Everyone's a WarCriminal: the Mil-SciFi Thread

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Kchama: Jul 25, 2007

HONOR OF THE QUEEN CHAPTER NINE

This is a short chapter. It's literally just one scene and didn't really need to be a chapter but I guess he has to have a uniform 35 chapters.

quote:

The K4 star called Endicott burned in the view port, and the planet Masada basked in its warmth. Endicott was far cooler than the F6 furnace at the heart of the Yeltsin System, but then, Masada's orbital radius was barely a quarter that of Grayson's.

Captain Yu sat with folded arms, chin on his chest, contemplating the planet and star, and wished the government had found someone else for this assignment. He disliked clandestine ops on principle, and the superiors who'd explained how this was supposed to work had either totally underestimated the narrow-minded hesitancy of the Masadans or else lied when they briefed him. He was inclined to believe it was the former, yet one could never be entirely certain of that. Not in the People's Republic.

The outside galaxy saw only the huge sphere Haven had conquered. It didn't realize how fragile the Republic's economy truly was or how imperative that fragility made it that Haven continue to expand. Or just how calculating and cynically manipulative the PRH's leaders had become, even with their own subordinates, under the pressure of that imperative.

Yu did. He had more sense of history than most officers of the People's Navy�more of it than his superiors would have preferred. He'd almost been expelled from the Academy when one of his instructors discovered the secret cache of proscribed history texts written when the People's Republic was still simply the Republic of Haven. He'd managed to create enough uncertainty over who actually owned the offensive tapes to avoid expulsion, yet it had been one of the more terrifying episodes of his life�and he'd been careful to conceal his innermost thoughts ever since. The sophistry he practiced bothered him, at times, but not enough to change it, for he had too much to lose.

Yu's family had been Dolists for over a century. The captain had clawed his way out of prole housing and off the Basic Living Stipend by sheer guts and ability in a society where those qualities had become increasingly irrelevant, and if he had no illusions about the People's Republic, he had even less desire to return to the life he had escaped.

Captain Yu is a Good Guy. That's basically his character. He recognizes that Haven drools and Manticore rules and also the awesomeness of Honor. I like how Haven changed it's name apparently purely to hit on They Are Evil Commies flags because I don't think the actual government structure changed at all at any point. Also welfare holds you down, mannnnn. Weber sucks. Also: 'tapes'.

quote:

He sighed and checked his chrono. Simonds was late�again. That was another thing Yu hated about this assignment. He was a punctual, precise man, and it irked him immensely that his nominal commander came from a culture where superiors habitually kept juniors waiting for the express purpose of underlining their own superiority.

Not that Haven didn't have its own warts, he reflected, falling back into the dispassionate reverie whose Social Dysfunction Indicators would have horrified the Mental Hygiene Police. Two centuries of deficit spending to curry favor with the mob had wrecked not only the People's Republic's economy but any vestige of responsibility among the families who ruled it. Yu despised the mob as only someone who had fought his way clear of it could, but at least its members were honest. Ignorant, uneducated, unproductive leeches, yes, but honest. The Legislaturists who mouthed all the politically correct platitudes for the benefit of the rest of the galaxy and the Dolist Managers who controlled the prole voting blocs were better educated and dishonest, and that, in Captain Alfredo Yu's considered opinion, was the only way they differed from the mob.

Definitely hitting all of the 1982-style Communist flags. They become much more explicitly a communist ripoff later on. I sure do love how apparently welfare naturally leads to a 1982 dystopia.

quote:

He snorted and shifted in his chair, staring out the view port, and wished he could respect his own government. A man ought to be able to feel his country was worth fighting for, but Haven wasn't, and it wouldn't be. Not in his lifetime, anyway. Yet corrupt and cynical or not, it was his country. He hadn't asked for it, but it was the one he'd drawn, and he would serve it to the best of his ability because it was the only game in town. And because serving as its sword arm and succeeding despite its flaws was the only way to prove he was better than the system which had created him.

He growled to himself and rose to pace the briefing room. drat it, sitting around and waiting like this always turned his mind down these gloomy, worn out pathways, and that was hardly what he needed at a time like-

The briefing room hatch opened, and he turned, then came to attention as Sword of the Faithful Simonds walked in. He was alone, and Yu's spirits rose a bit. If Simonds had intended simply to stonewall, he would have brought along a few of the Masadan Navy's plethora of flag officers to trap Yu in the formal channels of military courtesy and prevent him from pushing hard.

Simonds nodded a wordless greeting and found a chair much more briskly than usual, then punched the button that popped the data terminal up out of the table top and keyed the terminal on line. There'd been a time, Yu remembered, when he wouldn't have had the least idea how to go about even that simple task, but he'd learned a lot from Haven�and not just about the workings of Thunder of God's information systems.

Yu took a chair facing the Sword and waited while Simonds quickly reread the report from Bres-

The captain caught himself. He never thought of Thunder of God as Saladin these days, and he had to stop thinking of Principality as Breslau. Not just because of the fiction that Masada had "bought" them from Haven, either. Anyone who could count on his fingers and toes would realize the two warships represented over eighty percent of the Endicott System's annual GSP, but their formal transfer to the Masadan Navy put Haven at a safe remove, legally (or at least technically), from whatever Masada did with them. It also made it important for Yu to prevent the Masadan officer corps from suspecting he and his fellow "immigrants" regarded them as a collection of half-assed, bigoted, superstition-ridden incompetents. Especially when he did think of them that way and couldn't make himself stop, however hard he tried.

Saladin is a Muslim icon, which really does make me think that Masada is suppose to be Jews + Muslims. It's pretty surprising that the didn't think Thunder Of God was more their style than Saladin, though.

Also, two small warships represent 80% of the Endicott System's annual GSP. I doubt Grayson is hugely more prosperous or have much money free considering they spend all their money surviving their hellworld.

By the way, the Saladin/Thunder Of God is a battlecruiser and the Principality/Breslau is a destroyer. So neither is a 'ship of the wall' and are well much smaller than the Super Dreadnoughts that Grayson starts pumping out pretty much immediately. There's no way they could have afforded to build any of them.

quote:

"I've taken your proposals to the Council of Elders, Captain," Simonds said at last, leaning back in his chair, "but before deciding, Chief Elder Simonds wishes to hear your reasoning from your own mouth, as it were. For that reason, with your permission, I intend to record our conversation."

He looked at Yu, and the captain suppressed a frown before it reached his mouth. So it was his proposal, was it? Well, that wasn't too surprising. The Sword badly wanted to become Chief Elder himself when his older brother shuffled off, yet he seemed unable to grasp that decisiveness was more likely than timidity to win him the council chair he craved.

On the other hand, if the responsibility was going to be Yu's, then so was at least a share of the credit, and it couldn't hurt to enhance his own power base�to the extent any "heathen" could have one with these fruitcakes.

By the way, no one is ever going to go YOU ARE THE TRUE SOUL OF MASADA AND ARE TRULY A THREE-DIMENSIONAL PERSON to anyone from Masada as they are just all evil dicks.

quote:

"Of course I don't object, Sir," he said courteously.

"Thank you." Simonds switched on the recorders. "In that case, suppose you simply begin at the beginning, Captain."

"Certainly, Sir." Yu tipped his chair back and folded his arms once more. "In essence, Sword Simonds, my belief is that the departure of three-quarters of the Manticoran escort gives us a window to activate Jericho with a high probability of success. It's possible they've moved on permanently, though I think it likely that they'll be returning in the not too distant future. In either case, however, I believe that, if we act promptly, your government will be able to suppress the current regime on Grayson and regain possession of the planet." Although, the Captain thought, only a batch of certifiable lunatics would want Grayson when they already had a much nicer planet all their own.

So yeah Honor's cowardice is literally giving Haven and Masada an opportunity to strike. Good job, Honor.

quote:

"At this time," he continued in the same level voice, "there is only one Manticoran warship in Yeltsin space, probably a destroyer. That vessel's primary responsibility is undoubtedly the protection of Manticoran nationals, and I estimate that its secondary mission priority will be to protect the freighters which have yet to be unloaded. Under the circumstances, I would expect its commander to adopt a wait and see attitude, at least initially, if we attack Grayson. Obviously I can't guarantee that, but Grayson should assume they can defeat our 'raids' themselves, and if the commander of the remaining Manticoran ship shares that belief, he'll almost certainly remain in Grayson orbit until it's too late. Once we've destroyed the bulk of the Grayson Navy, he'll be faced with a manifestly hopeless situation and may well withdraw entirely, taking his diplomats with him."

"And if he doesn't withdraw? Or, even worse, doesn't simply sit out our attack?" Simonds asked expressionlessly.

"Neither possibility will have any bearing on the military situation, Sir. His firepower can make no realistic difference to subsequent operations, and should he participate actively in Grayson's initial defensive actions, he won't be around to withdraw."

Yu smiled thinly.

Yu isn't particularly wrong.

quote:

"I realize your government feels anxious over the possibility of a clash with Manticore. The People's Republic, however, under the terms of your existing treaty, is prepared to defend the Endicott System and any territories added to it, and we're both well aware that Manticore's entire interest in this region stems from its desire to head off or at least delay open war against the Republic. My considered opinion is that the risk of Manticoran interference in Jericho is acceptable, since it's unlikely Queen Elizabeth�" he stressed the title slightly but deliberately and saw Simonds' nostrils flare "�will have the political and military will to commit her navy in a situation which is so obviously beyond retrieval. Even if that ship is destroyed, her government will probably grit its teeth and take it rather than provoke a major war now."

The captain forbore�again�to mention that if the Masadans had been willing to provide Haven with basing rights the reinforcements needed to back them would already be in place. Of course, the chance of a premature war with Manticore would also be proportionately greater, so perhaps these fanatics' xenophobia was worth the other pains in the rear end it created after all.

"You sound confident, Captain, but what if this single remaining vessel should prove to be the heavy cruiser and not a destroyer?"

"Her class is irrelevant, Sir." Simonds' nostrils twitched again, and Yu kicked himself. Habits of speech died hard, and he'd used the feminine gender without remembering that no Masadan would dream of regarding a warship as anything but masculine. But he allowed no sign of his slight chagrin to show as he continued. "Should this ship be Fearless and intervene in the initial operation, Thunder will more than suffice to assure his destruction. Should Fearless choose not to intervene at the outset, he won't be powerful enough to mount a credible defense by himself later."

Just so you know they are pure evil, they don't even call ships 'her'.

