cthia
Fleet Admiral
Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm
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Kizarvexis wrote:And just because Nimitz may have urged her to come clean about what really happened, doesn't mean Honor would listen. Especially, when it was tied into something as emotionally charged as attempted rape. And when Honor could justify to herself that she kicked the stuffing out of him and this could splash onto the service if it came out into the open. Remember the rumor campaign and how they got her to accept command of HMS Wayfarer to get them out of a bind? It was predicated on how Honor wouldn't do something for herself, but would do anything else duty required.
Johnathan_S wrote:And in some ways Honor probably felt that the physical damage she did to Young was an overreaction; she delivered the last few blows because she wanted vengeance not just to stop his unwanted physical contact, and that probably fed back into her refusal to report. If she'd used excessive force then she'd feel a bit guilty too and subconsciously all too likely to see it at least somewhat as offsetting offenses.
She'd be wrong about that - but it may have been a factor in her thinking... To the extent that you can categorize her choices after the attack as being thought through.
If she'd be unable to defend herself I feel certain that she would have reported the attack and rape.
cthia wrote:I have one particular problem with this logic which may denote a hiccup in my own. I'm trying to wave it off, but my DNA won't allow me. For the record, I'll just go ahead and at least list my qualms with it.
On the one hand, I can logically grasp Honor's possible concern for the navy.
OTOH, Jonathan's sentiment stirs my Aristotelian self a bit much. Honor was too much of a perfectionist and upright naval officer with an unwavering sense of morals, scruples and values. This woman was raised and instilled with an impeccable sense of right and wrong and duty. This is the woman who could not back down from sicking Beauty and the Beast on every freighter suspected of smuggling pelts including the freighters owned by Hauptman; even after her XO warned her what it could mean to her career after Hauptman caught wind of it. Honor had to do it, even at the expense of what it might mean to her career she still had to do it. She was willing to risk her career over it, because of her sense of right and wrong and order in the universe.
kizarvexis wrote:You are comparing the actions of someone who is still learning HOW to be an officer at the Academy with her actions after 25 years as an officer who had this mistake she made to learn from. When you are learning, you make mistakes. Don't forget Honor realized that it was a mistake to not take it to the Commandant after the fact. In fact, she says she hates herself for not speaking up. All of your concerns seem to me to be covered in OBS. On Basilisk Station, chapter 6 wrote:Honor was grateful for his silence, for her brain was trying to grapple with too many thoughts at once. Memories of the Academy dominated them, especially of the terrible scene in the commandant's office as Mr. Midshipman Lord Young, broken ribs and collarbone still immobilized, split lips still puffed and distended, one blackened eye swollen almost shut, was required to apologize to Ms. Midshipman Harrington for his "inappropriate language and actions" before the official reprimand for "conduct unbecoming" went into his file.
She should have told the whole story, she thought miserably, but he was the son of a powerful nobleman and she was only the daughter of a retired medical officer. And not a particularly beautiful one, either. Who would have believed the Earl of North Hollow's son had assaulted and attempted to rape a gawky, overgrown lump of a girl who wasn't even pretty? Besides, where was her proof? They'd been alone—Young had seen to that!—and she'd been so shaken she'd fled back to her dorm room instead of reporting it instantly. By the time anyone else knew a thing about it, his cronies had dragged him off to the infirmary with some story about "falling down the stairs" on his way to the gym.
And so she'd settled for the lesser charge, the incident that had happened earlier, before witnesses, when she rebuffed his smugly confident advances. Perhaps if she hadn't been so surprised, so taken aback by his sudden interest and obvious assurance that she would agree, she might have declined more gracefully. But it wasn't a problem she'd ever had before. She'd never developed the techniques for declining without affronting his overweening ego, and he hadn't taken it well. No doubt that "slight" to his pride was what had triggered later events, but his immediate response had been bad enough, and the Academy took a dim view of sexual harassment, especially when it took the form of insulting language and abusive conduct directed by a senior midshipman at a junior. Commandant Hartley had been furious enough with him over that, but who would have believed the truth?
