|
Gnoman posted:OK, I wasn't finding that section - I was looking at other portions of the same site. They seem to be collected by Buckey, though Weber's website has a section devoted to them (I only know this because I had to go to it to find them when the Pearls of Weber site was down). And yeah for the timeline issues, I just kind of glossed over that because I was more amused that he constantly mentions that doctrine and tech has been in stasis for hundreds of years when there were several massive changes in doctrine and tech in that time period. And absolutely, that's 100% true, I should have been more clear that I was more leaning on the "Except when it doesn't", which becomes relatively common later on when basically even small Manticore ships outpower much bigger ones.
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2021 14:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 02:05 |
|
|
Late-series Manticore against anybody not a Gramd Alliance member or Mesa is akin to a 70s ship against a WWI or WWII one. Which probably wouldn't go well. Granted that your overall point is that the disparity shouldn't be that bad, but it is the scenario we are given.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2021 15:03
|
|
|
Nobody would be nit-picking this poo poo if the stories had any redeeming qualities.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2021 21:36
|
|
|
TheGreatEvilKing posted:Nobody would be nit-picking this poo poo if the stories had any redeeming qualities. well, yeah, lmao weber's curse is to almost have redeeming qualities -- to be able to show the potential, and to make it seem like it could be interesting if explored....right before it's buried under pages upon pages of dice rolling after-action reports, 25 page long technical asides about fictional missiles even the character says has no relevance, or rolling a nat 20 on that charisma check = all political problems solved, forever!
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2021 02:30
|
|
|
TheGreatEvilKing posted:Nobody would be nit-picking this poo poo if the stories had any redeeming qualities. ASK me about doing a top to bottom rewrite of Mission of Honor because I was too depressed to finish my next book
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2021 01:10
|
|
|
TELL me I'm a dumbass
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2021 01:10
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:TELL me I'm a dumbass There there. I understand the feeling tremendously well.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2021 01:58
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:ASK me about doing a top to bottom rewrite of Mission of Honor because I was too depressed to finish my next book why are you so hard on yourself when you did something you wanted to do?
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2021 04:47
|
|
|
Well mostly because one of those projects can be converted into rent and one can't.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2021 06:20
|
|
|
Just wanted to let you all know that I have not forgotten the promise to do a Let's Read, but since this is my first attempt at it, I want to try to do it right - even if that might be more effort than the source material deserves - and have a small cushion of posts done and ready to go. Which is why it's taking a bit to spin up.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2021 08:57
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:Well mostly because one of those projects can be converted into rent and one can't. Well, sure. That means you've already paid the price for your decision, and shouldn't punish yourself more by beating yourself up. (also, you know, it's a false dichotomy: "I was working on X when I could have been working on Y" presupposes that you could have been working on Y when if you could have, wouldn't you have been?) (basically you've made stuff that's entertained me and I'm not letting you get yourself down when you've brightened my days) TLM3101 posted:Just wanted to let you all know that I have not forgotten the promise to do a Let's Read, but since this is my first attempt at it, I want to try to do it right - even if that might be more effort than the source material deserves - and have a small cushion of posts done and ready to go. Which is why it's taking a bit to spin up. Putting in far more effort than the source material deserves is a Let's Play/Read tradition.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2021 09:02
|
|
|
Rosalie_A posted:Well, sure. That means you've already paid the price for your decision, and shouldn't punish yourself more by beating yourself up. Yeah, Rosalie's right here. quote:Putting in far more effort than the source material deserves is a Let's Play/Read tradition. Naturally. Relatedly, I was doing some research while being lazy, and I noticed that I don't think you can technically call the Solarian Navy's ships Super Dreadnoughts in the modern sense, as their ships max out at the same size as Manticore's 1900-era Dreadnoughts.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2021 09:25
|
|
|
Kchama posted:Relatedly, I was doing some research while being lazy, and I noticed that I don't think you can technically call the Solarian Navy's ships Super Dreadnoughts in the modern sense, as their ships max out at the same size as Manticore's 1900-era Dreadnoughts. Scientist-Class SD: 6,800,000 tons Bellerophon-class DN: 6,985,250 tons Never noticed that before. There is a later mention that the SLN "defined ships by tonnage brackets obsolete before the first Manticore-haven war", but I don't think they ever highlight it to that extent. That's kind of dumb. The Scientists, however, appear to be more heavily armed, save for near parity in missiles and a considerably smaller number of anti-missile launchers. That's also kind of dumb, unless you want to assume that the SLN ships have more cramped accommodations or more efficiently-designed equipment. Gnoman fucked around with this message at 09:45 on Dec 30, 2021 |
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2021 09:42
|
|
|
Gnoman posted:Late-series Manticore against anybody not a Gramd Alliance member or Mesa is akin to a 70s ship against a WWI or WWII one. Which probably wouldn't go well. There's a movie about this called The Final Countdown where the USS Nimitz gets timewarped back to WW2.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2021 18:55
|
|
|
Rhymenoserous posted:There's a movie about this called The Final Countdown where the USS Nimitz gets timewarped back to WW2. The anime Zigpan is a better comparison, because the Miarai actually winds up fighting. Nimitz decides to intervene and winds up sailing back through the time portal in Final Countdown, and most of the film is them deciding what their oaths require.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2022 02:26
|
|
|
 It's a shame Weber decided to stop at Super Dreadnought.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 02:42
|
|
|
Hell yeah the Starfire novels do have Monitors and Supermonitors
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 06:26
|
|
|
The "junction forts" are basically monitors in the classic sense.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 06:53
|
|
|
Kchama posted:
Haha! I thought I was the only one with Starfire on the forums!
