[SPOILER!!]A question to "A call to vengeance"

I've just read this thread.

Hmmm, interesting!

By exercising considerable self-control, I have managed to avoid doing more than taking a very quick look at CtA or downloading CtV – yet.

But I'll give you one guess at what I plan to be doing between Christmas and New Year
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PeterZ wrote:
So far there hasn't been mention of fraternization rules. Perhaps, there aren't any yet and our lovely couple is the reason for those rules.

Well one assumes those suggestions Her Majesty offered foreshadow the next book. As for the coin toss, just speculating.

Fraternization is about 6 on the list of top 10 "First Rules" you lay out for your military. Especially if you are going to have mixed crews.

Fox2! wrote:

PeterZ wrote:
So far there hasn't been mention of fraternization rules. Perhaps, there aren't any yet and our lovely couple is the reason for those rules.

Well one assumes those suggestions Her Majesty offered foreshadow the next book. As for the coin toss, just speculating.

Fraternization is about 6 on the list of top 10 "First Rules" you lay out for your military. Especially if you are going to have mixed crews.

Actually it's probably higher than that.

saber964 wrote:

Fox2! wrote:
Fraternization is about 6 on the list of top 10 "First Rules" you lay out for your military. Especially if you are going to have mixed crews.

Actually it's probably higher than that.

Let's see...
1. Follow orders
2. Keep the pointy end sharp
3. Keep the tea kettle hot.
4. Follow the laws of war

Don't mess around with subordinates (or superiors) might make 5.

Unless you subsume obeying the Articles of War under (1),

I've just finished CtA and CtV, and thoroughly enjoyed them both. I especially enjoyed reading about how Breakwater got his comeuppance .

However, turning towards the coin toss at the end of CtV, I wonder how well a "straight arrow" like Travis would fare as a spook if he had to play a role involving prolonged contact with people he had to deceive. Not well, I suspect, and the results of errors there could be catastrophic. So I hope that the coin, which is going to remain spinning in mid-air for a period of months, will come down in favour of the Navy.
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Fox2!"[quote="Fox2! wrote:
Fraternization is about 6 on the list of top 10 "First Rules" you lay out for your military. Especially if you are going to have mixed crews.

Let's see...
1. Follow orders
2. Keep the pointy end sharp
3. Keep the tea kettle hot.
4. Follow the laws of war

Don't mess around with subordinates (or superiors) might make 5.

Unless you subsume obeying the Articles of War under (1),[/quote]

The last is one that almost never is followed (certainly with all sexes onboard). We know that there have been relationships and if both people are of the same rank no one worries too much.

If they are not in the same chain of command, that is OK. There are more than a few couples now in the US armed forces that are married.

Once in the same line of command it gets tricky. Remember how strong nepotism is and that is not all that different.

ldwechsler wrote:

Fox2!"[quote="Fox2! wrote:
Fraternization is about 6 on the list of top 10 "First Rules" you lay out for your military. Especially if you are going to have mixed crews.

Let's see...
1. Follow orders
2. Keep the pointy end sharp
3. Keep the tea kettle hot.
4. Follow the laws of war

Don't mess around with subordinates (or superiors) might make 5.

Unless you subsume obeying the Articles of War under (1),

The last is one that almost never is followed (certainly with all sexes onboard). We know that there have been relationships and if both people are of the same rank no one worries too much.

If they are not in the same chain of command, that is OK. There are more than a few couples now in the US armed forces that are married.

Once in the same line of command it gets tricky. Remember how strong nepotism is and that is not all that different.[/quote]

There are tons of couples in the military these days. I've even seen officers dating enlisted if they were in different services. Rank isn't a huge deal for the enlisted either as long as they aren't in the same unit.

With regards to original question, whether Travis joins Delphi or remains as a RMN tac officer in the command pipeline, I suspect the coin flip will not actually happen, either the countess suggests they ask Travis, or they are interrupted by the the discovery of Axelrod being the paymaster according to the intel.
What happens next is that Travis reasons out that Manticore must have a 'certain' wormhole nexus, which might have multiple external termini.
Axelrod's actions show that it is not that they want to conquer Manticore, it is that they want to conquer the Star Kingdom without anyone knowing they have. Which means that whatever they are after is worth running the risk of conquering the SKM, which possess a ready made lobby on Earth itself, but cannot be immediately exploited. Travis probably knows about the survey or will find out when they read up on Axelrod.
What happens after that is politics, and Travis redesigning the RMN. He probably recognizes that it will be impossible to prevent political patronage and aristocratic incompetents, so he engineers a system that shunts them away, first with major barriers between certain ranks, making lieutenant commander, and then the List, the Flag divisions, next with an intentionally overly large officer corps with an undersized academy, and warrants and mustangs. Sailing Masters and Frigates probably also have a role, in fact the position of sailing master seems to be what Travis frequently had to do, being the face of regulation and training.

