Reporters on Galton

I don't understand how I constantly find myself in stark opposition to a discussion. How do I constantly get myself between a rock and a hard place.

There is a reason a CO doesn't take his wife, or his son, or daughter, or aunt or uncle or grandma to a battle. You shouldn't handicap yourself by bringing along a liability. Relatives are liabilities. Because your number one concern is going to be the lives of your relatives, when it should be the mission. Or the lives of the civilian reporters if you have the mettle of an Honor Harrington. Honor would never forgive herself if she lost the lives of those reporters.

And an entity that is aware of the offering would use it as a blessing. Those reporters would be turned into pawns. We won't argue whether Honor would surrender or sacrifice the pawns.

And again, how arrogant can a navy be to think that it can hyper into a system it knows absolutely nothing about and think that it can bring along friends when they might not get their own asses out!

You do realize that you are invading a system that wants to hide and bringing the worse surprise gift you could possibly bring. Reporters. Really?

penny wrote:I don't understand how I constantly find myself in stark opposition to a discussion. How do I constantly get myself between a rock and a hard place.

There is a reason a CO doesn't take his wife, or his son, or daughter, or aunt or uncle or grandma to a battle. You shouldn't handicap yourself by bringing along a liability. Relatives are liabilities. Because your number one concern is going to be the lives of your relatives, when it should be the mission. Or the lives of the civilian reporters if you have the mettle of an Honor Harrington. Honor would never forgive herself if she lost the lives of those reporters.

And an entity that is aware of the offering would use it as a blessing. Those reporters would be turned into pawns. We won't argue whether Honor would surrender or sacrifice the pawns.

And again, how arrogant can a navy be to think that it can hyper into a system it knows absolutely nothing about and think that it can bring along friends when they might not get their own asses out!

You do realize that you are invading a system that wants to hide and bringing the worse surprise gift you could possibly bring. Reporters. Really?

One reason that you find yourself in these positions is that you keep arguing against the facts. Jonathan_S has given you examples from history where armies have brought reporters into places where you claim they should never be allowed. We know that Aubrey was brought into the heart of the battle against Galton, despite having no ties to Galton as she believed that she was part of a different entity.

You compound this by believing that commanders will have more concern for the welfare of these reporters than the welfare of the troops under their command. Unlike bringing a relative to a fight, these are volunteers whose job is to see the toughest part of the battle. Aubrey has already allowed herself to be shot as part of her job.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:I don't understand how I constantly find myself in stark opposition to a discussion. How do I constantly get myself between a rock and a hard place.

There is a reason a CO doesn't take his wife, or his son, or daughter, or aunt or uncle or grandma to a battle. You shouldn't handicap yourself by bringing along a liability. Relatives are liabilities. Because your number one concern is going to be the lives of your relatives, when it should be the mission. Or the lives of the civilian reporters if you have the mettle of an Honor Harrington. Honor would never forgive herself if she lost the lives of those reporters.

And an entity that is aware of the offering would use it as a blessing. Those reporters would be turned into pawns. We won't argue whether Honor would surrender or sacrifice the pawns.

And again, how arrogant can a navy be to think that it can hyper into a system it knows absolutely nothing about and think that it can bring along friends when they might not get their own asses out!

You do realize that you are invading a system that wants to hide and bringing the worse surprise gift you could possibly bring. Reporters. Really?

One reason that you find yourself in these positions is that you keep arguing against the facts. Jonathan_S has given you examples from history where armies have brought reporters into places where you claim they should never be allowed. We know that Aubrey was brought into the heart of the battle against Galton, despite having no ties to Galton as she believed that she was part of a different entity.

You compound this by believing that commanders will have more concern for the welfare of these reporters than the welfare of the troops under their command. Unlike bringing a relative to a fight, these are volunteers whose job is to see the toughest part of the battle. Aubrey has already allowed herself to be shot as part of her job.

We have never taken reporters into a war zone we knew absolutely nothing about.

penny wrote:We have never taken reporters into a war zone we knew absolutely nothing about.

There are always unknowns in war, yet still people fight them and other people report on them. In the case of Galton, Honor kept the fleet outside the hyper-limit to permit an escape if things went badly. But it was still a battle in space that Honor knew well, not a complete unknown. Honor concern was the safety of the ships, which was the best way to express her concern for the people within them. Still everyone in her command ship, including Aubrey, could have died when the missiles were launched after the surrender.

Unless you continue to insist that Aubrey is a special case, despite Aubrey's belief that Galton was anathema to the people with which she identified, then you should recognize that Aubrey (and any other reporters) were brought into the heart of the battle against Galton. More importantly Aubrey (and any other reporters) had the same chance to die as any of the crew.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:We have never taken reporters into a war zone we knew absolutely nothing about.

There are always unknowns in war, yet still people fight them and other people report on them. In the case of Galton, Honor kept the fleet outside the hyper-limit to permit an escape if things went badly. But it was still a battle in space that Honor knew well, not a complete unknown. Honor concern was the safety of the ships, which was the best way to express her concern for the people within them. Still everyone in her command ship, including Aubrey, could have died when the missiles were launched after the surrender.

