"Why are you still alive?"

The Renaissance Factor is already in play. No need to conceal the current philosophical direction of Mannerheim as they and the rest of the initial members start to push the directions of things such as medical research, medical ethics and other pillars of the Detweiler ideals out to systems joining the RF. It's mostly going to look like sharing of educational and medical information though the educations systems infiltration will shape thinking in the Detweiler direction without mentioning the name (which would eventually raise a big flag to at least Beowulf)
So far we don't have any true knowledge of the initial RF systems getting actively involved with the Alignment as far as doing anything openly to push things....they are all "just" a defensive alliance against the current and perceived advancing problems from the corruption of the SL

Mannerheim itself is somewhat more problematical. It appears to be the leader/largest SDF in the RF, we have been shown that the Alignment is solidly in control of critical parts of the SDF and is using it to guard the existence of the Felix Wormhole. They have also contributed --it was a squadron of Cruisers of BCs---to act as a fatal blocking force against the Torch/Manticore investigation of the Torch end of the Torch wormhole. Basically, if something comes through kill it immediately and obliterate the wreckage. So we have to wonder what is going to happen when the GA Hunter group starts sniffing in the direction of Felix. The is still a question of how deep and pervasive the Alignment- in the form of various Alpha and other Star Lines-control more than the top of the governments of the other 11 RF founding members. Ofcourse we don't really know how many of the proto RF systems have actualy come out and joined the RF. I could be considered somewhat suspicious of suddenly all 12 just blossomed on the scene as a completed alliance just as the SL got its ass handed to it by Harrington and the proof that they were being manipulated internally by outside forces.

Of course we don't know how many other systems scattered around human settled worlds have been either suborned or quietly taken over by Alignment Alphas to be later introduced as either scapegoats or prods in The Plan.
My opinion would be the Alignment should keep a very low profile and small level of direct chipping away at the GA and other groups. Particularly in a prolong universe, 20 to 30 years is not a long time to stretch really deeply laid plans. Perhaps they might limit much of what little over action they take to very quiet and targets hits to eliminate threads leading back to them. We have seen that the nanite treatments are already costing them a great number of their usefull agents. Perhaps laying sets of false trails by inducing nanites into people who have never been (and might be opposed to the Alignment if they knew of it) leading to worse than nowhere as far as the Hunters are concerned. Just chain up connections in governements and SDFs that have legitimate relationships but will start dying as the hunt contacts them in an ever widening search. You can do a lot worse than creating situations where your opponents spend a vast amount of resources and people (and with their activity self-identify them selves) as counter intelligence or special military groups hunting you. You might even -way out on various chains of connection false trails- kill one or more of the hunters having baited then into another dead end.

Shadows and devious are Alignment trademarks.

The Renaissance Factor is already in play. No need to conceal the current philosophical direction of Mannerheim as they and the rest of the initial members start to push the directions of things such as medical research, medical ethics and other pillars of the Detweiler ideals out to systems joining the RF. It's mostly going to look like sharing of educational and medical information though the educations systems infiltration will shape thinking in the Detweiler direction without mentioning the name (which would eventually raise a big flag to at least Beowulf)
So far we don't have any true knowledge of the initial RF systems getting actively involved with the Alignment as far as doing anything openly to push things....they are all "just" a defensive alliance against the current and perceived advancing problems from the corruption of the SL

Mannerheim itself is somewhat more problematical. It appears to be the leader/largest SDF in the RF, we have been shown that the Alignment is solidly in control of critical parts of the SDF and is using it to guard the existence of the Felix Wormhole. They have also contributed --it was a squadron of Cruisers of BCs---to act as a fatal blocking force against the Torch/Manticore investigation of the Torch end of the Torch wormhole. Basically, if something comes through kill it immediately and obliterate the wreckage. So we have to wonder what is going to happen when the GA Hunter group starts sniffing in the direction of Felix. The is still a question of how deep and pervasive the Alignment- in the form of various Alpha and other Star Lines-control more than the top of the governments of the other 11 RF founding members. Ofcourse we don't really know how many of the proto RF systems have actualy come out and joined the RF. I could be considered somewhat suspicious of suddenly all 12 just blossomed on the scene as a completed alliance just as the SL got its ass handed to it by Harrington and the proof that they were being manipulated internally by outside forces.

