How do you assassinate someone who is protected by precognitive people?

Question

The US government is desperate to kill the superhuman rebel leader, but the man is surrounded by "precogs". They can see any attempt on his life before it happens. What plan will the government form to assassinate the rebel leader without alerting the precogs?

Note: usually precogs only see about two days in the future and only things that happened to them or to someone that they are closely connected to (e.g. their family and close friends).

Also note: If whatever is coming in the future is particular traumatizing or otherwise life-changing to the precog (such as the precog's death, for example), they'll be able to see it coming up to a week before.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. — Monica Cellio, Mar 06 '16 at 02:17

Aify · Answer 1 · 2016-03-04T22:25:00.100

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You poison him using small amounts of drugs that accumulate over time.

Basically, slip food laced with [insert some toxin that accumulates over time and requires > 1 week to kill with here] - the precogs won't see anything special, as they'll just see him eating/drinking normally. By the time they see him die, it'll be too late to figure out where he came from - they may see that he dies from poison, but they may not be able to figure out what kind it is just by using the symptoms.

Thanks to Falco for this; you can put radioactive material (For example, polonium-210) in small amounts in something he consumes, causing it to accumulate in the bloodstream, resulting in his eventual death.

Perhaps try Rabies, as Aron has suggested.

edited Mar 04 '16 at 22:25

answered Mar 03 '16 at 01:29

Aify

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Very clever. He will see it coming but not before it's too late to do anything about it. – Jim2B Mar 03 '16 at 02:35
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Any of the cumulative poisons, slow acting diseases, etc. should also work nicely. – Jim2B Mar 03 '16 at 03:43
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This case made splashes in the media: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko – o.m. Mar 03 '16 at 05:01
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One of the best Poisons for this should be radioactive material. It can easily accumulate in the bloodstream and his health will deteriorate over time and death will be very certain. You can also administer this via an aerosol in his home, spraying constantly every day and slowly killing him over time – Falco Mar 03 '16 at 13:27
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The only drawback to this plan is that the poison has to be slow-acting, but not something that can be treated a few days before death. If the precogs see a vision of a doctor announcing that their great leader is near death, and that the poisoning was discovered too late to start treatment, then they'll start the treatment immediately, which may save the leader. – recognizer Mar 03 '16 at 17:41
Radiation poisoning, yes. Via spray/aerosol application? No. A small fleck of polonium-210 in his food/water/cigarettes is all you need ("once administered, the polonium creates symptoms that don't suggest poison for days, allowing time for the perpetrator to make a getaway"), and far easier to keep hidden from both traditional and precog detection than any sort of radiation-spraying-apparatus. – aroth Mar 04 '16 at 03:59
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Simple. Rabies. By the time he is symptomatic it is WAY too late. – Aron Mar 04 '16 at 09:22

score 39 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 03 '16 at 10:03

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They can only see the actual attempt on his life?

Arrest him, wait three days then assassinate him.

answered Mar 03 '16 at 10:03

komodosp

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Under-upvoted answer of the year. Assuming they can only see N days ahead of time, just trap him and wait that many days to kill him. – user1717828 Mar 03 '16 at 12:58
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You would expect them to see the trap though. It's not specifically stated in the question but certainly implied. – Tim B Mar 03 '16 at 13:21
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@TimB it is kind of specifically stated in a comment after the question though, "there not trying to predict everything just whether or not he will be assassin" – komodosp Mar 03 '16 at 13:28
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@colmde don't mistake and not trying for I'm just gonna ignore everything else. If they look to the future see if their leader will be assassinated tomorrow and instand seeing captured it stupid not to report. Their main purpose is prevent his assination, but that doesn't mean but they can't use common sense to figure out that his capture could lead to assassination. And therefore should be avoided. – Bryan McClure Mar 03 '16 at 14:28

score 36 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 03 '16 at 12:10

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You may want to watch the film Minority Report for one way of doing this. If you have two identically-dressed assassins in the same place at the same time, there's no way for the precogs (or those interpreting the precogs' visions) to tell them apart. So the security apparatus springs into action for the first one, but leaves the way clear for the second one because they don't know there are two of them. (AKA "the second mouse gets the cheese, the first mouse gets the trap".)

