Honor Harrington - Should I pick it up?

[Slayn82]

I finished reading the Stars at War books, and I think it's pretty good. I know it isn't Honorverse, but since it's also from David Webber, I think I can mention it here.

Two pretty big books, with continuous focus on the military side, lots of pretty interesting characters (Ivanzarthan is probably my favorite among Webber's characters, but there's also an Honor's Expy).

3 different wars, and each with their own intricacies and repercussions. Enemies and strategic goals evolve through the books. Themes like family, live and sacrifice are present, but don't grow out of control.

There's a race of Warrior cats enamored with Space Fighters and Carriers. A race of fanatic Beetles that worship humanity and hates said cats (that are currently human allies), thus deciding to save humanity from the evil cats. Later, a race of Evil Spiders crush everyone on their way. And the enemy of the third story/war is (not) a surprise.

I think those two books were a laboratory for the themes that appear in latter Honorverse books. With the smaller scale, the results were quite good. Definitely worth a read.

[Lamech]

The Renaissance Association is a Solarian reform party. At the time the OP is at in the series, I'm pretty sure that nothing called the Renaissance Factor has shown up.

Spoiler: Mission of Honor

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We learn in book 12 that the Renaissance Factor, an extended political movement aligned with the Renaissance Association is really the public face of the Mesan Alignment, and is being used to prepare a core star nation for the purpose of conquering the known galaxy.

Spoiler

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Well, damn. I thought that was the case. That's so unfair.

[Mercenary Pen]

Spoiler: Random Bolthole Speculation

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I'm wondering whether the end results of Foraker's efforts at bolthole will bring us podlaying Battleships or even podlaying Dreadnoughts.

My thinking on the matter is as follows:
Firstly, with Grayson inertial compensators, any new battleship is going to have all the acceleration it needs (unless the sollies finally get a Grayson type compensator of their own to reverse engineer)
Secondly, Manticore, Grayson and the Anderman empire have all experimented with Podlaying Battlecruisers, and in Manticore's case, these proved to be too fragile to withstand an incoming salvo of MDMs- getting Mike Henke's command shot out from under her.
Thirdly, Haven has naval experience with the Battleship, and could easily use that ship category as a means of providing the additional weight of armour necessary to properly protect a podlaying hull, and could develop doctrine borrowing from either their rear-area defence tactics with battleships, or borrowing from battlecruiser tactics with deep raiding (since any new Battleship is likely to have more acceleration than any Battlecruiser with an old model inertial compensator).
Fourthly, it allows David Weber to use the real world demise of the Battlecruiser in WW2 as a plot point (which basically happened as Battleships were built that matched or exceeeded the speeds of battlecruisers).

[Lamech]

Spoiler: Shadow of Victory

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So I feel like Shadow of Victory was actually really good. I understand why people would hate it if they've been eagerly awaiting the plot to progress for *years*, but I don't have that problem. In particular, the ending seemed just awful for Manticore. They head over to Mesa, kick the navy's but, and then nukes go off everywhere. Which is very, very bad in an of itself, but hey, its totally the Alignment's fault? Got to be. Except, no trace of their "alignment" is to be found. Worse, there could well be evidence that connects them to at least a couple of the nuclear detonations. Since, they *were* connected to the first three, via Anton! All of this could be made much worse if Mike decides to lead an open investigation to "prove" Manticore's total innocence. Worst case scenario: "Oh yeah, that guy! I remember him! He disabled the tracker on a nuke for us!"

And to top it off, there are going to be numerous groups who would seem to have no bias against Manticore or be otherwise honest will be ready to take the line against Manticore because funny story, they work for the Alignment.

I feel like Manticore has done the equivalent of walking into a room full of murder victims and their finger prints are all over everything.

Also they've recently added a huge number of new people. Let's hope that doesn't screw up the previous balance in their democracy.

[Gnoman]

Spoiler: Random Bolthole Speculation

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I'm wondering whether the end results of Foraker's efforts at bolthole will bring us podlaying Battleships or even podlaying Dreadnoughts.

