The snow had finally stopped in Chicago. Maple had a little spare time on her hands and she knew just what to do. She found her snow pants tucked way back in her closet, got some mittens on and headed outside with a carrot in hand. She began rolling the snow into huge round balls. She made three in total and piled them on top of each other. She found a few rocks along the path that had been shoveled along the walk way to the house. She placed the pebbles on the top snow ball, two for eyes and six making a smiling mouth. Just as Maple was about to place the carrot into the middle someone called her name. She turned and was shocked to see Jake, dripple, Ragnar and Toy standing inside her yard.

Maple what the hell are you doing out here in the yard? Why must we always meet with carrots in our hands? Jake asked, sounding slightly amused.

Well I am making a snowman of course! What else would I be doing with all this snow?

Maple! Stop messing around. We have important information for you. Since you seem to have enough time on your hands to make snowmen, I am sure you will have the time to draft a speech and let everyone else know once you’re up to speed, dripple shouted.

Okay okay. Let me finish this nose and I’ll get us all some hot chocolate to visit over.

The four men followed Maple into the house and sat down at her kitchen table. The hot chocolate was already in a pot and ready to warm them all as they had their talk.

Toy started explaining the reason for their visit. It was not that long ago that Cantona, on behalf of the Godfathers, announced a change to the contract killings. Since this time we have all heard concerns about the new rule or maybe the lack of rules surrounding them. The four of us decided to meet on the top of Mount St Helens for a retreat and to discuss the concerns. Suddenly the sky opened and God himself spoke to us about contract killing.

Maple sipped her hot chocolate and raised her eyebrows at this revelation.

It is all true Maple, I heard it with my own ears, Ragnar added. We must listen and change our stance once again. It seems the grace period we once believed to be afforded to the owner of a contract is not quite what we thought. This is what the four of us have come up with; feel free to add anything you think we have missed.

The owner of a contact will now have 5 minutes to complete the task. No one other than the person who took out the contract will kill the target until at least 5 minutes have passed.

Should someone other than the owner of the contract complete the killing the punishments will escalate as follows:

The first offense will result in the repayment of the contract cost.

The second offense will result in a repayment of the contract cost and a demotion.

Maple nodded. She thought the Godfathers before her had everything covered. As the men left she walked into her study to pen a letter to communicate the Godfather’s wishes going forward. 

In my humble opinion, the first offense should go beyond the mere repayment of what is lost. This punishment may not be enough of a deterrent for some. Some people may just steal contracts until they are busted. Granted, they can get busted only once, but still. I suggest a payment of double the contract for the first offense.

Well in my humble opinion i have a few questions.

What happens third time will people actually be shot over this?

on a slightly different topic

Will there be similar punishments for CA shooters?

or

do we have to wait for the gods to speak again for people to handle that matter?

As someone who recently saw a CA shooter instead rewarded with an upper structure position in a family after shooting CA's of the recently fallen i would like to see some unified punishment system.

Two steps forward, three steps back.

To give a fuller reply, I have two thoughts. One is that this whole "God Appeared" thing must have been something like this. The second can be found in a place normally full of raving lunatics.

Power to people on vision finding all these MIA's!

Also Candy, when it comes to shooting CA's, there is no need for punishment from CL's, as the FBN take matters into their own hands.

Disgusting.

Genuinely disgusting, Was it the masses that provoked this change in the rule again? I think not... From what I saw there was more people in support of removing the "Rule" then there was to keeping it in the previous announcement made by the late Godfather Cantona?

As Vindicator has said,  Two forward, Three back.

The whole point is, People were complaining that their contact kills were being snapped up the MOMENT they turned?.... I'm telling you now... Its... Not possible. If there was complaints... Its because they was not taking what the Gods have told them to heart.

Had a contact been pursued by the original contracted person correctly it is impossible for anyone to steal that contact from them. (Noone but the spawner can see that contract kill until it turns gangster.)

When these complaints came in, the current leaders should have been explaining what pouncing means :

When the original announcement was made about the contract change I didn't agree with it, in fact I hated it. So those of you who say there was an overwhelming amount of support, keep in mind not everyone spoke up.

I welcome this change, allowing people a few minutes to take out their contract is definitely a good thing. Lowering the amount of time is fine, but taking any grace period away is absurd. People are paying for these contracts with their money, they should be able to have some sort of time period where only they have a chance at the kill. 

