What Checkov's Guns have you found in the Honorverse

For those few who do not know what Chekhov's Gun is, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov's_gun . In short, if there is something in the story narrative, it is there for a reason, even if it doesn't show up for many chapters (or books).

So in your readings, what manner of guns have you found?

I think I ran across one (which suggested this thread to me) in my re-reading of Torch of Freedom:

No ice cream anywhere in the inhabited galaxy was as good as that to be found in Muckerjee's Treats. Such, at least, was the firm opinion of Hugh Arai and every single member of Beowulf's Biological Survey Corps except the notoriously contrarian W.G. Zefat—and it was perhaps no coincidence that Captain Zefat had been sent off on what was expected to be the longest survey mission in the history of the Corps.

Just a throwaway line, perhaps...but it does allow one to wonder (and the author to have in his pocket) a return by the unknown W.G. Zefat with some critical piece of information about the MAlignment or the RF.

Might be a gun that is never fired, but certainly is available to the MWW should he decide to shoot it.

OK, any others you have noticed?

Hutch wrote:For those few who do not know what Chekhov's Gun is, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov's_gun . In short, if there is something in the story narrative, it is there for a reason, even if it doesn't show up for many chapters (or books).

So in your readings, what manner of guns have you found?

I think I ran across one (which suggested this thread to me) in my re-reading of Torch of Freedom:

No ice cream anywhere in the inhabited galaxy was as good as that to be found in Muckerjee's Treats. Such, at least, was the firm opinion of Hugh Arai and every single member of Beowulf's Biological Survey Corps except the notoriously contrarian W.G. Zefat—and it was perhaps no coincidence that Captain Zefat had been sent off on what was expected to be the longest survey mission in the history of the Corps.

Just a throwaway line, perhaps...but it does allow one to wonder (and the author to have in his pocket) a return by the unknown W.G. Zefat with some critical piece of information about the MAlignment or the RF.

Might be a gun that is never fired, but certainly is available to the MWW should he decide to shoot it.

OK, any others you have noticed?

There is the commonly mentioned Merchant ship from the beginning of WoH that is sending out the Code 17-Alpha telling the Universe at large that it has pirates on board.

But, these aren't Checkov's guns, not yet anyway. They could be just window dressing or red herrings or brick jokes. (And, no link, because I got those from the greatest time sink on the World Wide Web, and I don't want to do that to you.)

Actual Checkkov's guns...well, we do see Anton's skill at interpreting orbital (and departing) traffic patterns in the first page of Chapter 1 of Cauldron of Ghosts. He then uses that skill (spoiler alert, if you haven't read the book, natch) to deduce that some group is moving its people off of Mesa. He's right; he's spotted Houdini.

A couple of older ones are Honor's skill with a Colt 45 (not used for at least one book) and her sword fighting training.

ncwolf wrote:But, these aren't Checkov's guns, not yet anyway. They could be just window dressing or red herrings or brick jokes. (And, no link, because I got those from the greatest time sink on the World Wide Web, and I don't want to do that to you.)

Just in case if anyone was wondering what he is refering to http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... inYourLife ... you're welcome

p.s wasn't it the ship of honor's old captain, that was sending the code 17

No. It was a normal merchant ship,
and an Andie warship heard and checked it out.

HTM

Master.Mind wrote:
p.s wasn't it the ship of honor's old captain, that was sending the code 17

ericth wrote:A couple of older ones are Honor's skill with a Colt 45 (not used for at least one book) and her sword fighting training.

Ofcourse she does Honor is highest calibre Chekhov's Guns out there..

The term Colt 45 implies a wild west type of revolver, whereas Honor uses a replica of the 1911 automatic, if I remember correctly. Anyway with an inbuilt pulser, and being too senior for duelling anymore, she would presumably only use the firearm for sport and relaxation.

Mor wrote:

ericth wrote:A couple of older ones are Honor's skill with a Colt 45 (not used for at least one book) and her sword fighting training.

Ofcourse she does Honor is highest calibre Chekhov's Guns out there..

Master.Mind wrote:

ncwolf wrote:But, these aren't Checkov's guns, not yet anyway. They could be just window dressing or red herrings or brick jokes. (And, no link, because I got those from the greatest time sink on the World Wide Web, and I don't want to do that to you.)

Just in case if anyone was wondering what he is refering to http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... inYourLife ... you're welcome

The person quoted on that page, David Morgan-Marr, has a doctorate in Astro physics and currently works as a researcher for Cannon. Every time detecting the stealthed MAlign ships has come up, I've wondered if he reads this series because that's right in his ball park.

We have already seen a few Checkov's guns fired in the series. A couple big ones:
* OBS mentions that according to theory, the Manticore Junction should have at least one more undiscovered terminus.

* HotQ emphasizes the fact that so far no ship has survived transit above the theta band, but implying that it was theoretically possible.

* Early text noted that opposition to genetic slavery was one of the few topics on which Manticore and Haven agreed.


There is one Checkov's gun which I suspect won't be fired:
* The grav lance was introduced in OBS as a flawed system. David hinted early on that it might come back. But that mummified horse has been dug up and beaten to pulp so many times that I doubt it will come back in text.