kaolinandbone

"Naturally," Miles agrees. "In theory the keeper could help us there, although I've been reluctant to direct her attention to the World of Darkness just yet in case she becomes deeply offended by it while it's still a raging clusterfuck. I can't help thinking Esthfora might have something to contribute too."

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Aisilian - stares at the ceiling for a moment. "Esthfora... perhaps. She does speak of herself as 'a part of the concept of a mind,' after all.

"The keeper, absolutely."

"But, ah - pardon me, my minor tantrum appears to have gotten us off track. I did have a general sense of a plan, after all." He smiles a bit at that, self-deprecatingly.

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"By all means, continue," says Miles.

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greatcomposure

Cordelia sits down to listen, although she seems inclined to let her son do most of the talking.

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Aisilian nods.

"The ultimate goal is to cause a powerful local caster inside the Gauntlet, a relay for my power outside the Gauntlet, and a Consensus opinion of general optimism to coincide. Under these conditions, it should be possible to write that general optimism into the metacausality of the World of Darkness.

"As currently planned, that local caster will be another shard of myself. It could feasibly be replaced with another, but it would need to be someone with the mental flexibility to pick up an enlightenment-focused, actively-oppositional magic system in a reasonably short amount of time. ... In some ways, Esthfora might be perfect, but I doubt she is human enough to attract an Avatar."

"At any rate - the biggest problem here is that of Consensus. The easiest way to sway opinion on that scale will be through mass media - blockbuster, optimistic films or books released at or around the same time. Ideally, they would simply be mundanely well-written, but I am mildly inclined to tread towards memetic engineering for something this important. Mass media will not, however, meaningfully affect large swaths of, say, Africa; other approaches will be necessary there. I will return to this later.

"Gaining control of mass media outlets is, needless to say, difficult. The nature of the Ascension War ensures that such things are under very tight control by the Syndicate, and for reasons both selfish and altruistic, they will be extremely unlikely to release any of that control to us.

"However - there is another avenue. As the center for so many hopes and dreams, there is another Hollywood, another New York City, another Tokyo. Spirit-shadows, places where the spirits of the characters walk amidst sets brought to life, they nevertheless exert acausal control over their real-world counterparts, and inserting a doctored film in any of these places will have the same effect as showing it directly. And as below, so above - these places are controlled by the Residents, Control's spirit-counterpart to the Syndicate.

"Unlike the Technocracy, the Residents do not have common sense. They cannot have common sense; they must act according to our nature. In theory, if we were willing to pay their price, the Residents must sell the rights to us. Of course, in practice, they can very well name a price we would be unwilling to pay - or worse, one that we might pay only for it to come back to haunt us.

"Nevertheless, Threat Null has its own weak point. I do not mean Control; the codes for Conditioning are likely the single most heavily guarded secret in that entire world. I mean the Transhumans, the ex-Progenitors. The only Convention of Threat Null that still believes themselves benevolent.

"Them, I think, we might negotiate with. They will be using us, of course; they will not and cannot be satisfied with anything we would be able to offer. But, with the right wrangler," and here he nods at Miles, "perhaps it could be done. And then we can use internal influence. Perhaps a minor box office showing, that we then manipulate into being a surprise hit..." He shakes his head. "Something like that."

"That is the plan in space. On the ground, meanwhile, other groundwork will need to be laid. Though I have assumed we will be unable to entirely bring the Technocracy on-side, perhaps we might be able to reach a detente with them; if we are to sneak a surprise blockbuster under the noses of the Residents, who are magically and superhumanly competent at detecting such things, we will absolutely need as little opposition as possible. In that regard, we will need to secure, at least, the non-interference of the Traditions, the Technocracy, and the Peerage, a certain amount of defenses against the Illuminated and the Nephandi, and ideally the total ignorance of the Kindred, though I do not know how likely that may be. We will also need to begin to address the problems of those nations too poor to be effectively influenced by media; for political reasons, it would unfortunately probably be best if we found a way to create an impression of positive change without actually disturbing the fragile peace in those regions, as their lack of affluence is generally due to tensions in the Ascension War in that region."

"In short: the bare minimum crew consists of Leaf and myself outside the Gauntlet, with Leaf influencing Hollywood, Bollywood, New York City, and Tokyo through the Residents through the Transhumans. Leaf's brother and myself inside the Gauntlet, with probably a few months of lead-up getting Africa into shape, with Leaf's brother corralling the various human factions who could control mass media, and myself mastering enough of the local magic to pierce the Gauntlet from the inside and then providing an anchor to convert my incoming metacausal spell into something the local Consensus can accept.

"Obviously, this contingent could do with a little less fragility, and a little less depending on two people, no matter how competent they may be."

Aislian smiles, a little sheepishly. "In honor of bringing light to the Darkness, I propose we name this Operation Genesis."

Edited Date: 2015-06-10 01:46 am (UTC)

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...Miles snrks.

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greatcomposure

Cordelia giggles.

Edited Date: 2015-06-10 01:54 am (UTC)

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Aisilian smiles. "And the Magi say: let there be light...'"

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"Well, count me in," says Miles. "And we'll see about refining that strategy."

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greatcomposure

"I could lend a hand," Cordelia suggests.

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Aisilian nods, smiling slightly. It's good to have a team.

"There is always room for more powerful mages. ... so long as they don't try to turn your slippers into chickens."

And then it is refinement time.

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And away Aisilian goes. Once he's well clear, the kobold emerges from her bush and approaches Miles, nudging him for scritches when she gets there.

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Scritch scritch.

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Much better.

"Miles okay? Human do of talk of Miles is rude of human."

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"Yeah, I'm fine. He didn't upset me."

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Nod. "Good." (Is this a kobold who is still considering biting the rude human? It sure looks like it.)

"Human do of rude of other of person, am think is reason of do of careful of human."

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Scritch scritch. "Yeah? Who else was he rude to? Careful like how?"

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"Rude of Astra - Astra no do of want of talk, human do of talk, not do of fight," she looks pointedly around at the lack of chaos, "but do of tiny of fight."

"Am see of Miles do of plan of human. Am think - plan maybe do of other of human, plan start, human do of rude of other human, other human no do of plan, plan do of need of other human, danger."

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