It is with both sadness and gratitude that I must announce the retirement of Colonel Samantha Carter from the Special Operations Space Division. Her service over many years has been above and beyond the call of duty, and we all wish her well as she leaves us to embark upon new ventures.
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It seems like Spec Ops keeps losing out on it’s best talent. If it keeps going like that, there’ll be no-one left of any consequence to defend the US on St James.
In my travels, I have heard much criticism of how Spec Ops does things, and yet it seems to have provided much of the talent for the newer Realms. Perhaps it isn’t as bad as the stories suggest.
The US on St. James is vulnerable from the Federation in particular, and I wouldn’t want to see it lost as it was on Edwardiana.
I can only hope that the Thelbane situation does not distract people to the point where the likes of the Federation and other threats can take advantage.
The difficulty I experienced had several components, not least of which is the complete lack of legal foundation for most actions, any support for creating a structure that was recognized by the powers as having jurisdictional authority, and really an impossible situation in terms of setting up anything other than a reactive structure for protecting the country.
This was followed by severe organizational issues within Spec Ops itself, a lack of resources, and a willingness to release poorly tested and dangerous technology on operatives that included mental conditions built in.
Then there were the operators, many of whom were sincere and competent, others of whom were at best criminal and at worst insane, with a few being both.
We can add to this a complete lack of organizational trust or cooperation which leads to individuals with compromising arcane situations continuing to participate with the group.
Lastly, in a personal way, I found that being associated with forces for the light in this group is actually seen as being a negative, while dangerous, criminal, and outright dark practitioners are defended against the consequences of their own poor decisions.
I found myself unequal to these challenges.
Meanwhile, the only actual “powers that be” authority on world is associated with a monarch that believed my family should remain on world in perpetual serfdom in gratitude for his assistance. That assistance being to put right a centuries old curse that turned us into unwilling pawns in the Thelbane Court’s political battles through no fault of our own. It was suggested that it was wrong for us to tell the family shapeshifters that they were “willing themselves to death” only to blend in and forgoing lives that could span centuries…and that we should import mages to block family talents to keep them still rather than seek training for them.
When seeking assistance in avoiding yet another entity, in this case Amber, from blackmailing our family into servitude into their schemes for on world assassinations, we learned that we had no rights as human beings or as subjects and that we were less than animals. Justice was found only through gentleman’s agreements and favors…not by right. And we were given to understand we should be bloody grateful to have such crumbs tossed to us for daring to object.
As a result, I could only encourage and assist my family in its ongoing resettlement elsewhere. A place where there is a rule of law, access to training for talents is not withheld for those willing to work for it, and enough force to put up a decent fight when attacked by an invader.
Best yet, a place where you can address issues when they arise.
Until St. James ceases to be run as a feudal fiefdom, and is recognized by the powers as having some designation other than “come grab what you can until you get caught, then look briefly sorry afterwards, repeat”
I will not be returning to stay. Meanwhile we continue to evacuate our extended family. Those that choose to remain will have such help as we can give them to get out when they change their minds.
I don’t know about your past but it doesn’t surprise me too much given the people involved on St James previously …. but I would suggest that there is a slight error inherent to your thinking. Not all that say they are of Amber, are on Amber, and not all that are of Amber act for ‘Amber’ (even if they hold an office).
I can help clarify for you…Prince Caine of Amber has for some time been subverting the US CIA (Caine’s Intelligence Agency (ubiquitous in shadow)). His son was running the operation for him on world. He had not registered with the Embassy, one assumes for purposes of preserving the diplomatic fig leaf.
For some time, in relative ignorance of the “enlightened multiverse”, my family were used by Amber to run a squad of assassination agents agents targets of Amber’s choosing. Cousin Vygdis, second in line for the Aasgard, was in charge of dealing with these demands for years and earned a reputation for increasing violence and what cousin Ani thought was overkill criminality.
Concerned by Thora’s advanced age, the progression of events outside this discussion and a few other factors, Ani came back from the Empire and made arrangements to ensure that if Thora were to be taken out that she would not be succeeded by a crackpot. This was a tricky bit of reasoning considering that we are all family and Ani was not a first daughter.
ANi challenged Vygdis and won. By arrangement and to prevent bad feelings in the family, Arnhilde stepped up as Vygdis’s daughter to take the place of heir instead of Ani.
Amber’s agent lost no time in contacting Arnhilde to demand a continuance of “services” and to renew the threat that had been hanging over Vygdis for so many years…play along and risk being caught and denied by civil authorities or don’t and end up having your whole family rounded up as science experiments in a particularly nasty secret prison.
Cousin Ani told Arnhilde she’d handle it…and by agreement she replied that the family would no longer be going along with the blackmail. She offered to meet with the person at CIA and even tried to get him to talk to Spec OPs, but no dice…possibly because he wasn’t into having Spec Ops tumble to AMber’s involvement.
