Bursting Eagerness Soul wrote:

Shadow... How much thought have you put into this kind of thing? Because that seems a bit elaborate for a 13 minute (maximum) response time.

Honestly none, before I'd read his question. I began by thinking of attempting to arm the more radical members of the Movement with a TITAN superweapon, but then I realized that was the kind of thing that would get Ozma involved, and also the kind of thing which, in all balance of probability, would go horribly right. Then I remembered the unfortunate fact that police organizations often employ agents provocateur to incite members of organizations to take more radical actions than otherwise they would, so they can be arrested, and in particular one recent event wherein the policemen themselves actually built the devices the organization wound up using in their civil disobedience. Then I thought, "Okay, and now I'm an immortal gerontocrat who is only obliged to pay lip service to rule of law, in conspiracy with dozens of my fellows, all of similar means and similar lack of restraint. After all, we came to mars specifically so we could be oligarchs without laws restraining us." So then it was natural to turn it all the way up to [i]actually[/i] going ahead with full false-flag terrorism operations, operations for which credit was gleefully claimed, to so thoroughly discredit the Movement that only those who were fully radicalized and wanted to see the stack of every corporate executive burnt would willingly associate themselves with the Movement.

what shadow pointed out is not a very new concept. it is actually a very old one and fairly well known. the differences lie in the details and in ep's case the timeline. with EP you could set this in motion for the course of millenia so the changes and radicalizations occur very gradually so no one will notice the changes.

There's a reason False Flag ops are a classic: they're an absolute nightmare to counter, and EP tech makes things horrifically complex - specifically Psychosurgery. For the hostile party, it creates two major possibilities. Firstly, Infiltrators can be custom-formed to be ideologically and behaviorally favorable to the target group, and secondly it means that getting access to a group member or their backup allows them to be turned absolutely. Moreover, in both cases the subject can be altered so they don't know they're infiltrators. The options to counter these possibilities are limited. Checking the background of new members, or rechecking those members who gain power within the group is a basic measure, as is regular brainprint and PsyS inspection to search for signs of PsyS intrusion. A moderately effective measure in finding PsyS altered infiltrators is trying to purposely trigger any behavioral or memory blocks into activating: an example would be having the suspect "purposefully" leak information to the PC - if the suspect is an infiltrator, then the act of leaking information may be covered by the behavioral block, which would show observable behavioral symptoms - they may not be able to comprehend the task, or remember it afterwards. The real extreme is to use PsyS to enforce loyalty to the group, which would conflict with or counter other conditioning. The extent of the alteration needed to trigger programming conflicts, and so the acceptability and frequency of this tactic's use, is GM fiat*. Really, the most effective counter for False Flag shenanigans is already in play - the Movement is not a single group, so the effect of an infiltrator or "bad" cell can have is limited. It's also worth noting that there's nothing stopping the Movement from creating infiltrators either - all the same reasoning applies in both directions. Taken to the (infinity entertaining) extreme, this means that a given member can at any one moment be absolutely loyal to the PC, absolutely loyal to the Movement, or absolutely loyal to Both at the same time. To get philosophical, in this case the identities of the actual members becomes arbitrary and fluid... and the movement and PC become independent entities. ----- Come with me on this journey: Your PC-PCs are employed by A to investigate rumors that a Movement group is planning a "suicide" bombing. His Secretary B asks you to look out for their cousin C, who may have gotten mixed up in things. Though "methods" they meet the group leader D, along with bodyguards E and F. D lets slip that the bombing is real, but targeted at an illicit TITAN research lab. Inquiries into C reveal that C isn't a member of the Movement. The PCs meet an agent to pass along what they've learned... only to discover the agent is E(!), who remembers the meeting but has no idea what occurred. Confused, they return to thier employer, but he isn't there... but his partner F is, who has absolutely no idea what's going on. In order to clear things up, the PCs infiltrate the Cell's HQ, only to find that B is in charge, and C is following thier orders. Confronting them both, it turns out that they both remember the earlier meeting, but B thinks that they were D, and C was F - they remember the request into C's status, but neither of them connects the inquiry with C's identity. However, they discover that the bomber is in his way to the target, and after escaping begin thier pursuit - arriving just in time to see that the bomber is A, but too late to prevent detonation. They return to the PC office to report their failure... where they are met by D, who claims to be their employer. Your players all get massive confusion-based headaches, and you sit back and cackle maniacally. ---- *Lowest boundary - "Subject thinks other movement members have good taste in Hats"