Hey from Australia, gang. Does anyone else find the conflicting information on the Midnight’s Kiss in-universe suspicious? And in the Premiseverse anything that seems conflicting is clearly a cover for a bigger, more horrifying conspiracy.

The Figures of Note section in the Asari Cerberus Files makes it out like it’s just Midnight’s Kiss, renegade assessor working for the shadow broker, rather than THE Midnight’s Kiss mentioned by Ahern, who makes them out to be an entirely separate unit within the overall AY pool of operators available to the Thirty. Then there’s the Nightwind entry in the Opposing Forces file, which whilst barely mentioning them does line up with the information presented in the Asari section – that it’s just one Asari, the former assessor, not Ahern’s separate or at least different entity.

So here’s my theory for the Midnight’s Kiss. Remember the Justicar Order file, where it states that the handful of Justicars who are members of the Thirty aren’t subject to the usual mind-burning rituals? I think the Midnight’s Kiss are members of the Thirty – not the lesser house daughters or adoptees, but the daughters of the great houses themselves – who turn up positive on the AY index. They’re kept alive, they aren’t subject to the usual horrifying Nightwind treatment, and they aren’t under the same degree of control and monitoring. They have a degree of autonomy that the others just don’t get – I imagine the Midnight’s Kiss have some semblance of a personality and the ability to form actual relationships (no sexually as we’d understand it, but personal and professional relationships). They don’t get command kill-phases (though I guess they might get a cortex bomb), and they aren’t expendable assets like the others. They function as the command and control element for all Nightwind operations as well as the finest biotic-terror weapons/assassins/mind-drinkers/deniable assets the Thirty have – and an AY Matriarch, born of the Thirty and having trained and carried out these kinds of operations for centuries would be goddamn terrifying.

Thoughts, anyone?

Was it that obvious? Huh. I have to be sneakier.

As an aside, THE Midnight’s Kiss used to be one of the unit Midnight’s Kiss.

Logical Premise wrote:

Was it that obvious? Huh. I have to be sneakier.

As an aside, THE Midnight’s Kiss used to be one of the unit Midnight’s Kiss.

Nah it was pretty subtly done. Obvious by your standards maybe, but after I wrote that I cracked open a celebratory IPA and spent 15 seconds feeling like a genius before going back to wild mass guessing.

Ultimately it’s a win as an author either way. It doesn’t matter if someone figures something out. Some readers enjoy teasing out puzzles and trying to predict every twist and mystery, so they’re happy, but regardless it all adds depth and detail to the Premiseverse and everyone in it. We all know the Shadow Broker and Tetrimus are going to die, but it doesn’t matter since the dramatic tension and emotional resonance are in how it happens and who it affects.

Gonna bet serious money that one of Thana T’Armal’s kids or close relatives is a ranking member of the Midnight’s Kiss, and that she’s just fine with that. The House of Storms would have to know, right? Not just knowing about them in an intellectual or operational sense, but even personally – after all, it’s their daughters.