Politicians hate this one simple trick. Sic the public on them. Politicians hate it.
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All the Queen's Men (MCU SI spite fic)
- Thread starter Mariadreaming9
- Start date
Honestly, I kind of hoping you can expose Jimmy Sabile, that guy was one of the most prolific child molesters in UK, but the bastard die without any repercusions, he even got to keep his knighthood. Even he was accused multiple times he was able to crush his accusers because noone could believe that such 'saint' could do the things he did.
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Morgomir
Not the robot you're looking for
- Location
- Belgium
timeline is possible
Iron Man release date 2008
Saville
| Died | 29 October 2011 |
|---|
- Location
- United Kingdom
So, a few questions on this but I think the most important one is 'what is this story meant to be'. It's extremely slow paced. This isn't inherently a problem and it's certainly got some more intellectual aspects for it, which is cool when compared with other fics which are a lot of 'then I banged black widow while also coding my new special suit' or whatever.
but I'd also like to have an idea of where things are going and how it's proceeding
Also, in terms of the current arc or ways the MC is affecting the world, I'd draw a point I've made on other similar fics where there's a MC with the ability to be very influential but where particular events are chosen. I suppose I just have a general issue with it. Previously it was Lantern SI fics where the MC could be in various countries and shrug off bullets etc but seems to just sort of sit about at home and so on. I would point to something like the Belsan Massacre, that's 300 children dead.
Sure, Epstein or other such people are bad, but if the MC is actually an adult, not a child with a child's cognition, then I feel they're obliged to consider things in a structured manner. Is it bad that an individual has done evil acts? Certainly, but there are many evils in the world.
Nick Fury read the latest message from the vigilante 'The Eye' or whatever they were called.
'You should probably do something about prison reform and the systemic impact of a racist justice system.'
The Director nodded, yes, he probably should do something about that.
but I'd also like to have an idea of where things are going and how it's proceeding
Also, in terms of the current arc or ways the MC is affecting the world, I'd draw a point I've made on other similar fics where there's a MC with the ability to be very influential but where particular events are chosen. I suppose I just have a general issue with it. Previously it was Lantern SI fics where the MC could be in various countries and shrug off bullets etc but seems to just sort of sit about at home and so on. I would point to something like the Belsan Massacre, that's 300 children dead.
Sure, Epstein or other such people are bad, but if the MC is actually an adult, not a child with a child's cognition, then I feel they're obliged to consider things in a structured manner. Is it bad that an individual has done evil acts? Certainly, but there are many evils in the world.
Nick Fury read the latest message from the vigilante 'The Eye' or whatever they were called.
'You should probably do something about prison reform and the systemic impact of a racist justice system.'
The Director nodded, yes, he probably should do something about that.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/They
Good stuff.
These either need to match or some explanation of why they don't, I think.
Thanks, corrected. Also corrected Eliot Spitzer's title
First, the evils that they can actually fixed without getting in serious trouble is quite limited and then you also have to consider the fact that you could just forget, be busy, or not be able to solve all the evils that you can think of
- Location
- United Kingdom
And that's fine, the MC is mortal. However, the story focuses specifically on trying to solve problems and stuff, so that should be represented in the story
ColdGoldLazarus
Contrary Quester, Spreadsheet Queen, Pink Flamingo
- Location
- Challenger Deep
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I've been really enjoying this! I like how you're taking it slowly and focusing on the portions of a reincarnation's life that tend to get glossed over instead of just leaping ahead to the superhero action, along with the focus on IRL recent history and politics instead of just the fantastical stuff in the movies. I hope that this vibe carries through some amount even once stuff does start to get crazier. Similarly, the use of the system as a character in its own right is unconventional and fun, along with how double-edged a lot of its help can be.
This won't be for a while yet, but I wonder what may happen when Farsight's foresight runs out, either due to approaching the end of her future knowledge, or events diverging too heavily to be predicted. But it seems like that won't be for a while yet, lol.
This won't be for a while yet, but I wonder what may happen when Farsight's foresight runs out, either due to approaching the end of her future knowledge, or events diverging too heavily to be predicted. But it seems like that won't be for a while yet, lol.
