Collin's assassination list

Captain Golding wrote:I get you on the Grayson attitude but does the MAlign? THink about all the bits we've seen in their thinking and how often do we see them considering Grayson as anything other than a Manticoran Puppet ? (after all as a MAlign client it would be a puppet state and that's the way they think.)

Grayson has come out of nowhere as far as the long term plans of the MAlign and as a closed feudal society would not have had much insertion of agents in the past. Corruption probably does exist but again before HotQ it would not have been a concern so not a target. As a production center from Manicore Blackbird had to go in Oyster Bay but politically ??? I suspect that apart from Sensor collections almost all MAlign inteligence on Grayson would have been collected via agents in Manicore and filtered through a civilan / Manicore viewpoint.

So yes I could see Colin making some very bad choices where Grayson sensibilities are concerned.

Ab-so-friggin-lutely!

I happened upon the same logic path and shared it elsewhere on the forum. Although you fleshed the concept out much more. Brilliant!

My two-cents, broached elsewhere on the forum, also adds that it should be a lot more difficult to insert an operative on Grayson because they would stick out like a sore thumb. Ditto!

Grayson is a devoutly religious planet. They are extremely faithful and true to Tester's principles. They deeply know and devoutly practice these principles consistently. It would be very difficult for an agent to consistently fake that level of religious knowledge and common enactment, if at all. An agent would immediately screw up royally at a friendly conversation at the coffee pot.

"SAY WHAAAAT?"

"Tester forgive him!"

An agent would come off either as a heretic, or a Masadan agent. At any rate, an agent.

An agent would have to be both well-versed in all Grayson history (including all of the personal history with the Salamander) as well as all of the teachings of Tester. Piled atop knowledge of politics and the government. It is like be an impossible job, except for someone like Honor.

Plus, how to correctly apply those teachings.

cthia wrote:An agent would have to be both well-versed in all Grayson history (including all of the personal history with the Salamander) as well as all of the teachings of Tester. Piled atop knowledge of politics and the government. It is like be an impossible job, except for someone like Honor.

Plus, how to correctly apply those teachings.

An agent trying to pass for a Grayson native, I agree. So the best way to avoid that is to not even try.

Grayson must have had a huge number of immigrants in the last 10 years. That's where you'd hide an agent.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:An agent would have to be both well-versed in all Grayson history (including all of the personal history with the Salamander) as well as all of the teachings of Tester. Piled atop knowledge of politics and the government. It is like be an impossible job, except for someone like Honor.

Plus, how to correctly apply those teachings.

An agent trying to pass for a Grayson native, I agree. So the best way to avoid that is to not even try.

Grayson must have had a huge number of immigrants in the last 10 years. That's where you'd hide an agent.

Grayson has a huge number of immigrants? Well of course they have. But I never gave it any thought. Dunno why I was thinking defectors are the only ones. Plus there is movement within the Steadings to Honor's Steadings. But Skydomes would have been the wind beneath a lot of people flying in to the system to learn the trade. Duh. But, would those positions be close enough to the government to be productive as spies? They could certainly steal Skydomes' trade secrets.

Oh no, not the CAASAP list.

Uncompromising Honor wrote:There was a reason Sonja Hemphill and Shannon Foraker were right at the top of Collin’s Assassinate As Soon As Possible list.

How devastating would it be for the GA if Collin could produce that windfall?

****** *

Brace yourselves peeps, I feel another one of my crazy notions trying to escape.

What if the MA took assassinations a step further, or with a twist. Instead of outwardly assassinating key people, kidnap them and replace them with cloned copies of themselves who have studied their entire history. It would almost be impossible to replace Honor with a clone, unless Nimitz, Samantha, Ariel and too many others are removed as well. Or Beth, for the same reason.

But what about someone important, who isn't surrounded by treecats. Like Estelle Matsuko?* Would anyone know if a clone had been substituted for her? They could be denied the prolong package to age quickly. It would have to be a plan hatched some time ago, but seems feasible. Heck, Honor is already a "lost Malign test tube baby" isn't she?

