JohnRoth wrote:Brigade XO wrote:I thought I remembered the Gauls as being existing Onion members who were "True Believers". Nothing was mentioned about them being specificaly tailored for the job. They were already people inside at some outer level who gravitated to the Fanatic end of the spectrum. It is all about The Cause.
The problem with people who end up becoming fanatical true believers in support a any glorious cause (as they understand it and, in this case, the version that the Alignment has fed a great number of people in various layers of the Onion) is you get the same fanatical obedience to the cause and a willingness to do all sorts of things because you believe they are required, no matter what the cost. Like the one who blew the reactor of the freighter to keep it's couple of Houdini passengers (and himself and any information the captain and crew might have) from the Torch Marines.
Patriot, Martyr, Fanatic.....pick you label and slap it on. It just might be that a number of othewise usefull and otherwise non-critical modifications made to various experimental lines which are (quite unknowingly to themselves as experiments) combine to make a variation of the Skrags without the strength or the quite boosted intelegence but with a certain bias in the direction of fanaticism. Usefull if you want indepent minion guards and enforcers of policy and a certain group set of "moral standards".
All very ugly.
Exactly. That's on page 480 of the same chapter I just cited above: SoV, Chapter 50. Search term is "Genetic Advancement and Uplift League". The search term for the previous cite (which I forgot to include) is "stone-cold psychopath".
I think you are missing my point John.
1. First off,
everyone inside of the Onion are bitchy biological botches of psychopathic beings.
2. Marinescu carries
the same psychopathic Bardasano gene. It is why Chernyshev despises her. No one likes a bloodthirsty bitch no matter how useful they are. That's why Harrington was hated so vehemently by the Opposition. A bloodthirsty bitch may stick a knife in your back from behind.
Heck, Cherneshev is reserving the right to, and anticipating a time when he may have to, gut Marinescu like the malignant pig she is!At any rate, I supplied what I thought was the appropriate part of the same Ch. 50 of SoV that you are referring to. The remaining portion is as follows...
Marinescu sat back in her chair, her expression thoughtful. GAUL—the Genetic Advancement and Uplift League—had been a part of the Mesan Alignment from the beginning, and its members had proven useful on more than one occasion. It had also tended over the T-centuries to become a sort of collecting basket for the most fanatical supporters of the Detweiler Plan, however, and like fanatics in general, they were perfectly comfortable with…extreme solutions. The Gauls served as the security force of last resort for the inner onion of the Alignment. There weren’t actually all that many of them, but they had a fearsome reputation within the Alignment, which made them useful out of proportion to their actual numbers when the velvet glove seemed unlikely to suffice.
Most Gauls would have been quite willing to strap a nuclear device to their backs and walk into a crowded restaurant to execute one of the “Ballroom” attacks the revised Houdini would require, and Marinescu had already started thinking about ways she could use them. But Chernyshev had a point. It would be difficult to imagine a more…diligent babysitter—and gaoler—than a Gaul. And it would be impossible to imagine one who could be more intimidating to someone who might consider desertion in transit.
“All right,” she said after pondering it for a moment. “That could work.”
“In that case, I think we’re probably done—for now, anyway,” Chernyshev said. “I’d like to see a preliminary draft of your action plan before we talk to Albrecht and Collin about it, but that’s your side of the shop, not mine. For the most part, I’m perfectly content leaving it in your hands.”
“I appreciate that.”
She climbed out of her chair, and those dark eyes flickered again—this time with something which could have been contempt. But that was fine with Chernyshev, up to a point, at least. She was one of those people who confused eagerness to kill with willingness to kill, and it couldn’t hurt to have her dismiss him as someone disinclined to dirty his own hands with what had to be done if he could avoid it. She was unlikely to go so far as to buck his authority, whatever she thought—not while she knew he had Albrecht Detweiler’s full-blooded support—but if the time ever came…
“Samuel will see to it that anything you send him reaches me as quickly as possible,” he said.
“Got it.” She nodded. “Until later, then.”
Chernyshev watched her walk out of his office and frowned thoughtfully as the door closed behind her.
***
The potential for disaster could be worse than I thought. These aren't tailored fanatics. They are self indulgents led by their own rotten minds formulated and fomenting off of the Detweiler rhetoric of lies and deceit.
But then, what happens when one of your fanatics finds out that you're a sham and that they've been lied to? Then they become angry, restless dissenters hell bent on bringing you down with the same ferocity that they exuded while lifting you up. Enemies on steroids. See Jeremy. See Simoes.
See the Church of Scientology and its many dissenters who are numerous. The Detweiler Onion builds on too many lies, on too much deceit and indifference. When you fail to be loyal to those that are loyal to you (Hitler) then you invite disaster of the quite catastrophic kind. You reap the seeds that you sow.
Then the people that have turned against you are not just dissenters, but angry, fanatical dissenters using the same characteristics against you that you once saw as advantageous. They are willing to die bringing you down. With compassion. It becomes their duty.
'Gasp!' The Malign is the Church of Scientology.
Unless I'm digesting it incorrectly, Anisimovna
was Bardasano's superior.
He’d expected Aldona Anisimovna, who’d taken the lead in the project to destabilize the Manticoran annexation of the Talbott Sector. Instead, he found himself looking at Isabel Bardasano, the wildly tattooed and body-pierced cadet member of the Jessyk Combine’s board who’d clearly been riding backup as Anisimovna’s assistant during their meetings in the Madras Sector.
Underline mine.