Spoiler for "What Price Victory"

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:If Allison had stayed on Beowulf, then there would not be a Nimitz; Honor (assuming the marriage still went through) would more likely be working for the Biological Survey Corps, like her uncle.

cthia wrote:So Allison would have turned into her mother by short stopping Honor's wishes of joining the navy?

There would still be a Nimitz even if he had bonded with someone else. Soulmates are destined to meet. Especially when there is a natural device contained within Cats that identify soulmates. Honor would have joined the Navy, and still met Nimitz. Even if not, the treecats are citizens as well.

At any rate, my point still stands.

Why say Allison would turn into her mother? I said that Honor would join Beowulf's armed forces, since that is where they are living. Anyway you were just defending Allison's mother for wanting her daughter to conform.

If there is not someone like Honor on that one specific day, then Nimitz dies trying protect his brother from the Peak Bear family.

Sorry, but I don't see how Nimitz' life would be greater than such a breakthrough for the entire treecat species.

Forest for trees.

At any rate, if Nimitz had not been bonded with Honor at that time, he never would have been at his brother's location anyway. Only his brother would have died.

cthia wrote:At any rate, if Nimitz had not been bonded with Honor at that time, he never would have been at his brother's location anyway. Only his brother would have died.

How do you figure that? The actual bonding occurred after the Peak Bear parents were shot. Laughs Brightly was sent by the leaders to check on fish population and his younger brother decides to go along; so nothing to do with Honor.

Anyway, if Allison stays in Beowulf, how do you count that as a gain for all treecats? There is NO reason to suppose she would work on treecat injury resolution and every reason to suppose she would not; after all she is a geneticist, not a trauma doctor.

cthia wrote:
Sounds like Grayson to me. Allison became a witch doctor. On Beowulf, she may have come up with original breakthroughs* - like the MA - in addition to solutions to old problems.

*Like the aforementioned original breakthrough which would involve treecats. Think how important it would be if Nimitz could regenerate.

Actually, living on Sphinx was the worry - even in the SKM it was considered a backwater with low populations, centuries after it was first colonized. and the SKM, despite it riches even at that time, was seen as a backwater to the 1st colony, Beowulf.

19th century Boston or New York would be the analogy for Landing on Manticore in my anology, where Allison finished her higher education at Queen's University Hospital - the equivalent of Harvard or Columbia. However, this education was overshadowed by that of Beowulf's - even though the education would be no better, having the name (like a Cambridge education), means something to someone of that ilk. So even that step (before she opened her practice on Sphinx) was seen as a step down.

I'm with TLB on this one, Beowulfs's "open society" would have stifled Allison. She would have become another cookie cutter cog in the massive machine at Beowulf - and important one, yes, but still a part of the machinery.

Instead she set herself to be independent - she was the one who moved her clinic to Grayson, who looked at the problems and she was the one who fixed them. Beowulf never would have looked into that - they focus was too close. She blazed her own path, and was more successful than could be otherwise.

Theemile wrote:I'm with TLB on this one, Beowulfs's "open society" would have stifled Allison. She would have become another cookie cutter cog in the massive machine at Beowulf - and important one, yes, but still a part of the machinery.

Instead she set herself to be independent - she was the one who moved her clinic to Grayson, who looked at the problems and she was the one who fixed them. Beowulf never would have looked into that - they focus was too close. She blazed her own path, and was more successful than could be otherwise.

Let me try this again.

I understand why you side with tlb. I side with him on this as well, for the most part. However, my point still stands, but I shall attempt to make that point clearer.


But first. There is no question that Allison made the right decision. For herself.

"Above all one must remain true to thine self."


I am sure her mother has come to accept that as well. I agree that if she had remained on Beowulf, she would have felt stifled. Of course she would have felt that way. She did not want to be there. My parents always stressed an education. "An education will afford you the opportunity of seeking and accepting a career that you like instead of seeking and accepting a career or job that you need." It is the same notion of being successful enough to be able to marry for love, and not for money. There is nothing better than liking the career or job or marriage that you have. Your performance will be unmatched when you are happy.

BUT! "IF" Allison had wanted to remain on Beowulf and follow the path her mother had hoped for her, the field as a whole would have been much better off. The sort of things the Beowulf establishment tackles are of paramount importance to the whole of mankind. For lack of a better example, I would equate the problems Beowulf routinely tackles with the fifteen original Millennium problems of the mathematics world. Seven remain unsolved.

Her mother's reaction, though severe, had merit. Essentially Allison went to work in a local clinic compared to what was laid out for her. Clinics need good doctors too. The poor deserve good medical treatment as well. As does poor countries. That whole notion is what fuels the concept of "Doctors without borders." But the truth of the matter is that Allison will not be tackling mankind's biggest problems. There is no doubt that Allison is one of the galaxy's best geneticists, and for that reason alone I am not surprised in the very least that she solved Grayson's problem and that she was able to assure Emily a child that would regenerate. But at the risk of sharpened pitchforks again, I always felt those accomplishments should have been child's play for any good geneticist; which didn't need the big guns represented by Allison.

So, to sum this up and to speak for Allison's mother, imagine the Millennium problems of the geneticist's world that would have been solved by Allison, had she wanted to remain on Beowulf, and had. Those problems remain unsolved.

cthia wrote:But the truth of the matter is that Allison will not be tackling mankind's biggest problems. There is no doubt that Allison is one of the galaxy's best geneticists, and for that reason alone I am not surprised in the very least that she solved Grayson's problem and that she was able to assure Emily a child that would regenerate. But at the risk of sharpened pitchforks again, I always felt those accomplishments should have been child's play for any good geneticist; which didn't need the big guns represented by Allison.

