Detweiler and Sons

Vince wrote:

cthia wrote:Or possibly even his wife may defect. How would her relationship with the boys be affected now that he is gone?

Apparently you haven't yet finished Shadow of Victory yet, so I won't spoil it for you.

'Tis the season for spoilers, so I'll just borrow a lick from Charles Dickens:

"Albrecht was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. ... Old Albrecht and his wife were as dead as doornails. ... There is no doubt that Albrecht and Evilina were dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story RFC is going to write next."

This fact basically has nothing to do with most of the book, which, in common with all the recent books, is a montage of various things happening in different places tying up loose ends here and there and creating others.

Vince wrote:

cthia wrote:Or possibly even his wife may defect. How would her relationship with the boys be affected now that he is gone?

Apparently you haven't yet finished Shadow of Victory yet, so I won't spoil it for you.

JohnRoth wrote:'Tis the season for spoilers, so I'll just borrow a lick from Charles Dickens:

"Albrecht was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. ... Old Albrecht and his wife were as dead as doornails. ... There is no doubt that Albrecht and Evilina were dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story RFC is going to write next."

This fact basically has nothing to do with most of the book, which, in common with all the recent books, is a montage of various things happening in different places tying up loose ends here and there and creating others.

Fair enough, though I thought it was the "season" to be jolly. Since Charles Dickens is as much a part of Christmas as his Christmas Carol then you pass with at least a warning from the ghost of Scrooge's Christmas past.

Seriously, I don't mind spoilers. Since I joined the forums after the last book, this was my first season of spoilers. And I've come to the seemingly unanimous decision of one, that spoilers are none other than snippets—in disguise. This snippet has the juiciness of a properly cooked steak. It only serves to make me salivate and slobber.

"Happiness is always in how you look at things," my daddy always taught me.

phillies wrote:

cthia wrote:< snip >

Rather interesting, psychologically. If his wife had absolutely nothing to do with the conception, how can she feel anything other than useless—in the overall scheme of things, dead weight, inferior in every way? How can she feel anything like a part of the family as opposed to just a part of the marriage?

Talk about dysfunctional family syndrome.

For this reason I am somewhat inclined to believe that there might well also be her daughters, though perhaps fewer of them.

Louis R wrote:I was also surprised that Evelina doesn't have any daughters, by whatever process, but there is absolutely no evidence that she does.

However, let us not forget that she is:

a) a True Believer

b) a biologist in her own right, and as cold-blooded as they come [recall the scene where she's chatting with Albrecht while reviewing a report on the weaponisation of nanobiotechnology]

c) chosen for personal compatibility with A, not necessarily biological/genetic compatibility

d) apparently [and despite a & b] rather a motherly sort.

Given her stature, she may well be a member of the LRPB. In any case, I expect that she would have participated in making the decision to clone Albrecht. In fact, ISTR a mention somewhere that the Detweilers are like the Bardasanos in being a fully-designed, in vitro line, but with normal family upbringing instead of being dumped in creches, so it's likely that she never expected her children to be conceived via random mix-and-match. Given her background, as far as that goes, she probably regards that as the stupidest way to do it. If it's best for those children to be pure Albrecht, she may not be at all concerned by the idea.

b & d aren't really the contradiction they seem, BTW. It is, though, evidence of how the 'Manpower option' has poisoned the Alignment from day 1: large-scale slave owners have never been overly troubled by the effects of their actions on others, however much they love their own. [oddly, the evidence is that _small_-scale slaveholders often practically adopt their slaves]

Very interesting post Louis. And things may actually turn out this way. What sticks in my craw about this is applying Evelina's thoughts, in this case, to my own. *I don't think that I could see myself wanting even a single clone of someone I'm married to and in love with. Let alone six of them. Evelina was living with six identical Albrechts, she would have had to die when Albrecht died.

Talk about ruminations of the Oedipus complex run rampant! Easy to inherit the complex in this gene pure family.

