Collin's assassination list

munroburton wrote:The assassination trick worked when nobody knew about the MAlign and would blame someone else.

Nowadays it would just backfire. The GA, and even the League, is aware of the MAlign's existence. If one of their high ranking personnel or agents now dies under mysterious circumstances, the Done Thing is to double down on whatever they were doing that might have made the MAlign nervous or unhappy.

Cut off a head and another, more pissed-off head grows in its place. Similar to what happened when Haven assassinated Roger III. They ended up with Elizabeth III, who definitely doubled down on her father's naval policies.

You've got a point. But I'm not so sure it would back-fire. I mean, it would lend credence to the conspiracy theory of some age-old Cabal out to get everyone; but it would still serve the raw purpose of decapitating heads and eliminating targets.

I'm waiting for the MAlign to start automating foreigners to do their dirty work. An unsuspecting army of preconditioned foreigners to kill, steal, and destroy. Take the popular eatery that is Dempsey's Bar. Who doesn't eat there? The waiters and waitresses can be "recruited." They get awfully close to their targets by necessity of job description. And potential targets trust them.

Abigail was quite friendly with her waitress, Lucie, and knew her by name when she dined with Indy.

cthia wrote: You've got a point. But I'm not so sure it would back-fire. I mean, it would lend credence to the conspiracy theory of some age-old Cabal out to get everyone; but it would still serve the raw purpose of decapitating heads and eliminating targets.

I'm waiting for the MAlign to start automating foreigners to do their dirty work. An unsuspecting army of preconditioned foreigners to kill, steal, and destroy. Take the popular eatery that is Dempsey's Bar. Who doesn't eat there? The waiters and waitresses can be "recruited." They get awfully close to their targets by necessity of job description. And potential targets trust them.

Abigail was quite friendly with her waitress, Lucie, and knew her by name when she dined with Indy.

The nanite mechanism has the failing that it cannot open a safe unless the programmer knew the combination; so it is very limited and special purpose. The programmed actions are very specific, so the wait staff might be able to use something that was prepositioned; but otherwise would be limited to things like stabbing people with steak knives.

I expect that building a new network of agents will have a much higher priority. This will be very long term by necessity, because those who advance by means of "accidents" by their superiors will attract unwelcome attention.

munroburton wrote:The assassination trick worked when nobody knew about the MAlign and would blame someone else.

Nowadays it would just backfire. The GA, and even the League, is aware of the MAlign's existence. If one of their high ranking personnel or agents now dies under mysterious circumstances, the Done Thing is to double down on whatever they were doing that might have made the MAlign nervous or unhappy.

Especially if they can detect residue of the nanites. Haven did detect something in Grosclaude's death, though they didn't know what. We haven't heard anything since about this, so maybe it was a fluke or maybe Nesbitt didn't use the technology right.

There are also the treecats, who will notice the moment the nanites take over. Any high-placed GA officer is going to be under treecat guard, which will clearly show an assassination attempt. They may not prevent one altogether, but there won't be a doubt about an assassination versus accident.

That said, the MAlign does not need to hide its assassinations any more. So long as the objective is accomplished, it doesn't matter if they get blamed. What's one more when their list already has 45-50 million people?

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote: You've got a point. But I'm not so sure it would back-fire. I mean, it would lend credence to the conspiracy theory of some age-old Cabal out to get everyone; but it would still serve the raw purpose of decapitating heads and eliminating targets.

I'm waiting for the MAlign to start automating foreigners to do their dirty work. An unsuspecting army of preconditioned foreigners to kill, steal, and destroy. Take the popular eatery that is Dempsey's Bar. Who doesn't eat there? The waiters and waitresses can be "recruited." They get awfully close to their targets by necessity of job description. And potential targets trust them.

Abigail was quite friendly with her waitress, Lucie, and knew her by name when she dined with Indy.

The nanite mechanism has the failing that it cannot open a safe unless the programmer knew the combination; so it is very limited and special purpose. The programmed actions are very specific, so the wait staff might be able to use something that was prepositioned; but otherwise would be limited to things like stabbing people with steak knives.

I expect that building a new network of agents will have a much higher priority. This will be very long term by necessity, because those who advance by means of "accidents" by their superiors will attract unwelcome attention.

But then nobody can open a safe without the combination. I am aware there are limitations of the tech; but I think we should be careful of adopting exactly what those limitations are without being able to RTFM.

At any rate, point taken. I think the "drone" simply has to have experience with the device or mechanism used in the kill. If a member of the waitstaff is an expert martial artist, then it becomes a moot point. If the drone is accomplished with a handgun—witnessed at the shooting range—then getting a gun into her apron pocket becomes the goal.

Also, part of my notion of using the average foreigner is their abundance. Most, if not all, nanite inspired assassination attempts have been attempted by singletons operating alone. Two or more of Dempsey's staff can be used. One programmed to activate after a single treecat bodyguard has attacked the "distraction" drone. Plus, the average person off the street will be painlessly more accessible.

I think the attack on Torch was a one-two combination.

Also, at Dempsey's, there's the age-old method of poison. The Pavel Young method of taking out a target.

cthia wrote:

tlb wrote:The nanite mechanism has the failing that it cannot open a safe unless the programmer knew the combination; so it is very limited and special purpose. The programmed actions are very specific, so the wait staff might be able to use something that was prepositioned; but otherwise would be limited to things like stabbing people with steak knives.
But then nobody can open a safe without the combination. I am aware there are limitations of the tech; but I think we should be careful of adopting exactly what those limitations are without being able to RTFM.