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 19:01
|
|
|
Hypnobeard posted:Haha! I thought I was the only one with Starfire on the forums! I've never actually gotten to play it. But it's probably still better than Saganami Island Tactical Simulator, which is only good if you need a good night's sleep.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2022 16:59
|
|
|
Kchama posted:I've never actually gotten to play it. But it's probably still better than Saganami Island Tactical Simulator, which is only good if you need a good night's sleep. Honestly it's a pretty poor tactical game. It's fast-playing even with lots of ships, but there's not a huge amount of nuance. The strategic game is the granddaddy of a lot of 4X games tho.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2022 01:59
|
|
|
Hypnobeard posted:Honestly it's a pretty poor tactical game. It's fast-playing even with lots of ships, but there's not a huge amount of nuance. I can see it. I've always wanted to give Starfire a try sometime, but like, it's impossible to find other people to play it with, and it doesn't seem that fun to play it alone.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2022 03:24
|
|
|
After being very disappointed in Uncompromising Honor, I recently got around to reading To End in Fire and was pleasantly surprised. I've always liked the Honorverse more than seems to be the consensus most places people talk about it, but even so I was expecting to like it much less. Regarding the "Benign Alignment", its existence makes sense to me as the sort of reform-minded centrists who have enough empathy to wring their hands over the suffering the system causes but not enough moral courage to actually do anything about it, analogous to many groups I've heard about on the Revolutions podcast, or the US Democratic Party. I'm not sure I buy the in-universe theory that they were the original group from which the "Malign Alignment" radicalized/split, but it's plausible given what the theorizing character knows, and I don't recall being given (as the reader) any information that explicitly disproves it. I'm a little unclear on how their beliefs differ from those of the Malignment, but I'm willing to accept, for the purposes of reading, that meaningful differences do exist. I did appreciate that the book didn't engage in the full blow-by-blow missile accounting for the entirety of the battle at the end, instead showing the opening exchanges and then skipping directly to the final suicide/attack. I'm generally more interested in scenes where the characters get to bounce off each other—which, yes, does sometimes include the meetings so often maligned in these parts. ~~~~~~~~~~~ On a more general note, I wanted to push back a little against a criticism I see leveled a lot, here and elsewhere, that Weber's villains tend to be two-dimensional rapists with no redeeming qualities—and it's true there are some who are like that, but honestly I find them to be in the minority. Characters like Pierre, Saint-Just, McQueen, and the Detweilers all struck me as fairly well-sketched, with complexities and positive traits to go along with their negative ones. The only characters who fit the stereotype are Pavel Young and Reginald Houseman, and even looking beyond the Honorverse to Weber's other work I can only think of two significant villains who fit that mold (Clyntahn from Safehold & New Madrid from the Prince Roger books). Maybe the fact that they (Young & Houseman) appear so early in the books makes them loom larger in some readers' minds.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2022 23:21
|
|
|
Anshu posted:On a more general note, I wanted to push back a little against a criticism I see leveled a lot, here and elsewhere, that Weber's villains tend to be two-dimensional rapists with no redeeming qualities—and it's true there are some who are like that, but honestly I find them to be in the minority. Characters like Pierre, Saint-Just, McQueen, and the Detweilers all struck me as fairly well-sketched, with complexities and positive traits to go along with their negative ones. The only characters who fit the stereotype are Pavel Young and Reginald Houseman, and even looking beyond the Honorverse to Weber's other work I can only think of two significant villains who fit that mold (Clyntahn from Safehold & New Madrid from the Prince Roger books). Maybe the fact that they (Young & Houseman) appear so early in the books makes them loom larger in some readers' minds. I mostly agree with this, but there's a number of pretty 2D villains you're missing. Baron High Ridge, the fascist terrorist from Shadows of Saganimi, the New Tuscans, Byng, Crandall, most of the Grayson antagonists except maybe Mueller. Pretty much all of the "introduced and killed in the same book" guys are pretty flat, as are the large number of right-wing bad guys motivated entirely by "gently caress you, got mine".
