Excusez-moi

penny wrote:As a minor detour. I always thought it was questionable that King Roger put his neck on the line in space. I know the history of the Kings throughout the ages who would rather lead their men into battle. But in the HV, an entire planet depends on their King. And prolong would mean a lot of years are put on the line.

I got that same sinking feeling when Henke threw down the gauntlet and joined the navy too. I've since mellowed and become a bit more resistant against the cringe factor. But then Henke is still way across the galaxy.

Anyway, because of this thread, I just now realize that that affinity for the Wintons to put their heads on the line has to due with a certain ingredient found in that darn IQ enhancement.

Don't misunderstand me. We've seen examples of it in the UK of members of the Royal family joining the navy. And there is Henke. But for a King or a Queen to do so?

If you are talking about House of Steel, surely he was not King at the time he was in the Navy. Perhaps, as King, he still wore a Naval uniform, but his command then would be from the throne?!

In "I Will Build My House Of Steel", just before the death of the Queen and his coronation, he says:

"It would seem there are some advantages to becoming an idle civilian, after all." He elevated his nose and sniffed loudly. "Unlike those uniformed menials whose ranks I will be soon departing , I am free to go take a long, slow, luxurious lunch break."

*Hand copied so mistakes possible*

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:I think what tlb is alluding to is the possibility that the mods could be responsible for the creation of another Salamander somewhere in the HV. I think we can count on that.

In theory, no. I've just shown the mods are neither necessary nor sufficient for a Salamander. That there will be other Salamanders, the Law of Averages says it will eventually happen, but it won't be connected to the mods.

1. The Beta mod has already created one.

Given it's neither necessary nor sufficient, we can also say "one was created in spite of the mod."

"In spite of" gives the connotation that the mod was something that had to be overcome to create a Salamander -- and that definitely doesn't seem right.

Something can be neither necessary nor sufficient and still increase the odds of the things occurring. It is neither necessary nor sufficient to have parents that are avid readers to be an avid reader yourself; but it certainly increases the chances.
It would be wrong (or at least poor phrasing) to claim that someone was an avid reader in spite of having parents who were.

penny wrote:

tlb wrote:As Penny suggested, I was saying that about a navy anywhere in the HV. But if we want to limit it to the Manticoran Navy, then clearly Honor's exploits came about due to the war with Haven and then the Solarian League. So I am not sure a person with all her abilities would get great renown by killing pirates and/or freeing slaves in Silesia.

But it would be a mistake to think her genetics had nothing to do with her success.

I like the way you factored Honor's experience into the equation. Brilliant. Sims can only do so much. Although I shudder to think what the right Alpha can do on an HV computer developing algorithms engineered to test an officer's metal.

Her experience certainly helped hone her tactical skills.
But they also allowed them to become well known.

If the best tactician in history somehow happened to serve during a time of peace and never won anything more than internal war games they'd be a virtual unknown; while less capable tacticians who'd had a chance to fight and win battles gain recognition and end up in history books.

If the war with Haven (and later the League) hadn't come no one outside of the RMN would know how good Honor was - because it (usually) doesn't require great tactical acumen to defeat pirates and few outside a navy pay attention to its internal wargames and simulations. Even had her skill been just as sharp she'd certainly never have picked up the public nickname Salamander without an active war (declared or not)

penny wrote:

tlb wrote:As Penny suggested, I was saying that about a navy anywhere in the HV. But if we want to limit it to the Manticoran Navy, then clearly Honor's exploits came about due to the war with Haven and then the Solarian League. So I am not sure a person with all her abilities would get great renown by killing pirates and/or freeing slaves in Silesia.

But it would be a mistake to think her genetics had nothing to do with her success.

I like the way you factored Honor's experience into the equation. Brilliant. Sims can only do so much. Although I shudder to think what the right Alpha can do on an HV computer developing algorithms engineered to test an officer's metal.

Jonathan_S wrote:Her experience certainly helped hone her tactical skills.
But they also allowed them to become well known.

If the best tactician in history somehow happened to serve during a time of peace and never won anything more than internal war games they'd be a virtual unknown; while less capable tacticians who'd had a chance to fight and win battles gain recognition and end up in history books.

