The fact all the Vespers ALSO have like... corpo admin jobs is endlessly funny to me. You think they work in an office? Sit at little cubicals and do their accounting or their logistics or their PR. And then every so often one of them gets sent out in their war machine to step on some unnarmed civilians. This feels like a sitcom set up to me.
the vespers aren't all related to each other. in the beginning of the medusa plot, they said it's theorized that there's probably a direct line from damien vesper, but otherwise, it's just an initiation-based secret organization unlike the cahills
ofc, there's Damien Vesper III who's vesper 1, but Isabel Kabra's maiden last name is Hollingsworth-VESPER. and despite being an active dedicated lucian for years, she was vesper 2. not that the authors put this much thought into it lol, but what if she's, like, the first cousin (or even half-sibling) of Damien Vesper III? which doesnt have that many implications i think but it does mean that a direct relative of Natalie is the one that killed her
A Niche Analysis of the Recruitment of Vesper Three Using Rapid Fire: Hunted
Hunted follows various moments in the Clue Hunt that weren't covered by the main series, alternating between the POVs of the Watcher and the ones being watched. Essentially, the unnamed Vesper is trying to decide which of the Clue Hunters should be reached out to and groomed into becoming Vespers (specifying someone from the younger generation since they're easier to mold).
The Starlings
The first section covers Ned, Ted, and Sinead's actions leading up to their confrontation with Amy and Dan in the Franklin Institute in The Maze of Bones. It's from Ted's point of view, but when the watcher cuts in, she says this:
"This was the first real test they'd faced in the Clue hunt, and Ted had done especially well. Of the three Starlings, he was definitely the most promising."
However, the Watcher also notes that they would either have to recruit all of the Starlings, which would be dangerous, or remove two of them from the picture. More on this later.
Obviously, they don't stick with Ted. My assumption is that they were vying for Ted, but of course, the Franklin Institute blew, and both Ned and Ted became disabled. This was probably why the Vespers decided not to go with either of them, even though blind Ted, Deaf Ned, and emotionally unstable Sinead could wreck their whole shit no matter what. Due to the severity of their injuries, Sinead probably also recovered before her brothers, which gave the Vespers plenty of time to reach out to her when she was in such a dark and lonely place.
The Others
Jonah's section takes place soon after his stint in Egypt in Beyond the Grave. He looks for a Clue in Venezuela, scales a building, and thinks about making his mom happy. The Watcher is very impressed. That's basically it.
Hamilton's section is in the Arctic, and it's not very sure when it takes place (besides sometimes during the Hunt). He refuses to help his family attack random people, is called a traitor by his dad, and gets attacked by a polar bear because he was lured away from the other Holts by probably a Vesper. The Watcher figures he'd be really easy to manipulate away from his family. That's basically it.
I'll get more into this later, but I'm assuming they were dropped as likely Vespers because of the level of empathy they showed before anyone else. Speaking of.
Ian Kabra
His section takes place "a little over a month" into the Clue Hunt, aka, near the very end. He's snuck away from home and caught a flight to Angkor Watt (where he would later meet Cara for the second time in Unstoppable!) after being chewed out by his mother over some nonspecific failure.
"His mother’s shouts still rang in Ian’s ears. Worthless. Pathetic. Useless. No good. The day before, his mother, Isabel Kabra, had spent nearly an hour berating Ian and his sister, Natalie, for their performance during the Clue hunt. It had been over a month since Grace Cahill’s death had set the hunt in motion, and from the way Mum talked, Ian and Natalie were the worst Clue hunters in Cahill history. It had been bad enough to bear in the daytime, but after Ian went to bed that night, all he heard were those words echoing through his mind. And that was when Ian had sneaked out of his room and hopped on a plane to Cambodia. It was a true sign of his desperation that he’d accepted a business-class seat, the only one left, for the long flight across Asia."
Based on the timing, my assumption is, though the actual words are generally referring to all of their actions and failures throughout the Clue Hunt, this outburst was triggered by Ian's failure to get the Janus serum on Mt. Everest. This timing would also make sense because it would be right before he started having serious doubts about his family. I'm for sure going to use this section to analyze Ian's childhood, but I'll do that later.
Essentially, Ian gets attacked by Vespers pretending to be Madrigals, and he straight up holds one of them hostage and threatens to kill them so he can escape. Normal things for a 14-year-old that definitely aren't psychologically damaging. The Watcher is very, very pleased, and figures that he would be the best Vesper out of them all.
The Vesper
Obviously, Ian Kabra doesn't become a Vesper. This is probably because of his betrayal of his mother and his joining the side of the Cahills, which is even more interesting given that his mother is revealed to be a Vesper (TRUST ME, I'm going to get into that), though that's not mentioned in the short story. So it's the same situation: as with Jonah and Hamilton, Ian becomes "too soft" for the Vespers.
And they pick Sinead Starling instead. Based on the evidence, they likely recruited her after the Clue Hunt, but I wouldn't be surprised if they reached out to talk to her while she was in the hospital (which I'm planning on writing a fic about (the grind never stops)).
My personal headcanon: The Vespers are most keen on trying to recruit the Starlings or Ian Kabra, partially because of their sheer intelligence and ruthlessness, but also, in Ian's case, because of their familial ties to the Vespers that they weren't aware of. Ian's mom is a Vesper, and judging by her last name, she's descended from the original (TRUST, I'm going to get into this). But the Vespers are also looking for vulnerability. Jonah, Hamilton, and Ian were busy with the Clue Hunt, but the Starling triplets were locked in a hospital room, and then their house, injured and angry. The Vespers wrote off Ned and Ted because of their disabilities, but Sinead was the least physically affected, and she was very, very angry. The Vespers started to reach out to her, not saying who they were. This was when the grooming process began, and luckily for them, her return to the Clue Hunt didn't go very well for her. Doubly lucky for them, they had cemented these ties before all of their other possibilities proved to be too weak. So, they doubled down on recruiting Sinead. And they didn't have to worry about her connection with her brothers getting between them and their plans anymore. All they had to do was tell her, "if you help us, you can help your brothers," and she was in hook, line, and sinker. So, she started on her first job as a Vesper: befriending and spying on Amy Cahill.
AKA, my poor girl was groomed after a traumatic event, didn't see anything wrong with it because she was basically already a child soldier, betrayed her newfound friends to try to help the people she loved, failed, and lost almost everyone in her life because evil adults wanted to take advantage of her fear, anger, and inexperience.