My thinking on the matter is as follows:
Firstly, with Grayson inertial compensators, any new battleship is going to have all the acceleration it needs (unless the sollies finally get a Grayson type compensator of their own to reverse engineer)
Secondly, Manticore, Grayson and the Anderman empire have all experimented with Podlaying Battlecruisers, and in Manticore's case, these proved to be too fragile to withstand an incoming salvo of MDMs- getting Mike Henke's command shot out from under her.
Thirdly, Haven has naval experience with the Battleship, and could easily use that ship category as a means of providing the additional weight of armour necessary to properly protect a podlaying hull, and could develop doctrine borrowing from either their rear-area defence tactics with battleships, or borrowing from battlecruiser tactics with deep raiding (since any new Battleship is likely to have more acceleration than any Battlecruiser with an old model inertial compensator).
Fourthly, it allows David Weber to use the real world demise of the Battlecruiser in WW2 as a plot point (which basically happened as Battleships were built that matched or exceeeded the speeds of battlecruisers).

Spoiler

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Weber's on record as saying that a BB(P) would be pointless, even with Apollo.

[Lamech]

Spoiler: Cauldron of Ghosts

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Summary: Victor and Co. are still badass. They now set forth to Mesa to uncover more about the Alignment. B.-Wolf has super secret technology that let's you change your skin DNA because they apparently haven't figured out brain transplants. Victor and Co. get to Mesa. The Alignment begins its evacuation using huge numbers of "terrorist" attacks to cover up the disappearances.

Victor promptly improvises them into helping to defend the down-trodden peeps in the slums against cruel reprisals from the evil stormtroopers.The Alignment cooks off several nukes and the reprisals begin. Victor is very badass and accomplishes exactly nothing when it comes to getting evidence against the Alignment. They learn exactly nothing when it comes to the Alignment. They do manage to make it public Torch is assisting the rebels, and reasonably well known that Manticore and Haven are assisting the rebels as well. Their badassery saves a bunch of civilians and will probably inspire a Rebellion that will bring down the Mesan system government.

Manticore fleet arrives just in time to save them, and thereby makes the entire rebellion they've fired up pointless.

Spoiler: Victory Spoilers

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Also just before a whole bunch of nukes go off a second time. Which the Manties totally didn't fire from orbit using their top-tier stealth tech.

Free Bonus: The Alignment made sure to use a Manticore produced, military only weapon in one of their fake "terrorist" attacks.
Free Bonus II: One of the Galaxy's most trusted, unbiased\* reporters is on Mesa and Manticore just loves letting journalists poke around, so the galaxy can see the truth.

Result: Manticore+Haven are the only plausible suspects for a campaign of nuclear terrorism, they had their agents on the planet, Manticore military hardware showed up in the terrorist attacks, and Manticore did in fact assist with an earlier incident of nuclear terrorism. Manticore's alternative theory is a mysterious boggieman conspiracy did it when they have absolutely no evidence whatsoever. You know they aren't crazy because they have telepathic cats to advise them! But they saved tens of thousands of innocent lives, so they got that going for them.

\* Actually Deep Cover Mesan Alignment Agent

[Cikomyr]

All right. Now i a fully on board with the entire story of Shadows of Saganami. Halfway through, we get to finally meet Van Dort PROPERLY (a.k.a. interacting with the Manticorian Navy officers), and the story starts to gel well.

The problem i had with the story was too much setup with too big of a scope, which REALLY dragged down the first third of the novel. But once all pieces are on the board and start moving around, its a hoot. Hell, the start was so ****ing boring I was so happy they stop to hunt pirates for five Chapters with no further consequence on the story. At least it was clear, entertaining and straight up.

In fact, i am wondering if Weber isnt shooting himself in the foot by expositing waaay too much the villain's side of things at the start of the novels. I am reminded of Basilisk Station and Honor of the Queen, where we slowly get the reveal of the bad guys's plans and assets only as the heroes also do.

I mean.. the best way to make a complicated political thriller, in any setting, is to first start small, contained and focused. A few characters, and then slowly expand the cast and scope of the story in a logical fashion. The reason Shogun was so awesome is because the epic scope of the story is introduced to us in such a progressive way, you never get confused by the size of the cast or the stakes. Compare to Tai-Pan, where you are introduced to 30 characters in the first 5 chapters. The story is as interesting once you get a handle, but its so hard to get properly started.

I think spelling out to us who Firebrand was, and actually having scenes from his PoV was a huge mistake. The mysterious sponsor should have been.. mysterious. And ominous.

Ok, i will get into the details as to why i found the resistants to Annexation so annoying:

Nortbrand: she is actually the most sympathetic to me... for about half of her initial scene. Then she turns into a full scale butcher, and i hated her. But she was by far the one with the best reasons to distrust the Annexation, and how her planet's Oligarch were reaming them sideways for years, and how she associated those with Manticore. By far the one with the best cause, but she was turned into such a butcher strawman, theres nothing left to sympathize with.

