Brady

[Elizabeth Bear]

See, if you hadn't warned me that monkey clowns were your fault, I would have automatically blamed Jay Lake.

(There will be no clowns in anything I write. I was traumatized by a clown at the Shriner's Circus when I was very small, and they still give me the creeps.)

[Barton Fender]

See, if you hadn't warned me that monkey clowns were your fault, I would have automatically blamed Jay Lake.

(There will be no clowns in anything I write. I was traumatized by a clown at the Shriner's Circus when I was very small, and they still give me the creeps.)

I told you clowns were scary.
And Will haven't you ever seen a monkey with his pet organ grinder?
Come to think of it grinding organs fits this tv show well . . .

[will shetterly]

Who said, "You know what a monkey needs? A fez!"? It makes me despair for my species.

[saoba]

Also, monkeys make things scarier. So if I can figure out how to put monkey clowns in Brady's past, I'm doing it.

Fortunately for all, I don't think that's possible. But it is now in the back of my brain, so you never know where monkey clowns might appear.

Monkeys also make things messier, she said darkly.

Why, yes, I did actually do 'non-standard pet sitting' for a period of time. Monkeys. Snakes. Tarantulas. Ferrets. Very large dogs other pet sitters found intimidating.  Fifteen cats and a very very large dog while their personal Two-legs was out of country for several months. You can learn a lot from these creatures.

I learned that one should not under any circumstances let the monkey see where we keep the  Mr. Bubble.

[Bunny M]

My thoughts on Brady are that he's acting like a soldier, in particular an officer. As a retired Army 2nd Lt., he'd have probably served in Kuwait (or even Afghanistan or Iraq, if he's old enough). He's probably seen hesitation get soldiers under his command shot and/or killed by partisans. He probably has some leftover baggage from combat; probably well under control, or he wouldn't be there, but stress brings out all sorts of things that you think are dead and buried. And a manhunt definitely qualifies as stress.

Interesting, but you are forgetting that Brady was an MP, not Infantry. Front-line troops tend to view MPs in a similar manner to the way that cops view Internal Affairs, only much more so.

Also, (and this is based on the Australian Army, which is very much based on the British model,) MPs very rarely see the front line, and then only briefly, unless things have gone majorly, dramatically wrong. (Think Battle of the Bulge wrong.)

So, on top of being the military version of IA, MPs are the ones that hang about in back (safe) areas, making life difficult for 'real' soldiers when they finally get some R&R time. It makes for some extraordinarily bad feelings. And, of course, there are very, very few MPs compared to front-line troops.

It's possible that he has seen military combat, but I've gotten the impression that he went straight into the MPs from recruits, which would make it highly unlikely that he would see combat. (Of course, if he did, it would almost certainly be really bad and utterly unexpected, as that is pretty much the only times that MPs see combat.)

[swampyankee2u]

Interesting, but you are forgetting that Brady was an MP, not Infantry. Front-line troops tend to view MPs in a similar manner to the way that cops view Internal Affairs, only much more so.

Also, (and this is based on the Australian Army, which is very much based on the British model,) MPs very rarely see the front line, and then only briefly, unless things have gone majorly, dramatically wrong. (Think Battle of the Bulge wrong.)

/quote]

U.S. Military isn't quite so clear cut, particularly in fast moving operations.

MPs pull a lot of convoy security and POW management activity with US Forces. They are looked upon as the combat-arms crossover branch and used as rear area security which is often not very rear -- the mid 1980's and 1990s saw a big change in US Forces doctrine -- instead of big quartermaster battaions, maintenance ordnance battalions, transportation battalions, MP battalions (all 300+ troops of the same types operating 50-100 miles behind the rear) there was a lot of piecing out of Combat Support and Service Support troops. The Combat Service Company (CSC) was formulated to be deployed from Support Battalions with Battalion and Brigade sized combat units. Because Mechanics and truckers can't shoot straight (I was one, it is hard to move quickly from on your back turning a wrench to perimeter security at the drop of a hat), MPs saw a lot of time trying to protect REMFS that weren't so Rear Echelon anymore.

Basically, the Infantry in the tiney universe called Ft Carson in the 90s saw the MPs as inconvienent when they went out drinking, but happy to see them in the field so they would not lose fire-power guarding rear areas and could focus on the "real enemy"

Desert Storm MPs had to be right behind the lines to handle the massive flow of POWs.

Can you imagine a POW not on drugs but on an Anomolly?

