Detweiler and Sons

jgnfld wrote: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.

You forget about a quite crucial uniting factor, they have a common enemy: a (perceived as) important part of the Beowulf Code (and by extension the galactic establishment representing it).

jgnfld wrote: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.

...

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

What causes intrigue and infighting, or at least what allows it to rise to the level that it's going to cause problems?

Two things: Ambition and independent power bases. Notice that Albrecht isn't known to the average Mesan. People don't see him on the street and kowtow; there's no parade of black limousines with armed outriders to amaze the adoring masses. The price he pays is absolute anonymity: the only thing that most of his minions know him by is "Alpha One." He has more anonymity than even "Helmuth, speaking for Boskone."

Everyone is subject to psychological evaluation, and discipline, often fatal, is swift and ruthless for anyone in the inner Onion that gets out of line. This is known and accepted.

People are put into jobs because they're fitted for them, not because they've clawed their way up the ladder to their level of incompetence, leaving bloody and broken bodies behind them. (See the Klingon version of the Peter Principle).

People who would be capable of intrigue and infighting have a noted tendency to die in aircar accidents.

It's a very different mindset, and one that most people in our culture would find incomprehensible. Large segments of our population would also find it intolerable.

Personally, I find the idea of aircar accidents harder to accept.

JohnRoth wrote:Personally, I find the idea of aircar accidents harder to accept.

It happens...

"Every emergency entry had to have a reason for injury for statistical purposes. Federal law. I later ran into some people in the federal government who compile those statistics and hated the MCB for throwing them off. You might run across the statistic that the most dangerous place in the world is your own kitchen or bathroom? That’s because MCB’s most common form of death, when there’s a supernatural event at a house, is “Died due to electrocution in bathtub/slipping in shower” or “died due to slipping while replacing kitchen fixture.” Fire imp in the house? “Kitchen fire started by frying oil.” Every agent gets the suggestion in training and uses it assiduously.

"Yeah. Your bathroom is the most dangerous place in the world. Sure."

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.

JohnRoth wrote: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.

* It's that dreaded human element raising its ugly head again in my mind. Albrecht was the one who chose his successor. Problem is, do all of the sons agree—internally, and not just for the record? I think the potential for a power struggle lies amongst the sons.

The same thing happens when a particular child is pre-picked by the parents to handle a massive estate in the event of their death, timely or otherwise. Families have been falling apart in these scenarios since the beginning. It is as if all of the human element is removed from the Detweilers. It is easy for the sons to capitulate when the thought is just a notion that one thinks won't really ever happen but when daddy's death turns into reality, that is when the true colors of all of the participants and the frayed stitching around the edges begin to show.

The sons trusted their father. They don't necessarily trust their brothers to run such a complicated ship themselves. Each of the five brothers are supposed to not question the brother who now has the helm, and they are not supposed to have their own ideas as a course of action to take? They are not supposed to have any emotional trauma from daddy being dead? Or ideas of their own on how to proceed?

Albrecht had a vision, no doubt. But only he saw it as clearly as he did. Of course, he can groom a son to replace him, but do we really believe that cloning would give the successor son the same thought patterns as patient zero? When the plan is visited by Murphy after daddy is dead and an unforeseen monkey wrench is thrown into the mix, then the successor is supposed to be able to automagically make the right call? The MAlignment game isn't a paint by the numbers project.

If Albrecht had died prior to the circumstances that led to Oyster Bay, would the replacement have followed the same course? Or would he have bumbled the call?

I think that a power struggle would be amongst the sons.


* By the way, this "human element" that I speak of so often, is brilliantly introduced in the movie "Sully" starring Tom Hanks. Two thumbs up and a snap!...

https://youtu.be/tsOWjB2X5K8


Edit: grammar: does => do
Second edit: Ton => Tom
Third or more edit: More grammar, typos. Ugh!

.

Good point.
Which really makes me wonder how many brothers Albretch has.
Or his father. Etc.

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kzt wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:Personally, I find the idea of aircar accidents harder to accept.

It happens...

"Every emergency entry had to have a reason for injury for statistical purposes. Federal law. I later ran into some people in the federal government who compile those statistics and hated the MCB for throwing them off. You might run across the statistic that the most dangerous place in the world is your own kitchen or bathroom? That’s because MCB’s most common form of death, when there’s a supernatural event at a house, is “Died due to electrocution in bathtub/slipping in shower” or “died due to slipping while replacing kitchen fixture.” Fire imp in the house? “Kitchen fire started by frying oil.” Every agent gets the suggestion in training and uses it assiduously.

"Yeah. Your bathroom is the most dangerous place in the world. Sure."

Lets not bring MHI into this.

cthia 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:...

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.

JohnRoth wrote: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.

* It's that dreaded human element raising its ugly head again in my mind. Albrecht was the one who chose his successor. Problem is, do all of the sons agree—internally, and not just for the record? I think the potential for a power struggle lies amongst the sons.

