Just how prepared are your contingency plans

[Janx]

A new topic, ripped straight from TV.

In watching 24, Chuck, and other shows, doesn't it strike you as just a little too convenient that the bad guy has all these places he can stop by and take care of business.

Even AFTER the hero has foiled his most recent plan, he can do an improptu surprise escape, kidnap somebody important to the hero, and take them to a NEW place that just HAPPENs to be unguarded and available for his nefarious plans.


Here's what my villainous plan would be:
rob the bank
if it works, switch cars on the way to the safe house and meet up at the safe house and split the dough
if it fails, switch cars on the way to seperate hideouts, use a dead drop or some such to communicate, wait until dust settles.

In the land of 24, that same core idea becomes:
rob the bank
if it works, switch cars on the way to the safe house and meet up at the safe house and launch the virus attack against CTU so they can't track you, while posing as a CTU employee.
If you get discovered as a CTU employee, the hidden backdoor in the mainframe fails to recieve your hourly "safety" signal and it shuts down the network, power and opens the cell doors so you can escape.
Meanwhile, your 2nd team has kidnapped Jack Bauer's daughter to use as leverage in case he becomes involved in your case about the bank robbery
If the robbery fails, your third team kidnaps Jack Bauer as a contigency and holds him for interogation when you arrive. You also shoot all your previous bank robber helpers because they can't be trusted
When Jack Bauer escapes, you run for your life, get captured, but have a 4th team ready to intercept the transport caravan and stage a rescue.
You then meetup at your secret HQ under a restaurant where you prepare the Nuclear bomb that you'be been saviing for a rainy day.
But then you have to escape through your underground tunnel you dug because Jack had anticipated your rescue and planted a tracer on you.

Does any of this seem a bit farther fetched than real people ACTUALLY plan and prepare for?

I have no doubt you can plan a few WhatIf contingencies for various predictable failures, but I just can't see launching a whole new complex attack as a reaction to a prior failure as something to be relied on when the nature of a catastrophic failure means something huge has gone wrong.

 

[Crothian]

If I'm going up against Jack Bauer there is not such thing as over planning.

 

[fanboy2000]

One reason you may want to have multiple contingencies is that, once you've actually committed a major felony like robbing a bank, federal law enforcement has a tendency to get upset.

In the U.S. today, law enforcement is fairly pro-active in trying to prevent crimes from happening. Security checkpoints and conspiracy charges are tools used to prevent crimes from happening.

If those fail and someone actually commits a major felony, public opinion usually sways to law enforcement and the feds quickly develop a strong sense of duty to catch the offender. I don't know about shows like 24, but the FBI puts a strong emphasis on the "investigation" part of their name and makes getting lots of admissible evidence a priority. Also, the U.S. government isn't particularly picky about they charge you with. They famously have no problem getting violent criminals on things like tax evasion if they have the evidence to back it up.

Thus, once a bad guy has actually committed the crime, his best bet is to escape capture because once you've been captured, it's over. Innocent until proven guilty is irrelevant because the feds will have enough evidence to convict him. If he goes to trial, he will serve a longer sentence than if he took the plea. Mostly likely, he'll end up in United States Penitentiary Florence ADMAX (Administrative Maximum Security), the only super maximum security facility in federal government's prison system.

So it makes sense to have multiple escape plans because capture is practically a fate worse than death.

 

[Stumblewyk]

I'm pretty sure this is precisely what separates the Level 1 LBEG from the Level 20 BBEG.

 

[Janx]

I'm pretty sure this is precisely what separates the Level 1 LBEG from the Level 20 BBEG.

thats certainly an explanation fitting in with D&D

but does it really happen?

Or, like TV, are DMs just making this stuff up and acting like that was the plan the whole time.

Even the bad guys ad hoc actions rely on stuff it takes planning to setup.

Just the last episode, bad guy 1 calls bad guy 2 with a "Did you get the doohickey" Bad guy 2 says "yeah", bad guy 1 replies "where are you?" bad guy replies with his general location. Bad guy 1 tells him to meet at the pier by such and such in 10 minutes.

Bad guy 1 just HAPPENS to have a safe spot planned out NEAR bad guy 2?
Nethier are on site yet, but bad guy 1 is able to get into Building J, plant a cell phone by the pier for bad guy 2 to answer and direct him to Building J under surveilance to verify he's not compromised.

All of this as an ad hoc "let's meet here" conversation.

Are real people able to pull off this kind of thing?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yes, people really do plan like that, but it is rare. Usually, those who plan like that are dictators with vast monetary resources- IOW, classic BBEGs. A certain late Middle Eastern dictator had multiple locations to live in openly or hide in secrecy, doubles who rode in the same and/or different motorcades as himself, and varied his routes to and from his destinations.

OTOH, in a less serious case, I read of a bigamist who had multiple houses, all identically made and finished, in which to house his wives...each of whom had the same name.

 

[Umbran]

but does it really happen?

Lots of crimes do go unsolved....

Bad guy 1 just HAPPENS to have a safe spot planned out NEAR bad guy 2?

Not really. What you forget is that most of the entire planet is a "safe spot". There is no massive computer watching every security camera in the nation doing facial recognition or anything. Anywhere that is fairly open and not crawling with cops is pretty safe. He only has to know a couple such places to have one handy.

Heck, I was just watching the Harrison Ford, "The Fugitive", where the main character quite plausibly starts to haunt a hospital *full of cops*, and doesn't get tagged until he tries to practice a little medicine, and another doctor notices.

 

[Janx]

Lots of crimes do go unsolved....



Not really. What you forget is that most of the entire planet is a "safe spot". There is no massive computer watching every security camera in the nation doing facial recognition or anything. Anywhere that is fairly open and not crawling with cops is pretty safe. He only has to know a couple such places to have one handy.

Heck, I was just watching the Harrison Ford, "The Fugitive", where the main character quite plausibly starts to haunt a hospital *full of cops*, and doesn't get tagged until he tries to practice a little medicine, and another doctor notices.

This is where I see all the research and observation I'd need to do to pull off a caper would make me look suspicious and leave a google trail to catch me that I figure just the act of talking about crime makes you a suspect and thus once spoken about, one must never commit a crime.

Whereas, bad guys see the world as an open invitation to crime with nobody minding the store.

 

[jonesy]

This is where I see all the research and observation I'd need to do to pull off a caper would make me look suspicious and leave a google trail to catch me that I figure just the act of talking about crime makes you a suspect and thus once spoken about, one must never commit a crime.

That's why you have someone else do the scouting. Like in Heat when they buy a bank heist plan wholesale.

Although, Heat might not be the perfect example of a well executed bank heist.

 

[Kzach]

Well, for one thing, I'd never explain my cunning plan to the guy chasing me. I'd also shoot the guy chasing me instead of aiming at him and giving him an epic monologue.