Haven Victorious

NortonIDaughter wrote:I maybe should I have left poor Elizabeth out of this entirely, since that seems to be the dead horse around here. She's not crazy, she would have negotiated earlier if she could have, and she wanted peace and a treaty.

But that's not what happened, and my point about Haven and their reason for going to war was just as much or more about High Ridge.

Leaving Giancola entirely aside, Haven was right: Manticore was *not* negotiating in good faith. They needed to force High Ridge to the table. That WAS their whole reason for going to war-- if they could not end it with words, they had to try other means. They actually ended up removing him entirely, which Elizabeth hadn't managed in four years, and y'all know she was trying! The only reason she never contemplated firing High Ridge into one of the suns was because it would've been too quick. (A woman after my own heart.) With High Ridge gone, Manticore was free to negotiate in good faith at last. Haven accomplished that.

Without Thunderbolt, when and how does High Ridge resign? He held on until the news about Grendelsbane! I find it entirely likely that, if he'd gotten a formal declaration of the resumption of hostilities, he could have stayed ahead of the game a little longer. Without those "sneak attacks", the RMN doesn't get creamed the same way. More time to prep public opinion, to play the game and fake that steely resolve, etc. He's still got Honor, and as much as he dislikes her, he's clearly willing to use her. I don't see Elizabeth being any more willing to rock the boat with a constitutional crisis at that point, either. He'd have lasted long enough to do damage. God knows how the Monica aftermath, not to mention the Mesa/ SL conflict, would have gone if he'd held on even longer than I think he would have.

Because of High Ridge, Haven needed to fight to get a treaty *at all*. Full stop. Getting the treaty they *did* get, which was by all measures more advantageous to the Republic (and to the SEM), rather than some other version, was possible because Haven proved their worth in a variety of ways, some of which only occurred *because* of the war.

Of course, as RFC pointed out, all of this is against the backdrop of the MAlign conflict-- without it, either the war never happens at all, or ends at the summit on Torch, with a perfectly reasonable peace such as Elizabeth would have offered originally. Or neither war ever happens in the first place, seeing as the MAlign brought the old Republic down to begin with... Or or or... the road untraveled may be impossible to map with any certainty, but "here there be dragons" has always captured the imagination.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

NortonIDaughter wrote:I maybe should I have left poor Elizabeth out of this entirely, since that seems to be the dead horse around here. She's not crazy, she would have negotiated earlier if she could have, and she wanted peace and a treaty.

But that's not what happened, and my point about Haven and their reason for going to war was just as much or more about High Ridge.

Leaving Giancola entirely aside, Haven was right: Manticore was *not* negotiating in good faith. They needed to force High Ridge to the table. That WAS their whole reason for going to war-- if they could not end it with words, they had to try other means. They actually ended up removing him entirely, which Elizabeth hadn't managed in four years, and y'all know she was trying! The only reason she never contemplated firing High Ridge into one of the suns was because it would've been too quick. (A woman after my own heart.) With High Ridge gone, Manticore was free to negotiate in good faith at last. Haven accomplished that.

Without Thunderbolt, when and how does High Ridge resign? He held on until the news about Grendelsbane! I find it entirely likely that, if he'd gotten a formal declaration of the resumption of hostilities, he could have stayed ahead of the game a little longer. Without those "sneak attacks", the RMN doesn't get creamed the same way. More time to prep public opinion, to play the game and fake that steely resolve, etc. He's still got Honor, and as much as he dislikes her, he's clearly willing to use her. I don't see Elizabeth being any more willing to rock the boat with a constitutional crisis at that point, either. He'd have lasted long enough to do damage. God knows how the Monica aftermath, not to mention the Mesa/ SL conflict, would have gone if he'd held on even longer than I think he would have.

Because of High Ridge, Haven needed to fight to get a treaty *at all*. Full stop. Getting the treaty they *did* get, which was by all measures more advantageous to the Republic (and to the SEM), rather than some other version, was possible because Haven proved their worth in a variety of ways, some of which only occurred *because* of the war.

Of course, as RFC pointed out, all of this is against the backdrop of the MAlign conflict-- without it, either the war never happens at all, or ends at the summit on Torch, with a perfectly reasonable peace such as Elizabeth would have offered originally. Or neither war ever happens in the first place, seeing as the MAlign brought the old Republic down to begin with... Or or or... the road untraveled may be impossible to map with any certainty, but "here there be dragons" has always captured the imagination.

