UH SPOILERS Harrington family history

pappilon wrote:

cthia wrote:
Thanks abunch for the very informative post. I'm sure you can surmise that the Malign come off to me as monsters created by Dr. Frankenstein. Because of this post, my worldview of Leonard has softened an incredible .001 %. I may have been a bit unfair to his original vision out of ignorance. I can never get on board with the "California or Bust" attitude, which doesn't seem to have been Leonard's. Although, I still think even Leonard used some spliced DNA within his conception to create the dinosaurs that he shouldn't have used. Metaphorically speaking. Only being faced with complete desperation and destruction can the end truly justify the means.

But that's just my uninformed prejudiced opinion. At any rate, would you explain to me why you consider Beowulf's solution to be an overreaction? Under the circumstances, what could they have done to definitively prevent any possibilities of the same disaster occurring? What other recourse did they have? Even with the current advanced research obtained by the Malign, bracketing how it was achieved, they are not immune to disastrous outcomes at any time as horrible as the Final Wars with simply one misstep, no? One thing the Final Wars achieved was to sound the...

WARNING WARNING TAKE HEED TO GENETICS BEYOND THIS POINT, klaxon.

IOW, what could Beowulf have done but to close Pandora's box to everyone, which would inclusively blanket all of the "We know what we are doing so let us drive" entities?

I recall a post of mine theorizing that the original intent of Leonard has been severely watered down and with each subsequent changing of the guard (Albrecht) further dilutes his original goals and intents. I can't see the clones not making serious mistakes. And I continue to view the RF like Board of Directors and, as is the MO of Board of Directors, their loyalty lies to the Board and not with Leonard's original vision. (As you've basically pointed out.) Conflicts of interest always crop up within companies when the original founder steps down or passes. (Which everyone says ails Apple Computers.)

I can see the potential for strife and internal conflict lurking within the Malign, coming from those within who may be aware that Leonard's original vision has been bastardized as horribly as John Harington's quote. Frankly, I can't see why one of the cloned offspring can't see the perversion visited upon the original vision. Simoes is an example of a card carrying poster child for that revolution.

Leonard's possible Pollyannish plans were never a paint by the numbers project.

Do forgive me Pollyanna.

The original issue was the weaponization of the human genome. They edited for strength, endurance, and intelligence. One faction, (The Japanese?) realizing the danger, also edited for sterility, so the number of super-soldiers would be controlled by the government.

And as RFC pointed out, the GMO soldiers decided they should be the ones driving the bus. They spent more time trying to wrest the steering wheel that no one minded the war.

Not sure how to separate out improving the individual for survival and best performance in the environment if the environment is the battlefield. I mean yes, but those same mods have other uses besides just the battlefield.

I don't see Lenny D being a Pollyanna. Anyone seeing what almost happened on Earth (He was as much a contemporary as Benson)had to realize some, any decoupling should have occurred but didn't. Beowulf over reacted by outlawing any and all future genetic modification that was beyond medical necessity (defined as quality of life).

As someone suggested if you see your country/tribe/race being destroyed, then the end (your survival)justifies any means including weaponizing the Human Genome. Of course Catholic School taught me that the end never, ever justifies the means.

cthia wrote:As long as we consider that treecats are a sentient species much like two-legs in many respects. I think a lot of people sell them short. I seriously doubt that the correct mods are the be all and end all of bonding. The two-leg has to have the proper complement to go along with, such as the correct personality traits as well. I seriously doubt Pavel Young would have been bondable even if he had the perfect mods.

Slneezy wrote:

cthia wrote:As long as we consider that treecats are a sentient species much like two-legs in many respects. I think a lot of people sell them short. I seriously doubt that the correct mods are the be all and end all of bonding. The two-leg has to have the proper complement to go along with, such as the correct personality traits as well. I seriously doubt Pavel Young would have been bondable even if he had the perfect mods.

That's an interesting avenue for speculation.

What do treecats like in people? I mean Firebrand got adopted.

Could there be a treecat who'd like a Detweiler? Would Saint Just's methods of dealing with enemies earned him some grudging treecat approval? Is there a 'cat out there that would have been open to pushing papers with Innokentiy Kolokoltsov? Would a treecat have overlooked Gustav VI's habit of talking to rose bushes?

From what I remember 7 out of 9 Manticoran monarchs were after the first treecats slid their way into the royal family and treecats seem to be open to bonding with a wide variety of people.

cthia wrote:Scenario:

A world killing virus is let loose in one of Earth's most dense cities and is rapidly spreading at an insane rate. Dropping a nuclear weapon will wipe it out plus kill many many more people not yet affected, with unthinkable collateral damage. Will those horrible means be justified by the absolute life saving but horrible ends?

