Honorverse ramblings and musings

cthia wrote:What's eating Highlanders?

Shadow of Saganami - Ch. 3 wrote:A junior-grade lieutenant with the brassard of the boat bay officer of the deck on her left arm and the name "MacIntyre, Freda" on her nameplate was waiting with an expression of semi-polite impatience, and all three of the midshipmen saluted her.
"Permission to come aboard to join the ship's company, Ma'am?" Ragnhild requested crisply.

Shadow of Saganami - Ch. 50 wrote:Lieutenant MacIntyre would be along as FitzGerald's engineer, with Lieutenant Olivetti as his astrogator and Lieutenant Kobe to handle his communications. That was as many officers as Terekhov could spare, but it was still going to leave FitzGerald shorthanded, since only Olivetti was watch-qualified. MacIntyre and Kobe were both junior-grade lieutenants, capable enough in their specialties, but with limited experience. In fact, MacIntyre had something of a reputation for being sharp-tongued and waspish with enlisted personnel and noncoms. Terekhov suspected that it sprang from her own lack of self-confidence, and he hoped this assignment might help to turn that around.

cthia wrote:Shadow of Saganami - Ch. 3

"As you know," Commander Ginger Lewis said, sitting very upright in the chair at the head of the table in the captain's briefing room immediately off of Hexapuma's bridge, "it's traditional for midshipmen and midshipwomen on their graduation cruises to be formally welcomed aboard their ships. Usually, that duty falls to either the executive officer or to the assistant tac officer, since she's normally the one who will serve as their officer candidate training officer for the deployment. Unfortunately, at the moment Commander FitzGerald, our XO, finds himself detained dealing with the yard dogs, and our ATO hasn't reported aboard yet. And so, Ladies and Gentlemen, you find yourselves stuck with me."

She smiled with a curious blend of impishness, sympathy, and cool command.

"I find myself at something of a disadvantage, in some ways," she continued, "because I never attended the Academy. I was directly commissioned, and they put me through OCS aboard Vulcan. As a result, I never made a snotty cruise, so this particular rite of passage is outside my direct personal experience."

Helen didn't move a single muscle, but she found herself studying Lewis much more intently. The commander looked young for her rank, even in a society with prolong. And now that Helen was paying attention to the medal ribbons on the breast of the Engineer's space-black tunic, she was impressed. They were headed by the Osterman Cross. The Osterman was about one notch below the Manticore Cross, and, like the MC, it could be awarded only for valor. Unlike the MC, however, it could be awarded only to enlisted personnel or noncommissioned officers. The Conspicuous Gallantry Medal kept the OC company, as did the red sleeve stripe which indicated the commander had been wounded in action and the additional stripe which indicated someone who had been mentioned in dispatches.

An impressive collection, Helen thought. And one which almost certainly helped explain Lewis' commission. The RMN had always had a higher percentage of "mustangs"—officers who'd been promoted from the enlisted ranks—than most navies, but it appeared Ginger Lewis was something out of the ordinary even for the Star Kingdom.

Can anyone, ex or present military, give me some personal chit-chat regarding the colour of officers comparatively - regular vs. 'mustangs?'

I find it logical that the RMN would have a higher percentage of Mustangs than most navies. I wonder where the RHN ranked in that respect?

"I suppose both he and his father figure OFS would be put in charge of administering Manticore after a crushing military defeat," Anisimovna said.

"Exactly," Bardasano agreed. "And they figure their tame bureaucrats, like Verrochio—or Hongbo, I should say, since we all know who really pulls the strings—would be free to divvy up control of the Junction any way they wanted. And with enough money going into the right pockets . . ."

She shrugged, then smiled and tapped the elaborate stud in her left nostril with a fingertip before she popped the fish into her mouth.

"I wouldn't exactly be heartbroken if the Manties suffered a mischief." Anisimovna's tone's mildness fooled no one. "God knows they've been a big enough pain in the ass for as long as I can remember, even leaving aside our recent little misfortunes in Tiberian and Congo. But it's not as if the damned Peeps aren't just as a big a pain."

"For that matter, it was even more Haven than the Manties who engineered the Congo fuck-up," Bardasano said sourly, her smile of a moment before disappearing. The loss of the Congo Wormhole Junction before it could even be adequately surveyed had been almost as upsetting to the Jessyk Combine as the loss of Verdant Vista's slave-breeding facilities and pharmaceutical industry had been to Manpower.

"Agreed," Anisimovna

Duckk wrote:Darius is explicitly explained as having an entirely homegrown population of slaves, precisely so there isn't any slave traffic.

cthia wrote:Shadow of Saganami - Ch. 3

"As you know," Commander Ginger Lewis said, sitting very upright in the chair at the head of the table in the captain's briefing room immediately off of Hexapuma's bridge, "it's traditional for midshipmen and midshipwomen on their graduation cruises to be formally welcomed aboard their ships. Usually, that duty falls to either the executive officer or to the assistant tac officer, since she's normally the one who will serve as their officer candidate training officer for the deployment. Unfortunately, at the moment Commander FitzGerald, our XO, finds himself detained dealing with the yard dogs, and our ATO hasn't reported aboard yet. And so, Ladies and Gentlemen, you find yourselves stuck with me."

