Cauldron of Ghosts - unlikely 'allies'

stewart wrote:The idea of a "safe" Manty / Grayson / Beowolf / Hvenite prison to spend 20 or so years in might seem very inviting, although I doubt they have much useful "deep background" info to give.

If O'Hanrahan is still on planet, she might have useful info, she WAS in the onion, but textev does not show she had prior knowledge of the nuke strikes.
SHE might prove a useful information source.

-- Stewart

I imagine the occupation authorities would be content enough to get likely atrocity victims (who are, mind you, in many cases, still hardcore scum) offplanet just to prevent the liberated slaves and unbound seccies from having that blood on their hands and crimes on their reputation. Deep background needn't be more than a cover, excuse, or nice extra.

O'Hanrahan is presumably still a MA loyalist. How it is that the MA does get this kind of loyalty out of generational sleeper agents is a bit of a mystery to me though - particularly someone like O'Hanrahan, who spends almost her whole life being a paragon of opposition to the sort of elitist cynical manipulation that's been the core of the Alignment for centuries.

JeffEngel wrote:

stewart wrote:The idea of a "safe" Manty / Grayson / Beowolf / Hvenite prison to spend 20 or so years in might seem very inviting, although I doubt they have much useful "deep background" info to give.

If O'Hanrahan is still on planet, she might have useful info, she WAS in the onion, but textev does not show she had prior knowledge of the nuke strikes.
SHE might prove a useful information source.

-- Stewart

I imagine the occupation authorities would be content enough to get likely atrocity victims (who are, mind you, in many cases, still hardcore scum) offplanet just to prevent the liberated slaves and unbound seccies from having that blood on their hands and crimes on their reputation. Deep background needn't be more than a cover, excuse, or nice extra.

O'Hanrahan is presumably still a MA loyalist. How it is that the MA does get this kind of loyalty out of generational sleeper agents is a bit of a mystery to me though - particularly someone like O'Hanrahan, who spends almost her whole life being a paragon of opposition to the sort of elitist cynical manipulation that's been the core of the Alignment for centuries.

You apparently haven't met a whole lot of activist radical idealists. There's an old saying: "You have to break eggs to make an omelet." To which the rejoinder is: "I see the eggshells. Now where's the omelet?"

JeffEngel wrote:O'Hanrahan is presumably still a MA loyalist. How it is that the MA does get this kind of loyalty out of generational sleeper agents is a bit of a mystery to me though - particularly someone like O'Hanrahan, who spends almost her whole life being a paragon of opposition to the sort of elitist cynical manipulation that's been the core of the Alignment for centuries.

That is perfectly realistic. Let me introduce you to Pulizer-Prize winning New York Times journalist Walter Duranty. His expertise was in glorifying the Soviet Union while covering up and explaining away the tens of million of people Stalin had murdered.

kzt wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:O'Hanrahan is presumably still a MA loyalist. How it is that the MA does get this kind of loyalty out of generational sleeper agents is a bit of a mystery to me though - particularly someone like O'Hanrahan, who spends almost her whole life being a paragon of opposition to the sort of elitist cynical manipulation that's been the core of the Alignment for centuries.

That is perfectly realistic. Let me introduce you to Pulizer-Prize winning New York Times journalist Walter Duranty. His expertise was in glorifying the Soviet Union while covering up and explaining away the tens of million of people Stalin had murdered.

They have bought into "The ends justify the means". If they deem the end worthy enough, any means are justifiable - even the murder of millions (or in the case of the MAlign's final plan trillions) of people. And of course, they don't see it that way. They are real people, the others are domestic animals that are there for their use, and they worry about them as much as most people worry about the treatment of cattle.

fallsfromtrees wrote:We have no textev that Hanrahan has left the planet, but there is also no textev that she was so disgusted by the callousness of the Onion's withdrawal from Mesa, that she will turn on them, and given no-one knows she is part of the Onion, and is a very powerful media star, there is no reason anyone will ask her about it.

But if Hanrahan is still on Mesa, it will be very weird if she doesn't want to meet with RMN CO. So we can assume that she is going to meet with Henke.
And my question is: what happens when they meet?
Or to be more accurate: how treecat (Alfredo) reacts when he meets member of Onion?

jendker83 wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:We have no textev that Hanrahan has left the planet, but there is also no textev that she was so disgusted by the callousness of the Onion's withdrawal from Mesa, that she will turn on them, and given no-one knows she is part of the Onion, and is a very powerful media star, there is no reason anyone will ask her about it.

But if Hanrahan is still on Mesa, it will be very weird if she doesn't want to meet with RMN CO. So we can assume that she is going to meet with Henke.
And my question is: what happens when they meet?
Or to be more accurate: how treecat (Alfredo) reacts when he meets member of Onion?

O'Hanrahan is cunning and disciplined enough that she may well keep her thoughts away from anything worrisome through such an interview, especially since questioning wouldn't likely be touching on anything that might compromise her. (There remains the possibility that the mindglows of Mesan alpha lines are distinctive enough for treecats to recognize; there does seem to be something about the not-too-dissimilar Meyerdahl mods that attract them.)

Admiral Gold Peak avoids journalists all she can. She may avoid O'Hanrahan.

