in some ways was houseman right?

Jonathan_S wrote:
(OTOH I wouldn't want to be the first one to seriously break the Republic's newly restored democracy -- not if Theisman is still alive, knowing he put a pulsar dart through the head of the last person to wreck (what was left of) the democracy. Retired or not he could probably quickly pull an effective counter-coup together!)

If I was planning said coup, some of my first moves would be taking out Theismann- and Usher- and doing it in such a way that I have very little chance of missing.

Like a KEW.

Trying and failing would be worse than not trying at all in their cases.

jtg452 wrote:If I was planning said coup, some of my first moves would be taking out Theismann- and Usher- and doing it in such a way that I have very little chance of missing.

Like a KEW.

Trying and failing would be worse than not trying at all in their cases.

The longer the Republic lasts in its initial growth phase, then the more people that would have killed in the start of the coup; because there will be more and more people that are motivated and inspired by its success. For example, the leadership of the Navy has a stake in the Republic's continued strength; which does not bode well for any ship that fires a KEW.

Puidwen wrote:back in the honor of the queen he was advocating for peace between Haven and Manticore. that was definitely the wrong time to press for it. However a lots of the manticorin military officers seem to give the impression that "It's them or us". Granted a lot of them got over that.

No. The notion that humans are perfectly rational, economically driven decision-makers goes back to John Stuart Mill's "Homo-Economicus" and is echoed in Friedman's neoliberalism, but we aren't anything of the sort.

This goes far deeper than I'd be prepared to argue in this forum. The root cause of both inequality and most human inequality is the money we use, which is currently defined as something that cannot exist in the real universe.

In the context of the Honorverse, I have difficulty working out the implications of real money (money that obeys the same laws of thermodynamics that every other thing in the universe must obey). The existence of the broken economy of Haven makes it clear that, in the Honorverse, equal opportunities for all citizens magically arise because of private enterprise. This is pretty standard mainstream economics. Competition and mainstream economics dominate the economic assumptions of most SF.

Why not? It is all anyone knows or learns.
I will NOT plug my non-fiction book here.

The assumptions of many SF universes also entail almost unlimited amounts of energy being available to human civilizations with very little regard for the laws.

I enjoy the writing of RFC, but while Houseman is wrong, so are the discussions of the comparative economies in the wider series.

bjchip wrote:The root cause of both inequality and most human inequality is the money we use, which is currently defined as something that cannot exist in the real universe.

In the context of the Honorverse, I have difficulty working out the implications of real money (money that obeys the same laws of thermodynamics that every other thing in the universe must obey). The existence of the broken economy of Haven makes it clear that, in the Honorverse, equal opportunities for all citizens magically arise because of private enterprise. This is pretty standard mainstream economics. Competition and mainstream economics dominate the economic assumptions of most SF.

But didn't kingdoms and priesthoods (thus inequality) predate money? Money, as a medium of exchange, may have been first conceived as way to make bartering easier; by introducing a token (such as an arrowhead) that could be traded for other objects of desire. By the time metal coinage was invented, the state monopoly of minting made the pre-existing inequalities even stronger.

Cryto-currencies were invented to eliminate the state monopoly, by replacing the minting process by massive amounts of computing power (so still supporting inequality).

There are modern barter societies, a prime example is the way zoos work since it was made illegal to buy and sell zoo animals. Now if a zoo wants a tiger, it has to take a stock that it has in excess and trade it for something (if no one with an excess tiger wants the original stock) that can eventually result in a tiger. This process might require a large number of trades.

But why do you think that money is "something that cannot exist in the real universe"? And what does it mean to say that "real" money must obey "the same laws of thermodynamics that every other thing in the universe must obey"?

tlb wrote:

bjchip wrote:The root cause of both inequality and most human inequality is the money we use, which is currently defined as something that cannot exist in the real universe.

In the context of the Honorverse, I have difficulty working out the implications of real money (money that obeys the same laws of thermodynamics that every other thing in the universe must obey). The existence of the broken economy of Haven makes it clear that, in the Honorverse, equal opportunities for all citizens magically arise because of private enterprise. This is pretty standard mainstream economics. Competition and mainstream economics dominate the economic assumptions of most SF.

But didn't kingdoms and priesthoods (thus inequality) predate money? Money, as a medium of exchange, may have been first conceived as way to make bartering easier; by introducing a token (such as an arrowhead) that could be traded for other objects of desire. By the time metal coinage was invented, the state monopoly of minting made the pre-existing inequalities even stronger.

Cryto-currencies were invented to eliminate the state monopoly, by replacing the minting process by massive amounts of computing power (so still supporting inequality).

There are modern barter societies, a prime example is the way zoos work since it was made illegal to buy and sell zoo animals. Now if a zoo wants a tiger, it has to take a stock that it has in excess and trade it for something (if no one with an excess tiger wants the original stock) that can eventually result in a tiger. This process might require a large number of trades.

But why do you think that money is "something that cannot exist in the real universe"? And what does it mean to say that "real" money must obey "the same laws of thermodynamics that every other thing in the universe must obey"?

Pretty much since mankind banded together as a family group, someone became the decision maker. As families grouped to became clans, more people looked to a single person or small group to make decisions. Whether stronger, smarter, or wiser, the decision maker usually had more perks (or the capability to take advantage of more perks) than the rest of his group. The more technology has changed, the more centralized management is required, the more wealth (and the distribution of it) is centralized in a small section of the population.

Theemile wrote:Pretty much since mankind banded together as a family group, someone became the decision maker. As families grouped to became clans, more people looked to a single person or small group to make decisions. Whether stronger, smarter, or wiser, the decision maker usually had more perks (or the capability to take advantage of more perks) than the rest of his group. The more technology has changed, the more centralized management is required, the more wealth (and the distribution of it) is centralized in a small section of the population.

