Post by Deleted on Jan 7, 2016 0:37:49 GMT -5
EIGHT DAYS AFTER GROUNDFALL:
Project SPARTACUS: T+203 Hours
Classified Presidential Briefing
Project SPARTACUS: T+203 Hours
Classified Presidential Briefing
Supplementary Report: Despite information blackout due to DOMINUS NOIR's destruction of all CIA and military assets and the thorough establishment of a No-Fly Zone over Khandaqi Airspace, (enforced through the vaporization of all airborne assets) intermittent information has come through due to the work of deniable assets still on the ground in Zone 6. The information is incomplete and unverifiable, however it is reported that asset ICARUS has made contact with local resistance groups and is using his own unique talents to empower local fighters and underground individuals.
The last report was provided through personal connections at [REDACTED] by WALL 23 hours ago:
WALL: ICARUS has made ground fall, contact made with local assets, [REDACTED] assets destroyed almost in entirety. Technology seized, infrastructure destroyed, local situation in shambles. DOMINUS Scenario Confirmed.
Local assets have secured high profile target. Further details were withheld due to operational security, although we can predict either interrogation or attempt to turn asset. Local media reports no missing people in the current administration, however the media is compromised and we have no other intelligence assets in country as of yet. Somehow everyone we have been sending in has been intercepted and terminated.
Followup report pending.
WALL: ICARUS has made ground fall, contact made with local assets, [REDACTED] assets destroyed almost in entirety. Technology seized, infrastructure destroyed, local situation in shambles. DOMINUS Scenario Confirmed.
Local assets have secured high profile target. Further details were withheld due to operational security, although we can predict either interrogation or attempt to turn asset. Local media reports no missing people in the current administration, however the media is compromised and we have no other intelligence assets in country as of yet. Somehow everyone we have been sending in has been intercepted and terminated.
Followup report pending.
Torture was an ineffective method to gain information, no matter what entertainment might tell you. It was a weakness of the human mind that assumed that authority coupled with the ability to inflict pain was enough to reshape a mind, to push punishment towards compliance. John Conroy explained the mentality of the torturer: "When torture takes place, people believe they are on the high moral ground, that the nation is under threat and they are the front line protecting the nation, and people will be grateful for what they are doing." Belief in the efficacy of the methodology stemmed from the basest of behavioral urges: A desire for an understandable world, a call to power, the desire to reshape the human mind and to force compliance.
Torture as a methodology was unmatched to create compliance, but for information gathering it was of limited effectiveness.
Lex Luthor stared through the glass at the man was chained hooded and naked to the bars in this underground cave in the midst of the Khandaqi desert. Carved into the rock, hidden from the enhanced senses of the Dominus Superior, the God King of Khandaq who had arisen from myth and history to retake his throne and to bring death and destruction with him, this cave was like a scrape into the mountain, a desperate shelter against a storm on a cliff. Teth Adam was no mere man, no mere king, but was more akin to an act of fate, unstoppable, impossible, tenacious and unpredictable as a lightning strike.
But, of course, Lightning strikes were not unpredictable, just very very complicated. With enough information, the lightning strike could be simulated, reproduced, captured and shaped to light homes and to power plastic toys, the might of Zeus channeled into a Prissy Peeing Princess Doll with Real Talking Sounds ($29.99 at all participating stores, from Schott Toys: A LexCorp Subsidiary). Information was important, and the people that Lex Luthor found himself among tended towards old fashioned techniques. They'd taken him from his home in the middle of the night, a work of extraordinary rendition, silent and with all evidence destroyed with the ruthless self sacrificing thoroughness that had impressed Lex Luthor as a child, before he ever sought his early apprenticeship with the Master of the Mountain.
Luthor had heard the details afterwards, how they infiltrated the staff, stolen the dental records from the man's dentist and used Luthor's 3D printer to craft perfect dentures, how a subtle replacement of a few gaskets in the basement allowed excess gas buildup, how they'd taken the man in his sleep then blew up the house with his wife and two children inside. One had even sacrificed themselves, remaining in the bed next to the wife, burning alive to preserve the secret, replacement implants in his jaw to fool any investigators. Thorough, terrifying, with ruthless and straightforward efficiency.
Salah Nejem was alone in a world that didn't know he still existed, trapped in the midst of a desert in a burning country with all his loved ones dead and gone to hide the fact that death would not come soon to him. Lex Luthor might even feel sorry for what they were about to put him through, if Lex Luthor were still capable of those sorts of emotional connections. Perhaps he could justify it: Nejem had grown wealthy under the new regime, taking the property and riches of many former political rivals who had all found themselves to be Traitors to the God King. Nejem had connections to many people in the new regime. For while the God King was mighty, he was not all seeing. While he was the final arbiter of all that was right and good and true in the Ancient and Future Theocracy of Khandaq, he still needed his high priests, even if they didn't call themselves that. Nejem was cunning, he was vicious, he was a high priest of a physical theocratic dictatorship, where the God Himself stepped down to rule with fear and power, and while Nejem kept his hands clean of the blood, he'd been proud . . . and thus had made himself a target of ruthless men and women.
