Honorverse favorite passages

lyonheart wrote:Hi MaxxQ,

Aw, come on.

Grayson may have been a some decades to a century behind Manticore which still means it had 18-19th century PD sensors and computers, ie almost a couple thousand years in advance of we have today, so I expect both ground based sensors of stead-holders [roughly computerized super telescopes] could be properly aimed assisted by orbital and other GSN sensors, as well as Grayson news organizations tracking the battle because the whole Grayson public had a vested interest in the outcome.

So Abigail was probably watching computer enhanced screens besides possibly also using a telescope [that probably had computer driven image intensifiers].

So there.

L

MaxxQ wrote:*quote="cthia"*Ashes 0f Victory
*quote*
She'd managed, eventually, to piece together the details of how it all had happened, although Abigail herself had been on the reticent side. The tall (for a Grayson; she was only of middling height by Manticoran standards), attractive, willowy brunette was nineteen T-years old. That meant she'd been around eight when Honor first visited Grayson, and from the taste of the young woman's emotions, it was obvious she'd been smitten with a severe case of hero worship for one Commander Harrington. Some of that still lingered, though it has eased with time and she had it under firm enough control that no one who lacked Honor's special advantages would have known it was there. What had not eased with time was the fact that she'd been Navy mad from the moment she stood one night on a balcony of Owen's House, watching the terrible, pinprick flashes of nuclear warheads glare defiantly in the endless depths of space, and known a single, brutally outmatched heavy cruiser was locked in a death duel with a battlecruiser full of fanatics in defense of her planet and all its people.

Abigail had read of the Star Kingdom and of its infinite glory. And on that fateful balcony on that appointed night, young Abigail looked into the gripping darkness of the night sky and her heart fluttered with each terrible, frightening explosion; she stilled her firming fear and quelled the quickness of her beating heart as she sang ...


The Star-Kingdom's Banner
O say can you see, by the pinpricks of light,
How so proudly she wailed at Masada's last teaming
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight

Oh the missiles we watc'd were so endlessly streaming?
And their wedge's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our hope was still there,
O say does that Star-Kingdom's banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the homes of the saved!

cthia wrote:Ashes of Victory

"Honor guard, attennnnnn-hut!" he barked, and hands slapped the butts of ex-Peep pulse rifles as the ex-prisoners snapped to parade-ground attention. Honor watched them with a proprietary air and wasn't even attempted to smile. No doubt some people would have found it absurd for men and women packed into their ship like emergency rations in a tin to waste time polishing and perfecting their ceremonial drill, especially when they knew they would be broken up again once they reached their destination. But it hadn't been absurd to Farnese's ship's company ... or to Honor Harrington.

Honor was an officer of three navies simultaneously?! Is she recruited for the navy of every place she goes? Now I must contemplate whether the fact that Honor visited Haven is what prompted Eloise into offering to partner with the Star Kingdom. In essence it cloaked a hidden agenda to recruit Honor Harrington into the Republic of Haven. What is that phrase ...

If you can't beat 'em join 'em.

"I'm sure it will be months before we get all the details straight, Milady," the earl said, and Honor hid a wry mental grimace at his formality. He clearly had no intention of calling her by her given name . . . which was probably wise of him. "Lord knows we've only scratched the surface so far! Still, there are a few things I simply have to ask you about right now."

"Such as, My Lord?"

"Well, for one thing, just what the devil does 'ENS' stand for?"

"I beg your pardon?" Honor cocked her head at him.

"I can understand why they're not 'HMS,' given that you've been acting in your Grayson persona, not your Manticoran one," White Haven said, gesturing at the blue uniform she wore. "But that being the case, I would have expected your units to be designated as Grayson ships. Obviously they aren't, and I haven't been able to come up with any other organization, except perhaps the Erewhon Navy, to fit your terminology."

"Oh." Honor gave him one of her crooked smiles and shrugged. "That was Commodore Ramirez's idea."

"The big San Martino?" White Haven asked, frowning as he tried to be sure he'd fitted the right name to the right face on a com screen.

"That's him," Honor agreed. "He was the senior officer in Camp Inferno—we never would have been able to pull it off without his support—and he thought that given the fact that we were escaping from a planet officially called Hades, we ought to call ourselves the Elysian Space Navy. So we did."

