Best giant space battle series in recent years?

[Thanas]

Isn't Honor supposed to be genetically bred to live in a high gravity world? She is stronger than a normal human, so can't that account for some of her faster speed in the duel which can compensate for her inferior skill.

Sure. She is specifically stated to be 15 % faster than a normal human. Which, if she would be going up against somebody of equal skill, would give her a serious edge. However, she is not doing that here.

What is even more, she is making a series of complex motions in the time he just needs to do maybe one or two to deflect her upward thrust. In fact, he never even gets his muscles to give the command to slash down. That is not 15% speed differential. That is Jedi-like quickness vs normal mortals.

[Ahriman238]

Okay, I'll chip in my bit to clarify things, or muddy the waters.

I have also done my time in fencing and there is a thing, I've never heard it called a "crease" outside of Weber's book, but there is the tiniest vulnerability in the split second between your opponent choosing to attack and actually attacking. For that single instant they aren't ready for you to attack, they've decided you won't attack. It's a terribly small window of opportunity, against a rank amateur you'd be lucky to get it 5% of the time, even if you were looking for it and waiting to exploit it, and training will drastically narrow that window . But it is one thing no amount of training can completely eliminate.

If Honor were exceptionally lucky, if a hundred or more tiny details lined up right, it is possible. An absurd longshot, but possible. I can't really see it with her fatigue and injuries though.

As to general Mary Sue-ness, I can see where the argument comes from, but I don't think it really applies. I see Honor, particularly where the series began, as the ultimate min-maxer. Hyper-competent in matters relating to fighting and starship command, stunted and limited at all other things. Her lack of political understanding and anger management nearly cost her dearly in the first few books, and indeed she had to be restrained from violence several times by her subordinates. She was emotionally insecure, with exactly zero stable and satisfying relationships under her belt. If that sounds prosaic, consider for just a moment that when the series began Harrington was 50 Earth years of age, and by the time of the Second Havenite War and the trouble with the Solarian League is over 70. These are the character flaws of a far younger woman. Technically she has the body and hormones of a younger woman, but you'd think experience would have beaten better self-control into her anyways.

I do have another frustration with the series and Honor's character. In the very first book it was explained that she nearly flunked out of the Academy because she's not great at math, particularly the math used to navigate a starship, plot intercepts and time etc. It mentions the all-nighters she had to pull to scrape by, but her apparent inability with navigation mattered not at all in the first book. Or the second. Or any subsequent book, as far as I know. She's always had a dedicated officer to do the maths for her.

[Imperial Overlord]

This is because Honor is a Mary Sue and her flaws aren't really flaws. They're minor obstacles she hasn't bothered to overcome or don't really exist. Her math problems don't stop her from being an uber tactician in a field where vectors and acceleration are key attributes of performance. She's over forty and is insecure in her relationships? Not a problem because she is one makeover away from being an super hot action babe with tons of money who every right thinking person loves, admires, and respects. She also an expert at martial arts, a crack shot, becomes a noble, makes tons of money and makes that money make even more tons of money (what math problems), and beats a swordmaster at swordplay when injured.

She's smarter, stronger, faster, tougher, and better looking than everyone else and everyone either loves her (good guy) or if they hate her their inner monologue will reveal a whole host of character flaws like being a misogynist religious fanatic or disgusting racists. Sure people get killed around her, but they aren't really developed as characters and sure she gets chewed up in some fights but since she's bionically rebuilt and at gets to be as hot and badass as before this isn't really a problem either.

[Ultonius]

makes tons of money and makes that money make even more tons of money (what math problems)

I think credit for that should primarily go to her financial advisor Willard Neufsteiler, rather than to Honor herself.

[Ahriman238]

This is because Honor is a Mary Sue and her flaws aren't really flaws. They're minor obstacles she hasn't bothered to overcome or don't really exist. Her math problems don't stop her from being an uber tactician in a field where vectors and acceleration are key attributes of performance. She's over forty and is insecure in her relationships? Not a problem because she is one makeover away from being an super hot action babe with tons of money who every right thinking person loves, admires, and respects. She also an expert at martial arts, a crack shot, becomes a noble, makes tons of money and makes that money make even more tons of money (what math problems), and beats a swordmaster at swordplay when injured.

