How Bad is Patroit?

[Raveled]

Those who obsess over chat logs will remember a discussion about a Blue Beetle-inspired hero, with a bit of a twist in that the suit's AI is the reasonable one, and the alien piloting it is the paranoid outsider. The idea was floated of an Area 51-style base where all sorts of alien tech and failed .

My problem so far is that AEGIS, while led by a bit of a dick, doesn't seem outright evil enough to imprison a sentient creature who hasn't done anything wrong. An alien visitor seems like something the Freedom League would handle, frankly. Am I misreading the situation, or am I spot on? And if the latter, is there another organization who would do such a thing?

[Avenger Assembled]

AEGIS might not have realized the alien was sentient! 

[Ari]

[Per Chat, clarification that Dir. Powers is leader of the agency, not robo!Jack Simmons. And that he's not a jerk.]

 

Avenger makes a good point. If our good star-buddy wasn't obviously intelligent the same way most aliens are, could be they'd get mistaken for something else. Which might mean they get unintentionally ill-treated.

[KnightDisciple]

Alternatively, it could be multiple factors. 

 

Unless the alien dude is either amorphous, or can change shape, he'd likely have to be fairly humanoid to fit inside a human-made power suit without being literally grafted inside. It's a bit of a leap for them to just "assume" said being isn't sentient and sapient.

 

But what if he seemed dead? He's in a big crash, and gets beaten up pretty badly, and between freaky alien biology in general, and special hibernation instincts or whatnot, he seems to be dead on arrival. He gets taken to a secret base, but wakes up before dissection starts. Then, breakout!

 

Combine that with weird initial readings that make them think he's a hive-mind creature, or otherwise obfuscate the exact nature of his sapience. 

 

Thus, it's less about them imprisoning a being they just somehow don't think is a reasoning being (seems kind of hard to swallow if, again, they're not evil and this guy is conscious at all), and more about them making mistakes due to weird biology. 

[Raveled]

But what if he seemed dead? He's in a big crash, and gets beaten up pretty badly, and between freaky alien biology in general, and special hibernation instincts or whatnot, he seems to be dead on arrival. He gets taken to a secret base, but wakes up before dissection starts. Then, breakout!

... And he blows up the base on the way out with the armor. Convincing the AI that he needs some help restraining it. Yesssss.

[TheAbsurdist]

My problem so far is that AEGIS, while led by a bit of a dick, doesn't seem outright evil enough to imprison a sentient creature who hasn't done anything wrong. An alien visitor seems like something the Freedom League would handle, frankly. Am I misreading the situation, or am I spot on? And if the latter, is there another organization who would do such a thing?

 

So let me preface this by saying this is just an objective opinion, and I bow to our canon as well as the knowledge of the setting apart from that.

 

It isn't necessarily evil.  And realistically AEGIS wouldn't see it as evil.

 

If the person cannot be identified as a having an originating nation, then you get lost in the shuffle just due to paperwork.  And technically most extraterrestrial aliens who do not have diplomatic reasons or allowance would be an illegal entrant to the physical country they are in.  And if they don't identify object as a sentient life, then it is a customs issue, and not immigrations'.

 

So AEGIS, given their broad purview, can lay either claim to an ET.

[Raveled]

Well, no. If the individual in question doesn't object to being imprisoned, then it wouldn't be nearly the problem that I am presenting. But I assume the PC I am formulating would, in fact, object to being locked up and poked by scientists with long science-needles.