Haven Victorious

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:But yea, how difficult is it to get in to see Saint-Just and then just plain old shoot him? I can't believe that any resulting civil war would have been any worst off than what actually transpired. And I can see a whole lot of things that may have gone a heck of a lot better. Namely, salvaging so much Peep experience that was simply wasted at the cost of the war. It was like Saint-Just was a Manty in disguise. If ever the old adage "A house divided cannot stand" rang true, it did during Saint-Just's reign. Giscard may have still been alive and Alfredo Yu and Co., wouldn't have had to turn treasonous.

The problem you do not mention is that without control of the capitol fleet, and so the capitol, simply killing Saint Just leaves State Sec in control and hating the Navy even more.
PS. Wasn't Yu forced to turn "treasonous" as a result of HotQ, which was long before Pierre and Saint Just gained power? Also Caslet was forced to turn "treasonous" by Cordelia Ransom, which was also before Saint Just's reign.

Granted, but State Sec was a bunch of pansies without the assholes actually pulling the strings. And Pierre should have been handled in the same manner. They couldn't sequester themselves against everyone. Which is why I felt there weren't any balls in the lot of them and it is also why I felt there were those who would feel that Theisman's actions were murderous and treasonous because there must have been people that loved the Saint-Just regime, or he'd have been decapitated by someone that sorely detested him. Like poisoned by his own secretary in his morning coffee. Confession is good for the soul. Personally, IMO, Saint-Just was cut from the same cloth as Hitler. Cloth that was previously used to wipe someone's ass.

Mea culpa mangling the timeline. Storyline is beginning to bleed into nothingness in my head awaiting a reread of the entire series, and my watch doesn't adjust for timelines or time zones.

But, even before Saint-Just's rise to fame, I hated the Peeps and their actions with a passion. And that lack of morals, scruples and values is why Beth hated them so, and why Alfredo and Co., were so ashamed.

cthia wrote:

cthia wrote:But yea, how difficult is it to get in to see Saint-Just and then just plain old shoot him? I can't believe that any resulting civil war would have been any worst off than what actually transpired. And I can see a whole lot of things that may have gone a heck of a lot better. Namely, salvaging so much Peep experience that was simply wasted at the cost of the war. It was like Saint-Just was a Manty in disguise. If ever the old adage "A house divided cannot stand" rang true, it did during Saint-Just's reign. Giscard may have still been alive and Alfredo Yu and Co., wouldn't have had to turn treasonous.

tlb wrote:The problem you do not mention is that without control of the capitol fleet, and so the capitol, simply killing Saint Just leaves State Sec in control and hating the Navy even more.
PS. Wasn't Yu forced to turn "treasonous" as a result of HotQ, which was long before Pierre and Saint Just gained power? Also Caslet was forced to turn "treasonous" by Cordelia Ransom, which was also before Saint Just's reign.

Granted, but State Sec was a bunch of pansies without the assholes actually pulling the strings. And Pierre should have been handled in the same manner. They couldn't sequester themselves against everyone. Which is why I felt there weren't any balls in the lot of them and it is also why I felt there were those who would feel that Theisman's actions were murderous and treasonous because there must have been people that loved the Saint-Just regime, or he'd have been decapitated by someone that sorely detested him. Like poisoned by his own secretary in his morning coffee. Confession is good for the soul. Personally, IMO, Saint-Just was cut from the same cloth as Hitler. Cloth that was previously used to wipe someone's ass.

Mea culpa mangling the timeline. Storyline is beginning to bleed into nothingness in my head awaiting a reread of the entire series, and my watch doesn't adjust for timelines or time zones.

But, even before Saint-Just's rise to fame, I hated the Peeps and their actions with a passion. And that lack of morals, scruples and values is why Beth hated them so, and why Alfredo and Co., were so ashamed.

If it was easy to assassinate murderous tyrants surrounded by fanatically devoted security personnel (and especially when surrounded by modern state of the art weapons detectors, too) there'd be a lot fewer nasty heads of state still in office or living comfortably in exile right here on good old planet Earth.

It is not easy, and the SS was anything but "a bunch of pansies without the assholes actually pulling the strings" or else there wouldn't have been a years-long multi-sided civil war even after Capital Fleet and Giscard and Tourville came over to Theisman's side, putting the two biggest fleets firmly on one side, under one banner.

Even if Theisman (or someone) could've gotten a weapon into Pierre's and/or Saint-Just's presence and pulled the trigger earlier, the consequences wouldn't have been "bad," they would've been catastrophic. Kill Pierre without Saint-Just, and Saint-Just takes over. Kill Pierre and Saint-Just before Honor is captured and taken to Cerberus, and Cordelia Ransom takes over. Kill any of them without being able to secure control of Capital Fleet, and whichever senior StateSec officer survives in Nouveau Paris controls the capital planet and star system of the entire People's Republic. It's possible that regular officers might have managed to secure control of some of the sub fleets, but it's unlikely without someone like Shannon Foraker planting an "Oopsie' in the covering StateSec superdreadnoughts' core programming.

Any dedicated assassin with more courage than brains can attempt an assassination. The odds are overwhelmingly, especially in an electronic society as thoroughly wired for sound by the security forces as the People's Republic, that the assassin will be detected before he ever gets close to his target. Assuming he gets close, the odds of his penetrating the security fence around someone like a Rob Pierre or an Oscar Saint-Just by anything except overwhelming force — like, say, an assault shuttle stuffed with Marines — are essentially nonexistent. Regular naval officers were among the least trusted people in the galaxy by StateSec, so it's hard to understate the infinitesimal odds of someone like Theisman or Warner Caslet sneaking a gun past them. I mean, numbers don't really come that low. Unless they have a minus sign in front of them.

Tom Theisman grew up in a corrupt façade democracy. He saw that façade overturned only to be replaced by an authoritarian — one might more accurately say totalitarian — regime which controlled all of the internal security organs. Remember that even ONI was essentially a StateSec-run subsidiary. That sort of stacked the odds against him, don't you think?

Maybe even more important, Theisman knew what kind of internal dogfight creating a vacuum at the top would probably kick off, and he had very little faith in the restraint of the dogs who would be fighting. I point this out because he lives in a universe in which it is terrifyingly easy to pasteurize planets. So before he went around killing anyone, he needed a few things:

(1) He needed both the opportunity and the means, and sticking a pistol in his pocket while he was commanding Duquesne base would have accomplished neither of those.