Of course we don't know how many other systems scattered around human settled worlds have been either suborned or quietly taken over by Alignment Alphas to be later introduced as either scapegoats or prods in The Plan.
My opinion would be the Alignment should keep a very low profile and small level of direct chipping away at the GA and other groups. Particularly in a prolong universe, 20 to 30 years is not a long time to stretch really deeply laid plans. Perhaps they might limit much of what little over action they take to very quiet and targets hits to eliminate threads leading back to them. We have seen that the nanite treatments are already costing them a great number of their usefull agents. Perhaps laying sets of false trails by inducing nanites into people who have never been (and might be opposed to the Alignment if they knew of it) leading to worse than nowhere as far as the Hunters are concerned. Just chain up connections in governements and SDFs that have legitimate relationships but will start dying as the hunt contacts them in an ever widening search. You can do a lot worse than creating situations where your opponents spend a vast amount of resources and people (and with their activity self-identify them selves) as counter intelligence or special military groups hunting you. You might even -way out on various chains of connection false trails- kill one or more of the hunters having baited then into another dead end.

Shadows and devious are Alignment trademarks.

Brigade XO wrote:The Renaissance Factor is already in play. No need to conceal the current philosophical direction of Mannerheim as they and the rest of the initial members start to push the directions of things such as medical research, medical ethics and other pillars of the Detweiler ideals out to systems joining the RF. It's mostly going to look like sharing of educational and medical information though the educations systems infiltration will shape thinking in the Detweiler direction without mentioning the name (which would eventually raise a big flag to at least Beowulf)
So far we don't have any true knowledge of the initial RF systems getting actively involved with the Alignment as far as doing anything openly to push things....they are all "just" a defensive alliance against the current and perceived advancing problems from the corruption of the SL

Which may or may not be a problem for The Plan. That's an action they can't roll back for later. So the RF now has to proceed as if it were completely unrelated to the MAlign. It may position itself as slightly-anti-GA and criticise the Battle of Galton a bit, but given its philosophical leaning, it can't help but publicly condemn the existence of Galton and the genetic slavery that was there.

The real raison d'être for the RF is also a problem now because they're not the only ones advocating for genetic uplift (without slavery). They're not even the most visible face of it, because the Enlightenment on Mesa will be the face of uplift. And infiltrating the Enlightenment is a bad idea for the next couple of decades, because all the intelligence agencies will be paying attention to it. Not to mention that it is visible and public.

That leaves the official reason for its existence, a defensive grouping due to the SL corruption, where they're just one among many.

Mannerheim itself is somewhat more problematical. It appears to be the leader/largest SDF in the RF, we have been shown that the Alignment is solidly in control of critical parts of the SDF and is using it to guard the existence of the Felix Wormhole. They have also contributed --it was a squadron of Cruisers of BCs---to act as a fatal blocking force against the Torch/Manticore investigation of the Torch end of the Torch wormhole. Basically, if something comes through kill it immediately and obliterate the wreckage. So we have to wonder what is going to happen when the GA Hunter group starts sniffing in the direction of Felix. The is still a question of how deep and pervasive the Alignment- in the form of various Alpha and other Star Lines-control more than the top of the governments of the other 11 RF founding members. Ofcourse we don't really know how many of the proto RF systems have actualy come out and joined the RF. I could be considered somewhat suspicious of suddenly all 12 just blossomed on the scene as a completed alliance just as the SL got its ass handed to it by Harrington and the proof that they were being manipulated internally by outside forces.

It's unclear how much of the Mannerheim Navy know about the Felix Junction. It's certain that many non-Alignment members do, even though they think Mannerheim has just recently discovered it in the last decade and is keeping it quiet while trying to secure the rights to the system. But now the cat is out of the MAlign bag: the more people know about it, the sooner it will leak to some intelligence agency and thence to the GA. Whether the likes of Zilwicki, Cachat, and Ruth will connect the dots is another matter.

This is another action that can't be rolled back and also has an expiry date.

Of course we don't know how many other systems scattered around human settled worlds have been either suborned or quietly taken over by Alignment Alphas to be later introduced as either scapegoats or prods in The Plan.

