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Old 01-25-2018, 11:53 AM   #91
temp
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: International Relations and Implications of US Supersoldier Experiments in 2017

Icelander, from my POV, and what I have read in this thread, Col Ortiz has an unsolvable problem given the constraints.

He and his people have a) major but human enhancements and b) individual freaky stuff ( "Dr. Anderson is a Wizard in everything but name." ) that is clearly beyond human.

A faction of US mil/int/science community (MISC) knows about a) - and god knows which other nations (and or factions of their MISC's ). Further Col Ortiz intends to disclose this to at a least a faction of his chosen base of Operations. I am less clear who knows about b).

While a) might not result in a flat out invasion by the US or other powers, b) would be - your description of some of Dr Anderson's abiliities "Well, Dr. Anderson has powers that might allow him to obtain any secret that a person who sleeps has. Such as nuclear launch codes. He could also convince people of... well, anything, in their sleep." Is enough to allow a nation state to dominate the planet... especially if no other power has that kind of toy.

There is no gov't in south america that I would trust not to try and seize such power from the "asylum seekers" - so they would have to be top dogs in the state, which in turn brings about the full attention of the US Int community, which will lead to the whole MISC... Not to mention any number of non-US Int communities who will also be asking what happened there for these outsiders to take over.

The only govt's in the world who might not want to seize said power (or might be deterred by a human rights concept) are advanced western democracies - who have too many ties to the US.

If he and his people are not covert, he needs the resources of a major nation state (G7 member, China, Russia or equivalent) to prevent covert ops against him and his - and that might not be enough. Even if he has such a nation onside, no such nation is going to allow him freedom to act in the outside world without they're own political approval..
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Old 01-25-2018, 12:26 PM   #92
Icelander
 
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Location: Iceland*
Default Re: International Relations and Implications of US Supersoldier Experiments in 2017

Edit: To quantify what we are discussing, here is a 'typical' template for one of the supersoldiers. Most will be the lower range and have few, if any, of the optional traits.

Quote:
Originally Posted by temp View Post
Icelander, from my POV, and what I have read in this thread, Col Ortiz has an unsolvable problem given the constraints.
In the long run, that might turn out to be true.

Quote:
Originally Posted by temp View Post
He and his people have a) major but human enhancements and b) individual freaky stuff ( "Dr. Anderson is a Wizard in everything but name." ) that is clearly beyond human.
Note that b), individual freaky stuff, is kept very secret by the two former test subjects who have shown such supernatural powers in the campaign so far.

Dr. Anderson is a PC and he is not part of Col. Ortiz's attempt to escape. He is securely in the hands of Onyx Rain, the ultra-secret US joint task force set up to handle the fallout from Project Jade Serenity. Mind you, they know about his Human Plus abilities, because those are detectable with certain medical exams, but he is keeping his psionic, dream-invading powers very secret from them and everyone else in the world. In fact, it rates Secret (Possible Death) on his character sheet.

The other character who has shown freaky powers, 'Cherry' Bell, is not part of Col. Ortiz group either. She's also in the hands of Onyx Rain and also trying to pretend to be nothing more than Human Plus, absolutely not capable of any mental illusion powers at all.

Quote:
Originally Posted by temp View Post
A faction of US mil/int/science community (MISC) knows about a) - and god knows which other nations (and or factions of their MISC's ). Further Col Ortiz intends to disclose this to at a least a faction of his chosen base of Operations. I am less clear who knows about b).
Until the GM states otherwise, freaky powers like b) are a rumour, at best.

Onyx Rain might or might not know that there are more significant powers than just enhancements of human capabilities, but they probably do not know about the strategic possibilities of Dr. Anderson's powers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by temp View Post
While a) might not result in a flat out invasion by the US or other powers, b) would be - your description of some of Dr Anderson's abiliities "Well, Dr. Anderson has powers that might allow him to obtain any secret that a person who sleeps has. Such as nuclear launch codes. He could also convince people of... well, anything, in their sleep." Is enough to allow a nation state to dominate the planet... especially if no other power has that kind of toy.
Yeah, that's why Dr. Anderson doesn't want anyone else to know he has it.

It's also very likely that Col. Ortiz and his men are running partly out of fear of what their own government will do to them if they just suspect that they might have powers beyond simple enhancements of their bodies and minds.

They might be looking for a situation where they have more control over their own fates than that, maybe by running to a polity with less power than the US and trying to feed partial information to the authorities there while establishing themselves as absolutely indispensible to the ruling elite.

Quote:
Originally Posted by temp View Post
There is no gov't in south america that I would trust not to try and seize such power from the "asylum seekers" - so they would have to be top dogs in the state, which in turn brings about the full attention of the US Int community, which will lead to the whole MISC... Not to mention any number of non-US Int communities who will also be asking what happened there for these outsiders to take over.

The only govt's in the world who might not want to seize said power (or might be deterred by a human rights concept) are advanced western democracies - who have too many ties to the US.

If he and his people are not covert, he needs the resources of a major nation state (G7 member, China, Russia or equivalent) to prevent covert ops against him and his - and that might not be enough. Even if he has such a nation onside, no such nation is going to allow him freedom to act in the outside world without they're own political approval..
We will assume that until the GM states otherwise, Col. Ortiz is keeping any freaky powers beyond Human Plus enhancements secret. If he even knows about the possibility.

The most likely scenario is that some of the former test subjects do indeed exhibit freaky powers, but that they have been very reluctant to inform anyone, even their own government, of this fact, for fear of that this would certainly lead to internment by a secret government organisation and subsequent experimentation, a la Firestarter/ET/Strange Things.

But note that it is unlikely that many of them have powers that pose quite as much stategic threat to nation states as Dr. Anderson's dreamwalking. Much more likely to be tactical in nature.

Note also that even if Onyx Rain were to find out about the possibilities inherent in the test subjects, it does not necessarily follow that they would immediately notify the people who'd have to give the order for a military invasion of a scale necessary to defeat Col. Ortiz and the kind of local allies he could obtain (and train).

Bureaucracies (and especially the people in them) tend to try to cover their own behind and it is very likely that the people who know most about these powers are also culpable in some way, either in allowing failures in the initial tests in 2000 or for the subjects to escape now in 2017.

So there might be a delay of months. Even years. During which the campaign goes on.

And even if Col. Ortiz knew that he had a low chance of success and was most likely only buying time, well, that isn't entirely incompatible with the Special Forces mentality. Never quit, no matter the odds. Maybe the horse will learn to sing. Maybe he'll save some of the test subjects. Or their children.*

*There seems to be a chance that the children of test subjects will be born with powers. In the case of Danny O'Toole (PC), powers of a nature and magnitude significantly above typical Project Jade Serenity subjects.
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Last edited by Icelander; 01-25-2018 at 05:58 PM.
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