I started this while reading the first half of the Webscription. Several entries were revised when I read the complete book. Note that the first 4 items in the Commentary are based on chapters that are in the sample chapters posted on the Baen website.
Commentary
1) A Hit Too Far?
The ambush of Harriet Caldwell in _Cauldron of Ghosts_ was perhaps ill-advised. IIRC, Janice Marinescu added it to the plan because of the chance that Harriet was good enough to expose the MAlign operation. The problem is that Janine Riccardo who ordered her (and her boss) to inspect the site of the latest “terrorist” incident had to have been part of the set up, which means that she should be under suspicion. Whoever “advised” or “directed” her to give that order is unknown. Since she was the head of the Office of Investigation (the legitimate police force), it is unlikely that she was an actual member of the Malign. We don’t know if she was one of the victims of the early October nuclear strikes, but I am certain that one of her assistants was (perhaps even an actual victim, being not important enough to evacuate). Note that the hit was done with a Manticore Marine tribarrel. It could only have come from a refugee PRH SS warship (as war booty - I wonder if it could be traced). That bit was too cute.
2) Galton Not Cleared for the Spider Drive
Why would Albrecht Detweiler want it that way? IMHO, it was a mistake (BTW, other than the ability to destroy Galton if the local leadership gets too ambitious, why would Darius need special technology of its own?). When the MAN goes active, both Galton and Darius based forces would be involved. At that time, why shortchange the Galton forces? Or, for that matter, make it obvious that they had been shortchanged for years. AFAICT, many (if not all) of MAlign members present on Galton always knew that orders came from Mesa. Because of the influx of Houdini evacuees, they now know that Mesa had been abandoned. Since Benjamin showed up with his usual credentials which were accepted, at least some of them should realize that important MAlign members are elsewhere in a secure hideaway. Of course, if only some of the crew of the command fort knew that a messenger (Benjamin’s cover identity) had visited, the destruction of that fort would eliminate that potential leak.
3) Galton’s Oyster Bay Plan is too Phony
Because Galton didn’t know about the Spider drive, their plan didn’t include anything that used it. Thus, while they probably built the missile pods, their plan didn’t include anything that acted like the graser torpedoes (with Spider drive) nor did it have the Ghost ships doing the recon. Thus, there is nothing who could have planted the drones that relayed the updated target information (which the RMN detected). Also, if the grasers were missile warheads, they wouldn’t have popped out of the blue when they fired. The plan for delivery of the missile pods appears to be inadequate as well. For that matter, either Herlander or Jack McBryde mentioned the spider drive and the Grand Alliance broadcasted that they knew about it. Thus, the Detweilers should have known that using Galton as the Oyster Bay stand-in wasn’t going to work. Or was this a detail that an author forgot?
4) The Detweiler Plan
This appears to have Detweilers to rule humanity, other Alphas to be junior partners, Betas to assist, and Gammas to enforce. Everybody else bred and born to serve, forever. I can only summarize possible failure modes. Alpha lines with empathy will realize the horror of the plan and will plot to destroy the entire system (note that they have already started). Alpha lines without much empathy will be plotting to take the top rung. Beta and Gamma lines will be looking for promotion. As for the servants bred and born, the existence of the Ballroom demonstrates that the “born and bred” process is not foolproof.
5) The Ubiquitous Charles “Chuck” E. Gannon
This is a tuckerism of another prolific Baen author (15 novels as of 2021 in 12 years, 5 in his own series, 7 in other people’s series, including 5 in Flint’s 1632 universe; also 20+ shorter works including a story in the Honorverse anthology, _Beginnings_). Also, a Chester Gannon is a physicist in _Into the Light_ (sequel to _Out of the Dark_) published by Tor books.
6) Another Director of the SLN Office of Naval Intelligence?
In _Uncompromising Honor_., Kingsford was glad that he had replaced the head of ONI (though he wasn’t allowed to purge the incompetent head of Operational Analysis), a new head who made a start on cleaning up the mess. Did somebody forget that detail?
7) History of the MAlign
In the May 1923 PD section, Anton presents a theory of how the MAlign was born - the MAlign started as a radical faction inside the original Mesan Alignment that was further corrupted by the possibilities of Manpower. Since Albrecht appeared to be the principal owner of Manpower, IMHO, it is more likely that any radical faction had been co-opted, if not initiated, by a direct ancestor of his.