Krazyfan1
Worrying for the future.
- Location
- Australia
I wonder if the system can do anything?
This feels like a character appropriate power so I could totally see a discount for something letting her continue the persona. She even has a couple powers and skills that are related. A lot of the more common psychic abilities are future sight and information gathering based. And she has mild divination magic as well. She could totally buy some things to build off of those. Even puts her in a niche that isn't filled very well by many preexisting characters.
Chapter 32
mentions of CSA, Underage prostitution (it's Epstein), antisemitism, racism, death of a child
TL;DR at bottom for those that don't want to read potentially triggering material.
Chapter 32
[MPHunt: Hey, I heard a rumor.]
[MPHunt: You ever heard of this financial guy Jeffery Epstein? He's on trial right now for underaged prostitution.]
[MPHunt: I heard that they only found a few of his victims, and that he was actually prostituting children like, internationally]
[MPHunt: Wanna show up the FBI and do their job better than them?]
After my last post resulted in a very satisfying raid, Anonymous was ready and willing to try their hand at this new task. Once I'd gotten enough interest, I posted a Google doc and a Google sheet for this project, both labelled "For the Children part 2: f epstein".
[MPHunt: The sheet doc is for a timeline. We're going to be doing a deep dive on this guy, trying to find where he was, when, and who was with him. Be on the lookout for known predators and underaged girls suspiciously far away from where they should be.]
[MPHunt: The doc doc is for evidence. Shit that can put that a-hole away.]
[MPHunt: To make sure no cops try to prevent us from embarrassing them they'll be invite only so I can boot people trying to fuck it up. IM me if you want access or just send points in the timeline]
[MPHunt: But people should copy+paste the thing and save it elsewhere regularly anyways bc Epstein knows people like Bill Gates so he might put pressure on tech people to "make it go away"]
[MPHunt: btw just like with the save the children part 1 DONT TRAMATIZE THE KIDDOS]
[MPHunt: so like, don't contact the victims. They got enough to deal with. Also I wouldn't put it past epsteins lawyers to claim that we manipulated them or something so their testimony doesn't count]
[MPHunt: lets not make it easy for the ahole.]
The community responded with enthusiasm, at least for like the first hour. People made memes about Detective Anon Holmes on the case and there was lots of chatter about "hey, is xyz here Epstein?" "no dude that's abc".
Unfortunately, the problem that quickly reared its head was that, unlike what the news said, most anons were not, in fact, very good hackers. Most of their "hacking" skills consisted of typing and clicking on some attack program that they'd gotten at the start of Project Chanology. So something like tracking down this one guy online and piecing together a digital trace of him was a bit beyond their skill level.
I ended up giving some online lessons on OSINT techniques and google dorking, which helped, but the enthusiasm waned fairly quickly, which was something that I should probably have expected. That being said, not everyone was so easily put off by a challenge. Anonymous attracted a lot of internet weirdos, the kinds of people who tended to hyperfixate on whatever was capturing their interests, and I had just introduced a lot of people who'd grown up on Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys to internet sleuthing 101.
It almost made me miss that time period when BBC's Sherlock was all the rage on tumblr, because it would have been utterly hilarious to have Epstein hunted down by mentally ill teenage girls obsessed with fictional detectives.
However, as days passed, I started to see a new issue. An issue that, in a normal, sane world, would not exist, and in a world where Hydra existed, was a massive problem.
Because Jeffery Epstein was Jewish. And that was bringing out all the anti-Semitic jokes.
Anonymous, which had a majority population of teenage boys, thrived on edgy, self-referential humor, and the darker it was, the more it pushed boundaries, the better. When I had picked out Jeffery Epstein as a target, I'd been thinking about his position to international trafficking, the amount of power and connections he had, especially potential connections to Hydra, and how much his original sentencing in 2008 had been an absolute travesty against justice. I was not thinking about how he was a rich Jewish man who worked in finance and abused children, and thus was basically the ideal target for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and jokes.
