Honorverse Top Ten Tacticians, Strategists

cthia wrote:My point is that Leonard Detweiler had an overarching genetic vision. And he surely had a plan to engage and bring that vision to its fruition. Genetic manipulation involves a lot of hits and misses. And Leonard definitely had to have had a strategy to achieve his successes. And the tactics he was willing to use is what would have concerned Beowulf. It remains to be discovered if whether the more aggressive genetic tactics employed by the MA (killing babies and entire lines) was something that was employed by Leonard.

At the very minimum we know his plan involved creating millions of non-consenting test subjects. Whether he views them as genetic indentured servants, whether he plans for them to eventually be emancipated and made full citizens, doesn't alter the basic fact that he starts by creating millions of humans with genetic alterations - and using their genetics to breed more humans with more genetic mods - all without the consent of anybody involved.

I'd like to think that far more than Beowulf would have strong objections to that practice -- even if the actual genetic engineering had followed their guidelines (which of course it wasn't).


And since he was specifically willing to try incorporating non-human or synthetic genetic changes into humans it would seem the risk of bad outcomes would be far higher than with the practices Beowulf permitted. He was specifically noted as viewing the eventual benefit for humanity as more important than benefit for each test subject. Even if he didn't carry that to its logical conclusion of risky tests and culling the 'failed' results (as opposed to simply preventing 'failed' genetic trial from being passed on, that's still going to lead to pretty crappy lives for some of those non-consenting test subjects.

Of, and of course to keep his genetic tests going he's going to have to sharply limit any natural genetic combinations -- so while he might not be preventing his "indentured" experimental population from living with and marrying who they want he's almost assuredly controlling the genetics of any children they may have -- so a couple may not be allowed to have kids that share their DNA if he views it as more important for a different cross to be tried.

So yeah, even from the beginning, he's justifying some pretty darned nasty means in order to go after his desired ends.

tlb wrote:However, in thinking about it, I do not understand how that business plan could work. Suppose someone came to Manpower Inc with a request for ten thousand left-handed men capable of working unaided in a low oxygen environment. The salesperson says we have Sherpa DNA and the gene for left-handedness, so standard rates apply. The customer says that this is a rush job and the salesperson says that for a premium we can have them ready for you in 18 years instead of the normal 21. The customer says but I need them next year and the salesperson replies that the best we can do in that time-frame is ten thousand of our standard worker line equipped with oxygen masks and some will be right-handed.

So the problem is that there can be generic workers that are immediately available, who are somewhat improved over what you might find at a labor exchange and who come indentured for a fixed period of time; but any human built to specification would not be available for another 15 years or more. The only alternative is create some specialized worker lines in the hope that such a need will arise, but if does not then Manpower itself will have to put them to work in their area of specialization.

Jonathan_S wrote:At the very minimum we know his plan involved creating millions of non-consenting test subjects. Whether he views them as genetic indentured servants, whether he plans for them to eventually be emancipated and made full citizens, doesn't alter the basic fact that he starts by creating millions of humans with genetic alterations - and using their genetics to breed more humans with more genetic mods - all without the consent of anybody involved.

I'd like to think that far more than Beowulf would have strong objections to that practice -- even if the actual genetic engineering had followed their guidelines (which of course it wasn't).

And since he was specifically willing to try incorporating non-human or synthetic genetic changes into humans it would seem the risk of bad outcomes would be far higher than with the practices Beowulf permitted. He was specifically noted as viewing the eventual benefit for humanity as more important than benefit for each test subject. Even if he didn't carry that to its logical conclusion of risky tests and culling the 'failed' results (as opposed to simply preventing 'failed' genetic trial from being passed on, that's still going to lead to pretty crappy lives for some of those non-consenting test subjects.

I realize that you were not responding to me, but I wanted to put this together to illustrate my lack of understanding; hoping someone can point me to an solution.

I simply do not understand the economics of Manpower Inc at the beginning. They are creating this mass of human beings, hoping that some will be commercially viable in 15 to 20 years time and commercially viable means that corporations will overwhelming prefer them to anyone that that they could find at a labor exchange. Note that being indentured servants might mean that certain types that might be produced as slaves would not at this point be considered. They might not be producing anything like the super soldiers, because there is a big chance of disastrous results. So how does this work and how is this squared with the experimentation you mention that might not produce usable results?

