The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
Team UMO: a theory, for reference purposes
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--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on March 13, 2014, 05:21:44 PM ---One thing I really want to know is whether it is possible for a being with intellectus to deliberately avoid thinking of a specific question in order not to have the answer. I am inclined to think not, and I think that has implications for how much Uriel knows about Harry's likely reaction to their conversations given that Uriel kind of has to be thinking about talking to Harry while actually talking to Harry.
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Hmm, Can an Angel practice denial? Interesting Question. In a case like Harry's intellectus, Id say its easily possible, all one would have to do is trust their own assumptions. But if Uriel's Intellectus is as broadly emcompassing as I think, and more importantly he is a being that has never NOT had it, then is it even possible for him to make an "assumption"? But if his every possible thought is instantly verified by the Intellectis Akashic Universal Truth, where does his personality and individuality come in? Why is he not simply a personification of the Universe itself? Or is that what his boss is?
--- Quote ---If some degree of pooling underlying intelligence is accepted, then information any one team member gets from intellectus is plausibly available to any team member.
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See thats where you loose me, because you make the leap from "Some degree of information sharing" to "All available information resources are freely available to all member at all times". NOBODY shares information that freely. And in Mab's case at least she is fundamentally incapable of it, because her nature requires an exchange of equal value every time.
--- Quote ---I am positing Nicodemus, the host, counting as a minion of Uriel in this context, in a way not directly connected to anything Anduriel is doing. (And in a way he maybe hopes to parlay into sainthood; an incidental but vital role in saving the universe during the BAT by preparing Harry might not be a bad start towards that objective.)
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Do you see much distinction between Minion and Catspaw? Because to me Minion implies that both parties are knowingly and willingly participating. I could see Nic being Played by Uriel, But Im not as much as a willing subordinate. The Sainthood thing offers a motive for him cooperate when he otherwise probably wouldnt, but I personally took his Sainthood aspirations to be more about Heaven getting a change of Leadership that would have a different set of Chosen. (which would also be scarily cool)
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on March 13, 2014, 05:08:03 PM ---I don't have the text to hand, being in work right now; are you sure of that ? I thought that conversation came just after Harry mentioning that he'd had a long conversation with Bob that isn't in the text verbatim, implicitly about events we've already seen, and that the point I made in the original post about Uriel's reaction to being summoned and how that pushes Harry towards choosing to summon Mab could well be relevant there. I'm not recalling that the excessive winter confirming mab is around in Chicago was in that conversation at all, though I could well be wrong/
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Yup, I looked it up after reading your post:
the complete conversation:
(click to show/hide)
--- Quote ---“Okay,” I said. “Lemme catch you up on what I know.” I filled Bob in on everything since the train tunnel. I didn’t hold back much of anything. Bob was smart enough to fill in the vast majority of gaps if I left anything out anyway, and he could compile information and deduce coherent facts as well as any mind I had ever known. And besides . . . he was my oldest friend. He listened, his gold brown eyes intent, completely focused on me. “Wow,” he said when I’d finished. “You are so completely fucked.” I arched an eyebrow at him and said, “How do you figure?” He rolled his eyes. “Oh, where do I start? How about with the obvious? Uriel.”
“Uriel,” I said. “What?”
“A wizard tied in with a bunch of really elemental sources of power dies, right after signing off on some deals that guarantee he’s about to become a whole Hell of a lot darker—capital letter intended—and there’s this sudden”—he made air quotes with his fingers—“ ‘irregularity’ about his death. He gets sent back to the mortal coil to get involved again. And you think an angel isn’t involved somewhere? Remember. Uriel is the black-ops guy of the archangels. He’s conned the Father of Lies, for crying out loud. You think he wouldn’t scam you?”
“Uh,” I said. I felt a little thick. “See?” Bob said. “Your first tiny piece of flesh-free existence, and already you’re lost without me.” I shook my head. “Look, man, I’m just . . . just a spirit now. This is just, like, paperwork I’m getting filled out before I catch the train to Wherever.” Bob rolled his eyes again and snorted. “Oh, sure it is. You get sent back here just as the freaking Corpsetaker is setting herself up as Queen of Chicago, getting ready to wipe out the defenders of humanity—such as they are—here in town, and it’s just a coincidence, business as usual.” He sniffed. “They’re totally playing you.”
