Anybody interested in seeing Manticore lose?

On Feb 13, 7:28 pm, Loren Pechtel <lorenpech... RemoveThis @hotmail.invalid.com>
wrote:

> Sure you can put the base out there but how are you going to hide the
> electronic emissions?

Electronic emissions only travel at the speed of light. Plan to build
your space armada in less than 1000 years, and locate your mega-
Bolthole more than 1000 light-years away from anywhere.

John Savard

On Feb 7, 5:11 pm, Willowhugger <charlie_the_cat_po....TakeThisOut@yahoo.com>
wrote:

> actually, I don't think I could take Manticore seriously if they lost
> to the Solarians. They've been pretty much established by David Weber
> as having the worst ships in the universe at this point. Personally,
> I also think the Havenites have a right for payback.

It's been pretty well established in the last two books that the
"real" war isn't between Haven and Manticore at all. Instead, Mesa is
manipulating things behind the scenes to keep this war continuing.

So what annoys me is that Manticore and Haven are being played for
fools for so long. It's time for Manticore's leadership to see through
this plot, and for Haven to stop doing really stupid things - "since
we can't convince Manticore that this is all a Mesan provocation,
let's just administer Manticore a crushing defeat through a sneak
attack. Never mind that this has *never* worked before, and is
unlikely to ever work in future as long as Honor Harrington still
draws breath..."

No; if Haven does this for a third time in a row, but this time
instead of getting its tail kicked at the end of the book, administers
a setback to Manticore to drag it out *still* longer... it would be a
sign that David Weber is getting bored, and is just cranking out the
space battles to rake in the money. The quality of the previous books
in the series makes that unlikely.

Crown of Slaves and Shadow of Saganami have provided lots of setup -
and there's going to be a *third* book in that series before the next
main-line Honor Harrington book. (Even before that, it's been noted
here that the next Honorverse book is another short story collection.)

The next book may still have to *open* in the context of Haven vs
Manticore, since the turn-around from that hasn't happened yet. But
switching to the real war is long overdue.

First, the evidence of Mesa being behind everything has to percolate
out. Manticore had suppressed the role of Frontier Security in the
difficulties surrounding the new Junction terminus because FS is too
dangerous an enemy, able to mobilize the Solarian League against
Manticore. But FS can be used as Mesa's tool.

So Manticore and Haven declare peace, and start going after Mesa.

Mesa fights back - by using FS to manufacture an incident, and pull
the Solarian League into a war against Manticore and Haven together.

These are the *obvious* developments; David Weber, of course, may have
a few less-than-obvious twists up his sleeve.

Mesa, of course, doesn't care so much whether the Solarian League or
Manticore/Haven wins, as long as the victory is Pyrrhic. Actually,
that's an oversimplification. Even a Pyrrhic victory by Manticore over
the Solarian League is very bad for Mesa, because they lose their best
customers, and the place to spend their money - and, in the long run,
Manticore gains Solaria's advanced technology. But if Mesa is
*reacting* in panic to defend its survival against Manticore, it won't
have the luxury of thinking about the odds and the long term.

If Mesa had the luxury of a long amount of preparation time to set up
for an attack on Manticore by the Solarian League, then they would
have their agents in FS and the Solarian government urge the Solarian
League to build a gigantic fleet in secret to overwhelm every
Manticoran system at once. But that won't happen, fortunately.

Still, with Mesa being the only real enemy, and the Solarian League
being potentially a much more dangerous enemy, this is obviously the
way to go for an exciting book about a fight for high and meaningful
stakes. And Manticore will need to suffer temporary multi-book
setbacks, if only because the ultimate victory over the Solarians and
Mesa would make everything after an anti-climax.

The overthrow of the Peeps, of course, didn't end the Manticore-Haven
conflict, and so victory over the Solarians could degenerate into
renewed conflict, but I think the first Solarian League/Manticore war
should be a multi-novel arc larger than the two previous ones in the
series (with midpoints Flag in Exile and In Enemy Hands).

The Solarians conquer Manticore, Grayson, and Haven; Honor Harrington,
though, is at large on some tiny backwards planet in Silesia... and
winds up building a fleet there to liberate the Galaxy! Since this is
clearly impossible, it will take even Honor a bit longer than one
book.

John Savard