Mending fences

drothgery wrote:No one likes the High Ridge government. And neglecting to conclude a formal peace treaty for pure domestic political concerns was clearly foolish. But it's boggling that operators as shrewd as Kevin Usher has been shown to be in other contexts weren't completely aware of what they were doing and why.

To be fair to Kevin, who could really conceive that a government would play chicken with foreign policies and peace negotiations just to maintain their own status quo? Time and again we saw various Manties shock, anger and disgust at the High Ridge government's actions

To the Havenites it must have seemed like Manticore got one their high horse so they could rub it in their faces that they were beaten (only they weren't.)

drothgery wrote:

Browne wrote:Amen Brother, Preach on about the Evils the High Ridge Government. They are the real reason that millions died.

No, they are not. The single most responsible person is (the late) Arnold Giancolla; if he had not manipulated the diplomatic correspondence to deliberately escalate the conflict, the war would never have restarted.

If the Pritchart government had shown any appreciation of Manticoran domestic politics at all, they would never have restarted the war when it was clear Manticore under the Conservative/Liberal/Progressive coalition would not resume the war by choice under any circumstances. Dragging on negotiations still longer might have hurt them a bit in the polls, but Haven is a presidential system, not a parliamentary one; there's no way for the opposition to force an unscheduled election.

No one likes the High Ridge government. And neglecting to conclude a formal peace treaty for pure domestic political concerns was clearly foolish. But it's boggling that operators as shrewd as Kevin Usher has been shown to be in other contexts weren't completely aware of what they were doing and why.

That's not quite correct. Giancola's manipulation of the diplomatic notes was the proximate cause of the war, he only began to edit the texts after years of the High Ridge government failing to negotiate.

We know that the reason for this was that the High Ridge government wanted to effectively operate in states of war and peace similtaneously, allowing them to slash the Naval Estimates while simultaneously continuing to collect the 'war emergency' taxes begun under Cromarty, and postponing the next general election as long as possible to keep the next batch of San Martin peers out of the Lords. However, Pritchart's government didn't have the benefit of reading the novels. What they could see was the government of the Star Kingdon of Manticore, having accepted a ceasefire proposal, refusing to undertake any real negotiation toward a peace treaty and occupying systems that were formerly Haventite territory - systems which could thereby not choose their future status in the same way that the unoccupied systems had done, several of which had chosen independence from the Republic.

In addition, the said Star Kingdom of Manticore, after centuries as a single-system polity, has now annexed San Martin Lynx and is in the process of considering the annexation of the entire Talbot Cluster. From the outside, this looks rather like a state that has won a war and, drunk on its own power, is turning imperialist. Is this state likely to return the systems it's captured from you, or allow those systems to choose their own destiny? Because if it is, then why is it quibbling about the layout of the @*$%ing conference table instead of conducting real negotiations, negotiations which will determine the fate of tens of billions of people? Not to mention treating its own sovereign allies more like vassals who'll do as their told, as the governments of those sovereign allies have been quietly making known to you.

However, let's for a moment assume that Pritchart and her Cabinet understood that the situation with Haven existed beyond the High Ridge Government's intellectual event horizon and that everything they were doing was to secure domestic political advantage.

So bleeking what?

Eloise Pritchart is the President of the Republic of Haven, not the organiser of the 17th Interstellar Hugathon. Her job is to act in the best interests of the Republic, which in this case means securing a real peace treaty, normalising relations with the Manticoran Alliance (not just the SKM) and resolving the status of the occupied systems, and if the High Ridge Government won't come to the table willingly then it is Pritchart's sworn duty as President to force them to do so, even if it means smacking High Ridge squarely between the eyes with a 2x4. Even under normal circumstances, she would have no right whatsoever to let High Ridge spin things out until he'd done what he wanted to do at home or was turfed out of office.

Except, of course, that the circumstances aren't even close to normal. There has to be a resolution to the situation, one way or another, because the current state of diplomatic limbo is going to destroy the Republic which Pritchart, Giscard, Thiesman, Tourville etc risked their lives to restore. You've said that the opposition can't force an early election. In a settled political system, perhaps, but the Republic of Haven isn't close to settled. By the beginning of War of Honor, it's rapidly approaching the point where, if there isn't some progress made in the peace talks, it'll be the end of Pritchart's administration. Maybe it'll be a coup (probably not, given Thiesman's position as SecWar and CNO, but stranger things have happened). Maybe she'll be impeached by Congress - no, it probably wouldn't be constitutional, but with the unstable nature of the new Republican system, the growing strength of the opposition in Congress and the fact that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was blatantly partisan and opposed to her, the fact that it wasn't constitutional wouldn't be worth a fart in an airlock. Or perhaps the Congressional opposition, growing ever stronger as Pritchart's failure to deal with the single most important problem facing the Republic today, will make her position politically untenable and force her resignation.

