Talk:Orla O'Malley

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I'm still not sure the case for Orla as Familia can be made. There's strong evidence, but not strong enough, I think. Let's see.

  • Her last name is O'Malley. This doesn't have to mean anything, it could not be her name, and we don't know if Familia always have Cruz as a last name anyway.
  • She knows the secret Familia sign language Page 0049, but she's Jinyiwei, it stands to reason they know everything about it. The question is if Gustavo is in on it or if Orla gives along a code that it's OK for her to communicate in this way. He's proconsul on Veeta, he might have to know things.
    She also used it much later on (Page 0167) in front of everyone else and the only one who might have found that suspicious/interesting was Skitter.
    • She has a cochlear nerve implant (Page 0058) and she's mentioned in the same breath as Familia members. For me, this is the strongest piece of evidence. However, this can also be explained away *wave, wave* by Jinyiwei. Her cover story was that she gave a talk for the Imperial War College (Page 0083) - and she might not go to the Great Council because the Jinyiwei were called in as well. And after the Familia meeting, she was late, because she had to talk to Emperor Cruz (another cover story? less likely) (Page 0088).
      She could also have a cochlear implant as an exception because Emperor Cruz says so.
      This might be special pleading and some gish-gallop, but I'm just saying that, at least in my mind, the burden of proof is not met?
  • There's her childhood (Page 0120), which doesn't really tell us anything about Familia connections.
  • She's in posession of a weird enzyme (Page 0125), which could be because of Jinyiwei research or because of xenobiological research.
  • She offers to stay behind alone on the Machito (Page 0123), which is suspicious. Does that mean she knows about the Drive? This could be interesting.
    Do Jinyiwei know about the Drive or do they also have Familia employees?
  • She's unfamiliar with how to behave on Slaughter (Page 0130).
  • She has history with Trankin (Page 0136) - or with Vinn, it's unclear.
  • She went after Maria (Page 0196).

She at least got Jinyiwei training. She likely didn't fool the secret police, but was really one of them.

Am I missing something? Ret Samys - Jinyiwei (talk) 01:03, 13 October 2017 (PDT)

Ahh, my bad. From the evidence you listed, it to me seemed like an open-and-shut case. I mean, knowing the language and having the cochlear implant was enough for me to make that inference, but I guess it hasn't been explicitly confirmed. Also, I know it's not necessarily canon, but the last page of Cute Things also seems to indicate that she's Familia. Sensorfire (talk) 10:29, 13 October 2017 (PDT)
No, this is fine, I'm open to being convinced. I could see that Orla has knowledge about the Drive (even though it seemed to be a very simple last step she had to do in the page you gave), but I don't yet. But with the Jinyiwei being a secret police, would they accept Familia in their ships? Wouldn't they need to know about the Drive themselves? Ret Samys - Jinyiwei (talk) 10:48, 14 October 2017 (PDT)
I don't think there's enough information about the relationship between Familia and Jinyiwei to know whether the two are mutually exclusive, and what supposedly Familia-only traits Jinyiwei are allowed to have. Can Familia be Jinyiwei? Do non-Familia Jinyiwei get Drive engineering training? Do they get to learn the secret Familia sign language and get cochlear implants? Do all Familia know about the Jinyiwei, or just some? As far as I know, none of these questions have been conclusively answered. From Page 0155 we can at least be sure all first-year Drive Crops students learn of the existence of the Jinyiwei, and on Page 0171, Fernando seems to already know about them, so it's probably safe to assume most Familia are aware of them to some extent. As far as Familia sign language and cochlear implants, the only potentially non-Familia character who has these (as well as possibly experience engineering the Drive), as far we know (that I can remember), is Orla. So I guess we don't really know for sure, but it does seem likely to me. Sensorfire (talk) 21:43, 14 October 2017 (PDT)
OK, yes. I can agree to that. If we want to put this on the wiki, we should probably add some relativising terms, like you just used them, likely, suggested, potential and the like. I'm very much looking forward to the comic answering these questions. =) Ret Samys - Jinyiwei (talk) 05:31, 16 October 2017 (PDT)