Which put that whole "Epstein didn't kill himself" thing a few years back in a different light…
Regardless, there were an increasing number of jokes going on in the message board targeting Jewish people. And that was a problem, and not just because of Hydra.
Jokes, regardless of what people thought, were a fantastic way to radicalize people and segregate online spaces in a way that was far too easily deniable for accountability. People targeted by the jokes would become uncomfortable and leave the space, people who laughed at the jokes would become more and more used to racism, and if anyone complained they would be mocked for not being able to take a joke. As time would go on, there would be less and less minority members in the space, thus isolating the remaining members from friendly minority members and making it easier for the members to dehumanize minorities. The remaining members would also find it easier and easier to make those jokes in the real world, upsetting the members of minorities they might meet face to face and further isolating them. Additionally, facing blowback from using racist language in real life would likely lead to them becoming bitter against minorities and blaming others for the blowback because after all, all their friends online are okay with it, why aren't people in the real world? Eventually, without an effort or intervention to break free, their social circle would become limited to their online activities, and you had a fully radicalized racist on your hands.
And no one was willing to be the fun killer willing to call out the people making those jokes because those people would become social outcasts within the group.
A lot of people, especially boys, didn't like it when someone pointed out that their "fun" was hurting people.
At the same time though, I couldn't just do nothing. Regardless of how they were acting right now, I highly doubted that every single anon was an irredeemable racist. Most were probably just teenagers in their mom's basement desperate for social approval and copying others in an attempt to gain it.
And even if some anons might be Hydra in disguise, it wouldn't be right to just let the others become radicalized and abandon Anonymous just because it wasn't morally "pure".
Still, I had only just started noticing the jokes. Trying to run in and solve everything halfcocked would just result in problems.
What I needed was a stopgap measure. Well, if humor got Anonymous into this situation…
[MPHunt: You know, I think that Epstein isn't actually Jewish.]
[fcultists: lol what]
[PikaKillU: what r u saying]
I grinned.
[MPHunt: Obv he's a secret scientologist]
[fcultists: LOL WHAT]
[MPHunt: Think about it]
[MPHunt: How many letters are in Epstein? Seven. How many days of the week are there? Seven. What are the days of the week named after? Norse Gods. What are the Norse Gods? Aliens. Who worships aliens? SCIENTOLOGISTS]
[MPHunt: EPSTEIN SECRET SCIENTOLOGIST CONFIRMED WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!]
[PikaKillU: HAHAHA EPSTIEN IS A SECRET SCIENTOLOGIST!!!]
[ElectroPriestTyr: lol what about sunday and monday?]
[MPHunt: named after the sun and the moon which are in space where the aliens live duh]
[fcultists: love how you focused on the days and not on the norse gods supposedly being aliens]
It was arguably kinda shitty to just ignore a person's ethnicity/religion (fuck if I knew whether or not he was practicing) but if I had to chose between trying to prevent teenagers from joining HYDRA or respecting a pedo's identity on the internet where he'd probably never see it? I was picking the teenagers.
Hey, it was for a good cause. Which was funnier: an edgy depressing anti-semitic joke or an insane troll logic self-referential joke referring to why most of these people joined Anonymous? Because I would put money on the referential one. The more exclusive and self-referential a joke was the more people would want to use it in order to prove that they belonged in this social space.
It wasn't a solution to the problem but it would work as a bandaid while I figured out something better.
As an added precaution, I sent a message to one of the more social-justicey active members, telling them that I thought Nazis were trying to infiltrate Anon. More eyes couldn't hurt, especially with such a large community. I was trying to be hopeful, but given that Anonymous was, by nature, free for anyone to join, meant that keeping nazis out would be… difficult.
I was starting to write down a list of ideas for dealing with the problem when a blue box interrupted me.
[Tom Sawford: Jackie! I got the information that you wanted!]
"Really?" I said. "That was quick. Good job! You didn't get caught, right?"
[Tom Sawford: Nope! I've been practicing my technopathy and just asked the computer to look it up in Geopolitics class]
"Nice!"
