UH SPOILERS Harrington family history

cthia wrote:
You find something satisfying in the thought of the Graysons and Masadans all over again?

cthia wrote:The Harringtons hail from Beowulf, right? Is it possible that other lines are in the same way related to the Dettys?

cthia wrote:The Harringtons hail from Beowulf, right? Is it possible that other lines are in the same way related to the Dettys?

saber964 wrote:

cthia wrote:The Harringtons hail from Beowulf, right? Is it possible that other lines are in the same way related to the Dettys?

Yes and no, Allison Harrington is from Beowulf and belongs to several prominent families
The rest of the Harrington's immigrated to Sphinx by way of Meyerdhal.

PeterZ wrote:

cthia wrote:
You find something satisfying in the thought of the Graysons and Masadans all over again?

Yeah, I find a great deal of satisfaction with Grayson defeating the Masadans all over again. And in doing so convince the Masadan leadership they were the ones that turned away from the Test of Life the Tester set before them.

PeterZ wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:

I would simply point out that Leonard Detweiller would be horrified if he knew where the plan named for him has gone. He believed passionately in targeted genetic uplift. He believed passionately that Beowulf had had a "genetically modified organism" panic attack far worse than anything farmers face today and that it was closing off avenues of research and modification which could have hugely benefited the human race.

And he was right.

He fought passionately for his beliefs on Beowulf, and was rejected and (in many cases) actively reviled by people who'd been too horrified by the Final War to address his arguments rationally. In many ways, he was driven into an echo chamber where the only people who would talk to him were people who agreed with him, many of whom were considerably less rational than he was. A firebrand leader has a tendency to attract extremists, including those who are more extreme than he is, and there were people like that on Beowulf at the time. Detweiller didn't agree with the lunatic fringe of his own movement, but very few people outside his movement would engage in any real, rational dialog with him. So the only people giving him feedback that wasn't (as he saw it, not without reason) instantly and irrationally hostile either agreed with him or held even more extreme views than he did . . . and decamped to Mesa with him.

Where they were even further reviled by the Beowulf establishment for having dared to set up their "perverted" version of Beowulf genetic ethics and morality.

Let's see. Given that seed corn, anyone would be bound to mellow and become Mother Theresa, right?

Didn't think so.

By the time of the Mesan migration, Leonard's bitterness quotient had set in to a point that genuinely began to affect his own judgment, which, I think, was entirely understandable. At that point, he began to produce designed human beings as colonists and workers. Which, BTW, is exactly how the original Meyerdahl mods were created before the Beowulf Code shut things down. He regarded his work as (1) forwarding his research; (2) providing human beings ideally suited for their eventual environments; (3) an ongoing testimonial for what targeted genetic modification could provide for the human race in general, and (4) a way to put a stick right into Beowulf's sanctimonious eye and twist it. During his lifetime, however, genetically modified humans on Mesa were indentured servants who could --- and who, he intended, would --- earn full citizenship for themselves and their children. There would have been no more stigma attached to them, no more legal disabilities, than for a Greek scholar who'd been enslaved by Rome but then manumitted and granted citizenship. The Founders' clear intent is, alas, sometimes . . . modified by later generations, and that happened in this case, which is the origin of the seccies of Honor's day.

A point which should be made here is that the prejudice against "genies" and genetic slaves on "racial" grounds did not originate on Mesa. It was the product of the rest of the galaxy's revulsion for the entire concept, visited upon individuals who had been modified, even if the modification had happened in their great-great-grandparents' generation. Stephanie Harrington herself reflects on this. What I'm saying is that Deteiller was producing the genies; the rest of the galaxy was producing the hatred for them . . . and that sense of superiority to them was never part of the Mesan mindset during Leonard's day.

