Archie Looks at the Game Board
Rob
Mike, do you want to do an Archie/Stoney scene? Do you want to set one up, or me? You suggested Archie do an Esmology analysis on our 3 incursions; it's actually Enki who has Esmology, but Archie could consult Stoney for Intelligence Analysis - or maybe it would be fun to consult both of them together. Also, Stoney's just jumped from a 2-pt quirk to a 5-point disadvantage.
Michael
I very much do, yes! I just need to get through the Viv infodump in the Rooster House and then we can do a scene where Archie and friends assess the progress on the incursions. I picture such a scene occurring maybe a week or two into September so there will be enough intel to analyze.
When we get started, I figure at least this much will be on Archie's gameboard. Some of these will need to be bolstered with updated intelligence, some will be natural starting-points for use of Esmology:
Analyzing how the memes from Mission 7 are propagating
The old "History of Operation URIEL" esmological data (given the Postel revelation)
The three current intrusions on SANDMAN/OZYMANDIAS: virtual Houdini, Roger and the Agent, and the Marshall/Archie pas de deux
Further to the internal team dynamics of URIEL and bullet points 1, 2 and 3: Mitch and Marshall's comments about Roger and Sophie being "on leave" but actually trying to infiltrate the Project; the Sixth Man/Reinhardt (the recruitment of Chris Butler)
And under/overgirding all this, just a broad esmological look at current events and pop culture of the first two weeks of September: Watergate, Chile, Egypt, the new fall TV season, etc. etc.
Rob
Archie's going to cover his office with the usual Pepe Silvia charts and clippings, esmological equations on the chalkboard, then consult with both Stoney and Enki, one on each hand I guess. Any PCs who want in on the scene are welcome to stick their head in and kibitz, though I understand not necessarily wanting to play straight man/audience to another episode of Ransom Roundup.
Michael
Archie has taken the time to assemble all of the "modules," the moving parts, the cogs and gears in URIEL's relationships: to History B, to its investigative targets over the past six months of missions, to SANDMAN itself, to OZYMANDIAS. In his time being formally instructed in esmology back in '68, the teachers at the Peak were sure to remind Archie and the other eager pupils again and again, "Esmology breaks down at the level of individuals or small teams, you should never depend on the predictions' accuracy at the squad level!"
But that's not what Archie is seeing on this first glimpse at the board (well, to be fair, boards plural at this point given how much data there is to analyze). In the past six months, URIEL's actions have had an outsized effect on the esmological terrain in both San Francisco, nationally, and, yes, even globally. Between the big subductions URIEL's been a part of, and each of the individual members of URIEL extending their personal psychosocial tendrils out to other individuals and organizations, what Archie's realizing before even applying algorithm one to the playing field and adding the variables he wants to make predictions about … URIEL are real players in the game now. Of course we're not as powerful as SANDMAN, Archie considers, and the fog of war is still unfortunately cloaking just how deeply OZYMANDIAS has burrowed into SANDMAN itself, but in the grand scheme of the war for reality, URIEL has access to more buttons and levers than they used to. Our influence has found stubborn purchase in many key esmological matrices. That gives us the ability to make substantive influences and changes once we find the path we want to nudge those probabilistic mechanisms onto.
So now the time has come to interrogate the playing field, to run simulations, to ask questions of the oracles, as Sebastian Stone might declaim. Enki and Stoney sit on Archie's desk, inanimate, but each of them has a piece to the puzzle. Enki, with his alien, haughty, imperious consideration of the masses of humanity as insects, and Stoney, bringing to bear his history in counterintelligence and stealing Promethean knowledge from the Atlanteans.
Rob
So this could be Monday, or later in the week, whenever makes sense.
Archie wants to start with a kind of big picture esmological weather forecast. The edges of the big corkboard (or boards) in his office are pinned with newspaper and magazine clippings on both current events (Watergate, Chile?, Egypt?) and pop culture (top 40 hits, movie box office, the Fall TV season — Archie likes to predict the hits and turkeys).
(The centers of the corkboards have more specific subjects on them: the memes from the last mission, the history of URIEL stuff. He'll get to those.)
He steps back from the corkboard and regards it all, trying to get the view from 30,000 feet. He does some esmological calculations on the chalkboard, looks back at the wall of clippings, back again at the chalkboard. He's whistling softly while he does this, an odd off-key tune. On Ransom Roundup, Archie and the other puppets would summon Enki by playing a flute; now he just whistles the notes.
Then he picks up the Enki puppet, puts it on his right hand. "Hello there, Enki. It's been a while since we talked. Do you feel like, ah, counting the bees with me? I wanted to ask you about the weather."
