Battle of Spindle Aftermath

All right, I was re-reading Mission of Honor and I noticed something that caught me as odd. In Chapter 26, Queen Elizabeth, Willie, Hamish, Langtry, Givens, Caparelli, and perhaps a few others were discussing the fallout of Crandall's defeat when they bring up Crandall's 'apparent' suicide.

"I take it you don't incline to the theory that it was suicide after all?" Elizabeth said after a moment.

"At this point, I don't have a strong feeling either way, Your Majesty," Givens replied. "I'd have to say that if I were a Solarian admiral who'd managed to make the absolutely wrong call on every single decision and gotten twenty-plus ships-of-the-wall destroyed as an obvious consequence of my own abject stupidity, the temptation to just go on and shoot myself in the head would definitely be there. On the other hand, most people who decide to shoot themselves in the head, don't shoot themselves in the back of the head. For that matter, she could've used the overrides of her skinsuit's med panel to administer a lethal dose that would have put her painlessly to sleep. We don't like to talk about it, but every spacer knows how to do that, given all the nasty, lingering ends we can wind up facing."

"That sounds to me like you don't think it was suicide."

"Well, there's no question it was her pulser, Your Majesty, and it was in her hand when Admiral Gold Peak's Marines recovered her body. Judging from the Admiral's report, there's no forensic evidence to suggest anyone else fired the fatal dart, for that matter. Unfortunately, there aren't any witnesses who actually saw her do it, either, which is pretty suspicious in its own right. And given the fact that everyone on her flag bridge was skinsuited, there probably wouldn't be any forensic evidence, even under ideal conditions."

"But if it wasn't suicide, who killed her?" Grantville asked, frowning intently.

"From our perspective, that question's wide open," Givens said. "I don't want to sound too Byzantine, but one possibility that's occurred to me is that someone else on her flag bridge—probably one of her own staffers—was also working for Manpower and had orders to see to it she didn't have an opportunity to discuss her decisions and the reasons for them with us.

Mission of Honor

Here are the things that have me scratching my head.

1. From the description, Crandall's flagship SLNS Joseph Buckley survived Terekhov's missile attack since what happened on the flag deck regarding Crandall was described. Apparently there was no explosive decompression or excessive damage as that would have made the scene impossible to determine. Though the 'ideal circumstances' remark does imply the location was by any means pristine.

2. What happened to Crandall's staff? (Bautista, Ou-Yang, Shavarshyan, and company.) Givens suspects one of them of shooting Crandall in the back of the head, but no mention is made of what happened to them. If Crandall survived long enough to get shot, shouldn't any of the others have been as well? (Survived I mean.) If so, what happened? Someone had the time to shoot her in the head with her own pulsar, and she was described as a 'big woman'. Shouldn't some sort of struggle have been apparent?

3. Since the flag deck was intact enough to allow the determination of Crandall's assassination apparent, what happened to the video recordings? Yes, I realize whomever shot Crandall could have deleted it, but unless everyone on her staff was in Mesa's pay I imagine someone would have noticed and there was no mention of any other members of Crandall's staff being present.

4. If there was the explosive decompression and Crandall had been sucked out into space before being recovered, how did they know she had been shot with her own pulsar? And if that were the case, how was someone able to shoot her in the first place?

It just seems that an awful lot of details of what happened to Crandall is missing. Filerta had a bomb on his flag bridge to cover up the evidence, so why are so many questions left hanging regarding Crandall?

You raise all the interesting questions that have been left hanging from that issue in MOH. At least all the ones I remember.

The thing is, we do not know if things are left hanging for some needed plot point that has not been published yet, but will be in a future unfolding of the story, or if the author actually does not know the reason yet, the book gods not having told him yet. Thus he is possibly in the dark still also.

Sound weird? Nope. Where do stories some from? Where do characters come from? A mystery, especially to writers. And if the author gets too big on control they can go off in a huff and be pfft gone. That inspiration over, dead, kaput. Sometimes authors must await the revelations of the Muse just like readers must. Weird but true.

It is also possible the issue has simply been dropped, never to rise gain. Only RFC knows, in this matter, and he is not telling.

