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Anshu posted:Until morale improves? Morale will not improve.
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# ? Apr 19, 2020 22:02 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 05:59 |
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FuturePastNow posted:Grayson is flying a bunch of old Manticoran ships until they build their own. Same for the other allies we barely see because they don't do much, like Zanzibar. I meant to add on that indeed Weber does indeed write that, though unlike what the poster above said, as far as I can tell Manticore does not actually make money off of doing that, but instead takes a big loss on them but does it out of honor even though the Grand Alliance's hanger-ons are all completely worthless. It's at least plausible enough. General Battuta posted:In Chapter Ten of Mission of Honor: Retold, we finally get some naval shooting and a look at the Solarian League Navy's upgraded hardware. The missile accounting will continue. You're putting me out of a job here.
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 00:07 |
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I like to imagine that most of Manticore's allies use the added security to invest in their own economies and interstellar future, whereas Grayson is the equivalent of a wild-eyed survivalist who's just climbed out of a bunker and gone on a massive gun spending spree (plus some hydroponic grow stations for the kids, I guess). Spending most of your GSP on cutting edge warships has to come crashing down eventually.
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 00:41 |
General Battuta posted:I like to imagine that most of Manticore's allies use the added security to invest in their own economies and interstellar future, whereas Grayson is the equivalent of a wild-eyed survivalist who's just climbed out of a bunker and gone on a massive gun spending spree (plus some hydroponic grow stations for the kids, I guess). Spending most of your GSP on cutting edge warships has to come crashing down eventually. This is actually addressed - there's a discussion where it is acknowledged that their military spending is right at the edge of what they can afford, but they're getting away with it because technological upgrades to their manufacturing is still bringing their civilian standard of living enormously, and they've got enough shipbuilding left to be building and selling merchant ships at a profit.. Just before Round 2 starts, there's an estimate that they'll have to stop building warships within a few years.
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 01:09 |
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Yes, that's why the only Grayson scene in Mission Retold (so far) is about their economy collapsing.
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 01:23 |
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Gnoman posted:This is actually addressed - there's a discussion where it is acknowledged that their military spending is right at the edge of what they can afford, but they're getting away with it because technological upgrades to their manufacturing is still bringing their civilian standard of living enormously, and they've got enough shipbuilding left to be building and selling merchant ships at a profit.. Just before Round 2 starts, there's an estimate that they'll have to stop building warships within a few years. This doesn't really make sense in the context of what we know about Grayson, in that they have a relatively small population that is allowed to do most work (750m to 1.25b maximum, if we count all children and elderly, depending on what source you use for the population), and they aren't particularly rich to begin with because they've been isolated for 500 years and they've been spending all their money making their world livable. They really shouldn't be able to just instantly jump up 500 years of space infrastructure in less than a decade to be honest. They shouldn't have a massive economy that can accept a sudden increase of spending trillions nor the amount of people in the space industry to handle the massive surge. Battuta is right that they should be crashing because they spent themselves to death to tech up 500 years in less than a decade. Like, they're both expanding in every direction constantly while on maximum overdrive war footing, using only a fourth of their population for many of those years (or pretty much all of those years since positions require training) and that's just not a thing that can be sustained by anyone. Weber has really zero understanding of economics because pretty much all the major factions in Honorverse are on maximum war footing that apparently props up their entire economy and civilization for decades on end.
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 02:02 |
Kchama posted:This doesn't really make sense in the context of what we know about Grayson, in that they have a relatively small population that is allowed to do most work (750m to 1.25b maximum, if we count all children and elderly, depending on what source you use for the population), and they aren't particularly rich to begin with because they've been isolated for 500 years and they've been spending all their money making their world livable. They really shouldn't be able to just instantly jump up 500 years of space infrastructure in less than a decade to be honest. That's a fair criticism - only about 30% of the population are men, which is the working segment of the population, and that number's going to be significantly reduced because they are only just getting modern medical science. They still have to worry about old age, most genetic diseases, and are only just able to regenerate lost/crippled limbs. The mass drive for women in the workplace that is mentioned is only going to help so much - not only are there all the cultural resistance and training factors that you'd expect (some of which he tried to retcon away as a cultural misunderstanding), but the Grayson "government" is 40-odd absolute dictators nominally answerable to one Weber was going for a WWII-style "spin up the economy, we've got work to do" narrative, but didn't take into account the fundamental differences that make it impractical.
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 02:29 |
I mean this is “Weber didn’t take into account the fundamental differences, the thread” so that checks out. At some point I might summarise the Ark Royal series. It’s occasionally competent space battles interspersed with increasingly alarming hints that the world has gone full fash (and the author thinks this good, naturally). Characters are pure stock and nobody has any individual personality. The expression “ethnically British” (ugh) is used without irony. It’s a well of sludge, basically.
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 02:43 |
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Orthodontically British
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 02:56 |
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Beefeater1980 posted:I mean this is “Weber didn’t take into account the fundamental differences, the thread” so that checks out. Please do! This thread doesn't need to be Kchama Argues With Everyone: The Thread! Though I don't think that book has any fans here, so who knows. Gnoman posted:That's a fair criticism - only about 30% of the population are men, which is the working segment of the population, and that number's going to be significantly reduced because they are only just getting modern medical science. They still have to worry about old age, most genetic diseases, and are only just able to regenerate lost/crippled limbs. The mass drive for women in the workplace that is mentioned is only going to help so much - not only are there all the cultural resistance and training factors that you'd expect (some of which he tried to retcon away as a cultural misunderstanding), but the Grayson "government" is 40-odd absolute dictators nominally answerable to one Yeah, pretty much. I was trying to be a little generous to Weber and even left out stuff like they apparently they're all suppose to have stunted growth and short lifespans even compared to pre-prolong, but to be honest there's not much mention of it in the books that I can remember, so I'm not sure if that is actually stuff that should be taken account of.
