But why, the part that has to get elected doesn't really get to do much. All the major stuff is coming from the unelected aristocrat half of their parliament.
Because even in the Manticoran system, the House of Commons has enough power to make things significantly inconvenient for the House of Lords, should they be inclined to do so. Reducing the degree to which the Commons presents an obstacle to the ruling class, under the benevolent guise of "tax cuts for the poor" and public assistance programs, seems like a fairly obvious gambit. Maybe not an uncontroversial one that the ruling class would embrace at all times, but an obvious one.
It may help to explain, for instance, why
the Conservatives and Liberals* were willing to form a coalition government in the aftermath of Cromarty's assassination. The Conservatives, whose power base is almost entirely in the Lords, may be able to nonetheless recognize that keeping the voter base docile, small, and relatively wealthy, while appearing to be generous to the commoners, is a winning strategy for them even if it means taxes.
I couldn't find it either. I did find this very amusing. "The first five books contain the story that Weber had originally planned for book one. Then the material for book two took four more. He's openly stated that he's deliberately dragging things out to put his kids through college" (Re: Safehold.)
Because even in the Manticoran system, the House of Commons has enough power to make things significantly inconvenient for the House of Lords, should they be inclined to do so. Reducing the degree to which the Commons presents an obstacle to the ruling class, under the benevolent guise of "tax cuts for the poor" and public assistance programs, seems like a fairly obvious gambit. Maybe not an uncontroversial one that the ruling class would embrace at all times, but an obvious one.
It may help to explain, for instance, why
the Conservatives and Liberals* were willing to form a coalition government in the aftermath of Cromarty's assassination. The Conservatives, whose power base is almost entirely in the Lords, may be able to nonetheless recognize that keeping the voter base docile, small, and relatively wealthy, while appearing to be generous to the commoners, is a winning strategy for them even if it means taxes.
It should be noted that one thing that is an ongoing plot point around this time is the fact that Elizabeth is trying to transfer power to the House of Commons as part of a generational effort to weaken the House of Lords.
I couldn't find it either. I did find this very amusing. "The first five books contain the story that Weber had originally planned for book one. Then the material for book two took four more. He's openly stated that he's deliberately dragging things out to put his kids through college" (Re: Safehold.)
I find Turtledove's approach to putting kids thorugh college, via churning out admittedly not-always-impressive books many of which were obvious retreads of real historical events in a fantasy/alt-hist setting, to be in some ways more respectable.
While the Into the Darkness series was very derivative of real World War II, for instance, at least shit happened in those books.
I find Turtledove's approach to putting kids thorugh college, via churning out admittedly not-always-impressive books many of which were obvious retreads of real historical events in a fantasy/alt-hist setting, to be in some ways more respectable.
While the Into the Darkness series was very derivative of real World War II, for instance, at least shit happened in those books.
Pretty much. Like I like Safehold enough to have owned the books at one point (I have since donated them to Goodwill.) but I just look at that with contempt compared to say, someone who wrote nine books in one year. >_>
I stopped reading Safehold books after one or two because Weber's habit of naming his characters weird bastardized misspelled versions of real people's names just made my eyes bleed.
Having to see Zhaspayr Clintayn or whatever on every other page was just annoying, in a way that either literally using real world English-language names or just giving up and making up new names that don't exist in English would not have been.
It kicked me over the "I don't care what happens to these people" line very quickly, because it was actively painful to read any text describing them or their experiences.
It should be noted that one thing that is an ongoing plot point around this time is the fact that Elizabeth is trying to transfer power to the House of Commons as part of a generational effort to weaken the House of Lords.
Elizabeth wasn't the ruler of Manticore until about 15 years prior to the start of the first novel, and Manticore has a centuries-deep history, and frankly it doesn't really look as if Elizabeth was even trying to shift power to the Commons until the Lords really, really got on her nerves by being the locus of opposition to her pet project, namely beating up Haven for killing her dad.
I stopped reading Safehold books after one or two because Weber's habit of naming his characters weird bastardized misspelled versions of real people's names just made my eyes bleed.
Having to see Zhaspayr Clintayn or whatever on every other page was just annoying, in a way that either literally using real world English-language names or just giving up and making up new names that don't exist in English would not have been.
