Hypothetical law thing...

[Timber-WoIf]

I disagree with the law that would limit those under 18 form switching forms, that us just too high of an age. Something like 15 or 16 seems more appropriate. If the government decides to make a law that restricts us from giving lycanthropy to others, that's going to fall down into the dumps. There are some of us who are just too nice, and will give it to others if they really want it enough, and the giver knows them well enough.

hmm.. so if you'd buy beer for unerage teens if they wanted. nvm... i suppose that id a little different. But the reasion for an age restriction on trasfering lycanthropy is because teens are still stupid children whom think they know what they're doing, but in reality, they don't. That and the younger you are, the more likely you are to do something stupid on impulse.

[JoshuaMadoc]

"A lycanthrope is not to learn martial arts."

Uh-oh!

[Lukas]

Republicans are anti-werewolf, while Democrats are pro-lycanthrope.

hah! lies, im a Republicans and I love werewolves!*hugs one* a vote for me is a vote for weres everywhere

[TakeWalker]

Weres in the military? Can we say "don't ask, don't shift"?

The idea of werewolf segregation brings up an interesting comparison in my mind. Like sexual preference, lycanthropy (especially the sort which is under the control of the were in question) would be an invisible minority quality. Looking at a werewolf, a normal person might get a strange feeling in the deep, instinctual centers of their brain, but otherwise see just another person: sex, race, height and weight, maybe religious symbols would be obvious, but werewolfism wouldn't unless the person shifted in front of them. So what I quipped earlier might in fact be the prevalent attitude, "We'll tolerate your presence as long as we don't have to deal with you."

[wolfsangel]

well, WW's in the army may mean a better division and during testing the millitary would notice higher: range of sight, reacation timing, farther hearing, and agility.(not to mention strength increase.
but i guess then we could have a special lcyan OPS. for those in the military

[Set]

Werewolves in the military...can you say draft?

No matter what the initial reaction, people are going to try and force something on the werewolf population.

[Terastas]

Republicans are anti-werewolf, while Democrats are pro-lycanthrope.

hah! lies, im a Republicans and I love werewolves!*hugs one* a vote for me is a vote for weres everywhere

I find your avatar appropriate, because that's where I said Republicans would become divided on how to deal with werewolves. You'd have one half catering to the religious right, and the other half asking that everyone support our troops.

I don't know about a werewolf draft, but I'm sure a lot of werewolves would use the military as a means of proving their good intent. Most people are racist to some degree, but few people are racist enough that they would still hate a war hero.

[Scott Gardener]

Sports:

I figured that early on, most major sporting events would ban werewolves, and would justify it as a form of enhancement, akin to drug use. This would also set the stage for banning genetically engineered or modified people from sporting events. An announcement from the NBA that lycanthropes couldn't play basketball would almost certainly prompt John Stewart showing footage of Teen Wolf on The Daily Show. Eventually, as werewolf numbers grew, seperate lycanthropic leagues would form. (Since WNBA is already taken by women's basketball, werewolves might end up calling ours the LNBA, or NLBA, "National Lycanthropes' Basketball Association.") These seperate leagues would initially employ the regular sport and might even forbid shifting in game, but there might be some "Extreme Sport" enthusiasts who would experiment with allowing shifting. Imagine soccer [football, but not the American one that's kind of like rugby, only a lot more expensive] played while running on all fours, or kickboxing in Gestalt form. New sports could also get invented. Werewolves might eventually get put back into mainstream sports--the 2032 Wimbleton might have a lycanthropic doubles. But, in the mean time, a generation of athletes who spend their lives training and conditioning their bodies might paradoxically live in fear of acquiring a condition that could make them physically better fit. There would be the scandal of someone trying to throw the statistics of a baseball season by hiring a lycanthropic hit-person to infect one of the star players, disqualifying him.

The military:

I have a hard time buying the military forbidding werewolves from enlisting. They'd certainly get different treatment, but militaries like the U.S. Army or Marines would be very happy to get their hands on some soldiers with those kind of enhancements. They'd probably assemble very quickly a program to take advantage of werewolves' unique gifts, and they might even go as far as encouraging recruits to infect themselves voluntarily to get the performance enhancements. Elite groups like the Marines or Navy Seals would certainly in particular develop ways of making the best of the best of the best even better. (Note that lycanthropic Seals would in my storyline have one disadvantage--greater oxygen consumption, reducing underwater times, though the differences in numbers wouldn't be bad.)

In the civilian sector, police might also welcome such enhancements. I imagine the "K-10" officer coming about in my storyline around 2020, the name being a reference to "K-9," referring to police dogs. K-10s would be lycanthropic officers trained in using werewolf abilities in everything from shoot-outs, to sniffing out drugs, to interrogating suspects--an enhanced sense of hearing and smell can help one learn to read people I suspect disturbingly well.