She's smarter, stronger, faster, tougher, and better looking than everyone else and everyone either loves her (good guy) or if they hate her their inner monologue will reveal a whole host of character flaws like being a misogynist religious fanatic or disgusting racists. Sure people get killed around her, but they aren't really developed as characters and sure she gets chewed up in some fights but since she's bionically rebuilt and at gets to be as hot and badass as before this isn't really a problem either.

Yeah not really. Her overcoming her interpersonal issues are a couple books in and of themselves, but her lack of political or interpersonal skills, her pride and her anger management issues are certainly not minor obstacles she simply hasn't had reason to work at. First two books alone she; nearly ends her career and all the good she did in Basilisk by physically attacking a wealthy merchant and is only just stopped by her XO, later she does physically strike an ambassador of her own nation and publicly calls him a coward, publicly humiliates a senior admiral, and has to be physically restrained to stop her from summarily executing a POW. There are non-trivial issues, these are life and career destroying actions.

And she really, really, should be past the point where any of these would come up given her chronological age.

And that's not even getting into her pride issues, which rear up at the oddest times. I don't know how Grayson law normally handles trial-by-combat, but I doubt there isn't a provision for a stand in for the Protector's Champion, or a recess if said champion is unable to fight. I also recall her choosing to starve slowly when captured rather than simply step forward and tell her captors that she requires more food than the average prisoner. But the weirdest of all was in Basilisk Station, when her XO, in a fit of pique and jealousy at being passed over for command basically refuses to do his job. Honor picks up the slack, for several weeks handling everything without a single complaint, reprimand or overture to her subordinate. She simply doesn't address him, and so he becomes the last officer to help her when he should have been the first. Really, that's how it happens. He does jack for her from the moment they're sent to Basilisk to his sudden change of heart rescuing her from the merchant and nearly breaking down in tears as he confesses his resentment of her. It's supposed to be a dramatic moment, but all I could think was 'how did she ever let it come to this point?'

The math/astrogation thing just annoys me. Yes, it makes sense for her to make use of the officer whose full-time job is to do the math, especially if she's not stellar at it. And you know what, it doesn't have to be a huge deal. So she barely squeaked by in the Academy, but the Academy was literally decades ago and she was at least good enough to squeak by then. I just hate for a character to have any ability or weakness highlighted and have it matter not one bit to the plot. It just feels untidy. I'm likewise annoyed that the climax of Harry Potter made no mention or use of Parseltongue, Occlumency or even flying, i.e. the only skills Harry has that set him apart from any other Hogwarts student.

We're also never shown how she comes up with the plans, beyond broad-strokes flourishes. I suppose just because her math skills were mentioned at the beginning, I always imagined it as her getting an idea, then asking her astrogator if they could pull it off or to refine her back-of-the-envelope numbers.

[Simon_Jester]

As to general Mary Sue-ness, I can see where the argument comes from, but I don't think it really applies. I see Honor, particularly where the series began, as the ultimate min-maxer. Hyper-competent in matters relating to fighting and starship command, stunted and limited at all other things. Her lack of political understanding and anger management nearly cost her dearly in the first few books, and indeed she had to be restrained from violence several times by her subordinates. She was emotionally insecure, with exactly zero stable and satisfying relationships under her belt. If that sounds prosaic, consider for just a moment that when the series began Harrington was 50 Earth years of age, and by the time of the Second Havenite War and the trouble with the Solarian League is over 70. These are the character flaws of a far younger woman. Technically she has the body and hormones of a younger woman, but you'd think experience would have beaten better self-control into her anyways.

If they'd stuck with that instead of having her 'blossom' into a higher-ranking role so easily in Book Five, she'd have remained a pretty good character. Compare to the kind of characters who inspired her- Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey. Those guys have character flaws that pursue them throughout their careers, in one form or another. Honor's become irrelevant or get 'fixed.'

