Re Novgorod: First, the scenario. The goal seems to have been to take out Justin, since the explosives were in his room. But there was non-negligible collateral in Ari's room, and Abban tried to shoot Catlin, which implies she may have been a target as well.
If Justin was the only target, well. Neither of the Nye brothers has any particular affection for the Warricks, to say the least. Justin is Jordan's best hope for getting a hearing with Ari II and getting out of Planys. Giraud would do it in a heartbeat - he's dead, Ari and Denys are the only people he's got a soft spot for, and they're both threatened (to his mind) by Justin's connections to Ari. (Also, it's a nicely vicious twist to Justin's declaration he wants Giraud's attention on him, not Jordan, until Giraud's death. In this scenario, he Got Giraud, perhaps a little too well.) Denys has a rep to worry about, and Giraud's replicate, and he's a perfectionist. I can't see him panicking and jumping like that. Abban acting on his own would imply some serious autonomy - saying yea or nay has thematic implications (I keep hearing Grant, talking about azi taking over the world) so I'm declaring a Field Too Large unless someone can pull some textev.
If Ari was also a target, Giraud wouldn't do it. Denys wouldn't want to lose Ari, who's one of an extremely short list to show up on his brain-radar. So that leaves independent action - and I can just see Abban hearing Giraud gripe once too often about "the Warrick influence" and losing some perspective on the problem in the wake of Giraud's death.
My guess is that it was a postmortem request from Giraud, or Abban on his own, to protect Ari. But that's exactly what it is: a guess, one which hinges pretty heavily on Giraud being on good terms with Ari and Giraud hating Warrick guts.
Certainly Abban executed it, but was he acting on his own, on post-mortem instructions from Giraud, or on Denys' orders? (It's been a while since I read the book, so I don't recall whether the text resolves this question.)
Not explicitly. Events sort of slide from "wow, Abban just blew stuff up real good" to "where's Justin?" to "Denys is taking over Reseune" to "Denys dead; Jordan incoming; and this is as happily ever after as Cherryh gets" without stopping for much elucidation. "Odd tape" comes up in discussion, though.
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you - I haven't thought through the various deaths/murder attempts in depth (was off kicking themes and chronologies - somehow, 40,000 in Gehenna was shifted 20 years back between its publication and Cyteen's, and this is not the time to dissect worldbuilding), so I wanted to reread a bit and poke at the narrative.
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baggyeyes
Re: Why (pt 2/2)
Date: 2005-07-12 09:10 pm (UTC)If Justin was the only target, well. Neither of the Nye brothers has any particular affection for the Warricks, to say the least. Justin is Jordan's best hope for getting a hearing with Ari II and getting out of Planys. Giraud would do it in a heartbeat - he's dead, Ari and Denys are the only people he's got a soft spot for, and they're both threatened (to his mind) by Justin's connections to Ari. (Also, it's a nicely vicious twist to Justin's declaration he wants Giraud's attention on him, not Jordan, until Giraud's death. In this scenario, he Got Giraud, perhaps a little too well.) Denys has a rep to worry about, and Giraud's replicate, and he's a perfectionist. I can't see him panicking and jumping like that. Abban acting on his own would imply some serious autonomy - saying yea or nay has thematic implications (I keep hearing Grant, talking about azi taking over the world) so I'm declaring a Field Too Large unless someone can pull some textev.
If Ari was also a target, Giraud wouldn't do it. Denys wouldn't want to lose Ari, who's one of an extremely short list to show up on his brain-radar. So that leaves independent action - and I can just see Abban hearing Giraud gripe once too often about "the Warrick influence" and losing some perspective on the problem in the wake of Giraud's death.
My guess is that it was a postmortem request from Giraud, or Abban on his own, to protect Ari. But that's exactly what it is: a guess, one which hinges pretty heavily on Giraud being on good terms with Ari and Giraud hating Warrick guts.
Certainly Abban executed it, but was he acting on his own, on post-mortem instructions from Giraud, or on Denys' orders? (It's been a while since I read the book, so I don't recall whether the text resolves this question.)
Not explicitly. Events sort of slide from "wow, Abban just blew stuff up real good" to "where's Justin?" to "Denys is taking over Reseune" to "Denys dead; Jordan incoming; and this is as happily ever after as Cherryh gets" without stopping for much elucidation. "Odd tape" comes up in discussion, though.
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you - I haven't thought through the various deaths/murder attempts in depth (was off kicking themes and chronologies - somehow, 40,000 in Gehenna was shifted 20 years back between its publication and Cyteen's, and this is not the time to dissect worldbuilding), so I wanted to reread a bit and poke at the narrative.