Michael
With his friend on/at his right hand, Enki's head and "neck" straighten out, like the Loch Ness Monster poking his head inquisitively out from the deep. He looks at Archie, and then the corkboards, glancing briefly at the headlines on today's papers on Archie's desk. Nenam! Zae nu buluh me uzudirig? Zae a'aš ešdam ĝae ugu iĝar? Saĝtuku! [so/thus] ! you were not made afraid by the [divine] mushrooms? you wish to consult me for [more/greater] oracles? splendid! [with the connotation "I have pride in you"]
Esmology-21, Rob.
Rob
>> SUCCESS by 15
Michael
(that's a crit)
(this may take a while )
(mostly because I got sucked into the 1973 TV Guide fall preview issue and want a suitable page to use here )
Rob
(Enki fills the chalkboard with fifty years of plot for this new soap, The Young & the Restless)
Michael
'73 was a historically bad September for debut shows, too, like the wonder-makers in Studio City and Burbank were running out of ideas deep into Year 5 of Richard Nixon's reign
"HUŠma nisku ki la kiĝiri, aš hur ur. dih kunu niĝšu kalam. HIGAR, gibil ensik, kibala ĝiri idim mar."
your king's retainers will fall by the wayside, one by one. [Enki points to a story about the grand jury in Maryland digging deeper into Spiro Agnew's finances] chaos approaches on horseback [on chariot] from the land between the rivers. [Enki nods to a story about Syrian and Israeli fighters having a dogfight over the Mediterranean] revolutions, shifts in rulership, [rebel] kingdoms undermined by the tunneling of your worms. [here he gestures to freeze-frames of the recently-released film of the Presidential Palace in Santiago being raided and Pinochet being sworn in]
"Nu LIL ki tum duri. Sa kurĝara zu ki huldim. Namuš lib mada, anene usan, iginuĝal idim. Abgal teĝ ensik a'aš sag LIL taka HI la. Zae nu dili taka kišib la en. Zal dih kunu zae gu'erimĝal, zae ur gu'erimĝal, a'aš kunu dih."
no secret remains buried forever. even your [ritual holy players/actors] know your empire is rotten. [Enki gestures at the really rather terrible-looking Prime Time grid of new series debuts from the TV Guide Fall Preview issue] slow death at the heart of your empire, so they lash out [let fly the whip], blind and mad. there are men [viziers, priests] close to the rulers who seek to broadcast [scatter wide, sow] secrets to save their hides. you are not the only one who hoards secret files [sealed tablets] to expose his masters. a time of great upheaval approaches and your enemies — your … [particular/specific/true] enemies — will seek to take advantage amidst the chaos.
The esmological sense here is that multiple sources of instability, both foreign and domestic, are on the macro political horizon. We're not talking Armageddon here, we're talking about weakness and rot at the top giving other parties, foreign and domestic, license to act out. And given SANDMAN's and OZYMANDIAS's place as central to the American military-industrial complex, there is a lot of latitude for either "hive of bees" to act freely and, maybe even audaciously and openly, under the cover of the coming chaos. But Enki was also able to tease out that amidst all the churn in the Nixon administration (and, if Enki is right … war in the Middle East??) it's clear one or more key personnel are going to expose more of the secrets by hoarding secret documentation: right out of the Ellsberg playbook. The very plan that Archie had begun pondering months ago, even before the masquerade that Archie and Marshall concocted. There are men of honor in the Administration. And, that must mean, there are men of honor within SANDMAN as well. Contents under pressure eventually leak. There is a counterforce within SANDMAN, and it's not just URIEL. For all his doom and gloom, Enki is actually delivering an esmological message of hope. But it all comes down to timing. The cover of the coming political upheaval means both the black and white hats need to strike while the iron is hot. Not today, not tomorrow … but soon, when They are least expecting it.
Rob
Archie takes that all in. (I was gonna say he takes notes, but he has a puppet on his right hand. Though I can see Enki picking up a piece of chalk in his mouth and adding to the esmological calculations, or impatiently tapping at something Archie has missed.)
Archie sits down at his desk, facing the corkboard, and now puts Stoney on his left hand, with Enki still on his right. He clacks Stoney's beak open and shut a few times, gets the cock of his head right.
"Hello Sebastian. Are you there? Have you met my old friend Enki?"
So my next roll was going to be a Memetic analysis (with Stoney's aid) of how the Mission 7 mop-up memes are propagating. Has enough time gone by for that to be meaningful? Has Jo & Marshall's handiwork with the Beale Farm ritual murder scene been discovered?
