You can never go home again?(the Warner Caslet thread)

SharkHunter wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:It'd be something simply to be able to mail friends and family without having censors go over it or the federal law enforcement bodies eyeball them for "consorting with traitors".

Chances are, permanent return would be personally uncomfortable, feel too much like abandoning Grayson, and create a loaded political issue in Haven. It's not something someone who cares much about either of their countries would care to shoulder.

Well said, Jeff. I wonder if much of the early lower rank/post-Parnell officer core came off Dolist lists to an almost have-to-be-a bachelor/bachelorette existince.

In any case, it seems likely that post-Legislaturalist, the Havenite Navy is littered with officers and crew who were literally orphaned by the PN purges, because their ships did not do well (scapegoating) or have no family ties remaining that they know about. We don't hear about any of the current RH leadership having ANY surviving family, for example.

I can picture pardons being delivered by Theisman from Pritchart first, "dual commissions" second, with the knowledge that Yu and Caslet won't be coming home, permanently, and finally an "expedition" or set of trips to bring those any family members that were found by Kevin Usher, etc. as a special courtesy to visit our favorite ex-pats in Yeltsin space. Visiting RH space would be in their Grayson ships as special guests.

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For many in the PRH Navy under CPS, their families may have gone underground. CPS had a policy of "collective responsibility" A CO or senior officer, if executed, also knew his family would be executed.

The CPS considered it a motivational tool.
St.Just SOOO deserved that pulsar dart in the forehead.
Cordelia Ransom Sooo deserved Harkness' solution.

-- Stewart

I wonder if he can become one of Honor's arms men giving him diplomatic immunity that way there is need for a precedent that could be risky.

rafael wrote:I wonder if he can become one of Honor's arms men giving him diplomatic immunity that way there is need for a precedent that could be risky.

Better yet, he could become a fully lettered diplomat from Grayson to Haven, which grants the same thing. Manticore has a LONG reputation for using higher ranking officers to do so, after all. Plus if any Steadholder including the Protector or Michael Mayhew gives him their word of protection as Honor did for Victor Cachat, that's binding apparently. I doubt anyone in Haven is going to argue the point... especially if it is "the Salamander" herself.

Tourville and Shannon are also traitors. See, Honor Among Enemies. They both conspired(without ever actually saying anything) to allow Honor and the other Manitocorans to escape. Note: I don't know if anyone else knows this but they know it themselves which is important.

Further there is a difference between the fall of the Soviet Union and the fall of the People's Republic of Haven. One, Oscar St. Just is dead. Mikhail Gorbachev is not. Oscar was killed by a military coup which reestablished/established a Republican form of government. Mikhail Gorbachev wasn't, in fact he presided over the dissolution of the USSR(at least the beginning anyway, the dissolution is still working itself out today, see Crimea). The dissolution of the USSR was accompanied and caused by nationalist revolts(sort of chicken egg scenario). Caslet is like and personally know to the some of the most senior military officials and Theisman. The last two differences in the two scenarios are that one, everything really is hunky dory in the RoH and two the USSR/Russia and the United States are opponents in almost every area where is has any interest. The strategic military situation actually remain rather similar between the US and Russia, where as in the Honorverse the military situation isn't even reversed, its completely different from anything ever imagined by anyone prior to it actually coming about.

The short answer is, "no".

If you've spent any time on this board at all, you already know that I am the biggest Haven fangirl in existence. The biggest. I love my Haven - my Athens of the Stars - and my signature is what it is for a reason.

I love Eloise, and Tom, and Warner and Lester and Javier and Alfredo and Shannon and Leslie and Victor and Denis and Jennifer and Oliver and Molly, so much I can hardly breathe.

But the answer is still 'no'.

Even if Eloise Pritchart wanted to do it - and I have no doubt at least part of her does - she can't. She can't give Alfredo Yu or Warner Caslet a pardon, because she would be setting a precedent far too dangerous ever to be allowed to exist, and if I were in her place, I wouldn't pardon them, either.

The fact is this: Alfredo and Warner took up arms against a star nation they had been sworn to serve. They turned against that nation, defected to another nation in active hostilities against it, and participated in battle against its military forces as active combatants.

