Bit of Analysis: Honor Harrington

[Batman]

It is repeatedly stated throughout the series that wedge-wedge interaction is bad mojo and that countermissiles work on that very principle, yes.
WRT missile mass, the missile poor Fearless used in 'On Basilisk Station' were stated to mass 70 tons (at least in the edition I have) and that was a practically antiquated light cruiser.
Interesting potential discrepancy-a 95 ton cutter is allegedly too small to put impeller drive onto, yet every last one of their missiles (including MANPADS) have it. Yes, the cutter needs room for the crew and passengers, cargo, life support, and so on while the missile does not, but they can make it small enough for their Stinger equivalent but not small craft?

On a completely unrelated note-as per 'On Basilisk Station', fleet pinnaces are a) cramped enough that a platoon of Marines has to hot-bunk yet b) the size of a pre-space jumbo-jet. Last time I checked, the 747 family can hold 400 people and up in relative comfort so that should be a nonproblem, but what intrigues me a lot more is how the hell do you keep parasite craft that big on something barely the size of a modern aircraft carrier?

[Mr Bean]

On a completely unrelated note-as per 'On Basilisk Station', fleet pinnaces are a) cramped enough that a platoon of Marines has to hot-bunk yet b) the size of a pre-space jumbo-jet. Last time I checked, the 747 family can hold 400 people and up in relative comfort so that should be a nonproblem, but what intrigues me a lot more is how the hell do you keep parasite craft that big on something barely the size of a modern aircraft carrier?

There is a few ways to fix that issue, everything from Weber not doing his math again to simple external hardpoints for the pinnaces rather than internal hangers. However the biggest thing around the pinnaces is that unlike Jumbo jets they can't afford to hang 90% of their equipment on the wings. When you get down to it a 747 centeral portion contains control surfaces and the human carrying portion. The big engines and fuel tanks are elsewhere something a Navy Pinnance does not do.

[Batman]

Actually the vast majority of a 747's control surfaces are on the wings but I absolutely agree that a pinnace wouldn't have those. The problem is even a 747's fuselage is pretty damned big compared to what Weber told us about the original Fearless' size, AND in direct conflict with his comments about how they're cramped with one lousy platoon of Marines aboard.
Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware this is almost inevitably a side effect of Weber getting the math wrong on his starship sizes early on, but where's the fun in acknowledging that? It's so much more fun to discuss why that positively makes no sense. It is to me, anyway.

[eyl]

It is repeatedly stated throughout the series that wedge-wedge interaction is bad mojo and that countermissiles work on that very principle, yes.
WRT missile mass, the missile poor Fearless used in 'On Basilisk Station' were stated to mass 70 tons (at least in the edition I have) and that was a practically antiquated light cruiser.
Interesting potential discrepancy-a 95 ton cutter is allegedly too small to put impeller drive onto, yet every last one of their missiles (including MANPADS) have it. Yes, the cutter needs room for the crew and passengers, cargo, life support, and so on while the missile does not, but they can make it small enough for their Stinger equivalent but not small craft?

On a completely unrelated note-as per 'On Basilisk Station', fleet pinnaces are a) cramped enough that a platoon of Marines has to hot-bunk yet b) the size of a pre-space jumbo-jet. Last time I checked, the 747 family can hold 400 people and up in relative comfort so that should be a nonproblem, but what intrigues me a lot more is how the hell do you keep parasite craft that big on something barely the size of a modern aircraft carrier?

Missile drives are one-shot deals- once the drive is shut down, it can't be turned back on.It also probably has rather limited endurance.

[Terralthra]

If I recall correctly, the curve for summed delta-v vs. drive endurance is not a straight line. Maximum acceleration will burn the drive out in 30 seconds, but by stepping it down significantly in dv*dt, the endurance is tripled, and the missile has a net higher terminal velocity.

[Esquire]

If you are getting a body check on somebody without grabbing his weapon then that guy failed hard.

?

Get advantage of the blade, push their tip out of line and pass forward before they cavazione. It's tricky to pull off, but I wouldn't say anyone who falls for it "failed hard."

Why didn't they punch you in the throat when you exposed your entire body moving forward?

I've got more than a decade of fencing experience (sport, mainly, but it's relevant to the point I'm about to make), and the answer has two parts. Firstly, decision cycles - since Honor knows what she's doing before Burdette does and has a genetically superior reaction time, she can finish a move before he can start his counter. Secondly, have you ever heard the old saw about who the best swordsman in the world fears?

It's the worst swordsman, not the second-best. Honor doesn't have the muscle memory for whatever weird pseudo-Japanese style Grayson uses; she has a killer instinct and a great deal of hand-to-hand training. Probably she would have been seriously injured in a real duel, but it's certainly not out of the question for a talented, athletic amateur to surprise an opponent well-trained in a particular style.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I seem to half-remember some story from Venitian history about how one of the greatest duelists of the day was beaten by an amateur in a similar way. The amateur chose his weapons with the advice of a duelist trainer and practiced for an entire week on fighting defensively and waiting for a very specific opening to execute his one specific move. He fought, held his own, and eventually got what he needed. The duelist was so embarrassed he refused medical treatment and bled out.

[Thanas]

I seem to half-remember some story from Venitian history about how one of the greatest duelists of the day was beaten by an amateur in a similar way. The amateur chose his weapons with the advice of a duelist trainer and practiced for an entire week on fighting defensively and waiting for a very specific opening to execute his one specific move. He fought, held his own, and eventually got what he needed. The duelist was so embarrassed he refused medical treatment and bled out.

That seems like a somewhat abbreviated version of the coup de jardin, but the details are not what you think they are.

