Honorverse favorite one-liners

I am not yet ancient, Senior Singer,> Golden Voice admitted, <yet I do not regret my choices. And Sun Leaf Clan had a full two hands of well-trained memory singers. It was not as though they truly needed yet another, and the hunger for the human mind glow was upon me.>

This is a new concept for me. If I didn't know any better, and I don't, treecat's may experience a need to taste human mind glows that borders on addiction.

“Somehow it doesn’t strike me as a good omen when a damned cat’s tactics are better than the fleet CO’s, she thought. Probably something I should keep to myself. Wouldn’t want the troops to come to the same conclusion. Or for Beth to decide Dicey’d make a better admiral than I do!”

Yow wrote::|

“Somehow it doesn’t strike me as a good omen when a damned cat’s tactics are better than the fleet CO’s, she thought. Probably something I should keep to myself. Wouldn’t want the troops to come to the same conclusion. Or for Beth to decide Dicey’d make a better admiral than I do!”

Ah, the Great Donut Raid of PD 1922...I remember it well.

Just for reference, I think that was Shadows of Freedom?

And for my daily work, here's some from the short story "A Whiff of Grapeshot" from the More Than Honor anthology.

"We're here," he went on bluntly, "to consider a major change in our overall policy. As you know, we've reinvigorated our armed forces with a policy of meritocratic egalitarianism."

Meaning we killed everyone we thought wasn't reliable and everyone who showed any sign of incompetence.

"But we've reached a point of diminishing returns with the . . . austere policy instituted immediately after the Coup."

Meaning we've got a young, energetic, competent, utterly terrified officer corps. And the latter is beginning to outweigh the benefits of the former.

--Robert S. Pierre, with appropriate interpretations.

"Ah . . . Citizen Admiral," the Marine officer said. "With a million citizens in the streets, how can the situation be considered purely military?"

McQueen's face showed expression for the first time in the meeting. The gesture that drew her lips back over her teeth was not in the least like a smile.

"Don't think of it as millions of citizens, Citizen Brigadier Conflans," she said. "Think of it as having a very, very large target selection." She met his eyes. "This is essential to the future of the People's Republic. Am I understood?"

-Admiral Cluster Bomb herself, Esther McQueen

Fontein looked at her blank-eyed for a moment. Then he spoke: "You don't give up very easily, do you, Citizen Admiral McQueen?"

"White Haven didn't think so."

--Conversation while dangling in a wrecked pinnace hundreds of feet off the ground..

They were his people out there; weak and foolish and stupid and short-sighted, but they were as others made them. He would remake them, and give them back their pride. If he had the right tools.

He looked after McQueen's stretcher. Any good tool kit needed a knife, a sharp one. If you cut yourself using it, that was your fault, not the tool's.

--In another time and place, Robert S. Pierre might have done noble things and been remembered fondly by his country.

cthia wrote:

I am not yet ancient, Senior Singer,> Golden Voice admitted, <yet I do not regret my choices. And Sun Leaf Clan had a full two hands of well-trained memory singers. It was not as though they truly needed yet another, and the hunger for the human mind glow was upon me.>

This is a new concept for me. If I didn't know any better, and I don't, treecat's may experience a need to taste human mind glows that borders on addiction.

It does appear that way to me. There is more explanation of it in What Price, Dreams?:

I have heeded the songs, Memory Singer, and I taste the two-leg mind glow in them, like fire in a night of snow and bitter wind. It haunts my dreams, and I yearn to taste it more clearly—to take it for my own and give myself to it. And I wish to know more of the two-legs' worlds, and their tools, and all their marvels. It is a hunger and a need within me, and I cannot reject it or turn from it.

And again:

But I have tasted the mind glows of others who have taken that advice and never gone among the humans at all...Yet there is also that sadness in them, that knowledge of the path not followed and the dream not sought

And, finally:

...and yet there would always have been that something different deep within him. He would not have known what it was, or what to do with it, but he would always have known it was there, like a thorn buried in the pad of a hand-foot. The unused capacity and ability would have been like that, somewhere deep down inside, and he would never have been fully happy or content, for his full talents would never have been tested or used.