Westman: the total opposite. I hate his motivation. He is one whiny brat who have the most stupid and fickle reasons to oppose annexation. Seriously, absolutely NONE of his justifications make sense, with the possible exception of RTU/Manticore association. But if the ******* actually took a minute to prove his goddamn intelligence and study the subject matter, he would have discovered overnight how the Manticorian Kingdom is nothing like the OFS or the RTU.

And i dont care if he is supposed to be some equivalent of real world counterpart of his planet's name. I feel those people are just as stupid and short-sighted, and i feel like Weber is simply pushing his political bias on to us by shaping these characters to be oh-so-perfect because they represent a cause close to his heart. Which is why he is such a "gentleman rebel". Which is why he is such a ****ing Mary Sue who stands for Honor and Not Killing Civilians. The entire thing is one big negative strawman, and it irks me.

And yet, the story is still fun. I have reached the point where the captain just gathered his squadron and is about to attack Monica's forces.

Btw. I suppose Monica's military buildup/deployment of missile pods PoV story was acceptable. Its just that i didnt felt we needed the entire Mesa plan spelled out to us so there would be no mystery left.

[The Glyphstone]

Westman is a more complicated character than you might be giving him credit for. His stated reasons for opposing the annexation are one thing, his actual reasons (even if he won't admit them to himself) are entirely another. Don't condemn him quite yet, though if you've gotten to the point where the squadron has departed, you should have learned Westman's real (though still highly irrational) motivations.

Nordbrant's narrative purpose is pretty much exactly what you pegged - a person who started out reasonable and sympathetic, but doesn't go down the slippery slope so much as take a flying leap off the edge (another issue Weber has sometimes, his tell-not show tendencies, we only meet Nordbrandt once she's gone completely over the edge into villainous terrorism rather than actually getting to watch her descent).

Weber does tend to the strawmen sometimes, it's his second biggest flaw after the tendency to make infodumps, but they're always the extremists. He really doesn't like serious idealogues or zealots, as evidenced by how cartoonish he makes both his far-left and far-right politicians. His Good Guys/Girls are the ones willing to admit they're wrong, accept compromises, or just acknowledge the other side's right to disagree.

[mangosta71]

Which is why he is such a ****ing Mary Sue who stands for Honor and Not Killing Civilians. The entire thing is one big negative strawman, and it irks me.

Everything I've ever read by Weber is populated by Mary Sues; it's the reason I was only able to get through 3 or 4 of the Honor Harrington books. Honor herself just became more and more egregious in every book.

[Cikomyr]

Westman is a more complicated character than you might be giving him credit for. His stated reasons for opposing the annexation are one thing, his actual reasons (even if he won't admit them to himself) are entirely another. Don't condemn him quite yet, though if you've gotten to the point where the squadron has departed, you should have learned Westman's real (though still highly irrational) motivations.

Exactly. Highly irrational. He is an irrational character, always has been. His own stupid perception of being pigheaded as some sort of virtue is just.. irking.

The man is supposed to be intelligent, damn it.

[Cikomyr]

Everything I've ever read by Weber is populated by Mary Sues; it's the reason I was only able to get through 3 or 4 of the Honor Harrington books. Honor herself just became more and more egregious in every book.

But i kind of get Honor Harrington. Okay, she is the Mary Sue Supreme, but then she somewhat deserves it. And everybody acts as she deserves it.

But the ******* Montanan? There is nothing that justify that status. He is just a pigheaded ******* who thinks he is right and the world is wrong. He has the flimsiest of excuses for his rebellion, and gets shined like a Presidential Turd.

[The Glyphstone]

Exactly. Highly irrational. He is an irrational character, always has been. His own stupid perception of being pigheaded as some sort of virtue is just.. irking.

The man is supposed to be intelligent, damn it.

For what little defense, it's part of his culture. Being from the Planet of (Cowboy) Hats, the inhabitants of which have all embraced and fetishized an exaggerated stereotype of a society more than a thousand years in the past as an ideal. It's only the characters who are from the Cluster who treat his behavior as semi-normal because they've gotten used to the Montanan Hat, all the Manticorans logically point it out as ridiculous. You could argue about Watsonian versus Doylian reasonings all day, but either way his giant blind spot is consistent with the character - plus, it's somewhat consistent in a long-term fashion with other planets and their traditions built on fuzzy history, like Grayson's fencing by way of samurai movies. And in typical Weber fashion, he accepts his own screwups once he's confronted with sufficient evidence that he can't keep lying to himself, thus demonstrating his status as a Good Guy in similar fashion to characters like Howard Clinkscales or Klaus Hauptmann.