[quite]"I see." Simonds scratched his chin. "I'm afraid we're not quite as confident Manticore won't respond in overwhelming force, Captain," he said slowly, and it took considerable self-control for Yu to school his flash of disappointment into an attentive expression, "but, at the same time, you do have a point about the window of opportunity. Psychologically, at least, a single warship, particularly one who's seen all of his consorts withdraw, is more likely to be aware of his responsibilities to his own government than to someone who isn't yet even a formal ally."

"Precisely, Sword Simonds," Yu said respectfully.

"How much time do we have?" Simonds asked�for, Yu knew, the benefit of the Council of Elders; he and the Sword had been over the numbers only too often in the past twenty hours.

"A minimum of eleven days from their departure, Sir, or approximately nine days from right now. Depending on their orders, we might have somewhat longer, but I certainly wouldn't count on that."

"And the time required to complete Jericho?"

"We could be ready to launch the first attack in forty-eight hours. I can't say precisely how quickly things will move after that, since so much will depend on the speed with which Grayson reacts. On the other hand, we'll still have almost seven days before any other escorts can return, which will give them plenty of time to mount their counterattack. And I suspect they'll want to strike back as quickly as possible, if only to protect their position in the treaty negotiations by avoiding an appearance of weakness."

"I know you can't be precise, but the Council would appreciate your best estimate."

"I see, Sir." Yu narrowed his eyes to hide the contempt in them. Simonds was a naval officer. He ought to know as well as Yu that any estimate would be little more than an educated guess. In fact, he probably did know. He simply wanted to be sure any blame for a wrong guess fell on someone else's shoulders, and Yu's contempt eased into wry humor as he realized how much alike Havenite politicos and Masadan theocrats truly were under the skin.[/quote]

Haven is pure evil as well, of course.

quote:

"Very well, Sword. Allowing for normal Grayson readiness states, and with the proviso that any estimate can be only an estimate, I'd say we could expect them to counterattack our second or third raid. By the widest stretch of the imagination, I can't believe it would take them more than a T-day or two to spot our 'raiding' patterns and respond."

"And you're confident of your ability to crush them when they do?"

"As confident as anyone can be about a military action. It's highly unlikely they�or even the Manticorans, should their warship intervene�will realize what they're up against in time to save themselves. It's not impossible, of course, but the possibility is slight, and even if they break off instantly, their losses should still be near total."

"Near total?"

"Sir, we're talking about a deep-space engagement between impeller drive vessels, and we can't predict their exact approach vector," Yu said patiently. "Unless they come in exactly where we want them, Thunder will get in only a few broadsides. Their losses will still be high in that case, but it will be up to our locally-built units to mop them up, and it's highly probable at least some of them will escape. As I've already pointed out, however, they have nowhere to escape to. Any survivors can only fall back on Grayson, and they'll have no choice but to offer action when we advance against the planet itself. Disengaging won't be an option under those circumstances, and Thunder can wipe out their entire navy in an afternoon if they stand and fight."

"Um." Simonds rubbed his chin harder and frowned, then shrugged. "Very well, Captain Yu. Thank you for your time and your very clear arguments. I'll return to the Council with the recording." He pressed the stud a second time, turning off the recorders, and continued in a more natural voice. "I imagine we'll have a decision within another hour or two, Captain."

"I'm glad to hear that, Sir." Yu cocked an eyebrow. "May I ask if you have any feeling for what that decision will be?"

"I think it's going to be close, but I suspect they'll agree. Elder Huggins is all for it, and while he represents a fairly small group, it's a powerful one. Elder O'Donnal is more hesitant, but several of his adherents are leaning towards Huggins on this one."

"And Chief Elder Simonds?" Yu asked in a neutral tone.

"My brother also favors proceeding," Simonds said flatly. "He'll have to spend a few past favors to bring the waverers around, but I believe he'll pull it off." The Sword allowed himself a humorless smile. "He usually does."

"In that case, Sir, I'd like to go ahead and issue the preparatory orders. We can always stand the fleet down if the Council decides differently."

"Yes." Simonds rubbed his chin again, then nodded. "Go ahead, Captain. But bear this in mind. If the Chief Elder commits his own prestige to this and it fails, heads will roll. Mine may be among them; yours certainly will be, at least as far as your future service to the Faithful is concerned."

"I understand, Sir," Yu said with a sudden unwilling sympathy for the Sword's waffling. Yu himself faced nothing worse than being banished back to Haven in disgrace, assuming ONI and the government bought the Masadans' insistence (which he had no doubt would be very insistent) that any disaster had been entirely his fault. That would be humiliating and quite possibly disastrous to his career, but in Sword Simonds' case, "heads will roll" was all too likely to be literally true, since the sentence for treason against the Faith was beheading . . . after other, much nastier, experiences.

"I'm sure you do, Captain." Simonds sighed, then stood. "Well, I'd best be getting back." Yu rose to escort him out, but the Sword waved him back. "Don't bother. I can find my own way, and I'll pick up a chip of the recording from Communications on my way out. You've got things of your own to do here."

Sword of the Faithful Simonds turned and stepped through the opening hatch, leaving Yu alone with the gorgeous panorama of Masada and its sun, and the captain smiled. Simonds might be walking like a man who expected a pulser dart any moment, but he was committed at last. This time Jericho would really be launched, and once Grayson's walls came tumbling down, Captain Alfredo Yu could shake the dust of this loathsome system from his sandals and go home.

More Jewish references with the Masadans. HMMM.

Anyways all this does is tell us exactly what's going on with the villains and... that's about it. Oh and also make it clear that Yu is One Of The Good Ones.

# ? Apr 23, 2020 21:38

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# ? Jun 2, 2024 09:22

Dr. Sneer Gory: Sep 7, 2005

Kchama posted:

Saladin is a Muslim icon, which really does make me think that Masada is suppose to be Jews + Muslims. It's pretty surprising that the didn't think Thunder Of God was more their style than Saladin, though.

Thunder of God is the Masadan name. Yu calls the ship by that name later in the chapter.

Kchama posted:

"Should this ship be Fearless and intervene in the initial operation, Thunder will more than suffice to assure his destruction."

# ? Apr 23, 2020 22:01

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

Typical! And here I manage to make literally the last post of the last page. Welp.

An Complete Idiot posted:

Let�s Read German SF: Now Playing: The Power of the Three

The Power of the Three continues to be wild, and as appropriate for this thread, it�s mostly about war and planning to go to war.

Thanks to the trains between my work place and home being wonkier then usual, I managed to get a good chunk of the book done today, so let me tell you what happened so far:

President-Dictator of the American Union, Cyrus Stonard, plans to crush the British Empire once and for all and has already positioned his fleets of submarines and air cruisers for the Blitzkrieg he has in mind.

But Dr. Glossin, a sociopath and serialkiller with mind control powers, convinces the dictator to wait because he fears some old enemies of his may have supplied the British with a secret super-weapon. So he travels to the UK to do some spying.

Meanwhile, the protagonists (Logg Sar, who is Half-German/Half-Kurd, Atma, an Indian who hates the British and also has mind control powers and Eric, a Swede) managed to escape from the AU and landed in Sweden. There they start building a devastating super-weapon in a secret Swedish lab. They can do this because Eric is the heir of an ancient Swedish noble family and is filthy rich.

Then we learn from a Weber-eske meeting between British high-ranking military and political officials what is happening on the other side: The British already know about President-Dictator Stonards war plans, especially about the secret air fleet armed with bioweapons, meant to destroy the British population. The Royal Airforce has a counter-strike prepared, but everyone is sure at least some of the American air cruisers will break through, unloading weaponized plague and cholera on the UK.

To counter this, these sacks of poo poo plan to let some of the disease �accidentally� spread to Europe, to cause the European nations to enter the war on the British side. To push this strategy, a massive propaganda campaign is planned and set in motion.

We also learn some history: After WWI, the British Empire took over Constantinople, pushed every single other nation out of Africa to take over all their colonies and then engineered a war between Japan and the USA, which the US then lost. This caused a socialist uprising in the US, which was bloodily defeated by warlord Stonard, who then had to turn around and fight a second war against Japan. The US won this war, but the damage was so great Stonard turned the USA into the fascist American Union after the victory.

In the following years, British infamy slowly crept up on them: The AU slowly managed to draw both Canada and Australia into closer and closer ties and now they�re only one step away from severing their ties with Britain and joining the AU. Japan was so weakened by the war they can�t play the role of a political counter-weight anymore. Meanwhile, on the continent German, France and Russia were slowly pushed by British arrogance and hostility into some sort of European Union. They secretly plan to gently caress over both war parties by heavily profiting from selling materials and other goods to both of them at 300% markup (that�s what they want to start at, mind you)

Then Atma, Logg Sar�s friend, brainwashes him to prevent him from rushing off to save his fiance, because he just learned that Dr. Glossin captured and brainwashed her. Also we learn at some point that Dr. Glossin regularly beats his old, ugly black servant, because brainwashing, raping and murdering women is just not evil enough for that guy. Coincidentally, this scene also reveals that Hans Dominik has probably never even seen a non-white person for his entire life.

I�m now at the point where Dr. Glossin is arguing with President-Dictator Stonard about the war. President-Dictator Stonard gets angrier and angrier because he is told that maybe, just maybe, some weird randos could maybe have the secret super-weapon and theoretically help out the British. Even though his lead in Britain turned out to be a whole load of nothing, he still has this hunch, you see�

Stonard really wants to start killing British though, but Dr. Glossin can convince him to wait at least until the secret American underwater-base at the east-coast of Africa is finished.

Meanwhile, Atma and Logg Sar finally travel to the AU to save the girl, while Eric gets tempted to use the super-weapon for his own ends, but (barely) resists.

If you guys want to know more, I�ll keep reading!

# ? Apr 23, 2020 22:19

Kchama: Jul 25, 2007

Dr. Sneer Gory posted:

Thunder of God is the Masadan name. Yu calls the ship by that name later in the chapter.

Ah you're right I totally misread. Thanks for correcting.

quote:

The captain caught himself. He never thought of Thunder of God as Saladin these days, and he had to stop thinking of Principality as Breslau.

I misread this.

To add to things since I messed up, the Thunder of God/Saladin is a Sultan-class ship. So the naming scheme of them makes sense in light of that. It sounded weird as a PRH ship though, but I guess it's the naming scheme of that class.

Breslau seems to be named after... European cities?

I do like that there's no history for 2000 years for anyone to draw from for naming, I guess.

Kchama fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Apr 23, 2020

# ? Apr 23, 2020 22:44

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

Kchama posted:

I do like that there's no history for 2000 years for anyone to draw from for naming, I guess.

