Taking out Prosek

[Blackwater Sniper]

I recently presented my players (not the characters) with a “once in a lifetime” chance; assassinate Emperor Prosek and as many (named) Coalition leaders as possible.

Of course, as players we had talked about it since the game’s inception, but never to the level of; “Is it even possible? And if so, how.”

I like the book Under Siege by Stephen Coonts, set back in the late 1980s or early 1990s (when George H W Bush was POTUS) and during the “War on Drugs.” A head Cartel leader was brought to the US to face multiple international drug charges against the US. The Cartel put hits out on several top US government officials such as the President, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Secretary of Defense, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The ‘meat’ of the story is the order the assassin took in planning the hits. When multiple related targets are chosen, take out the person with the highest security detail; otherwise, the security will tighten to the point where an earlier ‘easy’ mission is now impossible.

Their characters are all Level 9+ and have serious resources at their disposal. If successful, each of the known accomplices would be hunted even more than Erin Tarn, effectively rewriting any future game play. After it became a “let’s do it” kind of thing, we started planning.

Our final decision, if we choose it, will be our best mission ever.
The top strategies we spit-balled:

1) Multi-part poisons that could not be detected individually, but when ingested, the components react to each other and become fatal within the body. This has the benefit of taking time (weeks if not months), not being picked up if food tasters are employed, and multiple individuals could be involved and not know the whole plot.

2) Direct assassination by forcing a meeting at a random location. This has been done in various films such as Star Trek: Into Darkness where an indirect attack led to a meeting at a known location (yes, it was a stupid location, but for the overall plot, it worked). The downsides are finding out the internal plans of the Coalition to protect key individuals; if multiple sites are used at random, each location needs to be staked out; and determining if those key people are clones or stand-ins of some sort.

3) Direct assassination while out in public. The most used scenario and the easiest (and hardest) to plan. Again, you have issues with body doubles and stand-ins.

Eventually, someone threw out a “radical” idea (that we will adopt): We chose the path least traveled; Preventing the Assassination of Emperor Prosek.

We discussed the possibility of a successful assassination and how the Coalition would react: “Maybe a change of command would be a good thing,” “The devil you know …. And all that,” “Does it matter if it is an outside group or insider,” and “Does it really matter the ‘Who’ or ‘Why’?

Before we begin this campaign, how would your team deal with this scenario?

[Mersharr]

We currently have one character setting himself up in the black market with (Hyperion) Juicer-based delivery & assassination (for what is assassination other than delivering the bullet to the target?) services, building up a juicer army and the capital to equip them with TW (at cost from 2 TWs in the group and probably many more who have reason to hate the CS) and Naruni (at a slight discount for anti-CS groups and bulk orders) while also acting as community leader for a species of underground-living rat-like d-bees, a lot of whom he can probably radicalize and use as army and/or scouts too. He currently has no specific invasion/assassination plan (mainly because the GM forbids it), but wants to harass the CS at every opportunity.

Meanwhile I am thinking, if it wasn't for our GM's strict No: if a time and place is known, couldn't one Teleport (lesser) up to 50 lbs of MD explosives, possibly with a TW detonator that activates on teleport? A lvl 10 mage would have 50 miles reach and no chance of failure if the location is known (Second Sight on someone who is known to be there? Same range). And if Teleport (superior) is on the table, range and weight become practically irrelevant. With just a photo of the location there's 80% chance of success per casting, and even in failing that, there's a 25% chance the explosives still make it to the right place (above ground or inside an object, can still explode), so at worst there's a 15% chance of blowing up some unrelated orphanage (because that kind of thing always ends up to be an orphanage, or some place of importance to your allies).

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Eventually, someone threw out a “radical” idea (that we will adopt): We chose the path least traveled; Preventing the Assassination of Emperor Prosek.

We discussed the possibility of a successful assassination and how the Coalition would react: “Maybe a change of command would be a good thing,” “The devil you know …. And all that,” “Does it matter if it is an outside group or insider,” and “Does it really matter the ‘Who’ or ‘Why’?

Before we begin this campaign, how would your team deal with this scenario?

I think it'd be fitting to have Prosek assassinated (or attempted) by magic. It should be child's play to kill him, really, if you remove plot armor. There are so many ways to kill him (or anyone high-profile) it's bewildering. I'm going to focus on one, though, and I'm making this up as I go, so forgive any gigantic holes in logic. I'm also going to intentionally make it convoluted, which would give your group more chances to interfere with it.

