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General Battuta posted:She righteously demanded that Earth self destruct every single item of spaceborne technology in the system except for habitats. Earth was cowed by her overwhelming moral superiority and complied. Moral or missile? I can’t remember, they’re so easy to confuse. I remember reading this and thinking "What's the death toll for this going to be" Isn't Earth depicted of having a population of something like 12+ Billion people that presumably rely a lot on that industry to, you know, keep living. Not starve to death, that sort of thing.
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Apr 10, 2020 09:43
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New thread rule for the next 2 pages or so: Going forward, anytime someone mentions David Webers "Manticore" they must, I repeat MUST include a link to this relevant video in their post. https://carjoemez.com/2016/07/22/the-legend-of-montecore/ Someone better at the internet please re-upload that clip to youtube. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 14:37 on Apr 10, 2020 |
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Apr 10, 2020 14:35
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Some people might like (and others might hate) this video, by James Tullos, looking at fascist themes in science fiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vph_cDjcgEE It singles out Heinlein's "Starship Troopers", David Weber and Steve White's "Crusade", "In Death Ground", "The Shiva Option" and "Insurrection", S M Sterling's "Islands in the Sea of Time", Jack Campbell's "The Lost Fleet", and Tom Kratman's "Caliphate".
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Apr 10, 2020 21:20
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Epicurius posted:Some people might like (and others might hate) this video, by James Tullos, looking at fascist themes in science fiction: Honestly surprised the Draka series didn't get a nod.
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Apr 10, 2020 21:50
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Have we mentioned Lord of the Iron Swastika yet?
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Apr 10, 2020 22:11
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Epicurius posted:It singles out Heinlein's "Starship Troopers"... Which isn't fascist by his own definition.
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Apr 10, 2020 23:04
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mllaneza posted:Which isn't fascist by his own definition. Maybe not, but it is militarist and authoritarian.
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Apr 10, 2020 23:19
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I've posted the first three chapters of Mission of Honor Retold. I'm ashamed to reveal how many more chapters I have done.
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Apr 11, 2020 18:11
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^^^ Technically that post qualifies for the Manticore = Montecore video thread rule, however I'll let whatever mods read this thread decide the punishment needed. https://carjoemez.com/2016/07/22/the-legend-of-montecore/ Forgot to mention Blakes 7, the '70s-'80's british scifi tv series about a space counter-revolution in my earlier post about various tv series, books and movies that qualify as mil-fiction/mil-scifi. The Mullet Wars aka the movie legally titled Chappie definitely qualifies as mil-scifi, it's got one giant-rear end mecha, mullets, explosions, more mullets, humanoid battlebots, and warcrimes of all kinds going down in south africa. The Lawgiver pistol is probably the most iconic Judge Dredd weapon. However anytime the 2000 AD writers remember the Long rifle or the stub gun exists, and incorporate them into the action I get a sense of glee. My favorite Judge Dredd storyline always wavers in between Cursed Earth, Block Mania, and the Chopper/SuperSurf arcs, while "Portrait of a Politician" remains one the best mini-stories Judge Dredd barely appears in.
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Apr 12, 2020 05:24
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quantumfoam posted:^^^ Reversal of fortune! That's too much like hard work, so, until the end of the next page, if anyone posts about Manticore and doesn't include the video, you must quote their post and add the video. Failure will be rewarded with a six hour vacation in which to ponder the authority OPs have to create thread rules. You are allowed to post the video once in reply to multiple posts, but don't push your luck... Notice to other posters: don't report quantumfoam if he doesn't post the video, that'll just make work for the actual mod. I'll keep an eye out for violations myself.
