The Problem with Haven

So many people seem to forget that Elizabeth, like Honor, is paired with a living and very deadly lie detector.

DarkEnigma wrote:Ad hominem attacks aside, can anyone explain to me why Haven is worthy of Manticore's trust? Whether under the Legislaturalists, the CPS, or the new Republic, Haven has time and time again shown by its actions a propensity for underhanded tactics. I have brought up several examples of this.

I understand the logic behind "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" but I don't think it fully applies in this case. Yes, Haven and Manticore need to put aside their grievances to face a mutual threat in Mesa. But to just pretend that Grendelsbane or the Battle of Manticore or the assassinations or Arnold Giancola didn't happen is, IMHO, foolish of Elizabeth.

Also, as I've said before, the fall of the Legislaturalists and the CPS are still recent history and the Republic is young and fragile. Who's to say that yet another revolutionary movement won't put a pulser through Pritchart's head and take over (only now with the benefit of Manticoran national secrets and Treecats)?

I know that RFC has planned for this eventuality and I am guessing that Pritchart really is trustworthy and the new Republic experiment will in fact be a success. My point, however, is that, looking at it from Manticore's perspective and without benefit of that foreknowledge, Haven has yet to prove it is anything more than a hive of scum and villainy, and Elizabeth's haste in welcoming them to her bosom is unseemly given their track record.

I have points that may help.

1) Empress Elizabeth has never been one to blame one person for another's mistakes or misdeeds. Once a person demonstrates that she is not following in the footsteps of her predecessors, Elizabeth will not put personal blame or mistrust on that person.

2) Pritchart has demonstrated her own integrity. She came--in person!--to meet with Elizabeth with no strings attached. Pritchart has shown herself to be a kindred spirit to Elizabeth. In fact, they have become close personal friends, which is a very big deal for the Empress.

3) She has a treecat, who tells her to trust Pritchart.

4) Elizabeth trusts Honor implicitly as an advisor and friend. She sent Honor to negotiate with Haven, and trusts her reports and personal evaluation on the political situation and individuals.

5) Elizabeth has someone much better to hate--the Alignment. Giancola, the war, and some of the assassinations can now be blamed on the Alignment instead of Haven, in Elizabeth's mind. Going back to (1), she can no longer honestly blame Haven for as much as she used to. That has caused a complete re-evaluation of her causes to hate Haven, and she takes self-honesty very seriously. It is a major part of her own integrity.

SWM wrote:

DarkEnigma wrote:Ad hominem attacks aside, can anyone explain to me why Haven is worthy of Manticore's trust? Whether under the Legislaturalists, the CPS, or the new Republic, Haven has time and time again shown by its actions a propensity for underhanded tactics. I have brought up several examples of this.

I understand the logic behind "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" but I don't think it fully applies in this case. Yes, Haven and Manticore need to put aside their grievances to face a mutual threat in Mesa. But to just pretend that Grendelsbane or the Battle of Manticore or the assassinations or Arnold Giancola didn't happen is, IMHO, foolish of Elizabeth.

Also, as I've said before, the fall of the Legislaturalists and the CPS are still recent history and the Republic is young and fragile. Who's to say that yet another revolutionary movement won't put a pulser through Pritchart's head and take over (only now with the benefit of Manticoran national secrets and Treecats)?

I know that RFC has planned for this eventuality and I am guessing that Pritchart really is trustworthy and the new Republic experiment will in fact be a success. My point, however, is that, looking at it from Manticore's perspective and without benefit of that foreknowledge, Haven has yet to prove it is anything more than a hive of scum and villainy, and Elizabeth's haste in welcoming them to her bosom is unseemly given their track record.

I have points that may help.

1) Empress Elizabeth has never been one to blame one person for another's mistakes or misdeeds. Once a person demonstrates that she is not following in the footsteps of her predecessors, Elizabeth will not put personal blame or mistrust on that person.

2) Pritchart has demonstrated her own integrity. She came--in person!--to meet with Elizabeth with no strings attached. Pritchart has shown herself to be a kindred spirit to Elizabeth. In fact, they have become close personal friends, which is a very big deal for the Empress.

3) She has a treecat, who tells her to trust Pritchart.