First: have the assassins make huge Vajras (Mystic China) capable of holding high-level spells. The main advantage to a Vajra is that it can be used to instantly cast even a level 15 spell.

The assassin's group abducts two random victims no one will miss; a hobo, a D-bee, whatever.

Prosek is going to make a big speech somewhere, advertised several days in advance.

A pair of mages use Naruni stealth power armor (I forget the exact name, but it's multi-million dollar top of the line Naruni gear from the Naruni book) to reach an area near the speech location, several hours before the speech. Said mages will be carrying several Vajra. They each take the armor off, cast Time Hole using one of the Vajra, and enter it carrying all their equipment. They have used the Transferal spell beforehand to put all of their magic and PPE into said abducted hobos; the mages thus, for the moment, have no magical signatures.

The hobos will be mind-controlled into rushing a security checkpoint near the speech, after Prosek takes the stage. Bombs strapped to each of them will be detonated by remote. This is done to serve as a distraction.

At the moment the hobos die, the Transferal spell will end and all the mages' PPE and powers will come back to them. That will be their signal to leave the Time Holes, and the distraction caused by the explosions should give the mages a few seconds to orient themselves after dropping out of the Time Holes. One mage will use a Vajra to instantly cast Swap Places on Prosek before he can leave the stage; all it takes is line of sight, range 500 feet for a level 10 mage. There is no save roll.

Prosek and the one mage are swapped instantly. The remaining mage then uses a Vajra to instantly cast Teleport: Superior on himself and Prosek; again, no save roll, no chance of failure. They are teleported several hundred or thousand miles away to a location known to the mage. His fellow assassins will be waiting, whereupon they rapidly kill Prosek. The moment he dies, the mage left behind on the stage will swap places with Prosek's corpse, thus being saved from the wrath of CS security.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

To clarify:

Swap Places is integral to the plan, or else it becomes a suicide mission, which is much harder to sell to skilled operatives. Swap Places lasts 10 minutes if cast at level 10, and if either half of the two people swapped dies, the spell ends instantly and they swap places one last time (which is what saves the mage on the stage, or if he can be killed fast enough, it could save Prosek).

If the plan succeeds without a hitch, there's almost no chance of the assassins' identity being discovered. The hobos will be vaporized (possibly even by--you guessed it--Vajras set to fire off the Annihilation spell, which would literally atomize them and leave no trace of anything; the hobos could be mind-controlled into activating them), neither assassin will be seen for more than a few seconds before it's all over. Obviously they'll be wearing masks. And they could be potentially 3,000 miles away moments after Prosek dies (Teleport: Superior's max range at level 10).

There is no technological angle in which any of the above is possible.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Meanwhile I am thinking, if it wasn't for our GM's strict No: if a time and place is known, couldn't one Teleport (lesser) up to 50 lbs of MD explosives, possibly with a TW detonator that activates on teleport? A lvl 10 mage would have 50 miles reach and no chance of failure if the location is known (Second Sight on someone who is known to be there? Same range). And if Teleport (superior) is on the table, range and weight become practically irrelevant. With just a photo of the location there's 80% chance of success per casting, and even in failing that, there's a 25% chance the explosives still make it to the right place (above ground or inside an object, can still explode), so at worst there's a 15% chance of blowing up some unrelated orphanage (because that kind of thing always ends up to be an orphanage, or some place of importance to your allies).

I don't think Second Sight would work, because you're looking at someone you've met before. If you want to teleport a bomb to Prosek's lap, then you'd need to have met him.

What could work is a live video feed of a speech he's giving in a public place. So, an ally of the assassins could be in the area recording the speech live (with conventional electronics), then the mage could use that as a teleport destination.

It's so simple you'd have to ask why it's not done all the time. On a regular bomb timer, it'd need to be set with a delay of about 32 seconds (to be safe) since Teleport: Lesser takes 30 seconds to complete. I don't know how a TW detonator would work, other than using Mystic Alarm or Wards; the problem with both is that they require someone to touch the object to trigger the ward. If a bomb's teleported anywhere near Prosek, nobody will bother immediately touching it; they'll just usher him away.

Another issue is the exact accuracy of Teleport. A few feet can make a difference with bombs. Also, 50lbs is not a lot of material to work with. If it's exploding in an open area, then there's no concussive effect as it would have in a closed room. It'd be better to make it a shaped charge, but if you don't know the exact orientation it'll have after being teleported, relative to Prosek, then it could be facing the wrong direction.

