What did Tricia know?

[tylik]

Just remembering to post this - its occurred to me occasionally, but usually not when I have time and am near a computer.

So Chaz used the mirror to tell Tricia that Daphne was gone.

Now, aside from any possible problems with that as a confirmation system (and as little as I trust the anomaly, I'm happy to grant that Chaz knows his own limits) that kind of implies that Tricia had some knowledge of Chaz's anomabilities. Which makes sense, considering how much he time he spent with her and Daphne, but it also raises some interesting questions.

What is the security situation around the anomaly - and what is the unofficial one, if that's different from the official one? What does Ben know (he seems less socially involved than Tricia was)? What does Grant know? How much have the families of Idlewood inmates been told? How much are other random people whose lives have been affected told? (Daphne, after all, joined the team specifically because she had been told a bit about the anomaly after her own experience.)

It seems like there are all these potential reservoirs of information floating around. And, of course, now we know that people are starting to network. So, what's out there?

[DavidG]

Good question.

Total security is difficult, you can't not talk about work without it drawing a reaction. This is doubly difficult when work is traumatic enough that you bring the emotional aftermath home with you.

I've been security cleared, if not to any great level, it does create the odd moment when you're having to think on the fly about what's been acknowledged in open source and what hasn't and to pick and choose what you say with care. And it does depend on the company you keep, some arenas are just very awkward  - I shared one online forum with a well known aviation journalist, and once he figured out what project I worked on he regularly pestered me for answers (usually to questions well beyond my paygrade). Equally I once spotted someone asking in a newsgroup for opinions on something (I'm working on X, and the standards say...), and had to remind him that it was classified.

But ultimately some things are going to slip out, particularly in a relationship as intimate as the one Daphne and Tricia shared, and having Chaz and Hafs as Daphne's best friends is just going to make it worse. More secure in some ways to bring her onboard enough to understand the need for secrecy if not fully into every secret.

And beyond that, when Hope Mitchell snatched Reyes, I suspect every WTF member with close family at least considered telling their nearest and dearest about what to be wary of.

Equally, thanks to the efforts of the WTF a reasonably large number of police departments contain people who've seen the laws of physics and nature violated, yet haven't anything like the same investment in keeping the story clandestine that the WTF do. Sergeant Herrera of Bulletproof is a particularly interesting example, she needs the truth to come out to demonstrate that her shoot was safe and that the civilian died because of something completely beyond her control.

And what goes for the WTF also covers the Idlewood crew and the supporting staff of civilian scientists who consult for the WTF. Okay, Frost isn't going to be talking to anyone, and half the rest are Reyes' ex-wives, but they are all people who have information and may occasionally find it difficult not to talk.

What surprises me is that no journalist has put two and two together. The crimes the WTF are brought in to cover are guaranteed media draws, and Nikki is good, but she'd need to be a gamma to stop them speculating, and in many cases be certain, that they never got the real story.

[eschatonic]

I'm a little surprised this is still an open question since I thought it had been answered so clearly in The Unicorn Evils:

"Hafidha...?" Tricia said.

"We brought her in," Daphne replied, and was proud of herself for not breaking down again.

"Then she's alive." Tricia sounded so relieved.

"She's-- She's not our Hafidha anymore. Not only her. The thing in her head, the anomaly..." Yes, she could say it out loud. She could. "It's in there with my sister."

Tricia tightened her arms around Daphne, and Daphne clung hard to the support of those muscles and bones, that heat, that human care. That love.

"But she's still in there," Tricia said at last.

I mean, I could be reading this more literally than it's meant, but I'm not sure how else you could interpret this beyond the idea that Daphne (or Daphne and the Betas) had told her already about the Anomaly and its attendant benefits/dangers.

[DavidG]

I think it's clear Tricia knows quite a lot, but that doesn't mean the discussion isn't worth exploring - how much to tell, what not to say, what lies to wrap it in, they're all interesting questions that expand beyond Tricia to everyone who comes into contact with the WTF or the Anomaly.

[Lioness]

Okay, Frost isn't going to be talking to anyone, and half the rest are Reyes' ex-wives, but

*sporfle*

[Emma Bull]

And girlfriends! Don't forget his girlfriends! 

[tylik]

I'm a little surprised this is still an open question since I thought it had been answered so clearly in The Unicorn Evils:

As DWG mentioned, my question is less whether she knows, but how the security situation is generally handled. What is it supposed to be? What is the actual situation? Obviously Tricia knows about Chaz's anomabilities, but how much of the more general background does she know?

I'm kind of guessing that Nikki, at least, has a portfolio of ways to explain the weirdness to folks who get caught up in gamma-plosions without explaining everything. (And how long will she be willing to do that?) But there's so much we don't know about how the flow of information works. There are higher ups that want everything closely held. (For some reasons that make sense, but what do we know about their motives, really?) Reyes wants more information to be out there - and there are outreach programs, if very careful, limited, ones.. A couple members of the team are specifically supposed to be keeping him in check. (And what are their loyalties? I mean, easy to agree that Reyes needs a choke-chain, but.) Meanwhile, there are the more personal transfers - to one's partners and friends. To the family and victims, to give them some sense of what happened.

It kind of looks like information security has been not particularly regulated, at least at the ground level. (Which kind of surprises me, really. I mean, I've worked on software projects which were rather tighter.)

