Young and Basilisk station

I have been re-listening to the audiobook version of On Basilisk Station.

It occurred to me that it's bit weird that Young's name and the ship he commanded were not listed in Honor's orders dispatching her to Basilisk Station. She only found out once she was there.

In the overall scheme of things, it would not of had any impact on the story. She would of had too much integrity to back down for the post. It would of brought up their history a bit earlier in the book, and some dark brooding on her part.

strapakai wrote:It occurred to me that it's bit weird that Young's name and the ship he commanded were not listed in Honor's orders dispatching her to Basilisk Station. She only found out once she was there.

I think the omission can be attributed to the peculiarity of the not being an actual "Basilisk Station" for Honor to report to. That technicality is important to later events in that Young couldn't return without Warlock to curb Honor's actions.

To elaborate, because there officially wasn't a 'Basilisk Station', there couldn't be a Commanding Officer of Basilisk Station for Honor to report to. Young was the de facto CO of the de facto Basilisk Station by virtue of his being the senior RMN officer in the system, but officially and legally his only assigned command was as CO HMS Warlock. [Edit] Warlock and Fearless were two ships on independent duty that just happened to be assigned to the same operational area. Without a formal chain of command, as there would have been in a formal Station, the normal rules of seniority applied.

This is both why Young couldn't be punished for bringing Warlock back to Manticore, and why he couldn't return to Basilisk without Warlock. Had he been the official CO of an official Station, by returning with Warlock he would have been deserting his post. In reality, that's exactly what he'd done and he should, in the normal run of things, have sent Warlock back under the command of his XO while he moved across to Fearless.

Had he done so, he would strictly speaking have been deserting his post as Warlock's captain, but nothing would have come of it because everyone knew that, whatever the official assignments were, he was in reality CO Basilisk Station and he should have remained there. Because of all the legal fudging surrounding the original Act of Annexation, however, he could shield himself with the letter of the law and, purely by coincidence of course, award himself several weeks effective leave on Manticore while his XO handled the actual work of supervising the refit.

By doing so, however, his effective position as CO Basilisk Station lapsed under the strict interpretation of the regs; because he wasn't in the system any more, he couldn't be the senior officer there. The position of de facto CO Basilisk then devolved onto Honor as the ranking RMN officer in the system. Young couldn't return without his ship because it the ship that he was assigned to, not the Basilisk System. It was Warlock that was assigned to Basilisk, but she had been withdrawn to base for 'essential maintenance and repairs', as was permitted under the regs because, as Senior Officer in the system, Young was the one who had to approve his own request to go home.

Dafmeister wrote:To elaborate, because there officially wasn't a 'Basilisk Station', there couldn't be a Commanding Officer of Basilisk Station for Honor to report to. Young was the de facto CO of the de facto Basilisk Station by virtue of his being the senior RMN officer in the system, but officially and legally his only assigned command was as CO HMS Warlock. [Edit] Warlock and Fearless were two ships on independent duty that just happened to be assigned to the same operational area. Without a formal chain of command, as there would have been in a formal Station, the normal rules of seniority applied.

This is both why Young couldn't be punished for bringing Warlock back to Manticore, and why he couldn't return to Basilisk without Warlock. Had he been the official CO of an official Station, by returning with Warlock he would have been deserting his post. In reality, that's exactly what he'd done and he should, in the normal run of things, have sent Warlock back under the command of his XO while he moved across to Fearless.

Had he done so, he would strictly speaking have been deserting his post as Warlock's captain, but nothing would have come of it because everyone knew that, whatever the official assignments were, he was in reality CO Basilisk Station and he should have remained there. Because of all the legal fudging surrounding the original Act of Annexation, however, he could shield himself with the letter of the law and, purely by coincidence of course, award himself several weeks effective leave on Manticore while his XO handled the actual work of supervising the refit.

By doing so, however, his effective position as CO Basilisk Station lapsed under the strict interpretation of the regs; because he wasn't in the system any more, he couldn't be the senior officer there. The position of de facto CO Basilisk then devolved onto Honor as the ranking RMN officer in the system. Young couldn't return without his ship because it the ship that he was assigned to, not the Basilisk System. It was Warlock that was assigned to Basilisk, but she had been withdrawn to base for 'essential maintenance and repairs', as was permitted under the regs because, as Senior Officer in the system, Young was the one who had to approve his own request to go home.

IIRC, when HMS Warlock's refit was done, Cpt Young was going to return to Basilisk and he was going to officially reprimand Cmdr Harrington for not performing all the duties required of the Navy in his absence. Even though it was not really possible with one a single ship and he wasn't doing them while he was there. Honor just turned it around on him and with support from Dame Matsuko.

Kizarvexis wrote:IIRC, when HMS Warlock's refit was done, Cpt Young was going to return to Basilisk and he was going to officially reprimand Cmdr Harrington for not performing all the duties required of the Navy in his absence. Even though it was not really possible with one a single ship and he wasn't doing them while he was there. Honor just turned it around on him and with support from Dame Matsuko.