Michael
(Before Director Stone is fully summoned: since Archie created the memes there's no roll to "detect" them; what Archie is looking for are their impact. So it will be a straight Expert Skill (Memetics)-21 roll which you can make now while I conjure up some Stoney-ian verbal folderol.)
Rob
>> SUCCESS by 8
Michael
Stoney comes to life on Archie's left (sinister, ha ha) hand, sputtering and groaning bestially. "Wha … what? You summon me now! How dare you? I was in the midst of a … mmm, particularly carnal ritual. An important one, too! You have no idea, dear homunculus, how much pleasure you have denied me over our very brief working relationship thus far! Feh!" Stoney squawks loudly, despite himself. He peers at Enki, considers the name, and says to Archie, "You really do associate with a rather sordid bunch of emanations, Archibald. Giving this serpent the name of the Great Masculine Principle, and you put this phallic-looking thing on television, to corrupt the little kiddies?" Stoney cackles. "Tremendous work on your part."
"Nu a šum mu, luKA'inima. ĝal niĝul, dul halib." no one gave me [the power of] my name, wizard. I exist in all times, all [nether]worlds.
Stoney largely ignores Enki in favor of what he was "summoned" for. And when Stoney discovers that Archie is summoning him to merely examine Archie's latest operational memetic deployment, he's even more incensed, and with less of the lascivious "wouldn't you like to know what I was just up to on Earth-Krane" needling. Scowling, Stoney says, "You really couldn't do this yourself? Oh well, I suppose these are the terms of the compact, and they go both ways. Such are the laws of magick," as he bends his beak to the section of the crazy boards having to do with the local propagation of the urban legends, financial news, and shock stories about ritual murder in Vacaville, California, right near the "prison for crazies," the California Medical Facility.
"Look here: this, hah, Reverend Kinsolving swallowing your story of an occult ritual murder hook-link-and-sinker, and tarting up the story up to appeal to people's dark curiosities … this man and I would likely really get along and 'hang out,' I believe the kids say. You repressed religious types always end up the same." Stoney's smile curls up around his beak. "Putting the body in Vacaville was a particularly inspired choice: soaking up the energies of the madmen and bedlamites. I take it that was the decision of your, mmm, delicious little Atlantean warrior princess, yes?"
Memes 2 and 3 are less further along but no less potent in Stoney's eyes. "Look at these people writing into the newspaper," 'Dear Abby. My child heard something on the schoolground his first day back in 5th grade that made my skin crawl. He said his friend told him the big corporations are putting chemicals in breakfast cereal to make children more obedient and less of trouble-makers. And now my boy won't eat his breakfast in the morning!'" Stoney cackles yet again. "Oh Archibald, this is truly something else. Seeding these young minds and their fretful mothers with stories of mind-controlling poison in their treats. Hansel and Gretel and the Brothers Grimm themselves never delivered a belief-infection so well! Trust no one, yes, and cause trouble and disobey. That is indeed the lesson the children should learn."
Enki mutters more to himself than anyone else, with a sneer in his voice, "Kišupeš." (A word connoting in Sumerian "the center of cultic attention": essentially, Enki is calling Stoney a bit of a ham.)
Rob
"That's all good to hear. Thank you, Sebastian. I do know you're very busy with, ah, your own work. So I appreciate it. And it does go both ways, if I can do a favor for you, you only have to ask, ha ha."
"But that's not all I called you here for. What I really wanted was to pick your brains a bit, both of you actually, about URIEL and OZYMANDIAS. Our OZYMANDIAS, that is."
(Aw hell, it suddenly occurs to me: does this scene need to be in the Rooster House? Can't remember how paranoid we are being about office surveillance at this point. I think everything that has been said so far is vague and weird enough to be opaque to outsiders, but maybe Archie should take the puppets over to the Rooster House for the second half.)
Michael
(Yes, taking them over to the Rooster House for part 2 does seem to make sense. But before we do so …)
Stoney looks inquisitively at Archie after he says, "If I can do a favor for you, you only have to ask," like a bird cocking its head waiting for the worm to pop its head above ground. "Yes, this is precisely what I meant before, the reciprocality of our pact. And in fact Archibald, there is something you can do for me, now that I have seen your facility with belief engineering, sculpting mass pistis from pure vapor like these cock-and-bull stories of sinister corporations and demonic murders."
"I need you to plant a little … something amidst the wellspring of, hehehe, 'Atlantean' types in your own world. Just the vaguest hint of belief that the Biblical prophecy of the 144,000 is real and that it is referring to those Elect among your 'New Age' types with the greatest faith in the coming of said new age, who will be "sealed" in the bargain and be taken up into, well, paradise. Should be easy as pie with all your deep-seated Mormon memetics; you probably half-believe it already, don't you?"