It kicked me over the "I don't care what happens to these people" line very quickly, because it was actively painful to read any text describing them or their experiences.
Well yes, but...
Elizabeth wasn't the ruler of Manticore until about 15 years prior to the start of the first novel, and Manticore has a centuries-deep history, and frankly it doesn't really look as if Elizabeth was even trying to shift power to the Commons until the Lords really, really got on her nerves by being the locus of opposition to her pet project, namely beating up Haven for killing her dad.
The Wintons are very much gradualists, and Weber implies that High Ridge did accelerate it, but she was always going to do that regardless, which is part of why the High Ridge government formed to begin with.
There's something that I've been thinking about...
How does Haven "loot" the conquered nations? Are they filling space freighters with valuables and resources? Those must be some really huge freighters then and countless fleets of them, or maybe planets usually don't have that big of a population, like only a major city or two and that makes shipping in materials to sustain them feasible.
Or maybe they redirect the output of conquered industries to supply Havenite worlds? Well that still runs into shipping restrictions, and leads us to another question, why not keep the productive territories separate from Haven proper, don't mess with their internal politics too much, use them to supply the navy and only ship whatever surplus can be spared back? The population can protest and riot back in Haven, but the government can simply relocate to off-world and say "sorry guys, this is what we've got, you better start working".
This "we've go to keep expanding and conquering to feed the dole" thing doesn't seem to work in practice.
There's something that I've been thinking about...
How does Haven "loot" the conquered nations? Are they filling space freighters with valuables and resources? Those must be some really huge freighters then and countless fleets of them, or maybe planets usually don't have that big of a population, like only a major city or two and that makes shipping in materials to sustain them feasible.
Well, a standard interstellar freighter apparently has a capacity of a few million tons and takes only a month or so to make a short interstellar journey, so that's a start, at least, but...
Or maybe they redirect the output of conquered industries to supply Havenite worlds? Well that still runs into shipping restrictions, and leads us to another question, why not keep the productive territories separate from Haven proper, don't mess with their internal politics too much, use them to supply the navy and only ship whatever surplus can be spared back? The population can protest and riot back in Haven, but the government can simply relocate to off-world and say "sorry guys, this is what we've got, you better start working".
Bluntly, because Weber didn't think of it as a viable alternative.
We can see such a strategy prefigured in certain authoritarian states on Earth that build a new capital out in the desert or whatever and leave the old cities more or less to rot, but Weber doesn't really do political analysis that involves an open-minded assessment of all a government's options. Nations are either Good Guys (TM), or they're more or less 'on rails' and their political backstory exists purely to emphasize that they're stuck in some kind of crisis condition.
How does Haven "loot" the conquered nations? Are they filling space freighters with valuables and resources? Those must be some really huge freighters then and countless fleets of them, or maybe planets usually don't have that big of a population, like only a major city or two and that makes shipping in materials to sustain them feasible.
To be entirely fair to Weber, the mechanics of interstellar shipping/trade are very much a "don't look at this too closely" thing for SF in general. Trying to extrapolate how that shit works from the modern web of trade networks, or the older European colonial system, still has a ridiculous number of black holes that we honestly aren't going to figure out until we start doing it for real.
I couldn't find it either. I did find this very amusing. "The first five books contain the story that Weber had originally planned for book one. Then the material for book two took four more. He's openly stated that he's deliberately dragging things out to put his kids through college" (Re: Safehold.)
I seem to recall that Manticore, ironically, also has a government that provides considerable public assistance money of various types, which they can fairly easily fund because the Manticore Wormhole Junction is a magic money-generating machine as far as their economy is concerned... However, they, being the nation of the righteous and sensible by Weberian standards, have a law that you can't vote unless you pay more in net income taxes than you receive in public assistance.
However, I've struggled more than once to find textual support for this position, to the point where I am now unsure I'm even remembering it correctly.
If I'm right about that, of course, it makes it all the more obvious how Manticore could easily control its electorate and maintain a ruling class that is just as blatantly hereditary if not more so than the Havenite system. Which, of course, it is, what with being a formally defined hereditary aristocracy with actual legal titles and everything.