After much consultation, and still in ignorance of just who the blackmailing bozo at CIA was…Ani decided the family would do one more assassination…on him.
She did a fair good job of it splattering the guys brains all over the back seat of his poncy little sports car while he was sitting in traffic on an evening commute on the George Washington Parkway in bumper to bumper traffic. It was a clean hit, no collateral damage, no bystanders injured, and a really good false trail. She got away clean.
As it happens, the little creep had a recall trump and ended up mostly brainless in the Amber infirmary where the special efforts of his relatives managed to keep him alive long enough to start the process of regrowing his head.
Trouble occurred when Amber, enraged at this assault on their favorite son, sent a team of elders to St. James to investigate and bring the person to a swift end. Fiona of Amber was part of that team.
Getting wind of this…and finally realizing who the creep actually was…cousin Ani called in some favors and consulted Duke Richard, deeply concerned that the investigating team might get an innocent person by mistake and more than a little angry that they were showing up on our world to enact justice when…as it turns out…their boy was here in violation of the agreements that existed, subverting local government, committing local crimes and generally threatening our family’s existence and safety.
Duke Richard was kind enough to take us to speak to King Random on this. But at the meeting several things were clear, first, we had no standing to complain to him on our own merits. Second, Amber saw absolutely nothing wrong in subverting our government and ignoring the agreement…they were merely mildly embarrassed to be caught doing it by a peer (Duke Richard). Third, justice hung very much on a whim of someone that we had absolutely no control over.
Random, both annoyed by cousin ANi’s evidently frequent outbursts, and embarrassed that Caine’s son had been caught out, and caught between a rock and a hard place as Caine was down in the infirmary screaming for the blood of his son’s assailant not knowing she was standing only a few floors over his head…ruled that a faux pas had occurred. He felt the whole thing could be generously forgotten if Duke Richard would agree to let bygones be bygones on the matter of violating the agreement.
That the hunt was called off for (unknown still to Caine) cousin Ani and our family was now off the hook for being Amber’s bitches not because it was in any way wrong that our family had been threatened and our government overrun, and illegal murders were being committed on our world…and that we were being used to play vendetta games that had nothing to do with even our own government’s agenda…that was merely incidental…and we were warned how lucky we were as being less than real we had no standing as even human at his Court so really none of any of this was a crime in his eyes…just a bunch of jumped up Shadows protesting at a real person’s idea of fun.
So acting solo or for Amber or probably both…means little.
The fact that its a little silly to be overly concerned with an invasion when basically you are hip deep in invaders already?
The message our family received was that we should count ourselves lucky that only a few people got dead when Amberites came to town…really, we were fortunate!
My point here isn’t that all Amberites are bad and terrible.
My point is that we are already invaded, and we have no standing to address the issue especially when one of the offenders is associated with our few “benevolent” protectors.
Its impossible.
We cannot set rules or laws. We cannot enforce them. We can be prosecuted for attempting even privately to protect ourselves from predation both by our legal puppet government and by the respective governments of the parties on world.
Cousin Ani was endlessly pressured by her mentor Robert of Sable, to keep her family in ignorance of the larger issues, despite the threat looming over them to be puppets in a Thelbane war. Her diaries go on for pages as she agonizes over the head trip he did on her for destroying her family’s peace and happiness…as ignorant slaves. Her decision to tell her family about hte source of their unusual natures was fraught and hard taken, but ultimately she reasoned that if Robert’s children could enjoy their powers and birthrights, and their ability to live for hundreds of years that she didn’t have the right to deny her family their birthright merely because Robert found it to be politically inconvenient.
I’m sure its made it so much harder now to abuse our various family members’ skills for the ends of foreign powers, so sad.
Nor, did it end.
I walked into Arnhilde’s rooms prior to her marriage to find the place nearly destroyed and my usually calm and controlled foster mother nearly in tears. Foolishly, I thought it might have to do with wedding nerves, or a lover’s quarrel.
No.
Robert had been at her like he’d been at cousin Ani. He berated her for her nerve in marrying George and for deciding to take our family off world. It turns out his help had strings attached to it and that he expected that we would remain forever in place on St. James…despite his efforts to get Ani to have all our family members talent blocked at puberty!
Arnhilde maintained her composure and left without discussing the real nature of the errand she had been on, but the encounter was crushing. As was the knowledge that what we had thought was a family friend interested in doing the right thing to prevent a horrible injustice…was really just another ploy.
Arnhilde loves George, genuinely. TO suggest she give him up after so many years of personal unhappiness and struggle…when Robert goes home to his good wife Claire is beyond wrong.
