A copper-plated moral decision for the 'Cats . . .

cthia wrote:At any rate, I am positing that the MA may make inroads into their nanite research. It could turn out that Cats are even easier to "control."

Yes, but then that only leads to the next problem: the unavailability of test subjects. To perfect their research, the MAlign must have had a lot of humans to test with. The treecats have a very different nervous system, including a partially-distributed brain (like an octupus). Even if their nanites are designed to work on any species, they can't know for sure until they test on treecats. And how are they going to?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:At any rate, I am positing that the MA may make inroads into their nanite research. It could turn out that Cats are even easier to "control."

Yes, but then that only leads to the next problem: the unavailability of test subjects. To perfect their research, the MAlign must have had a lot of humans to test with. The treecats have a very different nervous system, including a partially-distributed brain (like an octupus). Even if their nanites are designed to work on any species, they can't know for sure until they test on treecats. And how are they going to?

Glad you asked.

Regeneration seems to be an untapped field. Limbs and body parts can be regrown, and the MA has the ability to clone, along with their unprecedented ability in the area of genetic research.

Now, Alfred Harrington supposedly did a lot of testing and research on Nimitz trying to honor his promise to Honor to fix Nimitz. Suppose that data got back to the MA, along with ample samples of Cat DNA. Do you doubt what they might be able to do?

Regeneration + cloning + genetic research = homegrown treecat

MA speak: r + c + gr = T

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:I agree with everything you said. Except, the part about muscle memory. Oh, it has been discussed quite a bit. And textev does mention muscle memory. But I never agreed that muscle memory can account for all of it. Controlling muscle memory can account for a victim drawing a pulser, but, then, actually targeting someone specific, or anyone at all, requires a bit more than just muscle memory.

At any rate, I am positing that the MA may make inroads into their nanite research. It could turn out that Cats are even easier to "control."

Of course; there also has to be data acquisition and processing, to recognize the proper moment or command and correctly operate on it. The Admiral had to pull a gun out of a drawer and shoot himself, the officer on the flight deck had to recognize the moment to push the button. the man in the air car had to select a cliff to fly into and the lieutenant had to grab a gun out of another man's holster and turn to fire. So it is a bit more than "muscle memory", but we do do know how much more; however it seems clear that memories cannot be accessed that were unknown to the people coding the nanites.

For the driver to shoot the ambassador or the lieutenant to try to shoot Honor, the nanites need to have facial recognition as one of the triggers.

I certainly agree.

In fact, if I am truly honest with myself, I truly doubt that muscle memory alone can account for drawing a pulser. A lot more data processing has to happen even prior to that, as you have correctly implied.

Whatever it all takes to put it all together, the memory space required to program it all might can be both expanded and further compressed to support an even more enhanced suite of primitives and programming power.

I have always maintained that the Peeps were constantly overlooking the next iterations in RMN technology. X begets Y. It could be the same for MA research. And for MA technology.

cthia wrote:In fact, if I am truly honest with myself, I truly doubt that muscle memory alone can account for drawing a pulser. A lot more data processing has to happen even prior to that, as you have correctly implied.

Whatever it all takes to put it all together, the memory space required to program it all might can be both expanded and further compressed to support an even more enhanced suite of primitives and programming power.

Consider the case of the Admiral taking a pulser from a drawer by the phone in response to a key phrase and shooting himself. Unless he always stands in the exact same way with respect to the drawer and the pulser never moves about, then even that simple response cannot be "muscle memory" alone: he has to see and grasp the knob on the drawer and then locate and grasp the handle of the pulser. Only after the pulser is in a familiar position in his hand can pure "muscle memory" come into play.

Having said this, I expect the author will want the nanite control to remain limited. It is never going to expend to the intelligent module of Babylon 5, that can sit on the shoulder and control all actions (unless disabled by drinking sufficient alcohol).

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:In fact, if I am truly honest with myself, I truly doubt that muscle memory alone can account for drawing a pulser. A lot more data processing has to happen even prior to that, as you have correctly implied.

Whatever it all takes to put it all together, the memory space required to program it all might can be both expanded and further compressed to support an even more enhanced suite of primitives and programming power.

Consider the case of the Admiral taking a pulser from a drawer by the phone in response to a key phrase and shooting himself. Unless he always stands in the exact same way with respect to the drawer and the pulser never moves about, then even that simple response cannot be "muscle memory" alone: he has to see and grasp the knob on the drawer and then locate and grasp the handle of the pulser. Only after the pulser is in a familiar position in his hand can pure "muscle memory" come into play.

