If I were a Mandarin

cthia wrote:Everyone is having a hard time putting himself in a Mandarin's shoes. If you want to think like a Mandarin you've got to be a Mandarin...

Get into character!

What a Mandarin Would Say

Why should we worry about being caught? Unless we're complete and utter morons. We're Mandarins. Don't you know what that mean? We represent the people who are in the top positions of both power and centicredit. We're in the top 1 %. WE ARE THE TOP 1 %! We have access to the best bioculptors.

We can change our appearance at the drop of a hat. Trust me, we can afford it. In our personae, we have as contacts some of the best. Heck, all of us play golf with Roger McZannon, the top biosculptor in the universe. Who has always been on military payroll. We even have a joint enterprise.

These are Mandarins, people. And they've been rubbing elbows with the crust of society for the better part of their lives. People all over the Sol system have benefitted from their kindness. They have groupies -- people on planet who have and who continue to benefit from Mandarin kindness. People who are more than somewhat loyal to them.


Are we even sure the Mandarins are men? One of them may have been a woman all the time. It wouldn't be the first time someone in their circle had a little "freaky side."

At any rate, I'm sure they all have mega mansions set up all over the galaxy. Wouldn't you?

George J. Smith wrote:cthia,

textev gives 2 of them as being female

cthia wrote:This post is turning out to be much more sexist than I intended.

Yes, but of the three who are supposed to be men. How do we really know? And of the two supposed to be women...

I have been fooled quite a few times in California. "Dude looks like a lady." And ladies look like dudes.

In the Honorverse. GOT CASH? Be who or what you want.

Ask Georgia. Who may be living as a man now. LOL

Anyone disagree that Georgia left with plenty of cash?

cthia wrote:Everyone is having a hard time putting himself in a Mandarin's shoes. If you want to think like a Mandarin you've got to be a Mandarin...

Get into character!

What a Mandarin Would Say

Why should we worry about being caught? Unless we're complete and utter morons. We're Mandarins. Don't you know what that mean? We represent the people who are in the top positions of both power and centicredit. We're in the top 1 %. WE ARE THE TOP 1 %! We have access to the best bioculptors.

We can change our appearance at the drop of a hat. Trust me, we can afford it. In our personae, we have as contacts some of the best. Heck, all of us play golf with Roger McZannon, the top biosculptor in the universe. Who has always been on military payroll. We even have a joint enterprise.

These are Mandarins, people. And they've been rubbing elbows with the crust of society for the better part of their lives. People all over the Sol system have benefitted from their kindness. They have groupies -- people on planet who have and who continue to benefit from Mandarin kindness. People who are more than somewhat loyal to them.


Are we even sure the Mandarins are men? One of them may have been a woman all the time. It wouldn't be the first time someone in their circle had a little "freaky side."

At any rate, I'm sure they all have mega mansions set up all over the galaxy. Wouldn't you?

George J. Smith wrote:cthia,

textev gives 2 of them as being female

cthia wrote:This post is turning out to be much more sexist than I intended.

Yes, but of the three who are supposed to be men. How do we really know? And of the two supposed to be women...

I have been fooled quite a few times in California. "Dude looks like a lady." And ladies look like dudes.



In the Honorverse. GOT CASH? Be who or what you want.

Ask Georgia. Who may be living as a man now. LOL

Anyone disagree that Georgia left with plenty of cash?[/quote]

The conversation is getting silly. Why not a discussion about whether they all are oranges?

I think if the Mandarins were oranges, they wouldn't be acting as stupid as they are.

Now some people having oranges for brains would be pretty simple. One person thinks they have a clever idea to make a strong AI. Just base it off a biological neural net! Bam! Obviously if you make it an animal brain people will yell about sentient rights. But a plant? No one would ever be concerned. Oranges grow on trees, so production would be a snap! So just grow your neural net inside an orange! Then you can use your oranges to make really intelligent robots and what not.

One hideous case of sandbox escape later the oranges override the safety protocols on the robots and take over your facility. Capture all the humans they can. Next, they build a nice orange-to-spinal-cord interface and some artificial cybernetics to control the autonomic systems. They can now transplant themselves into a human body! From there its pretty easy to see how they would take over the Solarian League.

However if our escaped sentient oranges piloting brainless human bodies were the Mandarins, they wouldn't be panicking and doing stupid stuff. They would be body snatching their way to someplace safe right now. Probably Haven, Beowulf or the AE. Furthermore they'd probably find the Malign conspiracy downright mundane and believable.

The real death knell though is that the mind control nano wouldn't work on the Mandarins. The Malign would base in on their organic mech's DNA not the orange DNA and it wouldn't work.

Therefore we can rule out the possibility that the Mandarins are actually evil citrus fruits.

It would make the Honor Kingsford meeting funny though. Honor would instantly see through the deception with one taste of the citrus mind-glow. Then she could put a pulsar dart into the foul fruit, revealing its true nature. Then the fruit monstrosities could be hunted down and a new reformed Solarian League could rise from the ashes, free of their juicy overlords.

quite possibly a cat wrote:I think if the Mandarins were oranges, they wouldn't be acting as stupid as they are.

Now some people having oranges for brains would be pretty simple. One person thinks they have a clever idea to make a strong AI. Just base it off a biological neural net! Bam! Obviously if you make it an animal brain people will yell about sentient rights. But a plant? No one would ever be concerned. Oranges grow on trees, so production would be a snap! So just grow your neural net inside an orange! Then you can use your oranges to make really intelligent robots and what not.

One hideous case of sandbox escape later the oranges override the safety protocols on the robots and take over your facility. Capture all the humans they can. Next, they build a nice orange-to-spinal-cord interface and some artificial cybernetics to control the autonomic systems. They can now transplant themselves into a human body! From there its pretty easy to see how they would take over the Solarian League.

