Masada: State of Affairs

Jonathan_S wrote:

kzt wrote:The leaders of the 9/11 attacks met while in German universities. One was studying Aerospace engineering, one was working on a masters in Urban Planning. And they all became much more religious and radical while studying in German universities.

So I don't necessarily think that 'education' is quite the cure-all as some people seem to want to believe.

I suspect that early childhood education and upbringing may have more effect on a person's long term beliefs than what they're exposed to at university.

But also, no education or upbringing seems like its going to cause everyone to think the same or believe the same.

The fact that 19 well educated men were also fanatics doesn't say much about whether the likelihood of fanaticism is affected by education. (Well, beyond showing that it's not a 100% cure/prevention; and I don't think anybody here was trying to claim that it was)

If memory serves, they are "radicalized" by their Imam, who was very anti-western.

Theemile wrote:If memory serves, they are "radicalized" by their Imam, who was very anti-western.

The spiritual founder of al Qaeda, Sayyid Qutb, was radicalized by attending the Colorado State College of Education in Greeley Colorado around 1948, when he was 42 years old.

Greeley was a town where at one point they rented out the jail to hunters for storage, because it was always empty due to nobody committing any crimes.

Apparently the event that radicalized him was attending a dance at the Methodist church.

kzt wrote:

Theemile wrote:If memory serves, they are "radicalized" by their Imam, who was very anti-western.

The spiritual founder of al Qaeda, Sayyid Qutb, was radicalized by attending the Colorado State College of Education in Greeley Colorado around 1948, when he was 42 years old.

Greeley was a town where at one point they rented out the jail to hunters for storage, because it was always empty due to nobody committing any crimes.

Apparently the event that radicalized him was attending a dance at the Methodist church.

You know you can't trust those Darned Methodists.

You know Chiang Kai-shek's wife was a Methodist, and those 2 were behind the mess we have in China/Taiwan today. Nope - can't trust 'em.

kzt wrote:The leaders of the 9/11 attacks met while in German universities. One was studying Aerospace engineering, one was working on a masters in Urban Planning. And they all became much more religious and radical while studying in German universities.

So I don't necessarily think that 'education' is quite the cure-all as some people seem to want to believe.

I agree. Might it be the kill-all?

Educate your enemy. Make them smarter.

It leaves the same taste in my mouth as Houseman's suggestion of trading with your enemy to make them stronger.

However, educating the enemy on religion force-feeds them your religion, which forces them to really learn about the horrors of your religion.

"You eat pig?!" You do what? You accept what?"

Intimate inspection of someones religion might downright frighten someone. The wrong person may feel it is their responsibility to war against everything you stand for.

The concept fuels the original jokes about what will happen when you put a pastor, a priest and a rabbi together in the same room. They will kill each other.

kzt wrote:

Theemile wrote:If memory serves, they are "radicalized" by their Imam, who was very anti-western.

The spiritual founder of al Qaeda, Sayyid Qutb, was radicalized by attending the Colorado State College of Education in Greeley Colorado around 1948, when he was 42 years old.

Greeley was a town where at one point they rented out the jail to hunters for storage, because it was always empty due to nobody committing any crimes.

Apparently the event that radicalized him was attending a dance at the Methodist church.

Supposedly, the song that set him off was "Baby, it's cold outside".

Masadan society was a theocracy. The Church ruled and controlled.

We know the Masadans had space ships so if they hated tec they had a funny way of showing it except that it was the only way they could ever hope to get back to Grayson let alone take it away from what they considered heretics. Odd that they should want to take "back" a planet that literally tries to kill them all the time but there is on accounting for what people will ultimately do because of religion.

That theocracy......what is the likelihood that the upper level did enjoy the benefit of Prolong? They were happy enough to embrace modern starship and weapons technology so why wouldn't they have availed themselves of something that would have allowed them....the elite and most holy amount the population...to have what would be basically biblical durations so they could focus on defeating the heretics?

I would suspect that a certain number of more brutal husband would have died at the hands of their wives and proving that (if the other men involved or who stood to inherit those wives actually cared about more than personal safety) could be iffy. But "sudden and unforced death" could just be routinely be dealt with by killing possible murderers- life was cheap in Masaden society, particularly among women who could not be cowed.