Leonard
Outside, Jocasta taps on Archie's office door. "Mail call, boss," she says. "Sorry to bother you, but I think you'll want this one right away — it's from Krane."
Michael
At the mention of Krane, Stoney goes immediately … limp.
Enki lets out a subtle little giggle from Archie's right hand at the sight of this.
Rob
"Thank you, Jocasta." Archie stands and reaches out to take the letter or whatever it is from Jo, only then realizing he has a puppet on each hand. He chuckles apologetically and sets both puppets down on his desk. As he takes whatever it is, Archie gestures at the calculations on the chalkboard and tells Jo, with a bit of a sigh, "Nixon's done for. I thought maybe we'd save him — not us, I mean, but someone in the organization, memetically. But just look at that Fall TV lineup! No aid from that quarter. Once Agnew resigns, Nixon's removal will become conceivable. This time next year, we'll have a new president. Nelson Rockefeller, maybe."
Michael
It's a large manila mailing envelope, sealed by Andrew's personal wax seal; he gave Archie a matching one so their postal correspondence could not be "spoofed." Mostly Archie thinks Andy gave him the wax seals so he could continue to play secret agent with Archie. Inside is a handwritten letter and a brief sheaf of typewritten pages.
The handwritten page:
Dear Archie:
Progress on part 4 of Atlantis Risen had been proving impossible. I was getting ready to write you a letter describing how I thought my "muse" had gone forever when a scene came to me. In medias res, sometime in volume 4, when the idea of rapprochement with Atlantis was starting to feel like a possibility, this scene throws a wrench and complication into the plan. Hope this helps; if phone consultation is needed, let me know time, place, and payphone.
Yours,
- A
Rob
(Give me some time to think about this and what it all means. We haven't ever explored what Stoney thinks about / knows about Krane and his novels, have we?)
Michael
During the Rooster House sesh with Stoney, Marshall quite openly referred to Krane as the creator of that world and Stoney didn't say boo. He did mention that from his perspective, he and his orgonauts dreamed up History-A and Mitch went, "Uh, that doesn't sound right to me"
Rob
A couple of moving parts here: Even as he reads Krane's pages, Archie turns so the Stoney puppet can't "see" them, then puts them away out of its sight. Then, if Jo wants to respond to any of that or talk to Archie she can, but otherwise, when he is alone again with Stoney, Archie will close the office door, pick up the puppet and say, speaking so as not to be overheard: "The 144,000. I could do this, but … what's in it for you? To sharpen the idea of the Elect among our New Agers and Aquarians? I don't see what your interest is. I'd be more comfortable designing a meme for your world." His eyes flick towards Krane's envelope. "Or influencing it in other ways."
Michael
"Oh my loyal homunculus, you don't want to bother with a world as fallen and bankrupt as this one." Stoney turns his head a couple of times in either direction, almost suspiciously, in an exaggerated "look both ways" fashion. "As for the memetic favor, let's just call it a little … numerological experiment. I'd like to see how these resonances reverberate up and down the quantum stack. Just a harmless little eschatological fancy. I'm sure you know plenty of these poor deluded amateurs in your own world, mixing up their Jesus with hermeticism and kabbalah. There's an opportunity for … cross-world sympathetic and synergistic magick here, Archibald! I can't tell you what specific cults I'm referring to, though. That's classified at the highest levels of MARPA clearance."
Rob
Archie frowns. "I don't like it much. The Elect. The Sealed. The Special Ones. 'No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.'"
"Fair's fair: I'll do it. It shouldn't be hard, it's a golden oldie, the meme never really goes away. But it's not a … a wholesome way of thinking, telling yourself you're part of a secret club, so different from the herd." He gestures at the board of esmological calculations, his wall of human passions and tragedies and mediocre TV shows reduced to mathematical abstractions. "You end up alone if you're not careful. I guess I don't have to tell you that."
(Archie's next step will be to take both puppets over to the Rooster House for part 2 of the Esmology/Intelligence Analysis)
Michael
(I was gonna have Archie make a roll for this whole thing but you kind of nailed it yourself right there; the memetic concept of the Elect is basically OZYMANDIAS thinking, isn't it? And the flimsy "cross-world numerological experiment" thing doesn't hold water for Archie either … but, indeed, a covenant is a covenant and fair is indeed fair.)
For Part 2, does Archie want or need a URIEL audience for this OZYMANDIAS-centric set of calculations?
Rob
That's up to URIEL. If they don't have anything they want to ask or say to the puppets (because it would be fine/fun if they did), it's probably not interesting to just be an audience.