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 04:40 |
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Beefeater1980 posted:I mean this is “Weber didn’t take into account the fundamental differences, the thread” so that checks out. I made it through the first three of those. You forgot the noble royal prince, casual sexism and even more tired, cliched pop culture references than the iron druid series. I'm fairly sure it's the series you can tell when the author read honour harrington just from the amount of times he suddenly starts using the phrase 'bomb pumped laser warheads' out of nowhere, but in fairness that could be one of his other terrible series. I thought book one wasn't terrible for a debut kindle release, turned out it was his 20th book or something.
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 11:30 |
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Space Butler posted:
i dont think bomb-pumped laser warheads appear anywhere else in the weber oeuvre in Starfire the bomb-pumped x-ray mechanism is used, but in shipboard laser turret format, missiles are either nukes or antimatter in the Dahak series there are fusion warheads, antimatter, singularity missiles, and hyperspace warping missiles, nary a laser head in sight i don't remember what space weapons were used in Empire of Man (although i do recall the somewhat novel format wherein all the fighting was done by hyper-capable carriers launching small handfuls of cruiser-type craft rather than fighter wings) i can't think of any other big mil-SF where the x-ray laser missile is used either, come to think of it my understanding is that (like many weird things) it was a concept that got kicked around during reagan-era defense planning, and weber was the one writer who heard about it and decided to build a whole universe around the idea Beefeater1980 posted:
Space Butler posted:I thought book one wasn't terrible for a debut kindle release, turned out it was his 20th book or something. the best thing to know about Nuttal is that the first novels he wrote were semi-officially-approved fanfics set in john ringo's posleen war series, passed around awkwardly via docs on the Baen forums rather than posted on any of the regular fanfic sites i feel this explains whatever you would need to know about him (though, yes, his ringo fanfics are better than ringo's own work, the world's lowest possible bar) PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 12:59 on Apr 20, 2020 |
# ? Apr 20, 2020 12:34 |
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speaking of kindle releases, that reminds me i should at some point get 'round to the latest Spiral Wars
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 12:45 |
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Yeah, I tried one of those Ark Royal books and it made Weber look like Dostoevsky.
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 12:50 |
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love to have bomb-pumped laser turrets functioning within my own ship
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 13:56 |
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PupsOfWar posted:i dont think bomb-pumped laser warheads appear anywhere else in the weber oeuvre You would be INCREDIBLY WRONG, PupsOfWar! The main Honorverse missiles are bomb-pumped lasers! They're the missiles everyone uses, to replace the old nukes. They are even specifically called bomb-pumped lasers.
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 17:05 |
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"Anywhere else" As I'm closing in on the end of Mission of Honor Retold I'm wondering where you guys think this story should go in the long run. The canonical ending of Manticore knocking out Earth with a decapitation strike, then calling it a day and going home—but with a little more explanation of the aftermath? League Civil War? Manticore unilaterally ceases military operations to avoid playing into Mesan hands? Manticore goes into catastrophic debt to the Andermani? Haven and the Andermani take the opportunity to force an exploitative treaty with Manticore? So many options! General Battuta fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Apr 20, 2020 |
# ? Apr 20, 2020 17:58 |
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90s Cringe Rock posted:love to have bomb-pumped laser turrets functioning within my own ship I'm going to quote the infodump from the novel where this happens because it's relatively short and hardcore: Crusade posted:"They must have the occasional accident," he observed now. I think Crusade is one of the better Weber novels. It's from relatively early in his oeuvre, before he burned out, he had a co-writer which couldn't hurt, and it contains weird and different poo poo like this. Also it ends with a really satisfying space and ground battle.
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 18:28 |
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General Battuta posted:"Anywhere else" I would aim for a situation in which Manticore+Friends force the League to balkanize, but then have to vie for influence against the Mesan Alignment in the new polities.
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 19:59 |
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General Battuta posted:"Anywhere else" The League navy you have seems to be able to hold its own versus at least second string Manticore technology. Destroying Sol ends the League but that wouldn’t help Manticore and the rest in this new paradigm, since now everyone who was inclined to commit to war with Manticore will ignore the vetoes that Beowulf has used to block full scale military operations. I don’t think the plan to break up the League will work without total military superiority and strong economic foundations, and post oyster bay Manticore don’t really have that. The canonical ending mostly lays the groundwork for another war, might as well lean into that with space Versailles.
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 20:19 |
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General Battuta posted:"Anywhere else" Oh hey, serves ME right making a post right after waking up! Mea culpa, PupsOfWar
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 22:53 |
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Anshu posted:I would aim for a situation in which Manticore+Friends force the League to balkanize, but then have to vie for influence against the Mesan Alignment in the new polities. I think balkanization makes the most sense because a) the league as written is terrible for storytelling so killing it is better if you decide to do future stories and b) it's probably the only realistic way to have an ending that isn't super depressing. I wouldn't have it be Manticore forcing it though, just that the crisis reveals a lot of the already existing underlying issues and tensions (I wonder what the distribution by planet is of the enlisted folks who are about to all die. I bet it's not equal among planets!). It's kind of silly that only Beowulf would be pissed about the federal government taking "police actions" with hundreds of battleships, so that's another fracture area. Plus the evil guys are probably also encouraging the breakup. In general, the league seems to be written as only working because none of the members really notice its actions most of the time, so a breakup during a crisis created entirely by the federal government seems pretty plausible. Plus, you get to write some more weird new technologies being tried out by the system defense forces (who are probably doing some private R&D of their own) as they confront federal forces which is always fun. On the war front, this plausibly leads to a negotiated settlement when everyone realizes what is happening - the federal government realizes it has a much bigger problem and the Grand Alliance is insanely relieved that they have a way out. In fact, maybe certain Manticorans want to keep fighting because they have infinite faith in super missiles but the Havenites and other allies go "Holy poo poo, this is our chance to STOP BEING AT WAR FOR A FEW YEARS" and basically force peace talks as a condition of maintaining the alliance - this also fits with Pritchart and Theisman's characters and with your writing of Grayson's economy collapsing. I also like that this path means that the diplomats and politicians get an equal or greater role than the admirals for once.
