How does Honor know so much?

kzt wrote:Because that's what these are. We are talking about someone whose actions and the actions of the state showed he was above the law. If you make an enemy of the person who has great influence on your career, like say the head of the conservative party who is know to keep grudges, what do expect will happen to your career?

True, but my question was why you'd brought that up. I was arguing about competent officers looking for competent aides. The talk about princes is a non-sequitur back to the "old boys club" side of the RMN, which I completely agree would scratch each other's back. The performance evaluations are irrelevant: they are neither accurate nor do they determine the future career path. Such a CO would write whatever nonsense could pass muster in the evaluation forms, so the politically-connected junior officer would get the posting that most benefited whoever wrote that recommendation in the first place, even if that is just "his dad won't torpedo my career."

The interesting side is what happens if the CO is from the competent side. They'd have to have powerful backing of their own to be able to survive writing a bad evaluation. But suppose they do? This is an argument for the dad not getting his dim bulb of a child under this CO in the first place. That CO might, *gasp* put the child to work! Just because this CO is competent does not mean he's not backed by powerful friends too.

The senior officers of either side would also "rescue" the juniors who ran afoul of the wrong CO. We saw that very clearly when Honor rescued Andrea Januwalski's career, after Elvis Santino practically destroyed it and her own estimation of it alongside. Honor's own career only got to a Commander's slot because people like Courvoisier were there to look after her, preventing Pavel Young's friends from holding her back completely.

In the middle ground, you'll probably find a lot of middling officers. That is, where the skill level is about average and so is their political connection. COs would usually find something good to write and still be truthful, give benefit of doubt for some other cases, and thus not have problems with the patrons.

ThinksMarkedly wrote: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.

I don't think a timer exists that can't be stopped, although it would certainly be possible to construct a booby trap that would be basically impossible to defeat. Look at how bomb squads normally deal with devices these days--fire a shotgun loaded with water at it. Tear through the mechanism, it stops. It would be possible to have multiple systems each of which will fire the bomb if one goes off-line, though, and if you want to ensure nobody messes with it you put a photosensor and an x-ray sensor in there--either lights up, kaboom.

For a sub there's generally a trivial means of destruction that doesn't even require scuttling charges--take it below crush depth.

cthia wrote: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.

The captain doesn't need to go down with the sub to do this. All you need are some small charges that fire plasma jets. (The sort of thing on tank-killers.) The sub surfaces, everyone gets off, the captain fires charges that punch holes in the ballast tanks. It's going down, period, and since the crew compartment is intact it's going to crush very spectacularly when the hull fails.

Initially, I would have been willing to bet money only on Honor being able to eject the core in an emergency, and possibly being able to scram the reactor. But only Honor. Perhaps I was in error, at least in regarding the Manticorans.

Now that my outlook on cross-training has changed, I am willing to entertain that even staff positions have some engineering training. Who was that who handled Honor's mail in OBS? He was shuffling Honor's mail around to give her the much needed good news first. It amused me that he was able to read her mail. Does that imply the same security clearance? I tend to think the really juicy stuff would be CAPTAIN'S EYES ONLY!!!

At any rate, wasn't Jaruwalski simply part of Honor's staff when she was in rehab? Which made me wonder if there is no such thing as being overqualified in the Navy.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

cthia wrote: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.

The captain doesn't need to go down with the sub to do this. All you need are some small charges that fire plasma jets. (The sort of thing on tank-killers.) The sub surfaces, everyone gets off, the captain fires charges that punch holes in the ballast tanks. It's going down, period, and since the crew compartment is intact it's going to crush very spectacularly when the hull fails.

That won't necessarily work in situations which are sort of spelled out in Hunt for Red October.

The notion is that a sub needs to be steered to the bottom. She needs to descend as deeply as the ocean goes to limit the possibility of high-tech diving equipment recovering trade secrets. Or even high-tech cameras. So, relying on scuttling charges only, may simply lay her down in shallow waters. IOW, not deep enough! Heck, using scuttling charges only might simply lay her down on the bottom of a very shallow harbor.

cthia wrote:The notion is that a sub needs to be steered to the bottom. She needs to descend as deeply as the ocean goes to limit the possibility of high-tech diving equipment recovering trade secrets. Or even high-tech cameras. So, relying on scuttling charges only, may simply lay her down in shallow waters. IOW, not deep enough! Heck, using scuttling charges only might simply lay her down on the bottom of a very shallow harbor.

Scuttling charges would only put in a harbor, if that is where you scuttle the sub. The sub is not moving (presumably it cannot move, otherwise why are you sinking it?), so it goes down wherever it is scuttled.

Anyway you cannot get a sub deep enough so that it cannot be examined; look at the Glomar Explorer built for the CIA.

tlb wrote:Anyway you cannot get a sub deep enough so that it cannot be examined; look at the Glomar Explorer built for the CIA.

That's true, but that sank intact as it flooded.

I've read that when a sub implodes the air is heated to several thousand degrees. Pictures of the Thresher wreckage doesn't look anything like a sub to the untrained eye.

tlb wrote:Anyway you cannot get a sub deep enough so that it cannot be examined; look at the Glomar Explorer built for the CIA.

kzt wrote:That's true, but that sank intact as it flooded.

I've read that when a sub implodes the air is heated to several thousand degrees. Pictures of the Thresher wreckage doesn't look anything like a sub to the untrained eye.

That goes to emphasize that a sub does not need to steer to the deepest part of the ocean, as long as it is in an area that is deeper than the crush depth.

However I do not understand why someone would scuttle a sub that can still move underwater under its own power. Conversely if it cannot move under its own power, then you scuttle wherever it is; even if it is a harbor, such as Scapa Flow. The important thing is to destroy the cryptographic materials. Don't they have thermite for that?

cthia wrote: Who was that who handled Honor's mail in OBS? He was shuffling Honor's mail around to give her the much needed good news first. It amused me that he was able to read her mail. Does that imply the same security clearance?

That was Lieutenant Samuel Houston Webster, who was her communications officer and I am sure had the proper clearances.

tlb wrote:That was Lieutenant Samuel Houston Webster, who was her communications officer and I am sure had the proper clearances.

And still wouldn't be able to read information classified above his clearance level, such as "Captain's Eyes Only." He'd be able to see the meta-data (envelope information) on the message and determine that it had such classification, but not open and read the contents.