SOS - Control Links and Salvos

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:The part about Janacek is suspect. The Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence? Another piece of forged correspondence? LOL

I think the editors of Proceedings know who the DCS/Intel for the Second Space Lord is, and what the current assignment of Captain Edward Janacek is. Or they can find out from reliable sources with a couple of phone calls.

I was being facetious.

But since you brought it up, why didn't they, and then remove him? Were they as resource strapped in the Intelligence department as he was? But perhaps, as drothgery inferred, the fact that his stint was in peacetime didn't expose his shortcomings and incompetence to hold the position. That's probably why White Haven was so taken aback and couldn't believe his thinking, knowing his past history at ONI.

I think we all need to heed the humor thread when it comes to Janacek. He received too many cranial injuries on the gridiron.

cthia wrote:I understand the logic in everyone's post, but for me, it keeps coming back to the requirements for that Chief of Staff position. Intelligence. He knew what the SK was facing, yet, he was sabotaging everyone else's efforts. His ass was on the line too if the war is lost. He was somewhat suicidal. That bespeaks intelligence?

Having beef with your most brilliant naval asset is one thing, but standing in her way when all she ever delivered is one success after another is intelligent? Putting your, arguably most brilliant, tactician/strategist on half pay is intelligent? Benching your most capable asset in ONI is intelligent? He was an outright idiot to bench Pat Givens. I'm not sure the asshole wasn't a MAlign agent the way he acted. Haven was shooting itself in the foot when it began shooting her own officers. Janacek was no different. I can't associate that with a good administrator. A good administrator administrates. They don't remove their best assets. What the heck did he WANT from Honor?

I can understand his decision regarding Basilisk. He didn't want to start a war by being too aggressive, but not seeing the writing on the wall disgraced his stint at ONI. I was truly gobsmacked to read that part of his resume in the letter. Wait, I remain gobsmacked.

Not being able to acknowledge his own flaws would be the pot calling the kettle black if I called him on that. But being suicidal?

Well I disagree strongly with Janacek's views. But I'll grant that he honestly saw Honor as a hothead who was more likely to cause an incident or provoke a diplomatic incident (or at the very least argue loudly for things that would upset the balancing act that Janacek saw as critical). And by the time he beached her he had no pressing need for brilliant tacticians. Manticore held an vast warfighting lead and Haven was dissolving into civil war. All you need is someone steady enough not to draw Manticore back into it while the Foreign Service does the will of the Prime Minister to keep the ceasefire in place indefinitely.

His biggest failing, to my mind, was no necessarily in agreeing to that plan, or benching our heroine, nor was it cutting off allies he viewed (incorrect but honestly) as security threats; it was agreeing to commit the Navy to the equivalent of Britain's interwar 10 year plan while not sinking as much effort as possible into ONI and other intel services to give the government as much warning as possible when that situation starts changing. Instead he seems to have gutted the intel services - yes he wanted to make sure that Pat Givens wasn't in a position to violate the chain of command and publicly sound the alarm; but not wanting government policy forced by public opinion is a horrible reason to stop looking seriously for warning signs. Even when they mean things that the Prime Minister doesn't want to hear.

He doesn't need to be actually unintelligent to do the things he did. Just view the situation through a filter than hindsight shows was deeply flawed.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:I understand the logic in everyone's post, but for me, it keeps coming back to the requirements for that Chief of Staff position. Intelligence. He knew what the SK was facing, yet, he was sabotaging everyone else's efforts. His ass was on the line too if the war is lost. He was somewhat suicidal. That bespeaks intelligence?

Having beef with your most brilliant naval asset is one thing, but standing in her way when all she ever delivered is one success after another is intelligent? Putting your, arguably most brilliant, tactician/strategist on half pay is intelligent? Benching your most capable asset in ONI is intelligent? He was an outright idiot to bench Pat Givens. I'm not sure the asshole wasn't a MAlign agent the way he acted. Haven was shooting itself in the foot when it began shooting her own officers. Janacek was no different. I can't associate that with a good administrator. A good administrator administrates. They don't remove their best assets. What the heck did he WANT from Honor?

