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Honorverse ramblings and musings

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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by kzt   » Tue Oct 02, 2018 11:08 am

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“The race is not alwys to the swift nor the battle to the strong—but that’s the way to bet.”
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by cthia   » Tue Oct 02, 2018 11:12 am

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The danger is irrevocably soiling Benjamin's reputation if his People's Champion can be accused of cheating, or rather, exhibiting the deceitful qualities of a wicked infidel

. . . or murder.

If need be, I can scare up the passage in Flag in Exile which witnesses Benjamin's decision to never lie to his constituents as Protector of Grayson. He will admit the truth even if it hurts him, as he did when he had to corroborate all of the circumstantial evidence against Honor in the collapse of the Mueller School Dome Project, although he was smelling defeat with that SNAFU.

The buzzards were circling carcass for certain.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by cthia   » Thu Oct 04, 2018 12:20 pm

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cthia wrote:Your Honor, I wish this filed as Exhibit A . . .

. . .

"Let it be done court."



Here's the thing . . .


THING.
she'd tried, at first, to discourage Nimitz from sharing the feelings of those about her with her. But it was like trying to remember not to breathe, and, she admitted, she'd clung to Nimitz with such near desperation over the last T-year that it had become almost impossible not to know what people around her felt. She told herself—or tried to—that it was little different from being exceptionally good at reading expressions, but either way, she'd finally accepted that Nimitz wasn't going to let her not use her newfound abilities.


****** *


Maybe Honor did it on her own. I don't dispute she had the ability. I don't dispute that without Nimitz the results would have been the same. I'll bet on it!

But that's not the point. The point may not even be whether or not it was a fair fight. Though I can't imagine Burdette's family NOT screaming bloody murder if Honor's secret ever got out. In a match where there is a "war of wills" and a search for the "crease." I think Honor's ability should have been divulged to Burdette. Much as she was honest with the IAN about her secret weapon hidden in her finger.

Putting all of that aside, it's time you all sample the flavor of logic that goes on inside of my head. I've chosen this opportunity to give you all a play by play of my personal reasoning as textev came at me blind . . .

No way do I think Honor needed Nimitz. The point is Nimitz isn't going to have it any other way. This isn't a game to Nimitz who knows exactly what's at stake. His person's - and his own life is riding on the edge of Honor's sword too. Burdette would have carved two pigeons with one blade. No way would it have made sense to Nimitz to let Honor die, and then berate himself, if he had lived, because he didn't share that one thing with her when it was a matter of life and death that she know.

Being Honor's number one armsman, Nimitz sure as hell detected Burdette's crease for himself! Whether he shared it with Honor might be debatable, but remember. It's like breathing.

Unless you think Nimitz held his breath.

That's possible. We Two-legs quite often hold our own breath or outright forget to breathe in those moments. But, well, Nimitz hated water. So he wasn't exactly in the practice of holding his breath. Unless you think predators are in the habit of getting close enough to choke him . . .

And with those odds, Burdette had a right to know.

One thing is for certain? . . .

Honor's abilities should definitely remain a secret now


Mueller and Co. already think of her as a deceitful whore-n-harlot.

"jus' sayin"

Vince wrote:I think Burdette forfeited any right to know when he acknowledged his guilt to the entire planet:
Flag in Exile, Chapter 29 wrote:"Wait!"
He lunged to his feet, and his bellow shook the Chamber. He saw Mayhew twitch at his sudden shout, but the bitch didn't even blink, and somehow that gave him fresh strength. There was a way, he told himself. There was still a way to destroy her and, in her destruction, prove he was God's champion.
For a moment he thought the oncoming armsmen would ignore his cry, but then the officer at their head looked at the Protector, and Mayhew raised a hand. He said nothing, simply stood waiting with contempt plain on his face, and Burdette descended to the Conclave floor. He brushed through the armsmen with cold disdain and threw the bitch a single hate-filled glare, then turned to face the Keys of Grayson.
"My Lords," he cried, "I do not dispute the facts this harlot claims, nor do I regret any of my acts! I say only that I neither desired nor ordered Reverend Hanks' death, and that no man can prove against me, for I never even knew he would be present. But yes—yes, My Lords!—I did each and every other thing this foreign-born whore claims, and I would do them again—do them a thousand times again!—before I let an infidel fornicator and this traitor who calls himself Protector pollute and poison a world sacred to God!"
He saw the other steadholders' shock as he admitted his guilt. No, as he proclaimed it and flung it in the bitch's face! And he understood their confusion, for they didn't know what he intended. A rush of power, the assurance that God was with him yet, filled him, and he wheeled to glare at Benjamin Mayhew.
"I reject your right to condemn me to death in order to silence God's voice of opposition to your corrupt abuse of power! As is my ancient right before God, the law, and this Conclave, I challenge your decree! Let your Champion stand forth and prove the true will of God sword-to-sword, in the ancient way of our fathers, and may God preserve the righteous!"
Italics are the author's, boldface is my emphasis.