Having said this, I expect the author will want the nanite control to remain limited. It is never going to expend to the intelligent module of Babylon 5, that can sit on the shoulder and control all actions (unless disabled by drinking sufficient alcohol).

Indeed. Not to mention there seems to be a requirement to know a lot of personal things about the victim, like habits. Which may indicate a fly in Honor's ointment.

You are probably right that the author might want to keep the nanites from getting out of control, but if you look at nanites as mere technology, it might be unrealistic for storyline to keep the technology stagnant. Besides, there is room for improvement without it getting out of hand. Like not needing a sample of the victim's DNA which would allow a dose to affect anyone.

cthia wrote:You are probably right that the author might want to keep the nanites from getting out of control, but if you look at nanites as mere technology, it might be unrealistic for storyline to keep the technology stagnant. Besides, there is room for improvement without it getting out of hand. Like not needing a sample of the victim's DNA which would allow a dose to affect anyone.

The nanites are built out of the victim's DNA as a way to eliminate any concerns about the structures being attacked by the victim's immune system. If it were foreign material, then it would be attacked immediately; which would draw medical attention to things that they want to remain secret. Even more worrisome; if it is not tied to specific DNA, then it becomes something that can be passed from person to person. At best that could mean that anyone arrested for jaywalking has an immediate heart attack; I cannot imagine what that might mean at worst.

If the Alignment still has (and moved it to Darius) the single long deceased Tree Cat they would have fun doing a clone or 20 and then raising it to adulthood.
Just think.......a telepathic species , a bunch of FERAL telepathic Treecats with NO adults to teach them anything. They don't vocalize in the human sense although they can learn to associate "mouth sounds" with things and concepts. A TOOL USING telepathic species that -on Sphinx- has a social system that forms and trains the kittens in behavior and controlling their rather impressive ability to commit mayhem.
Sure, the Alignment may have been trolling for data on Treecats for years but that little bit of "needs purple thorn" to properly develop/maintain that mental link capability.

Can you imagine the 1st time some Alignment person walked into a possible Bonding situation with a feral Treecat who has no idea of what is happening as a sub-adult? And what would be the reaction of a feral Treecat who runs into aanipulative, devious (you know, normal Alignment as we have seen them) person and their basic Cat-ness says "Hell NO"?----and goes into an -untrained- Nimitz reaction to the Masada attack on Grayson. Messy.

Do Treecats have any "race memory" or evelutionary hard coding like Terran Cats - Tigers, Lions, Jaguars, Leopards---so their kitten play is practicing hunting?

tlb wrote:Having said this, I expect the author will want the nanite control to remain limited. It is never going to expend to the intelligent module of Babylon 5, that can sit on the shoulder and control all actions (unless disabled by drinking sufficient alcohol).

BTW, has anyone considered this Londo Mollari work around against nanite manipulation? Pretty sure a wasted drunk Rajampet wouldn't have had the coordination to shoot himself.

PS: JMS announced that there's something coming for Babylon 5 in 2023, but won't reveal in what form just yet.

cthia wrote:Regeneration seems to be an untapped field. Limbs and body parts can be regrown, and the MA has the ability to clone, along with their unprecedented ability in the area of genetic research.

Now, Alfred Harrington supposedly did a lot of testing and research on Nimitz trying to honor his promise to Honor to fix Nimitz. Suppose that data got back to the MA, along with ample samples of Cat DNA. Do you doubt what they might be able to do?

Regeneration + cloning + genetic research = homegrown treecat

We don't even know if Alfred's work bore fruit. It's been over a decade and there's been no mention of Nimitz regaining his voice.

That's however not the issue. Alfred did study him, so the data exists and whether the research achieved the goal he set out for is irrelevant. But of all the unadopted humans in the Galaxy, Alfred is the one least likely to make mistakes when it comes to treecats, and that includes taking care of his data. It's probably guarded with a higher secrecy than even the Apollo FTL link, if for no other reason than the team that had access to the data was smaller and there was no manufacturing involved. The MAlign can probably have better hope of convincing a treecat clan to emigrate voluntarily than to get their hands on Alfred's data.

Then there's the issue Brigade brought up: culture. Cloned humans are still in a human society; a cloned treecat is not. The MAlign could have the DNA and clone one, but be unable to predict just how societal treecats behave. Think of an analogy of humans: if we weren't taught to stand up and walk on two legs, wouldn't feral humans simply continue to use hands and feet? Maybe not all the time, but far more frequently than adult humans do, which is practically never. Would a feral human have developed the dexterity to hold a weapon? In the treecat's case, would a feral treecat have known to sheathe their claws? Because if they don't, then the MAlign wouldn't know how to program the muscle memory to unsheathe them in first place before the attack.

