Operation TOBACCO
MutantsMichael — 10/28/24, 8:09 AM
Operation TOBACCO
MutantsMichael — 10/28/24, 8:10 AM
@Madness Dossier @Bill B @Rob MacD
MutantsMichael — 10/28/24, 8:50 AM
Roger, Archie, and Merrick can discuss what their approach on Gottlieb is likely to be, but it does seem to make sense whatever the approach, that we pack SANGUSH glyphs and backup alternate identity documents having to do with the Church Committee or the Senate in general. Merrick knows a little about Gottlieb, by reputation, and says Sidney has always struck him, even after the CWG revelations after ALLOCHTHON last year, as a pragmatic, happy Cold Warrior type, despite the reputation he had around SANDMAN as the CIA's "poisoner-in-chief." His work in experimental pharmacology paved the way for so much of SANDMAN's past quarter-century in using pharmaceuticals to combat both the Kings and the Reds and to try to heal minds after contact with the Other Side. What we know of him, of course, comes from our tense interactions at ALLOCHTHON and, before that, the revelation that he was Andrija Puharich's handler thanks to Jocasta's Psychometric reading of him: https://www.san-narciso.com/scenes?tag=Sidney%20Gottlieb https://www.san-narciso.com/scenes/the-reveal Anyway, @Rob MacD, @Bill B, however you want to run this is okay with Merrick; he's fine being backup or being part of the team that pays him a visit in his Watergate Presidential Suite.
Operation URIEL
A record of the interactions and activities of Operation URIEL.
Operation URIEL
Geller’s manager gets in the Rolls, but ultimately it’s URIEL that goes for a ride.
Bill B — 10/28/24, 9:54 AM
Using FBI credentials is off, but what about US marshal badges? Roger could try to pull it off; then he's just an addition to the current crew, maybe as escort to whatever Archie's cover is. Might take an upload of current U.S. marshal command info, so he can make name references on demand. Clearly a SANGUSH is needed to prevent pesky call-ins to confirm.
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MutantsMichael — 10/28/24, 9:59 AM
Yeah, definitely with SANGUSH a cover identity of a US Marshal escort for Senate investigators (Archie and perhaps Merrick) would work really well.
October 31, 2024
MutantsMichael — 10/31/24, 10:07 AM
I wager we can get that US Marshal information through our Contact in the Church Committee as well, without having to depend on Phreak hacking. As for the physical false identification, given the Rank we have in the Project now, we can sneak such things out of the SANDMAN undercover repository (we still have that 90-point Patron and can even use it, ostensibly here, "against" the Project).
November 2, 2024
MutantsMichael — 11/2/24, 6:46 AM
(Just realized: @Bill B, you got a skill you want to Renshaw before going into this situation? Also it occurs to me that Roger and Archie are two of our Beam Weapons-trained party members.)
November 6, 2024
Bill B — 11/6/24, 3:47 PM
Beam weapons will definitely be on Roger. If there’s a Renshaw module on the current US Marshal command and procedure, that might be helpful for cover. Matching one of Gottlieb’s skills so we can better judge what’s coming out of his mouth might be good, too. Pharmacology?
@Bill B
Beam weapons will definitely be on Roger. If there’s a Renshaw module on the current US Marshal command and procedure, that might be helpful for cover. Matching one of Gottlieb’s skills so we can better judge what’s coming out of his mouth might be good, too. Pharmacology?
MutantsMichael — 11/6/24, 3:55 PM
The Marshal bit feels less like a skill and more like a part of Roger's existing Legal Enforcement Powers suite at 15 points, so I think the sole Renshaw slot going to Pharmacy feels like a good call. That would bring it in at a full four-hour programming session at Pharmacy (Synthetic)-13.
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MutantsMichael — 11/6/24, 4:26 PM
@Bill B @Rob MacD: Okay, first off, the Patron rolls for Archie, with Rank 3, got all three of you access to computer-designed SANGUSH glyphs. Secret Acting/Performance rolls have been made (with bonuses for IDs from the US Marshals and paperwork from the US Senate/Church Committee) for Archie, Roger, and Merrick to back up the SANGUSH's effects. If you're wearing a SANGUSH glyph you will get one point of Corruption for the scene. I will assume Roger, Archie, and Merrick are all packing pistol ikoters that will fall under the aegis of the SANGUSH glyph. Archie and Merrick, as our two Senate "counsels," will also have briefcases (enough room in each for a single puppet if Archie wants to take one or more to this meeting or whatever else might be a good idea to bring). Archie, Roger, and Merrick walk briskly from the 11th floor elevator down the very long hallway to the US Marshal checkpoint outside the Presidential Suite at the end of the hallway. There are only two Marshals at the little check-in area—a chair and table not much bigger than an elementary school desk—outside the grand double doors of the suite. One is seated at this desk, on which there is a phone, a Rolodex, and two slim leatherbound record books (possibly containing sign-in sheets) with a third open on the desk with a pen on one of those beaded strings you see in a bank. Roger does the meet and greet with the Marshals on guard, explaining his duty station (the Eastern District of Virginia) and the reason the two counsels from the Committee are here tonight (discussing some of the finer legal points of "Mr. Scheider"'s plea agreement and testimony). Even though all three men are new to the Marshals at the door, Roger's background, the three IDs, and most importantly the SANGUSH glyphs, smooth the way. The on-duty Marshals explain that a third Marshal, Deputy Marshal Adam Roberts, is in the suite guarding the witness right now. Roberts will swap out with Agent [Roger] during the visit; Mr. Schneider's counsel Terry Lenzner will be "calling in" (a fib, of course). The Presidential Suite possesses a sweeping northwest corner view of the Potomac River, Theodore Roosevelt Bridge and Island, and Arlington, Virginia beyond. The nighttime lights of DC Northwest and Georgetown glimmer off to the north. Deputy Roberts looks at Agent [Roger]'s badge, the Senate badges of [Archie] and [Merrick], and ushers the three men into the suite proper from the "foyer" hallway. Sidney Gottlieb is there, seated in the open living area at a round kitchen-style table, notebooks, law books, Congressional records, newspapers, and what look like science books scattered about. In casual attire: a pair of cheapish chinos, a short-sleeve button-down shirt, no tie. His club foot drags behind him as he stands to see his three visitors. Agent Roberts shuts the suite door behind him and Gottlieb is left alone with the three Men From URIEL. "Well, well." Gottlieb says, clearing his throat, sighing, showing very little surprise on his face, that is, until Roger emerges from the hallway after giving Roberts a final check-in, when he goes suddenly pale, remembering his time with Kalfu at the ALLOCHTHON conference room last October. "Uh. Yes. So. The Sandman has finally come to put me to sleep, eh?"
