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

Bluesqueak wrote:
Indeed. I've now found a line in A Call To Duty near the beginning, where Travis muses on how unimportant he is because the 'family' barony has now passed to his half brother Gavin. That's obviously where I picked up that sneaking suspicion that the barony is through Melisande's line, not Gavin's father's. Travis thinks of it as the family barony, implying that he includes himself in that 'family'.

It would be typical of Travis, though, to not realise that being next in line for the Barony makes everyone presume that he's a lot closer to his half-brother than he is. Being ignored in favour of the dogs tends to give children self esteem issues; it never would occur to Travis to see himself as an aristocrat or to think that someday he might be Baron Winterfell.

But everyone else seeing him as 'aristocratic family' would also explain why the immediate assumption of the recruiter is that he's interested in the Academy and that he'll get in. She doesn't even check his academics.

That is shortsided. In 1900s Manticore all seats in the lords have non-voting cadet seats. A cadet member (usually a sibling or the seat's adult heir) can take place in discussions and hold committee seats, but do not have a vote in the lords (but can hold a proxy vote for their main seat). Willie Alexander held such a seat, often voting for his vacant Brother, and became Prime Minister.

I would assume the rules are similar in 1515. If Travis is in line for the Barony, he has the right, no, responsibility to take the cadet seat until he is replaced as the adult heir.

Bluesqueak wrote:
Indeed. I've now found a line in A Call To Duty near the beginning, where Travis muses on how unimportant he is because the 'family' barony has now passed to his half brother Gavin. That's obviously where I picked up that sneaking suspicion that the barony is through Melisande's line, not Gavin's father's. Travis thinks of it as the family barony, implying that he includes himself in that 'family'.

It would be typical of Travis, though, to not realise that being next in line for the Barony makes everyone presume that he's a lot closer to his half-brother than he is. Being ignored in favour of the dogs tends to give children self esteem issues; it never would occur to Travis to see himself as an aristocrat or to think that someday he might be Baron Winterfell.

But everyone else seeing him as 'aristocratic family' would also explain why the immediate assumption of the recruiter is that he's interested in the Academy and that he'll get in. She doesn't even check his academics.

Given the pretentiousness of so much of the aristocracy, it seems counter-intuitive that Travis and his mother have no sense of privilege. Of course, Melisande is focused on her dogs, to the almost total exclusion of everything and everybody else in her life. She might be preventing a repetition of the pain she felt when she lost both husbands.

Nobody sucks up to Travis as the "heir to Winterfell", whether while he is Spacer 3rd class Long, or Lieutenant Commander Long. Surely somebody has a copy of Burke's Manticoran Peerage and can see Travis' place in the aristocracy, if he has one.

We have not heard of Gavin having any family, other than his mother and half-brother. Is there any actual textev that Gavin is unmarried and childless?

Fox2! wrote:

Bluesqueak wrote:
Indeed. I've now found a line in A Call To Duty near the beginning, where Travis muses on how unimportant he is because the 'family' barony has now passed to his half brother Gavin. That's obviously where I picked up that sneaking suspicion that the barony is through Melisande's line, not Gavin's father's. Travis thinks of it as the family barony, implying that he includes himself in that 'family'.

It would be typical of Travis, though, to not realise that being next in line for the Barony makes everyone presume that he's a lot closer to his half-brother than he is. Being ignored in favour of the dogs tends to give children self esteem issues; it never would occur to Travis to see himself as an aristocrat or to think that someday he might be Baron Winterfell.

But everyone else seeing him as 'aristocratic family' would also explain why the immediate assumption of the recruiter is that he's interested in the Academy and that he'll get in. She doesn't even check his academics.

Given the pretentiousness of so much of the aristocracy, it seems counter-intuitive that Travis and his mother have no sense of privilege. Of course, Melisande is focused on her dogs, to the almost total exclusion of everything and everybody else in her life. She might be preventing a repetition of the pain she felt when she lost both husbands.

Nobody sucks up to Travis as the "heir to Winterfell", whether while he is Spacer 3rd class Long, or Lieutenant Commander Long. Surely somebody has a copy of Burke's Manticoran Peerage and can see Travis' place in the aristocracy, if he has one.