My guess is not many. It takes a long time to infiltrate and look legitimate.

Suborning with money, like Axelrod did with the Free Duchy of Barca, is far easier. But like above, those come with expiration dates: the corrupt politicians need a constant influx of money to stay bought. And the main source of money would have been Manpower and Jessyk, which are now off the board. The means by which the MAlign can now move money in the League must be severely diminished, if they want to keep the connection to Darius hidden.

My opinion would be the Alignment should keep a very low profile and small level of direct chipping away at the GA and other groups. Particularly in a prolong universe, 20 to 30 years is not a long time to stretch really deeply laid plans. Perhaps they might limit much of what little over action they take to very quiet and targets hits to eliminate threads leading back to them. We have seen that the nanite treatments are already costing them a great number of their usefull agents. Perhaps laying sets of false trails by inducing nanites into people who have never been (and might be opposed to the Alignment if they knew of it) leading to worse than nowhere as far as the Hunters are concerned. Just chain up connections in governements and SDFs that have legitimate relationships but will start dying as the hunt contacts them in an ever widening search. You can do a lot worse than creating situations where your opponents spend a vast amount of resources and people (and with their activity self-identify them selves) as counter intelligence or special military groups hunting you. You might even -way out on various chains of connection false trails- kill one or more of the hunters having baited then into another dead end.

Shadows and devious are Alignment trademarks.

That's what they should do, I agree. Benjamin's introspection in the TEiF beginning says that the Plan wasn't going to come to fruition in his lifetime, which we expect to be another 2 centuries.

But I don't think that's what they will do. They just can't help but meddle and there are many things that can't be turned back. Plus, their hand will be forced on this.

The whole, "they are overconfident snd impatient wannabe supermen" plot device is wearing thin.

Every time they get cocky and try to get too cute, it blows up in their face. The Detweiler clones aren't stupid- they are almost as smart as they think that they are. You'd think that they would wake up to reality one morning and realize that it's not the time to go overt.

If they come storming out of the shadows right now, they will get one good lick in before their existence is known far and wide. "Spider drive-this and stealth that". Don't matter. There's a counter for everything- and the Manties don't have a monopoly on smart and inventive weapons designers, do they?

Does the word, "Oops!" mean anything to you?

The problem is, they have at least 4 fleets to face that can eat them as a light snack in heads up fleet engagement with an axe to grind.

Who are they gonna take out?

The logical chioce are the Manties, right?

That means when the Graysons find them (and they will look on every asteroid in the galaxy to find them if they kill Honor or any of her family), there's no Mantie admiral around that they respect to remind them that they are supposed to be civilized.

"Harrington and no mercy,' ring any bells?

Tom Theisman is the next in line as far as respect and prestige are concerned. He's also the one that capped St Just personally.

Not seeing a whole lot of restraint there either.

Don't forget, the Havenites fought the Manties to a standstill with inferior tech.

Their tech ain't inferior any more.

And the Andies?

They attacked the line of succession.

That would be like attacking William and George and then getting into a fight with the Royal Navy- of 100 years ago. Graves Registration will have to scrape for enough to ID if the Andies get a whack at them. Their fleet might be wiped out but they won't go alone.

Thing is, that's still better than the alternative of taking someone other than the Manties out and having a pissed off Honor leading the charge.

jtg452 wrote:The whole, "they are overconfident snd impatient wannabe supermen" plot device is wearing thin.

Every time they get cocky and try to get too cute, it blows up in their face. The Detweiler clones aren't stupid- they are almost as smart as they think that they are. You'd think that they would wake up to reality one morning and realize that it's not the time to go overt.

The thing is that even very intelligent criminals can get caught (of course, we do not necessarily hear about the very intelligent criminals that don't get caught). For one thing, if they are super intelligent and they know it, then it is very hard to avoid being super arrogant; a problem which infects the entire Mesan Alignment.