I've got more than a decade of fencing experience (sport, mainly, but it's relevant to the point I'm about to make), and the answer has two parts. Firstly, decision cycles - since Honor knows what she's doing before Burdette does and has a genetically superior reaction time, she can finish a move before he can start his counter. Secondly, have you ever heard the old saw about who the best swordsman in the world fears?

It's the worst swordsman, not the second-best. Honor doesn't have the muscle memory for whatever weird pseudo-Japanese style Grayson uses; she has a killer instinct and a great deal of hand-to-hand training. Probably she would have been seriously injured in a real duel, but it's certainly not out of the question for a talented, athletic amateur to surprise an opponent well-trained in a particular style.

Sport fencing is not comparable to duel fencing because the most efficient moves are prohibited in sport fencing.

Second, have you read the paragraph in question? She is so fast that she completes her entire sequence of moves (stepping into his reach, cut to the torso, turning the blade and then decapitating him) before his sword has even traveled twenty centimeters down. While having two broken ribs and not having slept for two days.

This is not comparable to a healthy talented amateur beating a professional.

[Ford Prefect]

Body checking or shoving someone doesn't really work vs Katanas, they are usually too quick for that.

I realise I'm kind of late to this party, but even more critically you're just asking to get conked on the head with the hilt.

[Thanas]

Body checking or shoving someone doesn't really work vs Katanas, they are usually too quick for that.

I realise I'm kind of late to this party, but even more critically you're just asking to get conked on the head with the hilt.

Yeah, that's right. However, a bigger danger to is the following - if you try to get into close contact I'd assume the katana fighter would actually just step back or pivot to the right or left while slashing down on you.

(Fun stuff I heard on the internet - when the portugese came into contact with the Japanese they often went with a parrying dagger and rapier combination, using speed to do quick rapier thrusts while trying to stay out of the Japanese slashing downwards or using the main gauche to parry slashing attacks. I have no way of ascertaining whether that is true, but it seems more logical to me than bodychecking someone whose main avenue of attack is the downwards swing. Obviously, as soon as you bring plate armor into this then bodychecking and wrestling actually works and is a preferred tactic because you need to get the opponent on the ground to really smash his head in or penetrate the armor)

[Esquire]

Sport fencing is not comparable to duel fencing because the most efficient moves are prohibited in sport fencing.

Not in any specific sense, but they're both competitions with similar tools and a similar aim. We're not discussing "the most efficient moves," as I understood it, but rather how a very highly-trained fighter could be beaten by a less-experienced, injured opponent with some key physical advantages, namely strength, speed, and size.

Second, have you read the paragraph in question? She is so fast that she completes her entire sequence of moves (stepping into his reach, cut to the torso, turning the blade and then decapitating him) before his sword has even traveled twenty centimeters down. While having two broken ribs and not having slept for two days.

This is not comparable to a healthy talented amateur beating a professional.

The fact of the matter is, Honor did beat Burdette in the manner described. Obviously such a thing would be unlikely a best in real life, but then again very few of the people I know are genetically-modified superwomen from a heavy-gravity planet. Protesting that it couldn't have happened based on your knowledge of current swordfighting styles and unmodified human responses is silly, since neither of those apply to the situation.

[Simon_Jester]

It is repeatedly stated throughout the series that wedge-wedge interaction is bad mojo and that countermissiles work on that very principle, yes.
WRT missile mass, the missile poor Fearless used in 'On Basilisk Station' were stated to mass 70 tons (at least in the edition I have) and that was a practically antiquated light cruiser.
Interesting potential discrepancy-a 95 ton cutter is allegedly too small to put impeller drive onto, yet every last one of their missiles (including MANPADS) have it. Yes, the cutter needs room for the crew and passengers, cargo, life support, and so on while the missile does not, but they can make it small enough for their Stinger equivalent but not small craft?

The MANPAD missile doesn't need an inertial compensator, and it's OK if the drive burns out explosively a few seconds after launch. Neither of these conditions is acceptable on a crewed small craft.

By analogy, solid-fuel rockets are very practical propellants for portable missiles, and as boosters for space shuttles, but there are very few manned craft smaller than a space shuttle which make any use of solid fuel rocketry except for things like escape towers.

On a completely unrelated note-as per 'On Basilisk Station', fleet pinnaces are a) cramped enough that a platoon of Marines has to hot-bunk yet b) the size of a pre-space jumbo-jet. Last time I checked, the 747 family can hold 400 people and up in relative comfort so that should be a nonproblem, but what intrigues me a lot more is how the hell do you keep parasite craft that big on something barely the size of a modern aircraft carrier?

Is it giving figures for the size of the pinnace, or the weight? Jet airplanes are pretty light and puffy constructions, after all.

Your observations are nevertheless interesting. If the pinnace's size IS the thing being reported, I bet this is a case where Weber forgot to fix something during the Great Resizing... [continues to laugh at his not having done the math on that]

[Ahriman238]

The pinnace is described as cramped, and only the size of a jumbo jet.

[Thanas]

Sport fencing is not comparable to duel fencing because the most efficient moves are prohibited in sport fencing.

Not in any specific sense, but they're both competitions with similar tools and a similar aim. We're not discussing "the most efficient moves," as I understood it, but rather how a very highly-trained fighter could be beaten by a less-experienced, injured opponent with some key physical advantages, namely strength, speed, and size.

BS. If you think that a marginally faster person is suddenly moving three times as fast then that is not an explanation.

The fact of the matter is, Honor did beat Burdette in the manner described. Obviously such a thing would be unlikely a best in real life, but then again very few of the people I know are genetically-modified superwomen from a heavy-gravity planet. Protesting that it couldn't have happened based on your knowledge of current swordfighting styles and unmodified human responses is silly, since neither of those apply to the situation.