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Apr 12, 2020 14:03
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Safety Biscuits posted:Reversal of fortune! Triple betrayal fandago! *cough* https://carjoemez.com/2016/07/22/the-legend-of-montecore/ Falcon screech! I will be the happiest person in this Book Barn sub-forum if the whimsical thread rule I randomly invoked never gets enforced with probes. My past few posts in this thread have been seeded with alternate discussion topics. Going to seed a few more. For example, a PhD thesis in cinema could be written about the mullet hairstyles in Chappie and what role the mullets play in the social dynamics of Chappie. Deon for example has no mullet what so ever, and gets owned by everyone in the movie. Chappie has no mullet or hair at all since he's a robot, though the gangsta spraypaint job sort of gives him a mullet paintjob. mil-fiction: There are a few books about Carlos Hathcock, vietnam war era USMC sniper. The ones I read (One Shot-One Kill, White Feather) were quasi fiction quasi biographical novel. Wondering how much them was real and how much was Chris Kyle bullshit. Didn't Mythbusters try to bust the "counter-snipe a sniper by shooting through the scope of the other sniper" myth? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 12, 2020 18:35
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If you don't want anyone posting about Honor Harrington maybe change the thread title.
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Apr 12, 2020 19:01
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mllaneza posted:The Bolo anthologies from Baen also have some legit good stories in them. There are of course a few stinkers, but on the whole they're great. I should do a review or overview of the series. Yes, you should! I'd be happy to read your thoughts on them.
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Apr 13, 2020 07:23
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quantumfoam posted:mil-fiction: There are a few books about Carlos Hathcock, vietnam war era USMC sniper. The ones I read (One Shot-One Kill, White Feather) were quasi fiction quasi biographical novel. Wondering how much them was real and how much was Chris Kyle bullshit. Didn't Mythbusters try to bust the "counter-snipe a sniper by shooting through the scope of the other sniper" myth? They did it twice, first debunking it and then saying it was plausible, IIRC because in the first try they used a modern commercial scope instead of a PU scope that would have been supplied alongside a Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle and has fewer lenses inside it, and were using hollow point rounds instead of FMJ. Hathcock, like Hayha and Zaitszev, is likely a victim of post-facto exaggeration and mythologizing from sniper fanboys. And if it's anything like tank and air kill claims, reduce any non-confirmed kills by like 50-75%.
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Apr 13, 2020 08:50
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Gnoman posted:The House of Lords has as much power as the US Senate. Or, for a more direct analogy, the British House Of Lords - which was also a "all nobles are members" body prior to 1999. Which is the exact model that Weber based it on. If the vast majority of Manticorans are disenfranchised, so were the majority of the British until 20 years ago. Somehow, I doubt many would agree with that position. This is a terrible analogy because the British House of Lords in 1999 was very different from the British House of Lords before 1910 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_Act_1911 Before which it was something like as powerful as the US Senate while being completely unelected, after which, and after an election and constitutional crisis it became much much less powerful - able only to delay legislation not veto it. Learn a little UK history if you're going to post about its constitution. feedmegin fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Apr 13, 2020 |
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Apr 13, 2020 11:37
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Just to take advantage of monticore rules... HONOR OF THE QUEEN CHAPTER SIX quote:"I don't like it. I don't like it at all, Mr. Ambassador." I actually don't really get the worry here. Haven wants rich or at least systems with some sort of extractable wealth, which Grayson does not have one bit. Supposedly Yeltsin's Star has 'strategic value' because it's close to Manticore and thus can be used as a vector for attack but... No, it really has no value for that. Weber has this weird conception that you absolutely need a planet or star to anchor a fleet in, where there's really no need. Or that a system can be 'in the way'. And that's the reason why both parties want Grayson: It's between Manticore and Haven. quote:"You let me worry about that, Captain," Masterman responded with a slight smile. "Believe me, the situation's under control." "The last book's entire plot was incredibly dumb." Sure was, Masterman. Sure was. Also apparently Graysons have trouble with the idea of a female ruler despite the fact that they've been in pretty close contact with other systems enough that they send their rulers out to be educated 500 light years away. They're apparently so isolated and backwards that dealing with a female ruler is a real problem, but not so isolated and backwards that they've been dealing