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 02:30
|
|
|
Kchama posted:I've never actually gotten to play it. But it's probably still better than Saganami Island Tactical Simulator, which is only good if you need a good night's sleep. SITS, especially 2e, was a very slick game mechanically. Everything from maneuver to missile spam worked. Problem: the only sane tactic was to pile all your ships in one hex and maneuver as a unit. Do anything else and you were getting murdered in detail. There was exactly one scenario that was any fun. The setup was a Havenite destroyer division on patrol near the hyper limit when a Manty DD division makes a bad translation and ends up scattered randomly over the map. That led to some fun games, but nothing else did. Squadron Strike is a descendant of that system, and in our backgrounds we try and build in good excuses not to use giant death stacks and indulge in some maneuver and outflanking. SITS was doomed from the start to be an un-fun game, but lessons were learned.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 03:54
|
|
|
Anshu posted:After being very disappointed in Uncompromising Honor, I recently got around to reading To End in Fire and was pleasantly surprised. I've always liked the Honorverse more than seems to be the consensus most places people talk about it, but even so I was expecting to like it much less. I was very confused by a lot of this post, but then I realized Weber actually snuck in a new book just last October that I totally missed. I'm unsure if I care to try and read it. I actually thought Eric Flint's books were some of the worst of the Honor books overall. But I guess it's hard to be as bad as Weber's constant repeating of boring-rear end meetings he does in the last few books, and the yawn-inducing 'battles' that sometime get skipped. As for the 'rapist villains', there's a lot, but they tend to be one-shot villains more or less. Haven's villains, aka the early ones, tended to be better because they had to be threats to Honor, and not just useless rapists like Pavel. Also I don't think you mean Houseman, as he was absolutely not a rapist. But when you think of 'rapist pedophile villain', it is pretty much everyone in the Mesan Alignment and their lackeys in the Solarian League. Admiral Filaretta was one, for example. Basically anyone who is in their pack is revealed to be one, which is why it gets to be a little tedioous. mllaneza posted:SITS, especially 2e, was a very slick game mechanically. Everything from maneuver to missile spam worked. Problem: the only sane tactic was to pile all your ships in one hex and maneuver as a unit. Do anything else and you were getting murdered in detail. There was exactly one scenario that was any fun. The setup was a Havenite destroyer division on patrol near the hyper limit when a Manty DD division makes a bad translation and ends up scattered randomly over the map. That led to some fun games, but nothing else did. I only played a couple of 1e scenarios and it was just, as you said, super un-fun. Probably didn't help that I was playing against someone who had played it before so I didn't know the One Strat and ate a Legendary Defeat. It was kind of a shame as I would love a real good 4x board game. Relatedly, I was amused that when they were making SITS they found a lot of inconsistencies with ship's purported stats that Weber provided and how he described them in the books. Like for example, a ship is described as 'heavily armed for its class', but the actual stats provided portrayed it as the lightest armed of its class.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 05:56
|
|
|
Kchama posted:As for the 'rapist villains', there's a lot, but they tend to be one-shot villains more or less. Haven's villains, aka the early ones, tended to be better because they had to be threats to Honor, and not just useless rapists like Pavel. Also I don't think you mean Houseman, as he was absolutely not a rapist. But when you think of 'rapist pedophile villain', it is pretty much everyone in the Mesan Alignment and their lackeys in the Solarian League. Admiral Filaretta was one, for example. Basically anyone who is in their pack is revealed to be one, which is why it gets to be a little tedious. Houseman's not a rapist, but he is two-dimensional and without redeeming qualities (taking "does not rape" to be the absence of a negative quality rather than the presence of a positive one), which is why I included him. And I'm gonna disagree again. I can't think of a single character in the Mesan Alignment proper who's described as a rapist and/or pedophile, in their own persons. There's... let me see... Jack McBryde, Herlander Simoes, Isabel Bardasano, Aldona Anisimovna, the Detweilers as previously mentioned, the secret council of heads of state all named after film directors, none of whom are pedophiles or rapists to my recollection. (Admittedly, they do at least tolerate the institutional child-rape carried out by Manpower as part of the sex-slave "training"  , but that all happens at several removes from them.)Nor do I recall them being terribly common in the Solarian League, either, the notable exception being, as you say, Filareta. However—and I can't believe I'm saying this about a canonical pedophile—does he really qualify as a villain, in terms of his presentation in the books? His crimes are all described at a remove, making them easy to forget, while his onscreen behavior is consistent with Weber's Noble & Reasonable Enemy OfficerTM stock character—he resents the stupid orders he's given (from both sets of masters), does his best to mitigate their consequences on his subordinates, makes sure they're as well prepared as they can be, and in the end it's only Alignment intervention that keeps him from surrendering his fleet intact to the Manticore-Haven alliance to protect his crews' lives—intervention which takes the form not of blackmail directed at him personally, but of having one of his staff dosed with motor-control nanotech that flushes all their missiles in a single launch and then triggers the bomb that was secretly installed inside a computer terminal. TL;DR We're told about his vice (and it is a doozy), but all we get to see are his virtues.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 07:52
|
|
|
I'm gonna be frank: You're not wrong that we never see any of these people directly connected to the rapist pedophiles outside of Filarata himself. Even he only has it show up as a last second thing so we can be sure he's a super bad guy and deserves death. But the fact that they run a society of pedophile rapists means that you're just expected to have a permanent disdain and hatred of them, like basically every character in the setting that is suppose to be good.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 09:17
|
|
|