[eschatonic]

I think it's clear Tricia knows quite a lot, but that doesn't mean the discussion isn't worth exploring - how much to tell, what not to say, what lies to wrap it in, they're all interesting questions that expand beyond Tricia to everyone who comes into contact with the WTF or the Anomaly.

Well, everyone else, yeah. Actually it seems like Tricia is the only family member who knows anything about the anomaly: I don't think Esther told Ben about it's existence, and he's the only other person one of the team trusts that deeply. I kind of suspect everybody else gets whatever explanation people use for Chaz: oh, he has this metabolic disorder that makes him have to eat three times as much as a regular person don't stare it makes him self-conscious now look over here the REALLY weird person is Duke.

Or something like that.

It kind of looks like information security has been not particularly regulated, at least at the ground level. (Which kind of surprises me, really. I mean, I've worked on software projects which were rather tighter.)

Software projects don't follow you home and abduct you a la Hope Mitchell?

[jimsmyth]

Software projects don't follow you home and abduct you a la Hope Mitchell?

So far, at least.


Esther and Ben seem to have worked out their arrangement some time ago.  Ben knows the important stuff (how it affects her), and the rest is details, which are classified.  An Esther who shares classified info just to make her life easier is not the Esther Ben loves, and he lets it be.

Tricia was partnered with Daphne, who is a much different person.  She needs (needed ) her friends around her, hand Hafs, Chaz, and Tricia are all her friends.  Hafs and Chaz much remain "closeted" around their abilities most of the time, and Daphne knows how much that sucks.  Having her home be a place where that doesn't matter is (was ) important to her.  Tricia knows enough to let them be comfortable being themselves around her, and knows not to "out" them.

The only [ahem] family question I have, really, is Gray.  Danny's got a lot of duty and suppression built up, and he's internalized a lot of macho.  I suspect he'll find a wrong solution on his own, and be forced to change it by circumstances/Gray/the team.  I guess we'll see.


[Note - the above represents only my opinions.  I have no anomalous abilities, nor am I a profiler.  I can, however, speak personally on the experience of internalized macho.]


Also, the comment on Nikki had me picturing her at a press conference--

Reporter: Can you explain why the suspect was able to carve through a brick wall with his fingernails?

Nikki Lau: Swamp Gas!  Next question.

Another Reporter: Why did he keep coming after being repeatedly shot?

Nikki Lau: Weather balloon!  Next question.

[Emma Bull]

BWAH-hah-hah-hah! 

(About Nikki's press conference, that is.  )

[glinda_w]

The only [ahem] family question I have, really, is Gray.  Danny's got a lot of duty and suppression built up, and he's internalized a lot of macho.  I suspect he'll find a wrong solution on his own, and be forced to change it by circumstances/Gray/the team.  I guess we'll see.

And Gray's State Department; we don't know what he does there, but I suspect he may also have Things He Cannot Discuss going on.

(I agree with you about Esther and Ben, and Daphne and Tricia.)

Also, the comment on Nikki had me picturing her at a press conference--

*gigglefits*

[DavidG]

It kind of looks like information security has been not particularly regulated, at least at the ground level. (Which kind of surprises me, really. I mean, I've worked on software projects which were rather tighter.)

I'm in newsgroups which are tighter (Seriously, some of my groups have so many military members we made a conscious decision to invoke OPSEC after 9-11)

[DavidG]

And Gray's State Department; we don't know what he does there, but I suspect he may also have Things He Cannot Discuss going on.

And even if not, he's going to have the work background to see information security as normal.

Danny's got a lot of duty and suppression built up, and he's internalized a lot of macho.  I suspect he'll find a wrong solution on his own

Yeah, sounds par for the course.

Coming back to Hope Mitchell, there is a viable threat out there. Hope, the Quantico Gamma, the potential puppeteer behind Simon Talliwell, the ligature strangler. It cost the team Larry Peretti, even if he was retired, it nearly cost them Reyes. It's not a great step from coming at the team directly, to coming at them through their nearest and dearest. The team are capable of working that out, and forewarned is forearmed.

[DavidG]

*sporfle*

My work here is done

[eschatonic]

The only [ahem] family question I have, really, is Gray.  Danny's got a lot of duty and suppression built up, and he's internalized a lot of macho.  I suspect he'll find a wrong solution on his own, and be forced to change it by circumstances/Gray/the team.  I guess we'll see.

And Gray's State Department; we don't know what he does there, but I suspect he may also have Things He Cannot Discuss going on.

I can just imagine the conversations those two have:

"So how was work today, honey?"

"Uh, it was ... well, I spent a lot of time watching a video, uh, not a very nice video. Also there was paperwork which was uh. Hm. Well, there was a lot of it. And how was your day?"

"I ... also ... did ... lots ... of paperwork. Because um. Unless there was something about it on the news already which there should not have been, we're having a problem with people from Country Name Redacted not doing what they said they would do. So we're trying to sort that out."

"Damn those recalcitrant foreigners."

"Indeed. And people who still want things in quintuplicate on carbon paper."

"Yeah, damn them too. Wait, no, damn them first. Recalcitrant foreigners might have some kind of valid justification."





....I think enough of us here have worked for a federal agency to have encountered the quintuplicate carbon paper form, but in case you haven't: I didn't make that up.