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Into the Light snippet #15

Aliens? Invading aliens? What will Earth do? Well...we may have a few more resources than we first thought. Come join a friendly discussion about David Weber's newest Tor series - "Out of the Dark."
Re: Into the Light snippet #15
Post by Randomiser   » Sun Aug 11, 2019 9:40 am

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PeterZ wrote:Whether that product was a desired outcome or something horrendously NOT desired (from the experimenters POV), is open to speculation.


The idea that something so massively transforming and (in many ways) positive should be successful accidentally would stretch credulity to breaking point.
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Re: Into the Light snippet #15
Post by DrakBibliophile   » Sun Aug 11, 2019 2:20 pm

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Nod.

Somebody was attempting a change in humans and it apparently was successful in Vlad's case.

Of course, his guards didn't survive the procedure.

But then Vlad also mentioned that some of his "children" became dangers to others.

IMO based on Vlad's story, I suspect that the "experimenters" were long gone before Vlad discovered their "base".

Perhaps, their experiments were generally failures and Vlad was the "lucky one".


Randomiser wrote:
PeterZ wrote:Whether that product was a desired outcome or something horrendously NOT desired (from the experimenters POV), is open to speculation.


The idea that something so massively transforming and (in many ways) positive should be successful accidentally would stretch credulity to breaking point.
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Re: Into the Light snippet #15
Post by DrakBibliophile   » Sun Aug 11, 2019 2:37 pm

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Minor comment.

Vlad's men likely weren't "beamed up" as that sort of technology hadn't been shown in the first book.

I suspect that they didn't survive the "treatment" that made Vlad a "vampire".

Randomiser wrote:Well, beam me up, Scotty! Assuming it's not supernatural, it sure sounds like alien visitors. But why did the survey team decide to break the Prime Directive this time? Mind you, the nosferatu legends, which Vlad learned as a boy, suggest this wasn't the first time.

40 years or so is enough for a 240 light year round trip in the deep freeze, with a bit of "structural intervention" at the far end. Where are his bodyguards? Did they get beamed up and haven't been returned for some reason? Or were they the unsuccessful attempts which enabled the process to be refined enough for Vlad's transformation to work? Or did the blast just kill them and the grey ooze gobble them up? What a lot of lovely room for speculation!

On a different tack "And sometimes, as I warned Pieter and Longbow, in the fullness of time that same madness comes upon even some of our kind who appear to have weathered the change intact." Chekov's gun?
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Re: Into the Light snippet #15
Post by Bluesqueak   » Mon Aug 12, 2019 11:20 am

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Randomiser wrote:
PeterZ wrote:Whether that product was a desired outcome or something horrendously NOT desired (from the experimenters POV), is open to speculation.


The idea that something so massively transforming and (in many ways) positive should be successful accidentally would stretch credulity to breaking point.


Vlad was most certainly an accident- firstly, the 'cavern' he and his bodyguards found was in the high Carpathians. In winter. Nobody would've been travelling that way unless they had no choice. Any alien who thought they'd get experimental subjects wandering by would be even more naive about humans than the Shongairi.

Secondly, he and his men had to travel quite a way into the 'cave' to trigger the bio weapon, or experimental wotsits, or whatever it was.

Thirdly, Vlad had to put his hand through a glowing barrier, which suggests - to me - a warning barrier.

It's possible that whoever or whatever was in the 'cave' was trucking in experimental subjects from elsewhere, and decided to use their experimental whatever as a perimeter defence, I suppose. But that doesn't explain why Vlad was then effectively dumped.

All in all, the way the scene reads to me is that Vlad and his men stumbled on a hidden scout probe or base, triggering a perimeter defence. It may be that they took Vlad inside after he survived, and ran some experimental stuff on him. But that doesn't explain why they then dumped the experimental subject afterwards.

Alternatively, the defence was possibly some kind of tailored bio weapon, one designed to be harmful only to humans. That fits with the soldiers' clothes surviving, but their bodies being gone. Once the perimeter was breached, the scout probe abandoned that base, leaving the humans behind as - they thought - nanites munched dust? Okay, maybe one of the corpses hadn't been fully munched yet, but...