Approximately two thirds of Ingeborg Alpha’s personnel had been removed from the habitat when the nanotech breached the final firewall and containment failed. D’Orville’s final message to her flag captain was to destroy the entire habitat with a saturation nuclear strike to ensure the total destruction of the nano weapon. For her rescue of 1.4 million Ingeborgian civilians at the cost of her own life, Ellen D’Orville became the second recipient of the Parliamentary Medal of Valor.

munroburton wrote:

cthia wrote:Scenario:

A world killing virus is let loose in one of Earth's most dense cities and is rapidly spreading at an insane rate. Dropping a nuclear weapon will wipe it out plus kill many many more people not yet affected, with unthinkable collateral damage. Will those horrible means be justified by the absolute life saving but horrible ends?

Scenario already basically answered in the Honorverse, I think. Not on Earth, though.

Approximately two thirds of Ingeborg Alpha’s personnel had been removed from the habitat when the nanotech breached the final firewall and containment failed. D’Orville’s final message to her flag captain was to destroy the entire habitat with a saturation nuclear strike to ensure the total destruction of the nano weapon. For her rescue of 1.4 million Ingeborgian civilians at the cost of her own life, Ellen D’Orville became the second recipient of the Parliamentary Medal of Valor.

cthia wrote:All of the advancements fall under the weaponization of the human genome. Even if the enemy is only mother nature.

The decision of the GMO soldiers is only one possibility of the unseen dangers afoot in allowing the research to continue, one such possibility of many intended to be circumcised by the Beowulf Code. Everyone shouldn't be allowed a driver's license. And those that are, shouldn't necessarily be caught behind the wheel... driving.

Some knowledge is simply too dangerous for mankind and should be kept inside Pandora's box. All of humanity can't drive. And when Route 66 is extremely dangerous to even the most accomplished drivers, you close Route 66 off.

I've always ascribed to the notion that the ends never justify the means, as well, but I have become more selective in the battles with pitchforks I decide to take on. LOL

Also, with wisdom that should come with age, I'm willing to concede possible exceptions to the rule.

cthia wrote:Kudos! Nice thought patterns. I like the way you think. I broached the possibility of the 'Cats finding some members of the Malign tasty, possibly even inside the Onion, a few junction transits ago, which was met with total chaos. I received a bit of a consolation prize with Clean Killer bonding with Harahap, though only peripherally. Even so, treecats are [People people] too, and who are we to think we can play Cupid for them?

At any rate, I think you will find much of the Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young thread quite a bit interesting.

Slneezy wrote:..snip..
I get the feeling Pavel is one of the people that'd be universally despised by all treecats - he was pretty universally despised by all humans he worked with and from what I remember nobody ever said something remotely positive about him and that includes his own father.

It seems weird that he managed to make Captain (SG) before Honor even with patronage; he didn't seem just terrible in a specific way but grossly incompetent in a very well 'rounded' fashion - i.e. the particular brand of bad that would have grossly irritated even the political animals.

runsforcelery wrote:

Couple of points.

Cthia, Leonard would not be on board with simply culling unfortunate experimental outcomes. He did subscribe to a medical philosophy which enshrined the "quality of life" argument and sometimes used it to justify euthanizing people who might not have been all on board with the idea themselves, but understand that the medical science of his day made it possible to "fix" 99.9% of the problems which would create "quality of life" issues today. That is, the problem arose less often and, most times, the person who didn't get a vote on his/her own fate was so badly damaged that voting wasn't possible. And in the case of a really badly damaged child, Leonard would sign off on termination of the fetus, but not at a later stage. If the child in question was damaged as the result of his genetic intervention (which he was damned careful about avoiding), he would have seen it as his moral responsibility to do whatever it took to repair/compensate for the damage, not simply say "Oops" and kill a child.

I trust it is sevident from that that Leonard would never have signed off on the notion of "we'll take a risk here; we can always cull little Fredrica if our genetic mod turns out not to work out." And neither would the Alignment Mike's found on Mesa. Quality of life considerations can be used --- and are, rather more ruthlessly than we use them in the US today --- to justify euthanasia for severely damaged children, which is what happened in Simoes case. However, the official deliberations of the board which recommended her death did not include any info which might even hint that the geneticists knew going in that the odds actually heavily favored exactly that outcome or that the Onion didn't care because the potential upside was worth a few dozen broken eggs . . . or culled children. So when Simoes is painted as a crackpot railing against fate and ascribing evil (in every sense of the word) motives to the medical establishment which ruled (with his wife's consent) in favor of terminating his daughter, most of the people doing that painting, many of whom belong to the Good Mesan Alignment, believe every word they're saying and that his claims that his daughter's condition (and death) were the result of the Evil Mesan Alignment are the product of his own refusal to accept reality.