8) “Casablanca” Fans Unite
I suspect that this is Eric Flint’s contribution, because Kevin Usher used several “Casablanca” quotes in Eric’s “From the Highlands”. I have doubts that this or any other 20th century movie will still be remembered (except by specialist historians) two millennia in the future.
9) Perhaps Shannon’s Famous “Oops”
In _Torch of Freedom_, it was mentioned that the MAlign had made provisions to destroy the PNE after it had killed everybody on Torch. In June 1923 PD, the provisions have been discovered. One was a software demon that can blow the fusion bottles (this is one of the two popular speculations on Shannon’s “Oops”, held by many, including myself). Another MAlign software demon was believed to be able to trigger one or more warheads in the missile magazines (the other popular speculation held by many). Perhaps that should had been “supposedly discovered” because the description of “Wooden Horse” in _ToF_ used the phrase “suicide charges” and that doesn’t sound like software demons to me.
10) The Resource Curse
In the September 1923 PD section, Kingsford and Gannon are discussing Torch as compared to c. 1800CE Haiti (states founded by successful slave revolts). Gannon believes that Web’s policies will allow Torch to avoid the so-called resource curse (lots of money is in play, but none of it stays to permanently improve the standard of living of the locals), but I don’t agree with his explanation of the cause of the resource curse. IMHO, it affects developed economies as well as undeveloped. I hold that it is the money itself that causes the problem (the nature of the government only affects distribution). The excess money can destroy the rest of the economy (this isn’t an immediate problem if exploiting the resource employs most of the work force, but if the resource fails ...). Sweetheart deals with outside corporations bribing the elites doesn’t matter, because the local population can spend what money they get on imported goods. Check references to the Dutch Disease (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease>).
11) Beating the Resource Curse
Generally speaking, countries that had avoided the resource curse had economies that were much larger than the resource boom (e.g., the USA and oil c. 1870-1940), had imposed import tariffs high enough to offset the higher value of their currency in foreign markets (e.g., USA in the 19th century), or had kept much of the money out of the local economy by saving it elsewhere (e.g., various oil exporters’ Wealth Funds). BTW, Manticore became vulnerable to the resource curse when the Junction was discovered (saved by a combination of a wealth fund and authorial decree). I will admit that Botswana is a possible counter example of the malignant effects of the resource curse. It was perhaps the poorest country in sub-Sahara Africa upon independence in 1966. It is now second to Republic of South Africa in per capita GNP, and while the world’s largest diamond mine is a large part of the government revenues (and diamonds are a dominant fraction of exports), it isn’t an overwhelming fraction of the GNP. True, the GINI coefficient is a bit high, but appears to be on a downtrend (the exceptionally high HIV infection rate has to be a drag on the economy).
12) Operation Wilberforce
There was an earlier Operation Wilberforce in the Honorverse; that was the code name Honor used in _War of Honor_ for her anti-slave trade operation in the Silesia Confederation.
13) Shadow Prime Minister Catherine Montaigne
While there was some modification of the Manticore constitution after the fall of the High Ridge government, the description of the Manticore government in _House of Steel_ still had the requirement that the Prime Minister was a member of the House of Lords. Since Catherine gave up the Earldom of Tor, she wouldn’t qualify (unless she was given a title - even a life title, an option mentioned in _HoS_).
14) The Defense of Galton System
The MAlign didn’t want a defense to be necessary, since that meant that it had been discovered and all of its resources will be lost. But, they really should have done a better job at it (yes, I am harping about the spider drive and the poor use of the improved Hasta, see comment 20). The Detweilers will have to to sit tight in Darius for several decades secretly building up strength and connections for Prometheus II. However, the lack of graser torpedoes (with spider drive) should cause sane intelligence types to realize that Galton was just another false front. BTW, the Galton System appears to be systematically under defended in Gail’s scenarios. To begin with, system Alpha had only one big fortress, Galton had three. She should have had several million missile pods to work with and the actual missile defense systems for the fortresses do not appear to have been included in her models.
15) Tortuga
The original Tortuga was a buccaneer haven in the 17th century, off the north west coast of Hispaniola, with a rather colorful history (conquered 4 times by the Spanish and lost by them 4 times). It eventually fell to France and is now part of Haiti.