answered Mar 03 '16 at 12:10

Graham

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I'm not sure this would work. In the film it works because precogs keep having visions of the murders after they have (not) happened. If this is not the case, once the first attempt is avoided, the precogs would still receive visions of the murder, thus knowing that there will be a new attempt. Still upvoted, though, it's a good different idea. – Ray O'Kalahjan Mar 03 '16 at 12:18
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@RayO'Kalahjan Thanks! The point is that they happen in close succession though. If there's time to check again with the precogs and they say "nope, still going to happen", then sure. But if there isn't time for the precogs to flag it up, then their protection fails. That's why it works in the film - the precog's subsequent visions are of a murder in the past and for an entirely different reason. – Graham Mar 03 '16 at 12:53
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Again, it depends on how the precogs work here. Depends on if it is an active or passive skill, and, if it is passive, depends on when it triggers. Also, it has to be in very close succession to assure they don't have a vision between the two attempts. – Ray O'Kalahjan Mar 03 '16 at 14:26
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Get a bunch of identical assassins and give them all the same plan, telling them all spring into action at slightly different times. For example, when a clock chimes, give each of them a different chime to go on. The precogs will think they're seeing the same assassination again and again. With luck, they'll stop the first one, think they've neutralised the threat, and have only a second's warning before the second one gets there. – anaximander Mar 03 '16 at 15:10
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This isn't quite what happened in Minority Report. The precogs predicted a woman's murder, which prevented it happening. Sometime later, another person dressed in the same manner, drew the same woman to the same location, and murdered her exactly the same way the first attempt was predicted to go. The successful murder was dismissed as a memory, a repeat of a previously-solved crime, because it looked almost exactly the same. – Mar Mar 03 '16 at 21:38
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OP could use that exact same idea, by having the precogs prevent an assassination attempt, then reproduce the exact same attempt a few days later. The precogs would dismiss it as a memory, since they already prevented that attempt. But that only works if precogs sometimes experience past events as if they were future ones. – Mar Mar 03 '16 at 21:40
Wasn't Minority Report two identical assassins in the same place at different times? Not saying it's a bad approach, but it only worked in that context due to a specific aspect of how the precog system worked; the precogs could have dreams about crimes they've already prevented, and there was an operator around who was trained to ignore anything they thought was just a dream. Without that mechanic, it's not clear if this approach would work. – aroth Mar 04 '16 at 03:34
@MartinCarney But the "sometime later" was literally seconds. Just enough time for the first person to be bundled off, the security team leave the area with them, and then the second person jumped her immediately. No delay, no time for precogs to check again, no nothing. And this is my point - there's no easy way for the precogs or their handlers to differentiate between the two. The actual "Minority Report" of the film's title was one precog seeing one and the other two seeing the other. – Graham Mar 04 '16 at 09:02
@aroth No, they immediately followed each other. Literally as soon as the Precrime team had left, the second person jumped her. The precog's post-murder dreams were the way to find who murdered the woman afterwards, but that's all. The Minority Report precogs were specifically tuned for detecting murder, so there was a very specific precondition for who could get away with it, and that really complicated things. In the OP's scenario though that doesn't apply - all you need to do is influence what the precog's friends and family will see, and job done. – Graham Mar 04 '16 at 09:08
@Graham What those other people said is what I was trying to tell you. Also, two nopes: in the film is not seconds later because, as I recall, what causes Tom Cruise to differentiate is the wind in the water blowing in opposite directions. How could that be only seconds appart? Also, the "Minority Report" of the title is not that, is the fact that sometimes one of the precogs foresees a different outcome (not a murder), so Tom Cruise is looking for his alternate outcome. – Ray O'Kalahjan Mar 04 '16 at 09:09
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@RayO'Kalahjan Agreed, they need to follow each other quickly. But presumably not so quickly that the evidence of the first assassin's existence is still visible when the second assassin hits. Plenty of ways around that though - snipers spring to mind immediately, because the target won't react to police arresting a sniper half a mile away. – Graham Mar 04 '16 at 09:16
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@RayO'Kalahjan The different outcome was the genuine murder. The first person would have killed the woman, and Precrime stopped them. The second person did kill the woman. In other circumstances the "minority report" is the killer not following through, but in that case it was two separate killers. And as someone who sailed dinghies extensively for a while, I can tell you that the wind on a lake can easily change direction randomly all the time if it's swirling around hills, woods and shoreline - as that lake was. (I used to hate lake sailing!) – Graham Mar 04 '16 at 09:23
@Graham I'll confess my ignorance in the wind part. But (there's always a but) what I meant is that the "minority report" was a different outcome independent from the Precrime preventing the crime. That is precisely the philosophical conundrum present on the film: Tom Cruise learns they prevent crimes that may have not have happened at all. Crimes prevented because they have been foreseen do not apply. – Ray O'Kalahjan Mar 04 '16 at 09:30

score 24 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 03 '16 at 11:16

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Make the thing that kills the target the response to an event that will seem to be the cause of death. In short, work with multi-layered threats.

