Honorverse ramblings and musings

ldwechsler wrote:

saber964 wrote:[quote="ldwechsler" Remember Napoleon's line about not blaming evil for simple incompetence.

I doubt any of the mandarins are actually MAlign agents. No need for it. Rajani was an agent who had been in place for generations.

A key problem for many intelligence groups is having too many agents in one place. They get in each other's way and compete for favor.

Yes, they hate Manticore. It has been in their way and it controls some key junctions. It is also rich and powerful. But they paid it little mind until recently. Why wouldn't a MAlign agent want to move on Manticore fifty years earlier.

Yes, Gweon can get information. He is in a key spot and, on top of that, the League is more like the UN than a regular nation. The economic data is available because traders (and they run entire planets) need it.

No one on the top group has pushed Gweon. Kingsford knows him but he was only a second in command and even he was not really known to the top mandarins.

The top leadership has been carrying MAlign's water but almost certainly were not aware of it. They have been unwilling to believe the truth but top leaders everywhere have shown a tendency to that.

Rajani was not a generational MAlign agent he was bribed to the tune of 4.6 billion SL credits IIRC.

I did not say he was a generational agent, I said he had been in place for generations. He was head of the navy for a very long time.

Yes, he was bribed. Chances are he thought the things he was ordered to do actually made sense.[/quote]

Generational agents seams to mean multi generations. IIRC Rajani had been SLN CNO for forty years or so. For all we know he could've been approached a couple of years before and offered that universal lubricant to get things done lots and lots of cold hard cash. Remember the RMN is supposed to have a policy of rotating senior officers in and out of staff and fleet duty. But Cortez and Caparelli were Space Lords for over a decade.

saber964 wrote:
Generational agents seams to mean multi generations. IIRC Rajani had been SLN CNO for forty years or so. For all we know he could've been approached a couple of years before and offered that universal lubricant to get things done lots and lots of cold hard cash. Remember the RMN is supposed to have a policy of rotating senior officers in and out of staff and fleet duty. But Cortez and Caparelli were Space Lords for over a decade.

I believe it was said that the RMN didn't want to change horses in the middle of the race (read:war). And they were all swapped out as soon as Janacheck took over.

Theemile wrote:

saber964 wrote:
Generational agents seams to mean multi generations. IIRC Rajani had been SLN CNO for forty years or so. For all we know he could've been approached a couple of years before and offered that universal lubricant to get things done lots and lots of cold hard cash. Remember the RMN is supposed to have a policy of rotating senior officers in and out of staff and fleet duty. But Cortez and Caparelli were Space Lords for over a decade.

I believe it was said that the RMN didn't want to change horses in the middle of the race (read:war). And they were all swapped out as soon as Janacheck took over.

No Janacek got rid of them because they were part of the previous government and probably wouldn't go with High Ridges build down and building the peace initiative. Look at who Janacek put on the Admiralty board. First Space Lord Chakrabarti political admiral who went along with the build down
Second Space Lord massaged the intelligence to make everything honky dory suffered some major intelligence failures
Fifth Space Lord Draskovic massaged the manpower and recruiting numbers plus probably help fudge the training. Reread WoH especially Honors interview with Draskovic also Chakrabartis misgivings about Selisia and the intelligence about haven.

saber964 wrote:

saber964 wrote:
Generational agents seams to mean multi generations. IIRC Rajani had been SLN CNO for forty years or so. For all we know he could've been approached a couple of years before and offered that universal lubricant to get things done lots and lots of cold hard cash. Remember the RMN is supposed to have a policy of rotating senior officers in and out of staff and fleet duty. But Cortez and Caparelli were Space Lords for over a decade.

There was some rotation in Manticore. When the war began, it was clear that the effective leaders should stay. When they were pushed out, the war went badly and White Haven brought them back.




No Janacek got rid of them because they were part of the previous government and probably wouldn't go with High Ridges build down and building the peace initiative. Look at who Janacek put on the Admiralty board. First Space Lord Chakrabarti political admiral who went along with the build down
Second Space Lord massaged the intelligence to make everything honky dory suffered some major intelligence failures
Fifth Space Lord Draskovic massaged the manpower and recruiting numbers plus probably help fudge the training. Reread WoH especially Honors interview with Draskovic also Chakrabartis misgivings about Selisia and the intelligence about haven.

\The Sollies had not faced war. As a result, everything was political and Rajani stuck around far too long. Taking bribes to affect policy creates cognitive dissonance so he began to rationalize what he did and actually believed the lies he would pushing.

saber964 wrote:

Theemile wrote:
I believe it was said that the RMN didn't want to change horses in the middle of the race (read:war). And they were all swapped out as soon as Janacheck took over.

No Janacek got rid of them because they were part of the previous government and probably wouldn't go with High Ridges build down and building the peace initiative. Look at who Janacek put on the Admiralty board. First Space Lord Chakrabarti political admiral who went along with the build down
Second Space Lord massaged the intelligence to make everything honky dory suffered some major intelligence failures
Fifth Space Lord Draskovic massaged the manpower and recruiting numbers plus probably help fudge the training. Reread WoH especially Honors interview with Draskovic also Chakrabartis misgivings about Selisia and the intelligence about haven.

I never said politics weren't involved with Janacheck outing them. But during the war they were kept on under a "we have a good team, why change it" plan.

saber964 wrote:

Theemile wrote:

No Janacek got rid of them because they were part of the previous government and probably wouldn't go with High Ridges build down and building the peace initiative. Look at who Janacek put on the Admiralty board. First Space Lord Chakrabarti political admiral who went along with the build down
Second Space Lord massaged the intelligence to make everything honky dory suffered some major intelligence failures
Fifth Space Lord Draskovic massaged the manpower and recruiting numbers plus probably help fudge the training. Reread WoH especially Honors interview with Draskovic also Chakrabartis misgivings about Selisia and the intelligence about haven.

