Order Only: Thinking out loud

[alt_sirius]

Be careful, anyone who's going over to help Alastor.

But I've been thinking .... Ought we perhaps to warn other organisations that something might be brewing in the Belfast cauldron? Davidson or Beth or even our own people here - it's not that I want some massive bomb to go off in Ireland, far from it. But if we can't stop it - if we can't convince the IMA to wait ... shouldn't we see how we can take advantage of the situation?

Think about it. If all the Death Eaters go haring off in response to some massive disruption, or even most of them, then we (or someone) has an opportunity to coordinate another disruption here - perhaps a camp breakout or a demonstration in New London, if we can only get the word out quickly enough.

I don't know if it's a particularly good idea but it seems to me that if their attention is stretched thin, we've a better chance of doing some good and creating some momentum.

Comments

[alt_charlie]

Seems to me there's two separate things you're asking, when you really walk around the question and kick its twigs long enough. One, should we pass the word a bit and stir up some disturbances on the home front, and two, do we owe it to the other groups we know of to warn them things might be about to turn ugly?

Well, all right, and three: is there anything we should be doing to protect people here, too, since we know things might be about to turn ugly?

[alt_charlie]

And. I mean.

Well. Do we use the chance to cause some ruckus, too, instead of just passing along information? Only, if everybody's looking at Ireland, they might things going on here. And we haven't actually been doing a lot of

It might be a chance. Or you might be right and it might be a bad idea.

I don't know.

[alt_sirius]

Yeah, exactly.

And what responsibility do we then have if we encourage people to take advantage of the opportunity and put themselves at risk?

[alt_charlie]

Yeah.

I didn't meet her, but from what you lot have said, I don't think Ridley would be satisfied with camp breakouts and protests in New London if she knew MLE was concentrating on Ireland.

So, if we pass along the information, people might -- will probably -- get hurt. But ... does that automatically make it the wrong thing to do?

Or is that just how they want us all to be thinking?

[alt_bill]

I would say, yes, as far as Davidson and Beth go, but we should proceed with caution.

I would be even more cautious about alerting Ridley's people.

Perhaps we'll have a better idea in a day or two. I will also put my analyst network on high alert, see if they can come up with some more information which would give us a better idea of which way to jump.

But with as little information as we have now, it's like trying to predict the future by reading clumps of soggy tea leaves.

[alt_gredforge]

Isn't that what you do in Divination?

[alt_bill]

I always sucked at Divination.

I prefer real data.

[alt_nymphadora]

I don't think they've all gone running over there yet. I saw three Council types this morning as I was leaving the Ministry. I saw Farty, coming up from the dungeons with Yaxley. And then I ended up in a lift with Director Selwyn for a couple of stops. None of them seemed to be packing their bags for a trip.

Maybe they don't know yet. Now wouldn't that be interesting! There must be some way we could work this to put egg on their faces.

We could tip off the papers, maybe? Bet they wouldn't like to be surprised with the news that way.

But I expect it might be better if we didn't blast news of it all over, either.

Hm.

[alt_macnair]

Maybe its best said that we ought to have some plan in place for the next time something happens to conveniently draw MLE away.

Cos it's a bit short notice now.

[alt_nymphadora]

Well, I think at least we could take advantage of it if it happens. I mean if MLE really do look away, we're watching for it, and we know people who are ready with things that would really be helped by a bit of a gap where no one's watching.

Except the Watch, actually. That's a bit of a problem. See, I was thinking about Beth's group, and I know they've got people ready to run whenever they give a signal that they've got a clear route ready. So if there's really some big business in Ireland and the Death Eaters hare off over there and MLE's all of a sudden paying more attention to reports from over there than to what's going on here, then we could run a load of people through the smuggling chain. Except I'd wager that if something big happens, the Watchers'll be all on edge and that could make it harder not easier to get people out.

[alt_macnair]

Smuggling and wotsit is fine. Thought Black might be suggesting something bigger, like a chance to assassinate Voldemort. Cos I'd wager that if and when the next big something happens, he'll be sitting pretty at Buckingham while his loyals march into the fire.

[alt_sirius]

Not an assassination, no, but something to bring the fight to multiple fronts, make them split their focus.

Dora's right about the Watch and its growing popularity.