How does Honor know so much?

From the annals of OBS

Chapter Seven



"Commander Santos."

"Yes, Captain?"

snip

"... I want a complete inventory of our on-hand recon drones."

snip

"... I want you and your department to begin stripping the sensor heads from the missile bodies in order to fit them with simple station-keeping drives and astrogation packages."

snip

"I imagine we can do the job by swapping the sensor heads into standard warning and navigation beacons. If not, I want a design for a system that will work on my desk by thirteen hundred."

This has always amused me quite a bit. How does Honor know so much about engineering? She seems to be quite knowledgeable about certain aspects of her Chief Engineer's bailiwick. I would have missed it on a Jeopardy question about how much cross training a CO has.

I know that Honor was also trained at tactical. And she performed at that position quite admirably. But I always wondered just how much of everyone's duty a CO has to know. Or if it is simply that Honor personally engaged in a lot of extra-curricular activities since she didn't exactly have a love life.

I also wonder if this is true ordinarily here on Earth. After all, the Captain has to 'go down with the ship' because he has to stay with the ship. So a Captain should be able to fight the ship as best he/she can?

I know Manticorans are well trained, but a Captain having that much engineering knowledge seems incredible to me.

cthia wrote:

"... I want you and your department to begin stripping the sensor heads from the missile bodies in order to fit them with simple station-keeping drives and astrogation packages."

snip

"I imagine we can do the job by swapping the sensor heads into standard warning and navigation beacons. If not, I want a design for a system that will work on my desk by thirteen hundred."

This has always amused me quite a bit. How does Honor know so much about engineering? She seems to be quite knowledgeable about certain aspects of her Chief Engineer's bailiwick. I would have missed it on a Jeopardy question about how much cross training a CO has.

How much engineering knowledge do you need to suggest the actual engineers look into the practicality of taking an off-the-shelf sensor system and bolting it to an off-the-shelf station keeping beacon?

She wasn't even sure it was possible. So she laid out her goal, additional ersatz sensor drones, and suggested one possible approach -- then told the engineers to figure out the actual engineering required to meet her goal (whether or not her suggested approach turned out to be workable)

And in the event they didn't have anywhere near enough of those standard standard warning and navigation beacons - so Commander Santos had to figure out how to build additional station kits after he'd have to "scratch-build an awful lot of drives and astro packs".

(Now, actually making those bits actually work together, unless you're really lucky, does require some significant specialized knowledge -- knowledge that we've no indication whether Honor actually had. And that's before you factor in the scratch built station keeping systems after they ran out of standard beacons)

In fact it's not even clear if Honor was aware of how few standard beacons Fearless carried. Either she didn't bring it up as part of giving Santos a kick in the ass; or she didn't realize that regardless of her suggestion they'd have to quickly resort to engineering a scratch built substitute anyway.

Professionals know a lot about their systems, both things that are in the manuals, and those things that never make it into the formal manuals. And who knows what they are doing and who is weak.

A look at her service record before OBS tells the story. On top of that, textev indicates that she often do deep dives into technical specifications because she want to understand how to best utilize equipment and ships.

Jonathan_S wrote:In fact it's not even clear if Honor was aware of how few standard beacons Fearless carried. Either she didn't bring it up as part of giving Santos a kick in the ass; or she didn't realize that regardless of her suggestion they'd have to quickly resort to engineering a scratch built substitute anyway.

She'd know they had a fair number, standard beacons were after all standard inventory aboard ships, and she has to sign off on inventory reviews as captain (XO's are the ones who ensure they're correct inventories). But she informed the navigator and tactical how and roughly where she wanted them, based on sensor range and that would determine how many were needed. Sure if she took time out of her schedule she could have run that math herself. However none of the officers had helped at all in coming up with any input into what SHE had to make from scratch, so Honor just came up with the raw plan and then made them do the hard work of turning it into reality, as part of kicking them all in the ass. I'm quite positive Honor would have dug in and helped if they'd been a more proactive crew, like CA Fearless in Grayson, but CL Fearless crew were all apathetic and wouldn't work unless she made them, which also takes time out from doing what SHE should be doing, as she had to be Captain and XO and almost all section heads simultaneously.


That's why XO has always ALWAYS been the final make-break point in naval careers. If you can't handle a position as XO, you are not qualified to handle being a CO of a ship or even a base. You might be able to swing staying in uniform as a REMF, but you will be yanked out of a line position, so even if you're senior rank on a damaged ship you cannot take command.