But i kind of get Honor Harrington. Okay, she is the Mary Sue Supreme, but then she somewhat deserves it. And everybody acts as she deserves it.

But the ******* Montanan? There is nothing that justify that status. He is just a pigheaded ******* who thinks he is right and the world is wrong. He has the flimsiest of excuses for his rebellion, and gets shined like a Presidential Turd.

Most of the less-spurious claims of evidence for Honor's supposed status as a Canon Sue I tend to attribute, again, to Weber's habit of telling vs. showing. Honor's long and difficult stints in rehab or counseling happen between books and are summed up as 'rehab was long and difficult', while in-text we see her go blithely from one mind-crushing, body-shattering crisis to another with no visible ill effects. Her enemies, being strawmen of extremism, fail to provide a good contrast and weaken the argument of her deserving the status and praise she earns. Strip away all the context and everything Weber actually makes her go through over and over again stops looking like an author's pet and more like some sort of abusive give-and-take relationship.

[mangosta71]

Most of the less-spurious claims of evidence for Honor's supposed status as a Canon Sue I tend to attribute, again, to Weber's habit of telling vs. showing. Honor's long and difficult stints in rehab or counseling happen between books and are summed up as 'rehab was long and difficult', while in-text we see her go blithely from one mind-crushing, body-shattering crisis to another with no visible ill effects. Her enemies, being strawmen of extremism, fail to provide a good contrast and weaken the argument of her deserving the status and praise she earns. Strip away all the context and everything Weber actually makes her go through over and over again stops looking like an author's pet and more like some sort of abusive give-and-take relationship.

I'm specifically thinking of the pistol duels in book 4 (I think). Where after a week or two of training she's a better shot than a guy who's been a professional shooter his entire adult life. And then at the end, she isn't hindered in any way whatsoever despite having just been shot. (My brother, who got through more of the series than I did, tells me that there's another scene in a later book, in which she beats another professional duelist, this time with a sword, despite explicitly never having handled the weapon before.)

Even when she's dealing with people on her side, anyone who disagrees with her is wrong and the only reason they disagree with her is that they're Evil. Everyone who's Good worships the ground she walks on and agrees with everything she says/does. Everything that she does turns out to have been exactly the right thing. After a handful of books I just couldn't do it any more, especially since I had assurances that it wasn't going to get any better.

[Gnoman]

I'm specifically thinking of the pistol duels in book 4 (I think). Where after a week or two of training she's a better shot than a guy who's been a professional shooter his entire adult life. And then at the end, she isn't hindered in any way whatsoever despite having just been shot. (My brother, who got through more of the series than I did, tells me that there's another scene in a later book, in which she beats another professional duelist, this time with a sword, despite explicitly never having handled the weapon before.)

Even when she's dealing with people on her side, anyone who disagrees with her is wrong and the only reason they disagree with her is that they're Evil. Everyone who's Good worships the ground she walks on and agrees with everything she says/does. Everything that she does turns out to have been exactly the right thing. After a handful of books I just couldn't do it any more, especially since I had assurances that it wasn't going to get any better.

For the first part, it is stated that all Manticoran naval personnel receive small arms training, that she grew up on a planet where only an idiot goes unarmed outside of the cities due to dangerous wildlife, that she quite specifically spent an enormous amount of time practicing with the exact sort of weapon that she would be using in the duel, and she "cheated" by using her bionic eye to fire before any unaltered human could possibly have his weapon up and aimed. In the second, she beat a ~50 year old man in the body of a ~60 year old man (Pre-Alliance Graysons explicitly age quite a bit faster than we do) who had only ever learned sport fencing - after a year of sword practice, built on fifty years of martial arts training that she has already used to kill people with her bare hands.

For the second, it bears absolutely no resemblance to the truth. There is exactly one character in the series that hates her "because he is Evil", and even Pavel Young has somewhat more nuanced reasons for hating her - at the Academy she embarrassed his ego, beat him to a pulp, and humiliated him with the forced apology. Later, she wrecked his career twice and nearly got him executed. The rest of her enemies have very concrete reasons to hate her - Hauptmann took a massive blow to his income and prestige from her actions in Basilisk, Houseman was physically assaulted by her, most of her Grayson enemies view her as an intolerable disruption to their way of life, and Baron High Ridge sees her as a major roadblock to his political agenda.