I think the best way to use Teleport: Lesser would be to have 10 different mages synchronized to send bombs to the same area. Total saturation would eliminate the variables of Teleport's accuracy.

At that point we'd have to assume that the only defense against such an attack would be to prevent anybody from taking video/photographs of the speech area.

But more realistically, we'd have to assume the CS is aware of how many ways there are to kill anybody with magic, and Prosek simply would never make public appearances. Maybe with proxies like holograms or body doubles, as the OP mentioned. In which case killing him in his secure compound becomes a much greater challenge (as it should be).

[Mersharr]

I don't think Second Sight would work, because you're looking at someone you've met before. If you want to teleport a bomb to Prosek's lap, then you'd need to have met him.

What could work is a live video feed of a speech he's giving in a public place. So, an ally of the assassins could be in the area recording the speech live (with conventional electronics), then the mage could use that as a teleport destination.

Or you could use the ally (or even an enemy, since there's no save) as target for Second Sight. You need only meet one person who is at the scene.

On a regular bomb timer, it'd need to be set with a delay of about 32 seconds (to be safe) since Teleport: Lesser takes 30 seconds to complete.

Tricky, you don't want to blow yourselves up, but you don't want to give the target time to react either. But that's where the TW-detonator comes in. Another important point is that Second Sight lasts 30 seconds, one might want to look into ways to speed up the process, so the mage(s) can keep their eyes on the target while casting. Are scrolls or talismans faster? There's no mention of how long either takes to activate.

I don't know how a TW detonator would work, other than using Mystic Alarm or Wards; the problem with both is that they require someone to touch the object to trigger the ward. If a bomb's teleported anywhere near Prosek, nobody will bother immediately touching it; they'll just usher him away.

I can't tell from the top of my head, but I'm decently sure a TW could come up with a device that triggers upon being teleported. Something like Sense Magic + Teleport: Lesser, or a detonator that does the teleporting for you! (Teleport: lesser + Fireblast)

Another issue is the exact accuracy of Teleport. A few feet can make a difference with bombs. Also, 50lbs is not a lot of material to work with. If it's exploding in an open area, then there's no concussive effect as it would have in a closed room. It'd be better to make it a shaped charge, but if you don't know the exact orientation it'll have after being teleported, relative to Prosek, then it could be facing the wrong direction.

How about an oversized frag-grenade? Or 49 pounds of Naruni's finest K-Hex? Or 10 pounds of K-Hex surrounded by 39 pounds of MDC-metal debris (plus detonator) forming an oversized frag-grenade? Just thinking about it, 49 lbs of K-Hex, even if we assume we can't make a demolition roll to "get the most out of it", would deal 49d6x10/5 MD to a 20 ft area, so an average of 343! And if we assume that it IS possible to "get the most out of it", we are looking at 490-2940 MD (1715 average)! And for the middle ground, equating teleportation to throwing the explosive, nets us 245-1470 MD (857 average), though only in a 10 ft area, which could make all the difference.

But more realistically, we'd have to assume the CS is aware of how many ways there are to kill anybody with magic, and Prosek simply would never make public appearances. Maybe with proxies like holograms or body doubles, as the OP mentioned. In which case killing him in his secure compound becomes a much greater challenge (as it should be).

That's the beauty of using second sight. We don't need a public appearance (which would have maximized security anyway), we only need to know that he is, at a specific time, personally meeting with a person at least one of our mages has met personally (who can then use a Helmet of Thought Projection to share the image with others).

I'd also like to point out that the text of Teleport: Superior does not explicitly state that it is necessary to teleport a living being, and can be argued to mean the mage can teleport unattended objects up to his maximum weight limit, without teleporting to the target himself. This only takes 3 melee actions (9-10 seconds) and allows a single mage to send a greater amount of explosives at a greater range. (Though, the greater range would prevent the use of Second Sight.)

On the note of range, since a Nexus triples the range of spells, wouldn't it be just the most delicious irony to perform the whole thing at the Chicago Supernexus, which is conveniently a little under 150 miles from Chi-Town? Probably a stupid idea, since that would put the mages at risk of getting eaten by demons, which I'd say is more dangerous than getting within 50 miles of Chi-Town and risking being spotted by CS Troops.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Or you could use the ally (or even an enemy, since there's no save) as target for Second Sight. You need only meet one person who is at the scene.

