jdtinIA wrote:Rereadibg the series. Just got done with HAE. Question : Why wasn't Honor Courts-Martialed for failure to perform her duties?
If the RMN's Military Code is anything like the US UCMJ they had a perfect chance to get rid of her and they blew it. The would have been an inquest into the loss of "Wayfarer"
Honor failed to remove certain personnel who were to be taken to the nearest RMN facility.
I refer to Stilman (sp?) and his crew of attempted deserters.
To attempt to throw the book at Honor I think you'd have to prove several things.
That it was safe and in accordance with standing orders to remove dangerous prisoners from the brig and take them to a civilian passenger liner.
That the prisoners were in fact still alive after the initial heavy damage Wayfarer suffered.
We know that after Master at Arms Thomas and his senior assistant died none of the surviving police force members (with their chain of command apparently in tatters) knew to check the status of the prisoners - but it's not clear that had they checked on them they would have done more than ensure they were still safely secured in the brig.
The remaining police presumably believed that the prisoners had been checked or had died. And in a mostly voluntary self-reporting partial evacuation nobody was tasked to sweep the ship for people who might be trapped with non-functional comms -- like they might have if fully abandoning the ship while not immediately under fire.
And by the time the ship was finally evacuated, after her death ride, everyone in the brig was quite dead and presumably the final sweeps for trapped or incapacitated personnel, as the lifeboats arrived to shuttle the few combined survivors to the passenger liner, would have noted that fact (but probably not when that hit to the brig occurred)
There was clearly a breakdown due to the casualties of the fight with the first ambushers but it's not clear its something you can plausibly court marshal Honor over (despite a Captain being ultimately responsible for everything that happens on her ship)
And of course High Ridge and co weren't yet running the government or admiralty, so their ability to force a court marshal would have been pretty limited after Honor returned from Silesia -- basically just grandstanding in Lords or to the 'faxes.