He definitely did begin the arc which led to the present day Alignment, and his tirades against the Beowulf establishment grew increasingly . . . intemperate as time went on. Many of the things he said, especially near the end of his life, have been seized upon by the current day Alignment as justifications for its own beliefs and actions, but in the process, they've been twisted into things he never really meant to say. (Not a hard thing for True Believers to do when they need the original Holy Writ to agree with them . . . whether it does or not.) But his version of the Alignment (had he lived to see it formally inaugurated in any format) would have been exactly the one Mike Henke found on Mesa after Houdini. He would never have signed off on some sort of mega conspiracy that was willing to kill billions in the name of genetic uplift! And there was no "Detweiller Plan" while Leonard was alive.

The Alignment of Honor's time was intended from the beginning (by me) to underscore the danger of ideologues, whatever their ideology or however justified it may have seemed (or even been) in the beginning. By the time of UH, a good man's dream and fight for the future of the entire human race has been transformed into a ruthless, ideology and vengeance driven machine willing to kill however many people it takes --- literally --- to put them in charge of all creation because they are alpha lines which means --- by definition --- that they are smarter, stronger, and faster than anyone else in the entire universe and thus uniquely qualified and entitled to rule. They are, if you will, the vanguard of the genotype (although they have no intention of withering away). And, as a consequence of how superbly fitted they are for their genetic-given role, it's obvious all those unbelievers deserve to be kicked to the curb because their ancestors were so nasty to Leonard.

edited once

The question comes to my mind is whether the current "visible" Alignment hold views that are consistent with modern Honorverse thought? If they do, then might it not be said that Leonard detweiler was proven correct in time? That the original Alpha lines that were separated from the Onion, like Harrington, truly were the heirs to Leonard Detweiler?

I find something truly satisfying at the thought of current Alpha lines discovering that particular truth. Especially, when the executors of their enemies planned resistance are their cousins who reject their current ideas, but not the ideas of their genesis.

runsforcelery wrote:Couple of points.

Cthia, Leonard would not be on board with simply culling unfortunate experimental outcomes. He did subscribe to a medical philosophy which enshrined the "quality of life" argument and sometimes used it to justify euthanizing people who might not have been all on board with the idea themselves, but understand that the medical science of his day made it possible to "fix" 99.9% of the problems which would create "quality of life" issues today. That is, the problem arose less often and, most times, the person who didn't get a vote on his/her own fate was so badly damaged that voting wasn't possible. And in the case of a really badly damaged child, Leonard would sign off on termination of the fetus, but not at a later stage. If the child in question was damaged as the result of his genetic intervention (which he was damned careful about avoiding), he would have seen it as his moral responsibility to do whatever it took to repair/compensate for the damage, not simply say "Oops" and kill a child.

I trust it is sevident from that that Leonard would never have signed off on the notion of "we'll take a risk here; we can always cull little Fredrica if our genetic mod turns out not to work out." And neither would the Alignment Mike's found on Mesa. Quality of life considerations can be used --- and are, rather more ruthlessly than we use them in the US today --- to justify euthanasia for severely damaged children, which is what happened in Simoes case. However, the official deliberations of the board which recommended her death did not include any info which might even hint that the geneticists knew going in that the odds actually heavily favored exactly that outcome or that the Onion didn't care because the potential upside was worth a few dozen broken eggs . . . or culled children. So when Simoes is painted as a crackpot railing against fate and ascribing evil (in every sense of the word) motives to the medical establishment which ruled (with his wife's consent) in favor of terminating his daughter, most of the people doing that painting, many of whom belong to the Good Mesan Alignment, believe every word they're saying and that his claims that his daughter's condition (and death) were the result of the Evil Mesan Alignment are the product of his own refusal to accept reality.

