Discussions elsewhere inspire me to start a little game here. The object is to kill Lucan - or protect him. Idea is to come up with a way to get at him and remove him from the Imperial gene pool before he makes a royal mess of things. And, in counterpoint, to come up with a defense that blocks that way from succeeding.
Starting position: Lucan lives in the Imperial Palace. He is protected by an Imperial Guard who, having failed once, are strongly motivated not to fail a second time. The palace itself is protected by powerful sensors and a nuclear damper against both nuclear attack and intrusion by unauthorized fusion-powered vehicles. Advanced point defense systems further protect the palace from attack by missile or mortar. Airspace around the Palace is tightly controlled, and offensive systems can bring down an intruder in short order. The palace grounds are designed to prevent something like a car-bombing from being effective anywhere except at the perimeter gates themselves, and they in turn are well defended if someone sets a bomb off there and tries to force entry. We will assume planetary defenses and spaceborne defensive forces and sensors are adequate to prevent the infamous high-speed-ship-impacting-the-planet scenario; this is after all the most important planet in the Imperium.
He is opposed by a divided Imperial nobility. Some are reflexively loyal no matter what he does, offended by Dulinor's acts and willing to back the Emperor come what may. Some are circumstantially loyal - it serves their interests to not offend the person who sits on the throne, and perhaps to curry favor and obtain advancement by giving carefully calculated support. Some are greatly disturbed by the rumors and by his disbanding of the Moot but reluctant to act assertively against him in a time of war, especially if it might put themselves or their prerogatives at risk. Some - a growing number - are quite willing to do whatever is necessary to end the threat he poses, but identifying like-minded colleagues and acting in concert without being identified and arrested as traitors is a major challenge.
He has the resources of the TL15 Imperial military and bureaucracy at his disposal. To a lesser extent, so long as their allies and agents are cautious about it, so do they.
How does one kill an Emperor who's seen his predecessor fall and knows he too is a target?
Starting position: Lucan lives in the Imperial Palace. He is protected by an Imperial Guard who, having failed once, are strongly motivated not to fail a second time. The palace itself is protected by powerful sensors and a nuclear damper against both nuclear attack and intrusion by unauthorized fusion-powered vehicles. Advanced point defense systems further protect the palace from attack by missile or mortar. Airspace around the Palace is tightly controlled, and offensive systems can bring down an intruder in short order. The palace grounds are designed to prevent something like a car-bombing from being effective anywhere except at the perimeter gates themselves, and they in turn are well defended if someone sets a bomb off there and tries to force entry. We will assume planetary defenses and spaceborne defensive forces and sensors are adequate to prevent the infamous high-speed-ship-impacting-the-planet scenario; this is after all the most important planet in the Imperium.
He is opposed by a divided Imperial nobility. Some are reflexively loyal no matter what he does, offended by Dulinor's acts and willing to back the Emperor come what may. Some are circumstantially loyal - it serves their interests to not offend the person who sits on the throne, and perhaps to curry favor and obtain advancement by giving carefully calculated support. Some are greatly disturbed by the rumors and by his disbanding of the Moot but reluctant to act assertively against him in a time of war, especially if it might put themselves or their prerogatives at risk. Some - a growing number - are quite willing to do whatever is necessary to end the threat he poses, but identifying like-minded colleagues and acting in concert without being identified and arrested as traitors is a major challenge.
He has the resources of the TL15 Imperial military and bureaucracy at his disposal. To a lesser extent, so long as their allies and agents are cautious about it, so do they.
How does one kill an Emperor who's seen his predecessor fall and knows he too is a target?