Because all you have to do under the system I think Manticore has... Is cut personal income taxes, game who receives public assistance, and potentially rely mainly on corporate rather than individual taxes, and you can leave most of the citizenry out of the electorate.
I believe that the "welfare blocks you from voting" was only established in a "Pearl of Weber"(i.e. originally on Baen's Bar most likely) rather than in the text. I don't think Weber ever spends more than two sentences, if that, on how the Manticorian electoral system works. In fact, the series tends to reveal shockingly little about Manticorian society outside the Navy. We get very little sense of how ordinary Manticorians might live or what they might believe in, even in comparison with the other societies that Weber writes about. Almost like the 12 Colonies in NBSG, Manticore feels like "modern U.S. stand in" socially and culturally, even though that makes zero sense whatsoever.
Another interesting thing to note is that while Weber has the House of Lords be by far the dominant house in Manticore, in actual historical 18th century Britain, the House of Commons was the dominant house. Of course, it wasn't elected in any manner we would much associate with democracy today, but that's another story.
Seriously though, the hamfisted French Revolution references are my favorite part of Short Victorious War. They're just so blatant it kind of wraps back around to hilarious.
I seem to recall that Manticore, ironically, also has a government that provides considerable public assistance money of various types, which they can fairly easily fund because the Manticore Wormhole Junction is a magic money-generating machine as far as their economy is concerned... However, they, being the nation of the righteous and sensible by Weberian standards, have a law that you can't vote unless you pay more in net income taxes than you receive in public assistance.
However, I've struggled more than once to find textual support for this position, to the point where I am now unsure I'm even remembering it correctly.
If I'm right about that, of course, it makes it all the more obvious how Manticore could easily control its electorate and maintain a ruling class that is just as blatantly hereditary if not more so than the Havenite system. Which, of course, it is, what with being a formally defined hereditary aristocracy with actual legal titles and everything.
Because all you have to do under the system I think Manticore has... Is cut personal income taxes, game who receives public assistance, and potentially rely mainly on corporate rather than individual taxes, and you can leave most of the citizenry out of the electorate.
From what I remember of book 10 or so, the Bizarro Liberal-Conservative government started Welfare payments when they took power, which implies that they weren't a thing before, though it may be they just expanded them. Admittedly, it's been over a decade since I read that book, so I may be misremembering. The part I do remember specifically was that they funded it by, *le gasp* a graduated income tax. Because Weber is a flat tax guy and thinks progressive taxes are the devil or something.
From what I remember of book 10 or so, the Bizarro Liberal-Conservative government started Welfare payments when they took power, which implies that they weren't a thing before, though it may be they just expanded them. Admittedly, it's been over a decade since I read that book, so I may be misremembering. The part I do remember specifically was that they funded it by, *le gasp* a graduated income tax. Because Weber is a flat tax guy and thinks progressive taxes are the devil or something.
What they did however, is refuse to accept Haven's surrender, because under the Manticoran constitution, a graduated income tax is illegal unless it is required in times of emergency. So, by prolonging the war, they prolong the war taxes that were levied to fund it, while not actually investing in hte military.
Wow, the title of "Dame" AND a fedora? Now you really do have to call her "milady."
Alas, sci-fi authors can predict the future all they want, but they can't predict cultural trends such as fedoras going from a symbol of old-school cool to a symbol of annoying neckbeards.
On the planet of Sphinx (home of the treecats), Honor Harrington is recuperating from the events of the last novel, having been given a prosthetic eye (which includes a handy zoom function). Sphinx is a harsh world, with a year lasting around five solar years and gravity 1.35 times that of Earth.
Captain Dame Honor Harrington, Countess Harrington, Knight Companion of the Order of King Roger. When she was in uniform, her space-black tunic blazed with ribbons: the Manticore Cross, the Star of Grayson, the Distinguished Service Order, the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal with cluster, the blood-red stripe of the Monarch's Thanks with two clusters, two wound stripes . . . The list went on and on, and there'd been a time when she'd craved those medals, those confirmations of achievement and ability. She was proud of them even now, but they were no longer the stuff of dreams. She'd learned too much about what those bits of ribbon cost.