Kchama posted:I can see it. I've always wanted to give Starfire a try sometime, but like, it's impossible to find other people to play it with, and it doesn't seem that fun to play it alone. I've thought about doing some kind of LP on the forums, mostly focusing on the strategic (like Aurora LPs, obv), but I've foundered on the tactical stuff, because it boils down to the same issue with SITS 1e--everything is in a giant stack or two and it's just kinda dull. They've made noises about trying to shift away from Doomstacking, but I don't think they've achieved it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 15:39
|
|
|
Kchama posted:I'm gonna be frank: You're not wrong that we never see any of these people directly connected to the rapist pedophiles outside of Filarata himself. Even he only has it show up as a last second thing so we can be sure he's a super bad guy and deserves death. But the fact that they run a society of pedophile rapists means that you're just expected to have a permanent disdain and hatred of them, like basically every character in the setting that is suppose to be good. That's pretty much exactly the standpoint the protagonists take. Perhaps the least evil of the main on-screen Alignment people we see are the McBride Brothers, and Jack was introduced in the story to deal with the consequences of euthanizing a preteen girl who was created as a lab rat to test a very risky genetic modification. Her father's work is suffering, and his grief is starting to inconvenience the people who matter. He sees nothing wrong with this until spending enough time with the father to see her as a child instead of a lab rat. Either Cachat or Zilwicki straight up state that his decision to defect didn't come close to redeeming him, and he was going to have to spend a long time trying to buy his soul back. Then you have people like Detwiler who casually ordered a planet glassed because it was inconvenient, and "reluctantly" set off nukes that killed millions of Mesans to hide the fact that he and his followers were going into hiding. The best that can be said about him is that he knew how to die. Weber's said that the Alignment has a point about the genetic engineering ban, but neither he or Flint have ever depicted their current state as anything but monstrous. That said, pretty much all of them are fairly realized characters, not 2d cutouts. Which was Anshu's original point.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 16:17
|
|
|
Gnoman posted:That's pretty much exactly the standpoint the protagonists take. I'm gonna have to disagree that the Alphabet Hitlers are realized characters. But that's basically my entire point. They're all immediately painted with the brush of their society so there's not really any work to be done to show how cartoonishly evil they are (and some of them are extremely cartoonishly evil on top of that). The Mesan Alignment are not good villains and 90% of the Alphabet Hitlers have little more than "shows up at a meeting and talks evilly for evil reasons" as the bulk of their character. They keep going on about their secret plans but like, they straight up admit they have zero chance to win in their current position, which you would think would be their position of power. I expected them loving off in Uncompromising Honor would have resulted in a long time skip and not a "one year later, they're getting hunted down" book. Also I was looking it up, and how the gently caress does Weber expect to get 20 more books out of the Honorverse???????? Uncompromising Honor defanged all foes pretty decisively, unless the Grand Alliance is going to turn into the Triple Backstabbing Club. Still dunno why Haven didn't pull that at the end of Uncompromising Honor. They have extremely good reasons to hate Manticore and Honor, especially Theisman.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 17:00
|
|
|
Hypnobeard posted:I've thought about doing some kind of LP on the forums, mostly focusing on the strategic (like Aurora LPs, obv), but I've foundered on the tactical stuff, because it boils down to the same issue with SITS 1e--everything is in a giant stack or two and it's just kinda dull. They've made noises about trying to shift away from Doomstacking, but I don't think they've achieved it. You could also do a Battle Royale between goon-design fleets. That was the big draw of the original Pocket Game version. Either get goons in Discord somewhere or some loon takes two fleets and mashes them together.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 17:49
|
|
|
So Weber's original plan of killing Honor would have had a ~20 year timeskip to turn her kids into cadets/ensigns and turn the young characters at that point (like Anton's daughter) into ship captains to create new focus characters. He chickened out on killing her but I also assumed the ending of *Uncompromising Honor* was still setting up the timeskip to happen.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 17:54
|
|
|
FuturePastNow posted:So Weber's original plan of killing Honor would have had a ~20 year timeskip to turn her kids into cadets/ensigns and turn the young characters at that point (like Anton's daughter) into ship captains to create new focus characters. He chickened out on killing her but I also assumed the ending of *Uncompromising Honor* was still setting up the timeskip to happen. Apparently not as To End In Fire is less than a year later and is about getting the Solarian League to realize Mesans are bad and help go after them. Hypnobeard posted:I've thought about doing some kind of LP on the forums, mostly focusing on the strategic (like Aurora LPs, obv), but I've foundered on the tactical stuff, because it boils down to the same issue with SITS 1e--everything is in a giant stack or two and it's just kinda dull. They've made noises about trying to shift away from Doomstacking, but I don't think they've achieved it. I mean I guess it shouldn't be surprising that Doomstacking is paramount as Doomstacking is basically the thing in the Weberverse thanks to how everything works, even though nobody really seems to take advantage of it until missile pods come around. Kchama fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jan 11, 2022 |
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 18:01
|
|
|