Michael
Well, if anyone wants in on the Rooster House portion of this consultation, feel free to pop into this thread. Rob, go ahead and ask Enki your first OZYMANDIAS question and roll your Enki-aided Esmology-21 yet again.
Rob
Archie obviously doesn't bring the chalkboard (he erases it before leaving, enough that you can't make out the figures, but not so much that you can't see anything) but he does bring a yellow legal pad covered with esmological scribbles. In the Rooster House, he pins up some of the cards and notes from when he was doing the history of URIEL personnel. He has both puppets active, so Stoney can chime in if he has thoughts on Enki's question (is Adrian Sawbridge the cross-world equivalent of Hilary Postel, Archie wonders), or vice-versa. But his esmology question is about the intersection of URIEL, SANDMAN, and OZYMANDIAS, about SANDMAN's purposes in creating URIEL and how that is or is not working out, the waves we seem to be making, and (understanding esmology breaks down at the individual level) what to make of Postel reaching out.
(Are these rolls where if I spend 1 Corruption before rolling, I can spend more Corruption after to boost the roll? If so, I will.)
>> SUCCESS by 10
Michael
Yes, indeed. That 1 point of Corruption will get you an effective roll of 10, thus a success by 11, and if you'd like to get it down into crit range, that will take another 4 points of Corruption after the roll.
(And I have an initial Enki drop on this question all set to go, which I hope will elicit more questions/commentary from Archie, Stoney, and/or anyone else in the Rooster House.)
Rob
I'll spend 4 more for the crit.
Michael
After examining the sheets depicting the relationships of URIEL to SANDMAN, OZYMANDIAS, Reinhardt, and Postel, Enki levels his button-eyed glare at Archie. Not in anger, not in impatience or imperiousness, but … as if he is having to break news he does not want to. A gaze full of gravitas. His mouth moves imperceptibly—was that Archie's hand involuntarily clenching and quivering, or Enki's own uncertainty in speaking out? No matter, because soon Enki is able to break the silence.
Anene peš zae.en iginzu kirimah dubul gibil lum. Zae.en adal ak zae.en rig. Anene nu gaz zae.en; anene niĝaldi lum LIL ul. Anene ak namtil dulum, igen anene nu gaz zae.en. Igen anene u zae.en, šu us zae.en inbir šu gid zae.en? Niĝgina. Anene ak duri ud zae.en šeg. they birthed you as one would a garden to grow new fruit. you in the process have made yourselves indispensable. they cannot kill you; they need the fruit of your secret knowledge too much. they can make your lives misery, but they cannot kill you. but can they control you [ride you, put you in reins], keep sending you into danger [war, conflict] to see what unfolds [read your entrails]? yes [this is true]. they will do this forever if you [permit/obey] them.
At the sound of the phrase "šu gid," "to examine through extispicy," Stoney coughs uncontrollably, while Enki is still speaking (a good trick! we'll apply the crit to Ventriloquism, too).
(Archie notes with interest that two phrases in Enki's pronouncement, "gaz" and "sheg," are the names of Anunnaki glyphs.)
Jeff
"What'd he say? Dammit I shoulda learned Sumerian."
Michael
(Oh yeah, that's Intelligence Analysis-21 for Stoney to chime in on OZYMANDIAS, Rob. Reminder that that's a Corruption-ready skill as well.)
Rob
(Mitch popping up from behind some furniture in the Rooster House like Johnny Fever sleeping in the WKRP storeroom: "can you teach me about magnets?")
Archie's not surprised or startled to see Mitch. "He's talking about, ah, the people who created URIEL. Our superiors in SANDMAN, I think, but there are a lot of 'them's to keep track of." With Mitch here, it's natural for Archie to slip into puppeteer "what's that you say?" patter with Enki. "You say they can't kill us, but they can keep sending us into danger to see what we'll do? And they'll do this forever if we let them? So how do we break free?"
(and what the hell, in for a penny, let's spend the 1-point to open up the Intelligence Analysis roll)
>> SUCCESS by 13
Michael
Hey, look at that, only need one more Corruption to get a crit there too.
Stoney is piqued.
Rob
At this point it feels like a bargain, let's do it.
Jeff
Mitch looks askance at 'forever,' and leans back in his seat.
Michael
Stoney says, "Oh, I'm sure it's simple, Archibald: prepare yourself a little 50-word telegram to your Dulce Base, saying in essence 'My team and I all resign,' cash in your pension and move into a little house in Monterey with the wife and kids! Child's play!"
