Sonja Hemphill

Or Shannon's head in Sonja's lap?

roseandheather wrote:

Yow wrote:~Eloise Pritchart~ "...With your permission, now that the original treaty’s been approved at both ends, I’d like to go ahead and get Admiral Hemphill’s mission off to Bolthole as soon as possible..."
I imagine Admiral Sonja Hemphill turning to her loyal henchmen and joyfully hollering out "Roadtrip!"

You have an excellent grasp of Sonja Hemphill's character.

And I can totally picture her having to squash the impulse to say, "Are we there yet?" every two hours. And she and Shannon becoming instant best friends. And Sonja basically clapping in glee when she sees the playground that is Bolthole. And she and Shannon being basically inseparable the entire time they're there, and muttering together about things that fly right over everybody else's head. And unintentional sleepovers because they're on Shannon's couch going over something or other and they literally fall asleep over their pads. And they wake up with Sonja's head on Shannon's shoulder and look at each other and blush like mad and then hurry to go back to work because...

...I think I'm getting a little carried away here.

namelessfly wrote:Or Shannon's head in Sonja's lap?

My mind totally went there, even if my post didn't.

Basically: yes please!!

What confuses me is that some people are having a go at Hemphill for just speaking frankly and achieving a resolution that served the interest of both the service and the nation.

What about the two scoundrel conservatives that kept voting innocent of all five charges time and time again? If it weren't for them and the political faction behind them there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Sonja Hemphill actually showed political understanding and the ability to act courageously, decisively and WITH integrity when she altered her voting stance to break the deadlock. She knew when she changed her vote that she would likely face a good deal of personal consequences when she altered her verdict. How she acted in that room completely reversed my initial 'bad impression' of her from OBS.

Something to consider when thinking about Sonja:

My own list for the three people most responsible for the survival of the Star Kingdom:

Roger Winton
Jonas Adcock
Sonja Hemphill

My second tier
Elizabeth Winton
Honor Harrington
Duke of Cromarty
Hamish Alexander

Note who is in the first tier. Without Sonja's brilliance, drive and determination to see what first appear to be outlandish ideas put into play, Manticore goes into the war with Haven at tech parity and loses....

So, she has my vote any day. In addition, remember that over time people change and mature. That is true of Sonja, Honor, Hamish and most of the characters in the Honorverse.

Don

BobfromSydney wrote:What confuses me is that some people are having a go at Hemphill for just speaking frankly and achieving a resolution that served the interest of both the service and the nation.

What about the two scoundrel conservatives that kept voting innocent of all five charges time and time again? If it weren't for them and the political faction behind them there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Sonja Hemphill actually showed political understanding and the ability to act courageously, decisively and WITH integrity when she altered her voting stance to break the deadlock. She knew when she changed her vote that she would likely face a good deal of personal consequences when she altered her verdict. How she acted in that room completely reversed my initial 'bad impression' of her from OBS.

...whenever anyone brings up Sonja's actions during Young's trial in a negative context I am just going to link them to this post,

n7axw wrote:Something to consider when thinking about Sonja:

My own list for the three people most responsible for the survival of the Star Kingdom:

Roger Winton
Jonas Adcock
Sonja Hemphill

My second tier
Elizabeth Winton
Honor Harrington
Duke of Cromarty
Hamish Alexander

Don

Good point. Sonja's always been sort of a dark horse for me. We get very little direct interaction with her but yet she's always there in the background. I actually was impressed that she was willing to go against her political leanings to indict Young on the non-capital charges. That couldn't have been easy with two Conservative tattle-tales sitting right there with her. Then again, I never saw her as being the hardcore, completely incompetent Conservative Association type anyway.

n7axw wrote:Something to consider when thinking about Sonja:

My own list for the three people most responsible for the survival of the Star Kingdom:

Roger Winton
Jonas Adcock
Sonja Hemphill

My second tier
Elizabeth Winton
Honor Harrington
Duke of Cromarty
Hamish Alexander

Note who is in the first tier. Without Sonja's brilliance, drive and determination to see what first appear to be outlandish ideas put into play, Manticore goes into the war with Haven at tech parity and loses....

So, she has my vote any day. In addition, remember that over time people change and mature. That is true of Sonja, Honor, Hamish and most of the characters in the Honorverse.

Don

Not quite tech parity, Manticoran hardware was always better. However, the RMN would have started the war without the new missile pods or the FTL comm, and the podlayers, MDM, LACs and all of Ghost Rider's various party pieces wouldn't have materialised if not for those three.

Hi Don,

I think the Duke of Cromarty deserves far more credit is creating the political will in parliament to fund the huge increases in the navy's budget that made the R&D improvements not just stale displays on some shelf somewhere when the peeps invaded.

I think your top three would all agree on that.

Then there's the fact that Tom Caparelli also had a few more things to do with the SKM's survival than anyone but Elisabeth on the second list.

Then there's Pat Givens, for many obvious reasons including planning and arranging Third Yeltsin, with Webster and D'Orville easily also ahead of Honor as fleet commanders throughout the war.

L

n7axw wrote:Something to consider when thinking about Sonja:

My own list for the three people most responsible for the survival of the Star Kingdom:

Roger Winton
Jonas Adcock
Sonja Hemphill

My second tier
Elizabeth Winton
Honor Harrington
Duke of Cromarty
Hamish Alexander

Note who is in the first tier. Without Sonja's brilliance, drive and determination to see what first appear to be outlandish ideas put into play, Manticore goes into the war with Haven at tech parity and loses....

So, she has my vote any day. In addition, remember that over time people change and mature. That is true of Sonja, Honor, Hamish and most of the characters in the Honorverse.

Don

lyonheart wrote:Hi Don,

I think the Duke of Cromarty deserves far more credit is creating the political will in parliament to fund the huge increases in the navy's budget that made the R&D improvements not just stale displays on some shelf somewhere when the peeps invaded.

I think your top three would all agree on that.

Then there's the fact that Tom Caparelli also had a few more things to do with the SKM's survival than anyone but Elisabeth on the second list.

Then there's Pat Givens, for many obvious reasons including planning and arranging Third Yeltsin, with Webster and D'Orville easily also ahead of Honor as fleet commanders throughout the war.

L

n7axw wrote:Something to consider when thinking about Sonja:

My own list for the three people most responsible for the survival of the Star Kingdom:

Roger Winton
Jonas Adcock
Sonja Hemphill

My second tier
Elizabeth Winton
Honor Harrington
Duke of Cromarty
Hamish Alexander

Note who is in the first tier. Without Sonja's brilliance, drive and determination to see what first appear to be outlandish ideas put into play, Manticore goes into the war with Haven at tech parity and loses....

So, she has my vote any day. In addition, remember that over time people change and mature. That is true of Sonja, Honor, Hamish and most of the characters in the Honorverse.

Don

Hi Lyonheart,

Interesting points. Nobody's list will be unassailable and mine was put together on the fly with emphasis on how Gram came to birth, was sustained and finally transformed into concrete, working tech to give the RMN its decisive advantage.

If you start with a different emphasis, you get a different list. I agree with you about Cromarty and Caparelli, by the way.

Don

Even with all of the successes out of Gram and the many victories because of it... Is Sonja Hemphill still known as "Horrible Hemphill"?