Bit of Analysis: Honor Harrington

[jollyreaper]

Still working my way up the thread. Concerning Haven economics, I am assuming that having a majority of the population on the dole means their manufacturing and agriculture must be tremendously efficient. But then there's the bit about needing conquest to keep the proles fed. It makes me wonder why they aren't able to find make work for the masses. Even if its not efficient, these people aren't needed for the real economy. If they were fully employed growing their own food and making their own clothes and shelter then things should be fine.

It seems like huge swaths of able-bodied but unproductive labor would be the result of technological obsolescence, labor arbitrage and deliberate economic policy. This is sort of where the US is heading except nobody wants to provide a dole!

It makes me wonder what level of evil, no good behavior the government can get away with. Stalin was able to engineer a famine in the Ukraine to remove undesirables. Would this be beyond the pale for the Legislaturists? I guess so or else it would have happened.

A scary scenario in an authoritarian setting is the powers that be deciding 80% of the population is surplus and 20% can handle things just fine. Infertility drugs in the water, some mood suppressors and let the low birth rate crisis be a big mystery. Surplus population withers away, no need for dramatics. But if they do want dramatics, arsenic in the water or whatever. It's not a plague that could kill the masters, but it will kill the masses soon enough. The remaining underclass cleans up the corpses and remodels the cities. The masters will always need an underclass to lord it over, just not so many of them.

That's a different story than Weber is trying to tell but it's what comes to mind when trying to make sense of the Haven economic situation.

[Batman]

Some problems with that. a) The Legislaturists were kinda relying on the votes from the Proles (even if they essentially bought them) so they could pretend to still be a Republic, both at home and in the international court of opinion. If 80% of your population mysteriously die, somebody is going to ask questions.
Not to mention that b) The 20% of your population that are actually useful need to come from somewhere, and while Prolong makes people live a lot longer, it doesn't seem to make them procreate all that more, or noticeably faster. 20% of the population means the next generation is going to be less than 20% of what you started with unless you can convince people to have lots of babies.

[Simon_Jester]

LaFollet is very impressed with Honor's skill with the automatic pistols. Apparently Palace Security still issued them until the conclusion of their treaty with Manticore, because Grayson couldn't miniaturize the tech to personal firearms.

I think what references there were to Grayson/Masadan hand weapons in Honor of the Queen were consistent with them being normal chemical-powered firearms. This also helps to explain why Manticoran marines were so overwhelming to them. Hand-held pulsers might be a credible threat to the powered armor of the marines; ordinary bullets almost certainly wouldn't be.

No armed supporters of either side, except the seconds, I guess. Why is everyone surprised the bodyguard has a hidden hold-out?

I'm not sure they are, but it does make LaFollett the focus of everyone's attention.

Not quite as controversial as the sword duel with Burdette (next book) but Honor easily kills Denver Summervale, professional assassin and duelist. Granted, she's put in a lot of range time in the last two weeks and is herself a season killer, acclaimed by her bodyguards as a natural shot, while Summervale himself admits to a degree of arrogant complacency. Likely things would have been different if she hadn't been able to hit him firing from the hip at 40 meters (quite a trick, that, by the way) as he was definitely a lot faster getting his arm up and ready. Of course, she is genetically engineered with enhanced reflexes, hand-eye coordination and general kinesthesia.

I think it's the firing from the hip part that really bothers people, although that's just the specific symptom of the "suddenly acquires super-dueling skills" problem.

See, Honor has previously been built up as an expert in unarmed combat- fine, we've literally seen her sweat to accomplish that. We've also seen her work hard to be good at naval combat. But we have no prior indication that she's anything special with firearms, until this book- and it's deeply questionable whether she'd be able to acquire that much proficiency that fast, if she wasn't already an expert.

Even if an arbitrary amount of genetic tinkering could explain her being able to fire from the hip like that, she just doesn't look like she's put in that kind of practice.

Consequences of Young refusing a duel, estimate of his chances if he does accept one, and the final analysis that Denver Summervale was outmatched the entire time.

It does occur to me that while Denver would have to be an experienced and competent pistolero to make a living as a hired duelist, he doesn't have to be one of the greatest pistol marksmen in the Star Kingdom. He'd be hired to kill specific people; he could easily refuse to go after anyone who looked like they might be all that good with a pistol themselves.

Indeed, the sort of person you'd hire a duelist to kill would be the sort of person you'd expect to have no particular skill in a duel. Otherwise it might not work.

---

I suspect the main reason is that Honor knew information that nobody else in the fleet had, because she had the only working FTL comm receiver in the squadron. If Commodore Banton had survived, I suspect that Honor failing to transfer command would have been viewed in a much less favorable light.

And no one ever asks, given they weren't terribly bothered by their communications security, why she couldn't say "Danislav is here and if we just stay the course, these Peeps won't escape him. Btw, you're in charge now. Instructions?"[/quote]As I recall, the senior surviving officer who should have taken command was on a damaged ship that might not even have been able to take command; I can't remember the details and don't have time to pursue them right now.

