The Value of Influence

Last Thursday, I went to have lunch with Tony Kord, the multimillionaire owner of Kord Technologies. We went to Foracini’s, a really nice Italian restaraunt in The Promenade. The host recognized me from a little favor I had worked on for the owner a while back involving keeping some Hellions from bothering the staff at night, so although there is usually a long wait at lunchtime, we managed to get seated right away. One of the other patrons took exception to our quick seating and started protesting. Tony, always the diplomat (and apparently quite hungry), quickly stepped in and offered to pay the bill of other patron and his friends for the inconvenience. The patron agreed and walked away still somewhat irritated, but placated.

Tony and I started chatting about things going on in the city when his assistant buzzed him on his walkie-talkie cell phone from the office and said that a hero named Xiphias needed some new Wetware auxiliary boosters, that he was running out of “juice” during battles.

Tony whipped out his PDA, poked at it for a few seconds, and replied, “Sure, Richard, send four of them over to his base. The location is in our encrypted contact database.”

I found it slightly strange that Tony was willing to simply hand over four Wetware boosters, which retail for over $15,000 each, to a hero that I had never heard of before. I asked him who this Xiphias hero was and why he rated so high in Tony’s book to simply hand over equipment like that.

Tony explained that Xiphias has been protecting commercial fishing vessels from attack for over a decade, and at his request in the late 1990’s, Xiphias expanded his activities to protect all commercial vessels travelling to or from Independence Port. As it turns out, these vessels are in constant peril from the Tsoo, who wish to expand the Pacific shipping market—and the Asian companies that use it—to the Unites States. Also, of course, the organized crime families want a cut of all action in Independence Port and were a persistent threat as well.

The reason Tony got involved with Xiphias is that Independence Port is a major shipping terminus for Kord Technologies to its European markets, and several of the company’s boats were hijacked over the course of several years in the 1990’s, costing the company millions of dollars. So Xiphias agreed to curb the crime in the area, and in exchange, Tony provides Xiphias with funds and resources he would not otherwise have access to.

Both the incident with the restaraunt patron and the relationship between Tony Kord and Xiphias show something that readers sometimes write to me about: Heroes have influence. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but always some amount that they leverage to get what they need to continue the battle against evil. In Paragon City, a hero soon learns that influence is even more valuable than dollars. A hero’s influence, if high enough, allows him or her to get any equipment that is needed. The influence provided by high-level contacts such as Tony Kord and others around the city is what drives many heroes to engage in most of the missions they undertake. In short, in Paragon City, it is what makes the world go ’round.

I stopped by City Hall after lunch to pick up my assault rifle that I use on my missions, and I started talking with Chalise Hardy, the armament inventory control clerk for the Freedom Corps in Galaxy City. I asked her if she thought that influence played an important part of a hero’s status in Paragon City.

She walked to a weapons rack and pulled out an axe. “This is the Axe of Nidhor. The Persian Princess retrieved it from the Circle of Thorns a few weeks ago. Today, a hero called Korfell is coming to pick it up to use. Last week, he saved Azuria’s aunt. Do you think that is a coincidence?” She walked back to the weapons rack and picked up a sword. “This is Mirabelle Kowalski’s katana that she’s used for the last two years. She left it here to have it sharpened and for the handle to be re-wrapped. Know where she got it? She rescued Susan Davies’ son from the Hellions. You know Susan, the ELITE hero liason? Do you think she just gives her weapons collection away for nothing?” She went back to the weapons rack and picked up my LXR-804 Super Assault Rifle that I had left to be cleaned. “Where did you get your weapon, by the way?” Chay already knew, because she is the one that approved my weapons registration form when I arrived here in 2002.

But it was only then that it occurred to me that she was right. I got my weapon from a contact I used to work with when I went on missions in foreign countries. He gave it to me after a covert operation to take out a secret weapons manufacturing plant in Honduras. The target was a really nasty place run by really nasty people, and it definitely had to be taken out, but the fact that it was run by rivals of my contact probably put him in a little more of a gracious mood than he would have normally been, which is why he gave to me—free of charge—the latest test model weapon that his company had been working on.

I like to think that influence is a good thing. The more respect I have from my contacts, the more tools and gadgets I have access to. The more trust I have from them, the more important the missions I get assigned to.

So whether it’s getting a new enhancement for your weapon, a new gadget to help in your fights, or just getting a good table at a nice Italian restaraunt, there is no doubt that influence is a very important part of the hero’s life in Paragon City.