The best part is that if they simply had not done anything, no one would have figured things out. But by setting two hitmen on the union group they revealed their past deeds, too.
Vespa
- Thread starter mp3.1415player
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The best part is that if they simply had not done anything, no one would have figured things out. But by setting two hitmen on the union group they revealed their past deeds, too.
Shouldn't she have sent it to the FAA's "Office of Civil Aviation Security", the predecessor the the TSA since 9/11 didn't happen on Earth Bet?
If they can prove that WMA was behind the sinking, I can see a Superfund case being leveraged against the conglomerate to clean up the remains of the Boat Graveyard and repair the harbor. Heck, the sabotage might mean they don't even need Superfund, just straight liability for the damage to the Bay.
I'm just surprised she didn't form something to quickly put the stuff back. Landing still takes at least half an hour to land, taxi, get the stairs or jetway into position, and open the luggage compartment so there should have been plenty of time to do it.
Also our Earth's Denver airport uses jetways instead of those staircases, unless they are still using Stapleton because of butterflies on Earth Bet.
That's the real reason that Earth Bet was abandoned, so the survivors could escape the IRS.
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- Location
- Neptune
I'm a bit worried that they've got other operatives shadowing union members coming in from other prts of the country too.
The danger of being a parahuman who's literally everywhere, as Taylor is, is increased exposure to masters. Fortunately, Taylor is ideally placed to fight Broadcast's influence; it works by influencing the parahuman through their shard, and Taylor is used to winning arguments against QA. But I worry: what happens when Taylor encounters someone like Valefor, or Heartbreaker, or Mama Mathers?
Actually, now that I think about it, this is equally an issue with canon. Since Doormaker and Clairvoyant can see literally everything, why haven't they been co-opted by Valefor or Mama Mathers?
Actually, now that I think about it, this is equally an issue with canon. Since Doormaker and Clairvoyant can see literally everything, why haven't they been co-opted by Valefor or Mama Mathers?
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Depends on a) how hivemindy Taylor is - iirc, Wildbow answered one question by stating that master rewrite the brain. Good luck - if you rewrite one node in the cluster, that won't do much. And b), what [QA] thinks about that.
Cauldron is going to get added to The List.
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Someone should pick up that ringing phone!
Well, with the ammunition that was in the gun being designed to fragment on hitting a hard surface to reduce the risk of ricochets and minimize over-penetration, I would assume sometime during the descent into LAX. That of course requires some sort of exit strategy from the plane mid-flight like popping one of the emergency doors and parachuting out. Unless the plan was to get arrested, escape custody, and burn those identities… Not really seeing how these spooks-turned-hitmen were gonna get away with their payment—no. I got it. Frangible rounds would also make it a pain in the ass, if not impossible, to run ballistics. Pair that with the plastic gun parts, the weapon would be nigh untraceable except to a *very* skilled and high-rated Thinker.
The plan was probably to follow them to their hotels or something and make them all another LA murder statistic and then vanish into one of their other IDs.
Edit: I'm actually surprised that the Numberman cards weren't in their wallets. That's an odd one, tbh. I assume it looks like any run of the mill credit card, so why keep them in their luggage?
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AIUI when Taylor wants QA's opinion she dictates it to the shard...
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
In that case, you don't smuggle the weapon onto the plane. You know where they are going to be, and if they are minorly competent you know where they stay. Way easier to get a weapon locally. Without the added problems of plane smuggling.
Ralyx
Seeking Balance
- Location
- The Realm Between
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Unexpectedly, the most annoying member for this Taylor to deal with is probably Hatchet Face. Apart from Crawler, that is.
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- Location
- Europe
darn Coil, his machination has really had far-reaching effects that ripple across the country and to wherever the parachuting spiders land.
That is what FOOF-based venom is for.
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Yeah, the whole JFK paid-off security agent doing an "Oceans Eleven" bag switcharoo like you'd see in any Hollywood heist movie is a bit much. Same with the dossiers still being with them when the hitmen clearly already memorized who the targets were. It was a bit of an "orgy of evidence" these guys are bad guys.
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Sandy River DL
(Verified Destroyer Leader)
- Location
- Lake Michigan
- Pronouns
- Her/She
The whole thing comes across as the people who arranged it in-universe having watched too many spy movies. Which could easily be the case...
Or things were planned by a Thinker who made everything way too bloody complicated for ... reasons
- Location
- I'll never tell...
For beings like Crawler, more is always better.
I pictured Jack being thrown from a moving train when I read this.
