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Cauldron of Ghosts - unlikely 'allies'

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Re: Cauldron of Ghosts - unlikely 'allies'
Post by JohnRoth   » Thu Dec 04, 2014 12:03 am

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JohnRoth wrote:
Cauldron of Ghosts, Chapter 56 wrote:Chicherin leaned back in his chair, watching the other members of the General Board, and tried to keep his dismay from showing. He was an alpha-line whose family had been part of the Alignment for generations, and like the vast majority of the Aligment's membership he'd always hated Manpower and the institution of genetic slavery.


Just by being who he is, and where he's placed, he's going to be a very interesting prize. When Admiral Henke and Alfredo go to interview the General Board, his attitude toward genetic slavery is going to stand out like a beacon.

Up to this point, the Grand Alliance doesn't have a clue about the alpha-, beta- and gamma- lines. Given that, they might well be able to throw together a quick "alpha-line detector."

Idealists are funny people. Some of them will continue to the bitter end, some of them will switch political alligence in a heartbeat, without giving up any iota of their ideals.


Jonathan_S wrote:Even with a willing collaborator providing a genetic sample to work from, an "alpha-line detector" is going to be tricky. Not all Alpha line people have exactly the same package of genetic tweaks, but all those tweaks were tried out in various combinations in both the genetic slaves and in lesser lines.

That's going to make it tricky to differente between an actual Alpha line person verses someone who was simply the beta tester for many of those genes.


Armed Neo-Bob wrote:I don't know if McBride told The Boys about the Star Lines, but didn't they already have a "willing collaborator" who knew he was an Alpha Line? Herlander, I mean.


Also, Chicherin is on the general board and hates Manpower. Well, so did most of the others--Manpower wasn't a likable entity. So whatever his attitude about Manpower and slavery, we already knew there were people among the citizens of Mesa who wanted to get rid of slavery.

Rob

edited to fix a bad quote.


Whether they hated Manpower isn't the real issue. I've underlined the real issue: genetic slavery. Most Alignment members are idealists, and see genetic slavery as going in exactly the wrong direction. The rest of the first-class citizens of Mesa, not so much. This is the underlying issue with Jack McBryde's crises of conscience. For example:

Torch of Freedom, Chapter 38 wrote:Unlike her new partner, whom she'd already decided was a jackass, E.D. was not given to much in the way of prejudice - at least so long as genetic slaves weren't involved. On that subject, she had the same attitudes as almost all freeborn Mesans.


The other major point is that he's on the General Board. He's not Joe Shmoe, a gamma line who's also an Alignment member of no importance who doesn't know anything whatever.
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Re: Cauldron of Ghosts - unlikely 'allies'
Post by SharkHunter   » Sun Dec 14, 2014 11:00 am

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Here's a question though. O'Hanrahan is an alpha-line, but not all alpha line members are "inside the onion", so I see her as another idealist who might have "agreed with the program" up to a point.

But newscasters have big egos, so would she have a killer implant? probably not? knowledge of the Onion? likely not high because the plot hints would lead me to think that RFC didn't invest in using her for all those books for her to suddenly disappear or apparently get killed in the Houdini operation(s).

She's likely more dangerous to the alignment if she meets up with Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachat.
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Re: Cauldron of Ghosts - unlikely 'allies'
Post by n7axw   » Sun Dec 14, 2014 11:24 am

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SharkHunter wrote:Here's a question though. O'Hanrahan is an alpha-line, but not all alpha line members are "inside the onion", so I see her as another idealist who might have "agreed with the program" up to a point.

But newscasters have big egos, so would she have a killer implant? probably not? knowledge of the Onion? likely not high because the plot hints would lead me to think that RFC didn't invest in using her for all those books for her to suddenly disappear or apparently get killed in the Houdini operation(s).

She's likely more dangerous to the alignment if she meets up with Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachat.


I would think that she wouldn't have an implant. Her basic usefulness to the Alignment would be to use her reputation to get people to believe what she has to say and then use her to plant info at critical points. Building that reputation took too much time to build to casually cast it aside.

The notion of a disillusioned O'Hanrahan teaming up her investigative skills with Victor and Anton would be an interesting plot twist, wouldn't it?

I bet it would be entertaining!

Don
When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: Cauldron of Ghosts - unlikely 'allies'
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Sun Dec 14, 2014 12:34 pm

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n7axw wrote:
SharkHunter wrote:Here's a question though. O'Hanrahan is an alpha-line, but not all alpha line members are "inside the onion", so I see her as another idealist who might have "agreed with the program" up to a point.

But newscasters have big egos, so would she have a killer implant? probably not? knowledge of the Onion? likely not high because the plot hints would lead me to think that RFC didn't invest in using her for all those books for her to suddenly disappear or apparently get killed in the Houdini operation(s).

She's likely more dangerous to the alignment if she meets up with Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachat.


I would think that she wouldn't have an implant. Her basic usefulness to the Alignment would be to use her reputation to get people to believe what she has to say and then use her to plant info at critical points. Building that reputation took too much time to build to casually cast it aside.

The notion of a disillusioned O'Hanrahan teaming up her investigative skills with Victor and Anton would be an interesting plot twist, wouldn't it?

I bet it would be entertaining!

Don

I agree that RFC wouldn't kill her off, but I considered the possibility that Houdini was supposed to kill her off as a way of pissing off a large portion of Solarian populace who rely on her reportage. The attempt and failure would be the impetus for causing her to turn on the MAlign, making her a very dangerous enemy, particularly in conjunction with Anton and Victor - nice touch there.

The other thought that occured to me was the there are possibly some members of hte onion who were not a port of Houdini whose med packages were not updated (due to the haste with which Houdini was mounted), and therefore are still alive, or some whose kill package, for whatever reason, didn't trigger when it failed to get the keep alive ping. When those individuals realize that all of their colleagues have dropped dead, they may prove to be a interesting source of information.
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