Call to Vengeance Ramblings SPOILERS

pappilon wrote:

n7axw wrote:I think you guys are hung up on Travis' rule stickler image. There is a lot more to him than that as I think that end of assignment evaluation from Clegg makes clear.

What we have with Travis is a three dimensional character whose struggle with his circumstances we get to witness as he confronts new situations and challenges.

Don

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Perhaps you are right, Ican only cling to textev.

EPILOGUE p 463 Paragraph 2: "Having said that, and making all due allowance for the clashes between our personalities,I continue to believe this officer is far too conscious of the exact letter of the regulations. This makes him, in many ways, a less than ideal leader during routine shipboard operations..." Trina Miranda Clegg ommanding officer Her Majesty's Ship Casey.

Yes it does go on And yes I did read it AND understand it. I know several adults with some learning disability that causes them to fail to pick up on social cues. I have seen them work very diligently and be very goal oriented, yet get totally blindsided when they are terminated for their social interactions with others. Very similar to Our Travis U. Long, Lt, RMN.

Agreed, but Travis' social cues and 'stick to the regs' problem isn't due to a learning disability. It's a reaction to childhood trauma - being rejected by his remaining parent after his father's death. He sticks to the regs because his remaining parent never gave him the opportunity to learn social cues, not because he can't learn them.

If Lisa accepts his proposal, Travis is going to have someone who can coach him in the nuances of when you stick to the regs as an XO, and when you don't. Remember that when Travis became a PO, with ratings under him, he was coached by good superiors into when it's time to teach and when it's time to bring the hammer down. His problem since then is that, until Casey, the RMN didn't provide him with those good superiors.

I am not saying that the impression about Travis and the rules doesn't have basis in fact. Although if we are going to focus on that side of his character, his evolution there shouldn't be overlooked. In one instance, I think it's after serving on Casey, he notes that he finds himself more able to overlook the rules because the people involved respected authority and were doing their best to do their jobs.

Also in "A Call to Vengeance", in one of his self ruminations, Travis notes that he joined the service in search of rules and structure only to discover that what he had really been looking for was clarity and purpose.

So he is evolving. In my earlier post, I was pointing out that it seemed to me that Travis was being treated as a unidimensional character with an emphasis on his "rule-stickler" side. That simply doesn't do justice to the character we are considering.

Don

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n7axw wrote:I am not saying that the impression about Travis and the rules doesn't have basis in fact. Although if we are going to focus on that side of his character, his evolution there shouldn't be overlooked. In one instance, I think it's after serving on Casey, he notes that he finds himself more able to overlook the rules because the people involved respected authority and were doing their best to do their jobs.

Also in "A Call to Vengeance", in one of his self ruminations, Travis notes that he joined the service in search of rules and structure only to discover that what he had really been looking for was clarity and purpose.

So he is evolving. In my earlier post, I was pointing out that it seemed to me that Travis was being treated as a unidimensional character with an emphasis on his "rule-stickler" side. That simply doesn't do justice to the character we are considering.

Don

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Of course he is an evolving character. He is the Hero of the Travis Long Trilogy, perhaps the entire arc. Even the anti-hero of that genre changes. He is a sympathetic character.

We all want him to change, get better, become a more rounded individual than the snot-nosed brat that wandered into the recruiting office when he was supposed to be driving the getaway car.

He is not quite there, yet. Yes the signs are there of the internal ruminations that will eventually (we hope) manifest in his actions.

With Breakwater getting manipulated out of his present power position and at least some of his alilies going to prison, he is going to have a more difficult time stifling the Navy. Recall that several people involved in the hearings which opened the book were interested in building more ships, increased production at home of all sorts of things. That would include the guy who was very happy to have more MPARS ships to cover the space and people for which his ministry and he was responsible.
Manticore still doesn't know why they are being attacked. There may or may not be any clues in all that data either from the mercenary base & ships or from wreckage after the ambush set by Haven. They have been attacked twice in a couple of months. That second round was only a victory because they played a convincing bluff and never had to engage either the obvious warships nor the two freighters which, to the the officers involved, were being used tacticly more like warships and were a big concern.
So, the Navy got hammered but managed to win the 1st time and they suffered a lot of damage trying to get enough ships and weapons out to fight the 2nd time and it is clear that they were very very lucky. Sure, the enlistments are up but mostly the public doesn't know just how bad things are. The government knows, the Navy knows, MPARS knows and anybody who is involved in supplying all this knows. The two missions were covert operations so while the public won't know the results and what is both still lurking out there and the scope of problems, the people incharege know there is more going on.
Clegg doesn't actualy know who was comming into that system when she was leaving but it was a multi-ship event. Yeah, nobody tried to chase the Casey, but then it was about ready to go to hyperspace and the Special-Ops group was intent on their mission which was to wipe out the mercenary base and ships. One ship about to flicker out doesn't justify trying to stop it perhaps halfway across the system. Do your job and report. But Glegg certainly finds out that Gensonne/Tammerlane and most of his ships are gone so that wasn't him comming back. Oh, Joy, more pirates/mercenaries since it wasn't the Andermani nor the Havenites (that they were told about).
So why are people so bent on capturing Manticore?
The Navy and (at this point) MPARS have to be both expanded and strengthened. It would also make more sence to start producing components for starships (and military ones) at home.

