EXCESSIVE  FORCE  ACT 

RANGERS AND THE EXCESSIVE FORCE ACT (EFA).

Many Rangers have expressed frustration at the excessive force act, since it can often make their work extremely difficult. This is mostly just an overestimation of its bounds and effect, it isn’t actually all that strict but a skilled lawyer can really tear a careless ranger to pieces. For that reason I have compiled a simple summary of how this act affects you, stick to the guidelines within and courts will take an extremely sympathetic view, allowing us to take the other side to the cleaners.

David Matthews (Home secretary)

AS A CIVILIAN

You may

            -Defend yourself from attack using non lethal means. (The so called excessive stupidity act).

            - Take reasonable action to avoid harm to another, or to avoid property damage.

            (just don’t kill anyone).

You may not

-Start fights, brawl, or get drunk and flatten anyone without at least an alpha rating.

-Use super power to engage in any form of vigilantism. (you don’t need to do that

anyway since you are authorised police, but no picking on non power criminals, leave that to the police).

AS A LAW ENFORCER

You may

            -Use any reasonable force to defend yourself or another from harm.

            -DETAIN non power criminals (you may not arrest them or use force).

            -Use the full extent of force necessary to defeat and arrest power criminals.

            -Use any reasonable force to resolve extreme crisis situations.

            -Inflict reasonable property damage in the execution of your duties.

You may not

            -Act as the sole arresting officer in a non power crime, always get a non power

            officer in.

            -Inflict excessive property damage.

            -NEVER EVER, kill or cause the death of non power

            -TRY YOUR HARDEST not to kill another power in the execution of your duties.

            -‘Go streets of rage’ and use your power to decimate the ranks of non power crime organisations.

The majority of the act is relatively simple, and simply boils down to “don’t be a super powered bully!”. The big problem is that it was a very scary time back when it was made, and a lot of stupid legal precedents got set by it. Yes, to a large extent the law is stacked against you, but always remember you are officers of the law, you shouldn’t be above it. Hopefully you won’t have to deal with a situation where you risk compromising the act, but always report any breach immediately so we can get to work on a case.

ADDED NOTE (not official)

Rangers Petra, Paul, Ebon, and rocky, just listen to all that garbage will you? The people of this world created laws to control forces greater than themselves, and that about sums this up. Forget what he says about reporting breaches to legal department, if you should ever have cause to breach the act, come see me first and keep shushed to everybody else. I have a knack for making things like this go away, after all I’ve cleaned up after the four poster children for this act for the best part of 20 years. Just do what you feel is right, the courts aren’t blind.

WO

Temple personnel

Chi zen - Immortal monk .. mentor and trainer now imortal again

Mr Woe - ex vanguard groundskeeper and cook now general Wo of the rangers

Mr Tau - ninja librarian sadly dies

China - Child care and protection now training in the jade empire

Matthew - Sylkes son with bionic arms after an "accident" just back after 9 years of possession

John Paul Chance - the grandson of the Chance who let NAXO come to power now mayor of utopia

Esteban Cortez - powerfull kid now a crime boss in downtown (got a hold of a power scroll)

Emmi - computer and tech wiz combatophobe in the extreme declared insane and imprisoned

Others - Utopia

El diablo (suzuke Armano) - the fist turned wrestler sadly dies

Steven Cash - ICW promotor and vampire (also johnathon and mina his guests) still here

The Hammer - mysterious wrestler and now vigalante -fades away

Mephisto - or the masked magician smoke and mirrors illusionist now joined the new pact

Detective Lee - police officer and chi warrior now captain lee of RPD

Daggart - also ex vanguard (verry early vanguard) now liason with sgt Stone now working for esteban

Sgt stone - Utopia police cheif co opted Jessie into Utopia's weird shit dept retired

Others - NAXO

The NAXO board

REX deceased

Ghoul-bionics expert and Butcher (responsible for Matthews "accident") deceased

Sylke- Dr kucha's protegee bioengineer and manipulator Matthews mother now a mother in utopia