I can understand his decision regarding Basilisk. He didn't want to start a war by being too aggressive, but not seeing the writing on the wall disgraced his stint at ONI. I was truly gobsmacked to read that part of his resume in the letter. Wait, I remain gobsmacked.

Not being able to acknowledge his own flaws would be the pot calling the kettle black if I called him on that. But being suicidal?

Well I disagree strongly with Janacek's views. But I'll grant that he honestly saw Honor as a hothead who was more likely to cause an incident or provoke a diplomatic incident (or at the very least argue loudly for things that would upset the balancing act that Janacek saw as critical). And by the time he beached her he had no pressing need for brilliant tacticians. Manticore held an vast warfighting lead and Haven was dissolving into civil war. All you need is someone steady enough not to draw Manticore back into it while the Foreign Service does the will of the Prime Minister to keep the ceasefire in place indefinitely.

His biggest failing, to my mind, was no necessarily in agreeing to that plan, or benching our heroine, nor was it cutting off allies he viewed (incorrect but honestly) as security threats; it was agreeing to commit the Navy to the equivalent of Britain's interwar 10 year plan while not sinking as much effort as possible into ONI and other intel services to give the government as much warning as possible when that situation starts changing. Instead he seems to have gutted the intel services - yes he wanted to make sure that Pat Givens wasn't in a position to violate the chain of command and publicly sound the alarm; but not wanting government policy forced by public opinion is a horrible reason to stop looking seriously for warning signs. Even when they mean things that the Prime Minister doesn't want to hear.

He doesn't need to be actually unintelligent to do the things he did. Just view the situation through a filter than hindsight shows was deeply flawed.

Oh come on! Honor kept making him look bad because, well...she kept doing her job. And when you're not. You look bad.

No. He simply has to keep bumping his head on the low overhang. It is obvious he drove a compact. Aircar. Which impacted the injuries he sustained on the gridiron.

****** *

I keep forgetting to look up the tech Megan had in her deck when she bluffed about her hole card. Anyone? Also, could the Admiral have had Megan bluff for the entire team? I keep envisioning one of my favorite scenes in ART of the technique used by CO Chalker when he intentionally targeted the wedge.

"And the next time I'll be firing for effect."

I can't recall what tech or OOB he had though.

cthia wrote:I understand the logic in everyone's post, but for me, it keeps coming back to the requirements for that Chief of Staff position. Intelligence. He knew what the SK was facing, yet, he was sabotaging everyone else's efforts. His ass was on the line too if the war is lost. He was somewhat suicidal. That bespeaks intelligence?

He wasn't Chief of Staff. He was Deputy Chief of Staff. That is, the guy that helps the guy/gal that helps the Second Space Lord. In a peace time navy that barely expanded and was half-riddled with patronage, it makes a lot of sense for him to be there. It's a highly influential position, privy to a lot of information he could use in his future career and even if he was slow, the Chief of Staff and the Staff would be there to prevent problems. That's why I said it was harmless.

But I don't think Janacek was stupid. Quite to the contrary. He was intelligent. His failing wasn't related to mental prowess, but to priorities. Prior to the war (so, from 1844 in HoS to 1901 when he was First Space Lord), he honestly believed the war would not come and there was no need to upset the cart by provoking Haven in the first place. He probably got convinced by King Roger and later Queen Elizabeth to continue building the Navy, which would in turn make Haven hesitant to attack. That should suffice to secure the SKM's future, in his view.

Incidentally, the expansion of the Navy opened up a lot more positions for his cronies and to expand his patronage network, not to mention chance for corruption. I would guess this is how he ended up continuing in his upward trajectory all the way to First Space Lord.

