Audrey O’Hanrahan

Mike is going to Mesa with intentions. I think her Intel Department and her Staff have contingencies in place from standard interrogations to reverse engineering and steering interviews towards topics that they and Treecats can observe and make deductions from based on what they know of Solarian media, culture, government etc.. Mike and her staff isn't unaware unaware of the media side of intelligence gathering. Wether or not that interview goes down or not I imagine they will be checking the interviewers background and sources as intently as all other intel.

BrightSoul wrote:Two quick responses to a couple comments out there.

1) In the case of her involvement in Houdini. Keep in mind that the secondary element of Houdini was to brand the Ball room with responsibility for the "deaths" used to cover up Houdini. Her presence on Mesa was intended to get the story of the atrocities committed by the Ballroom and their allies into the League media and increase the pressure on the GA. Instead Mike showed up while she's still on the planet and the Ballroom successfully resisted atrocities by the Mesan Government and are nice and handy for Mike to put a lid on any further violence by either side.

2) Dishonesty or uncertainty seems to come through quite clear to treecats regardless of cultural bias or predilection. Emotion is a back brain thing. What might cause those emotions to flare may be different between cultures but the emotion is the same at root. A tree cat would pickup on Audry's reaction to Mike, Thandie or Victor telling her in an interview that they are here looking into the previous evidence of the Mesan Alignment they had discovered during their initial trip. Her reaction (inside her head) to those statements should be as clear as a bell to a 'cat. If nothing else her emotions would be ambiguous enough to raise questions. consider Ariel and Nimitz discussing Meulkler in AoV.

I agree with this. Cultural differences wouldn't handicap the cats much. What I have wondered is how the cats would do against pathological liars, people who feel no more response to lying than they do about telling the truth or to people who can control their emotions to the point where they can make truth telling seem like a lie.

I know our tech is primitive compared to the honorverse, but it is not uncommon for lie detectors to be fooled.

Don

BrightSoul wrote:1) In the case of her involvement in Houdini. Keep in mind that the secondary element of Houdini was to brand the Ball room with responsibility for the "deaths" used to cover up Houdini. Her presence on Mesa was intended to get the story of the atrocities committed by the Ballroom and their allies into the League media and increase the pressure on the GA.

OR she is meant to die in the "atrocities" to make it an even bigger media splash ASAP rather than the slower effect(possibly longterm more effective, or not) her reporting would have.



High profile targets makes for BIG headlines if they die.

BrightSoul wrote:2) Dishonesty or uncertainty seems to come through quite clear to treecats regardless of cultural bias or predilection. Emotion is a back brain thing. What might cause those emotions to flare may be different between cultures but the emotion is the same at root. A tree cat would pickup on Audry's reaction to Mike, Thandie or Victor telling her in an interview that they are here looking into the previous evidence of the Mesan Alignment they had discovered during their initial trip. Her reaction (inside her head) to those statements should be as clear as a bell to a 'cat. If nothing else her emotions would be ambiguous enough to raise questions. consider Ariel and Nimitz discussing Meulkler in AoV.

Thank you for saying it better than i managed, that´s almost exactly the line of thought i was looking at.

She may not be outed by default, but i think it´s pretty darn likely that if a treecat is present, it will pick up *something*.

Potentially, just the thing the MA knows about treecats to a far greater extent than any Solarian overall should, and that she would probably be VERY apprehensive about doing an interview around one, that alone could easily be enough.

#####

n7axw wrote:What I have wondered is how the cats would do against pathological liars, people who feel no more response to lying than they do about telling the truth or to people who can control their emotions to the point where they can make truth telling seem like a lie.

Now that makes for an interesting question.

I know our tech is primitive compared to the honorverse, but it is not uncommon for lie detectors to be fooled.

Aye, overall so called "lie detectors" in the real world are pretty much useless.

IMPO Mike will be willing to give O'Hanrahan the interview she requests for the very topic O'Hanrahan will not want to get into. The Mesan Alignment. Mike will see it as a chance to put any information they find on Mesa in front of the Solarian public by a highly respected Solarian reporter. If one of her treecats is present, if O'Hanrahan has any reaction to Mike's disclosures, they will pick it up.

Tenshinai wrote:
OR she is meant to die in the "atrocities" to make it an even bigger media splash ASAP rather than the slower effect(possibly longterm more effective, or not) her reporting would have.



