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Re: [Spoiler - UH] utube snippet | |
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by cthia » Sat Jan 13, 2018 4:20 pm | |
cthia
Posts: 14951
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This is an attempt to help our friends in the forum who have requested text. Here is a bit. Please forgive any errors of formatting and text. The audio is rather difficult in many places and many names are impossible to guess the correct spelling, even if the audio is clear, which it isn't. My apologies to the author for most likely botching parts and also in advance if for some reason he doesn't want text supplied. Having said that...
Damien Harahap. You remember him. There were people wondering why I spent so much time with him, in Shadow of Victory. Well, the reason I spent so much time with him is that he ends up on Manticore having a conversation with Honor Harrington. snip "That would be Rufino Cherneshev. The fellow that wound up with Bardasano's job?" snip He felt a twinge. A tiny one, of regret at having ID'ed Rufino for the Manties, but the Mesan was a fellow (professional), he'd understand. That wouldn't prevent him from shooting Harahap right in the head, if opportunity arose but he would understand. "Yes," he said. "Neither he nor Bardasano ever used the term Mesan Alignment to me, or in my presence. But assuming you people are right about its existence, and if you are that might explain some of the things I find puzzling about their strategies. I'm pretty sure Bardasano was in charge of its covert operations. I don't know anything about its intelligence gathering activities except that from the raw take I studied from the systems they assigned to me, they are tapped into official lead sources that are very high levels. The intel they provided me was better than the Gendarmerie usually comes up with and they obviously had sources outside the official ones as well. How those contacts were established (for management?) was never part of the intel package so as I can't say if she was involved in that side of it. Or if she was only their Director of Operations. From her attitude, from some of the things she said, I'm inclined to think she had executive responsibilities from both sides of their shop. Intelligence and Covert Ops. But, there is no way I could confirm that. The important thing though," he leaned forward "is that whatever her role may have been,, Detweiler was her boss. So if you're right about the existence of the Alignment and it really isn't the Consortium of Interstellar Transsellars he and Bardasano tried to sell me, I think he's very probably the shadow government's Minister of Intelligence." "Interesting possibility," Joubert said "I want to come back to that in a bit, but for now tell me what you can about the shift in Cherneyshev's responsibilities after Green Pines. For example--" "I wish I thought we could really turn that man into an asset," Patricia Givens said. Almost wistfully. She sat in the secure conference room between Hamish Alexander Harrington and his brother William, who happen to be Baron Grantiville not to mention Prime Minister of Manticore. At the moment all of them were watching another installment of Damien Harahap's ongoing debrief by (name unintelligible) special intelligence service. Initially, Givens thought ONI ought to have the lead role given that it was a naval officer who scooped him up in the first place. OTOH she had more than enough on her own plate, especially in the wake of Hypatia and the reports beginning to come in from the other systems who had been visited by the Solly's goddamn Buccanners. (I guess they don't like Operation Buccaneer). "He's a trained, skilled intelligence operative, not a scientist (sequestered in a think tank?) or even doing applied research. That means he's already given us at least three or four times more on the operational side than Dr. Simoes was able to. Assuming we can rely on it." The dappled treecat on White Haven's shoulder produced something that sounded remarkably like a human sigh. And the cat on the back of Given's chair laughed. The admiral looked over her shoulder at her fury bodyguard with a frown, then turned back to the two-legged participants of the conversation in the conference. "Despite Samantha's and (Thought Chasers?) reactions," she said a bit tartly, "I am not suggesting he's getting any intentional deceptions past Pounces on Leaves." She twitched her head at the treecat participating in the recorded interrogation. "My problem is that I still can't convince myself, not fully, that he isn't some kind of a plant. Even if he doesn't know it." "Oh Pat," the Prime Minister sighed, "I swear you are the most paranoid person I've ever met." He considered a moment. "Well. The most paranoid otherwise sane person, I've ever met." "Part of my job." She pointed out. "Besides," her expression darkened. "Don't forget how long these bastards have played every intelligence agency in the galaxy. They got away with it because none of us paranoid insane people were paranoid enough, to believe in tooth fairies, Easter Bunnies, honest politicians, no offense Mr. Prime Minister sir. Or secret societies of genetic supermen hell bent on galactic domination." She shook her head. "Honestly, most mornings I wake up and have to convince myself all over again that this Alignment really exists." 12 min mark of ~ 40 minutes. . Last edited by cthia on Mon Jan 15, 2018 12:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense |
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Re: [Spoiler - UH] utube snippet | |
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by Bluesqueak » Sat Jan 13, 2018 4:33 pm | |
Bluesqueak
Posts: 429
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Remember that this is a chapter from an unknown place in the book. There could easily have been an earlier scene on Mesa where, say Admiral Gold Peak has it brought to her attention that record A refers to identified person as 'Colin Smith', but record B has him as 'Colin Detweiler'. I don't think it will take a Pat Givens to realise that 'Detweiler' is a significant name for the Alignment. Later on, Hararap is shown a picture of 'Colin Detweiler' and identifies him as Bardasano's boss. |