Burdette wasn't, by his own admission, righteous. God answered his prayer, preserving the righteous and striking down the unrighteous. The idea of God forgiving sin is directly dependent on the sinner acknowledging their sins, and repenting those sins. Burdette was defiant, not repentant, and would commit his sins again.

The Opposition may not make it simply about Burdette's rights, but about the integrity of the People's Champion, therefore the integrity of the Protector of Grayson.

They are a wily bunch. Remember, Burdette was acting as he felt was his responsibility to the Doctrine of his test. There is a fine line the Protector walked needing to separate Church from State.

Burdette and Co., did not wage war with the Church of Humanity Unchained. But with the Sacristy—the people behind the scenes erroneously leading Grayson out of favor with Tester.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by Vince   » Thu Oct 04, 2018 6:06 pm

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Vince wrote:I think Burdette forfeited any right to know when he acknowledged his guilt to the entire planet:
Flag in Exile, Chapter 29 wrote:"Wait!"
He lunged to his feet, and his bellow shook the Chamber. He saw Mayhew twitch at his sudden shout, but the bitch didn't even blink, and somehow that gave him fresh strength. There was a way, he told himself. There was still a way to destroy her and, in her destruction, prove he was God's champion.
For a moment he thought the oncoming armsmen would ignore his cry, but then the officer at their head looked at the Protector, and Mayhew raised a hand. He said nothing, simply stood waiting with contempt plain on his face, and Burdette descended to the Conclave floor. He brushed through the armsmen with cold disdain and threw the bitch a single hate-filled glare, then turned to face the Keys of Grayson.
"My Lords," he cried, "I do not dispute the facts this harlot claims, nor do I regret any of my acts! I say only that I neither desired nor ordered Reverend Hanks' death, and that no man can prove against me, for I never even knew he would be present. But yes—yes, My Lords!—I did each and every other thing this foreign-born whore claims, and I would do them again—do them a thousand times again!—before I let an infidel fornicator and this traitor who calls himself Protector pollute and poison a world sacred to God!"
He saw the other steadholders' shock as he admitted his guilt. No, as he proclaimed it and flung it in the bitch's face! And he understood their confusion, for they didn't know what he intended. A rush of power, the assurance that God was with him yet, filled him, and he wheeled to glare at Benjamin Mayhew.
"I reject your right to condemn me to death in order to silence God's voice of opposition to your corrupt abuse of power! As is my ancient right before God, the law, and this Conclave, I challenge your decree! Let your Champion stand forth and prove the true will of God sword-to-sword, in the ancient way of our fathers, and may God preserve the righteous!"
Italics are the author's, boldface is my emphasis.

Burdette wasn't, by his own admission, righteous. God answered his prayer, preserving the righteous and striking down the unrighteous. The idea of God forgiving sin is directly dependent on the sinner acknowledging their sins, and repenting those sins. Burdette was defiant, not repentant, and would commit his sins again.
cthia wrote:The Opposition may not make it simply about Burdette's rights, but about the integrity of the People's Champion, therefore the integrity of the Protector of Grayson.

They are a wily bunch. Remember, Burdette was acting as he felt was his responsibility to the Doctrine of his test. There is a fine line the Protector walked needing to separate Church from State.

Burdette and Co., did not wage war with the Church of Humanity Unchained. But with the Sacristy—the people behind the scenes erroneously leading Grayson out of favor with Tester.