The current GMA [Good Mesan Alignment] does, indeed, hold views which are much closer to the mainstream than the Onion does, but they aren't completely congruent. The GMA still has quite a bit of the Leonard Detweiller DNA in its makeup and it still believes in the systematic and systemic improvement of the race as a whole whereas the current iteration of the Beowulf Code recognizes the complete validity of correcting preventable problems and of maximizing the realization of any individual's genetic potential. And Beowulf of today would be onboard with a modern iteration of the Meyerdahl mods, although there isn't much need for one. That is, there are already existing mods which will pretty much suit you for life on any terrestrial planet out there. But specific mods like the Grayson mod for heavy metals would be totally permissible as would the elimination of any genetic predisposition towards health problems. My wife Sharon, for example, would have been corrected before birth to avoid the scoliosis which has required her to undergo seven major spinal surgeries,

Remember that although the Beowulf Code was born in a reaction (indeed, an overreaction) to the horrors of the Final War, it's been around for a long time since then. This means that much of the current Beowulf Code's animus towards genetic manipulation as part of a systematic program of "uplift" on the species level stems from exactly what the galaxy at large has seen in the Scrags and what the reader has seen in the Onion: the attitude that I am quantifiably superior to you because my genes are better than yours. There is no way to prevent individuals from feeling this way. God knows we see more than enough people in the world today who are so convinced of their own moral or intellectual superiority that no other viewpoints or voters need apply, and a group which consists of modified, "improved" humans is likely to feel this way whether they are created as individuals or as a group.

"I have a post doctorate degree and am therefore demonstrably superior to you, with your crappy little high school diploma, so you should shut up and let me drive" or "I have the moral imprimatur of a religion which is far superior to yours, so you should shut up and let me drive" or "My political ideology's aims are so high and noble that anyone who disagrees with me is obviously evil, not just wrong, so you should shut up and let me drive" is bad enough and something we see every day. But at least those idiots can't say "I am an alpha line with a quantifiably superior genotype, so shut up and let me drive."

Beowulf would sort of like to keep it that way. Even the GMA is more willing to risk the "I am superior" mindset as an unfortunate but unavoidable side effect of improving the human race as a whole. The GMA, however is far more focused on the improvement of their own families and family lines and would never dream of forcibly compelling anyone else to join their crusade.

PeterZ wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:

Couple of points.

Cthia, Leonard would not be on board with simply culling unfortunate experimental outcomes. He did subscribe to a medical philosophy which enshrined the "quality of life" argument and sometimes used it to justify euthanizing people who might not have been all on board with the idea themselves, but understand that the medical science of his day made it possible to "fix" 99.9% of the problems which would create "quality of life" issues today. That is, the problem arose less often and, most times, the person who didn't get a vote on his/her own fate was so badly damaged that voting wasn't possible. And in the case of a really badly damaged child, Leonard would sign off on termination of the fetus, but not at a later stage. If the child in question was damaged as the result of his genetic intervention (which he was damned careful about avoiding), he would have seen it as his moral responsibility to do whatever it took to repair/compensate for the damage, not simply say "Oops" and kill a child.

I trust it is sevident from that that Leonard would never have signed off on the notion of "we'll take a risk here; we can always cull little Fredrica if our genetic mod turns out not to work out." And neither would the Alignment Mike's found on Mesa. Quality of life considerations can be used --- and are, rather more ruthlessly than we use them in the US today --- to justify euthanasia for severely damaged children, which is what happened in Simoes case. However, the official deliberations of the board which recommended her death did not include any info which might even hint that the geneticists knew going in that the odds actually heavily favored exactly that outcome or that the Onion didn't care because the potential upside was worth a few dozen broken eggs . . . or culled children. So when Simoes is painted as a crackpot railing against fate and ascribing evil (in every sense of the word) motives to the medical establishment which ruled (with his wife's consent) in favor of terminating his daughter, most of the people doing that painting, many of whom belong to the Good Mesan Alignment, believe every word they're saying and that his claims that his daughter's condition (and death) were the result of the Evil Mesan Alignment are the product of his own refusal to accept reality.

