Treecat Counter

Garth 2 wrote:Presumably, the development of the Human "mid-glow" and "mind voice" to the point were a "mind shield" can be implemented is the long term solution.
After all we know, that the MA had it on their long term plans just not for a few more centuries but once word about the Harrington genome gets out (it will eventually) they may just bring forward the odd decade or two.....

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Garth 2 wrote:Presumably, the development of the Human "mid-glow" and "mind voice" to the point were a "mind shield" can be implemented is the long term solution.
After all we know, that the MA had it on their long term plans just not for a few more centuries but once word about the Harrington genome gets out (it will eventually) they may just bring forward the odd decade or two.....

I don't see how those correlate. Word of the Harrington line being a Mesan Alpha line will be disbelieved. There's no reason for anyone in the Alliance to take the Alignment's word for it. And it's not like the Harringtons are recent immigrants into the Star Kingdom. Stephanie is one of the most important people in Star Kingdom history, if you bother to search for it.

I'm sure her detractors will use it in the press, but nothing more will come out of it.

As for mind glow and mind voice, the MAlign may want to develop that, but that's a completely unrelated effort.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Garth 2 wrote:Presumably, the development of the Human "mid-glow" and "mind voice" to the point were a "mind shield" can be implemented is the long term solution.
After all we know, that the MA had it on their long term plans just not for a few more centuries but once word about the Harrington genome gets out (it will eventually) they may just bring forward the odd decade or two.....

I don't see how those correlate. Word of the Harrington line being a Mesan Alpha line will be disbelieved. There's no reason for anyone in the Alliance to take the Alignment's word for it. And it's not like the Harringtons are recent immigrants into the Star Kingdom. Stephanie is one of the most important people in Star Kingdom history, if you bother to search for it.

I'm sure her detractors will use it in the press, but nothing more will come out of it.

As for mind glow and mind voice, the MAlign may want to develop that, but that's a completely unrelated effort.

cthia wrote:How can you be so sure of that? The revelation would have to come on the heels of divulging that Honor is a genie.* Being a genie is apparently still taboo in the Honorverse. Humanity has always been fickle about what is accepted norms. Which is the whole gist of the MAlign's plight.

I'd be more interested in what Honor would make of it. She wouldn't simply dismiss it if there's some truth to it. And obviously there's some truth to it.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:How can you be so sure of that? The revelation would have to come on the heels of divulging that Honor is a genie.* Being a genie is apparently still taboo in the Honorverse. Humanity has always been fickle about what is accepted norms. Which is the whole gist of the MAlign's plight.

Because she's a national hero and has a reservoir of public goodwill. Genies are still taboo enough that she didn't go around publicising it, but she didn't hide it too much. I figure she can weather it, especially as the Queen & Empress will also reveal she is one too, as is basically the entire population of Grayson. They'll show how genetic mods are commonplace.

I'd be more interested in what Honor would make of it. She wouldn't simply dismiss it if there's some truth to it. And obviously there's some truth to it.

That is a good question. She's not one to leave that question alone. Her father, the physician, isn't likely either. More importantly, her mother, the Beowulfan-born geneticist, would never leave that alone!

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

orelsi wrote:Since they have cat DNA already... maybe some sort of bio weapon targeted at the cats specifically? The alignment have the expertise and the facilities already. They just need motivation.

But I'm not sure they have. Until the treecats armed with pulsers start showing up on their field agents' reports, they're not going to realise how important the treecats are. There was a passage when the Detweilers were complaining about losing their moles and agents inside the Alliance, but had no idea how that was being done. We know it was via treecat lie-detection.

NSA Whistleblower Reveals How To Beat a Polygraph Test

An NSA whistleblower gives away some secrets on how to beat the controversial polygraph test.

By Elizabeth Flock, Staff Writer Sept. 25, 2012
U.S. News & World Report


A polygraph examiner applies electrodes on the fingers of a student in Bogota, Colombia in June 2007.(AP PHOTO/FERNANDO VERGARA)

RUSSELL TICE, THE National Security Agency whistleblower who blew the lid open on warrantless wiretapping conducted by the federal government on U.S. citizens post-9/11, says that he took between 12 and 15 polygraph tests during his nearly 20-year-long government career.