Yes, Lex Luthor could almost justify what was to come, the ruthless necessity of it to neutralize a God. He could justify and drown out the sounds of Nejem's tearful prayers as he sobbed, as the blood dried on his flesh and the goose pimples from the sweat evaporating in the night air played off in the shadowy light. He could perhaps justify the knots and muscles and the burned marks where electricity had seared his flesh, where the muscles had twitched as the metal bars had batteries attached to them. Perhaps Nejem even deserved what had happened and what was to come as he muttered his prayers to Teth Adam. But justifications weren't relevant to Lex Luthor. Nejem was a means to an end, and everything else was irrelevant. But now that they had him, what to do with him?
He looked at the woman next to him, staring at the man through the glass. "So we have him. He's been beaten, deprived of rest, stripped naked and electrocuted, starved and left to the elements. Torture is not much of a means to gather information, but disorientation certainly is. We still don't know how he got the ear of Teth Adam, we don't know how it is they gathered the information to so clearly target our people, we don't know how it is he and his family survived this far. I'd say his prayers had something to do with it, but if that were the case, then Teth Adam would have struck here already." Luthor sat at the table, twirling the reinforced glass vial with his off hand, the liquid within moved with an undeniable sheen. He stopped and sighed and said "We still have Dr. Crane's sample if we want to finish disorientation, but there is the risk it will destroy his mind, and we won't be able to get any worthwhile intelligence out of him. I'll admit, Talia. I've a cunning intelligence to disorienting and shaping a mind, but it's not exactly my area of expertise."
Torture as a methodology was unmatched to create compliance, but for information gathering it was of limited effectiveness.
Lex Luthor stared through the glass at the man was chained hooded and naked to the bars in this underground cave in the midst of the Khandaqi desert. Carved into the rock, hidden from the enhanced senses of the Dominus Superior, the God King of Khandaq who had arisen from myth and history to retake his throne and to bring death and destruction with him, this cave was like a scrape into the mountain, a desperate shelter against a storm on a cliff. Teth Adam was no mere man, no mere king, but was more akin to an act of fate, unstoppable, impossible, tenacious and unpredictable as a lightning strike.
But, of course, Lightning strikes were not unpredictable, just very very complicated. With enough information, the lightning strike could be simulated, reproduced, captured and shaped to light homes and to power plastic toys, the might of Zeus channeled into a Prissy Peeing Princess Doll with Real Talking Sounds ($29.99 at all participating stores, from Schott Toys: A LexCorp Subsidiary). Information was important, and the people that Lex Luthor found himself among tended towards old fashioned techniques. They'd taken him from his home in the middle of the night, a work of extraordinary rendition, silent and with all evidence destroyed with the ruthless self sacrificing thoroughness that had impressed Lex Luthor as a child, before he ever sought his early apprenticeship with the Master of the Mountain.
Luthor had heard the details afterwards, how they infiltrated the staff, stolen the dental records from the man's dentist and used Luthor's 3D printer to craft perfect dentures, how a subtle replacement of a few gaskets in the basement allowed excess gas buildup, how they'd taken the man in his sleep then blew up the house with his wife and two children inside. One had even sacrificed themselves, remaining in the bed next to the wife, burning alive to preserve the secret, replacement implants in his jaw to fool any investigators. Thorough, terrifying, with ruthless and straightforward efficiency.
Salah Nejem was alone in a world that didn't know he still existed, trapped in the midst of a desert in a burning country with all his loved ones dead and gone to hide the fact that death would not come soon to him. Lex Luthor might even feel sorry for what they were about to put him through, if Lex Luthor were still capable of those sorts of emotional connections. Perhaps he could justify it: Nejem had grown wealthy under the new regime, taking the property and riches of many former political rivals who had all found themselves to be Traitors to the God King. Nejem had connections to many people in the new regime. For while the God King was mighty, he was not all seeing. While he was the final arbiter of all that was right and good and true in the Ancient and Future Theocracy of Khandaq, he still needed his high priests, even if they didn't call themselves that. Nejem was cunning, he was vicious, he was a high priest of a physical theocratic dictatorship, where the God Himself stepped down to rule with fear and power, and while Nejem kept his hands clean of the blood, he'd been proud . . . and thus had made himself a target of ruthless men and women.
Yes, Lex Luthor could almost justify what was to come, the ruthless necessity of it to neutralize a God. He could justify and drown out the sounds of Nejem's tearful prayers as he sobbed, as the blood dried on his flesh and the goose pimples from the sweat evaporating in the night air played off in the shadowy light. He could perhaps justify the knots and muscles and the burned marks where electricity had seared his flesh, where the muscles had twitched as the metal bars had batteries attached to them. Perhaps Nejem even deserved what had happened and what was to come as he muttered his prayers to Teth Adam. But justifications weren't relevant to Lex Luthor. Nejem was a means to an end, and everything else was irrelevant. But now that they had him, what to do with him?
He looked at the woman next to him, staring at the man through the glass. "So we have him. He's been beaten, deprived of rest, stripped naked and electrocuted, starved and left to the elements. Torture is not much of a means to gather information, but disorientation certainly is. We still don't know how he got the ear of Teth Adam, we don't know how it is they gathered the information to so clearly target our people, we don't know how it is he and his family survived this far. I'd say his prayers had something to do with it, but if that were the case, then Teth Adam would have struck here already." Luthor sat at the table, twirling the reinforced glass vial with his off hand, the liquid within moved with an undeniable sheen. He stopped and sighed and said "We still have Dr. Crane's sample if we want to finish disorientation, but there is the risk it will destroy his mind, and we won't be able to get any worthwhile intelligence out of him. I'll admit, Talia. I've a cunning intelligence to disorienting and shaping a mind, but it's not exactly my area of expertise."