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ToastyPotato posted:It was more that they didn't have a choice. It's not like they made the decision to deal with HYDRA and the Obelisk on their own because they wanted to be fascist or dicks or something. They literally had no choice and they even reached out for help and failed. Slashrat posted:At no point did they make, or could have made, a decision on whether to cause or prevent manifestion of superpowers in random people across the world, BECAUSE they did not know, and had no reason to think, that it was something that might happen as a result of anything they choose to do or not do. Compelling, even overwhelmingly compelling, reasons for doing something does not mean that one isn't making a choice or decision. Similarly, not knowing the results of one's actions does not mean that one did not decide to act. They decided to interfere with the activation of a powerful alien artifact. That they didn't know exactly what would happen hardly makes it a less momentous decision. Maybe, at the point where they acted, they didn't have any other good options. But that they kept everything a secret until events came to a head, putting them in a position where they were the only ones who could respond to Hydra in time, is on them. Slashrat posted:They did make a decision to stop Hydra from acquiring and using a supposed WMD upon the world, which is something they had good cause to expect, and that was a decision they had every right to make as likely targets of that same WMD. What this "good cause"? What was their trustworthy source of reliable information on what would happen if Hydra brought the obelisk to the temple? Robot Hobo posted:Coulson's team stopping HYDRA there is just a matter of stepping up and saying "We let this happen, it's our moral duty to fix it." They're loving terrible at fighting Hydra. They're so terrible at it that they became Hydra. At a certain point you have to realize you're the wrong man for the job and hand it over to someone else. Sir Kodiak fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 22:55
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Sir Kodiak posted:Nah. What was their trustworthy source of reliable information on what would happen if Hydra brought the obelisk to the temple? What is this "good cause"? The fact that it was killing people. They became Hydra since they let them into the organization.
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Dec 19, 2014 22:58
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bobkatt013 posted:The fact that it was killing people. To the former: lots of things kill people if mishandled that aren't WMDs. To the latter: yes, exactly.
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Dec 19, 2014 23:00
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Sir Kodiak posted:They're loving terrible at fighting Hydra. They're so terrible at it that they became Hydra. At a certain point you have to realize you're the wrong man for the job and hand it over to someone else. That's essentially exactly what Nick Fury did.
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Dec 19, 2014 23:27
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Coulson tried, repeatedly, to cooperate with the US government. That didn't work, because (for very good reasons) nobody trusts former agents of SHIELD at the moment in the MCU. At that point, there's two options. They could turn themselves in, at which point they're completely unable to do anything of use to stop an organization that is actively looking for WMDs and has gotten frighteningly close to world domination on several occasions. This same terrorist organization has very definitely infiltrated the government they'd be turning themselves into, so the chances of anything better than a show trial and probably a swift execution are pretty much nil. Basically, that's death for both themselves AND whoever is in the way of HYDRA's ultimate plan. The alternative is to try to earn their reputation back so that the proper, legally authorized, government sanctioned authorities WILL be willing to hear them out. That's not going to happen from a jail cell. So for this to work, they have to stay out of captivity, but also continue to do everything they can to do as much good as they can. If they provide vital intel to the authorities, handle the threats that they are uniquely trained for, and perhaps save the world a few times, (all things they've been doing) then eventually they may not have to hide anymore. It's already been working on General Talbot, just a bit, and that guy is stubborn as hell. Barring any major setbacks, this plan is working. That's why HYDRA invested time and effort a few episodes back trying to frame new SHIELD for more terrorist attacks, they must be worried that Coulson is actually making progress in repairing SHIELD's good name. ... yeah, it would have been easier and smarter for Coulson to pick a new name for his rebuilt version of SHIELD. Absolutely. But then they'd have to change the name of the show. Sir Kodiak posted:To the former: lots of things kill people if mishandled that aren't WMDs.