But something about Vlad meant his bio weapon couldn't quite disintegrate him. Yes, he did become a form of dispersed organisation, one that looks like smoke, but he could bring it back into a human seeming body.

Alternatives are possible, but given the immense over confidence of the Shongairi, their plan for a tailored bio weapon and their back story knowledge that the Hegemony uses such bio weapons regularly, 'accident caused by a combination of over confidence and ignorance' is definitely a possibility.
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Re: Into the Light snippet #15
Post by Theemile   » Mon Aug 12, 2019 1:29 pm

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Bluesqueak wrote:
Vlad was most certainly an accident- firstly, the 'cavern' he and his bodyguards found was in the high Carpathians. In winter. Nobody would've been travelling that way unless they had no choice. Any alien who thought they'd get experimental subjects wandering by would be even more naive about humans than the Shongairi.

Secondly, he and his men had to travel quite a way into the 'cave' to trigger the bio weapon, or experimental wotsits, or whatever it was.

Thirdly, Vlad had to put his hand through a glowing barrier, which suggests - to me - a warning barrier.

It's possible that whoever or whatever was in the 'cave' was trucking in experimental subjects from elsewhere, and decided to use their experimental whatever as a perimeter defence, I suppose. But that doesn't explain why Vlad was then effectively dumped.

All in all, the way the scene reads to me is that Vlad and his men stumbled on a hidden scout probe or base, triggering a perimeter defence. It may be that they took Vlad inside after he survived, and ran some experimental stuff on him. But that doesn't explain why they then dumped the experimental subject afterwards.

Alternatively, the defence was possibly some kind of tailored bio weapon, one designed to be harmful only to humans. That fits with the soldiers' clothes surviving, but their bodies being gone. Once the perimeter was breached, the scout probe abandoned that base, leaving the humans behind as - they thought - nanites munched dust? Okay, maybe one of the corpses hadn't been fully munched yet, but...

But something about Vlad meant his bio weapon couldn't quite disintegrate him. Yes, he did become a form of dispersed organisation, one that looks like smoke, but he could bring it back into a human seeming body.

Alternatives are possible, but given the immense over confidence of the Shongairi, their plan for a tailored bio weapon and their back story knowledge that the Hegemony uses such bio weapons regularly, 'accident caused by a combination of over confidence and ignorance' is definitely a possibility.


I was about to respond with something similar - a defensive system. and Vlad's reaction was... abnormal...

Perhaps the defensive nanites had a record function to make a record of what they munched on, and somehow some of them reverted to a "replicate mode"? Perhaps it was a hacked together defensive system by a stranded alien using other equipment to make the defensive barrier, and something caused it to revert to it's original/alternate functionality for Vlad - perhaps because of a later power blip.
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Re: Into the Light snippet #15
Post by runsforcelery   » Mon Aug 12, 2019 7:35 pm

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Theemile wrote:
Bluesqueak wrote:
Vlad was most certainly an accident- firstly, the 'cavern' he and his bodyguards found was in the high Carpathians. In winter. Nobody would've been travelling that way unless they had no choice. Any alien who thought they'd get experimental subjects wandering by would be even more naive about humans than the Shongairi.

Secondly, he and his men had to travel quite a way into the 'cave' to trigger the bio weapon, or experimental wotsits, or whatever it was.

Thirdly, Vlad had to put his hand through a glowing barrier, which suggests - to me - a warning barrier.

It's possible that whoever or whatever was in the 'cave' was trucking in experimental subjects from elsewhere, and decided to use their experimental whatever as a perimeter defence, I suppose. But that doesn't explain why Vlad was then effectively dumped.

All in all, the way the scene reads to me is that Vlad and his men stumbled on a hidden scout probe or base, triggering a perimeter defence. It may be that they took Vlad inside after he survived, and ran some experimental stuff on him. But that doesn't explain why they then dumped the experimental subject afterwards.

