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Mission of Honor eARC - is Sandra Crandall's death missing?

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Mission of Honor eARC - is Sandra Crandall's death missing?
Post by clancy688   » Fri May 27, 2016 2:31 pm

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Hi,

just a short question: I only have the eARC of Mission of Honor, and there's something which puzzles me:

At the Battle of Spindle, the last scene involving Sandra Crandall is the one where the missiles start flying around. After that, she never appears again, and only Queen Elizabeth mentions in a later chapter, that she has been the "only fatality" on her flag deck, and that her injuries are suspicious.

But Honorverse wikia says, that she's been shot into the back of her head - and I don't find this information anywhere in Mission of Honor eARC.

So I'm wondering if there's something missing (a scene involving Crandall being shot, or her body being discovered by Manticoran search parties) which is present in the normal release?

Thanks!
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Re: Mission of Honor eARC - is Sandra Crandall's death missi
Post by Duckk   » Fri May 27, 2016 2:45 pm

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Chapter 26:

"I take it you don't incline to the theory that it was suicide after all?" Elizabeth said after a moment.

"At this point, I don't have a strong feeling either way, Your Majesty," Givens replied. "I'd have to say that if I were a Solarian admiral who'd managed to make the absolutely wrong call on every single decision and gotten twenty-plus ships-of-the-wall destroyed as an obvious consequence of my own abject stupidity, the temptation to just go on and shoot myself in the head would definitely be there. On the other hand, most people who decide to shoot themselves in the head, don't shoot themselves in the back of the head. For that matter, she could've used the overrides of her skinsuit's med panel to administer a lethal dose that would have put her painlessly to sleep. We don't like to talk about it, but every spacer knows how to do that, given all the nasty, lingering ends we can wind up facing."

"That sounds to me like you don't think it was suicide."

"Well, there's no question it was her pulser, Your Majesty, and it was in her hand when Admiral Gold Peak's Marines recovered her body. Judging from the Admiral's report, there's no forensic evidence to suggest anyone else fired the fatal dart, for that matter. Unfortunately, there aren't any witnesses who actually saw her do it, either, which is pretty suspicious in its own right. And given the fact that everyone on her flag bridge was skinsuited, there probably wouldn't be any forensic evidence, even under ideal conditions."


Do you not see this in your text?
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Re: Mission of Honor eARC - is Sandra Crandall's death missi
Post by kzt   » Fri May 27, 2016 2:47 pm

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No, it's left all suspicious. Nobody saw nothing.

Then David basically drops that on the floor and goes on.
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Re: Mission of Honor eARC - is Sandra Crandall's death missi
Post by Jonathan_S   » Fri May 27, 2016 2:57 pm

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Duckk wrote:Chapter 26:
[snip]
"On the other hand, most people who decide to shoot themselves in the head, don't shoot themselves in the back of the head. For that matter, she could've used the overrides of her skinsuit's med panel to administer a lethal dose that would have put her painlessly to sleep." [snip]

Do you not see this in your text?
For what it's worth that text is in my copy of the e-ARC. That part doesn't seem to have noticeably changed between e-ARC and final.
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Re: Mission of Honor eARC - is Sandra Crandall's death missi
Post by Dauntless   » Fri May 27, 2016 3:22 pm

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also in my e-arc
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Re: Mission of Honor eARC - is Sandra Crandall's death missi
Post by tonyz   » Fri May 27, 2016 3:39 pm

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As an editor, I would likely have replaced that scene with the Manticoran entry onto the flag bridge, and "nobody saw nothing" from all the people on the deck.

(Mesan nanotech? Genuine suicide? Frustrated staffer taking revenge? Who knows? I agree it's a plot hole that we never find out anything more about it.)

(I also find it impossible to believe that nobody had video recordings of the flag bridge in action. What, _nobody_ monitoring something that important?)

It does fit in with the authorial inclination to sometimes talk about critical scenes in retrospective (the worst case was in _Stars at War_ where we have someone _remembering their reaction_ to the _TV coverage_ of the _transmitted video of Arachnids feeding_, a three-level removal from the immediacy of the action.) Dr. Simoes in Mesa is another case of this, where we only ever see his reaction to Francesca's illness and death in comments from other people.

I kinda wish he would be more immediate. Possibly there's some reason for presenting scenes this way that I'm just not getting, though... suggestions?
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Re: Mission of Honor eARC - is Sandra Crandall's death missi
Post by clancy688   » Fri May 27, 2016 5:05 pm

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Dauntless wrote:also in my e-arc


Yeah, in mine, too. Missed it cause I was searching for Crandall's name. ^^

Still, the actual scene is missing, so I'm wondering... it's an unedited version, after all, so maybe they really forgot something...?

Does anyone have a dead tree or regular ebook version to check?
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Re: Mission of Honor eARC - is Sandra Crandall's death missi
Post by Duckk   » Fri May 27, 2016 5:05 pm

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No, that's it.
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Re: Mission of Honor eARC - is Sandra Crandall's death missi
Post by clancy688   » Fri May 27, 2016 5:07 pm

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Meh. :/
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Re: Mission of Honor eARC - is Sandra Crandall's death missi
Post by munroburton   » Fri May 27, 2016 5:45 pm

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Crandall's is one of the most perplexing deaths in the Honorverse thus far, as flag bridge recordings(which both the RMN and PRN maintained) appeared to be unavailable and us readers weren't provided with a direct scene.

All we know is she was shot through the back of her head with her own sidearm. It's possible this was done through nanite programming to somehow implicate her flag staff or cause command confusion as Tenth Fleet's missiles struck - but those recordings(and witnesses) should still show her doing it to herself in the former case and in the latter, a shot to the side of her head would have been far less questionable. Perhaps the nanites did not prevent Crandall turning her face away from the gun.

Or one of the crew drew on her, demanded her weapon and shot her with it.
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