Given the stink that was being raised in Parliament over Honor's 'interference with the Star Kingdom's trade' etc, if he'd been able to get back to Basilisk in time he would have got away with it. Once he took over again as senior office, his policies in the system (such as they were) would have taken effect again and Honor would have been forced to conform to them or face charges of insubordination. That would mean that the Cromarty government would have been forced to answer the parliamentary Question using Young's operations as their basis, effectively disavowing everything Honor had done.

This lead to certain parties in the Government and Space Lords organising the back-channel sabotage effort by which Hephaestus pulled out one of Warlocks Warshawski sails while Young's back was turned, giving the Government time to answer the Question using Honor's actions as the basis of a statement of policy - and, fortuitously, giving Honor enough time to blow open the mekoha plot, wipe out the nomad invasion and stop the Havenite invasion.

Dafmeister wrote:

Kizarvexis wrote:IIRC, when HMS Warlock's refit was done, Cpt Young was going to return to Basilisk and he was going to officially reprimand Cmdr Harrington for not performing all the duties required of the Navy in his absence. Even though it was not really possible with one a single ship and he wasn't doing them while he was there. Honor just turned it around on him and with support from Dame Matsuko.

Given the stink that was being raised in Parliament over Honor's 'interference with the Star Kingdom's trade' etc, if he'd been able to get back to Basilisk in time he would have got away with it. Once he took over again as senior office, his policies in the system (such as they were) would have taken effect again and Honor would have been forced to conform to them or face charges of insubordination. That would mean that the Cromarty government would have been forced to answer the parliamentary Question using Young's operations as their basis, effectively disavowing everything Honor had done.

This lead to certain parties in the Government and Space Lords organising the back-channel sabotage effort by which Hephaestus pulled out one of Warlocks Warshawski sails while Young's back was turned, giving the Government time to answer the Question using Honor's actions as the basis of a statement of policy - and, fortuitously, giving Honor enough time to blow open the mekoha plot, wipe out the nomad invasion and stop the Havenite invasion.

I think any estimate that Young would have been able to get away with it is overlooking who the senior (and only) noble-in-fief of the Basilisk System IS!

dreamrider

dreamrider wrote:I think any estimate that Young would have been able to get away with it is overlooking who the senior (and only) noble-in-fief of the Basilisk System IS!

dreamrider

That doesn't make a difference. The Queen might well have a preference for Honor's way of running things in Basilisk, but matters of naval policy are determined by the Government and the Admiralty, not the Crown.

Dafmeister wrote:

dreamrider wrote:I think any estimate that Young would have been able to get away with it is overlooking who the senior (and only) noble-in-fief of the Basilisk System IS!

dreamrider

That doesn't make a difference. The Queen might well have a preference for Honor's way of running things in Basilisk, but matters of naval policy are determined by the Government and the Admiralty, not the Crown.

Young might have been able to get away with it until the peeps plot came to full flower. If Young controls the orbitals of Medusa instead of Honor, there are no Marines between the Medusans and the off world enclaves. No cooperation with Dame Estelle, Sirrus gets away, no case Zulu sent to Home Fleet, the Peeps move in with their fleet and get away with their plot. I don't know how the SKM retrieves the situation, but Young's career would have been toast.

Don

Maybe not. Remember who his father was and the existance of the "North Hollow Files".
It's possible that it could have been turned around to blame the Navy for not having a suitable sized force in Basilisk.
Obviously there was no way for 1 ship to do all that needed to be done so there is no way CPT Young can be held
responsible for the failure of his superiors.




That doesn't make a difference. The Queen might well have a preference for Honor's way of running things in Basilisk, but matters of naval policy are determined by the Government and the Admiralty, not the Crown.[/quote]

Young might have been able to get away with it until the peeps plot came to full flower. If Young controls the orbitals of Medusa instead of Honor, there are no Marines between the Medusans and the off world enclaves. No cooperation with Dame Estelle, Sirrus gets away, no case Zulu sent to Home Fleet, the Peeps move in with their fleet and get away with their plot. I don't know how the SKM retrieves the situation, but Young's career would have been toast.

Don[/quote]

n7axw wrote:
Young might have been able to get away with it until the peeps plot came to full flower. If Young controls the orbitals of Medusa instead of Honor, there are no Marines between the Medusans and the off world enclaves. No cooperation with Dame Estelle, Sirrus gets away, no case Zulu sent to Home Fleet, the Peeps move in with their fleet and get away with their plot. I don't know how the SKM retrieves the situation, but Young's career would have been toast.

Don

Actually, I don't think it would have been that bad. Remember, the nomad uprising kicked off early.Sirius was actually leaving to tell the PN task force not to come; as it was, with Sirius destroyed, they arrived on the expected schedule and found Home Fleet 'conducting unscheduled maneuvers' in the system. If Young had been in charge when the uprising began, then there would have been a slaughter in the human enclaves and the Medusan cities, but Sirius would almost certainly have got away clean, made her rendevous and aborted the invasion.

So, Young would have failed to prevent a bloodbath on the planet, but he could argue that there was no warning that it was coming. I suspect he would have stamped out the uprising before it ran its course, though probably in a far messier fashion than Honor's marines did - rather than intercepting the natives in a kill box like the valley, he would probably have had to use a mix of kinetic strikes and marine drops, with significantly higher casualties among his own troops and the human and Medusan civilian populations of the planet.