Duckk wrote:jeremysaint wrote:not the reference i was thinking of Duckk, but in the last chapter of the most recent book, President Prichart states that the alignment requires the destruction, not defeat, but destruction of both manticore and the republic of haven. i so desperately wish i could remember where the actual reference i was remembering is.
Which is correct, in that the government and way of life for the peoples of the Haven Quadrant would be subsumed by the Alignment's ultimate goals. Haven's rabid egalitarianism has little recognition for people who are supposedly born superior. Manticore (despite the now defunct Conservative Association), Erewhon, and Beowulf likewise have little in common with the Alignment since both are in their own ways very merit driven societies.as for the alignments crazy plan...
unless the alignment is especially foolish, they would know that you promote ideas with logic, not violence. education, not guns. and if you have the time and resources to enact a centuries long scheme, surely you could have done a great job of educating society and promoting your ideas in that time.
what is more, and i think this is very important, skrags and the like were relevant in earths "final war" because (i assume) that infantry combat was relevant then. people were afraid of super genetically engineered boogeymen with impossible reflexes and strength.
infantry combat is utterly irrelevant in interstellar warfare such as that found in the manticore-haven wars. the entire marine corp of either manticore or haven could have been genetically engineered super soldiers and it would not have changed a single thing. for that matter, is a skrag in power armor especially more effective than a regular person in power armor?
as such i simply dont understand why people express fear or prejudice towards skrags.
human society has outgrown racial prejudice but has to develop some other unreasonable reason to fear or hate?
The US still is feeling the effects of slavery 150 years after its abolishment. Middle East countries range from distrust to outright hatred of European countries, the root of which can partially be traced back to the Crusades and imperial days. So it's not unfathomable that the most destructive war fought on Earth which produced billions if not tens of billions of deaths, destroyed much of Earth's capacity to sustain life, and preserved in electronic media for all time be remembered and feared.
As for the Mesan Alignment in particular, they did try to approach it in a reasonable, public manner, but was shouted down by Beowulf. And since Beowulf's position has not changed a single iota since Leonard Detweiler's time, the Alignment knows its not going to get a fair hearing at all, ever, unless it changes the context of the debate. Hence the destruction of the League. Could this have been approached in the kind of cold blooded Vulcan-like logic way over the centuries? Possibly. But history shows decisions aren't made by emotionless logic machines, it's made by people. And the people of a ideology or nation tend to counter derision with militancy.
So ultimately, I see no problem with the genesis of the Alignment or the strategy it adopted in light of what happened to the adherents of Leonard Detweiler.
The MA has a goal: improving humanity, and its quality of life (on their own terms).
I suspect that their def'n of humanity mostly includes their own alpha lines, and perhaps the beta/gammas.
Many Mesans in the series seem to be quite willing to enjoy luxuries when available, and care little about the fate of 'common folk'
Under the plan, I suspect that the REST of humanity are going to be relegated to untermensch status. So if a few (say 10-30%) are killed while the galaxy is restructured, oh well.
The only reason why they are hiding and avoiding EE-type atrocities for now is pragmatic: They are afraid of the Sollies. But once the Sollies are broken up, what's to stop them? Don't forget that there has only ever been ONE enforcer of the Eriandi Edict, and they are about to remove that piece from the chessboard.
Create a dark-enough age, kill/starve enough people, and then show that only the MA and their better-life-through-better-genes can save them.
The 'belief system' they follow may be one where better genes make better people make a better universe, but the MA wants to be the ones to decide what 'better' means for everyone.