Audrey O’Hanrahan

Tenshinai wrote:

n7axw wrote:
I agree with this... Audrey is a far more complex human being than she herself realizes. That has the potential to trip her up.

Don

Definitely.

I still haven´t decided if i think she is going to defect or some such...

I don't think she will. I think she has drunk deeply of the Kool-Aid. Though people are correct that she (like anyone else) is a complicated person, and there is a difference between intellectual knowledge and witnessing the results. I don't think she will turn, but I could be wrong. She is indeed an interesting character to watch. My own suspicion is that she will not turn, and will be a deviously fiendish villain in sheep's clothing. Or perhaps sheepdog clothing--the righteous journalist guarding the sanctity of independent reporting.

When I first met her in StfS I thought she could be an Alpha without being conscious of the Alignment and was generally leaning in the direction that she could end up turning on the Detweilers. After CoG my stance shifted the other direction. In that book she came out as much more on the side of the Genetic uplift side.

She certainly is a complex personality but she really seems to be more into bringing down the league and covering the incompetence of the Mesa system. At the same time, I really suspect she is there to cover the collapse of the Mesan Slave system and its attendant bloodbath. What happens now that 10th Fleet is here to head off Mesa's planned massacre? That is the crux of the problem. Without the planned Massacres she is really in a tough position considering her "mission" to expose Ballroom atrocities. If nothing else she's going to have to explain to her masters that they failed in blackening the GA and Ballroom with the blame for the slaughterhouse that didn't happen.

Now, does she begin coming out of the shadows as an agent provocateur? Or does she end up signing on to the Manty version of events even if it might expose the Alignment to further scrutiny?

This thread creeped away from the original discussion on whether she knows anything and if she might interview Mike in front of a Treecat. If her role is to find ways to discredit Torch, the GA and the Ballroom then she would almost be forced to seek an interview with the Commander of Manticoran forces in the system. That interview would definitely be attended by a treecat until they have some other means of protecting personnel from the nano tech.

BrightSoul wrote:What happens now that 10th Fleet is here to head off Mesa's planned massacre? That is the crux of the problem.

Yeah, well that reinforced battalion of marines certainly is going to bring peace and joy to each of the 6 billion or so inhabitants spread out across the 50,000 or so towns on Mesa....

SWM wrote:I don't think she will. I think she has drunk deeply of the Kool-Aid. Though people are correct that she (like anyone else) is a complicated person, and there is a difference between intellectual knowledge and witnessing the results. I don't think she will turn, but I could be wrong. She is indeed an interesting character to watch. My own suspicion is that she will not turn, and will be a deviously fiendish villain in sheep's clothing. Or perhaps sheepdog clothing--the righteous journalist guarding the sanctity of independent reporting.

Yeah, that´s where i´m leaning as well, but only barely. RFC has done a very good job portraying her, she could go almost any direction from here(including my suspected martyrdom).

Tenshinai wrote:

SWM wrote:I don't think she will. I think she has drunk deeply of the Kool-Aid. Though people are correct that she (like anyone else) is a complicated person, and there is a difference between intellectual knowledge and witnessing the results. I don't think she will turn, but I could be wrong. She is indeed an interesting character to watch. My own suspicion is that she will not turn, and will be a deviously fiendish villain in sheep's clothing. Or perhaps sheepdog clothing--the righteous journalist guarding the sanctity of independent reporting.

Yeah, that´s where i´m leaning as well, but only barely. RFC has done a very good job portraying her, she could go almost any direction from here(including my suspected martyrdom).

I think which way she'll jump is anyone's guess. Remember that there's a difference between giving up a long-held ideological stance (genetic uplift) and deciding that the cost of achieving it that way is simply too high, and anyone who would order that level of atrocity is simply not to be trusted. We've already seen Jack McBryde make the same decision.

kzt wrote:

BrightSoul wrote:What happens now that 10th Fleet is here to head off Mesa's planned massacre? That is the crux of the problem.

Yeah, well that reinforced battalion of marines certainly is going to bring peace and joy to each of the 6 billion or so inhabitants spread out across the 50,000 or so towns on Mesa....

I think you are overstating things a bit. With Thandie and Victor on planet and leading the defense of one of the Seccy Neighborhoods there may very well be a cooling effect on the Seccy and Slave populations. Certainly the Mesan Government could launch radicalizing attacks against the Slave and Seccy population but those attacks would be easily targeted from orbit.

