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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 9836070" data-attributes="member: 710">Regarding the question of what to do when the government agency gives me a task I refuse to do: I would say that any government agency working with me would need to be careful not because I think my power would corrupt me (but it might, I don't know!) to do terrible things, but because they don't know how to stop me safely if I don't. Maybe they could kill me with a nuke or they actually have some Mustrumite and know of it properties, but are they going to nuke a German city or kill their most powerful individual asset because I refused to spy or murder on someone? Losing me as an asset means that any future missions where I might have said yes will become impossible, and there is also a cost of killing the superhero that's saving all those people. So if I tell them no for a mission, their best bet is manipulating the situation to make it appear far more reasonable to me than it is. Quite possibly fake evidence that fools me (I am no expert, I might fall for photoshop and AI! Heck, maybe I am so captured by the situation that I don't even investigate deeply enough?)Say, if they want me to kill someone, they must put them in a really bad light to convince. Not sure that would work on me, but maybe I'd be willing to apprehend the target and ask them to just put them in prison, with a chance they kill them against my wishes/their promises. Not sure what I'd do if learn that they broke my trust. There is a lot of convenience in that secret identity, after all, would I really weigh my principles higher than my security and that of my family and friends?Of course, instead they could threaten to reveal my secret identity, or threaten my family, but that is dangerous, because they cannot be sure that I wouldn't respond very negatively from the threat alone, and even worse if any real harm comes to my family. Even I don't know exactly how I would respond! Maybe their psychologists are better at determining this than me, but clear is - I have the potential to do a lot of damage to them that might just not be worth the risk for what the mission is supposed to achieve. Interestingly, there there are also some limits in how they could protect my secret identity. I don't want them to kill anyone, for example. If I instruct them as such, can I trust them to stay true to it? What do I do if it's my secret identity or some photographer's life?And that's the other thing, of course. We might treat these government agencies as extremely powerful, but the are still limited. Their is no guarantee they can stop or discredit everyone that wants to reveal my secrets.</blockquote>

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