The current GMA [Good Mesan Alignment] does, indeed, hold views which are much closer to the mainstream than the Onion does, but they aren't completely congruent. The GMA still has quite a bit of the Leonard Detweiller DNA in its makeup and it still believes in the systematic and systemic improvement of the race as a whole whereas the current iteration of the Beowulf Code recognizes the complete validity of correcting preventable problems and of maximizing the realization of any individual's genetic potential. And Beowulf of today would be onboard with a modern iteration of the Meyerdahl mods, although there isn't much need for one. That is, there are already existing mods which will pretty much suit you for life on any terrestrial planet out there. But specific mods like the Grayson mod for heavy metals would be totally permissible as would the elimination of any genetic predisposition towards health problems. My wife Sharon, for example, would have been corrected before birth to avoid the scoliosis which has required her to undergo seven major spinal surgeries,

Remember that although the Beowulf Code was born in a reaction (indeed, an overreaction) to the horrors of the Final War, it's been around for a long time since then. This means that much of the current Beowulf Code's animus towards genetic manipulation as part of a systematic program of "uplift" on the species level stems from exactly what the galaxy at large has seen in the Scrags and what the reader has seen in the Onion: the attitude that I am quantifiably superior to you because my genes are better than yours. There is no way to prevent individuals from feeling this way. God knows we see more than enough people in the world today who are so convinced of their own moral or intellectual superiority that no other viewpoints or voters need apply, and a group which consists of modified, "improved" humans is likely to feel this way whether they are created as individuals or as a group.

"I have a post doctorate degree and am therefore demonstrably superior to you, with your crappy little high school diploma, so you should shut up and let me drive" or "I have the moral imprimatur of a religion which is far superior to yours, so you should shut up and let me drive" or "My political ideology's aims are so high and noble that anyone who disagrees with me is obviously evil, not just wrong, so you should shut up and let me drive" is bad enough and something we see every day. But at least those idiots can't say "I am an alpha line with a quantifiably superior genotype, so shut up and let me drive."

Beowulf would sort of like to keep it that way. Even the GMA is more willing to risk the "I am superior" mindset as an unfortunate but unavoidable side effect of improving the human race as a whole. The GMA, however is far more focused on the improvement of their own families and family lines and would never dream of forcibly compelling anyone else to join their crusade.

I find myself in uncomfortable agreement with the GMA and hence likely with the Harringtons of an earlier MAlign. If the core fear of the Beowulf Code is what people may choose to do, then the Code becomes too similar to fundemental religions that compel compliance for everyone whether those impacted are adherents or not. Assuming the GMA held Leonard Detweiler's moral imperatives to treat even his genetic experiments as invaluable individuals, then those experiments in human uplift will simply change the menu of difficulties humanity will face in the future. Those experiments will not abolish current problems, simply change them.

Who is Beowulf to define what problems humanity may or may not try to overcome? Even on religious grounds, I find it difficult to justify Beowulf's position. God breaths life wherever he desires to. Geneticly tailored bodies still need God's breath to spark life. So, if humanity every does overcome the challenges of the material world, then it is time to better address the moral problems that will be present so long as humans remain finite with imperfect understanding.

PeterZ wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:

Couple of points.

Cthia, Leonard would not be on board with simply culling unfortunate experimental outcomes. He did subscribe to a medical philosophy which enshrined the "quality of life" argument and sometimes used it to justify euthanizing people who might not have been all on board with the idea themselves, but understand that the medical science of his day made it possible to "fix" 99.9% of the problems which would create "quality of life" issues today. That is, the problem arose less often and, most times, the person who didn't get a vote on his/her own fate was so badly damaged that voting wasn't possible. And in the case of a really badly damaged child, Leonard would sign off on termination of the fetus, but not at a later stage. If the child in question was damaged as the result of his genetic intervention (which he was damned careful about avoiding), he would have seen it as his moral responsibility to do whatever it took to repair/compensate for the damage, not simply say "Oops" and kill a child.

I trust it is sevident from that that Leonard would never have signed off on the notion of "we'll take a risk here; we can always cull little Fredrica if our genetic mod turns out not to work out." And neither would the Alignment Mike's found on Mesa. Quality of life considerations can be used --- and are, rather more ruthlessly than we use them in the US today --- to justify euthanasia for severely damaged children, which is what happened in Simoes case. However, the official deliberations of the board which recommended her death did not include any info which might even hint that the geneticists knew going in that the odds actually heavily favored exactly that outcome or that the Onion didn't care because the potential upside was worth a few dozen broken eggs . . . or culled children. So when Simoes is painted as a crackpot railing against fate and ascribing evil (in every sense of the word) motives to the medical establishment which ruled (with his wife's consent) in favor of terminating his daughter, most of the people doing that painting, many of whom belong to the Good Mesan Alignment, believe every word they're saying and that his claims that his daughter's condition (and death) were the result of the Evil Mesan Alignment are the product of his own refusal to accept reality.