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# ? Apr 20, 2020 23:56 |
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blackmongoose posted:I think balkanization makes the most sense because a) the league as written is terrible for storytelling so killing it is better if you decide to do future stories and b) it's probably the only realistic way to have an ending that isn't super depressing. I wouldn't have it be Manticore forcing it though, just that the crisis reveals a lot of the already existing underlying issues and tensions. That's actually what I meant, but I can see how what I wrote wasn't really clear.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 00:19 |
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blackmongoose posted:I also like that this path means that the diplomats and politicians get an equal or greater role than the admirals for once. That would be a good chance to bring in a diplomat as a main character or even series protagonist as the wars end and peace must be maintained. Anyone else thinking of the Retief series here ?
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 00:43 |
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General Battuta, other than you killing off a couple of my favorite characters I'm really enjoying it. This is making me want to read more, which I didn't think was possible after so much Weber dross.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 02:34 |
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blackmongoose posted:In fact, maybe certain Manticorans want to keep fighting because they have infinite faith in super missiles but the Havenites and other allies go "Holy poo poo, this is our chance to STOP BEING AT WAR FOR A FEW YEARS" and basically force peace talks as a condition of maintaining the alliance - this also fits with Pritchart and Theisman's characters and with your writing of Grayson's economy collapsing. I also like that this path means that the diplomats and politicians get an equal or greater role than the admirals for once. By 'certain Manticoreans' you mostly mean 'all but the anti-war strawmen' right? We had merchantmen in Rising Thunder baring their teeth at their Solarian counterpart and talking about how they're probably going to get called home to join the Manticorean navy (it should be spacy though) and perhaps kill their Solarian counterpart and in general be a real dick and gleeful for a chance to kill some Solarians. You know it's still a shame that Haven didn't backstab Manticore at the last second when Manticore was literally letting them guard their homeworld for them. After all the poo poo Manticore pulled, including all of Honor's handwaved-away war crimes, I'm shocked that didn't cross any of their minds.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 03:19 |
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Okay, I've put it off long enough! Honor of the Queen Chapter Seven quote:Sergeant Major Babcock smiled as Honor stepped onto the mat. Just quoting this for two things: One, Honor is super huge considering she's from a high-gravity planet and has been gene-modified (Genied) for the high gravity. There's apparently no negative side-effects from the gene-modding besides Honor having the appetite of a Saiyan. Also apparently right now, experience and skill beats size and physical ability. Keep this in mind for... like three books from now. quote:They circled slowly, hands weaving in deceptively gentle, graceful patterns. Both were black belt in coup de vitesse, the martial art developed to combine Oriental and Western forms on Nouveau Dijon eight centuries before, and a hush enveloped the gym as other exercisers turned to watch them. Beyond Weber just spouting gibberish for the most part, this is to establish that Honor has a special Protagonist Martial Art for later in the book. This happens a surprising amount of times, where early in a book she'll have a scene introducing a new previously unmentioned skill that she has, and then surprise! It's important in the climax. Chekhov's Gun and all that, but it gets kind of ridiculous with how much it happens. They fight and fight and the scene cuts to her in the locker room talking to Admiral Courvosier. They talk about how Honor is frustrated about the bigotry she has to deal with. quote:"I'm sorry, Sir. I know how important it is that we all hang onto our tempers—Lord knows I've laid it all out for everyone else often enough!—but I hadn't counted on how infuriated I'd be. They're so—so—" I'm not sure I get how Honor is a living, breathing symbol of how ruthless Haven can be, to be honest. It wasn't like they ambushed her and charged her. They fled and she followed and took damage doing so. Also Honor's victory was pretty much the epitome of luck because if the enemy wasn't a complete idiot, they would have easily won and escaped. quote:"Well," Honor squirmed at the thought that she might have a "reputation" outside her own service, "I think they made the wrong call, Sir. Or, rather, Haven's turned it around on them. I'm a liability to you. These people can't get past who I am to think logically about what I am." This is actually a showing of one of Honor's biggest flaws, one that the books tries to downplay a lot. And it's a pretty simple flaw: She is in fact a coward and a terrible leader. Whenever things get tough like this, she flees. In the first book, she refused to build a rapport with her crew and let the bad feelings not only linger but also intensify until she was forced to do the hallmark of bad leaders everywhere: The beatings will continue until morale improves. Of course, because the book is about her being a GOOD captain, this works instead of just burying it deeper and making it fester. Here after first contact with the Graysons, Honor basically decides to gently caress off elsewhere and leave the Admiral alone with some small-rear end ships. And worse, the Admiral gives in and agrees. He knows it's the wrong move but he decided to give in to her stupid bad leadership because, well, he's not a particularly good leader either. quote:"Take a look at this, Sir." Wait, hold on. quote:they're probably the cruisers and one of the tin-cans." Freeze... enhance. quote:"I don't know. . . ." Honor rubbed her nose. "I was thinking I should at least leave both tin-cans to show the flag if I pull the cruisers out, Sir." WEBERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! Why are these two completely different cultures using the exact same slang? No! Bad writer! Bad! quote:"Um." Theisman rubbed his chin. "All you've got is drive sources, not any indication of mass. That could be both of the cans and the light cruiser," he pointed out in his best devil's advocate's voice. "Harrington could be holding her own ship on station and sending the others off." Wait, why are space pirates around? Isn't this basically right between both Haven and Manticore, and hell right in between both of their warpaths where they are gearing up to fight each other? Why the hell are there pirates hanging out? Hell, pirates in the Honorverse never really made much sense anyways, all things considered. Warlords would make a lot more sense, since planets are a lot easier to catch and then you can plunder the merchants on the way to you anyways if you want. quote:"I still think this one—" one of the crimson lights flashed "—is Fearless, Sir. They're too far away for decent mass readings, but the impeller signature looks heavier than either of the other warships. I think she's got one tin-can out front and the cruisers closed up to cover the merchies' flanks." The exec paused, tugging at the lobe of one ear. "We could move in closer, take a little peek at the planetary orbital traffic to see who's left, Sir," he suggested slowly. I'm not sure how this is proof that Manticore's electronics are better than Haven's. Like, the entire reason why they lost is they got cocky and dumb and decided to get into point-blank range to finish off a fae that they had no reason to. quote:"So what do we do, Sir?" he asked finally. And that's the chapter. It's not a terrible one by Weber's standards, though it still has his favored "One side does something, cut to other side reacting to the other side doing something". Also this entire bit is pretty good proof that you can easily just sneak into a star system and hang out. Haven's just been loving around for a while, and you can just go really far out and hyper out, or hyper in really far out and sneak in.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 04:00 |