with places with female rulers for at least fifty years. quote:The captain's puzzlement was obvious, and Masterman sighed. "Here we casually chat about how we're evil. and villianous." The scene switches to Graysons and Manticoreans mingling. quote:" . . . and this is our combat information center, gentlemen." Andreas Venizelos was short by Manticoran standards, but he stood centimeters taller than the Grayson officers in the compartment as he gestured about himself at the shining efficiency. Anyways Graysons are actually cool guys and are perfect allies forever. quote:"I know they're different, Bernard, but we just have to make allowances." Benjamin Mayhew IX, Planetary Protector of Grayson, snipped another rose and laid it in the servant's basket, then turned to regard his naval commander in chief sternly. "You knew they had women in uniform. Surely you realized we'd have to deal with that sooner or later." Yanakov is actually a lot more interesting character than Mayhew, who is Generic Good Guy King. Oh, he's not a king just yet, but within a few books the other government bodies are stripped of power and he is 'restored' to true might. Yadda yadda I actually like Yanakov more than Mayhew. Yanakov is actually allowed to be imperfect and question Honor Harrington's status. Of course, he gets dragged in line as the book goes on. quote:"Manticore, of course. But what you or I believe isn't the issue. Most of my people are only too ready to see any woman as potentially dangerous in a command slot. Those who don't automatically assume they must be loose warheads are horrified by the thought of exposing women to combat, and real conservatives, like Garret and his crowd, are reacting on pure emotion, not reason. They see her as a calculated insult to our way of life—and if you think I'm making that up, you should have heard a little conversation I had with my ops officer! Under the circumstances, Haven's version of what happened only validates all three groups' concerns. And don't come down too heavily on my people, either! Some of your civilian types are even worse than anybody in the military, and you know it. Hell, what about Jared?" So that's the chapter. They're already talking about how they REALLY need a king. The chapter is okay. It actually does a lot more to set things than any chapter in On Basilisk Station, where outside of the prologue you don't ever get any sort of feel for the situation in Manticore or Haven. And hell, we currently know far more about Grayson than we do Manticore.
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Apr 13, 2020 21:49
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Kchama posted:I actually don't really get the worry here. Haven wants rich or at least systems with some sort of extractable wealth, which Grayson does not have one bit. Supposedly Yeltsin's Star has 'strategic value' because it's close to Manticore and thus can be used as a vector for attack but... No, it really has no value for that. Weber has this weird conception that you absolutely need a planet or star to anchor a fleet in, where there's really no need. Or that a system can be 'in the way'. And that's the reason why both parties want Grayson: It's between Manticore and Haven. You can't just park a real-world fleet in open ocean. They'll run out of fuel, regular wear and tear on the ships will eventually cripple them, and the crew will eventually go nuts from the confinement. So all RW ships are based at a port they can return to at need, even if they spend months at a time at sea. There's no reason to assume that this would not apply to ships in space regardless of advancing technology. We do see a fleet anchored around a planetless star exactly once in the series, which is described as an extreme measure to avoid detection. Once you accept that a fleet needs a base, the concept of a planet being "in the way" makes perfect sense. A fleet behind your front lines can cut your supply lines (yes, space is 3D, but even without the series conceit of grave waves, you'd have to go way out of your way to avoid this - the same reason convoys between Canada and Britain could be intercepeted despite having an entire ocean they could use to "go around" the U-boats - nobody was willing to tack on weeks or months to the voyage) strike at any outposts you've temporarily left weak, and make a major pain of itself in general. This, for example, is the entire reason the Japanese Empire went to war with the United States in 1941. All of the other issues could have been resolved, but the US-owned Philippines was in the way, and would be a perfect base to disrupt traffic in the empire that Japan was steadily conquering. So the Philippines had to be conquered, even at the risk of bringing the world's most powerful economy into the war.
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Apr 13, 2020 22:40
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Kchama posted:Also apparently Graysons have trouble with the idea of a female ruler despite the fact that they've been in pretty close contact with other systems enough that they send their rulers out to be educated 500 light years away. They're apparently so isolated and backwards that dealing with a female ruler is a real problem, but not so isolated and backwards that they've been dealing with places with female rulers for at least fifty years. This isn't exactly unprecedented on Earth, and we're a lot closer together than Honorverse planets.