If the war with Haven (and later the League) hadn't come no one outside of the RMN would know how good Honor was - because it (usually) doesn't require great tactical acumen to defeat pirates and few outside a navy pay attention to its internal wargames and simulations. Even had her skill been just as sharp she'd certainly never have picked up the public nickname Salamander without an active war (declared or not)

I certainly agree that Honor's experience helped turn her into the Salamander. All those beta-testers turned that beta into an Alpha.

But I can't help thinking that we might be taking at least a little bit of credit away from Honor and her superior IQ. We know she didn't date much in the Academy, and we know she has a voracious appetite for reading, and we know she can lock herself into her room and figure things out on her own. What was she doing with all of her free time in the Academy when most students were dating?

What I'm getting at is Honor had learned a lot about strategy and tactics by the time she was field tested aboard her own ship. Where did Honor come by all of her skills by the time of First Yeltsin? Certainly not her time in the LAC.

The answer to that has to be her stint as a tac officer, and her time spent aboard ship with higher ranked officers. But can that time truly account for the birth of a Salamander? Other officers had the same experience but didn't take away the skills with them that Honor acquired. I don't think we can discount her superior intellect. I'm not saying she was a mature Salamander at First Yeltsin. But she was certainly already much more than a newt.

Having said all of that, I don't think we can fail to expect the MAN to produce a lot of officers who will begin their career at very nearly the same high level of competence that Honor had during First Yeltsin. They probably won't be equal to Honor, but I think a lot of seasoned officers in the GA are going to get their head handed to them.

Honor literally ate strategy and tactics for lunch. She probably fell asleep with Sun Tzu under her pillow at the academy. I imagine Michelle tucking her in and taking book after book out of her clutches after she fell asleep. We all know what I am talking about. How many of us taught ourselves courses in college because the professor wasn't adept at teaching.

I just think an Alpha who would rather spend their time reading and attacking simulators is going to be a tough foe to defeat for even some of the most seasoned officers. Especially in the beginning of the war when nobody in the GA knows what they are truly up against.

It's like sports. Some of the teams are going to be defeated if they draw the first, second or third seed teams to play their first round. But those who will be lucky enough to draw the fourth and fifth seeds will gain valuable experience and win. The average Alpha should benefit a lot from a little experience. Alphas might become Aces much quicker.

penny wrote:But I can't help thinking that we might be taking at least a little bit of credit away from Honor and her superior IQ. We know she didn't date much in the Academy, and we know she has a voracious appetite for reading, and we know she can lock herself into her room and figure things out on her own. What was she doing with all of her free time in the Academy when most students were dating?

There was almost no free time at the Academy and Honor was in involved in both sailplaning and Coup de Vitesse. If she put in extra study time at all, it should have been with the mathematics that almost caused her to wash out. From chapter 1 of On Baslisk Station:

Fifteen years—twenty-five T-years—since that first exciting, terrifying day on the Saganami campus. Two and a half years of Academy classes and running till she dropped. Four years working her way without patronage or court interest from ensign to lieutenant. Eleven months as sailing master aboard the frigate Osprey, and then her first command, a dinky little intrasystem LAC. It had massed barely ten thousand tons, with only a hull number and not even the dignity of a name, but God how she'd loved that tiny ship! Then more time as executive officer, a turn as tactical officer on a massive superdreadnought. And then—finally!—the coveted commanding officer's course after eleven grueling years. She'd thought she'd died and gone to heaven when they gave her Hawkwing, for the middle-aged destroyer had been her very first hyper-capable command, and the thirty-three months she'd spent in command had been pure, unalloyed joy, capped by the coveted Fleet "E" award for tactics in last year's war games.

Honor was glad of it, though she'd been afraid it would be impossible to find time to spend with Nimitz when she entered the Academy. She'd known going in that those forty-five endless months on Saganami Island were deliberately planned to leave even midshipmen without 'cats too few hours to do everything they had to do. But while Academy instructors might suck their teeth and grumble when a plebe turned up with one of the rare 'cats, they recognized natural forces for which allowances must be made when they saw one. Besides, even the most "domesticated" 'cat retained the independence (and indestructibility) of his cousins in the wild, and Nimitz had seemed perfectly aware of the pressure she faced. All he needed was a little grooming, an occasional wrestling bout, a perch on her shoulder or lap while she pored over the book chips and to sleep curled neatly up on her pillow, and he was happy.