When Burdette used the ancient right of challenging the Protector's decree he was actually choosing to deliberately face Honor in a deliberate attempt to legally murder her (and as a bonus, excape any further prosecution for his crimes). The text immediately prior to Burdette issuing his challenge.
Flag in Exile, Chapter 29 wrote:The whisper of conversation seemed small and lost as the steadholders waited. No one dared raise his voice, and the tension in their ancient, horseshoe-shaped Conclave Chamber could have been chipped with a knife. No one knew what was to happen here this day, yet all feared it.
The events in Harrington Steading hung heavy in their minds. Fifty hours had passed since the first stunning reports, and still all they knew were rumors. But what had been ordered as a closed session of the Keys had become something else, and holo-vid cameras rimmed the Spectators' Gallery above them, waiting to carry whatever was to transpire here to every HD in the star system.
Yet they had no idea, no hint, of what that was to be. It was unheard of for them to be so ignorant, for there to be no Council leaks—not even a single media snippet—to provide some clue, yet it had happened. And so they sat, awaiting the Protector's arrival in confusion as great as any of their steaders', and like the cameras, their eyes clung to the vacant desk directly below the Protector's throne. The one blazoned with the Harrington arms and the seal of the Protector's Champion, whose velvet-padded brackets bore the naked blade of the Grayson Sword of State.
The one whose owner, if the rumors were true, lay dead or dying even as they sat and wondered.
Something happened. A stir ran through the Gallery, and the cameras swung towards the Chamber doors. The steadholders' eyes followed the lenses, their murmured conversations died, and when the massive wooden panels swung open, the whispering creak of their hinges was ear-shattering in the sudden silence.
Benjamin IX walked through those doors and into that silence with a face of stone. For the first time in living memory, the Door Warden neither challenged nor announced the Protector's entrance, and more than one steadholder's mouth went dry as the significance sank home.
There was one time, and only one, when the Protector might ignore the Keys' corporate equality with him in this, their Chamber . . . and that time was when he came to pass judgment upon one of them.
Burdette fought to control his expression, but his face tightened as the Protector walked to his throne in the horseshoe's bend with a slow, deliberate stride. Benjamin mounted to the dais and turned, seating himself, and only then did the Keys realize someone else was missing. Reverend Hanks, as the temporal head of Grayson, should have accompanied the Protector, and a hushed almost-sound of fresh confusion ran through the stillness as his absence registered.
"My Lords," Benjamin's voice was harsh as cold iron, "I come here tonight with the gravest news a Protector has brought this Conclave in six hundred years. I come with news of a treason which surpasses even that of Jared Mayhew, who called himself Maccabeus. A treason, My Lords, I did not believe any Grayson capable of committing . . . until Tuesday night."
Sweat dotted Burdette's brow, and he dared not blot it lest he betray himself to his peers. His heart hammered, and he stared out across the floor of the horseshoe at Samuel Mueller, but his ally looked as confused as any other man there, with no slightest hint that he suspected what Mayhew was talking about. Nor did he spare Burdette so much as a glance . . . and then the Protector spoke again, and all eyes, even Burdette's, snapped back to him as filings to a magnet.
"Tuesday night, My Lords, I had summoned you to a closed session. Each of you knew it. Each of you was pledged, and charged by law, to keep that summons secret. The purpose of that session was to acquaint you with new information concerning the collapse of the Mueller Middle School dome. I had informed none of you of that purpose, but someone among you guessed, and that someone did not wish you to learn of what I had discovered."
Benjamin paused, and the silence was absolute. Not even a reporter whispered into his hush phone.
"My Lords," the Protector said, "the collapse of that dome was not an accident." Someone gasped, but Benjamin continued in that same iron voice. "Nor was it the result of bad design, nor even, as you have been told, of faulty construction materials. That dome, My Lords, was made to collapse by men whose sole purpose was to discredit Steadholder Harrington."
A vast, deep susurration ran around the chamber, but the Protector continued speaking, and the sound died instantly.
"Tuesday night, I could only have told you my investigators believed that to be the case, and we knew even that much only because Adam Gerrick, Sky Domes' chief engineer, had performed a brilliant piece of reconstruction. For that reason, I wished Mr. Gerrick to be present, so that he could, if you so desired, explain his conclusions. I regret to inform you that it will not now be possible for him to do so, however, for Adam Gerrick is dead—dead with ninety-five other men and women in the crash of Lady Harrington's pinnace in Harrington Steading. And like the Mueller dome collapse, that crash was no accident. Adam Gerrick and the others who died with him were murdered. Murdered by the men who used a surface-to-air missile to shoot down that pinnace because Lady Harrington was aboard it. The same men, Steadholders of Grayson, who also murdered Reverend Julius Hanks."
For perhaps as much as ten seconds it totally failed to register. Benjamin hadn't even raised his voice, and the enormity of what he'd said was too vast for comprehension. The words meant nothing, for their meaning was impossible. They simply could not be true.
But then, suddenly, it did register, and a strangled shout sprang as a single, anguished cry of disbelief from seventy-nine throats, then died in an instant of fresh, stunned silence—of shock too profound for any words. But this silence lasted only a moment, and the sound which broke it was indescribable. Not yet words, for, once more, there were no words to hold the first, formless stirring of its fury.
William Fitzclarence staggered, clutching at his desk for support. No! It couldn't be!
His eyes darted to Mueller, but this time Mueller was as genuinely stunned as anyone—as stunned as Burdette himself—and when his shock faded, it was replaced by fury as dark as that of any other man in the Chamber. Nor was that fury feigned. It was all he could do not to glare accusingly at Burdette, but he stopped himself just in time, for to do so would be to reveal his own knowledge and brand himself as the man's accomplice.