One of the later superdreadnought-classes was called the "Honor Harrington"-class and Manticorans sometimes name their ship-classes after their own famous people, like the Edward Saganami class for example. And both Graysons and Manticorans love naming their ships after people from their own history. The Manticoran Prince Consort class ships are all named after royal consorts, for example the "Prince Michael"

I guess Havenites prefer old-fashioned names because they see themselves closer to old Terra or something? Or after all that time names like "Breslau" seem as exotic as naming your new ships "Apollo"

# ? Apr 23, 2020 23:17

Kchama: Jul 25, 2007

Libluini posted:

One of the later superdreadnought-classes was called the "Honor Harrington"-class and Manticorans sometimes name their ship-classes after their own famous people, like the Edward Saganami class for example. And both Graysons and Manticorans love naming their ships after people from their own history. The Manticoran Prince Consort class ships are all named after royal consorts, for example the "Prince Michael"

I guess Havenites prefer old-fashioned names because they see themselves closer to old Terra or something? Or after all that time names like "Breslau" seem as exotic as naming your new ships "Apollo"

I can't think of any other examples beyond the Prince Consorts and the Recent Manticorena Heroes. So just Manticore.

I'm surprised the PRH doesn't have anything comparable.

Though I was more just getting at that all the 'ancient past' names (Saganami doesn't really count) are all Earth stuff. There's nothing from year 2000-3800 or so.

# ? Apr 23, 2020 23:37

Gnoman: Feb 12, 2014; Come, all you fair and tender maids
Who flourish in your pri-ime
Beware, take care, keep your garden fair
Let Gnoman steal your thy-y-me
Le-et Gnoman steal your thyme

There's a few other examples in Manticoran service - several ships are named after various Manticoran monarchs, there's a ship named after the "historical" figure "Ellen D'Orville", the sum total of information on which we are given is that she was the other of Manticore's two great naval heroes besides Saganami. You are, however, mostly correct. There is a huge lack of names from that huge period. Even the Graysons and Solarians have more.

Kchama posted:

By the way, the Saladin/Thunder Of God is a battlecruiser and the Principality/Breslau is a destroyer. So neither is a 'ship of the wall' and are well much smaller than the Super Dreadnoughts that Grayson starts pumping out pretty much immediately. There's no way they could have afforded to build any of them.

Grayson-built capital ships don't show up for a couple of years after the Alliance, when it is suggested that the mass injection of advanced technology and capital infusion has boosted their economy enormously. The first Grayson SDs are prizes that were generously handed over to them. You can argue (with fairly strong grounding) that the time is far too short for that to take effect, although simply providing advanced tools to the existing labor force would boost productivity enormously.

# ? Apr 24, 2020 00:24

FuturePastNow: May 19, 2014

The other Havenite battlecruiser class that you'll see a lot more of is the Warlord-class, all named appropriately.

All the Solarian superdreadnoughts are named after scientists.

The only real takeaway here is that Weber really loves naming conventions and loves re-using the same names across all of his series.

# ? Apr 24, 2020 00:25

mllaneza: Apr 28, 2007; Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952

Libluini posted:

I guess Havenites prefer old-fashioned names because they see themselves closer to old Terra or something? Or after all that time names like "Breslau" seem as exotic as naming your new ships "Apollo"

Breslau is actually a historical reference. At the start of WW1 the Germans had a battlecruiser, Goeben, and a light cruiser, the Breslau, operating together in the Mediterranean. The French navy deployed to protect troop convoys from Africa to France, leaving the British to try and run down the Goeben. The RN just missed catching Goeben with two of their own battlecruisers, then the admiral on the spot declined a chance to catch Goeben with 4 armored cruisers - the class of ships battlecruisers were expressly design to kill; Goeben had a chance against two older BCs and would probably slaughter the ACs. The Goeben and Breslau escaped East and ended up in Turkey. The Germans "sold" Goeben and Breslau to the Turkish navy as part of a deal that brought Turkey into the war as part of the Central Powers. Goeben became Yavuz Sultan Selim and Breslau became Midili, still with mostly their original crews.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pursuit_of_Goeben_and_Breslau

And there you go, Weber is trying to rhyme with history.

# ? Apr 24, 2020 01:16

TheGreatEvilKing: Mar 28, 2016

So there was a chat about how to make a Honor Harrington wargame and how boring it would be to play. I propose the following equitable and balanced concept.

Instead of names, you have character traits such as "courageous" or "rapist". You don't pick whether you play Manticore or the villains, you maneuver the game so you get all the heroic traits and your opponent gets the evil traits. When one player has an entire hand of heroic traits they become Manticore and automatically win the space battle.

This is just as accurate to the spirit of Weber, while offering opportunities for actual gameplay

# ? Apr 24, 2020 01:19

Kchama: Jul 25, 2007

Gnoman posted:

There's a few other examples in Manticoran service - several ships are named after various Manticoran monarchs, there's a ship named after the "historical" figure "Ellen D'Orville", the sum total of information on which we are given is that she was the other of Manticore's two great naval heroes besides Saganami. You are, however, mostly correct. There is a huge lack of names from that huge period. Even the Graysons and Solarians have more.

I mostly bring it up because it's kind of a thing I notice that's pretty common in scifi. If they go for historical references, it's almost always to real-life present and past and never in the past of the story and our future. It's not a thing Weber uniquely does.

quote:

Grayson-built capital ships don't show up for a couple of years after the Alliance, when it is suggested that the mass injection of advanced technology and capital infusion has boosted their economy enormously. The first Grayson SDs are prizes that were generously handed over to them. You can argue (with fairly strong grounding) that the time is far too short for that to take effect, although simply providing advanced tools to the existing labor force would boost productivity enormously.

Eh, the thing about advanced tools is that you then gotta teach them all how to use the advanced tools. And then they gotta retool everything they have to work with those tools, and retool their shiplines to build much much bigger ships, etc.

Also their GSP was apparently quite small, as a DN costs 32 billion Manticore Dollars (which you might assume is a good deal stronger than most currencies) individually, and that would appear to be over 100% of the Masadan GSP in 1903.

Also Grayson put out its first SDPs in 1908, just in five years. So apparently their GSP jumped up several times within five years.

I mean, I'm just repeating what we already know about "Weber does not know how anything but the shooty bang bang works".

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

So there was a chat about how to make a Honor Harrington wargame and how boring it would be to play. I propose the following equitable and balanced concept.

Instead of names, you have character traits such as "courageous" or "rapist". You don't pick whether you play Manticore or the villains, you maneuver the game so you get all the heroic traits and your opponent gets the evil traits. When one player has an entire hand of heroic traits they become Manticore and automatically win the space battle.

This is just as accurate to the spirit of Weber, while offering opportunities for actual gameplay

Short game, though.

# ? Apr 24, 2020 02:42

Kchama: Jul 25, 2007

HONOR OF THE QUEEN CHAPTER TEN

The first scene seems to mostly be a reply to anyone who would dare think that Honor ran away. It was a TACTICAL RETREAT, thank you very much!

quote:

Ensign Wolcott nibbled a fingernail and considered the officers at the next table. Lieutenant (JG) Tremaine had come aboard Fearless as Commander McKeon's pilot�now he sat chatting with Lieutenant Cardones and Lieutenant Commander Venizelos, and Wolcott envied his ease with such exalted personages.

Of course, Tremaine had been with the Captain in Basilisk, too. Both the Captain and the Exec were careful about never letting that color their official relations with anyone, but everyone knew there was an inner circle.

The problem was that Wolcott needed to talk to someone from inside that circle�and not Venizelos or Cardones. They were both approachable to their juniors, but she was afraid of how the Exec might react if he thought she was criticizing the Captain. And Cardones' reaction would probably be even worse . . . not to mention the fact that anyone who wore the Order of Gallantry and the blood-red sleeve stripe of the Monarch's Thanks was more than a little daunting to anyone fresh from Saganami Island, even if she was his junior tactical officer. But Lieutenant Tremaine was young enough�and junior enough�to feel less threatening. He knew the Captain, too, and he was assigned to a different ship, so if she made a fool of herself, or pissed him off, she wouldn't have to see him every day.

She nibbled her finger harder, nursing her coffee, then sighed in relief as Venizelos and Cardones rose.

Cardones said something to Tremaine and they all laughed. Then the exec and tactical officer disappeared into the officers' mess lift, and the ensign picked up her coffeecup, stiffened her nerve, and crossed to Tremaine's table as casually as she could.

He was just starting to tidy his tray when she cleared her throat. He looked up with a smile�a very nice smile�and Wolcott suddenly found herself wondering if perhaps there weren't other reasons to make his acquaintance. After all, he was assigned to Troubadour, so the prohibitions against involvements with people in the same chain of command wouldn't apply. . . .

She felt herself blush at her thoughts, especially in light of what she wanted to talk to him about, and gave herself an internal shake.

"Excuse me, Sir," she said. "I wonder if I might have a moment of your time?"

"Of course, Ms.�?" He cocked his eyebrows, and she sat at his gesture.

"Wolcott, Sir. Carolyn Wolcott, Class of '81."

"Ah. First deployment?" he asked pleasantly.

"Yes, Sir."

"What can I do for you, Ms. Wolcott?"

"Well, it's just�" She swallowed. This was going to be just as hard as she'd expected, despite his charm, and she drew a deep breath. "Sir, you were with Captain Harrington in Basilisk, and I, well, I needed to discuss something with someone who knows her."

"Oh?" Mobile eyebrows swooped downward, and his tone was suddenly cool.

"Yes, Sir," she hurried on desperately. "It's just that, well, something happened in�in Yeltsin, and I don't know if I should . . ." She swallowed again, but something softened in his eyes.

"Had a run in with the Graysons, did you?" His voice was much gentler, and her face flamed. "Well, why didn't you take it to Commander Venizelos, then?" he asked reasonably.

"I�" She wiggled in her chair, feeling younger�and more awkward�than in years. "I didn't know how he might react�or the Captain. I mean, the awful way they treated her, and she never said a word to them. . . . She might have thought I was being silly or . . . or something," she finished lamely.

"I doubt that." Tremaine poured fresh coffee for himself and poised the pot interrogatively above Wolcott's cup. She nodded gratefully, and he poured, then sat back nursing his cup. "Why do I have the feeling it's the 'or something' that worries you, Ms. Wolcott?"

Her face flamed still darker, and she stared down into her coffee.

"Sir, I don't know the Captain the way . . . the way you do."

"The way I do?" Tremaine smiled wryly. "Ms. Wolcott, I was an ensign myself the last time I served under Captain Harrington�and that wasn't all that long ago. I'd hardly claim to 'know' her especially well. I respect her, and I admire her tremendously, but I don't know her."

"But you were in Basilisk with her."