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Here's a second chapter, since I'm so nice and making up for not doing any earlier. Also it's just one long infodump about why THESE sexists are good, unlike THOSE sexists! HONOR OF THE QUEEN Chapter Eight! quote:"Thank you for coming, Admiral Courvosier." So the long and short of this is that Yanakov is a richy rich rich rich rich rich rich and also a really cool guy, but I Weberishly repeat myself. And it turns out that horrible sexists whose entire life is denying rights to women are actually really nice human beings. quote:Soft music played while they ate. It wasn't the sort of music Courvosier was used to—Grayson's classical music was based on something called "Country and Western"—but it was curiously lively, despite an undertone of sadness. The dining room was large, even by Manticoran planetary standards, with a high, arched ceiling and rich, tapestry-like wall hangings and old-style oil paintings. Religious themes predominated, but not exclusively, and the landscapes among them had a haunting, bittersweet beauty. There was a sense of the lost about them, like windows into Elfland, as if the loveliness they showed could never be wholly home to the humans who lived upon this world and yet could never be anything but home, either. We're not ENTIRELY barbarians! We let our wives out of their gilded cages when it's time to show them off. Look how many jewels they have! They're just fine in their harems! I might be a little unfair but like, this is our real introduction to Grayson culture and it's filtered through a hyper rich dude showing off his wives to another hyper rich dude. It's gauche as gently caress. quote:Courvosier's lips twitched at the other's dry tone, but he sampled his own brandy before he replied, and his voice was level when he did. Gosh, we're all the same. An egalitarian society (except when the author(s) is feeling sexist), and a hidebound one that demands that women have no rights. Also starting the rather long info-dump on the Grayson backstory. quote:"I thought not. But those early days were terrible ones for us. Even before Reverend Grayson's death, women were already becoming not wives but chattels. The mortality rate was high among men, too, and there'd been fewer of them to begin with, and biology played another trick on us. Our female births outnumber male by three to one; if we were to sustain a viable population, every potential father had to begin begetting children as soon as possible and spread his genes as widely as he could before Grayson killed him, so our households grew. And as they grew, family became everything and the patriarch's authority became absolute. It was a survival trait which tied in only too well with our religious beliefs. After a century, women weren't even people—not really. They were property. Bearers of children. The promise of a man's physical continuation in a world which offered him a life expectancy of less than forty years of backbreaking toil, and our efforts to create a godly society institutionalized that." GET hosed WEBER. Like, this is why I hate this book so much. "Wow, I am so ashamed because I condemned these awful sexist assholes for being awful sexists, and yet this man is nice to me, a man. It really makes you think who is the real sexist." quote:God knew there were enough Manticorans not worth the pressure to blow them out the lock, but they weren't the real Manticore. People like Honor Harrington were the real Manticore. People who made the Kingdom better than it dreamed it could be, made it live up to its ideals whether it wanted to or not, because they believed in those ideals and made others believe with them. And perhaps, he thought, people like Bernard Yanakov were the real Grayson. No True Scotsman, the paragraph. quote:Yanakov straightened finally, then waved a hand over a rheostat. Lights came up, driving back the darkness, and he turned to face his guest. "Did you know that they are the REAL heretics?!" You know it would have been interesting if this was all self-serving claptrap and Masada wasn't the Chaotic Evil zealots they get painted as. But nope, they're exactly evil as depicted, and Graysons are saints. Also this is part of why I feel like the Masadans are suppose to represent Muslims or somehow Jews. Because they don't believe in Jesus and also are suppose to be wife-beating women-oppressors (unlike the Graysons who would never do such a thing), and live on a very on-the-nose named planet. quote:This time Courvosier nodded, and Yanakov's face was grim. "We, of course, didn't actually think women deserved RIGHTS. We're just saintly sexists." quote:"That war was terrible, Admiral Courvosier. The Faithful were the minority, and their hardcore zealots were only a small percentage of their total number, but those zealots were completely ruthless. They knew God was on their side. Anything they did was done in His name, and anyone who opposed them must therefore be vile and evil, with no right to live. We were still far from having rebuilt an advanced tech base, but we could produce guns and tanks and napalm—and, of course, the Faithful built their doomsday weapon as a last resort. We didn't even know of its existence until Barbara Bancroft, the wife of their most fanatical leader, decided the Moderates had to know. She escaped to us—turned against all the Faithful believed—to warn us, but her courage had its cost in fresh tragedy as well." So yeah this entire chapter is just a "Grayson good, Masada bad" and is just a chapter-long infodump. Kchama fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Apr 21, 2020 |
# ? Apr 21, 2020 04:17 |
Kchama posted:
This is an extremely odd take. Her reasoning might be flawed, but having the main character never make a mistake is bad writing. More importantly, here reasoning here is fairly solid - the biggest obstacle the diplomatic team is facing right now is a massive discomfort with her presence. Leaving on a perfectly legitimate expedition to give some breathing room to the negotiations makes sense. Yes, she's leaving the Admiral with only a little bit of firepower, but they are not at war. They aren't expecting to have to ward off Havenite attacks, so the only possible threat is from Masada. Masada and Grayson have the same tech level, and that level is so far behind Manticore's that even the lightest warship is in no real threat. quote:WEBERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! Why are these two completely different cultures using the exact same slang? No! Bad writer! Bad! "Tin-can" is a naval slang for destroyers dating back to the US navy in WWII. It is so common that a historian was able to title a book "Last Stand Of The Tin-Can Sailors" with the full expectation that the meaning of the title would be understood by the audience. Haven and Manticore both using it is not much more remarkable than them both using the term "destroyer". quote:Wait, why are space pirates around? Isn't this basically right between both Haven and Manticore, and hell right in between both of their warpaths where they are gearing up to fight each other? Why the hell are there pirates hanging out? Even on 21st Century Earth, there's piracy in bodies of water fairly close major powers. We had a very public incident that was probably a failed act of piracy last month near Venezuela, which isn't that far from the US. Piracy in the English Channel