[Tom Sawford: Anyways, that military base isn't actually a military base. It turns out it's a development and testing site for military hardware. It's owned by a company called Pauk Technologies.]
"So we might have found one of Hydra's civilian addresses?" It would make sense that they would have companies that weren't actively a part of the government. It'd give them less oversight and more freedom.
[Tom Sawford: Maybe!]
"Alright, let's check it out."
Step 1: Research it online. Luckily Pauk Technologies inc's website was easy enough to find. It seemed… standard enough? Honestly, I didn't know enough about defense company websites to say if it were different. Their contact us page listed an office in New York as their address, luckily or unluckily enough. Checking it out via Maps revealed a standard office building, one of the ones that rented out suites to whoever was willing to pay enough for a Manhattan business address.
I made a note to see if I could check it out safely in person.
From there I moved on to the "owners" of the company, or at least the people who were the owners on paper. The website didn't include any names, but company ownership is public information, so I headed to NY's Department of State's Corporation and Business Entity Database. From there I got the name Patriot Holdings, a Foreign Business Corporation, and it was there that I finally got a name, an Alexander Ivan. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a more common name than I had hoped. Even narrowing my search to only people whose profiles stated that they were residents of New York still netted me a ton of profiles to slog through. Now, I was fairly certain that some of the people I could eliminate right off the bat, such as the DJ and the six-year-old, but even so, it took me a while before I could narrow things down to what seemed like the most likely candidate.
I was lucky as it seemed like this Alexander was an early adopter of Twitter. Apparently, he'd had a professional get together with some colleagues back in January. Following the provided link, I examined the photos that had been uploaded to one of those image sharing sites from before Twitter allowed photos on the site. I didn't recognize anyone, not that it meant much; it was just a bunch of generic white business dudes.
I sighed and then remembered this one tool Lunat1k had recommended that would let me read the metadata, such as where it was taken, that wasn't shown in the image. Downloading the picture and then running it, I looked through the data. Oh hey, looks like the website didn't delete the GPS data on this picture. Nice.
I plugged it into Google maps and got a result in for an event venue in Budapest, Hungary. The event venue was really nice and even had its own website that looked decent for 2008. It took a bit of creative Google translate but I figured out how to navigate to the schedule and check what events had gone on during that day. No list of guests or anything, but I did get a name.
Googling that name brought up a webpage that didn't look like the Hungarian on the previous site. Actually, Google translate said that it was Russian, which I supposed made sense, given that Hydra had a facility in Siberia.
I did a quick stretch then decided to check the IP address of the website. Once I got that I ran the IP address I got through a tracking website. After giving it a minute to load I got back a response which said that the host server was in fact in Budapest, Hungary, just like the event venue.
Another use of Exiftool on the picture of what I think was the main building of the company (or at least what I could tell from "Building Head" caption I got from Google translate) netted me the gps address of the building, which was once more plugged into Google maps. It seemed normal, but weirdly familiar. Had I been there before?
I went to streetview to see if that would jog my memory, and my mouth opened in shock.
The building looked like it had been bombed. A line of offices near the top had their windows covered with plastic sheeting, except for one that had been boarded up with plywood. That window had it's support beams blown outward, with chucks missing from the stone pillars surrounding it and a circle of soot fading from around the window.
Looking at when that streetview picture had been taken I saw that it had been incredibly recent, so I googled "explosion Budapest". That led to a news article dated back in January, about a terrorist bombing that had apparently cost the lives of several people, including one child, most notably…
One General Dreykov.
I hadn't found Hydra. I'd found the Red Room.
...
AN: I used to be one of those mentally ill sherlock fans, I can make that joke. Reminder no Chan behavior in the comments. Sorry things took so long. I got my visa and moved to a new continent.
TL
R: Jackie starts her anti-Epstein campaign, some anons are antisemitic about it which makes her worry that Hydra is attempting to corrupt Anon, so she resolves to do something about it. She then gets a message from Tom about the military base they think might be a Hydra front. After some internet sleuthing Jackie realizes it is the Red Room instead.Anyways quick reminder that vigilantism is illegal; if you want to cyber-sleuth in a legal and sane way, I recommend TraceLabs, a non-profit that works with law enforcement to find missing people.