Bill B — 11/6/24, 4:31 PM
Roger leaves it to Archie to do the real conversation start (take as long as you need). But he does quickly flash his most animated smile and says, "Or maybe just time to pay the devil his due." He'll try a little body language intimidation, if only in aid of whatever Archie's next move is.
@Bill B
Roger leaves it to Archie to do the real conversation start (take as long as you need). But he does quickly flash his most animated smile and says, "Or maybe just time to pay the devil his due." He'll try a little body language intimidation, if only in aid of whatever Archie's next move is.
MutantsMichael — 11/6/24, 4:34 PM
Cool. Go ahead and give me an Intimidation-16 roll (14 + 2 for your history with Sid) which can aid Archie's opening gambit. For the moment, Merrick is keeping his powder dry, ready also to aid however's needed.
Bill B used
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Dice GolemAPP — 11/6/24, 4:34 PM
@Bill B rolled
3d6Smiling Devil:(4+4+1)= 9MutantsMichael — 11/6/24, 4:35 PM
Awright. Will await our fearless leader.
November 22, 2024
MutantsMichael — 11/22/24, 8:32 AM
In a faint, vague flash, Archie, as he stands before Sidney Gottlieb, senses his rapport with Charley come to active life in a way it hasn't in months. He sees Charley and Rose in a diner somewhere in the Southwest. Outside the window is a brilliant desert sunset, and on the table of the booth Charley and Rose are sitting in is a pair of stone objects, reverberating with power. They are round stones two or three inches in diameter, somehow simultaneously made of sandstone and glass; they flip back and forth between substances freely in that inimitably-quantum reality shard way. As she sits in front of a big milkshake, Charley is taking some heavy-duty wire and twisting it into loops with hooks on either end... into the shape of a pair of eyeglasses. The vision fades in a matter of five or six seconds, and Archie is left in front of Gottlieb once more.
November 27, 2024
MutantsMichael — 11/27/24, 3:00 PM
Just copying this from the CANNABIS thread: Since I've been waiting so long for this pair of scenes, I definitely want to do them right so here's the ground rules over the next couple and half weeks until the live session: I won't blast ahead too far until everyone's had their say on a particular round of Q's and A's; if one of our interrogators wants to jump in at any point, we should all give everyone space to use a power, ask a question, have a sidebar etc. etc. I want to take our collective time with this scene, it and Gottlieb are kinda Central to the entire back third of this campaign.
December 7, 2024
MutantsMichael — 12/7/24, 7:20 AM
1/2
Well, I don't know if this is stretching what memetics can do too far, but my idea was to infect Gottlieb with a meme, but not one designed to affect him, rather designed to affect people who hear his testimony. So that when Gottlieb testifies, his words will unconsciously carry a subliminal under-message, various verbal tics and triggers based on Anunnaki source code, that implants in whoever is listening to him the meme "this guy is not telling me the whole story, he's holding back secrets, there's more to this than he's admitting." But the more Gottlieb is pressed, the more he reveals, that will only strengthen the conviction in those listening to him that there is still more to be revealed.
So yes, using Gottlieb as the Patient Zero for this infection is absolutely fine, and as designed this can definitely be accomplished only using source code-powered memetics. Archie's target audience is, well, any officials in government who are questioning witnesses and subjects. Probably best to keep the target audience aspect nice and narrow so we don't end up with a nation of infected clinical paranoids when this is all said and done. Of Archie's audience-evaluation skills, I think Current Affairs (Headline News) is by far the most appropriate; he's read a lot about the men on the Church Committee, he knows their like but hasn't been among them to the point where Anthropology, Psychology, or Sociology feels appropriate. With Jane's various bonuses along with Archie and Sophie's research and esmology, we could call the first meme design roll a Current Affairs (Headline News)-20. And the second, as always, is Propaganda-20. Average the success of those two rolls out for the maximum Power of the meme. I'll wait to make the delivery roll until we've gotten some way into the actual conversation with Sidney to see which skill or skills seem appropriate for injection.
MutantsMichael — 12/7/24, 7:30 AM
2/2
I'm also just thinking about what ways we have to persuade/manipulate Gottlieb. We're not killing him - that wouldn't be Archie's style anyway, but we definitely can't because it was Jane who led Archie to him. Archie doesn't have hypnosis and he's rarely gotten enthrallment to work - memetics, psychology and propaganda are his best ways of persuading. (I guess Roger has own ways of being pretty persuasive.) I mean, I'm hoping there's a way to persuade Gottlieb that he's in real danger of getting silenced, and that it is in his own best interest, as you say, to go big and make a big enough splash that the Owls can't easily murder him without blowback. But it would be nice to have some source code to fall back on.
We've gotten enough research on Gottlieb's career (and Archie had enough face-to-face interaction during ALLOCHTHON) to know Sid's a cold, conniving, striving, businesslike son of a bitch. But most if not all his life has been spent in a lab or an office, a "rear-echelon motherfucker" as they said in Vietnam, managing the technical aspects of CIA's/SANDMAN's various misdeeds across the world. He fled to India after ALLOCHTHON with his wife putting on a facade of being (or striving to become) spiritually-enlightened, he clearly wants to live a quiet retirement now even with the U.S. and the world convulsing under the twin shocks of Nixon's resignation and the revelations about U.S. empire about to start coming out. A little more personal interaction in-scene will likely help Archie zone in on a method of convincing Gottlieb that appeals to the idea that he's safer with URIEL than with the U.S. Marshals and/or the intel apparatus. Which also brings up the question, how much exactly does Sid know about the Owls/Control? What are his truest, deepest motivations? Is he merely a true believer in the sense of being pro-American, anti-communist, etc. etc. or is he a True Believer in the vein of Jolly West? Archie probably wouldn't have been able to get a full briefing from Marshall and CANNABIS before this op, as they're happening more or less simultaneously, but if Archie wants to give me a quick Psychology-19 roll to reflect analyzing these variables before setting foot in the Presidential Suite, I can abstract some of this out before we start the conversation. (Also worthy of note: Sid's also a SANDMAN, and has training to resist source code, so keep that in mind when you both nominate the Power of your meme and when you consider the use of stuff like Enthrallment.)
Rob MacD — 12/7/24, 11:45 AM
I'm on my phone today so I can't type much but I can do a few rolls:
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Rob MacD used
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Dice GolemAPP — 12/7/24, 11:46 AM
@Rob MacD rolled
3d6Psychology 19:(2+3+4)= 9Rob MacD used
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Dice GolemAPP — 12/7/24, 11:47 AM
@Rob MacD rolled
3d6Current Events 20:(6+3+4)= 13Rob MacD used
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Dice GolemAPP — 12/7/24, 11:47 AM
@Rob MacD rolled
3d6Propaganda 20:(2+1+4)= 7MutantsMichael — 12/7/24, 11:48 AM
Success by 10 on the Psychology roll, and Power 10 baseline for the meme. Good stuff.