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The tests mellowed over time, Tice says, and they may have also gotten easier to beat.

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Tice, who is no longer at the NSA, says he, along with those still in contact with at the agency, marvel at how easy it is to beat the lie detector.

The federal government currently administers polygraphs to government employees in a number of agencies, including the NSA and CIA. The polygraphs work by measuring and recording a person's physiological responses—changes in a person's pulse, breathing and blood pressure—to lying versus telling the truth.

Tice, who is now working on a Ph.D. in global security studies, says the NSA "routinely uses polygraphs to terrorize the rank and file of NSA employees" and to "gather very personal information on them that they can use to blackmail them into participating in illegal and unethical conduct."

The whistleblower's view is supported by AntiPolygraph.org, a nonprofit that seeks to abolish polygraphs from the workplace. George Maschke, a U.S. army reserve captain who was rejected from the FBI for failing a polygraph and now runs AntiPolygraph.org, tells Whispers he believes the NSA's polygraph is intended to be a "psychological tool of coercion."

"Polygraphs are detrimental to individuals and to national security," says Maschke, "because federal agencies are relying on technology that is unreliable... that is junk science." A number of studies from the scientific community have also said polygraphs rely on pseudoscience.


AntiPolygraph.org has a number of tips on how to manipulate physiological responses to beat the test. Tice shared some of his own tips on Monday with Whispers.

First, Tice says, a person can trick the tester on "probable-lie" questions. During a polygraph's pre-test interview, the tester usually asks a person to answer questions they are likely to lie about. These include questions like: 'Have you ever stolen money?,' 'Have you ever lied to your parents?,' or 'Have you ever cheated on a test?'. Most people have done these at least once, but lie about it. So the tester uses a person's response to a likely lie as a way to establish how a person physically reacts while lying.

Tice says to trick the tester, a person should lie in response to these questions like most other people would, but also bite their tongue hard while doing so, which will set off other physiological reactions in the body. The tester's "needles will fly everywhere," says Tice, "and he will think, 'This guy is a nervous nelly. He has a strong physical reaction when he's lying.'"

"And you're skewing the test," he says.

Tice says it's also easy to beat a polygraph while telling a real lie by daydreaming to calm the nerves.

"Think of a warm summer night... or drinking a beer, whatever calms you. You're throwing them off," he says. "The needle might nip a little [because you're lying], but not off the charts." And since the person has already convinced the tester that they have off-the-charts physiological reactions while lying, Tice says, a small reaction likely won't tip the tester off.

The tests have also simply gotten easier, with the questions being less likely to shock an individual. "They use to say things like 'I bet you have sex with dogs,' just to initiate a reaction to see how that needle jumps if you've been insulted," Tice says. "[But they] have mellowed down a lot... Polygraphs are easy to beat."


Update, 3:20 p.m.:

NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines says that the polygraph "is one of the vetting tools" used by the NSA and other federal agencies "to assess an individual's eligibility for access, and continued eligibility access, to highly sensitive intelligence information."

"In making these eligibility determinations, NSA complies with the personnel security investigative standards and procedures as outlined in various Intelligence Community directives and policy guidance memoranda."

cthia wrote:If the MAlign becomes aware that the treecats are being used as lie detectors or can read the emotions of deceit?, they can train their operatives to discipline their minds. It's called being calm under pressure. Even textev says treecats cannot outright lie to one another, but they do, sometimes, practice deceit, like Laughs Brightly.

Theemile wrote:To have a system to beat something, you need to understand it. The polygraph works on heart rate and galvanic capacitance, so knowing that a controlling your heart rate nervous reactions, and sweat levels - and perhaps "flipping" those responses from the norm - throw off lie detectors, while hiding or distorting physical cues keep the professional who is evaluating the meter from reading it.

But what triggers Treecats? Is it actual thoughts, or the body's autonomous reactions to those thoughts. Or something else? Without knowing more, how can someone even theorize what it would take to beat Treecats?