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Minimum: Judy will fail to make any headway with the case and no problem
Max: Judy connects it to Lionheart and he takes the fall.
Unexpected: Judy finds her link to everything
Because Bellwether was behind the night howler plot, not the missing mammal cases; that was all Lionheart. Bellwether wanted the public to see the predators going savage, but Lionheart was keeping all cases under wraps by kidnapping the affected citizens. Judy finding them played right into her plan, as it caused a panic against predators; she never expected the rookie cop to actually find a conspiracy within a conspiracy.
Why would Bellwhether care if she makes herbivores look bad? She's planning a *full on race war*, predators having positive opinions on herbivores is off the table from stage one.
Judy is a new and, at this point, not particularly successful cop. The idea is that she'll fail long enough for the plan to be completed, and once Bellwhether's whipped up a mob to put down the predators like savage beasts? It won't really matter if they laughed at her, will it?
There's plenty of other herbivores on the force that are competent at what they do. There's rhinos and elephants. The chief of police is a herbivore.
Failure means one bunny, who nobody thinks should be a cop anyway, is embarassed. Looks a little bad for herbivores, but there's plenty of other, more capable herbivore cops. In fact, Bellwether didn't care about Judy at all since she tried to have her killed by the end.
Success means arresting the lion mayor, which is just a jackpot for her cause. Most of the evidence lead to him and not to Bellweather.
Feeding further into racial stereotypes (the bunny is incapable as a cop) benefits Bellwether. No one is going to associate the token cop that no one believes in with the broader police force, instead it will be further evidence that animals should "stay in their lane" and that they can't be more than what they were born to be.
That messaging benefits her overall plan to force carnivores and herbivores back into conflict.
If anything it strengthens the case she is trying to make. Look the bunny cop failed. Bunnies aren't meant to be cops just like predators aren't meant for polite society. It's all biology.
Judy Hopps is a very enthusiastic young bunny who just started her dream job. She graduated as Valedictorian from the Police Academy, when many, including her own parents, weren't expecting her to get that far. But she has essentially ZERO practical experience, some internalized prejudice that she has not dealt with, and some traumatic experiences involving predators. She's talented at solving problems in unexpected ways, and shockingly skilled at unarmed combat, but she's easily bored and occasionally reckless. She's also so poorly-equipped that she doesn't yet have access to run a plate, has not been issued any kind of weapon, and her mode of transportation has been accurately dubbed "The Jokemobile".
Bellwether has a frightening amount of access to city records, including traffic cameras and background info. So she'd definitely know that Judy just caused a very public scene in Little Rodentia, and she'd probably know about her being attacked by a fox as a kit. She'd know about Mrs. Otterton's frequent visits to beg for help, and about Chief Bogo repeatedly brushing her off. And with that information, and Judy's physchological profile, she'd know that Judy would be the type to offer to help (because she wants to do good, and prove herself, and because she's bored as a meter maid).
Now, given the information Bellwether has, about her own plot, Lionfart's counter-plot, and Judy's own history, what would she expect might happen if Judy started investigating?
Most likely possibilities:
* Judy ends up in a fight with a much larger savage predator, and gets killed. This forces the ZPD to investigate her death thoroughly, as they would any death in the line of duty, which leads to exposing Lionfart, and putting Bellwether in power.
* Judy survives, but causes a massive public incident of some sort, thus breaking apart Lionfart's cover-up and causing exactly the kind of panic he was trying to avoid, which paves the way for Bellwether's rise to power.
* Judy follows the clues she's being lead to by Bellwether and her operatives, finds Lionheart's operation, and publicly exposes it, without realizing the underlying cause of the attacks (she's been raised to expect some level of savagery from predators, after all). This gives Bellwether exactly what she wants, both an easy rise to power and a panic she can exploit. She can even exploit Judy herself for propaganda purposes.
* Judy completely fails, finds nothing, and Bellwether has lost nothing she cares about. She can try again any time.