"I see." White Haven rubbed his chin, then grinned at her. "You do realize you've managed to open yet another can of legal worms, don't you?"

"I beg your pardon?" Honor repeated in a rather different tone, and he laughed at her obvious puzzlement.

"Well, you were acting as a Grayson, My Lady . . . and you're a steadholder. If I remember correctly, the Grayson Constitution has a very interesting provision about armed forces commanded by its steadholders."

"It—" Honor broke off and stared at him, her single natural eye very wide, and she heard the sudden hiss of an indrawn breath from the armsman behind her.

"No doubt you're better informed than I am," White Haven said into her sudden silence, "but it was my understanding that steadholders were specifically limited to no more than fifty personal armed retainers, like the Major here." He nodded courteously over his shoulder at LaFollet.

"That's correct, My Lord," Honor agreed after a moment. She'd been Steadholder Harrington for so long that it no longer seemed unnatural to have somehow become a great feudal magnate, yet she hadn't even thought about the possible constitutional implications of her actions on Hell.

She should have, for this was one point on which the Constitution was totally unforgiving. Every armsman in the service of Harrington Steading answered to Honor in one way or another, but most did so only indirectly, through the administrative machinery of her steading's police forces. Only fifty were her personal liege men, sworn to her service, and not the steading's. Any order she gave those fifty men had the force of law, so long as it did not violate the Constitution, and the fact that she'd given it shielded them from any consequences for having obeyed even if it did. She could be held responsible for it; they could not, but those fifty were the only personal force Steadholder Harrington was permitted.

Steadholders might command other military forces from within the chain of command of the Grayson Army or Navy, but to satisfy the Constitution, the command of those forces must be lodged in the established Grayson military with the specific approval of the planet's ruler. And Protector Benjamin IX had not said a word about anything called "the Elysian Space Navy."

She looked over her shoulder at LaFollet, and her armsman gazed back. His face was calm enough, but his gray eyes looked a bit anxious, and she raised an eyebrow.

"Just how badly have I stepped on my sword, Andrew?" she asked him, and despite himself, he smiled, for "sword" had a very specific connotation on Grayson. But then he sobered.

"I don't really know, My Lady. I suppose I ought to've said something about it, but it never occurred to me at the time. The Constitution is pretty blunt, though, and I think at least one steadholder was actually executed for violating the ban. That was three hundred years ago or so, but—"

He shrugged, and Honor chuckled.

"Not a good precedent, however long ago it was," she murmured, and turned back to White Haven. "I guess I should have gone ahead and called them units in the Grayson Navy after all, My Lord."

"That or the RMN," he said judiciously. "You hold legal rank in both, so the chain of command would have covered you in either, I imagine. But it might be just a little awkward the way things actually worked out. Nathan and I—" he flicked a small nod at the imperturbable young lieutenant behind them "—discussed this on our way to Farnese. He actually went so far as to consult Benjamin the Great's library. I don't believe there's been a precedent since the one Major LaFollet just referred to, but the fact that a steadholder not only held command in but actually created a military force not authorized by the Protector could be a real problem. Not with Benjamin, of course." A casual shooing gesture of his right hand banished that possibility to well-deserved limbo. "But there are still those on Grayson who feel more than a little . . . uncomfortable with his reforms and see you as the emblem of them. I have no doubt that some members of that faction would love to find a way to embarrass you—and him—by seizing on any weapon, even one as specious as that sort of pettifogging legalism. I'm sure Benjamin's advisers will see the problem as soon as I did, but I thought it might be as well to point it out to you now so you could be thinking about it."

"Oh, thank you, My Lord," Honor said, and both of them chuckled. It was a brief moment, but it felt good. At least we can still act naturally around one another. And who knows? If we act that way long enough, maybe it will actually become natural again. That would be nice. I think. She brushed the thought aside and leaned back, crossing her legs and ignoring Nimitz's mock-indignant protest as her lap shifted under him.

"I trust you haven't had any more interesting thoughts, My Lord?" she said politely to White Haven, and the earl smiled.

"No, I haven't," he assured her, then rather spoiled the reassurance by adding, "On the other hand, you have been gone for over two T-years, Milady, and everyone thought you were dead. There are bound to be quite a few complications waiting for you to straighten out, don't you think?"

cthia wrote:Does anyone recall exactly how this bag of worms were sorted out? As I see it, Honor was acting as a Grayson, but not as her Steadholder personna, but as her officer personna in the GSN. Am I correct?