*Albeit, I admit that this is just a manifestation of my own idiosyncrasies. I'm the guy who has problems dating a twin. Someone that looks exactly like the woman I'm in love with in another man's bed? Please!

That's... that's... that's worse than the awful taste in my mouth that I suffer when contemplating eating beets. I admit, I'm the one that has to live with me. Well, me and my wife. LOL

It's funny in a way.
We seem to be approaching the B-G problem from opposite directions.

The the potential problems that can occur now, and one the possible steps that the LRPB could have taken to try to alieviate said problems.

Assuming somone was smart enough to realise that some could, and needed, to be taken.


Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

One of the consequences of Houdini that doesn't seem to have been discussed, is the death of Albrecht Detweiler on Mesa, and the consequences for the leadership of the Alignment.
It's fairly clear that prior to Albrecht Detweiler, that Detweiler "family unit" was (probably) only a single child pre-generation and therefore the transfer of leadership was clear cut but Albrecht Detweiler had three sons and therefore I'm wondering:
1) did the Alignment or Albrecht Detweiler have an heir chosen?
2) what are the mechanism for transfer of power and associated suitability?
3) are there fractions within the Alignment who would rather see a particular son on the "throne" (potential leading to some sort of internal power struggle)?
4) Do all or any of the sons want to step up?
5) How are the members of the RF going to react to the loss of Mesa and Albrecht Detweiler (i.e. will they believe that the wheels are coming off and they should go it alone)

There's also the fact that not even the sons knew everything that Albrecht knew, so is the Alignment going to suddenly be missing links in the command and control loops and/or are there projects which if they proceeded might be detrimental to other newer objectives or never get the "go" order?

Plus the remaining evac ships are in transit and wouldn't know about Mesa until they arrive and captured by the Grand Alliance

Garth 2 wrote:One of the consequences of Houdini that doesn't seem to have been discussed, is the death of Albrecht Detweiler on Mesa, and the consequences for the leadership of the Alignment.
It's fairly clear that prior to Albrecht Detweiler, that Detweiler "family unit" was (probably) only a single child pre-generation and therefore the transfer of leadership was clear cut but Albrecht Detweiler had three sons and therefore I'm wondering:...

1: There were Six sons, not three. They were named earlier in this thread, but I have trouble remembering my own name sometimes.

2: As far as 99% of the Onion is concerned, the leader of the MAlign is "Alpha One." Benjamin, Albrecht's "number one son", can simply issue orders as "Alpha One" and very few will know the difference.

3: The general assumption is that the succession of "Alpha One" would go in alphabetical order -- Benjamin, then Colin, and so on down to Gervais. Each of the sons (clones, actually) had responsibility for a specific area of the MAlign -- Admin, R&D, Security/Espionage, etc. IIRC, there is Textev for all of their areas of responsibility.

4: I don't think that the Renaissance Factor will be materially disrupted by Albrecht's death. The leaders of the RF did know Albrecht and at least some of his sons, but they should be satisfied with the Succession as long as the sons stay in control. If the Detweiler line is eliminated -- i.e. all six sons and their progeny are eliminated somehow -- then the RF might fragment or fall to some internal power struggle. As long as there is a Detweiler to succeed to "Alpha One," even if it takes a regency council, the RF will proceed according to the master plan.

Weird Harold wrote:

Garth 2 wrote:One of the consequences of Houdini that doesn't seem to have been discussed, is the death of Albrecht Detweiler on Mesa, and the consequences for the leadership of the Alignment.
It's fairly clear that prior to Albrecht Detweiler, that Detweiler "family unit" was (probably) only a single child pre-generation and therefore the transfer of leadership was clear cut but Albrecht Detweiler had three sons and therefore I'm wondering:...

1: There were Six sons, not three. They were named earlier in this thread, but I have trouble remembering my own name sometimes.

2: As far as 99% of the Onion is concerned, the leader of the MAlign is "Alpha One." Benjamin, Albrecht's "number one son", can simply issue orders as "Alpha One" and very few will know the difference.

