Is David Weber going to finish the series?

JeffEngel wrote:Home Fleet CO would likely be terribly, terribly dull for her. Ironically, it's also a posting for which she has remarkably little experience of that type of duty: not much of her career has been spent in long-term attachment to a major fleet concentration. The closest to that - even apparently counting pre-series junior officer time - would have been in Grayson from Flag in Exile through to the beginning of Honor Among Enemies, and falling into it by default after the Battle of Manticore, just because the only nearby surviving fleet to command was hers already.

I'd agree Home Fleet is weak for Honor, but both Webster and D'Orville at various points in the books were terribly bored as Home Fleet CO, and Webster was actually happy he got rotated to Old Terra Diplomat, rather than the boring 'sitting around Manticore running endless drills' So whether she's bored or not, it is tradition for senior [trusted] Admirals to take command of Home Fleet.

JeffEngel wrote:I wouldn't rule out BuPers. It's not excitingly shoot-y, sure, but Lucian Cortez has always prized her for what she does to the efficiency and performance of officers and enlisted personnel who go through one of her commands. The square pegs get in square holes, the diamonds in the rough get shined, Horace Harkness gets a knighthood and marries a Marine.... The guiding principle of the early modern GSN became "What Would Honor Do?" Surely some of that would carry over to work actually in BuPers. If even a little of it did, that would be a treasure for the RMN.

I'd disagree mildly on this point. Yes Honor improves the efficiency and performance of officers in her command, but if she replaced Lucian Cortez at BuPers, the only officers she'd meet would be Task Group or Fleet CO's, coming in for briefings and to ask for desired officers. Most of which will be officers she's already met, and improved efficiency on.

Instead of BuPers as Fifth Space Lord replacing Lucian Cortez, Honor would find herself serving the same role from either Saganami Island or the Crusher (again). She'd be achieving everything you suggested, at a much earlier point in officers' careers, AND doubling down on her experiences in action.

So I'll have to amend my list of possible commands for Honor to say:
-Home Fleet
-First Lord (she'd have to 'pull a Hamish' and give up the uniform for a time for this spot)
-First Space Lord [i](following the footsteps of Webster, D'Orville, Caparelli, and Janacek)
-Saganami Island Commandant
-ATC 'Crusher' Commandant


And technically, if she ever once takes up First Lord/First Space Lord for the Manticoran Navy, Benjamin Mayhew (or his heir) will dragoon her into serving as High Admiral for the Grayson Navy. Right now we have no evidence that Grayson has the 'rotate senior admirals' but we also don't know that they haven't decided Manticore is right about that and implemented it either so she could end up sharing High Admiral with Yanakov from time to time.

wasn't jancek first lord? (civillian) I don't think he was ever first Space lord. He definitely worked for the 2nd space lord when king roger III was still XO on a destroyer.

as to grayson rotating high admiral, i suspect that they will eventually. they are still getting used to prolong and matthews was far too old for even first Gen prolong to work on him. Judah yanakov? i'm not sure if he was young enough after the treaty with the manties made it available.

isn't there an age limit, about 30 years. any one over that is too old for it too work. might be slightly less, i seem to recall something about Miranda Lafollet being just too old and i think she was about 25/30 when we first met her in flag in exile.

Toni said yesterday that it's November.

JohnRoth wrote:A few weeks ago, Baen announced that the next-to-last book, Shadow of Victory, is scheduled for release in their fall schedule. No idea of exactly when in the fall, though; the fact that Baen hasn't updated the publishing schedule on their site is probably not significant - the next four months wouldn't go through the fall anyway.

I've also been told that he's filed an outline for the rest of all of his series with someone. Again, no idea if this is correct.

I'm sorry to hear he has more health issues. Best wishes for a speedy and complete recovery.

Dauntless wrote:wasn't jancek first lord? (civillian) I don't think he was ever first Space lord. He definitely worked for the 2nd space lord when king roger III was still XO on a destroyer.

Sorry, you're right. It was Chakrabarti I think who was First Space Lord, and Janacek was the First Lord.

Somtaaw wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:I wouldn't rule out BuPers. It's not excitingly shoot-y, sure, but Lucian Cortez has always prized her for what she does to the efficiency and performance of officers and enlisted personnel who go through one of her commands. The square pegs get in square holes, the diamonds in the rough get shined, Horace Harkness gets a knighthood and marries a Marine.... The guiding principle of the early modern GSN became "What Would Honor Do?" Surely some of that would carry over to work actually in BuPers. If even a little of it did, that would be a treasure for the RMN.

I'd disagree mildly on this point. Yes Honor improves the efficiency and performance of officers in her command, but if she replaced Lucian Cortez at BuPers, the only officers she'd meet would be Task Group or Fleet CO's, coming in for briefings and to ask for desired officers. Most of which will be officers she's already met, and improved efficiency on.

Quite a lot, anyway - all of them? It is a big navy. But aside from that, it's less a matter of the precise same skills being put to precisely the same use, as it is an expectation that she'd adapt that sort of skill set to a similar, adjacent sort of application. Whatever the touch is that way, maybe as Fifth Space Lord she could institutionalize it somewhat in BuPers - reinforce the RMN's meritocratic traditions and suppress the cronyism. Teach that kind of skill identifying skill sets and matching personnel together for the best interactions to the people in BuPers working far below the fleet command level.

