reply at bottom, to keep statements in order. HTM
thanatos wrote:Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Thanatos,
IfIRecallCorrectly,
Porath's promotion at the start of R2H is from Javelin to Sword.
I agree with you that the short range of the hummers might cause
problems, which are not used in R2H. A hummer arrives in
Portalis exhausted, but it does get there. Harshu's AEF might
now be too far away for hummer communication, but that idea
has not yet been in the book, that I noticed.
HTM
Chapter 3 of RTH reads: "Commander of Five Hundred
(acting) Alivar Neshok looked up from the report in
his PC as
Shield Lisaro Porath knocked once,
opened his office door, and stepped through it...
Porath—a black-haired, brown-eyed Hilmaran with a thin
mustache—was a solid, chunky, broad shouldered fellow
whose hard face hinted at the flinty soul of the man who
wore it. He’d been
Javelin Porath up until about
last week, when Neshok had finally managed to get him
the promotion he’d so amply earned. It was a mark of the way Two Thousand Harshu and
Thousand Toralk were busy pushing Neshok into obscurity
now that they felt they no longer needed him that it
had taken so long for Porath’s promotion to come through."
So not an oversight by Weber & Presby -- Not yet anyways.
Yes, you read Chapter 3 as written, Thanatos,
and I had misread it.
Porath also appears on pages 454-5-6, in Chapter 34,
but his rank is not mentioned in that chapter.
It does say that he had been talking with another man,
also from Hilmar Continent (S America),
who is "almost twenty years younger" than Porath,
and whose rank is "Shield."
Reasons I had read that word as "Sword:"
In HHNF, on page 318, in Chapter (IIRC) 27,
we were told Nith vos-and-mul Gurthak's plans,
in the form of a report to the Council of Twelve.
That says that the signal for Porath to murder Neshok,
and then kill himself, would be his promotion to *Sword.*
Beyond that, Weber & Evans showed us the various ranks in
both worlds' armies, and usually showed the rank order.
They gave no data on whether Shield or Lance outranked
the other, but they made it clear that Javelin outranked
them both, and Sword outranked Javelin.
Therefore, moving Porath from Javelin to Shield would be
a *demotion* not a promotion. That is why I took it for
granted that his promotion was to Sword, and that "Shield"
was an authors' error. I considered it the next thing to
a typo. I usually correct typos that way.
HTM