“They?” I said. “Think about it,” Bob said. “I mean, stop for a minute and actually think. I know it’s been a while.”
“Winter,” I said. “Snow a foot deep at the end of spring. Queen Mab.”
“Obviously,” Bob said. “She’s here. In Chicago. Somewhere. And because, duh, she’s the Winter Queen, she brought winter with her.” He pursed his lips. “For a few more days anyway.” Bob was right. Mab might flaunt her power in the face of the oncoming season, but if she didn’t back down, her opposite number, Titania, would come for her—at the height of summer’s power, the solstice, if previous patterns held true. “Harry, I don’t want to comment about your new girlfriend, but she’s still here six months after you got shot? Seems kind of clingy.”
“Wait,” I said. “You’re saying that Mab and Uriel are in on something. Together. The Queen of Air and Darkness, and a flipping archangel.”
“We live in strange times,” Bob said philosophically. “They’re peers, of a sort, Harry. Hey, word is that even the Almighty and Lucifer worked a deal on Job. Spider-Man has teamed up with the Sandman before. Luke and Vader did the Emperor. It happens.”
“Spider-Man is pretend and doesn’t count,” I said. “You start drawing distinctions like this now?” Bob asked. “Besides, he’s real. Like, somewhere.” I blinked. “Um. What?”
“You think your universe is the only universe? Harry, come on. Creation, totally freaking huge. Room enough for you and Spider-Man both.” He spread his hands. “Look, I’m not a faith guy. I don’t know what happens on the other side, or if you wind up going to a Heaven or Hell or something reasonably close to them. That isn’t my bag. But I know a shell game when I see one.” I swallowed and pushed a hand back through my hair. “The Fomor’s servitors. Corpsetaker and her gang. Even Aristedes and his little crew. They’re pieces on the board.”
“Just like you,” Bob agreed cheerfully. “Notice anyone else who pushed you a space or two recently? By which I mean that you only recently noticed.” I scowled. “Other than everyone around me?”
“I was sort of thinking about the one behind you,” Bob said. His expression grew suddenly serious. “The Walker.” I took a slow breath. He Who Walks Behind. It was only now, looking back at my crystalline memories and applying what I’d learned during my adult lifetime since they happened, that I could really appreciate what had gone on that night. The Walker had never been trying to kill me. If it had wanted to do that, it didn’t need to play with me. It could simply have appeared and executed me, the way it had poor Stan at the gas station. It had been trying to push me, to shape me into something dangerous—like maybe a weapon. Like maybe the same way Justin had. I had always assumed that Justin had controlled He Who Walks Behind, that my old master had sent him after me when I fled. But what if I’d been a flipping idiot? What if their relationship had worked the other way around? What if Justin, who had betrayed me, had similarly been backstabbed by his own inhuman mentor, when the creature had, in essence, prepared me to destroy Justin? “Lotta really scary symmetry there,” I whispered. “Yeah,” Bob said, still serious. “You are in a scary place, Harry.” He took a deep breath. “And . . . it gets worse.”
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(this is where they veer off into Body/Spirit/Soul philosophy, so ill cut there)
Bob is specifically saying that he only thinks Mabs' involved simply because she is in town, and seems to be specifically saying that IF they are working together its more of a one-time Marvel team-up sort of deal. He goes on to say that in the same way all the players are involved (Fomor, servators, Aristedes) but not that they are all on the same team, just on the same gameboard.
Fangz:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on March 13, 2014, 05:11:16 PM ---That would require a remarkable lack of forethought from interests both of whom have definite connection with Harry's life before then, and both of whom are supposedly to be some combination of superhumanly intelligent and foresighted.
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Not a lack of forethought, maybe they just weren't playing attention. Both of them have a lot of balls to juggle. Michael was 'off the clock', while Harry was a personal interest of Lea, and Lea might be withholding details from Mab.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Fangz on March 13, 2014, 07:47:10 PM ---Not a lack of forethought, maybe they just weren't playing attention. Both of them have a lot of balls to juggle.