16) Galton Sensor Net
The Oyster Bay strike force emerged a whole light month from Manticore (and despite extreme care, was still noticed though as a likely false positive which was investigated). Is three light weeks enough even though the ships involved have a total mass less than 1 Shark? They don’t want to be noticed at all.
17) The MAlign was hoisted by their own petard.
Looks like their standard procedure of killing off loose ends backfired on them when they hid the true survey of Galton. It appears that the Intelligence agencies of the Grand Alliance have learned to recognize the Jackal from his claw mark.
18) Just how many people know that Honor can read emotions?
I thought that detail was tightly held, so how did Audrey find out and why did Honor admit it so casually?
19) Admiral Allen Higgins Lives!
Though, he only appears in one scene and does not speak.
20) Punch, not Tap
Galton’s first missile strike was an over strength probe, which revealed too much information. Subsequent strikes were picked up much earlier and were much less effective. If your weapon system depends on stealth to get close, you don’t do probes with it. You do full scale strikes; after all, you can use cataphracts with a ballistic phase to do probes. Idiots.
21) Graser Warheads Provide no Advantage over Laser Heads
The authors might claim otherwise, but at those closing velocities, having a firing duration of seconds means very little when most of your fire windows are measured in milliseconds. Let’s run some numbers: closing velocity of .5c (150,000 KM/sec) and wedge depth (average) of 115 KM. This results in a maximum time on target of only .8 milliseconds. Firing down the throat would be far better, since the wedge would allow about 30 degrees. Assuming a firing distance of 100,000 KM, the missile would have a possible firing angle for about a third of a second (but it would need to rotate very precisely to be on target that long). Note that this is a graser that is probably battle cruiser class against super dreadnought bow walls (do RMN super dreadnoughts have bow walls? RHN might not have upgraded its ships yet), which means the missiles should attempt to fire at a closer distance with a corresponding shorter fire window. If the missile was coming parallel to the long axis of the target, the numbers would be much better, but not even the Solarian League Battle Fleet would had been stupid enough to park its ships bow on to the inner system. True, the continuous fire means that more than one ship will be hit by one graser, but the dimension of the ships, combined with closing velocities, results in a dwell time measured in microseconds at best for each ship as a whole and picoseconds (femtoseconds?) for a particular square meter of hull armor. Rotating the graser could extend those times (against one ship), but the graser will have the same time limitations to get lined up as the laser heads.
22) Two-stage counter missiles and counter-missile pods
David Weber shot both ideas down in a post dated August 23, 2004 (not certain where it was posted, it might had been on an earlier version of Baen’s bar), but Galton used both with an initial success.
23) The Alamo Contingency
As ruthless as the MAlign (or the Detweilers to be specific) have been, I wonder why the Alamo Contingency didn’t destroy the habitats (rather than attack the Grand Fleet). Because it didn’t, that left a lot of inner onion people to be identified, let alone interrogated (or were they all equipped with suicide nanotech?).
24) Continuity Problems
The entire Galton thread has a number of inconsistencies with the earlier Honorverse titles (as noted). BTW, in _Shadow of Victory_, when Janice Marinescu is told that Operation Houdini’s 2 year timeline had been reduced to 4 months, the only destination mentioned was Darius. Also, there is a discrepancy between _Cauldron of Ghosts_ and _Shadow of Victory_ with _To End with Fire_ on when Lisa Charteris and Zachariah McBryde were evacuated from Mesa. _TEwF_ has it several days before the day of the nukes in early October, the other 2 had it weeks before that event. Also, in a February 1923 PD scene, Queen Berry of Torch says that she hadn’t met Empress Elizabeth since becoming Queen of Torch. She very much did so in _Cauldron of Ghosts_ (which means both authors forgot that detail). She was also present at the wedding of Crown Prince Roger in _A Rising Thunder_.
Speculations
1) How will the Detweilers react to the Engagement?
I think this is actually a grave threat to them, though they might not realize that for awhile. It actually attacks the entire reason for the MAlign’s existence. They will either have to corrupt it or, if that doesn’t work, destroy it. But an attempt to destroy it while they are still pretending that the MAlign had been destroyed would reveal their existence, unless they are really subtle. Perhaps an anti-gene modification terrorist group? One that attacks only new work? None of the members could have the nanite suicide protocols because that would be a RED FLAG. Perhaps they should hold off on destroying the Engagement until Prometheus II.