If I thought that I'd not have raised the point. According to the book, everyone, regardless of their eventual specialization, qualifies at the marina and airfield. Honor thinks it builds confidence and taught her 'skills no similar ever could' possibly that same awareness you mentioned.

Ah. Didn't realize the universal qualification requirement.

One thing that occurs to me is that they may have extended the officer curriculum in the past half-century or so. Once you know your cadets will live for centuries due to prolong, there's no real reason not to keep them in school for an extra few years. Or at least to put together a curriculum that would take a typical officer 6-8 years to complete, and allow a few people to distinguish themselves by graduating faster if they have the aptitude.

I also suspect that the RMN naval academy teaches with very few breaks, which allows them to amp up the curriculum more.

[This is probably contradicted somewhere in the novels]

I think he did alright here in having Clinkscales and Honor reach an understanding, without either of them giving up their views or positions. It may be damning that no other examples leap straight to mind, and that could be argued as Clinkscales joining the "us" side by cheerfully submitting to Honor's and Benjamin's authority whatever his reservations.

Arguably true; then again, Clinkscales was always an "us" even in Honor of the Queen. He is, I agree, a rare example of an "us" person in the Honorverse who actually disagrees with the consensus among the protagonists.

On the other hand, there isn't really any conflict with Clinkscales; he's just there. My main issue is that Weber is bad at portraying conflicts that are not obviously "us" against "them," where we can't tell immediately what outcome we want or who is doing the right thing.

I may be funny, but I still care a lot more for the 300 faceless cops Summervale blew up in the first book than I do for Tankersley.

Me too, but I tend to think of Denver only in terms of Book Four, mostly because aside from having the same name and being a bitter asshole, there's very little similarity between the two character portrayals. Why would a Havenite covert operation on Basilisk hire a Manticoran duelist of all things to run security for their illegal drug operation?

Still working my way up the thread. Concerning Haven economics, I am assuming that having a majority of the population on the dole means their manufacturing and agriculture must be tremendously efficient. But then there's the bit about needing conquest to keep the proles fed. It makes me wonder why they aren't able to find make work for the masses.

I think what makes conquest necessary is:

1) The Havenite homeworld populace is too ignorant and illiterate to provide enough technical specialists to keep the Havenite economy functioning, so they need to somehow dominate worlds with functioning industrial bases and better educated populaces. Tricky, but that's why they started their conquests before the situation got irreversibly bad at home.

2) The Dolist standard of living is actually not that low in terms of cash value of luxury goods- it's not just basic 'bread and water' rations. A lot of the extra expense probably goes into entertainment of various kinds.

It seems like huge swaths of able-bodied but unproductive labor would be the result of technological obsolescence, labor arbitrage and deliberate economic policy. This is sort of where the US is heading except nobody wants to provide a dole!

...Pretty much?

It makes me wonder what level of evil, no good behavior the government can get away with. Stalin was able to engineer a famine in the Ukraine to remove undesirables. Would this be beyond the pale for the Legislaturists? I guess so or else it would have happened.

If the Legislaturalists had tried this they'd probably have wound up in the same position they ended up in IRL: someone would have staged a coup.

That's a different story than Weber is trying to tell but it's what comes to mind when trying to make sense of the Haven economic situation.

True. Part of it, though, is that the Legislaturalists are trying to live as a sort of parasite class on top of the Havenite general population; they want the Dolists to continue to exist, in a form that they can control easily. They don't want the Dolists getting any fancy ideas about alternatives to the Legislaturalists.

[eyl]

I think it's the firing from the hip part that really bothers people, although that's just the specific symptom of the "suddenly acquires super-dueling skills" problem.

See, Honor has previously been built up as an expert in unarmed combat- fine, we've literally seen her sweat to accomplish that. We've also seen her work hard to be good at naval combat. But we have no prior indication that she's anything special with firearms, until this book- and it's deeply questionable whether she'd be able to acquire that much proficiency that fast, if she wasn't already an expert.

Even if an arbitrary amount of genetic tinkering could explain her being able to fire from the hip like that, she just doesn't look like she's put in that kind of practice.

I don't think it's that implausible. Remember that this was a duel, not a "normal" gunfight - she knew in advance precisely where both she and Summervale would be standing at the start (which may be another reason she chose the Ellington Protocol, where the combatants start at predefined locations). She needed to practise a very specific maneuver over and over again, not general shoot-from-the-hip ability.
"them," where we can't tell immediately what outcome we want or who is doing the right thing.

[jollyreaper]

Some problems with that. a) The Legislaturists were kinda relying on the votes from the Proles (even if they essentially bought them) so they could pretend to still be a Republic, both at home and in the international court of opinion. If 80% of your population mysteriously die, somebody is going to ask questions.
Not to mention that b) The 20% of your population that are actually useful need to come from somewhere, and while Prolong makes people live a lot longer, it doesn't seem to make them procreate all that more, or noticeably faster. 20% of the population means the next generation is going to be less than 20% of what you started with unless you can convince people to have lots of babies.