High profile targets makes for BIG headlines if they die.

I know the MAlign is not above making sacrifices to further their plans but would they so cavalierly throw away a product of one of their own Alpha lines? My impression was that those people are valuable.

Amaroq wrote:
I know the MAlign is not above making sacrifices to further their plans but would they so cavalierly throw away a product of one of their own Alpha lines? My impression was that those people are valuable.

They have repeatedly extinguished centuries worth of generations of various genetic lines, and then simply started over at an early point.

They breed people like guinea pigs, they have zero value by themselves, it´s what they can do, or what can be done by using them that has value.

So, if there´s any reason to not sacrifice her, it´s NOT going to have anything to do just with her being an Alpha line.

It´s going to be a question of "how can she best serve to further our plans?".

Remember, they would almost certainly only throw away ONE single iteration of the line.
It´s entirely possible they already have a halffinished clone ready and waiting if a replacement is desired.
And it wouldn´t surprise me even for a moment if there´s a dozen or two with near identical genetics to Audrey somewhere.

That´s part of the point of finding/creating the Alpha lines ( don´t forget, genetic lines can get elevated or depreciated ), to make sure you can spread their "superiority" further.

Try reading the fanfiction variant of "Divine Blood", see how Kodachi Kuno makes herself a truly magnificent bastard evil overlord.

That´s one of the very good sides of RFCs writing, his villains doesn´t pull their punches. The MA wants GA and the SL to mix it up in a BIG fight? Well in that case, does Audrey serve that mission best by reporting, or by dying at the hands of the insidious Manties?

Her death would definitely be news of the exceptionally inflammatory kind, i very much doubt she could manage anything like it by doing her job "creatively".


But like i said, it depends on what the exact plans of the MA really are, if the need a properly placed hidden propaganda outlet for later, then of course they will try to keep Audrey alive and VERY credible.

But even then, plans must change according to events.

Hi KNick,

I think you may be onto something in the sense that Alfredo notices her reaction to the revelations about the MAlign, possibly the speculation about the assassin nanotech that confirms she knows far more than she should; 'becoming a person of interest' or simply how she reports the interview so differently from what she actually discussed with Mike and other interviews that may alert the the GA she has an agenda near the MAlign's.

Her current reporting seems to be establishing her anti-Mesa credentials, so her initial reporting of the GA could very well be positive, until she comes out supporting the RF instead.

L

KNick wrote:IMPO Mike will be willing to give O'Hanrahan the interview she requests for the very topic O'Hanrahan will not want to get into. The Mesan Alignment. Mike will see it as a chance to put any information they find on Mesa in front of the Solarian public by a highly respected Solarian reporter. If one of her treecats is present, if O'Hanrahan has any reaction to Mike's disclosures, they will pick it up.

That O'Hanranhan will seek out an interview with Mike, and that Mike will grant it (each for their own reasons) is a virtual given.

What isn't (which a lot of posters seem to think it is) a given is that Alfredo will be in the room.

Remember, in general O'Hanranhan is seen as being 'open-minded' and a ferocious critic of both the Mandarins and Mesa. There is no particular reason Mike should distrust her or feel a need to have her 'furry lie detector' in the room with her.

Also, given that Alfredo is probably the only cat with her forces (textev said there were two treecats in Tenth Fleet, IIRC, and I presume the other is still in Talbott), and given the present situation on Mesa, his talents may be employed during questioning of the board members, Mesan military, and other personalities (just imagine being questioned by Victor Cachat with a treecat in the room ). So he may not be available for a 'routine' Q&A with a reporter no one in the GA suspects of being a MALign Alpha.

We shall see, eventually.

Hutch wrote:What isn't (which a lot of posters seem to think it is) a given is that Alfredo will be in the room.

Given that Mike has knowledge of MA mind-controlled suicide assassins, I doubt she'd be left alone with anyone who comes from the heart of the League. Hell when Verge resistance reps started showing up, Alfredo was present for this very reason.

Quinlan73 wrote:

Hutch wrote:What isn't (which a lot of posters seem to think it is) a given is that Alfredo will be in the room.

Given that Mike has knowledge of MA mind-controlled suicide assassins, I doubt she'd be left alone with anyone who comes from the heart of the League. Hell when Verge resistance reps started showing up, Alfredo was present for this very reason.

Ugh, more like to be a furry lie detector than worry about assassins.

Poker