"So were several hundred other people, and I was as wet behind the ears as they come. If you want someone who really knows her," Tremaine added, frowning as he ran through a mental list of Fearless's officers, "your best bet is probably Rafe Cardones."

"I couldn't ask him!" Wolcott gasped, and Tremaine laughed out loud.

"Ms. Wolcott, Lieutenant Cardones was a JG then himself, and just between you, me, and the bulkhead, he was all thumbs, too. Of course, he got over that�thanks to the skipper." He smiled at her, then sobered. "On the other hand, you've gotten yourself in deep enough now. You may as well go ahead and ask me whatever it is you don't want to ask Rafe or Commander Venizelos." She twisted her cup, and he grinned. "Go ahead�trot it out! Everyone expects an ensign to put a foot in his or her mouth sometime, you know."

"Well, it's just�Sir, is the Captain running away from Grayson?"

"Yes." is the answer.

quote:

The question came out in a rush, and her heart plummeted as Tremaine's face went absolutely expressionless.

"Perhaps you'd care to explain that question, Ensign." His voice was very, very cold.

"Sir, it's just that . . . Commander Venizelos sent me down to Grayson to drop off Admiral Courvosier's baggage," she said miserably. She hadn't meant for it to come out that way, and she knew she'd been stupid to ask anyone a question which might be taken as a criticism of her CO. "I was supposed to meet someone from the Embassy, but there was this . . . Grayson officer." Her face burned again, but this time it was with humiliated memory. "He told me I couldn't land there�it was the pad I'd been cleared for, Sir, but he told me I couldn't land there. That . . . that I didn't have any business pretending to be an officer and I should . . . go home and play with my dolls, Sir."

"And you didn't tell the Exec?" Tremaine's cold, ominous tone was not, she was relieved to realize, directed at her this time.

"No, Sir," she said in a tiny voice.

"What else did he have to say?" the Lieutenant demanded.

"He�" Wolcott drew a deep breath. "I'd rather not say, Sir. But I showed him my clearance and orders, and he just laughed. He said they didn't matter. They were only from the Captain, not a real officer, and he called her�" She stopped and her hands clenched on her coffee cup. "Then he said it was about time we 'bitches' got out of Yeltsin, and he�" she looked away from the table and bit her lip "�he tried to put his hand inside my tunic, Sir."

Anyways this wasn't the Soul Of Grayson speaking so none of this reflects badly on anyone from Grayson.

quote:

"He what?!"

Tremaine half stood, and heads turned all over the dining room. Wolcott darted an agonized look around, and he sat back down, staring at her. She made herself nod, and his eyes narrowed.

"Why didn't you report him?" His voice was lower but still harsh. "You know the Captain's orders about things like that!"

"But . . ." Wolcott hesitated, then met his eyes. "Sir, we were pulling out, and the Grayson�he seemed to think it was because the Captain was . . . running away from how badly they've treated her. I didn't know whether he was right or not, Sir," she said almost desperately, "and even if he wasn't, we were scheduled to break orbit in an hour. Nothing like that ever happened to me before, Sir. If I'd been at home, I would've�But out here I didn't know what to do, and if�if I told the Captain what he'd said about her�!"

He was right. This honestly should really color everything for Grayson. Because she literally ran away.

quote:

She broke off, biting her lip harder, and Tremaine inhaled deeply.

"All right, Ms. Wolcott. I understand. But here's what you're going to do. As soon as the Exec comes off watch, you're going to tell him exactly what happened, word-for-word to the best of your memory, but you are not going to tell him you ever even considered that the Captain might be 'running away.' "

Her eyes were confused�and unhappy�and he touched her arm gently.

"Listen to me. I don't think Captain Harrington knows how to run away. Oh, sure, she's making a tactical withdrawal right now, but not because the Graysons ran her off, whatever they may think. If you even suggest to Commander Venizelos that you thought that might be what was happening, he'll probably hand you your head."

But she's literally running away! And not even in a 'tactical retreat', she is loving off at full speed because she can't handle it. It's already being downplayed.

quote:

"That's what I was afraid of," she admitted. "But I just didn't know. And . . . and if they were right, I didn't want to make things even worse for her, and the things he said about her were so terrible, I just didn't�"

"Ms. Wolcott," Tremaine said gently, "the one thing the Skipper will never do is blame you for someone else's actions, and she feels very strongly about harassment. I think it has to do with�" He stopped and shook his head. "Never mind. Tell the Exec, and if he asks why you waited so long, tell him you figured we were leaving so soon they couldn't have done anything about it till we got back anyway. That's true enough, isn't it?"

She nodded, and he patted her arm.

"Good. I promise you'll get support, not a reaming." He leaned back again, then smiled. "Actually, I think what you really need is someone to ask for advice when you don't want to stick your neck out with one of the officers, so finish your coffee. I've got someone I want you to meet."

"You'll get support, unless you suggest that Honor Harrington ever did anything wrong ever. If you do you will regret it."

quote:

"Who's that, Sir?" Wolcott asked curiously.

"Well, he's not exactly someone your folks would want me to introduce you to," Tremaine said with a wry smile, "but he certainly straightened me out on my first cruise." Wolcott drained her cup, and the lieutenant rose. "I think you'll like Chief Harkness," he told her. "And�" his eyes glinted wickedly "�if anyone aboard Fearless knows a way to deal with scumbags like that Grayson without involving anyone else, he will!"

Oh boy, Harkness.

quote:

Commander Alistair McKeon watched Nimitz work his way through yet another rabbit quarter. For some reason known only to God, the terrestrial rabbit had adapted amazingly well to the planet Sphinx. Sphinx's year was over five T-years long, which, coupled with the local gravity and a fourteen-degree axial tilt, produced some . . . impressive flora and fauna and a climate most off-worlders loved during spring and fall�well, early fall, anyway�and detested at all other times. Under the circumstances, one might have expected something as inherently stupid as a rabbit to perish miserably; instead, they'd thrived. Probably, McKeon reflected, thanks to their birthrate.

Nimitz removed flesh from a bone with surgeon-like precision, laid it neatly on his plate, and picked up another in his delicate-looking true-hands, and McKeon grinned. Rabbits might thrive on Sphinx, but they hadn't gotten noticeably brighter and, just as humans could eat most Sphinxian animal life, Sphinx's predators could eat bunnies. And did�with gusto.

Nimitz is basically a living weapon and at no point does anyone ever question their presence. Even after they become known as sentient telepaths.

quote:

"He really likes rabbit, doesn't he?" McKeon observed, and Honor smiled.

"Not all 'cats do, but Nimitz certainly does. It's not like celery-every 'cat loves that�but Nimitz is an epicure. He likes variety, and 'cats are arboreals, so he never had a chance to taste rabbit until he adopted me." She chuckled. "You should have seen him the first time I offered him some."

"What happened? Did our cultured friend's table manners desert him?"

"He didn't have any table manners at the time, and he practically wallowed in his plate."

Nimitz looked up from his rabbit, and it was McKeon's turn to chuckle at his disdainful expression. Few treecats ever left Sphinx, and off-worlders persistently underestimated those who did, but McKeon had known Nimitz long enough to learn better. 'Cats out-pointed Old Earth's dolphins on the sentience scale, and the commander sometimes suspected they were even more intelligent than they chose to let people know.

Nimitz held Honor's gaze a moment, then sniffed and returned to his meal.

"Take that, Captain Harrington," McKeon murmured, and grinned at Honor's laugh, for he hadn't heard many from her in Yeltsin. Of course, he was her junior CO, and unlike too many RMN officers, who saw patronage and family interest as a natural part of a military career, she detested even the appearance of favoritism, so there'd been no invitations to private dinners since he'd joined her command. In fact, she'd invited Commander Truman to join them tonight, but Truman had planned an unscheduled drill for her crew's surprise evening entertainment.

McKeon was as glad she had. He liked Alice Truman, but however much Honor's other skippers might respect her, he knew damned well none of them would push her on any subject she didn't open herself. He also knew, from personal experience, that she would never dream of sharing her own pain with any of her own ship's company�and that she was less impervious to strain and self-doubt than she believed she ought to be.

He finished his peach cobbler and leaned back with a sigh of content as MacGuiness poured fresh coffee into his cup.

"Thank you, Mac," he said, then grimaced as the chief steward filled Honor's mug with cocoa.

"I don't see how you can drink that stuff," he complained as MacGuiness retired. "Especially not after something as sweet and sticky as dessert!"

"Fair enough," Honor replied, sipping with a grin. "I've never understood how any of you can swill up coffee. Yecch!" She shuddered. "It smells nice, but I wouldn't use it for a lubricant."

Just put some sugar and milk in it, geez.

quote:

"It's not as bad as all that," McKeon protested.

"All I can say is that it must be an acquired taste I, for one, have no interest in acquiring."

"At least it's not gooey and sticky."

"Which, aside from its smell, is probably its only virtue." Honor's dark eyes danced. "It certainly wouldn't keep you alive through a Sphinx winter. That takes a real hot drink!"

"I'm not too sure I'd be interested in surviving a Sphinx winter."

"That's because you're an effete Manticoran. You call what you get there weather?" She sniffed. "You're all so spoiled you think a measly meter or so of snow is a blizzard!"

"Oh? I don't see you moving to Gryphon."

"The fact that I like weather doesn't make me a masochist."

"I don't imagine Commander DuMorne would appreciate that implied aspersion on his home world's climate," McKeon grinned.

"I doubt Steve's been back to visit Gryphon more than twice since the Academy, and if you think what I have to say about Gryphon weather is bad, you should hear him. Saganami Island made a true believer out of him, and he resettled his entire family around Jason Bay years ago."

That sure was interesting. Well, not really. But that's basically more about Manticore's actual system than we've gotten ever.

quote:

"I see." McKeon toyed with his coffee cup a moment, then looked up with an expression that was half smile and half frown. "Speaking of true believers, what do you think of Grayson?"

Some of the humor vanished from Honor's eyes. She took another sip of cocoa, as if to buy time, but McKeon waited patiently. He'd been trying to work the conversation around to Grayson all evening, and he wasn't going to let her off the hook now. He might be her junior officer, but he was also her friend.

"I try not to think about them," she said finally, her tone a tacit acceptance of his persistence. "They're provincial, narrow, and bigoted, and if the Admiral hadn't let me get away from them, I would've started breaking heads."

I mean, she's not wrong, despite what Courvosier might think.

quote:

"Not the most diplomatic method of communication, Ma'am," McKeon murmured, and her lips twitched in an unwilling smile.

"I wasn't feeling particularly diplomatic. And, frankly, I wasn't all that concerned with communicating with them, either."

