Offspring (Night's Black Agents)

 

Generation Kill, HBO

I had something else planned this week but reality got in the way.

It is legit no-shit amazing to me that if one of the marines in Generation Kill had a kid in 2003, that same kid would now be old enough to betray their country's national security secrets on Discord.

To win an internet argument, no less.

I've often wondered what happened to those marines after the war. Some of them allegedly got into trouble when journalist Evan Wright spilled his tea. Some of them will have become magas. Some not. It'd be fascinating to know what they thought of January 6th, or if any of them were there.

For those who don't know, Generation Kill is a series that first appeared as a series of articles in Rolling Stone, written by a gonzo journalist who up to that point was probably most famous for writing porn reviews for Hustler. It's based on Wright's experiences in Iraq during the 2003 invasion, travelling with Marine First Recon. Wright tried to pitch it to HBO and ended up working with David Simon of The Wire fame to make the miniseries happen. 

With all that said, a NBA scenario seed:

Offspring

A series of articles published in a small press newspaper, The Torch, attracts international attention when it's shown that some of its pieces are based on secret papers held by Britain's Intelligence Corps, 1st Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Brigade . The Torch is best known for its undiluted conspiracy-laden rants, but the articles that attracted attention are, despite the rants, decidedly more factual. These articles claim that British military intelligence assets are being used to monitor and hunt vampires and, while nobody's taking that part seriously, they do contain significant information about current intelligence operations in Europe.

Investigation shows that the Torch, an underground paper primarily distributed in the north of England, got its information from a series of posts on a gaming-devoted Discord channel placed there by a user named Esau1.

The world doesn't yet know that Esau1 is the son of [Edom Duke], a military intelligence specialist posted to Upavon. Soon it will.

The agents are tasked with spiriting away the misbehaving youth before someone with serious intent gets hold of him. Problem being, nobody's entirely sure where he is now; he's not at 1st Intelligence's HQ, Trenchard Lines, where he ought to be.

Possibilities:

• The son didn't appreciate how serious this was going to get and is hiding at the family's apartments in London, Kingston-on-Thames. The Duke doesn't know this but the Duke's spouse does and is trying to shield the boy from the consequences of his actions. What neither of them appreciate is that the son's been in contact with the [BND Agent/GCHQ Desk Analyst/Journalist] (Dracula Dossier) who he sees as a lover/confidant but who's actually working with the Conspiracy. The Conspiracy asset wants as much information as possible before the situation implodes.
• The son knew how bad things were going to get and wanted it that way. He hates the 'family business' and loathes the idea that his current post at Intelligence Corps is just a stepping-stone into Edom proper, and the seat of power that's already being prepared for him. This debacle is his way of making sure he never gets into Edom. He's currently in Berlin, in Mitte's Red Light district, lying low. What he doesn't appreciate is that someone's been hired to kill him (the Assassin from the Resource Guide) and someone from inside Edom is the one who's paying the tab. It might be one of the parent's rivals, or it might be the parent themselves trying to erase a scandal the old-fashioned way.
• The son didn't appreciate how bad things were going to get and was lured into making those posts by a Conspiracy asset. The Madman could be an interesting choice; as written he's homeless, but he could be living in a flatshare with a bunch of other military-minded gamers. The Madman (a ranked player on an FPS platform with his own Twitch and YouTube channel) has Edom links and knew the son did too; the son sees the Madman as a hero, a vampire killer, and is eager to impress him with his inside knowledge. The son's on the run trying to get to the Madman, and the Madman's told him that he's at HMS Proserpine (or some similar England-based Edom location). Problem being, not only is the Madman not there, there is no Edom asset at that location; for game purposes, it's Cool. The son doesn't know that. The Madman does and has alerted the Conspiracy to the son's projected flight path. Of course, if the agents get there first ... 

That's it for this week!