Borealis wrote:
Here are the things that have me scratching my head.

Good questions all, and here's my spin on the answers.

1. From the description, Crandall's flagship SLNS Joseph Buckley survived Terekhov's missile attack since what happened on the flag deck regarding Crandall was described. Apparently there was no explosive decompression or excessive damage as that would have made the scene impossible to determine. Though the 'ideal circumstances' remark does imply the location was by any means pristine.

Yes, the Joseph Buckley was rendered hors de combat by the Manty Missile Massacre, but apparently the Flag Bridge (which is located deep inside the ship) was not damamged--which, since it has preserved Honor's life more than once, could also happen to the bad guys now and then.....

2. What happened to Crandall's staff? (Bautista, Ou-Yang, Shavarshyan, and company.) Givens suspects one of them of shooting Crandall in the back of the head, but no mention is made of what happened to them. If Crandall survived long enough to get shot, shouldn't any of the others have been as well? (Survived I mean.) If so, what happened? Someone had the time to shoot her in the head with her own pulsar, and she was described as a 'big woman'. Shouldn't some sort of struggle have been apparent?

Presumably they are still on that island in Spindle whiling away the hours.

As for shooting her, I imagine as the Joseph Buckley got torn apart, the fleet got mangled and things got a little...confused, that the opportunity to palm her pulser, shoot when no one was looking (all watching the displays as the fleet got reamed) and put the gun back in her hand with no one seeing it is possible--but I agree, you'd think there would be a question or two asked about it--but processing 400,000 prisoners and then hearing about OB just might have scrambled things up a bit.

3. Since the flag deck was intact enough to allow the determination of Crandall's assassination apparent, what happened to the video recordings? Yes, I realize whomever shot Crandall could have deleted it, but unless everyone on her staff was in Mesa's pay I imagine someone would have noticed and there was no mention of any other members of Crandall's staff being present.

That is probably the best question--and it needn't have been a member of her staff--anyone on the bridge as the Buckley took massive damage might have used the confusion to shoot her and would have seen that the recordings were never on during that time--or lost via 'battle damage'.

Still, it is a poser...

4. If there was the explosive decompression and Crandall had been sucked out into space before being recovered, how did they know she had been shot with her own pulsar? And if that were the case, how was someone able to shoot her in the first place?

As I read it, she was still on the Bridge--and th ebridge being located deep in the ship and everybody in skinsuits, the chances of decompression sucking her out into space are--low, IMHO.

It just seems that an awful lot of details of what happened to Crandall is missing. Filerta had a bomb on his flag bridge to cover up the evidence, so why are so many questions left hanging regarding Crandall?

Maybe she just isn't that important to the story line--or maybe as other posters have said above, there is more to that story somewhere later in the saga.

I think we can take it as given that the MAlign made sure that the Battle of Spindle would be her end--one way or another....

Interesting post.

My interpretation upon reading the book was that somebody on the flag bridge was quite upset that the august Admiral had screwed up so many times and so many way skipping along on the road to destruction that justice had to be served.

It almost tasted like the events that sometimes happened during the United States involvement in the Vietnam war where very bad officers were actually killed by their own troops, sometimes by a grenade tossed into the officer's tent.

Could there have been a very present underlining current of disrespect and outright anger expressed by the enlisted crew of that Admirals Sollie SD? Also, FWIW, a gun is never kept in the hand of the suicide person. It gets tossed.

HB of CJ (old coot)

Borealis wrote:<SNIP>
1. From the description, Crandall's flagship SLNS Joseph Buckley survived Terekhov's missile attack since what happened on the flag deck regarding Crandall was described. Apparently there was no explosive decompression or excessive damage as that would have made the scene impossible to determine. Though the 'ideal circumstances' remark does imply the location was by any means pristine.

<SNIP>
4. If there was the explosive decompression and Crandall had been sucked out into space before being recovered, how did they know she had been shot with her own pulsar? And if that were the case, how was someone able to shoot her in the first place?
<SNIP>

If there was explosive decompression, everyone was in shock harnesses, and thus stayed where they were supposed to. After that, Crandall was murdered in vacuum.

At least, that was my assumption.