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Re: [Spoiler - UH] utube snippet | |
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by JohnRoth » Sat Jan 13, 2018 4:33 pm | |
JohnRoth
Posts: 2438
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I think this may help several people quite a lot. The word you've got marked as (profession)? should be "professional". This also shows the second continuity error. Here he's saying he's never heard the term "Mesan Alignment," but chapter 23, page 223 says specifically:
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Re: [Spoiler - UH] utube snippet | |
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by JohnRoth » Sat Jan 13, 2018 4:42 pm | |
JohnRoth
Posts: 2438
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As cthia said above, the video said that he (Harahap) had supplied the details from which they made the picture of Colin. And yes, the name "Detweiler" ought to ring any number of alarm bells. Even though the direct line supposedly died out several centuries before. |
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Re: [Spoiler - UH] utube snippet | |
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by quite possibly a cat » Sat Jan 13, 2018 5:11 pm | |
quite possibly a cat
Posts: 341
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People aren't recorders. They don't remember everything they've ever seen or heard. They can forget something. He could have easily heard "Mesan Alignment" used some context clues to slot it into whatever the cover-story was and promptly forgot it was ever mentioned.
Now you might accuse me of making a Post Facto rationalization on behalf of RFC. However, things you hear are less likely to stick with you than stuff you actually write down and then go over several times in a process of editing. Therefore even if this in an Post Facto rationalization, it proves its own validity. If the author could forget, the character could forget! |
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Re: [Spoiler - UH] utube snippet | |
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by JohnRoth » Sat Jan 13, 2018 5:26 pm | |
JohnRoth
Posts: 2438
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There are a couple of things going on here. 1. Properly trained spies (and Harahap is represented as very good at his job) have very good memories for that kind of detail. It's part of spy training, just like situational awareness is supposed to be for any kind of fighter. Second, going meta for a moment, RFC began posting snippets a few months ago, then promised he'd post one a week and promptly vanished from the forum. I notice that the thread with the announcement has vanished a couple of weeks ago. I also note that he had a problem with sleep deprivation that affected his writing substantially. Now, we can put those facts together any number of ways, but that, and the glaring errors in the first snippets of Dark Fall, suggest that Baen's editors found a lot of stuff, and it's back for rework. I could be wrong, but there's enough slack in the schedule that rework shouldn't impact the scheduled date. In any case, continuity errors in a submission draft are pretty much expected. That's why publishers have copyeditors. |
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Re: [Spoiler - UH] utube snippet | |
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by Randomiser » Sat Jan 13, 2018 6:16 pm | |
Randomiser
Posts: 1451
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Couple of names for Cthia's transcript
The interrogator I think is Antoine(?) Joubert (or Jubert) {I'm using French phonetics} At the moment all of them were watching another installment of Damien Harahap's ongoing debrief by (name unintelligible but clearly the current boss of Manticore's civilian intelligence service) special intelligence service. Initially, Givens thought ONI {Office of Naval Intelligence} ought to have the lead role given that it was a naval officer who scooped him up in the first place. The dappled treecat on Whitehaven's shoulder produced something that sounded remarkably like a human sigh. {For corroboration she's identified as Samantha in the next para} |
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Re: [Spoiler - UH] utube snippet | |
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by ldwechsler » Mon Jan 15, 2018 8:04 am | |
ldwechsler
Posts: 1235
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Whether or not he ever heard Mesan Alignment is almost irrelevant. He knows a real lot about what's happening. He was sent out to different planets for a reason and he knew that the plan was to betray them. There can be no doubt he understands that there are forces on Mesa that are playing games. As a trained intelligence agent, he can start figuring things out. There were lots of anomalies. Why run a revolution in Manticore's name? Well, to ruin their reputation. But the League will not come out ahead either. He knows a real lot of people who are pretty high deep into the onion like Bardasano and Rufino. He seems to know about the Detweilers and if he has ever seen more than one he knows they are clones. He has been enhanced and I would guess knows more about those things than most. Add to all of that there will be some people on Mesa who also know more than the Detweilers assumed. There may be some geneticists who have figured out that Manpower was just a testing ground. I can't wait for the book. |
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Re: [Spoiler - UH] utube snippet | |
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by quite possibly a cat » Mon Jan 15, 2018 8:33 pm | |
quite possibly a cat
Posts: 341
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What does that get them though? There will probably be plenty of nations who are openly hostile to Manticore and the Solarian League very shortly. The enhancements are probably pretty nice to know about. When a company invariably pops up with prolong boosters and tech suspiciously like what was found in Firebrand, it will be a major tip off. Although that's only if Manticore keeps Firebrand a secret, but still that blocks a major source of Malign income/power.