They'd need to be standing close to Prosek, then. The spell just shows the target, what they're doing and their immediate area. There's no indication you can move the view around like a camera and survey the area; it's focused on a specific person. I'm thinking the view would be the same as psionics' Remote Viewing ability, which describes it like looking down at somebody through a skylight.

Are scrolls or talismans faster? There's no mention of how long either takes to activate.

The only spell-holding device that's explicitly stated to cast any spell in one melee action, that I know of, is the vajra.

I can't tell from the top of my head, but I'm decently sure a TW could come up with a device that triggers upon being teleported. Something like Sense Magic + Teleport: Lesser

In that case, wouldn't the initial teleport trigger the explosion? Sense Magic should be triggered during the 30 second cast time of Teleport: Lesser.

How about an oversized frag-grenade? Or 49 pounds of Naruni's finest K-Hex? Or 10 pounds of K-Hex surrounded by 39 pounds of MDC-metal debris (plus detonator) forming an oversized frag-grenade? Just thinking about it, 49 lbs of K-Hex, even if we assume we can't make a demolition roll to "get the most out of it", would deal 49d6x10/5 MD to a 20 ft area, so an average of 343! And if we assume that it IS possible to "get the most out of it", we are looking at 490-2940 MD (1715 average)! And for the middle ground, equating teleportation to throwing the explosive, nets us 245-1470 MD (857 average), though only in a 10 ft area, which could make all the difference.

I would still teleport multiple bombs to the same area to be sure. Depending on how 'realistic' a GM wanted to be, one of Prosek's body guards could happen to be standing between him and a bomb, and absorb all the shrapnel along that trajectory.

Just a quick real world example: the bomb that was supposed to kill Hitler in '44 was moved from its original location to behind a heavy wood table leg, which diffused the blast. The original meeting location in a room with no windows was later changed to a room with open windows, which mitigated the concussive effect. Etc. Point being: bombs have a funny way of not performing like you want them to, unless conditions are 100% optimal. And they rarely are.

That's the beauty of using second sight. We don't need a public appearance (which would have maximized security anyway), we only need to know that he is, at a specific time, personally meeting with a person at least one of our mages has met personally (who can then use a Helmet of Thought Projection to share the image with others).

I have to ask: how would any mage have met somebody from Prosek's inner circle and survived the encounter?

I'd also like to point out that the text of Teleport: Superior does not explicitly state that it is necessary to teleport a living being, and can be argued to mean the mage can teleport unattended objects up to his maximum weight limit, without teleporting to the target himself. This only takes 3 melee actions (9-10 seconds) and allows a single mage to send a greater amount of explosives at a greater range. (Though, the greater range would prevent the use of Second Sight.)

Something like a thousand pound bomb would be sufficient, yes.

On the note of range, since a Nexus triples the range of spells, wouldn't it be just the most delicious irony to perform the whole thing at the Chicago Supernexus, which is conveniently a little under 150 miles from Chi-Town? Probably a stupid idea, since that would put the mages at risk of getting eaten by demons, which I'd say is more dangerous than getting within 50 miles of Chi-Town and risking being spotted by CS Troops.

I think the best overall solution would be to stay far away from Chi-Town and don't bother with Second Sight. Rather, find a purely technological way to take pictures of Prosek's personal quarters, then get those pictures to a mage, then use Teleport: Superior to do any number of things from that premise.

I assume that going after Prosek with all tech or all magic is not feasible. It's got to be a combination of the two, as far as I'm concerned. And I see magic as doing most of the heavy lifting, but there are some things it absolutely can't do in the middle of CS territory, and I'd argue that's the slow and thorough recon portion of the mission.

[Mersharr]

They'd need to be standing close to Prosek, then. The spell just shows the target, what they're doing and their immediate area. There's no indication you can move the view around like a camera and survey the area; it's focused on a specific person. I'm thinking the view would be the same as psionics' Remote Viewing ability, which describes it like looking down at somebody through a skylight.

You are correct, I had misread the spell and thought the mage would look trough the target's eyes.

In that case, wouldn't the initial teleport trigger the explosion? Sense Magic should be triggered during the 30 second cast time of Teleport: Lesser.

A TW-device can tweak the effects of the spells a bit. The tech part of it might also include an inverter, which detonates when Teleport is not sensed nearby, after it was primed by sensing the spell at first.

I have to ask: how would any mage have met somebody from Prosek's inner circle and survived the encounter?