Note that someone like the woman in "Recruiting Exercise", would never be profitable in the early days; because there would not be sufficient demand.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:However, in thinking about it, I do not understand how that business plan could work. Suppose someone came to Manpower Inc with a request for ten thousand left-handed men capable of working unaided in a low oxygen environment. The salesperson says we have Sherpa DNA and the gene for left-handedness, so standard rates apply. The customer says that this is a rush job and the salesperson says that for a premium we can have them ready for you in 18 years instead of the normal 21. The customer says but I need them next year and the salesperson replies that the best we can do in that time-frame is ten thousand of our standard worker line equipped with oxygen masks and some will be right-handed.

So the problem is that there can be generic workers that are immediately available, who are somewhat improved over what you might find at a labor exchange and who come indentured for a fixed period of time; but any human built to specification would not be available for another 15 years or more. The only alternative is create some specialized worker lines in the hope that such a need will arise, but if does not then Manpower itself will have to put them to work in their area of specialization.

Jonathan_S wrote:At the very minimum we know his plan involved creating millions of non-consenting test subjects. Whether he views them as genetic indentured servants, whether he plans for them to eventually be emancipated and made full citizens, doesn't alter the basic fact that he starts by creating millions of humans with genetic alterations - and using their genetics to breed more humans with more genetic mods - all without the consent of anybody involved.

I'd like to think that far more than Beowulf would have strong objections to that practice -- even if the actual genetic engineering had followed their guidelines (which of course it wasn't).

And since he was specifically willing to try incorporating non-human or synthetic genetic changes into humans it would seem the risk of bad outcomes would be far higher than with the practices Beowulf permitted. He was specifically noted as viewing the eventual benefit for humanity as more important than benefit for each test subject. Even if he didn't carry that to its logical conclusion of risky tests and culling the 'failed' results (as opposed to simply preventing 'failed' genetic trial from being passed on, that's still going to lead to pretty crappy lives for some of those non-consenting test subjects.

I realize that you were not responding to me, but I wanted to put this together to illustrate my lack of understanding; hoping someone can point me to an solution.

I simply do not understand the economics of Manpower Inc at the beginning. They are creating this mass of human beings, hoping that some will be commercially viable in 15 to 20 years time and commercially viable means that corporations will overwhelming prefer them to anyone that that they could find at a labor exchange. Note that being indentured servants might mean that certain types that might be produced as slaves would not at this point be considered. They might not be producing anything like the super soldiers, because there is a big chance of disastrous results. So how does this work and how is this squared with the experimentation you mention that might not produce usable results?

Note that someone like the woman in "Recruiting Exercise", would never be profitable in the early days; because there would not be sufficient demand.

I agree with you that it'd be economically infeasible (especially at the beginning; but really now as well) to take a custom order for a slave to be delivered 15+ years. So they're not getting their left-handed low-oxygen capable slaves.

(Now, it helps that Manpower doesn't need to be economically viable; in fact the fact it wasn't cost effective is one of the things that helped lead Victor and Anton to the MAlign -- Manpower's puppetmaster)

But still, they needed some semblance of viability or the maskirovka would have fallen apart ages ago. And the only approach I can see is to constantly be trying to forecast what will be in demand in a couple decades and make a variety of 'standard models' so they can try to offer a customer the best fit of genetics and training for their needs. (So not just one "standard worker line" but a series of more specialized worker lines. But even so its strictly 'order off the menu', no substitutions or custom orders allowed.

(Actually that's not necessarily true -- there may be a few people willing to pay plenty for a specific long lead time slave. Especially after prolong comes out and so its a shorter fraction of their lifespan they'd be waiting. But I tend to fear that those sorts of people would be looking for very specific genetics in a pleasure slave - and not folks looking for specific traits in other workers. And I suspect for the right price Manpower would accept such a custom order. But it couldn't be a big enough part of their business to really matter)

tlb wrote:I simply do not understand the economics of Manpower Inc at the beginning. They are creating this mass of human beings, hoping that some will be commercially viable in 15 to 20 years time and commercially viable means that corporations will overwhelming prefer them to anyone that that they could find at a labor exchange. Note that being indentured servants might mean that certain types that might be produced as slaves would not at this point be considered. They might not be producing anything like the super soldiers, because there is a big chance of disastrous results. So how does this work and how is this squared with the experimentation you mention that might not produce usable results?