Except with Death Fang's Bane. There, with that alien, two-legged creature not even of his world, those talents had been used, and her brother had soared on wings of glory. She had told Seeker of Dreams that Climbs Quickly's life had been cut short by his bond, and so it had, but oh, how brightly he had burned before the dark!

And one last bit about the treecat "need" for bonding that I forgot:

And she had seen that same talent again and again since he bonded to the human youngling Bright Water Clan had named Death Fang's Bane. It was rare, yet now that the People knew what to look for, Sings Truly believed it had always been there in some of them. It was simply that no one had ever recognized it because there had been no two-legs to summon the possibilities forth...more and more of the People had come to the Bright Water range with that same something. They had recognized its taste within themselves from the memory songs of Climbs Quickly, and they had hungered to fill the void within them as he had, with the glorious power of the mind-blind humans' mind glow

Amaroq wrote:And one last bit about the treecat "need" for bonding that I forgot:

And she had seen that same talent again and again since he bonded to the human youngling Bright Water Clan had named Death Fang's Bane. It was rare, yet now that the People knew what to look for, Sings Truly believed it had always been there in some of them. It was simply that no one had ever recognized it because there had been no two-legs to summon the possibilities forth...more and more of the People had come to the Bright Water range with that same something. They had recognized its taste within themselves from the memory songs of Climbs Quickly, and they had hungered to fill the void within them as he had, with the glorious power of the mind-blind humans' mind glow

Amaroq. This is an extraordinary passage. I keep reading it over and over. May I assume this is also from What Price, Dreams?

This is my missing link, so to speak! Some posts ago, I posited the possibility that the result of treecats living in such close proximity to humans may bring out latent abilities unknown even to the cats. Honor's unprecedented bond with Nimitz, being able to receive limited images, was the first indication that I picked up on. The second indication was very subtle and was possibly missed by many. It was when Honor's baby Raoul was born. I may be wrong here, but I think Nimitz made contact with young Raoul's mindglow unexpectedly. It had a calmimg effect on him. Honor caught it. With the cats being assimilated within everyday life on Grayson, I would not be surprised if latent talents surface. Latent talents either exclusively within the domain of treecats, or within treecat-human bonds.

cthia wrote:
Amaroq. This is an extraordinary passage. I keep reading it over and over. May I assume this is also from What Price, Dreams?

This is my missing link, so to speak! Some posts ago, I posited the possibility that the result of treecats living in such close proximity to humans may bring out latent abilities unknown even to the cats. Honor's unprecedented bond with Nimitz, being able to receive limited images, was the first indication that I picked up on. The second indication was very subtle and was possibly missed by many. It was when Honor's baby Raoul was born. I may be wrong here, but I think Nimitz made contact with young Raoul's mindglow unexpectedly. It had a calmimg effect on him. Honor caught it. With the cats being assimilated within everyday life on Grayson, I would not be surprised if latent talents surface. Latent talents either exclusively within the domain of treecats, or within treecat-human bonds.

Yep, this is from that same short story. You haven't read it yet?

Amaroq wrote:

cthia wrote:
Amaroq. This is an extraordinary passage. I keep reading it over and over. May I assume this is also from What Price, Dreams?

This is my missing link, so to speak! Some posts ago, I posited the possibility that the result of treecats living in such close proximity to humans may bring out latent abilities unknown even to the cats. Honor's unprecedented bond with Nimitz, being able to receive limited images, was the first indication that I picked up on. The second indication was very subtle and was possibly missed by many. It was when Honor's baby Raoul was born. I may be wrong here, but I think Nimitz made contact with young Raoul's mindglow unexpectedly. It had a calmimg effect on him. Honor caught it. With the cats being assimilated within everyday life on Grayson, I would not be surprised if latent talents surface. Latent talents either exclusively within the domain of treecats, or within treecat-human bonds.

Yep, this is from that same short story. You haven't read it yet?

I have not. Remember all of the holes in my Honorverse star map? Unplotted regions. I have ordered almost everything. But please, don't stop posting because I haven't read, it's ok! I really appreciate the posts. The very informative posts!

cthia wrote:I have not. Remember all of the holes in my Honorverse star map? Unplotted regions. I have ordered almost everything. But please, don't stop posting because I haven't read, it's ok! I really appreciate the posts. The very informative posts!

This story also includes the first adoption of a member of the House of Winton...