Yes, they did it under incredible duress. Yes, they did it for all the right reasons - every right reason in the whole universe. Yes, had they not done so, they undoubtedly would have perished. And yes, in the end the star nation they betrayed was the better for it - because it was their defection, and the effect those defections had on one Honor Harrington, which laid the groundwork for the ultimate success - the formation of the Grand Alliance. Yes, they are good men, honorable men, worthy men, in all the ways that matter.

But they still took up arms against the star nation they had sworn to serve. And under no circumstances, no matter how badly she might want to, could Eloise Pritchart ever pardon that. Because it would open the door for other men and women - people who are not so good, who were not under that kind of duress, who are not that honorable or well-intentioned - to step through that door of betrayal, and implies that she sanctions what they did. And as the President of the Republic - in many ways, I think, the true living symbol of that Republic, the embodiment of its rebirth and the hope of its future, their Lady Liberty made flesh - she cannot, under any circumstances, sanction what is in truth the definition of treason. It is absolutely impossible. She can't do it as the President of the Republic of Haven, and she can't do it as Eloise Pritchart. Because after everything she has given, everything she has lost, everything she has sacrificed in the crucible of Haven's rebirth, the very last thing in the universe she can do as Haven's guiding light is pardon the men who turned against her.

They can't ever go home again. They knew the price they would pay, and they chose to pay it. And because they did, the nation they tried so hard to love blossomed once again from the ashes of its funeral pyre. In a very real way, Alfredo Yu and Warner Caslet gave their lives for their nation as much as Javier Giscard and Joanna Hall.

And I think, in the end, they would do it all over again.

roseandheather wrote:The short answer is, "no".


And I think, in the end, they would do it all over again.

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Rose --
Basically I agree with your arguments.
One of the earlier posters offered the suggestion of Alfredo and / or Warner going as Grayson diplomats. This is a possibility as they would be accepted by the ROH Government, not as individuals, but as representatives.
I can see them both as military Legates of Grayson. Alfredo as Senior Grayson Representative to the Bolthole Project and Warner as Military Aide to the Grayson Ambassador to Nouveau Paris.

-- Stewart

SharkHunter wrote:

rafael wrote:I wonder if he can become one of Honor's arms men giving him diplomatic immunity that way there is need for a precedent that could be risky.

Better yet, he could become a fully lettered diplomat from Grayson to Haven, which grants the same thing. Manticore has a LONG reputation for using higher ranking officers to do so, after all. Plus if any Steadholder including the Protector or Michael Mayhew gives him their word of protection as Honor did for Victor Cachat, that's binding apparently. I doubt anyone in Haven is going to argue the point... especially if it is "the Salamander" herself.

This is the best idea I've heard of at least getting them back on planet.

But. I just don't think it would be a good idea. Or even considered worth it by Warner and company.

This is another of those things that fall under 'the human element.'

*Traitorism is something that gets under one's skin and works itself down to the bone. Although the same, it garners more hate than treason. (IMO) To its constituent people, 'traitor' evokes more of a sleight against us as treason represents more of a sleight against our government. To be a traitor is more personal than being guilty of treason.

It just may never ever be safe for Warner and company to ever return home. Even if the government forgives their sleight, there are those of its constituents that never will. And hate runs deep, runs long. And if the recommended scenario of 'diplomat' were to indeed get Warner and company back on Haven with the government's protection - and if that government's protection prevents certain constituents from carrying out what they erroneously feel would be their patriotic duty by taking matters into their own hands (human element) then there is always Caslet and Co.'s family. What fairness would it be for they to cause strife and danger to their families? What selfishness?

Once you become a traitor to us. You are dead to us.

Once a Benedict Arnold, always a Benedict Arnold.

*You know, Benedict Arnold did the same thing.

His name is synonymous with disloyalty. During the American Revolutionary War, Arnold began the war in the Continental Army, but later defected to the British Army. While still a general on the American side, he became Commander of the West Point fort in New York, and offered to surrender it to the British. After the plot came to light, in September 1780, Arnold joined the British Army as a brigadier general, with a sizable pension and £6,000 signing bonus.

And the top 10 traitors in US history...

http://listverse.com/2010/07/04/top-10- ... s-history/