The percentage was just an ass-pull. We know in reality ability doesn't breed true and so you can't count on the daughter of an Honor being the equal of the mother. It could well be that to get the best 10% of a nation, you really do need the other 90% as a reserve. But if the people plotting genocide are working with pseudo-science rather than real science... Cambodia year zero, you know? Just because its terrible and awful and isn't even right doesn't mean people won't believe it and act on it.

As for public sentiment, that's something easily overlooked. Someone a thousand years from now will say the US losing Vietnam to peasants doesn't make sense because we had nukes and could level the country. They will have to keep reading to see how things the US could theoretically do were constrained by what could practically be done. Starting WWIII would be a failure mode.

What practical consequences would there be for Haven? Interstellar trade is significant but the Sollies don't seem to be big on human rights. To compare it to today, if China decided to just start massacring Tibetans wholesale, would the US embargo trade? I don't think Walmart would allow it. We seem perfectly willing to let genocide happen if we don't have a dog in the fight or if the perpetrator is friendly to US interests.

This might argue for a decades-long approach with fertility suppressants. Something like that could be treated as a big mystery and not a crime against humanity the entire known universe would get in a twist over.

[jollyreaper]

I'm going to presume here that neither of you guys are married? This phenomenon - where one makes a stupid stand over a largely-pointless issue, but now that one has taken a stand, one must defend that stand, and it makes one paradoxically angrier and more defensive because one knows the initial decision one made and the stand one has taken were stupid to begin with - is well-known in interpersonal relationships. It happens all the time, and I'd be shocked if it didn't happen in the military, too.

Stupid happens in real life but we tend to want our fiction to make more sense. Because we know its all an authorial fabrication, we are less willing to accept improbable or impossible as good writing. The sinking of the Bismarck would get eyerolls. Outdated biplanes attack and there's a lucky torpedo hit on the rudder? You hack!

I think the us/them critique nails it. Honor's opponents are either stupid or won over to her side. Spiteful jackasses exist in real life to be sure but it's not as fun to read if not handled well. It would also work better if Honor had opponents with good reasons and if she made mistakes with more consequences.

That she took serious injury in serious fights is good. James Bond shrugging off cropping damage ruins suspense. But Honor being omnicompetent or her enemies always being idiots who blunder into her plans can get old.

Good nuance is like the Civil War. You start off with to hell with slavery, go Union! But then you see the war crimes committed by the boys in blue and you rapidly realize there's really no black and white, just honorable men and monsters on both sides doing what they can, or what they can get away with.

Probably the loyal opposition irks me the most because their scheming doesn't even quite have the sense of pragmatic evil. It just seems stupid evil. Again, history is full of stupid evil plans but its not exactly fun reading. Realistic would be our heroes dying ugly and we don't want that but we want their triumphs to feel earned and with a sense of real risk in the effort.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't think it's that implausible. Remember that this was a duel, not a "normal" gunfight - she knew in advance precisely where both she and Summervale would be standing at the start (which may be another reason she chose the Ellington Protocol, where the combatants start at predefined locations). She needed to practise a very specific maneuver over and over again, not general shoot-from-the-hip ability.

The problem is that it's heavily implied that she placed her shots with at least some degree of precision- her first two shots landed within 10 centimeters of each other on his stomach. 10 centimeter shot grouping at forty meter range really is kind of ridiculous for firing from the hip.

Her next two shots are grouped even more tightly- and still, apparently, from the hip.

The percentage was just an ass-pull. We know in reality ability doesn't breed true and so you can't count on the daughter of an Honor being the equal of the mother. It could well be that to get the best 10% of a nation, you really do need the other 90% as a reserve. But if the people plotting genocide are working with pseudo-science rather than real science... Cambodia year zero, you know? Just because its terrible and awful and isn't even right doesn't mean people won't believe it and act on it.

Yes- but such pseudoscience is a specific ideology, not something that would predictably be believed by any oligarchy containing a "useless" class of nonproductives.

Now to be fair, the kind of thing you describe is exactly the sort of thing that Weber might have the Mesans want to do with humanity- genetically engineer an elite for high productivity and 'discourage' everyone else from breeding 'too much' because they're superfluous.

But here, there's a difference between what the Havenite government does and what some hypothetical abstract government would do. The Havenite Legislaturists are an oligarchy whose grip on power hinges on the support of their homeworld's population, and who are not quite totalitarian or eugenicist enough to want to wipe out the Dolist class.

What practical consequences would there be for Haven? Interstellar trade is significant but the Sollies don't seem to be big on human rights. To compare it to today, if China decided to just start massacring Tibetans wholesale, would the US embargo trade? I don't think Walmart would allow it. We seem perfectly willing to let genocide happen if we don't have a dog in the fight or if the perpetrator is friendly to US interests.

In the short term, a collapse of the population on Haven might make it hard for the People's Republic to maintain control over the conquered subject worlds, by reducing the manpower base that can be recruited on Haven itself. It would earn the immediate hostility of any genuinely populist political factions in the PRH. The threats aren't so much external as internal- Legislaturalist control of the People's Republic is too precarious to survive such a thing.