The same thing happens when a particular child is pre-picked by the parents to handle a massive estate in the event of their death, timely or otherwise. Families have been falling apart in these scenarios since the beginning. It is as if all of the human element is removed from the Detweilers. It is easy for the sons to capitulate when the thought is just a notion that one thinks won't really ever happen but when daddy's death turns into reality, that is when the true colors of all of the participants and the frayed stitching around the edges begin to show.

The sons trusted their father. They don't necessarily trust their brothers to run such a complicated ship themselves. Each of the five brothers are supposed to not question the brother who now has the helm, and they are not supposed to have their own ideas as a course of action to take? They are not supposed to have any emotional trauma from daddy being dead? Or ideas of their own on how to proceed?

Albrecht had a vision, no doubt. But only he saw it as clearly as he did. Of course, he can groom a son to replace him, but do we really believe that cloning would give the successor son the same thought patterns as patient zero? When the plan is visited by Murphy after daddy is dead and an unforeseen monkey wrench is thrown into the mix, then the successor is supposed to be able to automagically make the right call? The MAlignment game isn't a paint by the numbers project.

If Albrecht had died prior to the circumstances that led to Oyster Bay, would the replacement have followed the same course? Or would he have bumbled the call?

I think that a power struggle would be amongst the sons.


* By the way, this "human element" that I speak of so often, is brilliantly introduced in the movie "Sully" starring Tom Hanks. Two thumbs up and a snap!...

https://youtu.be/mjKEXxO2KNE


Edit: grammar: does => do
Second edit: Ton => Tom
Third or more edit: More grammar, typos. Ugh!

.

There is nothing more damaging to a family than the loss of the undisputed matriarch or patriarch. Ugly things tend to happen, like factions forming in the various family branches, inheritance disputes, feuds. Even when the loss does not have any violent consequences, things are just different, everything seems wrong, and the new leadership will have some hiccups.

My own family had something like this happen when my grandmother died in 2001. Since her death, there have been no major feuds, but two of my uncles had their marriages fall apart one of which also put my aunt and her husband right in the middle of it (basically, Jane Jones married John Smith and Jack Jones married Jill Smith, then Jack and Jill had an ugly divorce), and a lot of other minor things that wouldn't have happened while she was alive to keep a lid on things.

The whole onion is going to be dangerously weakened while they are on the run. If their disappearing act is successful they may be able to stabilize things before the GA catches up to them, but they are in for a rough couple of years in which lying low is the best strategy.

Greentea wrote:There is nothing more damaging to a family than the loss of the undisputed matriarch or patriarch. Ugly things tend to happen, like factions forming in the various family branches, inheritance disputes, feuds. Even when the loss does not have any violent consequences, things are just different, everything seems wrong, and the new leadership will have some hiccups.

My own family had something like this happen when my grandmother died in 2001. Since her death, there have been no major feuds, but two of my uncles had their marriages fall apart one of which also put my aunt and her husband right in the middle of it (basically, Jane Jones married John Smith and Jack Jones married Jill Smith, then Jack and Jill had an ugly divorce), and a lot of other minor things that wouldn't have happened while she was alive to keep a lid on things.

The whole onion is going to be dangerously weakened while they are on the run. If their disappearing act is successful they may be able to stabilize things before the GA catches up to them, but they are in for a rough couple of years in which lying low is the best strategy.

The MAlign has been doing this for 600 years. In the early years there may have been three turnovers a century, in the later years, with life extension and recently prolong, maybe two. That's 15 turnovers.

As another poster said, if there was any significant factional infighting on a turnover, the whole thing would have blown apart by this time.

One of the things that keeps it together is that most of the Onion doesn't know that there's been a turnover at all.

"Meet the new Alpha One, the same as the old Alpha One."

"Huh? there's a new Alpha One? Can't tell it by me."

Your grandmother probably didn't settle family disputes by supplying one or both disputants with a set of concrete overshoes and dropping them in a convenient river. That's essentially what the MAlign does with people whose rivalries would tend to pose a risk to the MAlign's stability.

kzt wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:Personally, I find the idea of aircar accidents harder to accept.

It happens...

We don't have aircar accidents today because we don't have aircars.

I've talked about this before: I find the idea of aircar accidents in a well-maintained planet in the Honorverse ludicrous. Given the amount of technology around, and the amount of time there has been to fine-tune it, the idea that a couple of aircars would run into each other, or into a building or whatever ... is simply indistinguishable from zero.

Different fans have different things about the Honorverse tech background which they find hard to accept. This is one of mine.

JohnRoth wrote:Different fans have different things about the Honorverse tech background which they find hard to accept. This is one of mine.

From 2000 fatality report
Accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed. 327
Drowning and submersion while in or falling into bath-tub 341
Fall on same level from slipping, tripping and stumbling 565
Other fall on same level 1,885
Fall involving bed, chair, other furniture. 650

People are more ingenious than you give them credit for.