Brigade XO wrote:Clegg doesn't actualy know who was comming into that system when she was leaving but it was a multi-ship event. Yeah, nobody tried to chase the Casey, but then it was about ready to go to hyperspace and the Special-Ops group was intent on their mission which was to wipe out the mercenary base and ships. One ship about to flicker out doesn't justify trying to stop it perhaps halfway across the system. Do your job and report. But Glegg certainly finds out that Gensonne/Tammerlane and most of his ships are gone so that wasn't him comming back. Oh, Joy, more pirates/mercenaries since it wasn't the Andermani nor the Havenites (that they were told about).

The Axelrod Black Ops group is going to be disappointed in reaching Gensonne's base, and finding it already destroyed. Their next question is going to be, "what happened to any survivors", followed by "who did this?" Will they try to chase down the survivors on their way to Sachsen? They made the assumption that Casey was one of the Volsung ships. Will they re-examine their data when the find the ruins of Schmeide, Tarantel, and the other Volsung ships, to identify the putative survivor, and where she was heading? If they suspect the survivors have headed towards Sachsen and follow, will they be dissuaded by the Andermani escort?

Fox2! wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:Clegg doesn't actualy know who was comming into that system when she was leaving but it was a multi-ship event. Yeah, nobody tried to chase the Casey, but then it was about ready to go to hyperspace and the Special-Ops group was intent on their mission which was to wipe out the mercenary base and ships. One ship about to flicker out doesn't justify trying to stop it perhaps halfway across the system. Do your job and report. But Glegg certainly finds out that Gensonne/Tammerlane and most of his ships are gone so that wasn't him comming back. Oh, Joy, more pirates/mercenaries since it wasn't the Andermani nor the Havenites (that they were told about).

The Axelrod Black Ops group is going to be disappointed in reaching Gensonne's base, and finding it already destroyed. Their next question is going to be, "what happened to any survivors", followed by "who did this?" Will they try to chase down the survivors on their way to Sachsen? They made the assumption that Casey was one of the Volsung ships. Will they re-examine their data when the find the ruins of Schmeide, Tarantel, and the other Volsung ships, to identify the putative survivor, and where she was heading? If they suspect the survivors have headed towards Sachsen and follow, will they be dissuaded by the Andermani escort?

From the perspective of Axelrod's black ops group, Casey is simply gone. Once she hits hyper, unless you are in hot pursuit, she is untracable. They don't know who she is or where she is going. As for the Andermani, they hit hyper an hour before Casey. So our noble black ops team has no idea they were even involved, let alone any way to anticipate where they might be going. Bottom line what they will be left with is the tangled wreckage of the station itself, presuming that it wasn't reduced to its constituent molecules be the missiles.

As for the idea of tangling with the Andermani, I doubt that they are that dumb. As the leader of the group noted, Llyn is simply left with some loose ends.

As for the Volsung ships, I would think that rather than being destroyed, they were taken as prizes. Even older, outdated warships would have considerable value.

Don

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::sigh::

I note that the Baen podcast interview on A Call To Vengeance incidentally confirms that Travis is NOT his brother's heir. Oh, well, that's one perfectly good theory gone west...

::wanders off nonchalantly to find another one::

n7axw wrote: From the perspective of Axelrod's black ops group, Casey is simply gone. Once she hits hyper, unless you are in hot pursuit, she is untracable. They don't know who she is or where she is going. As for the Andermani, they hit hyper an hour before Casey. So our noble black ops team has no idea they were even involved, let alone any way to anticipate where they might be going. Bottom line what they will be left with is the tangled wreckage of the station itself, presuming that it wasn't reduced to its constituent molecules be the missiles.

As for the idea of tangling with the Andermani, I doubt that they are that dumb. As the leader of the group noted, Llyn is simply left with some loose ends.

As for the Volsung ships, I would think that rather than being destroyed, they were taken as prizes. Even older, outdated warships would have considerable value.