December 9, 2024
MutantsMichael — 12/9/24, 6:30 AM
(I will be taking J to the MSCPA this morning but will be around for moves later today and tomorrow... Wednesday morning I will likely be out, and the rest of the week I will be around. Saturday will be tough, and Sunday I can be available.)
MutantsMichael
@Bill B @Rob MacD: Okay, first off, the Patron rolls for Archie, with Rank 3, got all three of you access to computer-designed SANGUSH glyphs. Secret Acting/Performance rolls have been made (with bonuses for IDs from the US Marshals and paperwork from the US Senate/Church Committee) for Archie, Roger, and Merrick to back up the SANGUSH's effects. If you're wearing a SANGUSH glyph you will get one point of Corruption for the scene. I will assume Roger, Archie, and Merrick are all packing pistol ikoters that will fall under the aegis of the SANGUSH glyph. Archie and Merrick, as our two Senate "counsels," will also have briefcases (enough room in each for a single puppet if Archie wants to take one or more to this meeting or whatever else might be a good idea to bring). Archie, Roger, and Merrick walk briskly from the 11th floor elevator down the very long hallway to the US Marshal checkpoint outside the Presidential Suite at the end of the hallway. There are only two Marshals at the little check-in area—a chair and table not much bigger than an elementary school desk—outside the grand double doors of the suite. One is seated at this desk, on which there is a phone, a Rolodex, and two slim leatherbound record books (possibly containing sign-in sheets) with a third open on the desk with a pen on one of those beaded strings you see in a bank. Roger does the meet and greet with the Marshals on guard, explaining his duty station (the Eastern District of Virginia) and the reason the two counsels from the Committee are here tonight (discussing some of the finer legal points of "Mr. Scheider"'s plea agreement and testimony). Even though all three men are new to the Marshals at the door, Roger's background, the three IDs, and most importantly the SANGUSH glyphs, smooth the way. The on-duty Marshals explain that a third Marshal, Deputy Marshal Adam Roberts, is in the suite guarding the witness right now. Roberts will swap out with Agent [Roger] during the visit; Mr. Schneider's counsel Terry Lenzner will be "calling in" (a fib, of course). The Presidential Suite possesses a sweeping northwest corner view of the Potomac River, Theodore Roosevelt Bridge and Island, and Arlington, Virginia beyond. The nighttime lights of DC Northwest and Georgetown glimmer off to the north. Deputy Roberts looks at Agent [Roger]'s badge, the Senate badges of [Archie] and [Merrick], and ushers the three men into the suite proper from the "foyer" hallway. Sidney Gottlieb is there, seated in the open living area at a round kitchen-style table, notebooks, law books, Congressional records, newspapers, and what look like science books scattered about. In casual attire: a pair of cheapish chinos, a short-sleeve button-down shirt, no tie. His club foot drags behind him as he stands to see his three visitors. Agent Roberts shuts the suite door behind him and Gottlieb is left alone with the three Men From URIEL. "Well, well." Gottlieb says, clearing his throat, sighing, showing very little surprise on his face, that is, until Roger emerges from the hallway after giving Roberts a final check-in, when he goes suddenly pale, remembering his time with Kalfu at the ALLOCHTHON conference room last October. "Uh. Yes. So. The Sandman has finally come to put me to sleep, eh?"
MutantsMichael — 12/9/24, 8:22 AM
Gottlieb's posture is of someone who's expected this visit (maybe not these particular visitors) but eventually for someone from the Project to come by with either the ikoter, the brain hacking equipment or a pistol that can be wrenched into a hand post mortem. (Secret Detect Lies rolls made) But he does seem authentically surprised, no matter how much he tries to outwardly hide it, that it's Archie, Roger, and Merrick who are here. As mentioned above, Roger gave him a start of recognition and fear and the bloodless Archie Ransom who surprised everyone by taking over ALLOCHTHON last October a more bemused response.
December 12, 2024
MutantsMichael — 12/12/24, 8:27 AM
Gottlieb notices the pause before Archie speaks, as that flash of Archie's Special Rapport with Charley crosses in front of Archie's eyes. "I assume that you have something to speak to me about here? I don't imagine you'd come here personally to do anything too... drastic."
December 13, 2024
Rob MacD — 12/13/24, 8:02 AM
When Archie first enters the room, before the pause, before the flash to Charley: "Sidney!" Big smile. Handshake. Then, after the pause, in reply to what Gottlieb just said: "Oh, don't you?" Archie's eyes flick over to Roger, meaningfully. "That's a little funny, considering all that happened the last time we were face to face." Another smile, good ol' genial Archie. "Who do you think they will send when it comes time to do something... drastic?" (edited)
MutantsMichael — 12/13/24, 8:13 AM
An uncertain look and pursed lips from Gottlieb, like he just bit into something sour. "To be honest that's a visit I've been ready for since around 1959, so it could honestly be... anyone. They say it's most often someone you've known for a long time." Another odd, conflicted look at Archie particularly. "Well, come on in, have a seat." Gottlieb gestures to the little living room area of the Presidential Suite: a couch, a couple of armchairs, a coffee table in front of the (turned off) television. "The accommodations are top-notch and the Committee is paying for it, so we might as well use them. I haven't had many guests other than the bright-eyed Young Democrats from the Committee." "So what are you here for?" For the first time Gottlieb takes a good look at Merrick, who remains standing (if Archie and Roger decide to sit on the couch across from Sidney, who takes up the armchair). Merrick's gaze remains unfocused, his body language noncommittal. It's clear Gottlieb isn't personally familiar with him. "I've already vetted my proposed pseudonymous testimony on Detrick with Esmology at the Peak, who say it'll add up to a fart in a windstorm."
