Collin's assassination list

cthia wrote:Do you know what they say about the second best swordsman?

The best swordsman in the world doesn't need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn't do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn't prepared for him.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Do you know what they say about the second best swordsman?

According to Mark Twain, this what they say:

The best swordsman in the world doesn't need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn't do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn't prepared for him.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

cthia wrote:You're going to want to skewer me for this, but I can accept even that. Here's the thing. I'd be just as disappointed as you about all of the downsides of it that you laid out. But if you step into the shoes of the family who knows the intimate history of the characters, characters who may be patterned after famous people in the family, might have to endure their characters exploited, criminalized, lacking morals and every other thing awful. Now, apply that to a Christian family, whose family had a tradition of using the same name for new births. A name that is now synonymous with evil.

What if David's daughter's daughter's daughter's daughters had to read about an Honor that is a harlot of the galaxy and worse than Lady Young?

Would that be David's great great great granddaughters? Hating their great great great grandfather for ever having created that character, who is on Holovid doing hideous things in the future. Dominating the Holovid. Primetime. The longest running Holovid ever.

cthia wrote:We haven't considered a heads of state assassination plan. Haven blundered when they placed Beth on the throne. But what if the MA dives into Manticoran politics very closely and pulls a Putin. Strike that last statement. If they CAN manage to put someone on the throne who IS weaker. Much weaker, that might be worth it as a prelude to coming out of the closet. There isn't anyone I know immediately in line who IS weaker, but consider the subtle uses of the nanite. It doesn't have to be used to kill. What if it could be used to control votes, essentially turn whoever replaces the assassinated Beth into another High Ridge.

The treecats wouldn't even be able to detect political suicide. If they can get Eloise and Beth and control their successor there goes the GA. Heck, kill Beth, control her successor and that could kill the GA.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:You're going to want to skewer me for this, but I can accept even that. Here's the thing. I'd be just as disappointed as you about all of the downsides of it that you laid out. But if you step into the shoes of the family who knows the intimate history of the characters, characters who may be patterned after famous people in the family, might have to endure their characters exploited, criminalized, lacking morals and every other thing awful. Now, apply that to a Christian family, whose family had a tradition of using the same name for new births. A name that is now synonymous with evil.

What if David's daughter's daughter's daughter's daughters had to read about an Honor that is a harlot of the galaxy and worse than Lady Young?

Would that be David's great great great granddaughters? Hating their great great great grandfather for ever having created that character, who is on Holovid doing hideous things in the future. Dominating the Holovid. Primetime. The longest running Holovid ever.

I am trying to understand your argument. You say the author's family needs to have copyright control, because a precious family name might be applied to a vile character. Is this because the author did not like that person? Do you expect the family will use control to suppress the publication? What if the author hated the name and bequeathed the rights to a third party, so the family could not suppress the story? What do you do about an unrelated author that creates an evil character with that name?

This all seems so weak and farfetched. Names can fall out of favor for all sorts of reasons, the Arnold family is not likely to name a child Benedict. Adolf and Lucretia need to be retired from use. John Cleland's novel about Fanny Hill gave a whole new use of a word to the British public, too bad for any English family that had a custom of naming their daughters Frances.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:We haven't considered a heads of state assassination plan. Haven blundered when they placed Beth on the throne. But what if the MA dives into Manticoran politics very closely and pulls a Putin. Strike that last statement. If they CAN manage to put someone on the throne who IS weaker. Much weaker, that might be worth it as a prelude to coming out of the closet. There isn't anyone I know immediately in line who IS weaker, but consider the subtle uses of the nanite. It doesn't have to be used to kill. What if it could be used to control votes, essentially turn whoever replaces the assassinated Beth into another High Ridge.

The treecats wouldn't even be able to detect political suicide. If they can get Eloise and Beth and control their successor there goes the GA. Heck, kill Beth, control her successor and that could kill the GA.

Of course treecats can detect nanite control, no matter what it is used to do. Admittedly the treecat did not react to the fogged brain state of the perfume salesman, but that was just because he was not being forced to perform actions. Eventually forcing a vote would pass the threshold of detection.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:You're going to want to skewer me for this, but I can accept even that. Here's the thing. I'd be just as disappointed as you about all of the downsides of it that you laid out. But if you step into the shoes of the family who knows the intimate history of the characters, characters who may be patterned after famous people in the family, might have to endure their characters exploited, criminalized, lacking morals and every other thing awful. Now, apply that to a Christian family, whose family had a tradition of using the same name for new births. A name that is now synonymous with evil.

What if David's daughter's daughter's daughter's daughters had to read about an Honor that is a harlot of the galaxy and worse than Lady Young?

Would that be David's great great great granddaughters? Hating their great great great grandfather for ever having created that character, who is on Holovid doing hideous things in the future. Dominating the Holovid. Primetime. The longest running Holovid ever.

I am trying to understand your argument. You say the author's family needs to have copyright control, because a precious family name might be applied to a vile character. Is this because the author did not like that person? Do you expect the family will use control to suppress the publication? What if the author hated the name and bequeathed the rights to a third party, so the family could not suppress the story? What do you do about an unrelated author that creates an evil character with that name?

This all seems so weak and farfetched. Names can fall out of favor for all sorts of reasons, the Arnold family is not likely to name a child Benedict. Adolf and Lucretia need to be retired from use. John Cleland's novel about Fanny Hill gave a whole new use of a word to the British public, too bad for any English family that had a custom of naming their daughters Frances.

cthia wrote:That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying a character that may have been influenced by, motivated, patterned and written after the deeds of a family member has now been made vile.

Let's say Honor was inspired by one of DW's long lost family members, and immortalized in the books, and read to generation after generation, and it became a tradition to name your first daughter after Honor. Who wants to be named after Honor if the Honor in the future is vile, despicable and shameful. And that's the good side of her. Let alone read the current books of her to your offspring.

Heck, I'd be furious with DW if HE bastardized Honor. And she's HIS character. For a minute in UH ...

Wiki Leaks wrote:The Volsungs originated from Gustav Anderman's mercenaries. After the conquest of the Nimbalkar System, Anderman and Gensonne parted ways. With his core crew and a couple of small ships given to him by Anderman, Gensonne established a growing ruthless mercenary organization. Initially, their seat was located somewhere on the fringes of the Solarian League. In the early 1540s PD, a privy headquartes of the Volsungs was located in the city of Rochelle on the planet Telmach in the Silesian Confederacy.

Axelrod's plot against Manticore
In the early 1540s PD, the Volsung Mercenaries were hired by the Axelrod Corporation to conquer the Manticore System. Axelrod's aim was control of the recently discovered local wormhole junction. In 1543 PD, a 16-unit Volsung force under Gensonne's command was defeated by the weaker Royal Manticoran Navy. During that battle, the Volsungs fought according to Solarian naval doctrine. (MA2)

They were later lured into the Battle of Danak with Operation Embuscade and the Battle of Walther with Operation Verrӓterweg to avoid exposing Axelrod's actions. (MA3)