In the past I have very critical of the way that they turned the Solarian League leadership (particularly within the Navy) into a clown show; then expected a fight to mutual exhaustion against people who had been honing their fighting skills for 20 years or more. Thinking about about it more, I realize how very difficult the balancing act was that they were trying to accomplish. Clearly the SLN had to be handicapped initially, otherwise there is no contest. But when Manticore became strong enough to defeat both Haven and the Solarian League; one rational response would have been to pull back the SLN and begin undoing some of the damage that had been done; but that would also undo all the effort made warp the SLN in order to setup the confrontation and might put the Plan back to square 1. So instead they panicked and executed Oyster Bay; not thinking that if Haven took advantage and won, then Haven would have all the military advantages previously held by Manticore. As it happened the return of Zilwicki and Cachet with proof of the Alignment Plan, just after the Malign had given the clearest possible proof of their existence, forced an alliance where there had been war. Not anything that could have been foreseen.

jtg452 wrote:The whole, "they are overconfident snd impatient wannabe supermen" plot device is wearing thin.

Every time they get cocky and try to get too cute, it blows up in their face. The Detweiler clones aren't stupid- they are almost as smart as they think that they are. You'd think that they would wake up to reality one morning and realize that it's not the time to go overt.

In addition to what tlb said, I think that they were right that it was time to launch the operations to go overt... a few years ago. The problem is that events outside their control as well as lack of faulty intel on military matters made the timing wrong.

The going overt was not instantaneous. It needed a few years of lead time. Among the things we know about, there was the prepositioning of SLN forces relatively close to the Haven Sector to pounce on it and Operation Houdini. Even the ratcheting up of tensions between the SL and the polity in the Haven Sector that would fight (originally Haven, up until when Pritchart decided to ally with Manticore instead of conquering it at its moment of weakness) took some time. So they had to make a decision, based on data available at the time, when to start all of these operations.

And then they crossed the point of no return. I've discussed this before in some past thread, but I think they should have backed down after either the Second Battle of New Tuscany or at worst after the Battle of Spindle. It was easy to back down after Mike Henke took Byng so effortlessly without too much loss of face for the SL, since Byng had fired upon ships with no wedge without even first contacting them. And I think Anisimovna was still present, so she would have good sensor readings when the Tenth Fleet battlecruisers pulled 700 gravities and fired from well outside the SLN's range, destroying exactly one ship, the one containing Byng.

After Spindle, it would have been much harder, because the SLN had never lost 70 SDs. But the Alignment could have exerted sufficient pressure on their pawns to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

But no, they continued with the operation because it had been launched, confident that they could course-correct where necessary. So they passed the Point of No-Return. That's when they had to continue on with the evacuation from Mesa and coming up with worse and worse options, like Operation Buccaneer, the Parthian Option, and the sending of the Silver Bullets and bombs into Beowulf.


So now that that's done, they're trying to hide again. The chapter about Benjamin Detweiler arriving in Galton has him thinking that the Plan won't come to its fruition until after his own lifetime. But the problem is that the GA won't forget them so soon and that's outside of their control.

tlb wrote:In the past I have very critical of the way that they turned the Solarian League leadership (particularly within the Navy) into a clown show; then expected a fight to mutual exhaustion against people who had been honing their fighting skills for 20 years or more.

They must have been thinking that the SLN's size would compensate for its lack of actual fighting skills. "Quantity is quality of its own."

Thinking about about it more, I realize how very difficult the balancing act was that they were trying to accomplish. Clearly the SLN had to be handicapped initially, otherwise there is no contest. But when Manticore became strong enough to defeat both Haven and the Solarian League; one rational response would have been to pull back the SLN and begin undoing some of the damage that had been done; but that would also undo all the effort made warp the SLN in order to setup the confrontation and might put the Plan back to square 1. So instead they panicked and executed Oyster Bay; not thinking that if Haven took advantage and won, then Haven would have all the military advantages previously held by Manticore. As it happened the return of Zilwicki and Cachet with proof of the Alignment Plan, just after the Malign had given the clearest possible proof of their existence, forced an alliance where there had been war. Not anything that could have been foreseen.

That's my opinion too.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:So now that that's done, they're trying to hide again. The chapter about Benjamin Detweiler arriving in Galton has him thinking that the Plan won't come to its fruition until after his own lifetime. But the problem is that the GA won't forget them so soon and that's outside of their control.

