MATC

FWIW (and boy, has this thread slipped the rails...which is not always a bad thing), I don't think it's hubris or arrogance by Detwiler as much as he is in an Echo Chamber.

I mean, who does he really talk to that has an opposite POV? His conversations are all with people, who, while they might debate tactics, have and always have had, the same strategic purpose: to bring about the Detweiler revolution and 'improve' humanity on their terms.

And to do so they have a long-term plan; one that can be amended and modified as needed, but a plan that everybody he speaks to buys into.

Contrast this with the SEM (robust politics and the Hamish-Hemphill feud) and what happened to the Legislaturists once they only had to listen to themselves (and the Mandarins).

Which is why a republican type of government is usually the most stable...you have to listen to the other guy, even if you think he is full of bovine excrement.

IMHO as always. YMMV.

To continue the topic drift.

Which is one of the important functions of people like Bardasano.

They actually were out in the "real world". And were willing "argue" about its affects with the boss.

Enjoy,
T2M

I agree with both t2m and Hutch here. Bardasso was a serious loss for the MAlign because of here ability to identify even remote consequences. Plus she had Albrecht's ear even if he didn't always do things her way.

Hubris doesn't really fit Albrecht too well. For one thing he is aware of his own fallibility and tries to listen to his advisors and can be deflected by them occasionally. But as Hutch pointed out their view of the galaxy is too narrow. Albrecht is in a bubble. Echo chamber is a good description. There is too much "you agree with me so we both must be right" going on despite their efforts to avoid it.

Don

n7axw wrote:I agree with both t2m and Hutch here. Bardasso was a serious loss for the MAlign because of here ability to identify even remote consequences. Plus she had Albrecht's ear even if he didn't always do things her way.

Hubris doesn't really fit Albrecht too well. For one thing he is aware of his own fallibility and tries to listen to his advisors and can be deflected by them occasionally. But as Hutch pointed out their view of the galaxy is too narrow. Albrecht is in a bubble. Echo chamber is a good description. There is too much "you agree with me so we both must be right" going on despite their efforts to avoid it.

Don

Yeah, the echo chamber does hurt you, for lack of seriously opposing views to consider and reason to analyze and defend your most important assumptions. But hubris does still present a problem, and there's still something to that. The Plan is just so ambitious, they've got genetic superiority as a given (one of those things that echo chamber won't allow you to question), and literally being able to make people unknowing puppets with the nanotech... he's suffering from an unwarranted sense of god-like power.

He DOES have people around him to reign him in, somewhat, and they do do that - somewhat - but as people have said, the echo chamber is getting less senior contact with the real world with the loss of Bardasano (who, frankly, had her own bucket of issues anyway). The echo chamber effect means that, when he does get overly ambitious, all he's got holding him back are people who do defer to him a good bit, who are also inside the same echo chamber and won't be bringing in reasons from outside the chamber's shared assumptions to stop him from, say, making displaced persons of much of the Alignment's personnel and toasting their families in the rushed Houdini. Or reckoning on the counter-sabotage uses of treecats or the allegiance you cannot command of good men and women when you snuff their kids or devastate their friends.

He rushed Oyster Bay and rushed Houdini in response to unpredictable events, because adjusting the schedule of the Plan was the option that pride and the echo chamber left him to consider. Without that sense of being able to do pretty much as they like, or with a broader sense of options, he may've considered revising the Plan instead - such as the cut, run, hide, and try again in a few centuries option, or the cut, run, hide, and make the argument in public over time for a revision of the Beowulf Code instead of any of the forced acceptance variations.

n7axw wrote:I agree with both t2m and Hutch here. Bardasso was a serious loss for the MAlign because of here ability to identify even remote consequences. Plus she had Albrecht's ear even if he didn't always do things her way.

Hubris doesn't really fit Albrecht too well. For one thing he is aware of his own fallibility and tries to listen to his advisors and can be deflected by them occasionally. But as Hutch pointed out their view of the galaxy is too narrow. Albrecht is in a bubble. Echo chamber is a good description. There is too much "you agree with me so we both must be right" going on despite their efforts to avoid it.

Don

hubris - excessive pride or self-confidence. That describes Albrecht to a tee. Look at his speech to the Shark crews after OB, or his messages to the RF. He backs down only if confronted with overwhelming opposition from his "sons". He ignored Bardasano when she argued against the use of the nanotech assassination technique. This is about the only time we heard of a disagreement between them, and he ignored her.

I might add in response to a previous post, there was no need for the nanotech assassination of Grosclaude. A conventional air car accident would have done the same. Yes, it would have been suspicious, but done properly, they would have been no way to trace it back to Giancola, so who cares. It should have NEVER have been turned loose in the wild, UNTIL it was ready to be used widely.

fallsfromtrees wrote:I might add in response to a previous post, there was no need for the nanotech assassination of Grosclaude. A conventional air car accident would have done the same. Yes, it would have been suspicious, but done properly, they would have been no way to trace it back to Giancola, so who cares. It should have NEVER have been turned loose in the wild, UNTIL it was ready to be used widely.

You know - with the nanotech they have, and with the need to spritz someone to introduce it to them - if your only goal with a given use of it is to get the target to kill themselves... you could probably do it in fashions less suspicious than an air car mishap. You could make it look like food poisoning, for instance, or a more likely looking suicide (like Rajampet's, for example).

Grosclaude had to die, but given the means they clearly had, they could have gone about it in a way to make it less suspicious and/or one that would have destroyed his brain better. It's like they've got this nanotech toy and when they use it, they just forget a lot of tradecraft. Their respect for the opposition seems to drop in proportion to the cool stuff they have to use for a given operation, and there's a consistent pattern from Albrecht to use toys more or push plans forward when things go wrong, rather than consider backing off, changing direction, or just playing it cool.

