Mesan Alignment - Back on Balance

cthia wrote:What Malign entity do you give the nod to to write the final chapter, like Harrington?

I do not want any Malign entity to write the final chapter, because that implies they survived to the end.

I hope that RFC will write the final chapter. Clearly he is not writing just for me, but I will be disappointed if he choses the course of action that you have described.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:What Malign entity do you give the nod to to write the final chapter, like Harrington?

I do not want any Malign entity to write the final chapter, because that implies they survived to the end.

I hope that RFC will write the final chapter. Clearly he is not writing just for me, but I will be disappointed if he choses the course of action that you have described.

You mean you really wouldn't want the MA to turn out to be a formidable foe? Formidable enough to make the Peep's notion of a Short Victorious War sound even more like a joke?

How else are they going to last long enough to give Honor's offspring a go at them, like what most of you are predicting? RFC isn't actually advancing the timeline a lot these days. Perhaps he's at that stage in the series. For now, anyway.


P.S. Disappointment is the MA turning out to be a patsy.

tlb wrote:I do not want any Malign entity to write the final chapter, because that implies they survived to the end.

I hope that RFC will write the final chapter. Clearly he is not writing just for me, but I will be disappointed if he choses the course of action that you have described.

cthia wrote:You mean you really wouldn't want the MA to turn out to be a formidable foe? Formidable enough to make the Peep's notion of a Short Victorious War sound even more like a joke?

How else are they going to last long enough to give Honor's offspring a go at them, like what most of you are predicting? RFC isn't actually advancing the timeline a lot these days. Perhaps he's at that stage in the series. For now, anyway.

P.S. Disappointment is the MA turning out to be a patsy.

I do not expect the story to last to Honor's children, I thought much of that timeline was changed by the response to Eric Flint's contribution. The Malign have already been a formidable foe, considering that they have been the hidden reason behind the fighting that we have read about in all these books.

I want the last chapter to be the cleanup after the Malign is gone.

P.S. Disappointment is that the SLN turned out to be a patsy.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:I do not want any Malign entity to write the final chapter, because that implies they survived to the end.

I hope that RFC will write the final chapter. Clearly he is not writing just for me, but I will be disappointed if he choses the course of action that you have described.

cthia wrote:You mean you really wouldn't want the MA to turn out to be a formidable foe? Formidable enough to make the Peep's notion of a Short Victorious War sound even more like a joke?

How else are they going to last long enough to give Honor's offspring a go at them, like what most of you are predicting? RFC isn't actually advancing the timeline a lot these days. Perhaps he's at that stage in the series. For now, anyway.

P.S. Disappointment is the MA turning out to be a patsy.

I do not expect the story to last to Honor's children, I thought much of that timeline was changed by the response to Eric Flint's contribution. The Malign have already been a formidable foe, considering that they have been the hidden reason behind the fighting that we have read about in all these books.

I want the last chapter to be the cleanup after the Malign is gone.

P.S. Disappointment is that the SLN turned out to be a patsy.

But. The SLN was never trotted out as anything, but. So they really didn't disappoint in that regard. It would be akin to being surprised that Plasma Stream ends up in the midst of a battle streaming, of all things . . . plasma.

The MA are Alphas. Alphas. That's got to count for something. The idiots in the SLN were certainly never portrayed as Alphas. Not even close. They made themselves out to be 800# gorillas, but I think they were really Epsilons. LOL

The Ma hasn't been a formidable foe toe-to-toe. They've been hitting below the belt and throwing uppercuts right to the chin, and hitting from behind the back. They've been deviant. Covertly ruthless. And sneaky. But never mano a mano. IOW, I wanna see the Lenny Dets hold their own.

tlb wrote:I do not expect the story to last to Honor's children, I thought much of that timeline was changed by the response to Eric Flint's contribution. The Malign have already been a formidable foe, considering that they have been the hidden reason behind the fighting that we have read about in all these books.

I want the last chapter to be the cleanup after the Malign is gone.

P.S. Disappointment is that the SLN turned out to be a patsy.

cthia wrote: The SLN was never trotted out as anything, but. So they really didn't disappoint in that regard. It would be akin to being surprised that Plasma Stream ends up in the midst of a battle streaming, of all things . . . plasma.