Here are the full quotes, which I have typed; so please check that I have been accurate. In To End in Fire on page 87 (hardback, also please look carefully at the text running into this quote which discusses the ways the plan had gone off the rails):

In point of fact, the Detweiler Plan had gone well and truly off the rails it had followed so smoothly for so many centuries. The situation wasn't irretrievable, but it was going to require a lot of rethinking ... which was, ultimately, what brought him here today.
They needed time -- a minimum of twenty or thirty T-years, and preferably at least twice that -- to recoup their losses and go so deeply underground that even those pestiferous Manticorans and Havenites would decide the Alignment no longer existed.
Twenty or thirty T-years that could prove very expensive.

On page 92:

Each species would have its own strengths and abilities, and its proper place in the structure of intelligent life.
With one species to rule them all, of course.
It was too bad he wouldn't live to see the final outcome. Not even the most optimistic projections foresaw a final triumph of the Detweiler Plan for several more centuries. And while Detweilers were long-lived, even by prolong standards, no one was that long-lived.
Yet.

Even though the thoughts are about going underground for several decades, the book has a Renaissance Factor diplomat meeting with the head of the Renaissance Association, which probably means we will see much more activity from those quarters next.

tlb wrote:

In point of fact, the Detweiler Plan had gone well and truly off the rails it had followed so smoothly for so many centuries. The situation wasn't irretrievable, but it was going to require a lot of rethinking ... which was, ultimately, what brought him here today.
They needed time -- a minimum of twenty or thirty T-years, and preferably at least twice that -- to recoup their losses and go so deeply underground that even those pestiferous Manticorans and Havenites would decide the Alignment no longer existed.
Twenty or thirty T-years that could prove very expensive.

On page 92:

Each species would have its own strengths and abilities, and its proper place in the structure of intelligent life.
With one species to rule them all, of course.
It was too bad he wouldn't live to see the final outcome. Not even the most optimistic projections foresaw a final triumph of the Detweiler Plan for several more centuries. And while Detweilers were long-lived, even by prolong standards, no one was that long-lived.
Yet.

Even though the thoughts are about going underground for several decades, the book has a Renaissance Factor diplomat meeting with the head of the Renaissance Association, which probably means we will see much more activity from those quarters next.

The discrepancy of "decades" and "centuries" puzzled me when I read this part.

What I make of it is that the latter phase of the Plan, that is the rebuilding after the chaos and the eugenics process of forced speciation will take that long, and that's not even started yet. They have the genomes of the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma lines sufficiently advanced and near as good as they think they're going to get for now, at least while they have to live in the shadows. The thinking that a human might live 500 years indicates that they intend to keep tinkering with the genome indefinitely, but your guess on whether that is a goal before the "final triumph of the Detweiler Plan" or not is as good as mine.

Three important key phrases, though: first, that they estimate they need 20 to 60 years in complete hiding, with the GA thinking that the Malignant Alignment either never existed or was completely eradicated (the former option was valid but unlikely while Benjamin was having these thoughts, but obviously not so after the end of the book). That time would allow them time to sufficiently build up their military forces, offset the loss of the industrial output of Galton, catch up with GA military tech by any and all means possible, and recreate the necessary conditions.

That leads to second phrase: "a lot of rethinking." There's no way that the current phase of the plan makes any sense at all ("gone well and truly off the rails"). Just how they're going to adapt is a complete unknown... to us and I'd guess even to them. I imagine the "twenty or thirty T-years, and preferably at least twice that" means they only have very, very rough ideas on just how to go about that, nowhere near the type of action that they were used to and are likely going to demand from their planners. Which may be a new mistake in the making.

Finally, the "very expensive" part. They've lost all their infiltration in ALL of the major governments and military in the Galaxy and this was before the League intel community was told about the treecats. Re-infiltrating by itself would be expensive; infiltrating an entity that is aware of past infiltrations and deploying countermeasures is even more so.

Either way, I maintain my speculation that they're not going to get the time that they need.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The discrepancy of "decades" and "centuries" puzzled me when I read this part.

It will take many decades, both in hiding and then covertly manipulating events to get the Plan back on track. A lot more ground will continue to be lost during that time in hiding; which will add greatly to the cost.

It will take centuries after that, before the Plan has succeeded in all its details.