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"Star Lines"

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Re: "Star Lines"
Post by Peregrinator   » Fri Sep 14, 2018 3:51 pm

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Peregrinator wrote:Also, there are alpha-line, etc., Mesans who are not part of the Alignment. For example, Jack and Zachariah McBryde's parents (even if Jack and Zachariah were not born naturally, I doubt the LRPB would have placed them with non-alpha-line parents).

I should point out that rereading part of Torch of Freedom last night that I discovered that the McBryde's definitely know about the "Alignment" but are not part of the onion -- so perhaps they know about the "good" Mesan Alignment to which RFC has referred.

Also, Zachariah McBryde seems at least familiar with Herlander Simoes, leading one to believe they're in (relatively) the same line of work (theoretical astrophysics/hyperphysics).
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Re: "Star Lines"
Post by ldwechsler   » Fri Sep 14, 2018 9:35 pm

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Peregrinator wrote:
Peregrinator wrote:Also, there are alpha-line, etc., Mesans who are not part of the Alignment. For example, Jack and Zachariah McBryde's parents (even if Jack and Zachariah were not born naturally, I doubt the LRPB would have placed them with non-alpha-line parents).

I should point out that rereading part of Torch of Freedom last night that I discovered that the McBryde's definitely know about the "Alignment" but are not part of the onion -- so perhaps they know about the "good" Mesan Alignment to which RFC has referred.

Also, Zachariah McBryde seems at least familiar with Herlander Simoes, leading one to believe they're in (relatively) the same line of work (theoretical astrophysics/hyperphysics).


We know that there were people who knew of the Alignment but were not knowledgeable at all about the more nefarious stuff. In UH, there were people who passed both lie detectors and treecats on that topic.

Zach was a synthesizer...he worked with a lot of different research groups looking for ways to combine knowledge. HE would have been far more valuable than Simoes.
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Re: "Star Lines"
Post by Peregrinator   » Sat Sep 15, 2018 2:52 pm

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ldwechsler wrote:Zach was a synthesizer...he worked with a lot of different research groups looking for ways to combine knowledge. HE would have been far more valuable than Simoes.

I wasn't making a statement on Zachariah McBryde's "value" relative to that of Simoes. The latter stopped being valuable when he finished up his work on improving the streak drive.

But I'd be interested to know where it's stated that Zachariah is a "synthesizer" - he's variously called a "scientist" and a "physicist".
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Re: "Star Lines"
Post by Robert_A_Woodward   » Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:04 am

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Peregrinator wrote:
ldwechsler wrote:Zach was a synthesizer...he worked with a lot of different research groups looking for ways to combine knowledge. HE would have been far more valuable than Simoes.

I wasn't making a statement on Zachariah McBryde's "value" relative to that of Simoes. The latter stopped being valuable when he finished up his work on improving the streak drive.

But I'd be interested to know where it's stated that Zachariah is a "synthesizer" - he's variously called a "scientist" and a "physicist".


Part way into Chapter 5 of _Torch of Freedom_:

"...Zachariah's talent as a synthesizer had come as something as a surprise"

Note that Jonas Adcock is referred to as a synthesizer in "I Will Build My House of Steel".
----------------------------
Beowulf was bad.
(first sentence of Chapter VI of _Space Viking_ by H. Beam Piper)
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Re: "Star Lines"
Post by Fox2!   » Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:10 am

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Peregrinator wrote:
I wasn't making a statement on Zachariah McBryde's "value" relative to that of Simoes. The latter stopped being valuable when he finished up his work on improving the streak drive.
.



Wasn't the plan to cull Simoes after wrapped up his work on the streak drive?
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Re: "Star Lines"
Post by tlb   » Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:35 am

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Peregrinator wrote:I wasn't making a statement on Zachariah McBryde's "value" relative to that of Simoes. The latter stopped being valuable when he finished up his work on improving the streak drive.

Fox2! wrote:Wasn't the plan to cull Simoes after wrapped up his work on the streak drive?

I cannot find anything in Torch of Freedom about "culling" Simões; only about replacing him in the center and possibly arresting him for threats against the LRPB. This is from chapter 51:
"Tomorrow's Saturday," McBryde explained. "I've already been told to have one last interview with you, in order to settle everything before you go off to Siberia."
Simões frowned. "Where's Siberia?"
"Sorry. It's just an old reference. It means a long exile, Herlander, and under very tough conditions. In your case, it's probably going to mean a long stint of 'rehab' and a series of shit assignments where they can sit on you and be sure you don't fuck anything up looking for some sort of revenge. You're too valuable to just get rid of entirely, but it's going to be a cold day in hell before anyone really trusts you again, and you know it."

PS. I think a synthesizer is valuable as a talent that the LRPB would like to develop; but that need not mean that Zack's personal value to the Alignment is greater than Harlander's.
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Re: "Star Lines"
Post by JohnRoth   » Sun Sep 16, 2018 8:52 am

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tlb wrote:
Peregrinator wrote:I wasn't making a statement on Zachariah McBryde's "value" relative to that of Simoes. The latter stopped being valuable when he finished up his work on improving the streak drive.

PS. I think a synthesizer is valuable as a talent that the LRPB would like to develop; but that need not mean that Zack's personal value to the Alignment is greater than Harlander's.


They're valuable in different ways. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the insights leading to the streak drive were Zach's work. In fact, it's stated explicitly that the streak drive was the result of improvements in apparently unrelated fields - exactly the kind of thing that a synthesizer would do.

Herlander is more the kind of person who could take those insights and unify the theory to where the engineers could get to work on turning it into working hardware.

Both are useful, but they wouldn't have the streak drive if it wasn't for the original insights that put the pieces together.
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Re: "Star Lines"
Post by kzt   » Sun Sep 16, 2018 3:52 pm

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Simoes isn't the inventor of the streak drive. He's working on refining it in an undefined way.
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Re: "Star Lines"
Post by JohnRoth   » Sun Sep 16, 2018 4:18 pm

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kzt wrote:Simoes isn't the inventor of the streak drive. He's working on refining it in an undefined way.


"The inventor" of the Streak Drive is unknown. Like a lot of things, there were probably many people involved in getting the thing from "if you combined this, that, the other thing and two ounces of bat's wings, we just might have something," to a working piece of hardware. We don't even know how long the MAlign has had it.

Zack McBryde is the only character that has appeared on-stage who has the chops to have done that critical first step. That doesn't mean he did it, of course, but how many synthesizers can there be working for the MAlign's equivalent of the Weapons Development Board?
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Re: "Star Lines"
Post by Peregrinator   » Mon Sep 17, 2018 11:08 am

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My apologies to all -- I re-read parts of Torch of Freedom over the weekend and, yes, Zachariah McBryde is described as a "synthesizer" when he is introduced to the reader. So he's described variously as:

- a synthesizer;
- a scientist; and
- a physicist

I don't think any one of these contradicts another -- he's probably not a "synthesizer" in the sense of someone who is pulling together information from various disciplines, but one who is synthesizing information from various branches of science -- in particular, various branches physics.
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