Captain is responsible for everything aboard ship, and it does pay to have a loose understanding of what everything does and/or how it works, how much of X you (should) have. After all, if some junior messes up and breaks something important, YOU as captain are going to get the blame even if it genuinely wasn't your fault. This is why Captain is always present and personally commanding on things like entering/exiting docking slips, wormhole transits and other actions that can lead to multi-ship events.


We saw Honor studying prior to even taking command of CL Fearless (despite not knowing about the grav lance prior to officially commanding her). She studied CA Fearless too, did it a third time before taking command of Nike and yet again before commanding the Trojans bound for Silesia. She also (meant) to do it for her Grayson stint as Admiral Harrington and learn about GNS Terror despite not being captain, but she wasn't as experienced with Steadholding at the time, and failed to properly manage her time to get everything on the civilian or military sides done properly.

One thing has bothered me for some time about that "tradition" of the captain going down with the ship. That is not the tradition in the US Navy. There, it's "the captain is the last man off." The Japanese Imperial Navy DID have that tradition, and possibly the Germans, but not the European navies, or the USN. Live to fight again, that's the way.

I certainly defer to everyone else on this matter, and I appreciate everyones input. Like I said, it always amused me from my very first virgin read through, and I actually 'cut my teeth' on OBS. As I am proud of telling.

But Honor seems confident that her plan will work. To be honest, someone else suggested that she consulted the manuals. I think RTFM would have been child's play for her, now that someone mentioned it, and she could probably view everything in 3D.

Anyway, Honor, personally, has always impressed me with her all around knowledge. If truth be told, she impressed me with her original tactic that led to FTL. Why hasn't anyone else considered 'revving the engines' to send a signal which led to FTL? Unless the need to do so had never presented itself.

At any rate, her all around knowledge seems greater, much greater, than the average CO.

zuluwiz wrote:One thing has bothered me for some time about that "tradition" of the captain going down with the ship. That is not the tradition in the US Navy. There, it's "the captain is the last man off." The Japanese Imperial Navy DID have that tradition, and possibly the Germans, but not the European navies, or the USN. Live to fight again, that's the way.

Good points and I am glad you brought it up. I always thought it was a silly notion as well for a Captain to actually die if he can get off; after he is certain everyone else is off.

Over the years, I have asked people where the tradition comes from and always get a different answer. Someone once suggested the tradition started during the age of sail when someone was needed to remain aboard to steer the ship in such a fashion to allow people to get off a damaged ship. And the Captain could ram if he is onboard.

I think in one of the movies (I know, Hollywood) the idea was that a Captain remained onboard the sub so that he could scuttle her to protect trade secrets.

cthia wrote:I think in one of the movies (I know, Hollywood) the idea was that a Captain remained onboard the sub so that he could scuttle her to protect trade secrets.

And they never heard of timers? There are some very good ones based on physics and chemistry that can't fail and can't be stopped.

And if the scuttling charges aren't working, what's the captain going to do anyway?

Anyway, another possibility for the origin of this is that in some navies, the captain of a lost ship wouldn't receive much clemency and consideration at the board of inquiry that is sure to follow. If the navy in question is going to search for scapegoats to blame for the loss of the ship, the lives aboard, and its cost, then the captain may feel disinclined to survive and possibly let blame be shared by his family. Better to romantically and honourably die at sea.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:I think in one of the movies (I know, Hollywood) the idea was that a Captain remained onboard the sub so that he could scuttle her to protect trade secrets.

And they never heard of timers? There are some very good ones based on physics and chemistry that can't fail and can't be stopped.

And if the scuttling charges aren't working, what's the captain going to do anyway?

Anyway, another possibility for the origin of this is that in some navies, the captain of a lost ship wouldn't receive much clemency and consideration at the board of inquiry that is sure to follow. If the navy in question is going to search for scapegoats to blame for the loss of the ship, the lives aboard, and its cost, then the captain may feel disinclined to survive and possibly let blame be shared by his family. Better to romantically and honourably die at sea.

In the movie the notion was that a sub needed to be taken to the bottom, then scuttled. If she is scuttled on the surface, big enough pieces could survive and float. Also, if she is taken to the bottom of a very deep ocean, the critical pressure works better than any scuttling charges ever could.