She made a mark at the ATC that survived her tenure there. I imagine she would at BuPers as well. It's not on my very short list of likely places for her either - don't get me wrong. But it would make a top ten by all means, probably ahead of BuWeaps or BuShips. (Not that she can't contribute perfectly well to either, but more as one of their most thoughtful and rigorous consultants.)

Second and Sixth Space Lord slots wouldn't be off the list either. While the ONI role for the Second Lord draws most attention, the Second Space Lord also runs the Bureau of Planning, responsible for development of doctrine and tactics. That's certainly her wheelhouse, and while she's not an intelligence specialist by any means, she's got an excellent grasp of analysis and keeps an eye on that big picture most of the shooting admirals do not. And the Bureau of Training would be another place where the teaching aptitude would get some work.

Instead of BuPers as Fifth Space Lord replacing Lucian Cortez, Honor would find herself serving the same role from either Saganami Island or the Crusher (again). She'd be achieving everything you suggested, at a much earlier point in officers' careers, AND doubling down on her experiences in action.

She'd do very well there again exactly as you say. But she's got maybe 15 more decades of service life likely ahead of her. I suspect she's going to be in a lot of positions in merely the next three or four.

JeffEngel wrote:Quite a lot, anyway - all of them? It is a big navy. But aside from that, it's less a matter of the precise same skills being put to precisely the same use, as it is an expectation that she'd adapt that sort of skill set to a similar, adjacent sort of application. Whatever the touch is that way, maybe as Fifth Space Lord she could institutionalize it somewhat in BuPers - reinforce the RMN's meritocratic traditions and suppress the cronyism. Teach that kind of skill identifying skill sets and matching personnel together for the best interactions to the people in BuPers working far below the fleet command level.

Unfortunately, there just plain isn't as much Honor alone can really do, to suppress cronyism and boost meritocratic promotions at the Fifth Space Lord level. Promotions (and the boards) are dealt with by officers already in the system, so the only way to reduce cronyism is to eliminate those thoughts and behaviours at Saganami Island. And most of the work is truly done below the level of Space Lord, Cortez likely had a lot less influence than we truly think, it's his subordinates who handle the majority and he signs off on them. Until your name becomes something he recognizes and takes deeper looks at, by contrast when Draskovic was Fifth Space Lord, she was practically cronyism incarnate, and like others in Janacek's Admiralty, likely fired anyone who actually could work.

JeffEngel wrote:She made a mark at the ATC that survived her tenure there. I imagine she would at BuPers as well. It's not on my very short list of likely places for her either - don't get me wrong. But it would make a top ten by all means, probably ahead of BuWeaps or BuShips. (Not that she can't contribute perfectly well to either, but more as one of their most thoughtful and rigorous consultants.)

ATC is definitely a big place you can make a mark, both because you are teaching relatively junior officers, but also because mindsets can change. Such as Honor changing it from Manticoran-exclusive, to putting prospective CO's into the position of their allies and showing that Manty-superiority is not just their officer cadre.

JeffEngel wrote:Second and Sixth Space Lord slots wouldn't be off the list either. While the ONI role for the Second Lord draws most attention, the Second Space Lord also runs the Bureau of Planning, responsible for development of doctrine and tactics. That's certainly her wheelhouse, and while she's not an intelligence specialist by any means, she's got an excellent grasp of analysis and keeps an eye on that big picture most of the shooting admirals do not. And the Bureau of Training would be another place where the teaching aptitude would get some work.

Sixth, I might concede since from there, Honor can influence both Saganami and ATC without necessarily being the Commandants. But Second Space Lord, is pretty high on emphasizing the ONI role rather than planning. Honor really hasn't spent enough of her career in the staff positions that would help her there. She's had almost nothing but commands that saw combat, and even on Hades had other things on her mind than something that might help as Second Space Lord. I figure that actually Second Space Lord is one of those... specialized positions, that really the majority of those Lords have spent their careers in ONI, or alot of time seconded to it, so Rafe Cardones would be a good pick. Honor, not so much a wartime pick, but after peace perhaps she might do well.

My answer to your claim about how a single officer cannot transform a service is Rickover and Lemay.

kzt wrote:My answer to your claim about how a single officer cannot transform a service is Rickover and Lemay.

Good examples. If you wanted to go international, you could add Heinz Guderian to the list. He basically invented modern tank tactics. Though he called them 'panzers."

Even if Honor retires from the RMN doesn't mean she will ever get to retire from the GSN.

From the new Protector to Abigail Hearns' son, "In the words of my predecessor, 'Merry Christmas' ".

An aside:
I'm hosting a very large Superbowl party for friends. I'm collecting keys when they enter the door. Safe transportation will be provided for the slightly inebriated.

Please everyone, drink responsibly, drive safely and do enjoy the game!

She does still wear the white beret as captain of HMS Unconquered. I can see her thinking that the old ship should make a trip through the Manticore system--too valuable to take her further afield. This would be similar to the way USS Constitution made a short trip under sail on her 200th. That would make a nice little short story of her actions getting away from a desk.