She smiled with a curious blend of impishness, sympathy, and cool command.

"I find myself at something of a disadvantage, in some ways," she continued, "because I never attended the Academy. I was directly commissioned, and they put me through OCS aboard Vulcan. As a result, I never made a snotty cruise, so this particular rite of passage is outside my direct personal experience."

Helen didn't move a single muscle, but she found herself studying Lewis much more intently. The commander looked young for her rank, even in a society with prolong. And now that Helen was paying attention to the medal ribbons on the breast of the Engineer's space-black tunic, she was impressed. They were headed by the Osterman Cross. The Osterman was about one notch below the Manticore Cross, and, like the MC, it could be awarded only for valor. Unlike the MC, however, it could be awarded only to enlisted personnel or noncommissioned officers. The Conspicuous Gallantry Medal kept the OC company, as did the red sleeve stripe which indicated the commander had been wounded in action and the additional stripe which indicated someone who had been mentioned in dispatches.

An impressive collection, Helen thought. And one which almost certainly helped explain Lewis' commission. The RMN had always had a higher percentage of "mustangs"—officers who'd been promoted from the enlisted ranks—than most navies, but it appeared Ginger Lewis was something out of the ordinary even for the Star Kingdom.

Can anyone, ex or present military, give me some personal chit-chat regarding the colour of officers comparatively - regular vs. 'mustangs?'

I find it logical that the RMN would have a higher percentage of Mustangs than most navies. I wonder where the RHN ranked in that respect?

saber964 wrote:Mustangss usually have the enlisted man's perspective on stuff. They usually have at least a couple years as a enlisted man before going to college and getting commissioned. They also get more respect from enlisted due to the fact that they've done the dirty work, been chewed out by sarge or chief,

cthia wrote:Which is why I employed a bit of foresight and covered both bases - import or export. If the availability of slaves is strained everywhere other than Darius, then there may be a leak in trade. The shady world that that entails has caused more governments problems than probably any other I can think of.

Daddy Detweiler says don't peddle the wares, but, well...

Duckk wrote:You're missing the point I'm trying to make. There is no traffic to or from Darius except for military traffic. That's the whole point of having a secret base. You don't want imported slaves from outside Darius to to contaminate the local population with foreign ideas about what Mesa is really doing. And you definitely don't want anyone from Darius being exported out where they can talk about some world no one has ever heard about engaging in mighty suspicious activities. Again, this is very clearly spelled out in the text, specifically MoH.

Furthermore, genetic slavery was a means to an end; it was never an end in itself. Genetic slavery is simply a tool to the Alignment. It gives them cover for their genetic experiments and their covert operations. The slave trade itself never mattered to their goals. The money never mattered to them - part of the reason Cachat and Zilwicki went to Mesa the first time was that the slave trade didn't make financial sense. So the Alignment isn't going to compromise Darius' security for something as irrelevant (to them) as the slave trade.

cthia wrote:

cthia"Shadow of Saganami - Ch. 3
[quote]
"As you know," Commander Ginger Lewis said, sitting very upright in the chair at the head of the table in the captain's briefing room immediately off of Hexapuma's bridge, "it's traditional for midshipmen and midshipwomen on their graduation cruises to be formally welcomed aboard their ships. Usually, that duty falls to either the executive officer or to the assistant tac officer, since she's normally the one who will serve as their officer candidate training officer for the deployment. Unfortunately, at the moment Commander FitzGerald, our XO, finds himself detained dealing with the yard dogs, and our ATO hasn't reported aboard yet. And so, Ladies and Gentlemen, you find yourselves stuck with me."

She smiled with a curious blend of impishness, sympathy, and cool command.

"I find myself at something of a disadvantage, in some ways," she continued, "because I never attended the Academy. I was directly commissioned, and they put me through OCS aboard Vulcan. As a result, I never made a snotty cruise, so this particular rite of passage is outside my direct personal experience."

Helen didn't move a single muscle, but she found herself studying Lewis much more intently. The commander looked young for her rank, even in a society with prolong. And now that Helen was paying attention to the medal ribbons on the breast of the Engineer's space-black tunic, she was impressed. They were headed by the Osterman Cross. The Osterman was about one notch below the Manticore Cross, and, like the MC, it could be awarded only for valor. Unlike the MC, however, it could be awarded only to enlisted personnel or noncommissioned officers. The Conspicuous Gallantry Medal kept the OC company, as did the red sleeve stripe which indicated the commander had been wounded in action and the additional stripe which indicated someone who had been mentioned in dispatches.

An impressive collection, Helen thought. And one which almost certainly helped explain Lewis' commission. The RMN had always had a higher percentage of "mustangs"—officers who'd been promoted from the enlisted ranks—than most navies, but it appeared Ginger Lewis was something out of the ordinary even for the Star Kingdom.

Can anyone, ex or present military, give me some personal chit-chat regarding the colour of officers comparatively - regular vs. 'mustangs?'

I find it logical that the RMN would have a higher percentage of Mustangs than most navies. I wonder where the RHN ranked in that respect?