SPOILER_ Damien Harahap

Brigade XO wrote:How complicated can the Alignment make these nanites? At this point you are practicaly attributting them with being sentient beings who have a gigantic range of options and INFER from what someone is saying that they are going to spil critical details of THE PLAN so fast that they kill their host--AND THEMSELVES-- just before said host can spill the beans.

You might as well decide that the Alignment has uploaded THE PLAN into the nanites and it is they that will take over everything, managing the various Star Lines and Darius going forward. That is so far beyond the scope what could be possible it really isn't worth talking about.

I thought I put smilies somewhere in my post. Oops. Thought I also read someone's post about it was definitely not coincidence. Trying to be a bit humorous [fail].
Admittedly, nanites are stupid, at least as far as the Harrington Pater Familias believes. Again, other than being briefed by Colin Detweiller, he doesn't know anything except that the onion exists. At which point they should have detonated [or whatever they actually do] as soon as Black Victor asks if he is willing to die for the cause after revealing that the center of the onion is bailing. My money is 75-25 on "...5...4...3...2...1 ...boom. And vanishing into the slightly chubby, could stand to lose a few pounds, air as god little assassination nanites do.

kzt wrote:

WeirdlyWired wrote:"Yeah, using the same handle basically every place he worked was pretty damn stupid. Must've been an ego thing."

How much easier, though, for the OFS to trace everything back to the Manties if there is one contact name in common. After all how many beautiful blondes working for Manpower can there be.

It's the same name he used when he worked for OFS against the manties...

Of course it is. After all, when the Manties start claiming that they didn't have anything to do with Operation Janus, someone is going to point out that the very agent they accused of trying to destabilize them is now the person they are accusing of having impersonated one of their own operatives. Obviously, they originally claimed that he'd worked against their interests in order to set up the "proof" that they were once again the victims of some nefarious plot. As such, it was important that he be — or appear to be — the same guy. It's all part of building sufficient deniability into the operation. Of course, only a bunch of stupid neobarbs would think such a clumsy ploy could deceive the razor-sharp intellects who run the Invincible Solarian League's intelligence services even for a moment!

And, frankly, if someone in the League recognizes the cover name and figures out it's Damien, he'll consider that an additional win.

On the micro-level, however, I would point out that he only actually called himself "Firebrand" in face-to-face discussion with a couple of people. For the most part, he used languages other than Standard English when composing his cover names. Unless someone is already suspicious enough to run translations of every name of every interstellar traveler looking for "Firebrand," there's no way that anyone is going to connect "Mwenge," for example, with "Firebrand." And if they are already running an algorithm looking for "dead language" translations of "Firebrand," then Operation Janus has already failed . . . or succeeded. Either way, it doesn't really matter. For that matter, if they are running that sort of search, it probably means the operation has succeeded. And if he can amuse himself while pushing the mission infrastructure forward, so much the better.

And, yes, there is a reason that Damien got so much "face time." As to what that reason is . . . . tum-te-tum-te-tum.

runsforcelery wrote:And, yes, there is a reason that Damien got so much "face time." As to what that reason is . . . . tum-te-tum-te-tum.

Right, so I can blame Damien for everything I don't like about SoV.

Fanboy cognitive dissonance resolved.

runsforcelery wrote:And, yes, there is a reason that Damien got so much "face time." As to what that reason is . . . . tum-te-tum-te-tum.

So maybe the people pointing to the nanites are right...