I can also see the frantic paranoia happening in the first few years, of people afraid of getting lycanthropy from dirty toilet seats. Remember when people thought you could get AIDS from handshakes or dentists, but also thought that only gays had it? Did those people think that only gays shook hands or had their teeth cleaned?

[TakeWalker]

Actually, as far as the military goes, it would probably be a while before weres were fully integrated into the military, if they ever were. Werewolf-only units are what I'm talking about here. They might be deployed a few to a standard unit in wartime, but as far as training goes, there would more than likely be a push to keep them away from "normal" people. Because who knows when, in the midst of a training exercise, a crazy werewolf might get its blood up and gore the private next to it.

[Terastas]

I'm sure there would be people trying to keep werewolves out of the military the same way they tried to keep gays out, but when there's a war like the one in Iraq going on, it's hard to justify turning down people that want to serve their country. It'd be even harder to justify turning down enhanced applicants.

Even if werewolves were segregated from the military, I have no doubt you'd eventually see some werewolf mercenaries. It's been mentioned that there would be a lot of pressure in many different career fields and walks of life to acquire an "enhanced" condition. Mercenary leagues strike me as the most likely to employ werewolves, either by offering work to the rejected recruits, or by encouraging their current employees to acquire it themselves.

Ultimately, I think the military would favor the recruitment of werewolves. It is possible that a werewolf could go ballistic, as TakeWalker described, but I think lycanthropy would prevent more casualties than it would cause.

[JoshuaMadoc]

The worst case scenario is that the military generals are too prideful as humans to enlist lycanthropes.

[wolfsangel]

i hate it when ethinic discrimination works into "american" millitary. i say american because we have the longest standing problems with discrimination. (and the republicans were not the southern slave owners, check the history books.)

[Spongy]

Now, if theres something im curious about, it's how public transporation would react. Such as Metros, Airports, Airlines, Trains and whatnot.

A little off-topic maybe, but it seemed to fit in.

Personally, i can see segregation in all of those areas listed above.

[Terastas]

i hate it when ethinic discrimination works into "american" millitary. i say american because we have the longest standing problems with discrimination. (and the republicans were not the southern slave owners, check the history books.)

Don't want to turn this into a Republican/Democrat bashing thread, but the Republican party's changed drastically in the last 150 years. Bush and his regime may be Republicans by title, but I hardly consider them to be conservative. They would be more accurately described as corporate elitists; a party catering exclusively to the richest 1%.

Gay marriage and abortion are hot topics among Bush brand Republicans because they are issues that only pertain to a very small minority of Americans, but they are easy topics of discussion that even the most politically retarded of Americans can be highly opinionated over; get the country overworked about an insignificant issue and less attention will be payed to what you're doing and/or going to do to the economy.

Lycanthropy would be just such an issue. How it is handled would only matter directly to the werewolves and their close human associates, but anyone that's ever seen a horror movie will be able to form their own strong opinions of how "the werewolf problem" should be handled. Every good ol' boy in the country would leap on the werewolf issue and capitalize on it, and the Democrats would in turn be forced to counteract them in the name of civil rights.

[Anubis]

With the werewolves in the military is going to be very welcome with a lot of military leaders, but if that happens i see a potential problem.

A lot of generals might see the werewolf as an invincible super soldiers. Then they would put more and more pressure on them. While they send them on more and more risky missions, to the point of suicidal. Like in the Halo universe the Spartans are in the eyes of military leaders as "disposable heroes."

A potential powder keg could build, resulting a scandal about some corrupt military higher up needlessly killing off members of his werewolf corps by putting them in situations that not even a werewolf with their higher physical abilities could do, and get out alive.

[Scott Gardener]

Imagine someone sitting on a bus or a plane, and the next person sitting to one side has somewhat yellow eyes and convergent eyebrows. The first person gets uncomfortable and moves to another seat. The last seat left is next to that person a few minutes later, and a flaming Gestalt werewolf walks in, complete with sheep head hat, The Pack logo pendant, and pre-ripped T-shirt saying "full moon shift worker."

I can certainly see people complaining about lycanthropes shifting in public; that would be one of the more heated and frequent issues.

[dnl]

hmmm, Might cause another witch hunt.
beyond that i see no problem but if it go's Gestalt on the bus sitting next to me it better leave my lamb chops alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's an expensive meal.

[Dreamer]

Well, first off, I don't think werewolves would come out of hiding unless forced to, such as being revealed in public by a crazy werewolf or by a group of hunters.
Secondly, I think they would HAVE to come out of hiding if revealed. OTherwise, if the public only hears of werewolves from that one incident, the werewolves are probably dog meat.
They would also have to find a way to reveal themselves that doesn't induce an angry/panicked mob. I don't really know How they'd do it though.