Rob MacD — 12/13/24, 9:03 AM
Archie looks unimpressed at the mention of the Peak's esmologists. Subtly, but not so subtly Gottlieb would miss it. "Well, that is what I'm here for. To discuss your testimony. Your whole strategy, really." He sits down on the couch across from Gottlieb, opens his briefcase, and takes out a folder of papers, but makes no move to show it to Gottlieb just yet. "How do you feel about the advice you're getting from the Peak?" (How much bluff/bravado is in his saying he's been ready to get capped since 1959? Does Archie think (based on the Psych roll I just made) self-preservation is going to be enough of a motive to get him to change his testimony? Also hoping to sus out what other lines of argument might motivate him. Like if he has scores he wants to settle, where his deep allegiances lie.) (edited)
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@Rob MacD
Archie looks unimpressed at the mention of the Peak's esmologists. Subtly, but not so subtly Gottlieb would miss it. "Well, that is what I'm here for. To discuss your testimony. Your whole strategy, really." He sits down on the couch across from Gottlieb, opens his briefcase, and takes out a folder of papers, but makes no move to show it to Gottlieb just yet. "How do you feel about the advice you're getting from the Peak?" (How much bluff/bravado is in his saying he's been ready to get capped since 1959? Does Archie think (based on the Psych roll I just made) self-preservation is going to be enough of a motive to get him to change his testimony? Also hoping to sus out what other lines of argument might motivate him. Like if he has scores he wants to settle, where his deep allegiances lie.) (edited)
MutantsMichael — 12/13/24, 9:04 AM
(cool, will get back to you when I get to the cafe after dropping J off at work)
Rob MacD — 12/13/24, 9:05 AM
No rush. I have lots to do today (but am keen to get back to this!)
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@Rob MacD
Archie looks unimpressed at the mention of the Peak's esmologists. Subtly, but not so subtly Gottlieb would miss it. "Well, that is what I'm here for. To discuss your testimony. Your whole strategy, really." He sits down on the couch across from Gottlieb, opens his briefcase, and takes out a folder of papers, but makes no move to show it to Gottlieb just yet. "How do you feel about the advice you're getting from the Peak?" (How much bluff/bravado is in his saying he's been ready to get capped since 1959? Does Archie think (based on the Psych roll I just made) self-preservation is going to be enough of a motive to get him to change his testimony? Also hoping to sus out what other lines of argument might motivate him. Like if he has scores he wants to settle, where his deep allegiances lie.) (edited)
MutantsMichael — 12/13/24, 10:07 AM
(Sidney's reply first, then I'll apply the Psychology success by 10 to it as Archie analyzes his verbiage, body language, etc. And @Bill B, anytime you need to lean on an ability or interject, feel free.) Sidney eyes Archie's papers and cocks an eyebrow at "How do you feel about the advice?" "If you're asking how I feel about having to hurry back from India and retirement to do this, well, let's say I'm grateful for the chance to get some official paper between me and any official record of my complicity. If slightly inconvenienced and unnerved by the guards they've had to put on me. I feel a bit like a mobster." He grins gamely at the three men he's in conversation with, but with no real feeling of bonhomie behind it. "As for the strategy, well, I'm no esmologist, but I can tell that given the current environment we can't depend on 'denial, denial, denial' anymore. Jolly's little adventure putting receivers in adult human brains put paid to that." A look of wide disgust. "Well, that and the games Nixon was playing with Helms. Stupid idiot, dummkopf," he mutters almost to himself. "Esmology says we have to give Congress some admissions of guilt, and then it'll all blow over. That seems reasonable to me. Maybe projects like the Violence Center... and ALLOCHTHON... maybe they all were overreach. I'm willing to admit when I was wrong. America in 1974... well, it's very different than it was 20, 25 years ago, isn't it? We don't have the kind of operational latitude we had back then, after the war, with the rise of Stalin's Russia, with the Communists in Korea. But what we discovered allowed us protection against the Kings, so... I mean, it's all very complex and very sad." Archie's Sensitivity goes off here (secret roll): a weakness, a crack in his armor. "A fresh start might be what the country needs." So Archie can tell Sidney does know on all levels—CIA and SANDMAN both—he is the possessor of world-shaking secrets and that makes him a target. Far easier for the Company to clip links than allow any accident of exposure in public, Sidney knows from personal experience. At the same time, he knows his service and loyalty has bought him protection—again, from both Langley and Granite Peak—and he's got to sort of nerve his way through this and he'll be able to go back to retirement: in India, Virginia, California... who knows. Much like during the Redgrave Gambit, Sidney fears the burning and the shallow grave that Reinhardt (and, very recently and unbeknownst to everyone here, Jolly too) got. But as Archie considers what he sensed with his Sensitivity as Sidney talked about his career and the climate in the U.S. after World War II: a weakness, a sense of real, tangible guilt and regret over the stuff he did in the early years of his career. It's not a meme, not mind control or a hypnotic suggestion: it's the real Sidney, the son of immigrants from the Bronx, the one who wanted nothing else but to be accepted by his betters. The Company Man. The fresh start he's looking for isn't just for the country... it's for himself.
Bill B — 12/13/24, 11:58 AM
Roger thinks about standing, looming, but instead decides to sit “at the table” so to speak, next to Archie. Unaware of Archie’s assessment, he asks, “A fresh start from whom, Sidney? And where does the country go from here? Back to sleep?”
[11:59 AM]
He lets his race and intimidating expression give his own answer to that.
@Bill B
Roger thinks about standing, looming, but instead decides to sit “at the table” so to speak, next to Archie. Unaware of Archie’s assessment, he asks, “A fresh start from whom, Sidney? And where does the country go from here? Back to sleep?”
MutantsMichael — 12/13/24, 12:12 PM
Gottlieb blinks, considers this for a moment, and says back to Roger, "There's a real desire for reform right now. In DC and at the Peak. Old hands will be swept away with the flood—much like we in the CWG were swept away back last October—and a new guard will take the reins. It's the way of the world. New personnel, new tools, new memetics." Here Sidney gestures generously to The New Frank Stanton sitting across from him. "But the mission... to contain Communism, to deny the Red Kings a place in the human mind and heart: that won't change. It can't."
Bill B — 12/13/24, 12:25 PM
“The mission? Yes, it will continue. And more successfully when not played to lose for most of humanity. Nice to hear concern for humanity’s hearts and minds from a member of the group writing most of them off as inescapable casualties.” Roger lets Kalfu surface in his eyes and voice a little. “But then you never had a problem damning people to save your own hide. To elevate yourself, to join the ‘elite’.” (edited)
[12:29 PM]
Roger looks over to Archie, having firmly established “bad cop”.