To berate her for going to a power that treated us as potential allies, equals, that offered alliances and training? It was the Empire that offered us mage schools and spaces at their military academies. It was the Empire that saw us not as animal serfs without rights bound to the land…but as people.
Sable would not train us or open its Kingdom to our talented so that they could live somewhere peacefully without their talents risking exposing them.
The Amber attitude, and Sable’s colonial paternalism which mirrors the thing that Robert founded a kingdom to avoid, is a problem for anyone trying to mount a serious defense of St. James and America in particular. The gentleman’s agreements divvying up our world by region are a problem.
Please don’t lament when the beaten animal refuses to slink back to its kennel.
Well, that explains a few rather less than surprising things that I’d only had brief details on previously. But that isn’t the point I was making.
As much as we all have unique perspectives, there is one important one that seems to be forgotten.
From the persective of the average man living in the US, it doesn’t matter much who is the benevolent dictator, as long as their life continues as it is because it’s still the US Government in charge day to day. And whatever can be said for and against the current situation, I know it would be much worse under the Federation or Goauld’s various banners.
So, whoever is defending the US and the rest of the world (whoever is in charge), they need to be the best that is availlable and the talent drain to elsewhere weakens that each time an expert exits stage left.
That’s the point I was making….
Well, I suspect that given the awkwardness of it all, it was best to be vague where diplomatic personnel were concerned. And in no way was the Embassy on St. James at fault. They were consulted and replied honestly to the best of their understanding.
As to your comment on perspective I think I share your view only to a limited extent. While I do agree that an entrenched Federation and/or Gou’ald presence would not be beneficial or desired, I do not feel that avoidance of one negative outcome makes the current situation acceptable. In fact, the situation makes fighting additional threats less feasible.
I also do not agree that one should be quick to accept one form of tyranny in order to avoid another yoke, it makes far more sense to strive to remove both negative outcomes.
I will explain my first point, a bit more…
Proposition: The current situation actively mitigates against a proper defense of St. James against external threats.
Currently, agents on St. James are limited in a number of ways in terms of what they can and cannot do. One major constraint is the insistence on a naive populace…this is our number one obstacle to a proper defense. Yes, I am aware of the panic arguments and so forth, and there is merit there; however, an unaware populace has no inoculation against an invader and the infiltrator has an immediate advantage in terms of concealment within and subversion of a population.
Currently, if someone notices something “wierd” they can’t report it, or if they are, they aren’t taken seriously. This means the other side has far more latitude to operate than they would elsewhere.
The lack of laws regarding arcane usage makes it much harder for us to openly and legitimately decide who is here “benignly” and who is not.
This is exacerbated by an attitude of smug superiority and a disregard of protocol on the part of our “benevolent overlords”.
I will give an example…I was asked earlier this year to investigate some issues for Spec Ops with collaboration with the Keys remnants. In pursuing the investigation, I ran across an arcane signature and wards in a place I had no reason to expect them to be. I checked with your Embassy and was assured you had no registered presence at that location. I checked with all other known on world aware groups…nada.
I was concerned, we investigated further…it turned out to be a warded children’s orphanage. To make the rest of this understandable, I will say that the mission preceding had been on the British side to liberate a group of UK/EU children that had been kidnapped for use in a demonic, BDSM slave trade operation. It had been an ugly op and we were all feeling a bit sensitive to any unexplained arcane situation involving kids. I called in for help and we brought in support teams because if it was a bad scenario we needed to get the kids out intact and couldn’t risk one of the bad guys going out the back with one. Meanwhile, as we were prepping, we did some digging. Your Mr. Roth assisted us.
It turns out that we could only establish that the place was a warded orphanage run on the charity of wealthy citizens and philanthropists from New York. The children were generally graduated to scholarship programs at major US universities. We did have some reasons to suspect the children themselves, or the person who had set the wards, were Amber affiliated.
We were both relieved and annoyed. We had no legal grounds to investigate further, we asked and had no standing to even knock on the door and ask a few polite questions. We were very glad it wasn’t the ugly scenario we had at one point feared, but we had wasted time and resources tracking down what we could about the site. I had been pulled off my main mission to do it.
And yes, if they were Amberities, it does seem a bit low to force the citizens of St.James to divert their charity resources to support a bunch of high achieving kids that are parented by people who can literally make wealth appear at will. Some would call that fraud.
The issue is, that the rules had been ignored and we had no registration to match their presence. It used up resources unnecessarily, and pointed out how little authority we have to require anyone to account for themselves.
As a side note, perhaps it would be kind if all off world powers could be encouraged to be more diligent and take notification rules seriously.
When it comes to defense though, its a small example of a larger nightmare. How can we spot the bad apples if we are busy sorting out hte apples that just happened to roll into the basket?