And if you're not dealing with someone suspicious, or if you're confident enough it's not an occasion on which a nanotech-controlled assassin will up and try to kill you, there isn't reason to bother to have a treecat on hand - and with 10th Fleet having only one or two available, chances of them having good reason to be somewhere else are not bad at all.

jendker83 wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:We have no textev that Hanrahan has left the planet, but there is also no textev that she was so disgusted by the callousness of the Onion's withdrawal from Mesa, that she will turn on them, and given no-one knows she is part of the Onion, and is a very powerful media star, there is no reason anyone will ask her about it.

But if Hanrahan is still on Mesa, it will be very weird if she doesn't want to meet with RMN CO. So we can assume that she is going to meet with Henke.
And my question is: what happens when they meet?
Or to be more accurate: how treecat (Alfredo) reacts when he meets member of Onion?

Welcome to the forums. Please have the virtual drink of your choice at the virtual bar on the house.

JeffEngel wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:We have no textev that Hanrahan has left the planet, but there is also no textev that she was so disgusted by the callousness of the Onion's withdrawal from Mesa, that she will turn on them, and given no-one knows she is part of the Onion, and is a very powerful media star, there is no reason anyone will ask her about it.

jendker83 wrote:But if Hanrahan is still on Mesa, it will be very weird if she doesn't want to meet with RMN CO. So we can assume that she is going to meet with Henke.
And my question is: what happens when they meet?
Or to be more accurate: how treecat (Alfredo) reacts when he meets member of Onion?

O'Hanrahan is cunning and disciplined enough that she may well keep her thoughts away from anything worrisome through such an interview, especially since questioning wouldn't likely be touching on anything that might compromise her. (There remains the possibility that the mindglows of Mesan alpha lines are distinctive enough for treecats to recognize; there does seem to be something about the not-too-dissimilar Meyerdahl mods that attract them.)

Admiral Gold Peak avoids journalists all she can. She may avoid O'Hanrahan.

And if you're not dealing with someone suspicious, or if you're confident enough it's not an occasion on which a nanotech-controlled assassin will up and try to kill you, there isn't reason to bother to have a treecat on hand - and with 10th Fleet having only one or two available, chances of them having good reason to be somewhere else are not bad at all.

I think JeffEngel has it right, although O'Hanrahan is sufficiently well known, and sufficiently pushy to insist on an interview with Admiral Gold Peak, and Michelle may well feel that she has no choice but to grant the interview, so as to avoid O'Hanrahan publicly asking across the entire SL "What is she hiding that she didn't want me to find out about? followed by rampant speculation that won't do Manticore any good at all.

fallsfromtrees wrote:We have no textev that Hanrahan has left the planet, but there is also no textev that she was so disgusted by the callousness of the Onion's withdrawal from Mesa, that she will turn on them, and given no-one knows she is part of the Onion, and is a very powerful media star, there is no reason anyone will ask her about it.

jendker83 wrote:But if Hanrahan is still on Mesa, it will be very weird if she doesn't want to meet with RMN CO. So we can assume that she is going to meet with Henke.
And my question is: what happens when they meet?
Or to be more accurate: how treecat (Alfredo) reacts when he meets member of Onion?

JeffEngel wrote:O'Hanrahan is cunning and disciplined enough that she may well keep her thoughts away from anything worrisome through such an interview, especially since questioning wouldn't likely be touching on anything that might compromise her. (There remains the possibility that the mindglows of Mesan alpha lines are distinctive enough for treecats to recognize; there does seem to be something about the not-too-dissimilar Meyerdahl mods that attract them.)

Admiral Gold Peak avoids journalists all she can. She may avoid O'Hanrahan.

And if you're not dealing with someone suspicious, or if you're confident enough it's not an occasion on which a nanotech-controlled assassin will up and try to kill you, there isn't reason to bother to have a treecat on hand - and with 10th Fleet having only one or two available, chances of them having good reason to be somewhere else are not bad at all.

There are a lot of Mesan Alignment people on Mesa who aren't members of the Onion, and who aren't being taken off in Houdini. Admiral Henke is almost certainly going to meet one of them sooner rather than later - with Alfredo on hand.

Cauldron of Ghosts, Chapter 56 wrote:Chicherin leaned back in his chair, watching the other members of the General Board, and tried to keep his dismay from showing. He was an alpha-line whose family had been part of the Alignment for generations, and like the vast majority of the Aligment's membership he'd always hated Manpower and the institution of genetic slavery.

Just by being who he is, and where he's placed, he's going to be a very interesting prize. When Admiral Henke and Alfredo go to interview the General Board, his attitude toward genetic slavery is going to stand out like a beacon.

Up to this point, the Grand Alliance doesn't have a clue about the alpha-, beta- and gamma- lines. Given that, they might well be able to throw together a quick "alpha-line detector."

I also think Alfredo is going to be a permanent fixture around Admiral Henke, at least when she's interviewing anyone from Mesa.

And O'Hanrahan is going to be in deep trouble if Alfredo is anywhere around when the term "alpha-line" comes up. Especially if her genome shows significant similarities with Chicherin's.

Idealists are funny people. Some of them will continue to the bitter end, some of them will switch political alligence in a heartbeat, without giving up any iota of their ideals.

What about the official Mesan Navy or Intelligence agencies? Even someone entirely outside the onion might know something and while their sympathies for the new management are probably limited, the Alignment is responsible for quite a few deaths.