I'm a bit at a loss as to what Troll's boss(es) would say to this.

On the one hand I'm sure they'd feel it isn't a "real" trial, or jury.

On the other hand one can argue some level of accountability for the Teragen is a step in the right direction, with the alternative being nothing.

Probably use it as a set up to nail her likely.

99% chance that Proteus has ten snipers and a myriad of assasins poiting all over her the minute she shows up.

On off chance that it's the 1%, the Utopians would be against her from the start, the Terats would grudginly defend her just to screw with the Utopians, the unaligned will be threathened/bribed by the two groups and after months of trial, TS would leave the courthouse just to be shot in the stomach multiple times by "a distressed friend of Excavator who claimed real justice.".

But that's just me and my "seen too much TV" brain >_>

I could see that. But I could also see it being used as a bit of social engineering.

Maybe a better question is whether or not they'd forbid their members from taking part.

If they do then she doesn't even get a show trial and remains on the run. And there's something to be said for this, in Kansas(?) a few years ago the pro-evolution forces didn't show up to a trial run by the anti-evolution forces to try to "determine" what the school board should do.

If they don't forbit it, then they run several PR risks, but they also take the chance that either she'd be found guilty or be caught and hauled off to justice.

Speaking as a Utopian... there is some truth to this. On the other hand, as an Analyist I'd try to be "fair".

Doc wouldn't be a bad choice for this, he's got Mega-Int, his nature is Analyist (most of the time), he's not with T2M and he didn't personally know the victim.

He also might be someone that Project Pro might not mind getting killed, and he's not likely to die if it hits the fan.

On the other hand his presence does raise the bar for how bad the situation could potentially get.

Well, to make for an easy question.

Setting aside what Utopians or Unaligned Novas could be taken to be Jury. What Teras would be taken? Count Orzaris? Geryon? Johna Scripture? The Apothecary? or would it be all Terats with no Rep who might as well be Terat posers?

There is a ton of variants here, Utopia in case this happens would want to avoid any and all Novas with heavy signs of taint, as part of their usual PR circus.

That eliminates a TON of Terats right off the bat. Worse yet, what happens if they "Jury Píckers" pick specifically Terats with grudges, or at least a disliking, to Time Slip? Utopia would do all on its power to ensure that the trial will go its way.

There are a toooon of factors on this >_> But seeing how everybody here is smarter than I am, they probably already tought about all that

Utopia isn't in a position to dictate who shows up on camera any more than the other two factions. If they want a trial, they'll have to play the jury game like everyone else. Otherwise no trial.

The way the bartering goes, it could end up with a bunch of second-stringers for both sides in the jury box, with all the main players having to watch.

Actually, with objections from both sides with regards to potential jurors, they might start out trying for 4-4-4, but it's more likely to end up 2 Utopians, 2 Terats and 8 Independants (or some similar variation) only because the 2 actual factions are more likely to try to block extremists from either side. Getting an actual 4-4-4 that both prosecution & defense can agree to will probably be more challenging than anything else. Would Timeslip accept a non 4-4-4 if the PU/T sides were balanced? What about alternates [alternate jurors in case one of the normal jury can't continue the case for some reason]?

Machina brought up a good point in the IC thread though, who would preside over this trial? Not just as the actual judge(s) but perhaps more importantly, what legal system would have jurisdiction? I don't know that much about international law, but isn't the Netherlands' legal system very different from the US. Assuming it was a US-based trial what court would be tasked to hold it, Federal for New York, Chicago. Would Timeslip abide a baseline sitting as the presiding judge? Would the Terats or the more um...rules-ignoring independants abide by proper jury procedures (no outside research, no discussing the case with other people).

Where's Singularity when you need him?

Also, Lou Anne will not be posting in the IC thread at all. Assuming there's a trial, she'd expect to be involved either as a potential juror or to be called as a potential expert witness. While it's good to get your name out on things like that, the American Legal system doesn't look so favorably on people jumping in to things like that as 'potential jurors' because it shows that you may already have a predisposition, and thus wouldn't necessarily be able to be fair.

Oh... I just had a good idea for an "impartial" Utopian. Geshia.