This is where a lack of local sovereignty and the arrogance of our benevolent overlords will get us all killed. We don’t have many resources, tracking down false trails is just something we can’t do.
If the orphanage had registered we wouldn’t have been surprised to find a warded care facility to keep perverts away and children from wandering off.
We can deal with the fraud thing separately.
Coordinating responses with these gentleman’s agreements is a problem. First, we don’t all know the substance of the agreements. Second, we have to find someone empowered to actually speak on our behalf, Third, we then have to beg resources to move from one area of responsibility to the other…and it becomes an ego contest and potentially a spite contest for whether one decides to help in another region, delays their help, of destructively complies with the agreement and refuses help on the grounds that it would be “interfering”.
Next, we are sitting ducks for whatever feud is taking place among our “betters”. We are seeing this with Thelbane right now. We’ve seen it in the past with our resources swiped for personal “projects”. How are we to defend ourselves when Joe Benevolent decides to “borrow” the 82nd Airbourne for a personal fued while we are being attacked by the Feds?
And back to that arrogance thing…given a choice between pursuing a private objective or pet project and leaving the 82nd home to defend our world (a place Joe Benevolent sees as only a convenient and artificial construct)…which do you think will be chosen?
Next, keeping our people ignorant and untrained…and unaware that we are under threat…means we can’t use our own people to aid in our defense.
Expecting a handful of operatives and some conventional forces to stand against a large influx of attackers using high tech, magic, and possibly powers is a non-starter.
This can’t work.
If our benevolent overlords expect us to play nicely and defend their border world for them, they can’t send us out there with the arcane equivalent of rocks and sticks.
You get a choice, make St. James a museum exhibit of an unenlightened world and protect it with silent warders and real defenses from without…or realize that you can’t have it both ways…the clueless natives, fat dumb and happy (and no threat as an uprising)…able to stave off threats from the outside from non traditional forces.
You are going to have to give guns to the natives as it were.
Proposition: It is not the US government in charge even now.
Let’s be real. We have had numerous missions in the US with government and military officials compromised and working for arcane powers or outside forces.
We have outright had off worlders (Empire) running Spec Ops itself.
CIA has been interfered with by Amber.
The Reich has been consulting to Empire and Spec Ops.
I am sure there are other examples.
The average man living in the US has absolutely no guarantee that their legislator, president, FBI, CIA, or military is actually anyone they elect or control at any given time.
What the average man does suffer is predation.
The Gou’ald have been on and off or farming St. James for slaves and hosts for nearly 3000 local years at least.
Until cousin Ani alerted the Brit Space Navy to their presence, a series of cloaked weapons platforms sat in orbit functioning as communications and laser sites. Each platform could eradicate several square miles of earth surface at a time and there was 100% coverage. They were also communicating with similar installations on planets in the outer solar system and their satellites.
They’d been there for some time.
And, until she tracked a signal back, one of the Gou’ald supposedly in secure custody in the US had been happily sitting in prison being interrogated while transmitting off the platforms the content of our questions, our interests, and other observations.
The average man was not safe under our benevolent protectors.
Nor are they safe from being taken as slaves, or food sources, or as hosts.
Nor are they safe from being abducted by horny Amberites out for a good time.
It used to be Bernard and Roth. Bernard was the first Amberite we sent home horizontal leaking copiously from many holes. We called in our “benevolent protector” then to combat our other “benevolent protector”. Robert had to get Bleys to stand down and we got our cousin, Ani’s sister Ellen, back from her stint as Barrister Bimbo Barbie Bernard’s Bitch. She had been at Harvard Law until he spotted her.
The point being is that there is a certain overhead with these “benevolent protectors” and its the average man or woman, that pays the price for being abducted, seconded, sent off to fight wars they didn’t sign on for, eaten, raped, impregnated, etc.
So attractive the current situation is.
We would all like to be heroes. We all would like to “Save the Day”. At the end of the day though we have to ask, “Can we reasonably prevail?”
Those with resources and skills might individually make it out, or relocate. We may help as we can. But if we are serious about a defense, you have to have something defensible.
Defending an ignorant public is nearly impossible, especially while keeping them ignorant.
Defending with too small of a force is nearly impossible if you are forbidden to train a larger force.
Defending while at risk of having your resources snatched out from under you without notice by your overlords…also not a happening proposition.
Defending while trying to figure out who your enemy is because your friends refuse to id themselves…not a happening deal.
Trying to mount the resources and personnel for a defense if your government’s planning ability has been subverted for short term personal feuds by your overlords…undermines a defense effort.
The best and brightest can only do so much and under those conditions…
There is a reason why Ani didn’t want to come back when Liz left, one of those reasons is that she did this root cause analysis and the strategic position was grim in these conditions and they are intractable conditions.
