un: lockwood - audio - Discussion post Threadjacking encouraged!

[recklessenough]

[ Having not been quite as discreet as perhaps he should have been when he visited Messalina, Lockwood has recently found himself on the wrong end of the stick when it comes to Caius Justus' orders and mandates. Lockwood isn't unused to being on the wrong end of the stick when it comes to authority figures, and while he's never had to seriously go underground to avoid being hauled in by the law, he at least knows how to keep his head down.

For the past few days, as Caius Justus has been upending the landscape, Lockwood has been observing from deeper shadows. Caius' first few moves had been alarming, but it had been the aggressive stance he'd ordered the Hand to take with its own civilians that had finally tipped the younger man towards his decision.

Lockwood uses audio for a few reasons. First and foremost, his voice always sounds older; particularly when it is separated from his youthful features. Second he's somewhere in the dark so no one was going to see anything anyway. Third ... it just seems safer not to provide any visual clues to his whereabouts. ]

Hello team. [ All these months, he still doesn't know what their little group calls themselves. ]

I'm not going to waste everyone's time with a long pontification. I know that we all had varying opinions regarding Messalina and her request of the Senate. All of us brought up good points in that argument, even if our views opposed. But now, I hope, we can all agree that events have now gone well beyond those discussions and have taken a turn that is alarming to us all.

Caius Justus is harming his own people through his use of the Hand. We have a dictator who now has the taste for absolute authority, in command of an enhanced army headed by an individual with a zealot's loyalty to said dictator. History has shown us, time and again, that a scenario like this never ends well and it is the innocents who suffer the most.

I had an opportunity to speak with Apollonius and I asked him about the Hand and Narula. In the spirit of transparency, I was looking for a way to separate the Hand from Narula. No luck on that score. What I did learn was that Narula's fanatical worship of Caius Justus is such that should he -Narula- suspect betrayal from Justus, he is going to react badly.

Initially I wasn't sure what leveraging this information might accomplish. But as Caius Justus continues to close an iron fist around this city, I think I have my answer. We need to drive a wedge between Narula and Caius Justus. We need to fracture Caius Justus' control over the city's military and help these people take back control of their Senate.

But I am only one voice and a move like this would need to be a group decision, as it will affect all of us and, well, frankly it may take all of us to mop up the aftermath IF we are able to come up with a way to implement this idea. As such I am reaching out to everybody who can hear through our network to ask;

Should we try to fracture the relationship between the head of the government and the leader of the military, and restore power to the Senate as a whole?

If yes, does anyone have any ideas about the best route to make Narula believe he's been betrayed by Caius Justus?

[OOC: This is the network post to help kick off the coup. Lockwood is making it, but it is meant to be a place for open discussions to please threadjack to your hearts' content!]

Comments

[blackscales]

Yes, at least one.

[ Ha Ha Ha, Wrathion thinks he's so funny. ]

The trouble is, I don't believe Narula comes to the senate itself. Nobody here likes him, and I don't expect he likes many of them beyond Caius Justus himself. Orders are sent to him. If we want him to overhear directly, it may take more elaborate arrangements.

[rehandle]

Narula doesn't need to hear it himself, just somebody with status and a tendency toward gossip to leak it before we start leaking it ourselves. That way if anybody around Narula tried to check on the legitimacy of the rumor, or Narula proved to need something more concrete than whispers, there's a source and not just shadows.

[blackscales]

You're assuming they will check.

They're frightened of him.

There's a high chance they will know he might do something unhinged if he finds out and will avoid him.

[rehandle]

Who's the 'they', our eavesdropper? It might have escaped your attention, but the Hand doesn't seem to care much for what other people do or do not want these days. They can avoid him all they like, if he wants to find them he will. Even if he doesn't, our people having somewhere to point if asked adds some weight to an otherwise baseless rumor. It's the closest we'll get to a paper trail.

I'm acknowledging they could check. Better to cover all bases than have to make a new plan on the fly, no?

[blackscales]

Everyone who isn't the Hand and Narula himself is scared of Narula. I'm only trying to suggest having someone directly ask him about the rumour isn't the main route forward when the majority would hear something that might upset him and take cover.

[rehandle]

[ Ah. He wasn't clear. ]

I'm proposing we have somebody within the senate who is likely to share what they hear with their own circle overhear somebody they believe to be Caius Justus discussing Narula's future.

That way, when we start the rumor ourselves and it takes hold, we can attribute it to having been started by someone legitimate if the Hand ever does go looking. Covers our backs.

If they don't go looking, no harm no foul.

[ When you've had the unfortunate life experience of being alive in the 21st and can never be normal about receipts again. ]

[blackscales]

[ Oh so it's nothing to do with getting the information to Narula? It's really just, in case anyone sees if... if anyone else has heard the rumour? ]

This feels like overkill, but I suppose you can.

[rehandle]

You really do think he'll just swallow whatever the rumor mill feeds him, no questions asked?

[ Asks Stephen Strange, victim of a recent successful whisper campaign. He desperately wants to believe it'll be harder than that. ]

[blackscales]

[ Speaking as a perpetrator of a recent, successful whisper campaign: ]

It's all in how you sell it. With the right balance of vague and detail, I don't see why he wouldn't.