The Observers

[sawyl]

We're back on board the tiny and rather knackered Clarke — no sarcastic comments please! — for The Observers, this week's episode of The Human Division.

Fresh from his dog-walking exploits, Harry Wilson finds himself instructed by Ambassador Abumwe to look after a group of diplomats from Earth who are due to observe the final stages of the Colonial Union's negotiations with the Burfinor. The observers seem like a decent bunch and one of them — Danielle Lowen, the US representative, who turns out to be on the same wavelength as Wilson — even knows something about the Cubs recent history and everything looks pretty rosy for the CU.

But that's before the Burfinor try to exploit the divisions between the two human factions, reasoning that the CU might be willing to accept a bad deal rather than risk embarrassing themselves in front of the Earthlings they're supposed to be impressing. And it is before one of the senior terrestrial diplomats turns up dead in his bunk aboard the Clarke.

There's amusement to be had from Wilson's easy banter with the Earthlings, especially the way he undiplomatically spills the beans on the subtext behind the negotiations and trades casual philosophy with Lowen: he points out that although he might look like a normal (green) human, he's actually a genetically-modified cyborg who might not actually be the same person as the Harry Wilson who shipped out from Earth and had his mind uploaded into a green, human-shaped killing machine.

There isn't all that much extra arc significance in the episode, but it provides support for much that has gone before by showing the lengths to which the conspiracy is willing to go to widen the divisions between Earth and the Colonial Union. Further it shows that not only do the conspirators have their hooks deeply into the CU and the CDF, as evidenced by Tales from the Clarke, but they've also been able to do much the same on Earth. But the fundamental question remains: is the conspiracy human driven or is it the work of a group of alien fifth columnists?