It was Ani whose agreement with Graeme, who sold herself to get our family the resources, training and position to have a choice and not be caught on the ground like a sheep. And it was ANi who concluded even then that things unchanged the family could never be kept safe on St. James under these conditions.
If you want that talent back…change the conditions so that it can succeed.
It would help very much if our Benevolent dictators would grow the F up!
And ultimately, if you want us to defend OUR world, it needs to be a world we will get to control afterwards. The outside fun and games cease.
My grandfather had a saying…
“It isn’t that the sheep much minds whether its in Scotland or England when the sun rises…its the long midnight walks twice a week that get to be fair wearing on the poor beast.”
I have not yet heard a solid argument for why the people of St. James can’t be gradually introduced to concepts from the wider existence and eventually that existence itself.
I would feel a lot better about keeping the population of St James unaware in the short term if I knew that it was only a short term proposition. I won’t pretend to know whether or not maintaining ignorance is sustainable. I just know that misleading people feels wrong to me.
Lydia,
I’ve never heard anyone explain it to me in a way I could understand other than to say that it would cause disruption and hysteria.
I don’t want people distressed, but I find the argument puzzling. There are frequent examples of Powers use that have a world wide effect on people’s memories and attitude. While I don’t want to brainwash anyone either, I would think a “Don’t Panic!” should work?
Macey and Roth is a great example. My family are one of the few groups of people that recall Bernard and Roth, but if you were to ask people at large, pull the blueprints and business licenses, check the newspaper clippings about hte firms’ cases…I suspect you would find only that it has always been Macey and Roth.
Surely people could be curious, worried, unsure, excited, the whole range of emotions…and still be asked not to panic.
I tend to agree, a series of gradual announcements would help most people I think.
But this could be managed.
It would definitely help if our own population could assist us in pointing things out. We’d get some false positives but a little healthy suspicion from our fellow citizens might go a long way in helping Spec Ops identify infiltrators.
And reporting incidents that might need to be taken up with the powers that be where people misuse their authority on world.
I know in our family ANi early on instituted a “family awareness” program on world. Sort of a threat of the week warning our families about alien drugs, how to tell if someone might be being influenced, and so on. After the incident with Ellen, we kept much closer tabs on each other as a family and looked hard at the difference between a college student infatuated skiving off classes to have a wild weekend…and a college student that had been mentally affected and had to undergo cult deprogramming therapy after an Amberite had used so much influence on her that she turned into something unrecognizable.
I think if we used some gradual steps, it would help. Even just announcing first contact would be a start…then perhaps the presence of off world representatives, and so on.
I don’t have all the wisdom on this, but surely this could be done if everyone put their heads together and thought out a program for it.
It feels increasingly unwise to me to have St. James remain naive. We will always be vulnerable to the unknown if we are ignorant.
That would be Barnard…..not that anyone would care who was around him for 10 minutes.
Family tradition holds that he more or less used his Amberite charisma to seduce cousin Ellen (Ani’s sister) and she went missing from the dorms at Harvard. The family got a call from a concerned professor wondering what had happened, he was sure there must have been a family tragedy to make her disappear like that without a word.
In the final confrontation after much argument, Bernard attempted to seduce Vygdis, Ani and had such a mojo going that David, who is lifelong het, was seriously considering a walk on the wild side. This upset Ellen who was having a serious case of jealous that it was all going down in front of her and because the charisma thing he was doing on her was sort of making her wack.
Vygdis realized only with a lot of struggle the mind rape seduction game that was being played with her about one step short of caving in to it. ANi was struggling and David was still wondering whether it was a change of orientation or whether it was just that the idea of two of his sisters and his aunt having it off in front of him was suddenly an attractive idea.
Vygdis opened fire on Bernard before she could cave in to his garbage. Bernard returned fire. Ellen joined in. A free for all occurred. Think OK corral. I’m sure they must have had to redo the conference room at your New York Office where this all took place.
Ani evacuated Vygdis and David, but failed to get Ellen out on that try. The AMber castle guard showed up to cart Bernard home…leaking.
Robert was kind enough to keep Vygdis from dying on that occasion and later when we got Ellen to come back to us, to help her begin to heal from the mind trip she’d been on.
It was very unpleasant.
Now we take a lot of time in the family to check up on each other and we feel it is best not to leave our family where they can be tampered with. At a minimum, it saves wear and tear on the people that we have to ask help from to set right the damage done.
He really isn’t our person of the week.
And after several go rounds of this kind of stuff, we sort of feel its best not to put our people in the position of being easy prey.
We consider it a deny use action. We allow fewer people that might be potential Corneilian/talented/powers capable hosts for outside forces that would kidnap us…to use against St. James potentially or elsewhere.
I don’t think he’s anyone’s person of the week apart from his own. And yes, the Conference room did need some work.
