Information I'd love to know

SWM wrote:In addition to what Jonathan_S said, there is the possibility that headquarters specifically wanted one of their best cruisers assigned to Basilisk Station. A lot of people always wanted a larger and more permanent duty station for Basilisk, but they were limited politically. If they could have nothing heavier than a heavy cruiser there, and probably just the one ship much of the time, then they would certainly want the most powerful ship they could get, their newest CA design, fresh off the yards.

As First Lord, Janacek wanted to do away with the Basilisk Station completely. Textev makes it fairly clear that since he couldn't eliminate it, he assigned the most incompetent, ineffective ships he could find.

Capt Young and Warlock weren't assigned to Basilisk because Warlock was a Star Knight, they were assigned because Pavel Young was a lazy idiot who got his command through influence -- probably undue influence, courtesy of his father's secret files.

Weird Harold wrote:

SWM wrote:In addition to what Jonathan_S said, there is the possibility that headquarters specifically wanted one of their best cruisers assigned to Basilisk Station. A lot of people always wanted a larger and more permanent duty station for Basilisk, but they were limited politically. If they could have nothing heavier than a heavy cruiser there, and probably just the one ship much of the time, then they would certainly want the most powerful ship they could get, their newest CA design, fresh off the yards.

As First Lord, Janacek wanted to do away with the Basilisk Station completely. Textev makes it fairly clear that since he couldn't eliminate it, he assigned the most incompetent, ineffective ships he could find.

Capt Young and Warlock weren't assigned to Basilisk because Warlock was a Star Knight, they were assigned because Pavel Young was a lazy idiot who got his command through influence -- probably undue influence, courtesy of his father's secret files.

Just because Janacek wanted Basilisk Station done away with doesn't mean that the head of BuPlan and BuPers agreed with him. Janacek doesn't directly control ship deployment. I was careful to say that "a lot of people" wanted Basilisk Station expanded, not that the First Space Lord wanted that.

What the text says is, "he had reduced the Basilisk picket below even the stipulated levels. . . . Left to his own devices, he would no doubt have simply ignored the system completely." "And so Basilisk Station had become the punishment station of the Royal Manticoran Navy. It's dumping ground. The place it sent its worst incompetents and those who had incurred Their Lordship's displeasure."

And so it appears that Janacek managed to reduce the picket to a single ship (until someone decided to punish Harrington and sent Fearless). Janacek arranged that the navy sent those in bad airs to Basilisk. But that does not preclude the possibility that someone in BuPlan or BuShips or BuPers wanted to see the most capable ship design assigned that they could arrange, in defiance of Janacek. And if Janacek started to intervene, they could probably convince Janacek by implying that assigning Young a Star Knight for his Basilisk duty was a small favour for a family politically connected to Janacek himself, easing the stain of the Basilisk assignment.

SWM wrote:Just because Janacek wanted Basilisk Station done away with doesn't mean that the head of BuPlan and BuPers agreed with him.

There is ample evidence that Janacek tended to beach officers who disagreed with him and tended to put sycophants and cronies in decision-making positions like BuPlan and BuPers.

SWM wrote:There was no reason (at the time) that he should not be given a Star Knight.

Uh huhh! For the same reason kids were denied a Red Ryder BB gun. Young could shoot his eye out with a Star Knight!

Please forgive me SWM. No way I could resist that one. Silly me.

Weird Harold wrote:

SWM wrote:Just because Janacek wanted Basilisk Station done away with doesn't mean that the head of BuPlan and BuPers agreed with him.

There is ample evidence that Janacek tended to beach officers who disagreed with him and tended to put sycophants and cronies in decision-making positions like BuPlan and BuPers.

He did that under High Ridge, because he could. Under Cromarty, he did not have that kind of freedom of choice; Jim Webster was hardly a crony (and in fact was actively conspiring against him), and I don't think the other senior uniformed Navy personnel were either.

Hi Drothgery,

Quite right.

Rereading OBS would clear many of these questions up, and save many poor electrons.

For example, the discussion between Webster and Hamish explains much; where Hamish asks James why he hasn't cashiered Young, and he replies, "because of his father, because of politics."

The conservatives were still part of the government coalition, and his father was High Ridge's whip [in more than one way].

L

drothgery wrote:*quote="Weird Harold"8[quote="SWM"]Just because Janacek wanted Basilisk Station done away with doesn't mean that the head of BuPlan and BuPers agreed with him. *quote*

There is ample evidence that Janacek tended to beach officers who disagreed with him and tended to put sycophants and cronies in decision-making positions like BuPlan and BuPers.

He did that under High Ridge, because he could. Under Cromarty, he did not have that kind of freedom of choice; Jim Webster was hardly a crony (and in fact was actively conspiring against him), and I don't think the other senior uniformed Navy personnel were either.[/quote]

Damn it, I want treecat names!

I want Michelle's. I want Estelle's. I want Augustus' and Allen's and Abigail's and Michael's and Lester's and Shannon's and Sonja's and Benjamin's and Helen's and Aivars' and Bernadus' and Warner's and even Javier's (*hic*SOB*hic*).

I want all the treecat names for all the characters.

...I'm done.

Are fusion bottles grav based or are they some kind of material. I always picture a glass bottle tube or bulb of some type and it has the hot and fiery fusion reaction going on inside it. But that got me wondering why not build a ship out of that material as it would be pretty much nuke proof.

I know the idea is that bottles can go out of alignment and explode, why it doesn't just direct the blast out the ship through a vent? who knows. One presumes this is hot fusion not Cold fusion as cold fusion shouldn't be such a problem.

One also wonders if the fusion is held in check with a shield that encompasses the bottle or a grav field that holds the fusion explosions in check like a star?

Venting should work as it is basically how the energy torpedo works. Only much greater and without the aiming and confinement into a torpedo.

Back to the hull if it is a grav shielding couldn't one place similar shielding all along the hull, or inside the hull. Add a nuke proof laser proof graser proof outer layer to the armour, just inside a weak outer layer of hull. (So maintainence guys, rearming ships, etc... don't get zapped.)

Lord Skimper wrote:Are fusion bottles grav based or are they some kind of material. I always picture a glass bottle tube or bulb of some type and it has the hot and fiery fusion reaction going on inside it. But that got me wondering why not build a ship out of that material as it would be pretty much nuke proof.

I know the idea is that bottles can go out of alignment and explode, why it doesn't just direct the blast out the ship through a vent? who knows. One presumes this is hot fusion not Cold fusion as cold fusion shouldn't be such a problem.

One also wonders if the fusion is held in check with a shield that encompasses the bottle or a grav field that holds the fusion explosions in check like a star?

Venting should work as it is basically how the energy torpedo works. Only much greater and without the aiming and confinement into a torpedo.

Back to the hull if it is a grav shielding couldn't one place similar shielding all along the hull, or inside the hull. Add a nuke proof laser proof graser proof outer layer to the armour, just inside a weak outer layer of hull. (So maintainence guys, rearming ships, etc... don't get zapped.)

Read House of Steel.
Buried in the section on the Grayson Navy Order of Battle is a bit of a description of the modern "GRAVMAK" fusion reactors used by Alliance warships.

Does textev state what type of ship "Haven One" is? Is she armored or just made to haul shitty ass if it hits the fan?

What is Elizabeth's ship name, armament and type?