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PeterZ wrote:Not Eloise, Secretary Nesbit. His cousin was actively working with Gioncola. Had Eloise been a star line MAlign agent, she would have attacked the SEM after the SLN had depleted their missile supplies. Oh, like after the third attack against the Capitol system.

She would have blackened Haven's reputation and destroyed the SEM. Leaving the SLN very depleted and without the MWJ to fund their rebuilding. Eloise would have found a way to resume the Duquesne plan to complete the destruction of the SL. The RF would have seemed like a breath of fresh air by comparison.

Don't be silly - I don't think my baby girl is a Mesan agent. But the books have mentioned that star lines - including Alpha lines - have been 'cut off' from the Alignment before, for whatever reason. And God knows she's both brilliant and deadly!

In all things there is balance, Rose. Eloise IS brilliant but so are Honor and Elizabeth. Both Honor and Elizabeth are genies. If Eoilse is too, then RFC would be implicitly saying God is irrelevant in managing human evolution/progression. Man and Man alone can successfully lead humanity forward. Both his choices and his works are sufficient to fuel just progress.

Doesn't sound like our author. No, you just have to comfort yourself that Eloise's brilliance is a product of chance or Divine intervention. Either works for me, but I tend to believe the latter.

isaac_newton wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:I will say, however, that I have so far managed to hide one last . . . unanticipated family connection of Honor's.

Until this book, at least.

Oo-Oo I know!!!!

Honor is distantly related to the Detwielers

Of course Honor is distantly related to the Detwielers. I expect pretty much everyone on Beowulf is distantly related to the Detwielers the same way anyone with distant ancestry in England is related to the royal house some way.

BobG wrote:runsforcelery wrote:

I will guarantee you that you've seen at least one Alpha who is positively brilliant and extremely deadly, although I will leave the aforesaid Alpha's identity a bit of a mystery for the moment. Be interesting to see if anyone can identify the person I'm thinking about.

Could Victor Cachet be an Alpha line whose parents died, and was adopted by others as a child?

-- Bob G

Victor would certainly be on my short list, although there's also the arms merchant that showed up in a couple of anthology stories.

PeterZ wrote:In all things there is balance, Rose. Eloise IS brilliant but so are Honor and Elizabeth. Both Honor and Elizabeth are genies. If Eoilse is too, then RFC would be implicitly saying God is irrelevant in managing human evolution/progression. Man and Man alone can successfully lead humanity forward. Both his choices and his works are sufficient to fuel just progress.

Doesn't sound like our author. No, you just have to comfort yourself that Eloise's brilliance is a product of chance or Divine intervention. Either works for me, but I tend to believe the latter.

Divine intervention it is!

No, I don't honestly think Eloise is a genie - despite her unusual eye coloring and the fact that she's ravishingly beautiful. I think, actually, that if she was it would cheapen her story considerably - because the whole point of her, and of Tom Theisman, is that they are ordinary (well, not ordinary, but you know what I mean) people doing extraordinary things.

Still, the deep, deep irony of the person who kicked off the Grand Alliance and therefore the ultimate destruction of the Alignment being from a lost Alpha line would be rather funny, don't you think?

roseandheather wrote:

PeterZ wrote:In all things there is balance, Rose. Eloise IS brilliant but so are Honor and Elizabeth. Both Honor and Elizabeth are genies. If Eoilse is too, then RFC would be implicitly saying God is irrelevant in managing human evolution/progression. Man and Man alone can successfully lead humanity forward. Both his choices and his works are sufficient to fuel just progress.

Doesn't sound like our author. No, you just have to comfort yourself that Eloise's brilliance is a product of chance or Divine intervention. Either works for me, but I tend to believe the latter.

Divine intervention it is!

No, I don't honestly think Eloise is a genie - despite her unusual eye coloring and the fact that she's ravishingly beautiful. I think, actually, that if she was it would cheapen her story considerably - because the whole point of her, and of Tom Theisman, is that they are ordinary (well, not ordinary, but you know what I mean) people doing extraordinary things.

Still, the deep, deep irony of the person who kicked off the Grand Alliance and therefore the ultimate destruction of the Alignment being from a lost Alpha line would be rather funny, don't you think?

It would. It would also as you said cheapen the circumstances of Eloise's choice in the story.

I would like to see Secretary Nesbit be a "lost" star line descendent. His discovering that he is of an even more select aristocracy than even the Manties he dislikes so would be a hoot.