Chapter Eighteen I'm gonna try something new for this chapter. I'll basically paraphrase it and add in my comments, and then quote choice paragraphs. I hope it'll make the Let's Reads more interesting. Honor lands on Grayson and meets up with the lovely captain she had met before, but things are too tense for it to matter. quote:That, she thought bitterly as he escorted her stiffly to a ground car, was one good thing about a first-class military disaster. Like the prospect of hanging, it concentrated one's thoughts wonderfully. When would Honor ever face the prospect of a hanging before this time. Like, I know Weber wants to be evocative, but I'm pretty sure they establish that Manticore doesn't hang people for its death penalty, unless she's expecting Grayson to hang her. Manticore as far as I know primarily spaces people or shoots them. Granted, I think this was before the books established anything about the death penalty in the setting beyond the fact that Grayson hangs people. Nimitz is all nervous, and also Weber somehow makes me annoyed and roll my eyes at a cat analogue showing up on screen. Honor had gotten the briefing from Grayson and it's "these people want to kill us and the only person who can protect us is a WOMAN". She's upset when she notices her mentor Courvosier being missing from where he should be. Which is perfectly reasonable. Though the description of him sure is a little off. quote:The car arrived at the Embassy, and she swallowed fresh anguish as she saw Sir Anthony Langtry waiting alone. There should have been another figure beside the tall, broad ambassador. A small figure, with Puck's face and a special smile for her. Like I'm gonna be honest, I have no idea how to visualize 'Puck's face' (I assume he means the Shakespearean one, but that doesn't narrow it down at all) or this special smile. Their relationship really isn't ever elaborated on beyond the bare necessities, and stuff like this makes me wonder what was intended, especially considering later developments. She greets Langtry, who had been a Marine Colonel. Is it normal for important ambassadors to be ex-military? I mean I guess someone has to be good and correct, and it sure as heck ain't gonna be the effete leftist commie traitor Houseman. He's a big dumb dick, who must be properly chastised so he's the obedient loser, which will change in later books when Weber needs another loser domestic villain. With Grayson's Admiral Garret refusing to come out and play, and Houseman demanding an evacuation of Manticorean personnel, which Honor puts him in his place by noting that he's a coward who wants to be evacuated. Like... yeah? Like, taking the military people would be a mistake, but throwing the civilians out would probably be for the better over all. quote:Houseman's head jerked back up at the bottomless, icy contempt in that soft soprano voice. He recoiled for just a second, then slammed a fist on the conference table and yanked himself erect. Someone pointed it out to me, but man Weber loves his variations on 'blue' 'icy' and 'contempt' as descriptions of Manticoreans reacting to people. I am unsure if he knows any other adjectives. Also, Honor's voice being described as a soprano makes me wonder if he's actually heard a soprano voice before. He always emphasizes it alongside "icy blue contempt", which makes me think that he just has a character sheet and Honor's specifically says "icy blue contempt, soprano voice". Knowing my soprano-rear end voice, it comes off as silly. Anyways, Langtry steps in to overrule Houseman, who has a tantrum, because he's a very one-note character. quote:Houseman swelled with fury, and the corner of Honor's mouth twitched as her own rage raced to meet his. After all his cultured contempt for the military, all his smug assumption of his own superior place in the scheme of things, all he could think of now was to order that same despised military to save his precious skin! The polished, sophisticated surface had cracked, and behind it was an ugly, personal cowardice Honor was supremely ill-equipped to understand, much less sympathize with. You know, I don't think there's a single 'military man with wrong-headed sneering contempt for civilians' in this series. Any time sneering contempt is provided, it is always because the civilian is a coward or doesn't give the military a big enough budget (even though frankly before long Manticore's budget has got to be almost entirely military expenses). Civilians are only correct if they're the agree with the military 100% or are the ones who want to give the military a bigger budget and the military is run by evil liberal traitors who think the military being 99% of the budget is bad. quote:Her raw fury slunk back into the caves of her mind, still flexing its claws and snarling, but no longer in control, and her voice was cold and distant . . . and cruel. Honor's legendary rage! Which mostly just gets the results she wants and only inconveniences her when it's good for the plot. Does it impede her here? Nope. It utterly defeats Houseman and immediately earns her everyone that matters's respect, including the head Grayson there who suddenly sees her as a TRUE QUEEN'S OFFICER and no longer as a woman. Because that's all it takes to undo centuries of bigotry. quote:Yes, Sir—Ma'am." Brentworth corrected himself quickly, but there was no more hesitation in him. He actually grinned a little at his slip. But then his grin faded. "With all due respect, Captain Harrington, that's not going to be easy. Admiral Garret is . . . well, he's extremely conservative, and I think-" He gathered himself. "I think the situation is so bad he's not thinking very clearly, Captain." Anyways, just some good bonding sexism. Langtry immediately says that Garret doesn't want to give up his command to a foreign captain, and Honor protests that she wasn't going to assume command and Langry just says that 'of course you are'. quote:"Yes, Ma'am," Brentworth said promptly, though manifestly against his will. He paused and cleared his throat. "Captain Harrington, there isn't a man in Grayson uniform who's more devoted to the safety of this planet, but . . . but he isn't the man for this job." Bigotry cured in just five seconds by his reflexive 'yes, ma'am' that he absolutely shouldn't have. They start trying to figure out who they can go to to overrule Admiral Garret. quote:"The Protector?" Honor cocked an eyebrow at Langtry. "That's a thought. Why don't we ask Protector Benjamin to intervene?" Good that the military is sworn to the person who currently only has ceremonial powers but if he ever wanted to exert his official powers would be easily able to, as everyone is loyal to him personally. So the Protector is just a King with a fancy title, since he can just do whatever the gently caress he wants and no one else with power can stop him if he doesn't want them to. Langtry wants to put it through the Chancellor and the Council to talk to the Protector, which seems uncharacteristically dumb of him considering they were just talking about how they need to talk to the Protector directly to get permission to go over everyone else's heads so Honor can quickly take command. quote:But what else can we do?" Considering he was just characterized as approving of Honor beating the hell out of a diplomat to get her way, and going above the head of the military heads to find someone who'd give permission for them to take over, but talking to the Protector is something he's gasping and shouting is out of the question? Everything they're doing is basically out of the question. Why is this random Grayson officer more willing to do everything Honor says and not the military dude who is 100% on her side? quote:"All right then. Ambassador, you're going to tell the Grayson government that unless I'm allowed a direct, personal meeting with Protector Benjamin, I will have no alternative but to assume that Grayson doesn't feel it requires my services, in which case I will have no option but to evacuate all Manticoran subjects and withdraw from Yeltsin within the next twelve hours." "Might as well throw their government into complete chaos to officially put a monarch on the throne while we're at it. I love monarchs. Monarchs rule. Everyone is better with a dictator at the top." Meh. And just gotta get in one last dig at Houseman. Just like that doctor lady from the first book, even though they're clearly made out to be stupid, terrible people, the fact that the book works so hard to make as many petty digs at them as possible just makes me roll my eyes and think the author sucks. Anyways, that's the chapter. Let me know if this is better or worse.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 18:42
