The Nightstar Zoo

Doesn't make it wrong.

I still am betting what will bite them in the ass is having the tech to make the prisoners safe, and failing to do so.

Presuming, of course, that they failed to do so . . .

--FreeFlier

Then they are idiots for not dumping a gestalt for backup along with the prisoners'.

Assuming they had time to do so. Being suddenly vaporized out of nowhere isn't somethign you'd normally expect to have happen, otherwise they'd have had more frequent backups than they currently do. If all the events of this battle have not been synced to backup, it seems unlikely that their newest acquisitions have, either.

It also takes time for RED-REO nanites to establish themselves in someone's system. While that time frame has not been established, it it took days for the ones given to the Toughs to be fully integrated.

Not to mention that there's questions of consent and whether Srabben and his crew would have given it.

I doubt they would have consented.

In which case, legal can muddy the waters incredibly.

--FreeFlier

Even if they would consent, the point that the red-reo doesn't install itself instantly and immediately dump a backup still applies.

And even if the red-reo did somehow install, instantly calibrate itself to an alien species, and is ready to dump a download within seconds, so what? There's bound to be bandwidth limits on their data-links. I doubt that they can send a bunch of full backups instantly by hypercom.

Basically, there's no reason to think that a backup was POSSIBLE in the involved time. We know that in the time involved they hadn't managed an off-site backup of their own people.

Finally: If off-site backups are some sort of legal "you absolutely must do this to everyone within seconds of taking custody or you are an inhumane monster" thing, then why didn't Srabben and crew already have such off-site backups? Off-site backups aren't ubiquitous. You're not required to make such an extraordinary effort to keep prisoners alive that it demonstrably GREATLY exceeds what they and their side will do for anyone, including themselves.

Especially since the entire thing, from missile swarm usurpation to the Maxim 39 blowing up, apparently happened over the course of what seems like a couple of hours AT MOST. This has all been in a single eventful, terrible afternoon.

Edit for evidence: https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2018-02-24 Elf says here she's been captain for 70 minutes. The taking of the 'Honor' was quick, and it's not that big a ship. Let's call it another hour from Elf hitting the deck to when Peri did. Let's go super conservative and say there was an hour of fighting after the UPA missiles were swiped.

That gives us, on the super outside, four hours.

Now, it appears that the cats have RED-REO already, which both makes things easier, and complicates them.

Because in order for the Toughs to back them up, they'd need access to their RED-REO nannies and the highly encrypted and distributed backup data. Which would require either consent and possibly a very good technician who can unlock them, or they need to be hacked, which they are specifically hardened against, as well as being ASTOUNDINGLY illegal.

It appears that civilians don't have offsite backups, and it's doubtful the UPA would either, meaning little to no active provisions for being read for dumping. Their nannies would have to be altered, which, again, legally questionable, even if they did consent, and perhaps not even possible without removing them completely and replacing them with new ones.

In other words, it is very, very likely that there was NO POSSIBLE, LEGAL WAY for them to have protected the UPA prisoners from vaporization via long gun pot shot, in anything remotely resembling the time they had.

Not to mention they didn't even manage to protect THEMSELVES from it adequately, so there's no chance in hell they could have protected some random newly-acquired guests from something that was completely unexpected like that.

Coming back from dying after a few months and only losing a day of memories is pretty adequate.

If they had suffered catastrophic damage and everyone needed head nanny bagging they would all still be looking at long periods of healing.

That's not the point though. The thing is did they take all reasonable measures to protect their prisoners? Which is clearly yes, at least as outside observers.

It wouldn't take a genius lawyer to tie them up with claims of 'they backed themselves up' or 'they weren't even on the ship' and sacrificed the Maxim 39 in order to .....steal a ship that was already stolen.

It's law it doesn't have to make sense.

It's pretty clear the nannites are available in system if not ubiquitous already (or there would be no revival effort).Making a local backup and/or providing for off-site backup should have been added to standard prisoner processing.

"There's nothing they could have done in this case, so you can't blame them for not taking reasonable steps" only provides so much coverage.

(I wonder if while connecting Para's "liberated" friend up to the resuscitation equipment is going to show a bunch of passengers and show that somebody was thinking)

Yes, the nannies are, but it seems reasonable that normal civilians either wouldn't have the offsite backup package as standard, and altering them so they DO would also likely be a legal quagmire, ESPECIALLY in the case of prisoners of foreign agency, since it would allow for the same kind of clone and kill interrogation as the Gatekeepers did. All you'd have to do is force somebody to back up to one of your own servers and you could clone them anew any time.

That, plus the inability for the RED-REO nannies to be hacked the same way as Dom Atlantis or Oisri means that the saved data is encrypted, and the nannies likely unalterable without significant effort and time to flush them out and integrate new ones.

Thinking about what? A solution to a problem that did not previously exist?

I mixed my thoughts unnecessarily. They should have offered backup/offsite backup (to the site of their choice) to the prisoners, not forced it on them.

The idea is that providing a reasonable effort to protect the prisoners now requires taking RED-REO into account.

And it seems likely that the civilian RED-REO wouldn't have offsite backup capability, or a disaster like the refinery and trying to keep the dead people dead wouldn't work. They'd just be cloned and they'd still have their claim to the area.

After all, there's legal precedent for a clone to be given a second death penalty. Perfectly reasonable for real estate law to have a similar thing.

And alteration to make the RED-REO nannies capable of remote backup would be highly legally questionable, as to do so would require alteration of the RED-REO nannies, which has been hardened against to keep it from being hacked like in Dom Atlantis and Oisri, and could be said to have been used to literally change somebody's mind for them.

Offsite backups are evidently uncommon at this point in time, so providing them for a temporary detainment in safe conditions (the Toughs were unaware any government that had Long Guns was likely to use them) would exceed reasonable minimums. I think all models of the nanites have offsite backup capability because why wouldn't they, but it takes a good bit of data storage and bandwidth and the average person isn't that worried about winding up dead enough to need one. So I doubt they're going to be considered mandatory for prisoners in ordinary circumstances; prisons are not usually at risk of being atomized. And creating a warden-controlled backup has serious ethical issues, while sending updates to their existing backup is an enormous security/flight risk, because they don't have to be dead to restore from backup.

Yes, but since they acquired their additional passengers AFTER their backup, and were not able to protect all their own experience of this event, what makes you think they'd be able to protect some unexpectedly added passengers?

Nitpick: The added passengers weren't unexpected.

Otherwise, I agree with you.