Comedy/Tragedy of Errors: Stupidity in the Honorverse

cthia wrote:Suggested by my niece.

How did we miss, arguably the stupidest, most asinine, self-destructive (her words) things in the Honorverse...

Pierre and St. Just killing off their own, top-notch officers, during war time, and alienating the rest. St. Just and Pierre were acting as if they were under nanite compulsion. They were fighting the war for the Manties.

That's a stupid check drawn on a stupid bank, deposited in a stupid account!

(My niece, hilarious.)

Just look at what the Soviets did before the Second World War, ANY high ranking military officer could be taken out, if he was seen as a threat to the Party Leader. (Stalin was very paranoid)

Rob the Fiend wrote:

cthia wrote:Suggested by my niece.

How did we miss, arguably the stupidest, most asinine, self-destructive (her words) things in the Honorverse...

Pierre and St. Just killing off their own, top-notch officers, during war time, and alienating the rest. St. Just and Pierre were acting as if they were under nanite compulsion. They were fighting the war for the Manties.

That's a stupid check drawn on a stupid bank, deposited in a stupid account!

(My niece, hilarious.)

Just look at what the Soviets did before the Second World War, ANY high ranking military officer could be taken out, if he was seen as a threat to the Party Leader. (Stalin was very paranoid)

Very true, IIRC Stalin's purge of the Red Army officer was to say dramatic. IIRC the breakdown was as fallows;

23 of 25 Field Marshals
37 of 42 Marshals
87 of 112 Division Commanders

The only troops to not go through the purges were the ones stationed in the Far-East.

saber964 wrote:

Rob the Fiend wrote:
Just look at what the Soviets did before the Second World War, ANY high ranking military officer could be taken out, if he was seen as a threat to the Party Leader. (Stalin was very paranoid)

Very true, IIRC Stalin's purge of the Red Army officer was to say dramatic. IIRC the breakdown was as fallows;

23 of 25 Field Marshals
37 of 42 Marshals
87 of 112 Division Commanders

The only troops to not go through the purges were the ones stationed in the Far-East.

Over 82%? I didn't think it was THAT bad. No wonder the germans just walked straight in with Operation Barbarossa.

According to V. I. Leonov, Combat Engineer and Partisan trainer, the Soviet Officer Corps Purges coincided with a re-organization of the army and those who opposed the re-org. were purged. The focus was shifting from infantry to cavalry tactics with armor (applying lessons from Spain). Barbarossa hit at the time of maximum confusion.

The one point of cosmic (almost comedic) justice in those purges was the next round of purges after the army were the NKVD personnel conducting the purges. The purges never really stopped, They just changed targets from round to round.

To nominal topic:

My nominee would be Denver Summervale.

He "researched" his target. Grew up in the Sphinxian Bush, Father was an Ostermann Cross recipient as a Marine and she is a heavy world Genie. None of this raised any flags? He was a professional! Not a gambler! He should have shot her from cover and at a distance.

kenl511 wrote:To nominal topic:

My nominee would be Denver Summervale.

He "researched" his target. Grew up in the Sphinxian Bush, Father was an Ostermann Cross recipient as a Marine and she is a heavy world Genie. None of this raised any flags? He was a professional! Not a gambler! He should have shot her from cover and at a distance.

I can board this train.

What he should have done was turn this job down. Do they not have reruns of good olé classic western movies in the 'Verse? Josey Wales... "Dyin' ain't much of a living boy."

https://youtu.be/Pk6AqCT6eRE

kenl511 wrote:To nominal topic:

My nominee would be Denver Summervale.

He "researched" his target. Grew up in the Sphinxian Bush, Father was an Ostermann Cross recipient as a Marine and she is a heavy world Genie. None of this raised any flags? He was a professional! Not a gambler! He should have shot her from cover and at a distance.

I disagree with the last. His MO wasn't out and out assassination, it was technically-legal lethal dueling. So yeah, he should have known his target better, and then passed on the commission.

kenl511 wrote:According to V. I. Leonov, Combat Engineer and Partisan trainer, the Soviet Officer Corps Purges coincided with a re-organization of the army and those who opposed the re-org. were purged. The focus was shifting from infantry to cavalry tactics with armor (applying lessons from Spain). Barbarossa hit at the time of maximum confusion.

The one point of cosmic (almost comedic) justice in those purges was the next round of purges after the army were the NKVD personnel conducting the purges. The purges never really stopped, They just changed targets from round to round.

First thing a new dictator usually does when they come to power is purge the old guard. I don't have a copy of the book (read recently however) that discussed how Hitler consolidated his power by purging any professional military officers with the integrity and respect which would have got other folks to the "fuehrer's ultimate authority".

Bill Woods wrote:

kenl511 wrote:To nominal topic:

My nominee would be Denver Summervale.

He "researched" his target. Grew up in the Sphinxian Bush, Father was an Ostermann Cross recipient as a Marine and she is a heavy world Genie. None of this raised any flags? He was a professional! Not a gambler! He should have shot her from cover and at a distance.

I disagree with the last. His MO wasn't out and out assassination, it was technically-legal lethal dueling. So yeah, he should have known his target better, and then passed on the commission.

I think Summervale had gotten a little cockey and complacent. He knew he was a killer and no one had beat him yet in a dual - a situation which had perpetuated for years. He knew Honor had f'd up his lucrative gig on Medusa and he knew she was a golden child in the eyes of the admirality and government - how better than to give his cousin who stabbed him in the back (his view) a black eye?

In short, he got complacement and let it get personal, or else he would have seen the red flags and turned it down.

I bet if you look at professional killers, this is the point where most of them leave the game.

Emphasis added by me:

Theemile wrote:I think Summervale had gotten a little cockey and complacent. He knew he was a killer and no one had beat him yet in a dual - a situation which had perpetuated for years. He knew Honor had f'd up his lucrative gig on Medusa and he knew she was a golden child in the eyes of the admirality and government - how better than to give his cousin who stabbed him in the back (his view) a black eye?

In short, he got complacement and let it get personal, or else he would have seen the red flags and turned it down.

I bet if you look at professional killers, this is the point where most of them leave the game.

. . . leave the game, the easy way or the hard way. Summervale took the hard way.