4) Elizabeth trusts Honor implicitly as an advisor and friend. She sent Honor to negotiate with Haven, and trusts her reports and personal evaluation on the political situation and individuals.

5) Elizabeth has someone much better to hate--the Alignment. Giancola, the war, and some of the assassinations can now be blamed on the Alignment instead of Haven, in Elizabeth's mind. Going back to (1), she can no longer honestly blame Haven for as much as she used to. That has caused a complete re-evaluation of her causes to hate Haven, and she takes self-honesty very seriously. It is a major part of her own integrity.

BINGO.

I think what a lot of people miss about Elizabeth and the Grand Alliance is that Elizabeth's "stuffed and mounted" grudge by no means went away. She merely discovered that said grudge was directed at the wrong people - and she has never been stupid. As said grudge has now been appropriately redirected, Elizabeth is finally in a position to Do Something about getting revenge for her father, her uncle, her prime minister, and all of her Navy and Marines personnel who were killed in the wars Mesa engineered. Moreover, she has right at her elbow another head of state whose grudge - for killing her personnel, as well as the love of her life - has also been appropriately redirected, and the target of their anger is identical. No wonder she and Eloise are getting along like a house on fire - they want the same group of people dead. If nothing else, that was going to bond them together. Never mind that they're both very similar personalities with similar convictions - or that Eloise's treecat name is "Truth Seeker", for God's sake!

Elizabeth's grudge didn't go anywhere. It's just pointed in a different direction - the right direction - and forging a relationship with Haven had to have been much easier for her without having to overcome that grudge. Instead, by forging that relationship with Haven, she is at the same time setting herself up to take out the real targets of her anger. The fact that she didn't know they were her real targets until a handful of days earlier doesn't matter.

Source: personal experience with grudges getting redirected.

DarkEnigma wrote:

Ad hominem attacks aside, can anyone explain to me why Haven is worthy of Manticore's trust? Whether under the Legislaturalists, the CPS, or the new Republic, Haven has time and time again shown by its actions a propensity for underhanded tactics. I have brought up several examples of this.

Indeed. However, this Haven is clearly not the Old Regime. My father used to say to us:

Everyone deserves a second chance, if a second chance is deserved.

The actions of Eloise clearly announced to Elizabeth that the spots of this leopard had changed. That was Eloise's intended message when she released Michelle Henke and suggested a prisoner exchange., when she showed up in Haven One in Manticore's Orbit, when she invited Honor who she knew would bring her furry lie detector to the summit, and when she brilliantly suggested an alliance.

You also have to ask yourself, 'aren't the possible lives that will be saved also worthy of Elizabeth's trust?'

Also, the many actions of officer's like Giscard saving a Manticoran ship from pirates, Shannon Foraker risking all to save Honor, so many altruistic acts of Theisman. No, this leopard wasn't even from the same litter.

cthia wrote:You also have to ask yourself, 'aren't the possible lives that will be saved also worthy of Elizabeth's trust?'

Touché. I hadn't looked at it that way.

I still maintain that Pritchart's authorization of Thunderbolt and Beatrice were born of greed or pride (good point Relax), and even though she may now be (verifiably) regretful of those decisions, she did make them and there is no reason to believe that, given similar circumstances, she wouldn't make them again (those decisions also cannot be explained away by "Mesan influence" either because, although Mesa was delighted to see Manticore and Haven once again fighting, they had no part in either one).

That said, I suppose Elizabeth does have a moral responsibility to be the "bigger person," despite all Haven's provocations, if it will save Manticorans from needless deaths.

DarkEnigma wrote:

cthia wrote:You also have to ask yourself, 'aren't the possible lives that will be saved also worthy of Elizabeth's trust?'

Touché. I hadn't looked at it that way.

I still maintain that Pritchart's authorization of Thunderbolt and Beatrice were born of greed or pride (good point Relax), and even though she may now be (verifiably) regretful of those decisions, she did make them and there is no reason to believe that, given similar circumstances, she wouldn't make them again (those decisions also cannot be explained away by "Mesan influence" either because, although Mesa was delighted to see Manticore and Haven once again fighting, they had no part in either one).

That said, I suppose Elizabeth does have a moral responsibility to be the "bigger person," despite all Haven's provocations, if it will save Manticorans from needless deaths.

...wow, you don't understand Eloise Pritchart at all, do you?

