June 9, 2000 note: This was originally posted in September 1998. I have added some comments. March 1, 2003 Note: Did some clean up; added a few comments. November 13, 2005 Note: Added a comment to the last paragraph.

Echoes of Honor, chapter by chapter (note that the comments for the first 24 chapters were written before I found a copy of EoH). I also have included my guesses on some questions (both mine and ones that have appeared in posts on the the 'a.b.d-w' newsgroup).

Prologue: Haven's Ministry of "Information" makes the news.

May 4, 2003 Note: The following was a post made in July 1998, sometime after the prologue to Echoes of Honor was put up on the Baen website:
I just noticed that the prologue gives two explicit dates: the video was released Jan 24, 1912 Post Diaspora and that Honor was captured at Adler on October 23, 1911 PD. The date for the prologue is not given other than the video was released "almost a full T-month earlier" (say Feb 21st or so).

Chapter 1: Manticore and Grayson create spectacle (there's a difference with above).

Chapter 2: Boardman gloats, McQueen plots

Chapter 3: The birds mentioned in chapter 2 of IEH start hatching from eggs (also the parade of the red shirts).

Chapter 4: Grayson has a problem, Howard Clinkscales has a solution.

Chapter 5: "Its your idea Howard, you persuade Dr. Harrington"

Chapter 6: Is all this really necessary for the plot? It does lead to character development for Rev. Sullivan, but that is the only redeeming feature.

Chapter 7: A domestic scene (one would not know that there is a war) - Is that a future flag Lieutenant (in the last book of the series) for Admiral Harrington? March 1, 2003 Note: I now suspect that she will be a bit more senior than that in the last book.

Chapter 8: "Haa-haaaa-choooo!" No other comment needed.

Chapter 9: Signal intelligence at work

Chapter 10: Well, well, potential recruits

Chapter 11: I repeat, filler. We already know that Honor, who was starved for a month, was seriously wounded, and was in sickbay for weeks, is going to be in terrible physical condition.

Chapter 12: Manticore POWs on Hades? Is this a provable violation of the Deneb Accords? There was a comment in In Enemy Hands which suggested that State Security had grabbed POWs without any notice that they had been captured in the first place.

Chapter 13: Bird-watchers of Hades, Unite!

Chapter 14: Didn't we have this conversation back in chapter 12? At least, the camp leader is on board and he can push objections aside.

Chapter 15: McQueen's plot (at least the one she wants the Committee to know about) is about to begin. Also, this is 5 months or so after chapter 14 - what's been going on there?

Chapter 16: Admiral Giscard's staff gets up to speed - that is some taskforce he has (as long as it doesn't run into 10 Alliance battlesquadrons with the new multi-stage missiles). Are those new drones smuggled in from the Solarian League FTL recon drones?

Chapter 17: Filler again (except for the description of the Aprilist movement - I wonder how many were sent to Hades?).

Chapter 18: The birds (see chapter 3) are testing their feathers. They need all the practice they can get, because the war (see chapter 16) is about to come to them.

Chapter 19: Once again, filler. We already know this much about Emily; we already have a very good idea what White-Haven thinks about Honor. Can't we be trusted to read between the lines?

Chapter 20: An interesting look at the RMN side of the PN briefing back in chapter 16. The Manticore government is thinking of a progressive income tax!? (there is going to be blood in the streets, the Conservative Association is going to end up with an astonishing amount of Commons representation). Also, they are thinking of centralized planning!?! More blood. For that matter, is this necessary? If I was a Centrist, I would argue that the proposed income tax would be sufficient to redirect industrial resources (might not be right, but I would certainly argue it until the cows come home).

Chapter 21: Grayson has been very busy. That is a whole battlesquadron (plus spares) that will be finished in a few more months (unless Operation Icarus raids Blackbird). If I understand William Alexander's musing correctly, Manticore hasn't even started production on that design (is it a pod-deployer?). And is the GNS "Honor Harrington" one of them? Also, Allison is grounded for the duration.

Chapter 22: So this is what that has been going on (see Chapter 15); they haven't had a launch window. Styx has a farm that grows most of the food (including celery?). However, if I have read the text correctly, Chapter 22 is 2 months behind chapter 15. The State Security traffic that visits Hades is different than I expected; that makes escape more difficult (too many are warships which will be missed too soon even if they were captured intact).

Chapter 23: The window arrives (about 1 month behind chapter 15?) - Citizen Lieutenant Allen Jardine (was this a red shirt purchased at a fan auction?) does everything by the Book. Unfortunately for him, the book is incomplete (it needs a section about scanning landing pads before landing).

Chapter 24: We have been waiting for this action for months. However, Cheops's Law of Cost and Schedules just raised its ugly head and the lesser of two evils had to be chosen. Disaster was driven off (but is still a threat), but Quick Rescue was killed in action.

