Brigade XO wrote:It occures to me that meetings with varioius leadership and agents of the political parties on Manticore might also flush out some interesting answers- along with suddenly dead politicians- which could ultimatly sort out some problems beyond the otherwise normal political difficulties such as the stuff that North Hollow's group were causing.
The Crown would have to be very discreet about doing that but some man or woman having a conversation at a political reception with a Treecat and it's assigned two-leg might end up dead on the floor of the conference room floor (nano inflicted) or in some very deep and hot water with otherwise polite conversation taking them to to places they never though would see the light of day or public scrutiny.
tlb wrote:With regard to the nanotech suicide protocol; wouldn't it have to be set up so that casual conversation did not trigger it? Surely there has to be the threat of incarceration before it kicks in, otherwise there could be all sorts of awkward deaths.
I have not gotten back to him in my reread; but I wonder about the card-playing buddy, who thought that a shipping firm was paying him to shade reports. Why would he die when asked about his handler? Clearly he had the nanotech, but why would he if he was a dupe?
JohnRoth wrote:Nanotech is a "get out of plot problems free" card. It's like magic or a number of other gimmicks - it has to be well designed to avoid simply being a deus ex machina [1].
[1] And the original use of the "god machine" made perfect sense in the original setting. It doesn't today.
ldwechsler wrote:There would be a lot of resentment about using treecats in domestic politics. And frankly I doubt there are too many spies in Manticore's political system. One or two yes and we know of at least one major figure.
But you don't need very many in politics. You need people in the know about the navy and tech, etc. Maybe a few in the media. But the more you have, the more likely you are to have one or more discovered.
But the less you have, then the more likely you are to miss something. Ideally you would like to have more than one spy cover the same area (probably with different handlers), so you can cross-check information. Also then you still get data if one is transferred or sick. Finally if one is caught, you have a way of checking whether you are being fed false reports (at that point you would like to have at least three to know which is false).
In WW2 the English managed to control the entire German spy network in Great Britain; that is about the worst thing that can happen in espionage. That should not be possible with the nanotech suicide protocol.