To assassinate the rebel leader, you will have to find an action you can perform that is potentially lethal to the target, but to which his/her guards' response is set in stone in advance.

An example would be if the leader always has a nearby helicopter on standby to flee with. You would set up snipers to target the leader, making a real attempt to kill them, but to also have their helicopter rigged with explosives and to have someone standing by with an anti-air missile in case the explosives are found in time and a different type of missile in case the guards suddenly decide to move your target on foot. Add enough layers and the precogs will be unable to prevent every layer in time, if they even have a vision that covers it.

answered Mar 03 '16 at 11:16

Cronax

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So what do they see? Someone snipes, we escape, explosion of heli. Conclusion: Don't escape by heli. They see the event of death, a multi layer threat is therefore quite useless. You could argue the same with shoot enough at them, they will see the shooting, but can they dodge everything? – Zibelas Mar 03 '16 at 15:29
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The idea is that every single one of the threats is intended to be lethal, if they can see every single threat then simply overload them with so many threats that they can't 'wake up' in time to prevent them. The idea though, is that they will only be able to see the next threat once the first one has been dealt with. If they don't escape by heli, maybe they get a vision that they also get blown up if they take a car, but also if they stay in place they will get shot, etc. Cover all options until there's no way to escape anymore. – Cronax Mar 03 '16 at 15:55
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@Zibelas: Heli explodes, but we escape by jeep. There are mines on the road. They don't know where the mines are, they just know which (hundred) paths taken by the car will make it explode and which one will see them through. Of course executing passing that precise path will be nearly impossible because that would require perfect driving. So let's scratch the jeep and play dead. Nope, they napalm-bomb the camp. So let's dig a bunker. The napalm smoke will poison them. Let's collapse the exit. They suffocate. And so on. Knowing how you can die doesn't necessarily tell you how not to die. – SF. Mar 03 '16 at 16:03
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Indeed. Unless you're in an action movie. Then you just need to run and jump to avoid conventional explosions and a fridge to survive a nuke. – The Nate Mar 03 '16 at 18:08
They're not very good precogs if they don't 'see' through to the final "layer" and past all the noise. – Mazura Mar 03 '16 at 18:30
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We already know they are not "good precogs": they can only see two days into the future. To foil them you need to set up a chain of events that require the correct action be taken three days in advance. – Pedro Lamarão Mar 03 '16 at 19:32
Two days. They must have low IQs. A few hours is already really good evasion in a big city. – Joshua Mar 03 '16 at 20:59
So, basically, lots of guns and firepower? – JesseTG Mar 03 '16 at 23:41
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This actually doesn't work, since the precogs see death up to 1 week in advance - Even if the plan is carried out such that they only see 2 days, the moment they see the event taking place in a location, they can just opt to not even attend the event in which you are doing the assassination - if your plan depended on him being at party X, he could just ditch the party and hop over to another area of the world on a plane at any time before the party. You would literally need to have the whole world covered, which is impossible. – Aify Mar 04 '16 at 00:46
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@Aify We only need to look to the real world to find events that someone like him would need to attend no matter what the threats are. The exact details of my example might not be the best, but my point is that given enough overkill, even if the precogs know what's going to happen it won't be enough. Combine that with the fact that they just see the event and one hallway can be quite similar to the other and you can make it pretty hard for them to make accurate predictions of all the eventualities you are covering. It's never a sure thing, but you at least have a decent shot. – Cronax Mar 04 '16 at 08:04
Also, you don't have to cover the whole world, if you have a profile on the guy you can make an educated guess on where he can and cannot go. He's still a wanted man, so he most likely can't just be out in the open too much. He is a subversive, so not everyone will harbour him. If you can work out his possible refuges and make arrangements for all of them, you should be able to take him down. Considering that the US government is doing the killing, they should have the resources to make this happen. – Cronax Mar 04 '16 at 08:10
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Setting a chain of events won't be enough. You can, however, set traps all the way. You could make a path of protection, with every single other way blocked. Just imagine the person as a fish, and you are the net. How will you catch the fish? Either you decoy it into a trap or you surround it with net until it only has one way to go, which is into the net. Applying this, you can lead a seemingly safe path, where you force them to go, and, at the end of the path, you have your deadly trap setup. When they find it out, you closed their way back. There's no escape... – Ismael Miguel Mar 04 '16 at 09:55
@Cronax if they could figure out exactly where he can possibly be at all times you may as well just launch missiles at all those places at the same time. – Aify Mar 04 '16 at 16:13
This answer also doesn't take into account that fleeing is not the only option - in the case where a precog detects a threat, they can choose to go and kill that threat instead of fleeing, rendering the entire chain of events that have been set up moot. – Aify Mar 04 '16 at 22:26
I'm surprised no one has referred to this tactic as a checkmate yet. – Jetscooters Mar 04 '16 at 22:36

score 20 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 03 '16 at 11:38

I like the poison ideas but I might suggest a variation to take advantage of the precogs being ultra-sensitive to their own deaths or attacks on themselves.

