Headscratchers / Splinter Cell: Blacklist

• Some of the "high-value target" retrieval bonus objectives in Blacklist don't make any sense. Specifically, the HVTs in the Qods Force HQ in Tehran and the one in the Airstrip in Mexico. While all the other HVTs can plausibly be expected to be recovered because they are either found in America or in places where friendly authorities are operating, in both of these locations, there are no assets nearby to retrieve the HVT. Sam and Briggs are the only Americans operating in Tehran during that mission and they certainly didn't bring the HVT with them in their van, and the attack on the airstrip was something that caught the team completely by surprise, and they were in much more of a hurry to escape since they were on an unauthorized mission. Yet in both instances, after you bag & tag the target, you still get the "retrieval is on its way" message for them.
  • The CIA may have some undercover agents in Tehran that could do the retrieval. How they are able to sneak into the HQ of the Quds Force while they are on high alert and drag out an unconscious guard before his friend find him is another question.

• So the Blacklist attacks: American Consumption = contaminating water. Okay. American Fuel = an attack on a tanker full of fuel. Fine. American Blood = an attack on the American top brass hiding in a secret bunker. These all make sense. But what does putting nerve gas on a bunch of trains have to do with American Freedom?
  • Freedom of travel and gathering maybe ?? Those are kinda cornerstones of American society and social model of life.
  • It has nothing to do with trains and everything to do with the setting: The attack takes place in Philadelphia - a city symbolic of American liberty and law.
• So the ending of Blacklist doesn't make much sense to me. Sadiq claims that if he's killed the twelve nations supporting him will launch open war against the United States so Fisher opts to instead secretly imprison him. But President Caldwell announced on national television that U.S. intelligence killed him...so aren't these twelve backer nations gonna 'rise up'?
  • Two possibilities: One, Sadiq is just speaking hyperbole. Given he's already a colossal failure with his terrorist plans, it's very likely his backers will disavow all knowledge of his activities. Two, the various nations are informed of his imprisonment even as the general public is left to consider him dead.

• Anyone think President Caldwell suffers from massive Aesop Amnesia? She was nearly killed in an attempted coup perpetrated by a covert U.S. intelligence agency that had grown so out of control that it had virtually no government oversight. Then, bam! Terrorist attack and her response is to...create a covert U.S. intelligence agency with virtually no oversight that nearly causes a war with Iran. Sure the people in Fourth Echelon are good people but didn't 3E start out that way? What's to prevent another Tom Reed, especially if Megiddo is still out there?
  • It seems likely she has a "Fight Fire With Fire" attitude regarding things. Given how she nearly was taken down by Megiddo and Third Echelon, she may think having such an agency directly loyal to her may be the only way to protect herself.
  • Well, the people running Fourth Echelon are the ones who directly saved her from Third Echelon, including a disavowed operative and a double agent. It may also be that there are no plans to expand 4E beyond its current resources, keeping it from ever mounting an operation on the same scale as Reed's takeover.