Chapter 25: "The only thing worse than a battle won is a battle lost." However, Nimitz does enjoy the spoils of victory (see Chapter 22).

Chapter 26: The cover is wrong; Honor is wearing her GSN uniform (which should make her senior to everybody on Hades).

Chapter 27: But, IIRC, this ex-prisoner is actually senior to Admiral Harrington GSN (and for that matter, Admiral James Webster RMN as well), but neither he nor Honor appear to notice this. However, he could have been stripped of his rank before being shipped to Hades.

Chapter 28: St. Just unloads some paranoia (by the way, he might be correct; but Pierre will rather be damned if he does than damned if he doesn't). Of course, we know that St. Just is going to be blindsided by a situation (see Question 1 below).

Chapter 29: Tourville comes on board. What is Shannon thinking? Could she have ... ambition?

Chapter 30: The PN does have good starship commanders; this one sounds a lot like Honor herself. She is at least a member of the Old School (and I don't mean Legislaturist). March 1, 2003 Note: She was a fan auction red shirt.

Chapter 31: Finally, White-Haven is up to strength (and it's 5 months later than Chapter 20) and the GSN "Honor Harrington" IS the lead ship from Blackbird. ONI has just waked up to the fact that they have lost track of a goodly fraction of Haven's battlesquadrons. Meanwhile back at Hancock; Truman and Harmon are having problems with conservatives.

Chapter 32: Operation Icarus starts hitting targets; OUCH! It was the French Navy that was into "The Honor of the Flag" - it was stupid then (and always).

Chapter 33: Truman sees problems with the newest exercise - attack imminent; Tourville approaches Zanzibar.

Chapter 34: (not a short chapter): Truman tears up exercise and goes real. The butcher birds go hunting. Perhaps Honor could get a task force out of this in better shape or perhaps she couldn't. What looks like optimum response to me only allowed part of the PN taskforce to escape. June 9, 2000 note: The preceding was assuming rational command, according to AoV, this was a rash assumption.

Chapter 35: Tourville hits Zanzibar, Adler all over again. Whatever is bothering Shannon is not hampering her ability to plan an attack.

Chapter 36: No one, two step toward Basilisk for Operation Icarus. Giscard has the force to attack simultaneously and does.

Chapter 37: The planning for Icarus didn't expect that 8th Fleet will be within an hour of a terminus of the junction; White-Haven goes for maximum response.

We interrupt this commentary with a special news bulletin from UFI: "The reports from merchanters that there is a Haven attack on Basilisk have not yet been confirmed by official Star Kingdom sources; but what is confirmed is that traffic is being diverted away from the Junction. All traffic has been suspended for both the Basilisk and Trevor's Star wormholes ... This just in: warships are arriving from Trevor's Star and are immediately departing towards Basilisk at minimum intervals"

Chapter 38: White-Haven can't save Medusa from a devastating raid; but the terminus is safe. White-Haven has more than enough strength to chase Giscard out of the system.

Chapter 39: Honor promised trials and trials there are. And they are bending over backwards to be fair; I hope that someone in the Solarian League will appreciate it.

Chapter 40: "Come into my web" said the spider to the fly.

Chapter 41: Nice juicy fly, too; Honor catches up with the news (at least as far as up to Chapter 36 is concerned). A note for Commander Ainspan, Tourville is NOT a bastard. He is something far more dangerous; he is damned good.

Chapter 42: Honor resolves to bootstrap the liberation. However, I think she missed a possibility. True, the Admiralty has a lot on its plate even before trying to organize the lift of 400K prisoners; but what about Klaus Hauptman? He said he owed her a favor; though this would be a very expensive one. All Honor really needs from the Admiralty is a cruiser squadron or two for security.

Chapter 43: The mailman comes, is not bitten by hostile dogs, and delivers messages. Is one a problem or an opportunity? (yes, that is a rhetorical question). I see from one comment, "report back for ... debriefing ... StateSec is your friend!", that David Weber is familiar with Paranoia(TM).

Chapter 44: Honor plans the reception.

Chapter 45: The mailman delivers the mail to another stop; oops, a message is missing. Meanwhile, the guests are on their way to Hades.

Chapter 46: While things could have been better, the party did meet all the important objectives.

Chapter 47: Honor sends off first wave to Trevor's Star; waits for more prey (and the return of transports from Trevor's Star). Meanwhile, Citizen General Chernock prepares an inquistion over his missing mail.

Chapter 48: Inquistion arrives in force; Honor prepares her defense.

