Why don't they just give up?

tlb wrote:d about Visigoth, because by that logic they should not be a member either. Is this something that was changed in the later books, where it was made clear that the RF is off in a corner of the map and not part of the Solarian League?

To Die in Fire I believe made an offhand comment about Mannerhiem being on ~opposite side of the league from Manticore/Haven and that the Renaissance Factor league of nations just formed~.

I was assuming the RF star systems are all near Mannerhiem

Warner is near as well along with GALTON... well ~200 LY or thereabouts "near"

Relax wrote:To Die in Fire I believe made an offhand comment about Mannerhiem being on ~opposite side of the league from Manticore/Haven and that the Renaissance Factor league of nations just formed~.

I was assuming the RF star systems are all near Mannerhiem

Same here. But Visigoth is not "in a corner." It's inside of the League and home to one of the earliest wormholes discovered.

Maybe Visigoth hasn't declared for the RF yet.

Warner is near as well along with GALTON... well ~200 LY or thereabouts "near"

Warner is not an RF member. It showed up in the discussion because of the Warner-Mannerheim warp bridge, which is the oldest one discovered.

Galton stands alone at the end of a logistics trail that was primarily operating when Galton was being built until it's own artificial birthing industry (service, whatever label you want to apply, it's iffy) got large enough to supply both the continued growth of it's population and the replacement of those "serfs" who were brought in to start with.

But as a source of ships to augment whatever the details of The Plan before the Spider Drive was developed and found practical, you have to wonder. Remember Monica and the apparently emergency scramble of the Alignment to give Monica those "retired" SLN BCs? Nice piece of work and if Hexapuma's Captain had not stepped up to try and stop it while sending back the warning of what was happening it might of worked. But that's just an opening to ask how many ships over the years were retired from SLN and effectively sold off instead of being scrapped with those ships going somewhere like Galton for refit and rebuild? How many would have been questioned -under whatever false flag they might have been using- though some of the wormhole bridges? Once they got to Galton, they could be modified in all sorts of ways and then form a working force training for "The Plan". How many of them do you think would- if they were damaged and in danger of being captured by someone- would not spontaneously self destruct in classic Alignment mode? Ok they were SLN designed....but now so much expanding gas and debris fields.

The initial RF members were all courting other systems (some of which begged off initially) which would have built out the membership but your still looking at a wide mix of ships with the true future core of the RF being secrets Alignment Alphas. Sigh. Too complex. Where is the really large fleets of Galton ships that have been training for more than decades to be available as the shadow attack fleets to eliminate various problems in the disposal of the SLN (and RHN) and blow out systems infrastructure structures in variations of Oyster Bay. We don't see it. We have never seen it. Sigh.

Brigade XO wrote:The initial RF members were all courting other systems (some of which begged off initially) which would have built out the membership but your still looking at a wide mix of ships with the true future core of the RF being secrets Alignment Alphas. Sigh. Too complex. Where is the really large fleets of Galton ships that have been training for more than decades to be available as the shadow attack fleets to eliminate various problems in the disposal of the SLN (and RHN) and blow out systems infrastructure structures in variations of Oyster Bay. We don't see it. We have never seen it. Sigh.

Yup, MASSIVE plot hole

One of those gargantuan, Uh, say what moments? Just how are you going to take over the HV without THOUSANDS of warships and millions of trained personnel??? Things that fell through when timeline was moved up to keep Honor alive.

PS: We have other nations which are not quite subsummed by the RF "genetic superhumans". I believe it was stated as Warner was one of them. Maybe that was what I was remembering. I still do not believe that in any rational universe a super human genetic superiority complex could create a decades long conspiracy that is kept secret let alone hundreds of years. Not how humanity works. Self important people LOVE to listen to themselves talk. Not possible to "genetically" engineer this bloviating out of humanity. That character trait is NOT genetics.

I have always stood in awe of RFC's ability to craft an entire consistent universe, leading on from a single stand alone novel. He has held it together for well over 20 years, and I salute him. However it may now be best to tie up the loose ends, leaving the HV, at a point that another (lesser) author can pick up in a few years. Go and do his fun projects and universes, leaving those on here to argue about his still remarkable consistency.

Relax wrote:

markusschaber wrote:Why doesn't the alignment just give up? They've demonstrated that their planning doesn't work out at all,

Why? They are human

Smart & Dumb humans think they are BETTER than others and THEY should dictate how others live their lives. True in ALL of history. They are Bullies.

This God complex happens most often in children who grow up with a golden spoon in their mouth without other siblings to hammer down the basic fact THEY are NOT special.

So, we have "Special" genetic kids who KNOW they are "special", who get dumped into positions of power due to genetics AND heredity where they get to dictate. In this scenario, any bully who gets in charge will get RID of anyone who is NOT a bully as said bully will trust other bullies but anyone who is NOT a bully they will NEVER trust. In other words how CORRUPTION happens in EVERY society over time and why civilizations FALL on about ~150 year timeframes unless events happen which eliminate the power structures in government/industry/banking.

As for why do they not give up? Bullies NEVER give up until smashed in the mouth.

Until VERY VERY recently the MALIGN have never been smashed in the face with reality disturbing their god complex. Bullies who eventually get smashed in the mouth do one of two things. Either they quietly slink away and pretend they were never involved(a decidedly deadly Alpha/Beta/gamma line problem with nanotech dumped into their bloodstream + the all present wet work teams they all know will be hunting them) OR, bullies always DOUBLE down on intransigence. Said bullies NEVER give up until they are FORCED to grovel and even then they will not give up and unfortunately, throughout history, the ONLY solution is DEATH or imprisonment.

That's an interesting POV. I've never seem them like bullies. Probably, you're right. At least, they have in common some bigger aspects of their mindset.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:No, the spider drive wasn't planned before the spider drive became theoretically possible. We don't know when that is. I will freely admit that it may have been centuries ago that the theory was laid out and only the MAlign paid attention to it because it knew something no one else did (probably because they suppressed it). But more likely than not, if it his had been the case, they'd have abandoned a research proposal that hadn't panned out in centuries.

So it's far more likely that the initial theoretical breakthrough is no more than 50 years old and the last big engineering challenges were only overcome 25 years ago. Until this had been show to be a viable alternative, it would not have been made their central plan.

It might have been there for some time. Theoretical papers, maybe from some physicists in some backwater university, but no practical appliance. Similar to some current pyhsical papers suggesting the theoretical possiblity of implementing FTL drives using artificial gravity, or negative masses. Theoretical papers, nothing more.

Why should someone develop some "alternative" propulsion system which is less energy efficient, provides far lower acceleration rates and doesn't work within grav waves, when impeller technology is established, proven, "cheaply" available and far superior, as everyone knows?