As for "everyone who's Good worships the ground she walks on", it is a fundamentally ludicrous statement. Plenty of highly respected Manticoran commanders which the story treats as The Good Guys have issues with her combat record -viewing her exploits as recklessness that was rewarded by luck-, even her closest friends disagree with her often, and she's wrong a perfectly reasonable amount of the time.

[Cikomyr]

I'm specifically thinking of the pistol duels in book 4 (I think). Where after a week or two of training she's a better shot than a guy who's been a professional shooter his entire adult life. And then at the end, she isn't hindered in any way whatsoever despite having just been shot. (My brother, who got through more of the series than I did, tells me that there's another scene in a later book, in which she beats another professional duelist, this time with a sword, despite explicitly never having handled the weapon before.)

Even when she's dealing with people on her side, anyone who disagrees with her is wrong and the only reason they disagree with her is that they're Evil. Everyone who's Good worships the ground she walks on and agrees with everything she says/does. Everything that she does turns out to have been exactly the right thing. After a handful of books I just couldn't do it any more, especially since I had assurances that it wasn't going to get any better.

I kind of have to agree with the previous poster's rebukes.

She was already said to be proficient with firearms. She intensely trained her marksmanship with the full intent of exploiting the rules to get away with an unorthodox strategy, and she has a bionic arm/eye combo that are linked up. Her victory was both smart and achieved at great effort.

Her sword duel, like previously said, wasnt nonforeshadowed. She already had lots of training with another martial art, and she picked up regimented training with the planet's arguably best master, who thought her to be damn good.

So she had the basic, the training, the reflexes. And yet, i still found her victory pretty silly, up until someone pointed out to me a key information that wasnt spelled out, but could have been:

A big point is made about the Katana duels of two styles of confronting your opponent. One is projective of will (hope to unsettle your opponent sufficiently to strike fast), the other reactive to your opponent's tell just before they attack, so you can catch them while they are vulnerable.

Most practitioner dont bother training their "reactive" techniques, since you cannot train yourself to be able to read every duellist you will evet encounter. And yet, Honor completely anticipates her opponent's attack and kills him by perfectly anticipating his movements.

I found that very silly, and Mary Sueish. Until someone pointed out to me that Nimitz was close to her outside the duelling ring.

A bit plot point has been made that Nimitz has slowly but surely started to act as an empath antenna for Honor, which allows her to unwillingly read other people's emotions.

Honor's Sword duel victory wasnt because she is just Da Best Swordswoman. It was because she was literally able to read her opponent's mind to know exactly when he was going to strike. No matter how skilled he was, there is no way to overcome that advantage.

So yhea. She cheated (unwittingly). Again.

[Lamech]

I'm specifically thinking of the pistol duels in book 4 (I think). Where after a week or two of training she's a better shot than a guy who's been a professional shooter his entire adult life. And then at the end, she isn't hindered in any way whatsoever despite having just been shot. (My brother, who got through more of the series than I did, tells me that there's another scene in a later book, in which she beats another professional duelist, this time with a sword, despite explicitly never having handled the weapon before.)

I'm reasonably certain that Weber realized how stupid that was by the later books. Its why there is a slightly jarring scene were Weber bursts in and yells "A WIZARD DID IT! WITH GENETICS!"
, Honor explains she has some genetic engineering enhancements in a later book. Apparently, like a third of her planet has it, and IIRC, it sounded like someone attached a gene drive to it as well.

Also, sometimes characters fail or screw up hilariously without anyone actually noticing how badly they've messed up. Point of fact: The first book Honor gets her ship nearly destroyed in order to stop the Q-ship from calling in reinforcements. The Q-ship was trying to tell the reinforcements to not show up. She successfully managed to accomplish the exact opposite of her goal.

Question: Are the newly annexed territories of the Star Empire getting voting rights?

[Gnoman]

Question: Are the newly annexed territories of the Star Empire getting voting rights?

The details aren't given until the end of this book, but the answer is yes.

