Honorverse ramblings and musings

Huh. I've never seen or heard of "standup fight" meaning fair fight, or seen it defined that way in any dictionary. Could just be I don't see those kinds of movies. No apologies necessary.

cthia wrote: Question. Was any of Grayson's orbital farms destroyed? I remember mention of it, but don't remember the specifics.

Anyone recall right off hand?

Which, if they didn't attack the Orbital Farms, and could have, then wouldn't that argue against the MAlign being the type of heartless killers that carry out planetary strikes?

IIRC from Mission of Honor, the farms weren't damaged as they are mostly in Grayson orbit and the attack was concentrated on Blackbird station.

Not to say that the MAlignment wouldn't have attacked them if they could (after all, a starving ally is another calamity for Manticore, and the potential deaths of millions by starvation wouldn't cause the Detwilers to bat an eye), but they (MAlignment) had limited resources and had to concentrate on taking out the primary targets.

SWM wrote:Huh. I've never seen or heard of "standup fight" meaning fair fight, or seen it defined that way in any dictionary. Could just be I don't see those kinds of movies. No apologies necessary.

You know. It could just be a regional thing. As far back as I can remember, even as a little kid, standup fight meant a fair fight.

I remember a football coach who would constantly use the term "standup contest." I remember it so well, as I am sure everyone on the team would remember it, even after all these years, because we knew what it meant in that context. A lot of people were NOT going to play. Why? This was midget league football. And in my town we had lots of supporters and lots of kids on our team. Many midget league teams didn't have many players. Our coach would meet that challenge by handicapping us. We hated it! Why should members on our team be punished just because some other team didn't have many players. But he was trying to teach us a sense of fair play. We had 40-50 players. One team barely made their eleven with 13. Total. They played both ways.


If I were to guess, I'd say the slang has its origins in the fact that a fist fight can quickly deteriorate into a wrestling match, where illegal biting and choking can occur. Which is why, during Ultimate Fighter - kickboxing contests, once the two contestants are on the ground with no advantage, they are separated and made to stand up. Hence, the phrase "Stand up and fight fair." (And no. No one would say fair-ly. Correct grammar is not a consideration in the heat of battle.)

My father, a marine, would also use it. If two of his boys are going to fight each other, it's going to be a "stand-up" fight. No help from any of the other nine kids. In my father's context, it meant "stand-up and fight fairly." Like a real man.

Ask several people in your social circle what their understanding of a stand-up fight is, without prompting. I would be very surprised if someone didn't say "fair fight."

Weird Harold wrote:
Haven was a target for the original "Oyster Harbor" plan that was scaled back into "Oyster Bay." Bolthole wasn't targeted because the MAlign doesn't know where it is any better than Manticore does (did). Haven was dropped from the target list because they don't have enough Sharks and Ghosts and the Lenny Dets intended for the full "Oyster Harbor" plan aren't complete and won't be complete in adequate numbers for a year or two, IIRC.

WH.

Is there any textev that the Malign doesn't know where the PRH Bolthole is?

George J. Smith wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:
Haven was a target for the original "Oyster Harbor" plan that was scaled back into "Oyster Bay." Bolthole wasn't targeted because the MAlign doesn't know where it is any better than Manticore does (did). Haven was dropped from the target list because they don't have enough Sharks and Ghosts and the Lenny Dets intended for the full "Oyster Harbor" plan aren't complete and won't be complete in adequate numbers for a year or two, IIRC.

WH.

Is there any textev that the Malign doesn't know where the PRH Bolthole is?

When discussing OB, one Detweiler tells another that they don't know where Bolthole is.

crewdude48 wrote:

When discussing OB, one Detweiler tells another that they don't know where Bolthole is.

Thanks Dude

George J. Smith wrote:Is there any textev that the Malign doesn't know where the PRH Bolthole is?

Closest I could find in a quick sweep was this, from Storm from the Shadows (italics mine):

"I think I would, in their place," Benjamin said before Daniel could answer. "On the other hand, let's say they do make that demand. Do you really think even Manticore could ultimately keep Haven from managing a secret rearmament program somewhere? I'm not talking about the short term. But as time passed, I'm sure someone who's already figured out how to build a completely secret shipyard complex and R and D center once could figure out how to do it again. It would still be the best-case scenario from our perspective, though, since I don't think it's very likely Haven could manage to pull it off before we were ready. And I imagine Manticore would probably accept at least a modest build-down in its own active wallers once it had disarmed Haven."

But I do think there is another mention and I'll see if I can run across it.

Going off on a tangent here...

Benjamin said before Daniel could answer. "....But as time passed, I'm sure someone who's already figured out how to build a completely secret shipyard complex and R and D center once could figure out how to do it again...."

I'm not so sure about this. A totalitarian state (Haven under the committee) was able to create Bolthole and keep it a secret in wartime. The new Republic was able to maintain that secret while they were still at war (either technically or actually). But a free society in peacetime? I don't think anything on Bolthole's scale could be kept secret from politicians looking to raid the project for resources (or give their political allies contracts).

Hutch wrote:

cthia wrote:
Question. Was any of Grayson's orbital farms destroyed? I remember mention of it, but don't remember the specifics.

Anyone recall right off hand?

Which, if they didn't attack the Orbital Farms, and could have, then wouldn't that argue against the MAlign being the type of heartless killers that carry out planetary strikes?

IIRC from Mission of Honor, the farms weren't damaged as they are mostly in Grayson orbit and the attack was concentrated on Blackbird station.

Not to say that the MAlignment wouldn't have attacked them if they could (after all, a starving ally is another calamity for Manticore, and the potential deaths of millions by starvation wouldn't cause the Detwilers to bat an eye), but they (MAlignment) had limited resources and had to concentrate on taking out the primary targets.

Thanks Hutch, you've always been a forum Officer and a Gentleman.

I wasn't quite sure, but I thought that that was the case with the farms. But I can't understand why they didn't attack the farms. It seems they'd be a close strategic second behind Blackbird. For the reasons you stated. Food is more important than warships.

Tactically, how hard could it have been to include the farms in the attack? Detection before targeting?

cthia wrote: Question. Was any of Grayson's orbital farms destroyed? I remember mention of it, but don't remember the specifics. Anyone recall right off hand?

Which, if they didn't attack the Orbital Farms, and could have, then wouldn't that argue against the MAlign being the type of heartless killers that carry out planetary strikes?

Keep in mind, the MAlign hasn't directly carried out ANY planetary strikes, although through their Manpower patsies they intended to take out the slave population on Torch. Then again, they don't see the slave lines as "full-rights humans", anyway which is the entire problem with their whole philosophy. The Yawata strike happened because of planetary impacts, not Eridani Edict violations. I think even the Detweilers would frown on a 'raze the planet's resources into famine' approach, because while they're all about galactic domination, they're trying to prove genetic superiority which people will accept, and genocidal warfare doesn't fit that mental mold.

Not that the SL is about to side with Grayson, but an attack on orbital farms in any system would likely be something that would wake up enough folks in the SLN and elsewhere that there was truly a new galactic evil out there, as opposed to the one they've been ignoring for centuries. Bad karma for the MAlign if enough people in the League start asking the right kind of questions.