I'm talking about funding.

 

Primus would (duh) be funded by the US government. And UNTIL would be funded by the UN. But who funds the UN? We do. We provide 40% (or more) of the UN budget. So my question is this: If push comes to shove, would UNTIL and Kofi Annan give PRIMUS and George Bush any crap whatsoever? And if they did, how many nano-seconds would it take for Bush and the Republican Congress to cut their funding?

 

And if UNTIL gets their funding cut, do all the bad guys hunted by UNTIL get free experience to buy off that hunted?

[Blue]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

Only in jurisdictional disputes, no outright conflict so far.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

I think, in any world with UNTIL being at all effective, this

 

But who funds the UN? We do. We provide 40% (or more) of the UN budget.

 

cannot reasonably be true. Otherwise, whatever 'superagencies' existed would be based on national lines. (see: Real World Policing)

 

OTOH, perhaps more countries would contribute to UNTIL than the rest of the UN because they really _need_ them to help them.

[Tamashii2000]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

Has anyone ever given this some thought? I'm not talking about who has the best gadgets, agents, point totals, etc. That's not important.

 

I'm talking about funding.

 

Primus would (duh) be funded by the US government. And UNTIL would be funded by the UN. But who funds the UN? We do. We provide 40% (or more) of the UN budget. So my question is this: If push comes to shove, would UNTIL and Kofi Annan give PRIMUS and George Bush any crap whatsoever? And if they did, how many nano-seconds would it take for Bush and the Republican Congress to cut their funding?

 

And if UNTIL gets their funding cut, do all the bad guys hunted by UNTIL get free experience to buy off that hunted?

 

Most likely Mr Bush (I refuse to call him president) would not cut the funding as that would simple result in Until's funding being picked up by other nations and would result in the US losing all influence over them. We might provide 40 percent of the funding...but that still leaves the other 60 percent.

[Metaphysician]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

Assuming, of course, that other nations are able or willing to increase their funding.

 

As for who has better stuff, my guess is UNTIL has a marginal edge, for a couple reasons. One is that PRIMUS has a more limited purpose than UNTIL. Thus, resources and capabilities that are lumped together in UNTIL, are split between various government agencies. For another, PRIMUS seems mostly uninterested in recruiting superhumans, whereas UNTIL provides one of the biggest opportunities for good-aligned non-Western supers.

 

Now, if you start comparing UNTIL with *all* the superhuman-connected branches of the US government. . .

[Guest Champsguy]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

I don't buy the idea of UNTIL existing at all. The US won't dump that much funding into an organization that it doesn't control. I could, however, see a NATO force that was heavily funded.

 

But regardless, the US has always kept the very best stuff for ourselves. Even when we sell hardware to our allies, we don't give them all the bells and whistles.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

Folks, I think WhammeWhamme is on the right track. Clearly, an organization like UNTIL would never exist in the "real world" with the U.N.'s current paradigm. Since it exists in the Champions Universe, that necessarily means that the U.N. is a whole different beast there than it is in real life. Presumably, that means the U.S.'s relation to it is also very different.

 

So in other words, to address the original question, I think the premises regarding funding are flawed. The U.S. provides 40% or more of the U.N. budget in the real world... not necessarily in the Champions Universe. Everything falls into place if you assume that isn't true there.

[caris]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

Well, there is our vision of the real world, and than there is the official history of the Champions Universe. UNTIL has been around for a long time, and most of that time it had not been allowed to act in the U.S. Now, somehow it UNTIL still got funding, either the U.S. still funded UNTIL or other sources of income were found. Though, particularly, right now it would be too soon for the U.S. administration to seem publicly too hostile to UNTIL. The Battle of Detroit seems to be too fresh in people's minds, and UNTIL still has a lot of goodwill with the U.S. public and the U.S. policy against it too much badwill at this time.

[CBikle]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

I'd like to say I wouldn't think your scenario would happen, however both Kofi Annan and George Bush are flawed leaders (IMO), however, I'd like to think that UNTIL doesn't let itself get mired into international politics.

 

Couple of side notes:

 

In the official CU, the Secretary-General of the UN isn't Kofi Annan, it's Daniel Calderon (a former UNTIL agent) UNTIL: Defenders Of Freedom, p.21 not too much on his personality, however he has a psych limit: "devoted to world peace". Difficult to say which direction he'd take on CU equivalents of real-world international current events.

 

Major Martinez (head of UNTIL) would probably be equally frustrated with Kofi (assuming you're using him instead of Calderone) and Bush and wouldn't be happy with situations like the WMD debacle or the corrupt oil-for-food program, in fact, he'd probably stick to chasing down Viper and Dr. Destroyer.

[freakboy6117]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

Well this is the way I would play until

 

I kind of think an organization like UNTIL would have to exist it would only take one superman level super coming into being in somewhere like north Korea [Kal el raised by Kim Jon il cringe.] to seriously threaten the global community. So you’d get and organization like the ones set up to monitor nuclear arms proliferation.