REGARDING METADATA: yes, reading image metadata appears to be legal. In 2009 the Arizona supreme court declared metadata in general to be public record, and searching for "is reading image metadata legal" just comes up with tutorials for doing it and discussions about the legal and privacy concerns around metadata in general (like search history, phone call metadata, and things like that). SO! If you take anything away from this, take away that you need to be careful what kind of metadata you give to the internet. A lot of social media pages do things like wipe your image metadata when you post it but still, that might not cover things like sending pics to friends so better safe than sorry.
Anyways if you want a tutorial on how to conceal your picture's metadata, here's a quick one, but you can find a ton of information online and there's probably apps too.
REGARDING ONLINE RADICALIZATION: I think the best resource I have found for understanding this phenomenon is Innuendo Studios' How to Radicalize a Normie. I've also been reading Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed, by Dashka Slater, as that discusses teenage boys in particular, which I believe made up the majority of Anonymous at this time. If you can handle the subject matter, I highly recommend both sources.
It's back! It's back!
Chapter 33
New
Child trafficking mention, assassination mention, political corruption, conspiracy, pedophilia mention (Epstein and Prince Andrew), anti-Semitism, propaganda, Neo-Nazis
Mind the trigger warnings folks, as per usual tl;dr at the end.
Chapter 33
I hadn't been expecting the Red Room. Frankly, after what had happened with Tom, I'd all but forgotten its existence.
That was a mistake. Just because it didn't personally harm me didn't mean it shouldn't be taken down and burned, and tunnel vision was a great way to get blindsided.
I wasn't certain how many children the Red Room had taken. But if you considered how many girls had been in the shipping crate that Natasha and Yelena were in during the opening scene of the Black Widow movie, and how many Black Widows were active near the end of the movie… I wouldn't be surprised if Dreykov had the blood of hundreds if not thousands of children on his hands.
But I knew one of their people now. And that meant that I could find others.
I went back to the first person I'd found, Alexander Ivan, and his twitter account. I then proceeded to download every photo and copy every tweet into my own personal file, and started to go through it.
That was when I struck gold the second time.
Because in one of his photos Alexander has posted a picture of him and an airplane. An airplane with a visible flight registration number, that I could look up.
A flight registration number that listed the plane's owner as being Presidential Aviation International, which I remembered as a shell company created by the CIA to hide the illegal transport of people to black sites to be tortured as part of their "Extraordinary Rendition".
Holy shit.
Was… was this one of the ways the Red Room hid how they moved people and things around? By pretending that they were CIA and co-opting CIA resources? Hell, was this one of the ways Hydra did so? I mean, Hydra was practically the CIA in this world…
Wait, wait. This seemed like too much of a coincidence. Who the hell would be stupid enough to post a picture of their illegal CIA flight on social media?
…War Thunder forum posters would, wouldn't they. And also this was 2008 so I wasn't certain if people realized yet that social media could create leaks like this.
Honestly considering that Alexander Ivan's other pictures including a lot of "office" parties and yachting with attractive, scantily clad women, I was beginning to suspect that he was the KGB version of a nepo baby. Probably thought that he was Russian James Bond or something. That is, if he was even in-the-know about all the illegal spying, child trafficking shit the Red Room did.
Still, didn't CIA's Rendition thing get exposed back in 2005 or something?
I opened Google and looked it up but the only thing that I could find was information about rendition in music. No mention of the people that uncovered it either, not that I really remembered their names.
I hoped that they hadn't been assassinated in this world.
Honestly, I'd been lucky to uncover one of the rendition shell companies I actually remembered, and only then because I'd found the gall of the CIA to name their illegal trafficking shell company "Presidential Aviation" to be funny. I didn't really remember any others…
…which was going to make it a bitch to track down the rest of the airplanes and flights. Ugh.