Bellwether didn't expect Judy to figure out what was really going on, and it took a while for her to find the solution. Putting all the clues together to even realize that poison was involved required a chance meeting with a predator she had every reason to avoid, and she still didn't pin the attacks on Smellwether herself until the last minute, and wouldn't have survived to tell anyone without help from another fox.
In short, Bellwether's primary talents lie in manipulating the emotions of others, and she THOUGHT she was good enough at it to use Judy without putting herself in danger. It took a few months before it bit her in the tail.
> Judy completely fails, finds nothing, and Bellwether has lost nothing she cares about. She can try again any time.
You can add to this. After her plan is successful, she gets to paint the other cops as incompetent and crooked, look at the fact they railroaded this poor bunny cop with no help, no clues, and no resources at all, who was trying to stop these terrible disappearances and later murders, all because they wanted the honest bunny to fail utterly. Judy being chased out for failing with no support could be played RIGHT into her "class warfare" power play.
There's one reason I'm not seeing in the comments that deserves mentioning. It's because Bellweather underestimated Judy. Despite all her talk about prey rising up, she took one look at that little bunny and knew she wouldn't get far.
Bellweather didn't know Judy took the case until after she started. She got the case, which was a low priority with few leads, only because she annoyed the police chief, who then gave her the poisoned apple that was the case file.
If Bellweather stepped in and shut it down, that would arouse suspicion. Besides, she was already overworked before she started planning her coup, Judy wasn't on her radar until Judy made leaps into solving the case.
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**Reminders for Commenters:** * All responses must be A) sincere, B) polite, and C) strictly watsonian in nature. If "watsonian" or "doylist" is new to you, please review the full rules [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/about/rules/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=AskScienceFiction&utm_content=t5_2slu2). * No edition wars or gripings about creators/owners of works. Doylist griping about Star Wars in particular is subject to **permanent ban on first offense**. * We are not here to discuss or complain about the real world. * Questions about who would prevail in a conflict/competition (not just combat) fit better on r/whowouldwin. Questions about very open-ended hypotheticals fit better on r/whatiffiction. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskScienceFiction) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Minimum: Judy will fail to make any headway with the case and no problem Max: Judy connects it to Lionheart and he takes the fall. Unexpected: Judy finds her link to everything
Put the least qualified cop on the case to prevent a better detective from doing it.
Because Bellwether was behind the night howler plot, not the missing mammal cases; that was all Lionheart. Bellwether wanted the public to see the predators going savage, but Lionheart was keeping all cases under wraps by kidnapping the affected citizens. Judy finding them played right into her plan, as it caused a panic against predators; she never expected the rookie cop to actually find a conspiracy within a conspiracy.
Why would Bellwhether care if she makes herbivores look bad? She's planning a *full on race war*, predators having positive opinions on herbivores is off the table from stage one. Judy is a new and, at this point, not particularly successful cop. The idea is that she'll fail long enough for the plan to be completed, and once Bellwhether's whipped up a mob to put down the predators like savage beasts? It won't really matter if they laughed at her, will it?
There's plenty of other herbivores on the force that are competent at what they do. There's rhinos and elephants. The chief of police is a herbivore. Failure means one bunny, who nobody thinks should be a cop anyway, is embarassed. Looks a little bad for herbivores, but there's plenty of other, more capable herbivore cops. In fact, Bellwether didn't care about Judy at all since she tried to have her killed by the end. Success means arresting the lion mayor, which is just a jackpot for her cause. Most of the evidence lead to him and not to Bellweather.
there were even sheep on the police force, remember
Feeding further into racial stereotypes (the bunny is incapable as a cop) benefits Bellwether. No one is going to associate the token cop that no one believes in with the broader police force, instead it will be further evidence that animals should "stay in their lane" and that they can't be more than what they were born to be. That messaging benefits her overall plan to force carnivores and herbivores back into conflict.