Ms. Donner, you have my thanks for an enlightening read. In return, please allow me to gift you with a thought that bears fruit over years of contemplation: belief begets reality.
I echo Broyles’s sadness and gratitude, and further note that in the last year Earth has lost two of its experts on the Goa’uld and their technology, while, alas, their threat has not to my knowledge similarly diminished. I hope that a copy of Ani’s diaries rests with Broyles? He is a reliable man working constantly to organize the defense of the Earth. I worked with Ani and I know how hard she fought to defend her homeland.
No he does not. Nor will he.
Her diaries are voluminous and very detailed given she documented her life in machine time due to her AI
They cover a number of subjects that i would not entrust to the Spec Ops establishment.
She did during her life time prepare Gould language translations being the first to crack the language. She also left extensive engineering notes.
Her diaries speak of her frustration that theae ships manuals were not put to use deapite frequently offering them to unit members including AC. He may still have copies in his junk mail file
I left after actions with the Keys after a mission taking several vessels in one of my first assignments. Perhaps they would releaae them to you. Or not. It was their mission the choice would need to come from them
Of course I wouldn’t ask you to send an unredacted copy. After all, no doubt there are things there that could be a danger to your family, and who would fault you for defending your family?
Your words about how keeping our people ignorant means that they can’t aid in our defense were touching; and Ani herself, for all the doubts she may have expressed in private, showed by her public actions that she would not want the Earth to fall to the Goa’uld through ignorance.
It is very much a pity, for the sake of your family’s security, that she found Spec Ops when she did; and not some years later, when we have an enviably short chain of command that tops out with the POTUS and is peopled with those who have taken oaths to uphold the Constitution. Her heroism in any time, though, cannot be denied.
Jade,
The useful documents, in human understandable terms, are already in Spec Ops hands. I also have reason to believe that she made this information available to the Empire, Sable and the Reich in a sense of fairness.
Some of the diaries include information proprietary to Empire defense research, that alone makes them unreleasable. Others, as you say, includes exceptionally personal information that is really not for use outside the family.
You do need to understand the volume and content of the materials. Some of what Ani left is not readable by a non-enhanced human. Some of that material has been shared with a trusted scientist at Massive Dynamic.
Ani lived in machine time, and frequently in fast human time for research. Subjectively in terms of mental experience, she might well have qualified as centuries old although her body was probably only in its 60s by the time her fast time work was factored in.
Every nanosecond of much of that life was recorded. The sheer volume of redaction alone…considering that she was functionally a multi-threading organic computer as nearly as I can understand for much of her life…it isn’t something that is a matter of a few hours and a black magic marker.
I think you must trust Ani, and us, that the materials likely to be useful have been placed in the proper hands.
The later part of your remark I do not follow at all. I do not think that the Spec Ops chain of command would have altered Ani’s view of things given the course and priorities in her reasoning.
The conditions she identified and the ones I tend to identify, which run somewhat parallel, for St. James being a safe home for our family still do not exist. The conditions which made her term of service at Spec Ops such a misery to her, and so very painful, still do exist.
I can only compare her example to my own short experience and say that in most cases, nothing has changed.
I do not think she would have viewed herself as a hero. She would be quite irritated by the word.
I can however learn from her experiences of Spec Ops, and my own, and not repeat the more painful aspects of her life.
I was designated to be her replacement at Spec Ops. My family understood what Ani’s service did to her. They know full well what Spec Ops is now. Arnhilde has graciously released me from further obligation. I do not think she plans to risk another family member with your teams, but that is for her to decide.
I think for the sake of my family’s security that it was excellent timing and luck that Ani served when she did and gave us the information, time and resources necessary to ensure our family’s security. Had the timing been different, you would have only heard of us as the army of mindless warriors at the heart of yet another multi shadow war. Or as the pets or murderous super soldiers serving Amber’s intelligence organ on St. James.
Or she would have served under a man who would put her in an unsafe supersuit with unrecognized features, an addictive component, and…oh yes…a requirement to be loyal.
Slavery without consent or crime.
Currently, Spec Ops is an organization that lacks the ability to discipline or confine even its own members effectively when they transgress. Where torture and aggressive interrogation is still being used in field ops? Where you serve with operatives whose judgement are as much a danger to the team as to the enemy?
No wonder its leader ordered the use of mental enslavement on his own personnel.
I do not think Ani would trust the present Spec Ops at all.
I do not.
Colonel Broyles did not put me in the Super suit. In point of fact on the mission in which I put on the Supersuit I was seconded to the Space Operations Division. Olivia North was in charge of the Mission. No one on the mission was ordered to put on the Suits. Jade went along on that mission and chose not to wear one.
It came to light afterwards that Olivia had made some efforts to keep the mission in question a secret from Colonel Broyles.