(2) Even after he was recalled to Nouveau Paris to command Capital Fleet, he needed an effective means, and that wasn't available to him until he had time to pick up where McQueen had been interrupted. (And I should probably point out that the fact that Saint-Just was clearly going to begin purging the officer corps as soon as the shooting with Manticore stopped had a hell of a lot to do with Tom's ability to pick up from McQueen. In fact, the effect of Saint-Just's looming purges on the mindsets of Capital Fleet's senior officers was an extraordinarily powerful "recruiting tool" McQueen hadn't had.)

(3) Tom Theisman was a patriot. He was determined to act if the opportunity arose from the moment he received orders to report to Nouveau Paris. The conversation he has with his People's Commissioner before they head to the capital is proof of that. (And, just sort of by the way, without his People's Commissioner's support, nothing he later accomplished would have been remotely possible.) But in Theisman's mind, "opportunity" had to mean that he would be in a position after removing Saint-Just to minimize the bloodshed everywhere in the People's Republic and — at the very least acceptable minimum — prevent any sort of extended flight in the Haven System itself, where there were literally billions of civilians in the path of the potential use of weapons of mass destruction.

Which leads me to —

(4) You are correct that there were a lot of Havenites who were devoted to and dedicated to the Pierre regime. Yes, he used the iron fist and repression ruthlessly — and needed them — but Pierre was still revered by a substantial chunk of the population of Nouveau Paris. He was detested by another substantial chunk, but neither of those chunks had a clear majority, and one of them had a monopoly on the means of coercion. So, Theisman had to be in a position to decapitate the Committee by killing Saint-Just (who was now effectively its sole member; the three or four others still on it were essentially nonentities as far as the public at large was concerned) and to guarantee that those "means of coercion" — that would be like the guns, the KEWs, the vest pocket nukes, the assault shuttles and trans-atmospheric fighters, and like that there — were either under his control or neutralized at the outset.

That isn't a "lone gunman" scenario. All a "lone gunman" could've done would have been to plunge the People's Republic of Haven into the worst paroxysm of internal violence and bloodshed it had yet seen, and the end result would most probably have been to replace Pierre or Saint-Just with another Pierre or Saint-Just . . . or maybe another Cordelia Ransom.

Theisman knew that, and Theisman was a responsible human being who was willing to die himself, if that was what it took, but wasn't willing to take millions — possibly even billions — of civilians with him.

cthia wrote:

cthia wrote:But yea, how difficult is it to get in to see Saint-Just and then just plain old shoot him? I can't believe that any resulting civil war would have been any worst off than what actually transpired. And I can see a whole lot of things that may have gone a heck of a lot better. Namely, salvaging so much Peep experience that was simply wasted at the cost of the war. It was like Saint-Just was a Manty in disguise. If ever the old adage "A house divided cannot stand" rang true, it did during Saint-Just's reign. Giscard may have still been alive and Alfredo Yu and Co., wouldn't have had to turn treasonous.

tlb wrote:The problem you do not mention is that without control of the capitol fleet, and so the capitol, simply killing Saint Just leaves State Sec in control and hating the Navy even more.
PS. Wasn't Yu forced to turn "treasonous" as a result of HotQ, which was long before Pierre and Saint Just gained power? Also Caslet was forced to turn "treasonous" by Cordelia Ransom, which was also before Saint Just's reign.

Granted, but State Sec was a bunch of pansies without the assholes actually pulling the strings. And Pierre should have been handled in the same manner. They couldn't sequester themselves against everyone. Which is why I felt there weren't any balls in the lot of them and it is also why I felt there were those who would feel that Theisman's actions were murderous and treasonous because there must have been people that loved the Saint-Just regime, or he'd have been decapitated by someone that sorely detested him. Like poisoned by his own secretary in his morning coffee. Confession is good for the soul. Personally, IMO, Saint-Just was cut from the same cloth as Hitler. Cloth that was previously used to wipe someone's ass.

Mea culpa mangling the timeline. Storyline is beginning to bleed into nothingness in my head awaiting a reread of the entire series, and my watch doesn't adjust for timelines or time zones.

But, even before Saint-Just's rise to fame, I hated the Peeps and their actions with a passion. And that lack of morals, scruples and values is why Beth hated them so, and why Alfredo and Co., were so ashamed.

runsforcelery wrote:If it was easy to assassinate murderous tyrants surrounded by fanatically devoted security personnel (and especially when surrounded by modern state of the art weapons detectors, too) there'd be a lot fewer nasty heads of state still in office or living comfortably in exile right here on good old planet Earth.

It is not easy, and the SS was anything but "a bunch of pansies without the assholes actually pulling the strings" or else there wouldn't have been a years-long multi-sided civil war even after Capital Fleet and Giscard and Tourville came over to Theisman's side, putting the two biggest fleets firmly on one side, under one banner.

Even if Theisman (or someone) could've gotten a weapon into Pierre's and/or Saint-Just's presence and pulled the trigger earlier, the consequences wouldn't have been "bad," they would've been catastrophic. Kill Pierre without Saint-Just, and Saint-Just takes over. Kill Pierre and Saint-Just before Honor is captured and taken to Cerberus, and Cordelia Ransom takes over. Kill any of them without being able to secure control of Capital Fleet, and whichever senior StateSec officer survives in Nouveau Paris controls the capital planet and star system of the entire People's Republic. It's possible that regular officers might have managed to secure control of some of the sub fleets, but it's unlikely without someone like Shannon Foraker planting an "Oopsie' in the covering StateSec superdreadnoughts' core programming.

Any dedicated assassin with more courage than brains can attempt an assassination. The odds are overwhelmingly, especially in an electronic society as thoroughly wired for sound by the security forces as the People's Republic, that the assassin will be detected before he ever gets close to his target. Assuming he gets close, the odds of his penetrating the security fence around someone like a Rob Pierre or an Oscar Saint-Just by anything except overwhelming force — like, say, an assault shuttle stuffed with Marines — are essentially nonexistent. Regular naval officers were among the least trusted people in the galaxy by StateSec, so it's hard to understate the infinitesimal odds of someone like Theisman or Warner Caslet sneaking a gun past them. I mean, numbers don't really come that low. Unless they have a minus sign in front of them.