I WARNED YOU! I WARNED YOU ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LET CATS WALK ON YOU! And now she's going to have to grab one of those sticky rollers to get the hair off her clothes. Once that's done, she'll have to refill Nimitz's water bowl, give him a new plate of wet cat food, put the old bowl into the dishwasher, and then refill his bowl of dry food. After that's done, she'll have scoop up his poops in the litter box, dump them into the trash, then smooth out the litter in the litter box...
(Sorry, still have catsitting on the brain)
The cat in question:
O HAI
There was always some loss of function in neural repairs without regen. In her case, the loss had been unusually severe and complicated by a stubborn tendency to reject natural tissue grafts. Two complete nerve replacements had failed; in the end, they'd been forced to use artificial nerves with powerful boosters, and the unending surgery, the repeated failures, and long, agonizing therapy as she struggled to master the high-tech substitutes had almost defeated her. Even now there was an alien, sharp-edged strangeness to reports from her synthetic nerves. Nothing felt quite right, as if the implants were an ill-tuned sensor array—a sensation the undamaged nerves on the other side of her face only made worse by comparison—and she doubted she would ever truly become accustomed to it.
You know, I've heard some people accuse HH of being Mary Sue (and really, we should retire that term for characters outside of fanfiction), but credit where it's due: Weber can at least have his protagonist get seriously injured and not simply bounce back a short time later.
Still dealing with the emotional trauma of losing people under her command, she decides to partake in the traditional Sphinxian pasttime of hang-gliding. Personally, I find the idea of unpowered flight terrifying, but then again, I've only flown a plane once if my life, so what I do know? After landing, her steward (that's Senior Chief Steward to you) MacGuiness informs that the admiralty has sent her a letter. Not an electronic letter, but an actual, phyiscal letter, which is only done in special circumstances.
MacGuiness was waiting, napkin neatly folded over one forearm, as she slid into her chair. One of the perks for a captain of the list was a permanently assigned steward, though Honor still wasn't entirely positive how MacGuiness had chosen himself for that duty. It was just one of those inevitable things, and he watched over her like a mother hawk, but he had his own ironclad rules. They included the notion that nothing short of pitched battle should be allowed to interfere with his captain's meals, and he cleared his throat as she reached for the anachronistic, heavily embossed envelope. She looked up, and he whisked the cover from a serving dish with pointed emphasis.
I realize this setting is supposed to be based on the Napoleonic Wars and that Manticore is based on the UK, but having your protagonist being waited on hand and foot like a nobleman feels insanely anachronistic. I find it odd that so many sci-fi writers seem to envision humanity of the future reverting to a feudal state with hereditary nobility, with planets as their own personal fiefdoms. I mean, what is so goddamn compelling about the aristocracy? But I digress.
"I see. May I assume, then, that it's good news, Ma'am?"
"You may, indeed." She cleared her throat and stroked the parchment almost reverently. "It seems, Mac, that BuMed in its infinite wisdom has decided I'm fit for duty again, and Admiral Cortez has found a ship for me." She looked up from the orders with a sudden, blinding smile. "In fact, he's giving me Nike!"
The normally unflappable MacGuiness stared back at her, and his jaw dropped. HMS Nike wasn't just a battlecruiser. She was the battlecruiser, the fiercely sought after, most prestigious prize any captain could covet. There was always a Nike, with a list of battle honors reaching clear back to Edward Saganami, the founder of the Royal Manticoran Navy, and the current Nike was the newest, most powerful battlecruiser in the Fleet.
For clarification: a battlecruiser is a cruiser that is sufficiently well-armed that it can take part in the line of battle, but is faster on account of being more lightly-armoured. This is why I get annoyed when people refer to the Kirov-class guided missile cruisers as "battlecruisers" because the line of battle is no longer practiced in an era of anti-ship missiles.
With that bit of pedantry out of the way, we end the first chapter.
For clarification: a battlecruiser is a cruiser that is sufficiently well-armed that it can take part in the line of battle, but is faster on account of being more lightly-armoured.
Alternatively, a battlecruiser is an expensive death trap that'll explode as soon as another capital ship looks at it funny, which combined with improvements to propulsion is why everyone stopped building them. Precisely what makes an Honorverse battlecruiser a 'battle' cruiser is unclear, since they lack either the guns or missiles of a dreadnought.
