Harrington Genome, and the Mesans

Galactic Sapper wrote:

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:There were two mass nukes on Mesa in October. The first (in early October) was the climax of a "terrorist" campaign that killed a bunch of people to cover up the evacuation of the inner onion. The nukes were also used to encourage the Mesa security forces to go on a rampage. It also was used to kill off those members of the inner onion that the Alignment couldn't (or decided against) evacuating. Albrecht's final flourish in late October killed off everybody the Alignment ran out of time to evacuate and destroyed every site used by the Alignment. Why would a residential tower hit in early October be hit again?

Why wouldn't the same building get hit twice, if some of the intended targets survived the first one? That of course assumes they were all in that tower for the second round, which they may not have been. Parents maybe not home, sister(s?) long out on their own with their own lives - the first nuke getting all of them would have been absurdly lucky; the second even more so since the timing on it wasn't preplanned. That was why the MAlignment had gathered so many of the elimination list in set locations - covered as "meetings" or "vacations" or the like to disguise the fact that the victims were being held specifically for the purpose of being evacuated or eliminated.

Face it, the McBrides are pretty high on the "knows too much" list. While they may not have known precisely what Jack and Zach did for the Alignment, they knew they both worked for the Alignment and approximately what they did in terms of professions. The overt Alignment, with its goal of individual, voluntary genetic improvement, would not have had much need for security forces (Jack) or physicists (Zach). The McBrides could not reasonably be expected to think their sons worked for the Benignment given their skill sets.

You seem to be assuming facts not in evidence. What did the other McBrydes know? Nothing, the best I can tell. Even if they were part of the outer Alignment (which has not been established, BTW), they wouldn't know that there was anything odd about the Zach's and Jack's jobs because the members of the outer Alignment knew NOTHING about the inner onion. Everybody on Mesa, who knew of the existence of the inner onion and were not scheduled for evacuation, were killed off in early October, if not sooner.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Galactic Sapper wrote:It's entirely possible the McBrides survived both rounds of nukes. We have no reason to believe they did, though, and if they did it's certain the Malignment has some other way of getting rid of them planned.

We also have no reason believe they didn't. As you said, the final set of bombs were set at a time the Alignment hadn't planned for (Albrecht set them off when Second and Tenth Fleet entered orbit). Anyone with half a brain -- and Alignment members that would need to be disposed of certainly qualified for a full one -- would know that there would be no evacuation at least an hour before that.

As for other means, they may have them, but as I said, leaving hit men behind is a trail that leads back to the Alignment.

The secondary and tertiary lists of "evacuees" were being held in assembly areas awaiting transport (or at least thought that's what they were waiting for). How would they even know Tenth Fleet had arrived? It's unlikely to have been blasted all over the news - not in the first couple hours, anyway. And even if they somehow did know, you assume they'd have a means to get clear of the nukes. That seems like a pretty low probability, especially if they were on the station that got destroyed. "Getting clear" would involve way more than getting into the family aircar and flying a few kilometers, and that assumes there aren't Alignment security people actively preventing people from leaving the staging areas.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:What did the other McBrydes know? Nothing, the best I can tell. Even if they were part of the outer Alignment (which has not been established, BTW), they wouldn't know that there was anything odd about the Zach's and Jack's jobs because the members of the outer Alignment knew NOTHING about the inner onion. Everybody on Mesa, who knew of the existence of the inner onion and were not scheduled for evacuation, were killed off in early October, if not sooner.

Even if they "officially" knew nothing (which I'm not buying in the least), they're still a connection to a MAlignment member deep in the onion that the MAlignment can be absolutely sure the Manties know about. Once the Manties find them, they're sure to be interrogated as thoroughly as possible and in the presence of treecats. How willing do you think the MAlignment is going to be to wager on that family knowing absolutely nothing about what their sons were doing - because of course the fact that Zach was allegedly "killed" shortly before the Manties arrived is going to raise yet another red flag over the family. Even dead, Jack is a loose end that the MAlignment needs to tie up and that means his family, friends, and anyone else he came into contact with on a regular basis.