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Dec 19, 2014 23:37
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21st century Hydra is about as connected to WW2 Hydra as 21st century SHIELD is to WW2 SHIELD: it's basically just a name. So the Hydra that we're talking about got close to taking over the world once: during their cooperation with SHIELD's attempt to take over the world. Hydra doesn't infiltrate things and subvert them. It secretly contributes its expertise to organizations with shared interests, like SHIELD. SHIELD will continue to be infiltrated by Hydra so long as SHIELD continues to be a secretive organization that attempts to control the fate of the world without any legitimate authority. The reveal of Cap 2 is far less that SHIELD was corrupted by Hydra than that SHIELD is Hydra. Robot Hobo posted:If Coulson's team prevented HYDRA from acquiring an object that turned out to be a WMD, then they've saved lives. If they prevented HYDRA from acquiring an object that then turned out to be not a WMD, or wasn't very dangerous, or perhaps was just a cheeseburger... Then there's not really a moral issue there. I was responding specifically to Slashrat's claim that "They did make a decision to stop Hydra from acquiring and using a supposed WMD upon the world, which is something they had good cause to expect," emphasis added. I appreciate that you're not him, so you don't have to defend his point, but the idea that reliable information isn't necessary doesn't address whether it's actually true that they had reliable information. greatn posted:That's essentially exactly what Nick Fury did. Promoting one of his former lieutenants isn't exactly a sea change.
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Dec 19, 2014 23:49
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Uhhh. HYDRA isn't just HYDRA in name only. Did you not watch Winter Soldier? They showed how WW2 HYDRA was basically never fully defeated, and persisted all this time, right down to the Winter Soldier program, and Zola himself. AoS has a major villain who was literally in WW2 HYDRA and was still a head of HYDRA today. The end tag of Cap 2 also showed that old school HYDRA is still around and working on stuff. Yes they lost the costumes and salute, but there have been some old school threads in each of the arms of HYDRA we've seen since Cap 2.
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Dec 19, 2014 23:54
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Red Skull's plan was to destroy the world and uplift a new, superior race in the ashes. Alexander Pierce is attempting to preserve the status quo through targeted executions. These are not particularly harmonious plans and they do not imply a shared ideology. Daniel Whitehall went from being a researcher on a side-project to the head of the organization (I guess). It would be odd if that didn't significantly change the nature of the organization. And note that, in between the two, Arnim Zola, who thought Red Skull was a madman, took over. It would, again, be odd if that didn't significantly change the nature of the organization. The original Hydra died with Red Skull. Sir Kodiak fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Dec 20, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 00:09
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Well by that reasoning, Red Skull's HYDRA was barely even HYDRA at all since it existed for only a few short years and most of the people in his own organization didn't even care to carry out his original mission as soon as he vanished. Red Skull was probably viewed the exact same way Skull viewed Hitler within his own organization. The people putting in the work seemed to have a more nuanced vision than his and it has had more continuity over the last 70 years vs the few years under the Skull.
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Dec 20, 2014 00:26
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Dec 20, 2014 00:27
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Slashrat posted:No one in SHIELD had any idea about what the obelisk would do when brought to the temple. All they knew was that Hydra wanted to bring it there as a result of their interest in WMDs. That is a perfectly valid reason for them to try and stop it right there. They knew it was an alien city and that the activation of something inside it required the intervention of what is probably genetically modified humans. Of which there are evidently a ton just sort of wandering around. Their master plan for dealing with this is "Eh, blow it up, I'm sure there's nothing too important inside". What happens next? Do the aliens that built it detect that and come back to Earth? Does some freak rear end power source inside it go critical and take out the planet? Does humanity lose out on a potentially limitless source of advanced knowledge? gently caress if they care. Something something HYDRA threat something something we have to blow it up. Hey, you know what else might have done the job? Call the loving army, they could have had a few hundred people over there in like an hour. It's not like that poo poo was on the other side of the world, it was on US soil. Clearly though hundreds of armed men would have trouble dealing with the elite Hydra assault of....a few dozen armed men. This is a job for SHIELD alone, who can not afford to be arrested because....there are guys with guns out there, and nobody else has the information needed to deal with them [Because we didn't give it to them]. Whitehall, for all his resources, was just some guy. You shoot him, he dies, everyone moves on with their lives. You don't need SHIELD to kill people. They are pretending they matter when all they've really done is bumble around doing a job anyone else could have....and probably better. The only reason the city was even a threat is because HYDRA had Raina and Skye to potentially activate it, something they never would have if SHIELD could have kept either of them safe. They are poo poo, even if they are incredibly well meaning. e: It would be funny if a show just once took one of these cowboy intelligence groups that break all the rules to do good that constantly gently caress up and just shitcanned them, then actually did a better job. Just to see what the group of lovable rogues would do with that knowledge. Mulva fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Dec 20, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 00:57
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Gonz posted:Totally going to this over the weekend. I want to walk around inside a full-sized Quinjet. 30 bucks? So that's how SHIELD is getting their funding.
