The SA is not a free agent. It's not his plan to invite the avatar of the Black Pharaoh to take over the government. He may agree with the plan; he may have recommended the plan, but it's the board that made the decision. So there's another layer of bureaucratic control above the Auditors.
While the SA made a "deal with the devil" in arranging for the Black Pharaoh to escape from the Tower & seize power, that's not the threat to his soul he's most worried about. It's Bob.
And exactly which devil did the SA made a deal with? Maybe it's not the Black Pharaoh himself, but Iris, brought back to be the intermediary between the Laundry and its new master? Iris wasn't being held in pretrial detention at Camp Sunshine.
Iris was “Detained Indefinitely at Her Majesty's Pleasure” ... "a life sentence pursuant to a criminal trial and verdict handed down by the Black Assizes."
The SA may be no happier than Bob is to see Iris again.
Forecasting Ops predicted Mo would die if it came to a confrontation between the Black Pharaoh's avatar and the Sleeper's minions. It's Bob's regard for Mo's high opinion that keeps him in control.
The SA's not afraid of what the Black Pharaoh will do to him, he's afraid of what Bob will do if he thinks the SA got Mo killed; or how Bob might react when he finds out Iris is not only back but on top.
]]>As an aside on Bobs/EoS power levels I do agree that Bob is probably underestimating his own abilities at the end - Heathrow is nearly 5 square miles which puts a pretty big upper limit of Strategic EoS! Neither of the other avatars have demonstrated the remote soul harvesting that Bob can do. I'm guessing there is a reason for that - they can't. It's probably an EoS's special ability just like the Mandates is Charisma +20. Suspect Bob is still ultimately lower powered than both the Inner Temple Avatars and the Mandate if only for the fact that he wants to believe he's still human.
Having said that Bob "detonated" in a dense place E.g. London, NYC, Hong Kong probably has the power to hit the 5m soul mark to raise the Sleeper immediately! So Bob being used as a Soul battery is probably now a major risk, counteracted of course by the fact that trying to use Bob like that is probably decidedly risky for all involved.
It also suggests a 'happy' ending for the series with Bob as god-guardian of the UK powered by the sacrifice ~10% of the population.
]]>Bob, Johnny and Seph can't be seen by Schiller so can't be at the party; Seph is the expert at infiltration/burglary so gets the apartment; Bob/Johnny get the airport as kicking in the doors of a bent arms importer is the most likely target to need explosions and retail-level killing.
On the SA: he's scared of far more than Bob. He's got the BP, the Sleeper, the Black Chamber run amok, Benthic treaty violations and a camp full of elves. He used to play Lecter if I remember correctly. At this point he'd probably welcome Bob/EoS leveling up to the point where he can take on the Mandate, screw the fallout.
]]>On another subject, is there an inconsistency in the name of the cult that Iris Carpenter led? I thought it was the Brotherhood of the a Black Pharaoh, but later books seem to refer to at as the Cult of the Red Skull.
]]>"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.
]]>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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