"The fact is, this little monster makes an excellent point: you've committed the cardinal sin of any employee, especially an intelligence agent: you've made yourselves indispensable. Could they just move in new members of URIEL, ship-of-Theseus-style, to keep their investigations of the Weird and outré going? Why, of course. They've done it before," Stoney says, peeking at the "History of Operation URIEL" timeline. But there is … aheheheheh, the ‘Club’ to consider, isn't there? There's something … special about you lot, isn't there O taisher?" Stoney looks at Mitch with patient respect, but his tone of voice still seems condescending somehow.
"Have you ever thought that that specialness has very little to do with metaphysics or other levels of existence and purely has to do with how … talented and useful and powerful you've all become? If you were to peek into the lives of Mystic Kate or Big Ray Mulligan or … " Stoney clears his throat and squawks, "Dr. Postel since leaving URIEL, do you think they'd measure up to what all of you can do now that you've been tested by Irruptor and temblor, all your strife and danger and torture? Probably not. The ordeals and traumas of the shaman, the magician, the seer, are all there expressly to make them more powerful. This is what OZYMANDIAS seeks to do. Find the right way to bend a human body and soul and psyche to the limits, before it breaks or goes insane or dies. Strong enough to survive. Darwinian thaumaturgy."
Jeff
Mitch lacks the vocabulary and conceptual framework to observe that a year ago he was a 300 point character and now he's a 500 point character, but inchoate awareness of that fact drifts through him, and he grunts in an unsettled fashion at Stoney's words
Rob
"Well," Archie says, "What about Postel, reaching out to us right now, through Genevieve? What does that tell us? That we have enemies? That we're playing a dangerous game? That's not exactly news. What are we to make of his overture?" Indicating through body language that 'we' can mean Stoney, Enki, Mitch, anyone else here.
Jeff
"This is the second bell rung, for Postel. First he was among the departed, second he's passing cryptic warnings through Viv. Third time someone says his name, he crawls out the mirror. So to speak. I don't mean he's a monster."
Michael
Stoney seems a little reluctant to charge off into another monologue, specifically about Postel. Enki senses this reluctance and says:
"Anam zir zae, hulu luKA'inima? Gullum pag?"
what [troubles/breaks] you, [little/dirty/insignificant] magical expert? cat has you trapped in a cage? [the connotation here being "cat's got your tongue?"]
"Not at all, you dumb beast," Stoney says in reply with real venom. "From a counterintelligence perspective, it seems quite simple. Your Dr. Postel, despite his esoteric paleohistorical knowledge of life 'before' the Anunnakku and how it could be used as a model for post-Return survival, clearly wouldn't be a good candidate for OZYMANDIAS. You suspected as much, Archibald, in your esmological predictions of two months ago; like many of the academics in your MARPA, he's a weak sister," Stoney scoffs. "But what if they approached him during the past six months of … acceleration they've witnessed URIEL deal with and in doing so, alerted Postel to what might be happening in the most secret circles of SANDMAN? Weak and sniveling Postel may be, but stupid he is definitely not. What if the OZYMANDIAS recruiter—maybe even one of your mutual former teammates— had asked ever-so-subtly after you," Stoney says to Archie, "or after Dr. Redgrave or your cheval and thus sent Postel into deep suspicion about their plans, leading him to pull strings at his relatively low Security Rank to find out simply who currently comprised URIEL, thus leading him to Genevieve?"
"Say what you want, old boy, but the good archeologist at least had a little crush on you, a fellow man of the life of the mind." Stoney squawks mockingly, perhaps remembering his own … "seduction" of Dr. Sawbridge. "At the very least, Postel now seems trustworthy. He definitely doesn't possess the mettle to double for OZYMANDIAS, and he's sentimental enough to send up a flare to you all. He's a potential ally. A potential ally whose expertise seems important to OZYMANDIAS's express goals. Who knows, perhaps he can even be brought into your … little club."
Jeff
"I'm having trouble following this." It doesn't help that half of it is in a language Mitch's doesn't speak. "Are you following this?"
Rob
Archie says to Mitch, "Oh, Enki just likes to joke around. And I think Sebastian and his version of Hilary Postel have, um, a bit of a history between them. But what they're both saying is, Postel's message is probably on the level. At least we can assume that he's not OZYMANDIAS. But SANDMAN's tapped Postel, recently, about something that might be of interest to us. I do think we should reach out to him, taking proper precautions of course. And the math says the same thing, that there are still good men in the organization. Isn't that right, Enki? We should be looking for allies."
Michael
"A adal, lillan. Anene ri zae.en saĝ šum teĝ dih, lidga zae.en ĝiri. ĝiri u anene bur šu ĝal. Dusa gu'erimĝal ak na deg. Da hur.
the time is near, it comes ripe. they seek to set you all against the coming chaos, to measure you all under its cover. this also means they will show their hand. comrades and rivals will become more clear. lines will be drawn.
