Why did Karl Prosek abandon his wife?

[HWalsh]

It was recently pointed out that Prosek had to know his wife was still alive after her kidnapping and the assassination of his son. A simple psionic check would have easily revealed it. Meaning he didn't look, or he looked and ignored it.

Him not looking makes little sense. This means that he knew she was alive and abandoned her. This begs the question...

Why?

My bet? Propaganda. Having her be dead at the hands of the "Evil Mages" angers the people. It gives his war machine fuel. Having her be kidnapped? Less so.

They'd still be mad, but they'd want her recovered rather than genocide their enemy.

So my head canon now is Karl Prosek abandoned her to her fate so that he could begin his campaign of Unity.

[Eagle]

You ever been married? Obviously not or you wouldn't ask that question.

[Mack]

That a "simple psionic check" was performed is a bad assumption.

[ShadowLogan]

It was recently pointed out that Prosek had to know his wife was still alive after her kidnapping and the assassination of his son. A simple psionic check would have easily revealed it. Meaning he didn't look, or he looked and ignored it.

Him not looking makes little sense. This means that he knew she was alive and abandoned her. This begs the question...

Why?

My bet? Propaganda. Having her be dead at the hands of the "Evil Mages" angers the people. It gives his war machine fuel. Having her be kidnapped? Less so.

They'd still be mad, but they'd want her recovered rather than genocide their enemy.

So my head canon now is Karl Prosek abandoned her to her fate so that he could begin his campaign of Unity.

A simple psionic check? If you refer to "Read Object", it isn't quite so simple. All 3 applications of said power have a decent chance of failure depending on what one is attempting to do (and level). So it is not a guarantee, though it seems improbable that every psychic that tries has failed.

Though this isn't the only instance of psychic blined spots (True Atlanteans and their mysterious stalker).

[Axelmania]

The problem with object read is that visions are limited in usefulness. When an explosion happens that often sends up a cloud of smoke. If not, that is a very easy spell to use for mage kidnappers.

What they probably saw was a cloud of smoke and then all of Joanna being gone except her finger. So the vision wouldn't tell she got kidnapped.

Batman uses a tactic like this in Justice League Action when battling a villain with the power to see 1 second into the future.

Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be evidence you can apply enhanced vision.

The only way I can think to do that would be to object read the inside of a CS helmet so you might possibly see what her dead bodyguards saw.

Since we know Karl didn't know she was kidnapped, I take this to mean one of three things:

1) nobody in Psi-Net is as wily as me and didn't think to look through a helmet at that angle
2) they did see her kidnapped but kept it from Karl because she was viewed as a negative influence on Karl and not worth saving, or probably dead anyway and not worth the lives spent to retrieve her
3) all body guard helmets were destroyed so the weren't any Infrared visions to examine

[glitterboy2098]

as has been pointed out, the issue of if he knew is murky.

but even if he did know, the fact is he could get more political coin out of her death than a simple abduction. dead she is a martyr and a symbol that everything the CS claims about magic users is true. abducted she is just a victim to be rescued by special forces.

[Axelmania]

Pg 29 of FoM "it would be years later that the Emperor and Joseph would learn that Lady Prosek had survived"

He certainly didn't know she lived, though I guess this isn't the same as knowing she was dead. Both probably just had no idea one way or the other, no idea of where to start looking, so didn't waste resources on it.

The CS may know magic can resurrect the dead so the missing body could have had them wondering.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Or... okay, i know she's alive. (Because of Object Read, apparently. I haven't looked that up yet...i should...).

Great. She's alive.

Is she accessible? Do we even know where she is? Do we have any way of finding out where she is? Even if we knew where she was, could we get in and get her without causing a full-scale war we aren't prepared for, losing hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of troops to do it just as we kick off said war?

Good luck getting her out. The Cyber-Knights could do it because they had allies that use magic and powers that got them into Dunscon's sub-realm. the CS has no such avenues. Theyd have had to know where Dunscon is, get into the caves, have the caves NOT get collapsed on them immediately, fight their way into the city, fight their way THROUGH the city, rescue her without getting her killed (fat chance since Dunscon knows you're coming, unlike the small strike force that snuck in).

Sure, maybe he knew (im not convinced he did because im not convinced that the Psi-powers work the way people think they work on a meta-scale or the (already barely workable) world falls apart even more.

Lets assume he did know.

It wasn't worth going to get her, even if he was a loving, good-natured husband and good-aligned person. No way he could ask tens of thousands or more to die to rescue her. No way she would have wanted him to (because she IS a good person). And that's even assuming he had the tiniest clue where she was, how to find her, how to get to her, or how to save her if he did.

And then we get the part where he's NOT a loving, good-natured dude, and using her "death" as propoganda even if we know better is a better use of resources, because of how well loved she was.. and if she does get released some day or turn back up... we can claim all along we never knew and there's literally no one that can give the lie to that statement.

[eliakon]

The "Murky" thing is pretty weak.
So the chance of finding out if she is alive is 56%+2% per level (Plus any other boosters that may apply to a specific individual)
If you do NOT get "Impressions" then you will know that you did not find out if she was alive.

So each check will tell you either "she is Dead/Alive" or "I don't know yet"

You can repeat the reading with multiple psychics on each item, and each psychic may try on each item once.

Every one of their (millions?) of dog boys can pick one sensitive power.
If just 1 percent of them have Object read (which is ludicrously low but hey)
That would mean you could get 10,000 tries PER OBJECT to find out "is the owner alive or dead"

Just saying here that the book "he didn't know" makes no sense

[Kurseteller]

Or... okay, i know she's alive. (Because of Object Read, apparently. I haven't looked that up yet...i should...).