|
|
|
Kchama posted:When would Honor ever face the prospect of a hanging before this time. Like, I know Weber wants to be evocative, but I'm pretty sure they establish that Manticore doesn't hang people for its death penalty, unless she's expecting Grayson to hang her. It's a reference to an extremely famous quote. Samuel Johnson posted:Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. quote:Like I'm gonna be honest, I have no idea how to visualize 'Puck's face' (I assume he means the Shakespearean one, but that doesn't narrow it down at all) or this special smile. Their relationship really isn't ever elaborated on beyond the bare necessities, and stuff like this makes me wonder what was intended, especially considering later developments. "Puckish" is commonly used to mean "playful, especially in a mischievous way". So she's saying that Courvosier's face is usually full of humor and has a bit of slyness. quote:She greets Langtry, who had been a Marine Colonel. Is it normal for important ambassadors to be ex-military? I mean I guess someone has to be good and correct, and it sure as heck ain't gonna be the effete leftist commie traitor Houseman. He's a big dumb dick, who must be properly chastised so he's the obedient loser, which will change in later books when Weber needs another loser domestic villain. With Grayson's Admiral Garret refusing to come out and play, and Houseman demanding an evacuation of Manticorean personnel, which Honor puts him in his place by noting that he's a coward who wants to be evacuated. Like... yeah? Like, taking the military people would be a mistake, but throwing the civilians out would probably be for the better over all. There's mention later on that Manticore has a tendency to nominate former military to important diplomatic posts. Additionally, way back at the start of this book it is mentioned that Courvosier is selected for the special mission because the Graysons respect a military man. As to the second point, Houseman isn't simply demanding the civilians be evacuated. They're already doing that (further down, after the Incident). quote:Now, then, Sir Anthony," she said more calmly, "Commander Truman is already working on plans to evacuate your staff's dependents. In addition, we'll need the names and locations of all other Manticoran subjects on Grayson. I believe we can fit everyone into the freighters, but they were never designed as transports. Facilities are going to be cramped and primitive, and Commander Truman needs the total number of evacuees as soon as possible." He's ordering her to pull out everything, including her warships, and abandon Grayson entirely. quote:"Don't you take that tone with me, Captain! With Admiral Courvosier's death, I am the senior member of the delegation to Grayson. I'll thank you to bear that in mind and attend to my instructions!" An order he explicitly doesn't have the authority to give. quote:Honor's legendary rage! Which mostly just gets the results she wants and only inconveniences her when it's good for the plot. Does it impede her here? Nope. It utterly defeats Houseman and immediately earns her everyone that matters's respect, including the head Grayson there who suddenly sees her as a TRUE QUEEN'S OFFICER and no longer as a woman. Because that's all it takes to undo centuries of bigotry. Pretty much everything that happens to her over the next four or five books happens because of this slap. The admiral in command in the next book dismisses a plan she was involved with creating partially because this incident (along with the blowup at Hauptman in the previous book and a later one in this one) convinced him that she has poor judgement. Which is far from an unreasonable response - it does show poor judgement. This sets up the outmatched final battle, which sets up Young's cowardice in action, which sets up the paid assassin plot, which leads to her basically being thrown out of the Fleet. quote:Good that the military is sworn to the person who currently only has ceremonial powers but if he ever wanted to exert his official powers would be easily able to, as everyone is loyal to him personally. So the Protector is just a King with a fancy title, since he can just do whatever the gently caress he wants and no one else with power can stop him if he doesn't want them to. The Protector isn't supposed to have only ceremonial power. That's the point of the "written constitution" vs "unwritten constitution" section. The 80ish absolute dictators that rule the planet (Steadholders have absolute authority in their territory, limited only by the planet's Constitution, which is enforced by the Protector that they've sidelined) have bypassed his legal powers, but they're all still there if he can manage to use them. The closest analog is the Meji Restoration, with the Protector as Emperor and the Steadholders in the role of Daimyo, but that isn't an exact parallel. quote:Considering he was just characterized as approving of Honor beating the hell out of a diplomat to get her way, and going above the head of the military heads to find someone who'd give permission for them to take over, but talking to the Protector is something he's gasping and shouting is out of the question? Everything they're doing is basically out of the question. Why is this random Grayson officer more willing to do everything Honor says and not the military dude who is 100% on her side? Slapping Houseman is an internal matter that isn't his responsibility. Any poo poo that gets splashed around on it will land entirely on her. Allowing her to bully a foreign head of state is his responsibility, and he'll take the blame if that goes wrong. It is only human for that to change how you view things. As for the Grayson being more on her side, he sees her as the only thing that stands between his planet and complete and utter defeat. Defeat by an enemy that considers his entire planet to be fallen from God's grace and every defender of that planet (himself included) to be in league with Satan. quote:"Might as well throw their government into complete chaos to officially put a monarch on the throne while we're at it. I love monarchs. Monarchs rule. Everyone is better with a dictator at the top." Meh. Grayson is already a theocratic dictatorship. Bringing the Protector to greater power reduces the power of the Steadholders (and, it is later mentioned, gives the currently powerless elected governmental body power).
