Audrey O’Hanrahan

SYED wrote:SHe is an adrenalin junkie, so how far will she push her stories and her self?
Do we think she will only ever stick to the know facts, or will she at some point start telling bold face lies? Stuff that clearly marks her as an alignment asset to the alliance. If she sticks to the truth then the alliance simply sees that all she has found so far is the alignment cover story.
The alliance, the alignment, the shutting down of the terminii, the actual conflict out in talbott and manticore. How far will she dig, investigate and repot? How far is she willing to push the alliance and the alignment, she must know the general idea of what the alignment wants her to report, but generally she has creative control.
SO how far will she push her employers with her stories jus to get that thrill from messing with the big dogs.

She built her reputation on the truth about political corruption and stupidity. So far, what we've seen is her going after the discrepancies about what Mesa's government said about the Ballroom after Green Pines, and what they're saying now. What I'm not seeing is why the MAlign wants her anywhere near the place.

It's one thing to make sure you've got all the planning right and have your cover story nailed down; it's quite another to then invite in people who have a reputation for finding out what's actually going on regardless of how well it's covered up.

The Greeks had a word for it: hubris.

[Quote ="John Roth"]
She built her reputation on the truth about political corruption and stupidity. So far, what we've seen is her going after the discrepancies about what Mesa's government said about the Ballroom after Green Pines, and what they're saying now. What I'm not seeing is why the MAlign wants her anywhere near the place
quote/]

Don't forget that going after the Mesan government is not the same as going after the Malign.

For the most part the Mesan government had no idea it was being used by the alignment.

T&R
GJS

SYED wrote:SHe is an adrenalin junkie, so how far will she push her stories and her self?
Do we think she will only ever stick to the know facts, or will she at some point start telling bold face lies? Stuff that clearly marks her as an alignment asset to the alliance. If she sticks to the truth then the alliance simply sees that all she has found so far is the alignment cover story.
The alliance, the alignment, the shutting down of the terminii, the actual conflict out in talbott and manticore. How far will she dig, investigate and repot? How far is she willing to push the alliance and the alignment, she must know the general idea of what the alignment wants her to report, but generally she has creative control.
SO how far will she push her employers with her stories jus to get that thrill from messing with the big dogs.

The most effective way to lie is to tell the truth and then subtlely shade it, or say true things but not mention all the facts, or to say true things, but don't mention the real context. Given Audtey's rep, she could probably get away with a lot of that sort of thing.

Don

n7axw wrote:

SYED wrote:SHe is an adrenalin junkie, so how far will she push her stories and her self?
Do we think she will only ever stick to the know facts, or will she at some point start telling bold face lies? Stuff that clearly marks her as an alignment asset to the alliance. If she sticks to the truth then the alliance simply sees that all she has found so far is the alignment cover story.
The alliance, the alignment, the shutting down of the terminii, the actual conflict out in talbott and manticore. How far will she dig, investigate and repot? How far is she willing to push the alliance and the alignment, she must know the general idea of what the alignment wants her to report, but generally she has creative control.
SO how far will she push her employers with her stories jus to get that thrill from messing with the big dogs.

The most effective way to lie is to tell the truth and then subtlely shade it, or say true things but not mention all the facts, or to say true things, but don't mention the real context. Given Audtey's rep, she could probably get away with a lot of that sort of thing.

Don

Or to tell the truth but make it appear that you are lying.

While we have seen the Alignment feed O'Hanranhan information through a 3rd party- for her to verify through other sources which DID confirm that the actually altered records contained legitimate codes- it hasn't sounded like the Alignment has been giving her specific instructions on a case by case basis.

It also isn't clear if the "financial" journalist was known to O'Hanranhan as an Alignment agent or asset. To have given her that information would have been bad trade craft since if she is ever captured and gives up information that would lead to that (and other) members of the Alignment's direct assets getting compromised.

