aubergine wrote:Hrm, it doesn't feel right. Maybe the woman who we know only as "the female computer voice" suits this backstory more than Hammond? Maybe she's his wife?
Hammond strikes me as someone who perhaps didn't do so well at school and led an alternative lifestyle. Or he might have good at been sports and got sponsored in to a top uni, yet felt in his gut something was wrong with the system, then an accident laid waste to his sport & sponsorship and that forced him to see the world with a fresh set of eyes - perhaps making him an activist of sorts, campaigning for alternate forms of governance and looking for ways to build a new societal system (rather than just trying to fix the existing "
sick system" which was designed to be broken from the outset).
Someone who starts out in politics then goes in to government (via any means) then switches to science is not someone I could ever trust. They would be a deeply disturbed and confused individual with very misguided ideas about how the world should function.
IMHO Hammond needs to be someone with very clear world view, backed up by his life events, and he would likely be someone that could see the way things were headed long before the collapse (hence gathering a strong following pre- and post-collapse).
I agree with some of what you say and some not because, well to start, some of the dicotomies presented are not really mutually exclusive as I understand them in RL. But your dissent is much appreciated because it spurs me to greater clarification, and articulation, of what is there in germinal form and, I now realise, yet too present in my subconcious modus operandi and not enough exposed to concious review.
For example this:
aubergine wrote:....
Someone who starts out in politics then goes in to government (via any means) then switches to science is not someone I could ever trust. They would be a deeply disturbed and confused individual with very misguided ideas about how the world should function.
......
He's complicated. He grows into, and refines, his methodology for societal transformation as he matures from a kid to a young man, to an older man. But he does begin with an inviolate core.
I actually modeled him after 4 of his teen heroes which I specifically declared; 2 clearly historical, one historical / fictional and one legendary / fictional.:
Ben Franklin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
Your gonna have to totally discredit Ben Franklin's life and achievments, to convince me of the veracity of that mutually exclusive dicotomy between politics and science.
And I also gave him a germinal but very clear moral compass and sense of activism and world view.
First:
Given to thoughtful reflection and careful consideration, he nonetheless sees himself as a man of action. When most of his peers are fixated on being liked and recieving the approval of others, his paramount concern is that his words and deeds be indisputably consistent. That others would know, without a doubt, that his word was not just as good as gold, but better.
That statement covers a lot of ethical ground concisely. To wit, Hammond's core motivation is driven by neither greed or by any sort of attempted covert, manipulative, excercise of power over others.
This is followed by his other 3 teen hero / model mentors as hooks to his character motivation:
Bertrand Russell:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell
Cyrano de Bergerac:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrano_de_Bergerac
T.H. White's reboot of Arthur:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Once_and_Future_King
These too, cover a lot of moral territory including the abuse of power, rule by might, might is right and justice for all.
If I make Hammond a total outsider and clear enemy of the established state at the outset, he becomes a target from the get go of forces far more powerful than he is in his teens and early twenties. That he would choose to understand first hand, from within, the levers of existing power, the machinations of the established, deeply flawed and self-serving system, to in time effect change, is a wiser subversive martial strategy than a frontal insurrection readily percieved as such by the VERY mighty political-military-industrial complex. In fencing, as on the battle field, it is a clever feint, aka a gambit.
He will recruit the disaffected from within the system (as well as from without, with great care and anonymity) and he will turn the systems own resources to it's subversion which is his road to both The Project and NORAD and also how he will be able to identify the greatly established, global, power players in opposition, like Dr. Reed, early on in his agenda of, if at all possible, a bloodless societal transformation. Hammond's excercise of power has to be not only clever and rationally grounded but also not in any way be possession or greed-driven or out to brute coerce others to his will and as such, in clear contrast to the excercise of power by Dr. Reed and his ilk.
Hammond's initial formulation of all this preceeding strategy, (admittedly somewhat ellusive at first), takes place during his 6 month alternate life style time-out after Uni graduation in the Southwest where he ultimately resolves to his initial segue via joining the Secret Service.
His over-arching strategy of bloodless societal transformaton from the status quo madness of empire, continues to evolve after he is shot and laid-up, then resigns from the Secret Service to go back to Uni for his post grad work in the sciences. That work, in the specific sciences I stated, will also allow him to segue into the sanctums of power in the political-military-industrial complex along with parlaying his rep for foiling an assassination, and taking a bullet in the process, as ex-Secret Service.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle”
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
“All warfare is based on deception.”
“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”
― all Sun Tzu
Did I mention John Hammond knew Sun Tzu like most folks their bank account, to the last buck.
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I will await additional feedback through the rest of the week before I make the initial revision and expansion of the 1st cut John Hammond biography sometime over the weekend. Which means I'll put off for another week work on, and posting of, Chapter 4 of the "Crude In Sur America" novella and associated illustrations, for anyone who may be interested in, and following, that particular odd effort.
.
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Impact = C x (R + E + A + T + E)
Contrast
Reach
Exposure
Articulation
Trust
Echo
.
Insightful for me going forward. 
Thanks Goth. 
tells me when I cauthg up with the story that.. there is a need for.. yes.. you know it already Rman, what it needs is!