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Apr 13, 2020 23:33
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General Battuta posted:This isn't exactly unprecedented on Earth, and we're a lot closer together than Honorverse planets. Back in 2016 I still heard people giving the old "We can't have a woman president! What if it's that time of the month?! She'll be irrational!" line. Hell, my mother said it. Kchama posted:Weber has this weird conception that you absolutely need a planet or star to anchor a fleet in, where there's really no need. The star gives your fleet the protection of a hyper limit. Without a gravity well to hide in, an enemy who learned the location of your fleet could just jump in directly on top of you and be in knife range before you had a chance to raise defenses and get people to battle stations and such.
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Apr 14, 2020 02:00
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Gnoman posted:You can't just park a real-world fleet in open ocean. They'll run out of fuel, regular wear and tear on the ships will eventually cripple them, and the crew will eventually go nuts from the confinement. So all RW ships are based at a port they can return to at need, even if they spend months at a time at sea. There's no reason to assume that this would not apply to ships in space regardless of advancing technology. We do see a fleet anchored around a planetless star exactly once in the series, which is described as an extreme measure to avoid detection. You don't need the base to be in a system. It makes it somewhat easier to base it, but you can just build a base where-ever the hell you want in space and put it on your maps. And with how far Honorverse ships can go, just because they are BETWEEN you and them doesn't mean you need to base there. If you want to attack you can just all set sail from where-ever and go directly there, or just park at some defended place you've set up in space if you need to rest for a bit. You wouldn't have to even go out of your way. That's the problem. If there's no wormhole, then 'strategic systems' don't exactly exist in the sense that Weber wants to provide. Hell, you don't even need a particularly well-established system if you want to set up a base if you absolutely need a planet for a base. But you don't. You can just FLY THERE directly. There is no comparison with Philippines or the Canada and Britain because space isn't just 3D. Space is HUGE. Drawing a line across the map does not mean you actually physically enter the system. Or get within lightyears of it. And interception is not a thing because you have to be VERY close to ships to see them at all in the grand scheme of space. It'd require a massive amount of probes just to cover one direction to detect incoming enemies, and without FTL comms it wouldn't give you that much time to react, certainly not enough. So a massive fleet just baring down on your homeworld would only be detected when it shows up in your home system. Weber's entire problem is that he is effectively trying to write actual water naval books and cram them into spaceship books. General Battuta posted:This isn't exactly unprecedented on Earth, and we're a lot closer together than Honorverse planets. I was more pointing out that they're basically not suppose to have ANY knowledge of this, while simultaneously having close enough relations to have their Kings be educated so far away in completely different cultures. Hell, they actually have enough interstellar travel through the system and presumably to the planet that they have Traffic Control for it in this book. Has a ship with a female captain never traveled through the system? Khizan posted:The star gives your fleet the protection of a hyper limit. Without a gravity well to hide in, an enemy who learned the location of your fleet could just jump in directly on top of you and be in knife range before you had a chance to raise defenses and get people to battle stations and such. It doesn't mean you need a pre-established system in order to have this hyper limit protection. Kchama fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Apr 14, 2020 |
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Apr 14, 2020 02:05
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Kchama posted:You don't need the base to be in a system. It makes it somewhat easier to base it, but you can just build a base where-ever the hell you want in space and put it on your maps. And with how far Honorverse ships can go, just because they are BETWEEN you and them doesn't mean you need to base there. If you want to attack you can just all set sail from where-ever and go directly there, or just park at some defended place you've set up in space if you need to rest for a bit. Set up a base anywhere, when your ships need refueling every three or four months so you have to transport oceans of hydrogen in. Where you have no on-site ability to manufacture spare parts, so those all have to be shipped in. Where you can't even grow significant amounts of food and have to truck THAT in. Basing in an existing inhabited system sounds better and better the more you look at it. FTL ships mean FTL comms, if only in the sense that you can pick up someone and then sail away screaming "Haven is coming Haven is coming". This, in fact, is something that is done later in the series. It was established in the first book that the sort of "just go there and smash" attack you're envisioning is possible, but a very bad idea. It is established in the previous book that at this point in the setting, quick and decisive battles simply aren't possible - it is extremely difficult to kill ships with missiles, and kiting out of energy range is relatively easy. So you're likely to have weeks of maneuvering trying to preserve your ships while trying to attack the enemy - except that the attacker would be at a huge disadvantage because their ships are far from supply and have already used up a lot of fuel and spare parts. If something happens to cut you off from supply, you're pretty much guaranteed to lose. quote:I was more pointing out that they're basically not suppose to have ANY knowledge of this, while simultaneously having close enough relations to have their Kings be educated so far away in completely different cultures. Most of the population doesn't leave the system, and it is a backwater that has very little to attract outside interest. The existence of other places that have women leaders is known, but they've never directly run into it. Sort of like how South African whites in the apartheid days knew that black people held positions in other governments, but asserted racial superiority anyway. You're mixing up intellectual awareness with emotional knowledge.
