Wiki wrote:Warner Caslet was a former Havenite citizen and officer in the People's Navy, who went into exile and later became a Grayson citizen and an officer of the Grayson Space Navy.
Biography
A native of the planet Danville in the Paroa System, Warner Caslet entered the Havenite naval academy to become an officer of the People's Navy. Upon graduation, Caslet's oath as an officer was administered by Fleet Admiral Amos Parnell, the Chief of Naval Operations at that time. (HH8)
Caslet rose through the ranks, reaching the rank of Commander and becoming the commanding officer of the light cruiser PNS Vaubon sometime before the Harris Assassination and the Committee of Public Safety's assumption to power over the People's Republic.
Unlike other higher-ranking commanding officers of the People's Navy, Caslet and his command crew were left almost untouched by the Committee's purges of the Navy, as Vaubon was small and independent enough to not attract the attention of the new regime. Despite this, Caslet made a point of either following the Committee's guidelines regarding forms of address or calling his subordinates by their given names; in the case of Lieutenant Shannon Foraker, he personally pleaded with Denis Jourdain, Vaubon's People's Commissioner, to turn a blind eye to her lapses into pre-revolutionary speech, as her technical abilities were too important for Vaubon and the Navy in general. (HH5, HH6)
Caslet's faith in Shannon Foraker's abilities would prove good during Operations Stalking Horse and Dagger, as it was Foraker who first identified the Grayson superdreadnoughts diverted to reestablish Allied control over Candor and Minette, as well as detecting (though too late) the presence of another six Grayson superdreadnoughts within the "disorganized" Grayson Space Navy forces which proceeded to intercept Vice Admiral Alexander Thurston's Task Force 14 during the Fourth Battle of Yeltsin's Star. (HH5)
Still in command of Vaubon, Commander Caslet was deployed to the Silesian Confederacy around 1908 PD, as Vaubon was assigned to scout the Confederacy's systems in advance of Admiral Javier Giscard's Task Force 29. During the reconnaissance of the Arendscheldt System, Vaubon encountered the drifting wreck of the Trianon Combine-registered merchantman TCMS Erewhon, which had been attacked by pirates. The carnage found onboard Erewhon led Commander Caslet to request that Vaubon be allowed to pursue and destroy the pirates which had attacked the freighter, an action Admiral Giscard would authorize.
While successful at first, destroying a pirate vessel and finding through the Manticoran crewmen captured by the pirates that they belonged to Andre Warnecke's "privateer" squadron, Commander Caslet would find himself and Vaubon in a serious dilemma, as a group of pirate vessels were found attacking a Manticoran merchant vessel in the Schiller System. Despite his own standing orders to attack Manticoran commerce in the Confederacy, Caslet succeeded in convincing Commissioner Jourdain to authorize him to attack the pirates, but his gallant action turned into disaster when the Manticoran merchantman revealed herself as the Q-ship HMAMC Wayfarer, under the command of Captain Honor Harrington, who requested the surrender of Vaubon once the pirates were dealt with.
I always disagreed with Honor's decision here. At the end of the day, I know she was simply following orders and doing her duty. But if Caslet had also followed orders he would have assisted the pirates and maybe destroyed Wayfarer. He was under orders to attack Manticoran shipping. Caslet's intentions were honorable and altruistic, and I think in this instance he should have been let go. I suppose Honor couldn't afford to let him go since he now knew the secret identity of Wayfarer. But it is just hard to swallow for me. Which is why Honor was in the hot-seat making the big calls and not me.
But! Didn't she have the same duty to detain Cachat when he came aboard her ship to consult with her about a secret entity? Even though she knew he was prepared to kill himself? She couldn't really know for certain there was a secret entity. Even so, capturing Cachat would have been a big prize.
I am certainly not expecting anyone to agree with me on this one, I'm mostly lifting the weight off my back. It nags me.