Actually, I base this on the explicit speed and injury as described in universe. I welcome your explanation why someone explicitly stated to be at best 15% faster is suddenly moving 300% - with broken ribs that make any upper body movement impossible - as fast.

[Simon_Jester]

The pinnace is described as cramped, and only the size of a jumbo jet.

One question: is it cramped as passenger space for thirty people, or as living quarters for thirty people? Consider, for example, railroad carriages: a sleeper car that can only provide comfortable accomodations for 40-50 passengers would provide seating for three or four times that many.

The passenger accomodations section of a pinnace might not be nearly as large as the overall volume of the craft, and the sleeping quarters might be extremely limited or jury-rigged.

[Batman]

The exact quote is

"Probably not," he agreed, and opened the cockpit hatch. He made his way down the cramped passage (pinnaces were little larger than pre-space jumbo jets) to the flight engineer’s cubicle and poked his head in.

which to me indicates they're talking size, not mass.
And while I, too, think this is just another of Weber's math boo-boos, I suppose it could be a deliberate mistake to foreshadow the introduced later idea that their historical records of our time are-not always entirely accurate, shall we say? Given that far as I recall the 747 reference WRT pinnace sizes never makes another appearance even before The Great Resizing I'd consider it at least remotely possible.

As for the no impellers on cutters yet MANPADS have them there's a reason I called it a potential discrepancy
It does seem odd to me that a society that has grav control technology to the point where they casually use it in small arms and verifiyably can put an impeller drive (however short-lived) on shoulder-fired missiles somehow can't do it for a cutter. Not inconceivable, not by a long shot-we've both given reasons for why a manned craft has requirements a missile doesn't-just, well, odd.

[Agent Sorchus]

Bit of sloppy English there Batman, Large is always supposed to be size not mass. People often times mess that up though, and probably doesn't translate well. Large should always be used for volume not mass, but common usage is a different matter.

[Batman]

Err-that was sort of my point? That was in response to S_J asking

Is it giving figures for the size of the pinnace, or the weight? Jet airplanes are pretty light and puffy constructions, after all.

[Thanas]

I've given the fencing a bit of thought and thought about techniques that a person could have used to
a) defend against the downward swipe of Burdette
b) take advantage of superior speed and strength
c) perform a counterstrike resulting in a decapitation

Now, let's discard the honor wank. Let us assume that they in fact postponed the duel so that she could sleep and heal up. Let us also assume that there is no stupid gutting slice of her and that she goes straight for the killing blow and that the countermove has to be a speedy one even a rookie could pull off.

I would suggest that any counter based on the Zwerchhau would have sufficed and made far more sense. See for example this.

[Ahriman238]

She took the board and pressed her thumb to the security panel, receipting the traffic, and wondered yet again why the Navy insisted on using up an officer's time hand-delivering a ship's routine mail. Webster could have dumped the whole thing to her terminal direct from the bridge with the press of a key, but that wasn't the way the Navy did things. Perhaps, she thought, hand delivery was supposed to insure captains actually read the stuff.

For whatever traditional reason, I'm betting security, the comm officer has to personally deliver the captain's "mail" consisting mostly of general announcements, instead of just loading it straight to her computer.

It was remarkable what gems of information the Lords of Admiralty in their wisdom deemed it necessary for their captains to know. She couldn't quite see, for example, why the Acting Senior Officer on Basilisk Station needed to know that BuShips had decreed that henceforth all RMN dreadnoughts should trade in two of their cutters for a sixth pinnace. Perhaps it was simply easier for them to send it to all captains than go to the trouble of looking up the ones who really needed it?

Case in point about the general announcements thing. Apparently SDs will now carry 6 pinnaces.

Her lips quirked at the thought, and she worked her way more briskly through the traffic. Some of it was both pertinent and germane to her duties, like the specific addition of force knives to the contraband list for Medusa, and other bits and pieces were moderately amusing, yet most of it was boring in the extreme.

Force knives are a thing, I guess. Don't remember them mentioned anywhere else.

Gunny Jenkins—for some reason known only to Marines, the senior Marine noncom on any ship was always called "Gunny," even when, like Jenkins himself, he was a company sergeant-major—wasn't even sweating, Tremaine noticed with some resentment.

Gunny, as Marine equivalent of a bosun.

Given the weather here, the nomads tend to migrate from hemisphere to hemisphere—or at least to the equatorial zone and back—with the seasons, but Gheerinatu's clan got caught in an early storm while it was crossing the Delta. We pulled most of his clansmen and about half their herds out of a flash flood with NPA counter-grav just before they all drowned, and that makes us friends of his."

The NPA may not share technology, but they're still on board for diaster relief.

"We got a call late this morning," Isvarian went on, once she had the geography in mind. "A nomad had staggered up to the city gates and collapsed, and the city guard had dragged him to the clinic and turned him over to us. The duty medic recognized the symptoms immediately—mekoha poisoning, and a pretty advanced case, at that—but he also noticed that the nomad had an unusual-looking belt pouch. He opened it up while his native orderlies carted the nomad off." Isvarian reached for something beyond the field of the pickup, then showed Honor a leathery-looking pouch. He opened it, and her mouth tightened as she saw the dull gleam of bullet-shaped lead projectiles.

Off-world clinic in a River Delta city-state, which finds a drugged out Medusan with bullets.

"I don't believe so, Ma'am. I'm no expert on Medusans, but I spoke with the clinic doctor, and given the patient's condition and how quickly he faded after we got here, I'd be surprised if he stayed on his feet more than twenty to thirty hours after his last pipe."