"Then you were wrong," McKeon said very quietly. Her mouth tightened with a stubbornness he knew well, but he continued in that same quiet voice. "Once upon a time, you had a real jerk of an exec who let his feelings get in the way of his duty." He watched her eyes flicker as his words struck home. "Don't let anything push you into doing the same thing, Honor."

Silence hovered between them, and Nimitz thumped down from his chair to hop up into Honor's lap. He stood on his rearmost limbs, planting the other four firmly on the table, and looked back and forth between them.

"You've been headed for this all evening, haven't you?" she asked finally.

"More or less. You could have flushed my career down the toilet�Lord knows you had reason to�and I don't want to see you making mistakes for the same reason I did."

"Mistakes?" There was an edge to her voice, but he nodded.

"Mistakes." He waved a hand over the table. "I know you'd never let Admiral Courvosier down like I let you down, but some day you're going to have to learn to handle people in a diplomatic context. This isn't Basilisk Station, and we're not talking about enforcing the commerce regulations or running down smugglers. We're talking about interacting with the officers of a sovereign star system with a radically different culture, and the rules are different."

"I seem to recall that you also objected to my decision to enforce the com regs," Honor half-snapped, and McKeon winced. He started to reply, but her hand rose before he opened his mouth. "I shouldn't have said that�and I know you're trying to help. But I'm just not cut out to be a diplomat, Alistair. Not if that means putting up with people like the Graysons!"

"You don't have a lot of choice," McKeon said as gently as he could. "You're Admiral Courvosier's ranking military officer. Whether you like the Graysons or detest them�and whether they like you or not�you can't change that, and this treaty is as important to the Kingdom as any naval engagement. You're not just Honor Harrington to these people. You're a Queen's officer, the senior Queen's officer in their system, and�"

"And you think I was wrong to leave," Honor interrupted.

"Yes, I do." McKeon met her eyes unflinchingly. "I realize that, as a man, my contacts with their officers must have been a lot less stressful than yours, and some of them are genuine bastards, potential allies or no. But some of the ones who aren't let their guard down with me a time or two. They were curious�more than curious�and what they really wanted to know was how I could stomach having a woman as my commanding officer." He shrugged. "They knew better than to come right out and ask, but the question was there."

Honor is basically terrible at being a diplomat and a leader. But it doesn't matter cuz she's the Living Legend.

quote:

"How did you answer it?"

"I didn't, in so many words, but I expect I said what Jason Alvarez or any of our other male personnel would've said�that we don't worry about people's plumbing, only how well they do their jobs, and that you do yours better than anyone else I know."

Honor blushed, but McKeon continued without a trace of sycophancy.

"That shook them up, but some of them went away to think about it. So what concerns me now is that the ones who did have to know there was no real need for Fearless to convoy these freighters to Casca�not when you could've sent Apollo and Troubadour. For the real idiots, that may not make any difference, but what about the ones who aren't total assholes? They're going to figure the real reason was to get you and Commander Truman 'out of sight, out of mind,' and it doesn't matter whether it was your idea or the Admiral's. Except . . . if it was your idea, they're going to wonder why you wanted out. Because you felt your presence was hampering the negotiations? Or because you're a woman and, whatever we said, you couldn't take the pressure?"

"You mean they'll think I cut and ran," Honor said flatly.

"I mean they may."

"No, you mean they will." She leaned back and studied his face. "Do you think that, Alistair?"

Because... she did.

quote:

"No. Or maybe I do, a little. Not because you were scared of a fight, but because you didn't want to face this one. Because this time you didn't know how to fight back, maybe."

"Maybe I did cut and run." She turned her cocoa mug on its saucer, and Nimitz nuzzled her elbow. "But it seemed to me�still seems to me�that I was only getting in the Admiral's way, and�" She paused, then sighed. "drat it, Alistair, I don't know how to fight it!"

It'd be nice if this had a longer term impact than basically being done by the time this book is over.

quote:

McKeon grimaced at the oath, mild as it was, for he'd never before heard her swear, not even when their ship was being blown apart around them.

"Then you'll just have to figure out how." She looked back up at him, and he shrugged. "I know�easy for me to say. After all, I've got gonads. But they're still going to be there when we get back from Casca, and you're going to have to deal with them then. You're going to have to, whatever the Admiral may have achieved in our absence, and not just for yourself. You're our senior officer. What you do and say�what you let them do or say to you�reflects on the Queen's honor, not just yours, and there are other women serving under your command. Even if there weren't, more women are going to follow you in Yeltsin sooner or later, and the pattern you establish is the one they'll have to deal with, too. You know that."

"Yes." Honor gathered Nimitz up and hugged him to her breasts. "But what do I do, Alistair? How do I convince them to treat me as a Queen's officer when all they see is a woman who shouldn't be an officer?"

"Hey, I'm just a commander!" McKeon said, and grinned at her fleeting smile. "On the other hand, maybe you just put your finger on the mistake you've been making ever since Admiral Yanakov's staff crapped their shorts when they realized you were SO. You're talking about what they see, not what you see or what you are."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you've been playing by their rules, not yours."

"Didn't you just tell me I needed to be diplomatic?"

"No, I said you had to understand diplomacy. There's a difference. If you really did pull out of Yeltsin because of the way they reacted to you, then you let their prejudices put you in a box. You let them run you out of town when you should have spit in their eye and dared them to prove there was some reason you shouldn't be an officer."

"You mean I took the easy way out."

"I guess I do, and that's probably why you feel like you ran. There are two sides to every dialogue, but if you accept the other side's terms without demanding equal time for your own, then they control the debate and its outcome."

"Um." Honor buried her nose in Nimitz's fur for a moment and felt his rumbling, subsonic purr. He clearly approved of McKeon's argument�or at least of the emotions that went with it. And, she thought, Alistair was right. The Havenite ambassador had played his cards well in his efforts to discredit her, but she'd let him. She'd actually helped him by walking on eggs and trying to hide her hurt and anger when Grayson eyes dismissed her as a mere female instead of demanding the respect her rank and achievements were due.

She pressed her face deeper into Nimitz's warm fur and realized the Admiral had been right, as well. Perhaps not entirely�she still thought her absence would help him get a toe in the door�but mostly. She'd run away from a fight and left him to face the Graysons and their prejudices without the support he had a right to expect from his senior uniformed subordinate.

"You're right, Alistair," she sighed at last, raising her head to look at him. "I blew it."

"Oh, I don't think it's quite that bad. You just need to spend the rest of this trip getting your thoughts straightened out and deciding what you're going to do to the next sexist twit." She grinned appreciatively, and he chuckled. "You and the Admiral can hit 'em high, and the rest of us will hit 'em right around the ankles, Ma'am. If they want a treaty with Manticore, then they'd better start figuring out that a Queen's officer is a Queen's officer, however he�or she�is built. If they can't get that through their heads, this thing is never going to work."

"Maybe." Her grin softened into a smile. "And thanks. I needed someone to kick me in the posterior."

"What are friends for? Besides, I remember someone who kicked my rear end when I needed it." He smiled back, then finished his coffee and rose.

"And now, Captain Harrington, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to my ship. Thank you for a marvelous dinner."

"You're welcome." Honor escorted McKeon to the hatch, then stopped and held out her hand. "I'll let you find your own way to the boat bay, Commander McKeon. I've got some things to think about before I turn in."

"Yes, Ma'am." He shook her hand firmly. "Good night, Ma'am."

"Good night, Commander." The hatch slid shut behind him, and she smiled at it. "Good night, indeed," she murmured softly.

McKeon's a good guy. It'd be a shame if he mostly disappeared for a bunch of books and reappear just to die.

This chapter is probably one of the better written ones Weber has done. It's a lot better character work than he's normally good for.

# ? Apr 24, 2020 04:04

Beefeater1980: Sep 12, 2008; My God, it's full of Horatios!

Libluini posted:

Let�s Read German SF: Now Playing: The Power of the Three

This is wild. It�s from 1921?

Incidentally if we are talking German SF, I�ve been playing a lot of X4 lately and would appreciate any summaries of Farnham�s Legend and its sequels.

For my contribution, as mentioned I have suffered through the Ark Royal series. A brief summary is set out below to save anyone else from the same fate.

Book 1: Ark Royal, by Christopher Nuttall

This popped up in my kindle recommendations a while ago, and had a picture of a space carrier being blown up by spaceships on the cover. A promising start!

As the first chapter begins, we learn that Christopher Nuttall has watched Battlestar Galactica.

There is an old space carrier called the ~~Galactica~~Ark Royal. She is captained by a broken, alcoholic middle aged man ready to be pensioned off, Commodore ~~Adama~~ Sir Theodore Smith. Britain somehow matters again and has a large space station called Nelson Base; we also hear about the Japanese, Chinese, American, Russian and European fleets.

The Ark Royal is practically mothballed due to being severely out of date (modern carriers are lighter and faster; the Ark Royal has guns and armour and can take a beating but would be destroyed from a distance in a carrier clash). Commodore Smith is therefore surprised to be called into a briefing room and told that the Ark Royal is back in action, and astonished when he hears why: Aliens have attacked a Mexican colony world. He is then outraged to be told that since he is an alcoholic fuckup, someone younger and better connected is going to be taking over.

Happily, he gets to keep his command by throwing out a string of bullshit about how the Ark Royal has old systems and a captain trained on modern ships couldn�t possibly command it etc., thus neatly removing the source of dramatic tension mere seconds after it was created. This will happen a lot. The young gun, called FitzWilliam, will join Smith as XO instead. Smith muses that this would be a dagger at his back, and it sets up the potential for conflict between the two men; we are told that FitzWilliam resents being placed in a subordinate role, for example. Tension!

However, in every interaction starting with the first, they are shown to like and respect one another�s innate common sense and professionalism, which quickly dampens that squib. At no point is either man less than courteous and professional toward the other. Smith�s alcoholism also magically disappears now that he has a real job to do, and, like every alcoholic ever, he has no trouble at all resisting the temptation to drink whenever it arises.

We also learn:
� The �British Commonwealth� has apparently reformed as a real thing, and has sent around a billion people (presumably from India? But India is later introduced as a separate Great Power so I�m not sure how the UK, Australia, Canada and Fiji collectively scraped up a billion people) to colonise a large, desirable planet now called, with singular creativity, �Britannia�.

� The Ark Royal has a grouchy CAG, Kurt Schneider, who has a spoilt teenage daughter and a greedy, unsympathetic and probably cheating wife back home. The wife has �enormous knockers�, though, which is why he married her; so, not all bad. Also apparently she can be charming when she wants to. We never see this.

� Christopher Nuttall is Not a Racist, because the helmsman, Lightbridge, is black. Lightbridge even has a small speaking role in the book, occasionally saying �Aye, Sir� or, one one occasion, �Transit completed, Sir�.