If Victor were such a "lost" descendant, it would be almost better. I say almost better because that would cause all sorts of mixed emotions for Thandi and all the Torches. He would be a Mesan elite! The source of their condition. Would any Torcher be immune to being influenced by his direct connection to their hated foes?

Nah, I would as soon have Victor avoid all that rubbish.

roseandheather wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Not Eloise, Secretary Nesbit. His cousin was actively working with Gioncola. Had Eloise been a star line MAlign agent, she would have attacked the SEM after the SLN had depleted their missile supplies. Oh, like after the third attack against the Capitol system.

She would have blackened Haven's reputation and destroyed the SEM. Leaving the SLN very depleted and without the MWJ to fund their rebuilding. Eloise would have found a way to resume the Duquesne plan to complete the destruction of the SL. The RF would have seemed like a breath of fresh air by comparison.

Don't be silly - I don't think my baby girl is a Mesan agent. But the books have mentioned that star lines - including Alpha lines - have been 'cut off' from the Alignment before, for whatever reason. And God knows she's both brilliant and deadly!

I have to say that I dont remember that... can you remind me where?

I guess what you are saying is that a 'lost' alpha line person might not develop the less pleasant little MA ways.

isaac_newton wrote:I have to say that I dont remember that... can you remind me where?

I guess what you are saying is that a 'lost' alpha line person might not develop the less pleasant little MA ways.

I can't remember which book it was, but one of the many Detweiler-centric expositions mentioned that not all Alpha lines were still in the Alignment because they'd died out, moved to other worlds, couldn't be trusted, or some other reason, so there are people out there from Alpha lines who don't know they're from Alpha lines. So yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

roseandheather wrote:

isaac_newton wrote:I have to say that I dont remember that... can you remind me where?

I guess what you are saying is that a 'lost' alpha line person might not develop the less pleasant little MA ways.

I can't remember which book it was, but one of the many Detweiler-centric expositions mentioned that not all Alpha lines were still in the Alignment because they'd died out, moved to other worlds, couldn't be trusted, or some other reason, so there are people out there from Alpha lines who don't know they're from Alpha lines. So yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

I personally refer to them as infiltration lines. As RFC has the lost line could be as simple as the parents being killed before the child(ren) being brought in to the fold.

runsforcelery wrote:
I will guarantee you that you've seen at least one Alpha who is positively brilliant and extremely deadly, although I will leave the aforesaid Alpha's identity a bit of a mystery for the moment. Be interesting to see if anyone can identify the person I'm thinking about.

Firstly, this seems like its supposed to be something everyone with agree with. Someone who is unarguably deadly, unarguably brilliant.

So when I think of an unarguably brilliant character in the Honorverse, they are going to have to compete with characters like Honor who excels in a vast variety of fields, politics, naval battles, ground battles etc. Or someone like Shanon or Sonja who are basically driving an entire field. I guess you could throw in Ruth or Anton. Although I'd take points off Anton for the Green Pines fiasco.

Then you have to be deadly. Again Honor fits the bill, Victor certainly does, maybe Anton. Anyone who "oops" a dozen superdreadnoughts on their own certainly counts.

We'll also want to kick out anyone who has been leading the charge against MAlign interests. Maybe its some lost Alpha Line, but that would be sort of cheap. Plus "See this obviously brilliant, deadly Alpha-Line? They TOTALLY are missing the recent patches! Also on the good guys team!" would seem to exacerbate the issue. That's a lot of the major characters out right there.

In fact, you'd assume the Alpha-Line would be someone who was helping the MAlign interests. Probably someone well positioned to help the MAlign. Now up until recently the MAlign thought that helping Haven was the way to go: see Oysters.

Also their name is probably Shannon Foraker.

P.S. The genetic slaves are basically proto-types for new gene mods for the star lines. In particular it was mentioned that pleasure slaves were extra clever, which also explains why some of the star lines have those exact gene mods!

And in general, I'm not sure how the MAlign can be called dull. To start with they are biologists not weapons engineers, so not having the best missiles makes perfect sense. What they DO have is the best medical technology. Between the innate longevity from gene mods and their prolong booster shots that puts them way ahead of the rest of the galaxy.

Also they are basically on the verge of victory. The GA and Sollies are about to have their reputation covered in blood. The GA has no reason to suspect the RF, and even if they did what are they going to do? The RF is going to be anti-Sollie. They have no Casus Belli.