"How far could he have come in thirty hours, Barney?"

"Not seven hundred kilometers, Captain, that's for sure. Medusans move faster on foot than we do, but even with a jehrn, he couldn't have made more than two, three hundred klicks, max, in his condition."

Possible range for a drugged-out Medusan on horseback.

"Doctor? What's your opinion?"

"My opinion, Captain?" Suchon's voice held a note almost of petulance, and her shoulders twitched a quick, sulky shrug. "I'm a Navy doctor. I don't know anything about abo physiology."

Honor pressed her lips firmly together and gave the physician a long, level glance. Suchon's dark face flushed, but she looked back with stubborn, petty defiance. She knew she was covered, Honor thought in disgust. She'd been kept abreast of the situation and knew how important information on mekoha's effects on Medusans might become, but no one had specifically asked her to check the literature available from the NPA. Someone, Honor thought, should have. Someone like Commander Honor Harrington, who knew perfectly well that nothing short of a direct order could have gotten Suchon out of her comfortable chair to do so.

Dr. Suchon, the ship's surgeon. I didn't include it then, but Honor has a confrontation with her over emptying the hsip of SBAs to do health inspections on the customs flights. It's pretty clear the good doctor is just skimming by, pushing most of her workload onto her subordinates, and Honor isn't shy about pointing that out, then dismissing Suchon as "on of those people simply incapable of coming together as part of a team." Which is hilarious in retrospect given all the slack she cut McKeon over his issues, but a week in she decides the doctor cannot be saved, and that's that.

"Excuse me, Skipper, but what do we know about this Sirius?" Santos asked. "Do we have any idea why she's here?"

Honor gestured at McKeon. He glanced back at his screen, then looked at Santos.

"She's big—a seven-point-six m-ton Astra-class," he said. "Captain Johan Coglin, People's Merchant Service, commanding. According to our files, she suffered an engineering casualty—or, more precisely, she's afraid she will if she moves on. Coglin reported his engineers spotted a fluctuation in his Warshawski tuners when he left hyper and declared an emergency. She's waiting for replacement tuners from home."

"She's what?" Santos twitched upright in her chair and frowned.

"A problem, Commander?" Honor asked.

"Well, it just seems awfully odd, Skipper. Of course, I don't know a lot about Havenite maintenance patterns, and a Warshawski flutter isn't anything to monkey around with. If she's really got one, Captain Coglin was probably right to declare an emergency. The only thing is that a fluctuation isn't something that usually creeps up on you. The tuners take more strain than any other sail component, so unless you're terminally dumb, you watch for the tiniest frequency kicks like a hawk. By the time you start showing actual flutter, you're normally well past the point at which they should've been pulled for routine refit, and the Haven government owns all Haven-flagged freighters. They're self-insured, too, so if they take a loss, they can't recover from anyone else on it. It doesn't sound to me like they'd be cutting maintenance corners the way some private owners do."

"Another thing." McKeon's eyes were very bright. "A flutter is something you're more likely to notice going into hyper than coming out. The power bleed when you transit downward tends to hide it."

FTL drive flutter is deadly serious business, but for that reason the things are monitored carefully and parts replaced before it should be an issue. I assume "m-ton" is megaton, making Sirius 7.6 million tons of ship, way, way bigger than Fearless.

"I don't know about that," Santos said, "but I just thought of something else odd about Sirius's story. They've got tuner flutter, right? Well, why sit here and wait for spares from home? They've already been here for three months, but unless they're way up into critical failure levels, they could pop through the terminus to Manticore. That's a short hop, with minimal tuner stress and demand, and one of the big yards there could put in a whole new sail, much less tuners, in less than two months. But even if they were afraid to transit the Junction, why not order the replacements from Manticore? It'd be a hell of a lot cheaper and faster than shipping them out from home, and we've got scads of privately-owned repair ships. If they send new tuners from Haven, they're either going to have to send their own repair ship to install them or else charter one of ours, anyway, and the time they're spending in orbit has to be costing them a lot more in lost profit than paying us for the parts would." She shook her head. "No. They've got to be up to something, Skipper. There's just no logical economic or engineering reason for the way they're going about this."

Funnily enough, it's suspicious when a multi-million ton freighter just idles in orbit for three months without trying to get fixed and move on, unload their cargo, maybe make some money instead of spending it on maintaining their orbital paperweight.

"That's a normal node profile, Skipper," Santos said, manipulating the green line to make it flash. "This thing's way too broad for its length, and it's not just a design peculiarity. You can't build one with this profile—the physics won't let you. Besides, look here." The cursor reappeared, pointing to a thick, blunt cylinder protruding a slight distance from the end of the node. "That's the main grav coil, and that thing is almost twice as big in diameter as it ought to be for a node this size. That cross section's better suited to a superdreadnought than any freighter drive I've ever seen, and if they powered it up with no more governor housing than we see, it'd slag the entire after hull."

"I see." Honor stared down at the display, rubbing her nose. "On the other hand, they've obviously built what we're looking at, and they got here under their own power."

"I know," Santos replied, "but I think that's where the gap around the node base comes in. I think the damned thing's on some kind of ram. When they power up, they run the rest of the node—the part we can't see because of the plating—out to clear the hull. That's why the opening's so large; the node head's greatest width is still inside the outer skin, and they have to get it outboard for safe operation. Skipper, that's a pretty well camouflaged military-grade impeller node, or I'll eat my main engineering console."

Cute. Not sure how well-camoflauged it is if it's that noticeable on close inspection, but then they've gone a couple of months without doing a close inspection, and Young never noticed when it first arrived.