This might argue for a decades-long approach with fertility suppressants. Something like that could be treated as a big mystery and not a crime against humanity the entire known universe would get in a twist over.

Except that if anyone outs the conspiracy you have a huge number of angry Dolists on your hands.

[jollyreaper]

So basically, to make the system work you must produce sufficient technically literate, intelligent, well-adjusted people to run all the necessary automation. This requires families to raise children to be literate and self-disciplined, and rather pricey school systems. The school systems grow exponentially more pricey and ineffective as the families become poorer and less effective, too.

At some point, a minimum guaranteed income becomes appealing simply because it hopefully reduces the number of hapless overworked parents raising ignorant undersocialized kids.

I like your analysis here. Didn't see it until after I made my earlier posts. It's a really nice flip on the usual creators and moochers view that's usually tossed around with welfare politics. It makes me curious as to what a serious economic analysis of the difference between the two cultures would look like. The space Dubai comparison is good because it represents an economic advantage Manticore has that no other polity could duplicate.

It also does seem curious that Greyson becomes an amazing single system power while the other systems in the alliance aren't as notable. I'm wondering if there are social and political factors holding them back. Perhaps Greyson had just the right mix of internal cohesion and external threat and emergency thinking to make Manticore help the perfect catalyst.

[Black Admiral]

This might argue for a decades-long approach with fertility suppressants. Something like that could be treated as a big mystery and not a crime against humanity the entire known universe would get in a twist over.

Except that if anyone outs the conspiracy you have a huge number of angry Dolists on your hands.

And a Havenite Navy which is likely to be, shall we say, less than pleased about that idea - probably not in totality, but certainly in numbers sufficient to put a very rapid full stop to that particular brainwave.

[Forgothrax]

Me too, but I tend to think of Denver only in terms of Book Four, mostly because aside from having the same name and being a bitter asshole, there's very little similarity between the two character portrayals. Why would a Havenite covert operation on Basilisk hire a Manticoran duelist of all things to run security for their illegal drug operation?

Wasn't he an officer in the Marines? I suppose even a Marine drummed out of the service would be a decent head of security, and he's certainly not going to run to the Manties-- he has all the reason in the world to hate them. That gives you skill and motivation all in the same package, and anyone who'll kill people in duels would probably not possess the moral fiber to blink at the murdering required by the Havenite plan.

[Batman]

I'm not sure I see why having been a Marine automatically translates into being a good head of security? For a lot of the stuff Marines do (both in the real world and in the Honorverse, at least as far as I can tell) the skillsets don't exactly overlap. There'll inevitably be some Marines that are (somebody has to organize base security) but I don't think Weber ever mentions what, exactly, Summervale did in the Marines, just that he was drummed out.

[Terralthra]

Well, he wasn't just a Marine, he was a Captain in the marines. Someone who was a Marine officer is likely to be fairly competent at all sorts of organizational areas.

[Jaevric]

He was also related to a high-ranking member of the Manticoran political party that was most strongly anti-Haven -- if nothing else it's some additional embarassment for Manticore if the operation gets busted and it turns out the Prime Minister's cousin is head of security.

[Ahriman238]

Alexander bit his lip but said nothing. What, after all, could he say? There was no doubt in his mind that Lady Harrington's hand had been forced by the attempt on her life—just as he'd never doubted who'd been responsible for that attempt. He'd never met her, but he'd discussed her enough with his brother to feel certain she would never have used the House of Lords or her own membership in it in such fashion if there'd been any other way to get to North Hollow. And he'd watched the House recordings of her short, impassioned speech and seen no theatrics, no false drama. She hadn't played the assembled peerage of the Kingdom for fools; she'd come before them as her court of last resort, and the sincerity—and truth—of her charges had echoed in her every word.

But the House didn't see it that way. The House was affronted by her assault upon its dignity. The House was furious at the cynical manner in which she'd twisted its rules and procedures to suit her own ends. The House knew a rules mechanic when it saw one, and it was determined to punish her for daring to pervert its magisterial dignity.

The Lords are not happy with Honor's getting in to ambush Young, abusing an obscure rule of procedure.

"High Ridge has already entered a motion to exclude her. He wanted to strip her of her title outright, but a solid majority of the Commons—including almost half the Liberal MPs, if you can believe it!—is lined up with Her Majesty. That will protect her title and quash any move to trump up some sort of criminal charge against her, but not even the Queen can force the Lords to seat a peer they've voted to exclude. She's gone, Willie. I'll be surprised if five percent of the House opposes the vote."

They can't take her seat, but they can exclude her.

"Load, Lord North Hollow," Castellaño said, and he fumbled clumsily with his weapon. The magazine tried to slip from his sweaty fingers, twisting like a live thing before he got it in place, and he flushed with humiliation while Castellaño waited for him to complete the simple mechanical task. He watched Ramirez touch Harrington's shoulder, saw the grim approval on his face before he turned away, and longed for the simple comfort of feeling the same touch from his brother. But Stefan only closed the pistol case and stepped back with cold hauteur, an expression that promised Harrington she was far from done with the Youngs whatever happened here, and in that moment, fleetingly and imperfectly, Pavel Young glimpsed the fundamental hollowness of his entire family. The futility and nihilism that infused them all. The arrogance that kept Stefan from even considering the value of one last physical contact.