Tom Theisman grew up in a corrupt façade democracy. He saw that façade overturned only to be replaced by an authoritarian — one might more accurately say totalitarian — regime which controlled all of the internal security organs. Remember that even ONI was essentially a StateSec-run subsidiary. That sort of stacked the odds against him, don't you think?

Maybe even more important, Theisman knew what kind of internal dogfight creating a vacuum at the top would probably kick off, and he had very little faith in the restraint of the dogs who would be fighting. I point this out because he lives in a universe in which it is terrifyingly easy to pasteurize planets. So before he went around killing anyone, he needed a few things:

(1) He needed both the opportunity and the means, and sticking a pistol in his pocket while he was commanding Duquesne base would have accomplished neither of those.

(2) Even after he was recalled to Nouveau Paris to command Capital Fleet, he needed an effective means, and that wasn't available to him until he had time to pick up where McQueen had been interrupted. (And I should probably point out that the fact that Saint-Just was clearly going to begin purging the officer corps as soon as the shooting with Manticore stopped had a hell of a lot to do with Tom's ability to pick up from McQueen. In fact, the effect of Saint-Just's looming purges on the mindsets of Capital Fleet's senior officers was an extraordinarily powerful "recruiting tool" McQueen hadn't had.)

(3) Tom Theisman was a patriot. He was determined to act if the opportunity arose from the moment he received orders to report to Nouveau Paris. The conversation he has with his People's Commissioner before they head to the capital is proof of that. (And, just sort of by the way, without his People's Commissioner's support, nothing he later accomplished would have been remotely possible.) But in Theisman's mind, "opportunity" had to mean that he would be in a position after removing Saint-Just to minimize the bloodshed everywhere in the People's Republic and — at the very least acceptable minimum — prevent any sort of extended flight in the Haven System itself, where there were literally billions of civilians in the path of the potential use of weapons of mass destruction.

Which leads me to —

(4) You are correct that there were a lot of Havenites who were devoted to and dedicated to the Pierre regime. Yes, he used the iron fist and repression ruthlessly — and needed them — but Pierre was still revered by a substantial chunk of the population of Nouveau Paris. He was detested by another substantial chunk, but neither of those chunks had a clear majority, and one of them had a monopoly on the means of coercion. So, Theisman had to be in a position to decapitate the Committee by killing Saint-Just (who was now effectively its sole member; the three or four others still on it were essentially nonentities as far as the public at large was concerned) and to guarantee that those "means of coercion" — that would be like the guns, the KEWs, the vest pocket nukes, the assault shuttles and trans-atmospheric fighters, and like that there — were either under his control or neutralized at the outset.

That isn't a "lone gunman" scenario. All a "lone gunman" could've done would have been to plunge the People's Republic of Haven into the worst paroxysm of internal violence and bloodshed it had yet seen, and the end result would most probably have been to replace Pierre or Saint-Just with another Pierre or Saint-Just . . . or maybe another Cordelia Ransom.

Theisman knew that, and Theisman was a responsible human being who was willing to die himself, if that was what it took, but wasn't willing to take millions — possibly even billions — of civilians with him.

My friends agree with you on these issues. And, if I'm honest, I'll probably come around too. But it's hard to imagine nastiness in the manner of Saint-Just not spurring scorned crimes of passion abandoning the logic of common sense. Common sense that leads to the catastrophes that you mentioned. Add to those catastrophes several of my friend's addition to the pot that a failed personal coup would have doomed the would-be assassin(s)' family(s).

Saint-Just was disappearing officers and entire families, iinm. That kind of brutality fuels the worst kind of hate. As did Hitler's regime and Caesar himself. I know there are lots of security devices in the Honorverse to prevent that sort of thing, but there is lots of tech that can be used to kill that isn't necessarily flagged as a weapon. I can imagine a state of the art fountain pen with an edge strong enough to kill. All in all, I'm sure I need to deal with my own baggage.

My friends also brought up Cordelia Ransom as taking over in the event of Saint-Just and Pierre's demise. Out of the pan into the fire. Storyline shed light on her ambitious political goals and the fear she engendered even from Saint-Just. We all agree that her ascension would have sounded the worst fate of Haven. But Ransom was a cold hearted bitch on steroids. I can't fathom her heavy hand at the wheel would have left her steering for very long at all.

I stand corrected that a personal assassination would have been a politically smart thing to do. But under the circumstances, it would have been an understandably human thing to do. His regime was killing innocent civilians, that's where he clearly and unacceptably crossed the line. Personally, I would have gutted the SOB without even thinking about it. I also wonder how he managed to surround himself with so many sympathizers without a fly in the ointment just seething red under the collar.

My friends and I may be wrong, but we feel that Shannon began planning almost as soon as the goons mistakenly pulled her head out of her 'puters.

When I spoke of nary a pair between 'em, I wasn't just speaking of the officers storyline introduced, but the whole of Haven. I can understand Saint-Just getting away with awful policies and purges, but not with outright murder on a planet like Haven. Even the MA had to disguise its murderous ways on a seedy planet like Mesa. Murder of officers and their families? I simply cannot fathom that kind of brutality washing for as long as it did on any civilized planet but Haven. But hey, that fingers my own shortcomings.

But don't you think there's a world of difference between a nasty tyrant or head of state and a downright blatantly murderous SOB who's systematically exterminating civilians and children at his whim?

Saint-Just's regime just didn't speak much of Haven itself. And Beth looking in from the outside didn't know what the hell to think of it all. It surely didn't appear to be a rational or civilized planet of people or system of government.

It still escapes me how he was able to surround himself with hardcore sympathizers without a single one of them swallowing bile on a daily basis. Even the People's Commissioners exhibited problems for Saint-Just stemming from having a conscience. I also need a refresher on how Theisman was ultimately able to spirit a pulser into his presence. I think the security system was compromised from the attacks, but the system could have been compromised by someone sooner, with the skills of a Foraker.