was a problem until 1814 (albeit this was more of "the ransoms we are paying these pirates to leave us alone are really expensive" than actual ship losses for a fair bit of time before then). quote:I'm not sure how this is proof that Manticore's electronics are better than Haven's. Like, the entire reason why they lost is they got cocky and dumb and decided to get into point-blank range to finish off a fae that they had no reason to. They don't know what happened, because the battle took place out of sensor range of their only in-system assets. All they know for sure is that two ships went out, one ship came back, and the ship that was destroyed had a massive firepower advantage. It is obvious that something equalized the odds, but , but they don't know what it iwas. quote:And that's the chapter. It's not a terrible one by Weber's standards, though it still has his favored "One side does something, cut to other side reacting to the other side doing something". This is proof that one tiny ship can sneak in, which was never in doubt. There's a bit later on that might support your point better, but that was aided and abetted by treason at the highest levels of power Kchama posted:Gosh, we're all the same. An egalitarian society (except when the author(s) is feeling sexist), and a hidebound one that demands that women have no rights. Also starting the rather long info-dump on the Grayson backstory. The only "all the same" bit in this entire passage is the last line, which is just a "Most people never examine why their culture is the way it is." The rest of it is a frank admission that Grayson's attitude is sexist and wrong, but with a detailed examination of why those attitudes evolved and why they are so hard to get rid of. quote:GET hosed WEBER. Like, this is why I hate this book so much. "Wow, I am so ashamed because I condemned these awful sexist assholes for being awful sexists, and yet this man is nice to me, a man. It really makes you think who is the real sexist." quote:"Did you know that they are the REAL heretics?!" You know it would have been interesting if this was all self-serving claptrap and Masada wasn't the Chaotic Evil zealots they get painted as. But nope, they're exactly evil as depicted, and Graysons are saints. The model for the Graysons is the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, with Austin Grayson playing the part of Brigham Young, and The Book Of The New Way being a stand in for The Book Of Mormon. The only way this could be more blindingly obvious is for Weber to scream it at you. The Masadans are an amalgamation of the various splinter groups that refused to accept reforms in the LDS church (primarily the ban on polygamy) and formed churches of their own that claimed to be the True church in accordance with the will of Joseph Smith the prophet. About ten years after Weber wrote this book, the fact that at least some of these splinter groups did treat their women as essentially chattels was put before the entire world via the kidnapping and later escape of Elizabeth Smart (who has spent much of the time since acting as a victims advocate). There's no real association with ether Judaism or Islam - neither was a break from another faith (Judaism is the original Abrahamic religion, while Islam rejected most Christian theology from the start while painting Christ as a prophet mistaken for the Messiah), and neither used the New Testament before discarding it. Of greater importance, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia were at extremely low levels in the US of 1992. There was lingering animosity toward Iran, but the most well-known Muslims in America were our Mujaheddin and Kuwaiti allies. Distrust of extreme Islam wouldn't start growing until the later 90s (specifically after 1996 when the Taliban took over Afghanistan), and wasn't a massive thing until September 12, 2001. quote:So yeah this entire chapter is just a "Grayson good, Masada bad" and is just a chapter-long infodump. It is pretty obvious that Weber doesn't intend to present Graysons as saintly, or deny their sexism. This is called out explicitly as part of the conversation. quote:"That's a very tolerant view," Yanakov said quietly. "One I'm quite confident a great many, perhaps most, of my people would find difficult to accept. For myself, I believe you're correct, yet it's still our Faith which dictates how we regard our own women. Oh, we've changed over the centuries—our ancestors didn't call themselves 'Moderates' for nothing!—but we remain what we are. Women are no longer property, and we've evolved elaborate codes of behavior to protect and cherish them, partly, I suspect, in reaction against the Faithful. I know many men abuse their privileges—and their wives and daughters—but the man who publicly insults a Grayson woman will probably be lynched on the spot, if he's lucky, and they're infinitely better treated than Masadan women. Yet they're still legally and religiously inferior. Despite The Mother of Grayson, we tell ourselves it's because they're weaker, because they bear too many other burdens to be forced to vote, to own property . . . to serve in the military." He met Courvosier's eyes with a slight, strained smile. "And that's why your Captain Harrington frightens us so. She terrifies us, because she's a woman and, deep down inside, most of us know Haven's lied about what happened in Basilisk. Can you imagine what a threat that is to us?" That said, this is one of the two places where this book effectively needs retconning. Later works in the series present Grayson sexism as being far closer to that of that in the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with women being hemmed in by social rules and "women don't work outside the home" being an ideal and polite fiction. There is some effort to chalk this up to a misunderstanding based on incomplete cultural data, but he goes too far in this book to justify that.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 05:52 |
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Gnoman posted:There's no real association with ether Judaism or Islam - neither was a break from another faith (Judaism is the original Abrahamic religion, while Islam rejected most Christian theology from the start while painting Christ as a prophet mistaken for the Messiah), and neither used the New Testament before discarding it. Er, no that doesn’t track. Denying the divinity of Christ is probably the first and longest lasting antisemitic accusation leveled at Jews in the Christian world. Invoking it deliberately here can’t be reconciled with a purely Mormon frame. Moreover I think you are cutting far to fine a distinction to let Weber of the hook here, it is fair to say that Islam rejects the New Testament and it is fair to say it embraces the Gospel. It is unreasonable to construct a narrow discontinuity to make Weber’s writing not uncomfortably antisemitic.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 06:50 |
akulanization posted:Er, no that doesn’t track. Denying the divinity of Christ is probably the first and longest lasting antisemitic accusation leveled at Jews in the Christian world. Invoking it deliberately here can’t be reconciled with a purely Mormon frame. Moreover I think you are cutting far to fine a distinction to let Weber of the hook here, it is fair to say that Islam rejects the New Testament and it is fair to say it embraces the Gospel. It is unreasonable to construct a narrow discontinuity to make Weber’s writing not uncomfortably antisemitic. It is unreasonable to construct a narrow continuity to make Weber’s writing "uncomfortably antisemitic" in the first place. The Masadans are an offshoot of a Christian offshoot. The original Christian offshoot is the followers of a Prophet from the Midwestern United States who added a Third Testament to the Bible. How blunt does the allegory have to be for it to be obviously a Mormon context? Where is the slightest shred of evidence that they are anything else?