And if Pritchart falls, the Republic is likely to fall with her. Leaving aside the fact that, under the constitution, her successor is Arnold Giancola, the simple fact is that the Republic is dangerously fragile. After decades of Legislaturalist corruption and brutality, followed by years of Cordelia Ransom and Oscar Saint-Just, the Republic has to have a period of political stability to allow the new constitutional system to bed down and become 'the way things are'. A president being forced from office this soon will ruin any hope of that, and the political infighting that will follow is likely to tear the Republic apart.

Dafmeister wrote:And if Pritchart falls, the Republic is likely to fall with her. Leaving aside the fact that, under the constitution, her successor is Arnold Giancola, the simple fact is that the Republic is dangerously fragile. After decades of Legislaturalist corruption and brutality, followed by years of Cordelia Ransom and Oscar Saint-Just, the Republic has to have a period of political stability to allow the new constitutional system to bed down and become 'the way things are'. A president being forced from office this soon will ruin any hope of that, and the political infighting that will follow is likely to tear the Republic apart.

This.

As for responsibility, I would say much of the individual blame rests with Giancola, but the rest of the collective responsibility rests with the High Ridge government and its leaders.

Dafmeister wrote:
Eloise Pritchart is the President of the Republic of Haven, not the organiser of the 17th Interstellar Hugathon.

This needs to be recc'd so much.

Positroll wrote:So, Erewhon seems to want to mend fences with the Manties. All well and good - except that I wonder whether using Imbesi for that purpose is a good idea.
After all, the Manties still probably don't know that Imbesi was informed of the pending attack on Princess Ruth beforehand - at a time when Erewhon still was formally allied to Manticore. A deal's a deal and all that ...

So what happens when they kiss and make up, and then a treecat or HH discover that oops, Imbesi was happy to let the niece of Elisabeth get shot, raped or abducted ... ?

After all, Victor Cachat was a formal enemy of the SKM at the time, so he can be "pardoned" for not caring about Manticoran royalty, but what Imbesi did to his still - allies was beyond the pale - especialy since Elisabeth was opposed to High Ridges stupid treatment of Erewhon ...

I does give Princess Ruth a really big "you owe me" to cash in with Imbesi. Given how she thinks, it could be interesting if she plays that card in a future book....

Dafmeister wrote:

drothgery wrote:No one likes the High Ridge government. And neglecting to conclude a formal peace treaty for pure domestic political concerns was clearly foolish. But it's boggling that operators as shrewd as Kevin Usher has been shown to be in other contexts weren't completely aware of what they were doing and why.

That's not quite correct. Giancola's manipulation of the diplomatic notes was the proximate cause of the war, he only began to edit the texts after years of the High Ridge government failing to negotiate.

For years, failing to negotiate and maintaining an official state of war helped Pritchart (and, incidentally, no democracy in the Honorverse would ever have been able to build something on the scale of Theisman's new fleet in secret in peacetime). Being upset enough to go to war when the High Ridge wanted to keep the official state of war going when it helped them is kind of silly.

drothgery wrote:For years, failing to negotiate and maintaining an official state of war helped Pritchart (and, incidentally, no democracy in the Honorverse would ever have been able to build something on the scale of Theisman's new fleet in secret in peacetime). Being upset enough to go to war when the High Ridge wanted to keep the official state of war going when it helped them is kind of silly.

Could you elaborate on exactly how the official state of war was helpful to Pritchart at any point? I don't see that having the threat of total, crushing defeat hanging over your head for years constitutes 'helping' you, especially when you're engaged in a multi-front civil war against the remnants of the totalitarian regime you displaced. Nor was she using any kind of emergency power to suppress dissent or opposition to her administration.

I'd also point out that, without the ongoing official state of war, the absolute secrecy around Bolthole wouldn't have been so necessary in the first place. Bolthole itself was a massive resource sink; there's no doubt that Thiesman's navy would have been looking for ways to level the playing field even if a peace treaty had been signed, because that's their job, but a formal peace would have relieved the pressure to do so on such a massive scale and immediate timeframe, allowing resources to be spent on revitalising the Republic's economy and education system instead of fuelling a black project.

Dafmeister wrote:

drothgery wrote:For years, failing to negotiate and maintaining an official state of war helped Pritchart (and, incidentally, no democracy in the Honorverse would ever have been able to build something on the scale of Theisman's new fleet in secret in peacetime). Being upset enough to go to war when the High Ridge wanted to keep the official state of war going when it helped them is kind of silly.