More specifically:

Spoiler

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Two new Parliaments are created, in addition to the Old Star Kingdom (representing the planets Manticore, Sphinx, Gryphon, and San Martin) Parliament already extant. One new Parliament represents the Talbott Quadrant, while a new Imperial Parliament is placed over both. The franchise is granted to the Talbott Quadrant on the same grounds as it is issued to those in the Star Kingdom - as long as you pay one cent more in taxes than you get in benefits, you get to vote.

[Lamech]

The details aren't given until the end of this book, but the answer is yes.

More specifically:

Spoiler

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Two new Parliaments are created, in addition to the Old Star Kingdom (representing the planets Manticore, Sphinx, Gryphon, and San Martin) Parliament already extant. One new Parliament represents the Talbott Quadrant, while a new Imperial Parliament is placed over both. The franchise is granted to the Talbott Quadrant on the same grounds as it is issued to those in the Star Kingdom - as long as you pay one cent more in taxes than you get in benefits, you get to vote.

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Neat! However, doesn't the Talbott cluster have the bigger population? Is the Talbott cluster going to end up with more power than Manticore? And doesn't that mean that the Talbott Cluster actually conquered Manticore?

[Gnoman]

Spoiler

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Neat! However, doesn't the Talbott cluster have the bigger population? Is the Talbott cluster going to end up with more power than Manticore? And doesn't that mean that the Talbott Cluster actually conquered Manticore?

That's actually accounted for.

Spoiler

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For a period of 15 years, the Star Kingdom gets 75% of the seats in the Imperial Parliament. For the next 15 years, they get 65%, and for the next 25 years 50%. Only after this 55-year period does the Parliament go to a pure population basis. The idea is to get the Talbotters up to the same standards of education, quality of life, and political tradition before they get too much influence.

[Carl]

Also Honour's a member longtime of the society for historical Anchrisoms. She admits she spent a lot of time as a youth using that exact gun. Add in her kinesthesia which seems to giver her a perfect sense of where everything is in relation to her and where every bit of her or whatever she's holding is in relation to her. (She didn't have the bionic arm back then btw, just the eye and there's no hint she used it in the text). Also the genie thing comes up pretty early as i recall.

@Cikomyr: Your issue seems to be that a hell of a lot of characters act in ways that don;t make sense to you and therefore cannot be reasonable ways for a character to act. Let me give you a hint. History is replete with individuals and even entire civilisations that act like that. To give you an example similar to Nordbrandt.

The dunblane bombing by the "Real IRA" in northern ireland. They called in a bomb threat knowing the evacuation would send everyone from that area along a specific road, then planted multiple bombs along that route to blow up the evacuees. All n the name of encouraging the british government to give up sovereignty rights on Northern Ireland. Compared to that Nordbrandt is actually nice.

[Lamech]

That's actually accounted for.

Spoiler

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For a period of 15 years, the Star Kingdom gets 75% of the seats in the Imperial Parliament. For the next 15 years, they get 65%, and for the next 25 years 50%. Only after this 55-year period does the Parliament go to a pure population basis. The idea is to get the Talbotters up to the same standards of education, quality of life, and political tradition before they get too much influence.

Spoiler

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So its a very slow conquering.

Also from reading this, especially about the Eridani Edict and how you essentially have MAD preventing anyone from slaughtering planets, and not fancy planet protecting defenses I've come to the conclusion that a band of space nomads would be the absolute worst group of people to attack. Since they don't have any planets to strike they can kill your worlds and you can't launch a counter attack. Its really easy to hide a fleet in some random uninhabited star. Worse there is a 0% chance they won't strike your worlds since they aren't going to privilege planets over their ships.

We haven't actually seen any space nomads, and I'm not sure why anyone would attack them if they did show up later. And technically an alien empire could be even worse. And seriously the way they go hoping around star systems and poking their noses into wormholes its like their trying to get eaten.

I also have one main complaint: You have a world with its main vegetation being fungus, and yet the fungus isn't in anyway psychic! I am disappointed in you Weber!
Yes, I know the relative publication dates.

[Gnoman]

Also Honour's a member longtime of the society for historical Anchrisoms. She admits she spent a lot of time as a youth using that exact gun. Add in her kinesthesia which seems to giver her a perfect sense of where everything is in relation to her and where every bit of her or whatever she's holding is in relation to her. (She didn't have the bionic arm back then btw, just the eye and there's no hint she used it in the text). Also the genie thing comes up pretty early as i recall.

Immediately before the judge starts the duel by dropping a handkerchief, she activates her eye. It doesn't explicitly state that she uses it for targeting, but it is an obvious interpretation.