*She was previously Basilisk's governor? Dunno what her duty is now. Does anyone think such a plan would work? Imposters created on a MAlign scale. Who would be perfect for being replaced?

How's that for those of you who didn't think my notions could get any wilder. LOL

.

cthia wrote:Oh no, not the CAASAP list.

Uncompromising Honor wrote:There was a reason Sonja Hemphill and Shannon Foraker were right at the top of Collin’s Assassinate As Soon As Possible list.

How devastating would it be for the GA if Collin could produce that windfall?

****** *

Brace yourselves peeps, I feel another one of my crazy notions trying to escape.

What if the MA took assassinations a step further, or with a twist. Instead of outwardly assassinating key people, kidnap them and replace them with cloned copies of themselves who have studied their entire history. It would almost be impossible to replace Honor with a clone, unless Nimitz, Samantha, Ariel and too many others are removed as well. Or Beth, for the same reason.

But what about someone important, who isn't surrounded by treecats. Like Estelle Matsuko?* Would anyone know if a clone had been substituted for her? They could be denied the prolong package to age quickly. It would have to be a plan hatched some time ago, but seems feasible. Heck, Honor is already a "lost Malign test tube baby" isn't she?

*She was previously Basilisk's governor? Dunno what her duty is now. Does anyone think such a plan would work? Imposters creates on a MAlign scale. Who could be perfect for being replaced?

How's that for those of you who didn't think my notions could get any wilder. LOL

Estelle is now the Talbott Quadrant Governor.

We have not seen the MAlign grow an instant Clone - especially one with knowledge and personality. All their clones are just gestated/tubed genetic clones - like the Detweiler siblings - who had to be raised as individuals to maturity

cthia wrote:Oh no, not the CAASAP list.

Uncompromising Honor wrote:There was a reason Sonja Hemphill and Shannon Foraker were right at the top of Collin’s Assassinate As Soon As Possible list.

How devastating would it be for the GA if Collin could produce that windfall?

****** *

Brace yourselves peeps, I feel another one of my crazy notions trying to escape.

What if the MA took assassinations a step further, or with a twist. Instead of outwardly assassinating key people, kidnap them and replace them with cloned copies of themselves who have studied their entire history. It would almost be impossible to replace Honor with a clone, unless Nimitz, Samantha, Ariel and too many others are removed as well. Or Beth, for the same reason.

But what about someone important, who isn't surrounded by treecats. Like Estelle Matsuko?* Would anyone know if a clone had been substituted for her? They could be denied the prolong package to age quickly. It would have to be a plan hatched some time ago, but seems feasible. Heck, Honor is already a "lost Malign test tube baby" isn't she?

*She was previously Basilisk's governor? Dunno what her duty is now. Does anyone think such a plan would work? Imposters creates on a MAlign scale. Who could be perfect for being replaced?

How's that for those of you who didn't think my notions could get any wilder. LOL

Theemile wrote:Estelle is now the Talbott Quadrant Governor.

We have not seen the MAlign grow an instant Clone - especially one with knowledge and personality. All their clones are just gestated/tubed genetic clones - like the Detweiler siblings - who had to be raised as individuals to maturity

Thanks, I knew her her job description had changed.

I'm not talking about an instant clone, but one who is produced, raised and trained. The MA's plans are ambitious and span lots of time. What is a plan that encompasses mere decades rather than centuries. Obviously they can clone lots of people all over the galaxy and train them to be ready for substitution. It could be named Operation Imposter. What, three decades, at best, before insertion?

cthia wrote:I'm not talking about an instant clone, but one who is produced, raised and trained. The MA's plans are ambitious and spans lots of time. What is a plan that encompasses mere decades rather than centuries. Obviously they clone lots of people all over the galaxy and train them to be ready for substitution. It could be named Operation Imposter. What, three decades, at best, before insertion?

Although making an exact physical clone, including any scars and so on accumulated over decades of life is a major problem; it is not the biggest one that the Malign would have. Consider the State Sec Officer who knew that there was something wrong at Hades, because Commandant Tresca would never have failed to send a chess move on the courier boat. He then knew the figure on the communication screen was an imposter, because the speech patterns were wrong for his friend. So the imposter has to match memories and habits just as exactly as the genes need to match.