Alternatively, a battlecruiser is an expensive death trap that'll explode as soon as another capital ship looks at it funny, which combined with improvements to propulsion is why everyone stopped building them. Precisely what makes an Honorverse battlecruiser a 'battle' cruiser is unclear, since they lack either the guns or missiles of a dreadnought.
Dreadnoughts as a class fell out of favor in the Honorverse in favor of battlecruisers, because prior to the books the defensive capabilities of most ships re: missiles were outpacing the offensive capabilities of missiles, and you have to get in close to use energy weapons anyway so speed matters there too. So the class focusing on armor and armament fell out of favor for the one favoring speed.
A battlecruiser in the Honorverse is essentially the "mini flag" ship. You put it in a fast taskforce as the anchor your light cruisers and destroyers center around and your C3 node with your task force command staff, or you detach it for independent missions that require diplomatic or military oomph. It can chase down anything smaller and run away much faster than the superdreadnoughts that could crumple it like paper.
It also has the mass and volume budget to put in experimental things like grav torpedoes (really shouldn't have been a light cruiser that got gutted for those), FTL comms as per this book, or pod-laying capabilities later on without the full expense of a SD.
There's notes that as of later Honorverse that BC(P) and BC(L) were the two classes, and BC(P) were disappearing with the advent of MDM. (Multi Drive Missiles) because they had no real defense, where you still need the BC(L) for LAC.
For clarification: a battlecruiser is a cruiser that is sufficiently well-armed that it can take part in the line of battle, but is faster on account of being more lightly-armoured.
Of course historically this definition of battlecruiser actually has no basis; first-generation battlecruisers were intended to hunt and kill armored cruisers and work in fleet screens, armored cruiser hulls with battleship guns (which is essentially what was requested; Minotaur's hull was specifically mentioned), with a secondary role of maybe pursuing and finishing off damaged battle line ships. Second-generation battlecruisers added a role to fight enemy battlecruisers and fleet screens. Third-generation battlecruisers (Hood was the only one built, but it would have included the Ersatz Yorcks and Mackensens) were, essentially, fast battleships. Only third-generation ships were really capable of battle line operations. The fourth generation, which was never built, was basically a mess between what was basically first-generation style Lexingtons and third-generation style G3s with the Amagis falling somewhere between.
I should note I got this mostly from discussions about battleships, which Weber says flatly are going away because of what MDM and pods *mean* for combat. This post was from a decade ago, so as of Uncompromising Honor, it's likely gone.
I believe that the "welfare blocks you from voting" was only established in a "Pearl of Weber"(i.e. originally on Baen's Bar most likely) rather than in the text. I don't think Weber ever spends more than two sentences, if that, on how the Manticorian electoral system works. In fact, the series tends to reveal shockingly little about Manticorian society outside the Navy. We get very little sense of how ordinary Manticorians might live or what they might believe in, even in comparison with the other societies that Weber writes about. Almost like the 12 Colonies in NBSG, Manticore feels like "modern U.S. stand in" socially and culturally, even though that makes zero sense whatsoever.
Another interesting thing to note is that while Weber has the House of Lords be by far the dominant house in Manticore, in actual historical 18th century Britain, the House of Commons was the dominant house. Of course, it wasn't elected in any manner we would much associate with democracy today, but that's another story.
Well, as I've alluded to, I don't think Weber ever actually did the level of research and familiarization it would take to understand how an 18th or early 19th century society, notably Georgian Britain in particular, worked. It's why I keep saying that the Honor Harrington series really, really, really doesn't fit the "Napoleonic Wars in Space" trope. Only a few very superficial elements are present and most of them are nothing but aesthetics.
I WARNED YOU! I WARNED YOU ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LET CATS WALK ON YOU! And now she's going to have to grab one of those sticky rollers to get the hair off her clothes. Once that's done, she'll have to refill Nimitz's water bowl, give him a new plate of wet cat food, put the old bowl into the dishwasher, and then refill his bowl of dry food. After that's done, she'll have scoop up his poops in the litter box, dump them into the trash, then smooth out the litter in the litter box...