Geisha, with her Mega-Manip 5...Talking about a convincing argument....

Lou Anne: I believe that since the T2M and Utopia in general is considered in league with the U.N. this would be ruled as a case for the International Court of Justice.

Its housed, very aptly, on The Hague, Neatherlands.

It has no Jury, but it ha 15 Judges from 15 different countries, BUT there is the Ad Hoc Judge rule. A party to the case (in this case T2M and Timeslip) can nominate a judge of a nationality not already presented on the Bench, they are considered full judges and on this way there can be up to 17 Judges on the court.

Unfortunetly, the Security Council members, of which Utopia is a member, have the ability to Veto and Overrule the decision of the court. So yeah, this is going nowhere very fast.

as of 2007, this is the composition of the Bench.

President: Dame Rosalyn Higgins ( United Kingdom)
Vice-President: Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh ( Jordan)
Raymond Ranjeva ( Madagascar)
Shi Jiuyong ( China)
Abdul G. Koroma ( Sierra Leone)
Gonzalo Parra Aranguren ( Venezuela)
Thomas Buergenthal ( United States)
Hisashi Owada ( Japan)
Bruno Simma ( Germany)
Peter Tomka ( Slovakia)
Ronny Abraham ( France)
Sir Kenneth Keith ( New Zealand)
Bernardo Sepúlveda Amor ( Mexico)
Mohamed Bennouna ( Morocco)
Leonid Skotnikov ( Russia)

But by 2017, who knows the term of this judges ends on 2015, and only the Permanent Seats on the Security Council have a basically assured position.

Poly, thanks for the info, but the problem is, as Seph so aptly pointed out IC, that this organization would never host a trial where baselines weren't involved. T2M would probably pick a baseline, just to screw with TS. If they didn't, the Hague (who appoints the third judge, yes?) would feel compelled to appoint a baseline, because of the Zurich Accord.

So, yes, Poly... you're right. This is going nowhere fast.

I'm not sure. Put 11 baselines on a jury with Count O and they come back with whatever verdict he wants.

I can see PU trying for only baselines, either judges or jury, but if your token baseline is almost assuredly going to vote with the most social nova, I'm not sure they'd bother.

A larger problem is that Preston is right. TS killed the functional equiv of an on duty cop who was acting within his sphere of authority. He's a UN cop, if the case ends up in front of UN judges, I'm not sure if TS can view that as a fair trial. Granted, TS was defending herself, so MAYBE she can claim he was acting unlawfully, but that’s a tough climb uphill.

Nor am I sure TS, at least in theory, deserves a fair trial. She's a member of the Teragen, which means she disavows the social contract and all baseline laws. Basic civil rights come from the social contract and those laws. So is she or isn't she living by laws?

But let’s ignore that…

There are some parts of this that I *really* like. It’s a really good idea. Presumably a similar set up could be done for that cannibal from the ST screen who was using mega-socials to get off. If a way to carry this out could be found then it’d be a big step towards that “nova set of laws, by and for novas” that the Teragen keeps claiming they want.

But I don’t see away to just whip up a whole set of legal apparatus wholesale. This would end up before UN judges.

Could TS live with that?

The problem I see coming regarding a Nova set of laws is those laws are going to have to be enforced.

This means that if TS DID somehow get her fair trial, all those novas who supported the process, regardless of their affiliation, would have to agree to stick to their guns.

This means if TS goes down, fair and square, the Terats who supported the process would have to hand her over and make sure the punishment was carried out in accordance with the newly made Nova laws.

And if she was found innocent by reason of self-defence, Utopian novas in support of the process would have to side with Terats in defending TS from unlawful reprisals, through force if necessary.

No good just talking a good fight: if you want laws, you have to enforce them. Occasionally, this means shedding blood and tears.

Actually, once the trial is over and ther verdict decided, it would not be the Jury's resposibility to keep her alive and protected. It would be the resposibility of local law enforcement. At least until she was set free officially, then she's on her own, unless placed into protection and I doubt TS is the type of lady to have PU or WCK officers guarding her every action.

