Dr. Arroway wrote:Hi all!
I'm going through my second run of the whole series (though I still haven't read Shadow of Freedom nor the last one), and I'd wish to discuss a few things that leave me a bit, uhm, "upset".
Time allowing, and if the discussion picks up at all, that is!
Let me stress that I am a HUGE fan of DW (obviously), whose work I find absolutely
brilliant and deserving of all its success and then some (I always try to bring more people on board, though it's not easy with skeptics). So any criticism you may read between the lines is really just minor
nitpicking.
So, I'll start with this consideration (SPOILER, of course!)
I'm not totally ok with Honor releasing the POWs at the end of Honor Among Enemies. While it's a mighty generous gesture and it provides a nice dramatic effect, I can't help but feeling it is the wrong thing to do.
True, those particular POWs are respectable and gallant, but Honor is NOT new to having to perform
unpleasant tasks if duty requires her to. Even
taking them prisoners was an unpleasant matter for her, after all. And actually, it would be
far more acceptable than many of the "terrible" things she
can accept to do, like condemning her own people to death when necessary for the sake of the Kingdom.
My point is, in Manticore they would be treated well, even
extremely well if she only indicated that they should, and there is no REAL need for her to release them. Conversely, they might prove dangerous adversaries for the kingdom in the future if released, especially considered their competence - which Honor certainly can measure - and especially considered the extended insight they've had into Manticoran systems and procedures.
Indeed, we know that Foraker will end up causing a great deal of pain and untold casualties to the Kingdom almost by herself (which is another point that nags at me: after having met the "enemy" and known what kind of people populate the Manticoran ships, how can she keep plotting their destruction so relentlessly, considering that Shannon is somehow placed among the "noble" ones?)
Yes, somehow Honor may be planting seeds for nicer things to come (she will be saved by her enemies herself when captive, after all), but in my mind the risk she takes is too strong and, in the face of things, completely unjustified.
Am I missing something, perhaps?
Point one: Honor releases them because RFC needs them for the purposes of the Haven-specific plot. End of.
Point two: Which would you, as a commander, do - know that the people you're fighting against are good people with honor who are likely to act according to that honor should your own people find themselves POWs, or take them out of the fight and risk that they'll be replaced by those lacking honor? Honor Harrington knows that Haven, on the brink of falling apart,
needs people like Warner Caslet and Shannon Foraker. Without them, the Republic wouldn't have survived. And it's not like she's giving them an advantage Manticore doesn't already have; after all, the RMN has Sonja Hemphill.
Point three: Goodness repays goodness. Remember, the Havenites weren't, technically speaking, supposed to be out in Silesia in the first place. There are no strategic objectives at stake. The officers and crew of
Vaubon helped a Manticoran ship virtually against orders, and only a polite fiction kept them from being hit with massive repercussions by the Committee. Honor let them go because they risked their lives and careers to help
her, when they didn't have to and when, as far as they knew, if they sat by and did nothing she'd have been chewed up and spat out by the pirates in question. (Remember, Caslet thought the ship he was helping was a helpless merchie, not an RMN vessel.)
Point five: Honor was putting nothing at risk to let them go.
Vaubon is one ship, with one crew, that by and large is not going to increase the PRN's throw weight by much of anything. She's only a heavy cruiser, after all - not an SD or even a battlecruiser. She explains her reasoning as such in this passage:
"Despite Citizen Commander Foraker's efforts to wheedle technical information out of my people," she said, watching Foraker blush under her level gaze, "none of you have observed anything which isn't already or won't very soon become available to your Navy through other sources. For example, you're aware our Q-ships mount heavy energy weapons and are able to deploy powerful salvos of missile pods, but by now other sources within the Confederacy have undoubtedly already sold that information to one of your many spies there. Accordingly, we can return you to the Republic without jeopardizing our own security, and given your services to Captain Sukowski and Commander Hurlman, not to mention Captain Holtz's people's efforts aboard Wayfarer, it would be churlish not to release you."
And, she thought, letting you go home to tell your admiralty that our "mere" Q-ships destroyed two of your heavy cruisers and a pair of battlecruisers—not to mention Warnecke's entire base—for the loss of only one of our ships may just cause it to rethink the value of commerce raiding in general.
She knows that by sending Caslet and his crew back to Haven, she could accomplish something far greater than capturing a single heavy cruiser. She's playing for bigger stakes than a simple scuffle in the back of beyond - she's hoping to put an end to commerce raiding in Silesia altogether, and as far as I can recall, it
works.
Point six: Out of universe, the plot needs Shannon Foraker. Without her, Honor wouldn't have survived Cerberus, and Manticore wouldn't have stood a chance against Rajampet's fleet, both because of how she and Theisman help them and because her very existence forced Sonja to come up with better and better hardware.
Remember, after Oyster Bay Manticore's rebuilding capability was all but destroyed. Throw in the losses from First Manticore, and only the chunk of Capital Fleet that Theisman brought with him kept the Solarian League at bay. More importantly, Honor's release of
Vaubon's crew was the very beginning of the groundwork that made the Grand Alliance possible in the first place. Whether Theisman and Pritchart's rebellion succeeded or not, were it not for the rapport Honor developed with Caslet, Foraker, and Tourville in Silesia and during Cerberus, neither Haven nor Manticore would ever have been able to bring themselves to really sit down and
talk after the head games the MAlign had been playing with Elizabeth and Eloise. Because the leadership on Manticore, Grayson,
and Haven all trust Honor's word, she earned trust enough from Eloise for the President to risk her mad dash to Manticore - and she earned trust enough from Elizabeth to get her to
listen. Without that - just as without Bolthole and Shannon's expertise at reverse-engineering, which will revive Grand Fleet far faster than anyone could have expected before the Alliance - the MAlign would have already won.
So, yes. You're missing the context that Honor made at the time - she's brilliant, but not prescient. In the context of what she knew at the time, her decision to release
Vaubon's crew made perfect sense. But more importantly, in the overall narrative of the plot, that decision had repercussions that are still echoing nearly a dozen books later. In a very real way, just as with Second Yeltsin and the attempted assassination of Benjamin, the entire course of the Honorverse turns on a choice Honor Harrington made in Silesia. Without that choice, the Republic might not exist; Honor would have died at Cerberus; the Grand Alliance would never have come to be; Manticore would never have been able to hold off the Solarian League; and the Mesan Alignment would have succeeded in a centuries-long conspiracy to break the Haven Sector and with it the worst threat to their plans.
...I have a lot of feelings about Haven and the Grand Alliance.
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