3: The general assumption is that the succession of "Alpha One" would go in alphabetical order -- Benjamin, then Colin, and so on down to Gervais. Each of the sons (clones, actually) had responsibility for a specific area of the MAlign -- Admin, R&D, Security/Espionage, etc. IIRC, there is Textev for all of their areas of responsibility.

4: I don't think that the Renaissance Factor will be materially disrupted by Albrecht's death. The leaders of the RF did know Albrecht and at least some of his sons, but they should be satisfied with the Succession as long as the sons stay in control. If the Detweiler line is eliminated -- i.e. all six sons and their progeny are eliminated somehow -- then the RF might fragment or fall to some internal power struggle. As long as there is a Detweiler to succeed to "Alpha One," even if it takes a regency council, the RF will proceed according to the master plan.

Even if every Detweiller dies, they are clones of the Detweiller lineage. You can't tell me that there isn't a backup or 7 in labs somewhere. True believers could grow a new Hitle.... I mean Detweiller at will, at any time. Heck, there could be another fetus in stasis, ready to go if needed. The question would be who indoctrinat....I mean raises the child to be the new leader. The inducing power structure over who raises and influences the new Detweiller will probably be the biggest power struggle if the remaining Detweilers were eliminated.

Garth 2 wrote:One of the consequences of Houdini that doesn't seem to have been discussed, is the death of Albrecht Detweiler on Mesa, and the consequences for the leadership of the Alignment.
It's fairly clear that prior to Albrecht Detweiler, that Detweiler "family unit" was (probably) only a single child pre-generation and therefore the transfer of leadership was clear cut but Albrecht Detweiler had three sons and therefore I'm wondering:...

Weird Harold wrote:1: There were Six sons, not three. They were named earlier in this thread, but I have trouble remembering my own name sometimes.

2: As far as 99% of the Onion is concerned, the leader of the MAlign is "Alpha One." Benjamin, Albrecht's "number one son", can simply issue orders as "Alpha One" and very few will know the difference.

3: The general assumption is that the succession of "Alpha One" would go in alphabetical order -- Benjamin, then Colin, and so on down to Gervais. Each of the sons (clones, actually) had responsibility for a specific area of the MAlign -- Admin, R&D, Security/Espionage, etc. IIRC, there is Textev for all of their areas of responsibility.

4: I don't think that the Renaissance Factor will be materially disrupted by Albrecht's death. The leaders of the RF did know Albrecht and at least some of his sons, but they should be satisfied with the Succession as long as the sons stay in control. If the Detweiler line is eliminated -- i.e. all six sons and their progeny are eliminated somehow -- then the RF might fragment or fall to some internal power struggle. As long as there is a Detweiler to succeed to "Alpha One," even if it takes a regency council, the RF will proceed according to the master plan.

Theemile wrote:Even if every Detweiller dies, they are clones of the Detweiller lineage. You can't tell me that there isn't a backup or 7 in labs somewhere. True believers could grow a new Hitle.... I mean Detweiller at will, at any time. Heck, there could be another fetus in stasis, ready to go if needed. The question would be who indoctrinat....I mean raises the child to be the new leader. The inducing power structure over who raises and influences the new Detweiller will probably be the biggest power struggle if the remaining Detweilers were eliminated.

It's not just a matter of there being backups in the labs. The Detweiller line has a lot of Family knowledge and attitude that's passed down from parents to children. An Albrecht Detweiller clone raised somewhere else than the Detweiller Family and in a different social situation (Darius instead of Mesa, for example) would have a rather different view of what needs to be done and how to go about doing it.

There would also be a significant gap of at least two and more likely four decades before a newly created clone would be able to take over. There's a weight of events there.

There is a designated successor. We don't know who it is, but Albrecht specified it, and I would expect that everyone on level 2 (that is, the people who know Albrecht personally) knows who it is. Practically, it's got to be either Benjamin or Colin - we have barely heard of Daniel and Everett, the two research heads, and all we know about Franklin and Gervais is their names.

