GregD wrote:runsforcelery wrote: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.
This is the part that I just don't get. Were i setting up the colonization of Mesa, the "genies" would have been the 1st class citizens, and the non-modified people would have been the 2nd class ones.
Why did he have it the other way around?
I never bothered to parse it out before, but I never saw it that way.
It was my impression that everyone got the "Mesa Mods", but that only the Detweiler's consortium members were full citizens. In that way, they resembled Manticore's "First Shareholders". The other folks they recruited to get the numbers up and to fill the labor pool weren't necessarily a part of the Detweiler's argument with the medical establishment, just common labor and technologists.
Still, they needed more numbers for a viable colony. The "indentured servants" would have been those that couldn't afford to buy a direct stake in the company; sort of like the subsidized colonists who went to Manticore, but couldn't pay their own passage. For the Mesans, they went there under the promise of future full participation in society. A broken promise, where the Manties kept theirs.
I thought all that was a deliberate contrast the author expected us to notice; and part of why Manticore aligns so readily with Beowulf against Mesa.
YMMV, of course.
Rob
