Sigs wrote:cthia wrote:
Losing lots of ships and suffering lots of failed Operations would be even more wasteful. Hopefully they won't have a shortage on either when they emerge from behind the iron curtains.
I gave it a little thought. At any rate, what lines would serve aboard ship? I don't think the MAN would want to seed the ships with COs and XOs with the IQ of the average Solly officer. Especially after having followed their careers and found out how useless they are. The Alpha lines are stated to become the ruling class, yes, so I don't know if in their society that would exclude them from commanding a warship. However, in Manticoran society, Grayson and Andermani the ruling class can be whatever they want. Luckily for them too.
The Beta and Gamma lines are listed as slated to serve the RF, so they are definitely amongst the pool of officers and crew. Yet, if the MA believe in their own rhetoric, then certainly a Beta wouldn't serve as an XO to a Gamma. No?
What is available? Alphas, Betas and Gammas. They are going to be going up against the most experienced Navies of the galaxy. With at least one who has Alpha level intelligence and essentially an undefeated string of victories, Harrington. They cannot afford to fail to at least match up intellectually. Certainly not if their tech fails to match up as well.
They better talk to Tourville before tackling Harrington, and if they send someone weak and he gets his head handed to him and then his replacement and so forth and so on -- and they weren't Alphas, then they are going to have to send Alphas anyway, sooner or later. May as well send the best out of the starting gate.
Initially, I figured at least the Admirals and Captains will be Alphas. But then that leaves the XOs to be Beta or Gamma, who will eventually make Captain or Admiral. It is certainly interesting how it will actually go down.
They better at least have an Alpha going up against Harrington. I can think of several more GA officers that will easily go through the inferior lines.
At any rate, you could very well be closer to the truth and the ships will be commanded and crewed by Betas and Gammas.
They're probably arrogant enough to think their Betas and Gammas will match up. And they may. But if they don't, then by their own logic, they sent Betas and Gammas to do an Alpha's job.
If they were smart they would basically organize their military along traditional lines, make the capabilities rise above the the genetic line they may represent. Saying that all Alpha's are automatically better then all Gamma's leads to all kinds of problems. Maybe the Alpha's are generally all around better then the Gamma's but doesn't mean that a Gamma cannot be just as good as any Alpha. We have seen throughout the series that the slave lines were not stupid, in fact many of the freed slaves were very intelligent maybe equal to or superior to many alphas. Problems arise when a war kicks off because people may see that in another society they won't be subservient because of their genetic line but have the ability to go and do what they please. Having a large % of your population feeling oppressed may not be the best thing for a long lasting society.
You certainly said a mouthful there. If they are smart. And what is that other word Weird Harold used? Rational.
However, if they do so. Wouldn't that pretty much undermine their own ideology and admit to the galaxy at large and themselves that the whole superior, genetic uplift thing is a pipedream? It would essentially be like shooting themselves in the foot before they can waltz in front of the galaxy.
I suspect they are going to get slapped in the face just like Hitler's master race by many Jesse Owenses piloting GA ships.