Well, if nothing else, Nimitz is sapient and can assuredly operate plumbing, though given the size difference his idea of suitable plumbing is probably different from a human's.
A lot of the rest, yeah, she's gonna have to take care of herself unless her MacGuinness does it for her.
Maybe the futuristic fabrics don't cling cat hair as easily? Whistling in the dark here.
I realize this setting is supposed to be based on the Napoleonic Wars and that Manticore is based on the UK, but having your protagonist being waited on hand and foot like a nobleman feels insanely anachronistic. I find it odd that so many sci-fi writers seem to envision humanity of the future reverting to a feudal state with hereditary nobility, with planets as their own personal fiefdoms. I mean, what is so goddamn compelling about the aristocracy? But I digress.
I do think that on some level there's that fantasy, the pageantry, the caveman-level sense of "you can tell this person is important because of the number of other people whose one job is to make that person look important."
And it's not like prominent people in our modern democracies don't also tend to have servants or something effectively similar. It's not entirely an anachronism; as a practical matter you don't want your warship captain spending 20 minutes a day cleaning up their own dirty dishes because that's 20 minutes they're not spending captaining and it affects the whole ship.
For clarification: a battlecruiser is a cruiser that is sufficiently well-armed that it can take part in the line of battle, but is faster on account of being more lightly-armoured. This is why I get annoyed when people refer to the Kirov-class guided missile cruisers as "battlecruisers" because the line of battle is no longer practiced in an era of anti-ship missiles.
With that bit of pedantry out of the way, we end the first chapter.
Well, that's the way the term is defined in real life.
In the Honorverse, battlecruisers are basically just "really big cruisers," the ones that are 1/10th the tonnage of a capital ship (or less) instead of 1/20th or even 1/100th.
Alternatively, a battlecruiser is an expensive death trap that'll explode as soon as another capital ship looks at it funny, which combined with improvements to propulsion is why everyone stopped building them. Precisely what makes an Honorverse battlecruiser a 'battle' cruiser is unclear, since they lack either the guns or missiles of a dreadnought.
You could make sense of the idea doctrinally for a navy like Manticore, as a historical thing, where they had so few "capital ships" in the 2-3-4 million ton range back in the day, and where these ships were so heavily focused on defending the home system, that most of their offensive warfare was handled by 500-600 thousand ton ships that are nonetheless big and tough enough to bully the kind of cruiserweight and weaker opposition they'd normally encounter.
So they'd have these ships that are just hilariously tiny to be called a battleship by the era's standards, but much bigger than a cruiser, and dignify them by the name "battlecruiser."
The trouble is that everyone does this, including the Solarian League, who can afford to have actual capital ship formations in the multi-megaton tonnage range going around doing things.
Dreadnoughts as a class fell out of favor in the Honorverse in favor of battlecruisers, because prior to the books the defensive capabilities of most ships re: missiles were outpacing the offensive capabilities of missiles, and you have to get in close to use energy weapons anyway so speed matters there too. So the class focusing on armor and armament fell out of favor for the one favoring speed.
Uh, I'm not at all sure this is true. Capital ships continue to play a huge role. It's just that for some reason we don't see the thing that happened in real life with ships known as "dreadnoughts" and "super-dreadnoughts" just getting known as 'battleships' once their design features became the 'new normal.'
Everyone agrees that there are 'battleships,' 'dreadnoughts,' and 'superdreadnoughts' and they are somehow different despite very clearly being the "small," "medium," and "large" versions of literally the same thing, in a military environment where it is nearly always preferable to order the largest size you can afford.
There's notes that as of later Honorverse that BC(P) and BC(L) were the two classes, and BC(P) were disappearing with the advent of MDM. (Multi Drive Missiles) because they had no real defense, where you still need the BC(L) for LAC.
Uhh... the BC(P) is basically a purely Manticoran innovation designed to dump long-range MDMs at the enemy, and if it gets phased out it's because it just doesn't turn out to be survivable enough when both sides have MDMs. The BC(L) is more or less a midpoint between a 'battlecruiser' and what would have been a small battleship a century or two ago, to the point where it's basically a conventional battlecruiser that's suffered endless design creep until it's a sort of lightweight capital ship.
Both designs very much postdate the invention of the MDM and are designed to fire them.
