Re: The Mercurian Candidate
Another tack might be... There's no brainwashing, per se, there's just delusion that "this nice Soldier/Aware human I'm talking to is transmitting information to [perfectly reasonable Superior to be talking to]." Use a human as a cut-out (and be sure to treat the human very well, though lying like a rug is useful...) and spin your story so that the human believes it. "Yes! I am an angel serving the Lord Commander of the Hosts of Heaven! But I'm/{target is} in deep cover. You can be our go-between, but I can't be seen directly visiting {target} or my/his cover will be compromised."
To keep an angel from Jumping/Falling, there's basically two key points: Dissonance, and Selfishness. Dissonance is betraying Choir Nature and Archangel's Dissonance Conditions. Selfishness is harder to quantify, but a deft hand can probably also avoid that. I suspect one important bit is to make sure that you don't no-win the scenario -- if you shove the angel into a corner where it can't win, can't help others, can only try to help itself... That's likely to backfire. Despair can break an angel in un-useful ways as well as useful ones.
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