The fool! Oh, the damned, bungling, incompetent fool! He couldn't have known Hanks would be there—not even he was stupid enough to do something like this knowingly! But neither had he checked, and if Mayhew truly knew who'd been responsible, if even the thinnest thread of evidence linking Mueller to Burdette were found—
Benjamin Mayhew sat on his throne and watched shock smash through the Conclave. He watched the first total disbelief change, saw its numb anesthesia vanish into the awareness of loss, into pain and a soul-deep rage he knew was mirrored in the face of every person watching the HD broadcast of this Conclave session, and then he stood.
That silent movement did what no shouted plea for order could have. It jerked every eye back to him, stilled every tongue, and his gaze swept from one end of the horseshoe of steadholders to the other.
"My Lords," his voice was harsh, still cold but wrapped now around a core of white-hot anger, "Tuesday night was the most shameful night in Grayson's history since the Fifty-Three were murdered in this very Chamber. For the first time in my memory, I am ashamed to own myself a Grayson and confess that I spring from the same planet as the men who could plan such acts out of bigotry, intolerance, fear, and ambition!"
His fury lashed them like a whip, and more than one steadholder physically recoiled from its ferocity.
"Yes, Reverend Hanks was murdered. The leader of our Church and Faith, the man chosen by Father Church as God's steward on this planet, was murdered, yet the motives for that crime are almost worse than the crime itself, for he wasn't even its true target. Oh, no, My Lords! The true target of this vicious, cowardly attack was a woman, a steadholder, a naval officer whose courage saved our world from conquest. The true purpose was to murder a woman whose sole offense was to be incomparably better than this planet has just proven it deserves!"
Benjamin Mayhew's wrath was a living presence, stalking through the Chamber with claws and fangs of fire, but then he closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was very, very quiet.
"What have we become, My Lords? What has happened to our world and our Faith that Grayson men can convince themselves God Himself calls them to destroy a blameless woman simply because she is different? Simply because she challenges us to grow beyond ourselves, to become more and better than we are, just as the Tester Himself demands of us? What possible explanation—what conceivable reason—can men who claim to love God give for using the murder of children—our children, My Lords!—to destroy a woman who has done only good for our world and offered her very life to protect all its children? Tell me that, My Lords. For the love of the God we say we serve, how did we let this happen? How could we let it happen?"
No voice answered. No word was spoken, for the shame cut too deep. For all their fear, all their resentment of the changes in their world and the erosion of their power, most of the men in that Chamber were decent ones whose limitations were those of their rearing. In the final analysis, their anger at Honor Harrington and Benjamin Mayhew sprang from the way in which she and the Protector's reforms offended their concept of proper social behavior, and that concept rested upon rules they'd been taught as children. But they were no longer children, and in that moment, they saw themselves through the pitiless lens of their Protector's anguished words and shrank from what they saw.
"My Lords, Tuesday night Reverend Hanks faced that question, and he answered it," Benjamin said softly, and saw his own pain etched in the steadholders' faces as he spoke Hanks' name. "Reverend Hanks knew how poisoned with hate Lady Harrington's enemies had become, and he took our duty to prevent such crimes upon his own shoulders and, as the Tester's own Son calls upon each of us to do at need, he chose to die so that someone else might live. When the murderers who shot down Lady Harrington's pinnace realized she'd survived its crash—" a fresh stir ran through the Chamber at the news that she had survived, but his words gave them no chance to consider it yet "—they attacked her more directly, determined to complete the foulness to which they had set their hands, and they found her alone and defenseless, for she had sent her armsmen back to attempt the rescue of those still trapped in the wreckage of her pinnace.
"But she was not quite alone," Benjamin said more softly yet, "for when a man who'd donned the uniform of her own Guard came upon her with a gun, Reverend Hanks was with her. And when the Reverend realized the purpose of that man, he put his own body between her and her killer, and that—that, My Lords—is how our Reverend died. Giving his life to protect the blameless, as all who call themselves godly have been charged to do by the Tester, the Intercessor, and the Comforter."
He stopped speaking and raised his hand as if in signal. The silence in the Chamber was once more a living thing as the whipsawed steadholders wondered what that signal foretold, and then, unexpectedly, the massive doors opened once more, and Honor Harrington stepped through them.
The click of her heels echoed and reechoed in the stillness as she moved down the stone-floored Chamber's length like a tall, slender flame of white and green. The Harrington Key glittered on her breast below the Star of Grayson, and the Star's scarlet ribbon was stained with darker spots whose origin every man in that chamber guessed. The dark line of a deep cut, already responding to quick heal, seamed her forehead, and her right cheek was brutally bruised and discolored. The fluffy pelt of the treecat on her shoulder was singed and scorched, yet he held his head as high as she held her own, gazing, as she, straight at the Protector. It was as if they and Benjamin were alone in the Chamber, and the pain in her eyes—the sorrow for the deaths of her own people, and always and above all for the gentle and compassionate man who had died for her—was a weight no man there could face. They stared at her, frozen in shame, grief, and fear, and she ignored them all as she walked to the foot of Benjamin IX's throne.
"Your Grace, I come before you for justice." Her soprano voice was a thing of cold steel, the pain in it deeper even than the pain in her eyes. "By my oath to you, I call upon yours to me. As I swore to protect and guard my people, so I now require your aid to that end, for he who has killed and maimed my steaders carries the key of a steadholder, and I may not touch him while he shelters behind its protection."
The entire Chamber held its breath as it recognized the formal appeal to the Protector's Justice, unheard in this Chamber in generations, and then Benjamin spoke.
"By my oath to you, I honor your demand for justice, My Lady. If any man in this Chamber has offended against you or yours, name him, and if you bear proof of his crimes, then steadholder or no, he shall answer for them as the laws of God and Man decree."

