Dalton had been walking through the South Philly Streets since early morning, attempting to clear his head. He was settling in with The Z Fighters, and they had been treating him very well. He just couldn't shake what he had been thinking about lately. He finally decided to slip into the local speak-easy and see what the general opinions were.

Should your family line affect the way you are treated when you first step on these shores? A certain level of trust is required before making it into the inner circles of this thing of ours. This being said, does everyone truly start with a clean slate? What if your family line is riddled with backstabbers and traitors, or on the other hand, a long line of Crew Leaders that have proven themselves time and time again?

I am sure there are some who would say that everyone should have a clean slate, but for some reason, I have a feeling that the majority, whether they admit it or not, take a persons family line into account before putting someone into a position of authority or great responsibility within their organization.

I cannot say whether this is right or wrong, only that it seems necessary to keep this thing of ours from crumbling around us. I would love to hear others opinions on the matter.

Dalton settled back in his chair, listening intently to anyone who responded.

Voldemort was walking in the shadows and overheard Dalton speaking. Being very interested in the topic he approaches Dalton...

" From where i stand sir, it is the parents responsibility to teach their children right from wrong. Should a CL judge the child on what their parents did? probably not but at the same time the situation dictates what happens. For example, would you want to allow someone who goes rogue back into your family? i doubt it. Every person is different on how they run their crews and tbh its damn near impossible to go incognito these days."

Yes, Dalton, in my opinion, the family line a person belongs to should( and does) affect the way the world views them. This is an undeniable truth about our world. I am pretty sure I am in the minority but I do think that this practice is good for our world. This imbibes in all of us a sense of responsibility for all our actions. It makes us realize that everything we do, will, in some way come around to either us or our bloodline. 

Everybody will die. Eventually, everyone will either be a rotting corpse or a retired mobster sipping on a margarita on some beach somewhere. It's the family name that endures, despite all. It is only the actions of your bloodline that I have to judge a completely new youngster by.

Now, I am not trying to say that I will instantly condemn the son of a rogue as a rogue but I would help him/her out(only to a certain degree) and keep an eye on him/her. Similarly, if your father was someone I held very dear to me and you show up on my doorstep, I would definitely go the extra mile to help you out. However, eventually, your actions play a very crucial part in how the world views you. Once you get past the initial stigma or glory, you will need to work your ass off to make people respect and believe in your competence and trust in your ability to be a proper mafioso.

Also, it is pretty easy to go incognito these days, Voldemort. At least in my opinion.

John "The Baptist"

In the case of those who have a history of lies, betrayals, and what not I think that sort of thing should affect the way you are treated. Not only when you first step on these shores, but until you prove yourself to be a better person. People with a less than stellar history should have an eye kept on them, just to make sure they're going to be okay. Cases like these are delicate matters and I think it would be a good idea for the crew leader to take the time to try to steer people like this back into the light.

Now, in the case of those who come from a bloodline that has in the past proven themselves time and time again I want to say yes and no. Yes, I think they should be treated in a higher regard, but I don't think it should affect their chance at positions of power. When it comes to things like that I think everyone should have a fair chance, be them from proven bloodlines or new bloodlines.

Survival of the fittest. Those that strive to live a long and healthy life tend to surround themselves with people they trust not to stab them in the back. This is a fact.

In life, we tend to want to live long, and leave something for our children, so they may have an easier life than we had. Otherwise, what is the point?

A family legacy can be a good thing, or bad. It all depends on how you look at it.

I still think everyone should have to show some level of work ethic before someone shoves a proverbial silver spoon in their mouth. Nothing should be free in this thing of ours, no matter what your name is, but if you work hard, like your father/mother did before you, I am sure you will benefit from your hard work, as well as his/hers.

Big Daddy walks off the boat, and before even finding a home, he hears the rants of a few people on the street corner. He saunters over to hear what is going on, and catches the last bit:

"it seems necessary to keep this thing of ours from crumbling around us."

After hearing this, he puts his bags down and listens to the people around. After a bit, Big Daddy speaks up,

Hello Dalton, if I may interject. Your words caught my attention. And I ask you this: how does this thing of ours crumble? Based on your words, I'm guessing you believe that you believe that putting an unknown person or a person with negative lineage in a place of power will cause it to "crumble". Am I wrong in this assumption? To be as polite as possible, I think that is a silly thought. I am an advocate that the sins of the father or mother should not be paid for by the son or daughter. Do you watch them with a close eye? Of course. But... shouldn't you be watching everyone in your family as closely as the other? Does someone get a free ride because their father was a saint? I think you take everything into consideration, but the most powerful tool to use is their actions. Not their father's actions. Not their grandmother's actions. THEIR actions.

You obviously made your assumption before reading my last post.

First of all "it seems necessary" hardly means the same thing as "I believe".

Second, I was asking for opinions on the matter, and had not yet firmly stated what I believed myself, which I later stated just before you spoke up.

Thank you for your opinion, though. It's just as welcome as anyone else's.

I may be a young mutt to these shores, but I can still usually sense what someone is getting at based on their word choice. If I was wrong in my assumption, I apologize. But I see no denial from your end. I'm not saying it's wrong to have this belief. Hell, no belief is wrong in the sense that is is your belief. That's the beauty of this country and why most of us left the Old Country, yes? 

But I heard what you said before I spoke up. You seem to stick to the side that legacy is a large factor in how you treat someone. Again, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But if that is your opinion, I am merely disagreeing. So shoot me where I stand if I can't disagree with a Left hand in the streets, but I think family lineage and the sins or the saintly acts of someone's predecessors should be a fractal percentage of how you treat their son or daughter. 

