[spoilers]What happens when Shannon Foraker meets...

Dafmeister wrote:My impression was that she shut down the containment fields on their fusion reactors.

That would be my own impression as well

T&R
GJS

Zakharra wrote: I thought the ships just blew up, not destroyed by wedges being brought up. That would be relatively easy to do, just bypass the safeties on the fusion power plants and blow them, and/or explode the nuclear warheads on some of the missiles. Having just one of them go off (multi-megaton yields here) in the confines of the hulls would gut the ships, let alone five or more at once..

It could have been suicide charges, but would State Sec out that on their own ships? I know they had them on the regular RHN ships, but their own?

They blew up, yes, but so did the Tepes. We have absolutely no information on how Foraker made the StateSec ships blow up. People in the past have suggested the standard scuttling charges, StateSec special secret self-destruct charges, fusion reactor containment failure, missile detonation, missile wedge initiation, catastrophic graser failure, forcing each ship to fire on all the others, and all kinds of other things, but we have no clues.

The only thing we can say is more somewhat likely than the others is StateSec secret self-destruct charges, because that is the only one which is clearly designed to be done remotely. But we don't actually know whether they exist on StateSec ships--we only know they exist on RHN ships and were controlled by StateSec. The files that Foraker uploaded to the StateSec ships were fire control plans, which suggests that it might have had to do with the weapons systems. But we have no text evidence at all.

It wasn't so much forcible rape as rape by coercion, the threat of with holding food or a job to earn food.

namelessfly wrote:It is my understanding that Thandi is rather young and still in her 20s, so she wouldn't have Honor's decades of martial arts training. Thandi has far more mass and brute strength except for Honor's prosthetic arm, but they have essentially the same Geenie, fast reflex package. Unlike most people, Honor actually has the physical strength to injure or kill Thandi.

I'm still rather amazed at some of the references about Thandi's past in CROWN OF SLAVES about her being raped by the off planet overlords. Seems like a good way for the overlords to loose critical portions of their anatomy. (Thinking of a scene from the best forgotten movie THE BARBVARIAN QUEEN. I will not explain it.)

Of course you realize that I made this request out of purely humorous, purient interest?

Cheopis wrote:

jthoma8318 wrote:It wasn't so much forcible rape as rape by coercion, the threat of with holding food or a job to earn food.

Think casting couch. "So my dear, how badly do you want a part in my movie?"

This is the one "fight" where I think Honor loses the match on points every time, even with the Coup in play.

Here's why: let's figure that Honor's 190cm frame puts her at maybe 65kg, plus maybe a little more for her genetically engineered musculature and bone structure from the Harrington side, less a bit from her Beowulf side. Allison is pixie-size compared to her daughter, after all. It's stated that her muscles and reflexes are about 125% of normal. We also know that Honor killed a number of attackers in HotQ in bare hand combat, but they were untrained also, and not all that big physically. So her deadliness is not in question, nor her reflexes nor power.

On Palane's side, we read that while the Rozak considers the SLN naval types to be rather bone-headed idiots, the Solarian Marines are a different breed of cat. Likely they'd match up pretty well with the RMN's, in fact. So let's use those two factoids as as a measuring stick.

Let's put Thandi at the same size as Gunny Hallowell from HoE, he being about her belt rank and likely heavier, being a) male, and b) a Marine. Here's the quote from Crown of Slaves, Thandi is talking to Victor Cachat: "Big deal. I weigh one hundred and fourteen kilos—" Victor winced. Thandi laughed aloud... And if I say so myself, there isn't a lot of it flab. I once lifted well over twice my body weight—two hundred and fifty kilos—in a clean and jerk. Not to mention that I have black belts in four separate martial arts; I'm an expert with most edged or blunt weapons; and I'm a crack shot with any kind of projectile or energy weapon, as well. So give your tender conscience a rest, will you?"

Granted, if Thandi and Honor are sparring, they're not trying to kill each other, but even with superior training in one hard style, I don't see Honor being able to evade the speed and force equation which Palane represents. I think her attacks arrive and can change course to intercept anything Honor can do in the form of a martial arts counter-strike. Not that it would be a one-swing one-hit one-point sequence every time, but I don't think Honor would outpoint Palane over a full "match" in ANY circumstance.

Likely after the first match though, they'd both be smiling and worn out and ready to learn more from each other possible. Give Pzlane a dozen years with the Coup and Honor some fun in Thandi's, and then wouldn't it be rather an amazing match to watch. In slo-mo HD.

I think that both Admiral Foraker and Admiral Hemphill have great strengths. Admiral Hemphill also has developed many of the Manticore cutting technologies but remember the grav-lance. Sometimes her breakthroughs don't save lives but costs them. Admiral Foraker can take an existing weapon and make it more deadly.

james99 wrote:I think that both Admiral Foraker and Admiral Hemphill have great strengths. Admiral Hemphill also has developed many of the Manticore cutting technologies but remember the grav-lance. Sometimes her breakthroughs don't save lives but costs them. Admiral Foraker can take an existing weapon and make it more deadly.

Also remember that much later, Sonja indicated that Fearless was always intended as a testbed, not to be committed to actual service. It was someone else's desire to "punish" Honor for making it work even once during the exercises, and making the fleet commander look foolish.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

james99 wrote:I think that both Admiral Foraker and Admiral Hemphill have great strengths. Admiral Hemphill also has developed many of the Manticore cutting technologies but remember the grav-lance. Sometimes her breakthroughs don't save lives but costs them. Admiral Foraker can take an existing weapon and make it more deadly.

Also remember that much later, Sonja indicated that Fearless was always intended as a testbed, not to be committed to actual service. It was someone else's desire to "punish" Honor for making it work even once during the exercises, and making the fleet commander look foolish.

Yes. It was supposed to be a testbed.

solbergb wrote:The RHN doesn't have anything like Keyhole.

What they do have is a million and six countermissile launchers, crammed onto every available surface (and to the maximum level in their LACS) plus a doctrine that lets them launch three waves of CM's vs a MDM attack, although one wave isn't very accurate.

This worked pretty well until Apollo came out.

The Havenites are just as uninterested in SLN SD hulls as the SEM is. The Havenites already HAVE a reserve of a scores of SD's that were mothballed as they brought SD(P)'s online. Those SD(P)'s already have modern numbers of control links, countermissiles, etc plus, modern EW (for Haven) and of course are 100% compatable with Haven's industrial sector. They're mothballed because they're useless deathtraps against enemies with podlayers, and they don't have trained manpower at the moment to man them.

Should they decide a SD fleet is useful vs the SLN, they'll recruit troops for their own SD's before they'd bother with Crandall's cast-offs.

This is equally true of the Andermani. It is possible Greyson and SKM burned through their SD reserve in the followups to Thunderbolt, 2nd Zanzibar and Battle of Manticore. What SD's they have left are probably part of the Marsh fleet in Silesia or loaned out/gifted to minor allies such as Alison because even if SKM/Greyson have mothballed SD's still in inventory, they don't have the manpower to fly them.

Vice Admiral Foraker would be insulted if some Mantie "suggested" that her shipyard/R&D have SLN SDs show up for anything besides checking the specs on them. Even RHN ships are now better than that SLN trash.


Do many Manties want to risk getting on the Annoyance List of Miss Oops (once they find out that she was around when Oops happened, and someone (Tourville, after the GA) comments that she hacked them)? Because it might just be the hacking-in-my-limited-spare-time list.