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Dec 20, 2014 01:00
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TLG James posted:30 bucks? So that's how SHIELD is getting their funding. I have a coworker who went earlier today, and he said that there are a handful of plainclothes Marvel employees that blend into the crowds and will walk up to you, start a conversation about what you're seeing, and then whisper HAIL HYDRA in your ear when you least expect it.
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Dec 20, 2014 01:11
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Sir Kodiak posted:the idea that reliable information isn't necessary doesn't address whether it's actually true that they had reliable information. Not extremely detailed information, but one part came from a trusted agent and the other was observed by many agents first-hand, so what they had didn't seem particularly unreliable. It turned out HYDRA didn't seem to actually have any idea what going to happen either, so they did underestimate Whitehall's capacity to be a dumbass. HYDRA was doing a thing. 100% of known things that HYDRA has done or attempted in the past were very bad things. If HYDRA is suddenly extremely focused on doing a thing, it's a safe assumption that it would be better for everyone if they were stopped from doing the thing. So far, this is a pretty solid rule when dealing with HYDRA. Sir Kodiak posted:Promoting one of his former lieutenants isn't exactly a sea change. Though due to the debated Movie/TV separation, who knows if that will ever come up. And after Age of Ultron, that recommendation may not carry much weight. But for the moment, it's a solid theoretical check in the right column. Robot Hobo fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Dec 20, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 01:45
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Right, SHIELD had rumor, gossip, and a willingness to attribute omnidirectional malice to every member of a highly-compartmentalized organization. I would not consider that "reliable," as evidenced by the fact that they were 180° off the truth.Robot Hobo posted:To be fair, the guy he promoted is the one man every member of the 100% verified world-saving good-guy Avengers would likely be personally willing to vouch for... if they knew he was alive. From a PR standpoint, that's about the best job recommendation a guy could hope for in that position. Cap, Thor, and Banner knew the guy for a few hours. Only Tony knew him particularly well and he's decidedly the least morally trustworthy member of the Avengers. The former three aren't in a position to vouch for Coulson, the latter isn't to be trusted.
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Dec 20, 2014 02:20
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Gonz posted:I have a coworker who went earlier today, and he said that there are a handful of plainclothes Marvel employees that blend into the crowds and will walk up to you, start a conversation about what you're seeing, and then whisper HAIL HYDRA in your ear when you least expect it. On the one hand, this is kinda cheesy since you see thise meme everywhere. On the other hand, I think I'd go to half mast if it happened to me. I might start whispering HAIL HYDRA to random people and see what happens.