There's a lot that's wrong with the concept of genetic slavery, beyond the fact that it's slavery. For one, high-tech slavery is by itself non-viable: if you're requiring the creative input of your labourer, keeping them depressed with their lot in life is not going to help you.

But in all, we get back to the problem that the economics of the Honorverse don't make sense. RFC is really good at military and politics, and he makes us think a lot about the social dynamics and human factor, but he appears to have flunked the economics class. Transporting bulk goods across systems aboard ships that cost hundreds of millions or a billion Manticore dollars? (How much was PNS Sirius bought into service for?)

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

tlb wrote:I simply do not understand the economics of Manpower Inc at the beginning. They are creating this mass of human beings, hoping that some will be commercially viable in 15 to 20 years time and commercially viable means that corporations will overwhelming prefer them to anyone that that they could find at a labor exchange. Note that being indentured servants might mean that certain types that might be produced as slaves would not at this point be considered. They might not be producing anything like the super soldiers, because there is a big chance of disastrous results. So how does this work and how is this squared with the experimentation you mention that might not produce usable results?

There's a lot that's wrong with the concept of genetic slavery, beyond the fact that it's slavery. For one, high-tech slavery is by itself non-viable: if you're requiring the creative input of your labourer, keeping them depressed with their lot in life is not going to help you.

But in all, we get back to the problem that the economics of the Honorverse don't make sense. RFC is really good at military and politics, and he makes us think a lot about the social dynamics and human factor, but he appears to have flunked the economics class. Transporting bulk goods across systems aboard ships that cost hundreds of millions or a billion Manticore dollars? (How much was PNS Sirius bought into service for?)

But that is assuming that those millions of slaves weren't actually used in some capacity by Manpower, itself, in system and beyond. In a sort of reinvestment back into the business.

tlb wrote:So the problem is that there can be generic workers that are immediately available, who are somewhat improved over what you might find at a labor exchange and who come indentured for a fixed period of time; but any human built to specification would not be available for another 15 years or more. The only alternative is create some specialized worker lines in the hope that such a need will arise, but if does not then Manpower itself will have to put them to work in their area of specialization.

cthia wrote:But that is assuming that those millions of slaves weren't actually used in some capacity by Manpower, itself, in system and beyond. In a sort of reinvestment back into the business.

Jonathan_S wrote:I agree with you that it'd be economically infeasible (especially at the beginning; but really now as well) to take a custom order for a slave to be delivered 15+ years. So they're not getting their left-handed low-oxygen capable slaves.

(Now, it helps that Manpower doesn't need to be economically viable; in fact the fact it wasn't cost effective is one of the things that helped lead Victor and Anton to the MAlign -- Manpower's puppetmaster)

But still, they needed some semblance of viability or the maskirovka would have fallen apart ages ago. And the only approach I can see is to constantly be trying to forecast what will be in demand in a couple decades and make a variety of 'standard models' so they can try to offer a customer the best fit of genetics and training for their needs. (So not just one "standard worker line" but a series of more specialized worker lines. But even so its strictly 'order off the menu', no substitutions or custom orders allowed.

(Actually that's not necessarily true -- there may be a few people willing to pay plenty for a specific long lead time slave. Especially after prolong comes out and so its a shorter fraction of their lifespan they'd be waiting. But I tend to fear that those sorts of people would be looking for very specific genetics in a pleasure slave - and not folks looking for specific traits in other workers. And I suspect for the right price Manpower would accept such a custom order. But it couldn't be a big enough part of their business to really matter)

First: we are talking about indentured servants (not slaves) in this time period.
Second: the time period is more than six hundred years ago (which is the start of Malign), so it is long before the use of prolong (several hundred years).

So Leonard and his backers have already made huge investments in a planet and an industry and some of it can be self-sustaining; such as the food industry and other purely internal functions. But there will remain the need for imports and so at some point there must be exports. I agree that they have to design and develop servant lines that will be in demand in twenty years time, which such capabilities that would out class any normal worker from the general population (which already includes those with adaptations for higher gravity).