Manpower is obviously a testing ground. In fact, it probably has something in its mission statement about genetic research and uplifting in the human race! Wasn't that why it was founded? Hell, I bet every Manpower employee will suddenly find that they were only working at Manpower for the genetic advancement and all the great benefits it could bring! Regardless the real problem is Manticore needs to find Malign RF worlds or Darius, and there probably isn't a trail leading to those. Worse Mesa probably WILL have left a nice trail pointing to patsies. They won't even need to fake such a trailsince there ARE a bunch of Mesa friendly worlds. Not that they won't fake trails too! |
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Re: [Spoiler - UH] utube snippet | |
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by cthia » Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:31 pm | |
cthia
Posts: 14951
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Again! Not once do I ever specifically assert that Bardasano is a psychopath. I keep pointing that out, but to no avail. Stop putting words in my mouth or point out where I did. However, there is such a thing called inference and the transitive property of equality. If A = B and B = C then A = C. The instability (which has now been labeled courtesy of RFC) has obviously manifested itself before. Obviously. The instability is well known. There had to be a "patient zero" who was responsible for bringing the errant gene into light. It must be Bardasano, because the genome is named after her. If she isn't patient zero, then the instability would have been named "Maria" if Maria was the first to exhibit the trait. Unless Bardasano was the first off the assembly line in her line. Unlikely! It is sligtly alluded to again in passing, paraphrasing "Bardasano is a good example of the good traits outweighing the bad." Everyone agrees that Marinescu is a psychopath -- a stone-cold psychopath. We agree that she shares the Bardasano genome. Not a particular gene, but the genome itself. Moving along. The Bardasano genome has instabilities. Though we never knew what those instabilities were, like JohnRoth humorously pointed out. And I agree, it could have been something as benign as eating chicken with a fork. Which is actually illegal in one place on Earth. We didn't know what that instability was. Until now, that is. RFC fleshes it out for his readers, with Cherneyshev's musings. Cherneyshev -- who himself is certainly privy to the whispers and accusations and facts of what those instabilities are! THEN, Marinescu confirms that she does indeed suffer from the psychopathic heritage obtained from => the Bardasano genome. BUT! That isn't to say that Bardasano suffers from the same psychopathic instability. Agreed! BUT! WHY IS THE GENOME NAMED AFTER HER??? And why would it have come so close to being culled, IF the psychopathic label, that RFC has just now fleshed out, hadn't manifested itself QUITE A BIT and IN A VERY BIG WAY! Which, btw, is realistic. Man is not GOD, and any attempt to create perfection is going to result in some unwanted side effects. It wouldn't be literary art if RFC would fail to capitalize on one of the more profound failings, whereas in this case is psychopathy. Which isn't lost on me. It may be that Bardasano has never manifested any psychopathic tendencies. But textev supplies overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The least of which IS NOT the fact that the instability => is named after her. I'm sorry, but this statement is so funny I'm going to split my side. Your logic is more twisted than Atlanta's Spaghetti Junction
THAT WAS THE PAST! PRE-HOUDINI! Yet her psychopathy, as a result of Houdini, is confirmed in a big, huge, stone-cold psychopathic way that we have all agreed on. If you missed the obvious, that quote -- as far as any documented evidence -- became INVALID as soon as her psychopathy, IN THE FIELD, was indeed confirmed! Again, Bardasano may not be unstable. Yet her line is a risk. It should be considered a severe risk for the MAlign who can't afford to have people in field positions that may go ballistic and start eating people. That is why most militaries perform psyche evaluations as a matter of principle. It is why I said that I can't believe that her line wasn't culled, despite the utility of some of its brilliant people. Would you marry a line that has a history of instability that has been identified as psychopathy? Would you trust her with your kids? Would you trust your super secret, centuries old regime to someone of the line? Can you accept sleeping with one eye open? The logic used in the quote of the quote that Harold quoted is insane. But since we're discussing psychopathy, I suppose it fits right in. LOL Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense |
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