Indeed, having the protesters incinerated would hide the evidence of any battleroids being there, and having them actually kill the hovertank crew and troopers be kind of a giveaway that the massacre was engineered. Nobody mentions a spectroscopic analysis of the incineration like Tycho detecting the incineration of the battleroids at the Colony when the Pfhor nuked it.
:: Though that doesn't rule out Strauss engineering the massacre. I figures that
: he always wanted Durandal to go rampant so that he could study rampancy
: and harness the power he thought he could acquire from controlling
: Durandal; forcing Durandal to be complicit in such a tragedy would
: definitely not be good for his emotional stability.
As much as Strauss used Durandal, I seriously doubt that Strauss wanted Durandal to go rampant even though he intended to continue to use Durandal even after he became rampant. Durandal hid his rampancy from Strauss; he says so himself. Further, the terminal text makes it clear that Rampant AIs are impossible to control.
