-SPOILER- Uncompromising Honor - Likes and Don't Likes

Having finished UH there are a few things.

I like that the SL has been forced to fix the major problems- well try to fix them- of the last several centuries like the un-elected buracracy running the show and getting rid of OFS.

Kingsford and a lot of Navy/Police/Justice people in the League now have a clue about what has been going on- you don't have to call it the Mesan Alignment, just "the Other Guys"- and the LEAGUE has been manipulated to where it is now.

Gutting the SLN of most of it's ships and Sol of essentialy all of it's space-born non-habitat infrastructure does appear reasonable. EXACTLY as Honor points out- this is Buccaneer but not quite Parthian Shot as the Mandarins have started to impose on League members and "neutrals". So Honor/The GA is "only" doing what the Mandarins wanted to do to maintain their positions- but WITHOUT THE CIVILIAN CASUALTIES.
Telling the LEAGUE that any SLN ships outside of SL systems (would have to see the follow-on conversation between Kingsford and Honor about that ) would be treated as pirates one month from that day is setting a line that the League knows (and the SLN ships captains will know) is really straight forward.

Not sure about the dual citizenship Manticore/Haven.

I think Elizabeth's summation of why she didn't press Honor is inline with Honor's character so she will run with it.

Not sure the Alignment got more than a spasm of "payback" from both giving SLN the system to use recon drones to delvier termial stages of Cataprhacts and from blowing up the Mycorft controllers and the three Beowulf stations.
At least the SLN leadership and a bunch of other people now understand that there is another player and NOBODY has figured out what they want excpt the GA and the League destroying each other.

I'll wait for the next book. BIG SMILE

Renaissance Factor---- at some level the SLN had discovered the Renaissance Factor is now in play and somebody at Manticore is probably going to notice that.
Heck, the SLN is probably going to point that out to the GA.....ah, guys, I know we can't typicaly find our asses with both hands BUT there is the 12 system group that is really "diverse" and not excatly close spatialy to each other that has popped up.
And one of them is Mannerherm is has just about the largest Navy behind any of the GA and Beowulf.....
We know there has been a lot of concern but 12 together before all of this hit the fan with Buccaneer?
Do you want to take a look at this...and one of the is Visagoth, with that wormhole bridge to Mesa......we could be wrong but this doesn't smell right.

Brigade XO wrote:And one of them is Mannerherm is has just about the largest Navy behind any of the GA and Beowulf.....

Not quite True; None of the RF alone has a Navy/SDF large enough to make a top ten list.

There is textev that combined The RF members form a MAN that is the third or fourth largest in human space.

Weird Harold wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:And one of them is Mannerherm is has just about the largest Navy behind any of the GA and Beowulf.....

Not quite True; None of the RF alone has a Navy/SDF large enough to make a top ten list.

There is textev that combined The RF members form a MAN that is the third or fourth largest in human space.

If I remember the textev correctly, Albrecht said that the combination would constitute a pretty decent force; he never said it would be any specific size relative to others. He also danged the Lenny Det's as a backup knockout punch when they heads of state of the RF were still doubtful.

In other words, the RF combined has a decent navy; it's not anywhere near the size of Manticore, Haven, Grayson or the SL. It also probably is very light on capital ships - like possibly none.

Easily in the top 20 but not able to go toe to toe with any of the big guys.

JohnRoth wrote:In other words, the RF combined has a decent navy; it's not anywhere near the size of Manticore, Haven, Grayson or the SL. It also probably is very light on capital ships - like possibly none.

Easily in the top 20 but not able to go toe to toe with any of the big guys.

I got the impression that the MAN/RFN would be a a match in a one-on-one meeting with the SLN; Possible technologically superior before the MAlign supplied the Cataphracts to the SLN.

Weird Harold wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:In other words, the RF combined has a decent navy; it's not anywhere near the size of Manticore, Haven, Grayson or the SL. It also probably is very light on capital ships - like possibly none.

Easily in the top 20 but not able to go toe to toe with any of the big guys.

I got the impression that the MAN/RFN would be a a match in a one-on-one meeting with the SLN; Possible technologically superior before the MAlign supplied the Cataphracts to the SLN.

I think Mannerheim and Visigoth lilely have a few, bought from the Sollie yards. Or built by Technodyne.

The Malign Navy people we've seen are very professional. It is a good bet that their training cycles are much better than the "feel good" exercises Battle Fleet indulged in.

Interesting, though, that in both Battle Fleet and the Malign, you had some decent admirals with serious qualms about the tactics and directions of their civilian leadership. . .I'm remembering that Alpha line admiral from Mannerheim who didn't like the idea of Rat Poison.

Rob

Back to likes and dislikes.

I liked the story and the way it tied a lot of things together.

I have decided I disliked not having better information on the League, the specifics of its Constitution and its weaknesses. Sure, there are some infodumps on Joe Buckley's site, and some specific posts here, but what "everyone knows" in the Honorverse isn't always given to the readers.

I would have liked an after-action report post-surrender; will the Ghost Hunters get some covert assistance? How did the League members "outside the Kuiper" react to any of this? Aside from the SL policies favoring the Core Worlds, what were the social and historical trends that would have splintered the League even without the Malign?

And, how many of the 1870 plus Members came out of OFS's hands at some point? How would those systems in the Shell differ from their outlook from the Core Worlds?

And, we still don't have any real data on the Manti protectorates in Silesia, their problems, their successes, or what Sarnow is having for dinner.

So I forsee a couple of Anthologies.

Regards,

Rob

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:
I think Mannerheim and Visigoth lilely have a few, bought from the Sollie yards. Or built by Technodyne.

The Malign Navy people we've seen are very professional. It is a good bet that their training cycles are much better than the "feel good" exercises Battle Fleet indulged in.

Interesting, though, that in both Battle Fleet and the Malign, you had some decent admirals with serious qualms about the tactics and directions of their civilian leadership. . .I'm remembering that Alpha line admiral from Mannerheim who didn't like the idea of Rat Poison.

Rob

We know Mannerheim has 1 DN, mentioned as the Flag of the fleet guarding Felix. chances are they have at least 1 other DN for their home fleet. Personally I think they have at least 2 Squadrons of DNs (But we don't know the stats on the DNs, remember, the sub- 7Mton Scientist was classified as a SD by the Sollies. Is the Mannerheim DN we saw a SLN Scientist class classified as what it actually was, or was it a DN by the Sollie's measuring stick?

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:The Ballroom's reputation as terrorists was pushed on people's consciousness by the Malign, quite deliberately.

They don’t have a fake reputation as terrorists. For example the torture/murder videos from Torch managed to do that very nicely without requiring anyone’s help. It’s like how the torture/murder videos from ISIS didn’t help their reputation either, except with Islamic crazies.

kzt wrote:

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:The Ballroom's reputation as terrorists was pushed on people's consciousness by the Malign, quite deliberately.

They don’t have a fake reputation as terrorists. For example the torture/murder videos from Torch managed to do that very nicely without requiring anyone’s help. It’s like how the torture/murder videos from ISIS didn’t help their reputation either, except with Islamic crazies.

The torture videos from Torch weren't Ballroom, they were escaped slaves. Unless you mean the selfies made by the slavers.