International Relations and Implications of US Supersoldier Experiments in 2017

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by starslayer

That would be a HUGELY significant deviation from our modern world. Nothing is kept 'off computers', and it would be basically impossible to study the effect using above TL 6 technology and techniques (Or create a VERY significantly 'interesting' blip as you start resurrecting the TL7 tech that has been completely supplanted by superior TL8 stuff.

If you poke around the security and privacy community, you can find plenty of people who do just that. In fact, privacy is one reason why I keep my diary on paper and send sensitive things by handwritten snail mail! That is what amateurs do as a hobby ... I am sure that professionals, with institutions to train them in good practices and punish them for violating them, can be more rigorous (although in big agencies you will also get the doofus who loads secret data onto an unencrypted laptop then leaves it in his unlocked car). But we hear about the careless idiots, not the quiet professional people who don't get caught.

There are rumours that some countries' intelligence services relied on typewriters into the oughties because they took it for granted that anything Turing-complete was not secure against the Americans. Here is one story which caught the attention of journalists http://mashable.com/2013/07/11/typew...e-back-russia/

The American security apparatus is so vast and so byzantine that I have no doubt that there are parts which are scary professional about security and privacy, just like there are parts which get their ideas of best practices from CSI.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

I may be showing my ignorance of South America here, but what is wrong with Argentina or Chile as possible destinations?

Nothing in particular says they wouldn't work, but then, they don't have any major problems that super soldiers could help them with, either, that they'd willingly defy the United States to help resolve. That was my criteria -- what Latin American countries have problems so severe they're worth angering the United States about, that would benefit from super soldiers?

Argentina is one of the wealthiest and most stable countries in Latin America (and compares quite favorably to most developing nations, in the world), so it definitely has the money to entice Ortiz. A friend of mine spent a fair amount of time in Buenos Aires in the 1980s on "training missions" to South America while in the United States Army, and he says it's a lovely city.

Back during the Dirty War days from 1973-1982, Ortiz might have been seen as useful by the ruling junta as an asset to use against leftist insurgents, but that petered out more than 30 years ago. Right now, Argentina continues to grumble at Great Britain, but for the most part it has no real external or internal enemies, and most of its efforts focus on economic reforms.

Any drug production that might have gotten started in Argentina would've been brutally quashed during the Dirty War. However, it really wasn't that major of a problem, since Argentina's climate doesn't really allow for coca agriculture, anyway. Poor farmers work as gauchos on the Pampas, or raise their own cattle and crops on reasonably successful small farms in the same region.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pampas

The Pinochet era in Chile (1973-90) partially overlapped the Dirty War in Argentina and had a lot in common with it. A right-wing military junta committed numerous quiet little atrocities in an effort to destroy leftist "insurgents" and fight communism. Pinochet's government enjoyed the frequent support of the United States, this was the heyday of the School of the Americas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wester...ty_Cooperation

(Nixon supported the early efforts to create a coup against Salvador Allende, and then after that, Augustin Pinochet also got a lot of help from Reagan.)

Currently, Chile has fairly free elections that swap power between moderate socialists and pro-capitalist conservatives, and the move to a market economy (backed by conservatives) has drawn in foreign investment while more of it than ever gets shifted to education and other programs for the poor (backed by the socialists).

As such, the occasional horrible earthquake notwithstanding, Chile is about as stable as its ever been, and it doesn't have drug cartel problems to deal with, either.

So, that raises the question, why would either of those countries risk angering the United States, to bring in super soldiers who don't really offer any solutions to the problems they face?

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by starslayer

Further its not like physically separated networks are actually secure, just harder to penetrate by casual hackers ( https://arstechnica.com/security/201...audible-sound/ )

That's not as easy as you think it is. It requires 5 things:

1 - For the computers to have both microphones and speakers. Most computers do not have built in microphones (laptops yes, but not desktops).
2 - For the speakers to be capable of transmitting in the utlra frequency range, most low end speakers will not do this, meaning most "lowest bidder supplied" computers will not do this. Likewise the microphones have to to capable of picking up that frequency, see the note about speakers.
3 - At least one darknet machine has to be physically infected, the Malware has to be loaded onto the machine in some fashion. Now, this is a "one and done" problem, so not the hardest part of all this by any stretch.
4 - The environment has to be relatively free of acoustical obstructions (noise, sound dampening material, etc). Also this process fails when the nets (dark and inter) are isolated from one another by distances greater than 60 feet.
5 - This process would have had to existed 10-15 years ago (also not the hardest part of this whole scheme).