From chapter 2:

She rubbed a fingertip gently across the long, tapering wing of the sailplane etched into the gold, remembering the day she'd landed to discover she'd set a new Academy record—one that still stood—for combined altitude, duration, and aerobatics, and she smiled.

From chapter 3 of Honor Among Enemies:

"Ha! Anyway, I kept it up pretty regularly till I went off to the Academy, and I considered going out for the pistol team then. But I was already pretty good with small arms and I'd only started studying the coup about four years before I passed the entrance exams, so I decided to stick with the martial arts and wound up on the unarmed combat team, instead."

Now that I think of it, imagining the War Games between Alphas has to be a cutthroat game. Really something to see. Especially if the ruthless Onion gives motivation that cannot be refused. The loser gets shot.*

War Games between Alphas has the potential to sharpen many a stylus. Each Alpha trying to outdo the next??? There will be no Sebastian D'Orvilles. But there are going to be a lot of Fearlesses hidden in space.

*Take that Beta-mod. How's that for the survival of the fittest?

penny wrote:The mods are not necessary for the creation of another Salamander, no. But in all of the centuries of the HV there has never been anyone even close. White Haven, Theisman and many others are way above average. But still no Salamander.

So you're saying she's light-years ahead of Edward Saganami, Ellen D'Orville and Travis Long? She's clearly better, but are you really saying those don't even come close?

But not sufficient? What you talking 'bout Willis!?

I thought that was obvious. If the mods were sufficient condition to create another Salamander, then anyone who had the mods and had joined the Navy would have been a Salamander before Honor. As I've said before, the population of Sphinx is greatly made up of immigrants from other heavy-world planets, most of whom appear to have genetic mods. The Meyerdahl is one of many, but given that the Meyerdahl First Wave was probably the first heavy-grav mod and was successful, the subsequent colonies probably incorporated it. And since it's dominant, it must have spread through the Sphinx population, so a great fraction of them would have it or one of the related mods.

Therefore, I find it highly unlikely that Honor is the first Meyerdahl-or-similar genie from Sphinx to join the RMN. Let aline any Navy out there - because clearly the Meyerdahl System Defence Force is almost entirely made of Meyerdahl-mod genies.

The only Salamander we have has been modded, and she is head over heels above the rest. Not to mention that the MA's entire purpose, besides galactic domination, is to create a race of superior beings who are definitely intellectually superior as a starting point. With other options added of course. And the author has said that they have already achieved success in that area. All except galactic domination.

If A = B and B = C then A = C.

That's a cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Correlation does not imply causation.

Yes, we've only known one Salamander and I'm going to grant you that there have been few others to even come close to her levels. But there are some who have, for example the three named above, two of whom are heroes of the RMN (we don't know what became of Travis). You're extrapolating from a sample of 1 to say that she is successful because of the mods she has and any potential MAlign genetic gifts her family may have had 400 T-years ago.

Moreover, you're twisting the author's words into a pretzel. He did not say that the MAlign has been successful, in particular not in their objective of creating a genetically superior being. What he did say was that Leonard Detweiler's objectives - undistorted by the MAlign - have been. Those objectives were not to create genetically superior beings, but to improve the general life of humanity as a whole through genetics.

If we take that as a starting point, then there are billions of people (if not trillions just yet) who have genetic mods making their lives easier. Why only one Salamander? The logical conclusion is that genetic mods are not sufficient condition to produce Salamanders.

On that note. Because of the spider drive, the MA could have studied a lot of battles in the HV, while simultaneously testing the stealth of their drive. Also, there is always an after battle analysis. And all data is recorded on computers. How difficult would it be for the MA to gain access to all after action reports of all naval battles in every navy?

No, they could and would not have.

