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Genetic superhumans as sleeper agents

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Genetic superhumans as sleeper agents
Post by drinksmuchcoffee   » Fri Jun 24, 2016 6:41 pm

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I understand that the Mesan Alignment is a centuries old-conspiracy, with sleeper agents embedded all over the human-explored galaxy.

Obviously their agents, who are members of the Alignment and at least partway into the Onion, have been genetically enhanced and are no longer "normals." Those genetic enhancements would very likely be detectable by modern medical technology -- they'd probably be detectable by our current medical technology.

My question is "why hasn't somebody noticed?" Presumably over the centuries more than one Alignment agent has been in an accident and I'd assume that the "regen" and "quick heal" technologies at least require a DNA sample to work their magic.

In Beowulf or Manticore you might make the argument that privacy rights might preclude the authorities for getting their hands on a DNA sample. But that certainly wouldn't apply, say, in the People's Republic of Haven or possibly in Silesia. On the other hand if a mysterious stranger dies in an air car accident the authorities might resort to DNA testing to locate the next of kin.

At the very least, now that they have a living member of the Alignment, why aren't they taking a DNA sample? That might help them start looking for sleeper agents. It might not, too, but it is a starting point.
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Re: Genetic superhumans as sleeper agents
Post by SharkHunter   » Fri Jun 24, 2016 7:06 pm

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My thought is -- they don't have a lot of superhumans running around playing agents -- they've mosty been successful using the perverted appetities of others or using pawns like Damien Harahap, Nesbitt (not Tony, the sleeper agent one), apparently Descroix or similar -- to get their dirty work done.

The other thing that makes detection harder is that Manpower has been engaged in genetic manipulation for centuries, so how does Beowulf, Manticore, etc. differentiate between "fairly successful escaped slave mod 34B and "sleeper agent 34 mark 7, #2 etc.?
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Re: Genetic superhumans as sleeper agents
Post by feyhunde   » Fri Jun 24, 2016 7:26 pm

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Possibly since so much of the RF's core upper classes are Mesan lines, I'd imagine that gives them a fig leaf for the deep cover agents in the SL.

I'm not some random Mesan Spy! I'm from Visgoth.
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Re: Genetic superhumans as sleeper agents
Post by JohnRoth   » Fri Jun 24, 2016 7:32 pm

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SharkHunter wrote:My thought is -- they don't have a lot of superhumans running around playing agents -- they've mosty been successful using the perverted appetities of others or using pawns like Damien Harahap, Nesbitt (not Tony, the sleeper agent one), apparently Descroix or similar -- to get their dirty work done.

The other thing that makes detection harder is that Manpower has been engaged in genetic manipulation for centuries, so how does Beowulf, Manticore, etc. differentiate between "fairly successful escaped slave mod 34B and "sleeper agent 34 mark 7, #2 etc.?


I think that's a good chunk of it - a lot of the Mesan Alpha enhancements aren't all that different from what you might see in one slave line or other.

A second piece is that they don't have enhanced agents all over the place. They've got "sleeper" lines on a number of planets that are intended to become part of the elite and take over the planet's government, etc., not engage in super-sekret clandestine operations. The elite doesn't do that - they tell someone else to do it.

Most places, the Alpha, Beta and Gamma lines are a very small part of the population.

The final piece is that the series was designed in the early 90s. The Human Genome Project completed in 2003, and researchers are still finding lots of mysterious pieces. If the series had been designed today, some things might be very different.
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Re: Genetic superhumans as sleeper agents
Post by drinksmuchcoffee   » Fri Jun 24, 2016 7:57 pm

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SharkHunter wrote:...
The other thing that makes detection harder is that Manpower has been engaged in genetic manipulation for centuries, so how does Beowulf, Manticore, etc. differentiate between "fairly successful escaped slave mod 34B and "sleeper agent 34 mark 7, #2 etc.?


