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'''''Honor Harrington''''' is a [[Military Science Fiction]] series by [[David Weber]]. The book series is mainly set around the adventures of the titular heroine, although we see a fair amount of the wider universe. The primary conflict of the storyline is the Kingdom of Manticore (The Good Guys) vs. The (People's) Republic of Haven ([[Anti-Villain|The Bad Guys Who Aren't Entirely Unsympathetic]]).
Weber has explicitly described the series as "[[Horatio Hornblower]]" <small>[[Recycled in Space|IN SPACE!]]</small> with the series being a great deal more focused on (Space) Naval operations than other science fiction series. Honor Harrington occasionally performs ground-based and political adventures, but the vast majority of the series is focused on her ship-to-ship conflicts, where she serves as commanding officer.
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* ''Mission of Honor'': Honor leads a diplomatic mission to the heart of Haven in order to finally create true peace, but the Solarian League threatens the negotiations by drawing Manticore into a second conflict and tipping the balance of power. Meanwhile, the mysterious planet of Mesa has dangerous plans of its own.
* ''A Rising Thunder'' The Solarian League Conflict continues to grow while the Grand Alliance is formed, and the cracks in the Solarian League start to show.
* ''Uncompromising Honor'' the Solarian War is resolved, but there are [[Ancient Conspiracy|ominous trends in the works.]]
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'''Warning: Spoilers ahead. As a [[Long Runner]], [[Late Arrival Spoiler]]s of the early books are unavoidable. Caution advised.'''
----
{{
==A-D==
* [[Absent Aliens]]: Used in spirit. They're not actually absent, just... Not important. Humanity has made contact with at least twelve sapient species during its exploration of the galaxy, and at least one multi-stellar species has gone extinct (The Alphanes), but they are not involved in the story at all. The Medusans of Basilisk are important in the first novel, but fade into the background once Honor leaves their system since they only possess a Bronze Age level of technology. The only sapient aliens that have a presence throughout the series are the treecats of Sphinx, primarily represented by Nimitz, the 'cat who has adopted Honor-- and tropewise they're more Manticoran [[Bond Creatures]] than an alien faction.
* [[Achievements in Ignorance]]: The Graysons make some revolutionary discoveries due to having to rebuild their tech base from scratch—most notably, acceleration compensators that are more efficient than Manticore's version, and fission reactors that are smaller and more efficient and powerful than the rest of the galaxy thought feasible. At the time Manticore comes along they are very thankful they have some modern tech examples to work with to help relieve the backwards nature of their industry, but Manticore is also happy to have new ideas to try for themselves.
* [[Action Girl]]: ''Tons'' of.
** It would be easier to list the prominent female cast members who are ''not'' Action Girls.
* [[Action Girlfriend]]: Honor to {{spoiler|Hamish Alexander.}} He declines her offer to teach him martial arts, saying that in the (highly unlikely) event that some poor mugger makes it through her bodyguards, he will be content to hold her coat while she beats the hell out of him.
* [[Action Mom]]: Take a wild guess. Hint: She's the main character.
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* [[Apocalypse How]]: Discussed in detail. It would be much easier for a warfleet to [[Colony Drop|bombard and destroy a planet]] (apocalypse Class 4) than to fight another warfleet. The "Eridani Edict," a declaration by the Solarian League, forbids them from doing so, unless they first take control of the orbitals and offer a surrender chance. Controlling the orbitals is the equivalent of holding a sword to the planet's throat, and no sane opponent would keep fighting under that threat.
** A brief (by Weber's standards) [[Info Dump|discussion]] in one book also points out that even civilian spacecraft could become a relativity kill vehicle. Later, ''Mission of Honor'' demonstrates how much devastation can be caused as collateral damage or even ''accidentally''. {{spoiler|Debris from an orbital strike ([http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/site/entry/Harrington/284/0 not a treaty violation], and not even aimed at the planet) kills 5 million people on the surface, including most of Honor's large extended clan. Many more people would have died had not an intervening ship been quick on the draw.}}
* [[Appropriated
* [[Arc Welding]]: Mesa and Manpower, Incorporated are first mentioned in ''War of Honor'', ten books into the series and two books before their rise to the position of primary antagonists; but the later books give them credit for not just a lot of the earlier events of the series, but even historical events stretching back ''centuries'' that had been mentioned and discussed by characters for years.
* [[Arc Words]]: Oyster Bay, and before that "The Onion", before [[The Reveal]] of {{spoiler|The Mesan Alignment}}.
