Space Combat

drothgery wrote:

lyonheart wrote:What else do you expect if HH is winning all this glory since OBS and somehow stays a ship captain?

Or were you expecting Admiral-Captain James Kirk?
[...]

Raising to squadron command in FIE kept her on track book-wise, so where did you want her to jump off the tracks again?

What else could RFC do and still have a rational Honorverse?

... though we're kind of in an odd spot now, with Oversteegen and Terekhov at junior flag rank, and Abby Hearns (who seems the most likely character to spend a lot of time doing 'captain' things in the future and in the spotlight) a bit too junior. Naomi Kaplan and Scotty Termaine are probably the most prominent characters with a single-ship command right now, and as much as some people may love them, they're not likely to be extended POV characters.

Kaplan was my first inkling, but Abby doesn't have to be captain to go on death rides - she just has to be in command. Tactical officer finding herself in a sticky situation, perhaps? Which doesn't bode well for poor Naomi, but she doesn't have to die, just be incapacitated.

roseandheather wrote:Kaplan was my first inkling, but Abby doesn't have to be captain to go on death rides - she just has to be in command.

Yep, if she's not careful she could find herself in charge of boarding a space station or in a pinnace tractored to an old-style LAC.

I actually am with Lord Skimper on this issue. It would be great to watch the bite your nails drama which the earlier books encompassed. The best in the series are from when the SKM faced real foes at something like a disadvantage or parity. You still have all the conversations on the planet and the machinations of politics but you also have victory over enemies whom it's worth having victory over.

The Solarians could have been that foe but have been written into being this colossal punching bag made of tissue paper. The economic devastation caused by both the strangling of trade with the League and the destruction of Manticores infrastructure could have been a devastating blow which would bring the SEM down to the level of it's enemies but it's my understanding it's going to be anything but.

There have been a lot of plot devices which could have been used to wrench the series back into the semi-desperate mode where victory or defeat hangs on a razor's edge but the plot lines instead have led into the cake walk walk overs we've seen in recent books.

It's all interesting in it's own way of course but I have to admit that if the first book I'd picked up in the series had been a Rising Thunder instead of At All Costs, then the first book of the Honor series I read would probably have been the last.

I think that if you actually want to read edge of the knife drama you really need to look towards RFC's excellent Safehold and Hell's Gate series which are written with the same level of detail and skill of the Honor books but which are still an intriguing mixture of politics, technology, drama and action which the recent books of the Honor series have lost.

On the other hand, I'll still purchase the next offering in the Honor books mostly because I'd like to see how the story ends, that and the hope that maybe the book will recapture some of the drama which the earlier books possessed. One can always hope.

Alizon wrote:...

There have been a lot of plot devices which could have been used to wrench the series back into the semi-desperate mode where victory or defeat hangs on a razor's edge but the plot lines instead have led into the cake walk walk overs we've seen in recent books.

...

I wouldn't let the current ascendancy become your mental norm. David's hints over the years of the desperation of the later portions of the saga in his mind lead me to believe that the cake walk will soon be over.

For instance, what happens to GA logistics if Beowulf catches a high-fractional missile strike or two while the SDF and the SLN task force are facing off. (Not necessarily a missile launched by either of the two obvious combatants.)

dreamrider

roseandheather wrote:

drothgery wrote:
... though we're kind of in an odd spot now, with Oversteegen and Terekhov at junior flag rank, and Abby Hearns (who seems the most likely character to spend a lot of time doing 'captain' things in the future and in the spotlight) a bit too junior. Naomi Kaplan and Scotty Termaine are probably the most prominent characters with a single-ship command right now, and as much as some people may love them, they're not likely to be extended POV characters.

Kaplan was my first inkling, but Abby doesn't have to be captain to go on death rides - she just has to be in command. Tactical officer finding herself in a sticky situation, perhaps? Which doesn't bode well for poor Naomi, but she doesn't have to die, just be incapacitated.

Has it occurred to anyone else that, post CoG, post Houdini, post Many/Andy occupation of Mesa, we could have a virtual pause of storyline action for 3-4 years. Oh, sure, there could still be raiding going on, and the totally overmatched SL would still slowly and not-so-slowly come apart. But the serious confrontation with the MAlign/RF could be several years down the road, with the bad guys hiding effectively until ready for the moment for their next move.