I could, if I really wanted to, use my remaining points to buy a memory pill to recall the time I'd looked through the reports on the flights… no. Only if I couldn't find anything else through hard work and utilizing the resources I'd gathered.
Step one? Seeing if I could get my hands on the flight records.
Now, I obviously couldn't do a Freedom of Information Application on this. Given the missing reporters and Hydra's… everything, I'd absolutely get assassinated. But I had Tom, and I had a computer full of deranged internet weirdos currently after Epstein's ass.
Epstein. The guy who reportedly had a private jet known as the "Loli Express". Well. I think I had my in.
Granted, I didn't think that the average Anon could do jack all, but there had to be at least some people with genuine hacking knowledge. Besides, if people knew about it, they could keep an eye out for it.
With that in mind, I made a quick post, checked my news feeds, then logged off.
Still no news about Tony. I didn't know how long he'd spend in Afghanistan, and I was caught in between being convinced that he was going to die there and convinced that building an Iron Man suit was going to take half a year minimum. Best to not think about it.
…
A few days later, after I'd walked home, I opened the door to a house full of tension.
Normally, when I opened the door, Mom was there, watching tv and waiting for me. She'd greet me, spend a few minutes checking in, before going back to the TV or her office, depending on the day of the week. Today, however, she was in the kitchen, making ragu.
Mom only made ragu when we were going to have guests over, when someone needed cheering up, or when she was stressed and needed a really time consuming recipe to distract herself with.
My first thought was that they'd discovered I was still in contact with Auntie Hai Rong. Or the whole Anonymous thing. Or SHIELD had contacted them.
No, calm down. I didn't know anything yet.
"Mom, are you okay?" I asked.
"Oh, Jackie," she said. "Welcome home. How was school?"
…she didn't seem to be treating me any differently.
"It was fine. But seriously, what's wrong?"
Mom sighed and looked at her hands. "Your father saw some news today that really upset him. I'll let him have a chance to explain; but later, at dinnertime. I think he's a little too angry to explain things right now. If he doesn't, I will."
"Okay?"
Wait, did the Great Recession start already? I thought that didn't start until autumn.
I told Mom that I needed to work on homework then headed upstairs to check my computer. Opening the various news sites I didn't see anything in particular about the economy. Just the standard stuff.
Apparently, the big ticket news item was that New York's Governor, Eliot Spitzer, had allegedly patronized a prostitution ring, which? I mean he's a politician? Pretty sure all of them are involved in some kind of crime. Like… this was literally a country practically run by Hydra and other assorted criminal conspiracies so honestly I didn't get why this was such big news. Did he like, steal money from orphans with cancer to pay for the prostitutes? No? Then I really didn't get what the fuss was, and why Dad was so upset. Was he friends with Spitzer? Or maybe not friends but acquaintances? I don't remember all of his friends but I don't think he'd ever mentioned Spitzer before.
…Now I was just going around in circles. Well, the only way to find out what was wrong was to talk to Dad.
I did my homework while waiting for dinner, then headed down when it was about time to set the table.
During dinner, Dad didn't really eat a whole lot. Oh, he was gracious and thanked Mom for all her effort but he was also clearly out of it.
…I kinda wanted to ask him but at the same time not… maybe something subtle? No, I couldn't think of a way to do that. But maybe at the very least I could try and do something to make things better.
I waited for a pause then asked, "Hey, uh, I'm not sure what's going on, but is there anything I can do to help?"
Dad looked at me for a moment and smiled briefly. "Thanks Jackie, but no. These are just some emotions I have to deal with on my own. I just… I hate liars, and I hate hypocrites, and I really hate hypocritical liars."
"Oh." He was probably upset about Spitzer but… I couldn't help but remember all the times I'd lied to him. All the things I was still lying about.
I felt a hand on my head. "Don't worry about it, Jackie, really," Dad said. "This is just an adult thing. You have your own problems. Don't feel the need to borrow mine."
"Alright." I still didn't feel great about what was going on but I recognized when he wasn't going to say more. I loved Dad but sometimes he got this thing where he had to be the one to deal with a problem.
