Bring Me The Head Of

[avatar (Alistair Young)]

ALL SECURITY SITES // ORANGE SENSITIVE NOCONTRACT // NOFORN ROUTINE RED LIST // SPECIAL // UPDATE 7129/06/01

WANTED: Istar Oricalcios Veneri a.k.a. “the Mechanic”

REQED BY THIRD DIRECTORATE (INTELLIGENCE SECURITY)

FOR: activities in support of asymmetrism, details redacted; activities in support of insurrection, details redacted; activities in support of assassination, details redacted; activities in support of megacide, details redacted

NOTES:

• Subject has received ExSec field agent training, fourth level.
• Subject is an expert in the construction of improvised weapons across technological levels, including hand weapons, technicals, and explosive devices.
• Subject has received special training in technical sabotage.
• Subject should be considered extremely dangerous.

LAST SEEN: highport, Inidu (Freeport Loop), 2 days before publication

TERMINATE ON SIGHT WITH ALL NECESSARY FORCE. LOG-3 COLLATERAL BUDGET PREAPPROVAL. SECURE ALL SURVIVING FRAGMENTS. RETURN TO ISE CUSTODY WITH ACCOMPANYING FULL FORENSIC ANALYSIS.

BY ORDER OF

Istar Oricalcios Veneri, Second Directorate, seconded to Third Directorate

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://eldraeverse.com/2019/07/29/bring-me-the-head-of

[avatar (Alistair Young)]

Comments migrated from WordPress:

@Scott <scott.kenny@gmail.com> on 2019-07-29 15:26:41 wrote

Log-3 collateral budget? 10^3 Exvals? Ouch. They want this dude very, very dead.

@Alistair Young <us@arkane-systems.net> on 2019-07-29 16:11:34 wrote

Not exvals. A collateral budget is how much collateral damage in soph-mortality-equivalents you’re allowed to do in accomplishing the mission.

@Max <maximiliancrichton512@gmail.com> on 2019-07-30 05:40:28 wrote

That sounds even more expensive. What’s a ballpark for the collateral of the modal Third Directorate project?

@Alistair Young <us@arkane-systems.net> on 2019-07-30 09:33:44 wrote

About three orders of magnitude lower.

@Scott <scott.kenny@gmail.com> on 2019-07-30 19:41:43 wrote

That’s terrifying!

They want this soph dead so badly they’re willing to write off anything less than a thousand others as ‘acceptable collateral damage’?!?

Or is this a case of The Mechanic getting the 3rd Directorate to do his dirty work for him, given the name of the issuing individual?

@driagledd <driagledd@aim.com> on 2019-07-31 04:04:12 wrote

Terrifying as it may be, what’s worse is it seems it may be justified.

“activities in support of megacide”

When your target is attempting to kill millions, thousands becomes an acceptable alternative.

I certainly don’t think it’s a case of getting them to do his/her/their/etc. dirty work. I doubt they’d let someone like that into the Directorates. Then again… it would seem an instance of this person went rogue so…

@Robert <sudragon2k3@gmail.com> on 2019-08-03 08:24:26 wrote

Are we talking bodyloss or complete loss of personality/
personalities, including offsite backups?

@Michael A Hutson <mikehutson@q.com> on 2019-07-29 17:40:25 wrote

OK, I’m whooshed: Is the guy putting a hit out in himself as a form of suicide, or the wanted criminal so clever he hacked his own wanted alert?

@Ru <shearwater+eldraeverse@gmail.com> on 2019-07-30 03:15:24 wrote

In the future, there can be more than one of you.

Also in the future you don’t have to worry about distinguishing the good copies from the evil copies; you can indeed just kill 'em all, and let god an appropriate forensic AI sort 'em out.

@equestriaverse <project9701@gmail.com> on 2019-07-29 19:43:38 wrote

For some reason, I keep thinking of John Wick here. When the Eldrae say “a soph of focus. Commitment. Sheer will,” you know they are talking about someone very scary indeed…

@MirrorField <mirrorfield@gmail.com> on 2019-08-01 05:21:40 wrote

I’ve always thought that there are endpoints to focus and commitment. As in “This being is no longer able to voluntarily change, grow or evolve. It no longer has free will as the term is understood and it’s cogitation, while mostly rational and highly cunning, is not fully sapient as the term is understood. Even if tried by the Curia, it will be unable to comprehend it has done wrong without cognitive surgery it will automatically refuse.” Kinda similar to semi-slavery, except that cognitive blind-spots are in different places. You treat such beings like terminators and do not even attempt to take prisoners, because they will not allow themselves to be taken a prisoner… Well, exceptions being when Intelligence throws a snit and special ops are arranged to painstakingly acquire mind-state for terminal analysis.

@equestriaverse <project9701@gmail.com> on 2019-08-01 21:47:23 wrote

I prefer to think of it like this-he’s very good at doing a terrible thing, and he chains that terrible thing with the only leash that matters to creatures like him. The one built of self-discipline and self-control.

And, one day, he realized it was time to become something else. So, he did.

Then, what he changed into was threatened by an attack that he couldn’t kill. And, the promise that he wouldn’t turn back to what he used to be was strained.

Then, some idiot steals his car and kills his new dog.

You can hear the chains of self-control cracking in an instant…

@Robert <sudragon2k3@gmail.com> on 2019-08-03 08:26:25 wrote

And he goes out and buys a pencil.

[avatar (Alistair Young)]

“In the case of the Throne vs. John Wick, the Court of the Beyond delivered a verdict of ‘Awesome, Totally Appropriate, and Can We Get The Slow-Mo Playback Up In Here’.”