Which begs the question: "Why does this guy from Sphinx whose family has been on Sphinx for centuries have gene markers that look similar to Manpower slaves?"

I'd also suspect that the prolong treatments require full gene sequencing as well. Since everyone in those richer countries (I'm including Haven) have had prolong for nearly a century I would think someone, somewhere would have noticed.
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Re: Genetic superhumans as sleeper agents
Post by Weird Harold   » Fri Jun 24, 2016 8:36 pm

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drinksmuchcoffee wrote:
SharkHunter wrote:...
The other thing that makes detection harder is that Manpower has been engaged in genetic manipulation for centuries, so how does Beowulf, Manticore, etc. differentiate between "fairly successful escaped slave mod 34B and "sleeper agent 34 mark 7, #2 etc.?


Which begs the question: "Why does this guy from Sphinx whose family has been on Sphinx for centuries have gene markers that look similar to Manpower slaves?"


Who would notice one more type of "genie" in a population that contains just about every heavy gravity modification ever made -- including thousands of Mesa heavy gravity slave lines?

Also, I think there is a misconception that MAlign Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc lines are something extraordinarily modified from "normal" genetic variation. That's not the case; Mesan "Star Lines" would be virtually indistinguishable from normal genetic variation except for the "mesa-forming" that would be detectable in all of Mesa's population and most of Manpower's slave lines.

That the MAlign considers their "Star Lines" superior to "normals" is more conceit than reality. The "Scrags" consider themselves "superior" but are demonstrably inferior to Thandi Palane and a host of other characters; I don't think "Star Lines" are any more "superior" than Scrags are.
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Re: Genetic superhumans as sleeper agents
Post by drinksmuchcoffee   » Fri Jun 24, 2016 10:40 pm

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Cauldron of Ghosts -- Chapter 16 wrote:That’s all well and good,” Honor said in a much more serious tone. “And, for what it’s worth, I agree with you. But something nobody’s been talking about very much is that for this Alignment to have operated so long without anyone’s spotting it, even on Beowulf, it has to be very, very good at covert operations of its own…including penetration of other people’s security. That ‘sleeper agent’ your people found on Torch is one example of how far they’re prepared to go, and if McBryde was right about their having buried genetic ‘sleepers’ all over the galaxy, how confident can we really be that they haven’t penetrated the BSC itself?”

Much as it pains me to admit it, we can’t be,” Benton-Ramirez y Chou replied, more than a bit sourly. “Obviously, we’ve had to rethink everything we thought we knew about Mesa in light of the information Victor and Anton—and Yana—brought home. I have a few ideas about how we might look for those ‘genetic sleepers’ of yours using gene scans, but nobody’s worried much about that particular form of security screening in the past. On the other hand, we’ve always been pretty fanatical about compartmentalizing information and operating on a ‘need to know’ basis. To be honest, that’s one reason I was so uncomfortable bringing this new genetic sheathing technology into the light of day even under these circumstances. It’s certainly not impossible that the Alignment’s caught a hint of the R&D on it, or even—although I think it’s very unlikely—infiltrated some of its ‘sleepers’ into the R&D program itself. But I guarantee you that anyone who’s involved with it is going to find himself under the most intense scrutiny of his entire life as soon as we get home. And I don’t see how they could have prepared a cover...


So RFC & co are leaving an opening for finding sleepers via gene scans. Okay.
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Re: Genetic superhumans as sleeper agents
Post by JohnRoth   » Fri Jun 24, 2016 10:46 pm

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SharkHunter wrote:...
The other thing that makes detection harder is that Manpower has been engaged in genetic manipulation for centuries, so how does Beowulf, Manticore, etc. differentiate between "fairly successful escaped slave mod 34B and "sleeper agent 34 mark 7, #2 etc.?


drinksmuchcoffee wrote:Which begs the question: "Why does this guy from Sphinx whose family has been on Sphinx for centuries have gene markers that look similar to Manpower slaves?"


