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cthia wrote:

There is no way that Sonja ever had any sort of a vendetta against Harrington. Sonja made that clear in textev herself. As a matter of fact, I think Sonja actually liked Honor. Sonja was more of a recluse, holed up inside of her own tech-ridden dreams, not totally unlike Shannon before the sleeping Forakerian giant was rudely awakened by the Committee of its own Public Unsafety. Textev also supported Sonja's lone-wolf social status as a symptomatic factor of her rare genius.

If there ever could be a lost branch of the MAlign tree, it could very well be Hemphill! Which would really be horrible.


In fact, who better to make Sonja's genius shine than the Salamander herself?

Which brings me to a hypothesis that the Star Kingdom was kept alive by a one-two punch of Foraker and Harrington...

Perhaps one day I'll finally post a fan version of Why Manticore Won the War.

ldwechsler wrote:

cthia wrote:

There is no way that Sonja ever had any sort of a vendetta against Harrington. Sonja made that clear in textev herself. As a matter of fact, I think Sonja actually liked Honor. Sonja was more of a recluse, holed up inside of her own tech-ridden dreams, not totally unlike Shannon before the sleeping Forakerian giant was rudely awakened by the Committee of its own Public Unsafety. Textev also supported Sonja's lone-wolf social status as a symptomatic factor of her rare genius.

If there ever could be a lost branch of the MAlign tree, it could very well be Hemphill! Which would really be horrible.


In fact, who better to make Sonja's genius shine than the Salamander herself?

Which brings me to a hypothesis that the Star Kingdom was kept alive by a one-two punch of Foraker and Harrington...

Perhaps one day I'll finally post a fan version of Why Manticore Won the War.

I think we're swerving a bit. Yes, later on Hemphill does sort of apologize to Honor and tells her that SHE never assumed it would be the only major weapon a ship would have. And I doubt she wanted to "get" Honor at all in general.

The question became whether or not the Conservatives could blackmail the Centrist government. She at first defended Young in discussions.

But she realized the disaster that declaring him innocent would be for the fleet as well as Manticore. It might also have damaged the Conservatives...the nations was at war and by preventing a buildup, the whole planet could have been lost. Frankly, based on that behavior, the Conservatives were insane. Had Haven won, there would have been no more aristocracy.

So she made the key compromised and saved the fleet, the nation, the Conservative Party, and for a while, Young.

It is strange that we applaud rational behavior.
So, two cheers for Hemphill.

Jonathan_S wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Yeah, I believe Red Sonja wanted first to protect the Navy King Roger enlisted her to rebuild. She gave her life to that goal. She saw her King muderred rebuilding his Navy and she would sacrifice anyone or anything to ensure King Roger's sacrifice was not in vain. Sad as it might be, Honor Harrington's was worth keeping the navy as intact as possible. Getting Young out was automatic.

And the apparent sacrifice on Honor's part appeared, without the benefit of precog, to be minor.

White Haven had suggested she take a little time to make an Steadholder visit to Grayon during the trial, to cut down on how much direct flak she'd take from the Conservative's press leading up to, and during the trial. So you'd assume Young gets dishonorable kicked out of the navy and rots planetside (not even in Lords nor with access to the Northridge files; since you'd expect his father to live for many more years). Honor comes back at the end of her leave and gets to be Admiral Mondeau's flag captains in a BC squadron assigned to White Haven's 3rd fleet; the fleet tasked with the majority of the RMN's current offensive operations.

The trial and cashiering of Pavel would barely have been a minor blip to her carrier.

I seriously doubt Earl Dimitri Young would be willing to expend any leverage or resources in a real vendetta against Honor; not when he knew Pavel had fucked up and he'd succeeded in saving Pavel's life. (Now if the board voted to execute that might have kicked off vendetta time) It was Dimitri dropping dead that gave Pavel the resources and ability to pursue his insane vendetta against Honor and cause all that grief.


From a military justice point of view Lord Pavel Young deserved to be executed. But nobody could have predicted the fallout from sparing him in order to get cooperation on the critically needed declaration of war.

cthia wrote:I totally agree that it was a critically rational behavior, though totally devoid of the human warmth of emotion.

I suppose what we should applaud is Hemphill's ability to make the tough call. She showed the balls of a First Space Lord—throwing Harrington under the bus.

Here bussy bussy, heeere bus.

ldwechsler wrote: [snip]

But she realized the disaster that declaring him innocent would be for the fleet as well as Manticore. It might also have damaged the Conservatives...the nations was at war and by preventing a buildup, the whole planet could have been lost. Frankly, based on that behavior, the Conservatives were insane. Had Haven won, there would have been no more aristocracy.

So she made the key compromised and saved the fleet, the nation, the Conservative Party, and for a while, Young.

It is strange that we applaud rational behavior.
So, two cheers for Hemphill.