The good part of that is that Abby and Helen (and Scotty) would have time to move into more obviously lead casting roles.

dreamrider

That makes sense dreamrider. It gives the GA time to rebuild Manticore's missile and shipbuilding industry and bring Haven up to full Manticore/Grayson tech standards while the SL could use the time to try and close the tech gap to a point where they have better than a snowball's chance in hell in a fight with a GA fleet.

Just imagine RHN Roland and Saganami-C equivalents. Maybe IAN equivalents as well. If memory serves they were staying out of the League war to deal with Mesa so it will be interesting to see what they do now that the planet has fallen.

dreamrider wrote:For instance, what happens to GA logistics if Beowulf catches a high-fractional missile strike or two while the SDF and the SLN task force are facing off. (Not necessarily a missile launched by either of the two obvious combatants.)

Well, it starts with the GA producing dozens or hundreds of ships without a fire control system. And so much for Mycroft. Not to mention that significant amounts of the manufacturing equipment that Manticore is planning on installing will have a new delivery date of Never And the second generation of manticore production people, who were sent to Beowulf to learn how to produce this gear? They are also dead. Along with a good chunk of the survivors haven dropped off.

I'm sure the SLN and MAN would be very sad about this.

Hi Drothgery,

Scotty is a Captain but he's in command of a heavy cruiser division, not a single ship; the Alistair McKeon is his flagship.

So he's a bit beyond the single ship duels that these poor conservatives are pining for.

Personally the larger number of PoV's offers the advantage of more combat in different kinds of ships, which one would think would please these people.

Then there's the question of how long the Roland's with out a commodore will continue to go without at least a couple squads of marines bunked in the flag country billets?

L

drothgery wrote:

lyonheart wrote:What else do you expect if HH is winning all this glory since OBS and somehow stays a ship captain?

Or were you expecting Admiral-Captain James Kirk?
[...]

Raising to squadron command in FIE kept her on track book-wise, so where did you want her to jump off the tracks again?

What else could RFC do and still have a rational Honorverse?

... though we're kind of in an odd spot now, with Oversteegen and Terekhov at junior flag rank, and Abby Hearns (who seems the most likely character to spend a lot of time doing 'captain' things in the future and in the spotlight) a bit too junior. Naomi Kaplan and Scotty Termaine are probably the most prominent characters with a single-ship command right now, and as much as some people may love them, they're not likely to be extended POV characters.

kzt wrote:

dreamrider wrote:For instance, what happens to GA logistics if Beowulf catches a high-fractional missile strike or two while the SDF and the SLN task force are facing off. (Not necessarily a missile launched by either of the two obvious combatants.)

Well, it starts with the GA producing dozens or hundreds of ships without a fire control system. And so much for Mycroft. Not to mention that significant amounts of the manufacturing equipment that Manticore is planning on installing will have a new delivery date of Never And the second generation of manticore production people, who were sent to Beowulf to learn how to produce this gear? They are also dead. Along with a good chunk of the survivors haven dropped off.

I'm sure the SLN and MAN would be very sad about this.

It almost certainly won't happen because it would be suicide for whoever did it. There would be an investigation and if an SL missile did it than the fleet's commanding admiral, probably the squadron commander, ship's captain, tactical officer, and probably anyone else remotely involved in firing the salvo would be heading for life in the worst prison the League could find, or the gallows if they survive the battle.

GA would never lose control of a missile salvo that way without some kind of outside intervention.

MA could possibly arrange it but I don't think doing so will benefit their goals enough to be worth the effort. Also I could swear in one of the books the leader of the MA said he wanted Beowulf to be intact when it was all over so Beowulf would admit that they were wrong to oppose Leonard Detweiler's vision. Even if he didn't actually say it I still gt the feeling that is one of his goals.

Roguevictory wrote:It almost certainly won't happen because it would be suicide for whoever did it. There would be an investigation and if an SL missile did it than the fleet's commanding admiral, probably the squadron commander, ship's captain, tactical officer, and probably anyone else remotely involved in firing the salvo would be heading for life in the worst prison the League could find, or the gallows if they survive the battle.

It would take a miracle to not get caught. To mis-quote Die Hard "You ask for miracles. Theo, I give you the R...M...N."

Nobody on a ship blown up by the RMN will be talking about whatever they possible could have been thinking about, now will they? And the RMN does tend to use very large numbers of very deadly missiles, and the SLN defense are pretty sad....