We have not heard of Gavin having any family, other than his mother and half-brother. Is there any actual textev that Gavin is unmarried and childless?

I admit that this theory of mine is a bit of a wild card, but I think we're also reading twenty books worth of aristocratic attitudes from 500 years later into things. For example, one difference I've noted between Manticore Ascendent and the main Honorverse is that social relationships between ratings and officers are much, much more fluid (regulations notwithstanding) than they will be centuries later. In the Stephanie Harrington series the Sphinx aristocracy seems to mostly see themselves as primarily pioneers - with titles.

This is the point where the aristocracy is one or two generations away from its founding. Is there even a Burkes? Has the 'cadet seat' practice started yet? Is there a mix of aristocrats who see themselves as a privileged caste and those who think (as Gavin says) that they've been landed with a title because their family were one of the First Fifty?

I agree that Melisande is 'coping' with so many deaths by focusing on the dogs. Which means Travis will see himself as unimportant; the person who was supposed to give him a sense of his own importance sees him as less interesting than her dogs. Yet, the clues in A Call To Duty are that Travis is from a wealthy and important family. An aircar and a ground car, when air cars are still relatively rare. A half brother in the Lords. But when he thinks about the important and influential families who use influence to get promotions, he genuinely doesn't realise that he's from exactly that background.

There's no textev that Gavin is unmarried, and childless. There's also no textev that he's married with kids. Given that David Weber has been known to introduce a long suffering wife several books in, we'll have to see.

Oh, and there's a fairly obvious reason why nobody in the Navy would suck up to the heir of Winterfell. Gavin has been on the 'gut the Navy' team since Travis was in boot camp, and is closely connected to MPARS. Textev is that Travis gets the complete opposite of sucking up - because everyone knows exactly who his family is.

Bluesqueak wrote:This is the point where the aristocracy is one or two generations away from its founding. Is there even a Burkes? Has the 'cadet seat' practice started yet? Is there a mix of aristocrats who see themselves as a privileged caste and those who think (as Gavin says) that they've been landed with a title because their family were one of the First Fifty?

The first edition of Burke's Manticoran Peerage was published before Roger Winton had finished signing the Titles of Nobility.

Um, with regards to the nonvoting cadet seat in the lords, that is merely what has become the most common pattern, by the time of Honor, new, permanent, peerages almost always have them, but not all older peerages have them, in fact, not every peerage is seated in the lords in every generation, aside from the first shareholders (one reason why some mere baronries seem more important than most earldoms). Now admittedly sometimes the cadet seats for those older peerages is actually another titled voting peerage, acquired at some point. There may even be some families with more than one cadet seat. At the start of ACtD, the only peerages seated in the lords are the first sharholders, if they do have some form of cadet seats, of which we have no evidence, it would not surprise to discover that the barons lack them. For the matter of the known 'first fifty' baronries, even in Honor's time there is not mention of a cadet seat, as far as I can recall, although admittedly that is just High Ridge.

As to how the manticoran aristocracy is recorded, the title is Clarke's, while the Royal Black Book lists the peerages.
The point of how the Manticoran aristocracy views itself is likely at this time somewhat fragmented, they know what they are, and some of them are not serious about it, others abuse it, and still others, particularly those like Burgandy are, to riff off of Bujold, care enough to make their nobility real. It seems as though Manticoran formality with regards to its aristocracy varies, but was at a crest in the eighteenth century pd.

Belatedly reading the thread now that I've picked up and read ACTV

HungryKing wrote:The stuff about the nexus is in one of the early background appendices, and is, I things, repeat in HoS.

The stuff about the Andies causing a delay in parts of the timeline was a post from around when the Travis Long trilogy became the Travis Long Cycle, and then the Manticore Ascending series, which was then clarified to be more than a trilogy, there was something about how the Andies had battleships, and that one might appear but that it would require some convolutions as Manticore and the empire were too far apart for direct interaction.

HungryKing wrote:Um, I hate to burst bubbles but Manticore finds out about the nexus relatively quickly, it should be either the next book or the following one. In fact, based on what we know, it should have in call to vengeance, but then the Andies were added.
They then examine it and discover that it is well beyond their abilities to actually survey, maybe beyond anyone's capabilities at the time. They then spend decades arguing over whether to survey, opposing factions argue that the estimated price, which may have been decreasing over time, is too high or that pandora's box should not openned.