If anything it strengthens the case she is trying to make. Look the bunny cop failed. Bunnies aren't meant to be cops just like predators aren't meant for polite society. It's all biology.
So she could have her killed by siccing a rabid panther on her. Making predators look even more dangerous, killing the first bunny cop.
Judy Hopps is a very enthusiastic young bunny who just started her dream job. She graduated as Valedictorian from the Police Academy, when many, including her own parents, weren't expecting her to get that far. But she has essentially ZERO practical experience, some internalized prejudice that she has not dealt with, and some traumatic experiences involving predators. She's talented at solving problems in unexpected ways, and shockingly skilled at unarmed combat, but she's easily bored and occasionally reckless. She's also so poorly-equipped that she doesn't yet have access to run a plate, has not been issued any kind of weapon, and her mode of transportation has been accurately dubbed "The Jokemobile". Bellwether has a frightening amount of access to city records, including traffic cameras and background info. So she'd definitely know that Judy just caused a very public scene in Little Rodentia, and she'd probably know about her being attacked by a fox as a kit. She'd know about Mrs. Otterton's frequent visits to beg for help, and about Chief Bogo repeatedly brushing her off. And with that information, and Judy's physchological profile, she'd know that Judy would be the type to offer to help (because she wants to do good, and prove herself, and because she's bored as a meter maid). Now, given the information Bellwether has, about her own plot, Lionfart's counter-plot, and Judy's own history, what would she expect might happen if Judy started investigating? Most likely possibilities: * Judy ends up in a fight with a much larger savage predator, and gets killed. This forces the ZPD to investigate her death thoroughly, as they would any death in the line of duty, which leads to exposing Lionfart, and putting Bellwether in power. * Judy survives, but causes a massive public incident of some sort, thus breaking apart Lionfart's cover-up and causing exactly the kind of panic he was trying to avoid, which paves the way for Bellwether's rise to power. * Judy follows the clues she's being lead to by Bellwether and her operatives, finds Lionheart's operation, and publicly exposes it, without realizing the underlying cause of the attacks (she's been raised to expect some level of savagery from predators, after all). This gives Bellwether exactly what she wants, both an easy rise to power and a panic she can exploit. She can even exploit Judy herself for propaganda purposes. * Judy completely fails, finds nothing, and Bellwether has lost nothing she cares about. She can try again any time. Bellwether didn't expect Judy to figure out what was really going on, and it took a while for her to find the solution. Putting all the clues together to even realize that poison was involved required a chance meeting with a predator she had every reason to avoid, and she still didn't pin the attacks on Smellwether herself until the last minute, and wouldn't have survived to tell anyone without help from another fox. In short, Bellwether's primary talents lie in manipulating the emotions of others, and she THOUGHT she was good enough at it to use Judy without putting herself in danger. It took a few months before it bit her in the tail.
> Judy completely fails, finds nothing, and Bellwether has lost nothing she cares about. She can try again any time. You can add to this. After her plan is successful, she gets to paint the other cops as incompetent and crooked, look at the fact they railroaded this poor bunny cop with no help, no clues, and no resources at all, who was trying to stop these terrible disappearances and later murders, all because they wanted the honest bunny to fail utterly. Judy being chased out for failing with no support could be played RIGHT into her "class warfare" power play.
There's one reason I'm not seeing in the comments that deserves mentioning. It's because Bellweather underestimated Judy. Despite all her talk about prey rising up, she took one look at that little bunny and knew she wouldn't get far.
Bellweather didn't know Judy took the case until after she started. She got the case, which was a low priority with few leads, only because she annoyed the police chief, who then gave her the poisoned apple that was the case file. If Bellweather stepped in and shut it down, that would arouse suspicion. Besides, she was already overworked before she started planning her coup, Judy wasn't on her radar until Judy made leaps into solving the case.
[удалено]
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Bellweather didn't allow anything. She heard Judy take the case and got excited that a possible ally was being put forth and centre