And yes, I know this is off topic from Werewolf laws, but seeing that this thread is more about what would happen if Weres are revealed I think that it's relevant enough to be put in here.

[RedEye]

Lemmesee: Ever hear the term "Dog Soldiers"? It's more than just a Movie title. I believe that the Military would welcome Werewolves because: 1> They are already Group-oriented. 2> They make good fighters and rarely need medics 3> If nobody else knows...
So, they'd be Black Ops, fer'shuuure.
If the Civilian climate got too warm, the Military bases would probably house and support Were's, it's in the National Interest to do so. Soldiers fight best when their families benefit directly from their efforts.
Seems that most laws against Were's wouldn't last past the first Court appeal: there's this little thing called the fourteenth amendment...the A.C.L.U. would have a field day.
Since Were's vote, and would tend to vote in blocs, they'd be the darlings of the Politicians (all those votes for simply not saying anything?)
I suppose the major consideration would be numbers and history: if they went back to the Revolution; and had sufficient numbers, they'd be okay.
Otherwise, it'd be something like the Bureau of Indian Affairs; "Protecting them" into poverty and dissolution.
I don't see a lot of restrictions, other than in competetive sports, where they would have an advantage. Can you imagine "Werewolf Football?" or "Werewolf Hockey?" They'd likely be banned from the Olympics unless they had their own set of competitions, apart from the Smoothskin competitors.
What I don't see them in is anything to do with Water Sports: "Synchronized Dog-Paddle?" Naaaah...

[garouda]

Hee Hee

I can imagine that just about every private and public search and rescue team is going to want at least one werewolf on board.

In fact, remember how a certain group of Americans has developed a certain fame as 'Firefighting Hotshots' ?

I can realistically see werewolves becoming the heroes and must have members of every rescue team.

Great tracking senses

The ability to cover large distances on foot with ease

Well adapted to surviving outdoors in inclement conditions

I think, eventually folks would be quite incensed if a search was on for a loved one and a werewolf or a dozen where NOT participating. Eh ?

[Kelpten]

I can see the reasoning behind segregating younger lycanthropes in schools, but how terrible would that be? Imediately you're creating a "them and us" mentality when they're that young which will cause social problems for the rest of their lives. It would be a problem if werewolf kids ended up biting others (it gives me a headache just thinking of it), but I don't think the solucion is segregation.

Another think I noticed is that all these laws are based off the belief that werewolves have control over themselves when they've transformed. To pay credit to the traditional werewolf, what if they couldn't? What would we do then? Every full moon there would be dangerous animals out for blood, but are human the rest of the time. Assuming that we can't find a cure, would we require werewolves to be locked up once a month? That seems to be the best solution to me, but I'm sure some will suggest genocide.

And what about hunting laws (this was skimmed over once). All of a sudden you could be charged for murder for killing something that's been fair game for thousands of years (weredeer or werephesents for example). A coller identifyer would work I suppose, but many hunters will be mad that they have to get close enough to determine if there is a coller. Plus a few werewolves wouldn't want to wear a coller, so murder complications would arise there as well.

As for finding out if someone's a werewolf, it would be far easier then determining if they were gay. Just take a quarter from before 1964 (coated with silver) and stick it in the palm of your hand. Then offer to shake the suspected were's hand. If they yelp back in pain, you know they're a werewolf (or have a rare allergy to silver ). Then simply grab your silver coated pitchforks and your silver fueled torches and rid your town of the mean beasty.

As for indecent exposure, so long as nothing *ahem* private is exposed in Gestalt form, no problem. For the full out wolf form I think people would gain the same attitude they would for a dog.

[Set]

I seriously doubt people would outlaw hunting but it is a possibility. However, I know some are just too obsessed with shooting Bambi's momma. Do you really have to do that? The deer head on your wall doesn't make you more appealing.

And on the silver allergy thing...I've seen people allergic to everything from sunlight to water. My mother's side of the family is really bad about metals. The silver thing isn't going to be reliable.

[JoshuaMadoc]

Set brings up a very good point. That, and silver, gold, and platinum can work well to fix some people's bodies.

So i'm about this close to eviscerating anyone else who seriously believes/supports the idea that death by silver or silver allergies are limited to werewolves only.

[MattSullivan]

I doubt you could pass any laws, just as its illegal to pass laws against any one race. But just as most Americans are suspicious of muslims ( just admit it ) people would be suspicious of Werewolves. There would be fundamentalists on all sides saying "we should kick them out of the country" And by that, i don't mean to compare them to say, illegal immigrants who SHOULD be kicked out of the country.

[garouda]

In the end, all would revolve around one thing.

Not whether certain folks are weres or not.

But this

Can werewolves restrain themselves to meet the requirements and constraints of a civilized society ?

If they could meet that. Then the fringe groups, fundies and anyone else who is more a meat robot than a reasoning sentient being, could be held in check by the inertia of the greater society.