She is the classic investigative reporter. She goes where a story leads. In this case it leads to Mesa as threads start to fray on the Mesan version of what went on at Green Pines. She is just following up on yet another story of corruption and lies at the level of a Planitary Government. I don't think the Alignment sent her there although they probably did have a hand in tweeking her hotel location when it was discovered she was comming.

She wouldn't have been in the lists for the preliminary planning for Houdini as she was never expected on Mesa.

She might be able to get an interview with Mike but I will wait and see.

She is much more valuable to the Alignment back at the center of the political and economic hub of the SL doing her muckraking and turning over rocks to expose all the problems and bad judgement of the Mandarins etc than being deliberalty killed in some incedent on Mesa for publicity (against the Mesan or the Manticorian forces). Journalists get killed when they go into combat and civil unrest situations all the time and losing her in Mesa as part of some bombing or riot would be a serious waste of talent and a superior agent on the part of the Alignment. That is not to say that she could end up in the wrong place at the wrong time but with all the other stuff the Alignment has to deal with getting people away in Houdini, tweeking it still more for O'Hanranhan is just going to cause more difficulty for them.

I expect to see her get off planet and through the Visagoth Wormhole very soon as things could get very even worse on Mesa. She should still be able to leave IF the RMN lets any foreign nationals on the planet or in-system leave. Once10th Fleet takes effective control of the traffic in the system Mike may not let anyone leave until she is sure that things are not going to get even worse on Mesa.

Then we get into some of those really bad "what if" questions. Does the Alignment- though yet another batch of agents etc- already have several nuclear weapons of Manticorian origin placed in spots that could make it attempt to look like the RMN just nuked a number of key governmental and major business locations as "payback" for centuries of dealing with genetic slavery and damage to Manticor business? Just how twisted would the planning have to be to assume that it would be Manticore that would show up, that they would show up when there was a major Seccie revolt and that Houdine would be zoo deep into putting together the expanded operation on the fly.

At some point even the SL is going to decide that it might be better to let the population of Mesa just go ahead and have it's bloodbath and then deal with the survivors.

Brigade XO wrote:
...

Then we get into some of those really bad "what if" questions. Does the Alignment- though yet another batch of agents etc- already have several nuclear weapons of Manticorian origin placed in spots that could make it attempt to look like the RMN just nuked a number of key governmental and major business locations as "payback" for centuries of dealing with genetic slavery and damage to Manticor business? Just how twisted would the planning have to be to assume that it would be Manticore that would show up, that they would show up when there was a major Seccie revolt and that Houdine would be zoo deep into putting together the expanded operation on the fly.

...

Nuclear weapons don't leave signatures of who planted them. Anyway, nobody with a minimally functioning brain would believe that scenario: Manticore, like every other military power, would use kinetic energy weapons.

In addition, the MAlign's goal in Houdini is to vanish down the rabbit hole and pull the hole in after themselves, leaving no evidence that they ever existed. As the current generation of a 600 year old conspiracy, they're as aware as anyone can be that the best way to not leave evidence behind is to not do anything that could possibly leave evidence in the first place. If a plan will succeed without an embellishment, then ditch the embellishment. In other words, don't gild the lily. KISS.

Its not who planted any nuclear weapons, it is the source/producer of such weapons. Given the way the SL (and others) bend the information in any background of a news story or report, the "fact" that a weapon (or what was the products left after its use) matched "known" Manticorian weapons signature, it would "prove" that it came from- and so "must" have been used by Manticore.

It is one sort of logic train that has been used consistently to twist things.

The Alignment has been doing a lot of making things more complicated lately. Houdini got all ramped up and decorated with extra bells and whistles to both compress the timetable and make up for the vastly expanded movement of people out in a much smaller time. They are getting caught up in making this stuff on-the-fly. Sure, it can take months for the plans to be formulated but that is as opposed to decades in the past with very long term ground work and deep cover with planning. Now they are mostly just reacting with what appear as expedient actions to accomplish things.

