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Sonja Hemphill

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Sonja Hemphill
Post by cthia   » Fri Jun 20, 2014 11:45 am

cthia
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I must apologize to Sonja Hemphill. I think most of us have been too hard on her. So we assumed she had a weapons development fluke, but as RFC has pointed out, as did Sonja herself, Fearless was simply meant to be a testbed. It is only human to remember one's controversial snafus (justified or no) than their many successes (Politics and President's are prime examples.) Sonja was instrumental in keeping the RMN's ass out of the fire. I mistakenly reasoned that perhaps Shannon should take the lead in the Foraker/Hemphill double hitting duo. Yet what did Sonja get right? Either it was RFC's brilliant writing, or Sonja always seemed to come up with just the right technology, JIT (just in time.) I submit that RFC had help from Sonja.

When Foraker unveiled the triple-ripple, I suffered from anxiety. Talk about unphased and quick out the gates, Hemphill deployed a 'jury-rigged' counter. What I heard from Sonja was "Is that all you've got?"

Her Apollo eventually breaks the backs of the Havenites. What were the many iterations of the missiles? Keyhole?

Was it Sonja's jeune ecole that conceived and advocated pod warfare, effectively rewriting the threat environment? She kept the Havenites off balance, and prevented that Juggernaut of an 800 lb gorilla from pouncing.

Yes, the RMN had Honor. Yet Honor had Sonja, who had her back. Which Honor eventually came to appreciate, after the dust had settled.

Anymore praise for Sonja, perceived compliments time overdue?

So...here's to you Sonja...

For she's a jolly good sistren, for she's a jolly good sistren
For she's a jolly good sistren — which nobody can deny
Which nobody can deny, which nobody can deny
For she's a jolly good sistren, for she's a jolly good sistren
For she's a jolly good sistren — which nobody can deny!

An aside:
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" is the second-most popular song in the English language, following "Happy Birthday to You" and followed by "Auld Lang Syne". It is frequently used instead of "Happy Birthday to You" in films and television to avoid possible copyright issues.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Sonja Hemphill
Post by Commodore Oakius   » Fri Jun 20, 2014 12:01 pm

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cthia wrote:So we assumed she had a weapons development fluke, but as RFC has pointed out, as did Sonja herself, Fearless was simply meant to be a testbed.

Right, I think Honor mentions that on Grayson to Earl Whitehaven before he capture. Hemphill never sent the Fearless to Basalisk with gutted weapons. It wasn't her fault Honor had a ship unsuited for combat.

Is there unrest regarding Ms. Hemphill? Personally I didn't give her much thought after Basilisk until the Young court marshal, good or bad. Then, when I realize who she was I gainned some respect for her after her voting to throw young out.
Obviouly my respect and admiration have grown since, considering what she has turned out for Manticore.
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Re: Sonja Hemphill
Post by cthia   » Fri Jun 20, 2014 12:21 pm

cthia
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Commodore Oakius wrote:
cthia wrote:So we assumed she had a weapons development fluke, but as RFC has pointed out, as did Sonja herself, Fearless was simply meant to be a testbed.

Right, I think Honor mentions that on Grayson to Earl Whitehaven before he capture. Hemphill never sent the Fearless to Basalisk with gutted weapons. It wasn't her fault Honor had a ship unsuited for combat.

Is there unrest regarding Ms. Hemphill? Personally I didn't give her much thought after Basilisk until the Young court marshal, good or bad. Then, when I realize who she was I gainned some respect for her after her voting to throw young out.
Obviouly my respect and admiration have grown since, considering what she has turned out for Manticore.

I plum forgot about her input in the Young court martial. I must reread that. Does anyone readily recall the book that was in?

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Sonja Hemphill
Post by crewdude48   » Fri Jun 20, 2014 12:25 pm

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cthia wrote:Was it Sonja's jeune ecole that conceived and advocated pod warfare, effectively rewriting the threat environment? She kept the Havenites off balance, and prevented that Juggernaut of an 800 lb gorilla from pouncing.