William Fitzclarence stared in horror at the woman before the throne, for he knew, now. Even through his own shock at the news of Reverend Hanks' death, he knew. Mayhew would never have allowed it to go this far unless the harlot did have proof, and his promise of justice was a sentence of death.
"Your Grace, I have proof," Honor said, and her anguish at the deaths of Julius Hanks, Adam Gerrick, Jared Sutton, Frederick Sully, Gilbert Troubridge, and ninety-one other men and women fused with a rage as deep and bitter as that of any man in that Chamber as she turned from the throne at last and looked straight at Burdette.
"I name my enemy William Allen Hillman Fitzclarence, Steadholder Burdette," she said in a voice colder than the heart of space. Her treecat hissed, baring his fangs, and Burdette's knees sagged as every eye in the Chamber turned upon him like the closing jaws of a trap. "I accuse him of murder, of treason, of my own attempted assassination, and of conspiring in the murder of children and of Reverend Julius Hanks. I bring before you the witnessed and sealed confession of Edward Julius Martin of Burdette Steading, freely offered under the law of Church and Sword, that William Fitzclarence personally ordered my death; that William Fitzclarence, Edmond Augustus Marchant, his steader, Samuel Marchant Harding, also his steader, Austin Vincent Taylor, also his steader, and twenty-seven other men in his service, contrived the collapse of the Mueller Middle School dome and the deaths of fifty-two men and thirty children; and that as a direct consequence of William Fitzclarence's orders, the Reverend Julius Hanks, First Elder of the Church of Humanity Unchained, died giving his own life that I might live."
She paused, and Burdette's ragged breathing was the only sound in the vast, hushed Chamber. She let the silence linger while a small cruel part of her—one whose vicious strength shocked her—savored what must be running through his mind, and then she raised her right hand and pointed at him.
"Your Grace, by your oath to me and the proofs I have offered, I claim the life of William Allen Hillman Fitzclarence as forfeit for his crimes, for his cruelty, and for his violation of his sacred oaths to you, to this Conclave, to the People of Grayson, and to God Himself."
"My Lady," Benjamin Mayhew said softly, "by my oath to you, you shall have it."
* * *
William Fitzclarence stared at Honor Harrington as his fellow steadholders recoiled from him, and terror filled him. No. No, it couldn't happen! Mayhew and the bitch had twisted and perverted all he'd tried to accomplish, made God's Own work into something ugly and vile, and now his very life had been cast into the hands of an infidel whore unworthy to breathe the air of God's world? God would not permit this. He wouldn't!
Yet even as he thought that, the stone-faced Protector gestured, and four armsmen of the Steadholders' Guard, each in the colors of a different steading, crossed the Chamber floor and started up the shallow steps towards him. Their faces were as hard as the Protector's own, their eyes as filled with hate for him—for God's warrior!—as those of the bitch who'd brought Satan's poison into his world, and he knew it was happening. That his life would end, and that he would be remembered not as the man who'd fought with every weapon at his command against sin and damnation, but as a murderer of children. As the man who'd ordered the murder of God's Steward when he hadn't even known Hanks was there! The ruin of his world, the destruction of all he believed in, of God's Own law was upon him, and there was nothing he could d—
Italics are the author's, boldface and underlined text is my emphasis.

