Mesa biotech and Emily Alexander

Manticore law does provide for the holder of a title to renounce it. I seem to remember a certain Countess doing that to become eligible for election to the Commons. In which case, if the various parties all agreed to it, I could see some of Honor's titles being assumed, renounced, and passed on to the next heir under succession law, until everyone of her heirs had their 'cut of the cake' as asked in her will. But it still wouldn't be actually _governed_ by her will, which I think we're all agreed upon.
Cheers
John

drothgery wrote:

saber964 wrote:What Honor puts in her will is very much germain to to the topic. Honor can cut Roaul completely out of any non-titled lands much like Catherine Montainge did when she dumped her title on her younger brother Henry. IIRC 70-80% of the Montainge family fortune was not entitled in the Earldom of the Tor. This actually happened in England when the heir got the title and land associated with the title but the second son got the crown jewel a distillery and brewery that was 90-95% of the family fortune. Conceivably Honor could pass the Duchy and Steading to Raoul and Katherine gets Skydomes.

My point was that Honor has absolutely no choice in the matter of who gets the Duchy (or the Steading, for that matter). If nothing happens to Raoul between now and Honor's death that would prevent him from inheriting it, he will inherit it. There is absolutely nothing Honor can do to prevent this. The same goes for the Earldom of White Haven, subbing Hamish for Honor.

Sure, she can do whatever she wants with her other money and property (within the bounds of Manticoran law), but that's not what we were discussing.

Lunan wrote:so.
we know that Mesa or at least the MA has pushed the limits of genetic engineering to unknown heights. Just because they are the bad guys doesn't mean that they haven't produced stuff that can help the rest o the universe (see nazi scientists working for the us after ww2).

Its been rattling around in my head that somewhere in Mesa there might be a way to help heal Emily, and with Mike on her way to take out that system perhaps that knowledge will be making its way to the star empire in the not too distant future?
Perhaps leading to a Prime Minister Emily Alexander Harrington

I don't think Mesa would have anything that can help Emily.

Mesa is all about culling bad genes. By their definition Emily has bad genes. If they have anything it's purely by chance and it would be unlikely they would expend the effort to turn a chance discovery into a working system.

Their genetic engineering is applied at reproduction, not to modifying an existing person.

Now, if Beowulf examines Mesan tech the result might turn out to produce something useful. I'm thinking of their mind controlled assassins. They have a better understanding of how to interface to the brain than anyone, that tech might be able to be turned into something to permit Emily to have artificial arms and legs.

I think it's more likely that we'll see something from the Beginnings short about how Alfred Harrington met Allison Benton Ramirez y Chou on Beowulf - specifically the part where he and the Professor/Doctor were talking about nerve repairs in the wake of neural disruptor damage.


That said, Mesa will have made discoveries and have knowledge that doubtless could and would be useful to Beowulfian researchers in advancing medical sciences.
There will, however, likely be the same sort of ethical dilemma as there was with the medical research performed in the Nazi death camps, as I'd lay odds that Mesa and the MAlign have utilized a great many non-volunteer research subjects.