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runsforcelery wrote:Remember that some of the mods done outside the MAlign group are not all that different from what the group is doing. Spending a few generations quietly improving your followers on a planet and letting them change the argument would work better than their methods.

ldweschler wrote:Remember that some of the mods done outside the MAlign group are not all that different from what the group is doing. Spending a few generations quietly improving your followers on a planet and letting them change the argument would work better than their methods.

quite possibly a cat wrote:But there isn't enough revenge involved. Instead, what if you improve your followers, and then wander off to an unknown system where your improved followers can use their super-minds to make even better advances, hit Actuarial Escape Velocity, and then live forever?

pappilon wrote:So, all Alison had to do was find the genetic accident, find a patch, weaponize it and release it to genetically uplift the entire planet of Grayson? That would make her, and Beowulf by extension, morally equivalent to Lenny Det and Mesa/Manpower? Thats your premise? Genetic uplift means uplifting each individual to her fullest potential, eradicating genetic diseases. IMHO it does not mean creating 5 distinct classes of humans designed to stay in their place and not get uppity. And, of course there is just no way to move from one class to the next because we have genetically manipulated you into your class and can actually show you the proof, isn't Science wonderful.

Oh yeah and we plan a system of extermination to reduce the 5th class, the feral humans who still insist on natural selection, to a manageable level.

So, I'm confused, which is Albrecht's and clones B-G"s plan ans which is Leonard's?

Torch of Freedom wrote:Leonard Detweiler, the CEO and majority stockholder of the Detweiler Consortium, a Beowulf-based pharmaceutical and biosciences corporation, found himself with a great deal of money and not a great deal of sympathy with the Beowulf bioethics code which had emerged following Old Earth's Final War and Beowulf's leading role in repairs to the brutally ravaged mother world. Almost five hundred years had passed since that war, and Detweiler believed it was long past time that mankind got over its "Frankenstein fear" (as he described it) of genetic modification of human beings. It simply made sense, he believed, to impose reason, logic, and long-term planning on the random chaos and wastefulness of natural evolutionary selection. And, as he pointed out, for almost fifteen hundred years, mankind's Diaspora to the stars had already been taking the human genotype into environments which were naturally mutagenic on a scale which had never been imagined on pre-space Old Earth. In effect, he argued, simply transporting human beings into such radically different environments was going to induce significant genetic variation, so there was no point in worshiping some semi-mythic "pure human genotype."



Since all that was true, Detweiler further argued, it only made sense to genetically modify colonists for the environments which were going to cause their descendants to mutate anyway. And it was only a small step further to argue that if it made sense to genetically modify human beings for environments in which they would have to live, it also made sense to genetically modify them to better suit them to the environments in which they would have to work.

JohnRoth wrote:

ldweschler wrote:Remember that some of the mods done outside the MAlign group are not all that different from what the group is doing. Spending a few generations quietly improving your followers on a planet and letting them change the argument would work better than their methods.

quite possibly a cat wrote:But there isn't enough revenge involved. Instead, what if you improve your followers, and then wander off to an unknown system where your improved followers can use their super-minds to make even better advances, hit Actuarial Escape Velocity, and then live forever?

(Above attributions fixed.)

pappilon wrote:So, all Alison had to do was find the genetic accident, find a patch, weaponize it and release it to genetically uplift the entire planet of Grayson? That would make her, and Beowulf by extension, morally equivalent to Lenny Det and Mesa/Manpower? Thats your premise? Genetic uplift means uplifting each individual to her fullest potential, eradicating genetic diseases. IMHO it does not mean creating 5 distinct classes of humans designed to stay in their place and not get uppity. And, of course there is just no way to move from one class to the next because we have genetically manipulated you into your class and can actually show you the proof, isn't Science wonderful.

Oh yeah and we plan a system of extermination to reduce the 5th class, the feral humans who still insist on natural selection, to a manageable level.

So, I'm confused, which is Albrecht's and clones B-G"s plan ans which is Leonard's?

