"Worried", not "frightened". Still, anyone in that situation who said they were not afraid would be a damned liar. Afraid or not, you just have to soldier on.
The SA has concerns far beyond whether Bob is going to eat his soul. He has to worry about what happens if Bob loses Mo; not just what happens to himself, but to everyone else ... EVERYONE else!
Mo is Bob's reality check - the touchstone that lets Bob retain his sanity (such as it is) and not give over entirely to the Eater of Souls. What happens if Bob loses that touchstone? Having his own soul eaten is the least of the SA's worries about what Bob might do if he once and forever lets loose his inner "demon". Yet, despite the risk, despite what Forecast Ops told him, the SA had to put Mo in play.
That conversation with Bob in the parking lot is a last ditch attempt to prepare Bob; to insulate him from further shocks that lay ahead ... e.g. Bob finding out about Iris or finding that Mo is no longer entirely human.
The SA is still trying to strengthen Bob's hold on the last threads of his humanity, even as he (the SA) knows he's possibly headed for the chopping block.
]]>But, on the subject of Mo being Bob's reality check: I think it's worth noting that actually, as long as Mo isn't threatened, Bob finds the temptation of going all-out on the soul eating somewhat manageable. Exhausting, yes, but not impossible to resist. (I'm assuming that just as CNG increases the EoS's power level, so it increases Bob's own sorcerous capabilities; his ability to control the Eater so far seems to have grown in measure with the Eater's power.)
Bob's 'human' ethics and priorities are still well in place throughout most of the book. He's somewhat sickened when he kills the people tailing him at the beginning; he's devastated when he accidentally kills the tank crew. He also really doesn't enjoy killing people during the shootout at the warehouse, and reacts with ire when it's suggested he should kill more, faster.
It's only the fact that Mo is in danger that (almost) pushes him over the edge, at the end of the book. Only then does he finally, suddenly, slip into "actually, mass murder is fine, because MO!" (thankfully still followed by "actually, maybe not, also because Mo.")
So Bob's attachment to Mo is an extremely double-edged sword. It's true that the thought of her helps him keep it together when he's losing it. BUT, absolutely crucially, it's also the though of her that catalyses him into losing it in the first place!
Mo isn't Bob's moral centre; he's perfectly capable of moral judgment without her, as evidenced by the first three quarters of the book. Rather, she is something much more dangerous, in Bob's moral and emotional world: she is the person he would do ANYTHING to save. (I'm using all-capitals here advisedly.)
And you really, really don't want someone/something with Bob's power level to have someone - as in, just one person rather than a whole bunch, or better yet, the whole of humanity - that they would do ANYTHING to save...
It's all fine...ish, as long as it comes with the in-built safety-switch of Mo's emotional and moral attachment to humanity. But what happens if that ever begins to... slip?
If the Laundry had any sense, they would make it a top priority right now - yes, even in the early ramping-up phase of CNG - to get Bob and Mo not just some heavy-duty counseling (though that would be a fantastic idea, too), but a fair amount of spare time - and to tell them in no uncertain terms that they were to use that spare time to reconnect not just with each other, but also with their friends and family (because Bob and Mo do have some living family and friends!) Bob, and maybe also Mo, may be of questionable humanity now, but if they are monsters, they are - for now - still monsters with very human social ties. And strengthening those ties, rather than letting crisis after crisis erode them, may very well end up being crucial to the "war effort"... because it may decide whose side they will choose, eventually.
(Personally, I'd like to see Pete the Vicar leveraged by the narrative here... He's interacted with them curiously little since he entered the Laundry, despite the fact that he only ended up in the Laundry because he's their friend! I'd like to actually see him being a friend a bit more, here!)
]]>But. Man. Still seems like, looking at the bigger picture here, it would make eminent sense to let a few metaphorical houses low-key burn down (or let some areas be conquered by kaiju/undead horrors/chupacabras/whatever), just to give the two of them a chance to rediscover their ties to humanity before it's Too Late (tm).
]]>(I neeeeeeeeed to reread but half of my books are on loan to various friends and acquaintances, arrrrgh.)