The current GMA [Good Mesan Alignment] does, indeed, hold views which are much closer to the mainstream than the Onion does, but they aren't completely congruent. The GMA still has quite a bit of the Leonard Detweiller DNA in its makeup and it still believes in the systematic and systemic improvement of the race as a whole whereas the current iteration of the Beowulf Code recognizes the complete validity of correcting preventable problems and of maximizing the realization of any individual's genetic potential. And Beowulf of today would be onboard with a modern iteration of the Meyerdahl mods, although there isn't much need for one. That is, there are already existing mods which will pretty much suit you for life on any terrestrial planet out there. But specific mods like the Grayson mod for heavy metals would be totally permissible as would the elimination of any genetic predisposition towards health problems. My wife Sharon, for example, would have been corrected before birth to avoid the scoliosis which has required her to undergo seven major spinal surgeries,

Remember that although the Beowulf Code was born in a reaction (indeed, an overreaction) to the horrors of the Final War, it's been around for a long time since then. This means that much of the current Beowulf Code's animus towards genetic manipulation as part of a systematic program of "uplift" on the species level stems from exactly what the galaxy at large has seen in the Scrags and what the reader has seen in the Onion: the attitude that I am quantifiably superior to you because my genes are better than yours. There is no way to prevent individuals from feeling this way. God knows we see more than enough people in the world today who are so convinced of their own moral or intellectual superiority that no other viewpoints or voters need apply, and a group which consists of modified, "improved" humans is likely to feel this way whether they are created as individuals or as a group.

"I have a post doctorate degree and am therefore demonstrably superior to you, with your crappy little high school diploma, so you should shut up and let me drive" or "I have the moral imprimatur of a religion which is far superior to yours, so you should shut up and let me drive" or "My political ideology's aims are so high and noble that anyone who disagrees with me is obviously evil, not just wrong, so you should shut up and let me drive" is bad enough and something we see every day. But at least those idiots can't say "I am an alpha line with a quantifiably superior genotype, so shut up and let me drive."

Beowulf would sort of like to keep it that way. Even the GMA is more willing to risk the "I am superior" mindset as an unfortunate but unavoidable side effect of improving the human race as a whole. The GMA, however is far more focused on the improvement of their own families and family lines and would never dream of forcibly compelling anyone else to join their crusade.

I find myself in uncomfortable agreement with the GMA and hence likely with the Harringtons of an earlier MAlign. If the core fear of the Beowulf Code is what people may choose to do, then the Code becomes too similar to fundemental religions that compel compliance for everyone whether those impacted are adherents or not. Assuming the GMA held Leonard Detweiler's moral imperatives to treat even his genetic experiments as invaluable individuals, then those experiments in human uplift will simply change the menu of difficulties humanity will face in the future. Those experiments will not abolish current problems, simply change them.

Who is Beowulf to define what problems humanity may or may not try to overcome? Even on religious grounds, I find it difficult to justify Beowulf's position. God breaths life wherever he desires to. Geneticly tailored bodies still need God's breath to spark life. So, if humanity every does overcome the challenges of the material world, then it is time to better address the moral problems that will be present so long as humans remain finite with imperfect understanding.

cthia wrote:Perhaps. Albeit, playing the moral card in defense of the atrocities visited upon the Darius system is a bit much. Who are Beowulf to decide? They are the entity who had to clean up the mess and save civilization when the first catastrophic error in judgement visited mankind, expressly delivered by that ever-present Demon Murphy. Thus, they would know, and know intimately, just how close humanity came to extinction. And they, because of their knowledge in the field, know exactly how thin the ice is that is being treaded and that they may not have the "cure" the next time.

Who thinks that Beowulf would have an easy time of righting any wrongs caused by the Alignment's research gone awry? Beowulf would probably be completely lost and out of sorts without the Alignment's notes and research. Who thinks that that research would be forthcoming from the Alignment? Who thinks Beowulf, if even given the research, could catch up fast enough to clean up?

All and all an interesting stance Peter. Though the notion of religion might be splitting the hairs and parsing the logic a bit much. If I understand you correctly.