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Apr 14, 2020 02:44
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What I liked about the Lost fleet books is it doesn't hand wave too much space combat. Besides FTL ships with a somewhat plausible (for fiction) reasons how hyperspace works (star systems create gravity wells which allow ships to enter into hyperspace where ships are apparently limited by their own endurance). The weapons are not radically magical. Space is big and it was stated that you had to force the enemy to fight otherwise they could run away given any head start and that all weapon clashes happen instantaneously by computers (considering the short range of weapons and the speeds they're going at 0.1c), using particle beams, missiles and close range rail guns (grapeshot). It felt like a plausible sci fi space combat setting which now that I've brought up you guys can probably rip into a billion pieces from my naive child like bumbling.
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Apr 14, 2020 04:51
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feedmegin posted:This is a terrible analogy because the British House of Lords in 1999 was very different from the British House of Lords before 1910 - Arguably the Lords had been essentially beaten by 1831, when they failed to stop the Great Reform Act, but it's definitely been negligible since 1911. And it's not really comparable to the US Senate at all, I think?
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Apr 14, 2020 07:26
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Khizan posted:The star gives your fleet the protection of a hyper limit. Without a gravity well to hide in, an enemy who learned the location of your fleet could just jump in directly on top of you and be in knife range before you had a chance to raise defenses and get people to battle stations and such. Actually ships are blind and unprotected coming out of Weber’s hyperspace; no wedge so no sidewalls, and no sensors. A fleet anchored with no hyper limit is actually probably safer than one near a planet. This seems like it would become more pronounced with the massive range expansions that happen. With no hyper limit you have to either engage at close range or emerge at a distance which lets your enemy cross into hyper themselves before you can attack.