Could you elaborate on exactly how the official state of war was helpful to Pritchart at any point? I don't see that having the threat of total, crushing defeat hanging over your head for years constitutes 'helping' you, especially when you're engaged in a multi-front civil war against the remnants of the totalitarian regime you displaced. Nor was she using any kind of emergency power to suppress dissent or opposition to her administration.

Pritchart explicitly tells Theisman that having an official state of war was helpful while fighting the multi-front civil war, which was why they had no issues with High Ridge dragging out the negotiations for the first few years.

drothgery wrote:Pritchart explicitly tells Theisman that having an official state of war was helpful while fighting the multi-front civil war, which was why they had no issues with High Ridge dragging out the negotiations for the first few years.

Fair enough, I'll concede that one. However, Giscard and Tourville had more or less won the civil wars before Thunderbolt was even contemplated, so from the Havenite perspective, any utility that they could derive from the 'negotiations' was over within the early chapters of War of Honor.

I am dipping my toe here because some of the opinions shared seem to resonate with thoughts that have formed in my head long time ago.
It is just my point of view. It will, however, clash with what I think RFC had in mind when he wrote the books. It is going to look like I am criticising The Master - Heaven forbid - I am not and have not any intention to do so. I am in no way saying his POV is wrong, or that I don't accept it as a legitimate one - I do accept it as that. I do not regard his judgement as flawed. I am simply finding myself in somewhat of a disagreement and am sharing my view of what a character/characters/ with the qualities described in the books should have thought or done. My goal is to discuss some of these differences and possibly find out if and why there is a difference at all, so please don't take offence or put in my mouth /so to speak / words I did not mean.
Just sharing my POV.
Also, I will not post quotes as I'm too lazy to pick them up from several posts

1)Concerning Erewhon.
They were absolutely in the right to break from the Manty alliance after being badly mistreated.
They were absolutetly in the right to seek closer connection with Haven.
They were absolutely in the Wrong when they shared classified tech they did not develop on their own but were given by a former ally with a third party that was recently in an active state of war with said ally/and with them/, which war had not /at the time of the tech sharing/ ended in an acceptable manner. It might have been OK by their honor code. It might even have been a /barely/ acceptable faux pas from Manticore's POV, considering the actions of Manticore's own government at the time. To me,personally, that action - the tech sharing - was a betrayal of the entire Manticore alliance. A harsh word, I know, but I just can't justify such an action at that time. No matter how much the Erewhonese believed the Haven government had changed, they gave classified, possibly field leveling technology to a country with a new, not very stable political system, a tradition of more than a century of military/conquest solutions to internal problems, a country that under one previous government started a massive interstellar war without a declaration of war, under the next government did not even think to acknowledge it was in the wrong and under the current /at the time/ still had not acknowedged any of the above.
In my eyes, Erewhon acted /in the particular instanse of tech sharing/ as a spoiled, offended child totally out of proportion to the offence. I am perfectly aware that Erewhon had no idea Haven was going to resume the war - but they had no right or excuse to presume such a possibility could not exist at all.
By entering a mutual defence treaty with Haven at a time when the only probable /I am not saying very probable, but at all probable/ invader anyone in the region could imagine was the side they were entering the treaty with and specifically by giving that side possibly field levelling tech - well... - they basically stabbed their previous allies /all of them/ in the back. Had they limited themselves with a different kind of treaty or even with a mutual defence treaty without the tech sharing - I could understand and accept that. The way they did it - nope , sorry.

Which brings us to:
2) Concerning Haven.
Nowhere in the books do I see the Pritchart government /or even a particular member of it - or of the entire Haven political scene/ acknowledge and take into consideration when making political and diplomatical decisions the following facts:
a)It was Haven that
-started the war - under the Harris government - /to solve internal problems, without provocation or the decency of a declaration of war/,
-did not after the Piere coup admit it was in the wrong or make any attempts to end hostilities - instead used the war to solve internal problems - again /and even further fueled the animosity of its own population towards Manticore/
-did not after the Theisman coup acknowledge the former two points and continued to fuel - or at least did not take any steps to cool down the aforementioned animosity towards Manticore

b)it was Manticore that /for whatever reasons/:
- having the unquestioned capability to utterly destroy Haven both militarily and economically, chose not to do so but to pursue diplomatic resolution instead
- having the total and absolute moral high ground after being attacked without provocation or a declaration of war, chose not to anihilate Haven as a political entity, but to seek a peacefull resolution instead

Whatever the failings of the High Ridge government, from the perspective of Haven it is that particular government's "fault" that the Republic of Haven exist at all in any recognizable form.
If not for that government's decision to end hostilities /for whatever reasons it was made/
- there would possibly not have been a Theisman coup at all or at least not in that precise format and with that precize result
- the Haven fleet would have been destroyed, captured or running far away
- The Haven system /along with other more important systems/ would have been occupied
- the Republic of Haven would at present most probably not be in existence in any recognizable form or under any similar name.
- The Manticoran Alliance would be in the right /morally for sure, not exactly sure about interastellar law/ to end the existence of the Haven political entity in its previous form as a multisystem entity - due to that entity's proven record of unprovoked interstellar conquest.

