Grayson v. Haven

kzt wrote:Remember the treason cases filed by the Rosevelt Admin against the Americans who joined the RAF in 1940-41.

Oh, right...

Right, but that (and the recruitment of Flying Tigers out of the Army, Navy, and Marines pilots) was done with the at least tacit permission of the US Government; and as far as I know all involved were discharged from the US armed forces before taking up arms for foreign governments.

Still, I suppose in theory if the US Government had changed their minds and wanted to end those programs they could have sent draft notices to the US Citizens involved and prosecuted them if they failed to appear for in-processing. But that still a somewhat different situation that someone who's still a member of one military simply being loaned temporarily to another.

cthia wrote:

Duckk wrote:I suppose the argument would hinge on a very arcane legal decision: was it Steadholder Harrington who became an admiral in the GSN, or was it then-Countess Harrington? Remember, Steadholder Harrington is legally a distinct person from Duchess Harrington - they just happen to cohabitate in the same physical body.

I imagine this fact would only serve to save her personas from death, but NOT her RMN career.

There is absolutely no way that Honor would have been put to death. Elizabeth would not have stood for that. If so, it would have been the catalyst for an even bigger political crisis far greater than what that bugger Young ever created. Grayson would have threatened to withdraw from the alliance for certain. I wouldn't be surprised if the treecats suddenly took a political stance. You want political pressure, how's that for ya?

Hmm, I wonder if Grayson would have even gone to war against Manticore had they put to death a Steadholder? Whatever the answer to that question, the alliance would have been over.

Weird Harold wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:The only time Honor would get into severe issues, would be any of the Manticoran units in Eighth Fleet that decided to continue following the orders of the Grayson units. Then you get into a truly sticky situation, every ship captain who decided to keep following Grayson's attack orders just committed mutiny. And if Honor were giving them any form of orders, then she has also started acting in a manner that invites punishment.

Would she not have to desert her post as commandant of the "Crusher" and the Saganami Island Academy?

The window of opportunity for Grayson to continue operation Buttercup unilaterally with Honor is command is very, very small. Janacek returned her to Saganami Island because he couldn't afford to beach her and Hamish at the same time. She didn't leave SI until sent to Sidemore/Silesia immediately prior to the second war.

Janacek should gladly accept her resignation, but would probably have blocked it for as long as possible just out of spite, and without that out, he would prosecute her for desertion of her post with great glee and a conviction would have been a slam dunk. I'm sure the charges would include "in time of war" to make desertion a capital offense.

Honor didn't become Commandant until after the Buttercup Offensive and peacefire, considerably after I believe. So if Grayson were to suddenly decide not to respect the High Ridge peace acceptance, she wouldn't have any other duties yet to resign from. She was on medical leave after all, but that's again an RMN restriction, if Grayson had wanted to 'call her home to command their units' the RMN really couldn't say anything. If anything, that would help her later defense case "well I was on RMN medical leave to recover from my injuries in Hades, my actions were done as a Grayson Fleet Admiral. Exercising independant command as a Grayson vassal."

Duckk wrote:

In terms of attack force, we not only had the minor fact that Grayson was actually the largest contributor to Eighth Fleet, but they also had the Protector's Own, which Honor is also the permanent CO of. So if Grayson had 'withdrawn' from the Manticore Anti-Haven Alliance, and sent the Protector's Own unit forwards to merge with the Grayson units that made up Eighth Fleet. Grayson would have almost exactly as many ships as made up the entirety of Eighth Fleet, and call it the expanded Protector's Own. Being the permenent CO, Honor would be easily within her grounds to follow her liege lord Benjamin's orders to continue assaulting Haven. And Elizabeth as her other liege, would be giving background assent, so the only place orders to stand down would be coming from Janacek and Chakrabarti, which as I've pointed out, have no authority over Grayson units acting in Grayson interests.

The Protector's Own at this point in time didn't have any modern capital ships that were operational. Several SD(P)s were in the process of working up, but were not ready yet. They certainly wouldn't have had the two squadrons of of SD(P)s that they had in WoH.

The Protector's Own had ordered their first squadron of SD(P)'s prior to Buttercup Offensive being launched, so while they may have been working up, they would have been able to get a new training schedule from the Grayson units that composed over 50% of Eighth Fleet. Which would also have trained their LAC squadrons to the same syllabus that Alice Truman designed.

And if Grayson had split off from the Alliance, those Grayson units that were the majority of the RMN Eighth Fleet formation, could have been folded into the Protector's Own. Which actually would have made it far larger than what we saw in WoH. The key to the whole thing though, was by making it the Protector's Own squadron, exercising Benjamin Mayhew's direction to "continue the war" protects Honor from Janacek trying to hammer her. She's the paper CO of the Protector's Own, which means any actions she takes while commanding the PO, she's covered.

If Honor had done this, yes, her career in the RMN would have been over (at least as long as High Ridge remained in power). It would have been a bitter pill to swallow, but I think she'd have done it.

Besides, no matter how much High Ridge and Janacek would have opposed her, Elizabeth would have been rooting for her all the way. Hell, it would have been all the Queen's Own could have done to stop Elizabeth from joining the expedition!

