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(Spoiler) Notification of change in Chain of Command

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(Spoiler) Notification of change in Chain of Command
Post by Teerakaar   » Thu Apr 05, 2018 11:57 pm

Teerakaar
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I've only read UH barely past the released snippets. But that was enough to bring something into focus that been bugging me for a while.

In SVW, when Admiral Sarnow was incapacitated, Honor as Flag Captain was required by regulations that she inform the next senior officer of the fleet that he/she was now in command. That duty was to be performed even under fire. Maybe especially under fire. I can't imagine any military organization that wouldn't have that rule in place. So why then did Filareta's Flag Captain NOT do the same thing?

Right at the beginning of UH, it's mentioned that Honor's missiles had a flight time of 160 seconds. Even though Honor didn't fire until after the bomb went off, let's say they were concurrent. Is the Flag Captain just gonna sit there for 2 minutes and 40 seconds saying "Damn, someone blew up the flag deck! What am I gonna do now?!?" Perhaps I shouldn't make that bet with a Solly, but still. So how is it that the only information about Filareta's flag deck is coming from a clandestine conversation between relatives?

Was the bomb big enough to disrupt an entire SD's communication capability? I can't imagine that without completely destroying the ship. Additional commands that activated when the bomb was triggered? Even that I find hard to believe being able to take out ALL communications. If nothing else, launch a small craft and use it to broadcast a message.

Just had to get that off of my chest. Anyone got any thoughts or ideas? Thanks for reading.
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Re: (Spoiler) Notification of change in Chain of Command
Post by Star Knight   » Fri Apr 06, 2018 12:16 am

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He probably should have but...

a) Its Battlefield. Inexperienced and incompetent.
b) They probably were preoccupied fighting the ship.
c) Wouldnt have made a difference anyway.
d) Finding out someone blew up the Flag Bridge and noone survived takes time.
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Re: (Spoiler) Notification of change in Chain of Command
Post by kzt   » Fri Apr 06, 2018 12:22 am

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It a big, heavily compartmented ship. You don’t need a huge explosion to kill or incapacitate everyone in a metal box. So they would have probably known what everyone else knew, they were not answering calls.
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Re: (Spoiler) Notification of change in Chain of Command
Post by pnakasone   » Fri Apr 06, 2018 1:25 pm

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Teerakaar wrote:I've only read UH barely past the released snippets. But that was enough to bring something into focus that been bugging me for a while.

In SVW, when Admiral Sarnow was incapacitated, Honor as Flag Captain was required by regulations that she inform the next senior officer of the fleet that he/she was now in command. That duty was to be performed even under fire. Maybe especially under fire. I can't imagine any military organization that wouldn't have that rule in place. So why then did Filareta's Flag Captain NOT do the same thing?

Right at the beginning of UH, it's mentioned that Honor's missiles had a flight time of 160 seconds. Even though Honor didn't fire until after the bomb went off, let's say they were concurrent. Is the Flag Captain just gonna sit there for 2 minutes and 40 seconds saying "Damn, someone blew up the flag deck! What am I gonna do now?!?" Perhaps I shouldn't make that bet with a Solly, but still. So how is it that the only information about Filareta's flag deck is coming from a clandestine conversation between relatives?

Was the bomb big enough to disrupt an entire SD's communication capability? I can't imagine that without completely destroying the ship. Additional commands that activated when the bomb was triggered? Even that I find hard to believe being able to take out ALL communications. If nothing else, launch a small craft and use it to broadcast a message.

Just had to get that off of my chest. Anyone got any thoughts or ideas? Thanks for reading.


The SLN probably dos not reward intuitive the way RMN had with Honor. Honor took a very big risk by not trying to give command over to the next in the chain of command. Her actions helped win the battle there for she got forgiven
for the lapse in command etiquette. Can you really see a SLN officer risking their career by not following procedure to letter.
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Re: (Spoiler) Notification of change in Chain of Command
Post by kzt   » Fri Apr 06, 2018 1:46 pm

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pnakasone wrote:The SLN probably dos not reward intuitive the way RMN had with Honor. Honor took a very big risk by not trying to give command over to the next in the chain of command. Her actions helped win the battle there for she got forgiven
for the lapse in command etiquette. Can you really see a SLN officer risking their career by not following procedure to letter.

As a matter of fact, I can see that that happening.
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Re: (Spoiler) Notification of change in Chain of Command
Post by cthia   » Fri Apr 06, 2018 1:50 pm

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Interesting question.

If I had to guess, I'd say it takes time before humans end up at a certain point in their decision making. Especially after shock and disarray. Especially if you are an inexperienced navy, arrogant and truly bewildered. Again, sort of like the human element of needing the required amount of time to be... human, brilliantly introduced in the movie, Sully.

Corrected link.

