The Watchers

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I don't agree.  All kinds of people go around murdering other people.  The White Council couldn't even figure out if Harry had committed murder, or acted in self defense.  Harry didn't do anything to hide what he did.  If they could have looked, they didn't even bother which goes to my point that nobody would even bother to investigate the murder of someone like Lara, or Lord Raith.

Also who did Harry need only tobacco and booze for?  Was it Chauncy?  If so the cost was a hell of a lot more, he gave up one of his Names. That's a big cost that I doubt others would be willing to pay.

I think we are arguing two sides of the same thing here. With Magic the question is not ever What is Possible, only What am I willing to Pay For.  If the Council had wanted to know what really happened to Justin, they could have leveraged Debt to make it happen, they simply didnt care enough because their idea of Justice has always been heavy on Expedience and light on Truth.  They could have found Morgan the first day he was on the run, all they had to do wa Pay off something stronger than Titania. 

which goes to my point that nobody would even bother to investigate the murder of someone like Lara, or Lord Raith.

Ok, if this was the point you were trying to make I must have missed a left-turn somewhere.  I thought we were talking about the ability of a Mortal Organization that was out there targeting the Supernatural to be able to hide their activities from the Supernatural world at large. My stance is that they'd have to be much better at /supernaturally/ hiding their tracks than what we've seen from the majority of the supernatural community so far.  Or else they'd eventually piss somebody off enough that they'd actually pay the Prices to find out the Truth.  Also worth nothing that I am assuming the Prices that Harry was unwilling to pay even when looking for Maggie in Changes (ie. his "Green Notebook") were distasteful to him in moral ways that others (black wizards or non-mortals) wouldnt have as much trouble paying. 


EDIT: 

lol.  Here is how i look at it, and maybe I'm wrong.  If a homeless man was shot in some part of the country, and you got the FBI, CIA, NSA, and everyone working together, you will almost certainly catch who did it.  If you throw enough money, manpower, and effort you can figure out just about anything.  But are those players going to get involved to solve a crime like that?  No.  That's how I see this.  Yes if someone was determined to find out who killed Lord Raith, or Lara, and were willing to pay whatever the cost, they will get the answer.  But I just don't see anyone caring enough.  If anything they would be glad it happened, and consider it good fortune.  Creatures on the Earthly plane just don't care enough about their brethren to find out something like that.  Lara and Thomas are actually fond of each other, probably more affection there than any of the others feel for one another. But would Lara pay a big price to find out who gunned down Thomas?  I don't think she would.

Actually I think she would nowadays, though I expect it would be defending Court Pride far more than anything so emotional as actual familial fondness.  But that's a different discussion.  And I would still say that any of the Supernatural powers that found themselves loosing members, and especially if loosing Leaders, to an unknown enemy would be well-motivated by self-interest and self-preservation to turn over every rock and make every deal (or order underlings to do so) until they identified the threat.

[groinkick]

And I would still say that any of the Supernatural powers that found themselves loosing members, and especially if loosing Leaders, to an unknown enemy would be well-motivated by self-interest and self-preservation to turn over every rock and make every deal (or order underlings to do so) until they identified the threat.

Well if this government agency has been collecting this information for hundreds, if not thousands of years (A mortal group that's evolved over time maybe?), then they would know how they can be tracked.  So they would either A. know how to cover their tracks, B.  Never get involved so they cannot be tracked, or C.  Do pin prick type attacks where they get rid of someone under mysterious circumstances (plane crash, car accident), and do it very rarely so as not to set off alarm bells. 

That's my take on it anyways.  Chances are they just collect information, and cover up messes so the public doesn't find out like with the video that vanished.  Honestly I would not be surprised if Odin set the whole damn thing up as it gives him a great deal of mobility working with a completely mortal group of people that have free will...  So he has his fingers in a lot of different intelligence pies so speak.

The final possibility is that when it comes to gathering information in the supernatural world it's easy to use supernatural sources while vanilla mortals are not easy to investigate by magical means because of some supernatural protections (Angels, or Sidhe, or some deity)...  Kind of like you can use supernatural tools for in house problems but vanilla mortals aren't going to be as easy to snoop on these ways.

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Well if this government agency has been collecting this information for hundreds, if not thousands of years (A mortal group that's evolved over time maybe?), then they would know how they can be tracked.  So they would either A. know how to cover their tracks, B.  Never get involved so they cannot be tracked, or C.  Do pin prick type attacks where they get rid of someone under mysterious circumstances (plane crash, car accident), and do it very rarely so as not to set off alarm bells. 

That's my take on it anyways.  Chances are they just collect information, and cover up messes so the public doesn't find out like with the video that vanished.  Honestly I would not be surprised if Odin set the whole damn thing up as it gives him a great deal of mobility working with a completely mortal group of people that have free will...  So he has his fingers in a lot of different intelligence pies so speak.

Agreed.  And that's basically what it would take: either enough secret History of their own to have accumulated the knowledge themselves, or else have some Supernatural Patron.  I had admittedly been assuming a US govt agency that wouldnt be any older than the country itself, but whose to say its not a spin-off of a British organization or something to give it access to longer history. 

[groinkick]

I also wonder if they are 100% non magical.  Jim said that anyone could do magic, if they worked at it enough.  (paraphrasing) Full blown wizards are born with the gene "turned on" and wizards are like the Michael Jordan's of magic, but anyone can learn to do some.  He also said that someone with a little talent who worked really hard could be even more dangerous than a natural born wizard who didn't work at it.  Given that those in the government collect all this information it wouldn't be too big of a stretch that they either trained a lot so they have some very basic low level magic, or have acquired some talent that the White Council hadn't discovered yet like the antagonist from the first book.  Heck even Harry worked for the police.  They may have found some wizards willing to work for them..  That's a bit of a stretch since they are so secret though.

Wards that Harry could put up in a few hours might be achievable by a dozen lower level people who worked on them for a month.  Lot more time, and energy from the low level people, same result in the end though.

If they really have gathered lots of information they may have some pretty impressive magical defenses...  They just may have taken a lot more time, and effort to install.

[dspringer1]

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).   

[groinkick]

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).

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]

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.

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]

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.

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. 

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?

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.