Chapter 49: Honor's arguments carry the day by acclamation. However, I want to quibble. Half an hour under thrusters and not detected? How is the gas accelerated? If the thrust is coming from thermal expansion, the exhaust of those rockets should be a plasma hot enough to radiate X-rays in order to get that much delta-V. It will then, eventually, cool down enough to radiate in infrared and radio. If accelerated by some sort of mass driver, then the gas will not be hot, but would still be a very fast moving plume that would interact (noisily in radio) with the interplanetary plasma. In chapter 29 of In Enemy Hands, Shannon, at tens of millions of miles away, was able to see that the "Tepes" had lost air and pieces of its hull. An cruiser squadron under reaction thrusters should be more obvious (even at hundreds of million of miles). June 9, 2000 note: David Weber has Michelle Henke expound at length on this action in Ashes of Victory; I am not certain that the additional detail completely answer my objections.

Epilogue: With more captured transport (and faster transport at that), Honor lifts the remaining prisoners (except for the 200+K too stubborn in their disbelief) and arrives at Trevor's Star before the first wave (on about November 22, 1913PD).

Guesses on what happens afterwards:

Question 1: Does the news release of the Hades breakout catch St. Just and Pierre by surprise? Or do they have a few days to prepare spin control?

As I see it, if Chernock sent a message to Haven that he was investigating a problem at Hades, then St. Just could send a force to Hades to investigate why Chernock never sent a followup. He should hear from that force days before any news from Trevor's Star hits Haven. On the other hand, if Chernock didn't send a preliminary message (and the text suggests this); then his deputy would have to followup. This loses enough time that there is a chance that the Committee of Public Safety is totally surprised (could be fatal for a number of members). June 9, 2000 note: Chernock did send a message (but not at a high priority), which meant that St. Just's investigation team hadn't had time to report.

Question 1a: Speaking of news releases; when does the Alliance broadcast to the galaxy that Honor lives?

There are several ways to approach this. An immediate declaration (within hours of the ESN reaching either St. Martin or Manticore) has the advantage of putting the Committe of Public Safety in Haven as far behind the information curve as possible. A possible disadvantage is that the closest StateSec post might hear about the slow convoy and try to intercept it (admittedly, that would be rather hard to do in hyper and dangerous to try in normal space around Trevor's Star). An alternative is to wait until the slow convoy arrives and do a mass anouncement with all the escapees. This has the biggest splash, but risks the CPS finding out about Hades and getting their own spin in first. I would go for the immediate announcement, but would try to delay mentioning the additional 250K escapees coming by slow freight. June 9, 2000 note: It appears that the Alliance went for a delayed announcement.

Question 2: What is the status of Hades and its fortifications?

I can't see Honor leaving control of the defenses of Hades to the surviving StateSec people. They are not worthy of that responsibility. Destroying the defenses means that several divisions of ground troops would be easy to pick up. As I said in a post months ago; it is much better to leave all the SS locked up in their own prison and leave with the key. I would move the defense control station off the planet; set the defenses to attack everything that approaches, from the planet or outside (unless somebody sends the proper command signal); explain this to the senior StateSec people; and leave them on Styx with the radio (so they can inform visitors of this as well). BTW, there was a post that made a similar point a few weeks ago (I can't remember if Weber was being quoted). June 9, 2000 note: Honor destroyed all the fortifications before she left.

Question 3: What can Haven determine about the Shrikes ( and the long ranged missiles used by the "Minotaur" at 2nd Hancock)?

IIRC, over half the battleships managed to escape with reasonably intact systems. Thus, Haven will know the Shrikes acceleration; their peculiar acceleration profile when attacking; how hard they were to detect, hit, and kill; the problems that missiles had with them; and how powerful the grasers were. The problem with evaluating all this evidence is determining how the Alliance managed to squeeze 40K (50K?) tons of warship into 20K tons. They might be able to guess that the "Minotaur" was carrying missiles with staged impellers. I don't believe that they will conclude that the "Minotaur" was the LAC carrier; but they should conclude that as soon as they see similar "dreadnoughts" in actions that included the appearance of Shrikes. June 9, 2000 note: Well, half of the battleships should had escaped with relatively intact systems, but thanks to the incompentence of a politically connected PHB...

Question 4: Will Haven be able to duplicate the multi-stage missiles (and Shrikes?)

They should be able to build multi-staged missiles once they have the idea and this should be easier than reverse engineering the missile pods (similarly, they will be able to build a clone of the "Harrington" about a year or two after they know what it is). They might have problems using the missiles (there must be a reason why all of the dozens, no, hundreds, of naval establishments have used not this idea before) without a FTL communication system. The Shrikes are a totally different story. As explained in Chapter 3, they contain several breakthrough ideas. It will be awhile before even the Solarian League could build a duplicate (after all, after 8 years, the League still is unable to match the Grayson-Manticore inertia compensator which is also one of the factors behind the Shrikes' performance). June 9, 2000 note: I guess we will have to wait for Honor #10. March 1, 2003 Note: In War of Honor the Republic of Haven Navy (RHN) has multi-stage missiles, pod-deploying SDs, and a new LAC design (but not with fission powerplants, Haven went for an endurance so low that the LACs must stay relatively close to their tenders).

