Genetic engineering ?

kzt wrote:

pappilon wrote:PLEASE excuse the introduction of politics here: It is like saying fascists and Antifascists are morally equivalent.

The main difference in practice between nazis and communists is nobody claims that true nazism hasn’t yet been tried.

THIS is why it is so difficult to make clear distinctions. Both the Nazis and Communists had ideals they considered wonderful. And both murdered people like crazy.

These small decisions can have an enormous impact. Let's say a geneticist could do a bit of maneuvering and turn almost anyone into a genius.

That could be a survival trait. On the other hand it could be used for dominance games. See "The Wrath of Khan."

Note that the well-meaning early Graysons totally altered their society when they did a genetic survival patch that wiped out a lot of male fetuses.

I paid a lot of money for my daughter's education and it paid off well. If someone had come to me and for the same price could do a genetic patch that would let her live a lot longer I would have done that as well.

By the way, note that the prolong treatments, while beneficent, have created changes in many societies.

The Alignment has already done the seeding of Alpha lines into the political control of systems- The Renaissance Faction. They have groomed and culled as nessisary to place Star Lines in control of 12 system governments and we presume more than just the Mannerheim Military as part of the support system to ensure that the RF, when it coalesces, will be working within the same framework (political and military with no difficulty between them) to first forge the larger construct with new systems and spread the doctrine the Alighment wants. That also presumes they have some level of entrenchment in the sciences and education in said systems.

So the Alighment has shown they can do this if they want. It may or may not be problimatical to infiltrate the SL government/administration this way for the leadership positions. Given that they have had CENTURIES to do it, why haven't they tried any of the Core Worlds other than slip in only to the levels we have seen with Hanrahan and the guy now advising Kingsfored?

Probably because the Alignment wants to be ruling humanity and that will be a humanity that it constructs as well as controls. We have a picture of what Darius is like- slaves who don't know they are slaves- and are laboring like Trojans to create the defensive and manufaturing base to defend Darius.
If you want to do that on a mass scale to something as free as the member systems of the SL, you are going to have to crush that freedom and build back up the populastions with them believing that they have to change, adapt, "adjust" to survive. From the Alignment perspective, wholesale culling of normal humans makes way for the cast system (genetic as well as political- no religion here) they have set up. Have some normals with abilities they want, that easy once you have a certain level of control and harvest what you want to include in their children which are going to be comming out of uterine replicators. Natural births will need to have their genomes checked (and quietly modified) to control that vector.

The Alignment already has done catastrophic damage to the systems involved in the Haven, Manticore and other collections of systems though the wars that were instigated- to bulid the force that could smash the SL militarily so the present human civilizations represented by the SL and everywhere it's tendrils reach will be shattered into bits that can be rebuilt in the images of Alignment perfection.

Haven, Beowulf, Manticore and so many other places see former genetic slaves and their decendents as human individuals mostly reguardless of what was done to them. The Alignment sees them as slaves, experiments and property.
That is the difference. That is the ideal so many people on Earth now are spouting (if the politicians and all sorts of other people actualy believe that instead of using it as a cynical cover and ploy for their own ends is another question entirely)

If I recall correctly it has been pointed out that the Alignment could have achieved their stated goal of loosening and eliminating the restrictions of the Beowulf code by simple propaganda rather then creating genetically engineered slaves and done it far quicker and cheaper as well.

One can not help but wonder if the leaders of the Alignment have come to believe they have to use a big complex plan spanning centuries as a way to prove their mental superiority.

Said it before. It's not that the MAlign want to win, it's that they want Beowulf to admit it was wrong.

pnakasone wrote:If I recall correctly it has been pointed out that the Alignment could have achieved their stated goal of loosening and eliminating the restrictions of the Beowulf code by simple propaganda rather then creating genetically engineered slaves and done it far quicker and cheaper as well.