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Rob MacD — 12/13/24, 12:48 PM
Archie raises his palms in a calming gesture, oil on troubled waters. (Good cop! It's the part he was born to play!) "The mission absolutely continues. On this, you can rely. But I've got my own esmologists now, and I'm not so sure the instructions you're getting from the Peak are the best thing for the mission... or for you. Try to look contrite, toss Congress a few scraps about Fort Detrick, and it's all business as usual by Thanksgiving?" Archie shakes his head. "The math doesn't add up for me. Which esmologist did you talk to, was it Mead?" (edited)
MutantsMichael — 12/13/24, 12:55 PM
Need a couple of rolls here, to reflect the good cop/bad cop routine. • @Bill B, give me a Intimidation-18 (assessing a +2 to your usual score for Kalfu leaking through, +2 for RP) • and @Rob MacD, Diplomacy-23 (assessing a +3 for SANDMAN Rank and a +2 for RP)
Bill B used
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Dice GolemAPP — 12/13/24, 12:58 PM
@Bill B rolled
3d6Devil Stare:(4+3+4)= 11Rob MacD used
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Dice GolemAPP — 12/13/24, 1:11 PM
@Rob MacD rolled
3d6Diplomacy 23:(4+3+5)= 12MutantsMichael — 12/13/24, 1:19 PM
Gottlieb coughs. "When Margaret and I got off the plane at Dulles, after being summoned back to the States, she was waiting for us, before I even heard word one from anyone—my counsel or the Committee or the Project or the Company—about what I was being asked to testify to." Gottlieb puts his hand over his eyebrows, massages his brow. "Beth Cole. She used NLP to get Margaret to ignore her and told me the score right there at the Arrivals terminal." "So I assume the esmology comes direct from Control." (Secret Detect Lies rolls for both Archie and Roger seem to indicate this is the truth. Merrick shifts, barely perceptibly, at the tale of Cole using NLP on Gottlieb's wife, but remains silent.)
Rob MacD — 12/13/24, 5:10 PM
Archie lets his face fall at that. An "it's worse than I thought" look. "Oh, I see. Well, I guess it's not the math that's off." He lets that hang in the air. He trusts Gottlieb to take his meaning, that Control wouldn't screw up the math, so if they're telling Gottlieb everything is going to blow over, which it isn't, that means they've decided to kill Gottlieb and this is just the line they're feeding him.
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MutantsMichael — 12/13/24, 5:17 PM
(I think between the Psych and Diplomacy rolls and Gottlieb's Will rolls we can let that comment sort of break Gottlieb open a tiny bit more.) Gottlieb leans forward, gives Merrick and Roger a quick glance as if to appeal for some kind of sanity check, some kind of wordless plea of "why is the Boy Scout/good cop sounding so dire" and then addresses Archie directly. "So. You think that I go behind closed doors, do my duty and testify, and then they, uh, burn me just like Dick Helms and I burned the MKUltra papers." He pauses. "Be honest, Archie. I've respected your vision and your tenacity for a while now. You took over at Huntsville with an amazing amount of sangfroid." Here is the survivor's instinct, the Company Man who made it through everything the past two decades have had on offer, looking for one more moving trolley to jump off of/onto. Whatever hidden morality or conscience might be in there, Sidney Gottlieb's survivor's instinct is stronger.
December 14, 2024
Rob MacD — 12/14/24, 8:45 PM
"Well, somebody's got to burn before this is all over." Archie says this sadly, not glibly. "The President of the United States resigned, and that still wasn't enough." He looks out at the lights of DC. "A man who's been waiting for that visit since 1959... he might come to welcome it, eventually. He might wish for it, at some level. Especially a man who's given so much of himself." Archie looks Gottlieb in the eyes. "Is that you, Sidney?" But then before he can answer: "I'm here because I think there's another way, a better way for you and the project. And obviously, I'm not just here for auld lang syne. What I'm proposing serves my interests too. But I won't stick my neck out to save you if that's not what you want."
He looks down at the folder of papers in his hand but still doesn't offer it to Gottlieb. "You're, what, 55 years old? What's your second act, if you do get one? What's in India? What do you want your legacy to be?" (edited)2
December 15, 2024
@Rob MacD
"Well, somebody's got to burn before this is all over." Archie says this sadly, not glibly. "The President of the United States resigned, and that still wasn't enough." He looks out at the lights of DC. "A man who's been waiting for that visit since 1959... he might come to welcome it, eventually. He might wish for it, at some level. Especially a man who's given so much of himself." Archie looks Gottlieb in the eyes. "Is that you, Sidney?" But then before he can answer: "I'm here because I think there's another way, a better way for you and the project. And obviously, I'm not just here for auld lang syne. What I'm proposing serves my interests too. But I won't stick my neck out to save you if that's not what you want." He looks down at the folder of papers in his hand but still doesn't offer it to Gottlieb. "You're, what, 55 years old? What's your second act, if you do get one? What's in India? What do you want your legacy to be?" (edited)
MutantsMichael — 12/15/24, 7:25 AM
Gottlieb looks at Archie sadly, seriously; there's no fire of resistance or imperiousness in the eyes of the Cold War's dark sorcerer at this point. Just regret and a growing realization of what Archie might be asking him to do to save his own life. "God," Gottlieb says with not a little bit of fear in the timbre of his voice. "Ruthless. What have we made you into, Archie? You ever given any thought to that?" Gottlieb says, "Maybe it is all our fault. Maybe the monster we created learned our lessons far too well. Maybe we destroyed too much innocence. Maybe there could have been a different way." "But then I think about you in that cell at Atsugi. And what she did to you at Mukden. 자비 없는 아름다운 여인." Archie needs to roll against his wartime Flashbacks. They happen on a 10 or less (situational bonus for Sidney Gottlieb being here speaking Korean to Archie) (edited)
Rob MacD used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 12/15/24, 11:19 AM
@Rob MacD rolled
3d6자비 없는 아름다운 여인:(1+2+4)= 71
MutantsMichael changed the channel name: [M10I3] Former Japanese Occupation Police HQ, Shenyang/Mukden, People's Republic of China, Mar 1951 — 12/15/24, 11:23 AM
1
MutantsMichael — 12/15/24, 11:38 AM
The interrogator sits across from the young GI. They've achieved quite a rapport over the last few weeks, exchanging thoughtful debates on politics, philosophy, warfare, the merits of communism, the evil things that the young GI had seen his countrymen do, dropping bombs full of anthrax, smallpox, polio, on the fighters and the peasants. They've achieved a stable, if occasionally brittle, working relationship. The GI has been given many of his privileges back since their conversations have ceased their belligerence; he now works with the Negro POW crews in the open, and has even been allowed to openly walk the streets of Shenyang under supervision. He's popped his head into craftswomen's huts, seen how they design those beautiful, delightful shadow puppets. It's a nice life, honestly. The interrogator speaks good English, and while the GI has picked up the rudiments of Korean and Chinese, they're still a bit mixed up in his head with the first few months of his captivity, with the anima of the interrogator he internalized after those first few brutal sessions. So they speak English. They talk about American culture, the GI's moral instruction as a child, the commandments of his Savior to take all he owns and share it among the poor. Finally, the interrogator speaks. She smiles warmly at Ransom AE 2LT SGT RA 19 144 000. "So. You know we will stage the escape now, in the coming weeks. You and a few of the [other] enlisted men. You will lead them to 'freedom' in the South. You will be a hero! Very above suspicion. But your people will also take you in, to see if we have... tampered with you." (edited)
Rob MacD — 12/15/24, 12:09 PM
He speaks slowly. "'Tampered with' me... is that what you'd call all this?" Like he's just puzzled about the language, turning the words over in his mind.
