SPOILER ... Do the ends justify the means???

Theemile wrote:

And we saw the lengths the GAUL members would go through to "take care" of their charges. Though not mentioned, the same Malign mechanisms were rounding up the rest of the Houdini evacuees, and would have used the same perseverence to "protect" the evacuees and get them to the evacuation points as they did to those already offworld.

If someone was not at an evacuation spot when the charges went off, you can bet a GAUL member was nearby to assist him/her in forever keeping the MAlign's secrets.

If I am not mistaking, they also said there weren't than many of them to begin with. They might have been focusing on sending GAULs with the most important people rather than with everyone.

zyffyr wrote:

kaid wrote:One interesting thing would be how many people who were targets of those bombs was not where the alignment thought they would be. Somebody was on an unexpected business trip or trist elsewhere suddenly realizes what happened and after having their family and friends murdered now has a burning reason to cooperate with the manties.

I would go with "Aproximately Zero" as the quantity. Those who were on the list of people supposed to go out were in 'holding areas' awaiting the availability of transport and got nuked when Al pushed his button - those who thought they would be brought out but weren't ever going to were part of the 'cleanup' process, which we know they were very careful about. You don't trigger the bomb until you know your targets are in the blast radius, unless you are either very sloppy or a complete moron. Neither of which applies to the people actually handling it.

Yeah but we are talking about thousands of people if I remember correctly almost 100,000 people. What are the chances they can control every variable in order to kill each and every one of those 100,000 people.

kzt wrote:

SYED wrote:For surveillance, not necessarily to control their new government.

Sure. But having trusted people who know what is going on in your enemies government is generally the kind of things that intelligence agencies deeply desire. But since Beowulf should be compromised 8 ways from Sunday already...

If the MA couldn't compromise upper echelon of the SKM what are the chances that they could compromise Beowulf?

Sigs wrote:If the MA couldn't compromise upper echelon of the SKM what are the chances that they could compromise Beowulf?

Umm, perhaps because the entire group that created the MA as a multi-century conspiracy were BORN on Beowulf? Considering that they felt that Beowulf was the main obstacle to their achieving their goals, perhaps Beowulf would be the most important target? Do you think that everyone who felt that way declared and left, or possibly some people might have had a lot of sympathy but might have not been open about this and their descendants might still be their hard at work?

Sigs wrote:

Theemile wrote:

And we saw the lengths the GAUL members would go through to "take care" of their charges. Though not mentioned, the same Malign mechanisms were rounding up the rest of the Houdini evacuees, and would have used the same perseverence to "protect" the evacuees and get them to the evacuation points as they did to those already offworld.

If someone was not at an evacuation spot when the charges went off, you can bet a GAUL member was nearby to assist him/her in forever keeping the MAlign's secrets.

If I am not mistaking, they also said there weren't than many of them to begin with. They might have been focusing on sending GAULs with the most important people rather than with everyone.

The Malign did not have many people so they brought the GAULs in to augment their foot soldiers on Mesa.

However, I was not saying that every evacuee got a GAUL or other watchman, just that the mechanisms were in place to have a watchman available if someone was not yet at an evac point, or was required to be somewhere else for some reason. And that such watchmen were prepared to "protect" their charges from falling into enemy hands.

Theemile wrote:
The Malign did not have many people so they brought the GAULs in to augment their foot soldiers on Mesa.

However, I was not saying that every evacuee got a GAUL or other watchman, just that the mechanisms were in place to have a watchman available if someone was not yet at an evac point, or was required to be somewhere else for some reason. And that such watchmen were prepared to "protect" their charges from falling into enemy hands.

There is also another thing though, the MA is portrayed almost as perfect in their detail planning but no organization can have that much detail planning for such a large operation with such a rushed operations tempo. There are always unforeseen events and the larger the pool of people the more such events. If 100,000 people are to be evacuated and they suddenly died chances are a few of those 100,000 had some problem reaching the muster point, 100 people out of 100,000 is not that much to get cold feet, or have an accident or any of a hundred other reasons. And the MA would not have the resources and ability to monitor 100,000 people to ensure each and every one of them is accounted for.


Now 100 people who know very little about the MA might not seem valuable but 100 very pissed off people who know various small pieces of the puzzle might just prove to be a gold mine.

kzt wrote:

Sigs wrote:If the MA couldn't compromise upper echelon of the SKM what are the chances that they could compromise Beowulf?

Umm, perhaps because the entire group that created the MA as a multi-century conspiracy were BORN on Beowulf? Considering that they felt that Beowulf was the main obstacle to their achieving their goals, perhaps Beowulf would be the most important target? Do you think that everyone who felt that way declared and left, or possibly some people might have had a lot of sympathy but might have not been open about this and their descendants might still be their hard at work?

Hard at work for what? What would they be trying to accomplish in Beowulf? And would it be worth the Risk of exposure to have sleeper agents there?

Sigs wrote:Hard at work for what? What would they be trying to accomplish in Beowulf? And would it be worth the Risk of exposure to have sleeper agents there?

"The Cause". It's essentially the story of communism mid-century, where you have an array of supporters in the US ranging from the open supporters in the communist party to the many spies revealed by Venona.

And yes, they were always planning to humiliate Beowulf, or more accurately the whole way of thinking that led to them having to flee.

Sigs wrote:

kzt wrote:Sure. But having trusted people who know what is going on in your enemies government is generally the kind of things that intelligence agencies deeply desire. But since Beowulf should be compromised 8 ways from Sunday already...

If the MA couldn't compromise upper echelon of the SKM what are the chances that they could compromise Beowulf?

The MA did compromise the SKM's upper echelons at least once - Descroix. They also used something they called the Beowulf conduit to learn about Pritchart's proposed peace summit and launched Operation Rat Poison in response. A mole in the Manticoran foreign office is mentioned as the source of that information - well after the High Ridge government ended.

munroburton wrote:
The MA did compromise the SKM's upper echelons at least once - Descroix. They also used something they called the Beowulf conduit to learn about Pritchart's proposed peace summit and launched Operation Rat Poison in response. A mole in the Manticoran foreign office is mentioned as the source of that information - well after the High Ridge government ended.

There is currently a low level mole on the FO. But the leaks of the peacre proposal was Tony Nesbitt's cousin, some High level Security person.