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Apr 14, 2020 08:26
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akulanization posted:Actually ships are blind and unprotected coming out of Weber’s hyperspace; no wedge so no sidewalls, and no sensors. A fleet anchored with no hyper limit is actually probably safer than one near a planet. This seems like it would become more pronounced with the massive range expansions that happen. With no hyper limit you have to either engage at close range or emerge at a distance which lets your enemy cross into hyper themselves before you can attack. Fun fact. In both editions of the Saganami Island Tactical Simulator there was exactly one scenario that didn't work out to: stack all your ships in mutually supporting point defense range and pray you drew Manticore this session. It was a scenario with half of a Manty DD division (2 ships) coming out of hyper right on top of a
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Apr 14, 2020 09:04
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Gnoman posted:Set up a base anywhere, when your ships need refueling every three or four months so you have to transport oceans of hydrogen in. Where you have no on-site ability to manufacture spare parts, so those all have to be shipped in. Where you can't even grow significant amounts of food and have to truck THAT in. Basing in an existing inhabited system sounds better and better the more you look at it. I don't see the actual issue with shipping stuff in. Hell, we don't have farms and parts and poo poo just sitting around our bases in real life. All that stuff is flown in, and we don't have super-freighters like the Honorverse does. It's what storehouses are for. If you have to spend billions of dollars to take over one small system just as a base to sit and refuel to go take your real prize at the costs of trillions more, then slow island-hopping conquest just isn't that good an idea. FTL ships do not mean FTL comms, especially not in that sense. The area of detection that ships have for other ships is shocking small. It's not even big enough to detect ships in the same star system, and apparently you can trust that they might not even be looking at the proper sensors. If you know their exact path then you have a chance to detect them but space is both massive and 3D and you can't cover every vector of entry. Defeating people with missiles becomes extremely easy very soon, and in fact before long becomes extremely trivial. Hell, 'go there and smash them' is actually incredibly possible and easy if you have a big enough advantage in numbers or tech advantages. Hell, the entire series ends on Honor just flying into the heart of the Solarian League and obliterating everything unopposed. Like all of this talk of 'weeks of manuevering' and difficulty in killing isn't actually born out in the actual books where battles tend to be rather quick and decisive. Hell the first battle in this book is 7 ships vs 12 and just involved one force flying in and shooting at a bunch of ships and stations and then flying out and both sides took immense damage in a very short battle and only one of these ships have the modern GOOD missiles, and yet it's missiles that do all of the killing. In fact 'getting into missile range' was considered the determining factor of this fight between olddd ships. akulanization posted:Actually ships are blind and unprotected coming out of Weber’s hyperspace; no wedge so no sidewalls, and no sensors. A fleet anchored with no hyper limit is actually probably safer than one near a planet. This seems like it would become more pronounced with the massive range expansions that happen. With no hyper limit you have to either engage at close range or emerge at a distance which lets your enemy cross into hyper themselves before you can attack. Yep, this is true, too. Like this is stated as to why the wormholes are such defensive boons, because enemies can only send so much tonnage through it, and when they come out the other end they are completely defenseless and the defenders will know exactly where they will appear. Kchama fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Apr 14, 2020 |
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Apr 14, 2020 09:28
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Kchama posted:I don't see the actual issue with shipping stuff in. Hell, we don't have farms and parts and poo poo just sitting around our bases in real life. All that stuff is flown in, and we don't have super-freighters like the Honorverse does. It's what storehouses are for. If you have to spend billions of dollars to take over one small system just as a base to sit and refuel to go take your real prize at the costs of trillions more, then slow island-hopping conquest just isn't that good an idea. Please don't argue Manticore's magical bullshit technology is retroactively changing the laws of the universe just so you can win an argument on the internet, because that's dumb. Hell, the very first major battles between Haven and Manticore involved tons of maneuver and the Havenite admiral in the largest one pulls exactly what was talked about : He retreats with most of his force intact. Now, about flowing in lots of expensive stuff into enemy territory, please remember that involves tons of people, and the more poo poo you try to ship into your super secret invasion base, the more people will know about this, and the more will leak. The enemy doesn't need to physically use ships to try to find your secret base, eventually they will just know about this thanks to rumours and leaks. Then they'll have to just send ships directly to your hidden base to confirm its existence. Hope your fleet is ready for battle then, or the enemy will just hop on right over and take the base from you. So while making your own hidden bases can be a good idea, it doesn't mean you can just revolve the entire war around it. Taking things back to Grayson, if Grayson allies with one of both sides, they not only gain a dumb backwater, they instantly have the population to drain from. And while the Graysons are terrible people, they've been at war for centuries, which brings a lot of bonus points from the standpoint of powers who want to wage interstellar war. Then there's the political reason to vie for position: Every nation that joins Manticore makes it less likely Haven can end the war with a single battle, since they now have to subdue and occupy yet another planet. On the other hand, every potential ally Haven can take over makes the final war that much faster and more bloodless. Then there's the issue of travel time. Sure, you could send a fleet from Haven straight to Manticore, but the ships would arrive in bad shape and with worn-out crews. Considering the technological difference even at the eve of war, that sounds like a potential disaster in the making. Wormholes, missiles, I could go on like this for a while, so I suggest just agreeing that you were wrong and moving on with it.