@Rob MacD
He speaks slowly. "'Tampered with' me... is that what you'd call all this?" Like he's just puzzled about the language, turning the words over in his mind.
MutantsMichael — 12/15/24, 12:32 PM
"The war for the human mind is the new war, Sergeant," she says coldly, rationally. "Bullets, bombs, pathogens, atomic fission... these are nothing compared to what a man in the right place, with the right words—the right dialectic—can do. Archimedes's lever, yes?" As Archie looks at the Dragon Lady's interrogator's face, he sees a swirling vortex of multicolored tendrils escaping, like vapor, from her back. The two PLA soldiers who stand in the interrogation room behind the interrogator say nothing to this weird happening. These curlicues of iridescent smoke precede a club-like hand ending in a terrible claw, and a frog-like being scrabbles up from Archibald's comrade's neck, showing its awful eyes and terrible visage. One of the PLA soldiers, the Assistant, holding an empty syringe sweatily in his chubby hand, says, in English, "You see the frog-thing on her back now, Lieutenant?" The Interrogator hisses back at him. "Quiet, Louis. Maintain your role." The other PLA soldier, the Chemist, is no longer wearing a Red Chinese uniform but a lab coat. He drags his club foot over to the chair where the newly-promoted Lieutenant Ransom sits, and looks in his eyes with a tiny flashlight. "The drug is working, George. Feed him the narrative." The interrogator, George Estabrooks, relaxes. This next part should be a piece of cake. He takes out an Anunnaki glyph, NING.LUL, that hits Lieutenant Ransom, under the effect of the LSD-25, like a ton of bricks. All his memories of debate and good will with his interrogator, the PLA soldiers, even the Negro GIs he escaped Shenyang with, all start to fade away as Estabrooks intones the Falsehoods that Archie will come to believe about his captivity. "The Reds are lousy with these... creatures, Arch." Estabrooks says calmly and thoughtfully. "Alien creatures that can change a man's mind for him, turn him into a member of a hive. They use torture. They used torture on you, these godless traitors to humanity. They shot your fellow Americans in front of you. You escaped, though. You won't remember all this, about the aliens, until we approach you to join our group, and then it will only be a vague certainty in your mind, an unquestioned association of Red with Red. But you will remember what the Reds did to you, what they made you do, and associate it with their spirit of totalitarianism. Nod if you understand."
MutantsMichael changed the channel name: [M10I3] Naval Air Station, Atsugi, Kanagawa, Japan, late 1951 — 12/15/24, 12:32 PM
MutantsMichael — 12/15/24, 12:34 PM
Back in the Presidential Suite, Archie zones out for 4d6 seconds. @Rob MacD, if you want to roll that, I can have Roger notice Archie's... fugue.
Rob MacD used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 12/15/24, 1:05 PM
@Rob MacD rolled
4d6How did the old ladies turn into Russians?:(5+3+5+2)= 151
MutantsMichael — 12/15/24, 1:08 PM
Fifteen seconds is a nice round number.
[1:08 PM]
(Will allow @Bill B to take the reins here for said quarter-minute as Archie is off in East Asia 1951.)
[1:10 PM]
(Merrick will probably follow Roger's lead.)
MutantsMichael — 12/15/24, 1:27 PM
As Gottlieb (in 1974 DC, not 1951 Japan) sees Archie fully involved in remembering his time in Korea, he quickly says to Roger and Merrick, "Your boss came back from Korea a comsymp. He was one of the first we fixed." (5-6 seconds)
Bill B — 12/15/24, 6:11 PM
Roger seethes. “You called him a monster? Him? You?” Roger looks at Archie’s unfocused face, then back at Gottlieb. “Whatever you’ve done, you’d better hope he comes out of it quick. You don’t want to be here alone with the real monsters— the ones you can’t fix. The ones beyond your power. The ones who will fix you. They’re— we’re— only holding back on his account.” (edited)
MutantsMichael — 12/15/24, 6:24 PM
Merrick moves forward, the beginnings of an ariktu on his lips, but right around that point, Archie begins to visibly come out of his multivalent flashback/fugue. Gottlieb says, "They latched on to his sense of Christian morality, Roger. We couldn't let that kind of Communist programming remain in place. We had to make it anathema to him." Gottlieb looks at Archie, now conscious and present in the Presidential Suite again. Gottlieb says, quietly, timidly, "The things we've done... just to bring back the mother lode."
MutantsMichael changed the channel name: [M10I3] Operation TOBACCO, Watergate Hotel, Foggy Bottom, Washington, DC, Early Sep 1974 — 12/15/24, 6:25 PM
MutantsMichael — 12/15/24, 6:31 PM
@Rob MacD, what are your thoughts on a Fright Check here after the flashback(s) are finished?
[6:34 PM]
GURPS Horror p. 141 The Awful Truth strikes directly at your life or beliefs: -3 The Awful Truth strikes at the core of your identity: -7 This feels like it lands smack dab in the middle of those, so a -5 to Archie's normal Fright Check of 16 makes it a Fright Check of 11.
Rob MacD — 12/15/24, 6:55 PM
Let's do it!
1
Rob MacD used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 12/15/24, 6:55 PM
@Rob MacD rolled
3d6Belle dame sans merci:(1+1+6)= 81
MutantsMichael — 12/15/24, 6:56 PM
I guess the cold, calculating monster they made in that cell at Atsugi Naval Air Station 23 years ago is showing his mettle.
December 17, 2024
MutantsMichael — 12/17/24, 7:44 AM
Gottlieb seems diminished somehow now; his own life's sense of internal conflict between "spiritual enlightenment" and duty seems to have somehow been (narratively?) eclipsed by Archie's own silent revelations. Roger and Merrick still loom menacingly at Gottlieb as Archie returns to full awareness of what was done to him.
Rob MacD — 12/17/24, 8:10 PM
"... Sorry, where was I?" Archie does his best to mask his reaction to the flashback, only narrowing his eyes at Gottlieb for a moment. But this is what he tries to bring the conversation around to: that tension Gottlieb feels between enlightenment and duty. Archie starts to sell Gottlieb on giving more expansive testimony, revealing more than the limited hangout laid out for him by Beth Cole, and doing so under his own name. He tries to play on Gottlieb's guilt (shouldn't he own up to what he's done?) but also to his pride (shouldn't he get credit for it, under his own name?). And he presents all this not just as self-preservation (if Gottlieb makes a big enough splash, they may not feel able to kill him immediately) but as the only way to square the circle: to do his duty, to do the right thing, maybe to get a second act. "Have you ever read the Bhagavad Gita? There’s this passage about doing your duty..."