Fair enough, see above for my misunderstanding of the spell. It might still be possible to get an image of the location by spying on someone from the cleaning staff though.

Something like a thousand pound bomb would be sufficient, yes.

Actually, forget K-Hex. NE-MAT-3 Anti-Matter Anti-Tank-Mine Type Two: 25 lbs, 1d4x100 MD, 500 ft blast radius, can be set with a timer.
If you tell them it's for Prosek, they may even give you a discount. (And all things considered, it's not that expensive to begin with)

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Fair enough, see above for my misunderstanding of the spell. It might still be possible to get an image of the location by spying on someone from the cleaning staff though.

You'd still need to send a mage into the middle of CS territory to meet the staff. Well, you'd need to ascertain who's on the staff first. At some point the recon work will need to be done by non-mages simply because hiding the fact you're a mage is only half the problem; the other half is that a mage somehow suppressing/hiding their power still needs to have some espionage ability to get in and out of Chi-Town without a problem. It'd be much easier and safer to just have an operative with zero psionic and zero magic abilities, do the preliminary recon.

Actually, forget K-Hex. NE-MAT-3 Anti-Matter Anti-Tank-Mine Type Two: 25 lbs, 1d4x100 MD, 500 ft blast radius, can be set with a timer.
If you tell them it's for Prosek, they may even give you a discount. (And all things considered, it's not that expensive to begin with)

I'm not well versed in Rifts explosives, but I would rather kill Prosek by direct contact, not just magic-mailing a bomb to him and hoping for the best. There are any number of ways that a reinforced MDC wall or obstruction could mitigate 100-400 MD, to say nothing of the fact that he apparently wears 120 MD armor everywhere he goes.

After checking with a few different Coalition books, I've decided the best angle is to go after Karl's nieces and nephews. One's enrolled in college in Chi-Town, and another is a black sheep. Either one would be prime targets to, at the very least, surreptitiously meet and thereby get the Second Sight link. At that point it could be as simple as waiting for a family event/holiday when they would be assumed to be inside the Prosek compound. Once you had that connection, you wouldn't even need a photograph. You could have a psi or Mystic with Total Recall (there might be another more applicable psionic ability in Coalition Manhunters book) memorize the layout or at least a few specific locations within the Prosek residence, then switch to Remote Viewing which is the more useful of the 'farseeing' abilities when it comes to planning an attack; since it can view areas and not just people.

Unfortunately all of this falls apart when you factor in Prosek's reliance on personal bodyguards who are also extremely powerful precogs (psionics). I was just reminded of this in Coalition Manhunters.

How do you defeat precogs? My answer would be to try to flip one of them somehow. But then we run into the issue of Manhunters being deep-cover operatives. It's not like they walk around Chi-Town with special 'Hi, I'm a precog!' nametags.

Anyway, if you could flip a precog close to Prosek, and feed him misinformation (that, somehow, other precogs wouldn't debunk), after all that you could probably manipulate Prosek into doing something stupid or going somewhere he could be ambushed.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Eventually, someone threw out a “radical” idea (that we will adopt): We chose the path least traveled; Preventing the Assassination of Emperor Prosek.

We discussed the possibility of a successful assassination and how the Coalition would react: “Maybe a change of command would be a good thing,” “The devil you know …. And all that,” “Does it matter if it is an outside group or insider,” and “Does it really matter the ‘Who’ or ‘Why’?

Before we begin this campaign, how would your team deal with this scenario?

While doing a bit of research just now, I stumbled across the Republican plans to assassinate the CS leadership and take over. It's in the first sourcebook (the Archie one). The Republicans determined that Joseph II is the greatest threat, and after his elimination they'd need to take out the others (Karl and a few generals) within 20 minutes or it'd all go sideways.

I might spinoff this concept with some of Archie's best infiltrator units (the ones fully able to pass as people) acting as the assassins. They wouldn't necessarily need to be sent by Archie, but rather just captured units repurposed to work for someone else.

[Fenris2020]

I took them both out with a Nightspawn.
Both were shaving.

[Aermas]

I don't see any reasonable way to kill Prosek given he probably has clones & body doubles & robot terminators with his face & psychic & dog boys around him 24/7.

Prosek probably lives in a compound far removed from anywhere & commands a small legion of imposters. Joseph is the more dangerous of the two anyhow & because of the way he operates he's probably easier to take out.

