Honorverse favorite passages

roseandheather wrote:Have probably posted the following somewhere before.

No damns given.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Eloise. I’ve discovered that arranging my son’s wedding is just a little more complicated than arranging interstellar treaties with lifelong enemies.”

“Funny you should mention treaties with lifelong enemies,” Pritchart replied with a somewhat peculiar smile. “It just happens I’ve received dispatches from Nouveau Paris. The reception of our treaty proposals wasn’t quite what I anticipated.”

“Oh?” After forty T-years on the throne, Elizabeth Winton’s face said exactly what she told it to say. It was a bit harder than usual to keep it that way at the moment. “In what way?”

“Remember how I told you I’d expected all along that Leslie was going to have trouble pounding them through the Senate, especially without me to back her up?”

Elizabeth nodded. There’d been strong arguments in favor of Pritchart’s taking the proposed treaty home and personally presenting it to the Havenite Congress, but there’d been countervailing arguments as well. The necessity for her, as Haven’s head of state, to personally oversee the delicate and difficult business of effectively coordinating the Republican Navy with the Royal Manticoran Navy after so many years of hostility had loomed large among them. But another, although Pritchart and Elizabeth had never explicitly discussed it, was that by remaining in Manticore, Pritchart could force a de facto acceptance of the treaty, in the short term at least, whatever the Senate ultimately decided.

“Well, it turns out I was wrong about the treaty’s prospects,” Pritchart went on now. “According to Leslie’s dispatch, she never got a chance to pound it anywhere. The Senate jumped all over it. It was approved with a fifty-six-vote margin over and above the two thirds majority requirement. There were only eleven dissenting votes!”

The president’s face blossomed in a huge smile, and Elizabeth felt herself smiling back.

A Rising Thunder

hanuman wrote:
Wait, can someone who can actually do some math PLEASE do the calculation? How many members does that give the Havenite Senate?

roseandheather wrote:

hanuman wrote:
Wait, can someone who can actually do some math PLEASE do the calculation? How many members does that give the Havenite Senate?

2/3x + 56 = x - 11

2/3x + 67 = x

1/3x = 67

x = 201

201, if my math is correct. (Which it probably isn't.)

No, that makes sense.

So does every federal province/state/sector (what are Haven's territorial components called?) have one or two Senators? Which means, does Haven have 100 or 200 territorial components?

Tenshinai wrote:Well, Haven was created in an extremely centralised way, while Pritcharts revolution changed it around radically to a more democratic style, so it could be set up almost any way really, but even with her reforms i would still not be surprised if there is a preference towards Haven itself.

There could be senators based on populations, per planet, per sector, i can´t really recall much mention of what they are senators OF, so it´s hard to say.

I´ll have to try check if its ever stated for anyone, like Giancolas brother or something.

hanuman wrote:It's just that a while ago someone mentioned on one of the threads that Haven holds sovereignty over something like 400 star systems, of which a sizable number are uninhabited. I'm trying to figure out HOW Haven't territorial components (maybe 'federal subjects' is a better term) are organised. Do some of them include more than one world, or are they all organised on a single planet-basis?

"Mr. Hauptman," she said in a voice of frozen helium, "you've seen fit to insult me and my officers and to threaten my parents. In fact, you have descended to the tactics of gutter scum, and that, in my opinion, Sir, is precisely what you have proven yourself to be." Hauptman's nostrils flared in a congested face, but she continued in the same ice-cold voice.

"I am fully aware that you have no intention of forgetting this incident. Neither, I assure you, have I. Nor will I forget your threats. I am a Queen's officer. As such, I will react to any personal attack upon me only if and as it arises, and for myself, both personally and as a Queen's officer, I dislike the custom of dueling. But, Mr. Hauptman, should you ever attempt to carry through your threat against my parents—" her eyes were leveled missile batteries and the tic at the corner of her mouth jerked like a living thing "—I will denounce you publicly for your contemptible actions and demand satisfaction. And when you accept my challenge, Mr. Hauptman, I will kill you like the scum you are."

Hauptman stepped back against the wall of the lift, staring at her in shocked disbelief.

"Believe it, Mr. Hauptman," she said very, very softly, and let the lift door open at last.

cthia wrote:You do not want to see me angry Mr. Hauptman. There's a green monster inside me, an alter ego, a Salamander. I don't like it when she comes out. You'll like it even less.

[The Solarian] missiles' powered range envelope from rest generated a maximum range of just over 5,900,000 km, with a terminal velocity of 66,285 KPS. Given their current closing velocity, that equated to a range at launch of a shade better than 12,680,000 kilometers, whereas the Mark 23 had a range at launch of 85,930,000 given the same geometry. Even the Mark 16 had a range at launch of well over 42 million kilometers under current conditions. So even if she assumed Byng's battlecruisers carried missiles twice as capable as those captured at Monica, she still had better than three times his maximum powered range on her Mark 16s, much less her Mark 23s.

"So much for any last-minue outbreak of sanity on their side."

Captain Loretta Shoupe looked up from her displays and wondered if Augustus Khumalo was as aware as she was of how calm his voice sounded. She glanced at his profile as he studied the icons in HMS Hercules' flag bridge master plot, and the calmness of his expression, the steadiness of his eyes, were not the surprise they once would have been.

He's grown, she thought, with a possessive pride whose fierceness did surprise her a bit, even now. He's no happier about this than anyone else, but if there's a gram of hesitation anywhere in him, I can't see it.

"Well," Khumalo said with more than a little regret, "I suppose it's time." He raised his voice slightly. "Communications, pass the word to Tristram. Instruct Commander Kaplan to execute Paul Revere. Then contact Commodore Terekhov and inform him that Code Yankee is now in effect. Captain Saunders," he looked down at the command chair com display tied into Hercules' command deck, "tactical command is passing to Commodore Terekhov at this time."

"Yes, Sir," Victoria Saunders replied, and he sat back in his chair. Much as it galled him to admit it, Quentin Saint-James' fire control was far better suited to manage modern missile fire than his aged flagship's antiquated systems. He'd actually considered shifting his flag in order to exercise tactical command himself, and a part of him wished he had, even now. But efficiency was more important than getting his own combat command ticket punched. And Augustus Khumalo was too self honest to pretend he was in Aivars Terekhov's league as a combat commander.