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Apr 14, 2020 12:23
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Secret massive base in a previously uncharted system is exactly what Haven does. It doesn't ultimately win them the war, but Manticore never finds Bolthole. The Mesan Alignment's base and shipyard is also such a location, and it still hadn't been found by the good guys at the end* of the series.
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Apr 14, 2020 15:00
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I think it is generally less interesting to argue 'this universe makes no sense' than to say 'given the universe we are presented, can we think of reasons it does make internal sense?'
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Apr 14, 2020 15:02
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Also remember that until Manticore and Haven threw down no multi-stellar power had fought another multi-stellar power for hundreds of years. Everything else had either been one sided conquests (Haven) or peacekeeping operations/ rebellion squashing (Solarian League) So they were making this stuff up as they went along.
Ferrosol fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Apr 14, 2020 |
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Apr 14, 2020 16:08
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The Solarians literally just fly to Manticore to attack it. They lose not because their crews are tired but because Weber executed dramatic tension behind the woodshed and their tech is still garbage despite getting supermissiles from the Space Illuminati. Then Manticore just goes to Earth and blows them up while Honor fantasizes about doing warcrimes.
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Apr 14, 2020 16:35
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FuturePastNow posted:Secret massive base in a previously uncharted system is exactly what Haven does. It doesn't ultimately win them the war, but Manticore never finds Bolthole. The Mesan Alignment's base and shipyard is also such a location, and it still hadn't been found by the good guys at the end* of the series. That's not the same thing, though. Both Darius and Bolthole have colonized worlds to provide local logistical support to their secret shipyard and research facilities.
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Apr 14, 2020 16:38
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:The Solarians literally just fly to Manticore to attack it. They lose not because their crews are tired but because Weber executed dramatic tension behind the woodshed and their tech is still garbage despite getting supermissiles from the Space Illuminati. Yes, and they do this decades later, after the Manticore-led advances in missile technology made decapitation strikes a viable strategy. At the point of the story we are discussing, those developments have not yet happened. It's like you're arguing that the US should have deployed nuclear weapons against the Central Powers in 1918.
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Apr 14, 2020 16:44
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Uh but the Solarians are operating on pre-war technology and they go right for a decapitation strike. It doesn't work due to said missile advances, but it would've worked back in 1900 PD or whenever the war started. Driving 500 dreadnoughts right to Manticore would've been totally viable then. I think the 'star-hopping' strategy we see, with lots of taking and holding territory and raiding the enemy's outer holdings, is just a consequence of Haven and Manticore being fairly evenly matched. If one side thought they had a decisive edge they would (and in fact do) go right for the enemy's center of gravity.
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Apr 14, 2020 18:32
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General Battuta posted:Uh but the Solarians are operating on pre-war technology and they go right for a decapitation strike. It doesn't work due to said missile advances, but it would've worked back in 1900 PD or whenever the war started. Driving 500 dreadnoughts right to Manticore would've been totally viable then. Yes and no. By the time of the Battle of Manticore (which is what we're discussing), the Solarians have had ample demonstration of how missile tech has advanced, and while they haven't had time to design any new ship types taking that knowledge into account, they have equipped their old-style SDs with pod-launched multi-stage missiles in an attempt to even the playing field. Broadly, though, I think you're right that decapitation strikes are only carried out when one side thinks they have a decisive edge, whether that's technological or numerical.
