(SPOILERS) Uncomprisingly good

redemption wrote:*

But STILL NO USE OF Lorelei and Barracade seen in SOV or even Defense Plan Thermopylae which utilized Lorelei in a different way in Rising Thunder. The only mention of Lorelei in the entire book was a battle simulation.

What book did you read? The one I read used Lorelei in multiple battles. See below

Barricade was all plot, the geometry just doesn’t work.


Task Force 1012’s upgraded Cataphract-Cs were far superior to the Cataphracts Commodore Adrian Luft and the ill-fated People’s Navy in Exile had taken to disaster at the Battle of Congo. ...

“Decoys coming up…now,” Commander Solis said calmly, and the fusion-powered Lorelei platforms keeping station on Sir Martin Lessem’s cruisers and destroyers suddenly switched on their emitters.



The CM zones were a holocaust. Counter-missiles sought out Solarian shipkillers, blotting them from existence in suicidal eruptions of wedge fratricide. Some of those strikes took out more than one attack missile at a time, but not even Manticoran missile defense computers could run meaningful threat analyses on that many missiles. The Solarian tactical officers had simply pointed them in the right direction. After that, aside from the thousands of EW platforms threaded throughout the missile swarm, every one of those birds was on its own.

The penetration aides had been better than projected, knocking back kill numbers by another fifteen or twenty percent. The Loreleis offset some of that by sucking the fire aside, but there simply weren’t enough of them, because the true killer was the sheer number of threats.

Torlek wrote:That MacArthur was in Tokyo was important for the Americans, not the Japanese. I find it hard to imagine that the Japanese would have decided to not surrender because the General they surrendered to was of an insufficient statue.

If it hadn't been MacArthur sitting at the table, inviting the Japanese to sign at the place indicated, it would have been Nimitz. Or it could have been General Heinlein (RAH's brother).

(Apologies if I have miscounted [quote]s

kzt wrote:

redemption wrote:*

But STILL NO USE OF Lorelei and Barracade seen in SOV or even Defense Plan Thermopylae which utilized Lorelei in a different way in Rising Thunder. The only mention of Lorelei in the entire book was a battle simulation.

What book did you read? The one I read used Lorelei in multiple battles. See below

Barricade was all plot, the geometry just doesn’t work.


Task Force 1012’s upgraded Cataphract-Cs were far superior to the Cataphracts Commodore Adrian Luft and the ill-fated People’s Navy in Exile had taken to disaster at the Battle of Congo. ...

“Decoys coming up…now,” Commander Solis said calmly, and the fusion-powered Lorelei platforms keeping station on Sir Martin Lessem’s cruisers and destroyers suddenly switched on their emitters.



The CM zones were a holocaust. Counter-missiles sought out Solarian shipkillers, blotting them from existence in suicidal eruptions of wedge fratricide. Some of those strikes took out more than one attack missile at a time, but not even Manticoran missile defense computers could run meaningful threat analyses on that many missiles. The Solarian tactical officers had simply pointed them in the right direction. After that, aside from the thousands of EW platforms threaded throughout the missile swarm, every one of those birds was on its own.

The penetration aides had been better than projected, knocking back kill numbers by another fifteen or twenty percent. The Loreleis offset some of that by sucking the fire aside, but there simply weren’t enough of them, because the true killer was the sheer number of threats.

Good catch but it still was downngraded defense not utilizing the full defensive embrella as I was talking about seen in Rising Thunder or SOV. But your point is made on Lorelei use.

Barricade was around plot device or not it was introduced into the Honorverse. I hate when something is introduced and then disapears outside books especially when it is done by main characters in tenth fleet, be a task force of tenth fleet it still was used in honorverse.

But I digress. I enjoyed it thoughoutly and will be rereading it again in a couple of days.

caias wrote:For what it's worth, I wasn't entirely comfortable with the whole psychotic-break Honor episode during the climax. How does a responsible government let someone in that emotional state rush off to engage in an operation of that magnitude? I understand that we've established before that Honor has difficulty processing grief (at least without someone to process it on), but that's a thing that most of her superiors and friends know about her. Minimal intervention on that point seemed questionable.

Oh this makes perfect sense. You see, your mistake is to assume the current manticoran leadership cabal represents a responsible government when it is anything but.
Ever since the ascendance of White Haven to First Lord of the Admiralty things are being run in a, shall we say, slightly unorthodox way.
Instead of a First Space Lord (or his debuty in this specific case) formulating operational plans through the planning council and presenting them to the Crown and Government for approval – like it was done during the Morncreek Admiralty back in the day – they an episodically unhinged Head of State, a worshipped-by-all Fleet Commander and a First Lord who never understood the limitations of his office making stuff up and doing what they like.
Starting with Lovat and with increasingly disastrous results. If Caparelli had run the show like White Haven did during the Second War and beyond, Manticore would have lost the First War fair and square.

I’m *slightly* exaggerating of course, but really who was left to reign Honor in?

Star Knight wrote:

caias wrote:For what it's worth, I wasn't entirely comfortable with the whole psychotic-break Honor episode during the climax. How does a responsible government let someone in that emotional state rush off to engage in an operation of that magnitude? I understand that we've established before that Honor has difficulty processing grief (at least without someone to process it on), but that's a thing that most of her superiors and friends know about her. Minimal intervention on that point seemed questionable.