If Saint-Just was able to find so many faithful and loyal morons to uphold the kind of mettle in his iron fist, then my notion that many people are left hating Theisman and Pritchard and who also think Theisman's actions were murderous and treasonous have even more meaning.

cthia wrote:

cthia wrote:But yea, how difficult is it to get in to see Saint-Just and then just plain old shoot him? I can't believe that any resulting civil war would have been any worst off than what actually transpired. And I can see a whole lot of things that may have gone a heck of a lot better. Namely, salvaging so much Peep experience that was simply wasted at the cost of the war. It was like Saint-Just was a Manty in disguise. If ever the old adage "A house divided cannot stand" rang true, it did during Saint-Just's reign. Giscard may have still been alive and Alfredo Yu and Co., wouldn't have had to turn treasonous.

tlb wrote:The problem you do not mention is that without control of the capitol fleet, and so the capitol, simply killing Saint Just leaves State Sec in control and hating the Navy even more.
PS. Wasn't Yu forced to turn "treasonous" as a result of HotQ, which was long before Pierre and Saint Just gained power? Also Caslet was forced to turn "treasonous" by Cordelia Ransom, which was also before Saint Just's reign.

cthia wrote:Granted, but State Sec was a bunch of pansies without the assholes actually pulling the strings. And Pierre should have been handled in the same manner. They couldn't sequester themselves against everyone. Which is why I felt there weren't any balls in the lot of them and it is also why I felt there were those who would feel that Theisman's actions were murderous and treasonous because there must have been people that loved the Saint-Just regime, or he'd have been decapitated by someone that sorely detested him. Like poisoned by his own secretary in his morning coffee. Confession is good for the soul. Personally, IMO, Saint-Just was cut from the same cloth as Hitler. Cloth that was previously used to wipe someone's ass.

Mea culpa mangling the timeline. Storyline is beginning to bleed into nothingness in my head awaiting a reread of the entire series, and my watch doesn't adjust for timelines or time zones.

But, even before Saint-Just's rise to fame, I hated the Peeps and their actions with a passion. And that lack of morals, scruples and values is why Beth hated them so, and why Alfredo and Co., were so ashamed.

runsforcelery wrote:If it was easy to assassinate murderous tyrants surrounded by fanatically devoted security personnel (and especially when surrounded by modern state of the art weapons detectors, too) there'd be a lot fewer nasty heads of state still in office or living comfortably in exile right here on good old planet Earth.

It is not easy, and the SS was anything but "a bunch of pansies without the assholes actually pulling the strings" or else there wouldn't have been a years-long multi-sided civil war even after Capital Fleet and Giscard and Tourville came over to Theisman's side, putting the two biggest fleets firmly on one side, under one banner.

Even if Theisman (or someone) could've gotten a weapon into Pierre's and/or Saint-Just's presence and pulled the trigger earlier, the consequences wouldn't have been "bad," they would've been catastrophic. Kill Pierre without Saint-Just, and Saint-Just takes over. Kill Pierre and Saint-Just before Honor is captured and taken to Cerberus, and Cordelia Ransom takes over. Kill any of them without being able to secure control of Capital Fleet, and whichever senior StateSec officer survives in Nouveau Paris controls the capital planet and star system of the entire People's Republic. It's possible that regular officers might have managed to secure control of some of the sub fleets, but it's unlikely without someone like Shannon Foraker planting an "Oopsie' in the covering StateSec superdreadnoughts' core programming.

Any dedicated assassin with more courage than brains can attempt an assassination. The odds are overwhelmingly, especially in an electronic society as thoroughly wired for sound by the security forces as the People's Republic, that the assassin will be detected before he ever gets close to his target. Assuming he gets close, the odds of his penetrating the security fence around someone like a Rob Pierre or an Oscar Saint-Just by anything except overwhelming force — like, say, an assault shuttle stuffed with Marines — are essentially nonexistent. Regular naval officers were among the least trusted people in the galaxy by StateSec, so it's hard to understate the infinitesimal odds of someone like Theisman or Warner Caslet sneaking a gun past them. I mean, numbers don't really come that low. Unless they have a minus sign in front of them.

Tom Theisman grew up in a corrupt façade democracy. He saw that façade overturned only to be replaced by an authoritarian — one might more accurately say totalitarian — regime which controlled all of the internal security organs. Remember that even ONI was essentially a StateSec-run subsidiary. That sort of stacked the odds against him, don't you think?

Maybe even more important, Theisman knew what kind of internal dogfight creating a vacuum at the top would probably kick off, and he had very little faith in the restraint of the dogs who would be fighting. I point this out because he lives in a universe in which it is terrifyingly easy to pasteurize planets. So before he went around killing anyone, he needed a few things:

(1) He needed both the opportunity and the means, and sticking a pistol in his pocket while he was commanding Duquesne base would have accomplished neither of those.

(2) Even after he was recalled to Nouveau Paris to command Capital Fleet, he needed an effective means, and that wasn't available to him until he had time to pick up where McQueen had been interrupted. (And I should probably point out that the fact that Saint-Just was clearly going to begin purging the officer corps as soon as the shooting with Manticore stopped had a hell of a lot to do with Tom's ability to pick up from McQueen. In fact, the effect of Saint-Just's looming purges on the mindsets of Capital Fleet's senior officers was an extraordinarily powerful "recruiting tool" McQueen hadn't had.)

(3) Tom Theisman was a patriot. He was determined to act if the opportunity arose from the moment he received orders to report to Nouveau Paris. The conversation he has with his People's Commissioner before they head to the capital is proof of that. (And, just sort of by the way, without his People's Commissioner's support, nothing he later accomplished would have been remotely possible.) But in Theisman's mind, "opportunity" had to mean that he would be in a position after removing Saint-Just to minimize the bloodshed everywhere in the People's Republic and — at the very least acceptable minimum — prevent any sort of extended flight in the Haven System itself, where there were literally billions of civilians in the path of the potential use of weapons of mass destruction.

Which leads me to —

(4) You are correct that there were a lot of Havenites who were devoted to and dedicated to the Pierre regime. Yes, he used the iron fist and repression ruthlessly — and needed them — but Pierre was still revered by a substantial chunk of the population of Nouveau Paris. He was detested by another substantial chunk, but neither of those chunks had a clear majority, and one of them had a monopoly on the means of coercion. So, Theisman had to be in a position to decapitate the Committee by killing Saint-Just (who was now effectively its sole member; the three or four others still on it were essentially nonentities as far as the public at large was concerned) and to guarantee that those "means of coercion" — that would be like the guns, the KEWs, the vest pocket nukes, the assault shuttles and trans-atmospheric fighters, and like that there — were either under his control or neutralized at the outset.