I think that even the Malign had to worry about profit and loss; it is just that their business plan did not resemble a normal business, but is closer to the economics of a ambitious country.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:(How much was PNS Sirius bought into service for?)

Wasn't Sirius destroyed by Fearless during their little encounter?

tlb wrote:First: we are talking about indentured servants (not slaves) in this time period.
Second: the time period is more than six hundred years ago (which is the start of Malign), so it is long before the use of prolong (several hundred years).

So Leonard and his backers have already made huge investments in a planet and an industry and some of it can be self-sustaining; such as the food industry and other purely internal functions. But there will remain the need for imports and so at some point there must be exports. I agree that they have to design and develop servant lines that will be in demand in twenty years time, which such capabilities that would out class any normal worker from the general population (which already includes those with adaptations for higher gravity).

I think that even the Malign had to worry about profit and loss; it is just that their business plan did not resemble a normal business, but is closer to the economics of a ambitious country.

I would think that early on the vast majority of the genetic indentured servants would be used in the new colony's internal economy. They need mining, food production, industrialization, cities built, etc. etc. etc. At that point they'd effectively be a nationalized resource. And even today there's still a vast number of slaves (and descendants of freed slaves) deeply entrenched in the Mesa system's internal economy.

So the sale of them has never needed to be their sole economic justification.

Still, part of the reason they're still part of the planet's economy is to justify the need to continue making slaves. They are economically inefficient, and Mesa would be better off transitioning to higher skilled less manpower intensive methods.

Also their indentured servants, or later slaves, don't necessarily have to outclass regular human workers (though of course it's helpful if they do; and seemingly a big part of their marketing). But in many cases it can be enough that they're more expendable than regular human workers; and can't demand the same kind of safety protections you'd need to attract and retain free workers. (Plus the small market of people who simply enjoy having complete power over another human -- to whom the whole selling point is that they are a slave)

Jonathan_S wrote:Also their indentured servants, or later slaves, don't necessarily have to outclass regular human workers (though of course it's helpful if they do; and seemingly a big part of their marketing). But in many cases it can be enough that they're more expendable than regular human workers; and can't demand the same kind of safety protections you'd need to attract and retain free workers. (Plus the small market of people who simply enjoy having complete power over another human -- to whom the whole selling point is that they are a slave)

If Leonard firmly believed that indentured servants should become full citizens at the end of their contract, then I do not expect that he would allow them to be more expendable that a contracted worker from a labor exchange (but an ordinary contracted worker is sometimes considered expendable). That would be one of the things to change when the indentured status was eliminated. So the selling points for an indentured servant are that the standard contract period might be longer and that they are more capable because of their design.

Fox2! wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:(How much was PNS Sirius bought into service for?)

Wasn't Sirius destroyed by Fearless during their little encounter?

Oops.

Which ship am I thinking about, which started Honor's fortune? Checking the wiki...

Ah, it was the Hauptman RMMS Mondragon. Honor received 6% of the ship's price as prize money because it was confiscated and 0.5% of the contraband it carried. OBS says that Honor got about half a million for that (8 years' worth of salary), so the ship's dry value would have been 8 million Manticore dollars. That's FAR below what I had estimated as a cost to build a ship.

On the other hand, the contraband was estimated at a billion and a half. That means the value of the merchandise it carried was about 200x the value of the hull, meaning that a single trip with a 1% profit would break even, even after paying the crew's salaries.

Superdreadnoughts on the other hand are far more expensive. The 11 DuQuesne-class SDs captured at Third Yeltsin were valued at 13.2 billion, so each one cost 1.2 billion to build. Those were just under twice the mass of RMMS Mondragon, but cost 150x more. Maybe the value included all the missiles captured inside too -- if each capital-ship missile costs $50k, then the 11412 missiles a DuQuesne carries cost 570 million. Since those ships were captured mostly intact, their magazines may have been nearly full too.

BTW, didn't Honor fire 2 million missiles during the Battle of Galton? At $50k apiece, that's 100 billion Manticore dollars.