The MA are Alphas. Alphas. That's got to count for something. The idiots in the SLN were certainly never portrayed as Alphas. Not even close. They made themselves out to be 800# gorillas, but I think they were really Epsilons. LOL

The Ma hasn't been a formidable foe toe-to-toe. They've been hitting below the belt and throwing uppercuts right to the chin, and hitting from behind the back. They've been deviant. Covertly ruthless. And sneaky. But never mano a mano. IOW, I wanna see the Lenny Dets hold their own.

Being an Alpha only means that they think they are in charge. The natural variation among humans means there are more alpha capable individuals among the general population than ever came out of the Malign labs. This is extracted out of From the Highlands in Changer of Worlds:

The man spoke. His voice was soft and low. "I used to be a biologist, Kennesaw, before I decided to concentrate on my art. What you're seeing here is an illustration of the fallacy of Platonic thinking applied to evolutionary principles."
The words were pure gibberish. Something of Kennesaw's confusion must have shown, because the face emitted a slight chuckle.
"It's sometimes called 'population thinking,' Kennesaw. A pity you never learned to apply those methods. Instead, you made the classic mistake of categorizing people into abstract types instead of recognizing their concrete variations."
Gibberish. Another chuckle.
"You're only a 'superman,' Kennesaw, if you compare the average of the Sacred Band to the average of the rest of humanity. Unfortunately, you're now in the hands of two men who, in different ways, vary quite widely from the norm. Partly because of our own genetic background, and partly due to training and habit."

For many of the early books the Solarians were presented as the biggest power in inhabited space. It was not that long ago that you preferred to call them the 800 pound gorilla. Then we finally got to the action and they were the 100 pound weakling instead; so much so that it cheapened the Manticoran victory.

PS. I have no idea what Plasma Stream might be.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:I do not expect the story to last to Honor's children, I thought much of that timeline was changed by the response to Eric Flint's contribution. The Malign have already been a formidable foe, considering that they have been the hidden reason behind the fighting that we have read about in all these books.

I want the last chapter to be the cleanup after the Malign is gone.

P.S. Disappointment is that the SLN turned out to be a patsy.

cthia wrote: The SLN was never trotted out as anything, but. So they really didn't disappoint in that regard. It would be akin to being surprised that Plasma Stream ends up in the midst of a battle streaming, of all things . . . plasma.

The MA are Alphas. Alphas. That's got to count for something. The idiots in the SLN were certainly never portrayed as Alphas. Not even close. They made themselves out to be 800# gorillas, but I think they were really Epsilons. LOL

The Ma hasn't been a formidable foe toe-to-toe. They've been hitting below the belt and throwing uppercuts right to the chin, and hitting from behind the back. They've been deviant. Covertly ruthless. And sneaky. But never mano a mano. IOW, I wanna see the Lenny Dets hold their own.

Being an Alpha only means that they think they are in charge. The natural variation among humans means there are more alpha capable individuals among the general population than ever came out of the Malign labs. This is extracted out of From the Highlands in Changer of Worlds:

The man spoke. His voice was soft and low. "I used to be a biologist, Kennesaw, before I decided to concentrate on my art. What you're seeing here is an illustration of the fallacy of Platonic thinking applied to evolutionary principles."
The words were pure gibberish. Something of Kennesaw's confusion must have shown, because the face emitted a slight chuckle.
"It's sometimes called 'population thinking,' Kennesaw. A pity you never learned to apply those methods. Instead, you made the classic mistake of categorizing people into abstract types instead of recognizing their concrete variations."
Gibberish. Another chuckle.
"You're only a 'superman,' Kennesaw, if you compare the average of the Sacred Band to the average of the rest of humanity. Unfortunately, you're now in the hands of two men who, in different ways, vary quite widely from the norm. Partly because of our own genetic background, and partly due to training and habit."

For many of the early books the Solarians were presented as the biggest power in inhabited space. It was not that long ago that you preferred to call them the 800 pound gorilla. Then we finally got to the action and they were the 100 pound weakling instead; so much so that it cheapened the Manticoran victory.

PS. I have no idea what Plasma Stream might be.

My badd, that should be RMMS Plasma Stream.

The difference is that Alphas are highly concentrated in MA Space, akin to Research Triangle Park (RTP) boasting the highest concentration of PH.D.s in the world. And it shows.