JeffEngel wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:I might add in response to a previous post, there was no need for the nanotech assassination of Grosclaude. A conventional air car accident would have done the same. Yes, it would have been suspicious, but done properly, they would have been no way to trace it back to Giancola, so who cares. It should have NEVER have been turned loose in the wild, UNTIL it was ready to be used widely.

You know - with the nanotech they have, and with the need to spritz someone to introduce it to them - if your only goal with a given use of it is to get the target to kill themselves... you could probably do it in fashions less suspicious than an air car mishap. You could make it look like food poisoning, for instance, or a more likely looking suicide (like Rajampet's, for example).

Grosclaude had to die, but given the means they clearly had, they could have gone about it in a way to make it less suspicious and/or one that would have destroyed his brain better. It's like they've got this nanotech toy and when they use it, they just forget a lot of tradecraft. Their respect for the opposition seems to drop in proportion to the cool stuff they have to use for a given operation, and there's a consistent pattern from Albrecht to use toys more or push plans forward when things go wrong, rather than consider backing off, changing direction, or just playing it cool.

Completely agree. And one of the reasons I am accusing him of hubris.

your forgetting the fact that we have information that isn't available to Detwellier, and the advantage of hindsight: if only they had or hadn't done X, then Y would have or have never occurred.

As Detwellier points; its a big galaxy with lots of moving parts and things can go wrong and the MA though it has done really well, doesn't have that many agents when compared to the populations they are trying to control.

From his perspective, the plans he set into motion where the best he could do with resources and information at his disposal.

* He had no way of knowing that FIA Black investigation was already onto the Havenite Head of State, and against all odds had acquired a sample of the nano-bio-control device.

* He had no way of knowing that Victor and Anton would start to lift the veil of secrecy that MA had built from such a small amount of captured data on Torch.

* He had no idea that MA information had got off of Mesa and in to the hands of Victor and Anton

Don't forget what he wanted was an activate state of war between Haven and SEM, which his actions did in-fact produce.

On the subject of MATC, we know both Haven and SKM both operate 'advisor teams' from "World of Honor - Deck Load Strike" story.

Garth 2 wrote:your forgetting the fact that we have information that isn't available to Detwellier, and the advantage of hindsight: if only they had or hadn't done X, then Y would have or have never occurred.

As Detwellier points; its a big galaxy with lots of moving parts and things can go wrong and the MA though it has done really well, doesn't have that many agents when compared to the populations they are trying to control.

From his perspective, the plans he set into motion where the best he could do with resources and information at his disposal.

* He had no way of knowing that FIA Black investigation was already onto the Havenite Head of State, and against all odds had acquired a sample of the nano-bio-control device.

* He had no way of knowing that Victor and Anton would start to lift the veil of secrecy that MA had built from such a small amount of captured data on Torch.

* He had no idea that MA information had got off of Mesa and in to the hands of Victor and Anton

Don't forget what he wanted was an activate state of war between Haven and SEM, which his actions did in-fact produce.

On the subject of MATC, we know both Haven and SKM both operate 'advisor teams' from "World of Honor - Deck Load Strike" story.

No he didn't have any way of knowing those things. But Isabel Bardasano had recommended against using the nano-assassination technique, and he ignored her. The use of that technique is what triggered much of what else has gone wrong for the MA - and he did it against the advice of his black ops expert. That is the definition of hubris. He had no way of knowing that it would go bad, but he failed to consider just how badly it would screw things up if it did, and given that the uses to which he put it were minor, and the results if it wee compromised were so bad, the risk/reward ratio is really heavily weighted on the side of risk.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

Garth 2 wrote:your forgetting the fact that we have information that isn't available to Detwellier, and the advantage of hindsight: if only they had or hadn't done X, then Y would have or have never occurred.

As Detwellier points; its a big galaxy with lots of moving parts and things can go wrong and the MA though it has done really well, doesn't have that many agents when compared to the populations they are trying to control.

From his perspective, the plans he set into motion where the best he could do with resources and information at his disposal.

* He had no way of knowing that FIA Black investigation was already onto the Havenite Head of State, and against all odds had acquired a sample of the nano-bio-control device.

* He had no way of knowing that Victor and Anton would start to lift the veil of secrecy that MA had built from such a small amount of captured data on Torch.

* He had no idea that MA information had got off of Mesa and in to the hands of Victor and Anton

Don't forget what he wanted was an activate state of war between Haven and SEM, which his actions did in-fact produce.

On the subject of MATC, we know both Haven and SKM both operate 'advisor teams' from "World of Honor - Deck Load Strike" story.

No he didn't have any way of knowing those things. But Isabel Bardasano had recommended against using the nano-assassination technique, and he ignored her. The use of that technique is what triggered much of what else has gone wrong for the MA - and he did it against the advice of his black ops expert. That is the definition of hubris. He had no way of knowing that it would go bad, but he failed to consider just how badly it would screw things up if it did, and given that the uses to which he put it were minor, and the results if it wee compromised were so bad, the risk/reward ratio is really heavily weighted on the side of risk.

Again, hindsight.

We have no idea what was driving Detwellier' decision at that point in time.
May be he had information that wasn't available to Isabel Bardasano, that meant the advantages out weighed the risks.
May be it was just intended as a real world test for the technology.
May be the attempt was designed to achieve a different goal that we haven't seen yet e.g. move an MA agent in to a new position within the Andy hierarchy.