December 18, 2024
@Rob MacD
"... Sorry, where was I?" Archie does his best to mask his reaction to the flashback, only narrowing his eyes at Gottlieb for a moment. But this is what he tries to bring the conversation around to: that tension Gottlieb feels between enlightenment and duty. Archie starts to sell Gottlieb on giving more expansive testimony, revealing more than the limited hangout laid out for him by Beth Cole, and doing so under his own name. He tries to play on Gottlieb's guilt (shouldn't he own up to what he's done?) but also to his pride (shouldn't he get credit for it, under his own name?). And he presents all this not just as self-preservation (if Gottlieb makes a big enough splash, they may not feel able to kill him immediately) but as the only way to square the circle: to do his duty, to do the right thing, maybe to get a second act. "Have you ever read the Bhagavad Gita? There’s this passage about doing your duty..."
MutantsMichael — 12/18/24, 9:11 AM
Gottlieb considers the deal that he sees coalescing at the table right now. He considers it seriously, running the numbers in his head, considering what it would mean for Gottlieb and his wife and family and, more broadly, for the country and for SANDMAN as he sees it. He puts aside the personal for a moment and runs the bigger picture in front of Archie for a moment. "So instead of skating on charges without my name being in the papers, I testify broadly about the intelligence community's actions since the war, in public, under my own name, in front of cameras like Dean and Butterfield. My 'duty.'" Gottlieb looks at Roger briefly before bringing eye contact back to Archie. "What purpose does this serve esmologically? I'm not an esmologist like you, Archie. So tell me, wouldn't this kind of exposure both mean a broader investigation in both Congress and in the press would be inevitable, and possibly lead to exposure of the Project? While also tremendously weakening the US and the West geopolitically? This seems like the first step from a very high cliff, with nothing to catch any of us once we hit the ground." Unspoken, very much unspoken here, is how any of this affects the reality war, but right now Gottlieb's main beef seems to be how it's going to make the US look bad, domestically and abroad. "Sure, I might become the famous whistleblower who developed a conscience... but the Committee could never offer me immunity after everything that would come out. There's no statute of limitations on murder, and Frank alone..." Archie can sense the guilt and worry now start to resurface on Sidney's face, the concern for self that constantly gnaws at his very submerged moral conscience. "Who wins in this scenario? Moscow? Your mistress, the Dragon Lady?"
Bill B — 12/18/24, 7:54 PM
Roger pipes up: “Tsk, such a small imagination to put us as cats paws to such small fish.”
2
December 19, 2024
Rob MacD — 12/19/24, 1:09 PM
Archie gives Roger a nod of agreement, then tells Gottlieb, like he's patiently explaining something to a child: "The Dragon Lady is only a puppet, Sidney. Always was."
[1:12 PM]
"See, you've got it backwards. Esmologically, this is how we preserve the project. We have to clean house! We burn the CIA, some of its excesses. The tentacles we don't control. But not SANDMAN." Now he finally starts to show the papers he's brought along. "We've mapped it all out. The revelations that will have the most impact without leading back to the project. Okay, sure, the Company gets a little egg on its face, Nixon takes a few more punches. Brezhnev gets to fulminate for the cameras. You think that's new? We're fighting for reality here. And we're not playing for a draw any more. The CWG is dead."
2
MutantsMichael — 12/19/24, 2:01 PM
Sidney, who knows the broad strokes of the cheval program (even apart from his own entanglement with Kalfu last year), and who apparently knows a lot about Archie's own personae from way back, holds off on commenting on who's whose catspaw, and considers Archie's and Sophie's numbers in the papers and Archie's broad pitch. "It's big," Gottlieb says after a few silent minutes chewing the plans over. "You're engineering a massive change in the geopolitical approach we've taken since '45. It's even getting into... ontological territory. I'll just first caution you to not pay too much attention to those gods in your heads," Gottlieb looks up meaningfully from the papers at Roger, then Archie. "Moralities. Theologies. Tit-for-tat codes of conduct. Covenants. That's how the Enemy gets in. Thinking you've got it all worked out. That's why there have always been so many different projects and subprojects under the SANDMAN umbrella: working at cross-purposes, even. Don't give the Enemy purchase on a particular set of assumptions of belief or direction. 'The CWG is dead.'" Gottlieb quotes. "Good. Okay, point made, point taken. But even a moral spitshine like this one could eventually fall prey to Their... opportunism. Righteousness as a concept is one thing; self-righteousness entirely another." Gottlieb puts up a hand as if to say, "Enough of that," and moves on to what he wants out of this whole deal. "I'll testify in public session. But I want to disappear immediately afterwards. Margaret and me. Fake our deaths if you need to. New identities for our kids before they launch their own lives and schooling and careers in earnest. They're not dumb, they know what I've been up to the past twenty years. They'll be hip, and play along." "Protection for me from whatever rogue elements in the Company or the Project might pop up after this. And that means the highest possible level of protection, against peeking remote viewers or psychics, the SCANATE crew." "Because Archie, Roger," Gottlieb says, studiously ignoring Merrick's silent presence, "you may have received the blessing from Control after last October to operate with a great deal of latitude, but the grand ramifications of this kind of operation is most definitely going to be spotted by Granite Peak esmology... probably as soon as I appear before the cameras. Their numbers may agree with yours, that the Project can be saved under these circumstances, but Control may also decide URIEL's worth liquidating just like the CWG was, if they disagree with the cost of your 'sunshine' initiative." (cont'd)
[2:01 PM]
"And if they decide to pull the ripcord, Control won't kill you. You're all too valuable one way or the other... what you all have in your heads after years of experimentation, time inside the enemies' houses. Oh, they may off a few of the lesser lights in your orbit. Seduce or convert a few others. But I know for a fact Control doesn't just deal in the brute force of the hammer or the crap shoot of mind control. They also keep material that can be used to keep agents on the reservation... and for folks that they don't have extortion material on? They'll just manufacture it. This," Gottlieb points to the esmology, "is the kind of thing that's going to be hard to do if your name, Dr. Redgrave's name, are in the papers with some truly awful revelations attached to them." Gottlieb concludes, "I mention this because you need to go into this with your eyes wide open. You probably know the very man who's been well-paid—since you joined URIEL, in fact—to track your movements and come up with this kind of leverage, Arch. He dug dirt on the Bay Area counterculture for you and Dr. Bedra back in the Sixties. Before your time, Roger," Gottlieb says with a grim little tight-lipped smile. "Extortion is cheap. And when tied together with memetics, tremendously effective at driving men into a bleak deadend of abandonment, ostracization, suicide. You'd better have a plan for that, before you go big." "I am going to give you my help, as best I can, if you can guarantee Margaret and me safety. And you are going to need to think the way Control thinks, from here on out."
