Why don't they just give up?

penny wrote: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.

The plan was not to get the SLN and the RMN into war, it was to get the SLN and the PRH into war. That war was intended to be a fight between equals; which explains the corruption spread wide in the SLN, they believed the the SLN was nearly invincible and so it needed to be hobbled to make the fight fair.

The Solarian League may have lost territory, but not economic power. Though they may have lost the Verge and some others (such as Beowulf and Maya), the majority of the Core Worlds are still engaged in the League. So the League under the new constitution is still huge compared to the Renaissance Factor, which means the main objective of the Plan is unobtainable: the RF cannot pick up the various pieces and rule all inhabited space.

Moreover both the reinstated Republic of Haven and the revitalized Solarian League have been purged of the corruption introduced by the Malign. So it may take another 600 years to make the conditions again favorable for galactic conquest.

Yes, the goal of uplift will spread across the inhabited worlds with Mesa as a driving force, no longer hindered by Beowulf. But that was the plan of the original Detweiler and definitely NOT that of the Malign.

I agree that the Malign will not willingly give up THEIR plan of galactic conquest and I hope to see how the author has planned to thwart them.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

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.

Absolutely. And since we have no idea where they are in the endgame, and since we do not know what the endgame entails, we can't know if what they have suffered isn't simply a setback.


Off the rails but not off the track implies that there has been a minor accident. And the engine and railcars are still sitting on the track. There was no crash. The cars simply need to be lifted up with the huge hydraulic jacks and "the wheels" placed back on the rails. It implies an accident early on before the train had built up any real speed, akin to the MAlign’s plans before their train was too far into the plan. Afterwards, they can simply pull the switch to detour onto another track.

The Solarian League may still exist and still has a large fleet but Honour's ultimations have created a consitutional crisis and shown that the Fleet has serious security and competence issues. Both are probably limited to internal issues for the next 50 years or so (Prolog people will take the long view and not get on with it, the players of the current status will as ever play for time).

Pruning back Frontier Security and the associated fleets may creat a cashflow problem and gives the Fringe a lot of opportunity. Meanwhile the SLN will have a major funding issue and probably have to downsize it's active fleet - it sure needs to downsize it's command structure and we can't hope that all the incompetents die on questioning.

Unfortunatly the MegaCorps will still exist with the same corporate culture, they will take some significant hits out there in the fringe BUT I doubt that they will change the way they do buisness, I am sure that there will soon be lots of mercenary units working with and for the megaCorps that will create the same enviroment as FF. While the GA is looking for Malign who will keep these in check? I suspect that the RF will play a large role in keeping some of the MegaCorps bad practices going especially where it meets Malign's aims.

Captain Golding wrote:The Solarian League may still exist and still has a large fleet but Honour's ultimations have created a consitutional crisis and shown that the Fleet has serious security and competence issues. Both are probably limited to internal issues for the next 50 years or so (Prolog people will take the long view and not get on with it, the players of the current status will as ever play for time).

Pruning back Frontier Security and the associated fleets may creat a cashflow problem and gives the Fringe a lot of opportunity. Meanwhile the SLN will have a major funding issue and probably have to downsize it's active fleet - it sure needs to downsize it's command structure and we can't hope that all the incompetents die on questioning.

Unfortunatly the MegaCorps will still exist with the same corporate culture, they will take some significant hits out there in the fringe BUT I doubt that they will change the way they do buisness, I am sure that there will soon be lots of mercenary units working with and for the megaCorps that will create the same enviroment as FF. While the GA is looking for Malign who will keep these in check? I suspect that the RF will play a large role in keeping some of the MegaCorps bad practices going especially where it meets Malign's aims.

The "new" League is different from the old one. The people factually in power are responsible to their citizens, due to elections. Also, my guess is that they will allow some kind of direct taxation or other income tapping from the member worlds, so that the government does not need to enslave OFS "protectorates" to get their finances. Additionally, corruption is cut back, which means the system will work a lot more efficient, requiring less money for better effort. And it still is a big player, within a few years, it will catch up with the GA in war fighting technology. Maybe not the exact same technologies, but they will invent at least similarly, probably more effective weapons. The League is bigger than the GA, and technologically on at least the same level, so they have enough smart heads to catch up or develop alternatives.

I agree that the Renaissance Factor will only be able to absorb a fraction of the worlds it should have according to "The Plan". And once the Malignment goes public again, the League, Mesa, Maya Sector (including Torch and Erewhon), the GA members and possibly some other powers and alliances will most probably work together against the Malignment.

As some "influencers", including the Engagement, Honor, and at least parts of the current Beowulf establishment, seem to agree that the Codex is overly strict, the Galaxy will discuss and carefully modernize the Beowulf Codex, permitting more genetic uplift (and thus effectively legalizing the original Detweiler desires), while still prohibiting atrocities like genetic slavery, bio weapon nanotech viruses or the "super soldiers".

This may even turn some Malignment agents like Audrey O'Hanrahan or some RF leaders against the Maligment, as those changes and the original Detweiler idea are enough, and they start to think and oppose the twisted plan of the Malignment. (There's always been some opposition, like Simoes, the McBrydes... it's somehow inevitable when you aim to create smart people, that those people start to think and use ther brains.)

