cthia wrote:JeffEngel wrote:I've figured an Honorverse "lifeboat" is simply a cutter, pinnace or other small craft put to that use, rather than a distinct sort of vehicle.
Indeed Jeff. Yours is the only other possibility I could think of to explain there being two designations. But that refers back to my previous question. You hear of lifeboats being picked up. Once they are, their wedges could be brought up in kamikaze fashion inside the rescuer's boat bay. It wouldn't bode well for future survivors but it seems it's a possibility by a scruple-less commander really wanting to destroy Honor Harrington.
Bringing a wedge up inside a boat bay is not easy, so you do have to add in some technical skill in addition to being a suicide bomber. Also, if anyone does that even once, their navy can kiss off reliable pickups in case of honorable surrender. The laws and customs of war are there to put some kind of firewall there to keep people within shouting distance of civilization. No professional navy is going to be casual about violating them. (Though some individuals, of course, may be, and kittens save us all from the unprofessional navies.)
If there's a real concern about it though, navies could require surrenderers to come aboard in skinsuits, lifepods, or cutters without wedges, and keep pinnaces well away. Yes, some people may end up dead that way, but if your people have made the other people worried that you're going to kill them when they are trying to save your homicidal butts, take it up with them, boyo.