So, the precogs see an event and then their own changes in behavior can avert it. Take advantage of this.

Commit to dosing the superhuman rebel leader with a drug which causes highly violent/psychotic/erratic behavior, say 8 days in the future unless the surveillance teams notice a change in behavior of the precogs.

The precogs start getting visions of the superhuman rebel leader turning on them and murdering them and their families in a violent rage.

They start getting nervous and jittery as it gets close to murder-day and the surveillance teams report this. The drugging plan is cancelled(temporarily).

The next day you again commit to drugging him, again the precogs start getting visions of him murdering them and their families in a psychotic rage.

Repeat until the precogs either flee from him, start doubting their abilities or kill him first to save themselves. Months of visions of their dear leader killing all around him are likely to take their toll.

Somehow I think there is a flaw in this logic - the precogs would see that he ends up calming himself down (because they forsee you not poisoning him anymore), rather than being mistaken about the future — user2813274, Mar 03 '16 at 14:46
That depends whether they see peaceful futures. If someone is going to snipe them and they get a vision of getting shot do they get a second vision of not getting shot when they decide to take a different route to work to avoid the sniper. — Murphy, Mar 03 '16 at 16:05
The obvious problem with this plan is that such a drug doesn't exist, and indeed such a drug would require really complex engineering since to pose a real threat such a drug wouldn't just need to cause blind rage, if it only did that it wouldn't necessarily make the person have the intent to kill. — Vakus Drake, Mar 04 '16 at 02:39

score 17 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 03 '16 at 14:10

Delegitimize the precogs

Implicit in the OP is that the rebel leader implicitly trusts the precogs. Whatever they say to do, he will do in regards to his personal safety. Depending on how the precognition works, exploits in that mechanism could be found to provide different, hopefully conflicting information to the precogs. If this kind of conflicting information goes on long enough, the leader's trust of the precogs may wain just enough to pull off a successful assassination.

Plant a new Precog

Find a way to discredit one of the precogs sufficiently that the leader ejects them. Plant a new precog with loyalties to the government. Formulate an attack on the leader based on the expected interactions between the leader and the precog's personality.

Subtle misinformation by the royalist precog may be enough to create an opportunity.

Drive the Precogs insane

If the resources of the government permit it, keep up a continuous stream of assassination attempts. Find a highly violent psychopath to invent a thousand ways to kill the rebel leader, then start planning the worst of these. The intent to kill should be enough to inject the images of that assassination approach into the precogs mind. Assuming the precogs are otherwise normal human beings, constant exposure to imagery like that will take its toll leading either to the precog's retirement or increasing ineffectiveness due to PTSD.

Without the precogs or with unreliable precogs, the rebel leader becomes like other men again.

Combinatorial Explosion of Possible Assassination Attempts

Most models of the future account for the possibility of different outcomes to an event (which I'm going to call "event forking"). The future looks like a giant branching set of paths. Defending against a single assassination attempt is easy enough, just don't be there. Defending against two attempts is harder. Defending three or more simultaneous attempts is even harder.

For example, if the rebel stays in his base, he will be killed by a bombing attack. But if he goes out of his base then his own troops will kill him or a sniper will get him. Stay or go, damned either way.

The government gets their own Precogs

If the government can get their hands on their own precogs then the playfield is leveled. The effect of this is to see which side can see farther out or master the complexities of all possible futures.

score 13 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 03 '16 at 05:29

What exactly can the precogs in your setting see, and what does it say about your setting? How does averting precognitions work?

Imagine that the rebels are hiding in a cave and a stalactite falls from the ceiling, potentially hitting the leader. Can the precogs tell? How early? Do they sense the slowly developing cracks and extrapolate from there?
If they can detect stuff falling from the ceiling, how about a trap like the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment? How much warning would they get? Can the precogs beat quantum mechanics? You said magic and superpowers, after all.

The next option would be classic cordon and search operations.

Even if the precogs know that the search is coming, there is a cordon in place. Trying to avoid the cordon before it goes up requires the rebels to move quickly, with increased risk of running into a roadblock.
The government could go after communications and supporters. They tap the transmission whenever the smart TV in the living room uploads voice recognition data. They track the movement of every car, every smartphone. Their routine checkpoints assume that any traveller without a smartphone is no genuine business traveller, and no others are allowed to move.