Great. She's alive.

Is she accessible? Do we even know where she is? Do we have any way of finding out where she is? Even if we knew where she was, could we get in and get her without causing a full-scale war we aren't prepared for, losing hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of troops to do it just as we kick off said war?

Good luck getting her out. The Cyber-Knights could do it because they had allies that use magic and powers that got them into Dunscon's sub-realm. the CS has no such avenues. Theyd have had to know where Dunscon is, get into the caves, have the caves NOT get collapsed on them immediately, fight their way into the city, fight their way THROUGH the city, rescue her without getting her killed (fat chance since Dunscon knows you're coming, unlike the small strike force that snuck in).

Sure, maybe he knew (im not convinced he did because im not convinced that the Psi-powers work the way people think they work on a meta-scale or the (already barely workable) world falls apart even more.

Lets assume he did know.

It wasn't worth going to get her, even if he was a loving, good-natured husband and good-aligned person. No way he could ask tens of thousands or more to die to rescue her. No way she would have wanted him to (because she IS a good person). And that's even assuming he had the tiniest clue where she was, how to find her, how to get to her, or how to save her if he did.

And then we get the part where he's NOT a loving, good-natured dude, and using her "death" as propoganda even if we know better is a better use of resources, because of how well loved she was.. and if she does get released some day or turn back up... we can claim all along we never knew and there's literally no one that can give the lie to that statement.

There is game mechanic and then there is story. And less face it, Palladium had middling to poor game mechanics. But lets figure out the scenario of how we hide some ones dependent or coveted item from the "simple" read object, clairvoyance, or other tracking special power/ability. Hiding magic or clouding psionics or some sort of clouding/stealth ability from a supernatural monster/god/demon. Plus it makes for a better plot hook for the adventure of "Emperor Prosek adventure time."

[taalismn]

I believe I once spoofed the situation by having it turn out that Karl's wife was so demanding and emotionally abusive of him that he was actually GRATEFUL she got kidnapped. Dunscon discovers to his regret WHY the CS isn't taking greater measures to get her back(to the point that he had to put down a Balrog he Summoned to intimidate her, the thing was so distressed), and eventually contrives to guide a few goody-twoshoes patsies into 'rescuing' her(coincidentally when she was in one of her more quiet moods) just to get rid of her without losing face.
Now that she's rescued, Karl and son are debating permanently locking themselves inside their warroom/man cave under 'war emergency' protocols in order to avoid dealing with her. Having her quarantined and scrutinized for signs of possession, mind control, or trauma is just an effort to but time before she can lace into them for a litany of failures, faults, and misbehaviors.

But realistically? Karl's a bum who expects everybody to sacrifice for his vision and power. He'll see his dealing with a missing wife and dead spare heir as his own personal sacrifices, and one that further makes him above reproach for the actions he takes. Losing the two may have hurt emotionally, but t didn't cost him much, if any, political clout, military force, or strategic position, gained him sympathy, distracted his enemies, and allowed him to further demonize the opposition.

[dreicunan]

Canon tells us that he didn't know until years later, and the existence of object read does NOT tell us that he "had" to know; remember that Psyscape p. 144 tells us that Emperor Prosek is still leary of psychics. It is possible and plausible that in his grief (and Federation of Magic confirms that the loss was devastating to them) he would not want any psychics rifling through what he believed to be his deceased wife's things. There are plenty of reasons to demonize Karl Prosek, but this isn't one of them.

[boring7]

Plot holes.

Divination is always a plot hole. Why didn't the 10 bazillion methods of forward scouting/precognition/recon that Tolkeen had access to not reveal Jericho Holmes' Ass-pull of Victory? Why did they literally only bother with the ramblings of one malevolent, insane talking skull? I mean Rifts is actually kinda good about this in that it doesn't HAVE a lot of the scrying/clairvoyance options that other settings have, but it's still a big ol' problem whenever you want people to not know things and they have ways (sometimes a LOT of ways) to know those things.

Of course this is also Rifts, where the concept of "good intelligence" is non-existent and the smartest, most crafty, and most powerful alien super-brain in the megaverse (Splynncryth) isn't quite sure if there are or are not vampires in his domain when bodies show up drained of blood around the same places his stuff keeps getting wrecked. So the simplest answer is, "everybody's an idiot."

[Greepnak]

I never even thought about it. I just figured it was maybe before psionics became legitimized as a "human" power against the supernatural in the CS mindset.

As story soil though... the experience did change Her view on things. This has to have slopover onto Karl and Joseph, so maybe its not coincidence that psychics rescued her (Coake and co) and later on Psi Battallion becomes a thing?

[Killer Cyborg]

Plot holes.

Right.
Not necessarily meaning a plot problem, but certainly something that should have been addressed somewhere at some point.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Well, if Dunscon just put her in a Sanctum, it nullifies all the divination OTHER than Object Read.

It's not like that would even be tough for him.

Still... Im with the "didn't even bother to see if she was alive" and/or "they honestly didn't know" crowd.

My argument above was just the devils advocate "so say he did know..."

Even if he had, he wouldn't have had any ways to track her down, get to her, etc. And she wouldn't have wanted him to sacrifice tens of thousands of men to get her out.

[Axelmania]

Eliakon still waiting on your counter to the Cloud of Smoke dilemma for Object Read visions.

FoM 29 said "the loss was devastating to the Emperor and Joseph" which implies they were kinda upset about it and probably not immediately all "hey let's look on the bright side" about it.