The jury only delivers the verdict. What kinda courts you guys got over seas there big guy? Heh.

Indeed. Which brings us back to T2M as law enforcement... and I know that's not the best solution but it's what's on the table.

"Newly made"? Mostly the laws aren't new, it's just applying them to novas that is. For example murder, by whatever means, has been illegal for some time now. If someone invents a new death beam, we don't need to pass a law about not killing people with it.

Well, this has shifted just a tad; TS has indicated willingness to waive her right to a jury and accept trial by judge (so long as it's a nova judge). Personally, I think she's nuts... but there ya' have it.

How do we proceed from here?

What happens is she gets a lawyer; said lawyer negotiates an agreement in writing to turn herself in with the condition that the judge be a nova.

Presumably the powers that be accept her condition. It's not ideal from their stand point, but it's a lot more workable than allowing someone to select his own jury.

So, assuming for the moment that they do accept, TS turns herself into custody. Presumably the press is there and goes nuts. If I were TS I'd hand myself over to an elite or city defender, and not T2M. Your lawyer has the right to be here during questioning, TS should insist on that.

Finding a lawyer is going to be... difficult. The only PC lawyer I know of is Bailey (whose player is not available), and there's no way in hell she'd go with a baseline lawyer. This may wind up with her representing herself (ick).

That's a really bad idea even under better circumstances.

I thought we had some other lawyer PCs around? If not then I think you need to go with an NPC. Or maybe someone wants to start a new PC for this?

Oh agreed; self-representation is ill-advised under the best of circumstances... and these aren't the best of circumstances.

That said, there's a derth of PC laywers, and TS is non-trusting by nature.

Are you on good terms with Count "O"?

Of course this assumes that the Teragen doesn't want to see you fry simply as a warning to other Terats.

I think that in RL, a good percentage of Novas would end up as lawyers, simply because of the money involved and because it's a "winner take all" environment. I'd very surprised if the US didn't have a dozen or two nova lawyers.

TS is on dandy terms with the good Count... which is a good point.

So come May, she's actually going to hand herself in? Nuts is right. The problem isn't that she won't get a fair trial, the problem is she probably will (but that's IMHO).

How do we resolve a trial BTW? It's Timeslip's character, so in theory I guess she could write herself off... or we could do a forum vote... or argue it out. Personally I think a VERY strong argument can be made that if not guilty of murder, then she's guilty of something.

Yet another alternative is to disrupt the trial somehow.

Personally, I think the ideal thing would be for one of the Directors or a responsible player to NPC the judge. However, I'm not at all certain that that would be possible.

Still, I think it's probably moot. Dollars to donuts that someone - Proteus, Directive, Church of Michael Archangel, maybe even a Teragen faction - will move to kill her before a verdict can be reached. Realistically, she's both too prominent and too soft a target to have a reasonable chance of surviving the trial.

And yes: she's aware of that. As far as she's concerned, all of the above work to her ideological advantage:
1. If the Directive or CoMA take her out, she's a martyr for all the One Race.
2. If a Utopian group takes her out, her death discredits Utopia.
3. If one of the more militant Teragen factions (Harvesters, Primacy) takes her out, her death becomes a rallying cry for what she considers to be the more sane factions in the coming internal Teragen strife that she has seen glimpses of via pretercognition.
4. If she survives the trial - guilty or innocent - it establishes precedent for a nova-only legal system for the One Race.

Meanwhile (assuming that she is killed) her child is raised by Pachacamac over in nova-friendly Inca-World, where she has already laid the seeds of Teras (with one of the caches of archival material that she's been leaving hither and yon, in this case with Pachacamac himself). She knows that, in time, Long will develop Crosstime Travel himself and, having been with her to Inca-World, will be able to go and visit their daughter eventually.

Is she nuts? Yup. But it's a coldly calculating kind of nuts that makes a certain sort of twisted sense.

:Gulp: Are you planning on ending the character?

As soon as she walks into a courtroom she's pretty safe from Proteus (TS AFAICT doesn't know anything about them) and the Directive (having novas obay laws is a good thing).

CoMA is a possibility... although they are more likely to be a fall guy for the others.