Honor leaned back to regard him pensively and saw her own thoughts flicker behind his gray eyes. There was no regulation against a ship's holding her impeller drive at standby in parking orbit, but it was almost unheard of. Power was relatively cheap aboard a starship, but even the best fusion plant needed reactor mass, and impeller energy demands were high, even at standby. Maintaining that sort of load when you didn't need to was a good way to run up your overhead. Nor was it good for the equipment. Your engineers couldn't carry out routine maintenance while the drive was hot, and the components themselves had limited design lives. Holding them at standby when you didn't need to would certainly reduce their life spans, and that, again, ran up overhead.

All of which meant no freighter captain would hold his drive at standby without a very compelling reason. But a warship's captain might. It took almost forty minutes to bring your impeller wedge up from a cold start; by starting with hot nodes, you could reduce that to little more than fifteen minutes.

Arguments against letting the impellers idle, namely fuel, wear on the machinery, and not being able to access the drives for maintenance. Apparently it takes 40 minutes to cold start a starship, 15 if you leave the impellers running on standby. I can't help but wonder, does that apply to pinnaces?

"The problem is that nothing requires them to give us the real specs on their drive," she pointed out, "and no law says they have to build a freighter whose drive makes economic sense. The fact that their nodes are live and don't show the sort of wear we ought to see if they've got tuner failure would certainly seem to argue that they lied to Warlock about the nature of their engineering problems, but that's all we've got. A good lawyer could probably argue that away, and we'd have to admit that they haven't even sent a shuttle down to the planet—or anywhere else, for that matter—in over two and a half months. Without their making physical contact with anyone else, we can hardly accuse them of smuggling. They've just sat here in orbit, minding their own business like good little law-abiding merchant spacers. That means our probable cause is still awfully weak, and I still have reservations about tipping our hand, as well."

Huh, she really isn't comfortable with skulldruggery or the unknown. See how she's still nearly bending over backwards not to do something, preferring to gather more informaiton and not tip them off.

I'm all in favor of caution with these sorts of unknowns, but she really just comes off as timid here.

The real problem was that, under interstellar law, the freighter's master could still refuse her inspectors entry, whatever she cited as probable cause, unless she had evidence that they'd violated Manticoran law or posed a direct threat to Manticoran security, and nothing she had constituted an actual criminal violation. If Captain Coglin refused her the right to board his ship, her only options would be to accept the slap in the face or expel Sirius from Manticoran space. She had the authority to do that to any ship which refused to allow her examination, with or without probable cause, should she so choose, but it was an action she would have to justify to the Admiralty, and she could just see the headlines it would provoke. "rmn expels merchant ship with defective drive." "freighter sent to die in hyper by heartless manticoran officer." "haven protests harrington's inhuman expulsion of damaged freighter."

The legalities of the situation, and now worrying about the press.

Lord knew some of the news services back home had already had some fairly terrible things to say about her—especially the ones Hauptman and his cronies controlled!

First indication Honor's actions here have made press back home.

"Excuse me, Ma'am, but I thought you'd want to know this. There's a three-cornered secure com net between Sirius, the Haven consulate, and the consulate's courier boat, Ma'am." Honor cocked her head, and Webster gave a small shrug. "I can't tell you much more than that, Skipper. They're using mighty tight-focused lasers, not regular com beams, and there's not much traffic. I've deployed a couple of passive remotes, but they're just catching the edge of the carriers. I can't tap into them without getting a receptor into one of the lasers itself, and they'd be sure to notice that."

"Can you tell if it's scrambled?"

"No, Ma'am. But given how tight their beams are, I'd be surprised if it wasn't. They don't need whiskers this tight for any technical reasons at this piddling little range. It has to be a security measure."

Well, that's not suspicious at all! Okay, I'm being unfair again. There was no way for the navy to spot the comm lasers without doing a close scan of the courier or the Sirius, and if that happened they were boned anyways. Still, come on guys, I've had virtually no personal contact with espionage, but I'm positive the old saw about bad habits killing good cops has to apply doubly to spies.

"I'm afraid I'm not quite as trusting as my exalted superiors in the Ministry for Medusan Affairs would like. My people and I have, ah, acquired a few communications devices not on the official equipment list for my compound down here. We keep a pretty close watch on the message traffic from the off-world enclaves."

"You do?" Honor blinked in astonishment, and Dame Estelle chuckled.

"You don't have to mention that to anyone, Honor. There'd be all kinds of repercussions if you did."

"I imagine there would," Honor agreed with a slow smile of her own.

"You imagine correctly. But as far as the Havenites are concerned, we can keep an eye on their traffic volume, but we can't do much with specific transmissions. They not only scramble their signals but routinely encrypt them, as well. We've managed to break their latest scramble codes—unless they've shifted them again in the last day or so, and I just haven't heard yet—but we can't do much with their encryption."

I'm not surprised the NPA is monitoring communicaitons on Medusa. Maybe a little that they aren't already authorized to do it. But that may be the cynicism of the last decade coloring my view.

"I'm putting together a dispatch, complete with all of my facts, suspicions, and conclusions, for the personal attention of the First Space Lord," Honor said grimly. "He may think I'm crazy—but he may also just get some help out here."

"How long would that take?"

"At absolute best, given the tenuousness of our information, it would probably take something like fifty hours, and that's assuming he doesn't just decide I'm crazy and he has someone he can divert straight out here. Frankly, I'd be surprised if we saw any useful reaction in less than three or four days, but at least it'd be a step in the right direction."

Honor recording her evidence, suspicions and fears for her bosses, possible response times from Manticore.

"First, I want the Marines moved aboard the pinnaces now. There's room for them to bunk aboard—they'll have to hot-bunk, but they can squeeze in—and I want them ready to drop on zero notice. They can armor up on the way down or even after they hit dirt."

