![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oracle_knows[Locked to Dinah Lance, Tim Drake, Adeline Kane, and Ted Kord]
... and have added a few twists of my own. But my recent trip gave me room to think and focussed me on invasions. Note that the CEO of Searchers Inc is on this distribution list - be doubly careful about anything unless you lock things away from her.
I think this is just a conspiracy theory. I hope this is just a conspiracy theory. But I could be right.
If you want to cripple an organisation and get the chance, you start by taking down its C3I (Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence), and its symbols. Think back to how we were two years ago.
Who qualified as C3I for us? To me the list of names is very short. Batman. J'onn. Mr Terrific. Amanda Waller. Robin. Blue Beetle. Max Lord. Me. With the C3I, you want it rendered either useless or preferably providing false information and driven mad.
Batman wouldn't have built the OMACs or Brother Eye. That simply isn't the way he thinks. Sure, he's good - but he's a hacker not an engineer. If you'd told me he had somehow wired every security camera in Gotham together, found a way to use Quantum Observation to paralyse people through them, and set up a police state expanding outwards from Gotham I'd find that plausible. But he finds amazing new uses for existing pieces of kit rather than develops principles from scratch. And he uses multi-functional technology rather than the Get A Bigger Hammer approach - and if there are more extreme examples of the Bigger Hammer approach than Brother Eye and Project OMAC there are very few of them. Either that wasn't Batman or he wasn't in his right mind.
J'onn is presumed dead. We've even held a funeral.
Mr Terrific is an odd one. From what I can tell, he's fine. But given he can't be seen by machines he may have far more defence than the others.
The Wall is not the Wall I knew. She is not the woman who realised she was going to have to break the law to do what she felt was necessary, and so she first did and then deliberately had herself sent to prison for that action.
Robin. I think you were treated more as a symbol than C3I. Between Batman going mad, your father being killed, and a lot of other crap, I think they were trying to break you. And almost succeeded.
Beetle, you were dead. And as many checks as I've done, I could still be wrong if there's another shifter or replacement with the skill of Everyman who I haven't accounted for.
Max Lord wasn't the Max Lord of the JLI records. That Max Lord was an amoral piece of slime, but only a grasping mercenary. On the other hand, he had a record of being taken over by hostile entities - as a working hypothesis it happened again.
I think I escaped (I'm not certain) because I was literally infected by Brainiac. And that will have driven out any other mind-controlling infections before I drove him out. I certainly hope I escaped.
Who qualified as symbols? Again, I can only find a short list. Diana. Superman. Mary Marvel. Nightwing. Robin. Wonder Girl. The Dibneys. Possibly Miss Martian has the same innocence as Mary and is going to also fit that role. If you want to take out symbols, you want to defile them.
Superman was driven mad by Max Lord. I think the plan was to force him to kill Batman and Diana, thus driving a stake through the heart of the JLA, Supes offplanet permanently, and more.
When that failed Diana was forced to kill someone. And this was then immediately broadcast everywhere. An attempt to destroy her as a symbol.
Mary Marvel. Right. The less said about her current costume the better.
Nightwing. Who has worked with just about everybody. I'm surprised he's not simply dead - this is the biggest hole in my theory.
Robin, I've mentioned you.
Wonder Girl. Has been turned into a bitch, probably by the simple expedient of giving her a hate and anger fuelled superpower.
And the Dibneys were our vision of normalcy. Killing them is as symbolic a gesture as can be made.
Robin, is M'Gann OK?
The Villains don't have as much C3I as we heroes do. Two years ago, who qualified? There was Deathstroke the Terminator, Lex Luthor, Flash's Rogues, Ra's Al Ghul and that was about it. Most of the rest were at each others' throats as much as they were making a nuisance of themselves for our benefit.
Adeline, you were dead. But given you are back together with Deathstroke, can I assume that it was not actually Slade Wilson in his right mind that killed Phantom Lady? But his reputation was used and abused.
Lex. Has been used and hamstrung - I've got a large stake in what was Lexcorp, as have many others.
Ra's seemed to have been killed permanently.
And then there were Flash's Rogues. Who seemingly killed a Flash then scattered. Not in any shape for anything.
If I was trying to destroy any coherency on earth as prelude to an attack, and had only limited information, those are the people I'd take out.
I hope I'm grasping at shadows.