Where you run into serious problems is with fellow Terats. Basically TS is showing her fellow Terats that the law, baseline law, can be there for them. That's in direct opposition to what they stand for. Worse, it's proving that they can get a fair trial.


There is another issue here which I thought maybe I should throw in. This could be a really short trial; none of the facts of the case are in dispute.

Background leading up to TS using Disin on T2M:
1) T2M was there legally, and within the scope of their authority, TS knew this and even knew why.
2) Various novas were throwing down on T2M, including the feral nova, various Terats (i.e. TS’s friends and allies), and TS herself.
3) That's right, TS was throwing down on them. Feral Nova is fighting T2M member, so TS jumps into the fight... by nailing the T2M member. Granted, she's using a non-lethal power, but it's still offensive action against a T2M when another alternative was possible. I.e. TS could have halted time for the feral one and handed her over to T2M (I assume this is one of the things she's trying to avoid).
4) Which kind of settles things as to whether or not the gal TS killed was acting legally and reasonably.

I suspect TS isn't (quite) guilty of murder. I.e. this isn't quite the same as killing a cop while holding up a store. A strong argument can be made that her actions weren't illegal up to the point where the fight started, nor did she intend to kill anyone. However, she didn't have the right to jump into the fight against T2M, and the T2M’er trying to use Disin on TS was acting legally. So while self defense is a mitigating factor, it’s more likely to drop things to manslaughter or something rather than not guilty.

And this is before a judge, so it simply becomes a matter of applying the law.

Quite possibly so. Death happens, even to PCs, and in this case, it's somewhat likely.
TS doesn't know about Proteus by name, but she's smart enough to know that something is beneath the surface of Utopia. What it is exactly and what name it goes by is inconsequential.
Also true... though that still serves her purposes.
Yes and no. A bigger problem with some of the more rabid Terat factions is that it is accepting (and, in a way, establishing) order of any sort. There's a very strong anarchist element amongst many Terats, and the Primacy and Harvesters play host to a lot of them. From the standpoint of the Casablancas and NV, however, she's establishing that novas can and will deal with matters of nova justice (after all, she's cutting the baselines out of the loop by refusing to submit to a baseline jury and insisting on a nova judge).
All good points... if it gets that far. The only note is that she could make a very good case for the use of Time Stop on Dauntless being a means to protect both Dauntless and the feral nova from the cave-in, rather than an offensive action. It's a dodge of course, and could be batted about by both defense and prosecution for a while, but the net result is that whether or not she planned it that way, the Time Stop did keep Dauntless from winding up pulped by the cave-in.

Holy crap... I just figured out what I'm going to try to do.... I'm checking with the Directors now to see if it will float, but if it does, it could be seriously fun. (And by that, I mean "fun in a getting-involved way", not "fun in a boatload of cheese way").

Stand by for further news.

So she suspects things, but knows nothing and can prove even less.

Very true, and very well put.

Not only is it a dodge, but it probably isn’t relevant. The point I’m making is Excavator was probably justified in attacking TS, or could have reasonably believed that she was. She’s in active combat with other Terats, TS is actively using powers on a fellow T2M member. Even if she knew exactly what TS was doing, she might *still* have reasonably attacked in exactly the way that she did. TS halts time for half or even all of T2M, then lets them out one at a time to face overwhelming odds.

Or to put it a different way, Excavator’s actions were legal. At that point a verdict of not guilty by reason of self defense (which is always really difficult to apply when killing a cop) goes out the window.

Standing by.

I've got the go-ahead from from Directors (and I'm really excited about this), so here goes:

I'm not going to write her trial; you are! Welcome to Timeslip's Trial... the Writing Contest!

Click on the link for details, folks.

I added a subforum to the specials forum for Timeslip's trial. I changed the link above to reflect the correct location.

Coolness... and thanks!

It's done, campers (though it doesn't wrap up IC'ly until 3 Jun 2017)! Go check out the winning fic... and the rest of them, too!

OK, reading an IC News thread about your own vanished character and the resulting debate is officially a helluva lot of fun! This is a hoot! Thanks, everyone, for playing along with this!!!