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Mesan Genies outside the Onion

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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by Louis R   » Wed Sep 30, 2020 10:00 pm

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Ummm... IIRC, the Scrags _are_ the "supersoldiers". Or what remains of them, at any rate

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Not exactly. I'm not referring to arrogant people. The Solarians aboard their ships were technically-skilled people who could operate a 40th century warship powered by a fusion reactor and using gravity-manipulation fields. No one there was stupid. In fact, the average Solarian spacer was probably better educated than the average Peep one, given what we know of how the PN conducted maintenance and repairs. More so of StateSec ships.

But my point is that any military force worthy of its name in the 21st century, not to say in the 30th or 40th, invests a considerable amount of money in training its soldiers to operate high-tech equipment. You don't get 17-year-olds drafted and send two of them with a single rifle like the Soviets did at Stalingrad. We also know that the supersoldiers of the Final War were facing other types of enemies, including drones/remote piloted weapons.

So no, they were not dumb. Selected or engineered for a purpose, yes. And with considerable blind spots in their thinking, as we've seen with the male Scrags in Crown of Slaves.
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by tlb   » Wed Sep 30, 2020 11:23 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:Not exactly. I'm not referring to arrogant people. The Solarians aboard their ships were technically-skilled people who could operate a 40th century warship powered by a fusion reactor and using gravity-manipulation fields. No one there was stupid. In fact, the average Solarian spacer was probably better educated than the average Peep one, given what we know of how the PN conducted maintenance and repairs. More so of StateSec ships.

But my point is that any military force worthy of its name in the 21st century, not to say in the 30th or 40th, invests a considerable amount of money in training its soldiers to operate high-tech equipment. You don't get 17-year-olds drafted and send two of them with a single rifle like the Soviets did at Stalingrad. We also know that the supersoldiers of the Final War were facing other types of enemies, including drones/remote piloted weapons.

So no, they were not dumb. Selected or engineered for a purpose, yes. And with considerable blind spots in their thinking, as we've seen with the male Scrags in Crown of Slaves.

Louis R wrote:Ummm... IIRC, the Scrags _are_ the "supersoldiers". Or what remains of them, at any rate

I believe there were others, so extreme that they could not reproduce and were all tube babies. I think they revolted to gain control of the reproduction centers.

It is not exactly that the scrags are dumb, more that they are uneducated; because of social isolation.
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Oct 01, 2020 10:49 pm

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tlb wrote:I believe there were others, so extreme that they could not reproduce and were all tube babies. I think they revolted to gain control of the reproduction centers.

It is not exactly that the scrags are dumb, more that they are uneducated; because of social isolation.


Right, but I also suspect they also had glaring limitations in their intelligence, or still inherited some form of conditioning like herd mentality. When we met them, the male and female scrags had split because of the males' decision to join the Masadans trying to kidnap Princess Ruth. Meanwhile, the females all decided to follow Thandi Palane.
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by tlb   » Thu Oct 01, 2020 11:27 pm

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tlb wrote:I believe there were others, so extreme that they could not reproduce and were all tube babies. I think they revolted to gain control of the reproduction centers.

It is not exactly that the scrags are dumb, more that they are uneducated; because of social isolation.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Right, but I also suspect they also had glaring limitations in their intelligence, or still inherited some form of conditioning like herd mentality. When we met them, the male and female scrags had split because of the males' decision to join the Masadans trying to kidnap Princess Ruth. Meanwhile, the females all decided to follow Thandi Palane.

I am not sure that we have sufficient evidence of anything built into their mental facilities and believe much of what we have seen can be explained by centuries of outlaw tribal status. There was nothing wrong with Yana's intellect in Torch of Freedom.

Anyway, I do not think the Scrags were the ultimate super soldiers in that war. Instead it was the ones that could not reproduce.
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by Garth 2   » Fri Oct 02, 2020 8:20 am

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The real question, is how much control is the MA going to keep on these "genies" whilst it hiding from the GA?
Are the going to start "breeding in a round" and loose the "advantages" that the LRPB have given them as their genes mix with the "normal" populations
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by tlb   » Fri Oct 02, 2020 11:42 am

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Garth 2 wrote:The real question, is how much control is the MA going to keep on these "genies" whilst it hiding from the GA?
Are the going to start "breeding in a round" and loose the "advantages" that the LRPB have given them as their genes mix with the "normal" populations

To an extent that depends on whether their improvements have been locked. But to a greater extent this depends on how well they can maintain their revolutionary fervor for the Detweiler Plan. If they remain zealots, then any genetic advantage lost can be recovered; but if the fire of revolution dies, then it does not matter how locked those genes are. The Scrags stopped fighting long ago for the advancement of their designers; so those designers may have succeeded brilliantly on a genetic level, however they completely failed in their war aims. The same thing is true of the "lost" Alpha lines; if those progeny are now fighting against the Malign, then any genetic advantage is a net loss.
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by SharkHunter   » Wed Oct 07, 2020 10:49 am

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--snipping--
tlb wrote: The same thing is true of the "lost" Alpha lines; if those progeny are now fighting against the Malign, then any genetic advantage is a net loss.

That is a brilliant observation. If there's one group that would hate the Detweiler plan more than Beowulf, it would be Mesan citizens who suffered the culls, controls, etc. So any "left behind lines" -- could be a ripe source against their former masters...

But fighting under whose banner? My thoughts... Torch. Your thoughts?
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by Theemile   » Wed Oct 07, 2020 11:10 am

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tlb wrote:
Anyway, I do not think the Scrags were the ultimate super soldiers in that war. Instead it was the ones that could not reproduce.


The Scrags were the decendants of the Eastern European Super soldiers; I believe it was the Asian Super Soldiers which were engineered so they could not reproduce.

Gotta go back to Beginnings and re-read the history..
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by tlb   » Wed Oct 07, 2020 11:19 am

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tlb wrote: The same thing is true of the "lost" Alpha lines; if those progeny are now fighting against the Malign, then any genetic advantage is a net loss.

SharkHunter wrote:That is a brilliant observation. If there's one group that would hate the Detweiler plan more than Beowulf, it would be Mesan citizens who suffered the culls, controls, etc. So any "left behind lines" -- could be a ripe source against their former masters...

But fighting under whose banner? My thoughts... Torch. Your thoughts?

I was thinking more of Alphas sent outside where control was lost, who now are loyal to their adopted homes: such as the speculation about the Harringtons.

But you are right that those people, left behind on Mesa, that say they were always opposed to the business of Manpower would be a resource. However they could also include agents of the Malign. I think, but am not sure, that Mesa might be administered with Torch input.

We will have to see how the former ruling class will feel about having the seccies treated as equal to them.
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Wed Oct 07, 2020 8:16 pm

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tlb wrote:But you are right that those people, left behind on Mesa, that say they were always opposed to the business of Manpower would be a resource. However they could also include agents of the Malign. I think, but am not sure, that Mesa might be administered with Torch input.


Those are the "benign Alignment," a term RFC used in a video recently.

There will be MAlign agents behind, otherwise O'Hanrahan would have no handler. Do they want her to continue without handling?
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