Did Masada continue to sustain the same abnormal failure to bring males to term once they got to Masada?

From what little we saw in Obligated Service, even Masadan's who were competent to work in important positions on their space station hadn't displayed any "growth" in regard to treatment or perception of women.

The hard core of Masaden fanatics was organized enough to engineer the attack on Ruth & Berry at Erowhen....and nobody has floated any whiff of the Alignment being involved in any way with that. Just Masada going after a Manticorian Royal Female because she is Manticoran AND a powerful female. Of course it's Ruth and the whole backstory but still.......how was that really sold as a way to get Manticore off their planet?
Sigh.

Brigade XO wrote:From what little we saw in Obligated Service, even Masadan's who were competent to work in important positions on their space station hadn't displayed any "growth" in regard to treatment or perception of women.

The hard core of Masaden fanatics was organized enough to engineer the attack on Ruth & Berry at Erowhen....and nobody has floated any whiff of the Alignment being involved in any way with that. Just Masada going after a Manticorian Royal Female because she is Manticoran AND a powerful female. Of course it's Ruth and the whole backstory but still.......how was that really sold as a way to get Manticore off their planet?
Sigh.

Wasn't "Obligated Service" about a steading on Grayson and their treatment of some of their women working at Blackbird; not anything to do with Masada?

The attack in Crown of Slaves was specifically directed at Princess Ruth, because she was a Masadan escapee and had nothing to do with the Malign. However Manpower Inc ended up involved because of the slave ship that was captured and then the attack on Congo (which became Torch). Basically the attack had nothing to do with getting their planet free of Manticore, just an attempt to reclaim their property.

PS: "Erewhon" is almost "Nowhere" spelled backwards, because "wh" works better than "hw".

Brigade XO wrote:That theocracy......what is the likelihood that the upper level did enjoy the benefit of Prolong? They were happy enough to embrace modern starship and weapons technology so why wouldn't they have availed themselves of something that would have allowed them....the elite and most holy amount the population...to have what would be basically biblical durations so they could focus on defeating the heretics?

I actually suspect very low chance. There's no evidence that they had the domestic medical technology level to make and administer it locally. And their foreign exchange was infinitesimal, but if they can't do it at home they need to pay to send their sons (and it'd likely only be their sons) to a medically advanced word and pay for the apparently very expensive treatment there.

And whether they use one of their crappy slow hyper ships to make the journey, or pay for a passing tramp freighter to transport them around until the route crosses such a work, that round trip, with treatment, will likely take the better part of a year.

(Okay, if they stick to 1st gen prolong, which can be applied at older ages, it could be their college aged sons that were sent -- but even so letting them out of the tight control of the church to see some of the advanced, heretical, and 'tech worshiping' parts of the galaxy probably doesn't fill the elder's with joy. Even if they could work around the hypocrisy of using life extension tech as an anti-tech society)

Probably better, and safer for the perceived stability of their society, to use what little foreign exchange they have to try to buy marginally better military, or dual use, tech off of the odd tramp freighter that shows up.

tlb wrote:Wasn't "Obligated Service" about a steading on Grayson and their treatment of some of their women working at Blackbird; not anything to do with Masada?

There was a scene where the Paul class destroyer was on maneuvers, and was scheduled to dock at the Masada station, with the other woman officer at the con. When she called the station for docking instructions, they ignored her. The Captain told her to dock without assistance.

The docking resulted in some amount of damage to the station, IIRC,

tlb wrote:Wasn't "Obligated Service" about a steading on Grayson and their treatment of some of their women working at Blackbird; not anything to do with Masada?

Fox2! wrote:There was a scene where the Paul class destroyer was on maneuvers, and was scheduled to dock at the Masada station, with the other woman officer at the con. When she called the station for docking instructions, they ignored her. The Captain told her to dock without assistance.

The docking resulted in some amount of damage to the station, IIRC,

Okay, sorry about that chief. I remembered the bulk of the story being about the removal of a wastrel brother as head of family.