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| Destroyer Question: Number Of Colonists At Reunion | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 16 2008, 06:07 PM (3,078 Views) | |
| Gent | May 4 2008, 02:54 PM Post #61 |
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Placer of Wagers
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There was a little Cyteen overlap in there - Jase makes mention of something like learning by tape at one point. I wonder how much studying there really is inside the ship. It may be more about spending time in a semi-conscious state. From working in 24 hour environments, I know that there can be many different schedules alongside each other. We keep the exhausting jobs down to 4 x 6 hour shifts or 3 x 8 hour shifts. Quite often, supervisory jobs are 2 x 12 hour shifts. I had the idea that the ship was running a mix of 8s for crew and 12s for the captains. |
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| BetYeager | May 4 2008, 04:21 PM Post #62 |
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As far as the original question, I may have discovered that the real reason for the discrepancies in numbers is much simpler than the pages of speculation the question inspired: http://youtube.com/watch?v=qJq1W1EwNI0&feature=related :rofl: The Pilots Guild: I always thought that the Pilot's Guild were the "shipfolk," and the conflict was between them and the Colonists; the people who would be moving off the ship when they got to where they were supposed to have gotten to. When disaster struck, there was no clear chain of command since colonists were temporary passengers and not a part of ship-life. There would be an obvious requirement that they follow the rules of the ship for safety... Once the heroic of the Pilot's Guild died off as a result of radiation exposure, the Colonists were no longer seen as passengers to be protected but as a large exploitable sub-class under the authority of the Pilot's Guild. All decisions were made under the umbrella of "It's for the good of humanity," while actually only good for Pilot Guild humanity. Therein the roots of resentment and distrust. Since the conflict was between more than just the actual pilots and the colonists, it seemed to me that Pilot's Guild was much less about the job one held on the ship than the fact that one had a job on the ship. |
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| agricola | May 5 2008, 12:23 AM Post #63 |
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Oh I am having fun rereading everything! Okay - book 6: Bekker the 'security' from Reunion tells Jase et al that the population of the station is around 17,000! HUGE numbers - but SABIN must have had some idea that the true number of survivors was largish BECAUSE she had crew refitting TWO complete decks on the ship to house them! AND the crew had to figure that the CAPTAINS thought there were a lot of possible survivors - because who needs two whole decks to house a mere 300 people? Remember back in about book 3 or 4 when Bren is studying up about the ship and the history of the ship and Alpha colony? And he gives a speech about it to the tashrid and hasdrawad, broken arm and all - sheesh, book TWO. Anyway, he shows that what started out as simply 'crew of ship' and 'colonists on ship' became splintered into 'crew', 'STATION' and 'colonists' - down to PLANET. And notes that the Mospheirans include descendants of both 'colonists' AND 'station' - the ancestors of the Heritage party - because the station couldn't maintain itself and the stationers had to come down planet even though they didn't necessarily want to. So - ship had crew and stationers - presumably - when it left Alpha: or else crew that just multiplied until they had to offload a bunch - so they built Reunion and offloaded what? stationers or crew who wanted to be stationers - plus the 'Pilot's Guild' sensu strictu, the admin people who wanted to run EVERYTHING - not just the ship but all existing humanity. I do think pilots 'grow up' to be captains - if they are qualified and if they are elected. Jase is not a trained pilot - he and Yolanda had special training: but remember it was the CAPTAINS COUNCIL that supervised their special educational program. They were Taylor's Children, born to be 'outside' normal crew and normal 'ship's executive' (pilots, navigators and captains, right?) And WHAT has happened to Ramirez' son and daughter, mentioned early on and never mentioned again? Bren got that data from ship records. Do you suppose JASE and YOLANDA are 'Ramirez' son and daughter'? According to ship records? They were, if I recall, in the 'command track'. I haven't gotten into book 7 YET but I seem to recall that the number of passengers loaded onto the ship from Reunion was in the vicinity of 4 to 6 thousand, so is this the infamous CJC memory slippage, or what? It is pretty hard to move from '17 thousand' to '5 thousand' (give or take) in barely a month! Sabin wants the ship and she wants the ship to 'continue'. doing - what, exactly? Traveling around at random doing random things? Does she like to see new suns or something? Beats me. I don't understand 'the ship' or Sabin, either. Remember, she said something offhand to Jase about why Ramirez dipped into the Archive to have him born - she said 'forty years' and finally somebody is asking a question - - that is a VERY interesting number: it predates Jase AND Yolanda, as I understand it. And where oh where are those extra Taylor's children? (and no, I don't think Trent Cope is one. He is about twice Jase's age apparently, and Jase didn't like him. I think he is another 'guild' stalwart like Jenrette. Speaking of which, CJC didn't set J. up as possible traitor originally - he shows up as a sympathetic character when he first appears. Not enough background given in the books to explain Bren's suspicions of him, it seems to me. |
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| Tevia | May 5 2008, 01:15 AM Post #64 |
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Wow. So many things in one post!
