The Intolerable Clock: A Non-Canon Hexarchate RPG

[oops Alaric beat me to replying; reposting here.]

Virmad is — possibly visibly; certainly visibly to Sulen — struggling to balance his personal feelings on this matter against his professional — ? when did he start thinking of himself as a professional rebel? — assessment of the situation as a member of the Rebellion.

“To address Alaric’s question,” Virmad interjects, “if the Heptarchate can be defeated, or at least held at bay, by a small client state — which, given the distance any additional forces would have to travel to get here if Jedao and his swarm are removed as factors, seems like a plausible outcome of an assassination — that could both leave it open to external challenges and exacerbate the internal contradictions that let heresies spread in the first place.” The part of him that still thinks like a magistrate is pleased with the phrase “internal contradictions”, borrowed from some borderline heretical Liozh political economist he read years ago.

“On a pragmatic note,” he continues, “I’m not sure I’m convinced that sending multiple assassins is more likely to succeed in the first place than one was. Granted, the Lanterners may not be the only assassins operating at this conference, although they’ll probably be the only ones targeting Jedao, but still — more assassins, especially more assassins with the same target, means more chances of drawing his attention. It’s also possible, as we discussed earlier” — he nods to Sasha — “that this is precisely Quill’s intention. Jedao won the war, if you can call it ‘winning’, while recovering from the effects of a botched shattergun assassination attempt. If they can draw his attention to the assassins and prevent that damage, who knows what he might accomplish while clear-minded? It was always speculated that his actions at Hellspin might have been connected with the aftereffects of the assassination attempt, although there was never any conclusive evidence either way, at least not in public. Even if Quill does want us to succeed, it may be a tactic to galvanize the Heptarchate into committing more forces to this conflict, which while logistically challenging wouldn’t be strictly impossible, and, depending on the aggressiveness of the response, might simply mean an even more efficient and total genocide of the Lanterners. I hope I speak for all of us when I say I wouldn’t want to see that.”

He stops for a moment to breathe and weigh his words before continuing.

“Shuos Jedao” — his heart is pounding in spite of himself — “is dangerous, no doubt. But he’s also an unknown and variable quantity, as my speculations about the implications of his death may have illustrated. I would say it’s between ‘difficult’ and ‘impossible’ to predict the political and calendrical implications of what we’re being asked to do. This assassination plan seems...” He searches for the right word. “...Ill-advised, especially when we don’t trust Quill’s motivations. But doing nothing will attract attention we don’t want from our ‘superiors’ and their other agents here. I wish we had a better sense of Jedao himself, beyond the historical record.” He gestures a little helplessly. “If there were a third way...”

[sorry for this WALL of text and also sorry for being so bad at posting! Virmad has a lot of thoughts and feelings and most of them are that he REALLY doesn't want them to kill Jedao (he wants to meet him, ideally!) but also doesn't want to totally compromise his position in Sasha and Sulen's eyes, so he doesn't feel that he can advocate strongly for anything other than "wait and observe" at the moment, unless someone else suggests something first.

for my part, out of character, I don't trust Quill, but the theory I REALLY WANT to believe is precisely that Hellspin is connected with the shattergun aftereffects, so Quill wants the assassination attempt to fail so that Jedao will still be alive and active when the Liozh heresy begins and can throw his support behind the Liozh. I'd be extremely down for a kidnapping. my biggest goal for this mission, I would say, is to have Virmad and Jedao meet in some capacity.

also yes I did mean to vaguely imply that there's a Liozh political economist who's halfway to inventing Marxism.]