My plan would be to have a group of humans join the CS. Work their way up the ranks, then when Karl is old & looking to retire, they shoot Joesph & Karl names them as successors instead.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

I don't see any reasonable way to kill Prosek given he probably has clones & body doubles & robot terminators with his face & psychic & dog boys around him 24/7.

I think having a couple of psychics around at all times, with Sixth Sense--that alone would severely complicate assassination attempts. Say you want to poison him. His psychic bodyguards taste-test the food first; their Sixth Sense would trigger if it had any poisonous substance, before they even took a bite. Just bringing the spoon/fork to their lips would spike the Sixth Sense.

To say nothing of the expanded psionics listed in Coalition Manhunters. Stuff like precognition would make him effectively untouchable.

Thus the only plausible way to go after him would be to either separate him from his psychic bodyguards, or find a way to compromise one or several of them.

[Fenris2020]

I don't see any reasonable way to kill Prosek given he probably has clones & body doubles & robot terminators with his face & psychic & dog boys around him 24/7.

I think having a couple of psychics around at all times, with Sixth Sense--that alone would severely complicate assassination attempts. Say you want to poison him. His psychic bodyguards taste-test the food first; their Sixth Sense would trigger if it had any poisonous substance, before they even took a bite. Just bringing the spoon/fork to their lips would spike the Sixth Sense.

To say nothing of the expanded psionics listed in Coalition Manhunters. Stuff like precognition would make him effectively untouchable.

Thus the only plausible way to go after him would be to either separate him from his psychic bodyguards, or find a way to compromise one or several of them.

Sixth Sense isn't that specific, though. And it only works when the danger targets or will affect the psychic, not a person next to the psychic.
A psychic would now that there was a danger, but would they know it was the food? Or did a bomb just get triggered under the table?
The same goes with Clairvoyance. Even the Grey Seers, the best known on the planet, couldn't describe what they saw in specific details when it came to the Seven Dangers.

[Blackwater Sniper]

"Sixth Sense" is like Spidey Sense; it tells you that you will be in danger within a specified amount of time, not when or where or what kind of trouble. Will the danger always lead to a fatal result, or can it be a sprained limb, or a stray thought about how easy it would be for an insider to take him out?

While it's probably just as easy to do it once the first time, I have foiled Players by overloading them into not being able to rely on their own powers.

Prosek, being who he is, would have numerous threats any time he steps outside his comfort zone.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Sixth Sense isn't that specific, though. And it only works when the danger targets or will affect the psychic, not a person next to the psychic.
A psychic would now that there was a danger, but would they know it was the food? Or did a bomb just get triggered under the table?
The same goes with Clairvoyance. Even the Grey Seers, the best known on the planet, couldn't describe what they saw in specific details when it came to the Seven Dangers.

Sixth Sense doesn't just cover the individual with the ability. Re-read the description.

You also have to give NPCs credit for not being too dumb to figure things out. If one taste-tester/bodyguard gets a Sixth Sense warning when they're about to eat something, give the food to another psi-sensitive and see if they have the same reaction. That eliminates other possibilities.

Without knowing the details of Prosek's retinue, I feel fairly certain he'd have at least a handful of psychic bodyguards around him. Not just one. That's the whole point of having a network of psionic guards--they can use different powers simultaneously. The moment one gets a Sixth Sense trigger, another can activate the super, Omni-Sight, to check everything in the area.

"Sixth Sense" is like Spidey Sense; it tells you that you will be in danger within a specified amount of time, not when or where or what kind of trouble. Will the danger always lead to a fatal result, or can it be a sprained limb, or a stray thought about how easy it would be for an insider to take him out?

While it's probably just as easy to do it once the first time, I have foiled Players by overloading them into not being able to rely on their own powers.

Prosek, being who he is, would have numerous threats any time he steps outside his comfort zone.

Again, re-read the description of Sixth Sense in RUE. It clearly states the threat must be life and death. Not a sprain.

Somebody thinking abstractly about killing Prosek is not a concrete, immediate threat. Pulling a gun out and pointing it at his head, is such a threat. Thus the Sixth Sense would trigger once somebody decided to actually do something. For instance, the would-be assassin is thinking 'I'll shoot him when that guard turns and looks the other way.' That's a concrete plan of action.

[Aermas]

I like the the idea that Prosek is an Astral Lord & that's how the CS can move troops through bug territory with easy or suddenly claim resources that should be all but spent, if you want to attack Prosek, it's gonna be inside his own mental demense.