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 19:38
|
|
|
Gnoman posted:It's a reference to an extremely famous quote. But the problem is, is that it's not a reference that makes sense for Honor to make right here. She's not going to a hanging, or even an execution. Nor is she presenting it as a reference. It's just thrown out there, I guess to show that Honor knows 2000 year old quotes. quote:"Puckish" is commonly used to mean "playful, especially in a mischievous way". So she's saying that Courvosier's face is usually full of humor and has a bit of slyness. I do know what 'puckish' means, I just want to know what 'Puck's face, with a special smile for her' is suppose to look like, because that's a description that need more to it. quote:There's mention later on that Manticore has a tendency to nominate former military to important diplomatic posts. Additionally, way back at the start of this book it is mentioned that Courvosier is selected for the special mission because the Graysons respect a military man. I mean, naturally Manticore worships the military and doesn't know a boot it wouldn't kiss, but this really seems like a bad idea unless you just plan on having ambassadors who specialize in getting you into wars. Which I guess is intended as Manticore does invade basically everyone they can later and everyone has learned how to sneer with blue icy contempt, though I assume without the soprano voice. quote:As to the second point, Houseman isn't simply demanding the civilians be evacuated. They're already doing that (further down, after the Incident). Let me just say that this is correct. I forgot to mention that, because I got distracted. My apologies. quote:Pretty much everything that happens to her over the next four or five books happens because of this slap. The admiral in command in the next book dismisses a plan she was involved with creating partially because this incident (along with the blowup at Hauptman in the previous book and a later one in this one) convinced him that she has poor judgement. Which is far from an unreasonable response - it does show poor judgement. This sets up the outmatched final battle, which sets up Young's cowardice in action, which sets up the paid assassin plot, which leads to her basically being thrown out of the Fleet. I mean, this is what I'm talking about. The trouble it causes is convenient for the plot. It doesn't give her trouble immediately and cause failure at a critical time. It just allows Weber to set up events that happen later on that largely benefit Honor in the long run (even if she wouldn't see Paul's death as such, naturally). quote:The Protector isn't supposed to have only ceremonial power. That's the point of the "written constitution" vs "unwritten constitution" section. The 80ish absolute dictators that rule the planet (Steadholders have absolute authority in their territory, limited only by the planet's Constitution, which is enforced by the Protector that they've sidelined) have bypassed his legal powers, but they're all still there if he can manage to use them. The closest analog is the Meji Restoration, with the Protector as Emperor and the Steadholders in the role of Daimyo, but that isn't an exact parallel. I was talking out-of-universe, that everything is set up to make it very easy for Benjamin to gain supreme power without any muss or fuss legally. He has immense written power so that when push comes to shove he wins easily. It doesn't really make sense that these 80 absolute dictators didn't actually bother to entrench their power any, and the moment a crisis happens whoops suddenly they have no power if the Protector has any say. quote:Slapping Houseman is an internal matter that isn't his responsibility. Any poo poo that gets splashed around on it will land entirely on her. Allowing her to bully a foreign head of state is his responsibility, and he'll take the blame if that goes wrong. It is only human for that to change how you view things. Houseman is his subordinate in the diplomatic team, so Honor beating the poo poo out of him while he watches would be actually his responsibility. But, he's already allowing for the bullying. He's just suddenly getting cold feet about actually going directly to him instead of asking the Council for permission first. Which seems out of character for a dude who has been presented as totally knowing the stakes and knowing that they have no time to waste. It's less him disapproving of putting a gun to Grayson's head, and more him going "Okay let's skip up the chain because we have no time to waste. I guess the Protector is the only one with the power we're interested in. WOAH WOAH WE HAVE TO WASTE SEVERAL DAYS TO DO THIS NOW OKAY." is the dumb part. quote:As for the Grayson being more on her side, he sees her as the only thing that stands between his planet and complete and utter defeat. Defeat by an enemy that considers his entire planet to be fallen from God's grace and every defender of that planet (himself included) to be in league with Satan. I didn't actually say he was wrong to be on her side, I was more talking about how he seems to have shed centuries of encoded bigotry to suddenly become enlightened to become a yes-man for Honor. quote:Grayson is already a theocratic dictatorship. Bringing the Protector to greater power reduces the power of the Steadholders (and, it is later mentioned, gives the currently powerless elected governmental body power). Which only makes it more of a theocratic dictatorship, which is, as we know, good and cool and never a problem.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 20:43
|
|
|
Kchama posted:But the problem is, is that it's not a reference that makes sense for Honor to make right here. She's not going to a hanging, or even an execution. Nor is she presenting it as a reference. It's just thrown out there, I guess to show that Honor knows 2000 year old quotes. The original quote wasn't about a literal hanging either. It was about how an imminent crisis captures your attention. quote:I mean, naturally Manticore worships the military and doesn't know a boot it wouldn't kiss, but this really seems like a bad idea unless you just plan on having ambassadors who specialize in getting you into wars. Why would you assume that a military man is likelier to get you into war than any other ambassador? The vast majority of wars in history were started because politicians or nobility decided that they wanted a a war, or because they thought they could bully their way into getting what they wanted and the other guy didn't back down, or because they were riding the edge of crisis for domestic ends and some long-running crisis boiled over. The only war I can think of off hand that was started by military men was the series of Japan-China conflicts that boiled over into the Pacific Theater of the Second World War. [/quote] quote:I was talking out-of-universe, that everything is set up to make it very easy for Benjamin to gain supreme power without any muss or fuss legally. He has immense written power so that when push comes to shove he wins easily. It doesn't really make sense that these 80 absolute dictators didn't actually bother to entrench their power any, and the moment a crisis happens whoops suddenly they have no power if the Protector has any say. They thought they had entrenched their power. They had effective total control of all government agencies and the aid of the Chancellor. Actually amending or abolishing the Constitution would have been politically expensive, and they didn't really need to as long as they didn't get the unlucky combination of an existential threat with a strong Protector. They wound up with just that. quote:Houseman is his subordinate in the diplomatic team, so Honor beating the poo poo out of him while he watches would be actually his responsibility. No, he's not. He's the standing ambassador, while Houseman was the second-in-command of a special mission. They work out of the same office, but they're not under each other. quote:But, he's already allowing for the bullying. He's just suddenly getting cold feet about actually going directly to him instead of asking the Council for permission first. Which seems out of character for a dude who has been presented as totally knowing the stakes and knowing that they have no time to waste. It's less him disapproving of putting a gun to Grayson's head, and more him going "Okay let's skip up the chain because we have no time to waste. I guess the Protector is the only one with the power we're interested in. WOAH WOAH WE HAVE TO WASTE SEVERAL DAYS TO DO THIS NOW OKAY." is the dumb part. There's degrees of insult. Going through channels to ask for a meeting where you can ask him to overrule his senior military officer is the diplomatic equivalent of throwing mud at the Protector. What Honor's proposing is the diplomatic equivalent of kicking the Protector in the balls and spitting in his face. quote:I didn't actually say he was wrong to be on her side, I was more talking about how he seems to have shed centuries of encoded bigotry to suddenly become enlightened to become a yes-man for Honor. This is besides the issue (which I've brought up before) that Grayson as a whole is far more sexist in this book than in any later one, and I think that's a result of Weber screwing this one up or changing his mind and failing to properly edit it. quote:Which only makes it more of a theocratic dictatorship, which is, as we know, good and cool and never a problem. Mayhew's entire goal is to reform Grayson away from the backward social structures baked into the system. Just breaking the power of the Keys and restoring the written constitution gives real power to the Council of Steaders (which, admittedly, we never see do much, because we don't see a lot of the civilian side of Grayson), bringing the planet from "absolutely no democracy of any kind" to "some democracy, even if less than ideal".
