System Supervillain, Chapter 165

Chapter 165 – Admin

Web Mistress and I pulled Black Dragon aside to one of the unused crew quarters. Most of the girls slept in my king-sized bed, after all, so there wasn’t much need for all the separate quarters, despite them being provided in the design phase. Still, I wasn’t complaining. Options were always good, after all.

“So,” I said, “I’m sure you’ve heard through the Guild forums about some of what the Local Administrator for a solar system has to do, but let me lay it out clearly. With this power, you literally can change anyone or anything in the System, literally rewriting them, and the System will force that change. For instance, you could take a man with fire abilities, and turn them into a woman with the ability to telekinetically manipulate nacho cheese. The sky is the limit on what you are able to do. Technically.”

Black Dragon didn’t miss the emphasis I put on that last word. “Technically. Right. You mentioned on the forums that you are only the ‘Local’ administrator for Earth. Which means there is some sort of hierarchy, right? And I guess if I start abusing things, they’ll come in and slap me down?”

Web Mistress nodded. “That is what we believe. We haven’t pushed things, for obvious reasons. Too much playing god can go to one’s head. That’s how reasonable villains, like us, stop being reasonable, and become problems that need to be put down. Even if you never see someone from on high coming down to intervene in local matters, even if the System doesn’t have any real limits beyond a few hard-coded ones, you need to set limits for yourself, or that basically starts daring the universe to send someone in to take you out.”

“There are some hard limits, like she said,” I continued. “We know for a fact that using System access to alter sides during a war, either boosting your own side or weakening the other side, triggers an automatic review. However, there are also loopholes. In the example of war, any System Administrator in a star system can act on help tickets sent in by ordinary people. Even if they are on opposite sides of a war.

“The Gel-nak brought an Administrator with them when they invaded. Tried to get us to open a help ticket as part of a surrender deal. That would have allowed them to rewrite us as obedient slaves to the Empire. Naturally, we weren’t that stupid, but it is something you are going to have to look out for.”

Black Dragon scowled. “That’s a damn shite way of trying to take someone out. Might not be the most ‘honorable’ of combatants, but even I don’t do shite like that. This Admin one of the lizards you killed up in orbit?”

“The first one,” I nodded. “Web Mistress dropped me right in their computer control center, where the Admin was stationed. They weren’t ready for someone to literally pop up in the middle of their ship. Once their IT department was dead, the Uprising Controls sealed the deal. Rinse and repeat through all the other ships in the fleet, then went back to take out any of the ones still alive.”

The martial artist shook his head. “That’s so damn stupid, I’m surprised they didn’t have a big red ‘Self-Destruct’ button out where everyone could see it.”

Web Mistress and I both winced at that. It was an unfortunate truth that mad science types, on both sides of the law, tended to get… overconfident in their designs. That was the difference between ‘super-science’ and ‘mad science’. Inevitably, the mad science types ended up in one of two camps. Either they overlooked the possibility that their creation could get out of control, and had no way to turn it off, except by having some hero or other villain completely destroy it, or they completely forgot about the fact that other people could push buttons, too, and their big, shiny failsafe device turned out to be their own undoing.

No one knew why the mad scientists who went for self-destruct options used big red buttons, but according to the Guild, seventy percent of them used the big red button of doom to launch the self-destruct sequence. Another twenty-five percent had a lever of some sort that could accidentally get tripped during a fight. The remaining five percent included things like physical keys that needed to be turned, voice activated self-destruct triggers, and so on.

Black Dragon took a breath, and said, “So, what are the limits, so I know what not to do?”

“The rules are simple enough,” I said. “You can edit individual status screens, changing them as much or as little as you like. However, adding or subtracting points is logged, and flagged for review, as are any edits that are done without consent, a help ticket, or an alert from the System. So, you can’t just give yourself an extra hundred XP without the System making note of it. That said, once we make the alterations to add you as an administrator, you’ll be able to edit your own status screen, allowing you to better tailor your abilities to what you need.”

“How big are these edits I can do? Like, completely strip out all those Disadvantages?”

“You could do that,” Web Mistress nodded. “However, you would have to reduce your abilities accordingly, to account for those disadvantages no longer providing points. However, if you have some problematic disadvantage, like, say, a 20-point Vulnerability disadvantage making you take twice the BODY damage from Fire attacks, you could change that into taking twice the STUN from Fire instead, or replacing it with one or more other disadvantages. For instance, making it a 20-point Psychological Disadvantage that is Common frequency and Total intensity, preventing you from telling lies.”