Then there's the whole communication and cognition issue. We've just discussed that the nanites must do quite a lot of information processing in order to determine that the trigger conditions have been met. This must have been done by tapping into the signals coming into the brain (unless you suppose that the nanites are literally skin-deep and have formed sensory organs of their own), but this requires training them on a subject that will confirm that they are indeed seeing the conditions. The signal pathways on treecats would be totally different, so they need the treecat subject to confirm what they're seeing / sensing. It's not enough to show a picture; babies know that a picture of someone is not that someone, and you obviously can't bring the target into the training facility.

Even if all of this could be overcome somehow, I don't think it would work. There's rarely a situation where high value targets are in the presence of a single treecat (unless it's their own bodyguard). Treecats can sense the onset of the manipulation on humans; it stands to reason they could even more easily on treecats, possibly sufficiently earlier to neutralise the mind-controlled treecat.

Somtaaw wrote:

cthia wrote:Let's say the MA perfects a nanite-laced neurotoxin that puts 'Cats under compulsion. It's simple command is {kill... everything that is near}.

Well your entire theory falls apart right there, because the nanites aren't actual mind control; it's purely a form of physical/body control. And based on prior history on things like the MAlign being described internally as an onion, and then suddenly the Grand Alliance started using the exact same explanation. So when Honor said that Alfred believed the nanites are transferred muscle memory, similar to how prosthetic limbs learn to function, that's more or less how the nanite assassination technique works in reality.

Tim Meares didn't want to kill anybody, let alone Honor's armsman, but he wasn't in control of his body. And since tree-cats are 6-limbed, it's not exactly going to be very easy for the Alignment to train the nanites to dose a bunch of treecats. And presuming the MAlign somehow did have another good way to train a six-limb version for the nanites, they still don't truly know how treecats attack with intent to kill. Because cats attack so uniquely, that old description of resembling a berserk buzzsaw and each strike isn't very deep but with all six limbs going they can dish out a lot.

The Alignment could steal, buy, or otherwise acquire a high-definition copy of the video of Nimitz & Honor fighting to protect Benjamin Mayhew and tried to copy from that, and it still wouldn't work. Any dosed cat would get exactly one kill and then be more or less stuck. Remember that every known use of the nanites for assassinations, the vehicle stood stationary and didn't move or even crouch to try and take cover, their only movement was with their arms. Reaching down and snagging a nearby pulser, holding down the trigger while waving their arm around an entire CIC is the most movement any assassin has ever done.


But let's say the MAlign manage to break most of their apparent limitations. They dose a cat, and they eventually kill one two-leg, and then they'd be stuck, probably twitching atop the body unable to move further. They can't jump to another person, they can't sprint away, they can't go to try hiding in an airvent, under a couch, or up a tree. Meanwhile all nearby treecats would be able to sense that mind-freeze and communicate to any humans nearby. The simple shock of a treecat suddenly killing a known friendly would be enough shock freeze, even a Grayson armsman or Manticoran Palace Guard wouldn't have even drawn his sidearm before the 'kill' was finished.

cthia wrote:Nice post!

I agree with everything you said. Except, the part about muscle memory. Oh, it has been discussed quite a bit. And textev does mention muscle memory. But I never agreed that muscle memory can account for all of it. Controlling muscle memory can account for a victim drawing a pulser, but, then, actually targeting someone specific, or anyone at all, requires a bit more than just muscle memory.

At any rate, I am positing that the MA may make inroads into their nanite research. It could turn out that Cats are even easier to "control."

Something else just occurred to me. If, if a Cat falls under compulsion, would the Cat emit its snarl?

A Cat's accompanying telltale sign of trouble is its snarl. But victims have never shown the ability to utter any sounds. If a Cat falls under compulsion and does not emit a snarl, then a Cat under compulsion should be able to quickly proceed to his victim without arousing suspicion. I wouldn't think that Cats generally move at a "dignified" pace. Which raises another point, has there ever been a case where a victim was "running?" Or has every attack been a slow, methodical and "night of the living dead" thing?

At any rate, a Cat under compulsion may not get but one kill, but it should almost be a sure kill. You spend that kill on the Queen. Or Honor. Or Benjamin.


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