Eridani Edict Violation of the most Dismissive Kind...

George J. Smith wrote:Wasn't there something about Sonja being in BuWeaps and Janacek grabbing glory as her cousin.

In War of Honor, Sonja all but publically disassociates herself from the Janacek admiralty due to disagreement with its policies. Hamish brings her in to head BuWeaps when he becomes First Lord in the aftermath of the fall off the High Ridge government.

Don

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n7axw wrote:

George J. Smith wrote:Wasn't there something about Sonja being in BuWeaps and Janacek grabbing glory as her cousin.

In War of Honor, Sonja all but publically disassociates herself from the Janacek admiralty due to disagreement with its policies. Hamish brings her in to head BuWeaps when he becomes First Lord in the aftermath of the fall off the High Ridge government.

Don

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As noted, R & D is not all that expensive. Also, a lot of things also work in the civilian sector.

And a lot of the navy worked around the incompetence of the top people. See for example the creation of the new cruisers like the Hexapuma, which was somewhat misclassified to get approval.

And I don't recall much about Sonja during the High Ridge years. She might have been doing something but I'm not certain we know what it was.

ldwechsler wrote:And I don't recall much about Sonja during the High Ridge years. She might have been doing something but I'm not certain we know what it was.

IIRC, she had a major field command sometime during this. Though it might have been during the end of the original war. Anyhow, it was considered successful, and nobody seemed to have reservations about it. Unlike someone else, whose high command pretty much laughed themselves silly at the concept of giving her a field command.

High Ridge did not so much destroy the R&D as kicked Grayson, Erewhon, and all his other allies out of the loop. Yes he would be able to slap himself on the back for all of their accomplisments (like some current US president). He actually did hat with the group that discovered the junction leading to Spindle.

George J. Smith wrote:Wasn't there something about Sonja being in BuWeaps and Janacek grabbing glory as her cousin.

n7axw wrote:In War of Honor, Sonja all but publically disassociates herself from the Janacek admiralty due to disagreement with its policies. Hamish brings her in to head BuWeaps when he becomes First Lord in the aftermath of the fall off the High Ridge government.

Don

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From earlier in the same paragraph

War of Honor wrote:It was a habit of his to give Hemphill and her so-called jeune école full credit for the enormous changes in the Royal Navy's hardware, since, after all, she was his cousin.

My mistake about BuWeaps, it was about the jeune école

pappilon wrote:High Ridge did not so much destroy the R&D as kicked Grayson, Erewhon, and all his other allies out of the loop. Yes he would be able to slap himself on the back for all of their accomplisments (like some current US president). He actually did hat with the group that discovered the junction leading to Spindle.

Which was very stupid for various reasons. The foremost is that Grayson made Manticore's R&D start questioning "what was already known" and the compensators Grayson came up with is a prime example.

And we all know what Erewhon did when they where repeatedly snubbed.

Joat42 wrote:

pappilon wrote:High Ridge did not so much destroy the R&D as kicked Grayson, Erewhon, and all his other allies out of the loop. Yes he would be able to slap himself on the back for all of their accomplisments (like some current US president). He actually did hat with the group that discovered the junction leading to Spindle.

Which was very stupid for various reasons. The foremost is that Grayson made Manticore's R&D start questioning "what was already known" and the compensators Grayson came up with is a prime example.

And we all know what Erewhon did when they where repeatedly snubbed.

High Ridge was simply convinced he was smarter than anyone else. And he assumed corruption like his would go on forever.

ldwechsler wrote: High Ridge was simply convinced he was smarter than anyone else. And he assumed corruption like his would go on forever.

And that there would be no consequences for his actions.

pappilon wrote:

ldwechsler wrote: High Ridge was simply convinced he was smarter than anyone else. And he assumed corruption like his would go on forever.

And that there would be no consequences for his actions.

Really, High Ridge got in the common trap where aberrant behavior had to continue, or else the original malfeasance would be found out, or the scheme collapse. This happens frequently with embezzlers, where cooked books require routine cooking to hide the original act, and more money must be funneled to cover the first theft (or coverup) each period after the original act, and small actions quickly escalate out of control to cover issues.

Some years back, this happened to a sales exec at a company I worked for; to cover for a sales slump so he and his team would meet goals (and get bonuses), got some of their clients to pre-order their 1st quarter goods for the following year, right at the end of the 4th quarter, making 4th quarter (and thus the whole year) look good. At the end of the next 1st quarter, just to make the original sales figures, they had to repeat - but had promised increased sales goals so they asked more clients to pre-order their Q2 purchases. Q2 was more of the same, followed by Q3.

Q4 almost didn't exist - about 80% of it's normal volume was purchased on the Q3 books, and that's when the sales leader actively started playing with the numbers, just to reach his sales goals and get another bonus. This all came out at the beginning of the next year, and the leader was quickly fired.

For High Ridge, the war powers kept the tax money rolling in, and control firmly in his pocket. But the longer he held off the election, the less likely his coalition was to win it. So to hang onto power, they had to continue to milk the war powers act, and hope that something positive would break their way politically. Of course, they were paying off people every step of the way to do so, getting themselves further in the hole with each step...

Theemile wrote:

pappilon wrote: High Ridge was simply convinced he was smarter than anyone else. And he assumed corruption like his would go on forever.

And that there would be no consequences for his actions.

Really, High Ridge got in the common trap where aberrant behavior had to continue, or else the original malfeasance would be found out, or the scheme collapse. This happens frequently with embezzlers, where cooked books require routine cooking to hide the original act, and more money must be funneled to cover the first theft (or coverup) each period after the original act, and small actions quickly escalate out of control to cover issues.

Some years back, this happened to a sales exec at a company I worked for; to cover for a sales slump so he and his team would meet goals (and get bonuses), got some of their clients to pre-order their 1st quarter goods for the following year, right at the end of the 4th quarter, making 4th quarter (and thus the whole year) look good. At the end of the next 1st quarter, just to make the original sales figures, they had to repeat - but had promised increased sales goals so they asked more clients to pre-order their Q2 purchases. Q2 was more of the same, followed by Q3.

Q4 almost didn't exist - about 80% of it's normal volume was purchased on the Q3 books, and that's when the sales leader actively started playing with the numbers, just to reach his sales goals and get another bonus. This all came out at the beginning of the next year, and the leader was quickly fired.

For High Ridge, the war powers kept the tax money rolling in, and control firmly in his pocket. But the longer he held off the election, the less likely his coalition was to win it. So to hang onto power, they had to continue to milk the war powers act, and hope that something positive would break their way politically. Of course, they were paying off people every step of the way to do so, getting themselves further in the hole with each step...[/quote]

When you believe you will be in power forever, or at least for a long term in the future, you can get away with a lot. Remember that he was able to use the Lords to prevent an election which would have toppled him.

That's why the Lords lost a lot of power. Had they continued to support High Ridge, the Assembly might have staged a revolution.