I feel that the sins of the father or mother should be washed away with their death. However I think we would be extremely naive to believe that's how it works in our world, you always have to keep an eye out for threats so yes there are some people that you would have to keep a closer eye on than others. My bloodline for example has had a very short life expectancy on these shores and when I came around people were rightfully a little weary of where I may end up I couldn't blame them as my bloodline hadn't given them anything else to believe. So regardless of whether or not we should give a clean slate I don't believe anyone actually gets one.  

I feel that the sins of the father or mother should be washed away with their death

A common view; and yet many have no issue with the good aspects of the mother/father following onto their kids?

As I said it's naive to think anything our parents do won't be brought on to us good or bad.

Aye, and it can be done, but it is certainly not an easy thing to go through life here without someone finding out what bloodline you are from. Some people are very good at this though, and have pulled it off quite successfully. It will, however, most likely come up again, sometime in your bloodline. Its not very likely that you could keep a secret like that through multiple children. I may be wrong though.

My bloodline tried in the past it can be quite the pain in the arse I've heard from my ancestors.

I think you are very wrong there Dalton. I know multiple people who have gone through multiple characters without people knowing who they were, myself included. While difficult, incog is not impossible to do. But it isn't the best route if you are trying to reach "the top." Back to your original point.

I, for one, try my hardest not to hold people's past against them. Good or bad, what a person's ancestor did doesn't tell you what they will do exactly. I've seen the descendants of CLs go rogue and the descendants of rogues reach godfather. That being said, it's inevitable that what has happened in your family's past will be held to you, good or bad, in most cases. Like Alabama said, for the most part, people want to be rewarded for the good things they've done, but wish their faults to be overlooked. You can't have both.

I have to agree that AlabamaWorley brought up a great point. It would be great if we could go through life, and have people only concentrate on the good we have done and forget the bad, but life doesn't work that way. You cannot have your cake, and eat it too, so to speak.

Just as in the other word, if your ancestors have a long history of being complete and utter pains in the backside, you too are probably going to have the expectation from people of being a complete and utter pain in the backside. As much as it would be nice, honourable, perhaps even beneficial, you can't expect people to forgive and forget everything as soon as your bloodline pitches up with a new name. Perhaps they'll be given a chance, an opportunity of a clean slate, but there will still be that extra wary eye over you - from a business perspective, it doesn't make sense to not keep that eye there. 

It also depends on your history too, to an extent, whether or not you can expect a clean slate. If nine out of every ten of your ancestors has ended up leaving a family in disgrace, people aren't likely to expect much more of you, because it's all they know from you. If say, your great grandfather decided to go rogue to stand up for something they believed in - NOT boredom, an actual reason, then perhaps yes, this can be put behind you for the most part.

I have to admit, I try to give chances to people, especially people who I've only heard tales of their ancestors doing this, that or the other, rather than having seen the situation with my own eyes, and sometimes it'll pay off, and sometimes it'll sting me. As a CL though, dealing with those mistakes can be incredibly costly and I have to admit that there are certain bloodlines I would be incredibly wary of allowing into my organization, simply because every single member seems to be born with "TROUBLE" tattooed across their foreheads. Doesn't mean I wouldn't be willing to give them a chance if they could show me they were willing to put the effort in though.

I think a big issue, Ziva, is also the other side of the coin. Someone who has a family history of those shiny suits (i.e. our Family Heads) seems to be given that opportunity again and again. It seems people will forgive their mistakes much much easier than that of Joe Blow working for said family. Shouldn't they have to prove themselves as well? Or do you believe it to be right to give them an opportunity blindly?

I'm not naive. I know success breeds more success, and if your ancestors did well most everyone expects the same from you. My issues stems from the fact that you will be given the opportunity without hesitation. And I've heard tales of these people making HUGE mistakes, like the murder of innocents, and are STILL being given huge opportunities due to their family lineage.

If someone in a bold suit makes a mistake, arguably that mistake is much bigger and much more costly than the mistakes of Joe Blow - so I have to admit, I'm not entirely sure what situations you're referring to there BigDaddy. Perhaps you could give me some example, recent ones if possible - say in the past 12 months or so, of these mistakes which have been followed up by re-authing?

There are a number of bloodlines which do seem to rise up to the top very frequently; while you say that some may be favouritism because of the success of ancestors (and I'm not arguing with you, some of it most certainly will be), some undoubtedly will be due to hard work, you can't take that away. If they weren't for the main making a success of what they've been doing, they wouldn't be finding themselves asked to do it again, indeed most wouldn't be allowed to continue doing it. We've just seen not a week ago what happened in Queens when VeronicaCorningstone made a mistake.

I know that one issue since the May war that a lot of people have had has been that there is a lot of bloodlines in power now who were in power before the war; Ladyfighter, Alucard, DeadlySpikeS, to name a few, and a number of people who've been given large opportunities on relatively young accounts for the honour bestowed upon them, and to extent I can see how that must look incredibly unfair and how it must make it seem like that object of working hard to reach the top is defeated when for some it does come more quickly and frequently. 

If you look at the bigger picture though, there has been new people and people who have perhaps not had these chances in a while been able to step up in the last couple of months. Myself, for example, VeronicaCorningstone, another new auth- there ARE chances there to be taken. It's natural that Godfathers and city heads want to surround themselves with people they trust but that doesn't mean it's a closed shop.

When you get to the heart of things, certain characteristics and parts of personalities do pass down regularly from mother to daughter and from father to son - although the body is lost, there are common things which seem to follow down the generations, and these things help those who knew our parents to form an opinion on us quicker than they might a stranger or a newer bloodline. That's the way this world works, and I can't see how it can work any differently, because entirely separating the individual from the bloodline and the persona's these bloodlines are represented from in the coffee shops is incredibly difficult.