At times I worried that it was because of my early years, of all those times I tried desperately to fix things with too little hands, and maybe that made Dad feel like he couldn't burden me more.
When I shared that with Mom, she just told me that it was just the way Yeye dealt with things, and that Dad learned it from him.
I still didn't like it. But I couldn't change it.
So I headed upstairs after dinner and tried not to think about it. I was in the middle of checking on Anonymous when Mom knocked on my door and I had to quick ctrl + w my way out of the chatrooms.
"Jackie? Do you have a moment?" she asked.
I checked to make sure I just had a generic learn math website up before yelling back, "Yeah! Come in!"
Mom came in and sat on the bed. "I promised I'd tell you why Dad was upset earlier if he didn't. You still up for that?" she asked.
"…yeah. I'd like that, please."
"Alright. I don't know if you remember anything about Governor Spitzer?"
So it was about him. "No, not really."
"Well, when he ran for governor, he did so with a "tough on crime" stance."
I snorted. Mom did too, saying "Yeah, I know. Still, it was a big reason why your father chose to vote for him."
"And that's why he's so upset?" I asked. "Because he voted for a politician that lied? I thought they all did that."
Mom's face did a twitch like she wasn't certain to laugh or shake her head, then she said, "Well, it might feel that way but that's not how it's supposed to work. Regardless," she continued as I shot her a skeptical look, "your Dad cares a lot about getting rid of crime in New York. He, well, I think he blames it for what happened to his sister." His sister Hai Rong.
"Oh."
I wasn't certain what to say to that.
"Yes, well," Mom said. "Because of that when something like this comes up, he takes it rather personally. That being said, it has nothing to do with you, so try not to worry about it. Okay?"
"Okay."
But it did. Even if my telekinesis didn't offer any tactile senses, I could still feel the hidden cell phone I had like it was burning a hole in one of my books I'd hollowed out.
Mom left the room after that, her part said. After a moment, I reopened the Anonymous tab, hoping to distract myself.
It didn't work.
Even if politics weren't the sort of thing this version of Anonymous seemed to care about, there were still people bringing up Spitzer. And worse, bringing up the fact that Spitzer was Jewish.
Hydra.
Wait. I'd assumed this was Hydra, but I'd also assumed that the Pauk Technologies was Hydra too, and that turned out to be the Red Room. Could this be the Red Room too?
…Somehow, I doubted it. Not because I didn't think that the Red Room was incapable of it, but because it didn't really fit with how I remembered Russian psyops and internet disinformation campaigns working.
No, this? This reminded me of the time I'd looked up a style guide for a neo-nazi paper for my class on culture wars. I didn't quite remember the name of it, it was the Daily something or another, but what I really remembered was how the style guide explicitly laid out how to use humor to indoctrinate people to neo-nazi viewpoints1. The way these Anons were using humor wasn't quite the same, but I could easily see how it could change over the next few years to what was recommended in the style guide.
Still, if humor could get people into it, it could take them out. I'd already sort of proven that with my joke about Scientology. Or rather… I needed to reframe the issue. The problem was that people were being focused on Jewish people being the source of all issues, just by getting used to constantly hearing humor over it. If I straight up called someone a nazi over it I'd get shamed out as a fun killer.
But what if… it wasn't the Jewish people? Hell, Anon had uncovered a lot of very wealthy white, Christian men who were associated with Epstein, people that could absolutely afford to have people paid to hang around on forums to do PR work. Were any of them actually doing so? Probably not, but try telling a teenager that they weren't the center of the universe.
And one of those powerful white Christian men would work perfectly for my narrative: Prince Andrew of the British royal family.2
…
[SR4ever: so how much is the royal family paying you?]
[Odin1488: wtf? what you talking about?]
[SR4ever: dont act dumb. prince andrews nonce buddy gets charged and suddenly its all jews this and jews that? bs]
[SR4ever: obv mummy dearest doesnt want attention on her little darlings fuckups and theyre an easy target]
[SR4ever: so how much is the royal family paying you to distract everyone?]