And as for why they wouldn't have been planned to be killed in the first round of bombs, that's easy. Zach hadn't been evacuated yet, and letting evacuees know their families would be "cleaned up" after they were gone removes most of the threat keeping reluctant evacuees from communicating with non-evacuees in the first place. "Don't talk or we kill you and your family" loses a bit of effectiveness if you know they're going to kill your family even if you don't talk.

Galactic Sapper wrote:The secondary and tertiary lists of "evacuees" were being held in assembly areas awaiting transport (or at least thought that's what they were waiting for). How would they even know Tenth Fleet had arrived? It's unlikely to have been blasted all over the news - not in the first couple hours, anyway. And even if they somehow did know, you assume they'd have a means to get clear of the nukes. That seems like a pretty low probability, especially if they were on the station that got destroyed. "Getting clear" would involve way more than getting into the family aircar and flying a few kilometers, and that assumes there aren't Alignment security people actively preventing people from leaving the staging areas.

You think the arrival of several dozen of the most modern SDs in existence would go unannounced? The Mesan System Navy did notice and word started to spread there and then. Remember that their arrival was also communicated to Cachat and Palane inside the seccy tower, so they knew too. In any case, the nukes weren't set off until Second and Tenth Fleets made orbit and the MSN surrendered, which means there was enough time before that for even crappy civilian sensors of all the ships arriving and departing to see them (8:30 minutes for a 400 G deceleration from 2 million km). Not to mention that they'd have communicated with all those ships for a while before, requesting they either clear orbit or land or something, to avoid being caught on any operations. And there were minutes between the detonations on the surface too.

You're right that getting away from the habitat may not have been possible. Ground locations, however, are a different story. Evacuees would have taken some form of transportation to arrive there, so they may be able to take those back to wherever they came from.

Re: Are the other McBrydes alive or not

Galactic Sapper wrote:
(SNIP by RAW

And as for why they wouldn't have been planned to be killed in the first round of bombs, that's easy. Zach hadn't been evacuated yet, and letting evacuees know their families would be "cleaned up" after they were gone removes most of the threat keeping reluctant evacuees from communicating with non-evacuees in the first place. "Don't talk or we kill you and your family" loses a bit of effectiveness if you know they're going to kill your family even if you don't talk.

Zach was evacuated in _Cauldron of Ghosts_ in chapter 34 before any of the "terrorists" actions (in this case, sinking a cruise ship with a padded passenger list). Also, _Shadow of Victory_ has him leaving in June.

The plan to tidy-up the loose ends of the Alignment after they were forced to accelerate Houdini and knew they were not going to get all the people they want evacuated from Mesa was a-from the Alighment's perspective- a masterful excercise in the creative use of mass terror to cover thier tracks. All of it was set up to appear to be the Ballroom at it's crazy worst.

They didn't have the time, and probably never had enough quiet or "accidental" scenarios such as air-car crashes, to have all the Houdini's die so they went 1st to using such things as sinking the cruse ship. Since they then found that they were not going to make the self-imposed deadline (really worried about Maticore showing up with the fleet) they shifted to wholesale slaughter though things like the soccer stadium (I guess there would/should have been a lot of families connected to evacuees there or-since this is the Alignment- only a few targets) or the meeting at which all those people who have been away for a business meeting were to have come back and their familes and, more importantly, all those co-workers who may or may not known what parts of the company did, got blown up.

The Final Flourish was always designed to physicaly destroy those locations which the Alignment or it's operatons occupied in such a way that it would be essentialy impossible to gather any electronic or physical evidence from them and eliminate any of the people in the area who may have been able to give any insight or information about what went on there.