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 21:09
|
|
|
Gnoman posted:The original quote wasn't about a literal hanging either. It was about how an imminent crisis captures your attention. It was actually in context of a 'sermon' from a prisoner about to be hanged that Samuel Johnson had ghost-written for a priest, so I think making a hanging reference while trying to convince your friends that the priest's sermon wasn't ghost-written is pretty apt in that situation. quote:Why would you assume that a military man is likelier to get you into war than any other ambassador? The vast majority of wars in history were started because politicians or nobility decided that they wanted a a war, or because they thought they could bully their way into getting what they wanted and the other guy didn't back down, or because they were riding the edge of crisis for domestic ends and some long-running crisis boiled over. The only war I can think of off hand that was started by military men was the series of Japan-China conflicts that boiled over into the Pacific Theater of the Second World War. You might be surprised to find out that for a long time in history, the nobility and politicians WERE the military. That was, in fact, the entire basis of feudalism. And let me tell you, there was a lot of wars when feudalism reigned. Never mind that uhh... military men causing wars is like, a long-standing tradition of the entire world. You might know a few of these people, like Alexander The Great, or even good ole Elwell Stephen Otis if you want a very good American example. quote:They thought they had entrenched their power. They had effective total control of all government agencies and the aid of the Chancellor. Actually amending or abolishing the Constitution would have been politically expensive, and they didn't really need to as long as they didn't get the unlucky combination of an existential threat with a strong Protector. They wound up with just that. Politically expensive how? They have had defacto rule for a century+. At a certain point, the written constitution isn't going to matter and they'd just tear it up. Dictators aren't just going to let the military be in the hands of someone else. quote:No, he's not. He's the standing ambassador, while Houseman was the second-in-command of a special mission. They work out of the same office, but they're not under each other. So yes, Houseman is his subordinate in this special mission. He has responsibility for Houseman, good and ill. quote:There's degrees of insult. Going through channels to ask for a meeting where you can ask him to overrule his senior military officer is the diplomatic equivalent of throwing mud at the Protector. What Honor's proposing is the diplomatic equivalent of kicking the Protector in the balls and spitting in his face. Funny that the moment bigotry could ruin everything, it is 100% discarded. In fact, all Admiral Garret's bigotry does is help Honor in the long run, because it means she gets to go make nicety nice with the Protector and become his best friend. It's just incredibly convenient how bigotry works in this book. I think it's about the same in the future books, where the bigotry ebbs and flows based on what makes Weber's plans work. quote:This is besides the issue (which I've brought up before) that Grayson as a whole is far more sexist in this book than in any later one, and I think that's a result of Weber screwing this one up or changing his mind and failing to properly edit it. Honestly I don't think we can say whether or not they actually gained any power because Weber never deals with civilians in any way, and in fact even in Manticore there's no real civilian government to speak of. Both Grayson and Manticore can be on total war footing for decades and enjoy deliriously happy approval ratings as long as the right Steely Jawed Monarchists are in charge.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2022 23:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 02:05 |
|
|
Kchama posted:You might be surprised to find out that for a long time in history, the nobility and politicians WERE the military. That was, in fact, the entire basis of feudalism. And let me tell you, there was a lot of wars when feudalism reigned. No, that isn't how feudalism worked. A feudal lord would be expected to provide troops to his higher liege, but that's not the same thing as him being the military any more than Dweight Eisenhower was the military after becoming President. Or, for that matter, calling Elizabeth II the military because she happened to serve during WWII before becoming Queen. quote:Politically expensive how? They have had defacto rule for a century+. At a certain point, the written constitution isn't going to matter and they'd just tear it up. Dictators aren't just going to let the military be in the hands of someone else. Politically expensive with the other absolute dictators who are likely to he as suspicious of you trying to become the new Protector as they are devoted to keeping the existing Protector weak. They Keys are not a single united entity. This sort of dynamic played out in many historical monarchies.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2022 03:46
|
|