So you are suggesting that the Malign would know three decades ahead of time which genetic material to gather for people that will be in an important position when their plan reaches fruition? When Honor was an Ensign, would anyone know that she would be important in thirty years time? Except for people in inherited positions, how much harder would it be to pick the right babies to select?

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:I'm not talking about an instant clone, but one who is produced, raised and trained. The MA's plans are ambitious and spans lots of time. What is a plan that encompasses mere decades rather than centuries. Obviously they clone lots of people all over the galaxy and train them to be ready for substitution. It could be named Operation Imposter. What, three decades, at best, before insertion?

Although making an exact physical clone, including any scars and so on accumulated over decades of life is a major problem; it is not the biggest one that the Malign would have. Consider the State Sec Officer who knew that there was something wrong at Hades, because Commandant Tresca would never have failed to send a chess move on the courier boat. He then knew the figure on the communication screen was an imposter, because the speech patterns were wrong for his friend. So the imposter has to match memories and habits just as exactly as the genes need to match.

So you are suggesting that the Malign would know three decades ahead of time which genetic material to gather for people that will be in an important position when their plan reaches fruition? When Honor was an Ensign, would anyone know that she would be important in thirty years time? Except for people in inherited positions, how much harder would it be to pick the right babies to select?

Obviously you don't know, can't know, any of the particulars ahead of time, so you collect the DNA of dozens of people. Of course, the educated guessing of a brilliant Alpha may help narrow down who may become important. The process could have began right about the time Honor came back from her first tour of Basilisk. Dozens of samples of DNA could have been collected and cloned.

Moles are prepared a long time ahead of being used. I'm simply saying the MA has the resources to take the notion of a spy to a whole nother level. An Alpha bred as a clone and trained as an agent would be brilliant.

Also, there would obviously be useless samples produced. A Pavel Young clone would be useless. Except for driving Honor insane. LOL

Scars and the like could be explained away as simple cosmetic treatments. Cosmetology is an advanced but common field in the Honorverse. Spies are taught to think on their feet. What manner of animal is more suited to such deceit other than a well-trained Alpha.

I think it'd be a piece of cake to replace someone in a remote part of the galaxy who doesn't come into contact with treecats. Like, perhaps, Matsuko.

A lot of people have been understimating Grayson. People who probably should know better like High Ridge though you could approach what he was doing from his personal massive feelings of superiority to anybody and that everybody was going to have to just go along with what HIS Manticore was doing.
But, yes, the Alignment does seem not to be paying that much attention to Grayson-yet- except that they recognized that it was a major ship and weapons manufacturing site for Manticore. But the Alignment, fortunatly for themselves, didn't have enough usable weapons for the vastly early and rushed Oyster Bay or they would have seen a much different reaction from Grayson. Hitting the orbital farms and other things around Grayson itself would put the whole Alignment question on a level of a Crusade if not Jehad. They just still don't have a solid target yet. But you can be dam sure they are helping to look.

cthia wrote:Grayson has a huge number of immigrants? Well of course they have. But I never gave it any thought. Dunno why I was thinking defectors are the only ones. Plus there is movement within the Steadings to Honor's Steadings. But Skydomes would have been the wind beneath a lot of people flying in to the system to learn the trade. Duh. But, would those positions be close enough to the government to be productive as spies? They could certainly steal Skydomes' trade secrets.

Work your way up, cultivate assets. You don't need the agent to be the decision-maker. If you can get him/her close enough to those who are, you're set. Take the case of Caswell Gweon: he was planted in the SLN way ahead of time. Through careful use of his actual competence, use of inside information that others don't have, and a certain amount of assassination, he became Fleet Admiral Kingsford's analyst. He was in a position to make sure Operation Fabius would be launched.

The rest is just use of money. The PRH did plenty of that.

The fact that the PRH itself was infiltrated by Mesan agents is probably not a coincidence.