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runsforcelery wrote:
You're not the only person who's said something along those lines to me. Again, part of the problem is that I had intended Honor to die before the . . . nosebleed elevation of her Beowulf family connections became central to the story of her kids.

runsforcelery wrote:(2) I’ve never made any secret out of the fact that I’m ignoring relativistic effects on mass when I calculate acceleration times. I figure I’m ahead of the game for worrying about them at all, compared to a lot of writers, and the increases in mass — as opposed to time dilation — have a negligible effect on the characters’ working environment and perceptions.

runsforcelery wrote:Proportionally speaking, the numbers in my previous post stand, but I will confess that I went to my files to look up the Shrike's maximum acceleration and I referenced a chart which is somewhat out of date. Given the amount of data being maintained in my own records and those Tom Pope and BuNine are managing for me, that can turn around and bite me on the posterior, and this is one case where it did. Know, I'm not going to tell you what the current-generation Shrike's maximum acceleration is, but I will tell you that there are still a lot of earlier-generation Shrike's in service with the acceleration rate I quoted. Upgrading a LAC's inertial compensator is . . . a bit of a chore, given that the vessel is basically wrapped around it. So what tends to happen is that front-line squadrons are reequipped with latest-generation LACs as new compensator levels come along and older LACs are withdrawn to duties like system-defense. Trust me, there are plenty of places where a nasty little ship capable of "only" 640 gravities of acceleration is incredibly useful!

Aside from the bobble on maximum acceleration rates, however, my reply remains valid.

Eyal wrote:It doesn't matter whether or not they intended to actively deploy Fearless without changing it back or alternatively to send it straight to decommissioning after the tests were over. While modifications often don't work out, that typically happens due to engineering issues - e.g. the idea is fine but the hardware just doesn't cooperate.
But this isn't the case here. The engineering aspects of Fearless' modifications went off fine (despite some initial problems mentioned in the first chapter or two); the problem was the basic concept, and that should have been weeded out in the brainstorming phase, certainly before any hardware was being touched.
Look, I work on design of complex systems, albeit not for weapons. If I want to make a modification - much less a new design - I need to be able to show it works either mathematically or by simulation*; while passing these steps doesn't guarantee it'll work, if it doesn't work (or just proves to be not worth it) in those laboratory conditions there's no point in spending the time and money to proceed. And the problem with Fearless' concept (heavy short-range weapon on a light platform intended for use as a capital ship killer) was pretty obvious (there might be theoretical solutions to that, but it doesn't look like anyone even thought about it).

runsforcelery wrote:

Bruno Behrends wrote:For me it was hard to swallow that Honor's family on her mother's side is this high ranking on Beowulf.

On Manticore and Grayson Honor had to work her way up and that's one of the thing that is so likeable about her.

Now it turned out that on her maternal side her family comes from the uppermost crust of Beowulfian society - and has been there seemingly forever.

That diminishes the character for me. Too much of a good thing. Less is more and all of that.

You're not the only person who's said something along those lines to me. Again, part of the problem is that I had intended Honor to die before the . . . nosebleed elevation of her Beowulf family connections became central to the story of her kids. At that point, the reader was supposed to find out that Allison had become — and remained — completely estranged from everyone except her brother Jacques because of her refusal to toe the family line back home on Beowulf. Honor was supposed to be connected with Jacques all the way through — hence her membership in the society for creative anachronisms, her love of archaic handguns, etc., etc. — but to have had virtually no contact with the rest of her Beowulfan family.

Then she didn't die and the Alignment became central to the plot line, which dragged the Beowulf side of the family front and center.

So, what we have instead, is that Allison — while she did patch things up with her mother (who we sort of meet at secondhand in Uncompromising) after a fashion — is absolutely, 100 percent adamant that Honor is not going to grow up thinking of herself as a member of the top 0.00000001% in either of her family's home star systems. ("Oh, no! Not my little girl! Not after all the crap I had to deal with!" Which, of course, makes what happens to Honor eventually even more ironic.)

So Honor literally doesn't think of herself as related to Beowulfan "royalty" (especially when she's only a teenager or at the Academy during her confrontation with Young). Moreover, Beowulfan connections — while relatively common in Manticore — have zero implications for a naval career. Had she gone into the diplomatic service, instead — had she gone into medicine, had she gone into commerce, had she gone into finance, had she gone into law — those connections on Beowulf would have been absolutely invaluable to her as part of the "old girl" network. She chose pretty much the one career path where they literally didn't mean squat, really. (For the reader, the irony about all the titles heaped upon her was supposed to become evident only after her death when they found out that, in effect, the woman who'd been made a Duchess and a Steadholder was already Beowulf's equivalent of at least a duchess in her own right.)