It was an ephemeral awareness, swept away by his terror almost before he perceived it, yet it was enough to touch him with fresh hatred for the woman who had shown it to him. It was as if his own mind were determined to deal him one last, searing humiliation—the realization that even if he somehow managed to kill Harrington she would still have won. Unlike him, she'd achieved something, left something behind her that people would remember with respect, while he'd done nothing, left nothing but a memory of contempt beside which even oblivion was to be preferred.

Pavel gets an idea how wretched and petty his family is. A bit late to make a difference.

Honor felt him behind her, walking away from her, and kept her eyes fixed on the horizon. The newsies were out in force once more, huddling against the wet wind as they crouched behind their cameras and microphones, but she paid them no heed. She was focused, focused as never before, even against Summervale. She would have only one shot, so it must be perfect. No shooting from the hip, no rushing. A centered, balanced turn, careful on the treacherous wet grass. Take his fire, dare him to hit her with his own rushed shot, then capture him in her sights. Hold him there. Take up the slack. Exhale. Steady her arm and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, until—

Honor's plan, seeing as the Dreyfuss Protocol gives her only one shot before he can beg off "honor" intact.

Pain. Agony roaring in her left shoulder as something exploded behind her. Crimson spraying out before her in a steaming fan that beaded the sodden grass with rubies. Another explosion and something screaming past her. Another, and then she struck the ground in another crescendo of pain while a fourth and fifth explosion crashed behind her and she rolled to her left, biting back a scream of white-hot torment as her shoulder hit the grass, and the reactions of thirty-five T-years of martial arts training brought her back to her knees in the muddy, bloody grass.

Pavel Young stood facing her, less than twenty meters away, his gun hand wavering before him in a cloud of gunsmoke. Blood pumped from her shattered shoulder, splinters of bone glittered white in the wound, her left arm was a dead, immobile weight of agony, and her brain was clear as frozen crystal. The corner of her eye saw Castellaño, his face twisted in fury, his pulser already swinging down to fire. There could be only one penalty for Young's action, and the Master of the Field's gun hand flashed toward its target. But shock at the unbelievable breach of every rule of conduct had held him for a fraction of a second, and he moved so slowly. Everything moved so slowly, like figures in a dream, and somehow her own hand was already up before her, the pistol in full extension.

Young stared at her, wide-eyed and mad, still clutching his empty weapon, and the automatic bucked in her hand. A crimson rose blossomed on Young's chest, and she rode the recoil up, brought her hand back down, fired again. And again. And then Castellaño's pulser finally snarled. The burst of darts ripped through Pavel Young in a spray of blood and shredded tissue, but he was already dead, with three ten-millimeter rounds, in a group small enough to cover with a child's hand, where once his heart had been.

Young can't handle the stress again and turns and fires on Honor early. LaFollet shouts a warning she instantly obeys, hitting the deck fast enough she gets shot in the shoulder instead of the back, and most of his shots missed. She kills Young just before the referee could, it mattered a lot to her.

She tried—again—to shift her immobilized left arm and winced with the stab of pain that rewarded her forgetfulness. She was lucky, though it had been hard to convince Nimitz of it. He'd known the instant she came back aboard and nearly torn the sickbay hatch down, then crouched taut and anxious just beyond the sterile field, purring as if to burst, while Fritz Montoya put her under to repair her shoulder. He hadn't been able to use all original parts; the bullet had shattered her left scapula, then torn up and out through the point of her shoulder, demolishing the joint in passing and barely missing the main artery. Quick heal could do a lot, yet Fritz had been forced to rebuild her shoulder socket to give it something to work around, and his face had been knotted with disapproval while he worked.

Montoya is able to rebuild her wounded shoulder in the time it takes the Navy to beach her, though she still gets her arm in a cast.

She didn't mind the vote excluding her from the House of Lords, or the group of news services tearing her apart for her "brutality" in gunning down a man with an empty gun. Pavel Young's life had been forfeit from the moment he turned upon her. In the eyes of the law, it mattered less than nothing whether it had been Lieutenant Castellaño's fire or hers that executed sentence upon him, but it mattered to her.

The empty gun he'd just emptied at her back?

Call it what it is, the old guard rallying after one of their own gets offed by a noveau noble.

"Is this some sort of pep talk now that the damage is done, Sir?" She was shocked by the vicious note in her own voice and raised her hand half-apologetically, but he only shook it off with a toss of his head.

"It is not. You're on half-pay now. Well, you're not unique in that. I've been on half-pay more than once, and never for a reason as good as yours. This war is going to last a long time, Captain. Peep resistance is already stiffening, and they still have the tonnage advantage. We'll cut deeper before they can stop us, but then it's going to be stalemate while each of us looks for a fresh advantage. I think we'll find one in time, but it's going to take time, and, as Raoul once told me on an occasion somewhat like this one, 'This, too, shall pass.' We need you, Captain. I know that, the Admiralty knows it, Her Majesty knows it, and one day the Kingdom will remember it."

