[FFML] [Repost][Ranma] Hearts and Minds, Part 6 of 10

[Gary Kleppe]

Yay, comments! I was beginning to despair....

hkmiller at theeddy.com wrote:

> >
> >     "You, of all people, know how disastrous it could be for me to
> > be seen here, like this." I can't remember if I realized before  
> that Biaozi now looks like Shan Pu or not, but this time through it  
> seems obvious enough.

All will be revealed by the end of the story.

> This combination seems odd to me.  Michaels' first priority is  
> bringing a paycheck home to his family, but here he is championing  
> and leading an extremely non-traditional military approach?  The  
> best way to continue to accomplish the former would be to  
> competently stick to known, popular paths, one would have thoughy.   
> The person one would expect to see doing the latter, making waves  
> and taking risks, would be a semi-obsessed individual, to whom THIS  
> project comes first:  someone without much regard for risks to his  
> family's well-being:  single, or a grandparent, or someone who  
> simply doesn't care so much about his family.

Well, this whole project wasn't necessarily his idea in the first  
place. As a government agent he has no real choice over what  
assignments he gets. But once such a person is made responsible for  
such a project, he naturally develops a desire to see it succeed.  
Yeah, he could go to his superiors and say that this whole project was  
a misbegotten idea from the start and that he recommends it be  
scrapped; but that in itself would be taking a risk and is bound to  
not look good on his record, especially if as a result they handed it  
over to someone else who then did succeed with it. Also, too, he's  
seen more than enough evidence to know that (in this fantasy universe)  
paranormal humans *are* a very valuable resource -- the practical  
problems with exploiting them notwithstanding.

> Who's a teenager?  Aren't they all about 26-27 now?

Good point, they are in their early twenties by now.

> > a curse is to use water perviously seeded, if you will, by the victim
>
> (sp)  "previously"

That's a very unfortunate typo.

HAPPOSAI: Let's get started seeding. Heh heh heh.

SHAN PU: No, I rather take chance with curse.

> >
> >     He shrugged. *Whose emotion was that?* he briefly wondered.
>
> Yours, of course.

Right, but that's not something he's used to.

> Which tape?  If Gos has only one tape, he probably doesn't have the  
> secret; if he has a whole bunch, he has to tell his parents which  
> one to play.  Are they labeled by date?

Yeah, or something similar. One assumes Gos is capable of giving his  
mom enough information to enable her to find the right tape...  
eventually.

> Baby Kodachi?  If Tatewaki is six, shouldn't Kodachi be five?

Yeah, you're right.

> >     He'd heard that you could navigate by the stars,
>
> Ranma'd "heard"?  Someone who spent much of his boyhood camping out  
> with his father, all over the place?

Well, I expect Genma was always the one to keep track of where they  
were going. Still, point taken, and I'll change this.

> Geez.  When is this set again?

About seven years after the end of the original series. The specific  
year is unspecified, since that's how it was for the original series  
-- and like a lot of long-running serials, it's not really consistent;  
the (lack of) aging of the characters would suggest it lasted at most  
two years, the amount of stuff that happened would suggest a much  
longer time.

> You'd think if it's very far in the future, even these morons would  
> know that "terrorist" has long since ceased to have its original  
> meaning, and now means "anyone the U.S. doesn't like", with no  
> implication whatsoever about ethical behavior.  ESPECIALLY any U.S.  
> soldier less green than 6 months.

These are Mongol soldiers. The USA has sent advisers and loads of  
money, and some hardware under the table, but no actual troops as of  
yet other than Michaels' group. China in this story has been weakened  
but still wields considerable economic and military power, so the USA  
is leery of getting overtly involved in this particular conflict.  
Mongolia in this story only recently started beefing up its military  
after Herbie took over, so most of their troops are indeed green.

> The rapid cutting back and forth structure works once all the  
> chapters are here and one can read straight through them, but they  
> tend to work against your readers really getting into the story when  
> chapters only appear every so often.  Not sure there's anything you  
> can do about it at this point; you're pretty committed to this  
> approach.

Yeah. Part of it is a reflection of how difficult it is to find time  
to write. With the new stuff waiting to be written the last thing I  
want to do is spend time adding what are effectively recaps. But I  
will give it a fresh read and see if they're particularly needed  
anywhere.

Thanks for the comments!