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I think your assessment of how their capacities compare with the amount of stuff they have to follow is very different from mine, then. I can entirely see Mab and Uriel both keeping track of many orders of magnitude more things at any given time than any human could.
--- Quote --- Michael was 'off the clock',
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When he first met Harry ? I don't recall anything specifying that.
--- Quote --- while Harry was a personal interest of Lea, and Lea might be withholding details from Mab.
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At very least Mab knows enough about Harry to know it's worth obtaining a hold on Harry from Lea between GP and SK. I have difficulty imagining his existence and a rough idea of his capacities being unknown to her considering that Maggie was so familiar with Faerie as to get a whole new surname from it; on the whole it seems more plausible to me that Mab was aware of whatever plans Maggie was into from early on.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: ballplayer72 on March 13, 2014, 05:48:04 PM ---Yeah putting it in chicago more than a 1000 years before america is even thought about seems to indicate some long term planning to me as well.
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Either that or he had something really big going on with the mound-builder civilisations that failed spectacularly, I suppose.
(Nicodemus with his plague habit connected to collapse and death of native American cultures on contact with European diseases ? The Little Ice Age starting when all those Native Americans weren't using fires and in many cases slash-and-char agriculture and ending when the Industrial Revolution started replenishing those greenhouse gases again as an echo of stuff going on in Faerie ? Interesting direction, but not enough ahd data to go on.)
--- Quote ---In PG I think it was, Thomas notes he can SENSE the wild hunt coming from afar. He mentions he'd been "different" IIRC since joining up.
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OK, I had forgotten that, and that certainly counts as a boost more than just psychological.
--- Quote --- And further into WN he is 2nd only to lara who is CENTURIES his senior. That's quite a boost. I always figured the Hunt had a little something to do with it.
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I don't think we have any real evidence to distinguish that from Thomas always having been that good and just going to great lengths to hide it, though. It's pretty clear that he's been doing the "useless party animal" act for a long time to avoid being taken as a threat. (I can see Maggie planning Thomas being as strong a White Court vampire as she could make him, and being born on Valentine's Day seems like it should give him a boost there too.)
Tami Seven:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on March 13, 2014, 08:10:50 PM ---Either that or he had something really big going on with the mound-builder civilisations that failed spectacularly, I suppose.
(Nicodemus with his plague habit connected to collapse and death of native American cultures on contact with European diseases ? The Little Ice Age starting when all those Native Americans weren't using fires and in many cases slash-and-char agriculture and ending when the Industrial Revolution started replenishing those greenhouse gases again as an echo of stuff going on in Faerie ? Interesting direction, but not enough ahd data to go on.)
OK, I had forgotten that, and that certainly counts as a boost more than just psychological.
I don't think we have any real evidence to distinguish that from Thomas always having been that good and just going to great lengths to hide it, though. It's pretty clear that he's been doing the "useless party animal" act for a long time to avoid being taken as a threat. (I can see Maggie planning Thomas being as strong a White Court vampire as she could make him, and being born on Valentine's Day seems like it should give him a boost there too.)
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My own personal assumption was that the Erlking and the Wildhunt targeted Thomas in DB in order to get even with Harry. However, and here is a wild thought. Maybe the Erlking, like Mab, has been in on this whole Starborn thing from the beginning. Maybe the Erlking knew, not only that Thomas was Harry's brother, but that not only was it important for the Starborn to be stronger, but that it was important for the Starborn's brother to be stronger as well.
What if the Erlking took advantage of an opportunity to go after Thomas in order to give him the choice, hide, flee or join. Getting Thomas to join, meant that the Erlking could influence him in such a way as to give him a power boost.
Then there is the Archive (Not necessarily Ivy), who might also be in on this in her own way. Choosing Thomas to be a Venator meant giving him a pathway to becoming stronger as well.
Of course, Mab seems to think she has rights over, not only Harry but Thomas also. Who knows where that might lead.
Maybe this is bigger than we realize, only we don't see the whole picture yet.
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