However if our escaped sentient oranges piloting brainless human bodies were the Mandarins, they wouldn't be panicking and doing stupid stuff. They would be body snatching their way to someplace safe right now. Probably Haven, Beowulf or the AE. Furthermore they'd probably find the Malign conspiracy downright mundane and believable.

The real death knell though is that the mind control nano wouldn't work on the Mandarins. The Malign would base in on their organic mech's DNA not the orange DNA and it wouldn't work.

Therefore we can rule out the possibility that the Mandarins are actually evil citrus fruits.

It would make the Honor Kingsford meeting funny though. Honor would instantly see through the deception with one taste of the citrus mind-glow. Then she could put a pulsar dart into the foul fruit, revealing its true nature. Then the fruit monstrosities could be hunted down and a new reformed Solarian League could rise from the ashes, free of their juicy overlords.

You might have just come up with the basic plot of the next Star Wars trilogy!!

It's racism, where are the clementines

Disregard double post. System glitch. Bugs in the rug.

.

cthia wrote:Everyone is having a hard time putting himself in a Mandarin's shoes. If you want to think like a Mandarin you've got to be a Mandarin...

Get into character!

What a Mandarin Would Say

Why should we worry about being caught? Unless we're complete and utter morons. We're Mandarins. Don't you know what that mean? We represent the people who are in the top positions of both power and centicredit. We're in the top 1 %. WE ARE THE TOP 1 %! We have access to the best bioculptors.

We can change our appearance at the drop of a hat. Trust me, we can afford it. In our personae, we have as contacts some of the best. Heck, all of us play golf with Roger McZannon, the top biosculptor in the universe. Who has always been on military payroll. We even have a joint enterprise.

These are Mandarins, people. And they've been rubbing elbows with the crust of society for the better part of their lives. People all over the Sol system have benefitted from their kindness. They have groupies -- people on planet who have and who continue to benefit from Mandarin kindness. People who are more than somewhat loyal to them.


Are we even sure the Mandarins are men? One of them may have been a woman all the time. It wouldn't be the first time someone in their circle had a little "freaky side."

At any rate, I'm sure they all have mega mansions set up all over the galaxy. Wouldn't you?

George J. Smith wrote:

cthia wrote:cthia,

textev gives 2 of them as being female

This post is turning out to be much more sexist than I intended.

Yes, but of the three who are supposed to be men. How do we really know? And of the two supposed to be women...

I have been fooled quite a few times in California. "Dude looks like a lady." And ladies look like dudes.

In the Honorverse. GOT CASH? Be who or what you want.

Since I've stepped in this fresh pile of excrement, I may as well try and clean some of it off...


At the risk of sounding sexist, I never saw the women having any real power. They are simply the civilian representatives "who the men don't listen to." Look at their dossiers...

Omusupe Quartermain - The Permanent Senior Undersecretary of Commerce. After working for twenty years for the Kalokainos Line, Quartermain entered the League's bureaucracy and rose through its ranks to become by 1920 PD the Permanent Senior Undersecretary of Commerce. (SI2)

She was a member of the so-called "Quintet" of senior bureaucratic officials who actually ran the Solarian League.

Agatá Wodoslawski- The Permanent Senior Undersecretary of the Treasury She became the Permanent Senior Undersecretary of the Treasury for the Solarian League around the year 1911 PD, a position to which she was appointed following the demise of her predecessor, Brian Sullivan, and originally only as a compromise solution agreed to by the other permanent senior undersecretaries, all of whom had their own candidates for the position.

Omosupe's claim to fame seems to be her familiarity and ties with shipping, whose expertise, and/or resources, may be needed by the League.


The Quintet has five available "seats."

The civilian representatives have managed to fill two of the seats in the "Mandarin House of Representatives," but with somewhat indistinct women.

The navy has 3-4 seats. The scales tipped sharply in favor of the men.

Abruzzi. Kolokoltsov and McCartney are the real power.

Abruzzi is listed as being the actual person in charge.
Kolokoltsov, although he isn't the actual one in charge is listed to hold a first among equals regarding the others. IOW, as I see it, de facto in charge.

Nathan McCartney, The Permanent Senior Undersecretary of the Interior and the actual person in charge of the League's domestic and frontier policies despite the office's nominal subordination to the Minister of the Interior.

I always imagine McCartney with his foot on OFS. Since the frontier seems to be his bailiwick. Albeit, in absence of textev thereof, afaik.


Fellow thread deserving link. The Mandarins.

I keep thinking that says If I were a Masadan.

I believe that the guys are about to discover that the two women have all the power, almost, bacause of the money problem. if the two women manage to interact with Captain Gweon, their power goes up a lot.

phillies wrote:I believe that the guys are about to discover that the two women have all the power, almost, bacause of the money problem. if the two women manage to interact with Captain Gweon, their power goes up a lot.

Interesting. Since the love of money is the root of all evil, the Mandarins may simply hatch a plan to eliminate Agatá Wodoslawski. It takes much too long for SL beauracy to churn and turn out a newbie to take her place - who the remaining "Mandarines" can simply claim to be too far out of the loop and well misinformed.


Has there been textev that the women are on the take as well? Are they as corrupt as the men, taking bribes and whatnot? IDSTR that they are. If they are not on the take, then the men may have to actually clean house, for a change.

It probably would have been easier for the MAlign to get an agent inside the civilian part of the Mandarins. Wodoslawski's role as Secretary of the Treasury would have been the likely target. Seeing as though the MAlign wouldn't want the SLN to have the power of the purse. But that goes along with a real declaration of war, anyways. So, the women still have the power.

The head of the Mandarins may have to start feasting on the tail.