That isn't a "lone gunman" scenario. All a "lone gunman" could've done would have been to plunge the People's Republic of Haven into the worst paroxysm of internal violence and bloodshed it had yet seen, and the end result would most probably have been to replace Pierre or Saint-Just with another Pierre or Saint-Just . . . or maybe another Cordelia Ransom.

Theisman knew that, and Theisman was a responsible human being who was willing to die himself, if that was what it took, but wasn't willing to take millions — possibly even billions — of civilians with him.

My friends agree with you on these issues. And, if I'm honest, I'll probably come around too. But it's hard to imagine nastiness in the manner of Saint-Just not spurring scorned crimes of passion abandoning the logic of common sense. Common sense that leads to the catastrophes that you mentioned. Add to those catastrophes several of my friend's addition to the pot that a failed personal coup would have doomed the would-be assassin(s)' family(s).

Saint-Just was disappearing officers and entire families, iinm. That kind of brutality fuels the worst kind of hate. As did Hitler's regime and Caesar himself. I know there are lots of security devices in the Honorverse to prevent that sort of thing, but there is lots of tech that can be used to kill that isn't necessarily flagged as a weapon. I can imagine a state of the art fountain pen with an edge strong enough to kill. All in all, I'm sure I need to deal with my own baggage.

My friends also brought up Cordelia Ransom as taking over in the event of Saint-Just and Pierre's demise. Out of the pan into the fire. Storyline shed light on her ambitious political goals and the fear she engendered even from Saint-Just. We all agree that her ascension would have sounded the worst fate of Haven. But Ransom was a cold hearted bitch on steroids. I can't fathom her heavy hand at the wheel would have left her steering for very long at all.

I stand corrected that a personal assassination would have been a politically smart thing to do. But under the circumstances, it would have been an understandably human thing to do. His regime was killing innocent civilians, that's where he clearly and unacceptably crossed the line. Personally, I would have gutted the SOB without even thinking about it. I also wonder how he managed to surround himself with so many sympathizers without a fly in the ointment just seething red under the collar.

My friends and I may be wrong, but we feel that Shannon began planning almost as soon as the goons mistakenly pulled her head out of her 'puters.

When I spoke of nary a pair between 'em, I wasn't just speaking of the officers storyline introduced, but the whole of Haven. I can understand Saint-Just getting away with awful policies and purges, but not with outright murder on a planet like Haven. Even the MA had to disguise its murderous ways on a seedy planet like Mesa. Murder of officers and their families? I simply cannot fathom that kind of brutality washing for as long as it did on any civilized planet but Haven. But hey, that fingers my own shortcomings.

But don't you think there's a world of difference between a nasty tyrant or head of state and a downright blatantly murderous SOB who's systematically exterminating civilians and children at his whim?

Saint-Just's regime just didn't speak much of Haven itself. And Beth looking in from the outside didn't know what the hell to think of it all. It surely didn't appear to be a rational or civilized planet of people or system of government.

It still escapes me how he was able to surround himself with hardcore sympathizers without a single one of them swallowing bile on a daily basis. Even the People's Commissioners exhibited problems for Saint-Just stemming from having a conscience. I also need a refresher on how Theisman was ultimately able to spirit a pulser into his presence. I think the security system was compromised from the attacks, but the system could have been compromised by someone sooner, with the skills of a Foraker.

If Saint-Just was able to find so many faithful and loyal morons to uphold his iron fist, then my notion that many people are left hating Theisman and Pritchard have even more meaning.

Because Saint-Just was running a system that was working (at least as well as Haven ever had); because only a minority of the total population was directly impacted by his actions (the military was almost a cloistered society, outside the civilian mainstream, and it was "Admiral Cluster Bomb" who'd turned the streets red with blood against the Levelers, not Saint-Just or StateSec); because he controlled the organs of power, including a judicial system which duly tried and sentenced anyone he needed tried and shot or sent off to Cerberus; because the PRH had been accustomed to that sort of thing on a smaller scale for decades under the Legislaturalists, and it had ramped up to Saint-Just's level only gradually; because he was holding the state together during what the PRH had been taught (by Ransome) was an existential war for survival, and you don't joggle someone's elbow at a time like that; because he was Rob Pierre's legally designated successor, and if he went down there was no designated successor, which meant utter chaos as the most likely consequence; and because unless your family or everyone you love has already been disappeared or killed, you still have hostages to fortune who will pay the price if you fail.

And, of course, if you happen to be someone who fits the bill of "no hostages left," how the hell do you think you're getting into range of Saint-Just to stab him with a fountain pen or other improvised weapon --- which is unlikely to be immediately or ultimately fatal, given Honorverse medicine --- in the first place? You think maybe the head of StaeSec doesn't have his personal staff or anyone who gets close to him vetted down to their DNA? And even the suspicision that someone might pose a threat to him would be enough to get that individual banned from his presence. Indira Gandhi and her Sikh nationalist bodyguards he was not. Trust me.

I might point out how well a fellow named Joseph Stalin made out for 28 years or so, until he was foolish enough to fabricate the Doctor's Plot.

Just sayin'.

cthia wrote:I stand corrected that a personal assassination would have been a politically smart thing to do. But under the circumstances, it would have been an understandably human thing to do. His regime was killing innocent civilians, that's where he clearly and unacceptably crossed the line. Personally, I would have gutted the SOB without even thinking about it. I also wonder how he managed to surround himself with so many sympathizers without a fly in the ointment just seething red under the collar.

He undoubtably had at least one person close to him who wanted him gone - the secretary whose name escapes me atm who passed along the warning to McQueen.

He just didn't surround himself with stupid people. The people who hated him but worked for him anyway probably saw the same thing rfc is pointing out in Theisman's motivation - they knew they had to kill the system and not just the man or committee.

cthia wrote:My friends and I may be wrong, but we feel that Shannon began planning almost as soon as the goons mistakenly pulled her head out of her 'puters.

Certainly. But she would have been working under the same considerations. One wonders what Giscard and Pritchard would have done after Shannon's Oopsie if Theisman hadn't taken care of Saint-Just for them.

cthia wrote:If Saint-Just was able to find so many faithful and loyal morons to uphold his iron fist, then my notion that many people are left hating Theisman and Pritchard have even more meaning.

There's been mention of a whole lot of people in prison cells with rigged gas cylinders courtesy of Kevin Usher. I suspect you'll find most of Saint-Just's supporters there, or perhaps their pulser-riddled corpses were launched into the nearest star. Somehow I doubt many of them are in positions of any power.

cthia wrote:I also need a refresher on how Theisman was ultimately able to spirit a pulser into his presence. I think the security system was compromised from the attacks, but the system could have been compromised by someone sooner, with the skills of a Foraker.