On the one hand, you expect a character to grow and change over the course of a decade or more of in-story time. On the other, when that evolution is linear towards "perfect," it's not good fiction.

I do have another frustration with the series and Honor's character. In the very first book it was explained that she nearly flunked out of the Academy because she's not great at math, particularly the math used to navigate a starship, plot intercepts and time etc. It mentions the all-nighters she had to pull to scrape by, but her apparent inability with navigation mattered not at all in the first book. Or the second. Or any subsequent book, as far as I know. She's always had a dedicated officer to do the maths for her.

Unfortunately this is somewhat realistic- being bad at one part of your job matters less when you have enough authority to order others to do it for you. At least, as long as you are good at the rest, which she is.

This is because Honor is a Mary Sue and her flaws aren't really flaws. They're minor obstacles she hasn't bothered to overcome or don't really exist... She's over forty and is insecure in her relationships? Not a problem because she is one makeover away from being an super hot action babe with tons of money who every right thinking person loves, admires, and respects.

If Weber had just... not gone with the huge sums of prize money, and kept actually bringing up the temper issue in subsequent books to the point where it really hurts her, this could have been avoided.

In the first few books you really do see her flaws mattering- she'd be completely wrecked at the end of Book Four because of her sheer anger response, if it weren't for Grayson letting her push the reset button on her career in Book Five. It might have been interesting to see what she'd have done otherwise.

*(come on, governments handing massively multimillion-dollar fortunes to ship captains in a setting where the government works along modern lines?)

And she really, really, should be past the point where any of these would come up given her chronological age.

There have been people with issues like that at that age in real life. The catch is that they tend to get in more trouble in a modern society than they would have in the Napoleonic era...

One obvious explanation, not totally a handwave, is that Honor's career from Basilisk on involved a lot more stress and danger. So situations where she's pushed to career-harming violence are less frequent.

But the weirdest of all was in Basilisk Station, when her XO, in a fit of pique and jealousy at being passed over for command basically refuses to do his job. Honor picks up the slack, for several weeks handling everything without a single complaint, reprimand or overture to her subordinate. She simply doesn't address him, and so he becomes the last officer to help her when he should have been the first. Really, that's how it happens. He does jack for her from the moment they're sent to Basilisk to his sudden change of heart rescuing her from the merchant and nearly breaking down in tears as he confesses his resentment of her. It's supposed to be a dramatic moment, but all I could think was 'how did she ever let it come to this point?'

Original!Honor was, I think, meant to be the sort of person who does try to pick up the slack from other people without giving them the richly deserved ass-kickings they need for not helping her. Plus, and I bet you'll know exactly what I'm talking about...

She wasn't actually that great at coming onto the scene and getting people to follow her- she needed a lot of in-story time to shake out the loyal command team that followed her into subsequent books.

[Connor MacLeod]

The biggest problem Weber had with Honor is that whenver any 'crisis' came up it tended to be resolved too neatly with little or no loose ends, especially in latter novels, and this left no room for things to come back and haunt her or cause problems later on. It also in no way helped that later books decided that Honor had to be pushed more and more into other venues outside of the Navy - she became a diplomat, a politician, etc. and she ended up being as great in those roles as she was in the navy (that was a particularily annoying point, for me, in Mission of Honor.) It isn't that she's unlikable.. I still actually *like* her as a character, but she's utterly utterly boring to read about, because there's nothing at all you can do with her anymore.

The Honor of the earlier novels was someone who was blunt spoken, had no patience for politicking or subterfuge, and had something of a rather nasty temper that was actually a drawback (such as when she finds out the Masadans raped and murdered people she was responsible for, she basically snaps and would have shot them down in cold blood had her own people not restrained her.) Or when her lover was murdered by the order of North Hollow, she sacrificed her career and her newly acquired status to get the revenge she needed (and felt that Paul was owed.) I always felt that was the best 'point' character wise for her in the series, but it (and much of the character buitl up in those first four books) was pretty much spent and ruined in subsequent ones. The price of her choice in 'Fields of Dishonor' was neatly undone in 'honor amongst enemies' and whats more she rose amazingly fast (She was an admiral by what, book 9?) In enemy Hands/Echoes of Honor was one brief 'bump' in that but it didn't really change it much, and by the time of 'AShes of Victory' we get the terminal slide into what the HV has become now and the 'pattern' we've gotten used to.