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 07:22 |
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Gnoman posted:This is an extremely odd take. Her reasoning might be flawed, but having the main character never make a mistake is bad writing. More importantly, here reasoning here is fairly solid - the biggest obstacle the diplomatic team is facing right now is a massive discomfort with her presence. Leaving on a perfectly legitimate expedition to give some breathing room to the negotiations makes sense. Yes, she's leaving the Admiral with only a little bit of firepower, but they are not at war. They aren't expecting to have to ward off Havenite attacks, so the only possible threat is from Masada. Masada and Grayson have the same tech level, and that level is so far behind Manticore's that even the lightest warship is in no real threat. You're misunderstanding me here. I'm not saying it's bad for her to have a flaw at all. I'm saying that the book does its best to downplay this as a flaw. She has a major habit of just loving off the moment things get tough like this. The Admiral was right to see this as a mistake, to be frank. He let her do it because he basically couldn't say no to her. She's suppose to be here to show the Graysons that MAnticore's female officers can do their job just like Grayson's can, and she runs off at the slightest provocation. quote:"Tin-can" is a naval slang for destroyers dating back to the US navy in WWII. It is so common that a historian was able to title a book "Last Stand Of The Tin-Can Sailors" with the full expectation that the meaning of the title would be understood by the audience. Haven and Manticore both using it is not much more remarkable than them both using the term "destroyer". quote:They don't know what happened, because the battle took place out of sensor range of their only in-system assets. All they know for sure is that two ships went out, one ship came back, and the ship that was destroyed had a massive firepower advantage. It is obvious that something equalized the odds, but , but they don't know what it iwas. That's exactly why I was asking "How do you know it was an electronics advantage?" quote:This is proof that one tiny ship can sneak in, which was never in doubt. There's a bit later on that might support your point better, but that was aided and abetted by treason at the highest levels of power quote:The only "all the same" bit in this entire passage is the last line, which is just a "Most people never examine why their culture is the way it is." quote:The model for the Graysons is the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, with Austin Grayson playing the part of Brigham Young, and The Book Of The New Way being a stand in for The Book Of Mormon. The only way this could be more blindingly obvious is for Weber to scream it at you. This doesn't really track since the Graysons explicitly have polygamy and lots of it. It's pretty much the cornerstone of their life. quote:There's no real association with ether Judaism or Islam - neither was a break from another faith (Judaism is the original Abrahamic religion, while Islam rejected most Christian theology from the start while painting Christ as a prophet mistaken for the Messiah), and neither used the New Testament before discarding it. No real association except for Masadans rejecting Jesus Christ, as Jews are known to do, and name themselves after Jewish rebels. The main Islam association I have is some stuff about them having to wear body-coverings which is very associated with Islam. I showed this stuff to a Jewish friend of mine and he dubbed them Bizarro Jews because while they aren't rabbatical or whatever Jews, they basically are presenting themselves as akin to Jews. quote:It is pretty obvious that Weber doesn't intend to present Graysons as saintly, or deny their sexism. This is called out explicitly as part of the conversation. quote:That said, this is one of the two places where this book effectively needs retconning. Later works in the series present Grayson sexism as being far closer to that of that in the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with women being hemmed in by social rules and "women don't work outside the home" being an ideal and polite fiction. There is some effort to chalk this up to a misunderstanding based on incomplete cultural data, but he goes too far in this book to justify that.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 07:26 |
Kchama posted:You're misunderstanding me here. I'm not saying it's bad for her to have a flaw at all. I'm saying that the book does its best to downplay this as a flaw. She has a major habit of just loving off the moment things get tough like this. The Admiral was right to see this as a mistake, to be frank. He let her do it because he basically couldn't say no to her. She's suppose to be here to show the Graysons that MAnticore's female officers can do their job just like Grayson's can, and she runs off at the slightest provocation. There's at least half a dozen times in this book where this action is criticized. It forms a not-so-small part in another officer distrusting her in the next book. She is making a mistake, and the book never portrays it as anything but a mistake. quote:Hell, destroyers in the Honorverse sense bare zero resemblence to the destroyers that Weber is trying to evoke that it's baffling. "Tin can" was always a reference to the lack of armor that both concepts share. It still fits, and you'd be amazed at how many terms and slangs make the jump between militaries without a historical justification. There's much less difference than you might think. The destroyer class of ships was originally developed to counter torpedo boats (hence the original "torpedo-boat-destroyer" designation), but by the time of WWII the main purpose of a destroyer was fleet scouting, additional AA fire, torpedo attack, protection against torpedo attack, anti-submarine warfare and escorting merchant convoys. Honorverse destroyers are used for fleet scouting, additional anti-missile fire, and escort of merchant convoys. There's no submarine-equivalent at this time, and nothing mounted on a destroyer is going to threaten a capital ship, but the other roles are identical. Kchama posted:That's exactly why I was asking "How do you know it was an electronics advantage?" quote:He's not wrong at all that they are sexist fucks and if he's all rending his clothes because this man is nice to him and says that MAYBE things could have once been different then he's, frankly, an idiot. This is literally just to try to puff up the Graysons as good guys, as Yanakov is THE TRUE SOUL OF GRAYSON And those guys who beat their wives and worse are just fakes. He dismissed the Graysons as pure barbarians without ever meeting one, based entirely on secondhand reports. Upon meeting them, he realized that