Start of the Dream

[Dracos]

Dracos frowned, trying to figure it out.

Dracos

[Brian]

After a bit, Relm posts:

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If it's all the same, I think I need to tell Pinkie something.  But it's personal-like, and can probably wait.

Anyway: I think the Workshop setup was a trap, and Rasputin wasn't really valulable anymore -- they'd gotten the information they really needed from Ayame anyway.  From the Cabal PoV, the Workshop is expendable; a decoy.

From the Pax PoV, the Workshop is a nuisiance, sweeping up potential recruits, and generally being annoying.  Following this line of thought, Manos was left there specifically to be found.  His existance there would cast doubt on any speculation that Ayame and Manos had been switched; especially if Manos had managed to kill Ayame first.

The Cabal will give up people it can't control easily, so they don't hang on too tightly to the prisoners, who they don't expect Pax to use.  How come this trap fails?  Pax decides to recruit you based on (according to Pandora) a spell that was cast using the life of someone you all knew.  Their spies knew that something was up with the Workshop, and this is where the Cabal dropped the ball.

They didn't catch the Pax spies (I'm really hoping they didn't plan on us establishing New Delphi), so they decided to make it look like someone entirely separate from themselves is responsible.  Normally this would cause the Cabal to flip out and try and track the unknown element.

Here, it may have played in our favor that the Cabal was expecting the loss, but not expecting who they lost to.

Of course, this is all just speculation.

"More than just idle speculation, from the mouth of an oracle," Victor opines.

[Dracos]

"that could make sense but...  don't they need an oracle?"

Dracos

[Brian]

Tim relays this question to Relm, who replies:

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Of course.  And by arranging for the death of their own while they were already ahead, they've made sure that their oracle will be at peak condition in the end-game.

As I'm sure you've noticed, we don't usually stay dead.

[Halbarad]

"And they weren't figuring on Ayame making a difference, since the Order doesn't have the existing powerbase of either Pax or the Cabal," Tim muses. "So putting her in the same position as Manos is no big deal.

"As far as tracking us goes, though, do you know of anything like that going on?" Tim mostly addresses this question to Victor. "I expect you wouldn't have information on flyovers or anything like that if they've gone that far, but has there been anything odd in the way of people looking around the area?"

Tim also relays the question to Relm:

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> Speaking of which, have you noticed anyone sniffing around for New Delphi? I'd assume not from your answer before, but I'd rather be sure myself.

And that brings up another thing I meant to ask. Do you have any idea of how much Pax and Cabal make use of the Dream? I've seen the Brotherhood there, obviously, and you, and even another person who's not affiliated with anyone, near as I can tell. But no evidence of anyone else. From what I understand of the way the separate dreams work, they must have a Dreamer, but it sounds like they don't particularly care much about the Dream outside of that.

But I might just be misinterpreting things.

[Rezantis]

"You might remember that we were also told," Rez weighs in, "that if an oracle fell, they'd return better suited to the task they originally failed at - so Manos is likely to return as a much better hunter of other oracles.  I can see -that- being useful if they don't need any more information out of him . . . so yes, this does make a disturbing amount of sense."

"And stop calling me that."

[Dracos]

Dracos quickly latched on.  "Hum, sounds reasonable, pinky.  That would be a pretty valid strategy."

Dracos

[Bjorn]

Bjorn has been silent, thinking things through.  Finally, though, he shakes his head.  "Still doesn't make sense to me," he confesses.  "But a much more relevant question in the end is: what tactical information does this give us?  The question of how we got into this, as interesting as it is, is much less important than how we can win.

"Even if this all was some Cabal set-up to take out their own front organizations and confuse Pax, we can hardly go to either with this news and expect 'em to join us.  If there's something we can exploit here, I'm missing it."

[Carthrat]

"It's insight into their methods," muses Tom. "Pax and Cabal have been at it for a long time, right? If they managed to confuse Pax this time, they might try to do the same sort of thing again... especially if Pax hasn't figured out what they did.

Could they be going for another setup? Did they have other front organisations?"

[Dracos]

"I believe they both had their talons thick in a few terrorists groups.  And Pax had Interpol or at least a sizable chunk of it unless I'm mistaken."

Dracos

[Brian]

"Curious," Victor murmurs.  "Still, the practical application of this is to relay their method of operation to some key players on our own side.  Namely, this 'Bigfire' Jim has told me of."

The man nods, not really looking up from his keyboard.  "I don't think I know where they are," he says, "but if we see their handiwork, we'll be sure to muck it up."

"It also lets us know what to watch for, and realize that people may still be attempting to use you.  While I doubt that we've come here at the behest of anyone's master plan, one must always remain watchful," Victor adds.

[Halbarad]

"Amen to that. Having an idea of how your enemies view you is always useful - it gives you an idea of how they're likely to react, and that'll enable us to plan better to catch them off guard. As it stands, I'd guess Pax views us as temporarily useful but unimportant overall, and unless they were monitoring the Earth Dream themselves I'd imagine Cabal doesn't see us as much of a threat either. After all, from what you've told me Pax went in with the same goals, and they may attribute any success in the Earth Dream to them, not you - they're the ones with experience at the Contest, after all. But that's only if they didn't bother to monitor events in the Earth Dream, and simply set them into motion."

[Dracos]

"Well, IF that was so, there's no way it'd work twice.  I also don't think it wise to even remotely think we're being discounted.  They know one thing right now for certain: We've stepped into the contest and therefore represent another player on the board to keep an eye on."

Dracos

[Bjorn]

"This is reactive thinking," Bjorn says, crossing his arms, "which we can't afford.  Pax and Cabal can outpower us.  Once we start letting them set the pace, then we're guaranteed to lose."

He rolls his head from side to side, considering for a second.  "Right now our advantage is that they don't consider us to be worthwhile.  That means that with a certain amount of caution on our parts, any actions we take against Cabal will be assumed to have come from Pax, and vice versa.  By the time they figure out it's us, we want them to be unsure of just how powerful we are." He grins.  "And, of course, at that point, we'd like to be stronger than them.

"Okay.  So now we have, we think, insights into how the Cabal and Pax work.  Now, how do we imitate that?

"All right.  This is the first thing that comes to my mind.  We know of at least two other fronts for the Cabal -- Home Guard and Forge.  Now, let's say one of the two has been infiltrated by Pax.  First we make sure Cabal knows about the infiltrators.  Then we arrange to both blow up the front, and kill the infiltrators.  Make a big ol' mess, so no one's sure exactly what happened.

"Cabal is going to automatically assume it was Pax responsible.  On the other hand, Pax is going to assume that it was a Cabal trap, that taking out the infiltrators was worth taking out their whole front, since that fits the Cabal M.O.  Both sides end up weaker and even unhappier with each other, which suits us just fine."

He looks around the room.  "Of course, that assumes we can find an appropriate front.  Still, that's the general idea we need to shoot for.  Sound workable, or am I missing something?"

[Halbarad]

"Only one problem: We have to actually find infiltrators for Pax in one of the Cabal's fronts," Tim interjects. "It's not enough to spread the rumor to Cabal, as Pax will know it's not their doing if something goes haywire there. While I don't doubt Cabal would still blame Pax in that case, it'd draw Pax's attention away from Cabal.

"But if we DO find legitimate infiltrators, then yes, we're in business. Doing that, I think, will be the hardest part."