Honorverse ramblings and musings

Somtaaw wrote:Mistletoe is literally nothing but a Ghost Rider drone with either a laserhead, or a standard 'contact' nuke for payload instead of sensors.

If Honor wasn't quite so honorable, and feeling pity for most people she's fighting, the opening of a battle wouldn't be pods belching missiles, it'd be a Ghost Rider drone (or two) slamming a contact nuke into the enemy flagship's forward impeller room. A single contact nuke takes out entire ships in shipyards, so slamming two or three into a SD (or Lenny Det) would possibly be overkill. But still cheaper than firing off entire 6-pod salvos of Apollo birds.

I'm not sure exactly what this is in reply to, but my issue at least had been that the SLN couldn't get one of their Mistletoe equivalents (if they built them) in on a GA ship, and the GA hasn't got much if any need to do it to the SLN. But yeah, Mistletoe or something like it might be able to do things to SLN ships, for the time being. They may not care to get committed to using a weapon that may be more readily countered than sheer bunches of missiles.

Manticore isn't quite that savage, the Andermani might be that savage if it was a MAlign fleet they were engaging (gotta get revenge for the attempted assassination on Hofschultze... or was Hofschultze the assassin and it was someone else the target, I forget?)

Hofschulte was the assassin (quite despite his own will); Prince Huang and family were the targets.

I don't know that it's any more savage than a few thousand missiles. I'd suspect rather less. And picking off flag ships, when you can, as a measure to convince the opposition that this is not a battle to keep trying to win, is clearly a measure to preserve life. Hard to be less savage than that. Still, another Mistletoe application may be still less so: blasting a shoal of missile pods away, when those pods are the only chance a SLN force thinks it has to range on a GA one. It's also less demanding of the Mistletoe, getting near a bunch of blind pods without wedges or point defense rather than a capital ship with a wedge, sidewalls, some for of point defense, what are, technically, sensors, all feeding information to people who are, technically, naval officers, who are motivated to remain alive.

cthia wrote:

Dauntless wrote:as i understand it Emily's injuries are OLD.

at least a couple of decades was the vibe i got, it happened while Hamish was @ buships not long after Roger took the throne. elizabeth took the throne just before trevors star was taken and that was implied to be at least a decade/2 before OBS as well.

so lets say about 30 years before OBS as a rough guess. Alfred spent at least a decade and a bit as a navy doctor (as shown in analogy 6 when we see the actual story of how Honour and Nimitz met and bonded) and that assumes Honor came along not long after he qualified. once he retired from the Navy he had to build a rep in civilian medicine to go with his naval one.

Point taken, but I am surprised that the Alfred half of the Harrington team hasn't been recruited to at least look into it as he has promised to do with Nimitz' injuries.

well Alsion has taken over and i'm sure if she feels that Alfred can help she will drag him in. unfortunately I get the impression that there isn't much that can be done.

also progress on a "fix" for nimitz is something that has been skipped over since the cats were taught sign language.

perhaps throwing himself into a project, especially for one of the family will help pull him out of his grief from the Yawta Strike

Dauntless wrote:

cthia wrote:Point taken, but I am surprised that the Alfred half of the Harrington team hasn't been recruited to at least look into it as he has promised to do with Nimitz' injuries.

well Alsion has taken over and i'm sure if she feels that Alfred can help she will drag him in. unfortunately I get the impression that there isn't much that can be done.

also progress on a "fix" for nimitz is something that has been skipped over since the cats were taught sign language.

perhaps throwing himself into a project, especially for one of the family will help pull him out of his grief from the Yawta Strike

Now that you mention it, I think during the discussion where Allison browbeats Emily into considering having children again, it's written that Allison knew the broad outlines of Emily's condition, due to the latter's fame and the former's interest in those who could not regenerate(because of Honor).

The medical establishments on many planets are working on this issue in the background. It's probably terribly mundane research work and until a breakthrough is made, irrelevant to the story.

Considering the destruction of Ray Chatterjee's destroyers, do you think Manticoran regulations on the readiness status of naval ships in the vicinity of foreign naval ships will be changed? Perhaps even a Lt. Saavik onboard to quote the new regulation. lol

Everywhere on Earth that I can recall where naval forces intersect there is always a battle readiness of at least a yellow alert...

The old Checkpoint Charlie.
The current version of Checkpoint Charlie on the Russian border.

During that Honorverse scene I cannot deny my mind from always recalling a couple of scenes from Star Trek. It's like a song stuck in my head - except it's a scene. As I said before, blame it on my personal bout with sci-fi bleed, one upon the other.

Anyways, whichever one featured Chekov sweating profusely and asking "Raise shields Keptin? ... Raise shields Keptin?" I love that scene, gets me every time.

and this one...

https://youtu.be/LaVIIoRKBlk

cthia wrote:Considering the destruction of Ray Chatterjee's destroyers, do you think Manticoran regulations on the readiness status of naval ships in the vicinity of foreign naval ships will be changed? Perhaps even a Lt. Saavik onboard to quote the new regulation. lol

Everywhere on Earth that I can recall where naval forces intersect there is always a battle readiness of at least a yellow alert...

The old Checkpoint Charlie.
The current version of Checkpoint Charlie on the Russian border.

During that Honorverse scene I cannot deny my mind from always recalling a couple of scenes from Star Trek. It's like a song stuck in my head - except it's a scene. As I said before, blame it on my personal bout with sci-fi bleed, one upon the other.