I have from the beginning had difficulty understanding why warfare is so pervassive in the Honorverse. Given dirt cheap intrasystem as well as interstellar transport, securing raw materials should NOT require conflict. If you can not find what you need in your own system, just pop over to an unihabited system and mine the asteroids or uninhabitable planets. Given the technology to build starships, providing manufactured goods to serve a population should require only a tiny workforce.

The Masada vs Grayson conflict is an exception that is driven by religious dogma, not economics.

The Haven conquests are the result of end stage socialism paralyzing Haven's economy, but providing for the people should always be cheaper and easier than conquest.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

NortonIDaughter wrote:I maybe should I have left poor Elizabeth out of this entirely, since that seems to be the dead horse around here. She's not crazy, she would have negotiated earlier if she could have, and she wanted peace and a treaty.

But that's not what happened, and my point about Haven and their reason for going to war was just as much or more about High Ridge.

Leaving Giancola entirely aside, Haven was right: Manticore was *not* negotiating in good faith. They needed to force High Ridge to the table. That WAS their whole reason for going to war-- if they could not end it with words, they had to try other means. They actually ended up removing him entirely, which Elizabeth hadn't managed in four years, and y'all know she was trying! The only reason she never contemplated firing High Ridge into one of the suns was because it would've been too quick. (A woman after my own heart.) With High Ridge gone, Manticore was free to negotiate in good faith at last. Haven accomplished that.

Without Thunderbolt, when and how does High Ridge resign? He held on until the news about Grendelsbane! I find it entirely likely that, if he'd gotten a formal declaration of the resumption of hostilities, he could have stayed ahead of the game a little longer. Without those "sneak attacks", the RMN doesn't get creamed the same way. More time to prep public opinion, to play the game and fake that steely resolve, etc. He's still got Honor, and as much as he dislikes her, he's clearly willing to use her. I don't see Elizabeth being any more willing to rock the boat with a constitutional crisis at that point, either. He'd have lasted long enough to do damage. God knows how the Monica aftermath, not to mention the Mesa/ SL conflict, would have gone if he'd held on even longer than I think he would have.

Because of High Ridge, Haven needed to fight to get a treaty *at all*. Full stop. Getting the treaty they *did* get, which was by all measures more advantageous to the Republic (and to the SEM), rather than some other version, was possible because Haven proved their worth in a variety of ways, some of which only occurred *because* of the war.

Of course, as RFC pointed out, all of this is against the backdrop of the MAlign conflict-- without it, either the war never happens at all, or ends at the summit on Torch, with a perfectly reasonable peace such as Elizabeth would have offered originally. Or neither war ever happens in the first place, seeing as the MAlign brought the old Republic down to begin with... Or or or... the road untraveled may be impossible to map with any certainty, but "here there be dragons" has always captured the imagination.

I have from the beginning had difficulty understanding why warfare is so pervassive in the Honorverse. Given dirt cheap intrasystem as well as interstellar transport, securing raw materials should NOT require conflict. If you can not find what you need in your own system, just pop over to an unihabited system and mine the asteroids or uninhabitable planets. Given the technology to build starships, providing manufactured goods to serve a population should require only a tiny workforce.

The Masada vs Grayson conflict is an exception that is driven by religious dogma, not economics.

The Haven conquests are the result of end stage socialism paralyzing Haven's economy, but providing for the people should always be cheaper and easier than conquest.

NortonIDaughter wrote:Without Thunderbolt, when and how does High Ridge resign?

NortonIDaughter wrote:Oooh, Galactic Sapper, I hadn't thought about the timing there! I'm not sure they dragged their feet to that extent, but I'd have to go back and reread. And yeah, once one treaty is in place (or nearly so), it has it's own inertia.

As for the resources question, arguably, wormholes are the only natural resource in the Honorverse worth fighting for-- and then, only if you want company. I imagine Austin Grayson would not have wanted one in HIS star system!

As for the PRH and the dole, let's not forget that anyone with an education was also more of a target, like Wayne Alexander, Honor's flight engineer. Another heck of a trade to make, especially with your family on the line. As well, a "needs-based" dole can easily be turned into a means of social control-- don't talk back or you're on the dole, don't talk back or we'll "lose your paperwork" and you won't even have that, etc. And while the "too lazy to work" drum gets hit a lot in the books, RFC also alluded to a highly developed world of black market and under-the-table industry in the only look at the normal Havenite citizenry we get, his novella about Eloise and her sister. Eloise was teaching history on the side, which implies a market for it, etc etc. There's plenty of work going on there, it's just in hiding as much as it can.

kzt wrote:You know that every elected official in Washington DC sends their kids to private school, right?

PeterZ wrote:Yup. Wasted effort setting up that horrible school system. If the pols had t send their kids to public schools, the schools would be much better.