To the best of my knowledge Colonel Broyles inherited the Suits from the previous administration and when he became aware of the problems with the Suits he ordered the ones in Spec Ops stores destroyed.
If Colonel Broyles put anyone in a Super Suit I am unaware of it.
While of course you must justify to yourself your new fealty to the Empire, you do yourself and us a disservice to do so through reliance on tendentious factual inaccuracies.
Having personally seen how the supersuits were used on several missions, I can state through personal knowledge that there were no orders to don them, and that the latest research into their effects and capabilities and the mitigation thereof was shared.
Lydia,
After believing, incorrectly, that the suits had been completely evaluated and the problems removed…Col Broyles asked his technologists to instill the new program over the remaining old programs…that the wearer of this addictive suit be loyal to St. James and his organization. That occurred at his order.
Colonel Broyles offered the suits to Spec Ops personnel, made them available on mission teams and even announced them by email. He did this without including the information that a special loyalty program had been included at his direct behest.
After Anabelle was taken into custody, I returned to St. James to see her and examined the suits. Based on Annabelle’s remarks about her research, my observations, and the observations of the techs (who now seemed to be noticing a lot more now that they had a really good look and people were standing over their shoulders) I made a formal request to Col Broyles that he recall the suits.
I contacted Arnhilde and the Imperial military as one member with a suit was an Imperial national.
Broyles issued his recall notice as a result of this.
But it wasn’t because he suddenly noticed there was a loyalty imperative…he knew that clearly before he ever released the suits to Spec Ops personnel.
Jade,
The information about the loyalty directive was not shared, although it was clearly known and deliberately included when the suits were revised by Spec Ops.
My direct quotes were:
A: “put her in an unsafe supersuit with unrecognized features, an addictive component, and…oh yes…a requirement to be loyal.”
This stands. It accurately describes the suit and the fact that Col Broyles distributed them knowingly for mission use and as personal equipment.
B:”No wonder its leader ordered the use of mental enslavement on his own personnel.”
Broyles didn’t order anyone to put on the suit, he did directly order the loyalty programming to be put in the suits and then distributed them for use by his personnel without informing them that they were now wearing a piece of equipment so addictive they’d never want to remove it…that also controlled their loyalties.
This was factually accurate.
Ani’s loyalties, much as you may lionize her, were much the same as mine…principles and family. My loyalties are as they always have been. They have not changed. I feel no need to justify myself.
Elucidation of the reaction of Broyles to the suits can be found in this separate thread: http://www.aurellis.org/wiki/research-on-suits-notes#comment-166
Spec Ops chain of Command tops out at the Prez now? I had not realized that.
All US military and federal agencies do report to the President as the Commander in Chief.
The newest E-1 (private, seaman, airman) has the President in their chain of command, as does any janitor that works in a federal agency (non contractor).
How many intermediary steps are present in each chain varies.
I have heard of Space Division once or twice. What Divisions does Spec Ops have?
Gudrun. I believe the inevitable, and feared outcome by most is the realization that we ARE THOSE OVERLORDS.
A. C.
A.C.
Mmmm, perhaps some of our number, you certainly, might manage overlord with a small “o”.
For those initiated to a larger power, or who have undertaken a creation…yes, you are part of the club at least to the extent that you would be considered someone who could speak in a meeting.
I don’t think it works that way in the larger sense though?
I don’t think either of us could have stitched reality back together the way I’ve seen Duke Richard do on several occasions now when a hole was blown into other dimensions by dark magic and blood sacrifice. I was given to understand that his ability to do that had to do with his rather unique relationship with St. James itself…a relationship that I was also given to believe none of the rest of us have?
I know you didn’t feel that you could solve the problem yourself, nor did any of the rest of us, this place has a special powers connection to him.
I also do not think that if any one of us made a declaration about St. James, or even St. James the US, without his ratification that it would mean much of anything at all to an off world power.
None of us have the authority, either in off world arcane terms, or in mundane US sovereignty terms, to negotiate for the US or the world.
If we succeeded against an attacking force from outside…we would not be individually empowered to make a binding armistice treaty with them at this point or a peace treaty long term that would hold up…without ratification by Duke Richard and possibly other interests.
I think we have the potential individually to lord it about locally with powers if we went that route…and act like any of the other irresponsible morons that we’ve all had to deal with who come on world and grab stuff indiscriminately. I think most of us have chosen not to go that route.
But overlord in the ultimate sense?
I don’t think so.
I imagine if you suggested it in certain company you’d either get a laugh or a painful adjustment of your local reality in short order.
Could we eventually become something like those overlords…possibly. But it is not now the case I think.
