To get back on Aleph questions, and since I don't have the books beyond Core & ME: Is there a reason Aleph doesn't have impersonation infiltrators like the Fiday or shavasti? They'd certainly have the resources to create specialized lhosts, and would definitely have the technological tricks the hassassins use. Incidents like the violent intermission implied extensive infiltration/impersonation of the nomads, while characters like Pelenthesia and Andromeda often get their exploits described as "out of a spy novel". Is there a stated reason none of these ever get the impersonation rules?
No. ALEPH can't even spell properly, what makes you think it can handle complicated false-flag operations?
I guess it's the same reason as for the nomads you mentioned: Aleph, like the nomads, does this differently: Aleph's Impersonators are the Dasyus and Nagas with Killer Hacking Device: Infiltrating killer hackers that deploy hidden, and when they move in they use the Cybermask program for Impersonation.
Speculo level Impersonation also requires voodootech genegeneering which is beyond even Aleph's capabilities. Simply recreating a copy from someone's cube or mind state is also highly illegal and unethical, to the point where it would cause severe repercussions to the legitimacy of either O-12 or Aleph if they were caught using it. As for more normal holo-impersonation, it probably is used, but not by combat units.
"Innovative" it may be, "uplifting" it probably isn't (and their entire "exalting" modus does read like David Brin's "Uplifting"). What the tohaa do to their chaksa races is "uplifting". They elevate an entire SPECIES to sentience. No small task. The Nomads merely implant hardware in individuals so they can understand and be understood by their wet pilots. The cetaceans are probably ALREADY sentient, we just don't know it because we can't understand them.
Nomads are basically using dolphins as beasts of burden. No uplift, just some good old animal experimentation and torture to produce more cash for the top class.
The RPG fluffs says you are wrong on this one. Uplifting is a term from the Nomads books. You can even play 'Uplifted' as characters. Sure it is not an entire species, but then again it is not 'Exaltation', just 'Uplifting'. From the RPG (Nomad Faction Book): And here the 'sapience scale' from the same book: Laboratory Rat: 0.4 Domestic Housecat: 0.5 Wild Octopus: 0.87 “Pupnik”: 0.91 Sapience Baseline: 1.0 Uplifted Feline: 1.3 Uplifted Canine: 1.5 Uplifted Suidae: 1.55 Uplifted Avian: 1.6 Uplifted Simian: 1.62 Uplifted Cetacean: 1.63 Helot: 1.64 Human: 1.65 Uplifted Cephalopod: 1.66
Fair enough, my mistake. So they get to actually add enslaving (multiple!) sentient species to their list of crimes. Ah, well, libertarians will do as libertarians do. :D
Please calm down and go back to topic. To answer the question about the Impersonators, the political fallout would vastly outweigh the potential benefits on a vastly supervised and monitored AI. Potentially she may have some clandestine impersonating spies that she can sacrifice as "Rogue AI" and not be affiliated with them, but so closely related as functioning within her own sanctioned troops, probably not.
Aren't Chandra units actually completely clandestine (even from Bureau TOTH), the info on that is a little ambiguous (in the lore blurbs and the RPG archetype since they're playable there), they're described as completely off the record but hard to tell to what point. Nothing actually force the uplifted animals to serve (As long as their sapience is past 1.00, and i pre-emptively agree there that it's completely arbitrary), just that... You know, you gotta earn your keep. (Though they may also inherit a completely unfair debt to their "creator", and i also agree there that it is effectively indentured servitude)
What's the standard of variation here? And does it vary by nation? Is the average Om more "sapient" than the average PanO citizen?
I don't know what an Om is, and what makes you think that there might be national differences when a helot is already so close to a human. But I guess you have to ask those that wrote the nomads faction book: WRITING Benn Graybeaton, Jonathan “Killstring” Herzberger, Marc Langworthy, Mark Redacted, Rodrigo Vilanova, Patrycjusz Piechowski, Giles Pritchard CORVUS BELLI APPROVALS Gutier Lusquiños Rodríguez, Alberto Abal, Carlos Torres, and Carlos “Bostria” Llauger GAME DESIGN Benn Graybeaton, Nathan Dowdell, Mark Redacted, Justin Alexander, Marc Langworthy
The thing is explained extensively in the Nomad Faction book of the RPG, basically the sapience scale measure the "raw capacity for intelligence" rather than the "level of intelligence" of the individual/specie. It was created because slavery is extremely illegal on Bakunin, so the scale was the result of extensive neurological and psychological tests, taking into account that even someone mentally disabled is still a person. So, the result is a scale where 1.0 is the baseline to be considered "a person", and therefore enjoy "citizen rights" in the nomad nation, anything below is an animal/thing, and so can be sold/exploited/etc. But also anything past 1.0 also will have to earn their keep or walk out the airlock. There is indeed national variation, and even individual ones, the book mentions peoples using their higher than normal sapience score as bragging rights, and the national reaction to the test, with Yu Jing authorities suggesting that maybe Japanese citizen should take the test (just in case they rate below 1.0 i suppose) and PanO authorities none too pleased that Helots often end up rating as high or higher than the average PanOceanian citizen. (The score for Helot in the list previously cited is disputed by Nomad scientists, considering them biased since it's PanO scientists that conducted the tests)
Ah, I see, but isn't it 'Omn', and just they name they use for themselves, while 'Helot' is the term humans use?
Well, a Helot would be the ones who work peacefully with humans. The "live free or die" Omn/Om/whatever aren't Helots, from my understanding.
I know that we're getting kind of off topic here - but I'd just like to say that learning about a caste of enhanced cephalopods that are smart enough to have legal rights is making me really want to buy the actual books to get more lore.
