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Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?

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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by tlb   » Mon Feb 21, 2022 9:08 am

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tlb wrote:Stop saying Leonard Detweiler; he created Mesa and certainly had fellow investors in that. He did not create the Mesan Alignment, that was not created until after he was dead and his original vision was corrupted. By then the Detweiler fortune would have been enormous; well past that of Bruce Wayne.

cthia wrote:I am sorry but I cannot do that. You are correct that the MA could be the Detweilers pet project. Funded after they became rich. But I don't think so, because then they would control everything and there would be no need to worry about any part of your organization disagreeing with you.

But then, there is the Benign and malignant MAligns.

tlb wrote:But where do you get the crazy idea that factions cannot occur inside an organization that was under family control? In particular the Benign Alignment broke away from the Mesan Alignment as it drifted further from Leonard's vision and became more Malign.

cthia wrote:You really must begin reading my posts. I specifically said that it can, and I even properly labeled it. It is called internecine politics/warfare. It happens often enough. And I agree that it can happen with the BoD even if they have the majority of the controlling interest. If the Detweilers wanted to do it above board, they simply need to recruit enough % points to their side. It then becomes a voting war of attrition. Like the Senate and the House? :shrug:

But I still think we need the author's input here. Personally, I have never really been comfortable about how he handles finance in the HV. But it is his party.

In my defense, you may have said that in A POST, but you did not say that in THIS POST; in fact, you said the direct opposite here. So how am I supposed to process that, except to suppose that the most current definite statement overrides any previous? I have no other way of trying to reconcile your conflicting statements.
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by tlb   » Fri Feb 25, 2022 3:57 pm

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cthia wrote:Summing up my take on things

I think the BoD run things. And the LRPB is responsible for long term decisions. Grand strategy if you will. They are responsible for the direction of the company. They are the true movers and shakers.

The Detweilers are responsible for short-term strategy and tactics. They interpret how to travel the road outlined by the LRPB. All of their decisions have been short term naval decisions which really would be within their bailiwick.

The splinter group may be a result of internecine politics fueled by the fear and disgust of huge errors by the Detweilers. Which I find amusing since the Detweilers seem unforgivable and intolerant of those who make mistakes.

But oftentimes in a very large successful business with a lot riding on the line, executives who get more and more powerful as time goes by get together and plot an internal takeover. That could be true of either the LRPB & BoD or the Detweilers.

What I think may happen in the end is that the Detweilers will be fed to the GA just like the Mandarins were.

I have started rereading To End in Fire and came across a very interesting passage that describes the Detweiler place in the Alignment and in the Plan. I had to type this myself so you can check the original text against what I have here; I left out some paragraphs to make it easier for myself. On page 91 (hardcover):
As he followed the oberst across the compartment, Detweiler reminded himself not to use the term "Detweiler Territory" in front of the two people he was about to meet. That was merely a label he and his brothers used in private. The Detweiler line was the final authority in the Alignment, true - and it had been, going all the way back to the beginning. But there were around a dozen other lines that were also very influential ... including the Adebayo and Montalván lines.

On page 92:
that was why the Detweiler line was not simply "first among equals." The other central lines might be advisors, strategists, analysts. They were, in many ways, the people who trained and educated each generation of Detweilers, who formed the true heart of the Alignment's collective memory. But they were the peers of the realm, not its princes. All of their lines held chairs around the Round Table which had been created by Leonard Detweiler's true heirs so long before, but only one of those lines bore Excalibur.

-- snip --

Each species would have its own strengths and abilities, and its proper place in the structure of intelligent life.

With one species to rule them all, of course.
That "one species" being the Detweiler Line.
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by cthia   » Sat Feb 26, 2022 9:35 am

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tlb wrote:
cthia wrote:Summing up my take on things

I think the BoD run things. And the LRPB is responsible for long term decisions. Grand strategy if you will. They are responsible for the direction of the company. They are the true movers and shakers.

The Detweilers are responsible for short-term strategy and tactics. They interpret how to travel the road outlined by the LRPB. All of their decisions have been short term naval decisions which really would be within their bailiwick.

The splinter group may be a result of internecine politics fueled by the fear and disgust of huge errors by the Detweilers. Which I find amusing since the Detweilers seem unforgivable and intolerant of those who make mistakes.

But oftentimes in a very large successful business with a lot riding on the line, executives who get more and more powerful as time goes by get together and plot an internal takeover. That could be true of either the LRPB & BoD or the Detweilers.

What I think may happen in the end is that the Detweilers will be fed to the GA just like the Mandarins were.

I have started rereading To End in Fire and came across a very interesting passage that describes the Detweiler place in the Alignment and in the Plan. I had to type this myself so you can check the original text against what I have here; I left out some paragraphs to make it easier for myself. On page 91 (hardcover):
As he followed the oberst across the compartment, Detweiler reminded himself not to use the term "Detweiler Territory" in front of the two people he was about to meet. That was merely a label he and his brothers used in private. The Detweiler line was the final authority in the Alignment, true - and it had been, going all the way back to the beginning. But there were around a dozen other lines that were also very influential ... including the Adebayo and Montalván lines.