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** Shannon Foraker, who simply remarks "Oops!" when {{spoiler|two full squadrons of super-dreadnoughts (with crews numbering in the tens of thousands) get annihilated by a few keystrokes.}}
* [[Beware the Superman]]: Earth's devastating Final War was fought by [[Super Soldiers]] with drastic adjustments to their physiology for increased combat capability. They were also supposed to be modified for super-intelligence, which all too frequently had the side effect of increased aggression and sociopathy, and that has led to lasting prejudice against all genetic engineering. Honor herself, who inherited a set of adjustments for life on high-gravity worlds, fears that her modifications may be responsible for her temper and her lethal combat abilities.
* [[BFG]]: The tri-barrel,
* [[Big Bad]]: Albrecht Detweiler and the Mesan Alignment, the mastermind behind events stretching back ''centuries''.
* [[Bigger Bad]]: {{spoiler|The Solarian League is shaping up to be this, especially given its own involvement with the Mesan Alignment]].
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** A number of other planets seen throughout the series also have wildlife or plants named for Terran wildlife or plants, attaching prefixes like "near-" or "neo-" or "pseudo-" to the earth fauna or flora's name.
** [[Lampshaded]] in ''Storm From the Shadows'' when Mike Henke describes the local seafood on Flax in a message to her mother: "They've got what they call 'lobsters,' even if they don't look anything like ours —or like Old Earth's, for that matter—..."
* [[The Clan]]: Erewhon is ruled by clans. Of course it is. Their ancestors were [[The Mafia|gangsters]].
** There are hordes of Harringtons around.
** Pavel Young has a number of relations, none of whom like Honor. Sometimes you get the impression that there is something like a feud going on.
** Gryphons, being a transplant of Scotland, naturally have these.
* [[The Captain]]: Honor and many others, this being a navy focused series.
* [[Cassandra Truth]]: The few Sollies that recognise how far behind the times the League Navy is are often brushed off as alarmists and defeatists. Once the rest of the Sollies [[Oh Crap|figure it out]], they accuse the aforementioned Sollies of [[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished|not being alarmist enough]].
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** Grayson state church is a new religion evolved from Christianity much as Christianity did from Judaism. They have an additional scriptural book alongside the Bible, ''The Book of the New Way'', collecting the sayings of their founder, Saint Austin Grayson. Their faith, the Church of Humanity Unchained, was founded on an anti-technology platform, believing that society on Earth had become corrupted due to the influence of technology. Their descendants have mellowed, and current doctrine is that technology is okay, provided it does not change how you live or behave.
** The splinter church of Masada rejects the New Testament and portions of Old Testament, creating a new faith with portions of the Old Testament combined with ''The Book of the New Way''.
* [[Church
* [[
* [[Cliff Hanger]]: Several of the books end abruptly with a galaxy-changing action or revelation, and no denoument to clear up the loose ends. For example, the last thing we see in ''Ashes of Victory'' is {{spoiler|Citizen-Admiral Theisman shooting Oscan Saint-Just}}, and the last thing we see in ''Mission of Honor'' is {{spoiler|President Pritchard proposing an alliance with Manticore against the Solarian League and Mesa}}.
* [[Colony Drop]]: Operation Oyster Bay, though mostly accidentally, {{spoiler|results in chunks of the Manticore system's orbital industry falling and killing millions, including 1% of all treecats and most of Honor's extended family. Because the biggest chunk fell on Yawata Crossing, Manticorans refer to the attack as "The Yawata Strike"}}.
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** The Solarian League has been explicitly said to be too vast for any historical comparison<ref>one [[Word of God]] had it that, by comparison, if the Solarian League was the U.S., then Haven and Manticore might be individual counties in California</ref>, but the ruling group of bureaucrats has been nicknamed in universe "Mandarins", a clear allusion to the corruption and stagnation China has suffered in the past.
** The Masadans meanwhile can be described as Space Mormons meets Space ISIS. Somewhat justified in that they originally broke off from Grayson.
** Erewhon takes a perverse pride in having been a colony set up by organized crime as a money laundering scheme, to the point of [[Theme Naming]] cities and buildings things that have to do with "cleaning" (like "Maytag"). In practice, though, it is a subversion. It is by now a rather conventional aristocracy governed by an array of [[Blue Blood|Old Money]] families (although there do not seem to be formal titles of nobility as on Manticore). In any case its foreign policy seems to be "keeping alive" and its domestic "get my faction ahead" and there is [[Pirates Who Don't Do Anything|little you wouldn't expect]] in a nation. Blood feuds are still a thing among the higher families though that seems to be more a threat to keep people from leaning on their rivals when they are in power by reminding them that it will be reversed sooner or later. Otherwise politics is very much [[Let's Fight Like Gentlemen|a polite contest]]. It is basically a fantasy counterpart culture not of the Mafia but of what the Mafia could be imagined evolving into.