... and have added a few twists of my own. But my recent trip gave me room to think and focussed me on invasions. Note that the CEO of Searchers Inc is on this distribution list - be doubly careful about anything unless you lock things away from her.
I think this is just a conspiracy theory. I hope this is just a conspiracy theory. But I could be right.
If you want to cripple an organisation and get the chance, you start by taking down its C3I (Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence), and its symbols. Think back to how we were two years ago.
Who qualified as C3I for us? To me the list of names is very short. Batman. J'onn. Mr Terrific. Amanda Waller. Robin. Blue Beetle. Max Lord. Me. With the C3I, you want it rendered either useless or preferably providing false information and driven mad.
Batman wouldn't have built the OMACs or Brother Eye. That simply isn't the way he thinks. Sure, he's good - but he's a hacker not an engineer. If you'd told me he had somehow wired every security camera in Gotham together, found a way to use Quantum Observation to paralyse people through them, and set up a police state expanding outwards from Gotham I'd find that plausible. But he finds amazing new uses for existing pieces of kit rather than develops principles from scratch. And he uses multi-functional technology rather than the Get A Bigger Hammer approach - and if there are more extreme examples of the Bigger Hammer approach than Brother Eye and Project OMAC there are very few of them. Either that wasn't Batman or he wasn't in his right mind.
J'onn is presumed dead. We've even held a funeral.
Mr Terrific is an odd one. From what I can tell, he's fine. But given he can't be seen by machines he may have far more defence than the others.
The Wall is not the Wall I knew. She is not the woman who realised she was going to have to break the law to do what she felt was necessary, and so she first did and then deliberately had herself sent to prison for that action.
Robin. I think you were treated more as a symbol than C3I. Between Batman going mad, your father being killed, and a lot of other crap, I think they were trying to break you. And almost succeeded.
Beetle, you were dead. And as many checks as I've done, I could still be wrong if there's another shifter or replacement with the skill of Everyman who I haven't accounted for.
Max Lord wasn't the Max Lord of the JLI records. That Max Lord was an amoral piece of slime, but only a grasping mercenary. On the other hand, he had a record of being taken over by hostile entities - as a working hypothesis it happened again.
I think I escaped (I'm not certain) because I was literally infected by Brainiac. And that will have driven out any other mind-controlling infections before I drove him out. I certainly hope I escaped.
Who qualified as symbols? Again, I can only find a short list. Diana. Superman. Mary Marvel. Nightwing. Robin. Wonder Girl. The Dibneys. Possibly Miss Martian has the same innocence as Mary and is going to also fit that role. If you want to take out symbols, you want to defile them.
Superman was driven mad by Max Lord. I think the plan was to force him to kill Batman and Diana, thus driving a stake through the heart of the JLA, Supes offplanet permanently, and more.
When that failed Diana was forced to kill someone. And this was then immediately broadcast everywhere. An attempt to destroy her as a symbol.
Mary Marvel. Right. The less said about her current costume the better.
Nightwing. Who has worked with just about everybody. I'm surprised he's not simply dead - this is the biggest hole in my theory.
Robin, I've mentioned you.
Wonder Girl. Has been turned into a bitch, probably by the simple expedient of giving her a hate and anger fuelled superpower.
And the Dibneys were our vision of normalcy. Killing them is as symbolic a gesture as can be made.
Robin, is M'Gann OK?
The Villains don't have as much C3I as we heroes do. Two years ago, who qualified? There was Deathstroke the Terminator, Lex Luthor, Flash's Rogues, Ra's Al Ghul and that was about it. Most of the rest were at each others' throats as much as they were making a nuisance of themselves for our benefit.
Adeline, you were dead. But given you are back together with Deathstroke, can I assume that it was not actually Slade Wilson in his right mind that killed Phantom Lady? But his reputation was used and abused.
Lex. Has been used and hamstrung - I've got a large stake in what was Lexcorp, as have many others.
Ra's seemed to have been killed permanently.
And then there were Flash's Rogues. Who seemingly killed a Flash then scattered. Not in any shape for anything.
If I was trying to destroy any coherency on earth as prelude to an attack, and had only limited information, those are the people I'd take out.
I hope I'm grasping at shadows.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-01-04 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-04 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-04 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-04 10:27 pm (UTC)I knew Amanda Waller. I had a great deal of respect for her, as an opponent and as an ally. The information I have garnered since my return... tarnishes that respect.Slade did not kill Phantom Lady. That much I can tell you with certainty.