Well, it might have slowed Darth Vader down. But probably not.

>
>>They don't even know who or what they're defending against.
>
>That's kind of my point. Sosuke isn't actually from the government,
>like a "proper" soldier would be. (Well, okay. If TechCom is out of
>the Corporate Sector, he might be from what passes for the government
>out there.) This makes his claim that his reasons for being there are
>"classified" highly dubious. GOVERNMENTS can classify information.
>CORPORATIONS just have proprietary or privileged information. Those
>are two different beasts.
>

Good point. Either he has an unusual definition of "classified," or he gave away a clue. Considering his background, I'd go with "unusual definition."

>
>You'd think Kaname and her mom would make it a priority to find out
>why and in what capacity Sosuke is there. Kaname didn't even ask for
>the name of his CO and make an angry to call to them, or to whatever
>TechCom and Rhodos have that functions as a customer/client relations
>department.
>
>Above and beyond Kaname, Miranda has the ability to get in touch with
>people who can do things like dial the private line of TechCom's CEO
>and say "Hi! One of your goons is stalking an underage girl out on
>Jerrado and refuses to disclose his reasons for being there or,
>indeed, who has paid him. Do you guys LIKE continuing to operate in
>the Galactic Alliance without the IPO and the WDF constantly looking
>over your shoulders? You know who Kaname Sterling's grandfather is,
>right?"
>

On the other hand, I can see a sort of economy in this. Assuming Sagara isn't somebody's patsy, and TechCom along with him, why not leave him in place? Free security isn't a bad thing.

It's also likely that if they did get somebody who was cleared to talk about an open case, they'd say, "Kaname Sterling? We have one of our people out there, but he's not there for a Ms. Sterling..."

Hm! You may have hit on the reason that TechCom thought (and possibly still thinks) they were guarding Kaname Chidori. Whoever hired them didn't want to run the risk of being turned down.

>
>>Are you sure she didn't do that? Investigations aren't always quick,
>>and the only thing they have to go on is that somebody might be after
>>Kaname.
>
>I'm not sure at all she hasn't done that. But as noted above, Miranda
>doesn't necessarily need to "investigate" in the classic sense. I know
>if my kid was potentially in trouble (disclaimer: I do not have a kid)
>and I had the juice, I wouldn't bother investigating if I could simply
>deploy the state to demand answers on my behalf.
>

Well, that's hardly a coin to use up cheaply. And I'm not sure she has it.

Mars Division has the Queen's warrant, but I have no idea whether that's sufficient reason for a government to go around like a blunt instrument. My impression is more that they're more highly trusted than Random Space Mercenaries, GmbH, not that they have the ability to have Salusia apply political muscle.

>
>It is of course possible this has already happened, of course, and
>that the answers Miranda got were of a nature where, after being
>assured that her little girl is being looked after reliably, she comes
>to conclusion that it's simply better not to tell her. Especially if
>the nature of being Whispered in UF is such that it's a bad idea to
>TELL someone they're one of the Whispered while still in the
>developmental stage.
>
>But Kaname has been putting up with Sosuke for over a month now and,
>as I said, is weirdly blase about the whole thing. Could just be
>denial, of course. Or it could just be that she's young.
>

It could also be a simple bit of wisdom. She's done everything she can to deal with Sosuke and whatever-it-is he's here to do; she can either fret about it, or she can focus on her studies, being an RA, putting together the yearbook, and anything else she takes on. What's more productive?

Peter Eng
--
"There was nothing else to do, so I took a nap."