Don

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Casey doesn't have the crew to grab even 1 ship as a prize. And its intact computer would potentially be worth the effort. THE issue is,the Andermani Commander has explicit orders to destroy the Volsung base and all ships.

Unless Travis pulls Article 7 out of his ...back pocket again, Clegg is not going to even suggest it. And didn't Hauptmann make off with a cart or two of spare parts?

pappilon wrote:

n7axw wrote: From the perspective of Axelrod's black ops group, Casey is simply gone. Once she hits hyper, unless you are in hot pursuit, she is untracable. They don't know who she is or where she is going. As for the Andermani, they hit hyper an hour before Casey. So our noble black ops team has no idea they were even involved, let alone any way to anticipate where they might be going. Bottom line what they will be left with is the tangled wreckage of the station itself, presuming that it wasn't reduced to its constituent molecules be the missiles.

As for the idea of tangling with the Andermani, I doubt that they are that dumb. As the leader of the group noted, Llyn is simply left with some loose ends.

As for the Volsung ships, I would think that rather than being destroyed, they were taken as prizes. Even older, outdated warships would have considerable value.

Don

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Casey doesn't have the crew to grab even 1 ship as a prize. And its intact computer would potentially be worth the effort. THE issue is,the Andermani Commander has explicit orders to destroy the Volsung base and all ships.

Unless Travis pulls Article 7 out of his ...back pocket again, Clegg is not going to even suggest it. And didn't Hauptmann make off with a cart or two of spare parts?

No, he handed a bunch of parts over to the Andermani that had identifiable supplier information on them, so they could pursue those leads. His run through the warehouse was all about intel, not scrounging.

[/quote]

Casey doesn't have the crew to grab even 1 ship as a prize. And its intact computer would potentially be worth the effort. THE issue is,the Andermani Commander has explicit orders to destroy the Volsung base and all ships.

Unless Travis pulls Article 7 out of his ...back pocket again, Clegg is not going to even suggest it. And didn't Hauptmann make off with a cart or two of spare parts?[/quote]

Travis and his fellow SIS agent have the contents of the station computer- pulled and shared with the Andermani. It sounded like that was what they were doing and not also digging through the computers of the pirate ships although it is possible that the Andermani were (they have a lot more people availabled and perhaps they shared that data with the Clasey.
You have to wonder what the division of labor was and who was pulling what. Would the Andernami stripped the computers on all the ships of everything- hell yes! Where have these guys been? What were they doing? What ships did they take or destroyed? Who were their contacts? Where did they fence stolen ships/cargo, who was supplying them? It would boggle the mind if they just blythfully pulled the crews off the pirates and nudged the ships out of orbit with the primary reactor set to self-destruct without sucking them dry of information. They have traitors to catch and pirate accomplacies and supporters to find & kill.

Haupmann seems to have found a number of things and nobody said the Andermani took them away from him- just how much he got over to Casey is an open question. Given that there may or may not have been Andermani sailors on watch. It's not like he was hiding the search from them, he showed the Andermani commander samples which he was looking at to try and determine origin based on serial number patterns. Remember that this is the guy who was put aboard Casey to make and follow up for contacts and sources of equipment and markets as part of the Goodwill Tour. He wants tech-spec's and sources. He wants plans and samples. He also wants to improve his business (present or future) as well as assist the Navy/Government do all this stuff.

I think Clegg has grown in this to a much better commander and sees things from new perspective just as much as Travis has. She has now seen at least the Andermani who take a much more professional approch to things and were willing to train and pass along knowledge and proceedures (with GREAT sensitivity and care not to treat the Manticoians as hicks who were clearly not up to their standards but were willing to learn and didn't balk at hard work to do so). She has seen "best practices" in operation. She has come to see Travis and Chomps not just as truly annoying burdens but assets, more importantly she has changed her view on dealing with subordinates that don't fit her earlier expectations. She can look for and understand why they don't and take steps to change that. Some of that is changing herself not just molding (or dumping) the subordinate. She also has a clearer picture and adjusted understanding of where RMN needs to go and probably how they need to get there in terms of becoming better and more effective. And, she now knows that things will continue to change and she needs to both change as well and help mold that change.

She sees (and Locatelli sees the change as reflected in his discussion of both her mission report and her fitness evaluation of Travis) the need to harness and chanel the Navy personel's strength (as well as faults) and potential to best advantage. She also seems to have been developing some diplomatic skills. Well, she can be more "diplomatic" in dealing with others in the same spirit of Travis learning better interpersonal skills and a certain new flexibility in approch to regulations from the strict and litteral sticking to them.

Should be fun.

Might even have to get Political.