Amaroq wrote:As I was re-reading EoH I wondered why Manticore never formally requested the return of Honor's body from the PRH. I know such exchanges are done between warring nations and it seems weird to me that Manticore wouldn't request Honor's body for burial. I know the Peeps would've refused since there was no execution and hence no body but Duke Cromarty's thoughts make it clear that they didn't expect to get Honor's body back even if they won the war. I just thought it was strange that it seemed to be a foregone conclusion that they couldn't get Honor's body back and so they didn't even try.
I suspect it was because both the Cromarty government and Benjamin Mayhew knew that there was no way that the Committee would ever return her body, and that to even ask would be to hand a propaganda coup the Cordelia Ransom (who, as far as they knew, was still alive and kicking).
Remember, Honor wasn't treated as a PoW; the Ransom revived the Legislaturalist-era conviction
in absentia for 'murdering the crew of an unarmed merchantman' at Basilisk back in OBS. As such, Honor wouldn't be covered any interstellar conventions concerning the repatriation of deceased PoWs (if such conventions existed), and can you imagine how Ransom would have run with the story of the 'elitist, imperialist monarchies of the so-called Manticoran Alliance begging for the return of the body of the convicted murderer and war criminal Butcher Harrington'?