Category:Vigilante

From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

A vigilante is a person or persons who ignore due process of law after a crime has been committed, instead enacting their own form of justice when they deem the response of the authorities to be insufficient. Vigilantism is generally denounced by official agencies and governments, especially when it gives way to criminal behavior on the part of the vigilante, even if such illegal actions save lives.

In the City of Heroes universe, being a vigilante typically means that this character originally operated as a hero, but for one reason or another has done some "dastardly deeds". This could also be characters who are now Fallen Heroes. In game mechanics, this is an alignment step halfway between the process of a hero becoming a villain, and they can operate in Paragon City as well as in the Rogue Isles. Since the introduction of Going Rogue, characters who operate without official sanction, but have not actually changed alignment in-game, may be better served by the Unlicensed category.

There are men, wrote Aristotle, so godlike, so exceptional, that they naturally, by right of their extraordinary gifts, transcend all moral judgment or constitutional control: 'There is no law which embraces men of that calibre: they are themselves law.'

- Heroes, by Lucy Hughes-Hallett, 2004.