Gudrun, we are the people you are complaining about. This universe is peopled by beings of inordinate power and lineage. And whether you want to rail like some self blinded marxist against Monarchies that lineage is power. St. James is full of that lineage. All of them. Which means St. James is power. We are the very thing you are protesting. This is our weakness and our strength. In time the overlords will be forced to acknowledge what they already know. We are them. Your entire family exists because of ‘them’ .. and is also ‘them’. Otherwise you would not be complaining from self-imposed exile. Does the current situation suck? Yes. But we must realize who we are, why we are, and what we are in order to change that. Sulking, complaining, or pointing fingers at ‘them’ accomplishes nothing. St. James will have power when it realizes it already does.
A. C.
You’re totally right A. C.!
I’ve been a complete ass, forgive me.
Spec Ops is a well run, well administered, highly competent organization with well trained and disciplined operatives that will certainly maintain earth’s safety and existence for some time to come.
I have deeply enjoyed my time on mission with your teams. I have learned a great deal about ethical treatment of prisoners, negotiating with demons for information, and have never felt safer than when backed up by teammates who were so comfortable and quick to respond with firepower even in confined areas.
Your security profile is optimum, and your political climate highly supportive of your efforts. There is excellent cooperation and coordination between Spec Ops and other aware powers.
The ordinary man on St. James has a safe, free, and democratic future because of your efforts.
My apologies to you all.
My apologies to Col. Broyles who I have obviously misunderstood. He is forward thinking, dedicated and a risk taker.
I have been tedious.
Good luck! I have nothing to add or offer to you that you haven’t already well considered and have well in hand. I see that now.
I will leave you to get down to it.
Thank you.
Gudrun,
Broyles is running an organization facing nearly untenable strictures. Those capable of doing what Spec Ops does are by their nature prone to insubordination. And look at our loyalties. You: Family, Light, Spec Ops, St. James, and what else?
I have loyalties to my home, Spec Ops, and out of necessity me.
We are not unusual in this regard.
Furthermore we are the little kid on the block getting bullied. Better yet we know the principal and beat cop are on the side of the bullies. We also know they want our lunch money. They really, really, want it. And we are getting bigger. They know this, and are working to not let us realize it. It is in our best interest to act like we don’t. In time we will all realize that the little kid has been eating his wheaties, working out and training.
Sorry the metaphor gets strained.
I have enjoyed working with you, and appreciate your view on ‘what is right’. I do not disagree with your view of Spec Ops. I do disagree on what we should do about it. I will stay right here and work. I wish you the best in Casablanca.
I follow your analogy only too well.
We identified over 30,000 main line family members from my grandmother’s direct line in North America. Because of the huge family size generated by our warrior slave curse, we actually had decent contact with that many. There were more that were from other branches of the family, and some that we still are recontacting in other parts of the world.
Many of these people are Corneilian, quite a few have talent potential but no training. Even after the curse was removed…well we are favorite prey for people after gourmet food and slaves.
It also presents a special problem to protect so many. A normal family, 10-15, you might tuck out of the way if things got bad and still join the fight. Not so with us.
Not all are agreed on resettlement, but a very large portion asked to leave.
Since becoming a pilot I have been splitting time several ways. I do some runs for cash, this pays our bills and goes to pay for land and housing costs for new people coming in.
Cousin Greg and I dead head to El Toro every day now, taking the shipments that have no return manifest. We come in with paid cargo, we go out with family members, household goods, and livestock.
It is a massive effort.
We hope to lift everyone who wishes to leave within the space of this calendar year.
So I am in town frequently. As with most runs, I do charity work where I end up, generally a round through a hospital, a walk through a homeless area, or some other useful action. In LA recently, I have been Jafar spotting as I go.
If you would like to have lunch one day, let me know.
If you happen to be in Casa, you are welcome to stop by and have a meal and hospitality.
Please be sure to ask the Keys for my after actions from last year. I took several Gou’ald ships in the engagement and fought from one of the ones I commandeered. I left detailed tips on boarding procedures, and ship to ship tactics that you may find compliment Ani’s notes and your own experience.
There are unquestionably complex issues regarding direction here, but what I personally see in St. James is immense potential for the forging of alliances. Not through the established powers, per se, but between ourselves.
St. James has been used a breeding ground and experiment station by forces from one end of the spectrum to the next,yes. And most of us are in fact a result of that. IT can be very distracting as our various lineages and powers come to light, but through continuing to work together, and maintaining the trust thereby, it is possible to act as bridges between forces otherwise at odds. In fact, I believe we already do so, as we call upon our various resources and connections to accomplish common goals.
I have no problen with questioning command structure, or with anyone challenging decisions they find objectionable, but I would urge all involved to consider carefully before jumping ship to look for a prettier picture elsewhere. I think the best chance we have of creating that is right here on St. James, where the balance of forces is so in flux that we ourselves may determine its direction, simply by continuing to work together.