Remember what Firebrand concluded after seeing the images of the wreckage and blast crater of the Gama Center. It was a buried nuke and a good sized one. That is the same conclusion we see from the military gathered in Mike's meeting and we also are given the reasons why they came to the conclusions. 10th Fleet didn't detect ANYTHING going down like KEWS or missles with nuclear weapons. The Marines involved (including what we see from the people working with the Ghost Hunters) along with the Naval officers don't believe they were KEWs- which would be the easiest and most effective way to bombard a planet. Then there is the little problem that even at the earlierst stage of looking at the blasts, it is clear that the weapons were buried...under resorts and cities and all sorts of places. That speaks to long term planning. It is also clear (to us anyway) from the conversation that the Albrect boys had that there had been several options of how and in what order the sites cold have been destroyed and that one of the sons was sure he know why Albrect had used "that pattern". Like Gamma Center, the major -perhaps every- Alignment installation on Mesa and in-system had been built with a nuclear bomb under it as a way of preventing it's capture and investigation if it was compromised.
It is clear to me that it was also always intended as a way of cleaning up evidence of their existence when they left Mesa.
And they ALWAY had intended to leave Mesa. From the earliest points where we are introduced to the Alignment, they have intended Manpower and Mesa to be only a tool and a misdirection and focal point as a scapegoat which was to draw the eye of the rest of the Galaxy as a cover operation and would be where any ultimate retribution and blame was to fall for all the things like genetic slavery.
Actually, I think we have also seen Manticore (with the help of Thadi Payne and Victore) moving to defuse yet another of the plans of the Alignment to hide themselves. All those semi-open and proud members of the non-Alignment Alignment who beleave and work for individual voluntary genetic improvement are yet another smokescree. But there is another layer at work that has been short-circuted so far.
You have the full citizens of Mesa and a relativly thin layer of Seccies and then you have the massive number of full slaves and the ongoing products of Manpower's operations (plus usefull failures etc of the Alighment's experimentation on Mesa.
If you look at what was blown up in the Final Flourish, you also see that along with fake terrorist attacks in Houdini, a lot of the police and ground/military forces would have gone with the nukes. The Secci uprising triggered by Thandi and Victor "helped" in the intent of damaging and removing plus enraging the military and police forces on planet. But, given the already (pre Thani time) boiling problems with the Seccies and slaves, the Final Flourish would have been a trigger point for Civil War when the cover would have been blown off the pressure-cooker of anger and hatred such that you would have had almost as bad a massacure of people as happened on Torch when Manpower lost control there.

Along with all those Alignment detonated pre-planted bombs, a lot of the leadership planitary government and security forces would have been devastated and the uprising of the slaves and Seccies was going to result in a bloodbath. Mesa--there wasn't supposed to be anything like a competent fleet of some other power in orbit-- would have convulsed with killing and destruction after the Final Flourish. I think the intent was that the rest of Humanity was supposed to attribute it mostly to the failure of the brutal and depraved system of Mesa and it's genetic slavers finaly being destroyed by the people they created and enslaved.
Lets call Mesa a self-cleaning oven and the Alignment just found out that it didn't work as planned.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:You think the arrival of several dozen of the most modern SDs in existence would go unannounced? The Mesan System Navy did notice and word started to spread there and then. Remember that their arrival was also communicated to Cachat and Palane inside the seccy tower, so they knew too. In any case, the nukes weren't set off until Second and Tenth Fleets made orbit and the MSN surrendered, which means there was enough time before that for even crappy civilian sensors of all the ships arriving and departing to see them (8:30 minutes for a 400 G deceleration from 2 million km). Not to mention that they'd have communicated with all those ships for a while before, requesting they either clear orbit or land or something, to avoid being caught on any operations. And there were minutes between the detonations on the surface too.

You're right that getting away from the habitat may not have been possible. Ground locations, however, are a different story. Evacuees would have taken some form of transportation to arrive there, so they may be able to take those back to wherever they came from.

In a word, yes. For at least the couple hours they're in system until they make orbit. You hit on a major piece of inferential evidence that it wasn't common knowledge: Palane and Cachat were informed by the system government, not because the news was being blasted over the news services. They were entirely in the dark about 10th Fleet until the system government told them, after 10th Fleet was in orbit and the MSN had surrendered (and presumably just before things started exploding).

So while you're correct that civilian ships would have spotted 10th Fleet's decidedly unsubtle arrival, what little evidence we have seems to imply that its arrival was not common knowledge right away.

Second, the lack of access to news for evacuees is addressed in SoV, in Albrecht's internal monologue just before he pushes the button:

But he'd expected to get at least two more liners into Mesa and out again. Almost six thousand other members of the onion--six thousand who hadn't been on Janice Marinescu's "cull list," who'd been supposed to live...and wouldn't. But at least the evacuation sites were completely isolated from the planetary datanet as a security measure, so it was unlikely anyone had heard about Gold Peak's arrival just yet. That was good. It was better not to know about some things.

