Future of the Renaissance Factor

cthia wrote:At any rate, the only reason I can think of that a display or unveiling of their work won't happen is because it may be an actual "crime against nature" or the Beowulf Code, thrust upon the galaxy after Earth's Final Wars. IOW, I don't know if the Beowulf Code actually made dabbling on the taboo side of the code illegal.

Now that you mention the "crime" part, there is one obvious display of what their genetic abilities can do: the genetic slaves. If you put together all the abilities of those slaves and select the interesting ones first, you should be able to approximate what an Alpha can do. Think about it:

• Enhanced health: useful in labourers for hazardous conditions
• Beauty: sex slaves
• Stamina: manual labourers
• Keener senses: slaves for sentries and police duty, though also seen in the Alignment agents
• High gravity support: labourers too, even though this existed before the Alignment (q.v. Meyerdahl and Sphinx)

And the list goes on. The only two I can't see them giving the slaves are superior intellect (you don't want your slaves to rebel) and long lifespan (because you want your customers to keep buying). And the latter is not needed any more, due to prolong.

Michael Everett wrote:As for my opinion of the RF's future, you must remember that the MAlign is notable for its multilayered plans and willingness to create/dispose of cats-paws, especially unwitting ones. It would not surprise me to find out that the Darius System Navy has been sending survey ships out to explore every system around it in the hope of finding another wormhole that they can use to set up another even-more-distant bolthole should word of Darius leak out. That way, if their control of the RF slips for any reason, they can pull a Houdini MK2 while using their navy to pull another Mike-At-Mesa as a distraction.
Of course, those in charge of the RF are aware that the MAlign has undetectable ships, so they won't want to risk doing anything that could have the ships deployed against them unless someone comes up with a way to counter their de-facto invisibility...

It wouldn't surprise me that they do have fall-back plans. But the Plan as we know it did rely on the RF and Albrecht himself met with the heads of state of those worlds and explained quite a lot to them. That makes me thing they are high up in the hierarchy and deep into the Onion, so they know most of the plans. They may know that the MAN has scouting for new worlds because that's just a good idea anyway. They may also know that they themselves are expendable in order to achieve the goals of the Plan.

But until that comes to pass, what will they do? How will they support the current goals?

I always felt that the RF was meant to be the new organized star nation organization, a la the League, but under the control of the MAlignment.


Speed Test

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:At any rate, the only reason I can think of that a display or unveiling of their work won't happen is because it may be an actual "crime against nature" or the Beowulf Code, thrust upon the galaxy after Earth's Final Wars. IOW, I don't know if the Beowulf Code actually made dabbling on the taboo side of the code illegal.

Now that you mention the "crime" part, there is one obvious display of what their genetic abilities can do: the genetic slaves. If you put together all the abilities of those slaves and select the interesting ones first, you should be able to approximate what an Alpha can do. Think about it:

• Enhanced health: useful in labourers for hazardous conditions
• Beauty: sex slaves
• Stamina: manual labourers
• Keener senses: slaves for sentries and police duty, though also seen in the Alignment agents
• High gravity support: labourers too, even though this existed before the Alignment (q.v. Meyerdahl and Sphinx)

And the list goes on. The only two I can't see them giving the slaves are superior intellect (you don't want your slaves to rebel) and long lifespan (because you want your customers to keep buying). And the latter is not needed any more, due to prolong.

Well don't forget that the MAlign tends to field test genetic mods with a slave line before they risk incorporating it into one of their main lines, much less the Alpha line. I imagine they did long term slave testing on intelligence and longevity mods too. Imagine giving the entire next generation of Alpha line a promising intelligence mod that turns out to cause something like aggressive early onset Alzheimer's once the folks hit their mid 30s, or giving a longevity mod without looking for side effects in the later part of that extended lifespan. They want a bunch of "worthless" humans to do long term trials with before incorporating a mod into one of the major lines of the MAlign.

So a galaxy wide systemic genetic survey of genetic slaves should turn up lots of interesting things.


OTOH that same practice of testing on slaves complicates any attempt to identify hidden Alpha lines by shared genetic traits. Most, if not all, of those traits have spread into the galaxy via escaped and rescued slaves and their decedents. So even if you ID a MAlign genetic mod you'll find it in a lot more people the MAlign gave it to during testing (and those people's decendents) than in actual hidden MAlign families.

IOW, the slaves were used as guinea pigs and lab rats. They probably have a hoarde of genetic problems that would infuriate Alison if she looked into it. It falls under my notion of "crimes against nature." As a matter of fact, what are the chances she will examine some of the slaves on Torch, who will definitely need qualified specialists.

cthia wrote:IOW, the slaves were used as guinea pigs and lab rats. They probably have a hoarde of genetic problems that would infuriate Alison if she looked into it. It falls under my notion of "crimes against nature." As a matter of fact, what are the chances she will examine some of the slaves on Torch, who will definitely need qualified specialists.

This was mentioned in Torch of Freedom - the average ex-slave has life limiting genetic defects - many of whom will not survive traditional middle age without serious, early medical intervention. It was a reason to scan all barcodes at Torch to record what was done to each individual genetically and then offer universal healthcare - both to help such individuals and to protect the long term gene pool.

Theemile wrote:

cthia wrote:IOW, the slaves were used as guinea pigs and lab rats. They probably have a hoarde of genetic problems that would infuriate Alison if she looked into it. It falls under my notion of "crimes against nature." As a matter of fact, what are the chances she will examine some of the slaves on Torch, who will definitely need qualified specialists.

This was mentioned in Torch of Freedom - the average ex-slave has life limiting genetic defects - many of whom will not survive traditional middle age without serious, early medical intervention. It was a reason to scan all barcodes at Torch to record what was done to each individual genetically and then offer universal healthcare - both to help such individuals and to protect the long term gene pool.