That means that money may contribute to inequality, but it is primarily a way of keeping score (of that inequality).

tlb wrote:

Theemile wrote:Pretty much since mankind banded together as a family group, someone became the decision maker. As families grouped to became clans, more people looked to a single person or small group to make decisions. Whether stronger, smarter, or wiser, the decision maker usually had more perks (or the capability to take advantage of more perks) than the rest of his group. The more technology has changed, the more centralized management is required, the more wealth (and the distribution of it) is centralized in a small section of the population.

That means that money may contribute to inequality, but it is primarily a way of keeping score (of that inequality).

Maybe, money is just a manifestation of the inequality that is inherent in societal groups.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Remember that at this point, and even somewhat later such as at 4th Yeltsin, RD were short ranged and very difficult to get through the defenses of an alert fleet. (Because they were so short ranged that against a maneuvering opponent you had to launch them so late that the opponent would see that launch (making it very hard for them to hide)

But it's probably worth the cost of a few of them to try and see something. There's no downside to this, aside from the actual cost.

That said, he may have done it and those drones were detected and shot down, providing him no new useful intel. So he had no option than to continue with the intel he had.

So if White Haven's extra ships had been close enough to the visible portion of his fleet Parnell would have had to send enough RDs to basically overwhelm White Haven's point defenses to get some close enough to pick up the extra hidden ships. And so it seems people generally didn't bother. Despite Honor's initial unorthodox messy formation at 4th Yeltsin Admiral Thurstin didn't bother to expend them to confirm what he was seeing.

I don't think Thurstin could be counted as a good flag officer, though. The Legislaturalist officer corps may have had a lot of politically-connected incompetent fools (like the SLN), but they had actually used their ships (unlike the SLN) so Parnell would have known more or less who the incompetent fools were. After the purge, a lot of untried mid-level officers were promoted to flag rank without any experience.

Plus, at this point, those flag officers were under the threat of "succeed or die."

So maybe by even that point in the war Admirals were simply not in the habit of checking their route of advance, or the enemy formations, with RDs...

At this point in time, they actually used destroyers for scouts. Destroyers are faster than fleet formation, but not by much. Not enough to pass a warning to avoid engagement, even if the destroyer could get into enough range to get the intel.

In any case, I'm going to double down on "Parnell was not a good strategian". We had a thread about whether he was picking from the Noveau Paris School of Convoluted War-fighting Planning (which probably co-hosted the Imperial Stoormtrooper Shooting Academy).

Multiple characters in the book comment on how good of a tactician Parnell was at Third Yeltsin. Honor herself seems to share that opinion when she's commanding the ATC - she has Kriangsak elaborate further on Third Yeltsin to Abigail Hearns and others.


On McQueen's competence: it's also commented that she's not quite White Haven's equal in strategy and tactics but she's very close. The PN is vast and in that officer corps there were/are many good thinkers. None can compare to Honor but she's got the massive advantage of being the title character and her true superpower is luck. RFC alludes to this in the book multiple times where in many instances Honor puts her thumb on the scale but space combat and hits are random. He's shown us many other Admirals/Captains - the Kellet/Hall training Diamato for example - who are unlucky and die.


A short list of situations Honor survives mostly due to luck (writing)

- HMS Fearless (CL) doesn't take a serious hit to the bridge
- HMS Fearless (CA) lives because McKeon decides to go active on Masadan LACs
- HMS Fearless (CA) doesn't have to fight a capably crewed Saladin
- HMS Nike's Flag bridge hit, main bridge is not
- HMS Wayfarer in the rift where most of the bridge crew dies
- HMS Prince Adrian engagement
- Only seriously wounded in escape from Tepes
- Timing of arrival of Statesec warships to allow Honor to create Elysian space navy to devise plan to win Battle of Cerberus
- 8th fleet not sitting on junction to be mousetrapped by RHN (RFC Himself noted this is his unplanned intervention)


She's literally Edward Saganami but lucky.

serpounce wrote:

Multiple characters in the book comment on how good of a tactician Parnell was at Third Yeltsin. Honor herself seems to share that opinion when she's commanding the ATC - she has Kriangsak elaborate further on Third Yeltsin to Abigail Hearns and others.


On McQueen's competence: it's also commented that she's not quite White Haven's equal in strategy and tactics but she's very close. The PN is vast and in that officer corps there were/are many good thinkers. None can compare to Honor but she's got the massive advantage of being the title character and her true superpower is luck. RFC alludes to this in the book multiple times where in many instances Honor puts her thumb on the scale but space combat and hits are random. He's shown us many other Admirals/Captains - the Kellet/Hall training Diamato for example - who are unlucky and die.


A short list of situations Honor survives mostly due to luck (writing)

- HMS Fearless (CL) doesn't take a serious hit to the bridge
- HMS Fearless (CA) lives because McKeon decides to go active on Masadan LACs
- HMS Fearless (CA) doesn't have to fight a capably crewed Saladin
- HMS Nike's Flag bridge hit, main bridge is not
- HMS Wayfarer in the rift where most of the bridge crew dies
- HMS Prince Adrian engagement
- Only seriously wounded in escape from Tepes
- Timing of arrival of Statesec warships to allow Honor to create Elysian space navy to devise plan to win Battle of Cerberus
- 8th fleet not sitting on junction to be mousetrapped by RHN (RFC Himself noted this is his unplanned intervention)


She's literally Edward Saganami but lucky.

The Roman Philosopher Seneca is quoted "Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity". Douglas MacArthur is reported to have said "The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself." Thomas Jefferson said "I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."

Everything in life is a numbers game - one just needs to do everything they can do in advance and during an occurrence to make sure the numbers favor you.

That last little bit, however....