Until main job is to enforce met human research ban treaties and act as a clearinghouse for intelligence and organization hub fro coordinated operations to prevent trafficking in controlled technology/artifacts.

 

The UNTIL agent and superhuman forces, offer an international quick response to mega threats [alien invasions earth threatening scientific accidents etc]. They also provide support for nations unable to deal with Meta human problems.

 

The international metahuman control organization would have to have international powers like the UN weapon inspectors [of course the advantage here is they have the force to back up there inspections.

 

You could always use the rules from storm watch they can only go to a country if invite by the government or by order of the Security Council. Which means no going to Latvaria, unless Doctor Doom has been sanctioned by the UN.

 

I think the head of the organization would have to be American with key positions taken up by citizens of NATO members with at least one Russian in a key position the primary super field team would probably be lead by an American as well.

 

Most of the G7 nations and many smaller countries have their own primus equivalent though primus is probably the largest and best funded {something to do with America’s disproportionately high incident of super crime and mega scale incidents].

Ex primus agents are often in high demand around the world as teachers at the various academies. Agents from all these agencies are often seconded to UNTIL it’s normally considered a good career move, as the contacts with international agencies can be very helpful.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

I don't buy the idea of UNTIL existing at all. The US won't dump that much funding into an organization that it doesn't control. I could, however, see a NATO force that was heavily funded.

 

But regardless, the US has always kept the very best stuff for ourselves. Even when we sell hardware to our allies, we don't give them all the bells and whistles.

 

Sure, going from the present to the future, this would be unlikely. But the CU diverged from RL before the US was founded... and was profoundly different before the UN was founded.

 

Unlike the 'real' UN's business, UNTIL funding has a direct impact on each member state. If UNTIL is underfunded, then THEY get hit by Supervillains. Especially if UNTIL was part of the founding principles (which makes sense), it could well get fully funded.

 

After, why (IRL) does the UN rceive so much of it's funding from the US? Because much of the rest of the world doesn't see self interest, and hasn't got firm enough principles to not care.

[Agent 13]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

After' date=' why (IRL) does the UN rceive so much of it's funding from the US? Because much of the rest of the world doesn't see self interest, and hasn't got firm enough principles to not care.[/quote']

Actually, it's because under the charter, UN dues are calculated based on things like GNP, national debt, per capita income, etc. As of 2002, the U.S. was paying about 22% of the U.N. operating budget, and somewhere between 10-15% of the peacekeeping budget. (Well, supposed to be paying, anyway. The US ran up a debt of unpaid UN bills to somewhere between $1-3 billion up til '99.)

 

I'm not sure where the 40% figure came from, because the dues have been capped at 22% since 2001. (A change from the 25% ceiling established in 1974.)

[Guest rbezold]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

I remember (vaguely) conservitives in the Bush Sr. administration complaining that we were funding more than our share of the budget. Now that I think about it, I can't vouch for it's accuracy.

[RDU Neil]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

In my "super world" I use both agencies... and from years ago, I had the US forbid and UNTIL activities on US soil, so PRIMUS filled that role... while I also established that the European Union was much more developed and economically viable, and could fund the UN and UNTIL in a compatible way, without US support. The fact that the US and the EU are in a much more equitable economic relationship has played into the background of my world.

 

I figure that the EU being an economic powerhouse due to metahuman abilities and superscience is no less fantastic than superheroes in general... and the politics of the US administration that is p.o.'d about the declining hegemony of US influence is great drama.

[Koshka]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

I'll probably be posting a correction once I get home and can doublecheck my copies of UNTIL and CU -- I've been house- and cat-sitting for friends, but they get home this weekend.

 

However, IIRC, the US has the largest superhuman crime problem in the CU. For most of UNTIL's existance, they couldn't get involved in the US. Based on these facts, it seems likely to me that UNTIL before US funding could still have been a viable organization, because they had a much lower workload. Once the US signed the Tribunal Treaty and let UNTIL into the country, presumably there was a clause in there somewhere about having to provide funding. (If not, the treaty drafters were idiots .)

[levi]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

I think of PRIMUS and UNTIL like the CIA and the FBI. Organizations that are both funded from a similar source, but have very different agendas and organizational structures. PRIMUS' Silver avengers and Golden Avenger are "the official US superteam" with the best para-military support ever seen. Where as UNTIL has to focus not only on policing the world's supers, but aid missions, negotiations, diplomacy, etc...

 

If push came to shove, the US has a history (in the Champions verse) of pushing UNTIL out the door to make room for PRIMUS, so it seems reasonable they would choose to again.

[Metaphysician]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

IIRC, US funded UNTIL even before it signed the treaty.

[freakboy6117]

Re: UNTIL vs. PRIMUS?

 

wouldn't that funding have come out of the genral UN operating budget? im sure the Us pays fro plenty of thisng it doesnt actually have treaties signed for