Remember that while the Alignment has worked very hard to keep out of the public eye, they have also been fairly consistant on trying to leave realistic and convincing false trails to whatever they have been doing. Manpower and Mesa is just one set of examples. So is specifically NOT triggering an E-event by hitting Manticore or Grayson with weapons but almost blythfully passing off the falling debris from the Manticore space stations as a normal side effect of the Oyster Bay strikes. They look like they are starting to get a bit overconfident and even sloppy with this stuff. They are at least years of not multiple decades ahead of the point- in their scenarios- of anything about the Alignment getting out to the universe at large and the seem to be taking the attitude that since it is comming out early they arn't going to worry quite as much about keeping up the screens and misdirection.

Of course, Audrey might just turn out to actually believe the persona that she has projected successfully to the universe at large. How much of what she does and who she actually is might be only an act of an extreemly bright and talented agent? Can she have and survive a crisis of belief in the Alignment as she is getting immersed in the cesspool of what is now happening on Mesa? The Alignment is going to kill millions on Mesa just to cover its tracks and is orchestraing it as a particularly vile civil war and slave uprising. This is being done BY DESIGN. How much worse is this (and the other things that will be comming out) than the almost run-of-the mill corruption and selfserving power building by the Mandarins and other Solly bureaucrats?

Something is going to give in one direction or another.

Brigade XO wrote:Its not who planted any nuclear weapons, it is the source/producer of such weapons. Given the way the SL (and others) bend the information in any background of a news story or report, the "fact" that a weapon (or what was the products left after its use) matched "known" Manticorian weapons signature, it would "prove" that it came from- and so "must" have been used by Manticore.

It is one sort of logic train that has been used consistently to twist things.

The Alignment has been doing a lot of making things more complicated lately. Houdini got all ramped up and decorated with extra bells and whistles to both compress the timetable and make up for the vastly expanded movement of people out in a much smaller time. They are getting caught up in making this stuff on-the-fly. Sure, it can take months for the plans to be formulated but that is as opposed to decades in the past with very long term ground work and deep cover with planning. Now they are mostly just reacting with what appear as expedient actions to accomplish things.

Remember that while the Alignment has worked very hard to keep out of the public eye, they have also been fairly consistant on trying to leave realistic and convincing false trails to whatever they have been doing. Manpower and Mesa is just one set of examples. So is specifically NOT triggering an E-event by hitting Manticore or Grayson with weapons but almost blythfully passing off the falling debris from the Manticore space stations as a normal side effect of the Oyster Bay strikes. They look like they are starting to get a bit overconfident and even sloppy with this stuff. They are at least years of not multiple decades ahead of the point- in their scenarios- of anything about the Alignment getting out to the universe at large and the seem to be taking the attitude that since it is comming out early they arn't going to worry quite as much about keeping up the screens and misdirection.

Of course, Audrey might just turn out to actually believe the persona that she has projected successfully to the universe at large. How much of what she does and who she actually is might be only an act of an extreemly bright and talented agent? Can she have and survive a crisis of belief in the Alignment as she is getting immersed in the cesspool of what is now happening on Mesa? The Alignment is going to kill millions on Mesa just to cover its tracks and is orchestraing it as a particularly vile civil war and slave uprising. This is being done BY DESIGN. How much worse is this (and the other things that will be comming out) than the almost run-of-the mill corruption and selfserving power building by the Mandarins and other Solly bureaucrats?

Something is going to give in one direction or another.

I agree with this... Audrey is a far more complex human being than she herself realizes. That has the potential to trip her up.

Don

n7axw wrote:
I agree with this... Audrey is a far more complex human being than she herself realizes. That has the potential to trip her up.

Don

Interesting observation. I'm glad we got to see more of her in CoG as she's always been an intriguing character especially after we find out she's a Mesan Alpha. Knowing about some of the Alignment's plans intellectually and having to actually see and experience those plans are two different things. I wonder how/if Audrey will be able to reconcile them in her own mind.

n7axw wrote:
I agree with this... Audrey is a far more complex human being than she herself realizes. That has the potential to trip her up.

Don

Definitely.

I still haven´t decided if i think she is going to defect or some such...