* [[Faster-Than-Light Travel]]: In keeping with the nautical theme, starships accomplish FTL travel by reconfiguring their impeller drive fields into "Warshawski sails".
* [[The Federation]]: Deconstructed with the Solarian League. [[The Empire]] of Manticore is shaping up to be a real one.
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** Robert Stanton Pierre and Oscar Saint-Just. Yes, those two. The thought of them ''ever'' not being "monsters" is pretty hard to swallow, but at least they originally staged their coup with legitimate goals. They were always planning to push their plans through with blood, but at least they were going to make ''changes'', and some of their changes actually pay off, especially for the economy. However, as the series progresses they progressively become more and more like the Legislaturalists, falling into the same pitfalls and traps that spelt doom for their predecessors. As Saint-Just himself said, what mattered to him was not who held power or why, as long as it was used ''effectively''. However, by the time of ''Echoes of Honor'' he himself is promoting incompetent officers to positions of authority, whitewashing military reports that do not agree with the Committee line, and absolving those same officers of blame based on their political connections. {{spoiler|Those specific acts were some of [[Wafer-Thin Mint|the final straws]] that pushed him and Pierre into revolt.}} There seem to be moments when Pierre realizes this to some extent, but he feels trapped and unable to stop it.
**Virginia Usher (Keven Usher's wife and a [[Platonic Life Partners|Platonic Life Partner]] of Cachat) is quite reasonably afraid that this is happening to Cachat.
**Subverted in ''Uncompromising Honor''. After a terrorist attack on Beowulf Honor is so angry she barely restrains herself from ''committing genocide'' on Sol. Fortunately she does in fact restrain herself. However the local authorities decide [[Good Is Not Nice|she is not in a mood to be trifled with.]]
* [[Hilarious in Hindsight]]: The beginning of ''Mission of Honor'' has Honor sailing into the middle of the capital of Haven (which is at war with Manticore at this time) without any pre-existing truce, in a desperate attempt to negotiate a peace treaty. President Pritchart of Haven muses to herself that she'd like to ''believe'' she'd have the courage to step into the middle of an entire enemy star nation unarmed to try and do the right thing, but that she'll never know for sure. {{spoiler|This is, of course, exactly what Pritchart herself does at the end of the novel.}}
* [[Historical Domain Character]]: [[wikipedia:Maximilien Robespierre|Rob S. Pierre]] and [[wikipedia:Louis de Saint-Just|Saint-Just]] are re-imaginings political figures of the French Revolution, part and parcel of the [[Days of Future Past]].
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** The ex-StateSec renegades who hired on as Mesan mercenaries to attack Torch find out the hard way that freed Mesan slaves are not gentlemanly with people who try to orbitally bombard their civilian populations:
{{quote|'''Narrator''': Their immediate fear had been that Torch would hand them over to the Republic of Haven. Then Jeremy X and Saburo started interrogating, and within two days it was the profound hope of every StateSec officer that they ''would'' be turned over to the Haven navy.}}
*** Of particular note in this sequence is the fact that due to being both pirates taken in the act ''and'' renegade members of the defunct of Office of State Security, every one of them is under sentence of death in Havenite jurisdiction. They are literally ''praying to be killed'' rather than stay in Torch custody.
** In ''Fanatic'' Cachet orders a "light" (meaning survivable)version of this dealt out to people who he actually did not suspect of anything but [[Batman Gambit|did worry]] would have attracted the governments malicious attention if he hadn't satisfactorily banged them up.
*[[Jurisdiction Friction]]: The People's Navy practically consider's State Sec to be their real enemy. After all the Manticorans [[Nothing Personal|only shoot at them.]]▼
** In ''Crown of Slaves'' Victor gets the security codes of a ship by the simple expedient of putting several conveniently unsympathetic victims in a circle where they can see each other and threatening to go round in a circle shooting them one by one. After shooting one of them even before starting his questioning, just to prove his sincerity. Unsurprisingly, the survivors immediately cooperate.
▲*[[Jurisdiction Friction]]: The People's Navy practically
* [[Kangaroo Court]]:
** The title character herself is subjected to a sham trial ''in absentia'' at the end of her first book, where the People's Republic of Haven convicted her in absentia of war crimes for the murder of the "civilian" crew of the "unarmed merchant freighter" ''Sirius'' to cover up the fact that ''Sirius'' was Q-ship and part of a failed Havenite plot. No one in the know viewed the trial and verdict as anything other than a joke, until {{spoiler|1=Honor was later captured as a prisoner of war and the new bloodthirsty regime of Haven used the verdict as a rationale for her execution and exemption from treaties covering the care of POWs.}}
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* [[Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better]]: While generally [[Averted]], there have been instances where "antique" chemically-based hand weapons were a better bet than the hypervelocity flechette rounds used by pulsers. Because they have no detectable power source they can be smuggled into areas a pulser would never be allowed, and since their projectiles carry far less force they are considerably less lethal and prone to irrevocably damage the surrounding environment.