But the point is we're told that the nanites can only control a persons movements, not access or utilize their knowledge or memories - though they do seem to have quite a bit of ability to monitor the person's surroundings and use that when executing their programming.

So if the person you take over knows the combo to the safe they still can't unlock it while under nanite control unless the programmers also knew the combo; so they can program entering it as the programmed movements the nanites force the person to make.

cthia wrote:I think the attack on Torch was a one-two combination.

cthia wrote:Also, at Dempsey's, there's the age-old method of poison. The Pavel Young method of taking out a target.

The "Rat Poison" attack was a singleton, the same as all the others that we have witnessed. From Torch of Freedom, chapter 29:

The pharmaceutical representative saw the oncoming 'cat, and his free hand flashed across to the briefcase he was carrying. The briefcase with the "perfume" of which no one at New Age Pharmaceutical had ever heard . . . and which Tyler didn't even remember taking from the man who'd squirted that odd mist in his face on Smoking Frog.
Genghis almost reached him in time. He launched himself from the floor in a snarling, hissing charge that hit Tyler's moving forearm perhaps a tenth of a second too late.
Tyler pressed the concealed button. The explosive charges in the two massively pressurized canisters of "perfume" in the briefcase exploded expelling the binary neurotoxin which they had contained under several thousand atmospheres of pressure. Separated, its components had been innocuous, easily mistaken for perfume; combined, they were incredibly lethal, and they mingled and spread, whipping outward from Tyler under immense pressure even as the briefcase blew apart with a sharp, percussive crack.

The only assassination attempts by Pavel Young were by hired gunmen, not by poison: the duel set up at Dempsey's Bar and the thug attack on Honor at Regiano's Restaurant.

Jeremy X has yet to make any meaningful impact on the MAlign, so he's barely even on the assassination radar. Sure he is the "former" leader of the Ballroom, and has even attacked minor MAlign officials although that was while they were masquerading as Mesan corporate assets rather than acting openly as MAlign so that's purely coincidental.


Admittedly, he's part of the government of Torch as their War Minister, but even that's almost pathetic compared to Naval leaders of larger powers like Manticore, Haven and Anderman. Leaving aside how the Ballroom, or at least what's left of it, is supposed to be turning more legitimate instead of remaining outright terrorists & assassins themselves, so they shouldn't be doing pinpoint strikes that ONLY kill Mesan scorpions. Reading between the lines, during the meeting between Albrecht & sons concerning their evacuation from Mesa, from the looks of things actual Ballroom strikes never used bombs they were pistoleers who were very very good at aiming. Any Ballroom strikes that used non-targetted strikes and bombs were MAlign false flag operations designed to drum up additional anti-Ballroom support.


If Jeremy X gets assassinated, it won't stop the Ballroom from continuing operations because they're not your average resistance movement. He's not even remotely close to Agnes Norbrandt who, when she "died carrying a backpack of explosives" her FAK movement actually stopped being effective for a while and acted like they were leaderless. If Jeremy X were to die, whether from open assassination or "dies tracelessly in his sleep", another Ballroom member would simply step up to become their public face and effectively nothing else changes, except possibly becoming even more active because IIRC Jeremy was part of what held the Ballroom back from using explosives and more aggressive operations.

tlb wrote:The only assassination attempts by Pavel Young were by hired gunmen, not by poison: the duel set up at Dempsey's Bar and the thug attack on Honor at Regiano's Restaurant.

You forgot the cotinine poisoning which was discussed at length. Young said he was sorry Nimitz didn't die.

It is high time the Alignment used several drones at once. There is usually going to be just ONE treecat guarding a subject. They may not understand distraction, certainly not in the heat of the moment. And, as someone already said, the time may have passed where they need to keep the technique (other than the intricate details) under wraps.

A treecat may not understand, or have been taught "Remain with your charge" or being lured out of position.

cthia wrote:You forgot the cotinine poisoning which was discussed at length. Young said he was sorry Nimitz didn't die.

It is high time the Alignment used several drones at once. There is usually going to be just ONE treecat guarding a subject. They may not understand distraction, certainly not in the heat of the moment. And, as someone already said, the time may have passed where they need to keep the technique (other than the intricate details) under wraps.

A treecat may not understand, or have been taught "Remain with your charge" or being lured out of position.

That introduces a lot of complexity into the picture. Getting one assassin in the room with the target while the circumstances are ideal is difficult enough. Ensuring you have two who weren't coordinating their presence in the first place means you have a very small chance of actually getting all three together at a suitable time. Unless of course it's someone who's always with the target (a bodyguard), but that means you've got far more access than is typical.

I don't think we need to worry about treecats understanding diversions. They're very intelligent. The problem is when it's not a diversion, but a two-prong attack: that is, when either prong can accomplish the goal. A single treecat may not be able to stop both.

Though people important enough for whom the MAlign would go for a two-prong assault will probably have two-leg bodyguards and/or nearby Marines. Similarly, they probably have poison screening in their food: it's far easier for the MAlign to infect someone in the kitchen staff to drop some poison in the target's food than to get someone in position for direct assassination.

The MAlign will have to get far more creative and the GA needs to not become lax in its security measures.