If memory serves it was Saint-Just's own pulser knocked from his hand after his office wall was blown in on him, but Theisman could have easily carried his own since the battle-armored marines he was with had smashed all the security measures on the way in.

cthia wrote:

cthia wrote:But yea, how difficult is it to get in to see Saint-Just and then just plain old shoot him? I can't believe that any resulting civil war would have been any worst off than what actually transpired. And I can see a whole lot of things that may have gone a heck of a lot better. Namely, salvaging so much Peep experience that was simply wasted at the cost of the war. It was like Saint-Just was a Manty in disguise. If ever the old adage "A house divided cannot stand" rang true, it did during Saint-Just's reign. Giscard may have still been alive and Alfredo Yu and Co., wouldn't have had to turn treasonous.

tlb wrote:The problem you do not mention is that without control of the capitol fleet, and so the capitol, simply killing Saint Just leaves State Sec in control and hating the Navy even more.
PS. Wasn't Yu forced to turn "treasonous" as a result of HotQ, which was long before Pierre and Saint Just gained power? Also Caslet was forced to turn "treasonous" by Cordelia Ransom, which was also before Saint Just's reign.

cthia wrote:Granted, but State Sec was a bunch of pansies without the assholes actually pulling the strings. And Pierre should have been handled in the same manner. They couldn't sequester themselves against everyone. Which is why I felt there weren't any balls in the lot of them and it is also why I felt there were those who would feel that Theisman's actions were murderous and treasonous because there must have been people that loved the Saint-Just regime, or he'd have been decapitated by someone that sorely detested him. Like poisoned by his own secretary in his morning coffee. Confession is good for the soul. Personally, IMO, Saint-Just was cut from the same cloth as Hitler. Cloth that was previously used to wipe someone's ass.

Mea culpa mangling the timeline. Storyline is beginning to bleed into nothingness in my head awaiting a reread of the entire series, and my watch doesn't adjust for timelines or time zones.

But, even before Saint-Just's rise to fame, I hated the Peeps and their actions with a passion. And that lack of morals, scruples and values is why Beth hated them so, and why Alfredo and Co., were so ashamed.

runsforcelery wrote:If it was easy to assassinate murderous tyrants surrounded by fanatically devoted security personnel (and especially when surrounded by modern state of the art weapons detectors, too) there'd be a lot fewer nasty heads of state still in office or living comfortably in exile right here on good old planet Earth.

It is not easy, and the SS was anything but "a bunch of pansies without the assholes actually pulling the strings" or else there wouldn't have been a years-long multi-sided civil war even after Capital Fleet and Giscard and Tourville came over to Theisman's side, putting the two biggest fleets firmly on one side, under one banner.

Even if Theisman (or someone) could've gotten a weapon into Pierre's and/or Saint-Just's presence and pulled the trigger earlier, the consequences wouldn't have been "bad," they would've been catastrophic. Kill Pierre without Saint-Just, and Saint-Just takes over. Kill Pierre and Saint-Just before Honor is captured and taken to Cerberus, and Cordelia Ransom takes over. Kill any of them without being able to secure control of Capital Fleet, and whichever senior StateSec officer survives in Nouveau Paris controls the capital planet and star system of the entire People's Republic. It's possible that regular officers might have managed to secure control of some of the sub fleets, but it's unlikely without someone like Shannon Foraker planting an "Oopsie' in the covering StateSec superdreadnoughts' core programming.

Any dedicated assassin with more courage than brains can attempt an assassination. The odds are overwhelmingly, especially in an electronic society as thoroughly wired for sound by the security forces as the People's Republic, that the assassin will be detected before he ever gets close to his target. Assuming he gets close, the odds of his penetrating the security fence around someone like a Rob Pierre or an Oscar Saint-Just by anything except overwhelming force — like, say, an assault shuttle stuffed with Marines — are essentially nonexistent. Regular naval officers were among the least trusted people in the galaxy by StateSec, so it's hard to understate the infinitesimal odds of someone like Theisman or Warner Caslet sneaking a gun past them. I mean, numbers don't really come that low. Unless they have a minus sign in front of them.

Tom Theisman grew up in a corrupt façade democracy. He saw that façade overturned only to be replaced by an authoritarian — one might more accurately say totalitarian — regime which controlled all of the internal security organs. Remember that even ONI was essentially a StateSec-run subsidiary. That sort of stacked the odds against him, don't you think?

Maybe even more important, Theisman knew what kind of internal dogfight creating a vacuum at the top would probably kick off, and he had very little faith in the restraint of the dogs who would be fighting. I point this out because he lives in a universe in which it is terrifyingly easy to pasteurize planets. So before he went around killing anyone, he needed a few things:

(1) He needed both the opportunity and the means, and sticking a pistol in his pocket while he was commanding Duquesne base would have accomplished neither of those.

(2) Even after he was recalled to Nouveau Paris to command Capital Fleet, he needed an effective means, and that wasn't available to him until he had time to pick up where McQueen had been interrupted. (And I should probably point out that the fact that Saint-Just was clearly going to begin purging the officer corps as soon as the shooting with Manticore stopped had a hell of a lot to do with Tom's ability to pick up from McQueen. In fact, the effect of Saint-Just's looming purges on the mindsets of Capital Fleet's senior officers was an extraordinarily powerful "recruiting tool" McQueen hadn't had.)

(3) Tom Theisman was a patriot. He was determined to act if the opportunity arose from the moment he received orders to report to Nouveau Paris. The conversation he has with his People's Commissioner before they head to the capital is proof of that. (And, just sort of by the way, without his People's Commissioner's support, nothing he later accomplished would have been remotely possible.) But in Theisman's mind, "opportunity" had to mean that he would be in a position after removing Saint-Just to minimize the bloodshed everywhere in the People's Republic and — at the very least acceptable minimum — prevent any sort of extended flight in the Haven System itself, where there were literally billions of civilians in the path of the potential use of weapons of mass destruction.