Of course that would be very much a dystopia, but you were talking about a superhuman rebellion. Merely human terrorists caused the real-world US to ditch constitutional principles in the name of security.

thanks for answering on my question. Much of what you asked is answered in my question look under note. — Bryan McClure, Mar 03 '16 at 13:42
Schroedinger's Cat was the first thing I thought of. A bomb that only goes off with a 10% probability after recieving its trigger (e.g., starting the car only has a 10% chance of setting the bomb off). Can the pre-cogs see if the bomb will actually go off with any specific starting of the car if the "probability waveform" only "collapses" right when the key is turned? — Todd Wilcox, Mar 03 '16 at 14:14

score 13 · Answer 8 · edited Mar 04 '16 at 04:23

As your precogs can only see 2 days into the future, it should be possible to maneuver your target into an inescapable situation where his death is the only outcome and there is no way of avoiding it.

As long as your precogs operate in a branching possibilities manner, as long as you can guarantee almost every branch from a certain situation leads to death, you win.

For example: Ensure your target ends up on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Ensure that the lifeboats are sabotaged and then rig the ship to both sink and explode -- two or more days after he boards it. Now your precogs will see the ship sink/explode but there is no option for your target except to jumps overboard and drown/die of exposure, die in the explosion or get pulled down with the ship. There are probably still avenues of escape in this example, but with enough preparation you could close those off as well.

Brice M. Dempsey · Answer 9 · 2016-03-04T11:28:25.333

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We use a precog of our own to create a logical paradox.

Equip two snipers. Let's call them Sniper-A and Sniper-B. Sniper-A is a precog.

Sniper-A is ordered to assassinate the target on day 1 only if he foresees that the target will not be killed on day 2.

Sniper-B is ordered to assassinate the target on day 2 only if the target was not killed on day 1.

If the guards foresee an assassination attempt on day 1 and prevent it, Sniper-B will make the kill on day 2. If they foresee an assassination attempt on day 2 and prevent it, Sniper-A will make the kill on day 1.

Either way they will not be able to stop the attack.

If the guards prevent the assassination on day 1, it will be carried out on day 2. In this case the assassination on day 1 will never be attempted and the guards cannot foresee it! The same argument applies the other way round.

The concept of precogs allows the two snipers form a logical paradox. Because of this, ordinary logical reasoning will never really get you one right answer about what will happen. However in a universe where you are fighting against precogs, creating such logical paradoxes is almost certain to ruin their day!

edited Mar 04 '16 at 11:28

answered Mar 03 '16 at 15:24

Brice M. Dempsey

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Any reason the guards wouldn't foresee both attempts and stop both? – Frostfyre Mar 03 '16 at 15:36
There will only be one attempt! – Brice M. Dempsey Mar 03 '16 at 15:39
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@BriceM.Dempsey What about this scenario?: Guards don't foresee anything (at first). So, sniper-B would do the kill. Guards will foresee that and plan to prevent it. Sniper-A will foresee this and plan to do the kill. Guards will foresee this one and prevent it too. So all attempts will be stopped, just like Frostfyre said. – Ray O'Kalahjan Mar 03 '16 at 16:01
If guards foresee Sniper-B making an attempt and prevent it then Sniper-A will make the kill. But Sniper-B would not have made an attempt in this scenario and so could not have been predicted by the guards in the first place.
(Before we argue too much - These scenarios are actually logical paradoxes, so it's impossible to reason rigorously about what would happen.)
– Brice M. Dempsey Mar 03 '16 at 16:15
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@BriceM.Dempsey I agree, as you said, it's impossible to foresee (ironically) what would happen, so you couldn't be sure of the success of this plan, which is what the OP wanted. It's a fun idea, though, for story-telling I mean, so I think I'm gonna go for it and upvote. – Ray O'Kalahjan Mar 04 '16 at 09:16
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I went ahead and upvoted. But, it's only "good" taken with the comments. Can you edit the post to better explain it, similarly to how it was fleshed out in the comments? – JDługosz Mar 04 '16 at 10:39
I thought precogs can only predict the future of people closely related to them. – NVZ Mar 05 '16 at 04:17
@NVZ, good point, but they only have to foresee if the other sniper is successful who they presumably know. – Brice M. Dempsey Mar 05 '16 at 09:17
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It is easy to create a computer cluster that can (accidentally or not) lock itself in a loop by changing state variables according to some rules. Like a computer program each decision by a precog would provoke a new decision by another of them. They would become the equivalent of a pair of computers being locked in a circular state machine using 100% CPU effectively provoking each other to use more resources. – mathreadler Mar 05 '16 at 15:39
@mathreadler It's also possible that there could be forking timelines in such a way that the assassination succeeds in some universes and fails in others. – Brice M. Dempsey Mar 05 '16 at 15:53

score 10 · Answer 10 · answered Mar 03 '16 at 13:49

How about if he is killed with an unlikely event?