Marik- head of the board powerfull and ruthless best bioaugmentations NAXO has now head of geosolutions

Damoclese- powerfull chi bioconstruct with orders to protect NAXO whereabouts unknown

Splice- genetic splicer and butcher - found some kind of peace and is now just john

Chaude- sylkes liason (quote sylkes bitch) ninja biowarrior now calmer and married to jean paul chance

Mephisto- banker money man now in custody

Others - the state

Yuchico - present fist and head of the state hates NAXO now in custody as she went mad

Metal - chi user and state trouper (also Halcien -fellow trouper) metal now is an ICW wrestler halciens unknown

Others -vanguard

Parker - Deacons second in command and now head of the vanguard 

                trying to resurrect Deacon now free and head of the cities mercenary unit

Deacon - Ex head of the vanguard and now a ghost disappointed in his second - always coming back ... always

Charlie - supplies and logistics defector from the vanguard - deceased

 NEW CAST

Ebony Hawke – the story so far

Born in a Naxo research facility roughly 18 years ago I was “rescued“ by a State Trouper strike team

I spent the next 8 years in a State orphanage, a great joy for a 2^nd gen biowarrior (this was during the height of Naxo - State tension) so life was not exactly easy (the scars attest to that)

During Naxo’s nuclear attack on the state in the end days of the war the orphanage was semi destroyed and I took the chance to escape onto the streets

Life on the streets was not much easier but at least there was enough food and less violence, I took up with a succession of street gangs. As my bioaugs began to kick in I found enhanced vision and strength very useful on the streets. As the look out for the gang and occasionally the muscle the gang prospered (as much as a street gang could) sleeping in abandoned buildings and airshafts.

What I did to survive in those years is no ones business but my own and I feel no regret for any of it. Apart from not having the chance to burn the orphanage to the ground myself, although some of the pampered brats from there crossed my path again trying to survive on the streets (revenge is sweet)

The last gang was stable for about 2 years when we made the decision to move to Utopia but unfortunately for me that coincided with Esteban Cortez’s crackdown on street crime not of his organization so the gang was given the choice, join the Black Road or die. Simple enough you would think but the next thing I knew was some organization called the Rangers coming to take me to their training facility. Seems Cortez had refused to have me anywhere near “his streets and basically that meant join the rangers or end up dead.

Great start don’t you think. Anyway was forced into basic training then met the rest of what would be my “team“

A bug, a kitten and a blue boy telepath, oh joy.

Actually as it happens the first shake down mission went well and against all the odds it seemed this team might work.

Also learning more about the Rangers made me think that maybe this was a good place for me (but the choice would still have been nice)

The first official trainee mission got us a nice bonus and some commendations (one from Cmd Press a face I don’t really want to spend much time looking at however) so the chance to shop with real money I had earned was a new experience for me, as was a roof over my head and food in the fridge.

The team has kind of gotten to know each other and we work well together and partied together which is even more important

We have met some legendary names in the first week too, JP Chance, Mr. Wo, Marrik Jp’s lovely wife Jeannette, an original Vanguard called Smitty and an old guy in the temple who was an assassin and fought against Deacon the first time.

I had a full medical and a haircut for the first time and Marrik identified the bioaugs I had inherited from my parents, I suppose if I asked he could try to find out who they were and if I had an original name but to be honest I am not that bothered just now

There was an emergency call sent out for all units and when we responded we were to destroy an device that was luring an extremely dangerous threat towards a settlement of 600,000 people, we found and destroyed the device and captured the user but it seems someone panicked and fired at the treat (threat X) this apparently only makes him angrier and he killed 19 rangers and 4 trainees before the decoy plan could be activated

23 lives just like that, seems being a Ranger is a dangerous job even for trainees. Still seeing as my choice is still the Rangers or die, I guess I don’t have much to lose

We were given the day off after the funeral and looks like some serious ass kicking is going to be done over the shots being fired, but that’s for bigger heads than mine to deal with.

