So...Who Dies next?

drothgery wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:As to who dies, next, someone posited the question as to "what happens if Queen Berry dies?"

It naturally depends on whether she and her new beau have any offspring, but prior to that, my reading from SoS (Shadow of Saganami) is that it's Helen Zilwicki, her sister by adoption, followed likely by Anton followed by Cathy M.

Lars is presumably in the line of succession somewhere (if biology matters, he's ahead of Helen, if not behind).

Except they might know Lars, who was last seen running from a girl on the planet having played naughty loverboy.

My surmise is from Terekhov's observation that they in essence have "two princesses" aboard, Hearns (JTO) and Helen (midshipwoman), and noone corrects him and says, "nope that would be the udda brudda." The reason I go towards Anton and Cathy afterwards is that they've got the street cred with all of the power players if Berry doesn't survive. Lars has none.

SharkHunter wrote:I'm thinking that the treecat community would want to adopt and protect Stacy out of their love/affection for Honor. Shortest treecat conversation on record not involving claws....

<oh, she's one of Honor's? FindsTheTruth needs to be adopted>

Interesting thought. But Honor has hundreds of friends, including many friends who are far closer than Stacy, who do not have treecats associated with them. Not to mention the fact that she had thousands of relatives who don't have treecats. Even her own father and mother and children don't have treecats.

I guess it's possible that treecats might start making up for that lack now.

SWM wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:I'm thinking that the treecat community would want to adopt and protect Stacy out of their love/affection for Honor. Shortest treecat conversation on record not involving claws....

<oh, she's one of Honor's? FindsTheTruth needs to be adopted>

Interesting thought. But Honor has hundreds of friends, including many friends who are far closer than Stacy, who do not have treecats associated with them. Not to mention the fact that she had thousands of relatives who don't have treecats. Even her own father and mother and children don't have treecats.

I guess it's possible that treecats might start making up for that lack now.

Pretty much my thought; while they may not get the whole finance thing, Nimitz has met Stacy at least a few times and knows she's both important and important to Honor, and hates/hated the same cretins Honor did. I'm thinking that they'd be able to find a good enough "Treecat" match, and that Stacy's personality has enough of whatever treecats find "delicious" in the bond to do the rest. We don't know what that is, but in a way I think it's the "creative mindset of a hunter/huntress that isn't a killer"

SWM wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:I'm thinking that the treecat community would want to adopt and protect Stacy out of their love/affection for Honor. Shortest treecat conversation on record not involving claws....

<oh, she's one of Honor's? FindsTheTruth needs to be adopted>

Interesting thought. But Honor has hundreds of friends, including many friends who are far closer than Stacy, who do not have treecats associated with them. Not to mention the fact that she had thousands of relatives who don't have treecats. Even her own father and mother and children don't have treecats.

I guess it's possible that treecats might start making up for that lack now.

SharkHunter wrote:Pretty much my thought; while they may not get the whole finance thing, Nimitz has met Stacy at least a few times and knows she's both important and important to Honor, and hates/hated the same cretins Honor did. I'm thinking that they'd be able to find a good enough "Treecat" match, and that Stacy's personality has enough of whatever treecats find "delicious" in the bond to do the rest. We don't know what that is, but in a way I think it's the "creative mindset of a hunter/huntress that isn't a killer"

Yes, but the key difference between many of Honor's friends and family, is the great lengths that Stacy went to, to protect Honor. (barring her inner circle) The fact that she faced her father off on behalf of Honor, and not to mention the huge amounts of money she spent in support of Honor. And how important she remains - can we say positive Harrington reporting.

And Honor really has a tender spot for Stacy. They are alike in many ways. Morals, scruples, values.

Stacy also represented some heavyweight political and social support.

Although the geek in me would be royally pissed at RFC if this particular royal ended up kaput, maybe Princess Ruth? Granted, that's about the second most likely thing to turning QEIII into a nuke, but Ruth is pretty much the only "unprotected by a great big fleet" royal in the sector, and a valid target. Plus -- so far, and this is a biggie: no tree cat.

She's likely still got Masadan's that wouldn't mind seeing her dead, she's #2 to Zilwicki in hacking ability on behalf of the Torch government, and it would hurt Berry like nothing else to lose her best friend. Yeah, their's the minor matter of getting through the new Queen's Own unit to kill her but a sniper's pulsar dart travels a long LONG way, not counting nasty things like small impeller drive SAM missiles, etc.

SharkHunter wrote:Although the geek in me would be royally pissed at RFC if this particular royal ended up kaput, maybe Princess Ruth? Granted, that's about the second most likely thing to turning QEIII into a nuke, but Ruth is pretty much the only "unprotected by a great big fleet" royal in the sector, and a valid target. Plus -- so far, and this is a biggie: no tree cat.

She's likely still got Masadan's that wouldn't mind seeing her dead, she's #2 to Zilwicki in hacking ability on behalf of the Torch government, and it would hurt Berry like nothing else to lose her best friend. Yeah, their's the minor matter of getting through the new Queen's Own unit to kill her but a sniper's pulsar dart travels a long LONG way, not counting nasty things like small impeller drive SAM missiles, etc.

I would be very surprised if there wasn't a significant population of treecats on the way to Torch, just as I am sure that there will be a sizable population of them headed to Haven. As far as the Masadans are concerned, the only significant group of them that were really concerned with Ruth anymore were the ones associated with her half-brother, and that group got severely toasted in Crown of Slaves, so I don't think there is going to be much of an effort to go after her by Masada, and otherwise, she is actually pretty much under the radar to the outside galaxy (we readers have a better view of her, since we are kind of on the inside).

fallsfromtrees wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Although the geek in me would be royally pissed at RFC if this particular royal ended up kaput, maybe Princess Ruth? Granted, that's about the second most likely thing to turning QEIII into a nuke, but Ruth is pretty much the only "unprotected by a great big fleet" royal in the sector, and a valid target. Plus -- so far, and this is a biggie: no tree cat.
--snip--

As far as the Masadans are concerned, the only significant group of them that were really concerned with Ruth anymore were the ones associated with her half-brother, and that group got severely toasted in Crown of Slaves...

General agreement, but then the MA, Aldona, and the Masadan's aren't precisely known for sanity. The conversation recruiting the next batch would say something like "she's the daughter of an escaped -itch /harlot of satanwho got her father and brother killed, and deserves to die...", oh, and here's how we want you to do it..." Not saying that it will happen, or Masadans hafta be involved if it did, but hey, if we knew David's thoughts this would be easy and not nearly as much fun.