Weird Harold wrote:
Who would notice one more type of "genie" in a population that contains just about every heavy gravity modification ever made -- including thousands of Mesa heavy gravity slave lines?

Also, I think there is a misconception that MAlign Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc lines are something extraordinarily modified from "normal" genetic variation. That's not the case; Mesan "Star Lines" would be virtually indistinguishable from normal genetic variation except for the "mesa-forming" that would be detectable in all of Mesa's population and most of Manpower's slave lines.

That the MAlign considers their "Star Lines" superior to "normals" is more conceit than reality. The "Scrags" consider themselves "superior" but are demonstrably inferior to Thandi Palane and a host of other characters; I don't think "Star Lines" are any more "superior" than Scrags are.


Um, no. David has said any number of times that the Alpha lines, and to some extent the Beta lines, are demonstrably superior to the general run of humanity. He's said it a number of times, in a number of different ways. For example:

On 2014-04-14 RFC wrote: at length:

Ultimately, I’m fairly sympathetic to the Leonard Detweiler view of the possibilities and value of deliberate, targeted genetic “improvement” on the baseline Version 1.0 of humanity. What they’ve accomplished in their own Alpha and Beta lines demonstrates the potential for improving the human genotype. So do Honor Alexander-Harrington, Benjamin Mayhew, Yana Tretiakovna, and a gentleman named Jeremy X. However, despite any sympathy I may feel for Leonard’s original view and objectives for improving humanity’s DNA, I find Beowulf’s more limited view of what is acceptable far more likely to preserve humanity’s humanity.


That's not a delusion. That's what they've done. Also, "Star Lines" are not different from Alphas; they're just the bleeding edge of development.
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Re: Genetic superhumans as sleeper agents
Post by Weird Harold   » Fri Jun 24, 2016 11:02 pm

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JohnRoth wrote:
On 2014-04-14 RFC wrote: at length:

Ultimately, I’m fairly sympathetic to the Leonard Detweiler view of the possibilities and value of deliberate, targeted genetic “improvement” on the baseline Version 1.0 of humanity. What they’ve accomplished in their own Alpha and Beta lines demonstrates the potential for improving the human genotype. So do Honor Alexander-Harrington, Benjamin Mayhew, Yana Tretiakovna, and a gentleman named Jeremy X. However, despite any sympathy I may feel for Leonard’s original view and objectives for improving humanity’s DNA, I find Beowulf’s more limited view of what is acceptable far more likely to preserve humanity’s humanity.


That's not a delusion. That's what they've done. Also, "Star Lines" are not different from Alphas; they're just the bleeding edge of development.


There is a difference between better than "normals" and "as superior as we think we are."
Other genetic lines are also superior to "normals" -- including Scrags -- and some, like the Mfecane worlds are arguably superior to anything the MAlign has produced.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

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Re: Genetic superhumans as sleeper agents
Post by JohnRoth   » Sat Jun 25, 2016 12:22 am

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On 2014-04-14 RFC wrote: at length:

Ultimately, I’m fairly sympathetic to the Leonard Detweiler view of the possibilities and value of deliberate, targeted genetic “improvement” on the baseline Version 1.0 of humanity. What they’ve accomplished in their own Alpha and Beta lines demonstrates the potential for improving the human genotype. So do Honor Alexander-Harrington, Benjamin Mayhew, Yana Tretiakovna, and a gentleman named Jeremy X. However, despite any sympathy I may feel for Leonard’s original view and objectives for improving humanity’s DNA, I find Beowulf’s more limited view of what is acceptable far more likely to preserve humanity’s humanity.


JohnRoth wrote:That's not a delusion. That's what they've done. Also, "Star Lines" are not different from Alphas; they're just the bleeding edge of development.


Weird Harold wrote:
There is a difference between better than "normals" and "as superior as we think we are."
Other genetic lines are also superior to "normals" -- including Scrags -- and some, like the Mfecane worlds are arguably superior to anything the MAlign has produced.


Textev please.
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