How does Honor know so much?

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:But now that textev let Honor's status of being an Alpha out of the box, its out there.

No, there is an allegation that one of her ancestors over 450 years ago (since this was prior to Stephanie Harrington) was an Alpha. Even if true, you would have to say the Long Range Planning Board has made NO improvements during those years for her to be considered an Alpha today.

Why would we need to say that? If both products are on the same side of the Mensa line, why should it matter?

And who is to say the original Ferrari isn't the best?

tlb wrote:If the LRPB even has a very conservative update cycle of a hundred years (so every hundred years the Alpha, Beta and Gamma lines get improvements that make a new Gamma equal to the prior Beta line and a new Beta equal to a prior Alpha line); then this supposed ancestor would be 250 years out of date compared to a current Gamma line member.

Being "lost" for so long, simply means that a modern descendant has had ample time to mix genes with the human race at large.

Don't quote me on this, but I don't think that is how it works. An Alpha yesterday is equal to an Alpha of today, as far as intelligence is concerned. What differs are the accoutrements.

IOW, later Alphas could have received the "beautiful gene" or a gene or two from the sex slaves. Who needs Viagra?

At any rate, as far as Honor is concerned, the proof is in the pudding. That is what Honor's pudding taste like to me, anyway.

cthia wrote:But now that textev let Honor's status of being an Alpha out of the box, its out there.

tlb wrote:No, there is an allegation that one of her ancestors over 450 years ago (since this was prior to Stephanie Harrington) was an Alpha. Even if true, you would have to say the Long Range Planning Board has made NO improvements during those years for her to be considered an Alpha today.

cthia wrote:Why would we need to say that? If both products are on the same side of the Mensa line, why should it matter?

And who is to say the original Ferrari isn't the best?

tlb wrote:If the LRPB even has a very conservative update cycle of a hundred years (so every hundred years the Alpha, Beta and Gamma lines get improvements that make a new Gamma equal to the prior Beta line and a new Beta equal to a prior Alpha line); then this supposed ancestor would be 250 years out of date compared to a current Gamma line member.

Being "lost" for so long, simply means that a modern descendant has had ample time to mix genes with the human race at large.

cthia wrote:Don't quote me on this, but I don't think that is how it works. An Alpha yesterday is equal to an Alpha of today, as far as intelligence is concerned. What differs are the accoutrements.

The point is that the LRPB deeply believes that is the way that it works. They fully believe that they are making improvements: notice how they believe that the Detweilers are uniquely qualified to lead all others. It is from their viewpoint that Honor should not be equal to an Alpha today and the beautiful thing is that they are wrong.

They may have isolated some brilliant people from the general population, but it is not clear that they have improved them, except in some "accoutrements"; all that they have really done is to stratify them.

PS: in an automotive sense the original Ferraris and Jaguars and so on, were all lacking in terms of suspension and braking. The originals may be prized by collectors, but a resto-mod version will drive much better.

cthia wrote:And who is to say the original Ferrari isn't the best?

Ferrari.

The fact that they've continued to make improvements implies that they thought there were improvements to be made.

Now, a reasonable person may disagree, in either the Ferrari or the Harrington case. But this person's opinions are not relevant. Only the opinion of those are responsible for the label are, because they are the ones who bestow it in the first place.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:But now that textev let Honor's status of being an Alpha out of the box, its out there.

tlb wrote:No, there is an allegation that one of her ancestors over 450 years ago (since this was prior to Stephanie Harrington) was an Alpha. Even if true, you would have to say the Long Range Planning Board has made NO improvements during those years for her to be considered an Alpha today.

cthia wrote:Why would we need to say that? If both products are on the same side of the Mensa line, why should it matter?

And who is to say the original Ferrari isn't the best?

tlb wrote:If the LRPB even has a very conservative update cycle of a hundred years (so every hundred years the Alpha, Beta and Gamma lines get improvements that make a new Gamma equal to the prior Beta line and a new Beta equal to a prior Alpha line); then this supposed ancestor would be 250 years out of date compared to a current Gamma line member.

Being "lost" for so long, simply means that a modern descendant has had ample time to mix genes with the human race at large.

cthia wrote:Don't quote me on this, but I don't think that is how it works. An Alpha yesterday is equal to an Alpha of today, as far as intelligence is concerned. What differs are the accoutrements.

The point is that the LRPB deeply believes that is the way that it works. They fully believe that they are making improvements: notice how they believe that the Detweilers are uniquely qualified to lead all others. It is from their viewpoint that Honor should not be equal to an Alpha today and the beautiful thing is that they are wrong.

They may have isolated some brilliant people from the general population, but it is not clear that they have improved them, except in some "accoutrements"; all that they have really done is to stratify them.

PS: in an automotive sense the original Ferraris and Jaguars and so on, were all lacking in terms of suspension and braking. The originals may be prized by collectors, but a resto-mod version will drive much better.

Well, the LRPB is correct. They are making improvements in the number of accoutrements added. But they are not making improvements in intellect. If you keep prodding that cow the milk will sour. The result of sour milk for the MAlign is to waste it.

The newer Ferraris may "ride" much better, but they do not necessarily "drive" much better. The newer suspension coddles you for certain. But the road feel is absolutely gone!

Nothing! Albeit nothing, drives like a go kart with so much road feel as some of those original cars. Even the automakers realize that by trying to put some of that road feel back in, by giving you a sport mode today. Meh.