Don't want to...

[Bunny M]

Can you imagine a POW not on drugs but on an Anomaly?

Don't want to...

Yeah, it's not a pretty picture. Although I suspect that said gamma would have to have very subtle/misleading tricks, or else they would end up with a few(several) dozen bullets in them right smart. The military sort tends to have a very low tolerance for uppity PoWs, and never more so than when people are dying.

[swampyankee2u]

Good point, though his "love" of gammas **appears** to predate military service, having gone into MPs.

Unless he was one of the many ROTC officers who gets jammed into Combat Support/Service Support roles because the West Point grads get all the "good" combat arms roles.

Be interesting to see how he and Mom get along long term even though he didn't stay Army that long.

[dancing crow]

Also, monkeys make things scarier.

between scary monkeys and cow orkers, I would cheerfully swear that someone else here is reading Shanenon Garrity's Skin Horse:
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/skinhorse/series.php

[el_jefe]

Good point, though his "love" of gammas **appears** to predate military service, having gone into MPs.

Unless he was one of the many ROTC officers who gets jammed into Combat Support/Service Support roles because the West Point grads get all the "good" combat arms roles.

Dunno how I missed this thread, but yeah, what you said. Two kinds of cops in the military, the ones that wanted to be cops, and the ones that got voluntold.

[MadGastronomer]

between scary monkeys and cow orkers, I would cheerfully swear that someone else here is reading Shanenon Garrity's Skin Horse:
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/skinhorse/series.php

Well, I am, but I don't think I'm who you mean.

[BeatriceEagle]

As of latest episode, we have blood and gunpowder and nightmares to add to this equation.

I leave you with that, since I can't make anything of it.

[CJ]

It's pretty vague in terms of what actually happened.  But it looks like he's been having nightmares for a long time from whatever this was.  Sol's not the only one with PTSD.  With his background, Brady's probably seen a lot of awful stuff, but for it to stick around like this, and this badly, means it was something extraordinarily horrific.  Other than that, though, there's not much to get out of the nightmare, since blood and gunpowder aren't that specific.

[janbo]

Interesting, but you are forgetting that Brady was an MP, not Infantry. Front-line troops tend to view MPs in a similar manner to the way that cops view Internal Affairs, only much more so.

Also, (and this is based on the Australian Army, which is very much based on the British model,) MPs very rarely see the front line, and then only briefly, unless things have gone majorly, dramatically wrong. (Think Battle of the Bulge wrong.)

/quote]

U.S. Military isn't quite so clear cut, particularly in fast moving operations.

MPs pull a lot of convoy security and POW management activity with US Forces. They are looked upon as the combat-arms crossover branch and used as rear area security which is often not very rear -- the mid 1980's and 1990s saw a big change in US Forces doctrine -- instead of big quartermaster battalions, maintenance ordnance battalions, transportation battalions, MP battalions (all 300+ troops of the same types operating 50-100 miles behind the rear) there was a lot of piecing out of Combat Support and Service Support troops. The Combat Service Company (CSC) was formulated to be deployed from Support Battalions with Battalion and Brigade sized combat units. Because Mechanics and truckers can't shoot straight (I was one, it is hard to move quickly from on your back turning a wrench to perimeter security at the drop of a hat), MPs saw a lot of time trying to protect REMFS that weren't so Rear Echelon anymore.

Basically, the Infantry in the tiny universe called Ft Carson in the 90s saw the MPs as inconvenient when they went out drinking, but happy to see them in the field so they would not lose fire-power guarding rear areas and could focus on the "real enemy"

Desert Storm MPs had to be right behind the lines to handle the massive flow of POWs.

The change in force utilization was being implemented when I left the U.S. Army (HD) in the late 1980s. Back then, the big weenies were calling it the cohort concept, or something similar.

I couldn't find another place to post this next bit, and I'm new to these boards, so please forgive any repetition. In the character bios, Brady's age is mid-30s and he's listed as "2nd Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Ret'd." Unless things have changed radically (and they may have), commissioned officers in the Army didn't rate the "Ret'd" unless they'd put in their 20 or had been medically discharged. Since it appears that Brady wasn't medically discharged, he had to have been around 16 when he received his commission (he was an officer; non-officers enlist). This stretches credibility too far, for me. I hope one of the producers sees this post and at least considers the point.

Granted, it's a technical nitpick, but it created a mental obstacle; for a creative work that sounds so good (I haven't read any of the text yet), it's worth verifying.