Baseless Speculation Time - Gustav Anderman XI

So with the very, very general summary of the focus of Shadow of Victory, it's unlikely that we'll get any 'screen time' for Gustav XI there, and that leaves only one potential mainline book for him to make an appearance in.

For some reason, my paranoid mind finds this mildly suspicious. RFC has kept Gustav very, very quietly offscreen for the entire series, unusual for the man who's probably the most influential/powerful figure in the galaxy whom we haven't already gotten a look at. Why might that be? What is he hiding about Gustav XI?

The House of Anderman is known for being 'quirky', to put it mildly. My personal, totally unsupported and admittedly crackpot theory, is that Gustav XI's quirk is shared with another Gustav many of us are likely familar with, from another series RFC has written for, if in a more extreme fashion. When his madness takes over, he slips into a disassociated identity and goes haring off to serve as a common, if high-ranking, soldier in the 'emperor's navy', using the name 'Chien-Lu Von Rabenstrange'. Being 'cousins' would explain any physical resemblance after applying the Andermani version of the appearance-changing tech from CoS, and the fact that 'Chien-Lu' is in fact a completely fictional identity would be the most closely guarded of Andermani state secrets, even/especially internally.

It's an interesting theory. To be honest, I think the Honorverse was always too busy with something else for the Andermani to figure greatly. Usually Silesia. If not that, then Haven. If not Haven, the League.

The biggest problem with your idea? Nimitz(and his person) has met him. Several times. She wouldn't miss that sort of thing.

The second problem? Chien-lu is in fact Chien-lu Anderman, Herzog von Rabenstrange, third in line to the Imperial throne. Not such a common-born sailor after all - and almost a perfect equivalent to Michelle Henke, Countess Gold Peak, in fact.

munroburton wrote:It's an interesting theory. To be honest, I think the Honorverse was always too busy with something else for the Andermani to figure greatly. Usually Silesia. If not that, then Haven. If not Haven, the League.

The biggest problem with your idea? Nimitz(and his person) has met him. Several times. She wouldn't miss that sort of thing.

The second problem? Chien-lu is in fact Chien-lu Anderman, Herzog von Rabenstrange, third in line to the Imperial throne. Not such a common-born sailor after all - and almost a perfect equivalent to Michelle Henke, Countess Gold Peak, in fact.

Heck, the bigger problem, and the reason I had to come up with the whole convoluted DID nonsense, is that we've actually been inside his head first-person, during WoH, and, and he was obviously completely convinced of his own identity. Every instance of a treecat being able to detect someone's brain being off-kilter, the person in question was already aware of it on some level. If he doesn't even realize he's a fictional construct of a madman, Nimitz likely wouldn't pick up on it either.

As for him being third in line to the throne...obviously, just more Andermani propaganda. They need an actual heir to do heir stuff, but as long as Gustav is alive, the third-in-line isn't really important. He's inserted into the official line of succession to account for the Tottenkopf soldiers protecting him.

Or maybe Rabenstrange is who we think he is, but one of his Tottenkopf bodyguards is Gustav, fully self-aware and just amusing himself like his namesake. I dunno, it's a conspiracy theory, it doesn't need to be logically consistent.

I like the premise but it does not fit the present story line. However, I could see the story as a short story that had happened in the past in the honor universe.