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Apr 14, 2020 19:03
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Tree fell early last morning at my place from the hurricanes, lost all power + internet. Power + internet is back on, checking in on thread.....quote:Everyone = discussing David Weber's Manticore  Squawk! https://carjoemez.com/2016/07/22/the-legend-of-montecore/ Reason why I came up the Montecore=Manticore thread rule is because David Weber writing Manticore politics + Manticore warfare is exactly like that falcon from that quasi reality tv-show Joe Schmo 2, erratic as the day is long and that is what 90% of the Honor Harrington series chat in this thread seems to revolve around; Weber's writing and universe and characters and stakes and tech-specs and scenarios just don't make sense over time. Hence the MONTECORE rule for the next 2 or 3 or however many pages the mods/admins who read this thread feel like enforcing it. Squawk! https://carjoemez.com/2016/07/22/the-legend-of-montecore/ Weber retcons stuff in his earlier Honorverse stories to make sense aka warship density/size numbers (it doesn't work), Weber sets up hamfisted scenarios to raise the dramatic stakes with amoral/corrupt/rapist antagonists, puts 5+ page in-universe infodumps in at random, Weber re-retcons stuff a 2nd/3rd/4th? time because The only consistent rules that David Weber follows are -Whatever Honor Harrington personally does will be presented in the best light and almost immediately justified, especially the WarCrimes or skeevy stuff (Example, Honor boning down with her 60yrs+ older highest superior in the Manticorian navy and everythings cool because the superior has a crippled wife) -The odds will always be stacked in Honor Harrington's favor in any battle, or person to person showdown (like fittingly, three card monte or going on a doom 2 server where the admin spawns with 200 health/blue armor/chaingun on a pistols + shotguns only multiplayer map) -Anyone who dislikes or opposes Honor personally will invariably be revealed as: multiple selection of Amoral/Corrupt/Lawless/Rapist (Example, that rapey guy from Honor book #1, the Mesan eugenic ubermen, or spoiler alert the bad guys Kchama hasn't covered yet in their Honor book #2 let's read). Squawk! https://carjoemez.com/2016/07/22/the-legend-of-montecore/ Speaking of Kchama, proud of you for continuing the Honor Harrington Let's Read. You mentioned earlier how the ebook versions of the Honor series you had didn't have the same formatting as other people/physical copies, are they ebook versions from the Baen Free CDs or from the 2019 Baen Humble BookBundle, or other? Also slightly curious about what method you are using to take notes and mark things of interest (kindle? calibre? pen+paper? tablet device?). Since this thread has been around for awhile, it is probably time for a newer more accurate thread title. Mods/admins, pick whichever ones you like Everyone's a WarCriminal: the Mil-SciFi/Mil-Fiction Thread Everything's a WarCrime: the Mil-SciFi/Mil-Fiction Thread It's 85% Honor Harrington chat: the Mil-SciFi/Mil-Fiction Thread quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Apr 14, 2020 |
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Apr 14, 2020 21:06
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I've seen the Honor Harrington series described as CS Forester's Hornblower series 'but in SPACE!' which, going by what's posted here, I don't get since there seems to be no similarity at all?
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Apr 14, 2020 21:20
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It's been a while since I read Hornblower, but there was actually some meat and characterization to old Horatio, such as when he gave his false word of honor to stop Napoleon being broken out of exile again and was going to ruin himself to stop a war. There is nothing comparable in Harrington. It is telling that the only discussion this thread can muster is about how the spaceships and missiles work and how predictable Weber's plots are. There is a desperate attempt to make sense of Weber's universe, but nothing is said about the story Weber wants to tell.
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Apr 14, 2020 23:35
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Kallikaa posted:I've seen the Honor Harrington series described as CS Forester's Hornblower series 'but in SPACE!' which, going by what's posted here, I don't get since there seems to be no similarity at all? No, it is a Hornblower pastiche, it's just one that's done badly. In particular, Weber looks at all the times that Hornblower goes through poo poo because he isn't from a good family, all the times that he's stymied by an incompetent superior who is, all the times that Hornblower's on the beach nearly broke on half pay because he stood up for what was right and says "Nah, my Hornblower's going to be a hot chick who's the best at EVERYTHING, and the only people who will ever dislike her are villains." 
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Apr 15, 2020 00:21
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Speaking of, we are now six chapters into Mission of Honor: Retold, covering roughly the same territory as the first fourteen chapters of the original.
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Apr 15, 2020 00:40
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