As a character in the early books, her strong points were always her dedication to her job and her willingness to do whatever she had to to achieve her mission, regardless of the cost (personal or otherwise.) It was those sorts of things (And thos situations) that helped create the tension and drama in the earlier books (and why the earlier battles and such were much better than the techno-widget missile spamfests we get later on.) Once she was effectively exiled to Grayson, I feel the story would have been better served keeping her there, and exiled from her Manticoran naval career. IF she needed to have an impact on the war, she could have done so through her Grayson naval role (at that time they were something of an allied fleet anyhow.) so there was no real need to put her back in Manticoran uniform and that (and her return to the nobility) killed alot of the development and drama potential on that avenue. After book 5 we got even less conflict from the Grayson side of things (which there was no reason for - no fallout for what she did, and Mueller's role kinda petered out except for some half-hearted assasination attempt where he was little more than a tool.) Same with the Masada side of things (although a few other authors have put that Masada aspect to good effect) Book 6 tied up the conflict with Housemann neatly, and by War of Honor whatever vestiges of 'opposition' she may have had amongst the Manticorans or Graysons were effectively gone. Ashes of Victory started the infodumping technobabbling that progressively grew with each new novel, and that ended up strangling off the Naval aspect entirely as well (to the point the stories aren't even interesting 'action' stories either, as Storm from the Shadows and A Rising Thunder demonstrate.)

As a naval officer, she was something of a bull in a china shop - when it came to doing her duty it made her very effective (even at great cost, as we learn in the first and the second) but it also made enemies (Hauptmann in the first book, Housemann in the second. Heck even the stuff she had with Admiral Hemphill and her bunch was stemming from her inabilty to be tactful)


Ultimately thats whats bugging me about 90% of the analysis of what 'Honor' is and those books - it either focuses on utterly trivial reasons that are at most symptoms of the larger problem, or it tries to force the issue into a very black/white assessment of what she is or isn't, but neglects to address why, or where the points are that the series (and character) took a wrong turn. You can't have any sort of deep or interesting analyitcal discussions if you get caught up in absolutes.

[Simon_Jester]

Aside from this (which I basically agree with)...

I think the books suffered from the tension between Weber's desire to put Napoleonic institutions into the story (a meaningful House of Lords, prize money as a path to wealth for naval officers) and his desire to put in modern institutions out of realism or as political commentary (paparazzi, billion-dollar warships, a Republicans'-eye view of the welfare state).

Thus, Honor becomes a billionaire almost by accident, as a side-plot, because of her role in the capture of a few warships in a battle of moderate importance. In real life, sure the 'captain's share' of the 'prize money' on something like a nuclear aircraft carrier would be huge. But for that very reason, no national government would even consider awarding a noticeable fraction of the ship's value as prize money. It would be too disruptive to naval discipline to have one captain suddenly become impossibly rich, while all the others had to slink along with business as usual.

Likewise, the House of Lords as we knew it just isn't going to function in the kind of society where tabloid journalism has any real power and momentary public opinion matters in any form short of street riots.

At this point I usually recommend David Drake's "Lieutenant Leary" series, which does a better job of transcribing Napoleonic British (and Roman Republic) institutions into a space-opera context. He mostly accomplishes that by being thorough: he doesn't suddenly turn the Cinnabar legislature into a clone of the US's 2012-vintage House of Representatives or anything stupid like that.