� the Ark Royal has no fighters on board, and apparently uses Chinese tech for a core part of its systems.

� There is a hot Mexican midshipwoman aboard called Lopez. FitzWilliam immediately decides she is probably sleeping with one of the other crewmen based on finding her attractive.

- The countries of Earth still go to war with each other for control of space. Clashes have happened between Japan and India (over the Edo and Gandhi colonies) and the US and China (whose colonies are called Earhart and Heilongjiang....no of course they�re not, they are called Washington and Confucius).

The Ark Royal is ordered to ready itself to defend Britannia and/or Earth depending on where the aliens attack. The main fleet will handle the main alien attack, so the Britannia will form part of the second line of defence.

Some pilots arrive, including ~~Starbuck~~ Rose, an attractive young pilot with short blonde hair and a boyfriend who is with the main fleet. If you�re putting that together in your head with Kurt�s harpy of a wife and mentally eyeing up life insurance policies with a fast application process and a quick payout, well, you�re not wrong. We also learn that Lopez is the granddaughter of a wealthy Mexican immigrant and is a rabidly patriotic Brit as a result, with a special affection for the Ark Royal.

Everyone is getting ready for their first proper assignment when the news comes in that the combined Earth fleet has met the enemy at New Russia, Russia�s main off-world colony. All twelve of Earth�s newest, shiniest carriers, together with a full escort fleet, sallied forth to meet the aliens.

Have a wild guess at how that works out. If you took out the life insurance policy on Rose�s boyfriend, now would be a good time to make sure you�ve got the details to hand!

# ? Apr 24, 2020 05:27

Fell Fire: Jan 30, 2012

quote:

Sphinx's year was over five T-years long, which, coupled with the local gravity and a fourteen-degree axial tilt, produced some . . . impressive flora and fauna and a climate most off-worlders loved during spring and fall�well, early fall, anyway�and detested at all other times.

I like how an axial tilt that is about 60% Earth's is somehow noteworthy. I suppose the length of the winter could be difficult, but people live almost everywhere here and have done so for thousands of years. This reads like someone who assumes a winter is inherently unliveable, which oddly makes sense for a guy born in Ohio but now living in South Carolina.

# ? Apr 24, 2020 17:09

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

mllaneza posted:

Breslau is actually a historical reference. At the start of WW1 the Germans had a battlecruiser, Goeben, and a light cruiser, the Breslau, operating together in the Mediterranean. The French navy deployed to protect troop convoys from Africa to France, leaving the British to try and run down the Goeben. The RN just missed catching Goeben with two of their own battlecruisers, then the admiral on the spot declined a chance to catch Goeben with 4 armored cruisers - the class of ships battlecruisers were expressly design to kill; Goeben had a chance against two older BCs and would probably slaughter the ACs. The Goeben and Breslau escaped East and ended up in Turkey. The Germans "sold" Goeben and Breslau to the Turkish navy as part of a deal that brought Turkey into the war as part of the Central Powers. Goeben became Yavuz Sultan Selim and Breslau became Midili, still with mostly their original crews.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pursuit_of_Goeben_and_Breslau

And there you go, Weber is trying to rhyme with history.

At first I was not sure about this, but yeah, combining Breslau with Sultan makes the reference too clear to be a coincidence. Kind of neat! Didn't expect Weber to pull this off.

Beefeater1980 posted:

This is wild. It�s from 1921?

Incidentally if we are talking German SF, I�ve been playing a lot of X4 lately and would appreciate any summaries of Farnham�s Legend and its sequels.

For my contribution, as mentioned I have suffered through the Ark Royal series. A brief summary is set out below to save anyone else from the same fate.

Book 1: Ark Royal, by Christopher Nuttall

Ark Royal reminds me a bit of a mix of Wing Commander and that weird weird TV show with marines flying space fighters and incomprehensible aliens attacking in diamond-shaped capital ships. I'm excitedly waiting for the aliens to show up to see how close my imagination got!

Also yes, "Die Macht der Drei" is from 1921. Hans Dominik wrote the story first as a serial for an ancient, now forgotten German SF-magazine. After the story was finished, the chapters were collected and published as a full book in 1922. Over the years, this story was re-released a couple times. The last time was this complete collection of Hans Dominik's works I now have on my eBook-reader. But since only a handful of the stories could be interpreted as military SF, I'll probably open up a new thread for them and just link the military books back here when I arrive at them.

Re: Farnham's Legend: I completely forgot that book was a thing. I'm even more annoyed that there's more than one of the things. (I'm not really a fan of video game books in general.) To be honest, I really don't want to read that crap.

Speaking of crap, some people played around on our rails today so my train was super-late again. This of course means it's time for more

Let's Read: The Power of the Three, Part II

What I left out from part I:

-Dr. Glossin is the uncle of the main protagonist Logg Sar's fiance. Her name is Jane Harte, by the way. Forgot to mention that last time.

-He tried to convince her to marry him on his last visit, but even his mind control powers couldn't overcome her revulsion, so he just kind of left her in his American farm house and fled back to work.

-There are also three magic rings and Atma and Eric the Swede have two of them, while the third belongs to Logg Sar, but Dr. Glossin keeps stealing it.

And now we return to our action in progress.

Dr. Glossin finally convinced President-Dictator Stonard to wait for two more weeks, but he only agrees on the condition that his pet sociopath goes to organize a fatal accident for the three weirdos that are working against their world-domination plans. Additionally, Stonard only relents after Dr. Glossin confesses he knows about the secret lab in Sweden, and about his three enemies probably using it to build all kinds of super-weapons right now.

Annoyed and confused by multiple issues (his unrequited lust for Jane, his fear of Stonard, his fear of failing in his mission to kill the protagonists), Dr. Glossin returns to his other house in Trenton. But Atma is waiting for him.

Unaware of the magical Indian and his Kurdish-German friend hiding in his house, our villain sits down to plan his assassination. His serialkiller-instincts kicks in and he begins planning to involve a third party to do the dirty work, instead of risking himself in a direct attack on the Swedish secret lab. But then his serialkiller-instincts kick in even more and he notices his willpower gets slowly paralyzed.

A long, silent duel of wills begins. Eventually, Dr. Glossin comits a fatal error: He tries to get up and confront Atma physically in his hiding place, but this effort weakens his mental defenses and Atma can take over.

Atma orders Dr. Glossin to go collect the missing third ring and bring it back to them. Dr. Glossin, now 100% mind controlled himself, walks out to go to his bank and collect the magic ring from the bank safe he had it placed in for safekeeping.

But the duel goes into its second round when Dr. Glossin comes back: He has the ring, but his strong will is fighting off Atma's control and begins unpacking the ring to put it on his own finger.

Luckily, Atma hasn't spend all this time meditating in India for nothing and he manages to stop Dr. Glossin in time. After another short mental duel, Atma takes the ring from Dr. Glossin and puts it on Logg Sar's finger. Now all three protagonists have their magical golden Indian rings! Atma orders Dr. Glossin to tell them where Jane Harte is, he complies, and the hunt for the missing fiance is on again! They leave and Dr. Glossin is left in his brainwashed stupor, sitting at his table, staring at nothing.

Meanwhile, Eric is tirelessly working to improve the larger version of the fabled SECRET WEAPON. We learn a bit more about how it works and Eric, after working non-stop for 14 hours, eventually fumbles together a gizmo to allow someone to look at the place the weapon is targeting. He gets tempted again to declare himself world dictator, but resists again.

Now let me pull a Weber and put the plot on hold for some exposition, since everyone considers this SECRET WEAPON a huge deal in this book:
The weapon in question is called a �Telenergetic Device� and uses the latent EMC-fields filling the world around us to create distant effects. Hans Dominik (or the by now terribly obsolete sources he looked up) tells us through his ingenious characters that it's not necessary to go through all the trouble of expending energy to do stuff like burning coal to create steam to push a turbine, instead it should be possible to send a comparatively tiny electrical impulse in just the right way to move this carefully balanced energy out of its equilibrium.

In this theory, building a gun and then using chemical propellant to fire a bullet is like carefully training a horse and a rider, writing your message on a piece of papyrus, and then sending them off to deliver it. It works, but is actually a lot of superfluous extra work if you know you can just send a couple electrical impulses via telegram and achieve the same effect for much less work. The TD disrupts the natural energy balance, seemingly causing effects far out of the range of what physics should allow. The only thing you need is coordinates so your TD can actually target a specific area, inside of just randomly causing havoc.

It's also rather limited in application: When Logg Sar replicated the work of his father (who was captured and tortured to death by the British Empire before the book even starts) to create this Telenergetic Device, he boasted about all the energy he could use to heat things up or pressure them into tinier, more dense versions of themselves, but that's coincidentally all the TD can do. Perfect if you want to set someone on fire or crush a tank into a tiny tin-can, but peaceful applications escape the fine thinkers of this book at the moment. It's not all magic physics either: The TD's strength is in its capability to strike everywhere on the world without warning, since it only needs to send tiny impulses to manipulate energy that's already there, but the maximum amount of background energy that can be used is proportional to the energy you put in to control it.

The tiny version which saved Logg Sar from execution at the book's start is said to be limited to roughly 10 Megawatts per hour. Not bad for something about the size of a 1950s' remote control, but also not exactly insurmountable. The new, larger version in Eric's Swedish lab is about a magnitude stronger and thanks to its new remote viewer, also an order of magnitude more useful, but still not unlimited.
Really, the main danger of the TD comes from the ability to blow up everyone you don't like without needing to get up from your couch. Because if everyone had a thing like this, world history would end in Human extinction in about 5 minutes, flat. But enough of death ray technology, back to the plot!

On the other side of the world, Atma and Logg Sar (OK, so the deal here is that �Logg Sar� is supposed to be a Tibetan's attempt to write �Silvester�. His actual name is Silvester Bursfeld, even though �Logg Sar� is still used for him on occasion. To keep things confusing, I guess.) arrive at a small farm in Colorado. Atma spends the time hiding in the bushes and meditating, to regain the strength he has lost fighting Dr. Glossin.

Silvester however runs straight into the farm. When Abigail, the black servant, tries to stop him, he knocks her out with a punch and keeps on running. Jane Harte meanwhile, has fought off enough of her brainwashing she's now attempting to flee herself. Both lovers are reunited.
Eric finally completes the targeting component of the secret weapon. He suddenly remembers he has friends and dials up the weapon to look up what they're doing in America. First he just finds the empty house of Dr. Glossin in Trenton. His lack of sleep puts him out of commission before he can do anything more.

