How many Teams caught Jillian’s press conference in real time? (I imagine they all had to watch it after the civilians they were protecting saw it and probably started making comments.) What did they do in the immediate aftermath of hearing it. (Bonus question: how did Dean and the Sentinels take Jillian completely jumping over their heads to the Feds and the rest of the country?)

emeralddodge:

There are roughly 125 teams in the country, and about half of them saw the broadcast when it aired. The rest saw it throughout the week afterward.

About a dozen of those teams had been waiting for such an event to cause enough chaos to disappear. Several teams vanished overnight (more than mentioned in the the books)–they’d fled to the wilderness, other cities, etc. Fortunately, the elders were so focused on putting out the fires that those teams were left in peace. By the time of the final epilogue, those heroes had either fully integrated with society or joined the National Superhero Corps.

All teams had a very stern conversation with each other about strange things they’d noticed re: the Westerner attacks, stuff they’d heard in the camps, Jillians’s credibility, etc.. To the credit of the leaders, the vast majority of them knew nothing of the human trafficking and took their responsibilities seriously. A handful of not-so-nice ones were forced to stand down and stay in their rooms by their teams. Many leaders simply put their leadership to the vote and were like, if you have any problems, now is the time to tell me. 

Dean and the Sentinels were initially deeply afraid of dealing with the government, but luckily Eleanor saw it as the chance they’d been waiting for. She obviously was leery of dealing with the feds, but knew that it was zero hour. She contacted a lawyer, who accompanied her and Dean to the Denver FBI field office. There, they confessed to what had happened, explained why they’d never come forward, and said they wanted to help the investigation. With the help of a really good legal team, Eleanor’s power, and simply lucky timing, it turned into a highly positive visit. They went back to the Sentinels and told everyone that it was time to put down their weapons. Many Sentinels were unhappy, but it’s not like they had a lot of options.