One can not help but wonder if the leaders of the Alignment have come to believe they have to use a big complex plan spanning centuries as a way to prove their mental superiority.

Sounds more like a "big government" kind of notion. Germany, for example, decided to go green through government programs. They are getting rid of nuclear energy and focusing on renewables. On the other hand, that has pushed the use of lignite coal. Result: the air is dirtier, electric bills are far higher, and no real reduction in greenhouse gas.

The US has allowed fracking to go forward. Result: gas prices are far lower and increased use of pretty clean natural gas. Greenhouse gases down about three percent a year.

It would have been far simpler to train geneticists how to quietly make improvements and let them work with the really powerful people on planets to loosen regulations. There are a real lot of gray areas.

As the rich get richer and the more powerful gain more power, gradually get the laws officially changed. Changes that might be done in one generation get done in three. Focus a lot on therapies, things that will help those already alive and slip in a few things that might help their offspring.

It would cost far less than running Manpower and all the war making tools.

pnakasone wrote:If I recall correctly it has been pointed out that the Alignment could have achieved their stated goal of loosening and eliminating the restrictions of the Beowulf code by simple propaganda rather then creating genetically engineered slaves and done it far quicker and cheaper as well.

To be fair to the Alignment, while quite evil the use of genetic slaves allows for testing of mods that you'd never get people to approve for their children. Take this pitch: "This mod has a 10% chance of increasing IQ, and a 90% chance of horrible side effects! That's a 1% chance of great things!" That might go over well when suggesting something for a batch of slaves, but it won't go so well for parents.

Or as an example from the book, some of the pleasure slave mods actually ended up increasing intelligence! Without the seeming "mental instability" (even Honor and Winston's have temper issues!) displayed by other intelligence mods as far as I could tell. That's a great success!

Then if it works out you can make a few big batches and tip off Beowulf to the ships carrying them. As a free bonus you can also use it as an opportunity to frame some people. Then Beowulf applies its zany ideas about trying to optimize humans using existing material and does the rest of the work of uplifting humanity.

Its the zany conspiracy that is silly. They are trying to force their ideas on people when education and lobbying would be vastly more effective. Hell, just going up to the elites and saying "Psstt want some mods you your children will have a leg up in this meritocracy?" would do a pretty good job of spreading your views.

quite possibly a cat wrote:Its the zany conspiracy that is silly. They are trying to force their ideas on people when education and lobbying would be vastly more effective. Hell, just going up to the elites and saying "Psstt want some mods you your children will have a leg up in this meritocracy?" would do a pretty good job of spreading your views.

Exactly. Chip away at the mountain over time rather then try and blow it up in one big event. If done correctly no one will notice the mountain disappearing or care.

In the present scenario, Beowulf might not get to realize that it has been beaten or out manuvered or made irrelevant (which might be more satisfying to the Alignment) because ther is an awful lot of political will and just plain frustration comming at Beowulf from the League's administration and the SLN.
This is not some Verge backwater grasping at OFS to save it from plague or famine or as the only way it can (it thinks or is willing to wait) to get modern tech and knowlege even if it a hundred years out of date. This is a First Tier SL member with one of the largest SDFs in known space with 30 SDs and we presume at least a traditional (pre Haven-Manticore War) complimente of smaller ships to support them plus it's commerce protection needs. A fully industrialized planet massive spaceborn manufacturing capability.
When the SL sends "observers" to monitor the plebecite, I would expect Beowulf to at least tell the SL to keep ALL SL hypercapable ships outside the hyper-limit AND the standard territorial limit of a system and perhaps let one sublight shuttle bring in a small group. Same goes to "observers" from any other government. Certainly nothing even potentialy being an armed ship into the system.
But then we here are all seeing what has been happening.

What is potentialy happening with the Beowulf source that forwarded the warning and information on Filerta? Is the info on the 2nd Rageing Justice Task Force also sent? Has the information that SLN is about to deliver a lesson in not dealing with Manticore (or supporting Bewoulf by continuing to trade with them) come through?