Check the prolog to Part III of Torch of Freedom.

Torch of Freedom wrote:Leonard Detweiler, the CEO and majority stockholder of the Detweiler Consortium, a Beowulf-based pharmaceutical and biosciences corporation, found himself with a great deal of money and not a great deal of sympathy with the Beowulf bioethics code which had emerged following Old Earth's Final War and Beowulf's leading role in repairs to the brutally ravaged mother world. Almost five hundred years had passed since that war, and Detweiler believed it was long past time that mankind got over its "Frankenstein fear" (as he described it) of genetic modification of human beings. It simply made sense, he believed, to impose reason, logic, and long-term planning on the random chaos and wastefulness of natural evolutionary selection. And, as he pointed out, for almost fifteen hundred years, mankind's Diaspora to the stars had already been taking the human genotype into environments which were naturally mutagenic on a scale which had never been imagined on pre-space Old Earth. In effect, he argued, simply transporting human beings into such radically different environments was going to induce significant genetic variation, so there was no point in worshiping some semi-mythic "pure human genotype."



Since all that was true, Detweiler further argued, it only made sense to genetically modify colonists for the environments which were going to cause their descendants to mutate anyway. And it was only a small step further to argue that if it made sense to genetically modify human beings for environments in which they would have to live, it also made sense to genetically modify them to better suit them to the environments in which they would have to work.

runsforcelery wrote:

ldwechsler wrote:
SNIP

Frankly, the Malign comes across as a dud .

isaac_newton wrote:I wonder if it may partially feel that way because they are not obviously as frothingly mad wild eye evil as - say Citizen Ransom or some of those people on Grayson & Masada, or a sociopath like Oscar St Just, or even deeply, deeply corrupt like Young or High Ridge - and are - in once sense actually trying to build something?

In some ways, that's how they are supposed to come across. I think iwhat you're seeing is some of the banality of evil peeking through, because that's exactly how they see themselves. Of course, so did Rob and Oscar, but I think I took you more fully inside their heads in some ways than I've done with the Alignment. The thing about the Alignment is that both they and the Mandarins represent one of the things I find most dangerous in all the world: people in positions of vast power who never even question the total, complete, and exclusive validity and rectitude of their belief system. . . especially if it just happens to validate their right to power and feed their own rapaciousness. People in those positions come in two really deadly varieties. (1) The scumbag: the system I embrace absolves me of my responsibilities in time of peace and I will embrace any means to protect it (and, of course, me) when it comes under threat. (2) The true believer: the sheer sancity off the system I embrace automatically validates anything I do in its support. (And, of course, it that allows me to remain in power as the vanguard of the proliferate or whatever, that's merely evidence of the wise judgement of a benign providence.) Hard to exaggerate the damage either of them can do, but the really scary thing is that if you really get inside their heads, everything they do makes sense from their POV.

runsforcelery wrote:Actually. now that I think about it, I suspect there's another reason.

I think — hope, really — that to some extent, on a certain level, the reader can actually identify with the avowed purposes of the Detweiler Plan. And I also hope that the reader recognizes the fundamental humanity of the people capable of pursuing such an inhuman strategy.


What the Mesan Alignment was originally founded to accomplish is A Good Thing™ in a lot of ways, and the reader is inside the current crop of Detweilers' heads. He can see that their commitment is genuine and that, in many ways, they aren't monsters — at least in their own eyes, or where the people they actually know are concerned — at all.

In addition, since he doesn't live in the Honorverse, he's able to look at the situation without all those centuries of gradually weakening prejudice against the notion of any designed program of genetic uplift as the first slippery slope on the road back to the super soldiers and the warfare between them and the "normals" which almost destroyed the birth world of the human race. (I think it would be very difficult to exaggerate the scar that the Final War left on the collective human psyche in the Honorverse. Maybe I need to go back and do a short story set during the rescue mission to Old Earth from Beowulf. That war came within an eyelash of literally rendering Old Earth uninhabitable, and a huge part of what started and drove it to such lengths was the resentment of the genetic construct "super soldiers" who saw all the rest of humanity as at best cattle and at worst their mortal enemies. So there's a reason for that lingering fear, that residual prejudice, against any effort to systematically "upgrade" the human race.)