Infelicitous Four!!!
Re: Taylors Children - remember he had what -10 or more - made? Not all had to be the exact same age. It could have been over decades. I don't think Trent Cope is one - but the others could be in all sorts of fields on teh ship. And to BetYeager EXACTLY! I agree. |
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| cicely58 | May 5 2008, 02:14 AM Post #65 |
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Chaos Elemental
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My own suspicions, re the extra Taylor's Children, is that they "washed out" of the program (contact with aliens/planet-bound humans), at various stages, due to lack of aptitude, and were just put into whatever training tracks their aptitudes fitted them for. They may have been weeded out without ever having known what the Captain had in mind, what he was looking for, or that their educational progress was being flagged. For that matter, would they necessarily have been brought up knowing they were Taylor's Children? Granted, they would only have had one parents'-worth of cousins for family, but do we assume no single-parent families within the crew? Do all fathers necessarily have involvement in their children? Is paternity even necessarily an issue for any reason other than, perhaps, medical records, and who a woman gets the sperm from is culturally irrelevant? It wouldn't be the first culture in which matri-line relationships are more important than patri-line. It's possible that Jase and Yolanda only found out the details of their ancestry when they "graduated" from whatever the general-level education, and it was time to fine-tune them for their intended purpose. All speculation, but on the other hand, on the Merchanter family ships, one's kin-group is all about the mother and her kin; the father hardly signifies. |
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| agricola | May 7 2008, 02:12 AM Post #66 |
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True - yet a big deal is made of 'Taylor's Children' who HAVE no fathers (mothers too???) but the 'archive'. Jase does say he and Yolanda had 'ordinary mothers', and Yolanda at least had a sister (Taylor's too??). The ship folk certainly don't 'decant' babies - women carry and produce them in the usual fashion (remember the ship folk revere women BECAUSE they are necessary). 4079 Reunioners. Plus a few extra born between Reunion and Alpha. (book 7) Toby's supposed 'medical practice on the North Shore' sank like a stone, never to be mentioned again. And in book 7 he's back to 'two children' with Jill, when I could have SWORN they had two in the first trilogy AND Jill was pregnant with a third. But I could be wrong there - SOMEBODY was expecting but it could have been Shawn Tyers' wife. Still - the children never have yet been given names and have vanished into Mospheira, clearly not important to the story arcs. But those Taylor's children have come up both in the first trilogy AND in the second one: CJC has had SOMETHING in mind for them, I am sure. But Jase and the shipfolk have never yet been completely, totally candid about their internal workings - even yet. I wonder what Geigi and the Mospheiran delegation at Alpha have figured or discovered about the shipfolk history? I think - knowing a bit more about Ramirez at this point - that he didn't put all his eggs in one basket EVER - he didn't produce ten Taylors only to place ALL of them into language classes. Maybe those other ones are 'hidden in plain sight', learning to be - something else. Shipfolk know which child is whose child - they know Jase and Yolanda are 'taylors' which is part of how Jase manages his position as captain without coming up through the normal process. Want to bet there is some ill feeling about that in some quarters? But the idea that some may have 'failed' the course - that's certainly possible. I thought some might be at Reunion: some families seem to have members on both ship and station while others are one or the other. |
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| Xheralt | May 7 2008, 05:37 PM Post #67 |
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Taylor's children -- I recall reading it as 'there have only been 10 such, EVER, including Jase and Yolanda', not as 'there are ten RIGHT NOW' but I don't have the passage at my fingertips. |
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| agricola | May 8 2008, 04:05 AM Post #68 |
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Oh that's a good idea - I will put a note about that for myself, so the next read-through, I take a closer look. Although I don't THINK so. Bren wondered about them once and thought something like 'Jase had never mentioned where these quasi-siblings were' or something like that - which sounds like they were essentially contemporary with Jase, or overlapped at least - you think maybe they are all a lot younger? |
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| Arianne_Luinithil | May 8 2008, 06:35 AM Post #69 |