I never said politics weren't involved with Janacheck outing them. But during the war they were kept on under a "we have a good team, why change it" plan.

Pretty much everyone in Manticore knew how bad the High Ridge team was. And they refused an election for years because of "emergency conditions" to prevent getting tossed out.

By the time we really seem Honor with Draskovic they are pretty desperate. They know that at the first election they will be gone and want to prevent it.

The only thing holding them in place were the Lords and they got bashed more than a bit once it was clear there was a disaster. Had they held out there would have been a constitutional crisis and I think the "people" would have won.

Watering Down The Onion

I can't shake the notion that as each iteration of the Detweiler design inherits the position, that the original vision is somewhat watered down. No one can see the original conception in such detail as the head in which the notion was bred.

Did Albrecht make mistakes that Leonard would not have? Would Leonard have championed or supported Oyster Bay or Green Pines, etc.? What would Leonard have thought of Houdini?

Likewise, will Colin further water down or taint the vision of Leonard's, making more mistakes outside and under the skin of the Onion?

Does each iteration of the family tree dilute the vision of the original seed? Big companies on Earth have the same problem. Many say Apple lost its vision after Steve jobs died. Or, it became something else.

As each iteration of the Detweiler design down the line inherits the malignant plan, is it inevitable that they lose more and more control to the Long Range Planning Board (LRPB)?

Oftentimes a conflict of interest develops between the Board of Directors' duty to the Owner's vision and its stakeholders.

cthia wrote:Watering Down The Onion

I can't shake the notion that as each iteration of the Detweiler design inherits the position, that the original vision is somewhat watered down. No one can see the original conception in such detail as the head in which the notion was bred.

Did Albrecht make mistakes that Leonard would not have? Would Leonard have championed or supported Oyster Bay or Green Pines, etc.? What would Leonard have thought of Houdini?

Likewise, will Colin further water down or taint the vision of Leonard's, making more mistakes outside and under the skin of the Onion?

Does each iteration of the family tree dilute the vision of the original seed? Big companies on Earth have the same problem. Many say Apple lost its vision after Steve jobs died. Or, it became something else.

As each iteration of the Detweiler design down the line inherits the malignant plan, is it inevitable that they lose more and more control to the Long Range Planning Board (LRPB)?

Oftentimes a conflict of interest develops between the Board of Directors' duty to the Owner's vision and its stakeholders.

The plan has clearly massively mutated. The original Det just wanted to remove some of the more unreasonable restrictions on genetic engineering. Probably a touch narcissistic too since he started this whole zany clone thing. Ironically, I suspect the plan will be mutating somewhat closer towards the original vision with the jump to Darius. IIRC, they will be teaching the new generation that Manpower and much of Mesa was a perversion of the Det plan, and that they are the good pure ones. Its possible it could cycle back to something near the original plan, stay something like the current plan, or even go into something really evil, like a clever lobbying and propaganda campaign to keep the rest of the galaxy from hitting actuarial escape velocity.

I do think Colin will be making more mistakes though. If only because it would be a kind of crappy plot otherwise. Really at this point the only real obstacle they have is Manticore's military and economic power, but unless they totally dropped the ball they should have infiltrators in the Silly Sector and Talbott Quarter. Now the RF just needs to buy up news orgs and get the infiltrators into Manticorian politics. Wait for representation to go to proportional levels and seize control of the government when it does. These are the guys that screwed up Haven's government when it had a long tradition of democracy. Getting dominance in Silly Sector and Talbott should not be hard.

quite possibly a cat wrote:I do think Colin will be making more mistakes though. If only because it would be a kind of crappy plot otherwise. Really at this point the only real obstacle they have is Manticore's military and economic power, but unless they totally dropped the ball they should have infiltrators in the Silly Sector and Talbott Quarter. Now the RF just needs to buy up news orgs and get the infiltrators into Manticorian politics. Wait for representation to go to proportional levels and seize control of the government when it does. These are the guys that screwed up Haven's government when it had a long tradition of democracy. Getting dominance in Silly Sector and Talbott should not be hard.

The place they should have infiltrators is Beowulf. Basically anything given to Beowulf would be known by the MA. Look at the totally worthless controls on known terrorists visiting in the story in Beginnings.

saber964 wrote:

ldwechsler wrote:Remember Napoleon's line about not blaming evil for simple incompetence.

I doubt any of the mandarins are actually MAlign agents. No need for it. Rajani was an agent who had been in place for generations.

A key problem for many intelligence groups is having too many agents in one place. They get in each other's way and compete for favor.

Yes, they hate Manticore. It has been in their way and it controls some key junctions. It is also rich and powerful. But they paid it little mind until recently. Why wouldn't a MAlign agent want to move on Manticore fifty years earlier.

Yes, Gweon can get information. He is in a key spot and, on top of that, the League is more like the UN than a regular nation. The economic data is available because traders (and they run entire planets) need it.

No one on the top group has pushed Gweon. Kingsford knows him but he was only a second in command and even he was not really known to the top mandarins.

The top leadership has been carrying MAlign's water but almost certainly were not aware of it. They have been unwilling to believe the truth but top leaders everywhere have shown a tendency to that.

Rajani was not a generational MAlign agent he was bribed to the tune of 4.6 billion SL credits IIRC.

That was 3.6B credits, apparently the cost of a life in the League—where the cost of living is high.