Thank you for making this change.

Do you also take the time to read what it says from the Gods when you take on a contract? Or are you also too lazy to do that aswell as needing 5 sloth minutes?

This will create a publicly available MIA.
It will automatically rank up to gangster and be killable anywhere from 0 to 5 minutes from now.
You will be given the name and location of the MIA.
Despite this, there is no guarantee that you will get this kill.
In other words - this thing will automatically turn gangster very shortly, fly to the target, check the start time, and get ready to pounce.

This warning is both false and unnecessary.

(1) The MIA is not publicly available. No one but the person that spawned an MIA can see it until after the person that spawned the MIA could have already shot it. It is a private, personal kill. For it to ever be anything else, the person who bought it has to fuck up.

(2) There is a guarantee that you will get the kill. Unless you literally do not try to get the kill, it is yours. Not only that, but unless you literally do not try to get the kill and at no point in the next five minutes remedy that mistake, it is still guaranteed to be yours.

Note that the warning is both false and unnecessary regardless of whether there is a five minute grace period beyond the MIA purchaser's moment of truth. That's the most disgusting part of all this. The Gods intervened in a hunt that was already rigged long ago by masking the identity of non-gangster MIAs. They intervened again to make it even easier, because your secretary will even count down and remind you of exactly when that moment of truth is.

But not only that. The entire long history of MIAs has been one step after another towards turning it into a "press button, receive +1" feature, and frankly it's at the point that now the Gods might as well make that final step. Remember when MIAs used to spawn in any city, not just where you are right now? And not just that, but even across the entire country? I sure do. Remember when MIAs were initially created, they were promoted as a way to train up young hitters in the art of racing -- and it was intentionally made that everyone could see them before they turn into gangsters for just that reason? I do, but apparently the announcement about that has been shoved down the memory hole by Minitrue. Remember when MIAs were added as a small supplement for people's gun training, rather than a replacement for it? I do. People were capped at killing ten of them per month rather than nearly that every week.

Do I need OOCitis treatment for making this speech? I don't even know, because I honestly can't wrap my head around the concept of paying city hall for a license to hunt humans. So who really cares? It needs to be said.

I could kiss you right now Vindicator OOC-titties or not, I wont... But I most certainly could. Altho exactly what you have said has been repeated by myself and a few other fine gentlemen in the past some people are just not getting the concept of it.

I was genuinely applauding the speech to remove the "10 minute rule."

I am genuinely sickened by the leaders that have chosen to bring a "5 minute rule" back.

Perhaps more should pay attention to their contracts rather then playing in the snow.

We are given these contracts from the reputable business men of our seedy underworld. Do they care who kills them as long as they are done? If it were me, I would want the fastest trigger for the kill, not some slack jawed yokel that can't be arsed to get their on time. Chicago - one step forward, twenty back.

(OOC - If you take out a contract, be there for when the timer runs out. How easy can is that? I don't think it can be dumbed down any more than it is.)

The whole point is, People were complaining that their contact kills were being snapped up the MOMENT they turned?.... I'm telling you now... Its... Not possible. If there was complaints... Its because they was not taking what the Gods have told them to heart.

Actually, it is possible. I know of a few instances where this has happened recently.. one of which being in the case of an alcoholic who owed somebody a lot of money. His name was Beula. The person who was contracted to kill Mr. Beula had been waiting in the shadows, gun aimed and finger on the trigger. When the right time hit, there was a flash and Beula was dead. Not at the hands of the person who was hired to kill him.

I'm torn on this issue... one hand I feel like giving people a grace period makes hitters lazy, even if it's only 5 minutes. On the other hand though, there's a lot of money tied up in the bum removal industry and I can understand how frustrating it must be to lose out on that. Especially if you were there and waiting. In my opinion I would have liked to see a 3 minute grace period, at most. Just something to deter people from stepping in the way of others, but still keeps hitters on their toes.

((OOC: The person who spawned the MIA started refreshing over a minute before turn time, and was still beaten in a race to it.. If you look you can see that the turn time was "Jan 24, '14 10:17:44". He was killed at "Jan 31, 10:17:46". Even in the 2 seconds it was supposedly "gangster" the spawner was getting the "too young" message. The person was even lucky enough that they caught the WS on the MIA that was "stolen" from them . So yeah... I'd say it's quite possible actually.))