Actually Hemphill was against pods. She designed the new launchers in them to make LACs more dangerous, and thought of them being wasted in pods as "retrograde," which is about as big an insult as the jeune ecole can give to a piece of tech. The fact that the LACs were still totally unsurvivable at that point didn't seem to phase her. Of course, we only hear about this through Honor's thoughts in SVW, and she would be rather justified in still holding an internal grudge at that point against Horrible Hemphill, regardless of who the fault for Fearless actually belonged to.
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Re: Sonja Hemphill
Post by cthia   » Fri Jun 20, 2014 12:32 pm

cthia
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crewdude48 wrote:
cthia wrote:Was it Sonja's jeune ecole that conceived and advocated pod warfare, effectively rewriting the threat environment? She kept the Havenites off balance, and prevented that Juggernaut of an 800 lb gorilla from pouncing.


Actually Hemphill was against pods. She designed the new launchers in them to make LACs more dangerous, and thought of them being wasted in pods as "retrograde," which is about as big an insult as the jeune ecole can give to a piece of tech. The fact that the LACs were still totally unsurvivable at that point didn't seem to phase her. Of course, we only hear about this through Honor's thoughts in SVW, and she would be rather justified in still holding an internal grudge at that point against Horrible Hemphill, regardless of who the fault for Fearless actually belonged to.

Thanks dude. Who was responsible for the conception of pod-based warfare?

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Sonja Hemphill
Post by Theemile   » Fri Jun 20, 2014 12:32 pm

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Commodore Oakius wrote:
cthia wrote:So we assumed she had a weapons development fluke, but as RFC has pointed out, as did Sonja herself, Fearless was simply meant to be a testbed.

Right, I think Honor mentions that on Grayson to Earl Whitehaven before he capture. Hemphill never sent the Fearless to Basalisk with gutted weapons. It wasn't her fault Honor had a ship unsuited for combat.

Is there unrest regarding Ms. Hemphill? Personally I didn't give her much thought after Basilisk until the Young court marshal, good or bad. Then, when I realize who she was I gainned some respect for her after her voting to throw young out.
Obviouly my respect and admiration have grown since, considering what she has turned out for Manticore.


I believe it was mentioned before that if the Fearless experiment had been more successful, the intended next gen New build GL class would have something more akin to a Large Cruiser, than the elderly undersized CL testbed. The reason the CL was used is the Courageous class had reached the end of it's life and were being retired as Apollos came off the line to replace them. The Fearless was at the point in it's life that it still had some fight in it but it's last cruise was on the horizon. The intention was that the GL testing was to be it's end - but it was believed there would be more testing before the idea was fully flushed out than just the war games. Unfortunately the Games proved that the GL/CL was a 1 trick pony, and any light ship sacrificed too much to mount the GL and a meaningful # of ETs to survive against a peer competitor, making the ship useless for any job other than GL assassin role it wasn't all that good at.

So, since the Fearless still had that 1 good cruise left in her, and everyone wanted the whole thing to go away, the Fearles was sent to the quiet backwater where it's deficiencies would not matter, and the most use could be extracted from the ship without endangering the ship or the crew before it was retired like it's sisters .

Or, that was the plan...
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Re: Sonja Hemphill
Post by cthia   » Fri Jun 20, 2014 12:39 pm

cthia
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RFC wrote:
[big snip]
And, for that matter, Sonja had nothing at all to do with having Fearless swept under the rug to Basilisk; that was Janacek, her cousin, looking out for the family name. She was pissed her brainchild wasn't working out better, and I think it's been established that tact was never her strong suit, especially before the war, so it's not surprising that Honor felt Hemphill blamed her [Honor] personally for what had happened, but that isn't actually the case if you go back and read carefully.

Did textev ever give evidence of it finally coming to the attention of Honor that it was not Sonja who banished Fearless to Basilisk Station? I seem to recall Honor really being upset with Sonja since she had made 'Voldemoort' work once.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Sonja Hemphill
Post by runsforcelery   » Fri Jun 20, 2014 1:24 pm

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crewdude48 wrote:
cthia wrote:Was it Sonja's jeune ecole that conceived and advocated pod warfare, effectively rewriting the threat environment? She kept the Havenites off balance, and prevented that Juggernaut of an 800 lb gorilla from pouncing.