A platoon each of marines can hot-bunk in a pinnace. Simon sort of pre-empted me on this one.

"Officially, I've decided that it would be unfair to ask Dame Estelle and the NPA to make do with the services of our junior physician in the event of an incident on Medusa. In light of Commander Suchon's many more years of service, I feel it would be much more reasonable for us to put her experience to good use down there."

"I see, Ma'am." There was a faint gleam in McKeon's eyes. "And the, um, unofficial reason?"

"Unofficially, Mr. McKeon," Honor's voice was much grimmer, "Dame Estelle and Barney Isvarian have quite good medical staffs of their own, and there are a good many other civilian doctors in the enclaves down there. Between them, they should be able to carry Suchon's dead weight." McKeon winced at the acid bite in his captain's voice, but he nodded.

"Besides," Honor went on after a moment, "Lieutenant Montoya may be ten years younger than Suchon, but he's a better physician than she'll ever be. If we need a doctor up here, we're going to need him in a hurry, and I want the best one I can get."

Banishing an unliked subordinate, isn't that how everyone got here in the first place?

[Simon_Jester]

She took the board and pressed her thumb to the security panel, receipting the traffic, and wondered yet again why the Navy insisted on using up an officer's time hand-delivering a ship's routine mail. Webster could have dumped the whole thing to her terminal direct from the bridge with the press of a key, but that wasn't the way the Navy did things. Perhaps, she thought, hand delivery was supposed to insure captains actually read the stuff.

For whatever traditional reason, I'm betting security, the comm officer has to personally deliver the captain's "mail" consisting mostly of general announcements, instead of just loading it straight to her computer.

Plus, the "actually read it" part has its advantages. That might actually not be such a bad idea- Lord knows there are a lot of managers and executives in this world who don't read their e-mail in a timely fashion.

It was remarkable what gems of information the Lords of Admiralty in their wisdom deemed it necessary for their captains to know. She couldn't quite see, for example, why the Acting Senior Officer on Basilisk Station needed to know that BuShips had decreed that henceforth all RMN dreadnoughts should trade in two of their cutters for a sixth pinnace. Perhaps it was simply easier for them to send it to all captains than go to the trouble of looking up the ones who really needed it?

Case in point about the general announcements thing. Apparently SDs will now carry 6 pinnaces.

Anyone who's ever gotten an "attention all staff" e-mail that only applies to one quarter of the 60 people on staff will have experienced this. It's much easier to type "all-staff-mailing-list" into the "to" line on an e-mail than it is to stop and figure out exactly which people are relevant, on the fly, and keep those lists updated.

After all, the RMN has several dozen dreadnoughts; if captains are reassigned every few years, that means you have one opportunity a week to add a new captain (or provisional captain, or whatever) to a dreadnought and forget to put their name on the mailing list "set-of-all-dreadnought-captains."

Force knives are a thing, I guess. Don't remember them mentioned anywhere else.

I think Harkness used one to cut the (falsified) seals on a crate, but it's been a long time since I read the book.

The NPA may not share technology, but they're still on board for diaster relief.

This is so much cooler than Prime Directive. Primitive herdsman is in trouble- SUDDENLY ALIENS with flying saucers cars and tractor beams show up to mutilate save his cattle generic alien herd animals.

Dr. Suchon, the ship's surgeon. I didn't include it then, but Honor has a confrontation with her over emptying the hsip of SBAs to do health inspections on the customs flights. It's pretty clear the good doctor is just skimming by, pushing most of her workload onto her subordinates, and Honor isn't shy about pointing that out, then dismissing Suchon as "on of those people simply incapable of coming together as part of a team." Which is hilarious in retrospect given all the slack she cut McKeon over his issues, but a week in she decides the doctor cannot be saved, and that's that.

Good point, I'd have to reread to get more detail though.

If we want an explanation- first of all, she can probably look at their track records from before she came aboard the ship. McKeon and Suchon had both served aboard Fearless for some time before she met them. She may be looking at that for evidence. Also, my impression is that McKeon was more helpful before the long string of embarrassing defeats the ship took during the naval exercises, which would also explain Honor's judgment: McKeon WAS a good officer who's currently underperforming because he's demoralized, Suchon has been useless ever since I met her, that sort of thing.

But yeah, Weber has a bad habit of casting his characters very clearly and unambiguously as competent/worthwhile Good Guys and incompetent/useless Bad Guys. One of the best signs that you're dealing with an incompetent and bad and useless person in a Weber novel is that they cuss in their internal monologue. As far as I can tell, only bad guys do this in Weber novels, and they usually do a lot of it if they do.

FTL drive flutter is deadly serious business, but for that reason the things are monitored carefully and parts replaced before it should be an issue. I assume "m-ton" is megaton, making Sirius 7.6 million tons of ship, way, way bigger than Fearless.

Yes.

Other side notes: you don't actually need the tuner to go to FTL- they just need it to navigate grav waves. So it makes even LESS sense to spend months parked and waiting for spare parts when you could probably physically fly over to the nearest yard in that amount of time. Although the physical movement might cost more money than being parked.

Also, note that the Havenite government owns all Haven-registered freighters. Interstellar (and possibly interplanetary or even intra-planetary) shipping is a state monopoly. That tells you a lot about their internal economy right there.

"I know," Santos replied, "but I think that's where the gap around the node base comes in. I think the damned thing's on some kind of ram. When they power up, they run the rest of the node—the part we can't see because of the plating—out to clear the hull. That's why the opening's so large; the node head's greatest width is still inside the outer skin, and they have to get it outboard for safe operation. Skipper, that's a pretty well camouflaged military-grade impeller node, or I'll eat my main engineering console."