…
It wasn't funny so I wasn't certain how well it would be received, but at the very least this should muddy the waters. My ultimate goal was to hijack Hydra/Nazi propaganda so whenever a person saw Jewish people, or possibly any minority being blamed for something, their first thought was to try and figure out who was trying to convince them to focus on the minorities.
It was dubious how ethical it was to point fingers at someone who was probably not actually doing the thing, but again, I had zero sympathy for pedos and it was for a good cause. Also? It was entirely possible that here the British royal family did in fact have their own black ops group to make them look good; they certainly did in John Constantine's Hellblazer.
Still, I hoped Steve Rogers wouldn't mind me using his initials for my sockpuppet. I couldn't risk losing any influence my main account had so I was going to have to make different sockpuppets for my various attempts to fight off the nazis.
Speaking of which, I'd need more than one alternative to the narrative that probably-Hydra was pushing. I'd already decided that my main account would be pushing an "Anons as heroic outlaws" narrative, which doubled as a nice anti-government message, but I'd need more than that.
I'd briefly considered trying a Batman-esque chaos-fu scheme and claiming that there were shapeshifting aliens secretly controlling the world, but a) that would be too easily coopted into an anti-Semitic theory and b) I'd never actually seen Secret Invasion, so I wasn't certain how safe it would be to claim that.
Well, I had time to come up with new things. It would be too suspicious to have a shit ton of counter narratives/conspiracy theorists to pop up at a single time anyways, so I'd need to stagger things out.
I sighed. Time for bed then.
I went through my normal bedtime routine, before finally checking my hidden cell phone. That was when I saw the newest message.
-Today-
[Unknown Number] Hello Bamboo Sprout. Meet at W1 tmrw? Normal time please.
It was Auntie Hai Rong.
…
Jackie figures out that the Red Room and potentially Hydra are probably using CIA assets to move their people around. Has a discussion with her parents about a recent reveal of a politician's prostitution scandal. Decides to wage an anti-nazi misinformation campaign on Anonymous's forums. Chapter ends with Jackie receiving a text from her aunt Hai Rong
AN: So glad this section is over. Next we learn more about some of the training Jackie has been doing since she accepted Hai Rong's offer.
Friendly reminder: some of these topics may hit close to home considering current events. Please remember that the appropriate venue to discuss current events and politics is News & Politics.
Some footnotes on research:
1. Yes, this is a real thing. The "newspaper" in question is The Daily Stormer, a neo-nazi message board that was explicitly made, as stated by the maker, to spread neo-nazi propaganda. However, because the style guide contains things like lists of acceptable slurs and various forms of hate speech, I do not think that it is acceptable to link to for Sufficient Velocity. If you truly are okay with reading a neo-nazi and his thoughts on how to properly write pro nazi propaganda, Ashley Fienberg published the full style guide for the Daily Stormer on Huffpost and it's pretty easy to find with a google search if you feel the need to verify my claims. However, please be advised it is full of incredibly awful and potentially triggering opinions.
2. If you are okay reading a timeline of the events of Prince Andrew's ties with Epstein, including the specific allegations against him, here's one.
- Location
- Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Could double down with the next such person by using a different connected group each time. The New York Chamber of Commerce, the Cosa Nostra (Italian mafia), HRC's secret NOW blackops taskforce (to go full pants on head looneytunes), the Catholic Church is always a good choice, KGB operatives ... just always pull a different "conspiracy" group out each time, to muddy the waters as much as possible.
Also, isn't The Red Room affiliated with Leviathan and thus Hydra?
Also, isn't The Red Room affiliated with Leviathan and thus Hydra?
Literally just have a hat with every random conspiracy group you can think of in it.
Lol thanks for the ideas, I'll have to check some of those groups out
Only if those groups can't be turned into anti Semitic propaganda lol. Otherwise it defeats the point
As Jack from Metal Gear Revengeance would say, "Typical politicians. Big promises but all talk."
On the other hand, I've been wondering Wilson Fisk a.k.a. Kingpin appear in this story since he does have underground connections or would it be too risky to get his attention considering his infamous reputation of his own right and his attitude?