The precogs will most likely see the most probable future out of several futures which might happen. And each vision can change on the behaviour of any oracle.

So send an assassin, which goes into position each day to kill the leader, but only kills him he throws a 6 on a die. Because the results of this die throw could probably be seen as a fixed future, he will throw the die at a certain time, depending on involuntary behaviour of the pre-cogs. For example he throws the die when a certain pre-cog sneezes, or scratches his nose, or frowns. Then depending on the actions of the pre-cog he will throw the die at another time and in a slightly different angle and get another result. So every thought the pre-cog has will change the die result and change the future. This will leave only one stable future for the day: The most likely future that he doesn't roll a 6 and doesn't kill the leader.

This will be the same for each day, until luck strikes and the assassin kills the leader. And it will be very likely that the leader will die somewhere within one week. But even if they could see a week in advance and see that he is dead, they can not see how he was killed, because each individual time-path (killed on Monday, killed on Tuesday, killed on Wednesday...) individually is quite unlikely to happen (only 1/6 chance).

And off course this scales. If a 1/6th change is too likely so the precogs warn him to avoid it, then have the assassin roll 2 dice and shoot only on a pair. I think it also scales with assassins, you sent 100 assassins to different cities/districts etc, making a low change slight threat everywhere. — Frames Catherine White, Mar 04 '16 at 03:43

user6511 · Answer 11 · 2016-03-04T01:39:34.457

Have two assassination attempts; one immediate, and one put in motion well in advance of the the immediate one.

[EDIT] This does rely on a literal interpretation of the following;

usually precogs only see about two days in the future and only things that happened to them or to someone that they are closely connected to

Suppose you know that the rebel leader will be in an office building/shopping mall at a specific time. You make plans trigger the fire alarm and kill them at the building's fire evacuation point. The precogs will see it, warn the leader, who will logically stay the hell where they are during the alarm.

All is going as planned.

Now you plant a bomb where the leader will be - or rather - you planted a timed bomb there a fortnight ago. Well beyond the horizon of the precogs' ability to anticipate.

The logic for this goes like such; the fire alarm poses no direct threat to the leader, nor does going to the evacuation point. There are many things that would influence the leader's actions, and most of these would slip past the precogs' attention. Mundane things like what the leader reads in the morning paper, or the weather report on the nightly news.

If a fire alarm is triggered, but no assassin is present, then the leader is unharmed, and no more inconvenienced than any other person in the building. They survive the bomb because the normal, sensible, behaviour saves them.

Adding the assassin to the mix provokes a precog response: a response that actually causes the assassination.

[EDIT] Witnessing an explosion that doesn't harm you shouldn't be perceived by the precog bodyguards. Also, the bomb isn't the cause of the fire alarm, so there's an extra layer of disconnection between the two that helps conceal it from the precogs.

Just because they don't see when you plant the bomb doesn't mean that they won't foresee it exploding within a few days, assuming they've already planned for the assassination. — Samthere, Mar 03 '16 at 11:05
I like the idea of using the precog to essentially outsmart itself but I agree with @Samthere. You need to explain how they wouldn't see the explosion. — Tim B, Mar 03 '16 at 13:23
The question describes precogs as only being able to see things happen to people/themselves, not see things that happen around them. — user6511, Mar 03 '16 at 21:41

score 7 · Answer 12 · answered Mar 03 '16 at 16:02

I see a flaw in the logic of the question.

Just because he can see the attempt coming, does not mean he can avoid it.

If you know where he is, and can track his transportation, simply keep the pressure on him until he is driven to ground. Once he is cornered, it doesn't matter if he can see that his executioners will be storming the compound.

If you absolutely must have Precogs = Safety, then continuously target all of the Precogs. Even if they are continuously able to avoid their own assassinations, that will seriously disrupt their ability to inform the leader of any attempts on his life.

score 7 · Answer 13 · answered Mar 04 '16 at 16:06

Hire a good assassin. On occasion when trying to teach fencing, I have told my opponent what I am going to do, where I will hit them and what they should do about it. Then I hit them until they get the parry timing right.