Ranger Cadet Ebon Hawke      

Ranger corps waystation2

Cadet Hawke,

You mentioned in your E-mail to me that this isn’t your ideal situation and that you have little interest in the goals of this organisation. Allow me to clarify your situation for just a moment, that man who ‘referred’ you to our organization is probably the single most dangerous and ruthless Human being ever to have walked the face of this earth. Your choices at this juncture are simple; Us, or Him, and I believe he has already ruled out the possibility of a position within the black road. Something you should know about Esteban kiddo, what he can’t control or chooses not to control, he destroys. I think I’ve said enough.

If you feel you need to discuss this some more, you know where my office is, but we’re going to be turning you loose on the world soon so I suggest you deal with it. That being said, I must admit I’m quite glad Cortez did send you our way, we can certainly use someone of your talent in the rangers, and I think you can make a real contribution, if you’re strong enough.

Besides, we’re offering you a pretty sweet deal. Your ‘colourful’ past disappears, this has already been cleared with several state officials who have reason to dislike you. We give you a paying job, and a damn fine paying job if you do it right. Not only that but we’re giving you a house , land, and a position of authority, so don’t give us that “I didn’t want this” crap. I’ve been where you are, I “didn’t want it” either, but someone didn’t take NO for an answer, it sucks, live with it and then make em pay later. Anyhow neither of us have any say in the matter, State wants you off the streets after their new deal with the road, they aren’t looking after their guttersnipes like they used to.

Your thoughts for the day

            -250 RC per week. That’s 400 old state dollars.

            -Land. YOUR land.

            -Position of authority.

            -Not winding up a footnote in “The bloody rise of Esteban Cortez”

            -A chance to BE SOMEBODY damn it!

I’ve been more aggressive than I meant, but I can’t stand to see a talented Kid waste themselves on small time theft and street scrounging, you’re better than that. Or rather you might be.

Be All You Can Be?

Why not?

WO

CADET HAWKE, BRIEFING.

SUBJECT:YOUR PARTNERS.

Kid,

Here’s the heads up on your new partners, read it carefully, and remember you have to live and work with these people, so try and make it work.

CADET PETRA

We don’t know much about P, we rescued her from a bandit raid in the deep wastes not a month back. Her ways may seem a bit odd to a city kid like yourself, but they’ll be invaluable when you wind up on waste assignment. She’s quite the physical specimen, with some impressive flexibility and a low end Chi manipulation capacity. She carries the least ‘baggage’ of all of you, but it remains to be seen how badly the destruction of her convoy by bandits has affected her.

Species: Mutant human

Distinguishing features: Vaguely feline physiology

CADET PAUL

Paul’s an interesting character. Atlantean as you’ll probably already know, what you may not know is that Paul is not a gene boosted Atlantean, he’s the real deal. About 4 of them survived the incident in stasis pods, we were really worried they might cause trouble, but it turns out that they were children who had been deep frozen a while back. Stasis leakage caused them to age slightly, which added up, so Paul has the physical appearance of a 20 year old, in reality he’s only been up and about for 5 years.

Incredibly intelligent nonetheless, however, and this is a big however, he is a committed pacifist. This does not mean that he won’t fight, it does mean he will be reluctant to fight, and he will not kill. His knowledge skills are definitely superior though, and he has potential for off the map TK, so you might get some pointers off him. As an original atlantean, he possesses a small amount of telepathic skill, but its stunted due to deep freeze.

CADET ROCKY

Full name Rocheron Sylmian Induras Nakimo the 6^th. Rocky has refused to comment on its Gender, but It couldn’t be much more Xidus if it tried. Rocky is a bit problematic for the corps, as far as the Shadowstalkers go it’s a walking diplomatic disaster, fortunately we don’t have much diplomatic banter with them these days. Rocheron is a genocidal killer, do you know what one of them is? It’s a person who destroys beyond recovery an entire genus or species. Rocky exterminated an entire 25,000 strong tribe (and distinct genus) of mutants because “they served the forces of evil”. Don’t let that put you off, Rocky’s a great kid, honourable, dedicated and probably the most experienced fighter of you all.

Do keep it in check though, we don’t want repeat incidents. That could be bad.