So even if the planet in general knew, the evacuees still wouldn't.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:Zach was evacuated in _Cauldron of Ghosts_ in chapter 34 before any of the "terrorists" actions (in this case, sinking a cruise ship with a padded passenger list). Also, _Shadow of Victory_ has him leaving in June.

Okay, fair point. That still doesn't change the probability of the MAlignment eliminating the family; at most it changes how they'd go about it.

Galactic Sapper wrote:So while you're correct that civilian ships would have spotted 10th Fleet's decidedly unsubtle arrival, what little evidence we have seems to imply that its arrival was not common knowledge right away.

Second, the lack of access to news for evacuees is addressed in SoV, in Albrecht's internal monologue just before he pushes the button:

But he'd expected to get at least two more liners into Mesa and out again. Almost six thousand other members of the onion--six thousand who hadn't been on Janice Marinescu's "cull list," who'd been supposed to live...and wouldn't. But at least the evacuation sites were completely isolated from the planetary datanet as a security measure, so it was unlikely anyone had heard about Gold Peak's arrival just yet. That was good. It was better not to know about some things.

So even if the planet in general knew, the evacuees still wouldn't.

Thanks, I stand corrected. Easy, simple solution and something the Alignment would have done anyway. Once sequestered, these people would not be allowed to get cold feet. Presumably, some of them would have cybernetic skills to circumvent any filters and firewalls if the datanet was not completely isolated

Just on the announcement of Tenth Fleet's arrival to Palane: she was probably advised of that soon after it became clear that the MSN was going to have to surrender, even before the news became generally public. If I were on the Mesan side, I'd have told her as early as that became clear to make sure she wouldn't do anything stupid as a last stand and get killed. Because if that happened, I'd fer Gold Peak wanting my hide instead.

So Albrect is thinking about the two hyperspace liners that are supposed to come to Mesa and pick up 6,000 second and third tier Alignment people but they aren't going to get out because 10th Fleet arrived.

That bunch of people- who were not included in the Tidying Up and various earlier "terrorist" events- who should have caused the Houdini Operatons Staff a serioius headache of avoiding them while they are killing thousands and thousands of Mesans at places all over the planet a smokescreen for the disaperence of the other Houdini people.
No wonder they were having a tough time......how do you do that and avoid killing people you are planning to pull out if you have to take them out of circulation so to keep them from going someplace that is going to go Boom?
Perhaps a whole bunch of emergency meetings for people- no warning just go to X or someone shows up and you have to leave with them...and then the com calls "I have to go to Y, call you later. But you just got finished with the Tidying Up and your staff either is gone or got dead when they were cleaned up as well.
Messy.

Brigade XO wrote:So Albrect is thinking about the two hyperspace liners that are supposed to come to Mesa and pick up 6,000 second and third tier Alignment people but they aren't going to get out because 10th Fleet arrived.

That bunch of people- who were not included in the Tidying Up and various earlier "terrorist" events- who should have caused the Houdini Operatons Staff a serioius headache of avoiding them while they are killing thousands and thousands of Mesans at places all over the planet a smokescreen for the disaperence of the other Houdini people.
No wonder they were having a tough time......how do you do that and avoid killing people you are planning to pull out if you have to take them out of circulation so to keep them from going someplace that is going to go Boom?
Perhaps a whole bunch of emergency meetings for people- no warning just go to X or someone shows up and you have to leave with them...and then the com calls "I have to go to Y, call you later. But you just got finished with the Tidying Up and your staff either is gone or got dead when they were cleaned up as well.
Messy.

The people getting evacuated were sequestered for some time before their actual evacuation. I imagine this is because the schedule of the transportation they needed to use wasn't reliable. And later, because they were indeed fearing a Manticore invasion, even for ships with reliable schedules (liners), they will have chosen to sequester those people. Easy to dispose of if the RMN arrives before the liners. Which is what happened.

Somtaaw wrote:So... the bombshell of Harringtons originally being a Mesan genome, and emigrating to Manticore caused Mesa to write them off as a lost cause has certainly bitten them on the ass enough times just in the modern HH era.