[Cikomyr]

All right. Beside my opinion of Westman, any feedback on my opinion of the overall plot's pacing and/or mystery involved?

[The Glyphstone]

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So its a very slow conquering.

Also from reading this, especially about the Eridani Edict and how you essentially have MAD preventing anyone from slaughtering planets, and not fancy planet protecting defenses I've come to the conclusion that a band of space nomads would be the absolute worst group of people to attack. Since they don't have any planets to strike they can kill your worlds and you can't launch a counter attack. Its really easy to hide a fleet in some random uninhabited star. Worse there is a 0% chance they won't strike your worlds since they aren't going to privilege planets over their ships.

We haven't actually seen any space nomads, and I'm not sure why anyone would attack them if they did show up later. And technically an alien empire could be even worse. And seriously the way they go hoping around star systems and poking their noses into wormholes its like their trying to get eaten.

Space nomads would be super, super unlikely to risk attacks against most worlds. Ships can't build more ships, you need an orbital spacedock. So either your nomads are running around in hijacked merchant hulls, and thus essentially scrap metal against even rudimentary planetary defenses, or they're risking one of their irreplaceable military-grade ships in the attack. Their ships are their 'planets' in this case, and while losing one hurts them less than any single enemy losing a planet, that becomes a zero-sum game very quickly. Intentionally nuke a planet and let even one surviving ship escape who can identify you, and you become a galactic pariah with a kill-on-sight sign superglued to your forehead - those uninhabited star systems are the only place they can ever go for the rest of their lives.

[Gnoman]

The only thing I can say at this point (fully addressing some of your criticisms will have to wait a little longer) is that hiding who Firebrand was working for would have been more trouble than it is worth. There just aren't very many suspects left with the clout to do something of that sort, now that the Andermani are allied with Manticore and the Havenites are wearing white hats even if they're still at war with Manticore. State Security might have tried something like that, but they've been too thoroughly smashed. What is left of The Church Of Humanity Unchained (defiant) might have the cash to pull it off, but they're pretty thoroughly smashed. Manpower itself is too clumsy a company to do it, so they're out. Apart from the real culprit, the only obvious candidate is the Solarian League itself, and (for reasons that I can't explain) they'll look pretty unlikely soon enough. By doing it this way, they can introduce the previously unknown enemy slowly, let you get a good look at how they operate, and fully acquaint you with what their goals are instead of pulling the sort of "HA! HA! HA! IT ME! I DID IT!" reveal later that is so very hard to pull off well.

One minor quibble on Westman that wasn't brought up earlier. You mention that if he'd bothered to fact-check, he wouldn't have believed Manticore was the devil. How, precisely, do you expect him to do that? Unless he personally charters a ship to fly him to Manticore, anything he gets has to come through somebody else, and the only practical routes go through Firebrand (who wants him to turn into Norbrandt) or the RTU (who he will assume is lying without consideration). The nature of this universe (particularly the total lack of interplanetary FTL radio) means that nobody except governmental intelligence agencies are, or can be, anywhere near as well informed about the galaxy they live in as the average person in 2017 is about the world we live in.


Also, any thoughts on the battle with Marianne? Apart from the obvious character implications, what it shows about the power of even point-defense weaponry is pretty impressive.

[Lamech]

Space nomads would be super, super unlikely to risk attacks against most worlds. Ships can't build more ships, you need an orbital spacedock. So either your nomads are running around in hijacked merchant hulls, and thus essentially scrap metal against even rudimentary planetary defenses, or they're risking one of their irreplaceable military-grade ships in the attack. Their ships are their 'planets' in this case, and while losing one hurts them less than any single enemy losing a planet, that becomes a zero-sum game very quickly. Intentionally nuke a planet and let even one surviving ship escape who can identify you, and you become a galactic pariah with a kill-on-sight sign superglued to your forehead - those uninhabited star systems are the only place they can ever go for the rest of their lives.

I was talking about a retaliatory strike, not attacking a planet for kicks and giggles. Really it would take some major screw ups for our extra-fictional Space Nomads to come into conflict with the series's planet based nations. The closest thing to a Nomadic group we've seen is people who've repeatedly fled the Solarian league over generations. A nomadic group would need similar motivations. I suppose they could start preemptively burning unsettled habitable worlds, if they felt threatened. A sort of salt the earth strategy as they leave.

