“BROTHERS! A HUNDRED GENERATIONS have defended this castle! It’s never fallen before; she will not fall tonight!” cried Alliser Thorne in a rousing speech. “And when the sun rises, I promise you, Castle Black will stand!”
According to The Intercept, a secretive American military facility in Syria was given the name “Mission Support Site Castle Black.”
The Intercept obtained this information via a Freedom of Information Act request. It’s estimated that the US has about 800 military-oriented installations operating around the world at any given time. Castle Black — that’s the American military base, not the castle on the Wall serving as a bulwark against the threats to the north — served as a base for Special Forces operations.
There isn’t a lot of publicly available information about Mission Support Sites either. The term pops up in a few Pentagon publications without much context. Some news outlets won’t mention the names of MSSes for “operational security reasons.”
There isn’t a lot of publicly available information about Mission Support Sites either. The term pops up in a few Pentagon publications without much context. Some news outlets won’t mention the names of MSSes for “operational security reasons.” The New York Times actually published an article that could have mentioned MSS Castle Black but, instead of using its “Game of Thrones”-themed moniker, referred to it as a “base known as a mission support site.” To be fair, there is some disagreement as to the name of that Syrian outpost. In another document obtained by The Intercept, what appears to be the same base is called “MSS Nights Watch.”
In the cloak and dagger world of international warfare, it’s understandable that U.S. intelligence wants to keep the location and details regarding its outposts as blurry as possible.
What would Jon Snow and the members of the Night’s Watch think of “Mission Support Site Castle Black”?
The MSS is likely a patrol base, a remote outpost deep in enemy territory designed with minimal infrastructure and only distant support; the Thrones crows would find those hardships and dangers very familiar.