he was wrong to do so - that their culture was much more complex than his simpleminded "they're barbarians" reaction could compass. Nowhere does he claim that Graysons are not sexist - he does moderate his views a bit because the reality clashes with his preassumptions, but never once denies that the reality is not adequate." The soul of Grayson" comment was clearly Weber aspiring to poetry and falling short, but note that it was in the context of Yanakov explicitly stating that his entire way of life was wrong and would have to change. quote:This doesn't really track since the Graysons explicitly have polygamy and lots of it. It's pretty much the cornerstone of their life. The Graysons didn't abandon polygamy, but they DID reject the anti-technology teachings of their Prophet. Same song, different key. As for "The Masadans are Jews because they reject Christ", a lot of organized religions reject Jesus. Most of them, in fact. That doesn't make them Jews. Masada does have a strong Jewish connection, but that alone isn't much of a connection.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 08:11 |
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Gnoman posted:There's at least half a dozen times in this book where this action is criticized. It forms a not-so-small part in another officer distrusting her in the next book. She is making a mistake, and the book never portrays it as anything but a mistake. The reason why it's downplayed is that despite how much of a huge mistake it is, she's never ever remembered for all the times she hosed off and hid like a baby. And this isn't even the second time she did it. She does it at least three more times in the series. She doesn't get known as a coward who flees personal responsibility the moment she's faced with adversity despite it being a major failing of her. quote:"Tin can" was always a reference to the lack of armor that both concepts share. It still fits, and you'd be amazed at how many terms and slangs make the jump between militaries without a historical justification. Or he just forced it in hard because he wanted to just reuse naval ship names. The only difference between ship classes are their size. Which is why there's so many 'over-sized X'. quote:Reread the text very carefully. The passage doesn't say "we know they have an advantage because this happened". It says "We have learned they have an advantage since this happened, we aren't clear how much of advantage we have, but the fact that this happened means we have to assume that the difference is very large." No, I disagree. How it's written actually implies that the better electronics is a lesson from Basilisk, since it specifies the thing that convinced them of this was Honor's victory. quote:He dismissed the Graysons as pure barbarians without ever meeting one, based entirely on secondhand reports. Upon meeting them, he realized that he was wrong to do so - that their culture was much more complex than his simpleminded "they're barbarians" reaction could compass. Nowhere does he claim that Graysons are not sexist - he does moderate his views a bit because the reality clashes with his preassumptions, but never once denies that the reality is not adequate." The soul of Grayson" comment was clearly Weber aspiring to poetry and falling short, but note that it was in the context of Yanakov explicitly stating that his entire way of life was wrong and would have to change. Also where the gently caress did Yanakov say that his entire way of life was wrong and would have to change? At most I saw was a "Maybe if things were different then, we wouldn't be so sexist now" which is kind of a 'duh'. The whole thing with Yanakov was as mild as ever. And the Soul Of Grayson thing was more or less "this guy who I declare the best of Grayson shall represent them, and none of the actual shithead wifebeaters who mistreat women as a matter of course matter". Like, Yanakov doesn't really say a drat thing about changing things. He just tepidly acknowledges that maybe things could be different. And I mean, the polygamy is kind of an important thing since it's part of the basis of their whole sexism and is the one connection with Mormonism they really have. As for "The Masadans are Jews because they reject Christ", a lot of organized religions reject Jesus. Most of them, in fact. That doesn't make them Jews. Masada does have a strong Jewish connection, but that alone isn't much of a connection. [/quote] Most of those that reject Jesus aren't Abrahamic faiths, though. not believing in Christ is one of the big differences between Christianity and Judaism and Islam. And that's a very big thing called out and specify. So they clothe themselves in Jewish terms and wording, and explicitly reject Christ, which is one of the big differences between Christianity and the other Abrahamic faiths... Sounds like Bizarro Jews to me.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 08:39 |
Kchama posted:
The exact text quote:One thing the People's Navy had learned since Basilisk was that Manticore's electronics were better than theirs. How much better was a topic of lively wardroom debate, but given that Captain Honor Harrington's eighty-five-thousand-ton light cruiser had taken out a seven-point-five-million-ton Q-ship, prudence suggested that Haven err on the side of pessimism. At least that way any surprises would be pleasant ones. "Since", not "From". That, to me, suggests that they've turned up more intelligence after that (probably as part of a deep dig to figure out how such a thing could happen), not "this was obviously an electronics thing". quote:Also where the gently caress did Yanakov say that his entire way of life was wrong and would have to change? At most I saw was a "Maybe if things were different then, we wouldn't be so sexist now" which is kind of a 'duh'. The whole thing with Yanakov was as mild as ever. And the Soul Of Grayson thing was more or less "this guy who I declare the best of Grayson shall represent them, and none of the actual shithead wifebeaters who mistreat women as a matter of course matter". Like, Yanakov doesn't really say a drat thing about changing things. He just tepidly acknowledges that maybe things could be different. quote:"That's a very tolerant view," Yanakov said quietly. "One I'm quite confident a great many, perhaps most, of my people would find difficult to accept. For myself, I believe you're correct, yet it's still our Faith which dictates how we regard our own women. Oh, we've changed over the centuries—our ancestors didn't call themselves 'Moderates' for nothing!