So many questions:)

Brigade XO wrote:In the present scenario, Beowulf might not get to realize that it has been beaten or out manuvered or made irrelevant (which might be more satisfying to the Alignment) because ther is an awful lot of political will and just plain frustration comming at Beowulf from the League's administration and the SLN.
This is not some Verge backwater grasping at OFS to save it from plague or famine or as the only way it can (it thinks or is willing to wait) to get modern tech and knowlege even if it a hundred years out of date. This is a First Tier SL member with one of the largest SDFs in known space with 30 SDs and we presume at least a traditional (pre Haven-Manticore War) complimente of smaller ships to support them plus it's commerce protection needs. A fully industrialized planet massive spaceborn manufacturing capability.
When the SL sends "observers" to monitor the plebecite, I would expect Beowulf to at least tell the SL to keep ALL SL hypercapable ships outside the hyper-limit AND the standard territorial limit of a system and perhaps let one sublight shuttle bring in a small group. Same goes to "observers" from any other government. Certainly nothing even potentialy being an armed ship into the system.
But then we here are all seeing what has been happening.

What is potentialy happening with the Beowulf source that forwarded the warning and information on Filerta? Is the info on the 2nd Rageing Justice Task Force also sent? Has the information that SLN is about to deliver a lesson in not dealing with Manticore (or supporting Bewoulf by continuing to trade with them) come through?

So many questions:)

I doubt there would be huge Raging Justice sequel. Presumably the best ships available were used on that mission and are gone. You would want you best for that. Manticore was not a weak verge target.

The League lost hundreds of ships. I vaguely recall something like 3-400 ships of the wall. Plus, of course, screening elements.

The next time a major grouping would be used would presumably be used against a weaker target.

And there might well be a Manticore fleet in system near Beowulf during the plebiscite.

ldwechsler wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:In the present scenario, Beowulf might not get to realize that it has been beaten or out manuvered or made irrelevant (which might be more satisfying to the Alignment) because ther is an awful lot of political will and just plain frustration comming at Beowulf from the League's administration and the SLN.
This is not some Verge backwater grasping at OFS to save it from plague or famine or as the only way it can (it thinks or is willing to wait) to get modern tech and knowlege even if it a hundred years out of date. This is a First Tier SL member with one of the largest SDFs in known space with 30 SDs and we presume at least a traditional (pre Haven-Manticore War) complimente of smaller ships to support them plus it's commerce protection needs. A fully industrialized planet massive spaceborn manufacturing capability.
When the SL sends "observers" to monitor the plebecite, I would expect Beowulf to at least tell the SL to keep ALL SL hypercapable ships outside the hyper-limit AND the standard territorial limit of a system and perhaps let one sublight shuttle bring in a small group. Same goes to "observers" from any other government. Certainly nothing even potentialy being an armed ship into the system.
But then we here are all seeing what has been happening.

What is potentialy happening with the Beowulf source that forwarded the warning and information on Filerta? Is the info on the 2nd Rageing Justice Task Force also sent? Has the information that SLN is about to deliver a lesson in not dealing with Manticore (or supporting Bewoulf by continuing to trade with them) come through?

So many questions:)

I doubt there would be huge Raging Justice sequel. Presumably the best ships available were used on that mission and are gone. You would want you best for that. Manticore was not a weak verge target.

The League lost hundreds of ships. I vaguely recall something like 3-400 ships of the wall. Plus, of course, screening elements.

The next time a major grouping would be used would presumably be used against a weaker target.

And there might well be a Manticore fleet in system near Beowulf during the plebiscite.

There was. 600 SD second wave being assembled for Raging Justice. There's no current textev about what it's going to be used for now that the 400 SD first wave got sent to the breakers.

The Manticoran (rather GA) force at Beowulf is deliberately out-system. That was a political decision to avoid the appearance of coercion during the plebiscite.