Why don't they just give up?

Why doesn't the alignment just give up? They've demonstrated that their planning doesn't work out at all, they're making one mistake after another, and they killed too many people, just to fail at the end.

Exceptional "normalos" like Zilwicki, Cachat or Palane, together with genetically enhanced non-member humans like Honor or Elisabeth managed to uncover most of their secrets anyways.

While the "superior" Alpha lines fail the Talboot sabotage by using the same Transporter for two different causes, start Houdini too late (although the've seen it coming for much longer), use their nanotech for Grosclaude in Haven (thus making it clear Haven has been manipulated), kill too many people in a too obvious way in Beowulf (and thus pointing out it's really the Alignment behind it), completely misestimate the GAs reaction to Beowulf, etc., just to end up with a still existing League (yes, smaller, but much more stable and less easier to be manipulated, and on good terms with the GA and other "new" powers like the Maya/Erewhon nation), loose Galton, ...

Apart from the fact that it's morally wrong to force their dictatorship on the universe (and they know about morals, that's why they killed Janice Marinescu, as she liked killing too much), they should just understand it's been proven by now that their alpha lines are not superior to the best of the "normals", and thus - iff they aim for humanity to be lead by the best - they're not the ones. So they should just surrender.

People, who fully commit to a cause, may practice morality in some small ways; but still can believe that their cause is so correct that all is justified. Consider the conspirators in Flag in Exile; who did not lose faith in their cause, even though it led to the death of children.

A famous example of this occurred in France in the Massacre at Béziers that occurred on 22 July 1209, when heretics were challenging the Catholic Church. The city was besieged by forces of the Church and the King. Wikipedia has this quote about what happened when the city fell:

When they discovered, from the admissions of some of them, that there were Catholics mingled with the heretics they said to the abbot "Sir, what shall we do, for we cannot distinguish between the faithful and the heretics." The abbot, like the others, was afraid that many, in fear of death, would pretend to be Catholics, and after their departure, would return to their heresy, and is said to have replied "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius – Kill them all for the Lord knoweth them that are His" (2 Tim. ii. 19) and so countless number in that town were slain.

At Air Defense School the joke motto was "Shoot them down and sort them out on the ground".

The Alignment- the highest leadership and a great number of those we have seen- are "True Believers". Mistakes can be made, underlings may fail, their plans may be thwarted by forces beyond their control and (horrors) some of those forces might be "lost" members of Alpha lines- like Honor Harrington, but they will adjust the planning and continue to move forward to the ultimate end which is the Alpha's and the Alignment taking their place controlling all the lesser beings in the Galaxy. It's just going to take more time, rework the plans and kill a hell of a lot more people.

They don't care how many people they kill, as long as it brings their ascension to dominance over humanity- at one step removed so nobody can ever get to them. The whole Puppet Master routine. They were setting up Republic of Haven to be their butchers in crushing the League after turning the much of the League's management/leadership into a variation on kleptocracy on a galactic scale and using Frontier Security as a gang of brutal, money loving criminals who crush systems by instigating problems in the systems and rushing in to "help" them at the cost of making them little more than serfs if not outright slaves of the locals who "ask them in."

Death on a planetary system scale- for somebody else's planet- heck for butchers all those people on Mesa with Houdini and they they did it to Galton (well the "sacrificed Galton" to the GA to misdirect the GA's hunting the Alighnment) and the expectation was that there would be massive slaughter in many forms as the SL went down in pieces and the RF was slated to be a safe haven (which would also then rebuild the philosophies (and moralities) of the effected systems to be more amenab to the ultimate rule of the Alignment.

The Alignment literally can't quit now. Too many things that have to be brought back under control or misdirected away from them. They MAY back off the tiniest bit but they have to go back to setting up scapegoats and alternative targets. They have to fix The Plan even they have to reinvent the plan as long as it ultimately puts them in ultimate contro.

Sigh

Reasons of plot?
For me the answer would have been akin to Safehold, but retaining their tech. Set up on a planet very well clear of the known universe, having traveled at FTL for a number of months/years.
Then press on with research across all disciplines. A milennia later come back with crushing technology advances. Assuming they were superior humans, it should have been straighforward. However planning often is inferior to chaotic humanity.

The societies they've created are monstrous traps. Whether slave or elite you cannot dissent, or you will be corrected. With Leonard long dead, even Albrecht did not have the power to halt the Alignment's grand mission.

The relatively few individuals allowed outside of their closed systems are wired with suicide protocols, unable to defect nor desert.

The authoritarianism and indoctrination is so extreme that even if the rulers unanimously agreed to abort the Detweiler project, there is a chance that the classes below them would revolt to prevent them from doing so, with a new ideologically-loyalist elite rising up to replace the obviously defective and restore order.

The whole thing has been carefully designed so that external interventions are the only thing capable of rerouting them. Opportunities to derail the project from inside are so vanishingly rare they may be unique - or not exist at all.

To give up means that they have to realize that they had killed millions of people for nothing. They will not make that admission.

Brigade XO wrote:The Alignment- the highest leadership and a great number of those we have seen- are "True Believers". Mistakes can be made, underlings may fail, their plans may be thwarted by forces beyond their control and (horrors) some of those forces might be "lost" members of Alpha lines- like Honor Harrington, but they will adjust the planning and continue to move forward to the ultimate end which is the Alpha's and the Alignment taking their place controlling all the lesser beings in the Galaxy. It's just going to take more time, rework the plans and kill a hell of a lot more people.

