, and that's good . . . because so am I. There is a fundamental difference between the internal struggles of Haven and Manticore, and it's a difference Tim, Tom, and I have been trying to help set into perspective in the Manticore Ascendant series. I think some of that difference gets lost --- or buried --- in the background of the wars between Haven and Manticore. The Manties, after all, are the good guys who see the bad guys coming and then find themselves in a fight for their very existence, but there's another whole war going on that I think some people may miss. For that matter, I think some people have focused on the mechanics of what was wrong with the People's Republic and extracted a message that wasn't really there.
The difference between the SKHM and the RoH is both very simple and very profound. One is fighting for its existence; the other is fighting for its soul, and not necessarily against a hostile star nation.
The SKM never lost its soul (although High Ridge came close); Haven did, and then fought its way through hell itself to reclaim it. And it was never about socialism, never about the Dole — not really. It was about corruption and the usurpation of power cloaked in socialism and concern for its citizens. It was about deals made by powerseeking cliques dealing in bread and circuses, giving control of the benefits provided to its citizens into the hands of Dolist managers who then used those benefits to garner wealth and power for themselves. It was about a vote-buying scheme on a planetary scale which sapped the moral fiber of Haven's own citizens until there seemed to be nothing left beyond apathy and acceptance.
And it was about the people who would die where they stood to make her be what she once was . . . and who proved in the process that not even the Legislaturalists or StateSec could truly extinguish that moral fiber. You were introduced to them more gradually, saw them through the gray-colored lenses of the star nation they served, but they were always there. They were Alfredo Wu and Warner Caslet, Denis LePic and Kevin Usher, Victor Cachat and Lester Tourville and Javier Giscard. And, of course, they were Thomas Theisman and Eloise Pritchart.
I love Honor Harrington and Hamish Alexander, and Honor is definitely the central and defining figure of the books. But Tom and Eloise have actually accomplished at least as much as — indeed, I would say that in many ways they have accomplished much more than — she and Hamish, and from far, far worse beginning points.
Just thought I'd get that out there in case anyone's wondering why I've been doing so much short fiction about Eloise and Bolthole lately.
