When you're a hammer: MAlign blind spots

Jonathan_S wrote:Another blind spot.

The MAlign may have been so in love with their ability to fit long term infiltration families into the power structures of the RF that they may have greatly overestimated how much control that would give them of those systems when they step out from behind the curtain.

Lets assume each deep agent is fully indoctrinated with the goals of the MAlign and fully accepting of the measures the MAlign has taken so far to achieve them. (Though the later seems by no means guaranteed).
Even so if those planets' general population, or maybe even a consolidation of opposition parties, is sufficient abhorred by the eventual revelations of what the MAlign has done that could rip some RF planets into rebellion when the Detwillers reached the point in their plan of stepping out of the shadows and publicly taking the head of the MAlign + RF.

Their strategy, in this case, would be to sway public opinion.

But I don't think revealing their true nature was ever part of the plan in the first place. They'd probably give the RF plausible deniability. While the LDs are rampaging through the Galaxy in the wake of the fall of the SL, the RF would be the shining beacon of civilisation. So it seems that they'd want the two forces be kept separate.

How you go from there to galactic domination is a whole other story. Sometimes, it reminds me of the South Park Gnomes' Underpants business plan.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Another blind spot.

The MAlign may have been so in love with their ability to fit long term infiltration families into the power structures of the RF that they may have greatly overestimated how much control that would give them of those systems when they step out from behind the curtain.

Lets assume each deep agent is fully indoctrinated with the goals of the MAlign and fully accepting of the measures the MAlign has taken so far to achieve them. (Though the later seems by no means guaranteed).
Even so if those planets' general population, or maybe even a consolidation of opposition parties, is sufficient abhorred by the eventual revelations of what the MAlign has done that could rip some RF planets into rebellion when the Detwillers reached the point in their plan of stepping out of the shadows and publicly taking the head of the MAlign + RF.

Their strategy, in this case, would be to sway public opinion.

But I don't think revealing their true nature was ever part of the plan in the first place. They'd probably give the RF plausible deniability. While the LDs are rampaging through the Galaxy in the wake of the fall of the SL, the RF would be the shining beacon of civilisation. So it seems that they'd want the two forces be kept separate.

How you go from there to galactic domination is a whole other story. Sometimes, it reminds me of the South Park Gnomes' Underpants business plan.

Good points, both of you. I always thought the plan was to play good cop bad cop with the MAlign and the RF.

At any rate, I think one of the MA's most glaring blind spots affects many of us here in the forum. Even I have succumbed to it a time or two. The human element. The human element is the one element that is suspiciously missing from the periodic chart, although it appears quite periodically in nature. The MA has completely overlooked it. Perhaps because in their quest for genetic excellence they have become less and less human.

They were completely blindsided when the two fiercest, longest standing enemies buried the hatchet and became allies. There is no way they could have foreseen or anticipated such an act of human kindness, and human nature's will to survive. The reality of Torch completely blindsided them as well.

The third uppercut will be when the SL joins the GA to fight against them. The MA's complete lack of human nature (humanity) blinds them from seeing the human element.

My opinion is that the LRPB and the Alignment don't intend to come out in the open- ever.

They are puppet masters. They manipulate things and always let someone else do the true dirty work. They also don't want to become a target of unhappy populations but are quite willing to kill billions using 3rd parties and let said 3rd parties be the ultimate patsies. Mesa is a large example, It was quickly designated as a sacrificial goat and at least one secure location- Darius- designated as the safe haven from which to both build the control center and most production.

While there are a quite large number of the RF (military and political people) who know "a" part of the plan, it sure seems that the Detweilers probably are going to continue to use the RF as a counterpoint to the havoc in the League and if something has to get destroyed, have no problem letting the RF's systems be the ones that get hammered.

Remember, these are self made -litteraly - Gods from their point of view, they just aren't going to step up any thrones and proclaim themselves. Just let layers of underlings be the face -and probably the targets- of what is comming under what will be introduced via the RF. All that deep discussion of modification of morals, philosophy, ethic, etc to bend human thinking and what will and will not be allowed in uplift and improvement in humanity is going to face a number of big bumps along the road with the Alighment moving to crush--or more likely expunge- people and groups that get too irritating with arguing against or getting in the way the RF is supposed to transfer the Detweiler Philosophy to other parts of humanity. Of course, it won't be mentioning that is the Detweiler Philosophy, that would paint a big target on too many people and places

Brigade XO wrote:My opinion is that the LRPB and the Alignment don't intend to come out in the open- ever.

