sweno Wrote:why kill your enemies when you can get them to kill each other?This is pretty much Recluse's entire modus operandi.
His top lieutenants feud with each other and his Arbiters. Westin Phipps exists purely to drive up the despair among the disenfranchised and pitiful amongst his populace, driving the kind of anger that motivates the Strong to rise up out of the Weak while suppressing any hope amongst those that could be useful cannon fodder to those that oppose him. Nemesis has launched actual amphibious assaults on the Rogue Isles, providing Recluse with an external enemy to test his troops against, fostering an "Us Vs. Them" mentality that only further extends to heroes and even each other. Ruthlessness and destroying your enemies, no matter who they may be, is encouraged, as is intelligence to realize that dethroning the powerful merely because you can may not always be the best option...at least, unless you're capable of stepping into his dead shoes afterward. He does next to nothing to prevent other villain groups from attacking the Rogue Isles, and in fact actively encourages and assists lower, less connected villains in attacking Paragon, all the while working on manipulating probability itself to ignore the problem of simulated foresight by literally reacting to what Might Be before it Is.
Recluse encourages conflict because he -is- the colossus on the mountaintop....and it's much easier to reach for the heavens when the smaller people below you shoot their slings and arrows at each other rather than their mutual enemy.
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"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."