Honor Explains Traveller

[Jeffr0]

I just finished books 1 to 3 of the Honor Harington series. Here's some notes on the educational value:

(1) Shows how a pinnace and some marines can be *really* useful.

(2) Shows how a naval officer can gain SOC and become a noble.

(3) Illustrates large TCS sized fleet battles and how they are impacted by communication lags.

(All of them) A big ship universe without fighters.

Pretty cool.

 

[Jeffr0]

Oh yeah... they also talk about CruRon's and BatRon's... whatever they are....

 

[BillDowns]

Naval parlance, really..

CruRon - Cruiser Squadron

BatRon - Battlecruider/Battleship squadron

SubRon - Submarine Squadron

...etc...

How do you do a spoiler tag?

 

[aramis]

The Honorverse's technology is a retheme of starfire. (Webber was the Starfire Line Developer for 2 editions!)

Spoiler tags:

Spoiler:

[sblock]hidden content goes here[/sblock]

 

[rancke]

Naval parlance, really..

CruRon - Cruiser Squadron

BatRon - Battlecruider/Battleship squadron

SubRon - Submarine Squadron

And a patron is, of course, a Patrol Squadron.

BTW, have you noticed that the 'assault' part of Assault Squadron is not abbreviated with the usual three letters?


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

Lol, very good Hans.

Traveller humour at it's best

 

[Jame]

I would say that HH is excellent naval traveller for the first 4-5 books; after that it's still good but (1.) shifts more towards nobles and (2.) becomes more overwritten.

 

[Supplement Four]

I just finished books 1 to 3 of the Honor Harington series.

Welcome aboard, Jeffr0!

They're not examples of life-changing science fiction, but they sure are great scifi adventure tales. I love the universe.

It's "classic" in so many ways.

I think it'd be a good rpg setting, too.

 

[BillDowns]

Jeff, Here's a hint as to what comes later.....if you wish......

Spoiler:

Fighters & battleriders get introduced later

Actually, the first three are the best, and quality drops off after that.....Someone called it diarrhea of the pen or mouth or something.....

 

[atpollard]

Personally, I just found it a little creepy how she kept loosing body parts with each book ... where will it end: Honor Harrington, Zombie Empress (an armless, legless, headless torso able to inspire intense bravery and loyalty in its subjects).

 

[aramis]

Jeff, Here's a hint as to what comes later.....if you wish......

Spoiler:

Fighters & battleriders get introduced later

Exactly as they do in Starfire.

 

[Peter Schutze]

>she kept loosing body parts

I can assure you that "an armless, legless, headless torso" doesnt even come close to happening

the worst that I remember happening later is that the replacements get damaged but its been a few years

>Someone called it diarrhea of the pen or mouth or something

Personally I think Weber started reading Turtledove instead of Ben Bova. Definitely suffering from "why say it in one page when you can stretch it to 10"-itis.

Even more annoying for me personally ..... the books definitely start suffering more and more from "multiple viewpoint" disorder.

>shifts more towards nobles

which is why I thought the spin-offs had such potential. Shadow of Saganami starts again with graduates but continues the overall timeline

personally I was waiting to see how Weber was going to handle the political situation he'd built up ..... to avoid spoiling the overall history I wont specify who is what 1939 naval power.

 

[Peter Schutze]

>Exactly as they do in Starfire.

nah, unless you're talking one of the post-Weber rewrites of starfire ..... which I've stopped following

In weber-era starfire there were 2 different tech streams. I dont think Weber was involved in the Alkeda Dawn series

Spoiler:

LAC could be either starfire fighters or gunboats
Pods are starfire sbmhawks
carrying LACs and pods into battle very closely resembles starfire's XO racks
not sure there is a parallel for traveller battleriders since there is no seperate 'jump drive' in the Honourverse to save the space on
podnaughts didnt have a counterpart in starfire but that's book 7 or so

 

[aramis]

>Exactly as they do in Starfire.

nah, unless you're talking one of the post-Weber rewrites of starfire ..... which I've stopped following

In weber-era starfire there were 2 different tech streams. I dont think Weber was involved in the Alkeda Dawn series

Spoiler:

LAC could be either starfire fighters or gunboats
Pods are starfire sbmhawks
carrying LACs and pods into battle very closely resembles starfire's XO racks
not sure there is a parallel for traveller battleriders since there is no seperate 'jump drive' in the Honourverse to save the space on
podnaughts didnt have a counterpart in starfire but that's book 7 or so

he was the line editor.

Spoiler:

Yes, there are Jump drives. "Minovski Sails" IIRC, which are required to transit the warp points. Starfire lacks this, but requires the correct type of drive and PP to open the warp point, and with J drives instead of I, does require a drive to jump.

Akelda was, IIRC, just after he left. As were early Gunboat playtests, SBMHAWKs, and XO Racks. Heck, SBMHAWKS are in 2nd ed, as are XO racks.

The first 5 books (as far as I could take of Harrington) do very much parallel starfire tech paradigms from 3rd ed, which is Webber. Late end of webber; 3R was post-webber.

 

[rancke]

Actually, the first three are the best, and quality drops off after that.....Someone called it diarrhea of the pen or mouth or something.....

I think of it as Successful Author Syndrome. A few authors seems to be immune, but most come down with it when they become too successful for editors to dare/care to edit them.


Hans

 

[Peter Schutze]

I dont recall anything in any of the Honor Harrington books that would qualify as a seperate jump drive like traveller has. The best argument that there is not a different jump vs maneover drive that comes immediately to mind is that damage to the drive nodes screws the ships speed in normal and FTL mode.

the difference between local and interstellar drives is a mode thing not a physically seperate system like in traveller. In normal space the drive field is a "wedge" and inertia sink not too dissimilar to traveller maneover drives, if you ignore that wedge mode gives you partial shielding so you can play 2D <grin>
Change from "wedge" to "sail" (usually descriped as disks) mode outside of a gravity well and the ship goes FTL.

2300AD is probably the closest traveller fit for Honor Harrington tech rather than comparing to the 'real' traveller of any edition.

 

[Jeffr0]

Rats.

I was enjoying these, but thought the first three were flawed.

I was kinda hoping they'd get better....

Ah well. I'm reading them for the page turning space combat scenes anyway. You can almost hear the dice rolling.... ("You got a missile hit... now roll for damage.... Laser three is down... and Missile eight!")

 

[atpollard]

Ah well. I'm reading them for the page turning space combat scenes anyway. You can almost hear the dice rolling.... ("You got a missile hit... now roll for damage.... Laser three is down... and Missile eight!")

I thought that the battles stayed exciting throughout the series (at least the first 7 books ... as far as I read).

 

[Valarian]

I prefer the Starfire series of books (Crusade, In Death Ground, The Shiva Option, Insurrection) by David Weber rather than his Honor Harrington books.

 

[BillDowns]

I thought that the battles stayed exciting throughout the series (at least the first 7 books ... as far as I read).

Well, to some degree, but they get farther and farther apart in the later books. For some masochistic reason, I have all of them.

The thing I got real tired of was the maxi-super-superlatives, like (paraphrase) the flagship flushes all its pods, and thousands of missiles hit space. Not just hundreds but thousands.
italics added by Weber, not me.....

EDIT: Ahh, damn it, I dislike this software - all the formatting tools are gone, and no help......

REPRISE: I found the controls.....