From my perspective as the writer, and given Allison's attitude, I don't find it unreasonable that Honor truly thought of herself as a "yeoman's daughter" — but remember, she was the daughter of a pretty darned well off yeoman couple, given her parents medical practice — on her way up through the Navy. Now, is she much more aware of that relationship and its . . . power implications than she ever was before? Absolutely! But she's been becoming aware of it over the course of several books now.

I don't think it's the most seamless patch in literary history, and from some perspectives, I would've preferred to go ahead and let the reader find out about the connection she'd always known about but always refused to even try to use as a card in the patronage game, only after her death, when Raoul and Katherine (who are already from pretty stratospheric social strata both in Manticore and on Grayson) are entering the fray against the newly discovered threat of the Mesan Alignment. They were supposed to find out that Honor had shared Allison's alienation from the rest of Allison's family, mostly because of the Beowulf side's view that Allison had "married beneath herself" with Alfred, despite the way they'd met. I leave you to imagine how Honor would have felt about that. (And if you are gathering from this that Honor's Beowulfan family wasn't nearly so nice in their original iteration, I congratulate you on your perceptiveness. )

In the original game plan, her kids really become aware of their Beowulfan connections only when someone in a position of authority in the Navy or the Diplomatic service decided they needed someone — "like you, Raoul!" — to contact highly placed members of the Beowulf government (while Beowulf is still part of the League and there are no active hostilities) and guess who we've picked to do the contacting? I'd even sketched in the scene where Raoul meets his great-grandmother for the first time, complete with a treecat on his shoulder who really, really doesn't like her initial emotions. Of course, when she sets eyes upon her great-grandson and sees the granddaughter she never allowed herself to know in his eyes, her stony old heart melts and she becomes a Better Person™.

It was a pretty darn good scene, actually, if I do say so myself.

Unfortunately, that route was no longer available to me when the timeline got telescoped the way it did.

robert132 wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:
You're not the only person who's said something along those lines to me. Again, part of the problem is that I had intended Honor to die before the . . . nosebleed elevation of her Beowulf family connections became central to the story of her kids.

I may have mentioned this before and I know others have, but I am glad you decided NOT to run the risk of killing off the principal character in the series.

I've seen other authors do this when they thought this individual had pretty much outlived his or her usefulness as a literary focal point.

I'm sure you know Alexander Kent (Douglas Reeman) did this in his Bolitho series and tried to shift focus to the Admiral's nephew, himself an up and coming frigate captain but the series tailed off after only 2 additional books that so far as I know were not well received. I think he was trying to breath new life into a story line that was getting as stale as old croutons and not nearly as flavorful.

Your series hasn't suffered from that kind of problem so there was no need to take that drastic action, no need to make THAT mistake.

"All good things must come to an end" truly. I think you're on track to end this one not only on a high note but also lay the ground work for a successful "Next Generation" (sorry ... but not much ) should you decide you have the time and desire.

AND you won't be leaving your fans with a bad taste.

And personally I have enjoyed your work immensely.

Bruno Behrends wrote:
Wow - thank you for the long explanation!

I figured something along those lines (except for the after her death part it comes out that ... which yeah, might have been cool!) and I know uncle Jaques was there from the start.

And of course there are advantages for the story with her kind of having inherited the anti-Alignment fight from the Beowulf side.

I also still love the series

ldwechsler wrote:Aside from the infrequency of books in recent years, my biggest disappointment has been the lack of exceptionality shown by those in MAlign. We have seen a lot of so-called alpha line operatives who seem no brighter than average. We have been told there are some operatives who are absolutely deadly and have seen no evidence of it.

Harahap was presumably one of the better lines and yet he uses the same name everywhere, thereby giving himself away. Once his name hits the "wires," not only will a lot of planets know what he was really doing but some where there were no revolts or failed ones will connect him back.

These are supposed to be damned near supermen and women and yet they have done nothing much more than create a few science breakthroughs, none decisive.

Frankly, they are a disappointment. If this has been 500 years of experiments, they might be dumbest group of scientists anywhere.