If your opponent is faster and wiser than you, then simply knowing exactly what they are planning is not sufficient to protect you.

score 4 · Answer 14 · answered Mar 03 '16 at 15:17

Having Pre-cogs of your own plan the assassination as well as a parallel plan by non pre-cogs I'm assuming that if a pre-cog were to plan the mission, then not only would the rebel pre-cogs 'see' the attempt and move to counter it, but surely the government pre-cogs would be able to see the counters, and react accordingly. This would effectively lock both sets of pre-cogs in a never ending cycle of move - counter move until the Government pre-cogs stopped planning (since they initiated it and the defenders are reactive rather than proactive). This clears the way for the normal humans to complete the mission.

In Brandon Sandersons Mistborn trilogy, the 'magic' relies on burning metals. One metal in particular Atium allows you to see, process and then act against attacks as if you were a god. The only way to stop this is by burning Atium as well (or Electrum) as it shows ghost images of all the possible moves.

http://mistborn.wikia.com/wiki/Atium

score 4 · Answer 15 · answered Mar 03 '16 at 15:21

A truly diabolical plan would be to place an attack on all the families of the precogs. Force them to deal with protecting their families and loved ones (which might trigger as much as a week out. Force their attention away from the leader. Have a dedicated team for each family, that dogs their steps for a whole week.

Any of the family that survives the week, lives. As the available precogs diminish it reduces the level of prevention. Then host an all out assault on the compound, tasering EVERYONE into unconsciousness. By not killing anyone on the compound it will reduce the feedback to the precogs. Then capture those deemed needed, including the leader. At that point, once he is in custody he can predict his death, and not do anything about it.

score 2 · Answer 16 · answered Mar 03 '16 at 16:22

Another option is to outstrip their decision making time.

Set up an assassin that uses a quantum random number generator to decide if the mission is a go or not. The assassin sets up an attempt daily. The attempt has 3-5 seconds from decision to death. They look at the random number generator, and if it meets criteria, then they execute him. If not, they tear down the attempt and try again tomorrow.

The quantum random number generator cannot be predicted by the precogs. They will know only once the decision is actually made, and they'll only have 3-5 seconds to stop the assassination. As long as you choose methods that will work in that time frame, and verify that the precogs can't react that fast, then they will only see this future at the moment the quantum number generator is stopped and observed by the assassin, and by then it'll be too late.

Until that time, they will only be seeing the future as it would occur if the quantum random number generator were never observed.

It's a practical application of Schrödinger's cat.

keshlam · Answer 17 · 2016-03-04T06:00:30.903

Being able to foresee something and being able to avoid it are different things. This is the time travel paradox problem in different costume, and all the same answers may apply. Maybe the future that is seen is the only future possible. Maybe it isn't but the universe has some inertia and it's incredibly hard to keep what was seen from happening. Maybe that future happens because you attempted to avoid it based on the prophecy. Maybe the prophet can't get every possible detail right and misreads the prediction. Maybe saving this person would cause worse problems later.

See also Dune's description of how hard it can be to find a path to a desired outcome through a sea of alternatives. See also Minority Report's observation that even with multiple seers they can get it wrong.

score 2 · Answer 18 · answered Mar 04 '16 at 20:45

Use the precogs as the assassins.

This can be done with bribery or extortion, etc. I'm assuming the precogs are still human and still have human flaws like greed or family attachments or self-preservation.

You can play up on these and bribe or threaten enough of the precogs to either get them to cooperate, disagree with each other to the point the leader can't trust them, or be removed from the leader's service. All of these cases improve your chances of an assassination attempt.

It is a costly endeavor, but so is hiring a good assassin, and you have the financial power of a government at your disposal.

It would be a reasonable approach. But would the pre cogs not be able to police each other by foreseeing each other doing things or being involved in communications which could harm the leader? — mathreadler, Mar 05 '16 at 15:18

score 1 · Answer 19 · answered Mar 03 '16 at 09:51

Surround the leader with troops. Plan to assassinate the leader / anyone else in your way a week later, so they can't run before your troops arrive. Kill him when he tries to run. This will happen the day your troops arrive, so they don't even have to bother waiting.

score 1 · Answer 20 · answered Mar 04 '16 at 14:34

There is one way to defeat a precog: You narrow the decision window until it is too small to react to.

Simple example. Find somewhere that your target goes to every day, that is in range of a sniper shot. Go out there with your rifle, line up the shot, then roll a pair of dice: On a 12, you shoot, otherwise you go home and come back again the next day to try again.