They don't care how many people they kill, as long as it brings their ascension to dominance over humanity- at one step removed so nobody can ever get to them. The whole Puppet Master routine. They were setting up Republic of Haven to be their butchers in crushing the League after turning the much of the League's management/leadership into a variation on kleptocracy on a galactic scale and using Frontier Security as a gang of brutal, money loving criminals who crush systems by instigating problems in the systems and rushing in to "help" them at the cost of making them little more than serfs if not outright slaves of the locals who "ask them in."

Death on a planetary system scale- for somebody else's planet- heck for butchers all those people on Mesa with Houdini and they they did it to Galton (well the "sacrificed Galton" to the GA to misdirect the GA's hunting the Alighnment) and the expectation was that there would be massive slaughter in many forms as the SL went down in pieces and the RF was slated to be a safe haven (which would also then rebuild the philosophies (and moralities) of the effected systems to be more amenab to the ultimate rule of the Alignment.

The Alignment literally can't quit now. Too many things that have to be brought back under control or misdirected away from them. They MAY back off the tiniest bit but they have to go back to setting up scapegoats and alternative targets. They have to fix The Plan even they have to reinvent the plan as long as it ultimately puts them in ultimate contro.

Sigh

I am going to have to side with the XO here. Who said they've demonstrated their plans don't work out? I disagree. Look at how much has gone right. A hidden entity was successful at putting the SLN and the RMN at war. They played Byng like the pied Piper. That was brilliant! Sure, it didn't quite work out as they planned, but do consider that the SL has broken apart.

Things went wrong along the way? Sure they did. But if you consider that the plan was a centuries old plan, the things that went right are amazing. Best laid plans of mice and men. They have not lost. IINM the author said they have already accomplished their goal of uplift.

Surely you don't seriously expect an entity who has devoutly invested their emotions, resources, time, effort and hatred into something for centuries ... CENTURIES??? ... to simply toss it.

penny wrote:I am going to have to side with the XO here. Who said they've demonstrated their plans don't work out? I disagree. Look at how much has gone right. A hidden entity was successful at putting the SLN and the RMN at war. They played Byng like the pied Piper. That was brilliant! Sure, it didn't quite work out as they planned, but do consider that the SL has broken apart.

Things went wrong along the way? Sure they did. But if you consider that the plan was a centuries old plan, the things that went right are amazing. Best laid plans of mice and men. They have not lost. IINM the author said they have already accomplished their goal of uplift.

Benjamin Detweiler in TEiF was thinking that "the Detweiler Plan was well and truly off the rails."

But I agree: this doesn't say that the Plan failed. It just means it hasn't worked as well as it should have and the future of it is in doubt, unless they fix it. Which they plan on doing. So they have a plan to fix The Plan. Or at least a plan to have a plan to fix The Plan.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:I am going to have to side with the XO here. Who said they've demonstrated their plans don't work out? I disagree. Look at how much has gone right. A hidden entity was successful at putting the SLN and the RMN at war. They played Byng like the pied Piper. That was brilliant! Sure, it didn't quite work out as they planned, but do consider that the SL has broken apart.

Things went wrong along the way? Sure they did. But if you consider that the plan was a centuries old plan, the things that went right are amazing. Best laid plans of mice and men. They have not lost. IINM the author said they have already accomplished their goal of uplift.

Benjamin Detweiler in TEiF was thinking that "the Detweiler Plan was well and truly off the rails."

But I agree: this doesn't say that the Plan failed. It just means it hasn't worked as well as it should have and the future of it is in doubt, unless they fix it. Which they plan on doing. So they have a plan to fix The Plan. Or at least a plan to have a plan to fix The Plan.

Off the rails but not off the track.

As I said before. A bunch of paranoid Alphas are not going to take centuries to form a plan without realizing the need for a contingency plan along the way. Houdini was such a a plan; an intermediate contingency plan. The MAlign needs a long range contingency plan. That sounds like something that would come from the alphas of the Long Range Planning Board. The MAlign had a long time to discuss this in each others’ gardens over the years, err decades, err centuries. And if the Detweilers are bullish on the failures of the Inner Onion, they should be more bullish on themselves. Failure is not an option for the MAlign. Failure would flush everything they've achieved out the airlock. Talk about a total misuse of time. If the galaxy has given them lemons, they will simply start serving lemonade.

penny wrote:Off the rails but not off the track.

Isn't that the same? The rails are the track a train follows, so if it is not on the rails, it's by definition not on track any more.

As I said before. A bunch of paranoid Alphas are not going to take centuries to form a plan without realizing the need for a contingency plan along the way. Houdini was such a a plan; an intermediate contingency plan. The MAlign needs a long range contingency plan. That sounds like something that would come from the alphas of the Long Range Planning Board. The MAlign had a long time to discuss this in each others’ gardens over the years, err decades, err centuries. And if the Detweilers are bullish on the failures of the Inner Onion, they should be more bullish on themselves. Failure is not an option for the MAlign. Failure would flush everything they've achieved out the airlock. Talk about a total misuse of time. If the galaxy has given them lemons, they will simply start serving lemonade.

Agreed. The fact that the tactical and operational goals failed does not mean the strategic goals have, or that the long-term objective is no longer achievable.