Black Dragon frowned. “How would that work, exactly? Like, physically keeps you from saying anything that isn’t true, or you can’t say things you know aren’t true?”

“Good question,” I nodded. “The answer is that you would not be able to say anything you knew to be factually untrue. So, if you thought the star of some movie was named Alex Jones, but it was Adam James, the System wouldn’t correct you, but if you knew it was Adam James, and you tried to say Alex Jones, you would have to fight to even try and say the words. However, that does not mean you wouldn’t be able to work around it, if you were clever enough. If you say something that is factually true, but people understand it as something else, or lie by omission? Perfectly fine. There’s a reason why most ‘trickster’ or ‘devil’ types have some form of that disadvantage. Including both Lucy Morning star and her father. It forces them to actually think about the words they are saying, instead of just saying anything that comes to mind.”

“And it makes it so people don’t dismiss anything they say out of hand,” Web Mistress adds. “If someone knows you always lie, then that makes them not trust anything you say. On the other hand, if they know you always say the truth, even if what you say and what they hear are two different things, then they can never just assume. They always have to spend time considering. That can be valuable.”

I smiled. “Not to mention that, when you get the reputation of never telling lies, you can bank on that reputation, like when I told your King that, if he let me have a nuke, I would not let it be used anywhere on Earth or in its orbit. A normal super, even the hero types, would not have been able to make that kind of bargain. But because people know that if I make a promise, I keep it, that opens options for me, that has nothing to do with administrator powers or points in the System.”

Black Dragon was no fool. Otherwise, the Knave would have never suggested him for a position of responsibility. He understood the benefits of such a reputation, and how it would shatter if he ever misused it. “That’s something to think on, for sure. So, anything else I need to know?”

“There are a few things that are automatically logged and flagged for review, according to what we’ve found. The big ones are adding and subtracting points to people, or even just changing people’s Status without either consent, a help ticket, or an alert through the System. Playing around with such things too much is likely to get the attention of those higher up in whatever organization exists.”

“What about that time you gave everyone who signed Robotnik’s petition a ‘free audit’ of their points?”

I chuckled. “Well, that would be one of the few times that I did put in a few changes without a help ticket or System alert. However, I was very careful not to add or subtract points, simply transform disadvantages that were potentially damaging or inconvenient into the ‘always tells the truth’ disadvantage, with a note in their files stating that this was a reward for their ‘vigilance against corruption’, or something like that.”

“Ah, that’s clever. Setting it up so that, if someone looks in on it, they see that you were doing that to ‘help’ them, rather than purposefully screwing with them. And since you rarely do anything like that, they may be more likely to know about it.

“Right, but that kind of trick only works so often, so you have to be careful about when and how you use it. The other big thing you have to look out for is not using any of the Administrator abilities to solve non-system problems.”

“Example?”

“Say you find in someone’s Status that they killed their family, and ate them. Or they like doing things with kids that are distinctly not family friendly. That’s something that a lot of hero types would take them to task for. Doing that with administrator abilities would potentially raise flags about abuse, however. Which is why I asked for a ‘reasonable’ villain to take this role. Someone who can let something slide, or find a way to handle it without using Administrator abilities, even if it means you just whisper in someone’s ear and let them investigate for themselves.”

“Got it. Same as the bobbies back home do, can’t go making a case on info you got from someone kicking in a door without a warrant, so you either need to find a way to work to that conclusion, or you need someone else to investigate independently, right?”

“Right. Other than that? The only real thing you have to do is respond if someone fucks with the System in some way, or if there is some kind of bug that needs to be addressed. Try to use it as little as possible. Also, have someone you trust look over any changes you intend to make to your own status before implementing them.”

“Wait, you can change your own status? Isn’t that risky?”

“Very, if you don’t know what you’re doing. And if you catch a case of the stupids, it is possible to delete your own Administrator access, or make yourself too stupid to read the interface. Lots of ways to fuck things up. Which is why having a second set of eyes on things before you go editing your body and soul is a good idea, no?”

Black Dragon just nodded, grimly. Good, he was taking this seriously. I grinned at him, and said, “Now, if you consent to being altered, I will make the changes needed to make you a Local Administrator. And I, personally, promise that I won’t make any changes other than the ones necessary for that change.”

He just nodded, resolved. “Let’s do this, then.”