Having beef with your most brilliant naval asset is one thing, but standing in her way when all she ever delivered is one success after another is intelligent? Putting your, arguably most brilliant, tactician/strategist on half pay is intelligent? Benching your most capable asset in ONI is intelligent? He was an outright idiot to bench Pat Givens. I'm not sure the asshole wasn't a MAlign agent the way he acted. Haven was shooting itself in the foot when it began shooting her own officers. Janacek was no different. I can't associate that with a good administrator. A good administrator administrates. They don't remove their best assets. What the heck did he WANT from Honor?

Jonathan addressed most of this, so I'll let his post speak for me.

Benching Pat Givens was a necessity. When the High Ridge government assumed control, they needed the Admiralty to support the party line. So out went Givens and in came Jurgensen. That Jurgensen was far more corrupt than Janacek I don't know Janacek even foresaw. But he didn't see a problem because he knew he had the technology advantage and could stomp on Haven at any time. So there was no problem in finding someone who would produce the intelligence to support the preordained conclusions the government required.

As I said, he's not stupid. He's got his priorities wrong. Stupid people would have made far more mistakes and got caught in lies and contradictions much sooner. He wouldn't have made it to Captain if he were.

I can understand his decision regarding Basilisk. He didn't want to start a war by being too aggressive, but not seeing the writing on the wall disgraced his stint at ONI. I was truly gobsmacked to read that part of his resume in the letter. Wait, I remain gobsmacked.

There was no true writing on the wall at the time of the opening of HoS. Haven hadn't yet conquered any system by force. The story opens with Haven's peaceful expansion and annexation of neighbouring systems and daughter colonies, albeit under slightly suspicious circumstances.

And this was nearly 60 years before Basilisk. At the time of OBS, they were still arguing if Haven would invade and whether the régime was beneficial or not, so any such discussions 6 decades earlier would have been mere speculation.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:I understand the logic in everyone's post, but for me, it keeps coming back to the requirements for that Chief of Staff position. Intelligence. He knew what the SK was facing, yet, he was sabotaging everyone else's efforts. His ass was on the line too if the war is lost. He was somewhat suicidal. That bespeaks intelligence?

He wasn't Chief of Staff. He was Deputy Chief of Staff. That is, the guy that helps the guy/gal that helps the Second Space Lord.

Thanks for clearing up my misnomer about the hierarchy. Even so, the Chief of Staff—according to Honor—does all the work. She/he gets run ragged. According to Honor, I can certainly see why that position would need a righthand man too. But if much of their responsibility is offloaded to an incompetent, the system will break down. Intelligence failures will be the result. The Second Space Lord will undoubtedly assume the blame, but that isn't going to erase the failure.

In a peace time navy that barely expanded and was half-riddled with patronage, it makes a lot of sense for him to be there. It's a highly influential position, privy to a lot of information he could use in his future career and even if he was slow, the Chief of Staff and the Staff would be there to prevent problems. That's why I said it was harmless.

I still can't agree his position was harmless. A system is only as good as its weakest link.

But I don't think Janacek was stupid. Quite to the contrary. He was intelligent. His failing wasn't related to mental prowess, but to priorities. Prior to the war (so, from 1844 in HoS to 1901 when he was First Space Lord), he honestly believed the war would not come and there was no need to upset the cart by provoking Haven in the first place. He probably got convinced by King Roger and later Queen Elizabeth to continue building the Navy, which would in turn make Haven hesitant to attack. That should suffice to secure the SKM's future, in his view.

In college, I recall a notion of being blindly intelligent or stupidly intelligent. Each sharing a lack of common sense.

Incidentally, the expansion of the Navy opened up a lot more positions for his cronies and to expand his patronage network, not to mention chance for corruption. I would guess this is how he ended up continuing in his upward trajectory all the way to First Space Lord.

Point. Dunno why the underlying kink in his mettle didn't show by then. Probably because in peacetime, the stress in his mettle wasn't exceeded. His mettle had a serious stress fracture and couldn't operate under pressure as the main component.

