I've been wondering about Pasquale's motivation. The only thing that's really driving him forward is a desire to protect himself through anonymity, but that's not really enough - not sufficiently emotionally satisfying - to drive him to leave Earth and chase a bunch of probably insane cyborged war veterans to an O'Neill Orbital that's the site of an ongoing civil war in near-permanent stalemate. It needs something more personal.
Is it just me, or does it ever seem that until a few decades or so ago, ideological conviction was enough to drive a character to do what they did? I'm thinking Jack London's Iron Heel. I'm sure there are others. Norman Spinrad wrote about the negative side of that kind of conviction in The Iron Dream. Now it's much more down to the personal; how can I profit, or how can I save what's personally important to me.
In the rough outline, not posted as yet, I gave Pasquale a doctor girlfriend in Bangkok. I'm wondering if it would make it more satisfying if she was also a biotech veteran. Maybe she leaves first because of the 'call of the silicon'; maybe Pasqale has the added duty of protecting her. It would mean he'd have to go into space to find her, perhaps try and rescue/aid her. Not, of course, that I'd make her any mere shrinking violet or screaming damsel in distress.
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