The reader doesn't see that, though. Or not to the same extent that people living in-universe do. And because of that, the reader is in a much better place when it comes to impartially evaluating whether or not what Leonard Detweiler originally wanted to accomplish was a good thing. The benefits are so stunningly obvious to him, that it's hard for some of that "But what they want to accomplish should to be a no-brainer" not to leak over into their perception of the Detweilers and the other members of the Onion. These are people whose professed purpose is to make things better at the end of the day. And in its case "better" doesn't just mean a more comfortable income, a nicer car, or even guaranteed healthcare. It means, literally, centuries more of life, greater resistance to disease, enhanced senses, bodies that are faster, stronger, and tougher than any human has ever been. That's what the Alignment tells itself — and believes — that it is trying to accomplish, and so, in its own eyes, it's a Force for Good™.

--snip--

The Detweiler boys have a sense of empathy, but they apply it only to those within the group they recognize as being "on the right side of history." After so many centuries of the Detweiler Plan, they have completely dehumanized their adversaries . . . which, after all, is one of the things that the Beowulf Code feared might happen if someone started designing "super humans" who would find themselves the lions in a herd of antelope.

But for the reader to fully understand just how horrific their commitment to the Detweiler's Plan's objectives regardless of the cost truly is, I can't dehumanize them for him. Instead, I have to do the reverse.

Frankly, that may be one reason they strike some people as "a dud." It's not just that they don't display all sorts of superhuman abilities. They don't display any sense of themselves as an Evil Conspiracy™ at war with all the rest of the galaxy. They see themselves as the Forces of Good™ at war with the evil of the rest of the galaxy's blindness where the righteousness of their cause is concerned. And like political extremists everywhere, they're perfectly comfortable with the theory that "a few must be sacrificed for the good of the many." So let's shoot all the bourgeoisie and get started.

GregD wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:Actually. now that I think about it, I suspect there's another reason.

I think — hope, really — that to some extent, on a certain level, the reader can actually identify with the avowed purposes of the Detweiler Plan. And I also hope that the reader recognizes the fundamental humanity of the people capable of pursuing such an inhuman strategy.


What the Mesan Alignment was originally founded to accomplish is A Good Thing™ in a lot of ways, and the reader is inside the current crop of Detweilers' heads. He can see that their commitment is genuine and that, in many ways, they aren't monsters — at least in their own eyes, or where the people they actually know are concerned — at all.

In addition, since he doesn't live in the Honorverse, he's able to look at the situation without all those centuries of gradually weakening prejudice against the notion of any designed program of genetic uplift as the first slippery slope on the road back to the super soldiers and the warfare between them and the "normals" which almost destroyed the birth world of the human race. (I think it would be very difficult to exaggerate the scar that the Final War left on the collective human psyche in the Honorverse. Maybe I need to go back and do a short story set during the rescue mission to Old Earth from Beowulf. That war came within an eyelash of literally rendering Old Earth uninhabitable, and a huge part of what started and drove it to such lengths was the resentment of the genetic construct "super soldiers" who saw all the rest of humanity as at best cattle and at worst their mortal enemies. So there's a reason for that lingering fear, that residual prejudice, against any effort to systematically "upgrade" the human race.)

The reader doesn't see that, though. Or not to the same extent that people living in-universe do. And because of that, the reader is in a much better place when it comes to impartially evaluating whether or not what Leonard Detweiler originally wanted to accomplish was a good thing. The benefits are so stunningly obvious to him, that it's hard for some of that "But what they want to accomplish should to be a no-brainer" not to leak over into their perception of the Detweilers and the other members of the Onion. These are people whose professed purpose is to make things better at the end of the day. And in its case "better" doesn't just mean a more comfortable income, a nicer car, or even guaranteed healthcare. It means, literally, centuries more of life, greater resistance to disease, enhanced senses, bodies that are faster, stronger, and tougher than any human has ever been. That's what the Alignment tells itself — and believes — that it is trying to accomplish, and so, in its own eyes, it's a Force for Good™.