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Dec 20, 2014 02:23
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Sir Kodiak posted:Red Skull's plan was to destroy the world and uplift a new, superior race in the ashes. Alexander Pierce is attempting to preserve the status quo through targeted executions. These are not particularly harmonious plans and they do not imply a shared ideology. No, it is the exact same Hydra as before. The only thing that has changed is their methods. Ultimately Hydra is about fear and oppression. Red Skull tried to accomplish this via open war and failed. Then the remaining Hydra leaders realized that there may be other ways, and they decided to go dormant and slowly infiltrate the very organizations that defeated them with the intention of coming out of the shadows at the right time. The opportunity presented itself with Fury's Project Insight, which was designed to pre-emptively eliminate threats. Fury said this was to stop the bad guys before they caused any harm, but Rogers immediately saw the flaw in this logic when he said to Fury, "by holding a gun on everyone on Earth, you're calling it 'protection.'" Shortly after that, Hydra attempted their coup.
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Dec 20, 2014 03:15
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WarLocke posted:I might start whispering HAIL HYDRA to random people and see what happens. An excellent way to get yourself on the No-Fly List. (I wish I was joking.)
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Dec 20, 2014 03:16
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It's all just crooked timber. SHIELD was presumably started with some mandate from the US government and it was the US Government that ran Operation Paperclip, the operation that brought Nazis to America and in the MCU, to SHIELD. There isn't a single branch of the US military/intelligence apparatus that doesn't have some extremely shady business in it's past and likely it's present. SHIELD got corrupted but they are hardly the first organization to start with high minded ideals but end up going rotten from the inside, and most do it without Nazis actively working to corrupt it. It's a comic book universe; someone has to fight the bad guys. So who are you going to hand over responsibility to? In a world where aliens and superheros exist, someone has to be charged with dealing with threats on that level. Maybe Coluson is the hero to build a SHIELD that works, maybe he isn't. At least he has the advantage of not being undermined by Nazis right from the get-go. sunday at work fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Dec 20, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 03:35
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enraged_camel posted:An excellent way to get yourself on the No-Fly List. OK you gotta explain this. How is a tv show joke going to get you on an actual no-fly list?
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Dec 20, 2014 03:50
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sunday at work posted:It's a comic book universe; someone has to fight the bad guys. So who are you going to hand over responsibility to? In a world where aliens and superheros exist, someone has to be charged with dealing with threats on that level. Maybe Coluson is the hero to build a SHIELD that works, maybe he isn't. At least he has the advantage of not being undermined by Nazis right from the get-go. Yes, but what gives them the right to try to stop an evil Nazi group from unleashing a strange alien device, that turns people into stone, on the world as part of their plot for world domination?!
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Dec 20, 2014 04:53
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WarLocke posted:OK you gotta explain this. How is a tv show joke going to get you on an actual no-fly list? Because people are idiots? Honestly you never know who might take you seriously and report you for being a terrorist. Consider the fact that a lot of people on the No-Fly List have no idea why they were placed on it. All you need is some algorithm somewhere to determine that you're a suspect.
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Dec 20, 2014 05:25
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sunday at work posted:It's a comic book universe; someone has to fight the bad guys. So who are you going to hand over responsibility to? In a world where aliens and superheros exist, someone has to be charged with dealing with threats on that level. Maybe Coluson is the hero to build a SHIELD that works, maybe he isn't. At least he has the advantage of not being undermined by Nazis right from the get-go. The fundamental problem Cap has with SHIELD isn't the person running it, it isn't any of its ideals or its aims or anything like that, the one basic problem with SHIELD is that it operates with no oversight or responsibility to anyone. Until you change that, it doesn't matter if it's being run by Nick Fury, Alexander Pierce, Coulson, Red Skull or even Captain America himself, it's still fundamentally broken. That's the difference between SHIELD and the CIA or FBI or NSA or Marines or every other actual branch of the government/military, every one of those groups has at least some level of accountability to someone, more than old SHIELD and certainly more than nuSHIELD. Like, I understand CIA and NSA don't have much public accountability, but I can easily go google some of their employees and find out at least some partial data about them as an organization like where their headquarters are located. SHIELD seemed like some next-level poo poo, it wasn't even clear if the public knew that they existed at the start of the MCU. XboxPants fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Dec 21, 2014 |
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Dec 21, 2014 06:37
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XboxPants posted:That's the difference between SHIELD and the CIA or FBI or NSA or Marines or every other actual branch of the government/military, every one of those groups has at least some level of accountability to someone I know we're talking about a TV show here, but this sentence gave me a good laugh.