No. Just... no.

roseandheather wrote:SNIP... I wouldn't go so far as to say the conclusion was foregone, but Haven had been set up from book two for a switch from antagonist to protagonist and from book six - or eight, at the very latest - to ally with Manticore eventually.

SNIP

I know that I tend to read stories as they come, and don't spot plot twists much in advance, but I have to say that I really can't see that alliance setup until well on in the series, and especially not so early on as book 2. Can you give some pointers to what drew you to that conclusion?

isaac_newton wrote:

roseandheather wrote:SNIP... I wouldn't go so far as to say the conclusion was foregone, but Haven had been set up from book two for a switch from antagonist to protagonist and from book six - or eight, at the very latest - to ally with Manticore eventually.

SNIP

I know that I tend to read stories as they come, and don't spot plot twists much in advance, but I have to say that I really can't see that alliance setup until well on in the series, and especially not so early on as book 2. Can you give some pointers to what drew you to that conclusion?

Honestly? I can tell you a few of the things I spotted that support my conclusion - Caslet and Vaubon coming to Honor's (seeming) rescue in Silesia; Javier, Eloise, Tom, Lester, and Denis plotting revolution; the fact that Honor broke thousands upon thousands of Peep prisoners out of Hades; a thousand things in the way Tom Theisman and Honor Harrington behaved around each other; Theisman getting drunk at the thought of Honor's execution; Caslet and Yu joining the Graysons; Tourville and Shannon covering up Honor's escape from Tepes; the clear mutual respect Honor and Tom had for each other; the mere fact that Honor earned the loyalty of so many Havenite officers; even the fact that France and England, ancient enemies, eventually became allies as well.

Obviously, none of it is conclusive proof, and the truth is that no single piece of evidence convinced me. It was a gut feeling more than anything, one that got even stronger after the fall of the Committee and during the diplomatic snafus engineered by Giancola. While I suspected that Haven and Manticore would make peace as early as book six, it wasn't until book nine or ten that I really began to suspect (rather than hope) that they would ally - but as soon as it became clear that the diplomatic communications problems were engineered, and that Mesa was working against both star nations, I knew beyond a doubt that Haven and Manticore would be standing side by side eventually. Did I expect it to happen so fast? No, obviously, because until AAC Honor was slated to die and a significant time-skip would have allowed a slower transition from enemies to allies. But I can only thank God for Eric Flint, because I honestly believe that I would have given up on the series - at least until I knew the Grand Alliance had come about - because it simply hurt my heart too much to see two nations I loved at loggerheads, and hurting each other, when if only they could make peace they would be such natural allies.

TL;DR My gut told me so and also thank God for Eric Flint.

Hi Isaac Newton,

I think RoseandHeather was going on the good characters of Yu and Theisman, in THotQ, whose numbers kept expanding as we saw in HAE etc.

Most posters at the bar saw this as creating honorable enemies like Rommel, before the MWW hinted that fan based premise might be erroneous (that was well before my time at the bar) and well before "From the Highlands".

L

isaac_newton wrote:

roseandheather wrote:SNIP... I wouldn't go so far as to say the conclusion was foregone, but Haven had been set up from book two for a switch from antagonist to protagonist and from book six - or eight, at the very latest - to ally with Manticore eventually.

SNIP

I know that I tend to read stories as they come, and don't spot plot twists much in advance, but I have to say that I really can't see that alliance setup until well on in the series, and especially not so early on as book 2. Can you give some pointers to what drew you to that conclusion?

roseandheather wrote:
...wow, you don't understand Eloise Pritchart at all, do you?

No. Just... no.

Well it would appear you do not understand how nations interact on the personal and the whole. It does not work on the foundation of unicorns, rainbows, and drinking kool-aid. Well, the drinking of kool-aid does happen to a significant portion of the population who simply do not wish to think deeply.

If Pritchart was such a goody 2 shoe, she would have gone personally to Manticore before Thunderbolt. Or sent Thiesman. She was the supplicant after all. But did not do so due to pride. Personal pride and national pride. For sure, national pride. This national pride did not vanish after Pritchart and Elizabeth shook hands.