When Burdette claimed his right of challenge, he brought down God's judgement of his actions on himself, thinking himself to be righteous (erroneously). And God judged that Burdette had failed his test, and did not preserve his life:
Flag in Exile, Chapter 29 wrote:Honor waited, poised and still, centered physically and mentally, her eyes watching every part of his body without focusing on any. She felt his frustration, but it was as distant and unimportant as the ache of her broken ribs. She simply waited—and then, suddenly, she moved.
She never knew, then or later, what William Fitzclarence's "crease" was. She simply knew she'd recognized it. That something deep inside her saw the moment he committed himself, the instant his arms tightened to bring his blade slashing down.
The instant in which he was entirely focused on the attack, and not on defense.
Her body responded to that recognition with the trained reaction speed of someone born and bred at the bottom of a gravity well fifteen percent more powerful than her opponent's. Her blade flashed up in a blinding, backhand arc, and the Sword of State's razor-sharp spine opened Burdette's torso from right hip to left shoulder. Clothing and flesh parted like cobwebs, and she heard the start of his explosive cry as shock and pain froze his blade. But he never completed that scream, for even as it rose in his throat and he began to fold forward over his opened belly, her wrists turned easily, and she slashed back to her left in a flashing continuation of her original movement, backed by all the whip-crack power of her body, and William Fitzclarence's head leapt from his shoulders in a geyser of blood.
-------------------------------------------------------------
History does not repeat itself so much as it echoes.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by ldwechsler   » Fri Oct 05, 2018 9:54 pm