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Dec 21, 2014 07:27
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ditto. Some peoples take their TV very seriously.
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Dec 21, 2014 07:28
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The MCU deliberately made those parallels in Cap 2 and it's not exactly insane fan over-analysis to indulge in them yourself when the movie already did it.
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Dec 21, 2014 07:31
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WarLocke posted:I know we're talking about a TV show here, but this sentence gave me a good laugh. You joke, but I'm talking literally here. There is a difference, however small. Like, I can at least look up on public record who is running any of those agencies and who is ultimately in charge of them. You can't even say that for SHIELD. Or if one of them were to, say, find an ancient alien city filled with technology of unknown and incredible power, and their decision was "well I guess we should blow it up" and they accidentally killed millions of people, at least someone would have to be served up as a sacrificial lamb, even if it wasn't really the guy in charge. Sure, the CIA probably try to keep anything that damaging secret, but there's at least the possibility, however small, that the director could be fired for gently caress-ups, and it has happened before. Coulson has zero possibility of getting fired no matter what he does. That small possibility makes all the difference. You joke about how much the CIA/NSA/etc just does whatever they want even with the accountability they currently have? Consider how much worse it would be if they actually had complete free reign.
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Dec 21, 2014 08:07
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This is why we can't trust Supers. Even the "good guys" would abuse their power.
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Dec 21, 2014 08:28
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Maybe if they registered them or something so the government could at least keep track of them.
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Dec 21, 2014 08:57
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XboxPants posted:You joke, but I'm talking literally here. You're talking literally about a TV show? Jesus christ man.
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Dec 21, 2014 08:59
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XboxPants posted:The fundamental problem Cap has with SHIELD isn't the person running it, it isn't any of its ideals or its aims or anything like that, the one basic problem with SHIELD is that it operates with no oversight or responsibility to anyone. Until you change that, it doesn't matter if it's being run by Nick Fury, Alexander Pierce, Coulson, Red Skull or even Captain America himself, it's still fundamentally broken. Whose oversight does Captain America or the rest of the Avengers operate under?
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Dec 21, 2014 11:17
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Actually until Winter Soldier Captain America was always under someone else's oversight. Either the US Government or SHIELD.
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Dec 21, 2014 11:26
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Slashrat posted:Whose oversight does Captain America or the rest of the Avengers operate under? Yeah, he's a complete hypocrite. He fully violates the principles he claims to stand for. But just because he doesn't actually stand for those ideals, that doesn't mean those ideals are bad. It just means he's a bad exemplar of them. He fails to meet his own standard. But, that doesn't really impact whether it's a good standard or not.