He wakes up just as a telegram arrives from America: Atma and Silvester report they got the ring and the adress of where Jane Harte is imprisoned, and that they're on their way now to safe her. Eric immediately goes back to work: He looks the American adress up in an atlas and recalibrates the secret weapon. He finds the farm and witnesses everything, from Silvester storming the farm, to Dr. Glossin arriving with some goons and capturing both him and Jane.

In his anger, Eric uses the weapon to heat up the pavement behind Dr. Glossin, who panicks at the sight of stone melting right behind him and rushes towards his waiting air cruiser. Eric nearly incinerates him, but in his excitement he pulls out a connecting wire and switches off the far scrying component of the device. Blinded, he has to stop or risk blowing up everyone and everything at the farm indiscriminately.
Frustrated, he sets to repair the viewing device. But when everything works again, he sees a completely deserted farm. He is too late.
Too bad the protagonists didn't take the hint earlier. Atma took most of an hour to brainwash Dr. Glossin and it barely worked for half that time before he had to mind control him again. The guy probably woke up like 10 minutes after our �heroes� left the building.

Meanwhile, we learn from Atma's perspective that the fool was more exhausted than he thought: His meditation has turned into a deep sleep lasting several hours and he missed all the excitement going on around him. He steps out of the berry bush he was hiding in and begins to investigate the abandoned farm.

To be continued

I keep putting this of, but the whole Logg Sar = Silvester Bursfeld thing is a bit convoluted and I didn't want to. But here we go:

More things I forgot last time

-After WWI: Gerhard Bursfeld ends up working at a new rail road the British Empire is building. He meets a Kurdish woman, daughter of a tribel leader. They fall in love.

-Gerhard Bursfeld invents the prototype TD.

-The British get scared and abduct him. In the chaos involving a staged raid by Kurdish bandits, Bursfeld's wife is forgotten. When the British forces in charge remember her, she is nowhere to be found.

-Silvester Bursfeld is born and eventually ends up in Tibet. His mother gets lost along the line. Tibetan monks help raise Silvester Bursfeld, naming him �Logg Sar�. In their school he meets the Indian Atma and they become friends.

-At some point Silvester/Logg Sar starts traveling the world. Eric the Swede (not his real name, but his real last name sounds dumb and Un-Swedish, so I keep forgeting it) gets involved and the duo becomes a trio.

-Eventually, Eric's rich noble father dies and he inherits everything. He wants Silvester to get half of it, but Silvester declines and travels the world some more.

-In the meantime in America, Jane Harte's father, an engineer, gets steamed to death in an industrial accident. He is hardcore enough to first walk straight home and write his will before melting. (His steam-related accident was bad enough the book describes vividly how his skin and flesh melts of his hand when Jane tries to touch him.) He shruggs off everything with an attitude like �Welp, all my nerves are dead, so why not make sure all my affairs are in order?� then writes his will for two hours, only allowing himself to die after he is finished.
This guy is amazing. I wish someone had written a book about his life.

-Then Dr. Glossin worms himself into the widow and her daughter's home, just so he can rent the old engineer's lab. But uh oh, Logg Sar also shows up around this time. We aren't really told many details, but apparently Jane's father was helping Logg Sar out a couple times, or was maybe even friends with Gerhard Bursfeld, his father.

-Logg Sar and Jane fall in love and Dr. Glossin begrudginly allows him to use �his� lab for his own experiments.

-Logg Sar's and Janes relationship progresses only slowly though, because Dr. Glossin is jealous as gently caress and brainwashes Jane daily to make her forget her love. This leads to Logg Sar being a bit confused, seeing as Jane switches from being cold to lovey-dovy on a daily basis. Though over time they get close enough to finally elope.

-Eventually Dr. Glossin realizes �Logg Sar� is actually Silvester Bursfeld, Half-German/Half-Kurd. In a twist, it turns out Dr. Glossin is also a German living incognito in foreign lands! He was the one who betrayed Gerhard Bursfeld for British money but then got nothing in return for his betrayal and had to flee to America. Though it took him a bit long, he now has unraveled the mystery behind Jane's friend (he doesn't know about the engagement) and takes action: He sabotages his lab to make sure Logg Sar/Silvester will be electrocuted with a deadly 10000 Volt! But uh oh, Silvester notices the trap when his own prototype of the TD just deals with all that energy just like that, causing half the lab equipment to burn out, but leaving him unharmed.

-Silvester goes out for a walk and contemplates how to deal with the treacherous doctor. In the meantime, Dr. Glossin comes back, expecting a burned corpse but instead finds signs of the legendary super-weapon Gerhard Bursfeld invented. He immediately calls his friends from the American Gestapo and shortly after, a car collects a swiftly drugged Silvester. The execution is set for the next day.

-But unknowingly, both Eric and Atma have arrived in America. The book begins with a convoluted series of flashbacks telling us how the execution failed and �Logg Sar� escaped with the mysterious help of one of the witnesses and a �dark-skinned man� waiting in a car just outside the prison facility of Sing-Sing.

-Flashbacks and present time alternate with each other: We follow Dr. Glossin, threatening the police to get the fleeing protagonists, we follow the protagonists for a while who stole the prototype of a new air cruiser capable of flying �as fast as a bullet� and we learn how Silvester left some hints just in case and how Atma and Eric deciphered the clues, found a bunch of parts and then super-engineer Eric assembled the parts into a fully functional death ray.

-While the stolen air cruiser is hurtling over the northern Atlantic and then the North Pole, we listen to them talk about how Eric and Atma then bribed one of the witnesses to lend them their papers so Eric could impersonate him. He then used the TD to make the steam turbine supplying Sing-Sings electric chair burst. To gently caress with his friend he first just interrupts the flow of electricity of course, but after the third try of the confused prison guards to kill Silvester, he finally puts enough energy into the turbine it just breaks, causing untold havoc across the prison. In the ensuing chaos, Eric frees Silvester and they both flee to the waiting Atma.

Then the flashback ends and we arrive at the point where I started �Part I�, with the heroes landing in Sweden and President-Dictator Stonard gearing up for war.

Wow, that was a bit rough, but hopefully I now have closed all the gaps I forgot the first go around. Also until now I've excised dialog because it was written in 1921 and it shows, but man, the next part has some good stuff I want to share. Hopefully it's still as good when translated.

Edit:

LINKS

The Power of the Three 01

Yeah, that's the one!
VVVVVVVVV

Libluini fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Apr 24, 2020

# ? Apr 24, 2020 18:45

PupsOfWar: Dec 6, 2013

Libluini posted:

Ark Royal reminds me a bit of a mix of Wing Commander and that weird weird TV show with marines flying space fighters and incomprehensible aliens attacking in diamond-shaped capital ships.

Space: Above and Beyond?

I always figured that show was a goofy extrapolation of original BSG, where the fighter pilots were also the ground troops because space battles are expensive to film

# ? Apr 24, 2020 20:35

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Honorverse nerds, do you remember where Manticore's ground-based defense command is located? I don't remember if it's on Mount Royal or somewhere else (putting your NORAD in the royal palace seems dumb but who knows). Do they even have one?

# ? Apr 24, 2020 22:50

PupsOfWar: Dec 6, 2013

General Battuta posted:

Honorverse nerds, do you remember where Manticore's ground-based defense command is located? I don't remember if it's on Mount Royal or somewhere else (putting your NORAD in the royal palace seems dumb but who knows). Do they even have one?

per the Oyster Bay chapter in canon, it's on Mount Royal

or at least Mount Royal is the largest hub location for the actual physical defenses

I'm sure you already checked the text but

Mission of Honor posted:

"In the case of Manticore itself, we were once again fortunate�in this case, in that there were a larger than usual number of tugs moving vessels and freight in and around the volume of Hephaestus. Two of them were destroyed along with the station, but the others survived, and we were also fortunate that Lieutenant Commander Strickland, the captain of one of those surviving tugs�Stevedore, I believe �reacted quickly enough to organize her fellow skippers. Between them, they managed to intercept all but a half dozen significant pieces of wreckage. The Mount Royal Palace defenses destroyed the two of those pieces which might have threatened Landing, and the other four struck either uninhabited or only sparsely inhabited areas of the planet. None struck water, either. We don't have anything like definitive numbers yet, but I doubt the total casualty count from debris strikes on the planet will exceed two hundred.

PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Apr 24, 2020

# ? Apr 24, 2020 22:54

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Thanks, you're my Oyster Bae

# ? Apr 24, 2020 23:07

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I actually liked that codename a lot, it's got this nice deflationary ordinariness about it, then I realized like so many other naturalistic-sounding things in Weber it's just a dumb pun!

# ? Apr 24, 2020 23:08

PupsOfWar: Dec 6, 2013

err whats the pun

# ? Apr 24, 2020 23:23

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

What would you get if you moored ships in a bay full of oysters, and then maybe went to get the shiny things out of the oysters

e: go for the most obvious naval history thing you can think of

# ? Apr 24, 2020 23:36

FuturePastNow: May 19, 2014

I think Manticoran Admiralty HQ is just in the capital, Landing, along with the other non-royalty government buildings.

# ? Apr 24, 2020 23:59

PupsOfWar: Dec 6, 2013

General Battuta posted:

What would you get if you moored ships in a bay full of oysters, and then maybe went to get the shiny things out of the oysters

e: go for the most obvious naval history thing you can think of

...god damnit

# ? Apr 25, 2020 00:07

Kchama: Jul 25, 2007

PupsOfWar posted:

...god damnit

Wow I actually figured out a stupid pun before someone else? I'm shocked.

# ? Apr 25, 2020 00:48

blackmongoose: Mar 31, 2011; DARK INFERNO ROOK!

PupsOfWar posted:

...god damnit

I think in one of the books they originally call it Oyster Harbor to make it even more obvious and Oyster Bay is the "downgraded" version because they rushed it in order to take advantage of the Battle of Manticore.

# ? Apr 25, 2020 02:06

Gnoman: Feb 12, 2014; Come, all you fair and tender maids
Who flourish in your pri-ime
Beware, take care, keep your garden fair
Let Gnoman steal your thy-y-me
Le-et Gnoman steal your thyme

blackmongoose posted:

I think in one of the books they originally call it Oyster Harbor to make it even more obvious and Oyster Bay is the "downgraded" version because they rushed it in order to take advantage of the Battle of Manticore.

Nah. That was Weber loving up. It was always Oyster Bay in both the original and downgraded form. He just used the wrong term once.

It was also less "take advantage of the Battle of Manticore" than it was a "OH poo poo" moment that their plans to ruin all the great powers by smashing them together had backfired.

# ? Apr 25, 2020 02:28

Safety Biscuits: Oct 21, 2010

I saw "mount" and "oyster" and thought it was a different kind of pun.