Hmm, I checked the usual spots, SVW appendix, MTH:Universe of Honor Harrington and I'm not finding anything about them waiting for decades before surveying the Junction. (SVW's appendix doesn't cover the Junction at all)


House of Steel does though indicate that might be the case. MTH says the wormhole was "discovered in 1585 pd (98 al)" while HoS claims that the first transit was 1585 PD, to Beowulf, with San Martin and Henessy "within a few years" - then a Junction Treaty was signed with the 3 of them in 1590 PD.


House of Steel does claim that that knowledge that there was likely a wormhole junction was recovered from one of the Axlerod Corp's mercenaries ships after the battle in 1543 PD. It goes on to claim that knowledge of the possible presence of a wormhole had been public knowledge since that point. That's obviously not in complete agreement with the Travis Long books we've gotten though that may end up being a cover story - Delphi hiding the actual eventual source of the wormhole knowledge having it announced it was later found hidden in some damaged bit of computer hardware recovered from the fight.

And it does go on to say that "Despite the century of research between their discovery and Axelrod’s attack on the Star Kingdom in 1543 PD, no other multi-terminus wormhole had ever been discovered. Wormhole theory and astrogation were still in the early stages of formulation, and most theoreticians had dismissed the possibility of such phenomena as possessing a very low order of probability. Even after the Manticore Wormhole Junction’s discovery had forced a reconsideration of that belief, its sheer size and strength made the task of properly surveying it a formidable one.
As a result, the first transit did not occur until 1585 PD"

So while that doesn't include anything I noticed about political fights about whether to survey, or if they needed outside help to do so, it does imply that the survey was lengthy.

If the scenario offered in the Honorverse article had been followed through on, book three would have had a completely different plot line. Who knows what that would have looked like or what it would have been called?

I suspect that Axelrod will be exposed as SIS contines to examine the content of the Volsung computer not too much further into the story. But really, who knows?

Don

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HungryKing wrote: [Snip]
The point of how the Manticoran aristocracy views itself is likely at this time somewhat fragmented, they know what they are, and some of them are not serious about it, others abuse it, and still others, particularly those like Burgandy are, to riff off of Bujold, care enough to make their nobility real. It seems as though Manticoran formality with regards to its aristocracy varies, but was at a crest in the eighteenth century pd.

Even Gavin is amused that he is in such august company simply by accident of birth into a family of first investors. He doesn't consider himself the social or economic equal of Breakwater. Which perspective he certainly must have gotten from his parents, eh. And of course, If Gavin feels this way, it would follow that Travis would as well.

And isn't this how it worked in British primogeniture? The eldest son gets the title and land etc, the spare or second son goes into the military and the redundant third son goes off into the clergy; the daughters get married off.

pappilon wrote:

HungryKing wrote: [Snip]
The point of how the Manticoran aristocracy views itself is likely at this time somewhat fragmented, they know what they are, and some of them are not serious about it, others abuse it, and still others, particularly those like Burgandy are, to riff off of Bujold, care enough to make their nobility real. It seems as though Manticoran formality with regards to its aristocracy varies, but was at a crest in the eighteenth century pd.

Even Gavin is amused that he is in such august company simply by accident of birth into a family of first investors. He doesn't consider himself the social or economic equal of Breakwater. Which perspective he certainly must have gotten from his parents, eh. And of course, If Gavin feels this way, it would follow that Travis would as well.

And isn't this how it worked in British primogeniture? The eldest son gets the title and land etc, the spare or second son goes into the military and the redundant third son goes off into the clergy; the daughters get married off.

Pretty much. The Manticoran system is different in that the heir often seems to go into the Navy - which almost never happened in the days of sail. Heirs were expected to learn to manage the estates. Junior offspring would go into the law and politics if they had brains, clergy if they had sufficient brains to get the required degree and the army if everyone thought they were a bit thick. Navy was reserved for boys who were keen to go to sea - they had to start young and spent most of their time away.

Yes, both Gavin and Travis start off with fairly low self-esteem. Despite being half-brothers, they're very alike.