Could the wheels fall off? Of course, but it will be harder to create without leaving fingerprints all over the place that the whole thing was a setup. Quite a few Slaves and Seccies will likely wait until they see what is happening. I seriously doubt they will be mobbing the streets immediately. That kind of thing happens after the liberators are seen to be ineffectual. From my read VC and AZ were already thinking in those terms as they teamed up with the Seccy leadership in CoG. As long as their on-planet allies can keep their people in line then the Slave populations won't be going on a rampage ala Verdant Vista. Recall that that particular rampage occured with no allied troops groundside to calm the situation while on Mesa we have the head of the Torch Military boots on the groundc and leading the defenses.

Well, I'm sure that Putin is deterred by the threat of angering Canada too. And Canada can project a lot more power halfway across the planet than can a bunch of lightly armed irregulars.

kzt wrote:Well, I'm sure that Putin is deterred by the threat of angering Canada too. And Canada can project a lot more power halfway across the planet than can a bunch of lightly armed irregulars.

Uhm, I rather get the impression that Mike has considerably more offensive power than Canada. How many podnaughts did she have again? Useless comparison.

Hi SWM,

Kudos for working from current textev.

I agree there is no evidence she has any doubts about the MAlign.

She was never part of Houdini; her mission makes her far too visible for some of the prior posts' suggestions that she feels abandoned-nonsense!

Her job is to expose the mandarins incompetence, the horrors of Manpower and Mesa, to prepare the way for the RF, then salute it when it appears; unfortunately a lot of that now has to be scrubbed with the unpredicted appearance of the GA.

The SL is now going to collapse militarily far faster than it was supposed to, while Beowulf's withdrawal gives the moral high ground to the GA, something the RF was supposed to claim.

Given the MAlign agents or informers and their staffs who influence them among the mandarins, one wonders just how well that plan to announce the right of secession had lapsed in the face of the RF, whose creation seemed already underway in ToF.

So what happens when Reid or whoever gets new orders from the MAlign to support secession?

Or is exposed by Audrey, fresh from Mesa?

Probably by way of Beowulf if a SLN attack is made on it, which now doesn't seem so certain, since the two month's has passed, so the Mycroft's are up etc.

There are still parts of the puzzle we see darkly, but Audrey's role seems clear for the moment, and it doesn't involve switching sides, at least yet.

L

SWM wrote:

Tenshinai wrote:*quote="n7axw"*

I agree with this... Audrey is a far more complex human being than she herself realizes. That has the potential to trip her up.

Don*quote*

Definitely.

I still haven´t decided if i think she is going to defect or some such...

I don't think she will. I think she has drunk deeply of the Kool-Aid. Though people are correct that she (like anyone else) is a complicated person, and there is a difference between intellectual knowledge and witnessing the results. I don't think she will turn, but I could be wrong. She is indeed an interesting character to watch. My own suspicion is that she will not turn, and will be a deviously fiendish villain in sheep's clothing. Or perhaps sheepdog clothing--the righteous journalist guarding the sanctity of independent reporting.

BrightSoul wrote:When I first met her in StfS I thought she could be an Alpha without being conscious of the Alignment and was generally leaning in the direction that she could end up turning on the Detweilers. After CoG my stance shifted the other direction. In that book she came out as much more on the side of the Genetic uplift side.

She certainly is a complex personality but she really seems to be more into bringing down the league and covering the incompetence of the Mesa system. At the same time, I really suspect she is there to cover the collapse of the Mesan Slave system and its attendant bloodbath. What happens now that 10th Fleet is here to head off Mesa's planned massacre? That is the crux of the problem. Without the planned Massacres she is really in a tough position considering her "mission" to expose Ballroom atrocities. If nothing else she's going to have to explain to her masters that they failed in blackening the GA and Ballroom with the blame for the slaughterhouse that didn't happen.

Well, her mission pretty clearly is not to pin blame on the Ballroom. She previously wrote articles ridiculing the fact that Mesa blamed Green Pines on the Ballroom. In her first appearance in CoG, she is talking with a representative of Mesa's PR office, ridiculing their blaming of these new attacks on the Ballroom.

Now, she might have been intended to document atrocities committed by Mesa on the slaves, and/or counter-atrocities committed by slaves during the following rebellion. But the text seems to indicate that she is not here to blame the Ballroom (and presumably not the GA or Torch, either, since Mesa didn't expect them to be there yet).