# ? Apr 25, 2020 04:36

Deptfordx: Dec 23, 2013

PupsOfWar posted:

Space: Above and Beyond?

I always figured that show was a goofy extrapolation of original BSG, where the fighter pilots were also the ground troops because space battles are expensive to film

I watched that one season it got 20+ years ago when it first came out and I can't even recall if I enjoyed it at the time.

# ? Apr 25, 2020 09:44

jng2058: Jul 17, 2010; We have the tools, we have the talent!

Deptfordx posted:

I watched that one season it got 20+ years ago when it first came out and I can't even recall if I enjoyed it at the time.

It was quite the mixed bag, as I recall. Sometimes it had some fairly insightful things to say about an expendable cloned worker caste, sometimes it was a melange of military movie cliches with a thin veneer of sci-fi. This was matched by how many different situations the characters got into. Sometimes they were hotshit fighter pilots, sometimes they were expendable infantry grunts, one time they were crew on a space submarine! I can't help but feel they'd have done better if they'd picked one idea and stuck with it, but in the end it was doomed by the same thing that killed a lot of '90s sci-fi....it was too drat expensive to make for the ratings it got. :shrug:

# ? Apr 25, 2020 12:22

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

jng2058 posted:

It was quite the mixed bag, as I recall. Sometimes it had some fairly insightful things to say about an expendable cloned worker caste, sometimes it was a melange of military movie cliches with a thin veneer of sci-fi. This was matched by how many different situations the characters got into. Sometimes they were hotshit fighter pilots, sometimes they were expendable infantry grunts, one time they were crew on a space submarine! I can't help but feel they'd have done better if they'd picked one idea and stuck with it, but in the end it was doomed by the same thing that killed a lot of '90s sci-fi....it was too drat expensive to make for the ratings it got.

Ironically, that's what killed Germany's attempt at having their own SF TV-series. Raumpatrouille Orion was too expensive for what was then a state-owned production. And so while the 7 episodes made were really successful, the series was still cancelled after the end of the first season in 1966.

Or so it seems. Over time I've heard at least three different stories about the cancellation:

-It was cancelled because it was too expensive.
-It was always planned to only make those 7 episodes and not a single one more. (This story comes from a screenwriter's widow)
-A new boss of the state-owned studio ARD didn't like SF and came up with excuses to cancel the series.

If you want to know more:

There's a nice English Wikipedia-article about RO

# ? Apr 25, 2020 14:51

Monocled Falcon: Oct 30, 2011

C.M. Kruger posted:

Joe Buff has a series about a submarine in WW3 where (IIRC) Boer revanchists and German neo-Nazis take over their respective governments and start throwing around Russian-supplied tactical nukes and blow up a big NATO convoy and Warsaw to keep everybody else from doing anything about it. I haven't read it and have no idea if it's any good but it sounds pretty wild from what I've read about it, nukes being set off everywhere, the protagonist submarine has a ceramic hull, Cuba and Venezuela are US allies.

So that's what the series I remembered!

I read one book, couldn't find the others but in it, the protaganists communicated by logging into a shared email account and saving messages as drafted, which someone in the trump investigation did.

Kinda weird having the entire internet and media snarking on that plot point like let's reads became the hottest entertainment in the world

# ? Apr 25, 2020 19:34

Velius: Feb 27, 2001

Im really enjoying your Weberfic Battuta. Giving every player believable goals and ideologies goes a long way toward making missile spam enjoyable for me. I�m looking forward to your own mil sci-fi book whenever it comes out.

# ? Apr 27, 2020 13:46

grassy gnoll: Aug 27, 2006; The pawsting business is tough work.

General Battuta posted:

What would you get if you moored ships in a bay full of oysters, and then maybe went to get the shiny things out of the oysters

Why, with all those sailors you'd get a pearl necklace! :v:

# ? Apr 27, 2020 20:45

Fivemarks: Feb 21, 2015

I will read and review one of the following Mil Sci-fi series: The Ember War series by Richard Fox, or the Star Carrier series by William H. Keith Jr. Which one should I do?

# ? Apr 29, 2020 19:09

Ferrosol: Nov 8, 2010; Notorious J.A.M

Fivemarks posted:

I will read and review one of the following Mil Sci-fi series: The Ember War series by Richard Fox, or the Star Carrier series by William H. Keith Jr. Which one should I do?

Well of the two I've only heard of William H. Keith Jr. So let's go with him. Although I only know him from the terribley awesome licensed Battletech novels which as much as I enjoyed them as a child share a lot of the issues found in this thread.

# ? Apr 29, 2020 22:25

90s Cringe Rock: Nov 29, 2006

Star Carrier's the one with the enormous patriotic penis USS AMERICA ejaculating freedom deep into the enemy star system right?

# ? Apr 30, 2020 02:04

90s Cringe Rock: Nov 29, 2006

Like it fires sperm-shaped fighters up through the shaft and through its mushroom head, accelerating them to massive speeds towards the enemy world

# ? Apr 30, 2020 02:05

Kchama: Jul 25, 2007

HONOR OF THE QUEEN CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sorry for the hiatus, but let's have ourselves a stupid Honorverse chapter!

quote:

"Hello, Bernard," Courvosier said as he ran into Yanakov just outside the conference room door. "Got a minute?"

"Certai

Actually, no. Let's not. This chapter is literally just one of those chapters where he beats on a strawman for the entire period of time. There's nothing really to talk about beyond a few paragraphs.

quote:

"Hogwash!" Houseman snorted. "I don't care what mystic gobbledygook they spout! The fact is that their economy simply won't support the effort�certainly not to 'conquer' such a hostile-environment planet!"

"Then perhaps you'd better tell them that, not their intended victims. Their fleet is twenty percent stronger overall than Grayson's, and much stronger in terms of hyper-capable units. They have five cruisers and eight destroyers to Grayson's three cruisers and four destroyers. That's not a defensive power mix. The bulk of the Masadan Navy is designed for operations in someone else's star system, but the bulk of the Grayson fleet consists of sublight LACs for local defense. And LACs, Mr. Houseman, are even less capable in combat than their tonnage might suggest because their sidewalls are much weaker than those of starships. The local orbital fortifications are laughable, and Grayson doesn't know how to generate spherical sidewalls, so their forts don't have any passive anti-missile defenses. And, finally, the Masadan government�which nuked planetary targets in the last war�has repeatedly stated its willingness to annihilate the 'godless apostates' of Grayson if that's the only way to 'liberate' and 'purge' the planet!"

The admiral stood, glaring across his desk at the diplomat.

"All that is available from the public record, Mr. Houseman, and our own Embassy reports confirm it. They also confirm that those industrially backward Masadans have committed over a third of their gross system product to the military for the last twenty years! Grayson can't possibly do that. They've only managed to stay in shouting distance because their larger GSP means the smaller percentage they can divert to the military is about half as large in absolute terms. Under the circumstances, only an idiot would suggest they ought to give their enemies more economic muscle to beat them to death with!"

Okay hold on. So if Masada, which sucks compared to Grayson in every way, can build quite a bigger fleet of warships, then... why haven't Grayson gone the same route? The real reason they seem to be behind is that most of their fleet is of largely worthless LACs, despite the fact that they can obviously can afford better. The idea that the only reason you'd want anything bigger than a LAC is to invade someone is awfully weird from Manticore. LACs don't really seem good at actual defense from an invasion because any ship that could go to another system and invade them... could, as stated, gently caress up an equal tonnage of LACs anyways.

Also Houseman is probably not wrong about Masada probably crashing their economy if they just spent 80% of their GSP on a single ship, but of course economics has nothing to do with war at all. Also it's really baffling that Houseman doesn't know anything about Masada's economy considering economics is suppose to be his wheel-house. Why does Weber do this?

But yeah beyond this paragraph, there's literally nothing of value in all of this, because it's just 'Houseman is dumb and wrong and STINKS TOO, PEE YEWWWW!"

# ? Apr 30, 2020 04:37

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# ? Jun 2, 2024 09:22

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

Kchama posted:

HONOR OF THE QUEEN CHAPTER ELEVEN

Okay hold on. So if Masada, which sucks compared to Grayson in every way, can build quite a bigger fleet of warships, then... why haven't Grayson gone the same route? The real reason they seem to be behind is that most of their fleet is of largely worthless LACs, despite the fact that they can obviously can afford better. The idea that the only reason you'd want anything bigger than a LAC is to invade someone is awfully weird from Manticore. LACs don't really seem good at actual defense from an invasion because any ship that could go to another system and invade them... could, as stated, gently caress up an equal tonnage of LACs anyways.

I can actually explain that, because I've re-read the first Honor Harrington books more than once!

First, it's the implication that the Masadans can build a bigger fleet because they're crazy enough to put a bigger amount of GDP into their military. Grayson can't compete with that because they're not only less crazy, they also have to support their population: Don't forget that Masada is actually a lot more habitable then Grayson, which is so toxic the original colonists only survived because of heavy genetic manipulation -and even then they only managed a somewhat stable civilization by putting as much of their food production into orbit, with artificial habitats keeping everything food-related safely away from the toxic ground of the planet.

I imagine the cost to support this giant civilian infrastructure effort must be horrendous, while Masada can just put all of that effort into more warships.

And LACs are good for defense mainly because they're cheap as gently caress compared to real starships. They're also tend to carry more weapons than a comparable FTL-ship could carry, since the designers know that a LAC won't live long anyway, so they're crammed to the brim with weapons. They're supposed to shoot a couple times, then die. Hopefully they hit some expensive starships on their way out!

Anyway, for Grayson it's probably a cruel, but necessary calculation: Since they can't (yet, before massive Manticoran help changes the equation) keep up with Masada directly, building tons of cheap LAC in an attempt to force the Masadan fleet into attrition is a valid strategic choice.

And then later we learn that Masada has tons of LAC, too. Because they're goddamn crazy and wildly projecting their awful, genocidal plans directly on the Graysonites. So of course they need LACs to protect themselves from EVIL Grayson, too! Even though we never get told that Masada ever needed them. The last serious battle between Grayson and Masada apparently happened right in the Grayson system, with Grayson only barely winning with huge losses, mostly because the Masadan fleet commander lost his nerve when the losses mounted and retreated. With Grayson only barely not losing for centuries now, the Masadan LACs are basically a total waste. Grayson hasn't been capable of a FTL-strike strong enough to threaten Masada directly since forever. And now LACs continue to drain Masadan efforts even in this book! But you'll tell us about that stupid poo poo later, so I'll stop here.

Libluini fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Apr 30, 2020

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:46

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Everyone's a WarCriminal: the Mil-SciFi Thread

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