P.S. You're making my point for me, I don't want the MA to likewise cheapen the GA victory.

cthia wrote:You're making my point for me, I don't want the MA to likewise cheapen the GA victory.

The difference is that the Malign has already killed about 50 million people at Manticore and Beowulf by direct action. The SLN can only manage a fraction of that provided you add in their own people that were killed. The death count for the MA is much greater if you include those killed in the wars that they have fomented. If the MA were ended in the next book, it would not be a cheap victory.

So been rereading the series, and do wonder if the Alignment has been "to cute", with regards to its deep cover agents. To date each one that has been captured has well "died of natural causes", this is good from cutting off a potential leak but on the other hand it:
1. means that they can't make use of that agent down the road
2. the agent can't send the investigators down a blind alley
3. actually confirms for the investigators that they are on the right track, after all the suspect wouldn't have died if they didn't know something
4. as Kingsford sort of proved, it makes it really easy way to identify the Alignment spies and eliminate them (which makes counter intelligence activities even easier) especially once you have established a "clear operation team/zone"

So, why did they set-up this way?

The only answer I can come up with, is that due to their arrogance they never believed that their agents would ever be discovered, that they had been manipulating the "normal" for so long that they would constantly dance to the MA tune, regardless of the evidence.

Garth 2 wrote:So been rereading the series, and do wonder if the Alignment has been "to cute", with regards to its deep cover agents. To date each one that has been captured has well "died of natural causes", this is good from cutting off a potential leak but on the other hand it:
1. means that they can't make use of that agent down the road
2. the agent can't send the investigators down a blind alley
3. actually confirms for the investigators that they are on the right track, after all the suspect wouldn't have died if they didn't know something
4. as Kingsford sort of proved, it makes it really easy way to identify the Alignment spies and eliminate them (which makes counter intelligence activities even easier) especially once you have established a "clear operation team/zone"

So, why did they set-up this way?

The only answer I can come up with, is that due to their arrogance they never believed that their agents would ever be discovered, that they had been manipulating the "normal" for so long that they would constantly dance to the MA tune, regardless of the evidence.

Interestingly the one Malign agent caught on Torch died the old fashioned way: suicide pill hidden in a false tooth.

I think the nanotech suicide is a waste, because it is an instant giveaway and it does not allow them to feed a false narrative after capture, as you say.

With Malign medical ability I would have thought that there could be a purely mental way of voluntarily committing suicide.

PS: long time, no Cthia.

tlb wrote:

Garth 2 wrote:So been rereading the series, and do wonder if the Alignment has been "to cute", with regards to its deep cover agents. To date each one that has been captured has well "died of natural causes", this is good from cutting off a potential leak but on the other hand it:
1. means that they can't make use of that agent down the road
2. the agent can't send the investigators down a blind alley
3. actually confirms for the investigators that they are on the right track, after all the suspect wouldn't have died if they didn't know something
4. as Kingsford sort of proved, it makes it really easy way to identify the Alignment spies and eliminate them (which makes counter intelligence activities even easier) especially once you have established a "clear operation team/zone"

So, why did they set-up this way?

The only answer I can come up with, is that due to their arrogance they never believed that their agents would ever be discovered, that they had been manipulating the "normal" for so long that they would constantly dance to the MA tune, regardless of the evidence.

Interestingly the one Malign agent caught on Torch died the old fashioned way: suicide pill hidden in a false tooth.

I think the nanotech suicide is a waste, because it is an instant giveaway and it does not allow them to feed a false narrative after capture, as you say.

With Malign medical ability I would have thought that there could be a purely mental way of voluntarily committing suicide.

PS: long time, no Cthia.

On the other hand the two pretending to be a RMN ONI officer and Prince Michael at Smoking Frog did seem to choose to die, whilst the ones taken into custody by the SLN did seemed to be surprised by it (unfortunately, we didn't get to see the ones the Manties identified beyond they "died").
As for the operative on Torch, we don't know how volunteer his choice was but he wasn't an alpha line agent but a gamma line so it might be that the Alpha lines has "more built in protection" against poison.
Maybe another part of the plan is that during interrogation a natural death (no doubt due to the stress) is less likely to trigger further investigation of the body.