I charge by percent daily capacity and a 600% markup for anything past the first headache twinge whether it's useful or not, deposit in advance. Price sheet.

He makes a face. He can afford a couple of questions. 

He does want to know what percentage of Protectorate capes, and what percentage of capes in general, buy their powers. And what percentage of people who buy powers are now capes.

If you're not precise I can't guarantee the answer will be useful to you. Currently living Protectorate heroes? Wards and adults both? Do you want to count dropouts? People who were villains and turned? Etc.

Living or dead, and count all of those things.

Does "are now capes" count rogues? Dead capes? Retired?

Yes. Actually, can you distinguish 'died getting powers' and 'died later'?

As separate questions. Do you want to abort this line of questioning if I turn up results like "never happens" or ".001%" or something? If so, in which order do you wish to ask?

Yeah, that sounds good. Start with share of capes who bought powers, then share of the Protectorate, then power-buyers who died buying, then power-buyers who are presently capes.

Do you want an hour to think of other nuances or insertions into this sequence of questions before I start spending down your deposit on it?

No, go ahead.

Please note that my power invariably produces three decimal places and has never been observed to produce a zero in the thousandths place even in cases where the true value is extremely likely to be an integer. This and conventional Thinker limitations are my only known sources of inaccuracy.

4.091% of all people who have ever been capes purchased powers.

14.202% of people who have ever spent time as members of the Protectorate or Wards purchased powers.

21.338% of people who have purchased powers died in the transaction.

71.944% of people who have purchased powers went on to become capes. Note that this sample also included those who died and implies that 93.282% of survivors became capes.

Thank you. 

Pleasure doing business with you.

He forwards to Lorica. 

That's honestly not a high enough mortality rate to explain why it's not more widespread.

Whoever's selling could limit availability.



I think that question phrasing wouldn't turn up the results of a testing phase.

Yeah. If the people selling powers are doing other stuff with the ability to give out powers, we don't have stats on that.

It also wouldn't show any they give out for free. Did she count, uh, non-monetary considerations?

'buying powers' doesn't imply 'with money' to me - I assume they extract favors, honestly, makes the most sense -

Okay, but does it imply money to Damned Lies. And even if it doesn't how would it count "I'll owe you one".

I can email and ask. Do you anticipate wanting to ask more questions, while we're at it -

Could catch errors in the stats by asking how many of various demographics had trigger events.

How much do we want to spend on this?

Maybe don't pay for more questions right now, just troubleshoot what she's got. If it seems related to the Endbringers later we can follow up.

Makes sense.

 

He asks the question about whether 'bought' would include nonmonetary compensation.

It includes exchanges of items with conventionally monetary value and financial instruments that do not imply immediate cash transfer, but not promises, unpriced services, goodwill/loyalty, etc.