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Ortiz will realise that going public with the whole story might provide a measure of protection from US shenanigans, but will also expose them to threat of kidnapping by pretty much any group with the resources to consider setting up their own research project. That is, assuming that they go public with evidence that will convince a significant fraction of people.

Just a thought, but most of the time that political asylum is given to somebody, either relations are so cold that they refuse out of being obstinate, or because that they are well known enough to resist the governments wish to begin with. When Ecuador began protecting Assange, people knew who Assange was (to some extent), Bobby Fischer was a chess master before he need Icelandic protection, Snowden was well known before he received Russian protection... It might be hard for Ortiz to remain anonymous about why he needs protection and receive it.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Ecuador is one of the places I'd like to know more avout, to see if they are a good choice. Could they plausibly set up a research program to learn more about Project Jade Serenity if they have access to the test subjects? Could they protect them, both in terms of secrecy and security?

Well, their educational system doesn't seem to be hugely impressive. They have decent medical schools, and could do investigations into the physiology of the test subjects; how far they'd get depends on how complex the changes are.

Their best bet for security would be secrecy: setting up a biomedical research station somewhere unpopulated in the Andes, with a very boring cover story. Studying the lichens that grow on fresh volcanic rocks or something like that - they do have genuine expertise in volcanology.

What are their relations with other countries like? Their stategic situation?

They don't seem to have major enemies. Their history of acquiring military equipment gives some idea of their alliances.

The basic reason they've been able to protect Julian Assange so long is that the UK doesn't feel arresting him is worth violating diplomatic protocols. The fact that Assange has been trashing his own reputation may have something to do with that.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Just a thought, but most of the time that political asylum is given to somebody, either relations are so cold that they refuse out of being obstinate, or because that they are well known enough to resist the governments wish to begin with. When Ecuador began protecting Assange, people knew who Assange was (to some extent), Bobby Fischer was a chess master before he need Icelandic protection, Snowden was well known before he received Russian protection... It might be hard for Ortiz to remain anonymous about why he needs protection and receive it.

Oh, yeah. Col. Ortiz does not expect to be able to get the help he needs without telling experts from the host country everything. But the key here is that this should mean that a few people with extremely high security clearances know and the information is not made public, where it might create a host of new threats.

What Ortiz needs is a polity where the decision to bring in 10-50 people and set them up with new lives could be made by the military or intelligence apparatus, without being reported in the media. Sure, once a research program is established, other intelligence agencies will probably eventually find out stuff, but most espionage does not, in fact, turn up perfect evidence, but rather rumours and unsupported facts. Few people are going to believe in superpowers just because a paid agent told his handlers that his government is investigating it. They'll believe it's another one of these kooky programs that countries occasionally run, which always end in predictable disappointment.

Col. Ortiz is assuming that the US will learn where he has sought asylum, but the ideal situation, of course, would be if they didn't. That's an unrealistic hope, however, so he's preparing with the assumption that they will figure it out and start to put pressure on the host country. He also assumes the the US will accuse him and his men of everything they can to strengthen the case for their extradition.

On the other hand, Col. Ortiz feels that it is unlikely that the US would publicise the fact that the illegal experiments that were covered up to protect senior figures in the DoD have given the test subject superpowers. Nor do they need to do so to apply diplomatic pressure.

Ortiz needs support from shadowy figures within his new host country, who will have made the actual deal with him and who know everything, to make it certain that this pressure will be resisted. Publicly, he's assuming that the official reason given for refusing extradition will be whatever is most convenient for his new hosts. It doesn't have to be the truth and it would be extremely odd for it to be.

[Icelander]

I'll get to more of your points later, thanks again, great work. One quick thought, though:

Originally Posted by tshiggins

So, that raises the question, why would either of those countries risk angering the United States, to bring in super soldiers who don't really offer any solutions to the problems they face?

Col. Ortiz and his men aren't valuable because they are supersoldiers. At least, that is not most of their value. Most of their value lies in the fact that if it is possible to reverse engineer drugs which can grant some or all of the beneficial effects that test subjects of Project Jade Serenity exhibit, the best chance would probably be by having access to as many test subjects as possible. Not to mention all the data that Col. Ortiz has managed to collect on the experiments and the efforts to investigate the subjects after it became evident that something had happened.

The resulting drugs would be great for supersoldier programs, yes, but they also hold the promise of allowing those who have access to them long and healthy lives, where they can be better at anything that interests them than they otherwise would be.

It's not clear if a similar treatment as received by the test subjects in Project Jade Serenity would cure already existing illnesses, as the subjects were all phenomenally healthy. On the other hand, there is every reason to believe that those who receive it would afterwards remain in amazing health and physical perfection well into their sixties or even seventies. And they might remain 'young' for even longer than that, as none of the subjects have shown signs of age-related degeneration yet.