Alternatively, the defence was possibly some kind of tailored bio weapon, one designed to be harmful only to humans. That fits with the soldiers' clothes surviving, but their bodies being gone. Once the perimeter was breached, the scout probe abandoned that base, leaving the humans behind as - they thought - nanites munched dust? Okay, maybe one of the corpses hadn't been fully munched yet, but...

But something about Vlad meant his bio weapon couldn't quite disintegrate him. Yes, he did become a form of dispersed organisation, one that looks like smoke, but he could bring it back into a human seeming body.

Alternatives are possible, but given the immense over confidence of the Shongairi, their plan for a tailored bio weapon and their back story knowledge that the Hegemony uses such bio weapons regularly, 'accident caused by a combination of over confidence and ignorance' is definitely a possibility.


I was about to respond with something similar - a defensive system. and Vlad's reaction was... abnormal...

Perhaps the defensive nanites had a record function to make a record of what they munched on, and somehow some of them reverted to a "replicate mode"? Perhaps it was a hacked together defensive system by a stranded alien using other equipment to make the defensive barrier, and something caused it to revert to it's original/alternate functionality for Vlad - perhaps because of a later power blip.




:twisted: :lol: :twisted:


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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Re: Into the Light snippet #15
Post by Lunan   » Mon Aug 12, 2019 8:43 pm

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i have no memory of this snippet, need to find it

Randomiser wrote:
Lunan wrote:..snip..With the advanced tech that they now have access to why hasn't Vlad or Stephen taken themselves down to the medical bay and oh say run advance medical tests to see what the heck they are and how they work? I imagine that that will quickly give the anwsers of "oh look at this hegemony tech in our bodies"
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Re: Into the Light snippet #15
Post by runsforcelery   » Mon Aug 12, 2019 9:42 pm

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Lunan wrote:i have no memory of this snippet, need to find it.




I believe they are referring to this one [he said innocently].


Post by runsforcelery » Mon May 27, 2019 12:11 am
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Private message
Happy Memorial Day! :twisted:


____________________________________________________________

"I suppose that's possible," Ushakov said slowly. "I've never actually considered it, but Vlad did say — and it matches my own experience — that the very thought of being examined was enough to make him acutely uneasy. He couldn't define precisely why, although he certainly had any number of conscious reasons to avoid such an examination, and neither can I. My Dasha —" his eyes darkened briefly as he spoke the diminutive form of his murdered daughter's name "— was always afraid of needles, of being poked and prodded. But I never was. Until now, when it can't possibly hurt me. That does seem . . . odd, doesn't it?"

"That's one way to put it," Maighread agreed. "But what if that's because something deep inside you is . . . resisting exposure? Wouldn't that explain it?"

"It might," Ushakov acknowledged.

"But you said you can override the sensory cutout when it happens automatically," Maighread went on, brown eyes intent. "What if you tried that while Doctor MacMurdo tries to take a specimen?"

"You mean concentrate on the fact that I consciously wish for him to succeed?"

"Exactly!"

"I don't see where it could hurt," MacMurdo said with a shrug. "We've certainly tried everything else!"

"Very well," Ushakov said. He sat back, eyes closed, frowning faintly in concentration.

"Try now," he said in a slightly distant voice, and MacMurdo inserted the core needle again. He withdrew it, crossed back to the microscope, and slid the needle into the viewing receptacle. He looked up at the display, and smiled suddenly.

"Worked!" he said exuberantly. "At least this time we got something." He tapped a control, zooming the image even farther. "In fact, it looks like — Jesus Christ!"


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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Re: Into the Light snippet #15
Post by Joat42   » Wed Aug 14, 2019 9:45 am

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Lunan wrote:i have no memory of this snippet, need to find it

Check the stickied snippet index. There's a link there for an out of order snippet.

---
Jack of all trades and destructive tinkerer.


Anyone who have simple solutions for complex problems is a fool.
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Re: Into the Light snippet #15
Post by Randomiser   » Wed Aug 14, 2019 5:27 pm

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runsforcelery wrote:
Lunan wrote:i have no memory of this snippet, need to find it.



I believe they are referring to this one [he said innocently].


Throwing the chum in the water again, I see. :twisted: :lol:
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