HB of CJ wrote:It almost tasted like the events that sometimes happened during the United States involvement in the Vietnam war where very bad officers were actually killed by their own troops, sometimes by a grenade tossed into the officer's tent.

Not just there – I know 1 German unit which was assigned to “civil control” {death squad} duty in WWII. They received their first assignment & their commander had an “accidental discharge” incident. The unit was immediately reassigned to front line duty for the remainder of the war & listed as “questionable loyalty”.

HB of CJ wrote:My interpretation upon reading the book was that somebody on the flag bridge was quite upset that the august Admiral had screwed up so many times and so many way skipping along on the road to destruction that justice had to be served.

It could be like in the X-Wing series, Bacta Wars. The rebels were fighting the SSD Lusankya. At one point, she is still mostly intact with nearly full weapons & shields. But her engines had been crippled (as that was where the rebels were concentrating fire). She’s slowly “sinking” into a planets gravity well & unable to extricate herself. The rebel’s offer them surrender but her captain refuses, screaming over the com that he will never surrender and will go down fighting (sound of blaster discharge!) a young lieutenant comes on the com stating “I guess I’m in charge now & we fully accept your terms just get us out of this!” It’s entirely possible her “suicide” had nothing to do with a Mesa cover-up but just “Take this you stupid cow!”, but it may have as-well, which could lead to another link to the Mesan Alignment being uncovered. In either case the person who did it (no doubt a staff member) would have covered their tracks with a little creative battle damage to the camera pickups.

Yep, reading it I assumed that the Admiral's deficiencies as a commander had become a little too pressing and her staff had 'fragged' her. Either out of self preservation or as payback for all their colleagues she had just got killed. No one saw anything because no one wanted to see anything. If the Manties officially entertain the possibility they will have to investigate and maybe punish someone for doing it - not likely to appeal to them.

Borealis wrote:"Well, there's no question it was her pulser, Your Majesty, and it was in her hand when Admiral Gold Peak's Marines recovered her body.

No question of this at all? Did Joseph Buckley have intact databases that showed serial numbers of sidearms issued to officers on the flag deck, which are absolutely known to be correct?

Or is it possible that someone shot her in the back of the head, put the pulser into Crandall's hand, and pulled her pulser out of the holster, and everyone involved just ASS|U|MEs it's her pulser? (Could the SLN personnel involved have swapped serial numbers in the database before the boarding parties arrived?)

Excellent topic and thank you. My immediate satisfied reading response was that the again August Admiral was such a total F... U. that she was shot out of hand after loosing the battle and getting so many of her own people killed in the process.

Kinda of a "lower deck" or "gun deck" method of the underling crew, (possible enlisted, possibly not) getting their revenge and in a very vocal and visible way. The handgun was placed into the very dead Admiral's hand as a distinct telltale that they did it.

For what it is worth, in the real world, suicides practically NEVER maintain control of a gun that was in their hands used to do the deadly self deed. It is ALWAYS flung away; some times quite a distance. I knew this; the SD's crew knew this and the author knew it also.

HB of CJ (old coot)

TheMonster wrote:

Borealis wrote:"Well, there's no question it was her pulser, Your Majesty, and it was in her hand when Admiral Gold Peak's Marines recovered her body.

No question of this at all? Did Joseph Buckley have intact databases that showed serial numbers of sidearms issued to officers on the flag deck, which are absolutely known to be correct?

Or is it possible that someone shot her in the back of the head, put the pulser into Crandall's hand, and pulled her pulser out of the holster, and everyone involved just ASS|U|MEs it's her pulser? (Could the SLN personnel involved have swapped serial numbers in the database before the boarding parties arrived?)

IF the SLN keeps close tabs on which pulser is assigned to which person (seems reasonable), then it shouldn't be easy to change. As in, the armory should probably be the only place it can be changed (to note that a pulser was down-listed, and a new one issued). Of course, "SLN" is in that first sentence, so who knows how many ways to circumvent rules there are now?

On the other hand, the SLN may routinely have custom pulsers for senior officers (paid for out of personal funds, of course ^_^). So, Crandell's pulser might be very identifiable.