—but we remain what we are. Women are no longer property, and we've evolved elaborate codes of behavior to protect and cherish them, partly, I suspect, in reaction against the Faithful. I know many men abuse their privileges—and their wives and daughters—but the man who publicly insults a Grayson woman will probably be lynched on the spot, if he's lucky, and they're infinitely better treated than Masadan women. Yet they're still legally and religiously inferior. Despite The Mother of Grayson, we tell ourselves it's because they're weaker, because they bear too many other burdens to be forced to vote, to own property . . . to serve in the military." He met Courvosier's eyes with a slight, strained smile. "And that's why your Captain Harrington frightens us so. She terrifies us, because she's a woman and, deep down inside, most of us know Haven's lied about what happened in Basilisk. Can you imagine what a threat that is to us?" Sure looks like "Our way of life is wrong and will have to change" to me. quote:And I mean, the polygamy is kind of an important thing since it's part of the basis of their whole sexism and is the one connection with Mormonism they really have. The one connection, besides their origin literally being "the origin of the Mormon church with the names changed". Even their exodus from Earth to the harsh planet of Grayson is a direct parallel to the Mormon exodus from Illinois to the harsh desert of Utah.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 08:54 |
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Kchama posted:You're misunderstanding me here. I'm not saying it's bad for her to have a flaw at all. I'm saying that the book does its best to downplay this as a flaw. She has a major habit of just loving off the moment things get tough like this. The Admiral was right to see this as a mistake, to be frank. He let her do it because he basically couldn't say no to her. She's suppose to be here to show the Graysons that MAnticore's female officers can do their job just like Grayson's can, and she runs off at the slightest provocation. The biggest problem with this is that nobody ever calls her out on this bullshit. She might have a fellow officer have a friendly "you know you shouldn't have done that" talk, but her decision to run away from this problem literally causes the entire clusterfuck scenario at the end of the book. She's directly responsible for getting almost all of the Grayson navy whacked alongside the Madrigal, and nobody ever brings this up to her in any serious capacity and it never hinders her career at all. Now, I could absolutely believe that a patron would advance her career despite this, but there's never a hint that this is all being overlooked because of favoritism or whatnot. It just gets memory-holed.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 09:13 |
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Gnoman posted:The exact text I might agree except there's been nothing between OBS and HOQ to give them any reason to say that it's 'better electronics' (the answer is 'better everything'), and he specifies that the fight between the Fearless and Sirius is what started the debate. I think the 'since' is just clumsy Weber writing, the rest of the sentence says that it all flows from the OBS battle. As for the rest of that, honestly it's loving hogwash if we take into account other writing. Wherein it's revealed that apparently people have been trading with Grayson for over a hundred years, and you can't tell me that no one who stumbled on Grayson didn't have a female captain. I say this because Honor has done precisely nothing here. She showed up, and then she cowardly fled the moment she met a Grayson. She didn't show them anything. Like that goes against the quoted "She showed us the truth that women could do it!" We both know for a fact that she didn't leave just because wanted to give negotiations time to breath. She fled fled FLED. If she had stuck around and showed the strength of her convictions then yeah. Or if Yanakov's worshipful illusion of Honor was dispelled by her retreat. And Honor had to fight to actually prove herself to people who have every reason to doubt her in their minds. Like, talk is talk and this dude is a richie rich so he can say poo poo like that and not be bothered because he has no real stake in the matter. Hell, spoiler alert, he dies in this book because otherwise he might have to actually do something. Khizan posted:The biggest problem with this is that nobody ever calls her out on this bullshit. She might have a fellow officer have a friendly "you know you shouldn't have done that" talk, but her decision to run away from this problem literally causes the entire clusterfuck scenario at the end of the book. She's directly responsible for getting almost all of the Grayson navy whacked alongside the Madrigal, and nobody ever brings this up to her in any serious capacity and it never hinders her career at all. Yeah, it's why I'm so harsh about it. She literally fucks up everything immensely and gets everyone killed because she's a cowardly idiot and I don't think it ever gets brought up again after this book ends. Abandoning her duty like that is literally Pavel Young stuff and she doesn't have the pull to keep it from killing her career and yet Solarian Newsies aren't calling her the Coward. Kchama fucked around with this message at 09:20 on Apr 21, 2020 |
# ? Apr 21, 2020 09:15 |
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I find his thing of Battleships>Dreadnoughts>Superdreadnoughts an interesting quirk in his writing as well. I'm guessing that's a holdover from his wargamer StarFire days that he's never shaken off.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 11:31 |
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Deptfordx posted:I find his thing of Battleships>Dreadnoughts>Superdreadnoughts an interesting quirk in his writing as well. I mean if by 'battleship' we assume 'predreadnought battleship' that's real life too.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 11:43 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 05:59 |
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I don't think that's a thing in the Honorverse though. There wasn't some revolutionary sea change when new tech obsoleted an old style of ship design overnight. Battleships are just smaller dreadnoughts and dreadnoughts bigger battleships. Battleships came first and then as they swelled in size apparently everbody started calling them dreadnoughts and again for SD's. Without that revolutionary change, what would actually happen is that battleships just got bigger over time (as real world battleships), but they would almost certainly still just be called battleships. After all battleship is just a shorthand for 'Class of biggest, toughest, heavily armed capital ships in our fleet' and would apply equally to whatever new ships you were currently fielding. Edit: Unrelated. Did anybody actually ever try Saganami Island Tactical Simulator. I was always mildly curious how that played. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 12:25 on Apr 21, 2020 |
# ? Apr 21, 2020 12:22 |