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Dec 21, 2014 11:32
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Are we really, in the Agents of Shield thread, arguing that shield shouldnt exist? Because then we just have "Marvels", and as a show concept thats nebulous at best. In real life a secretive government organisation with murky oversight at best (the council of jim robinson from neighbours, jenny agutter and that one dude I kind of recognise but I'm not sure where from) is loving terrible. But then in real life vigilantes are also loving terrible and this is a show set in a comicbook superhero universe whose heroes are generally vigilantes. On a basic level "If you examine the superhero convention through a realistic lens, poo poo is pretty hosed up" hasnt exactly been a groundbreaking concept for about 30 years. Batman hospitalises petty criminals, while simultainiously being a billionaire who benefis massively from the same systems which keep many of the people he beats up in poverty, Iron Man hoards technology which could massively improve the lives of every person on the planet because its more important that he has a super suit than the world has clean energy, superman should stand trial for the public killing of Zod (he'd almost certainly get off, but he jusst killed someone in front of witnesses). While we are on Superman, its kind of hosed up that he spends more time foiling bank robberies in a reletively affluent american city than he does helping the starving or dispossessed in other countries. Punisher has killed more people than cancer, many of whom havent commited a capital crime even if you believe in the death penalty (And have had no trial or due process whatsoever). At least Hulk has a basic honesty of purpose I suppose. If you cant get past these things then I'm afraid that most mainstream comic properties arent for you, because they are the conventions of the genre. This is hardly limited to superhero material though, if Dirty Harry was a real cop you'd want him thrown off the force, but you just accept that he is the good guy of the movie because they movie shows you that he is right (and because the writers create the situations the characters can be infallible. Real life vigilantes inevitably end up lynching the innocent but fictional ones only ever fight "real" criminals until the writers want to make some sort of ham fisted point). Action movies dont generally hold the protagonist responsible for the deaths, property damage and excessive force they use because without those things the action movie has less action, protaganists in romantic comedies do thing which would be considered massively hosed up in real life and so on.
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Dec 21, 2014 13:30
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XboxPants posted:You joke, but I'm talking literally here. There is a difference, however small. Like, I can at least look up on public record who is running any of those agencies and who is ultimately in charge of them. You can't even say that for SHIELD. SHIELD is a good organization because it's an organization made up of good guys who do good things  Alternatively we could have Hydra, I guess. At least they're accountable to Hitler's ghost or something.
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Dec 21, 2014 14:07
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SHIELD should not exist but it's believable that Coulson would think it should and it doesn't make him a bad person, plus it leads to interesting stories. I don't see the cognitive dissonance.
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Dec 21, 2014 14:15
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"Oh a bunch of new posts in the AoS thread, maybe something cool was announced!"
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Dec 21, 2014 15:18
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Where did we get the idea that Cap opposed the lack of oversight for SHIELD? I just re-watched Winter Soldier last night, and the only time Cap expresses an opinion about how SHIELD operates is during the scene where he's introduced to Project Insight. He starts in Fury's office complaining that Fury didn't give him the full details on what was going on. That conversation was entirely about trust, nothing about oversight. Once they get down to the helicarrier docks, he berates Fury that the tactics used are all about controlling people instead of protecting them. Again, nothing about oversight. And SHIELD had oversight anyway: the World Security Council, which was an actual multinational council that both Fury and Pierce had to answer to. And since Pierce killed all of them, it's a safe bet none of them were HYDRA. Pierce also mentions subcommittee hearings when Fury wants to delay the launch, and of course at the end of the movie (and the end of last season and the beginning of this season), there's a whole bunch of answering to Congress and the U.S. military.
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Dec 21, 2014 15:46
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So I was helping with Christmas decorations at the family's last night and put on AoS to get them intro'd to it during the break. They REALLY foreshadow Ward's storyline in the first few episodes. What, with his family getting mentioned as troubled in ep 1, and his reverence for his SO dropped in ep 2.
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Dec 21, 2014 16:22
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ApathyGifted posted:Where did we get the idea that Cap opposed the lack of oversight for SHIELD? To add to this, doesn't Zola basically say, 'We waited until the people were ready to give up their freedom.'? The government(s) that oversaw SHIELD authorized Project Insight, which, even if it wasn't a HYDRA plot, would have been a loving terrible idea. Cap's issue was that Project Insight was a step way too far, and the fact that SHIELD and the world were convinced that it was a good idea is horrifying. Coulson's Little SHIELD doesn't have oversight, true, but they also don't have that kind of world shattering power or influence. I'm not sure why, in this particular universe, handing things over to the 'Government' is a better idea, since they seem to be just as loving treacherous as HYDRA and Big SHIELD. Oversight is pretty loving useless when the people doing the overseeing are assholes with lovely agendas as well. And that's pretty well demonstrated in TWS by everyone on the council thinking Project Insight is a good idea.
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Dec 21, 2014 17:04
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