And the other part of my thoughts is that the massive failures and accidents of their plans, even after centuries of preparations, clearly shows that the Alphas are neither perfect, nor superior or better enough to lead the galaxy. When selecting the exceptional people from the whole galaxy, you get a gang which is simply just better than the limited circle of Malignment Alphas. So, for the best of the galaxy, and to advance the ultimate goal of uplifting and evolving humanity, it's suboptimal to limit the rulers of the galaxy to that closed caste of Alphas.

One of the factors for the success of the Manticoran society has been the permeability. Extraordinarily gifted people had the chance to raise up to the high class of society. This process of evolution and selection seems to bring better results than the genetic breeding projects of the long range planning board, which has failed to reach their goals for centuries, and produced collateral damage like Simoes.

This does not preclude genetic improvements in general, it just clearly proves that the limited breeding programs of Malignment Alphas doesn't produce the optimal selection of leaders for the galaxy, as the sum of random mutations, genetic improvements, and other evolution factors within the whole galaxy just produces better results than the limited LRPB lab experiments.

Honors telempathic abilities are just one example of what the galaxy as a whole has produced, but the LRPB could not.

Anal retentive control freaks will disagree, but chaos has its own strengths.
Democracy is an example. As Churchill said "Democracy is not a good system, its only strength is that it's the best of all."
Check out East Germany versus West Germany (Trabants vs Mercedes). Then South Korea versus North Korea (LG and Samsung versus ?".
Taiwan versus China. The per capita productivity is telling.
Lots of other examples, but centralised control tends to lose.

Daryl wrote:Anal retentive control freaks will disagree, but chaos has its own strengths.
Democracy is an example. As Churchill said "Democracy is not a good system, its only strength is that it's the best of all."
Check out East Germany versus West Germany (Trabants vs Mercedes). Then South Korea versus North Korea (LG and Samsung versus ?".
Taiwan versus China. The per capita productivity is telling.
Lots of other examples, but centralised control tends to lose.

I thought Churchill's quote on that was:

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…"

I admit that I should have qualified it with, "words to the effect of". Too lazy to look it up.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:

Daryl wrote:Anal retentive control freaks will disagree, but chaos has its own strengths.
Democracy is an example. As Churchill said "Democracy is not a good system, its only strength is that it's the best of all."
Check out East Germany versus West Germany (Trabants vs Mercedes). Then South Korea versus North Korea (LG and Samsung versus ?".
Taiwan versus China. The per capita productivity is telling.
Lots of other examples, but centralised control tends to lose.

I thought Churchill's quote on that was:

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…"

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

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.

penny wrote:Absolutely. And since we have no idea where they are in the endgame, and since we do not know what the endgame entails, we can't know if what they have suffered isn't simply a setback.


Off the rails but not off the track implies that there has been a minor accident. And the engine and railcars are still sitting on the track. There was no crash. The cars simply need to be lifted up with the huge hydraulic jacks and "the wheels" placed back on the rails. It implies an accident early on before the train had built up any real speed, akin to the MAlign’s plans before their train was too far into the plan. Afterwards, they can simply pull the switch to detour onto another track.

Hold that thought.

The Alignment’s plans came off the rails. Not off the track, but off the rails.

I failed to mention that the path I think their plan was following before it came off the track was THE NICE PLAN. I never doubted for a moment that the Alignment's backup plan was to include letting the hammer down. If the MAN attack specific systems in the SL they can make it appear as if the SL can't protect them. That would enable the RF to woo other systems away from them by offering protection. Of course the MA won't attack RF aligned systems. The MA might also be able to woo other systems away from the “mutual ownership” of the GA.

I can hear the conversation a century or two ago.

“OK then. If you think you can cajole them into fighting each other and yadda yadda yadda. But if all else fails, the LDs ride.”

Come on. Ultimately the plan was a smash and grab all along. Did we really ever doubt that? LoL



The LD Contingency

penny wrote:I can hear the conversation a century or two ago.

“OK then. If you think you can cajole them into fighting each other and yadda yadda yadda. But if all else fails, the LDs ride.”

Come on. Ultimately the plan was a smash and grab all along. Did we really ever doubt that? LoL



The LD Contingency

That much I'm sure we can say didn't happen. The breakthroughs that led to the spider drive aren't a century or two old (more like a decade old; at most).

So they wouldn't know known back then that they'd have ultra-stealthy ships when the main plan went into its active phase.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:I can hear the conversation a century or two ago.

“OK then. If you think you can cajole them into fighting each other and yadda yadda yadda. But if all else fails, the LDs ride.”

Come on. Ultimately the plan was a smash and grab all along. Did we really ever doubt that? LoL



The LD Contingency

That much I'm sure we can say didn't happen. The breakthroughs that led to the spider drive aren't a century or two old (more like a decade old; at most).

So they wouldn't know known back then that they'd have ultra-stealthy ships when the main plan went into its active phase.

The Galton fleet is more indicative of the original plan before the Spider drive - They had about 40 tube SDs (and ~2 squadrons of Podlayers). Galton would have been the original powerhouse mass producing tube, then Podlaying SDs - then Darius became the focus, finally getting to the size with sufficient production assets just in time for the spider drive revolution.