On page 92:
that was why the Detweiler line was not simply "first among equals." The other central lines might be advisors, strategists, analysts. They were, in many ways, the people who trained and educated each generation of Detweilers, who formed the true heart of the Alignment's collective memory. But they were the peers of the realm, not its princes. All of their lines held chairs around the Round Table which had been created by Leonard Detweiler's true heirs so long before, but only one of those lines bore Excalibur.

-- snip --

Each species would have its own strengths and abilities, and its proper place in the structure of intelligent life.

With one species to rule them all, of course.
That "one species" being the Detweiler Line.

Very good find. We are no longer in limbo. We needed the author's input.

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: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by cthia   » Sat Feb 26, 2022 10:58 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
munroburton wrote:In comparison, Queen Elizabeth III or Emperor Gustav whatever and their successors can draw upon literally centuries of tradition, built-up legacies, favouring the public over the aristocracy with a Prime Minister or Chancellor drawn from that same aristocracy to do its dirty, unpopular work and occasionally allowing the "loyal opposition" to govern.


BTW, if there's anyone that the MAlign should kidnap, it would be Eloise Pritchart. Unlike Gustav, Benjamin, or Elizabeth, Eloise's republic does not have the centuries of tradition of opposition and government succession. It's about a decade old as of now and she's still the first democratically-elected president in roughly two centuries.

Moreover, if they kept her alive, it could create a constitutional crisis in the Haven government, because her Vice President might not be able to fully assume the powers of the presidency.


ThinksMarkedly wrote:
cthia wrote:GIVEN:

1. It is a given that governments have been exchanging very valuable prisoners since Man stood upright and became warmongers.

2. Queen Elizabeth III is currently the most valuable person in the Galaxy.

3. If she is successfully captured, she would certainly be worth bartering.


The one I am actually not 100% sure of is #2. But she's definitely among the Top 5.


Well, Honor would fit the bill quite nicely if she could be captured. And she is the only person that could possibly vie for the position of MVP in the Galaxy.

When did Honor become the MVP?

ThinksMarkedly, I would like to see that Top 5 list of yours.

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: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by Brigade XO   » Sat Feb 26, 2022 11:54 am

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Leonard Detweiler created Mesa-my moving there and setting up his colony- as a place to advance his philosophy and improvement of humans without the controls and disapproval heaped on he and his co-believers by the Beowulf scientific community.
Mesa was outside and not going to join in the SL because that would have eventually brought it under various pressures and controls of the SL as pushed for by Beowulf. Then it gets interesting.

Not only is Mesa funded by Detweiler and his co-founders of the colony, they create a world that is activly using their research and advances in medical science to provide cloned workers etc.

What ultimately developed is a split structure in which there is the public face of Mesa and a secret body of the Detweiler Plan using the public Mesa as cover and a deflection against interference - primarily by Beowulf it would seem.

Sure, there is what is shown as a Planetary Board that runs Mesa but we keep being told and shown that only some of the members of that board and various visible heads of companies and government offices are significant members -or even have any knowledge of- the Alignment. The Mesa Alignment is the shadow government which actually controls policy just like it is using things like Manpower and genetic slave production base as part of its R&D as well as a source of supplies and facilities. It also runs thing like at least one transtellar (which has a seat on the Planetary Board)


Mesa wasn't bounded by anybody's regulations. Oh, they had to worry and manipulate to sell some of their exports (the genetic slaves) but creating a way to do that was mostly by corruption and greed in places like the SL. Mesa was also manipulated into the position of pariah system (in terms of anybody with any sense of decent morals or those who talked a pious and moral stand but took a lot of money to look the other way) eventually to set up the planet as a scapegoat and decoy for protecting the Alignment from discovery. Very soon after we are introduced to the Alignment we are told about this cover story and the plan to eventually sacrifice Mesa to cover their tracks.
The Alignment really does operate like a criminal gang corporation but it has been better than almost any as it has found an effective way to hide under cover of it's front of operations. And how is it managed internally? By cunning and brute force with swift death to anybody who even looks like they may be going to jeopardize its plans and operations or the elite command structure. They "cull" people all the time....not just failed experiments, but employees who become a potential danger by getting out of the parameters of operation that have been set. Also for knowing too much or even just a dangerous bit of information ( like a stellar coordinate that would be inconvenient) that could possibly expose them. Why do you think they just love the assassin nanite gambit so much? The individual who is compromised or perhaps is out of touch too long is going to "just die". And then there are the Galls - fanatic internal enforcers who WILL carry out their orders including suicide to accomplish their tasks.
You have to wonder if, just sometimes, the Detweiler clones don't have a tiny concern that if they make enough (or one particular) errors, they will either drop dead or some trusted subordinate will casually kill them.
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by cthia   » Sat Feb 26, 2022 4:54 pm

cthia
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Brigade XO wrote:Leonard Detweiler created Mesa-my moving there and setting up his colony- as a place to advance his philosophy and improvement of humans without the controls and disapproval heaped on he and his co-believers by the Beowulf scientific community.
Mesa was outside and not going to join in the SL because that would have eventually brought it under various pressures and controls of the SL as pushed for by Beowulf. Then it gets interesting.