2) So what could had been stored in the secure server at Jessyk’s Warner Station?
There are several possibilities. The most likely, IMHO, is a list of special (i.e., with MAlign crews) freighters and couriers, which could be a clue for Silver Bullet (the special MAlign drones that were inserted into the Beowulf to destroy the Mycroft command nodes). For that matter, there could be other references to Silver Bullet (the delivery went through Warner after all and from Darius, not Galton, which could be a clue for Darius’s existence). Another possibility are references to the ships used for Operation Houdini. If Director Harris was in direct communication with Darius (IMHO, known MAlign security protocols would forbid this), the fact that it was about 10 light years from Mannerheim (which means that a wormhole, either bridge or junction, was about 10 light years from Mannerheim) would be apparent. She probably was in communication with Galton, which would have reinforced Anton’s conclusion on the destination of all those slave ships.
3) Could the other data found at Warner-Mannerheim Bridge hint at Darius?
The shipping for its colonization probably went through the Warner-Mannerheim bridge as well. I suspect that very few slaver ships were used, but plenty of freighters and transports. The problem I see is that it might be difficult to separate that traffic from that of any legitimate colonization effort within 20-30 lightyears of Mannerheim. If the records for all such colonization programs were complete, then the ships that went to Darius would be missing from those records and would be evidence that there was an unknown colonization effort going on somewhere. BTW, I have the distinct impression that several (if not most) of the Renaissance Factor systems are in that area. So getting that data might be problematic.
4) Will Anton and company find anything hints of Darius at Galton?
The Detweilers certainly tried to keep the system clean of such clues. The Alamo Option eliminated the handful of people with direct knowledge of Darius (even if they didn’t know where it was). However, there is a possibility that Zach’s contributions to Galton’s R&D will might attract attention when an attempt to find the author fails. Of course, Zach isn’t there (but they can’t exclude the possibility that something happened). It should be possible, using the preserved records of Mesa’s Traffic Control System to identify most, if not all, of the people supposedly killed by various “terrorist attacks” or “accidents” but were actually evacuated by the MAlign. While most went to Galton, some went to Darius. Close questioning of the evacuees (assuming no suicide protocols in place) at Galton might reveal interesting information about the missing (i.e., the ones who went to Darius). By interesting, I mean information that would cause team Anton to realize that the missing were not the victims of random chance.
5) How can Darius be found?
Finding the Felix Junction, which won’t be easy, is only the first step. While I don’t remember any mention that the Darius terminus is fortified, I expect that it is (and if it isn’t at the end of _To End in Fire_, it should be heavily fortified within years). Thus, it can not be forced without horrendous expenditure of blood (this isn’t Starfire where a fleet could pump millions of armed drones through a warp point). Finding Darius will require either a breakthrough in the understanding of wormholes (i.e., determining the approximate location of the other end) or an exhaustive survey of star systems that are within a sphere centered on Felix (BTW, the maximum known wormhole length is over 900 light years, that is over 3 billion cubic light years). Fortunately, if the search is done as shells around Felix, then they only have to search a sphere with a radius of 130 light years (the Felix-Darius wormhole is rather short). This will require searching only about 20 thousand star systems (many will have 2 or more stars).
6) Finding the Felix Junction
Besides tracing inadvertent breadcrumbs, it is possible that the Felix junction could be found the hard way. Since, the Galton survey was false, the Solarian League might start the very lengthly process of checking every uninhabited system in the survey database just to see if more bad data had been snuck in. Thus, the Mannerheim taskforce guarding the Felix junction will be faced with a quandary when the survey ship shows up. Destroying it won’t work, because the follow up mission will probably be harder to destroy and then they will be in real trouble. Of course, if a ship transits to Felix from Darius (or “SGC-902-36-G”, the back door to Torch) while the survey ship is in system, then they will also be in real trouble.
7) Any Possible Events Elsewhere?
The public announcement of the existence of Sanctuary (the final destination of “Calvin’s Hope”) will be made. Sanctuary also becomes a member system of the Republic of Haven.
