The GA controls the MA's orbitals - what now?

bert953 wrote:At the end of Caldron of Ghosts, Admiral Gold Peak's arrival saved Victor Cachat & Thandi Palane before the final assault of Neue Rostock. This was confirmed in SoV, but I'd have thought that the Torches' 1st conversation with the fleet, before they made orbit, would be "yes we're still alive, guess what the Malign' s been up to......."

The way SoV ended, it sure sounded like Admiral Gold Peak hasnt spoken in depth to Cachat yet, although she did speak to Palane BEFORE making orbit. Now that the fleet is in orbit of Mesa l was very surprised that Gold Peak is wondering who set off all these nukes - simultaneously.

Of course Malign agent-provocateur Audrey O'Hanrahan is doing her job, adding hydrogen to the fire by casting doubts about the Manties, Peeps & Torch. Im actually wondering if she can be turned after witnessing the cold-blooded ruthless of the Malign blowing up 6Million Mesans in one event and assigning the blame to the Manties; as a cover for purging their own people. All this after after months of atrocities.

Finally, any word on DW's schedule for next book in Honervetse, safehold, Prince Roger; anthing at all??????

Theemile wrote:

bert953 wrote:At the end of Caldron of Ghosts, Admiral Gold Peak's arrival saved Victor Cachat & Thandi Palane before the final assault of Neue Rostock. This was confirmed in SoV, but I'd have thought that the Torches' 1st conversation with the fleet, before they made orbit, would be "yes we're still alive, guess what the Malign' s been up to......."

The way SoV ended, it sure sounded like Admiral Gold Peak hasnt spoken in depth to Cachat yet, although she did speak to Palane BEFORE making orbit. Now that the fleet is in orbit of Mesa l was very surprised that Gold Peak is wondering who set off all these nukes - simultaneously.

Of course Malign agent-provocateur Audrey O'Hanrahan is doing her job, adding hydrogen to the fire by casting doubts about the Manties, Peeps & Torch. Im actually wondering if she can be turned after witnessing the cold-blooded ruthless of the Malign blowing up 6Million Mesans in one event and assigning the blame to the Manties; as a cover for purging their own people. All this after after months of atrocities.

Finally, any word on DW's schedule for next book in Honervetse, safehold, Prince Roger; anthing at all??????

Here's the main problem with both books: Cauldron never got finished due the conflicting schedules of Flint and Weber and their health issues, and a semi-finished copy was turned in to meet the deadline. Victory never got completely edited and was turned in just before the printing deadline... actually a little past it. So neither is what should be considered a finished work.

I actually believe (with no evidence, mind you), that the end parts of SoV were originally planned for CoG, but were not finished in time; so to send CoG to the printers in time, we got that hurried ending of CoG instead.

I almost expect another round of "alternate viewpoint details" to the "Last Days on Mesa" chapter to come in the next book that will change everything that we've been told happened, to make everything flow into the final storyline.

JohnRoth wrote:Let's do a bit of thinking about what the situation really is on Darius. The Big Lie is in place, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. RFC has given us plenty of hints.

Contrary to a couple of earlier comments in textev, Darius doesn't have genetic slaves. What it does have is lots of specialty genetic lines at the Beta and Gamma levels. We've seen a number of them already.

Albrecht Detweiller's and Aldona Anisimovna's bodyguards are specialty Gamma lines; they're treated as respected specialists in their fields. Rufino C's clone brother (brothers?) was Isabel Bardisino's bodyguard.

Rufino C.'s girlfriend is a hugely manipulative fem fatale. She had her target wrapped around her little finger, and she's got Rufino as well. The difference is that Rufino knows what's going on.

The Mesan mole in the Gendarme has a contact whose cover is as a sex worker. She's a Beta line who's the equivalent of the sex slave lines with a hyper-active libido and movie-star looks, except she isn't a slave.

There's a preface in one of the books that details Leonard Detweiller's viewpoint, including the idea that people should be gene-engineered to fit their jobs. I've lost track of where it is.

So, you arrive on Darius and discover that 80% or more (possibly as much as 95%) are specialty gene-engineered lines who are very good at their jobs, but probably abysmal at very much else, including being able to handle the average citizen's responsibilities in running a democratic planet.

What are you going to do?

Clue: you might want to ask the people on Torch. I don't get the idea that they're all that unhappy with the notion of gene-engineered specialty lines, only the idea of genetic slavery and the way Manpower treated them.

Louis R wrote:The situation on Masada is quite different: they know what the rest of the universe is like, and are convinced, with some notable exceptions [like the female 3/4], that it's their task to fix it. And it's not regardless of how many eggs they break. They actually seem to think 'the more the better'. You can't change their minds, so the only thing to do is sit on them until they change themselves.

Much of the population of Darius has no clue what is out there, and thinks 'out there' is out to get them. The rest probably knows rather more, but most of them have never actually seen it and probably don't really believe what they've heard, but do think it's broke and they need to fix it [reminds me of the typical 21st-century Terran, actually]. For a lot of them, the cure is to let them go take a look for themselves. Just not in warships.

IOW, treat Darius rather like Thebes.

cthia wrote:The GA controls the Alignment's orbitals, what now?

Would the Darius population of slaves be earmarked for Torch? Would that even be feasible? Or would a police force be forever stationed there as it is with Masada? What is the ultimate inevitable fate of the Dariusian society if the GA ever overcomes the Alignment?

What will be the mentality of a radio-free people sheltered all of their lives?

cthia wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:
Interesting you should ask that question, and especially compare it to Masada.

The first, rather obvious thing is that occupying the orbitals doesn't mean a whole lot, since I doubt if they care about the SL's warfare treaties. I think the GA is going to have to pound the entire space industry into very small bits of space junk first and then be prepared to use kinetic weapons on a few places before they can get effective control.

It's not a good start to the "we come in peace and friendship" meme.

Didn't really mean to compare the idea to the occupation of Masada. Masada just happens to be the only precedent storyline has provided us with that I'm aware of, so for the sake of conversation I simply thought I'd begin the bidding there?...

As far as trashing the system's infrastructure is concerned, I imagine that is a given. Even if the GA can go directly for the orbitals, which I think unlikely, I doubt they'd want to leave the industry intact.

My more serious concern is for the Alignment's citizens, which intuitively would prove to be problematical, certainly not as straightforward as one would think.

What extent of kinetic weapons might the Alignment force on the GA? Suddenly, I want to know the population density per slaves non-slaves. It all just seems like a bag of military and political worms awaiting the GA.