The current GMA [Good Mesan Alignment] does, indeed, hold views which are much closer to the mainstream than the Onion does, but they aren't completely congruent. The GMA still has quite a bit of the Leonard Detweiller DNA in its makeup and it still believes in the systematic and systemic improvement of the race as a whole whereas the current iteration of the Beowulf Code recognizes the complete validity of correcting preventable problems and of maximizing the realization of any individual's genetic potential. And Beowulf of today would be onboard with a modern iteration of the Meyerdahl mods, although there isn't much need for one. That is, there are already existing mods which will pretty much suit you for life on any terrestrial planet out there. But specific mods like the Grayson mod for heavy metals would be totally permissible as would the elimination of any genetic predisposition towards health problems. My wife Sharon, for example, would have been corrected before birth to avoid the scoliosis which has required her to undergo seven major spinal surgeries,

Remember that although the Beowulf Code was born in a reaction (indeed, an overreaction) to the horrors of the Final War, it's been around for a long time since then. This means that much of the current Beowulf Code's animus towards genetic manipulation as part of a systematic program of "uplift" on the species level stems from exactly what the galaxy at large has seen in the Scrags and what the reader has seen in the Onion: the attitude that I am quantifiably superior to you because my genes are better than yours. There is no way to prevent individuals from feeling this way. God knows we see more than enough people in the world today who are so convinced of their own moral or intellectual superiority that no other viewpoints or voters need apply, and a group which consists of modified, "improved" humans is likely to feel this way whether they are created as individuals or as a group.

"I have a post doctorate degree and am therefore demonstrably superior to you, with your crappy little high school diploma, so you should shut up and let me drive" or "I have the moral imprimatur of a religion which is far superior to yours, so you should shut up and let me drive" or "My political ideology's aims are so high and noble that anyone who disagrees with me is obviously evil, not just wrong, so you should shut up and let me drive" is bad enough and something we see every day. But at least those idiots can't say "I am an alpha line with a quantifiably superior genotype, so shut up and let me drive."

Beowulf would sort of like to keep it that way. Even the GMA is more willing to risk the "I am superior" mindset as an unfortunate but unavoidable side effect of improving the human race as a whole. The GMA, however is far more focused on the improvement of their own families and family lines and would never dream of forcibly compelling anyone else to join their crusade.

cthia wrote:
Thanks abunch for the very informative post. I'm sure you can surmise that the Malign come off to me as monsters created by Dr. Frankenstein. Because of this post, my worldview of Leonard has softened an incredible .001 %. I may have been a bit unfair to his original vision out of ignorance. I can never get on board with the "California or Bust" attitude, which doesn't seem to have been Leonard's. Although, I still think even Leonard used some spliced DNA within his conception to create the dinosaurs that he shouldn't have used. Metaphorically speaking. Only being faced with complete desperation and destruction can the end truly justify the means.

But that's just my uninformed prejudiced opinion. At any rate, would you explain to me why you consider Beowulf's solution to be an overreaction? Under the circumstances, what could they have done to definitively prevent any possibilities of the same disaster occurring? What other recourse did they have? Even with the current advanced research obtained by the Malign, bracketing how it was achieved, they are not immune to disastrous outcomes at any time as horrible as the Final Wars with simply one misstep, no? One thing the Final Wars achieved was to sound the...

WARNING WARNING TAKE HEED TO GENETICS BEYOND THIS POINT, klaxon.

IOW, what could Beowulf have done but to close Pandora's box to everyone, which would inclusively blanket all of the "We know what we are doing so let us drive" entities?

I recall a post of mine theorizing that the original intent of Leonard has been severely watered down and with each subsequent changing of the guard (Albrecht) further dilutes his original goals and intents. I can't see the clones not making serious mistakes. And I continue to view the RF like Board of Directors and, as is the MO of Board of Directors, their loyalty lies to the Board and not with Leonard's original vision. (As you've basically pointed out.) Conflicts of interest always crop up within companies when the original founder steps down or passes. (Which everyone says ails Apple Computers.)

I can see the potential for strife and internal conflict lurking within the Malign, coming from those within who may be aware that Leonard's original vision has been bastardized as horribly as John Harington's quote. Frankly, I can't see why one of the cloned offspring can't see the perversion visited upon the original vision. Simoes is an example of a card carrying poster child for that revolution.

Leonard's possible Pollyannish plans were never a paint by the numbers project.

Do forgive me Pollyanna.