Benching Pat Givens was a necessity. When the High Ridge government assumed control, they needed the Admiralty to support the party line. So out went Givens and in came Jurgensen. That Jurgensen was far more corrupt than Janacek I don't know Janacek even foresaw. But he didn't see a problem because he knew he had the technology advantage and could stomp on Haven at any time. So there was no problem in finding someone who would produce the intelligence to support the preordained conclusions the government required.

I agree, benching Givens certainly was meant to serve his political goals, but it wasn't meant to serve his country. Wait, strike that, I'm having my present government's dilemma bleed over into this argument. Givens was a godsend. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Jurgensen wasn't just corrupt, he was incompetent too!

As I said, he's not stupid. He's got his priorities wrong. Stupid people would have made far more mistakes and got caught in lies and contradictions much sooner. He wouldn't have made it to Captain if he were.

I'll settle with stupidly intelligent.

cthia wrote:I can understand his decision regarding Basilisk. He didn't want to start a war by being too aggressive, but not seeing the writing on the wall disgraced his stint at ONI. I was truly gobsmacked to read that part of his resume in the letter. Wait, I remain gobsmacked.

TM wrote:There was no true writing on the wall at the time of the opening of HoS. Haven hadn't yet conquered any system by force. The story opens with Haven's peaceful expansion and annexation of neighbouring systems and daughter colonies, albeit under slightly suspicious circumstances.

And this was nearly 60 years before Basilisk. At the time of OBS, they were still arguing if Haven would invade and whether the régime was beneficial or not, so any such discussions 6 decades earlier would have been mere speculation.

The writing on the wall I'm referring to is his failure to see that Honor was right to do what she did, and why she had to do it. He failed to see the implication of Basilisk by renouncing her actions and piling it on her "hothead" syndrome! It was all down hill from there in his head.

In the end, he agreed with Hamish and my opinion of himself that he had quite a few screws loose. He tried to correct that flaw by blowing the screws out. That put paid to the question of his "intelligence." Suicide is never intelligent, barring extreme physical pain. I suppose his emotional pain over his complete failures and ignorance can be accepted.

cthia wrote:

Benching Pat Givens was a necessity. When the High Ridge government assumed control, they needed the Admiralty to support the party line. So out went Givens and in came Jurgensen. That Jurgensen was far more corrupt than Janacek I don't know Janacek even foresaw. But he didn't see a problem because he knew he had the technology advantage and could stomp on Haven at any time. So there was no problem in finding someone who would produce the intelligence to support the preordained conclusions the government required.

I agree, benching Givens certainly was meant to serve his political goals, but it wasn't meant to serve his country. Wait, strike that, I'm having my present government's dilemma bleed over into this argument. Givens was a godsend. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Jurgensen wasn't just corrupt, he was incompetent too!

The thing is, at the time they became the government High Ridge and Janacek believe about the military situation was correct. Under any remotely competent commander the ships that had mad up White Haven's 8th Fleet could still crush Haven any time the government wanted. That remained true for years.

And High Ridge's goal for what he saw as best for the country weren't the same thing as what was best for its Navy. But Janacek agrees with those goal for the country and given the actual and existing fact of overwhelming military superiority didn't see the need to sink lots more money into a navy that had already won the war. The could reap the peace dividend and make the country better thanks to the spending they'd already invested into the Navy.

The issue was getting complacent with that military superiority and not taking any real action to maintain it, nor having someone competent running the Intelligence community keeping an eagle eye out for every possible sign that Haven (or any other potentially hostile nation) was finally attempting to overcome the current military balance. But it was 3 years before there was much to notice, the balance didn't actually start decisively moving for over 4 years after the ceasefire. Up until part way through that 4th year Janacek was still correct that the pre-ceasefire units of the RMN could still crush Haven any time they might need to.