And we know, despite that practice, even the Alpha lines have their quirks. Like the Bardasano line(?), iinm. Plus Honor's and Alfred's own tendency to go off their rocker when a control rod is removed. I humorously call it the steroid syndrome.

At any rate, I honestly believe the entire MA is malignant because of a recessive, err, excessive gene. The whole lot of 'em are crazy-insane warlords. Multiply Adolph Hitler by millions and give him the MAN and the galaxy better look out!

That's what happens when you play God. There are things only a God can foresee. When you genengineer a lot of intellect, it may come at the expense of common sense and patience.

cthia wrote:And we know, despite that practice, even the Alpha lines have their quirks. Like the Bardasano line(?), iinm. Plus Honor's and Alfred's own tendency to go off their rocker when a control rod is removed. I humorously call it the steroid syndrome.

At any rate, I honestly believe the entire MA is malignant because of a recessive, err, excessive gene. The whole lot of 'em are crazy-insane warlords. Multiply Adolph Hitler by millions and give him the MAN and the galaxy better look out!

That's what happens when you play God. There are things only a God can foresee. When you genengineer a lot of intellect, it may come at the expense of common sense and patience.

Don't discount the effect of their isolation and hubris.

The Detweilers have been in hiding for generations and there's a whole lot of echo chamber stuff going on with them. They don't have a problem with underlings disagreeing with the methodology or importance of minor things or current ops but NOBODY argues about The Plan.

Throw in the "I know that I'm the smartest peron in the room because I was designed and bred to be that smart" facet and hubris is going to be impossible to avoid.

Per the earlier description and background given in the books, the RF is initialy 10 or so systems which have a core of Alpha's etc in control of the governments (of several various types) and at least for the Mannerheim SDF has a sigificant portion (shown) of it's officer corps as Star Lines. We have to guess that other portions of the systems leadership are similar.
The intention appeared to be that the "future" core of the RF would come together for self protection and defence from the chaos from the destruction of the League AND that the base Alignment-cetric "moral" and philosophical system reguarding genetics and so many other things- which are already woven into the fabric of the RF founding systems but not being spread in what you might call an Evangelist fervor- will be innoculated into the societies of the future systems that move into the orbit of the RF for self preservation.
It's all to be quiet with good marketing and no outward condination of the Beowulf Codes (a primarly Alignment target) but "gently" showing the good bits of what the variouis RF members institutional sciences etc can provide.

Then there is Darius and Houdini. We are told that the non-Star Lines on Darius are essentialy slaves that don't know they are slaves. They are related as being treated the way what became the Seccies on Mesa "should" have been treated. They are being raised (and breed/cloned) in a closed environment which appears to have a highly structured (and precieved as "fair and normal" society which is a massively organized type of Cast system. They are also essentialy no leakage of news from outside the Darius System is getting in to contradict the naritive of Darius agains the MASSIVLY BAD OUTSIDE FORCES WHO ARE INTENT ON KILLING YOU ALL AND ....you get the message.
The Alighment appears to tightly control who leaves the Darius System and how knowlege is shared.

Houdini.....The short version is that essentialy EVERYBODY who was on the original Houdini and the revised Houdini lists is either at Darius or is DEAD. All of the devistation and earlier "accidents" and "terrorist attacks by the Ballroom" was designed 1st to cover the vanishing of the people moved to Darius and then later to then also eliminate those who were not going to be withdrawn. That rampage of the Final Flourish was to finish that job with as much mess as possible and it was clearly a massive killing of people. Then Albrect triggered all those Nuclear Weapons to vaporize what we have to guess was the remaining people (along with the actual facilities hidden plus what was the camouflage for them) and as much related population who MIGHT know about the Alighment. Various family members etc who were not killed really only know that their loved ones or aquaintences were killed.

My on take on the people who were moved - either when the evaccuation was just a trickle or the expidited version- are ALL sequestered from the general Darius population. The Detweilers and some others might not be leaking anything but the evacuees certainly have to know that they are NEVER going back and that will cause problems. Not the least of those problems is any kind of social or personal conversation with the general Darius population. Like haveing one of them what to know " what is a Seccie and whey were they treated like that?". So it is likely that a great deal of the actual leadership is at a physical remove from the general population. You litteraly can't afford to break the belief and faith of that population as to the Cast System.

We already know the feeling of any of the Alighment people for what has to be done with "problems" and failed experiments in genetics. It's called "Culling" and you (mostly) just give them a calm and hopefully painless death and inceneration (after autopsie to look a little closer at the defects) to eliminate them as a burden or a liability or waste of resources.
To steal a line from another universe.....This is The Way.
Why, the leadership of the Alpha Lines probably don't actualy see themselves as gods directing both the improvement of the species and the purification of the human political constructs to final confomity with the Detweiler Plan of Existence.........sarcasm intended.

Jonathan_S wrote:OTOH that same practice of testing on slaves complicates any attempt to identify hidden Alpha lines by shared genetic traits. Most, if not all, of those traits have spread into the galaxy via escaped and rescued slaves and their decedents. So even if you ID a MAlign genetic mod you'll find it in a lot more people the MAlign gave it to during testing (and those people's decendents) than in actual hidden MAlign families.

Maybe a matter of correlation. If you identify and categorise the slave lines by genetic mods, anyone with those mods which doesn't fit the established categories is likely a Mesan Star line.

Plus the barcode. Either the person has a barcode or one of their direct and recent ancestors did.

What's going to complicate are the lost lines, like the Harringtons. There are quite a few with which contact was lost along the way and therefore spread the gene mods through the population via their descendants. So the correlation of genes is not going to be sufficient cause for arrest.