They are puppet masters. They manipulate things and always let someone else do the true dirty work. They also don't want to become a target of unhappy populations but are quite willing to kill billions using 3rd parties and let said 3rd parties be the ultimate patsies. Mesa is a large example, It was quickly designated as a sacrificial goat and at least one secure location- Darius- designated as the safe haven from which to both build the control center and most production.

While there are a quite large number of the RF (military and political people) who know "a" part of the plan, it sure seems that the Detweilers probably are going to continue to use the RF as a counterpoint to the havoc in the League and if something has to get destroyed, have no problem letting the RF's systems be the ones that get hammered.

Remember, these are self made -litteraly - Gods from their point of view, they just aren't going to step up any thrones and proclaim themselves. Just let layers of underlings be the face -and probably the targets- of what is comming under what will be introduced via the RF. All that deep discussion of modification of morals, philosophy, ethic, etc to bend human thinking and what will and will not be allowed in uplift and improvement in humanity is going to face a number of big bumps along the road with the Alighment moving to crush--or more likely expunge- people and groups that get too irritating with arguing against or getting in the way the RF is supposed to transfer the Detweiler Philosophy to other parts of humanity. Of course, it won't be mentioning that is the Detweiler Philosophy, that would paint a big target on too many people and places

That'd certainly be a smarter play.

But it seemed to me that the Detweiler Megolmania was demanding that Beowulf realize it's code had been rejected by the galaxy at large thanks to the same Detweiler clan they'd chased off for wanted that self-same freedom for wilder genetic experimentation. (After all, if not for the desire to rub Beowulf's nose in their defeat the MAlign could have achieved their goal ages ago and at far lower cost just by good PR campaigns. Heck, their own puppet's genetic slavery operation is the source of the vast majority of the remaining prejudice against genies and exotic genetic modifications)


Still, I guess the Detweilers could have planned to step out of the shadows and claim their victory (and Beowulf's defeat) without necessarily letting the rest of the deep onion come to light.

It's implied that the megalomania and narcissistic group think was not something that the original Detweiler suffered from or encouraged. Nor would he have been happy with how his great plan has evolved and all the eggs the current leadership has been happy to break.

But he's been dead for a long, long time.

Brigade XO wrote:..snip..
All that deep discussion of modification of morals, philosophy, ethic, etc to bend human thinking and what will and will not be allowed in uplift and improvement in humanity is going to face a number of big bumps along the road with the Alighment moving to crush--or more likely expunge- people and groups that get too irritating with arguing against or getting in the way the RF is supposed to transfer the Detweiler Philosophy to other parts of humanity. Of course, it won't be mentioning that is the Detweiler Philosophy, that would paint a big target on too many people and places

I have a hunch that modifying morals and ethics will come back and bite them, hard. Loyalty tend to derive from morals and ethics although it can also be derived from a big stick but that tend to have very negative consequences for the one holding the stick in the end.

Joat42 wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:..snip..
All that deep discussion of modification of morals, philosophy, ethic, etc to bend human thinking and what will and will not be allowed in uplift and improvement in humanity is going to face a number of big bumps along the road with the Alighment moving to crush--or more likely expunge- people and groups that get too irritating with arguing against or getting in the way the RF is supposed to transfer the Detweiler Philosophy to other parts of humanity. Of course, it won't be mentioning that is the Detweiler Philosophy, that would paint a big target on too many people and places

I have a hunch that modifying morals and ethics will come back and bite them, hard. Loyalty tend to derive from morals and ethics although it can also be derived from a big stick but that tend to have very negative consequences for the one holding the stick in the end.

It has bitten them already with Simoes and several others, and I suspect it has something to do with the discrepancy of the Bardasano gene. At any rate, I agree. Everything about the MA is a house of cards that will eventually come tumbling down. One day the MA will have to look the human element in the eye. Human nature is a very fickle thing. As I said fifty-leven times, the MA has no touch whatsoever with the reality of human nature. The only evidence that they are even human is their incessant need to serve revenge cold. Now, that's the most primitive of human nature thru and thru.