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: (Spoiler) Notification of change in Chain of Command
Post by runsforcelery   » Fri Apr 06, 2018 11:34 pm

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Teerakaar wrote:
Right at the beginning of UH, it's mentioned that Honor's missiles had a flight time of 160 seconds. Even though Honor didn't fire until after the bomb went off, let's say they were concurrent. Is the Flag Captain just gonna sit there for 2 minutes and 40 seconds saying "Damn, someone blew up the flag deck! What am I gonna do now?!?" Perhaps I shouldn't make that bet with a Solly, but still. So how is it that the only information about Filareta's flag deck is coming from a clandestine conversation between relatives?

<SNIP>

Just had to get that off of my chest. Anyone got any thoughts or ideas? Thanks for reading.


Nobody ever said that the Sollies didn't know that "something bad" happened to the flag deck aboard Oppenheimer. What they said was that no one outside the flagship knew precisely what the "something bad" was, and that the flagship didn't survive. In fact, was lost with all hands.

You've got 160 seconds. There's an explosion inside a massively armored compartment, powerful enough to kill everybody in it but nowhere near powerful enough to inflict damage outside it. Everyone inside is dead; no one outside knows what happened; and you have less than three minutes to figure out what happened. Even if you manage it aboard the flagship, what are the odds of finding out, passing it to communications, and getting the word out in that timeframe? And that presupposes that you don't have anything else to do in those same less than three minutes.


Your fleet has just fired on the enemy. The enemy is in the process of returning fire. You are the flag captain who now knows that something's happened to the flag deck but not what. You spend — what? Thirty seconds? Trying to figure out what the hell just happened. At that point, you either pass command to the next senior admiral — who sorta has to start from scratch figuring out exactly what's going on — or you decide there's no time for that and retain and exercise tactical control yourself. You decide to retain it yourself? Good, Captain! Gutsy move! And now what's your next move? Are you going to order your entire fleet to strike its wedges when you don't know if that kill-crazy bitch Harrington is going to honor your surrender, don't know if there will even be time for those incoming missiles to self-destruct if the other side does decide to honor your surrender, and you have no confirmation that those weapons coming at you are exponentially more dangerous than any you possess? Or are you going to decide that the ball has already been opened, that the other side probably isn't real interested in accepting your surrender at this point, and that the only possibility of survival for your fleet is to hope like hell the weapons coming at you aren't exponentially more dangerous than your own because you're stuck in a fight to the finish.

That decision making is going on internally aboard the flagship. Presumably, no one outside the flagship is privy to it. Orders come from the flagship over the tactical net to fire. Okay, everybody fires. In the meantime, it's becoming apparent to at least some of the other ships — probably because they were tied into a tactical net controlled through Oppenheimer from which Filareta and his staff had suddenly disappeared — that Something Bad™ has taken place aboard Oppenheimer. So the units of the fleet are trying really, really hard to find out what the hell is going on, but to be totally honest, that's kinda secondary to fighting the battle and then getting as many as possible of your people off the wrecks.

There was never any doubt that something significant had happened aboard Oppenheimer. The problem was that no one who survived the battle knew what that something significant was or could even positively confirm that anything truly had. The scrap of com traffic between the com officers aboard Oppenheimer and Leonard Euler is important because even though it wasn't part of the official communications record, it was taking place at the very moment flag bridge blew up. That is, it confirms (a) that Filareta intended to surrender, (b) that he gave the order to surrender, (c) that something sufficiently catastrophic to make him demand to know what was happening — and to cut him off in mid-syllable — prevented that from happening.

They still don't know exactly what the something was. But they do know that it happened and that the final battle wasn't Filareta's idea. That is undoubtedly all they will ever know unless someday they run the Alignment to ground and get their hands on its covert ops files.

But it confirms a heck of a lot of stuff they'd already suspected and possibly points them in a new direction or so. And the only reason they know is because of that very brief record of a conversation between relatives in which Filareta's orders are overheard at the critical moment.


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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Re: (Spoiler) Notification of change in Chain of Command
Post by Annachie   » Sat Apr 07, 2018 12:25 am

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Assuming, of course, that the whole flagship's coms weren't also destroyed/taken out.

If I was planning that, it would be.
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You are so going to die. :p ~~~~ runsforcelery
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still not dead. :)
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Re: (Spoiler) Notification of change in Chain of Command
Post by runsforcelery   » Sat Apr 07, 2018 12:29 am

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Annachie wrote:Assuming, of course, that the whole flagship's coms weren't also destroyed/taken out.

If I was planning that, it would be.

But that’s because you are a nasty person… And I’m not.

Honest! Ask anyone in the Honorverse! :twisted: :lol:


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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Re: (Spoiler) Notification of change in Chain of Command
Post by Robert_A_Woodward   » Sat Apr 07, 2018 1:44 am

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runsforcelery wrote:
Annachie wrote:Assuming, of course, that the whole flagship's coms weren't also destroyed/taken out.

If I was planning that, it would be.

But that’s because you are a nasty person… And I’m not.

Honest! Ask anyone in the Honorverse! :twisted: :lol:


Actually, I was wondering about the explosion. Shouldn't some of it shown up on the comm recording?
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Beowulf was bad.
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