Cute. Not sure how well-camoflauged it is if it's that noticeable on close inspection, but then they've gone a couple of months without doing a close inspection, and Young never noticed when it first arrived.

My impression is that there's also at least a layer of sheet metal, flush with the hull of the freighter, covering the 'extra' part of the node when the ship is powered down. Thus, to a casual visual (or radar/lidar) inspection everything looks fine on the surface. It's only if you either sit down and do analysis of the engine geometry, or use hull-penetrating scanners, that all is revealed to be not as it seems.

Arguments against letting the impellers idle, namely fuel, wear on the machinery, and not being able to access the drives for maintenance. Apparently it takes 40 minutes to cold start a starship, 15 if you leave the impellers running on standby. I can't help but wonder, does that apply to pinnaces?

Probably not; smaller engines usually take less time to fire up in general, so I would bet on that rule persisting.

Huh, she really isn't comfortable with skulldruggery or the unknown. See how she's still nearly bending over backwards not to do something, preferring to gather more informaiton and not tip them off.

I'm all in favor of caution with these sorts of unknowns, but she really just comes off as timid here.

I kind of agree. On the other hand, she's got a lot on her plate already, and she's already dealt with a fair amount of political crap just from doing her job by policing domestic shipping. The last thing she needs is to touch off an international incident by investigating a freighter when she has "reasonable suspicion" of ill-defined nefarious intent, and is SUPPOSED to wait for "probable cause" before doing more than a routine customs inspection.

Basically, without knowing the full nature of the Havenite plan in Basilisk, she has no reason to assume that this suspicious Havenite 'freighter' is a problem she needs to solve NOW, as opposed to a problem she can put off a few more days. And the cost of taking such direct action now is pretty darn steep.

The real problem was that, under interstellar law, the freighter's master could still refuse her inspectors entry, whatever she cited as probable cause, unless she had evidence that they'd violated Manticoran law or posed a direct threat to Manticoran security, and nothing she had constituted an actual criminal violation. If Captain Coglin refused her the right to board his ship, her only options would be to accept the slap in the face or expel Sirius from Manticoran space. She had the authority to do that to any ship which refused to allow her examination, with or without probable cause, should she so choose, but it was an action she would have to justify to the Admiralty, and she could just see the headlines it would provoke. "rmn expels merchant ship with defective drive." "freighter sent to die in hyper by heartless manticoran officer." "haven protests harrington's inhuman expulsion of damaged freighter."

The legalities of the situation, and now worrying about the press.

What would be really nice is if she could force the issue by offering to have the drive components replaced on the Navy's chit, forcing Coglin's hand... as a condition of being allowed to remain in Manticoran space. I doubt she actually has the discretion to do that, though. Isn't bureaucracy wonderful?

I'm not surprised the NPA is monitoring communicaitons on Medusa. Maybe a little that they aren't already authorized to do it. But that may be the cynicism of the last decade coloring my view.

To an extent yes. Also note that whereas the world of today is a world where virtually all accessible communications are visible in real time, the Honorverse is a different world. Important messages take a long time to move from star to star and are often physically as well as digitally secured. So having NSA-like organizations in place to monitor traffic serves only internal security purposes, and doesn't normally do much good for monitoring what foreigners are doing on other planets.

For a state like Manticore, there really isn't much incentive to maintain NSA-like capabilities, and it does cost money to do that.

"First, I want the Marines moved aboard the pinnaces now. There's room for them to bunk aboard—they'll have to hot-bunk, but they can squeeze in—and I want them ready to drop on zero notice. They can armor up on the way down or even after they hit dirt."

A platoon each of marines can hot-bunk in a pinnace. Simon sort of pre-empted me on this one.[/qutoe]Another note: as Marine transports the pinnaces would also have to contain physical space to store the Marines' armor suits (which are each larger than a man), and physical space to get into the suits, and to do basic maintenance and equipment checks on the Marines' weapons (some of which are pretty damn bulky and mechanically complex). They need room to provide safe storage for various weapons, supplies, and copious spare ammunition.

That could eat up a lot of floor space in a hurry.

Banishing an unliked subordinate, isn't that how everyone got here in the first place?

True.

On the other hand, there's a very real 'dead weight' argument at work here. As long as no crisis emerges, Montoya and the SBAs are perfectly capable of doing the routine work of medical checkups and putting bandaids on ouchies. If a crisis emerges, having a dynamic and resourceful junior officer in position to handle it rather than an incompetent and lazy senior officer may be just what the doctor ordered, pun intended.

I mean, suppose Warlock had remained on Basilisk Station through the events of the novel, placing Captain Young in overall command. What would have happened? Would this have resulted in a better outcome for Manticore?

[Batman]

Re Honor's treatment of Suchon
a) compared to McKeon-other than not properly interfacing with Honor, the guy did do his job even after they got banished to Basilisk (Honor's internal monologue comments on that several times throughout the book, like when he helped poor Rafe with this botched drone programming, for example) whereas Suchon apparently didn't do her job period, she let her subordinates do it for her in the happy knowledge that as long as nobody specifically ordered her to do anything outside her official job description, the regs would cover her (see the Medusan biology incident at the meeting).
b) 'Isn't that how everbody got here?' There's a difference between a disgusted superior banishing a ship and its crew to oblivion station for only managing the impossible task of making her pipedream weapon work once and a disgusted superior 'banishing' an acknowledged deadbeat to a planet who didn't really need her meager services in favour of a more competent doctor.

[Ahriman238]

Re: the Suchon subplot.

It's a minor point. We see Suchon introduced as the only officer that isn't depressed after the wargames, remaining neutral towards Honor, until this scene, her longest.