Honor's mouth trembled with the need to believe him and the fear of more pain to come if she let herself, and he squeezed her shoulder again.

"Go to Grayson, Honor. Take your medicine. You don't deserve it, but no one ever said life was fair. But don't think this is the end. The scandal will die down eventually, the Navy will know it needs you, and, in time, even the House of Lords will realize it. You'll come home, Lady Harrington, and when you do, there'll be a command deck under your feet again."

And on that hopeful note, Honor goes to Grayson to be a full-time Steadholder until the Navy decides they can't do without her after all.

Hamish (White Haven) was pretty accurate in his prediction of how the war would go, IIRC.

[Simon_Jester]

And on that hopeful note, Honor goes to Grayson to be a full-time Steadholder until the Navy decides they can't do without her after all.

Hamish (White Haven) was pretty accurate in his prediction of how the war would go, IIRC.

He is arguably the best strategist in the RMN. Although ironically, the edge he predicts that Manticore will "find in time" turns out to be a technological system that he opposes for a number of reasons.

[jollyreaper]

Of course, the whole point of that is that ship-launched missiles are effectively fired out of a high-speed cannon (the mass-driver) presumably until they cross the sidewall before lighting up their drives, and until very recently pods and LACs didn't have that capability. Two missiles with the same acceleration, but one starts off going 20x (asspull number for example) faster, that one will win the race every time.

Do we have a calculated speed difference? On mobile so I don't have excel handy. 20x seems like far too big even for an ass pull but I don't know what the muzzle velocity for the mass driver is supposed to be.

With naval guns, bigger is simply better. Bigger ship is a more stable gunnery platform, can mount bigger guns, more armor, longer hull is more hydrodynamic, etc. A destroyer can't punch like a battleship and torpedoes are seen as powerful but not as flexible, at least in WWII. Torpedo fans will argue that point. But you really don't need a big ship to fire a big torpedo. And there are plenty of cases of torpedoes used by smaller craft to good effect against capital ships. A guided missile continues this trend. A frigate with guided missiles can punch as hard as a battleship with guided missiles which is why nobody builds them that big anymore.

So, honorverse missiles don't just need a launch cell, they need a proper mass driver. And there's only so much room for a broadside in the length of the ship. What's the limitation for adding more missile decks? Seems to me that the big caveat for proper broadsides is that be missiles have to keep their wedges apart. If each missile fires perpendicular to the warship's wedge, we should see them flying out with wedges parallel to each other. A double stack would have that limitation? Can't fire decks one and two together. But these missiles clear out pretty quickly. Could they fire one deck and then the other and then the first deck once it's reloaded?

I know all the ships essentially have the same shape due to the granitic tech and wedges. They have to be long. But does this also require narrow? The ships I see in pics are like cigars. What if they were thicker with multiple missile decks? Is there anything in the tech bibles to preclude that?

I've seen a lot of pod explanations in this thread, more than in the novels and they still don't make much sense to me.

[Terralthra]

The tapered roughly-cylindrical shape is required by the wedge. If I recall correctly, the maximum beam (also the height) can be no more than 1/4 of the overall length, with most ships significantly less than 1/4 their length in width. The top and bottom of the cigar are flattened in most warships, it seems.

[Simon_Jester]

Of course, the whole point of that is that ship-launched missiles are effectively fired out of a high-speed cannon (the mass-driver) presumably until they cross the sidewall before lighting up their drives, and until very recently pods and LACs didn't have that capability. Two missiles with the same acceleration, but one starts off going 20x (asspull number for example) faster, that one will win the race every time.

Do we have a calculated speed difference? On mobile so I don't have excel handy. 20x seems like far too big even for an ass pull but I don't know what the muzzle velocity for the mass driver is supposed to be.

Given exact figures for time of flight, range, and acceleration I could give you a calculated speed difference, but I'm not going to go digging for those numbers myself. I'm almost sure Weber has given the relevant numbers at some point, given his writing style. Probably to too many significant figures.

So, honorverse missiles don't just need a launch cell, they need a proper mass driver. And there's only so much room for a broadside in the length of the ship. What's the limitation for adding more missile decks? Seems to me that the big caveat for proper broadsides is that be missiles have to keep their wedges apart. If each missile fires perpendicular to the warship's wedge, we should see them flying out with wedges parallel to each other. A double stack would have that limitation? Can't fire decks one and two together. But these missiles clear out pretty quickly. Could they fire one deck and then the other and then the first deck once it's reloaded?

Virtually all ships of any serious size already do this. The tech bible identified the Star Knight-class cruiser as being special in large part because it was (one of the?) first heavy cruisers to mount two decks of missile tubes. Capital ships routinely have two or three decks dedicated to weapon systems.

I've seen a lot of pod explanations in this thread, more than in the novels and they still don't make much sense to me.

How so?

[FTeik]

I think it's the firing from the hip part that really bothers people, although that's just the specific symptom of the "suddenly acquires super-dueling skills" problem.