Not only is Mesa funded by Detweiler and his co-founders of the colony, they create a world that is activly using their research and advances in medical science to provide cloned workers etc.

What ultimately developed is a split structure in which there is the public face of Mesa and a secret body of the Detweiler Plan using the public Mesa as cover and a deflection against interference - primarily by Beowulf it would seem.

Sure, there is what is shown as a Planetary Board that runs Mesa but we keep being told and shown that only some of the members of that board and various visible heads of companies and government offices are significant members -or even have any knowledge of- the Alignment. The Mesa Alignment is the shadow government which actually controls policy just like it is using things like Manpower and genetic slave production base as part of its R&D as well as a source of supplies and facilities. It also runs thing like at least one transtellar (which has a seat on the Planetary Board)


Mesa wasn't bounded by anybody's regulations. Oh, they had to worry and manipulate to sell some of their exports (the genetic slaves) but creating a way to do that was mostly by corruption and greed in places like the SL. Mesa was also manipulated into the position of pariah system (in terms of anybody with any sense of decent morals or those who talked a pious and moral stand but took a lot of money to look the other way) eventually to set up the planet as a scapegoat and decoy for protecting the Alignment from discovery. Very soon after we are introduced to the Alignment we are told about this cover story and the plan to eventually sacrifice Mesa to cover their tracks.
The Alignment really does operate like a criminal gang corporation but it has been better than almost any as it has found an effective way to hide under cover of it's front of operations. And how is it managed internally? By cunning and brute force with swift death to anybody who even looks like they may be going to jeopardize its plans and operations or the elite command structure. They "cull" people all the time....not just failed experiments, but employees who become a potential danger by getting out of the parameters of operation that have been set. Also for knowing too much or even just a dangerous bit of information ( like a stellar coordinate that would be inconvenient) that could possibly expose them. Why do you think they just love the assassin nanite gambit so much? The individual who is compromised or perhaps is out of touch too long is going to "just die". And then there are the Galls - fanatic internal enforcers who WILL carry out their orders including suicide to accomplish their tasks.
You have to wonder if, just sometimes, the Detweiler clones don't have a tiny concern that if they make enough (or one particular) errors, they will either drop dead or some trusted subordinate will casually kill them.


Indeed, there is a long list throughout history of assassinated heads of state. Caesar immediately comes to mind.

Even Hitler was an attempted assassination. But then, the Detweilers are clones that aren't exactly visible. Even their paranoia is paranoid. LOL

But in their case, you'd have to get them all in one fell swoop.

It would be ironic if they fell under compulsion.

"Hmm... now what would we have them do?"

Then again, since everything is so compartmentalized, could it be that only the Detweilers have access to the compulsion and suicide protocols?

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: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by Theemile   » Mon Feb 28, 2022 11:57 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
cthia wrote:GIVEN:

1. It is a given that governments have been exchanging very valuable prisoners since Man stood upright and became warmongers.

2. Queen Elizabeth III is currently the most valuable person in the Galaxy.

3. If she is successfully captured, she would certainly be worth bartering.


ThinksMarkedly wrote:The one I am actually not 100% sure of is #2. But she's definitely among the Top 5.


cthia wrote:Well, Honor would fit the bill quite nicely if she could be captured. And she is the only person that could possibly vie for the position of MVP in the Galaxy.

When did Honor become the MVP?

ThinksMarkedly, I would like to see that Top 5 list of yours.


To date, everyone who has tried to capture/kill Honor has ended up looking:
1) very silly,
2) very dead
or 3) both

I'm certain the risk/reward analysis will push Honor and her family quite far down the kidnapping list. You never know when she will destroy your Dreadnaught with a chafing dish.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by cthia   » Mon Feb 28, 2022 1:50 pm

cthia
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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
cthia wrote:GIVEN:

1. It is a given that governments have been exchanging very valuable prisoners since Man stood upright and became warmongers.

2. Queen Elizabeth III is currently the most valuable person in the Galaxy.

3. If she is successfully captured, she would certainly be worth bartering.


ThinksMarkedly wrote:The one I am actually not 100% sure of is #2. But she's definitely among the Top 5.


cthia wrote:Well, Honor would fit the bill quite nicely if she could be captured. And she is the only person that could possibly vie for the position of MVP in the Galaxy.

When did Honor become the MVP?

ThinksMarkedly, I would like to see that Top 5 list of yours.


Theemile wrote:To date, everyone who has tried to capture/kill Honor has ended up looking:
1) very silly,
2) very dead
or 3) both

I'm certain the risk/reward analysis will push Honor and her family quite far down the kidnapping list. You never know when she will destroy your Dreadnaught with a chafing dish.

A chafing dish? That is an unfair advantage for Honor. LOL

But there is no room for argument there. However, if opportunity knocked the MAlign would open the door. Honor leveraged as a bargaining tool might be even more effective than QEIII, since she is loved by Manticore, Grayson, Haven and possibly even the Andermani.

A key Key on Grayson might also be effective in sidelining Grayson. All, or a significant portion, of the Keys definitely would.

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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