They'll likely put it down to a new heroic/rouge thinker group.
The impression I had was that they had to deal with something similar:
That part's easy: Mama Mathers is semi-employed by Cauldron:
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Valefor's powers require eye contact, at least originally. Clairvoyant doesn't use physical eyes to see everything; in fact, he has no eyes at all.
That was my thought as well until the year registered.
- Pronouns
- They/Any
Consider that Taylor also wants to put other balls in motion, namely the investigation into who hired these two. That would've had to be passed off to the FBI anyhow, it's well beyond the purview of the Air Marshals, who may well not have had anyone on the flight (in fact, they probably didn't, given that Taylor didn't notice such a thing). While the jurisdictional overlap is a potential mess, she went for the agency that would be able to untangle the largest portion of the mess, not the one that might in theory have a better jurisdictional claim to the immediate concern of someone with a gun on an airplane.
Also, frankly? Taylor's a teenager, I don't know that she would have remembered the existence of the Air Marshals anyhow. And a lot more than 9/11 is different, since this is still a Pan Am flight. (Which makes me extra glad she checked for the presence of explosives. Yikes.)
Sandy River DL
(Verified Destroyer Leader)
- Location
- Lake Michigan
- Pronouns
- Her/She
Planes had been hijacked before 9/11 though, and the response to those actually allowed the attacks to happen. The protocols were meant to handle what were basically hostage situations, which is what your typical hijacking was previously.
Except why would they need the gun on the plane then, instead of arranging for it to be in a dead-drop once they left the airport? Far less risky that way.
It's not like guns aren't legal to ship through the mail.
QuietlyObserving
The Railgun That Walks Like a Bear
- Location
- Here.
Might have been planned to happen in the airport during or after debarkation, then disappear into the crowds.
Yeah, most plane hijackings were to ransom the plane and passengers.
Some of those are still kind of famously unsolved.
Prior to 9/11, terrorism involving planes was usually about getting explosives onto the plane to blow it up in flight.
Jacking the plane to use it in a kamikaze terrorist attack? Not anticipated.
Though I don't remember when Tom Clancy wrote the Jack Ryan novel(s) that had a plane hit the State of the Union address.
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I have no idea why they'd have arranged to have a gun onboard. The only reason to do that would be if they intended to actually use it. Maybe they intended to pop somebody if the opportunity arose to do so (ie, in the bathroom or something like that).
Or maybe something was planned to happen when leaving the plane - ie, a cape fight or more conventional gang fight or something to create a distraction and allow them to gank one or more of the Union group while everybody's looking the other way.
Or some kind of screwball Path required it somehow.
Kinsfire
Verified {Redacted}
- Location
- New Jersey
Remember that - unless MP Pi is pulling one of his famous sneakies - that the evidence we saw makes it fairly clear that WWMI is probably a real world front for Cauldron. They need Brockton Bay cut off, even thought their chosen warlord is dead, because the Path DEMANDS it, dammit! That means you kill the people most likely to be able to save Brockton Bay. They'll just keep escalating, because I guarantee that they've got cutouts to throw under the fleet of buses approaching.
And if they're tunnel-visioned enough about it to NOT just give up on the experiment, they might decide that there's a <Fill In The Blank> 12 threatening the city so they need to fire a missile at the city. Officially to stop the parahuman, but really as a final F*** You to the people who dared go against them.
I doubt that even Cauldron is that narrow visioned enough, though.
And if they're tunnel-visioned enough about it to NOT just give up on the experiment, they might decide that there's a <Fill In The Blank> 12 threatening the city so they need to fire a missile at the city. Officially to stop the parahuman, but really as a final F*** You to the people who dared go against them.
I doubt that even Cauldron is that narrow visioned enough, though.
LostArchivist
Sane, unfortunately.
- Location
- The State of Confusion
If that is the Nine's van, I wonder how she's going to get around Jack's parahuman whisperer power. Chaff from her having multiple bodies, so he can't tell which one will affect him? Magic being an OCP so he guesses based on what her power was supposed to have been? Or QA being friendly and refusing to play ball?
*sent
Ah. So it was the corrupt shipping companies. Or... their owners?
Nice reference.
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- She/Her
It could be seen as odd that they're missing if the men admit the dossiers existed… but it's also a piece of hard evidence linking this crime to Danny as a target (and therefore Taylor), whereas currently the authorities have no reason to look at the Union group.
I'm not sure if Jack's Power-Whispering would give a lot of useful information here, considering that QA is basically just along to do what Taylor tells it and find out what happens at this point.
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