Questionable Questing

pepperjack

I wouldn't say "firing" so much "career change." But yes, as best I recall, there are rules against capes serving in the PRT.

pepperjack

I could misremember - it might just be a strong, unwritten rule or custom - but it would be kind of like having foreign nationals serving in the CIA. Political correctness aside, the PRT exists to manage and regulate parahumans. There's a sense in which it would be considered a conflict of interest.

pepperjack

I recall that it was explicitly mentioned that there was no way that the Director, at least, could be parahuman. If a cape were put in charge of the PRT, it would cause an uproar.

AsTheGlassMelts

Gotcha. So, if you triggered and aren't planning to join the protectorate, you just would hide the fact you triggered. Dragon or PHO in general knowing that X cape is also a PRT Agent does not mean they know which PRT Agent it is, and neither does the PRT if you never reveal it, so I'll still go with it.

AsTheGlassMelts

But yeah it looks like there were a few PRT parts that might have had parahumans in it? WEDGDG I think specifically says it has Parahumans in it?

pepperjack

Yes, there is at least one parahuman in the PRT. It is NOT public knowledge. I don't even think it's even known within the PRT, with the obvious exception of the parahuman in question.

It's possible there are others, but it's not addressed in the story so far as I know.

pepperjack

I suspect that, if it were revealed that there existed a cape who was also a PRT agent (and no one knew which agent), that would trigger something of a witch-hunt within the organization. It doesn't really come up in the story, though.

AsTheGlassMelts

It is though. WEDGDG was an entire force of tons of thinkers that worked for the PRT. They were corrupt and based in San Francisco, and when they were going to be investigated for corruption all the bad Clairvoyants and Precogs and Empaths fled the country because they saw it coming, but the rest got caught; Like Accord.

AsTheGlassMelts

Also called 'Watchdog.' But yeah not sure about capes with like, direct combat application powers.

1986ctcel

"h. WEDGDG was an entire force of tons of thinkers that worked for the PRT. They were corrupt and based in San Francisco"

WHAT!? Where the hell did you get that?

pepperjack

That sounds like it came from someone's fanfic, to me. Unless this is from some kind of quest run by Wildbow after the fact, I wouldn't take it as anything even approaching canon.

pepperjack

I looked into this further, and it looks like this came from the background info section of the manual that Wildbow wrote for his players in "PRT Quest." It has no basis or mention in the actual story.

pepperjack

On top of that, the text of the entry says that Watchdog "employs" groups of thinkers, which I take to mean "hires on a contract basis." They would be taking direction from the PRT, but would not be actual PRT members - kinda like the Protectorate.

pepperjack

Or, more probably, *exactly* like the Protectorate: I expect these are Protectorate thinkers. Hell, he might even have meant "employ" as in "use" rather than as in "pay for work."

AsTheGlassMelts

There are citations of Wildbow stating that it's a full canon thing, on the wiki, with links to all of the posts in which he said it. Specifically him saying 'The thinkers referenced were members of Watchdog, the same PRT sub-organization that Accord was a part of before he went off the deep end.'