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:Does anyone recall exactly how this bag of worms were sorted out? As I see it, Honor was acting as a Grayson, but not as her Steadholder personna, but as her officer personna in the GSN. Am I correct?

The ENS, and any personnel who wished to do so, was taken into the Protector's personal service and became the seed-corn of the Protector's Own.

FWIW, there is no distinction in Greyson law between a Steadholder and Officer in the GSN -- as Steadholder, Honor is already commander of Harrington Steading Guard in federal service. Every Steadholder automatically has a commision in Grayson's military; Honor just outranks most of the rest ans serves on active duty.

George J. Smith wrote:WH.

Can you give textev for that

Weird Harold wrote:

George J. Smith wrote:WH.

Can you give textev for that

Not easily or quickly. It's in the explanation of limitations on the steadholders' guard and the theory that they could be called up to control quarrelsome steadholders. Or it might have been a side-note to why Andrew LaFollet was listed as a colonel of Grayson Marines.

drothgery wrote:Yeah, but that's the steadholders' guard. Not the steadholder himself (or, in the case of our heroine, herself).

MaxxQ wrote:*quote="cthia"*Ashes 0f Victory
*quote*
She'd managed, eventually, to piece together the details of how it all had happened, although Abigail herself had been on the reticent side. The tall (for a Grayson; she was only of middling height by Manticoran standards), attractive, willowy brunette was nineteen T-years old. That meant she'd been around eight when Honor first visited Grayson, and from the taste of the young woman's emotions, it was obvious she'd been smitten with a severe case of hero worship for one Commander Harrington. Some of that still lingered, though it has eased with time and she had it under firm enough control that no one who lacked Honor's special advantages would have known it was there. What had not eased with time was the fact that she'd been Navy mad from the moment she stood one night on a balcony of Owen's House, watching the terrible, pinprick flashes of nuclear warheads glare defiantly in the endless depths of space, and known a single, brutally outmatched heavy cruiser was locked in a death duel with a battlecruiser full of fanatics in defense of her planet and all its people.

George J. Smith wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:
The ENS, and any personnel who wished to do so, was taken into the Protector's personal service and became the seed-corn of the Protector's Own.

FWIW, there is no distinction in Greyson law between a Steadholder and Officer in the GSN -- as Steadholder, Honor is already commander of Harrington Steading Guard in federal service. Every Steadholder automatically has a commision in Grayson's military; Honor just outranks most of the rest ans serves on active duty.

My Bold
WH.

Can you give textev for that


T&R
GJS

A steadholder not only wielded a personal feudal authority which would have stunned most Manticoran aristocrats but commanded the Army units based in his (or her) steading, as well. As such, medals were worn on all official occasions.

She couldn't, of course. In fact, she'd done all she could by identifying them to their captors as Grayson Marines. She'd recognized McKeon's astonishment when she informed Luchner that LaFollet was a Marine colonel and that Candless and Whitman were both Marine lieutenants, but he'd said nothing. She knew he'd assumed she was lying in order to keep Candless and Whitman from being separated from her when the prisoners were segregated into commissioned and enlisted ranks, but he was only half right. That was the reason she'd identified them as Marines, but she hadn't lied.

The Grayson word "armsman" was a term with a multiplicity of uses. It was used for most police personnel, but it had a very special meaning where a steadholder's retainers were concerned. The "Harrington Steadholder's Guard" was actually two separate bodies, one within the other. The smaller of the two—properly known as the Steadholder's Own Guard—consisted of only fifty men, because the Grayson Constitution limited any steadholder to a maximum of fifty personal armsmen. The Harrington Steadholder's Guard as a whole contained the Steadholder's Own, who held commissions in both, plus every other uniformed member of Harrington Steading's police force. All of its members—to the confusion of foreigners—were called "armsmen," but there were significant differences between their duties. The Steadholder's Own provided Honor's personal security detachment—a function in which the rest of the Guard assisted as required—and replacements for the Steadholder's Own were normally drawn from the rest of the Guard, as well. But she could never have more than fifty personal armsmen...

...by granting every armsman an officer's commission in the Grayson Army, as well.

...since Grayson Marines were simply Army troops assigned to shipboard duty, and since LaFollet, Candless, and Whitman did hold Army commissions, they were indeed technically Marine officers.