With their Meyerdahl first-wave (dominant, and presumably Mesan) genes giving enhanced strength and higher intelligence + higher aggression levels; the Harringtons wouldn't have been much more than a form of soldier to the Mesans. Possibly in combination with how Mesa's favourite "heavy labour" basis is the same genes as Thandi Palane, who have even higher strength (possibly dexterity) providing the majority of their shocktroops while Harringtons and similar lines are the field commanders.


Some possible scenarios consisting of primarily Alignment/Harrington genomes, to spark some of that discussion and debating to keep the board nice & lively as we wait the now extended period before we see another Honorverse novel (or would we be calling it Kat-verse or Raoul-verse for the next generation? *thinking*)

Question #1) Assuming the parents of Stephanie Harrington (first treecat bonding), several hundred T-years have passed since the Harringtons suddenly moved to Manticore, and they would have been offering what exactly to the Alignment?

There's too much variance between the various sleeper agents we've already seen, such as Audrey's Alpha-line being reporters (no suggestion yet she's got enhanced strength/reflexes herself, but she's an ALPHA not a Gamma, so she surely must?) while other Alpha's were like the McBryde family (1 son security/wetworks, 1 son research, father a system administrator, mother + 1 daughter system renowned artists, 1 daughter leading chemist). Harringtons themselves seem similarly wide-spread like the McBrydes, Honor + Alfred are military, but they surely must have artists, philosphers and scientists among them not counting anybody who married into the family like Alison.



Question #2) How quickly could Mesa adjust to managing to get an agent even remotely far enough into Manticore to overhear that Honor's "part treecat" and can sense emotions?

Surely they must have the Harrington genome from Honor minus 700 T-years, and the fact she now has 2 children, there MUST be data somewhere they can hack to get her actual/current DNA genome to compare how much (and precisely WHAT) genetic drift has occured, plus semi-public records on precisely how many Harringtons have been 'catted. And then attempt to splice their own telempathic abilities into test subjects, after all they've been trying for centuries to experiment on just treecats, just overhearing that Honor can herself would cause a scientific frenzy among Alignment geneticists, and like with MDMs knowing something is possible is half the research already done.


Question #3) Will Mesa try to use the fact the Harringtons were once one of their Alpha-line genomes in some effort to have Honor & family arrested & detained even for a brief time?

In future series where her children inevitably help hunt down the Alignment, Honor herself is almost certainly going to still be able to have easy/rapid access to Queen Liz (or future King Justin) and Protector Mayhew. And by that point in time, more and more of the Alignment's going to be dragged out into the light of day (such as how Audrey O'Hanrahan genetic status), so surely even the most paranoid would have Honor at least locked up in reflex action against the chance she might still be a sleeper just waiting for the right moment, regardless of the fact Elizabeth and Benjamin completely trust her without any doubts (currently and unknowing Harringtons might have been a Mesan sleeper family)

Interesting questions.

I'd tend to think that any Harrington on the main branch of the family tree would greatly excel anywhere he/she is placed. Certainly Honor and Alfred. Alison too, for that matter. So much so, that either would be easily noticed, and I'd bet dollars to donuts they'd be absorbed through the skin of the Onion, much like Anisimovna. If Honor then decided to join the Mesan Navy, well . . .

I don't think Honor's secret is widespread enough that a Mesan operative will likely overhear such a closely guarded secret.

As for the Mesans causing trouble with the knowledge of the Harringtons being a lost line, I think that's a real possibility. Certainly if that knowledge is used in conjunction with the 'Cats "reading minds" and the fact that several of the highest people in the Navy are bonded as well as the Queen herself. As I said once before, the MA can play it out as nothing but subliminal programming by the 'Cats, at least, their own form of mind control, at best. Perhaps enough to sew seeds of discord and distrust against the 'Cats galaxy wide.

I'd guess Audrey is snorting steroids as well, or someone would have snapped her neck by now, with as many people she had to've pissed off more royally than Beth's manners.

For the record, is the reason the Harrington line was lost because they boarded a U-Haul just in the nick of time? Which would logically imply still more lost lines.