In defence of…M’Alignment

I honestly would not have to much problems with the original detwiler plan. It makes a lot of sense instead of terraforming planets to suite people to modify the people to their environments. Doing this potentially adds a lot of habitable worlds available while not destroying the local environment of those worlds but introducing massive amounts of invasive species.

What the malignment turned the plan into in the end will be a human ant colony. Which is awesome if you are a king or queen in the ant hive but much less awesome if you are a low caste worker bee dictated to your position by your genes.

The other factor is just looking at what human selective breeding has done to horses/dogs it is pretty apparent people make really dumb choices for reasons of aesthetics or for short term goals.

Right now there are pure bred dogs that have been modified by breeding to be some persons ideal of cute such as pugs. But doing this has loaded them up with insane amounts of genetic damage such as problems where the skull of the dog is to small for the brain and once they hit a certain age they go into seizures and die as their brain squashes itself to death.

I would never trust their engineers to not over a long period of time due to fashion or choices to cause large portions of the population into genetic disaster areas doomed to pain and short lifespans while trying to attain some specific goal of some beurocrat in their breeding program.

kaid wrote:I would never trust their engineers to not over a long period of time due to fashion or choices to cause large portions of the population into genetic disaster areas doomed to pain and short lifespans while trying to attain some specific goal of some beurocrat in their breeding program.

Actually, from Torch of Freedom we learn that they have done exactly that. The hierarchy of Manpower has deliberately bred in genetic diseases to shorten lifespans. That is one of the things that the Immigration Bureau on Torch checks for in all new settlers. There is a large base of data on both the diseases and the medical treatments.

KNick wrote:

kaid wrote:I would never trust their engineers to not over a long period of time due to fashion or choices to cause large portions of the population into genetic disaster areas doomed to pain and short lifespans while trying to attain some specific goal of some beurocrat in their breeding program.

Actually, from Torch of Freedom we learn that they have done exactly that. The hierarchy of Manpower has deliberately bred in genetic diseases to shorten lifespans. That is one of the things that the Immigration Bureau on Torch checks for in all new settlers. There is a large base of data on both the diseases and the medical treatments.

That's another part of the background that makes my eyes cross. From a business standpoint the last thing you want in your domestic product is a short life-span. In your export product, yes, since it's repeat business. In your domestic product you're simply wasting resources on growing the slaves just to throw them away earlier than you need to.

It would be far simpler to engineer them so they couldn't breed, and then work on reducing the "manufacturing" expense.

As far as the kind of genetic problems you see in pure-breed dogs, cats and horses, no, I wouldn't expect that outside of "exotics" like the sex slave (Ginny) and entertainer (Jerremy X) lines. The other lines have real work to do. Even then, the problems are caused by inbreeding - there's no genetic diversity left, which doesn't allow culling of the unfit - they're all unfit.

JohnRoth wrote:That's another part of the background that makes my eyes cross. From a business standpoint the last thing you want in your domestic product is a short life-span. In your export product, yes, since it's repeat business. In your domestic product you're simply wasting resources on growing the slaves just to throw them away earlier than you need to.

It would be far simpler to engineer them so they couldn't breed, and then work on reducing the "manufacturing" expense.

As far as the kind of genetic problems you see in pure-breed dogs, cats and horses, no, I wouldn't expect that outside of "exotics" like the sex slave (Ginny) and entertainer (Jerremy X) lines. The other lines have real work to do. Even then, the problems are caused by inbreeding - there's no genetic diversity left, which doesn't allow culling of the unfit - they're all unfit.

I think the idea is most slaves are working in conditions that they have limited lifespans anyway. When you look at the economics of high-tech slavery, the only way slavery in a highly technologicalsociety makes sense is when you need a disposable workforce - because these are the jobs paid workers won't do or will complain about doing. Let's face it, if you need cheap workers, go to a place like Dresden or Split, offer pittance wages (which are still probably 2x what they could get locally) and people will be fighting to get on the ship - unless the job is a death sentence.