A lot of people might want this for all kinds of reasons, not just to make supersoldiers. I'd think that plenty of senior generals and politicians would want to be young, vigorous and amazingly capable into their late middle age or longer.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

They don't seem to have major enemies. Their history of acquiring military equipment gives some idea of their alliances.

Ongoing border disputes with Peru, which mostly involve a lot of posturing but have brewed up from time to time.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by patchwork

I'm going to argue for Colombia. If Ortiz is only bugging out now, in 2017, and has been an active part of US military operations up until now, the three governments he knows best are Honduras, El Salvador and Colombia.

Absolutely true. He has powerful friends in all three countries. He first worked with special operations personnel from Colombia in 1998 and before 2002, he had gone on training missions in El Salvador and Honduras too. He's spent a lot of time working with officers from all three countries since there, including the contingent El Salvador sent to Iraq. A lot of the promising officers Ortiz has trained with are now part of the senior leadership of the military in those countries.

As the J2 of US SOCOM South, Col. Ortiz will have maintained those contacts, as well as made new ones in the intelligence community of many Latin American countries.

Originally Posted by patchwork

I'm going to argue for Colombia. If Ortiz is only bugging out now, in 2017, andIf he's not looking to retire on the beach into obscurity, but to spread Truth, Justice and the Ortiz Way, those are his most plausible options by far. Honduras and El Salvador are small countries with fewer people whose ideals are likely to appeal to Ortiz; if he wants to make a difference, Colombia has more to offer him. Particularly since it is not lacking in expertise and infrastructure regarding drug production.

Well, obviously, I don't know his ultimate goals. It could be he just wants to ensure the freedom, safety and dignity of the men under his command and their families. Maybe he discovered that Onyx Rain had plans to do something he could not accept or just realised that they'd never allow any of them any real degree of freedom and is looking for a country where he can ensure better terms.

Or maybe he has plans to set up an 'Underground Railroad' for others who exhibit special powers and would otherwise be subject to unacceptable treatment from the authorities. This would require quite a lot of political influence in the country he's going, but it might be that he can arrange that. After all, he is exceptionally intelligent, with a Talent related to being a Special Forces officer and has spent about twenty years learning how to do foreign internal defence, work with local leadership and train elite guerilla forces.

Originally Posted by patchwork

I'm going to argue for Colombia. If Ortiz is only bugging out now, in 2017, andWere I in Ortiz' position, I would lay a false trail to Honduras or El Salvador and head for Colombia. Anywhere else, he has had significantly fewer opportunities to make and keep fresh contacts and allies. It's also a pretty factionalized government which lets ortiz use it as a poison pill (if he operates at that high a level); removing Ortiz' allies means handing the country over to Trotskyites or narcofascists, so the US must use the scalpel, not the sledgehammer. (with the usual caveats of no 'friends' when you operate at this level, the core problem here is that the people the US government wants to work with and the people Ortiz wants to work with are pretty much the same people).

Would Colombia be prepared to give up the benefits of their traditional strategic partnership with the US?

Originally Posted by patchwork

I'm going to argue for Colombia. If Ortiz is only bugging out now, in 2017, andSo. All of Ortiz' options are violent places. But Colombia offers him the most allies and the most resources. Depending on how paranoid he is, places like Bolivia may look good from a distance, but he'll be fleeing to people he knows personally and has worked with intensively. That's probably Colombia.

Well, Colombia is an attractive option to me as a player and probably to the GM as well, if it can be justified plausibly. I've run games set in Colombia in the 80s and 90s, I've read plenty of fiction and non-fiction set there and we binge watched both seasons of Narcos this week. Granted, none of that is about modern Colombia, but it's still a lot more than I know about most other Latin American countries.

[ericthered]

You might want to look at turkey. They're technically US allies, but there is a cultural distance and a clear independence. They don't have the close ties that will get you extradited in other allies, and their socio-geographical position makes the US feel that they NEED turkey.

Turkey has a lot of military problems on their border that could benefit from non-traditional military force, and a historical aminosty with Russia, of all people, so they benefit from such an arrangement.

The Moral issues are reduced in turkey as well: they've been democratic since 1920: one of the oldest democracies on earth. You've got a sticky factional web to navigate, but that's not terrible. Its foreign, but its not the home of a tin pot dictator or dedicated US foe.

The thing lacking is how Turkey would find out about the program. Ortiz might have to approach them himself. But its a really good fit, so its worth considering.