Somtaaw wrote:Honor didn't become Commandant until after the Buttercup Offensive and peacefire, considerably after I believe.

Honor was promoted three grades and given command of the Crusher and made a tactic instructor at the academy in Feb 1914, during her rehab from injuries suffered during her capture, escape and return.

Baron High Ridge formed his government in Feb 1915 after the assassination of Duke Cromarty and names Edward Janacek as First Lord of the Admiralty. As soon as the cease fire is accepted, Janacek beaches Hamish and confirms Honor as Commandant of the Crusher and instructor at the academy. Her rehab is virtually complete at that point, so she could have gone back to a space command with the GSN, but she would have to leave her assignment at SI and Janacek would oppose that on general principles after eating crow to give her that assignment instead of beaching her.


She was at Saganami Island for about a year prior to the cease-fire.

Keep in mind that a substantial part of Eighth Fleet at that time were Grayson ships, I'd say yes: Grayson could have probably taken Capitol fleet and the Haven system, but not the entire Republic. So the question would then be, would Yeltsin itself get "Boltholed" unilaterally by the remainder of the PRN afterwards, a not insignificant consideration.

The second problem is that any attack on Noveau Paris and Capitol Fleet would likely have to originate in Trevor's Star, and that would require Manticoran cooperation, which by constitutional law would not have been forthcoming. Acting unilaterally in this would have in fact fractured the Alliance.

SharkHunter wrote:Keep in mind that a substantial part of Eighth Fleet at that time were Grayson ships, I'd say yes: Grayson could have probably taken Capitol fleet and the Haven system, but not the entire Republic. So the question would then be, would Yeltsin itself get "Boltholed" unilaterally by the remainder of the PRN afterwards, a not insignificant consideration.

The second problem is that any attack on Noveau Paris and Capitol Fleet would likely have to originate in Trevor's Star, and that would require Manticoran cooperation, which by constitutional law would not have been forthcoming. Acting unilaterally in this would have in fact fractured the Alliance.

I'm not sure the PRN could have "boltholed" Grayson, part of the reason they even truly developed podnoughts was because Foraker had actually seen the inside of the Wayfarer, and from the bridge command plots during the breaking of Warnecke.

And then she was with Second Fleet sitting in orbit of Lovat, which was the Eighth Fleet's next target before the stand-down order was received. If Grayson had decided to keep pushing, they would have consolidated purely Grayson units, and then gone on to smash Haven's Second Fleet, possibly with the death of Foraker, Tourville and/or Giscard.

And then with Eighth Fleet already pushed through so deep into Haven space, Grayson really didn't need to use the Junction. 2 week trip to get to Manticore, versus 3 months to get to Trevor's Star directly.

And with the Alliance, Grayson could have forced the issue of having every military right to send their warships through the Junction with priority, exactly like they did immediately prior to Thunderbolt. If Janacek threw his fit, and High Ridge tried to bring politicial pressure to bear, that might have been enough to cause Elizabeth to take action.

Elizabeth only stood back because she expected High Ridge's political alliances to tear themselves apart. If High Ridge started taking actions that would tear the Alliance apart, especially when Erewhon would shortly also be raising their complaints. Elizabeth would step in and essentially say "damn the constitutional crisis, you are ruining MY kingdom's military needs for YOUR political self-importance."

Somtaw, Honor was on light-duty status, not medical leave.
If she had been on leave she could not have been Commandant of the Crusher.
She was told that if she needed time off during her refit and rehab they would work around it.

Duckk wrote:

Secondly Honor was not a duchess when the ceasefire went into affect.

Yes she was. She was awarded a duchy after her escape from Hades. We see her chilling at her newly constructed mansion in said duchy midway through AoV.

Nit time, Harrington House aka Bay House is on Manticore, the Duchy of Harrington is on Gyrphon in the Westmont crown reserve.

Jonathan_S wrote:

kzt wrote:Remember the treason cases filed by the Rosevelt Admin against the Americans who joined the RAF in 1940-41.

Oh, right...

Right, but that (and the recruitment of Flying Tigers out of the Army, Navy, and Marines pilots) was done with the at least tacit permission of the US Government; and as far as I know all involved were discharged from the US armed forces before taking up arms for foreign governments.

Still, I suppose in theory if the US Government had changed their minds and wanted to end those programs they could have sent draft notices to the US Citizens involved and prosecuted them if they failed to appear for in-processing. But that still a somewhat different situation that someone who's still a member of one military simply being loaned temporarily to another.

IIRC the treason trials mostly came out of J Edgar Hoover's paranoia about communist party and were mostly directed at members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Also the AVG aka Flying Tigers was not formed until mid 41 and didn't see combat until late October 1941. Also the US pilots who flew for the RAF and RCAF were technically immigrant to Canada and Britain even though they all flew in the Eagle Squadron. This was because under US law any citizen who joins a foreign military is no longer a citizen of the U.S., this was done away with on wink, wink, nod, nod when the U.S. joined the war.