Oh this makes perfect sense. You see, your mistake is to assume the current manticoran leadership cabal represents a responsible government when it is anything but.
Ever since the ascendance of White Haven to First Lord of the Admiralty things are being run in a, shall we say, slightly unorthodox way.
Instead of a First Space Lord (or his debuty in this specific case) formulating operational plans through the planning council and presenting them to the Crown and Government for approval – like it was done during the Morncreek Admiralty back in the day – they an episodically unhinged Head of State, a worshipped-by-all Fleet Commander and a First Lord who never understood the limitations of his office making stuff up and doing what they like.
Starting with Lovat and with increasingly disastrous results. If Caparelli had run the show like White Haven did during the Second War and beyond, Manticore would have lost the First War fair and square.

I’m *slightly* exaggerating of course, but really who was left to reign Honor in?

Very well said but its also about trust. At this point the Manticoran Navy idolizes her. Sure politically she has her detractors, but every single flag officer that is left in the Navy at this point looks to her as their Patron Saint, irregardless to her never wanting it.

She had already lost most her family, and then more family in Beowulf. They all knew she was on the edge, but I trully think if she ordered an Eradani Violation Mercedes would of spoken up. She as her Chief of Staff outranked everyone while in operational command of the Fleet even the other admirals as long as Honor was still in command and/or not incapacitated. If she stopped Honor she would of then relived her and then the flag would of moved from Imperator to another admiral. Mercedes would be the only one that could of stopped her, Rafe as flag captain wouldnt to him she could walk on water. This wasnt a normal situation however after Yawata and Beowulf I bet half the fleet were even more blood frenzied as she was.

Hamish knew this its why he raced back and had the Duke push it to the breaking point to get their in time.

Direwolf18 wrote:
<snipped>
I was frigging shocked when I found out that not so much that the Harringtons were a lost alpha line, but that Richard Harrington of all people sounds like he was part of the MA. That being said I suspect the MA then was a slightly different organization then it is in the now. I may have spent a solid 5 minutes going, "Holy Shit". I could also see why telling Stephanie wouldn't have been a good idea.

<snipped>

The way I read it was that the MAlign wanted to take the Harrington line into the MA, not that the Harrington line was part of it. If you like, they were regretting a lost opportunity. I think that if the Harringtons had been part of the MA, they would not have survived the move to Sphinx.

I really enjoyed this book, lots more than SoV.

It was fairly obvious what the only choice for the Star Empire was if they wanted to survive, the only question being what would it take for them to recognize and act on that solution.

Although I did not recognize His Celerynesses intention when he had Hamish and Benson stuck up the arm (does that sound rude or what?) I certainly did when the rescue vessel received those signals.

The clearing of the senior levels of the RMN will allow a new generation of officers to take over from those that have fought the war and possibly permit us to enjoy several more stories as they seek out the MAlign. Remember, there is an unexplored wormhole near Torch which may lead (if you can survive the passage) to something interesting!

redemption wrote:
Good catch but it still was downngraded defense not utilizing the full defensive embrella as I was talking about seen in Rising Thunder or SOV. But your point is made on Lorelei use.

Barricade was around plot device or not it was introduced into the Honorverse. I hate when something is introduced and then disapears outside books especially when it is done by main characters in tenth fleet, be a task force of tenth fleet it still was used in honorverse.

But I digress. I enjoyed it thoughoutly and will be rereading it again in a couple of days.

You haven’t seen anyone set off large nukes as a magical missile defense for a while either I bet.

redemption wrote:Very well said but its also about trust. At this point the Manticoran Navy idolizes her. Sure politically she has her detractors, but every single flag officer that is left in the Navy at this point looks to her as their Patron Saint, irregardless to her never wanting it.

She had already lost most her family, and then more family in Beowulf. They all knew she was on the edge, but I trully think if she ordered an Eradani Violation Mercedes would of spoken up. She as her Chief of Staff outranked everyone while in operational command of the Fleet even the other admirals as long as Honor was still in command and/or not incapacitated. If she stopped Honor she would of then relived her and then the flag would of moved from Imperator to another admiral. Mercedes would be the only one that could of stopped her, Rafe as flag captain wouldnt to him she could walk on water. This wasnt a normal situation however after Yawata and Beowulf I bet half the fleet were even more blood frenzied as she was.

Hamish knew this its why he raced back and had the Duke push it to the breaking point to get their in time.

Think about what Honor said about the conclusion to the battle of Hypatia. War isn't just about blowing up the other guy's ships. It's about getting inside their heads so you can dictate their actions at a distance. You need someone as scary as Honor unhinged to puncture Solly arrogance and delusions of superiority. Too many Solly admiral's last words were "You're a Manty, you can't do--." (HT LMB). No one is going to suggest that there is anything Honor post-Beowulf strike is not going to do.

Keith_w wrote:The way I read it was that the MAlign wanted to take the Harrington line into the MA, not that the Harrington line was part of it. If you like, they were regretting a lost opportunity. I think that if the Harringtons had been part of the MA, they would not have survived the move to Sphinx.

The way I read it was at least a previous generation of Harringtons were MAlign members, but either Richard rejected it during the move to Sphinx, or Richard was deemed unsuitable for membership and they planned to recruit his children.