[Ultonius]

Thus, Honor becomes a billionaire almost by accident, as a side-plot, because of her role in the capture of a few warships in a battle of moderate importance. In real life, sure the 'captain's share' of the 'prize money' on something like a nuclear aircraft carrier would be huge. But for that very reason, no national government would even consider awarding a noticeable fraction of the ship's value as prize money. It would be too disruptive to naval discipline to have one captain suddenly become impossibly rich, while all the others had to slink along with business as usual.

I'm not sure if it really can be described as a noticeable fraction. Here's a quote from Field of Dishonor where Willard Neufsteiler breaks down the division of the prize money from the First Battle of Hancock.

"Dame Honor," he said patiently, "a dreadnought is valued at somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-two billion dollars, and the prize court awards three percent of the value of a surrendered enemy ship to the task force which captured it, assuming the Navy buys the prize into service. Of that total, the flag captains of said task force split twelve percent among themselves, and there were only four flag captains in Hancock at the time Admiral Chin surrendered. The Admiralty survey judged two of her five surviving dreadnoughts too badly damaged for repair, but the Navy bought the other three in. Now, three percent of ninety-six billion dollars is two-point-eight-eight billion, and twelve percent of that is three hundred forty-five million, plus change. Which means, dear lady, that your share comes to a paltry eighty-six million four hundred thousand dollars—exclusive of the lighter vessels surrendered with them. Of course, they only added another six million to your total award, so I suppose we don't have to worry about them. Believe me, those figures are correct. In fact, if you look at page three, you'll see that the most junior enlisted person serving under you will receive almost fifty thousand dollars."

So, Honor got 25% of 12% of 3%, which works out at 0.09% of the total value of the repairable surrendered Havenite ships.

[Simon_Jester]

OK, true.

On the other hand, the total payout is still 3%, which is a noticeable fraction, so to speak: she's getting a thousand times more money than her junior subordinates. In a historical wet-navy sailing environment that was supportable. Here it's trickier, because presumably the RMN uses something like real world military payscales. In the real Royal Navy, the most senior captains make at most about eight times the annual salary of the most junior enlisted, and having prize money payouts be much more uneven than that would be hard to support.

In the Age of Sail, prize money was a sort of holdover from the Royal Navy's days as a pirate/privateer-dominated force (think Sir Francis Drake). Captains needed a source of funds to live an aristocratic life, and crews needed a sense of concrete reward for fighting, especially under successful risk-taking officers.

Nationalism changed the rules a lot, and Weber writes his stories in a post-nationalist universe.

[Connor MacLeod]

Aside from this (which I basically agree with)...

I think the books suffered from the tension between Weber's desire to put Napoleonic institutions into the story (a meaningful House of Lords, prize money as a path to wealth for naval officers) and his desire to put in modern institutions out of realism or as political commentary (paparazzi, billion-dollar warships, a Republicans'-eye view of the welfare state).

Thus, Honor becomes a billionaire almost by accident, as a side-plot, because of her role in the capture of a few warships in a battle of moderate importance. In real life, sure the 'captain's share' of the 'prize money' on something like a nuclear aircraft carrier would be huge. But for that very reason, no national government would even consider awarding a noticeable fraction of the ship's value as prize money. It would be too disruptive to naval discipline to have one captain suddenly become impossibly rich, while all the others had to slink along with business as usual.

Likewise, the House of Lords as we knew it just isn't going to function in the kind of society where tabloid journalism has any real power and momentary public opinion matters in any form short of street riots.

At this point I usually recommend David Drake's "Lieutenant Leary" series, which does a better job of transcribing Napoleonic British (and Roman Republic) institutions into a space-opera context. He mostly accomplishes that by being thorough: he doesn't suddenly turn the Cinnabar legislature into a clone of the US's 2012-vintage House of Representatives or anything stupid like that.

Doesnt that depend entirely on how you view how humanity will 'handle' shit? Lets face it, humanity as a rule is not the most intelligent, forward thinking, or rational of species when it comes to these sorts of things. I know alot of writers like to envision a future that may in some fashion reach above and beyond this (whether its Star Trek's utopian vision, some sort of transhumanism crap, whatever that singularity stuff is, or whatever.) but I tend to remain skeptical that humanity would be that... amenable. I actually find it quite plausbile that humanity, if given a chance, will always find some way to fuck things up with its own culture and society, and may even adopt the most seemingly irrational or implausible setup, and then find some way to make it work. There are far too many examples of that in real life to go by. The only difference is, technology is the 'magic' that may handwave it into plausibility.