January 13, 2025
Rob MacD — 1/13/25, 10:58 PM
Ok, so, just to wrap this scene up: Gottlieb's warning is well taken, and it's something we should talk about when the team is all back together. For what it's worth, Archie has tried in this scene to be consistent with the role he played when meeting with the Quorum: that he's become a zealot in the war against the Red Kings who would take down anyone he sees as threatening SANDMAN's fight against History B (the CWG, other branches of the CIA, etc). So that if and when news of this gets back to SANDMAN, they'll know he's off the reservation but not have the full picture as to why.
1
[11:00 PM]
If Gottlieb agrees to go along with Archie's plan for his testimony, Archie finally gives him the notes he's prepared, which are a rough outline for Gottlieb to follow, with plenty of blanks for him to fill in with details only he knows. But all these notes are laced with source code, embedded with the meme Archie constructed, the payload of which is simply: Sidney Gottlieb knows more than he is saying. So no matter how much Gottlieb talks, the Senators questioning Gottlieb will (if infected) be certain that he is holding back information, and anyone who hears Gottlieb's testimony, or reads it in the paper, will (if infected) also be convinced that there is more to the story, that the coverup is bigger than anything Gottlieb reveals. Archie's made the content of the meme specific to Gottlieb so he isn't unleashing a contagious paranoia bomb, but it may still ensure Gottlieb a weird kind of immortality. Fifty years from now Zoomers will come across clips of Gottlieb's testimony on YouTube and say "yeah, wow, there was definitely more going on with that guy."
1
[11:01 PM]
I don't know if Gottlieb knows enough memetics to recognize that Archie's notes for him are laced with source code, but if he does, Archie's fine with that: he's basically telling Gottlieb he has to choose between infecting himself with this meme (which in Gottlieb's mind might only underline his sense of superiority: I, Sidney Gottlieb, know more than I am saying) or being liquidated by Control. A choice Gottlieb never gave Archie when he was messing with his mind. Archie leaves Gottlieb with what he thinks of as Marshall's line from the Gita: "You have the right to do your duty, Sidney. That's all you can do. You're not entitled to the fruits of your actions."
January 14, 2025
@Rob MacD
I don't know if Gottlieb knows enough memetics to recognize that Archie's notes for him are laced with source code, but if he does, Archie's fine with that: he's basically telling Gottlieb he has to choose between infecting himself with this meme (which in Gottlieb's mind might only underline his sense of superiority: I, Sidney Gottlieb, know more than I am saying) or being liquidated by Control. A choice Gottlieb never gave Archie when he was messing with his mind. Archie leaves Gottlieb with what he thinks of as Marshall's line from the Gita: "You have the right to do your duty, Sidney. That's all you can do. You're not entitled to the fruits of your actions."
MutantsMichael — 1/14/25, 7:13 AM
As Archie goes through the high points of the testimony with Gottlieb, page by page, under Roger's and Merrick's watchful gazes, Gottlieb begins to apprehend the true scope of what Archie is proposing, how it will lead down innumerable cul-de-sacs in the American intelligence apparatus, leaving the Committee (and the nominally free press) no choice but to pull at those threads. Despite his Cold Warrior mien, as time goes on in this briefing, Archie begins to understand that despite his role in the Project and at the Agency, Gottlieb lacks a true "big-picture" view of the domestic politics of his own job the past 25 years. Oh sure, the dimensions of Korea, of Soviet expansion, the domino theory, all the great memetic hits of the Red Scare, domestic unrest are all there available to him, but Archie realizes Gottlieb's blind spot, as this hierophant of Cold War America, is public opinion. Real public opinion, not the polls that Gallup and the rest of those discourse-setters put out there. Gottlieb has lived under the thick cloak of the meme of the "silent majority" for so long, made quiescent by the consumer culture boom of the postwar period, that he's wholly disconnected from the vague (and sometimes, in the case of students, overt) malaise that the Vietnam War (and more generally American overreach) has of late unleashed in the American psyche. And it's through this weak spot that Archie's meme slips in. The "he's got more that he's hiding" meme hits Gottlieb's untouchable arrogance, his simplistic self-belief that everything he's done in service to his nation was right, no matter the excess. In fact, Archie's sure that out of pride, after seeing all the ways his technology was used elsewhere than where he was directly aware in the Cold War, he'll justify himself even more strongly there, where there's no direct chain of evidence. In essence, this will produce a real domino effect, in that whatever reservations Gottlieb holds back his direct involvement with, his volunteering of the details of his technical wizardry will lead him right back to confessing even more of what he did. Archie's Sensitivity and his connection with Sidney in this conversation seem to indicate that not only has the meme sunk in (although it takes a lot of "softening" in the form of rote analysis of Gottlieb's testimony to squeeze it in there), but that Gottlieb also isn't even able to consciously tell he's been infected. Gottlieb just doesn't know the human terrain of both the Church Committee and just how America has been roiled the past 12 months since he left the country to suspect these memetics have been implanted in him through a combination of wit, appeals to his ego, and the overwhelmingly large amount of work he did as head of Technical Services.
1
MutantsMichael — 1/14/25, 7:31 AM
(I fully expected Sid to be able to tell he was being fucked with... but the Will roll to resist the meme and his Current Affairs roll to detect the meme both failed; almost wholly down to Sidney being out of the country the past 12 months in Australia, Southeast Asia, and India; I assessed a -2 penalty to his roll and it came in as a failure right under that penalty. See what happens when you don't read the newspapers?)
[7:32 AM]
(I know he said "it's not 1953 anymore" but I like the idea of him underestimating exactly how much it's not 1953 anymore)
January 15, 2025
Bill B — 1/15/25, 7:01 PM
Roger catches Archie’s ear quietly at one point late in the debriefing. “What he said about Control allowing conflicting plans, groups… the compartmentalization tactics. There’s something there, it’s teasing at me— maybe an argument for our plans they might buy.” He scratches at his forehead; a tell Archie long ago figured out is Roger’s tell when he’s reaching for language. “Like… a multitude of beliefs would divide us, but not in the ‘divide and conquer’… more like ‘divide so we can’t be conquered.’ Some part of Control accepts it already. They know that diversity is protection.”