She could have easily made speeches delineating exactly the terms specified or drum up support for certain sticking points building a consensus and political power along with public support. She did not. Kept it hidden in some black box due to not wanting to look "weak" and a supplicant nation. Same goes for AFTER the resumption of hostilities. Once again, pride stopped her from doing so. Political fall out and fear of the unknown internal reaction is just an excuse for not doing the right thing.

Yes, we know the top portion of Haven are now good guys, but we also know that these good guys feared what would happen if anything happened to their political power. This gigantic antagonistic power block they feared still exists after they signed their treaty after all. Are you going to argue that this gigantic antagonistic power block to all things the revolutionaries stand for is now altruistic and would not be mercurial and materialistic selling state secretes, naval secrets, technology to the highest bidder just to "get even", or "get theirs?" After all most of this antagonistic power block were lazy, good-for-nothing Dolists. There are BILLIONS of them who all still hunger for the "old days" where they did not have to work. These types of people are corrupt and easily corruptible. The committee of public safety and its offshoot State Security, did not appear out of thin air after all. Yes, the heads of both organizations were cut off and eliminated. The tree roots of both organizations are still present. You simply do not change peoples attitudes, habits, lifestyles, assumptions, and character in a few years.

Go work in a soup kitchen for the "homeless" as I have done in downtown Seattle and Issaquah for the last 10+ years. Those lazy bums for the most part, are there because they CHOOSE to be there and will continue to do so. Are there a few rare exceptions? Sure. I still work there to help the occasional woman with children who come in or the very rare man who actually decides to change. For the vast majority of these lazy indolent, selfish people lie, cheat, and steal at the drop of a hat in most cases in order to gain more "benefits" from the welfare system or the gullible overly compassionate unicorn, rainbow, and rose colored glass wearing suckers. Be very careful how you give a "helping hand". If the help is not tied directly to work, do not extend them anything as you are doing nothing but promulgating their chosen lifestyle. Selfish laziness.

Just like my cousins on so called "well fare". They simply CHOOSE not to work. They also still CHOSE to get married and have children even though neither of them had a job for more than 3 months out of 2 years(here I am being generous) and promptly decided to quit it as it didn't "pay enough" for their exalted personages. You and I are paying these selfish, self righteous, lazy people to do absolutely nothing. Yup, you and I paid for here hospital birthing bills along with all of the doctors visits on top of the standard welfare dole.

These types of people are for the vast majority, lazy and selfish. These lifestyles and attitudes did not create themselves overnight, but rather were taught to them over many years as they grew up. The Billions of Dolists have had many decades of habit building. These selfish tendencies do not disappear in a couple of years.

No matter what ad you hear on the radio stating they can "fix" your addiction to alcohol, drugs, etc in 10 days are a blatant lie.

Billions of Dolists exists in Haven and surrounding Haven colonies. You are telling me you(Manticore) are now going to trust a star nation whom you have been at war with for 20-50+ years with your best technology who has an inbuilt gigantic population who hates what you stand for(WORK as said war shrunk their rice bowl and some of them were actually forced to WORK) would willingly sell you down the river for their own selfish ends? Get real.

So, lets take this to its logical conclusion vis-a-vis Manticore-Haven. Build a business and then "give it away" to your competition who you just had a drag down fight with for the last 50 years. How likely will that be? Not a chance in Hell even if you decide they start to have a change in heart and mind. Hmm, why does the rose colored Haven-Manticore sings kum-bai-ya author in chief not allow Fan Fiction? Because he is not stupid. It would impact his $$$. He is not stupid enough to give away his intellectual property. And, we the "fans" have not been in a battle with him for the last 20+ years either. We are ostensibly his friends and allies for the last 20+ years.

I know its fiction and authors paint with a very broad altruistic handwavium brush of utopianism, but base human nature still rules. Lazy human nature inbred for 50-100 years of prolong rules. People do not change their stripes in a mere couple of years. When was the last time you EVER saw someone in their 50's change their habits, attitudes, work ethic, morals? Very rarely to never. Work with the so called people on welfare. Most of them are there because they chose to be. Or their selfish gluttonous habits dumped them there. A rare few are there because of medical problems. For them I bend over backwards and try to get them to do small jobs all the time. I have a list I always carry around of people willing to hire these people as temp workers. Gives them hope. These types of people are in the minutee minority of those I have dealt with on a daily basis for the last 10+ years. Effectively these welfare people today are dolists.