They could not have done it because the spider drive wasn't perfected until a short while ago. We know the Sharks were barely out of testing phase in 1921 when Operation Oyster Bay was launched. Smaller ships like the Ghosts must have existed for a little while longer, but not so long before. I know I am speculating here on when the spider drive became practical, but I'm fairly certain it couldn't have been much earlier than 1915.

There's also a practical problem to consider: the MAN and MAlign couldn't have sent spy boats to observe battles without knowing where they would have occurred. To have observed even a handful of them would mean they had a very tight control loop with observers at the highest levels of both the Alliance and Haven's Navy (before or after Theisman), and that's something we know not to be true. The alternative to have such high-placed spies would be to have flooded the battlefield with lots of small spider ships that could sit there for a while waiting for a battle to occur, which is also impractical. Small ships the size of a Ghost do not have the endurance to sit as a hole in space for months on end waiting for a battle to happen so they could observe. Nor did the MAN/MAlign have nearly enough of those at the time the battles were happening to guarantee sufficient coverage.

And they would not have risked the spider drive at that time. That would mean exposing them to accidental detection, either due to the hyperspace emergence flash or because they were close to the battle they were going to observe so they could observe and got accidentally picked up by the swarm of recon drones (sitting half a light-hour away won't give you a lot of detail, so you may as well stay home).

Besides, if they wanted after-action reports of the battles, they did have some spies embedded who could download those. The reports were not highly classified - as shown by Honor using some of them with her students at the Island.

Jonathan_S wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Given it's neither necessary nor sufficient, we can also say "one was created in spite of the mod."

"In spite of" gives the connotation that the mod was something that had to be overcome to create a Salamander -- and that definitely doesn't seem right.

I understand and I agree that there probably was no need to overcome anything. In fact, I agree that having above-average IQ did help her, like having faster reaction times so she could survive the Maccabean attempted assassination of Protector Benjamin Mayhew.

My point was that it was neither sufficient nor necessary condition, so we cannot know for sure whether it had to be "in spite of." For example, high intelligence often creates introverts - there's a reason why savants are often very socially awkward or distant people - so Meyerdahl B-mod people might have found themselves unwilling to go into the Navy, where they would be exposed to lots of other people. They may have also run the actuarial tables and concluded that the military was not conducive to a long life, what with a war with Haven on the horizon.

I could even show that through correlation: it appears Honor is the first Harrington to go to Saganami Island (her father was a mustang and started out in the Marines). Extrapolating from a sample of 1, I could conclude that the Harrington Clan was predisposed not to join the Navy and therefore Honor did so "in spite of her mods and her MAlign genetic gifts." And if that were so, then the MAlign's objective of creating genetic superior beings has succeeded in creating poor Navy officers and crew, because Honor had to overcome her genetic predisposition.

penny wrote:Now that I think of it, imagining the War Games between Alphas has to be a cutthroat game. Really something to see. Especially if the ruthless Onion gives motivation that cannot be refused. The loser gets shot.*

Because that worked so well for Cordelia Ransom and Oscar Saint-Just to institute such a policy in the PN?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:If the mods were sufficient condition to create another Salamander, then anyone who had the mods and had joined the Navy would have been a Salamander before Honor. As I've said before, the population of Sphinx is greatly made up of immigrants from other heavy-world planets, most of whom appear to have genetic mods. The Meyerdahl is one of many, but given that the Meyerdahl First Wave was probably the first heavy-grav mod and was successful, the subsequent colonies probably incorporated it. And since it's dominant, it must have spread through the Sphinx population, so a great fraction of them would have it or one of the related mods.

Therefore, I find it highly unlikely that Honor is the first Meyerdahl-or-similar genie from Sphinx to join the RMN. Let alone {**} any Navy out there - because clearly the Meyerdahl System Defence Force is almost entirely made of Meyerdahl-mod genies.

{*corrected spelling*}

Of course the mods are not sufficient, because there has to be a particular military situation in order to produce a military hero. However the question is more specific than all of the Meyerdahl modifications; because of the IQ enhancement, it mainly concerns the Meyerdahl-Beta genies. We have no idea of the percentage breakdown of the four modifications.

However, that says nothing about whether they were necessary in Honor's case; which is an unanswerable question given that there is no way to test for an Honor without the Beta-mods.