Even if you are riding with Honor, you get a much better feel of the road. You are absolutely guaranteed to feel a lot of the bumps and thuds and booms. But you enjoy it much better at the end of the day because you are alive.

.

cthia wrote:Well, the LRPB is correct. They are making improvements in the number of accoutrements added. But they are not making improvements in intellect. If you keep prodding that cow the milk will sour. The result of sour milk to the MAlign is to waste it.

Why do you think they aren't improving in intellect? And why do you think the other improvements aren't important qualities for being labelled an Alpha?

The original Ferraris may "ride" much better, but they do not necessarily "drive" much better. The newer suspension coddles you for certain. But the road feel is absolutely gone! Nothing! Albeit nothing, drives like a go kart with so much road feel as some of those original cars. Even the automakers realize that by trying to put some of that road feel back in, by giving you a sport mode today. Meh.

The fact that cars today have sport modes is an improvement. It means the same car can be both comfortable and sporty. If it were the only thing that mattered, they wouldn't have bothered with a switch and cars would have the exact same suspension as they did 70 years ago.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
The fact that cars today have sport modes is an improvement. It means the same car can be both comfortable and sporty. If it were the only thing that mattered, they wouldn't have bothered with a switch and cars would have the exact same suspension as they did 70 years ago.

Suspension? Who needs suspension? Just bolt that axle to the frame, like it was done when men were men. And fast was 15mph.

Ok, we have it from Detweiler's conversation that somewhere back in Honor's line was at least one Alpha (in that time frame). We are fairly sure that BOTH of Stephanies parents (or somewhere in both lines) were recipient of the Meyerdahl mods -because they were living on Meyerdahl when Stephanie was born) but we have no idea if that was the vector for the "alpha" changes.

Also consider that there have been a lot of people (of the Winton family as well as Firebrand) who have been adopted by Treecats. Stephanie was the 1st but up to that point Treecats had been taking great pains to remain effectively invisible to Humans though they kept a distant eye on them and did learn a few things....apparently some bits of agriculture, but they also figured out what they were doing if the didn't understand the technology to do things like have flyers etc.

Unless you want to postulate that it took some kind of Alpha mod to create the situation where Humans could be bonded to Treecats, you have to look at the numbers of people who have bonded and recall that although the Alignment tried to get and keep a living specimen of Treecat (AFTER Stephanie apparently) and were unsucessfull in even keeping it alive, let alone figure out how the bond worked, you might want to leave that thread alone.

The LRPB makes mistakes (well the technicians and scientists who execute the directives in developments of the types of changes and splices into various lines make the mistakes because they are pursuing goals that are not quite as simple in practice as they sound in theory- and you can bet the LRPB isn't going to take any fault.) There is also the point that they are conducting very detailed and long term EXPERIMENTAL BREEDING STUDIES and, as anybody who has done anything in a lab will know, experiments are not always sucessful. Sometimes they are spectacularly unsuccessful---but when your dealing with humans and their life span, it could take years or decades for problems to burst upon the scene. But they are experimenting and some lines of development more or less get a step or two further on....and apparently there are a lot of failures and "culling" of individuals and entire sections of lines. Notice that we don't have any sort of numbers of how many non-viable clones or tubed offspring (well, again, modified humans that may or may not contain ANY DNA -but probably a lot- of the nominal parents in the Star Lines. Genetics can be robust but there are poorly (very poorly) understood interactions between genes and the result of said interactions at various developmental levels that will either kill a fetus or create major medical (and mental) problems of those who survive childhood.

Honor also has some advantages the Alignment does not. Her, and her parents, etc, grew up with very differnt self views of right and wrong. Also not raised to seem themselves a advancing race of super-beings, self uplifted beyond the reach of "Normals". For every Pavel Young there are thousands and thousands of people who don't see other humans a mostly something to be ordered around. Honor don't see herself at the current pinnacle of one of many lines of manipulation and breeding to become demi-gods.

cthia wrote:The notion is that a sub needs to be steered to the bottom. She needs to descend as deeply as the ocean goes to limit the possibility of high-tech diving equipment recovering trade secrets. Or even high-tech cameras. So, relying on scuttling charges only, may simply lay her down in shallow waters. IOW, not deep enough! Heck, using scuttling charges only might simply lay her down on the bottom of a very shallow harbor.

If all the water nearby is well below crush depth it's going to implode. If you have to destroy things in shallow water you need a lot more explosives.

tlb wrote:However I do not understand why someone would scuttle a sub that can still move underwater under its own power. Conversely if it cannot move under its own power, then you scuttle wherever it is; even if it is a harbor, such as Scapa Flow. The important thing is to destroy the cryptographic materials. Don't they have thermite for that?

If you have power but not range (say, a lack of fuel) and do not want the enemy getting their hands on it.

Loren Pechtel wrote:If all the water nearby is well below crush depth it's going to implode.

Only if the pressure hull is intact and without major water ingress as it descends.

Otherwise the sub just fills up with water as the it descends and you never get the kind of pressure imbalance that'd overstress the hull to the point of implosion.



So if you scuttle it by opening all the ballast tanks then yea, it's likely to implode. But if you scuttle it by opening or blowing open large seacocks then the pressure in the hull will increase in concert with the exterior pressure as it descends, and you won't get an implosion (though individual pressure containers within or attached to the hull might themselves implode. Similar if it's it going down because something like an anti-submarine mortar blow a large hole in the upper deck and pressure hull - no pressure imbalance, no implossion.