This assumes that the precogs cannot forsee the outcome of your dice roll - you might need to use a more sophisticated random number generator instead, but in any case it does rely on there being something that cannot be predicted. If everything can be perfectly predicted, then it means either free will does not exist, or there is something special about humans. In the first case, don't bother trying - there's nothing you can do about anything anyway. In the second case, you have your random number generator. Instead of rolling dice, call a random phonenumber, and pull the trigger if the first word they say is "bonjour" instead of "hello". Or something similar, either way you've introduced two random variables: what number you dial, and what they say.

score 1 · Answer 21 · answered Mar 04 '16 at 19:08

Plan and execute a simultaneous series of missions to attack/destroy a civilian/neutral targets guaranteed to contain friends and family of the pre cogs. Let the only order that would countermand the attack being the public suicide of the rebel leader. Trust to his own virtuous nature to take care of the rest of the problem for you.

Uriel · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-02T19:06:52.707

Your strategy will heavily depend of the precogs exact capacity, here are some tactics that can even be combined for efficiency:

Information saturation

You render the precogs useless by saturating them with information and hope some of you attempts will succeed. This means preparing dozens of assassination attempts on the target but also on precogs themselves, their family, their dog, their relationships, so that they are overwhelmed by strong precognitions and will not be able to analyze all of them. Non-targeted operations like bombing may also overload the precogs (depending how they see/react to the future);

Information hidden over time

In short: delay death. Some diseases can be inoculated but cause death only after some time. Some poisons have a cumulative effect. Some substances can also make you react to other that are innocuous usually (like alcohol). I suppose precogs will be attracted by "strong" physical or emotional events, so this seems an efficient option. If progressive death is not an option, two steps can be enough, like trapping the target in a limited geographical location (a building) doomed to destruction in a few days without any possible escape, or inject a micro-bomb that will denotate after days, or completely randomly (depending on how precog effectively perceive things).

Information hidden

Basically : assassinate in the dark. This depend "how" precogs see the future, but they probably receive a projection based on their usual senses. If the killing occurs in the dark and in silence, they may be impaired to detect it. It they sense emotions, assassinate without pain, with a sleeping target, etc.

Manipulation : reaction makes the kill

Use the precogs to trigger a reaction that will lead to the killing. This is great manipulation (and can make a good plot) and a need to plan everything ahead. The precogs will see the death coming, but without any way to escape it.

score 1 · Answer 23 · answered Mar 05 '16 at 13:00

Create a fake death scenario which drives him into the 'real' one unavoidably.

The idea is the second one isn't possible, until the leader has made some choice in response to the first threat. Both threats must be close enough time wise to prevent the precogs acting to stop it.

A poison, with an antidote which then kills you for example. The antidote can be slow acting, maybe required to be taken for the rest of your life. However prolonged taking of said antidote is actually poisonous too.

Think of cancer, we treat it with chemotherapy, which in fact is killing you also, just not as quickly as cancer will kill you. Something that works in a similar way if what is needed.

score 0 · Answer 24 · edited Mar 03 '16 at 13:45

As for what I would suggest. Things can only consistently work if the precognition is limited. Particularly to their point of view or one close. How do you keep them from knowing that their ability is going to be used against them? I would engineer a situation where the leader actually gets saved but the saving process puts him in an longer road to a definite capture. They may be able to foresee their own deaths, but if the leader is saved this won't necessarily matter to the same degree. If its hard to recognize a precog situation or tell how they really will play out or they take time to experience, you could attempt to "spam" their mental inboxes, especially with someone on the inside to monitor things. The more work they have to do the harder it will be to do it. Superhumans are still human.

While there is an attempt at an answer in here (the last 3 sentences) the rest seems like it would be a better fit for the comments. Bolster up your last points on 'spamming their mental inboxes' and you'll have a workable answer though. — Joe Bloggs, Mar 03 '16 at 11:45

score 0 · Answer 25 · answered Mar 03 '16 at 15:17

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Isolate him up in a room (or container, even coffin) with enough breathing air, but no food and water.

Cheap, effective.

Use a bomb that arms up after three days.

answered Mar 03 '16 at 15:17

Sabandijo

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The bomb attempt wouldn't necessarily work. Even if the bomb arms up in three days, the precogs would foresee it two days before the bomb explodes, probably having enough time to at least escape from its blast. The isolation attempt could work, but maybe being kidnapped and isolated is traumatizing enough for the precogs to foresee the moment you kidnap him. – Ray O'Kalahjan Mar 03 '16 at 16:17

score 0 · Answer 26 · answered Mar 04 '16 at 14:28

Actually, the simplest solution is to hire some anti-precog psykers ... Either plant false visions or fog up the future so they can't see it coming. You might have to fog up a few weeks or months ahead, as they'll likely go on alert as soon as they realize that they are under mental attack... but if you keep doing eventually they'll get lax when no assassination attempt occurs, and then BOOM.