Commandant Hartley would have, she thought. She'd realized that years ago, and hated herself for not telling him at the time. Looking back, she could recognize his hints, his all but overt pleas for her to tell him everything. If he hadn't suspected, he would hardly have required Young to apologize after she'd reduced him to a bloody pulp. Young had counted on neither the strength and reaction time Sphinx's gravity bestowed nor the extra tutoring in unarmed combat Chief MacDougal had been giving her, and she'd known better than to let him up after she had him down. He was only lucky he'd tried for her in the showers, when Nimitz wasn't around, for he would be far less handsome today if the treecat had been present.
No doubt it was as well Nimitz hadn't been there, and, she admitted, there'd been a certain savage joy in hurting him herself for what he'd tried to do. But the response had been entirely out of proportion to his official offense, and no one had ever doubted that his "fall" had been nothing of the sort. Hartley might not have had any proof, but he would never have come down on Young so harshly under the circumstances if he hadn't had a pretty shrewd notion of what had actually happened.
Yet she hadn't realized that then, and she'd told herself she'd already dealt with the matter, anyway. That she didn't want to precipitate a scandal that could only hurt the Academy. That it was a case of least said, soonest mended, since no one would have believed her anyway. Bad enough to be involved in something so humiliating and degrading without exposing herself to that, as well! She'd almost been able to hear the sniggers about the homely horse of a girl and her "delusions," and, after all, hadn't she let herself get a little carried away? There'd been no need to pound him into semi-consciousness. That had gone beyond simple selfdefense into the realm of punishment.
So she'd let the matter rest, and in so doing she'd bought herself the worst of both worlds. Attempted rape was one of the service's crash-and-burn offenses; if Young had been convicted of that, he would never have worn an officer's uniform, noble birth or no. But he hadn't been. She hadn't gotten him out of the service, and she had made an enemy for life, for Young would never forget that she'd beaten him bloody. Nor would he ever forgive her for the humiliation of being forced to apologize to her before Commandant Hartley and his executive officer, and he had powerful friends, both in and out of the service. She'd felt their influence more than once in her career, and his malicious delight in dropping full responsibility for the entire Basilisk System on her shoulders—leaving her with a single, over-age light cruiser to do a job which should have been the task of an entire flotilla—burned on her tongue like poison. It was petty and vicious . . . and entirely in keeping with his personality.
Yet after 25 years it seems she didn't learn a darn thing regarding the entire ordeal as she still didn't, couldn't and wouldn't come forth. In fact, she had actually gotten worse at it because the entire thing was allowed to build up such enormous pressures against the personal levee that she had erected that it was threatening to overrun the damn of her silence and as a result compromise her, the Star Kingdom, Grayson, the RMN and the GSN. She made things unnescessarily worse with her silence. Elizabeth could have helped her, but she kept silent. Hartley itched to help her, but she kept silent. Michelle tried to help her, but she kept silent. In a sense, she was responsible for the aftermath of failing to regulate that personal levee of hers. Because if she had told, Young would never have swam a tube again and many of her future problems would never have happened. An interesting thought was born in the beautiful mind of one of my Romanian friends, Ioana (You-wonna), that never occurred to me. When Honor failed to report Young to the proper authorities, she relinquished the initiative to Young. Had Young gone to a sympathetic ear first, may have helped make Honor appear to be guilty of Young's very version because it would have appeared that Honor was hiding the truth with her failure to report. And with Young coming forth first may have lent some measure of credence to his version of the truth. If Young had indeed kept his head and went that route, he may have been able to take from Honor what mattered the most to her, outside of her family and Nimitz. The navy. With the power of the files, and a little more than just circumstantial evidence of an officer losing her mind and seriously injuring another officer who painstakingly did all that he could do to prevent engaging and injuring her in return, Dimitri may have demanded Harrington's head and gotten it.
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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