If you design in a lifespan just a couple years longer than you expect a slave to last in a death sentence job, you can be sure you are only getting the escapees.

JohnRoth wrote:That's another part of the background that makes my eyes cross. From a business standpoint the last thing you want in your domestic product is a short life-span. In your export product, yes, since it's repeat business. In your domestic product you're simply wasting resources on growing the slaves just to throw them away earlier than you need to.

It would be far simpler to engineer them so they couldn't breed, and then work on reducing the "manufacturing" expense.

As far as the kind of genetic problems you see in pure-breed dogs, cats and horses, no, I wouldn't expect that outside of "exotics" like the sex slave (Ginny) and entertainer (Jerremy X) lines. The other lines have real work to do. Even then, the problems are caused by inbreeding - there's no genetic diversity left, which doesn't allow culling of the unfit - they're all unfit.

This was in the export product.

If you want to explore the heart of darkness, consider the sex slaves.

In market terms, there is generally a sufficient supply of prostitutes available in a society for "standard services".

But, some "clients" have special "tastes"; children, pubescents, those who can be beaten, those who can be tortured, those who can be "used up" if the price is right. And, novelty is part of the business, Many of those who like a familiar face can be satisfied by the normal market. Those wanting someone new every time are the target audience. None of these considerations suggest that the "product" should have a long "service life". And, "retirees" would be "retired" definitively less they set up shop as competitors or seek revenge or just go blabbing.

Now, less exotic lines would have longer "service life". "Comfort detachments" for the the client's troops should be cheap and durable. And, some clients may prefer familiarity and specify a long service life in their "ideal product".

SWM wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:That's another part of the background that makes my eyes cross. From a business standpoint the last thing you want in your domestic product is a short life-span. In your export product, yes, since it's repeat business. In your domestic product you're simply wasting resources on growing the slaves just to throw them away earlier than you need to.

It would be far simpler to engineer them so they couldn't breed, and then work on reducing the "manufacturing" expense.

As far as the kind of genetic problems you see in pure-breed dogs, cats and horses, no, I wouldn't expect that outside of "exotics" like the sex slave (Ginny) and entertainer (Jerremy X) lines. The other lines have real work to do. Even then, the problems are caused by inbreeding - there's no genetic diversity left, which doesn't allow culling of the unfit - they're all unfit.

This was in the export product.

Pretty much my point, yes.

waddles for desert wrote:Mesa is about vindication and vendetta.

They were free to tailor there own people to Mesa's biome.

They had the vastness of the Verge and Beyond to share their gifts with.

On the time scale they plan for, they they could have led those regions to dwarf the SL in size and surpass it in accomplishments and beneficence.

Instead, they were captivated by egotistical monomania that has utterly corrupted everything they were striving for.

Interesting question. But, I have no doubt about my opinion.

Bingo.

The MA is now about proving "we were right and Beowulf is wrong", not really about improving things anymore - and DW has pretty much said this in one of the pearls.

Space is huge, and Honorverse humanity has colonized only a tiny smidgen of the galaxy. They could have built up their own system and, oif it was really better, people would have seen it.

Instead they descended into conspiracy, slavery, intrigue and murder.

Nor do I think Mesa's techniques could actually improve human nature. Mesan star lines may be physically superior to ordinary humans (that's clearly possible to Honorverse tech, even Honor has unusual genetically-engineered strength), they may even be smarter, but they aren't morally any better.

I don't even think the idea of genetically improving morality even makes any sense - morality is about individual choices, not genetic traits.

At best, the Mesans would be somewhat smarter tyrants.

Nor could they eliminate war, really - the galaxy is, again, too big and Honorverse interstellar travel is too easy - there would always be worlds and systems on the fringe rebelling against the Mesan rule.

Honorverse tech, given the size of ships they can use, would probably allow an "FTL generation ship" mission to colonize the other end of the galaxy or something, at that.