Which leads me to —

(4) You are correct that there were a lot of Havenites who were devoted to and dedicated to the Pierre regime. Yes, he used the iron fist and repression ruthlessly — and needed them — but Pierre was still revered by a substantial chunk of the population of Nouveau Paris. He was detested by another substantial chunk, but neither of those chunks had a clear majority, and one of them had a monopoly on the means of coercion. So, Theisman had to be in a position to decapitate the Committee by killing Saint-Just (who was now effectively its sole member; the three or four others still on it were essentially nonentities as far as the public at large was concerned) and to guarantee that those "means of coercion" — that would be like the guns, the KEWs, the vest pocket nukes, the assault shuttles and trans-atmospheric fighters, and like that there — were either under his control or neutralized at the outset.

That isn't a "lone gunman" scenario. All a "lone gunman" could've done would have been to plunge the People's Republic of Haven into the worst paroxysm of internal violence and bloodshed it had yet seen, and the end result would most probably have been to replace Pierre or Saint-Just with another Pierre or Saint-Just . . . or maybe another Cordelia Ransom.

Theisman knew that, and Theisman was a responsible human being who was willing to die himself, if that was what it took, but wasn't willing to take millions — possibly even billions — of civilians with him.

My friends agree with you on these issues. And, if I'm honest, I'll probably come around too. But it's hard to imagine nastiness in the manner of Saint-Just not spurring scorned crimes of passion abandoning the logic of common sense. Common sense that leads to the catastrophes that you mentioned. Add to those catastrophes several of my friend's addition to the pot that a failed personal coup would have doomed the would-be assassin(s)' family(s).

Saint-Just was disappearing officers and entire families, iinm. That kind of brutality fuels the worst kind of hate. As did Hitler's regime and Caesar himself. I know there are lots of security devices in the Honorverse to prevent that sort of thing, but there is lots of tech that can be used to kill that isn't necessarily flagged as a weapon. I can imagine a state of the art fountain pen with an edge strong enough to kill. All in all, I'm sure I need to deal with my own baggage.

My friends also brought up Cordelia Ransom as taking over in the event of Saint-Just and Pierre's demise. Out of the pan into the fire. Storyline shed light on her ambitious political goals and the fear she engendered even from Saint-Just. We all agree that her ascension would have sounded the worst fate of Haven. But Ransom was a cold hearted bitch on steroids. I can't fathom her heavy hand at the wheel would have left her steering for very long at all.

I stand corrected that a personal assassination would have been a politically smart thing to do. But under the circumstances, it would have been an understandably human thing to do. His regime was killing innocent civilians, that's where he clearly and unacceptably crossed the line. Personally, I would have gutted the SOB without even thinking about it. I also wonder how he managed to surround himself with so many sympathizers without a fly in the ointment just seething red under the collar.

My friends and I may be wrong, but we feel that Shannon began planning almost as soon as the goons mistakenly pulled her head out of her 'puters.

When I spoke of nary a pair between 'em, I wasn't just speaking of the officers storyline introduced, but the whole of Haven. I can understand Saint-Just getting away with awful policies and purges, but not with outright murder on a planet like Haven. Even the MA had to disguise its murderous ways on a seedy planet like Mesa. Murder of officers and their families? I simply cannot fathom that kind of brutality washing for as long as it did on any civilized planet but Haven. But hey, that fingers my own shortcomings.

But don't you think there's a world of difference between a nasty tyrant or head of state and a downright blatantly murderous SOB who's systematically exterminating civilians and children at his whim?

Saint-Just's regime just didn't speak much of Haven itself. And Beth looking in from the outside didn't know what the hell to think of it all. It surely didn't appear to be a rational or civilized planet of people or system of government.

It still escapes me how he was able to surround himself with hardcore sympathizers without a single one of them swallowing bile on a daily basis. Even the People's Commissioners exhibited problems for Saint-Just stemming from having a conscience. I also need a refresher on how Theisman was ultimately able to spirit a pulser into his presence. I think the security system was compromised from the attacks, but the system could have been compromised by someone sooner, with the skills of a Foraker.

If Saint-Just was able to find so many faithful and loyal morons to uphold his iron fist, then my notion that many people are left hating Theisman and Pritchard have even more meaning.

runsforcelery wrote:Because Saint-Just was running a system that was working (at least as well as Haven ever had); because only a minority of the total population was directly impacted by his actions (the military was almost a cloistered society, outside the civilian mainstream, and it was "Admiral Cluster Bomb" who'd turned the streets red with blood against the Levelers, not Saint-Just or StateSec); because he controlled the organs of power, including a judicial system which duly tried and sentenced anyone he needed tried and shot or sent off to Cerberus; because the PRH had been accustomed to that sort of thing on a smaller scale for decades under the Legislaturalists, and it had ramped up to Saint-Just's level only gradually; because he was holding the state together during what the PRH had been taught (by Ransome) was an existential war for survival, and you don't joggle someone's elbow at a time like that; because he was Rob Pierre's legally designated successor, and if he went down there was no designated successor, which meant utter chaos as the most likely consequence; and because unless your family or everyone you love has already been disappeared or killed, you still have hostages to fortune who will pay the price if you fail.

And, of course, if you happen to be someone who fits the bill of "no hostages left," how the hell do you think you're getting into range of Saint-Just to stab him with a fountain pen or other improvised weapon --- which is unlikely to be immediately or ultimately fatal, given Honorverse medicine --- in the first place? You think maybe the head of StaeSec doesn't have his personal staff or anyone who gets close to him vetted down to their DNA? And even the suspicision that someone might pose a threat to him would be enough to get that individual banned from his presence. Indira Gandhi and her Sikh nationalist bodyguards he was not. Trust me.

I might point out how well a fellow named Joseph Stalin made out for 28 years or so, until he was foolish enough to fabricate the Doctor's Plot.

Just sayin'.

Because the system was working sounds like my argument as to why Theisman would be accused of murder and treason by that segment of the population who loved the Saint-Just regime. But, none dare call it treason. Anyway, point taken.

I also have to apologize upstream about the use of a fountain pen to stab Saint-Just in the eye. Consulting with a few doctors, that would not be immediately fatal. With Honorverse medicine, it wouldn't be fatal at all. A fountain pen is much too short to worry about. Half of it would be used to grip. Check out this stab wound to the eye.

