James Church of the Martian police agency, Church: Investigators & Guardians, assesses asterite piracy:
"'There's at least one extremely subtle mind in back of this, and he's pulled off a masterstroke.'" (p. 151)
"'The problem before us, I think, is to come to grips with whoever's behind the Chiefs. Or come to terms with him. I have the beginnings of a possible answer to the whole mess. But first we've got to find this man.'" (p. 153)
Church has deduced that a man with a subtle mind, capable of pulling off a masterstroke, is behind the asterite Chiefs and their piracy. We recognize a theme in a certain kind of fiction. Here is another example:
M, head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, says:
"'Nobody's ever heard of these SPECTRE people. We know there's some kind of independent unit working in Europe...'"
-Ian Fleming, Thunderball (London, 1961), 8, p. 59.
Indeed, both the British and the Americans have bought intelligence from this "unit" and it, the "unit," has assassinated a defector for the French. Now SPECTRE blackmails NATO. M deduces:
"'...there is certainly a master mind behind all this, in the mind of the chief of SPECTRE: my opposite number, so to speak.'" (p. 63)
We, the readers, have already met Blofeld but we are in a privileged position thanks to the diligence of the omniscient narrator. M and Bond must do the detective work. And, before them:
"'For years past I have continually been conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organizing power which forever stands in the way of the law...
"'He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web..."
-see here.
Anderson's Aycharaych is a philosopher weaving webs of deception but does not sit motionless. Whereas Moriarty has numerous agents, Aycharaych, working alone, must move around, "...a knight of ghosts and shadows."
Lastly, for this post, on British TV, Adam Adamant echoed Holmes when he detected a single mind behind much evil, then came face to face with the Face.
There are many examples although I think that Moriarty and Blofeld lead the field. See also Blofeld's Successors.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
What I've been wondering about is how plausible for a CRIMINAL organization like SPECTRE to become "institutionalized" like this? I grant that some, like the Mafia in the US, can last a long time. But the old Mafia eventually broke and replaced by far more ruthless outfits, like the drug cartels. But any single cartel only seems to last as its founder remains alive or out of prison. Once such a founder disappears a cartel seems to de facto break up and then be put back together by a new boss.
The Japanese Yakuza seems closest to being an INSTITUTION. Make it look rather like the Merseian Gethfennu.
Sean
Sean,
SPECTRE was only meant to be a limited alliance, to be discontinued as soon as its members had enriched themselves enough.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Hmmm, an alliance solely for the purpose of doing evil things for personal enrichment by no matter what criminal means is not implausible, I agree. The Mafia, Yakuza, drug cartels are obvious examples.
Sean
I can't remember who was behind the asterite piracy, but I might have set it up that a Martian business person (or group) would have been behind it- their competitors.
To divert attention, they might:
1) Have their own ships pirated.
2) Deliberately NOT pirated the ships of someone they wanted to place the blame on.
3) Plant evidence (not too easily discovered) that it was a competitor.
4) Plant evidence (not too easily discredited) that they themselves were responsible for it.
Here's a detailed analysis of the possibility of interplanetary space piracy form our friends at ToughSF:
http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2018/01/piracy-in-space-is-possible-part-i.html
-kh
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