Now, even with the goal of a peace dividend they went, IMHO, too far. They shouldn't have made a full halt to SD(P) production, even if they scaled it way back. Even a truly minimal production target of just four a year would have let them replace 20 of their old SDs or DNs with Medusas by the time war resumed. That'd actually be a sizable increase in their total number of SD(P)s! And even under a long term peace that's still worth doing because the reduced manning actually lowers the total lifetime cost of the new SD(P) compared to the legacy DNs or SDs (especially ones that have been worked hard through the war and therefore will need more ongoing maintenance that a ship of their age that had had only peacetime duties)

cthia wrote:Thanks for clearing up my misnomer about the hierarchy. Even so, the Chief of Staff—according to Honor—does all the work. She/he gets run ragged. According to Honor, I can certainly see why that position would need a righthand man too. But if much of their responsibility is offloaded to an incompetent, the system will break down. Intelligence failures will be the result. The Second Space Lord will undoubtedly assume the blame, but that isn't going to erase the failure.

There's a change of quality when it shifts from person to person. Sure, an incompetent upper level will just pass on everything unchanged to the lower levels and take all the credit for the work. We don't know this was the case because we don't know who the Second Space Lord was and who his/her Chief of Staff was.

Usually, the principal makes the decisions, the Chief of Staff dispatches the work to the staffers and the Deputy Chief of Staff ... makes notes? sends email reminding the staffers of their deliverables? keeps the spreadsheet with the assignments and the Gantt charts? I don't know, it's not clear what a Deputy is supposed to do. Is it the same responsibilities as a spare tire?

I still can't agree his position was harmless. A system is only as good as its weakest link.

A chain is as strong as its weakest link because all links in the chain feel the same force/pressure. A complex system is not a chain: there are multiple levels of redundancy to catch mistakes.

Take the case of Principal, Chief of Staff, Deputy Chief of Staff. Any two of the three can be incompetent and the work can still get done. This reminds me of the old Hanna-Barbera cartoon of Hong Kong Phooey, who was a really incompetent Principal, but had a very good Deputy (Spot). Dick Dastardly is another: if Mutley weren't there to (literally!) pick up the pieces, he'd never leave the start line in the first place. Though if Mutley didn't enable his strategems in the first place, maybe he'd actually have to compete with his actual driving skills and good car, which score him a few victories. Huh... need to think more about this.

I'm not claiming the quality of the work would be the same. If the Second Space Lord and the Chief of Staff were incompetent, there's only so much the Deputy can do, not having the same access to people and information. But a really good Deputy could keep appearances for some time.

Either way, I don't think Janacek was incompetent at all. The fact that he saw Lt. Winton's article and took the time to write a reply (or at least have it written) points to someone highly secure on his shoes.

I agree, benching Givens certainly was meant to serve his political goals, but it wasn't meant to serve his country. Wait, strike that, I'm having my present government's dilemma bleed over into this argument. Givens was a godsend. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Jurgensen wasn't just corrupt, he was incompetent too!

In Jurgensen's case, I agree. If nothing else, he was unable to support the party line for long enough, when the inconvenient facts kept coming. A government is in big trouble when it starts to believe its own lies: it's one thing to have propaganda keep the population quiet, it's quite another to let the propaganda dictate State actions. High Ridge's government believed its own lies and that was Jurgensen's fault. A counter-example is the pre-coup PRH: the Legislaturalists knew exactly what their failings were and what the actual state of the economy was.

cthia wrote:The writing on the wall I'm referring to is his failure to see that Honor was right to do what she did, and why she had to do it. He failed to see the implication of Basilisk by renouncing her actions and piling it on her "hothead" syndrome! It was all down hill from there in his head.

In the end, he agreed with Hamish and my opinion of himself that he had quite a few screws loose. He tried to correct that flaw by blowing the screws out. That put paid to the question of his "intelligence." Suicide is never intelligent, barring extreme physical pain. I suppose his emotional pain over his complete failures and ignorance can be accepted.

He interpreted the facts according to his own biased background, as do everyone. And to be honest, his actions were right after OBS: the SKM wasn't ready for a war. The extra 4 years of uneasy peace helped the SKM tremendously. In fact, even more time would have helped, since the SKM was opening up a lead on the PRH in terms of both quality and quantity of hulls. And in those 4 years, the Manticoran Alliance grew further especially by the Grayson inclusion.