Actually Hemphill was against pods. She designed the new launchers in them to make LACs more dangerous, and thought of them being wasted in pods as "retrograde," which is about as big an insult as the jeune ecole can give to a piece of tech. The fact that the LACs were still totally unsurvivable at that point didn't seem to phase her. Of course, we only hear about this through Honor's thoughts in SVW, and she would be rather justified in still holding an internal grudge at that point against Horrible Hemphill, regardless of who the fault for Fearless actually belonged to.



Did you ever actually see Sonja being "against the pods," or did you get that through the filters of another character (like, oh, Honor Harrington, who was still really, really pissed at her over Basilisk Station at that point)? I ask merely because there was this little thing called security for King Roger's top secret research program, you understand. ;)

I believe the word I might be searching for here is "disinformation." :twisted:


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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Re: Sonja Hemphill
Post by Commodore Oakius   » Fri Jun 20, 2014 1:39 pm

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cthia wrote:I plum forgot about her input in the Young court martial. I must reread that. Does anyone readily recall the book that was in?

The Field of Dishonor. It was the first part of the book, whihc of course, led to the Earl North Hallow hiring Summervale.

cthia wrote:Thanks dude. Who was responsible for the conception of pod-based warfare?

Honor started the fad in "The Short Victorious War" but I think it was Hemphill that pushed it. I seem to remember in "Honor Among Eneimes" that the Qship design was Hemphills baby, which included pods and LACs.

crewdude48 wrote:Actually Hemphill was against pods. She designed the new launchers in them to make LACs more dangerous, and thought of them being wasted in pods as "retrograde," which is about as big an insult as the jeune ecole can give to a piece of tech. The fact that the LACs were still totally unsurvivable at that point didn't seem to phase her. Of course, we only hear about this through Honor's thoughts in SVW, and she would be rather justified in still holding an internal grudge at that point against Horrible Hemphill, regardless of who the fault for Fearless actually belonged to.


I think Janacheck disliked the pods once the LAC took off in its later versions, after Honor had returned, and only because it was the LACs beign the "new main system defense".
In "In Enemey Hands" Honor talks with Whitehaven about both the pods and the LACs during her time on the WDB. He thought they were, and i think I have this right, "pie in the sky" ideas not fully tested, and he attributed both to Hemphill... until she told him she wrote the recommandtion for the LACs for the WDB.

However, if someone has a textev that I am wrong please do share.

cthia wrote:[
Did textev ever give evidence of it finally coming to the attention of Honor that it was not Sonja who banished Fearless to Basilisk Station? I seem to recall Honor really being upset with Sonja since she had made 'Voldemoort' work once.


I don't think so, I think she got over being deployed with the gravlance in between books, before her own time on the WDB, but before her apprciation of the Wayfarer Qship she took to Sileasa.
At least in my humble opinion and memory. :lol:

As I am typing this, vindication of my post was placed...
runsforcelery wrote:Did you ever actually see Sonja being "against the pods," or did you get that through the filters of another character (like, oh, Honor Harrington, who was still really, really pissed at her over Basilisk Station at that point)? I ask merely because there was this little thing called security for King Roger's top secret research program, you understand. ;)

I believe the word I might be searching for here is "disinformation." :twisted:
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Re: Sonja Hemphill
Post by Hutch   » Fri Jun 20, 2014 2:53 pm

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Remember, Sonja wasn't (and never claimed to be) a lone wolf--she had been part of the weapons development projects for many years, and learned from the best, including a couple of smart guys named D'Orivile and Winton....

And I expect that while the WDB might have it's flakes, like the Commander that approached Honor at the end of On Basalisk Station, it also has its' share on very bright, very creative people whom look to Sonya for approval and input and deeply care about their work.

And it is Soyna's job not just to think of things to keep them busy, but get those genius-level folks working together and on target--not the easiest job in the universe, I'm sure.

All that said, for all that Soyna Hemphill has and will do, quiet, unassumming, and incredibly capable Admiral Jonas Adcock will always be my hero, after House of Steel.
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