Anyways, I think there's a perfect weapon to be found in the Specialty items beginning on page 4600 in the Blue Book. It's a one shot fountain pen made from the same mechanics as Honor's finger. And it wouldn't be detected. Honor's trick finger wasn't detected by the Andermani, and nobody is more paranoid than they are. LOL

My point is that in the Honorverse, I imagine there must be tons of Bl ck M rket We pons that can easily pass through detection devices. Like Honor's finger. However, that still leaves having to get the person with the device near Saint-Just. Also, a kamikaze mission with a compact explosive device may do it. A fountain pen to the eye that explodes when the cap is pressed. Also found in the Black Blue Book.

Galactic Sapper wrote:

cthia wrote:I stand corrected that a personal assassination would have been a politically smart thing to do. But under the circumstances, it would have been an understandably human thing to do. His regime was killing innocent civilians, that's where he clearly and unacceptably crossed the line. Personally, I would have gutted the SOB without even thinking about it. I also wonder how he managed to surround himself with so many sympathizers without a fly in the ointment just seething red under the collar.

He undoubtably had at least one person close to him who wanted him gone - the secretary whose name escapes me atm who passed along the warning to McQueen.

He just didn't surround himself with stupid people. The people who hated him but worked for him anyway probably saw the same thing rfc is pointing out in Theisman's motivation - they knew they had to kill the system and not just the man or committee.

cthia wrote:My friends and I may be wrong, but we feel that Shannon began planning almost as soon as the goons mistakenly pulled her head out of her 'puters.

Certainly. But she would have been working under the same considerations. One wonders what Giscard and Pritchard would have done after Shannon's Oopsie if Theisman hadn't taken care of Saint-Just for them.

cthia wrote:If Saint-Just was able to find so many faithful and loyal morons to uphold his iron fist, then my notion that many people are left hating Theisman and Pritchard have even more meaning.

There's been mention of a whole lot of people in prison cells with rigged gas cylinders courtesy of Kevin Usher. I suspect you'll find most of Saint-Just's supporters there, or perhaps their pulser-riddled corpses were launched into the nearest star. Somehow I doubt many of them are in positions of any power.

cthia wrote:I also need a refresher on how Theisman was ultimately able to spirit a pulser into his presence. I think the security system was compromised from the attacks, but the system could have been compromised by someone sooner, with the skills of a Foraker.

If memory serves it was Saint-Just's own pulser knocked from his hand after his office wall was blown in on him, but Theisman could have easily carried his own since the battle-armored marines he was with had smashed all the security measures on the way in.

Nice points that seem to be dead on the money. It doesn't surprise me about the rogue secretary who I didn't recall until your post. Vetting is a complicated and time consuming ball of wax. It is difficult to screen against psychological problems and the human element. The human element like someone who is bound to another in past history. A secretary who may be long time friends of the family that was completely disappeared. The vetting process is a very complicated very time consuming beast with many heads. Read some of the interesting discussion begat from my wondering if Grayson's armsmen were ever vetted by the Star Kingdom. There are bound to be holes in security across the board in any government. It is difficult to vet against the conscience found in some People's Commissioners.

I can't help but feel Beth is secretly worried deep down inside about the lasting stability of the restored Republic. What will happen to it after the changing of the guard? After Pritchard is replaced with a fair election, how is the course of the current government maintained with so many Saint-Just style of sympathizers waiting in the wings? Trust me, I've personally been a part of much more surprising elections.

How is Beth to know that the leopard isn't really a chameleon waiting to change its colors again? With so much shared tech it could prove fatally difficult for the Star Empire this time around trying to recover from a blow like that. And even more difficult for Beth and her power base to bounce back from being so wrong.

cthia wrote:I can't help but feel Beth is secretly worried deep down inside about the lasting stability of the restored Republic. What will happen to it after the changing of the guard? After Pritchard is replaced with a fair election, how is the course of the current government maintained with so many Saint-Just style of sympathizers waiting in the wings? Trust me, I've personally been a part of much more surprising elections.

How is Beth to know that the leopard isn't really a chameleon waiting to change its colors again? With so much shared tech it could prove fatally difficult for the Star Empire this time around trying to recover from a blow like that. And even more difficult for Beth and her power base to bounce back from being so wrong.

I believe this point is addresses in the Epilogue of Uncompromising Honor. Elizabeth is well aware of the dangers, especially since Prichart can only remain in power for 3 5-year terms I believe, which is the reflection of pre-prolong thinking. Which is why the two of them have agreed on deepening the cultural ties between Manticore and Haven by granting automatic citizenship for anyone who moves in either direction. It's how Manticore and Beowulf ended up such close nations, with citizens on both sides getting married and having such deep political ties despite Beowulf's membership in the SL. So the new arrangement goes even further than that, making it very difficult for Havenites to view Manticorans (or it's alliance members) as enemies and getting the sort of political toehold among the population (the way the Legislaturalists and the CPS did to divert attention away from their failings).

thanatos wrote:

cthia wrote:I can't help but feel Beth is secretly worried deep down inside about the lasting stability of the restored Republic. What will happen to it after the changing of the guard? After Pritchard is replaced with a fair election, how is the course of the current government maintained with so many Saint-Just style of sympathizers waiting in the wings? Trust me, I've personally been a part of much more surprising elections.

How is Beth to know that the leopard isn't really a chameleon waiting to change its colors again? With so much shared tech it could prove fatally difficult for the Star Empire this time around trying to recover from a blow like that. And even more difficult for Beth and her power base to bounce back from being so wrong.

I believe this point is addresses in the Epilogue of Uncompromising Honor. Elizabeth is well aware of the dangers, especially since Prichart can only remain in power for 3 5-year terms I believe, which is the reflection of pre-prolong thinking. Which is why the two of them have agreed on deepening the cultural ties between Manticore and Haven by granting automatic citizenship for anyone who moves in either direction. It's how Manticore and Beowulf ended up such close nations, with citizens on both sides getting married and having such deep political ties despite Beowulf's membership in the SL. So the new arrangement goes even further than that, making it very difficult for Havenites to view Manticorans (or it's alliance members) as enemies and getting the sort of political toehold among the population (the way the Legislaturalists and the CPS did to divert attention away from their failings).

Contact with treecats at the highest level of Havenite government might have some effect on undesirables getting into power.

And I'm inclined to think the officer corps Theisman has built up in the RHN since the restoration of the constitution would have a "praetorian guard" effect even if it's not an active thing they're trying to do. Even if they never say a word the threat is always there, and they've had lots of experience with regimes that shouldn't be in power.