Also, Albrecht said that they are safe on Darius, but Rufino C. is waiting for them to arrive with Albrecht. Whether or not they actually did is a dangling thread.

Garth 2 wrote:One of the consequences of Houdini that doesn't seem to have been discussed, is the death of Albrecht Detweiler on Mesa, and the consequences for the leadership of the Alignment.
It's fairly clear that prior to Albrecht Detweiler, that Detweiler "family unit" was (probably) only a single child pre-generation and therefore the transfer of leadership was clear cut but Albrecht Detweiler had three sons and therefore I'm wondering:
1) did the Alignment or Albrecht Detweiler have an heir chosen?
2) what are the mechanism for transfer of power and associated suitability?
3) are there fractions within the Alignment who would rather see a particular son on the "throne" (potential leading to some sort of internal power struggle)?
4) Do all or any of the sons want to step up?
5) How are the members of the RF going to react to the loss of Mesa and Albrecht Detweiler (i.e. will they believe that the wheels are coming off and they should go it alone)

There's also the fact that not even the sons knew everything that Albrecht knew, so is the Alignment going to suddenly be missing links in the command and control loops and/or are there projects which if they proceeded might be detrimental to other newer objectives or never get the "go" order?

Plus the remaining evac ships are in transit and wouldn't know about Mesa until they arrive and captured by the Grand Alliance

Ooooh ... nice.

Is there a Shia/Sunni factionalism within the Alliance? I think not. At least there doesn't appear to be one. But curious future plot twist.

Loss of Mesa is a non-starter. Houdini was not an ad-hoc plan. See Bestsellers topic. Oops: Houdini. It merely had to be compressed. Also the planet Darius was populated back in Lenny D's time IIRC (even odds I don't).

Remaining transit ships issue would depend on Corporate ownership,wouldn't it. If they were Jessyk Combine ships the captains would just say they got a message from corporate to return. I don't think MH & LT are going to pay much attention to commercial traffic.

Somewhere in ART or MoH Evelina mentioned involving the progeny in the alliance from an early age. Even where there is a culture of peaceful transfer of power with co-operation between the incoming and outgoing administrations there are glitches, and time needed to come fully to stride. I agree that either Benjamin or Collin will be the new Fearless Leader,y money is on Collin, though.

WeirdlyWired wrote:... Even where there is a culture of peaceful transfer of power with co-operation between the incoming and outgoing administrations there are glitches, and time needed to come fully to stride. I agree that either Benjamin or Collin will be the new Fearless Leader,y money is on Collin, though.

The whole Malignment setup doesn't really work for me. They have been breeding multiple lines of brilliant supremely aggressive sociopaths bent on galactic domination for centuries. No amount of human misery, murder, mayhem, blackmail, or torture affects them in the least. In fact they and their organization thrive on it. What's a couple of kilodeaths if it meets some minor objective? This is deeply sociopathic.

Yet we are to believe that internally the products of these lines meekly fall into a strict hierarchical structure where each individual within lines and each even star line as a whole just follows orders from the top star line. At pain of instant death for any deviance. Each line and individual within line just happily acts in their own little Albrecht-designated areas for decade after decade killing off deviants as ordered with no apparent intra-line or cross-line actions or desires to take over the whole organization for themselves. Even when there is a vacuum at the top let alone as an everyday occurrence. Further, lower down in the hierarchy, Simoes-type incidents would be a far more common--daily?-- occurrence. I simply don't buy any of it.

Then there is the notion of the subordinate Detweiler clones happily working away in their little niches decade after decade after decade while Albrecht exercises supreme control. Imagine this with Mao clones or Stalin clones. Absolutely unstable.

Well I'll buy it to read about, but I don't for a minute accept the premise as remotely possible. Intrigue and infighting within and across lines would rip such an organization apart within a century or two at max. More likely within decades.

At a bare minimum the ruling clique would be periodically overturned due to factional infighting.