Unless you continue to insist that Aubrey is a special case, despite Aubrey's belief that Galton was anathema to the people with which she identified, then you should recognize that Aubrey (and any other reporters) were brought into the heart of the battle against Galton. More importantly Aubrey (and any other reporters) had the same chance to die as any of the crew.

Audrey not Aubrey. We do have an Aubrey Wanderman.

penny wrote:We have never taken reporters into a war zone we knew absolutely nothing about.

tlb wrote:There are always unknowns in war, yet still people fight them and other people report on them. In the case of Galton, Honor kept the fleet outside the hyper-limit to permit an escape if things went badly. But it was still a battle in space that Honor knew well, not a complete unknown. Honor concern was the safety of the ships, which was the best way to express her concern for the people within them. Still everyone in her command ship, including Aubrey, could have died when the missiles were launched after the surrender.

Unless you continue to insist that Aubrey is a special case, despite Aubrey's belief that Galton was anathema to the people with which she identified, then you should recognize that Aubrey (and any other reporters) were brought into the heart of the battle against Galton. More importantly Aubrey (and any other reporters) had the same chance to die as any of the crew.

penny wrote:Audrey not Aubrey. We do have an Aubrey Wanderman.

Correction accepted.

You are still insisting that commanders should show more concern for the reporters, than for the people under their command. Even assuming the fleet is sailing into something totally unknown, the commander is going to take all the precautions that they can imagine to safeguard everyone involved; but if the crew has to go, then there is no reason why reporters should not go.

The only limitation that I can imagine is on something like a commando raid, where everyone needs to be combat effective.

tlb wrote:The only limitation that I can imagine is on something like a commando raid, where everyone needs to be combat effective.

I can think of a few limitations. Actions which require specialized training just to participate in; like parachute drops or ski troops. Units where you'd need superior endurance and conditioning just to keep up. Or covert actions where an embedded reporter might give too much risk of giving away the element of surprise.

For that matter if you had to order a detachment to hold as long as they can so the rest of your forces can escape some trap you wouldn't want a reporter with that unit since it's unlikely they'd escape to make a report -- the members of the unit are likely to be killed or captured and neither lets the reporter file the stories which are the whole reason for letting them embed in the first place.

But yeah, generally the safety of the reporters who volunteer to embed as war correspondent is not a significantly higher priority to a commander than the safety of his troops. (Which is why, historically, they've been allowed into some very dangerous war zones -- and why a fair number have died doing that)

penny wrote:We have never taken reporters into a war zone we knew absolutely nothing about.

It's true that we have never taken reporters "into a war zone we knew absolutely nothing about", because there have never been such war zones IRL and using that as an argument is like saying "we have never taken reporters into space battle", ie the argument doesn't make sense.

And the whole "There is a reason a CO doesn't take his wife, or his son, or daughter, or aunt or uncle or grandma to a battle" is a strawman, they don't have a role to play in a battle which a reporter has when they are allowed to tag along as a war correspondent.

This isn't something new or strange, the details about a specific situation are unimportant, we had war correspondents throughout modern history were they have been on the frontlines risking their lives while being fully aware of the risks.

penny wrote:We have never taken reporters into a war zone we knew absolutely nothing about.

Joat42 wrote:It's true that we have never taken reporters "into a war zone we knew absolutely nothing about", because there have never been such war zones IRL and using that as an argument is like saying "we have never taken reporters into space battle", ie the argument doesn't make sense.

It is ironic (?) that you use the argument that "we have never taken reporters into space battle", when this is precisely the situation that Penny is talking about. I believe the correct counter argument is that the GA has conducted many space battles and so the situation is NOT something that they "knew absolutely nothing about". It may be true that Galton could have introduced something that was new, but it has always been true that the enemy could introduce something new and yet the military has brought along war correspondents regardless.

penny wrote:It would have been arrogant and irresponsible to take a shipload of reporters to a battle the GA couldn't have known it would win. Because had they lost and lost badly and every ship in the fleet destroyed, the MA would not have allowed any witnesses to return. There might have been more reporters but, well, I shall guard my vote on this one too.

They probably stayed with the fleet train. There's no need for them to be aboard the ships doing the fight during said fighting. It's not like they were getting raw sensor readings or that they'd get to interview crew during the battle.

Audrey had quarters aboard Imperator, but we don't know for sure she was there while the battle was going on. It's possible she was but it's possible she was granted special access to Honor and/or had requested quarters aboard a combatant warship. That would imply she was made aware of the risks of the ship being lost with all hands during operations and accepted them.

Penny is arguing about the risk to the GA of having those civilians lost or captured during the conflict. That's little different from having any other crewmember captured. They're supposed to be treated as POWs. That's neatly mitigated by keeping most of them in the fleet train, as I suggested.

And it would not lose all ships, especially not in the fleet train, but including not the main combat ships. Honor brought 240 capital ships, so probably a thousand or two of everything below the wall. There's no way all of those ships could be destroyed or captured, without a single one of them escaping to tell the story.

In any case, the cat was already out of the bag. The GA knew where Galton was. There's no secrecy to protect any more.