--snip--

The Detweiler boys have a sense of empathy, but they apply it only to those within the group they recognize as being "on the right side of history." After so many centuries of the Detweiler Plan, they have completely dehumanized their adversaries . . . which, after all, is one of the things that the Beowulf Code feared might happen if someone started designing "super humans" who would find themselves the lions in a herd of antelope.

But for the reader to fully understand just how horrific their commitment to the Detweiler's Plan's objectives regardless of the cost truly is, I can't dehumanize them for him. Instead, I have to do the reverse.

Frankly, that may be one reason they strike some people as "a dud." It's not just that they don't display all sorts of superhuman abilities. They don't display any sense of themselves as an Evil Conspiracy™ at war with all the rest of the galaxy. They see themselves as the Forces of Good™ at war with the evil of the rest of the galaxy's blindness where the righteousness of their cause is concerned. And like political extremists everywhere, they're perfectly comfortable with the theory that "a few must be sacrificed for the good of the many." So let's shoot all the bourgeoisie and get started.

My problem with them is that I agree with their goals, and think their means are just about perfectly designed to destroy their goals.

It's like finding out that a politician from "my" Party is corrupt: I want to smack him even harder, because he's added the evil of "hurting my side" to the evil of "being corrupt", making him even worse than a corrupt politician from the other side.

Rob & St. Just were both evil and on the other team, so I just wanted to beat them.

The MAlign I want to "wall to wall counsel" for being idiots, then crush them into dust.

Torch of Freedom wrote:Leonard Detweiler, the CEO and majority stockholder of the Detweiler Consortium, a Beowulf-based pharmaceutical and biosciences corporation, found himself with a great deal of money and not a great deal of sympathy with the Beowulf bioethics code which had emerged following Old Earth's Final War and Beowulf's leading role in repairs to the brutally ravaged mother world. Almost five hundred years had passed since that war, and Detweiler believed it was long past time that mankind got over its "Frankenstein fear" (as he described it) of genetic modification of human beings. It simply made sense, he believed, to impose reason, logic, and long-term planning on the random chaos and wastefulness of natural evolutionary selection. And, as he pointed out, for almost fifteen hundred years, mankind's Diaspora to the stars had already been taking the human genotype into environments which were naturally mutagenic on a scale which had never been imagined on pre-space Old Earth. In effect, he argued, simply transporting human beings into such radically different environments was going to induce significant genetic variation, so there was no point in worshiping some semi-mythic "pure human genotype."



Since all that was true, Detweiler further argued, it only made sense to genetically modify colonists for the environments which were going to cause their descendants to mutate anyway. And it was only a small step further to argue that if it made sense to genetically modify human beings for environments in which they would have to live, it also made sense to genetically modify them to better suit them to the environments in which they would have to work.

Brigade XO wrote:
That is NOT the way the Alignment works.

pappilon wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:
That is NOT the way the Alignment works.

On So Manylevels.

I apologize f this question has been answered already, or is so obvious from the canon but, When from Leonard to Albrecht was Manpower founded. Because, at least for me, ghe creation od a class of people that were treated as sub-human was when the Master Planwent off the rails.

Eagleeye wrote:

pappilon wrote:

I apologize f this question has been answered already, or is so obvious from the canon but, When from Leonard to Albrecht was Manpower founded. Because, at least for me, ghe creation od a class of people that were treated as sub-human was when the Master Planwent off the rails.

As far as I remember, Leonard itself founded Manpower, Inc., to give the medical establishment of Beowulf a black eye. Textev is either in ToF or in CoG, if I remember correctly.