SPOILER ... Do the ends justify the means???

In another discussion someone stated that Houdini was over the top...
Having finished SoV I think that I must revise my estimate upwards significantly... Yes, especially with the final action.
I also find that I cannot say that the means justified his ends (no pun intended) and I wonder at the foolishness or rather hubris that envelops people who are sure they are absolutely correct and the smartest person in the room. If he wanted to end his own life rather than face justice, that is one thing but, no one is smart enough to cover all contingencies.

Not even a place like the one that all the Houdini evacuees went to is fool proof... especially when at least a few of the people that went there are having second thoughts already...

Have you ever seen weeds that grow up through the cracks in the sidewalk? Some of them are flowers... some are trees.

C. O. Thompson wrote:In another discussion someone stated that Houdini was over the top...
Having finished SoV I think that I must revise my estimate upwards significantly... Yes, especially with the final action.
I also find that I cannot say that the means justified his ends (no pun intended) and I wonder at the foolishness or rather hubris that envelops people who are sure they are absolutely correct and the smartest person in the room. If he wanted to end his own life rather than face justice, that is one thing but, no one is smart enough to cover all contingencies.

Not even a place like the one that all the Houdini evacuees went to is fool proof... especially when at least a few of the people that went there are having second thoughts already...

Have you ever seen weeds that grow up through the cracks in the sidewalk? Some of them are flowers... some are trees.

Another way of putting that:

"I see the eggshells. Now where's the omelette?"

The big problem with the question as you posed it is that people who use immoral means to achieve their ends usually don't consider their means immoral.

Detweiller and company were already using genetic slavery and various incidents of murder in job lots when they wound up Houdini and let it rip. I doubt whether they spent any time considering the morality of whether all those nuclear blasts were justified by the end.

C. O. Thompson wrote:In another discussion someone stated that Houdini was over the top...
Having finished SoV I think that I must revise my estimate upwards significantly... Yes, especially with the final action.
I also find that I cannot say that the means justified his ends (no pun intended) and I wonder at the foolishness or rather hubris that envelops people who are sure they are absolutely correct and the smartest person in the room. If he wanted to end his own life rather than face justice, that is one thing but, no one is smart enough to cover all contingencies.

Not even a place like the one that all the Houdini evacuees went to is fool proof... especially when at least a few of the people that went there are having second thoughts already...

Have you ever seen weeds that grow up through the cracks in the sidewalk? Some of them are flowers... some are trees.

I would say that in this case the end does not justify the means... like you said they thought they are the best and smartest around so they are committing extreme crimes against humanity to force humanity to view things their way... especially when they could have easily put in 1/10th of the effort and gotten the results with little or no bloodshed and in half the time through other means.

I'd think the biggest problem would be how this would affect the Houdini evacuees. Unless they go full isolationist, news will filter in sooner or later and even those of them who didn't have close relations left on Mesa could still be shocked by the lengths to which Houdini went. It might well contribute to disaffecting some of them.

Eyal wrote:I'd think the biggest problem would be how this would affect the Houdini evacuees. Unless they go full isolationist, news will filter in sooner or later and even those of them who didn't have close relations left on Mesa could still be shocked by the lengths to which Houdini went. It might well contribute to disaffecting some of them.

It's those damn secies! And the bloodthirsty Manties.

It's not an airtight cover story, but it isn't totally ridiculous.

kzt wrote:

Eyal wrote:I'd think the biggest problem would be how this would affect the Houdini evacuees. Unless they go full isolationist, news will filter in sooner or later and even those of them who didn't have close relations left on Mesa could still be shocked by the lengths to which Houdini went. It might well contribute to disaffecting some of them.

It's those damn secies! And the bloodthirsty Manties.

It's not an airtight cover story, but it isn't totally ridiculous.

Except that the Houdini evacuees aren't exactly stupid - and they've seen evidence (in the form of the Gauls) that the Alignment is willing to kill them if necessary. I don't think it's a given that they'll jump to accuse the MA of the bombs, but it's far from certain they won't.

