Honor Harrington/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

 

* Is there any distinction whatsoever between Liberals and Progressives, or between Centrists and Crown Loyalists?

** The Centrist and Crown Loyalists have not always gotten along, but much of the current set of politics is the result of the Lord's coliaition's to keep power being opposed by the Crown. Gryphon, for instance, is a hotbed of Crown Loyalists rather than centralist interests because they traditionally oppose the power of the Lords, leading to the one internal armed conflict within Manticore's history, and the Crown Loyalists had the support of the Army and the crown against the Lords.

** There are also hints of change now as the Lords lose power to the Commons where the static influences keeping the same power blocs in control for years are now dying out.

** Another matter is frigates themselves. These are very peculiar ships (essentially, a LAC with hyper generator) and simply aren't very practical. The bulk of a HG in a LAC-sized hull prevents installation of any significant armament, and their endurance isn't anything to write home about too -- remember that "modern-style" LACs were made only by introduction of a Grayson-pattern fission piles, with their greatly reduced fuel consumption. So frigates came out tiny, unprotected, weakly armed and short-legged, and thus of little use in any fleet action, and even for piracy interdiction they were of questionable use, given that most pirates in Silesia were disgruntled local PDFs or militias, which often had access to a "real" warships upwards of a destroyer.

** Also important to remember, given that the Honorverse started as the Napoleonic Wars [[In Space]]!, that Silesia is clearly an Expy of 18th century "Germany". The Andermani probably stand in for Prussia, which had been steadily growing in power and reasserting hegemony lost in the Germanic states since the ''de facto'' break up of the HRE. The other alternative is that the AE is a stand-in for Russia (perhaps hinted at by the Harris' government reluctance to invade it at long distance), and the actions in ''War of Honor'' are a vague mirror of the Moscow campaign (although in that case you'd have to imagine the original plot got even more heavily rewritten than we know it did, and Midgard/Asgard was supposed to play a bigger part). Or it could be a combination of both. Anyway, to get back to the original point, 18th century Germany was a bunch of principalities and dukedoms with the clout and economy to support a few hundred men each, or a few thousand if they actually fought a war and called out the levies, none of whom trusted each other. Scale that up, and you've got a ton of fiercely independent planetary governments with a couple of frigates and maybe a destroyer apiece, determined not to recognize each other as having any claim on them but holding a vague allegiance to something that historically sort of existed once - and half of them are corrupt. I've also come to the conclusion that, much as he likes showing his work, Weber is often more interested in the political "atmosphere" of minor characters or areas. than how exactly some of the side details work out.

 

* Treecats can "talk" to humans now. Great. So how about showing us more of the effects this is having on human and treecat society as a whole? How about showing more human/treecat ''conversations'' even? Prior to ''Mission of Honor'', hardly any treecat speech was even rendered into English—it was almost entirely [[Intelligible Unintelligible]] gestures. I'd like to see more treecat/human conversations, appearances on talk shows, scientific research, etc. This is one of the biggest sociological breakthroughs to happen on Manticore in ''decades'', and it's hardly even ''mentioned'' anymore.