Anyway, you don't need an orbital spacedock to build ships. We have examples of building ships free floating in space. I think they are called "dispersed" yards or something. I still have no idea why anyone would pick a fight with a such a group though. Seriously why would you do that? They're probably gonna leave in a few years anyway. Attacking them just seems like a good way to get a basket full of ball bearings falling from the sky two decades later, or some other random asshattery.

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By doing it this way, they can introduce the previously unknown enemy slowly, let you get a good look at how they operate, and fully acquaint you with what their goals are instead of pulling the sort of "HA! HA! HA! IT ME! I DID IT!" reveal later that is so very hard to pull off well.

I bet the heroes are gonna feel that way though.

[The Glyphstone]

I was talking about a retaliatory strike, not attacking a planet for kicks and giggles. Really it would take some major screw ups for our extra-fictional Space Nomads to come into conflict with the series's planet based nations. The closest thing to a Nomadic group we've seen is people who've repeatedly fled the Solarian league over generations. A nomadic group would need similar motivations. I suppose they could start preemptively burning unsettled habitable worlds, if they felt threatened. A sort of salt the earth strategy as they leave.

Anyway, you don't need an orbital spacedock to build ships. We have examples of building ships free floating in space. I think they are called "dispersed" yards or something. I still have no idea why anyone would pick a fight with a such a group though. Seriously why would you do that? They're probably gonna leave in a few years anyway. Attacking them just seems like a good way to get a basket full of ball bearings falling from the sky two decades later, or some other random asshattery.

Okay, so you don't need to be in orbit, I picked my words poorly. But you still need an fixed (and thus vulnerable) point, since you can't tow your yards around in hyperspace with you. You'd need a source of fuel as well, and probably spare parts, both of which tend to only be available on industrialized planets. In theory, all the tech does exist in the Honorverse to build a truly autonomous fleet - we've seen enough weird stuff crammed into super-dreadnought hulls - but the intersection of motivation and ability to do so is extremely small (having enough money to afford it is a good sign that you aren't desperate enough to want it). So the lack of said space nomads isn't surprising; the closest we've seen are the tramp freighters that make the rounds in the Verge and the Fringe.

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More risky/likely is a group using an uncharted but settled star system as a staging point/home base, killing anyone who wanders in by mistake...

[HandofShadows]

Honor's Sword duel victory wasnt because she is just Da Best Swordswoman. It was because she was literally able to read her opponent's mind to know exactly when he was going to strike. No matter how skilled he was, there is no way to overcome that advantage.

So yhea. She cheated (unwittingly). Again.

I wouldn't understate that Honor is a MUCH more experienced killer. This is not small thing as her opponent had never killed anyone face to face before, while Honor has killed face before (a large number of people in fact). Most people are going to hesitate or even stop themselves from killing another person unless they are trained in doing it. Even if they want kill they are going to hesitate, even if just a little. And that would be all the opening someone who was a killer would need. I guess the old saying that Reality is Unrealistic applies here.

[Cikomyr]

I wouldn't understate that Honor is a MUCH more experienced killer. This is not small thing as her opponent had never killed anyone face to face before, while Honor has killed face before (a large number of people in fact). Most people are going to hesitate or even stop themselves from killing another person unless they are trained in doing it. Even if they want kill they are going to hesitate, even if just a little. And that would be all the opening someone who was a killer would need. I guess the old saying that Reality is Unrealistic applies here.

I suppose you are right, but i usually dont buy into that argument that much because:

1- the evidence is sufficient without that explanation
2- her opponent already proved to be one amoral ******* who was happy to kill in the name of his God. Sure, never by his own hand, but still willing and feeling self-righteous

[The Glyphstone]

I suppose you are right, but i usually dont buy into that argument that much because:

1- the evidence is sufficient without that explanation
2- her opponent already proved to be one amoral ******* who was happy to kill in the name of his God. Sure, never by his own hand, but still willing and feeling self-righteous

It's more of a 'cherry on top of the ice cream' detail, really. MuellerBurdette was perfectly happy to order other people killed (letting his minions be the ones with blood on their hands), and certainly believed himself to be able+willing to strike someone down in a lethal duel. But he'd never actually done it, so he was still mentally treating the duel as the sort of sporting event/competition he excelled at, with a live target and sharp swords, because that was what he was used to. He didn't take her seriously until it was too late. Honor already had the mental state she needed, and Nimitz's empathy relay more than made up for her lack of relative skill - he hold her when to strike, but that wouldn't have been useful if she wasn't already prepared to do it.