Ooh, Shiny! (Aurora)

"I've been planning this for years, and you've been thinking about it for what, less than five minutes? The fact that you think you can poke holes in any of this, or that you think I haven't hears about any of this from someone else, or that I haven't even thought about any of this myself is laughable," she turned and looked him directly in the eye. "You don't have to be afraid. Change is scary, but it's often for the better. There may be a time where you have less, but you will at least be able to exist as yourself without fear of being harassed or killed. Don't let them fool you into thinking you need them just because they run the world right now. Things don't have to be that way, we can make it better.

"You underestimate the diversity in skills that we have. I know a super that can spawn just about anything from nothing. Your power would make logistics a non-issue. Mine is also good for transporting large amounts of stuff and would work very well with yours. There are so many powers I couldn't even begin to describe what we could do with them if we put our minds to it. Further, we are more than our powers. I doubt the only thing most supers can do is throw around flashy supernatural abilities, I'm willing to bet that every single one of them have mundane skills too. We can do a lot. Anything they can do we can do better, maybe not on an individual by individual basis, but as a group you can't deny that supers are just better. For your example, farming and ranching aren't exactly specialized skills. Nearly anyone can do it, if we couldn't we would not have survived this long as a species.

"I have already stated that I know people will fight against it, several times in fact. I cited it as one of the reasons I was willing to be part of this cesspool of a faction. You say this like it's some profound statement that I should be really worried about, but look around you. If you take even a fraction of a second to actually think about what you're saying rather than spouting the first thing that sounds vaguely intelligent you might have better luck in coming up with actual problems or actual good ideas. Even in the unpowered world people don't follow the rules, and people deal with them. It's important that we as a community agree on these rules, and build what they will be together to maximize the number of people that go along with them, so that we as a community can deal with the people that refuse to follow them. People are unreasonable, but most of them have some sense of self-preservation and a desire to live a better life. If someone breaks the rules, they may get one victory, but if this is done right they'll turn most of the community against them. They won't last long in that case. Though I do agree that we need a designated area for people to go all out on for those conflicts that simply can't be resolved halfheartedly. It would just have to be a place we're prepared to turn into a wasteland.

"I reiterate, things can be better. In order for things to get better there need to be drastic changes. Don't be afraid of them."

The new information on dragons made her look back down and furrow her brow. While she was glad people were trying to find more information on dragons, she wished they were better at spreading it. The moment she heard anything about dragons she spread it like wildfire to anyone that would listen to her, and often even to the people that didn't. At this point Aurora was convinced that she was the main reason Pandaemonium, and probably a lot of others, were even half as prepared for the last dragon as they were. After a moment she steepeled her fingers in front of her mouth and stared off into the distance, clearly deep in thought. She was clearly not hearing anything he or anyone else was saying as she thought through the implications of this. Once she came to an answer, she lowered her hands, though she continued looking off into the distance.

"I don't think this changes much. It makes our situation more dangerous than I thought, and drastically increases the necessity of figuring out how to properly fight them, but that's the extent of it. We can't fight dragons alone. If a dragon manages to find a lone super that super will die, there's very little doubt about it. Increasing our numbers is the only way to fight them off effectively, so it's rather unfortunate that our best strategy will bring more of them to us. I still think it's our best strategy though, we have to work together."

"No, there's nothing wrong with asking questions, but that's not what you were doing."

Aurora folded her arms again and looked down at the street below. She was clearly deep in thought again, though not as much as before. It took her a moment to mull over exactly what she should say. Once she started speaking she didn't move. Her arms were still folded in front of her chest and she was still staring at the ground.

"It sounds like I don't have to convince you why this needs to be done, so I'll skip that part. In terms of working with the unpowered people, I think of it like this: If they all disappeared tomorrow, would we be okay? Not just survive, but would we be able to thrive without them? There would be an awkward transitional period, not unexpected when thousands of people just suddenly disappear, but I have little doubt we'd be able to continue on mostly the same. My work in the reconstruction efforts in the docks has at least proven that much I think, and my current influence over Pandaemonium would allow me to control them somewhat. I've worked with several supers with a variety of skills, and I have little doubt that there would be enough of us to pick up the pieces. I already have a mental list of who could do what to a degree.

"If unpowered people decided to start working with us tomorrow, there probably wouldn't be much objection to it. In fact, there'd probably be a lot less fighting in general, as most of the supers I've spoken to wouldn't have any objections. There would be some that would continue to cheat and steal, but there are unpowered people like that too. They could be dealt with by the full force of the law like anyone else. In other words, it's them pushing us to the fringes of society, not us forcing them to do anything. If they want a peace between supers and the unpowered, the onus is on them, not us. If they refuse, well that's not my problem, I'll go through with everything regardless. And that's all I have to say about unpowered people. I hate how ever discussion about us has to be made about them too," Aurora narrowed her eyes and frowned.

"In terms of governance, I wanted to try to create a new system because democracy and capitalism are both terrible, but I don't have the time to design something like that. I can't afford to sit back and wait because I couldn't dream up something anymore. Therefore, we'd have our own mayor and city counsel, our own police force, and our own laws. Our part of the government would in no way interfere with the affairs of the unpowered, and the unpowered would not interfere with ours. Our police force would only handle powered threats, and would leave unpowered threats to the unpowered police force, though I'm not against the unpowered police force cordoning off areas and helping civilians escape superpowered fights should they decide to do so. Our law enforcement would have to be a little different though. I think we could leave most problems to them, but if someone starts breaking the rules of engagement then all of us need to get involved. We cannot let that stand.

"The rules of engagement cannot be decided by me alone. I intend to gather some of the more powerful and prominent supers to discuss them until we can come to a consensus. This increases the odds that they will be followed, and if they are not then we should at least have some amount of force to punish the people that refuse. Because of that, I cannot tell you what they would be at this moment. I can tell you that I'll be pushing for no killing, supers or otherwise, or giving serious injuries. If a dispute requires someone to go all out, those rules can be ignored, however they must fight outside of the city in a designated location. No going after friends or family when you have a problem with someone, or taking hostages in general. No causing enough destruction that it would take more than a week to clean up. No use of poison gas or anything that might permanently pollute the area, unless the dose is small and will dissipate within an hour. Those are the things I consider most important. I believe that addresses your concerns for the time being."

Aurora thought about his proposal for a moment, but she didn't go into a trance like before. In fact, her response came quite quickly.

"I can't commit to something like that," she waved her hand dismissively. "Managing one city will be difficult enough, I can't promise that I would be able to handle two. Someone else would have to do that. Further, in order for us to be able to help each other in the event of a dragon attack, the cities would have to be fairly close together, which kind of defeats the purpose. I can't say it's a bad idea, but it won't be something I'll be trying.

"If you give me any information I'll be sure to spread it around as best I can," Aurora nodded. "I'm quite loud, it shouldn't be a problem."

"Obviously. I know what I'm doing. And I'll keep that in mind."

He got up and stretched, which told her that his curiosity was finally satisfied and he was finally going to do something useful. Her mind started drifting back to the things she needed to get done tonight, and was only stopped by the mother of all stupid questions to ask. Aurora's face contorted into a scowl, even deeper than the way she was earlier, her mood clearly completely soured.

"You care too much about what people think of you and try too hard too hard to make them like you or, perhaps more accurately, to make them think you're really smart and interesting. It's hard to tolerate sometimes, but I'm used to dealing with even less desirable people. Now go find something better to do than trying to make me inflate your ego."