The text specifically said that the problem of regeneration in the bulk of Mayerdahl-B genies had NOT been solved by Beowulf. Perhaps she started in the equivalent of a local health clinic, but Honor gave her a lab that was equivalent to the best that was on Beowulf.

Perhaps you are right or perhaps at Beowulf she would have forced to administer a team of researchers, rather than doing the work herself. There is no way to know; but I doubt that her mother's unhappiness was based on the loss to humanity, I suspect that it was pure selfishness (another thing we will not know).

[quote="tlb]

How "much more rewarding and successful would her career have been if she had remained on Beowulf"; where if she stayed tied to her mother's apron-strings, she would not have found a solution to Grayson's disparity in baby survival rates nor found the gene defect that prevents 80% of the Meyerdahl genies from regeneration? Either of those feats would career defining for another geneticist.

The person that was incredibly selfish was Allison's mother and it is clear why Allison needed to get away from her.[/quote]

When did Allison resolve the Heyerdahl non-regeneration problem? She solved Emily's non-regeneration issue, but there's no mention of Emily being Meyerdahl, nor that her genetic issues are related to the Meyerdahl enhancement suite. She's more likely to carry at least part of the Winton enhancement package, as a semi-distant relative of Elizabeth's.

tlb wrote:How "much more rewarding and successful would her career have been if she had remained on Beowulf"; where if she stayed tied to her mother's apron-strings, she would not have found a solution to Grayson's disparity in baby survival rates nor found the gene defect that prevents 80% of the Meyerdahl genies from regeneration? Either of those feats would career defining for another geneticist.

Fox2! wrote:When did Allison resolve the Heyerdahl non-regeneration problem? She solved Emily's non-regeneration issue, but there's no mention of Emily being Meyerdahl, nor that her genetic issues are related to the Meyerdahl enhancement suite. She's more likely to carry at least part of the Winton enhancement package, as a semi-distant relative of Elizabeth's.

From Chapter 16 of At All Costs:

"Maybe not, but then again," Allison grinned suddenly, "that's my job."
"Your job?" Emily looked at her, and Allison nodded.
"You know what Honor's been through in terms of physical injury. Nothing that's happened to her was as severe as what happened to you, but it was more than enough to make her worry about passing her inability to regenerate on to her children. Fortunately for her, her mother happens—if I may be pardoned for blowing my own horn—to be one of the Star Kingdom's leading geneticists. I made identifying the gene group which prevents her from regenerating a personal project, and I found it years ago. The problem child is a dominant, unfortunately, but it's not associated with the locked sequences of the Meyerdahl modifications—if it were, Alfred wouldn't regenerate either, and he does—so it's not automatically selected for at fertilization. Once I'd determined that, I also determined that she carries it only on the chromosome she received from her father, and I've done a scan on her child. As a result of which, I was able to reassure her that she hasn't passed it along to him."

A little bit later, there is this exchange:

"You might say she imbibed it with her mother's milk," Allison agreed. "Bad science, no doubt, but I did breast-feed, and having a direct ancestor's signature on the Cherwell Convention didn't hurt, I suppose." She smiled thinly. "My point, however, is that if I come across as sounding just a bit breezily confident, I come by it honestly. I can't give you an absolute, categorical assurance that you and Hamish could produce a biological child who will regenerate. The probability that you couldn't, especially with my intervention, is so vanishingly small I literally couldn't quantify it, but it does exist. What I can guarantee you, however, is that with my intervention you won't produce a child who can't regenerate."

So she did NOT solve Emily's regeneration problem; she was just confident that a child could be selected that did not have that problem.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:But the truth of the matter is that Allison will not be tackling mankind's biggest problems. There is no doubt that Allison is one of the galaxy's best geneticists, and for that reason alone I am not surprised in the very least that she solved Grayson's problem and that she was able to assure Emily a child that would regenerate. But at the risk of sharpened pitchforks again, I always felt those accomplishments should have been child's play for any good geneticist; which didn't need the big guns represented by Allison.

The text specifically said that the problem of regeneration in the bulk of Mayerdahl-B genies had NOT been solved by Beowulf.

See? They needed her.

tlb wrote: Perhaps she started in the equivalent of a local health clinic, but Honor gave her a lab that was equivalent to the best that was on Beowulf.

Though that was a nice gesture by Honor, you do know that a building and a lab does not an established research facility and infrastructure make.

tlb wrote:Perhaps you are right or perhaps at Beowulf she would have forced to administer a team of researchers, rather than doing the work herself. There is no way to know; but I doubt that her mother's unhappiness was based on the loss to humanity, I suspect that it was pure selfishness (another thing we will not know).

Not forced to accept a team of researchers, but damn happy to have them. Essentially, Allison would have been the Sonja Hemphill leading the R&D.

cthia wrote:But the truth of the matter is that Allison will not be tackling mankind's biggest problems. There is no doubt that Allison is one of the galaxy's best geneticists, and for that reason alone I am not surprised in the very least that she solved Grayson's problem and that she was able to assure Emily a child that would regenerate. But at the risk of sharpened pitchforks again, I always felt those accomplishments should have been child's play for any good geneticist; which didn't need the big guns represented by Allison.

tlb wrote:The text specifically said that the problem of regeneration in the bulk of Mayerdahl-B genies had NOT been solved by Beowulf.

cthia wrote:See? They needed her.

You are trying to have it both ways. You probably were correct the first time and it could have been solved by any good geneticist. Which means that Beowulf is not looking at any list of mankind's greatest problems. The way it works at a big research establishment, is that the most important problems are the ones with the biggest funding; because big establishments require big bucks to keep to them running. You only need to look at the list of orphan and rare diseases to see what is being ignored today.

Problems like failure to regenerate among most Meyerdahl-B genies or sexual disparity among Grayson births don't get the funding, so do not get the attention.