Thus its more of an internal consistency thing and the willingness of the reader ot suspend disbelief or adapt their view of 'makes sense' to the setting (some fans can, some can't, and some - many - simply won't give a shit.) And by that reasoning it still remains an issue of basically 'details' and the bullshit level of the fandom in general.

Heck this thread is a prime example of that, some people will be more offended by certain things than others are (like the little argument over the duel, which is a minor aspect of the overall story.) Likewise, a person's view of what Honor is as a character will vary depending on your belief of what is 'sensible' and how much explaning/justificaiton you can put up with for why she is as she is.

[Simon_Jester]

Doesnt that depend entirely on how you view how humanity will 'handle' shit? Lets face it, humanity as a rule is not the most intelligent, forward thinking, or rational of species when it comes to these sorts of things.

It's not so much that, it's simply that you can't just mix-and-match cultural mores and institutions from different societies and have it work.

A modern American politician will do his best to shrug off and ignore a scandal that would have a Roman or Japanese aristocrat of their classical periods literally falling on his sword. On the other hand, those aristocrats would totally ignore things that would guarantee loss of power and a horrible reputation for the politician.

It's not that one set of institutions or technologies is 'better' than another, it's just that they're not really very compatible. Prize money, for instance, made sense in a particular socioeconomic context: Britain was not inherently a rich nation, and sought to enrich itself through trade and naval power. Revving up that process meant encouraging British privateers, and also encouraging the Royal Navy to prey on valuable trade of enemy nations (Spanish galleons and so on). The RMN and Manticoran politics just don't work that way- they're a very different nation in a very different environment.

Dueling's another custom unlikely to survive in an environment where normal people don't place all social value on a 'gentleman's' ability to fight in combat. When aristocratic males dominate the system and control each other by fighting, dueling becomes common; it's a way to formalize conflicts between two men, to avoid them getting out of hand or turning into feuds. But when a multimillionaire is just as important socially as Lord Whatshisnuts being an expert swordsman who's been in some wars... Yeah, who's going to pay attention to Lord Whatshisnuts? You need the whole complex of feudal attitudes to inspire the custom, or it gets increasingly unpopular as dueling society. Because they're going to have a station that fills up with people who really want to avoid a duel.

[Eleas]

Anyway, battles in fiction are at their best when they drive or express a story. I've seen RotS's battle of Coruscant praised, but I think it's a good example of a battle not working: it's just a canvas for the players to shine, and while that's okay, it doesn't really go anywhere or decide anything. The big battle in Serenity should be more cohesive given that it showcases Wash's flying to set up for the gut-punch to follow, but somehow it fails to gel for me.

Honestly, I'm having a hard time recalling any big space battle being done well lately.

[Stark]

I could suggest heaps, depending on if you mean 'big' as in numerically big, 'big' as in big yields, or 'big' as in dramatically powerful.

[Eleas]

I could suggest heaps, depending on if you mean 'big' as in numerically big, 'big' as in big yields, or 'big' as in dramatically powerful.

Sure, go ahead. I was attempting to reconnect to the OP, which (by my reading) suggests a numerically big conflict. I also forgot nBSG, which I recall had a few engagements that failed to suck in that regard.

[jollyreaper]

Well, even Wrath if Khan was big dramatically evening it was just two ships.

The starfire universe fit this bill. Sure, it's David Weber but Steve White was involved. It was explody spaesz battlez goodness. The heroes die valiantly, evil bugs die squishily, and the authors avoid going on long political rants against liberals.

It's not high drama but beer and pretzels guilty pleasure.

Technically, that's what the Lost Fleet should have been but the author made it boring and the stock characters too cardboard.