Anyways, whichever one featured Chekov sweating profusely and asking "Raise shields Keptin? ... Raise shields Keptin?" I love that scene, gets me every time.

and this one...

https://youtu.be/LaVIIoRKBlk

Well, Chatterjee's ships were at the same readiness levels as Byng's ships. There really wasn't anything any RMN ships could have done at those ranges - if a missile was launched out of anyone's tubes, it could shoot at the opponent without even bringing up its drive - besides open fire first. And that's a losing proposition against so many more heavily armed and armoured battlecruisers at point blank range.

Since that incident, there hasn't been a RMN vessel within a million kilometres of a SLN ship which has not surrendered or been pounded out of action. When they approach, RMN commanders open fire after sending repeated warnings.

As for other foreign nations, it really depends who they are. In diplomacy, courtesy sometimes trumps safety, so barring any recent history of aberrant commanders, I believe the same practices will continue. Although it's now known that the RMN might leave someone in the outer system to watch... so everyone should be on their best behavior.

munroburton wrote:Well, Chatterjee's ships were at the same readiness levels as Byng's ships. There really wasn't anything any RMN ships could have done at those ranges - if a missile was launched out of anyone's tubes, it could shoot at the opponent without even bringing up its drive - besides open fire first. And that's a losing proposition against so many more heavily armed and armoured battlecruisers at point blank range.

Yep. At that range the only thing that might have saved them even temporarily would be to keep wedges up at 0 accel and the wedge interposed between them and Byng's BCs. That would have forced Byng to kill them with missiles. And even a piddling < 5000 km range would take a Javelin at full accel 2 - 2.5 seconds to cover. But keeping your wedge up in orbit is a violation of normal and safe navigational practices and a pretty hostile act.
(And you can have "shields", sidewalls, without a wedge; not that they'd help much at < 5000 km)

But that close to that many BCs is still almost certainly suicide for DDs, even Rolands. Really the only solution is to refuse to get that close to anyone you can't trust to not launch a surprise attack. (Refuse to come into planetary orbit, or at least keep the planet between you and them with recon drones far enough out to watch around the planet. But none of those are friendly actions to take towards a neutral warship. At some point you have to risk the infantesimal chance that there's a psycopathic idiot in command over there who will open fire without warning or demand to surrender.

Jonathan_S wrote:

munroburton wrote:Well, Chatterjee's ships were at the same readiness levels as Byng's ships. There really wasn't anything any RMN ships could have done at those ranges - if a missile was launched out of anyone's tubes, it could shoot at the opponent without even bringing up its drive - besides open fire first. And that's a losing proposition against so many more heavily armed and armoured battlecruisers at point blank range.

Yep. At that range the only thing that might have saved them even temporarily would be to keep wedges up at 0 accel and the wedge interposed between them and Byng's BCs. That would have forced Byng to kill them with missiles. And even a piddling < 5000 km range would take a Javelin at full accel 2 - 2.5 seconds to cover. But keeping your wedge up in orbit is a violation of normal and safe navigational practices and a pretty hostile act.
(And you can have "shields", sidewalls, without a wedge; not that they'd help much at < 5000 km)

But that close to that many BCs is still almost certainly suicide for DDs, even Rolands. Really the only solution is to refuse to get that close to anyone you can't trust to not launch a surprise attack. (Refuse to come into planetary orbit, or at least keep the planet between you and them with recon drones far enough out to watch around the planet. But none of those are friendly actions to take towards a neutral warship. At some point you have to risk the infantesimal chance that there's a psycopathic idiot in command over there who will open fire without warning or demand to surrender.

I was thinking settle, for an opposite orbit about the planet, which I don't see why that isn't already regulation. Give another navy breathing room, as well as yourself. Cuts down on errors and idiots.

I'm trying to get a few things straight in my head. Hamish Alexander is the Earl of White Haven. He has a son by Honor, Raoul. And a daughter Katherine, by Emily. Katherine was born two months after her older brother Raoul. If Hamish is killed then I suppose that Raoul will inherit the Earldom? Or because Emily is the main wife, would the inheritor be Katherine? Yet, if Raoul hadn't ever been then would it fall to Katherine? If there were no kids, then would Emily inherit instead of Honor? And what would be the title, Duchess?

cthia wrote:I'm trying to get a few things straight in my head. Hamish Alexander is the Earl of White Haven. He has a son by Honor, Raoul. And a daughter Katherine, by Emily. Katherine was born two months after her older brother Raoul. If Hamish is killed then I suppose that Raoul will inherit the Earldom? Or because Emily is the main wife, would the inheritor be Katherine? Yet, if Raoul hadn't ever been then would it fall to Katherine? If there were no kids, then would Emily inherit instead of Honor? And what would be the title, Duchess?

If Hamish died with no heirs, his brother would inherit White Haven, not Emily. It goes by decent, not marriage. And because he is married to both Honor and Emily, neither would be a bastard child, so it doesn't matter who gives him his child, as long as it is his.

Now, the real question in my mind is Katherine in line of succession for the Duchy of Harrington, being as she is legally the child of Honor, but not biologically. The fact that on Grayson it has to be "a child of the body" takes her out of the line for steadholder, but I don't think we anybody has told us about Manticoran policy on the point.

hamish's brother was give his own title, so he could argue with high ridge in the lords.

so if roul or katherine wee not around to inherit, would he still become earl of white have given his own titles?