Houdini/MA

cthia wrote:Unless the general consensus is that w/o Herlander Simoes and a noisy departure, the GA wouldn't even know to begin looking on Mesa, hence would totally have NO suspects?

That is the only thing that makes sense. Only that I was under the impression that the original objective of OB and Houdini was to leave Mesa suspect.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Unless the general consensus is that w/o Herlander Simoes and a noisy departure, the GA wouldn't even know to begin looking on Mesa, hence would totally have NO suspects?

That is the only thing that makes sense. Only that I was under the impression that the original objective of OB and Houdini was to leave Mesa suspect.

Without Simoes, and the info Jack McBride leaked via him, the GA wouldn't know to begin looking at Mesa. (Except in a cursory manner, as a group that would wish Manticore harm. But they'd pretty quickly get discarded as a viable suspect due to lack of capability).

Unless you had a big noisy, visible, bug-out timed to Oyster Bay. That would suck attention back to Mesa and specifically to the people who'd bugged out.


Houdini was supposed to ensure that if/when Manticore got around to focusing on Mesa (or knocking them off on general principle to clean up the genetic slave trade) that there would be no loose strings leading from Mesa to the deep onion of the MAlign (or to Darius).
It was supposed to be more of a long term precautionary solution to avoid ever becoming suspicious in the first place.


However, by the time Oyster Bay was actually executed the Detwillers already knew their secret had partially leaked - so they probably should have rethought Houdini because with Manticore already talking about a long running conspiracy using Mesan Transtellars for cover the chance that Oyster Bay wouldn't lead to so very quick blow-back against Mesa was practically nil.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Unless the general consensus is that w/o Herlander Simoes and a noisy departure, the GA wouldn't even know to begin looking on Mesa, hence would totally have NO suspects?

That is the only thing that makes sense. Only that I was under the impression that the original objective of OB and Houdini was to leave Mesa suspect.

Without Simoes, and the info Jack McBride leaked via him, the GA wouldn't know to begin looking at Mesa. (Except in a cursory manner, as a group that would wish Manticore harm. But they'd pretty quickly get discarded as a viable suspect due to lack of capability).

Unless you had a big noisy, visible, bug-out timed to Oyster Bay. That would suck attention back to Mesa and specifically to the people who'd bugged out.


Houdini was supposed to ensure that if/when Manticore got around to focusing on Mesa (or knocking them off on general principle to clean up the genetic slave trade) that there would be no loose strings leading from Mesa to the deep onion of the MAlign (or to Darius).
It was supposed to be more of a long term precautionary solution to avoid ever becoming suspicious in the first place.


However, by the time Oyster Bay was actually executed the Detwillers already knew their secret had partially leaked - so they probably should have rethought Houdini because with Manticore already talking about a long running conspiracy using Mesan Transtellars for cover the chance that Oyster Bay wouldn't lead to so very quick blow-back against Mesa was practically nil.

C. O. Thompson wrote:I agree, especially with the last point that they should have rethought the plan they had in place for withdrawal from the system...
I don't see Victor and Ziwilikie falling for it and I don't think that Detwilers knew that they were back nor that they had a proper estimate of how smart these two are.

I think that they fell into a trap where they know that no one is as smart as they are ... or as ruthless.

Well... we'll see. I should have my hard bound copy by 20:00 on 11/8 and though I have a previous commitment at 19:00 and expect my kindle copy of AtSOT to be waiting when I wake up... I expect I may have an idea about this by the week end.

Weird Harold wrote:

Sigs wrote:Keeping the Gamma center in Mesa would be the dumbest thing anyone could do, as good as your security is things go wrong, so it would in my opinion be better for those things to go wrong in a place like Darius where it is a controlled environment than places like Mesa where the enemy can get a hint of something going on.

You presume the MAlign has endless coffers. Something like the Gamma Center (and by implication the Alpha and Beta centers) isn't cheap and quite probably predates the discovery and terraforming of Darius (or Darius-forming of the colonists.)

cthia wrote:Please forgive my thick-headedness, but I simply don't get it. So what if it was noisy?

It could not have been as noisy as Oyster Bay!

cthia wrote:But see, since Oyster Bay, it would seem that it shouldn't matter whether it was noisy or not. Oyster Bay had already alerted the significant players, the GA, that there was a new kid on the block. Let's face it, the League wouldn't know an Onion if you peeled it and shoved it in their eye. And in the aftermath of that strike, it would only be important that the MAlign bolted without a trace. It doesn't matter if their exit left contrails, as long as the contrails ended in the Mesa system. The cat and his bag of tricks was already out of the bag, no need to play coy. Just safe.

My take on it is that they should have pulled a Houdini prior to Oyster Bay. But since the monkey Murphy was riding with the GA, the monkey threw a wrench in their plans and made them expedite. Again, no matter if it was noisy at that point, because nothing could have been noisier than Oyster Bay. That particular Warshawski had already sailed. It only matters that the noise was all white noise and unable to be filtered.

Even Houdini himself never cared that one knew he had been there, just not know where he'd disappeared to - which would lead to his secret. And as long as no one can produce a smoking gun then all's well that ends well. The League is dumber than a box of pop rocks. No issue there.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Unless the general consensus is that w/o Herlander Simoes and a noisy departure, the GA wouldn't even know to begin looking on Mesa, hence would totally have NO suspects?

That is the only thing that makes sense. Only that I was under the impression that the original objective of OB and Houdini was to leave Mesa suspect.

Without Simoes, and the info Jack McBride leaked via him, the GA wouldn't know to begin looking at Mesa. (Except in a cursory manner, as a group that would wish Manticore harm. But they'd pretty quickly get discarded as a viable suspect due to lack of capability).

Unless you had a big noisy, visible, bug-out timed to Oyster Bay. That would suck attention back to Mesa and specifically to the people who'd bugged out.


Houdini was supposed to ensure that if/when Manticore got around to focusing on Mesa (or knocking them off on general principle to clean up the genetic slave trade) that there would be no loose strings leading from Mesa to the deep onion of the MAlign (or to Darius).
It was supposed to be more of a long term precautionary solution to avoid ever becoming suspicious in the first place.


However, by the time Oyster Bay was actually executed the Detwillers already knew their secret had partially leaked - so they probably should have rethought Houdini because with Manticore already talking about a long running conspiracy using Mesan Transtellars for cover the chance that Oyster Bay wouldn't lead to so very quick blow-back against Mesa was practically nil.