See, Honor has previously been built up as an expert in unarmed combat- fine, we've literally seen her sweat to accomplish that. We've also seen her work hard to be good at naval combat. But we have no prior indication that she's anything special with firearms, until this book- and it's deeply questionable whether she'd be able to acquire that much proficiency that fast, if she wasn't already an expert.

Even if an arbitrary amount of genetic tinkering could explain her being able to fire from the hip like that, she just doesn't look like she's put in that kind of practice.

I don't think it's that implausible. Remember that this was a duel, not a "normal" gunfight - she knew in advance precisely where both she and Summervale would be standing at the start (which may be another reason she chose the Ellington Protocol, where the combatants start at predefined locations). She needed to practise a very specific maneuver over and over again, not general shoot-from-the-hip ability.
"them," where we can't tell immediately what outcome we want or who is doing the right thing.

How much of an advantage would Honor's artificial eye have given her? And shouldn't devices like this be deactivated in a duel to make it a "fair" fight?

[andrewgpaul]

There are a couple of decent journalists mentioned, although even there the "us vs them" problem is obvious; Stacey Hauptman (daughter of the shipping magnate who turned up to threaten Honor in the first book) buys a Manticoran red-top just so she can fire one of its more sleazy journalists after he leaked details of Honor's private life.
Spoiler

but she's a Mesan agent. Oh well.

As for the prequel book, the first few chapters are available on the Baen website. One of the protagonists is a guy who joined the Navy on a whim because his mother didn't pay him any attention. In fact, I'm not even sure if she noticed he'd gone. He gets recruited (without realising!) to be getaway driver in a burglary of a jeweller's because he owns an aircar, then blows the getaway by getting distracted and wandering into the Navy recruiting office next door. At this point, the RMN consists of nine knackered battlecruisers which have been abandoned in orbit for a decade or so because the Navy's too underfunded to run them. As the book begins, there's talk of doing away with it entirely. After all, they don't need it; there's no Manticoran shipping to speak of because everything's going in Haven- or League-registered ships. I suspect dramatic irony will be a large part of the book.

[Batman]

I'm not sure how much of an advantage her artificial eye would be. Yes, it gives her telescopic vision, but that's about it. It doesn't tell her if her gun is actually pointing at what she's currently zoomed in on (something that might actually become possible once she gets her artificial arm). It might still give her an unfair advantage (though not much of one given the relatively low ranges involved) but I don't think it helped her targeting much.

As for deactivating such devices I'm not sure we know enough about about Manticore's code duello to tell. Could be they should but nobody knew about Honor's artificial eye (doubtful at best), could be the rules say 'well you accepted the challenge so sucks to be you', could be they knew but deemed the telescopic function to be of marginal use (as I do), I vote insufficient data.

One thing that depressingly enough never occurred to me before is why in the name of the nine hells did Tankersley accept Summervale's challenge? It's pretty clear from the books that while duelling is still legal, it's generally deemed barbaric and something best to get rid of. A peer doing so I can see because their sentiments are about as antiquated as the custom of dueling, but Tankersley was small fry. What would have been the negative consequences of him going 'Well tough luck, you're not getting any' when Summervale asked for satisfaction other than losing macho points?

[Simon_Jester]

Tankersley may have been very angry at Summervale for insulting Honor and wanted to kill him, only later realizing that oh crap, Summervale was actually a hardened killer?

I don't think it's that implausible. Remember that this was a duel, not a "normal" gunfight - she knew in advance precisely where both she and Summervale would be standing at the start (which may be another reason she chose the Ellington Protocol, where the combatants start at predefined locations). She needed to practise a very specific maneuver over and over again, not general shoot-from-the-hip ability.

How much of an advantage would Honor's artificial eye have given her? And shouldn't devices like this be deactivated in a duel to make it a "fair" fight?

Having a telescopic sight doesn't help if you can't aim precisely. Forty meters isn't so far away that you really need a 'zoom' feature to point a gun on target, or that having one is especially helpful. The problem is physically making sure the barrel is lined up to hit the body of your opponent, and that is very hard to do from the hip.

[Ahriman238]

Honor did use her telescopic sight, on it's lowest setting. No advantage is mentioned beyond being able to see Summervale's expression clearly.


As for Tankersley, he was in a bit of a jam. A.) Having just flipped out and beat on a guy, a duel is the only way out of an assault charge. Being civilized means handling things the civilized way, which could be professionally unpleasant. B.) as an officer and alleged gentleman he is expected to respond when issued a challenge. Tankersley is also not exactly small fry, he came from a mixed commoner-noble family and was a first cousin to Mike Henke, herself a first cousin to the reigning monarch. What that makes him to the Crown depends on the specific relations.

It's pretty explicit that Ramirez who only just entered and caught the end of the incident, hadn't previously told Tankersley about Summervale, and once the challenge was issued and accepted he couldn't back out without proving cowardice, with a variety of personal and professional consequences, and tacitly admitting Summervale was correct in his slander of Honor.