I suspect, based on HoS, that the Star Kingdom will build the impeller factory while also starting an escorted, regular, possibly subsidized, direct run to Tasmania, which appears to already be a shipping hub and is the traditional jump-off point for the League to Manticore run, although it is probably not yet a member of the League. Given that a large part of the cost of impellers is the distance to the factory, the league traders will probably buy impellers from the Manties at Tasmania. Thus begins the Ascent.

HungryKing wrote:
*snip*


What happens after that is politics, and Travis redesigning the RMN. He probably recognizes that it will be impossible to prevent political patronage and aristocratic incompetents, so he engineers a system that shunts them away, first with major barriers between certain ranks, making lieutenant commander, and then the List, the Flag divisions, next with an intentionally overly large officer corps with an undersized academy, and warrants and mustangs. Sailing Masters and Frigates probably also have a role, in fact the position of sailing master seems to be what Travis frequently had to do, being the face of regulation and training.

*snip*

Good idea, although judging by Pavel Young, it didn't completely work.
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HungryKing wrote:With regards to original question, whether Travis joins Delphi or remains as a RMN tac officer in the command pipeline, I suspect the coin flip will not actually happen, either the countess suggests they ask Travis, or they are interrupted by the the discovery of Axelrod being the paymaster according to the intel.
What happens next is that Travis reasons out that Manticore must have a 'certain' wormhole nexus, which might have multiple external termini.
Axelrod's actions show that it is not that they want to conquer Manticore, it is that they want to conquer the Star Kingdom without anyone knowing they have. Which means that whatever they are after is worth running the risk of conquering the SKM, which possess a ready made lobby on Earth itself, but cannot be immediately exploited. Travis probably knows about the survey or will find out when they read up on Axelrod.
What happens after that is politics, and Travis redesigning the RMN. He probably recognizes that it will be impossible to prevent political patronage and aristocratic incompetents, so he engineers a system that shunts them away, first with major barriers between certain ranks, making lieutenant commander, and then the List, the Flag divisions, next with an intentionally overly large officer corps with an undersized academy, and warrants and mustangs. Sailing Masters and Frigates probably also have a role, in fact the position of sailing master seems to be what Travis frequently had to do, being the face of regulation and training.

I suspect, based on HoS, that the Star Kingdom will build the impeller factory while also starting an escorted, regular, possibly subsidized, direct run to Tasmania, which appears to already be a shipping hub and is the traditional jump-off point for the League to Manticore run, although it is probably not yet a member of the League. Given that a large part of the cost of impellers is the distance to the factory, the league traders will probably buy impellers from the Manties at Tasmania. Thus begins the Ascent.

That's a pretty big stretch of logic, but I can see your point to a degree. The entire situation is a bit odd from Manticore's perspective. Habitable systems are apparently a dime a dozen, relatively speaking. Why target them?

Aside from being a binary system with three habitable planets, Manticore is pretty much a run-of-the-mill frontier star nation that's not located anywhere special. Its population is better educated, and their tech base is better than most, but that's likely not their enemy's rational. You don't conquer someone else to get them to train your own people, for instance. It'd be cheaper just to bootstrap your own education and tech base. Plus, it's not like you could actually trust your victims after the fact. Slave labor? Manticore is distant, but it has some unusual connections back on Old Earth that would probably eventually notice something like that going on.

Even though ONI itself isn't very competent at this point, Manticore would probably have some clue if a local star nation decided to pursue dreams of conquest and empire. Besides, there are plenty of much easier victims to start with. And if it's someone more distant, conquering Manticore wouldn't make any sense due to the distance. Resources? There are plenty of red dwarf systems to setup mining operations in, or even your own system. It's unlikely anyone has cleared any systems out yet, even Sol.

At the very least, Manticore can reasonably determine that their current conflict most likely isn't because of where they are, who they are, or what they physically have. As of the third book, they know that someone is using others as cats paws, and pouring a ton of money and even modern equipment into their efforts. And that the money coming from the League. They might not know who the suspects are, but they can at least reasonably exclude a lot of usual motives.

The first wormhole was discovered in 1447 PD. So it's a relatively recent development, and it's possible that Manticore might stumble onto the possibility once they start brainstorming for what possible reasons someone in the Solarian League might have to think Manticore is unique enough to conquer. Maybe their enemy believes there's a wormhole terminal either in the Manticore system (less likely, as they know they don't - which is a sort of blindness, but a reasonable one) or near enough (a couple light years) that that they'd be worried Manticore would claim it and be likely to hold it due to their relative proximity. In which case, knocking Manticore off makes a lot more sense. And it's probably more likely for Manticore to think of it as just something nearby. A wormhole of any sort, let alone a mega-junction, would be like winning the lottery a dozen times in a row. Nobody is going to jump to the conclusion that they're just that lucky without a hell of a lot of proof.

So even if they eventually peg a wormhole as their enemy's motive, that doesn't mean they're likely to stumble onto the wormhole anytime soon. The Manticore Junction isn't going to be found until 1585, so we've got a few decades to go from the current book unless the dates get retconned (very unlikely, IMO).