"Captain?"

Honor looked up as Surgeon Commander Suchon stuck her head through the open briefing room hatch. Fearless's doctor looked even more sour than usual, and she carried a data chip in her right hand. She held the chip as if it were a small, dead animal, and Honor felt a stronger surge of distaste for her as she recognized it.

"Yes, Doctor?"

"May I speak with you a minute?" Suchon asked. Whined, really, Honor thought.

"Come in, Doctor." Honor tried not to sigh and pressed the button by her terminal, closing the hatch behind Suchon as the commander crossed to the table and sat—without an invitation. That last action irritated Honor out of all proportion to the provocation, and she sat on her temper rather firmly.

Suchon sat silently, face screwed up in obvious indecision over how to proceed. Honor waited for a moment, then arched her eyebrows.

"What is it, Doctor?" she inquired.

"It's—Well, it's about these orders, Captain." Suchon raised her hand to display the data chip, and Honor nodded.

"What about them?"

"Captain, I don't think it's a good idea to—I mean, you've detached Lieutenant Montoya and all four of my best sick berth attendants to the customs parties, and I need them here in Fearless. I can't guarantee my ability to meet my medical responsibilities to the ship without them."

Suchon leaned back in her chair as she completed her sentence. There was a certain smugness in her expression, the look of someone who has just delivered an ultimatum to a superior officer, and Honor regarded her levelly for several seconds.

"I'm afraid you're just going to have to get along without them, Doctor," she said at last, and Suchon sat back upright with a jerk.

"But I can't! If I have to detach them, the sickbay workload will be impossible, and Montoya is my sole physician assistant!"

"I'm aware of that." Honor made herself maintain a level tone, but there was very little liking in her brown eyes. "I'm also aware that it's the Navy's responsibility to provide medical personnel to check the health and immunization records of any individuals visiting Medusa's surface. Every other department aboard this ship is contributing to those customs parties, Doctor. I'm afraid Medical will just have to carry its share of the burden, as well."

"But I can't do it, I tell you!" Suchon more than half-snapped. "Perhaps you don't quite understand the responsibilities Medical faces, Ma'am. We're not like oth—"

"That will be enough, Doctor." Honor's voice had not risen, but it carried such cold, quiet venom that Suchon jerked back in her chair in shock. Icy brown eyes surveyed her with deadly dispassion, and her dark face paled.

"What you mean, Doctor," Honor went on after a moment in that same cold voice, "is that if I detach your attendants—and especially Montoya, who's been carrying two-thirds of your load ever since I came aboard—you will be required to get up out of your comfortable chair and attend to your duties yourself."

Suchon's face darkened as flushed anger replaced the paleness of shock. She opened her mouth, but Honor stopped her with a raised hand and a thin smile.

"Before you explain to me that I don't understand the arcana of your profession, Commander," she said softly, "I should, perhaps, mention to you that both of my parents are physicians." Suchon paled once more. "In fact, my father was a surgeon commander himself before his retirement. Doctor Alfred Harrington—perhaps you've heard of him?"

Her smile grew even thinner as Suchon recognized the name. Alfred Harrington had been Assistant Chief of Neurosurgery at Basingford Medical Center, the Fleet's main hospital on Manticore, before his retirement.

"As a result, Doctor, I think you'll find I have quite an adequate grasp of precisely what your duties to this ship entail. And, I might add, since the topic has come up, that I'm not at all satisfied with the way you've discharged those duties since I assumed command." Her smile vanished, and Suchon swallowed.

"If, however, the five individuals you've mentioned are, indeed, indispensable to Fearless's Medical Department," Honor went on after a short, pregnant pause, "I'm certain I can make other arrangements to keep them aboard. Of course, in that eventuality it will be necessary to find some single individual with sufficient medical experience to replace all five of them to assign to the customs detachment. Someone like you, Doctor Suchon."

She held the surgeon commander's eyes with a cold, level stare, and it was Suchon who looked away.

"Was there anything else, Doctor?" Honor asked softly. The physician gave a choppy headshake, and Honor nodded.

"Dismissed, then, Doctor."

Now maybe Suchon really is every bit the slacker she's portrayed as, but that's being pretty ham-fisted, especially contrasted with her treatment of the rest of the crew. After this there's a mention of Suchon being "one of those rare individuals totally incapable of coming together as a team with others." Another I quoted where she hasn't read up on Medusan biology despite spending several months in the system. Then her transferall to the ground.

After this, she has three brief mentions. First, in the Marine drop, she's shaking and clutching at her medkit. Then she refuses to leave the ship and set up in the aid station the NPA has put together, so Papadopolous tells a subordinate to politely repeat his order to her, then get to the aid station by any means necessary. Finally, we have Papadopolous hearing "the doctor's whine, followed by what sounded like a blow" before dismissing it to focus on the looming Medusan horde. So all her following appearances just show her as a coward, presumably justifying Honor's handling of her. Unless coming after Mission of Honor/Storm from the Shadows, we never see Suchon again.

[Simon_Jester]

I think I agree- Weber handled Suchon rather poorly. Sure, if Suchon really is such a cartoonishly inept, cowardly, and lazy person, then Honor would be justified in handling her more or less the way she actually does. But that just shifts the criticism- why have such an inept/cowardly/lazy person in the first place? It's not completely unrealistic, but it is pretty much without literary merit, except as a way to show off what a hardass Honor can be if she catches you slacking off on the job.

And arguably that line of character development would be better served by having Suchon turn around and become useful after getting a sufficiently powerful kick in the rear.

[Batman]

To 'in universe' guys like me, that shift of criticism is not inconsiderably important.