If Manticore /of the High Ridge govt./ seem from the Haven POV to be looking down on them, well ... they have the right, if for totally different reasons than they think they have it.
The Havenites, instead of feeling offended, should have looked themselves in the mirror and admited it was their star nation's fault thingwere the way they were, no matter which government made the decisions.
If they felt they could claim responsibility for the multitude of star systems of the late PRH - most of which the PRH conquered at one time or another - including the ones currently(at the time of the negotiations) occupied by Manticore, then they should have been so polite as to accept the responsibility of the same PRH for the war and tried a bit harder not to bloody start another one - for whatever reason, legitimate or no.
What buggs me is that characters I like as people - Theisman, Tourville, Pritchard and a bunch of others - wanted /some of them passionately/ to punch back at Manticore for "kicking their ass" without clearly acknowledging that the same Manticore had all the reasons in the world and all the moral right it wanted or needed for the ass-kicking administered.
Another thing that buggs me is that Pritchard - and Theisman - made preparations for resuming hostilities before the diplomatic papers controversy (which at least gave them some legitimate(in my POV) reason to do so), and made these preparations with the explicit preparedness to undertake them exactly the way the old PRH had - without a formal declaration of war. They never tried to cool down the /absolutely unjustified/ animosity of the Haven population towards Manticore, never stopped to think that they were acting /or at least were going to be seen as acting - in the eyes of external observers/, albeit with more justification, exactly like their predessesors - seeking external solutions to internal problems, laying the price to be paid for saving their star nation on another star nation that had already suffered huge losses from a war started for similar reasons.
In short - Pritchard and her govt. never accepted the responsibility of their star nation for the war, never acknowledged publicly, to their own people, that Haven was in the wrong and Manticore was not the evil enemy these people were made to believe in the past. That way they created a situation where the public opinion in their country made it extremely difficult not to resort to military solution when the state of negotiations stopped being usefull to them. I can remember times when that public opinion was a serious factor in their decision-making process, but I cannot remember any of them acknowledging that it was a mistake not taking any measures to change it and to cool down on the hatred for manticorans clearly present in Haven.
Oh, yeah -the state of war was very usefull for them indeed. The continuing state of war with Manticore made it possible /or at least much, much easier/ to secretly divert budget funds to Bolthole without notifying too many people and thus creating many possible leak sources. The ongoing civil war did not in the least create the need for a secret naval buildup intended to counter not the existing internal enemies, but the possible external one. I am not saying it was not their duty to defend their star nation by any means possible, but they were never close to ready to accept a penalty in proportion for the actual guilt their nation bore for the war. They thought and acted as the /representatives of the/ star nation being attacked/invaded, not the one that started all the bloodshed.

I don't insist that such a change/addition in their thinking could or should have lead to different results - I don't really think that any results much different from the ones described in the books are any likely at all. However, it makes it more difficult for me to accept these characters as the honest and honorable persons they are intended to be.

I can accept that all these people are not perfect, that they can and will make mistakes, and that circumstances beyond their control will have a great effect ot the world they live in. The way I see it though, some of these mistakes were avoidable, and the actions that could have avoided them should at least have been taken into consideration - in accordance with the way of thinking these characters are described as having. More precisely, the one flaw I never see described /if at all perceived/ as such is the inability to take responsibility for the historical record and actions of one's star nation in their entirety. Remember when, after the assasinatons on Old Earth and Torch, Kevin Usher informed the cabinet that Haven had assasinated not only Cromarty, Gold Peak and the others at Grayson, but also King Roger III? Well, at that point all these people could somehow perceive that they can be seen as "the hexapuma that only changes its spots" - if not with that much of a justification for that particular incidents, while previously not being able to perceive that they - as a government and a nation - were held responsible /and in my opinion were in fact responsible as a descendant government/ for all the results of the last war - with a lot more justification.

Again, I am not judging, but simply stating my POV. Please take that in mind when responding, and let us discuss and see if and where /and why/ I am wrong in my observations and thoughts, or where I am missing something.