Tag Archives: Department of the Interior’s Objectives

Carpe Diem – Chapter 49

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Liad
Trealla Fantrol

In which the First Speaker of Korval departs Liad in a hurry.

This is a new wrinkle in Nova’s talent: before, when a Memory came upon her, she was stuck in a fixed re-enactment of a past event, but this Memory is aware of and responsive to the circumstances in which it is being Remembered. That makes sense, though, since this is a circumstance in which a fixed re-enactment wouldn’t be very helpful.

The phrase “the children would be off-planet already” is a useful one. Not only does it save the authors the time and space necessary to list the children individually, it leaves them room to later remember an extra child or two whom they might not have thought to mention (such as, for instance, Pat Rin’s heir, who presumably exists but has not yet been introduced).

Carpe Diem – Chapter 47

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Liad
Trealla Fantrol

In which Nova visits Access Grid 703.

I’m not sure how much good it did to tell Nova not to talk to the Department of the Interior and encourage her to use Val Con’s credentials to log into the Department’s system. If the point of the former was to avoid attracting the Department’s attention, what did Val Con expect the latter to do? Did he think the Department wouldn’t be watching for his login? I suppose it might make sense that he assumed they’d think it was him, and wasn’t expecting that they’d be able to determine where the login was actually coming from.

I don’t buy all that stuff in the Objectives and Guidance about forswearing allegiance to self-serving Clans and allying oneself to the Department which serves the interests of Liad as a whole. I think that’s guff for the punters, and the Department is really acting for its own individual interests just as much as any Clan is.

I also find myself wondering about the stuff about the threat posed by Terra. It’s obviously not true that every Liaden-Terran partnership is a Terran conspiracy, but is that just a bunch of conspirators seeing conspiracy everywhere, or is the Department deliberately and knowingly exaggerating the threat of Terra so that it’s got something to claim to be defending Liad against? The same question, in a way, applies to the Terrans who really do threaten Liadens; the Terran Party is a plausible menace now, but I recall that in Val Con’s father’s time they were considered a bunch of wingnuts who couldn’t connive their way out of a wet paper bag. How much of their increased effectiveness is due, directly or indirectly, to the Department?