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Bu-javid tekikin
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Or perhaps a lot older? Foldspace time and all... |
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| ready | May 8 2008, 11:41 PM Post #70 |
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Member Mathematicians Guild
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I think I remember something to the effect that Ramirez authorized the ten to be born which would place an upper limit for their ages to be about Ramirez' age (minus 30 to 50 years). One doubts he would have the authority before the age of thirty. Now if we just knew how old Ramirez was when he died.... |
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| agricola | May 9 2008, 05:24 AM Post #71 |
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I think he was in his 70's wasn't he? |
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| Arianne_Luinithil | May 9 2008, 10:24 AM Post #72 |
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Bu-javid tekikin
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Think so. Upper or lower 70's? |
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| Tevia | May 16 2008, 04:00 AM Post #73 |
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I have to change my previous thoughts about Crew/Guild, Colonists, and Stationers. In re-reading Precursor, it states that these adventurers were NEVER supposed to land. Their mission was to build a STATION at a specific star and to mine. It was not a GROUND colony population. So that would mean that the colonists are teh stationers. So Guild/Crew united with a faction of stationers to hinder the descent of some stationers down to the planet. Recall when Bren was reviewign the notes on Ship people he had made over teh 3 years with Jase, he had re: Ramirez - 2 Children, 1 Son, 1 Daughter both in command track. When Ramirez is shot and Banichi asks Bren about sources of support for Ramirez such as children - Bren responds such that Jase is the son and Yolanda the daughter - they both reside by this time with Bren adn the Atevi. |
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| Arianne_Luinithil | May 16 2008, 11:47 AM Post #74 |
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Bu-javid tekikin
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Eh really? That's not how I remember it...hang on while I go hunt my copy of Precursor down. Which page was this, nadi? Did Bren ever name Jase and Yolanda as the children? My memory impresses upon me that that was not the case, and that Ramirez's children were other than our ship-paidhiin. |
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| agricola | May 16 2008, 11:47 PM Post #75 |
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My memory has it that Ramirez had been married, but his wife was dead. That he and wife had two children, one son and one daughter, both privileged into the 'command track' (which I think we pretty much decided meant pilot training). LATER and I am pretty sure in a DIFFERENT book, Bren is musing about Jase's emotional/psychological attachment to Ramirez, and concludes that Ramirez has functioned LIKE a father to Jase (and Yolanda, I suppose) since they lacked an 'actual' father. That made me wonder about Yolanda's little sister, whom we met once - she had a mother and a sister, but no apparent father or step-father. But yes - the original population of the ship consisted of crew members, and separate from crew, station builders who would build the station, populate the station, and get some kind of ownership shares in the station business, which could mean riches, eventually, for the first-in builders. They weren't crew, didn't want to be crew, and had no knowledge of how to operate the ship. After building Alpha station around the atevi planet, the station population split into groups that wanted to stay on station, and groups that wanted to land. Bren had a professor's paper from Mospheira that speculated big time on the conflict, guessing on remaining evidence that the crew had played sides back and forth with stationers and 'landers' (who hadn't landed yet) in order to maintain their own power and get supplies for the ship. Result was, nobody trusted anybody. Bren then later gave a talk to the tashrid/hasdrawad which laid out some of that conflict for the atevi, so they would not assume that the two human populations (ship and mospheira) would automatically join together. He told them that after the ship went astray, that the passengers (having no ship-knowledge) had granted the crew 'extra-ordinary powers' to order them around, apparently, so that they could mine and fuel and move elsewhere, and build a station somewhere much safer than the radioactive 'hot' system they dropped into first. It's in book one, the first few chapters, and then again in about book 2, when Bren gets back to Shejidan with his arm in a cast. politics! |
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