And in any case, he didn't completely disavow her. A disavowed captain doesn't get two jumps in rank and a brand, new heavy cruiser command. I'll grant you he didn't have a choice here, not when Her Majesty stepped in and started piling Monarch's Thanks and other awards on her. Maybe if he'd had a choice, he would have benched her or even dismissed her from service, but this is why a system is not a chain-link: even the First Space Lord's opinion isn't sufficient to derail the entire system.

cthia wrote:Damn, I'm ashamed. Do you recall the touching moment Honor had with Megan Petersen? Wow, I love that moment. I'm sure Megan did too, being acknowledged and given such praise by the Salamander.

But I missed an important undertone when Honor spoke to her.

“I know people are going to compare Hypatia to Grayson,” the duchess said, and Megan managed not to blink at the way the older woman’s thought had followed her own. “I suppose that’s inevitable, given the similarities. Of course, the differences are a lot more significant than any of those idiot newsies are going to realize!”

She grimaced, and Megan surprised herself with a chuckle. Arngrim had returned to Manticore with dispatches, accompanying the Hypatian transport carrying the squadron’s survivors, barely two T-days earlier, and she’d already decided she’d rather face a salvo of Cataphracts than the Manticoran news corps any day!

“Better,” the duchess said approvingly, then laid a hand on Megan’s shoulder.

“I had a heavy cruiser to face a single battlecruiser,” she said more soberly. “The tech imbalance was a lot narrower than the one you had, but in a way, that only made the situation simpler. I mean, there weren’t a lot of fancy tactical options. You found a much more…elegant solution, and at least Hypatia doesn’t have steadings.”

They didn't have the same ships, but wasn't Honor's first real command, other than the mysterious LAC, also a DD? Hawkwing?

Petersen had put several missles into each volley and had been seeding them into space "behind" her but heading into what she knew to be the tactical heart of the SLN task force based in the idenfication of the command ships and likely successors. She was still moving, she had some ability -under stealth etc- to change directions and speed. She had a set number of birds still in the launchers and magazines. So she had made up packages which could shatter a SLN BC at one packager per BC
AND THEY WERE ALL WITHING Petersen's engagement envelope with the RMN missles and the Ghost Riders and FTL. She was probably sure that eventualy one of three things would happen.

1) they would figure out where she might be bases on the initial launch points and trajectories of each missile package and start both sending recon drone and missiles to where she could be and hope to get lucky. And somebody would probably figure it out give enough time and data --and she didn't have anywhere enough missiles or time if anybody did find her.

2) She would keep it up till she was shot dry and then try to escape to fill in the expected RMN reinforcement.

3) That the one she was talking too crippling the commander that was going to target the pods, or the next one up in the chain of command would decide this wan't a good day to die and withdraw (which is what happened). She would have had to set up a probable queue after the one she delivered the ultimatim too, such that if she didn't survive till she ran out of ammo, she could essentialy flush her magazines at as many targets as she could put a BC killing package on and do as much damage posthumously as possible to thin out SLN for the probably most capable commanders still there.

That's a Saganami type solution. Keep killing or mission killing the bastards till they quit or leave. She has sent a message to where the next incomming RMN units will receive it by RD. Every ship she kills is one less able to help ravage the system and she will burn the lesson her Admiral was teaching them into their souls....we will kill you, you will bleed and bleed and bleed and your only choice- on a very personal level present SLN commander and your sucessor- its to take you butchers and go home.......or die.

Brrr Brigade XO. That's a chilling account of things. You know, I got the feeling that Megan half expected Honor to chastise her for her decisions, by taking a chance of getting killed thus being unable to warn the cavalry. When Honor made her statement, Megan was surprised, I think. Or relieved.

Megan would have been toast had the Admiral not have taken out those colliers. BTW, how was the SLN able to commandeer the TUFT (Taken Up From Trade) freighters, without a formal declaration of war?