Archie realizes that Enki is reiterating that the coming period of instability, where OZYMANDIAS will have the latitude to work more openly, means that the signs of their passing will also get more obvious and sloppy. Maybe this overture to Postel was the beginning of all this, because the Postel approach certainly looks sloppy to our eyes now. Maybe this also means that infiltrating OZYMANDIAS could get even easier (yes, this is meant as a possible segue to chat the Houdini/Agent/Marshall incursions), as OZYMANDIAS try to accelerate their own plans under cover of Nixon's fall and the various geopolitical messes America is about to get into. That sort of accelerationist... thing is their MO, after all. But that old saw about "crisis" and "opportunity" applies to tradecraft and infiltration as well. On a pure numbers basis, the esmology says that the convergence of these factors will crest between October-to-December of this year and June-to-August of next year, with special intensity at either end of that rough 8-to-10-month period.
The signs of our enemy will become clearer, but then too will the signs of those "good men in the organization."
Jeff
"This seems like … I don't know. Does the timing of this seem weird to you?"
Michael
Archie stands up suddenly, both puppets still on-hand, and goes over to the pile of papers he brought into the Rooster House. Flipping through them with his Enki hand, he has his Stoney hand pick up a slim NASA pamphlet and then spit it out melodramatically onto the Rooster House table. "I don't know … mmmmmagic man. You tell me." Stoney points his beak at the NASA educational guide that just was published this week and sent out to schools all over America.
Stoney flips through a few pages and points again beak-ly at this graphic on page 7.
Rob
"The comet? Golly." Archie doesn't know, I don't think, about Mitch's experience with Kohoutek. But he has a theory too: "We've talked before about time speeding up, or feeling funny. What's happening on the esmological scale, at least what these numbers look like to me, is that novelty and complexity are increasing. But also, I think, that, ah, narrative strands are coming together? The esmological term is 'concrescence.'" Archie picks up a pen — in Enki's mouth — and sketches some fractal-looking curves on his legal pad. "We can model novelty and concrescence with a Koch curve. Do you know what that is? It looks sort of like a snowflake, it resembles itself at different scales. So you can zoom in or zoom out as far as you like — our lives, the Bay Area, American culture at large - the same patterns will appear."
"And as our experience grows denser - more novelty, more inputs - it may feel like things are accelerating. But they're also expanding. So things are moving faster, but also taking longer, if that makes any sense. It's like a movie serial that always ends in a cliffhanger. We feel we're rushing towards a crisis point but it never quite arrives."
"Until it does, I suppose."
Michael
(Rob, are you ready to talk OZYMANDIAS intrusions? I think Stoney will see this as a natural outgrowth of Enki's talking about the coming chaos providing opportunities for both sides to make moves.)
Rob
"Maybe we should try to stick to what's actionable for now," Archie says. Now he addresses Stoney, mostly. "We've made a number of moves to get intelligence on OZYMANDIAS. Sorry, our OZYMANDIAS. I'm afraid we've so little hard intel, we've had to use your name. But now we've released the Houdini recording, and Roger's new loa, and there's the coat-trailing we've done to get Marshall into their circles. Plus we don't know what, if anything, our Librarian has been up to. The question is … well, there are lots of questions. Is this too much exposure? What should we be watching out for? How can we start identifying enemies and allies?"
Michael
"Houdini. Still I find it amazing you possess the spirit of Houdini! He is set to be uploaded wherever young Charley's chip footage might be processed. This tells me that Houdini will find himself in a very sensitive OZYMANDIAS system, yes? There's no guarantee that system would be, uh, 'net-worked,' I believe the term is, with the rest of SANDMAN's computer systems. It may be sequestered. But there will likely be other OZYMANDIAS data there, of great value. Thus, the issue might well be Houdini's exfiltration. It may require detective work to find out where he is and pull him out physically. Young Charley should look for any sort of SOS from your ghostly field agent. Such a message may come via broadcast rather than narrowcast, or as a false flag embedded in seemingly-unrelated signals. I would also wager this facility is not part of your Granite Peak. More likely at a SANDMAN high-tech bleeding-edge skunkwork somewhere. That's what I would do."
"The Agent. What a delight, Archibald. A living memetic double agent. And born from the same ontoclastic event that paired us up!" Stoney says, "His loyalty beyond reproach, your cheval's reputation is that of a good soldier and experimental subject, ready to follow orders. Especially after taking three slugs for the team, his exposure should be near zero. You may or may not get intelligence back from this infiltration; more importantly, you've seeded their human potential program with your programming, a persona loyal to your side of the, hahaha, narrative. A longer-term saboteur, so maybe not of immediate use. But all the more reason to protect Roger's safety. He speaks to the loa; none of you have the same connection. To trigger the Agent when the time is right, Roger — and only Roger — will possess the key."