]]>Bob wasn't thinking too clearly about damage to Mo or their relationship at the end of The Rhesus Chart. At the start of TDB Mhari has to prod Bob into contacting Mo to 'talk'. Neither of them was willing to put down their eldritch parasite if saving their relationship came at the cost of hindering the Laundry's defense of the land. I'm not sure that Bob prioritizes Mo's safety over anything else in the world, he isn't valuing a single individual over various CASE NIGHTMAREs. He does care a lot for her and based on a few clues through the book has some guilt over not helping her previously.
Leading up to the snap at Heathrow he: - had planned the op, putting Mo in danger at his design for the first time - had received orders from the SA to provide support at the House (emphasized in the text, the geas is in play) - finally reconnected with Mo after an extended separation - coming down from the action adrenaline high of the battle When the police charge in Bob is blindsided at a weak time when his defenses against the EoS are relaxed. The scene shows more about his constant fight not to feed and how close he is to his own breakdown (and I'm sure Bob and all the rest of the gang are aware of just how much fun they would have if he ever lost it. Probably a design flaw having Bob still in there with the EoS, safer if the host was mindless in an Angleton/TEAPOT kind of way). Perfect storm, sets us up for the upcoming drama of Mo's new post-survival state.
]]>CASE NIGHTMARE * => Bob and Mo losing each other.
We'll never know how much they care about everyone else unless something is actually worth losing each other for. Eldritch parasites effectively feed on the threat created by other eldritch entities.
Smaller scale, but I've been on the edge of that one and it's fair to say the results were personality-changing.
]]>Except it was degraded because of budget loss, but did I recall a line in there somewhere about retired engineers giving their time voluntarily to bring it back online? I can't remember back to the book this facility was first mentioned in, but wasn't it a Bombcorde? Or was it a Vulcan? Because we've seen one of those be brought back to flight status by volunteers.
Anyway - even if BP is now 'The Crown', then it's been noticeably dropped in that there's still the Duchy of Cornwall which can order a nuke, AND there's a Chekov's Nuclear Armed Dimension Hopping Bomber around somewhere being worked on...
So... the Final Battle could well be Sleeper+USA vs BP+SA+UKgovt vs EoS+CANDID+SAS/SRS+S666+PHANGs+Pseph+BLUEHADES+HoAoD and... er... vs Cthulhu...
]]>But anyway, in the Laundryverse 666 Sqdn are still operating their Concorde PR3s and B4 (original source being Charlie himself; I assigned the type numbers to fit in with the original T1 (Civil spec transport) and B2 (real life paper project; painting appeared on one of the 1960s RAF year books carrying 3 Blue Steels)).
]]>2:15AM Got up to finish my Brief.
Like you said, starts out funny (very) and then turns dark (very).
Fabulous.
]]>Wasn't the sleeper supposed to be a servant, not rival, of the black pharoah? Or did it escape it's bonds?
Considering the aquatic themes, undead allusion to Jesus, implied deep one cultists, dreams, songs, and especially the sleeping in the pyramid (via colder war), isn't the sleeper Cthulhu?
Great old ones like cthulhu are generally portrayed as several orders of magnitude less dangerous than outer Gods like shub niggurath, hastur, and nyarlathotep -- which makes sense if a rebellious Cthulhu is the sleeper, but not if it's the "greater threat" in the US. Is stross redefining the pantheon here?
Seriously, where the hell are the deep ones and cthonians during this and the downfall of alfheim? It's indicated in codex that deep ones are familiar with the sleeper (lending support to sleeper being Cthulhu), but they seem to have no interest in the sleeper remanifesting on midgard?
Also, the indication that GP -hadnt- taken over the US flew over my head. Can anyone pointe toward where it's indicated?
]]>If high class entities can eat the information from space time itself, and ymir was (judging by effort put into summoning) lower class than the sleeper, hastur, or black pharoah, how come the home dimensions for those horrors aren't just as shriveled?
And that again brings up the deep ones and cthonians -- why would they be letting idiot monkeys go around summoning the end of reality, as with niflheim? What's going on -there- that humans are able to get away with this shit?
]]>Here's my contribution: Their baby will become the Eschaton. He will teleport 90% of the population away, lowering the amount of souls/minds on Earth, without the need for a mass slaughter, thereby ending Case Nightmare Green.
This will force you to write another Eschaton book, to my great pleasure. :)
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