tlb wrote:The current Mesan Alignment message is that we are superior beings; Nietzsche's "Supermen" created to guide and control normal beings. On Darius this is something something they will know from childhood, not something they learn about in college and decide "that sounds cool", and so join. Yes, there are people that are disillusioned; but there is no reason to suppose that they will be more successful than the Enlightenment was for all those centuries back on Mesa. Mainly they are people that came in direct contact with the seamier side of the Malign operations and that should not reoccur after the move to Darius. Besides they will not be able to help the Alliance unless they can open a communication channel.
That was the message to the Inner Onion, definitely. Those are being raised to consider themselves Nietzschean "supermen" and being groomed to lead humanity. But I don't think it's the message for the masses. Gail and Zack, for example, don't seem to be in on this part of the plan, where they are being ruled by a hidden cadre. It was after their involvement with the Fifth Column that the discussion of "speciation" turned up.
So I don't think that this is the message given to the full population of Darius. I don't think it's even the message given to most members of the LRPB, to be frank. They are probably being told that they are superior by way of their genetics and that the rest of the Galaxy is spurning them, but not that they are born to rule. You can't have 3 billion people ruling anyway.
And it's definitely not the message that the Benign Alignment had been fed for centuries. Those believed on their own genetic uplift but were neither trying to impose it on others nor rule others by virtue of having that genetic modification.
This is what I am saying: make genetic uplift available to those billions of people who've wanted it for centuries, and to trillions more, and there's no need to subscribe to the
Alignment's version of genetic uplift in order to get any uplift at all. Heck, you may end up with better changes (fewer side-effects, more cost-effective, enhanced attributes, whatever) once more labs are on-board with this, so supporting the Alignment becomes counter-productive.
That will not remove the Inner Onion's motivation, because that motivation was ulterior anyway. But then you have at best a couple hundred people who are trying to do this, with no support elsewhere. A few hundred people can't do all the genetic work that is required, nor build ships to execute the Detweiler Plan, nor the agents to subvert governments, and so on. So it removes the Inner Onion's ability to effect change and, with that, it might disillusion some of its members from supporting those goals in the first place, which further draws down on their manpower.
In line with the lack of communication, there will be no way to realize that "the official reason for the Alignment's existence" is being removed. But that was the reason put forward by Leonard Detweiler and friends to initiate Mesa and Manpower and is not what currently goes by the name of the "Detweiler Plan" anyway.
If you mean this before Darius is discovered, yes. I agree. The communication is entirely locked down there and propaganda is definitely not going to praise the advancements of what was the Alignment on Mesa after the occupation.
But once it is discovered, you can do that. You must do that, actually. Without it, the three billion people living on Darius Gamma and thinking that it's their god-given right to be genetically-improved will resent the MAlign's demise. They need to be brought back in to mainstream society. Do to them what was done to the Benign Alignment on Mesa. (I don't expect this reconstruction to ever appear in the books, though; the series will end before it)
As for removing their financial support; moving away from Mesa removes some of their operating expenses and they have the whole economy of the star system to finance their plans. Obviously the system is not mechanized as as fully as Galton, so initially they might have to concentrate their efforts on that; but they were going to lie low for a decade or two anyway.
I agree that in the Darius system, they can do it all. Their economy does not even need to be healthy. If it's a central planning, all sorts of un-economical solutions or trickery can be applied. If they need material to build ships, they can simply appropriate it from the asteroid belts or mining pits on the surface; there's no need to pay someone for it. If they need to pay their workers, they can simply print money -- that generates inflation, but only if the economy is not a sham in the first place.
And that economy is disconnected from the Galaxy's economy. What is the exchange rate of the Darius scrip to a Solarian credit or a Manticoran Dollar? This information is impossible, because of the lack of communication. It's also what permits them having whatever sham economy they may want, since it doesn't have to be real to compete with a real economy. But it also makes effecting change outside of the Darius system hard.
Right now, they have a second source of finance, which is the RF. But unlike Manpower and Jessyk, they may not be able to cook the books as effectively to hide all the huge expenses diverted into the secret budget.
Once Darius is discovered and militarily defeated, the GA can remove both the Darius and the RF source of financing to the Onion. That further limits their ability to accomplish anything.
PS: in terms of what the author might do, you are probably right that the internal opposition will be important. But I want to be surprised, so I will stick to doubting their effectiveness.
And well you should, because this is the author we've known to misdirect us.
Quod vide Esther McQueen.