* [[The Kingdom]]: Subverted; far from being the political [[Butt Monkey]], anyone who attacks the Star Kingdom of Manticore is in for a world of hurt. It is now the Star ''[[The Empire|Empire]]'' of Manticore, upon the formal incorporation of San Martin, the Talbott Quadrant, and half of Silesia.
* [[The Klutz]]: Carson Clinkscales, in ''In Enemy Hands''. At one conference, he tripped over his own feet, which knocked an officer's cap off, which went sailing across the conference table and hit a water decanter [[
* [[Knight Templar]]: The entire Committee of Public Safety. The old government was indeed corrupt and needed to go, and they did make a ''ton'' of positive reforms to the economy. But they drowned Haven in a sea of blood doing so. Specifically referencing Napoleon and his "Whiff of Grapeshot" when a riot is put down using orbital bombardment.
* [[Lady of War]]: Honor first and foremost, although most female military types count. Of course, considering the fact that it is a military science fiction series, it makes sense that the [[Lady of War]] archetype comes up regularly.
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* [[Name's the Same]]: Despite what it sounds like, Manticore is not at war with [http://marshmallowpeeps.com trays of marshmallow chickens and bunnies].
* [[Narrative Profanity Filter]]{{context}}
* [[National Weapon]]: One or two cultures are said to have ceremonial weapons in their culture.
** Grayson has Katanas through because their ancestors had been a fanbase of samurai movies of dubious ancestry.
** During the coronation of Berry a Erewhon dignitary gives Ruth's father a knife inscribed "to the House of Winton" as a clever way of complimenting his daughter and the Winton family (who had lived up to their standards of honor) and a backhanded sneer at Manticore (which had let High Ridge insult them, and break Manticore's word). The knife is described as being an artistic reconstruction of the ones used in the now-legendary vendettas of Erewhon's gangster ancestors, now featured in a blue-blooded politician's court dress in a clever play on history (much like the street thug's rapier became the Olympic fencer's foil). However little more is said to describe it precisely. It sounds like a large version of a traditional Sicilian stiletto.
*** The inscription is reflective of Erewhon's idea of honor. If someone makes a dumb deal his [[The Clan|family]] is expected to pay up and [[Reassigned to Antarctica|take care of their stupid cousin]] privately. High Ridge was, aside from his general arrogance, offering peace to Haven without considering consulting Erewhon after Fromety had made an alliance treaty. Erewhon, applying the logic of clan politics, was angry at him specifically but Manticore generally. However the House of Winton ''had'' done their best, by Erewhon's lights, to pay up so much as it could while in the opposition (by having a daughter risk her life to help subvert the Mesan outpost on what would be Torch) and thus retained honor.
* [[Nerves of Steel]]: Half of the characters, but ''especially'' Honor, if only because she is routinely thrown into the worst situations. Hundreds or thousands of other people are along with her in the same situations, but she is in command, and their lives are ''her'' responsibility.
* [[Nice to the Waiter]]:
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{{quote|"Of course not, Major. This is a Queen's ship. What would we be doing with smugglers on board?"}}
* [[Take Our Word for It]]: Massimo Filareta is one of the first Solarian Admirals that we meet who seems to have a reputation as a solid commander with no blinding bigotries towards "Neo Barb" nations such as Manticore or Haven. That said, he is indicated to have a [[Dark Secret]] that leaves him in Mesa's pocket early on, and as time goes on, we get more and more details from the handful of characters in the know about him, culminating in the indication that he is into "sick games with little boys and girls".
* [[Tall Poppy Syndrome]]: Applying this to education is a side effect of the Legislaturist [[Bread and Circus]]. Some extraordinary individuals get out of the rut either because they are indeed extraordinary or because they have connections. In this case it adds to the criminality of having what amounts to a vampire state that pays for fiscal waste with conquest. For it ends up sending people to die who are not qualified themselves, nor supported by an infrastructure with qualified personal.
* [[A Tankard of Moose Urine]]: Havenite beer, according to Honor, could be poured back into the horse and leave the universe a better place...
* [[Ten Paces and Turn]]: The only kind of legal duel in the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Two protocols exist: The Dreyfus Protocol, in which each dueller gets five rounds and has to pause between each shot to ask if satisfaction was attained; and the Ellington Protocol, in which each dueller gets ten rounds and can shoot as often as they like until their target falls or drops his weapon. In both protocols, however, the duellers are allowed to turn and face each other ''before'' the actual shooting starts.
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