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Ritual challenges are NOT considered murder LEGALLY. Yes, family members may feel it is true and if the sides are really mismatched there could be issues.

That was hardly true in the Honor-Burdette match in terms of her killing him. She didn't use Nimitz in the fighting at all. She used her knowledge of people fighting...something learned by all great swordsmen.

Had it gone the other way, Burdette might have had problems about killer her since a) killing women is really looked down on by Grayson people, and b) she was exhausted from saving the planet.

But, although later events show that Burdette's heir was an even more cowardly slime, it was still not murder.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by cthia   » Fri Oct 05, 2018 10:20 pm

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Vince, you have such salient points, but of course, the worms are still squirming and a few have made a break for it. The biggest worm is safely ensconced, having spun a web of deceit.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by cthia   » Fri Oct 05, 2018 10:23 pm

cthia
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ldwechsler wrote:Ritual challenges are NOT considered murder LEGALLY. Yes, family members may feel it is true and if the sides are really mismatched there could be issues.

That was hardly true in the Honor-Burdette match in terms of her killing him. She didn't use Nimitz in the fighting at all. She used her knowledge of people fighting...something learned by all great swordsmen.

Had it gone the other way, Burdette might have had problems about killer her since a) killing women is really looked down on by Grayson people, and b) she was exhausted from saving the planet.

But, although later events show that Burdette's heir was an even more cowardly slime, it was still not murder.

I'm not even a lawyer, but even I could make a good case for murder.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by Vince   » Sat Oct 06, 2018 12:32 am

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cthia wrote:Vince, you have such salient points, but of course, the worms are still squirming and a few have made a break for it. The biggest worm is safely ensconced, having spun a web of deceit.

The whole idea of trial by combat as practiced by the Graysons is that God weighs in on the side of the victor. A secondary point was that Burdette asked God to preserve the righteous, and he did. Since Honor won the duel, God preserved the righteous by being on her side.

Exhibit A: Burdette's dead body on the floor of the Conclave Chamber at the end of the duel.

Burdette made the mistake of not being careful what you wish for. You might say that Burdette not only lost his head, but also hit the cutting room floor hard.

If by biggest worm you mean Mueller, karma paid a visit when he got his comeuppance in:
Ashes of Victory, Chapter 46 wrote:"And now this," Elizabeth said at last, so softly it was difficult to hear her. "We may never prove it, but I'm convinced—I know—the Peeps were behind what happened at Yeltsin's Star. The Faithful may have been the actual triggermen, but it was the Peeps who got them the weapons . . . and probably the ones who suggested to the Faithful that they ought to 'convince' Mueller to smuggle the targeting beacons on board by giving them to me and Allen."
And Mueller's paid for it, too, Honor thought grimly.
The steadholder had been impeached, tried, and condemned to death in barely one week, and sentence had been carried out immediately. There had been no question who'd handed the memory stones to Elizabeth and Cromarty, and his fate had been sealed from the moment the beacon inside Elizabeth's stone had been discovered.
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History does not repeat itself so much as it echoes.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by ldwechsler   » Sat Oct 06, 2018 7:12 am

ldwechsler
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1235
Joined: Sun May 28, 2017 12:15 pm

cthia wrote:
ldwechsler wrote:Ritual challenges are NOT considered murder LEGALLY. Yes, family members may feel it is true and if the sides are really mismatched there could be issues.

That was hardly true in the Honor-Burdette match in terms of her killing him. She didn't use Nimitz in the fighting at all. She used her knowledge of people fighting...something learned by all great swordsmen.

Had it gone the other way, Burdette might have had problems about killer her since a) killing women is really looked down on by Grayson people, and b) she was exhausted from saving the planet.

But, although later events show that Burdette's heir was an even more cowardly slime, it was still not murder.

I'm not even a lawyer, but even I could make a good case for murder.


That's why you're not a lawyer. Murder (or homicide) has many variations. And there is always the "kill in self-defense theory."

Clearly, Honor killed in self-defense.

The fact that YOUR PERSONAL system thinks its murder is nice. You are probably a sweet person who loves kittens. But even the US recognized personal duels as legal for a while. Remember Hamilton.

A county's laws are what determines things. Germany got around its laws against murder in the Holocaust by determining that Jews and others were not really human. That worked legally until the fall of the Nazis when that "wrinkle" disappeared.

But under your definition, the destruction of Filareta's fleet was also murder.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by TFLYTSNBN   » Sat Oct 06, 2018 11:15 am

TFLYTSNBN

ldwechsler wrote:Ritual challenges are NOT considered murder LEGALLY. Yes, family members may feel it is true and if the sides are really mismatched there could be issues.

That was hardly true in the Honor-Burdette match in terms of her killing him. She didn't use Nimitz in the fighting at all. She used her knowledge of people fighting...something learned by all great swordsmen.

Had it gone the other way, Burdette might have had problems about killer her since a) killing women is really looked down on by Grayson people, and b) she was exhausted from saving the planet.

But, although later events show that Burdette's heir was an even more cowardly slime, it was still not murder.



Saving the planet came after the sword fight.
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