The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
The Watchers
groinkick:
--- Quote from: dspringer1 on February 14, 2018, 06:15:12 PM ---Ok there are a whole lot of assumptions people are making behind their arguments. Lets call them out:
1) There is a human (vanilla) agency that is collecting information on supernaturals (cannon). it is part of the library of congress. There are also mentions of other agencies like the Ventori which are mostly vanilla humans that monitor supernaturals (also cannon)
2) This agency has monitored supernaturals for hundreds of years (thousand of years)
3) This agency has a great deal of knowledge of the supernatural community.
4) This agency has access to 'black op" resources
5) This agency has some agenda beyond passive collection of information
6) This agency has access to significant amounts of useful magic (directly or via hired help)
These are a lot of assumptions and depending on how you answer them, you get a very different impact on the Dresden world. I think (historically) that most of these assumptions are wrong.
My personal assumption would be that this library of congress group has been around for several hundred years. They monitor supernatural activity, but are NOT part of the supernatural community. They have a fair bit of information, but probably get a fair number of facts wrong, and are not able to do much in the magic department. They probably have some texts and some stuff that does magic. The overall organization is small, but they have "some" informants in a number of places and ties to other organizations like the Ventori. The advent of the internet combined with the paranet has probably been a boom to them from the standpoint of making a bunch of fairly reliable information available to them. They are unlikely to have any detailed knowledge of any supernatural nation state or a lot of specific information on magic. They are NOT seen as a serious threat by the major (or moderate) supernatural nations, although many of these nations know these organizations exist.
There are a number of comparable groups out there, but not as many as you think. I think the Ventori are probably more dangerous (and more informed) than all these government or private groups combined. I do think the effectiveness, size and scope of this organization has increased significantly in the last decade or two as technology really boosted the info gathering abilities of these groups. I think the actions of the Formor have pushed these organizations to become more of a player (to defend US citizens if nothing else).
--- End quote ---
I do believe Jim said that nobody knows of their existence. They must be a reasonably large scale operation. Why? Because within virtually hours of a video of a werewolf being recorded they showed up and took the evidence. That's either luck, or they are very good at locating this kind of thing. To be that good usually requires a pretty good sized network of informants an intelligence gathering capabilities.
Why just a few hundred years? In Cannon humans have been killing wizards, and supernatural beings for a really long time. It's only in more modern times that humans stopped believing in it. Wouldn't it make sense that over a long period of time these groups grew, and modernized with the times, and what we have now is an end result of that growth?
Zohak:
library of congress most likely its roots in the library of Alexandria that a certain Merlin tried
to save. And Most likely have connections to Grey Council , and Beings of the The Higher order of things. because of this..
https://www.loc.gov/about/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Congress
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Minerva_of_Peace.jpg
https://www.loc.gov/item/2007684369/
https://www.loc.gov/visit/tours/online-tours/thomas-jefferson-building/main-reading-room/?loclr=bloglaw
http://wmmorrisfanclub.blogspot.com/2010/05/minerva-at-library-of-congress.html
Elihu Vedder's marble mosaic of Minerva of Peace, her armor laid aside, standing guard before the Main Reading Room and holding in her hand a scroll that lists the various disciplines of learning, science, and art
The men in black are the mortal authorities
The Ventori where more than likely where created by the The white court thousands of years ago As Cats Pawns considering that the two members are hight ranking WCvs.
Lara , Thomas , and possibly Lord Raith.
Lord Raith being One of the Founding members could of been how Lara got involved while
she was in his thrall.
The Circle has been been useing the ventori through raiths and The archive Ivy
as their deep cover agents ,spies, assassins, etc hence the Oblivion War headed by the archive trying to get reed of Shidhe that or the watching the gates.
Griffyn612:
--- Quote from: Zohak on February 15, 2018, 06:43:32 AM ---library of congress most likely its roots in the library of Alexandria that a certain Merlin tried
to save. And Most likely have connections to Grey Council , and Beings of the The Higher order of things. because of this..
https://www.loc.gov/about/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Congress
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Minerva_of_Peace.jpg
https://www.loc.gov/item/2007684369/
https://www.loc.gov/visit/tours/online-tours/thomas-jefferson-building/main-reading-room/?loclr=bloglaw
http://wmmorrisfanclub.blogspot.com/2010/05/minerva-at-library-of-congress.html
Elihu Vedder's marble mosaic of Minerva of Peace, her armor laid aside, standing guard before the Main Reading Room and holding in her hand a scroll that lists the various disciplines of learning, science, and art
The men in black are the mortal authorities
The Ventori where more than likely where created by the The white court thousands of years ago As Cats Pawns considering that the two members are hight ranking WCvs.
Lara , Thomas , and possibly Lord Raith.
Lord Raith being One of the Founding members could of been how Lara got involved while
she was in his thrall.
The Circle has been been useing the ventori through raiths and The archive Ivy
as their deep cover agents ,spies, assassins, etc hence the Oblivion War headed by the archive trying to get reed of Shidhe that or the watching the gates.
--- End quote ---
It might be interesting if there's another mosaic in the Dresdenverse LoC called Minerva of War, with her wearing her armor and prepared to fight. It'd have to be located outside the LoCSC war rooms, of course.
dspringer1:
--- Quote ---I do believe Jim said that nobody knows of their existence. They must be a reasonably large scale operation. Why? Because within virtually hours of a video of a werewolf being recorded they showed up and took the evidence. That's either luck, or they are very good at locating this kind of thing. To be that good usually requires a pretty good sized network of informants an intelligence gathering capabilities.
--- End quote ---
a) The supernatural nations themselves do this type of policing - and Harry himself suggested that they were the ones that took the tape and insured people considered it a fraud.
b) Anonymity and "a large scale operation" do not go together. Any large scale operation would be known to the supernatural nations as they do monitor governments. And the library of congress' budget is public knowledge.
c) Human nations do not believe supernaturals exist - or they would act differently. If they do not believe supernatural exist, then they will not spend the billions necessary to fund a supernatural focused agency. And if they did, they would have recruited every black cat captain in the various police forces - which means Murphy would have worked for them years ago. Hell the Church knows they exist, but their organization is still a skeleton organization as described by the good father.
--- Quote ---Why just a few hundred years? In Cannon humans have been killing wizards, and supernatural beings for a really long time. It's only in more modern times that humans stopped believing in it. Wouldn't it make sense that over a long period of time these groups grew, and modernized with the times, and what we have now is an end result of that growth?
--- End quote ---
It is a annex of the library of congress - which means a few hundred years old at most. Not saying that naturals have not been monitoring supernatural for longer, but this particular organization has probably not been around longer than that. The agency was almost certainly instigated by some people "in the know".
Keep in mind that intelligence agencies of any kind are a recent thing (few hundred years). Diplomats as a specific organization have only been around about 500 years. Prior to that (and outside the church), there really was just the nobility and the merchant princes and guilds (which is basically what the white council is). Agencies simply did not exist.
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