an alternate Elizabeth... (ngoverse tangent, short.)

[Wildfire]

I like all your stories but was hoping for once Liz would have a better ending and maybe make it a little later in life. That said excellent twist and story overall.

[worktroll]

Well, that's one way to go out with a bang.

[JA Baker]

"I will not become Death, destroyer of worlds!"

[Daryk]

She only bought a century... not worth all those lives.  Plus, she ensured she wasn't around to try to mitigate things.

[Sharpnel]

There had to be another way for Liz to solve her issue. Mass murder and suicide could not have been the best or only option.

[Nikas_Zekeval]

My question, which is the dream?  Liz in the bacta tank or blowing herself up?  Or are both of them dreams?

[Cannonshop]

My question, which is the dream?  Liz in the bacta tank or blowing herself up?  Or are both of them dreams?

That's a good question, and I'm going to leave it up to you to decide what you believe, because I can't give a better ending than the readers can imagine on their own.  (Better being more satisfying, or more fitting with their own view.)

IOW, I leave it to your interpretation.

[smdvogrin]

And to make it even more "Battletech", imagine reading a summary of these events without any background or seeing the thoughts of the characters involved.

- Nasty SL-era plague unleashed
- Research team to fight the plague established in Kowloon space, with best of FedComm, Clans, etc involved
- Comstar acolyte goes missing after a tour of the facility
- Head researcher writes a letter to childhood friend, saying they found a cure for "everything"
- Facilty destroyed in anti-matter explosion that should not have been possible, killing every member of the research team

How many of you would look at those events in a sourcebook, nod your head wisely, and say "Holy Shroud"?

[Daryk]

Excellent point!  And very sharp, I might add...  ^-^

[kindalas]

I find it odd that this is controversial.

Elizabeth has always been a character who considered slavery to be the worst crime.

Her reaction to developing an instant slavery machine is on point.

There has to be something that will push a person to violate their core beliefs.

Elizabeth has always pushed for sharing all scientific research figuring that anything that could be invented would be invented.

She believed that her discovery would be repeated she just figured that destroying all of what she'd developed would stop it's development for a few hundred years.

She just thought that her life (and the lives of her research team) was worth a few hundred years of humans being free.

[georgiaboy]

But everyone, including Liz is looking at only the evil side of the retro-virus. The possibilities of anything being evil is possible. The number one noncombat killer of is breathing in Di-Hydrogen Oxide. I do not see any warnings placed on the every day use of it.


The retro-virus mechanics can be the one find of mankind that can draw all peoples together. The overwatch and licensing of it use has to be of a very high level. being a nano-bot, it can be programed to only replicate in specific patterns.


Before releasing the information of the Find. The counter agent for 21B and micro scale protection for 21B's target group can be released and bedded into the population and into the worlds ecosystems itself.


Then everyone, especially the Drac's, can have their very one catgirl, we can even proceed with the uplift of the cat race to sapient levels.


And for those who like the idea of seeing their kids riding around on their dog and wanting to do that them selves. We can now breed and modify the Dog breeds to be as big as Horses, and be able to use dogs which are better trainable than horses in their roles.


Just think of the possibilities!


For those who are caught or found to be working on the down side of the nanobot usage, PUT them against a wall and let the catgirls and doggogirls rip them apart.

[Rodon]

Before releasing the information of the Find. The counter agent for 21B and micro scale protection for 21B's target group can be released and bedded into the population and into the worlds ecosystems itself.

Doesn't work, yes you can design protections, but those same protections can be removed.  IRL its like trying to apply unbreakable DRM to games.  Given all the insane and idiotic people in BT, they would keep trying to turn the people into even more of sheep-people than they already are.  The Star League, one of the best governments to the IS was working on 21B, that should give you an idea of how bad things would likely turn out.

[Artifex]

Holy shit, what an end ... Well done sirrah, well done indeed. :thumbsup:

[Liam's Ghost]

In another universe, Hanse Davion wondered how much he screwed up by never noticing Elizabeth Ngo when he was in a position to do anything about her.

The answer appears to be "results unclear."  ;D

But everyone, including Liz is looking at only the evil side of the retro-virus. The possibilities of anything being evil is possible. The number one noncombat killer of is breathing in Di-Hydrogen Oxide. I do not see any warnings placed on the every day use of it.

The failure state of this particular pandora's box is significantly more catastrophic. Even unintentional side effects of use done with the best of intentions could be disastrous. Even in the best case scenario, you're looking at potential sphere wide disruption, possibly for generations, as humanity adapts to its new normal.

Particularly as people are prone to fighting against the very idea that they will have to change their ways.

[worktroll]

As a professional, risk boils down to impact (how bad can it get) multiplied by possibility (how likely is it). Where you're comfortable with the outcome is called "risk appetite".

Consider one's own children - the impact of losing one is near-infinite, so one doesn't want to accept very much possibility at all, even if small. Obviously, people's risk appetites differ in specifics, but.

Liz is looking at "what can go wrong with this" - and yes, near-infinite is about right. And how probable? Depends on human nature. Eg. "Hold my beer" level likelyhood.

[jonen c]

Delaying the discovery by a few centuries, in Liz's mind, may allow for the rest of the techbase to catch up and possibly (hope springs and all that) society to mature as well, whereas releasing the tech right "here and now" would see it picked up and used by at the very least the capellans, the clans, and who knows who else, and thus cement their respective (and in Lizzies mind doomed to - if slow - failure) social experiments...

Whether her ethical calculus was correct or not is debatable, but it is not at all unreasonable or irrational.

[DOC_Agren]

So wait was her locked in and getting the cure, a dream?  or not?

Liz I can see her, rigging the antimatter because well her science went to far.  But was it a dream???

Will there be more????