I'm into a lot of dirty shit. Murder, extortion and racketeering just to name a few but there is a line I don't think that should be crossed. Human slavery is on the other side of that line. I don't think anyone should be able buy someone to use for their personal gun training. If one of us throws some money around to get someone evicted and thrown out in the streets where he's fair game to be shot then it should be open to any one of us who are looking to improve their aim. The person who spent the money has all the advantages in the hunt. They know the time and location of the target. If they can't put the basic effort into being in the right spot at the right time there is no reason why they should be rewarded with another notch on their kill count.

With that said it seems this is a pointless debate because, as stated earlier, this is not an organic change spurred by the members of this thing of ours but by higher powers who apparently fully support human slavery.

(OOC - My last reply was riddled with grammatical errors. Definitely should proof read in future.)

I know that I am on the side of eradicating the time limit, but is there really any point in arguing it? Chicago obviously think a handicap should be put back in place, so is anything going to change their mind? Funny that it was Cantona that got rid of the handicap, and now you guys want to put it back. Just saying.

As someone who recently saw a CA shooter instead rewarded with an upper structure position in a family after shooting CA's of the recently fallen i would like to see some unified punishment system.

As someone who has been recently a victim of CA shooters, I feel more punishment is needed. MIA's I can understand repayment of a contract as a warning, however, at times Units produced are there as well. That is days put in, so a merely repayment of the contracted CA just don't justify it in my opinion. On top of the contract cost out the window, there are 100's of thousands of dollars lost as well. For some who let their units produce high, sometimes it can be in the millions. Granted, whatever the Crew Leaders decide to assign as a justified option at the time I can and will not argue with being it's my place. I'm simply stating my opinion. 

The way I see it, if they have a gun capable of hitting a CA then they know the difference between right and wrong. 

Dana steps into the street, sidearm clearly visible on the hip of her pant suit.

"Lets talk for a minute about "Gold bars" ((( OOC: Credits ))) Thats right I said gold bars... they are the most valuable thing around. They can get a guy to step out in the street and literally hold up a sign that says 'shoot me, I'm a giant smuck' now the person that gives up one of these valuable bars they don't know who else wants to shoot the smuck with the sign, but theres a good bet someone is going to do that. Now the person that paid the guy to hold the sign he's got some inside knowledge. He knows where he handed the smuck a gold bar, and he knows when he did it. All this guy has to do, is walk to the window pull their weapon and shoot the smuck. Not a big deal, and not a lot of time invested. Lets say things are a little different, I con some poor smuck off the streets into taking my sign i made for him into the street, he goes to walk out the front door and gets plowed by a truck. Well, I didn't shoot him, the driver of the truck clearly owes me a gold bar! Oh.. wait, that logic doesn't really hold does it? Once the smuck is in the streets, I would think he's fair game shame on me for not just taking him into the alley and putting one in the back of his head and two in the chest. "

Dana smirked, lighting up a cigarette and continuing to speak...

"The other thing we seem to have gathered about is those guys who work at the fed... for ten gold bars, they'll do whatever a fella or gal needs em to. Kick up money from their drug racket, get a guy outta jail, whatever you can talk em in to. Thats a lot of gold, and its not easy to come by the powers that be, well they already gave the what fors on this but who's to say thats stern enough?"

Dana pauses for a moment, looking down at her gun

"I'm on the same page as Phobia on this, but I guess they are. Thats a lot of gold and personally if I'm giving up that much dough I'm going to be pretty upset if someone tips the feds off or the guy goes for an unplanned swim might even be enough to make me think of using this piece for more then just decoration."

With that Dana put on her coat, concealing her weapon and gave the nod to two men who took to follow behind her in to the crowd.

((OOC: The person who spawned the MIA started refreshing over a minute before turn time, and was still beaten in a race to it.. If you look you can see that the turn time was "Jan 24, '14 10:17:44". He was killed at "Jan 31, 10:17:46". Even in the 2 seconds it was supposedly "gangster" the spawner was getting the "too young" message. The person was even lucky enough that they caught the WS on the MIA that was "stolen" from them . So yeah... I'd say it's quite possible actually.))

On occasions like this, The contract taker should be looking towards the gods not at the leaders to have a sloth rule in place. Altho, I must be honest I have my own doubts that it is factual.