They forced Simoes into an untenable position because they were using the creation of a family unit- within such structures as the Alignment has created- to care for an individual who was quite probably going to be culled. There are so many ways that could have been avoided such as creating a physical problem with the girl which killed her- and could be accepted as failure of present science than as "what we did flawed the product and now we will just kill it and try something else".
And what they did to Simoes ate at Jack McBride who started to see the hypocrisy or inhumanity of what the Alignment was doing.
Making Beowulf know or understand that the Alignment had triumphed could be as simple as maneuvering various people into one to one conversations with a agent and -having already infected the person with a nano-virus- "explain" what had happened with an early part of the explanation triggering the start of a "natural" death. You don't have to tell the entire scientific population of Beowulf anything but you can twist the mental knife in key people before they have a catastrophic aneurism.

Brigade XO wrote:They forced Simoes into an untenable position because they were using the creation of a family unit- within such structures as the Alignment has created- to care for an individual who was quite probably going to be culled. There are so many ways that could have been avoided such as creating a physical problem with the girl which killed her- and could be accepted as failure of present science than as "what we did flawed the product and now we will just kill it and try something else".

It's quite possible Francesca's death, however that may have come to pass, would have affected Herlander more or less the same way. He would have gone into a downward spiral any way and would have brought Jack with him. If Herlander hadn't known it was the LRPB's doing that caused Francesca's death, he would not have angry at them. Just angry in general.

And it was Jack that came up with the idea of defecting, after noticing Cachat and Zilwicki on the planet.

And what they did to Simoes ate at Jack McBride who started to see the hypocrisy or inhumanity of what the Alignment was doing.

Yeah, but even in the scenario that Herlander hadn't known, Jack would have. He was far deeper into the Onion and he would likely have been told the reasons behind the situation.

Making Beowulf know or understand that the Alignment had triumphed could be as simple as maneuvering various people into one to one conversations with a agent and -having already infected the person with a nano-virus- "explain" what had happened with an early part of the explanation triggering the start of a "natural" death. You don't have to tell the entire scientific population of Beowulf anything but you can twist the mental knife in key people before they have a catastrophic aneurism.

That's right. "Telling" Beowulf is an entirely irrational decision, something very unlike the methodical processes by which the Alignment goes through. This is a sore wound for them, even after half a millennium.

Brigade XO wrote:My opinion is that the LRPB and the Alignment don't intend to come out in the open- ever.

They are puppet masters. They manipulate things and always let someone else do the true dirty work. They also don't want to become a target of unhappy populations but are quite willing to kill billions using 3rd parties and let said 3rd parties be the ultimate patsies. Mesa is a large example, It was quickly designated as a sacrificial goat and at least one secure location- Darius- designated as the safe haven from which to both build the control center and most production.

While there are a quite large number of the RF (military and political people) who know "a" part of the plan, it sure seems that the Detweilers probably are going to continue to use the RF as a counterpoint to the havoc in the League and if something has to get destroyed, have no problem letting the RF's systems be the ones that get hammered.

Remember, these are self made -litteraly - Gods from their point of view, they just aren't going to step up any thrones and proclaim themselves. Just let layers of underlings be the face -and probably the targets- of what is comming under what will be introduced via the RF. All that deep discussion of modification of morals, philosophy, ethic, etc to bend human thinking and what will and will not be allowed in uplift and improvement in humanity is going to face a number of big bumps along the road with the Alighment moving to crush--or more likely expunge- people and groups that get too irritating with arguing against or getting in the way the RF is supposed to transfer the Detweiler Philosophy to other parts of humanity. Of course, it won't be mentioning that is the Detweiler Philosophy, that would paint a big target on too many people and places

Exactly! And I agree. Not only could it be detrimental to their health - as the targets for many war crimes - their work may never really end. Having to tweak their accomplishments and troubleshoot across the galaxy forever. They will undoubtedly be operating by proxy. And who is to continue to improve upon the genetic research. And will this research be shared with the Galaxy. It is difficult to believe the galaxy will accept that kind of genetic tampering without complete transparency. Which brings me to the conclusion that Herlander and Jack had to have known that Francesca couldn't be allowed to live. You don't sell a product to your customers by letting them know about your horrible failures. Imperfection simply has to be culled, or who in the galaxy in their right mind would buy into it.

Herlander's problem is the same as anyone else who is part of a cult. It is okay to accept the horrible rules until those rules come home to roost. Someone who gave so much of themselves to the cause feels entitled to a bit of special consideration. When they don't get it they feel betrayed, which begets a lot of anger. Poor Honor.