[jollyreaper]

Yes- but such pseudoscience is a specific ideology, not something that would predictably be believed by any oligarchy containing a "useless" class of nonproductives.

That sort of mindset would have to be nurtured and promoted, of course. And there would have to be a predisposition towards believing that sort of thing in the first place. Nazi views towards Jews and scientific anti-semitism took place in a culture where good old-fashioned Jew-hating was considered a tradition.

But I think the better explanation would be that the system isn't totalitarian enough. There's only so far you can push people in a given circumstance. At the individual level, you won't be able to convince one average American to fight another average American to death for a sandwich. Maybe for a PS4 on Black Friday but not food. Starve him for a week in a prison and now it's a whole new ballgame. At a societal level, it what people will put up with will vary. I'd say on one hand you have the French who will riot when you try to mess with vacation and on the other end you have North Koreans who will put up with anything so long as they can get some food and not a bullet in the back of the head.

For this situation, I guess the explanation would be the Legislaturists had an upper hand but it wasn't absolute. There's a certain breaking point they can push up to but not past without breaking the system. So it's a very tenuous sort of mastery. The question, as always, is just how much force can the rulers exert before shit hits the fan. We're seeing open war in Syria and the opposition hasn't given up yet.

Now to be fair, the kind of thing you describe is exactly the sort of thing that Weber might have the Mesans want to do with humanity- genetically engineer an elite for high productivity and 'discourage' everyone else from breeding 'too much' because they're superfluous.

But here, there's a difference between what the Havenite government does and what some hypothetical abstract government would do. The Havenite Legislaturists are an oligarchy whose grip on power hinges on the support of their homeworld's population, and who are not quite totalitarian or eugenicist enough to want to wipe out the Dolist class.

I think they'd probably be just as happy to do so but trying that might give someone else the populist edge to take them out. Tenuous mastery as opposed to absolute mastery.

In the short term, a collapse of the population on Haven might make it hard for the People's Republic to maintain control over the conquered subject worlds, by reducing the manpower base that can be recruited on Haven itself. It would earn the immediate hostility of any genuinely populist political factions in the PRH. The threats aren't so much external as internal- Legislaturalist control of the People's Republic is too precarious to survive such a thing.

I wonder how that would work out. In, say, the time of Rome, there's not a whole lot of difference between a civilian and a soldier. It all comes down to a hand and a sword. That's why Spartacus was able to make such a go of it. It's a lot harder to stand up to tanks and machine guns. If the loyalty of the military waivers, then the rulers are screwed. And that's why most coups originate within the military. So I'm guessing that the fall of the USSR would be the better model to look at than strictly the French Revolution because the weapons are more powerful but the politics remain just as human. I would have put money down on a coup in the USSR going big and ugly and it didn't. Plus there's the whole contention between ethnic Russian units and units from satellite states. Lots of ethnic and political tensions there.

Except that if anyone outs the conspiracy you have a huge number of angry Dolists on your hands.

Yah. The thing is, the Dolists don't really control much except a vote. That's only of value when the political system remains. It'd be different if you're talking a larger country and the breadbasket is having a dispute with the manufacturing center. They each need what the other has, can't do without it. All the Dolists offer is a vote. You sweep away the political system, then their only negotiating tactic is violence and mob vs. state doesn't go well. The only possible pull they have is the unwillingness of soldiers to turn their weapons against their own countrymen.

So I think the answer here is the Legislaturists were stuck with a system they inherited and could not change. This is making more sense. Sort of like the Joffrey situation in Game of Thrones. Yes, you are a monarch. Yes, you have absolute power. But if you do stupid shit like executing the head of the house that runs the north, you will court rebellion. Even people who have no love for the north might see their ambition served by siding against you, especially if you give them cause to doubt their safety under you and make the other guy look like a better choice. In theory, absolute power, but only if not put into practice. That's complicated and realistic.

[jollyreaper]

Virtually all ships of any serious size already do this. The tech bible identified the Star Knight-class cruiser as being special in large part because it was (one of the?) first heavy cruisers to mount two decks of missile tubes. Capital ships routinely have two or three decks dedicated to weapon systems.

Totally didn't remember that.

I've seen a lot of pod explanations in this thread, more than in the novels and they still don't make much sense to me.

How so?

Pod tech takes up mass and volume. So do conventional launchers. Spaceships don't have the same design constraints as ships and airplanes. Weber ships do have some constraints given the magictech that drives them. So, for a given investment of volume, mass and dollars, what makes a pod a better value than just making a ship taller and adding more launchers? I'm guessing the constraint is for a mass and volume of a typical SD, you can fit x-many conventional launchers or y-many pods and you are trying to come up with the sweet spot between x and y. It just seems like it would make more sense to make a ship taller and longer to fit more missile launchers. I may be missing a rationalization that's strictly in-universe. That's as opposed to a truism that remains regardless of the technology like "you always put the bridge in the most protected part of the ship, you do not put it on the outside with windows looking out into space." There's not really any way to rationalize away putting the bridge on the top of the ship without being very silly. I'm looking at you, Star Destroyers.