JohnRoth wrote:

C. O. Thompson wrote:In another discussion someone stated that Houdini was over the top...
Having finished SoV I think that I must revise my estimate upwards significantly... Yes, especially with the final action.
I also find that I cannot say that the means justified his ends (no pun intended) and I wonder at the foolishness or rather hubris that envelops people who are sure they are absolutely correct and the smartest person in the room. If he wanted to end his own life rather than face justice, that is one thing but, no one is smart enough to cover all contingencies.

Not even a place like the one that all the Houdini evacuees went to is fool proof... especially when at least a few of the people that went there are having second thoughts already...

Have you ever seen weeds that grow up through the cracks in the sidewalk? Some of them are flowers... some are trees.

Another way of putting that:

"I see the eggshells. Now where's the omelette?"

The big problem with the question as you posed it is that people who use immoral means to achieve their ends usually don't consider their means immoral.

Detweiller and company were already using genetic slavery and various incidents of murder in job lots when they wound up Houdini and let it rip. I doubt whether they spent any time considering the morality of whether all those nuclear blasts were justified by the end.

Yes John, but... they also considered the concept of genetic slavery as acceptable means from the early stages of the plan... So focused on the ends they considered so noble and worthy that they would create and cull the gene pool to get what they wanted.

The last action of A. Detweiller is more like "I see eggs, where is the sledge hammer?"

Eyal wrote:I'd think the biggest problem would be how this would affect the Houdini evacuees. Unless they go full isolationist, news will filter in sooner or later and even those of them who didn't have close relations left on Mesa could still be shocked by the lengths to which Houdini went. It might well contribute to disaffecting some of them.

I suspect that there would be an effort to censor the news or to blame it on Gold Peak but, that brings me back to the cracks in the pavement...

If I could sit down with David and share a few fingers of single malt, I think that I would find out that the Manties and Mesan Navies will make their sensor logs available to the reporter who will even be able to consult with her technical supporters back home to find out that 1) no missiles were used and 2) the profile of the material used in the blasts matches that of the bomb that McBride set off.

We were told that Audrey is a second generation deep plant of the Mesan Alliance but I don't know how that will impact her in this case. Frankly, I have trouble seeing how something like that would work when a person forms loyalties based on their own experiences, much more than on their parents.
But that is another of the means in some long range "master plan" conspiracy and flowers growing up through the cracks have a way of changing a point of view.

I think their plans are too restricted, they can't deal with large scale changes to the playing field. They tried to adjust existing plans instead of creating new ones. That might be due to their heavy use of prologue amongst them. Older people are really set in their ways, less likely able to adapt when needed.

C. O. Thompson wrote:

Eyal wrote:I'd think the biggest problem would be how this would affect the Houdini evacuees. Unless they go full isolationist, news will filter in sooner or later and even those of them who didn't have close relations left on Mesa could still be shocked by the lengths to which Houdini went. It might well contribute to disaffecting some of them.

I suspect that there would be an effort to censor the news or to blame it on Gold Peak but, that brings me back to the cracks in the pavement...

If I could sit down with David and share a few fingers of single malt, I think that I would find out that the Manties and Mesan Navies will make their sensor logs available to the reporter who will even be able to consult with her technical supporters back home to find out that 1) no missiles were used and 2) the profile of the material used in the blasts matches that of the bomb that McBride set off.

We were told that Audrey is a second generation deep plant of the Mesan Alliance but I don't know how that will impact her in this case. Frankly, I have trouble seeing how something like that would work when a person forms loyalties based on their own experiences, much more than on their parents.
But that is another of the means in some long range "master plan" conspiracy and flowers growing up through the cracks have a way of changing a point of view.

That is assuming there were no Sharks in orbit around Mesa that dropped KEWs or even fired missiles with spider drives or, better yet, conventional drives. Any Manty destroyer can sneak in under cover of that mass jump, go into stealth and pretty much hide in the clutter of panicking freighters, fire a few missiles, hyper out.

It is all in how O'Hanrahan spins it. She makes her case, SL makes Eridini Edict case against SEM. O'Hanrahan finds her mistake prints apology and correction. To steal a quote from an old movie: "To the boys who had such a rough time getting home last night:Seems our earlier report was in error. Sorry about that."