"Your little set-to at Chasen's last month with the good doctor, such brilliance: all thanks to my counsel, of course. OZYMANDIAS will absolutely try to bring Dr. Redgrave onboard. He is the best of all the human potential and psychology gurus currently operating at SANDMAN's behest in California. Redgrave's public image, his career trajectory is the one most compatible with OZYMANDIAS's vision of the future. Alerting the powers-that-be of your, heh, treachery demonstrated that Marshall is loyal, that he is a company man, but also ambitious, willing to throw over the chain of command and … disrupt the status quo. It is only a matter of time now. Someone he knows and trusts within SANDMAN will make the approach, likely under the cover of the coming 'chaos,' and explain OZYMANDIAS's goals and philosophy in terms they believe he will respond to. The exposure is all on their end, not yours. They'll offer him the reins of URIEL, making him the new 'Sixth Man.' Which would leave you as the odd man out, Archibald."
"And of course you know when they send back your Librarian, she'll be wholly compromised. If not by OZYMANDIAS, then by SANDMAN at-large. Whatever the case and whomever does the head-cracking, she'll be a minder meant to report back on all of you."
(I should make it clear that Roger implanting the Agent in the Cheval Program will be of benefit to URIEL no matter what, since the Agent is bound to be on our side, but Stoney's magickal understanding is that if you guys want the Agent-implanted chevals to perform specific tasks for URIEL, having Roger around to activate/direct these Manchurian candidates will be crucial.)
Jeff
"Likes to hear himself talk, doesn't he," Mitch muses. "I think I like him better when you're doing the voice, Arch."
Rob
"But I am doing … " Archie catches himself; there's no point in unraveling all of Mitch's cryptic utterances. "Thank you, Sebastian. And thank you, Enki. You've both been a big help." He's taken note of all this — and will pass on specific instructions to Charley, Roger, and Marshall. "And I will get on that project for you, Sebastian."
After, with the puppets put away, Archie sits outside the Rooster House for a bit, takes off his glasses and rubs his temples. "Boy, doing that math does a number on your head," he says, to Mitch if he's there. "I don't like it. For the rest of the day I'll be tetchy and full of schemes."
Jeff
Mitch clucks his tongue sympathetically. "Yeah, divination always takes it out of you, one way or another … hey, you really think this is like a movie serial? It doesn't feel like a TV show but I have less experience with, uh, with serials."
Michael
(Yeah, given you got a ton of crits, I will likely give Archie some little moments of realization in Mission 8 when it seems the intel analysis/esmology were forewarning him about something or other.)
Rob
(Thanks — that's a good way to do it.)
"Well, it does feel a little like a movie serial, something with robots and singing cowboys ha ha. But, Mitch: that doesn't mean it is a serial. That feeling, that things aren't real — or that some of us are more real than others — it's not healthy."
Jeff
"More and more I think everybody is the same level of real. Which isn't very."
Rob
Archie nods. "How are things going with Mary-Lynn?"
(You can answer, or not, Jeff. This scene doesn't have to go on forever.)
Jeff
Mitch is a little taken aback, he wasn't expecting Archie to ask that question. "Uh. It's good. I guess it's good. For a girl I've been seeing for, uh, two months. Went faster than I'd expect, getting to the point. But sure. Because —" He breaks off.
"My opinions on who is real and how real we are, they've been evolving. Like I was saying to Marshall, there was a time I didn't want to talk about it for fear of … I'm not sure what. Something bad, apocalyptic, coming out of that line of thought. Things are more robust than I was giving them credit for, I guess."
Rob
"Well, that's the movie serial, isn't it? Always on the eve of destruction, but never quite yet." (beat) "Anyway, she seems like a swell girl is all. It's like we talked about: it's good to have skin in the game."
Jeff
"Yeah, I mean … you're not wrong. She is a swell girl. Do you … do you think there's a … Arch, why are they doing this to us?"
Rob
Archie's turn to be taken aback. It's a big question. "Do we know they are? 'Doing this'? I mean, are we sure the arrow only goes one way? Because, I know I made Stoney — I remember cutting the felt, playing around with his voice — but he'll tell you it was the reverse."
"Ah, but that's just more dorm room pseudo profundity. I'm sorry, Mitch, I think you bring it out in people." He looks a little bashful. "But what I feel is … well … maybe it's like God sending us tests and trials. Maybe they're doing this because they love us."
Jeff
" … "
"I'm not sure what to make of that."