Question 4a: What can Haven do about the Shrikes?

A screen of light ships has been suggested; the problem is that the Shrikes can blow away the screen (preferably without using all their missiles) and still be able to attack the main battle force. It is unclear from Chapter 34 what the minimum range of the engagement was (it started at 220K kilometers). If the Shrikes got within 100K, then they would have been in range of grav lances (if the PN ships had them). Grav lances (coupled with energy torpedoes) would take care of the Shrikes IF they got too close (the lance knocks down the bowwall and a small spread of energy torpedoes should hit and destroy the Shrike). Another option is improving the screen by building a class of Shrike killers (say about 100K tons). It would be designed to fire intense volleys of missiles smaller than the standard ship-killer (think of them as large counter missiles with a warhead) that have a minimum size laser head. The missiles would try for the Shrike's open aspects and hit it there. A smaller missile would result in more launch tubes and a higher rate of fire. That should result in overloading the Shrikes point defense and killing them well away from the big ships. A variant of this idea would require that these anti-Shike missiles be small enough to fit into canisters (just like counter-missiles) that can be fired out of normal missile tubes (thus avoiding extensive refits of existing ships). June 9, 2000 note: Again, Honor #10 - though Theisman has some ideas. March 1, 2003 Note: Haven went for what appears to be an anti-LAC LAC design with severe limitations on endurance to gain the mass allowance to do the job.

Question 5: Reception of Honor on Manticore and Grayson

Very emotional for all parties concerned. The Opposition on Manticore will be "joining" the celebration with clenched teeth. On Grayson, Mueller's public reaction will be in line with all other Graysons; his private one would be interesting. I wonder if he would be able to grasp the concept that Honor is the Tester's very own inspector general (in EoH, StateSec failed its tests so badly that they made the Masadans look good). June 9, 2000 note: At least I got this one right, but it was easy. Mueller didn't take the hint (incidentally, "very own inspector general" was just about the only line in my original post that got a response.

Question 6: Awards from Manticore

The escape from the "Tepes" is Horace Harkness's greatest scam and he gets awards for both valor and merit. He did the infiltration, the intelligence gathering and evaluation, and the Ops plan. He left Alister McKeon nothing to do except decide the membership of the two groups and the doing. On the other hand, the methods he used are certainly too extreme for the Admiralty to award unconditionally. They are going to make an officer out him, I am certain. Or jail him; his choice. Also presented will be a posthumous award for valor to Andrew Venizelos. June 9, 2000 note: Horace managed to escape a commission, but nothing else. No mention of a posthumous award for Andrew Venizelos.

Originally, I was against the idea of an award for valor to Honor for the Hades escape; however, the discussion on the newsgroup 'alt.books.david-weber' caused me to change my mind. I never had any doubts about awards for merit. Honor is going to get loaded up with them. The Queen should bump Honor's knighthood up a level. The Admiralty should promote her (Vice-Admiral of the Red is my minimum guess) - the House of Lords would have to confirm of course. I suspect that any political faction that votes against Honor is going to regret it the next election. The Admiralty actually would have a rational reason to not promote Honor all the way up to full Admiral; she does need more theater command experience. June 9, 2000 note: Honor refused any award for valor, but couldn't escape anything else (no mention of knighthood level, though).

Question 7: Awards from Grayson

I suspect that Harkness gets a present from Protector Mayhew. A posthumous award for valor for Robert Timmons (and probably James Candless) is a certainty (IMHO, a marine who did what Timmons did in a hostage rescue would be nominated for a Congressional Medal of Honor). June 9, 2000 note: No mention in AoV.

Question 8: Fate of the Elysian System Navy

ONI is going to love looking through undamaged examples of "Mars" class heavy cruisers and "Warlord" class battle-cruisers. Beyond that, my guess is that the Elysian System Navy will remain in action (after repair of course and on the Alliance payroll). Honor will still be the official Commander in Chief; but in practice the commander of BatCruiserRon 1 of the ESN will be the field commander. My guess is that Harriet Benson will be that field commander (I assume that San Martin would want Ramirez back - of course, if the ESN is tasked to Trevor's Star, Ramirez could still be Benson's superior). June 9, 2000 note: ESN was taken in by the GSN and Honor stayed the official CinC. San Martin did want Ramirez back as well.

Question 9: Will Grayson Admirals command combined forces?

They already have. In Flag in Exile High Admiral Matthews was giving orders to several Manticore Admirals in response to the (diversionary) attacks on Minette and Candor.

Question 10: What will Honor do next (after getting off medical leave)

I said that she needed theater command experience and I know where she could get it - Silesia. Back in Honor Among Enemies, Honor had no local RMN support in the Selesia Confederation. It appeared that the Admiralty was running the anti-piracy patrols (what there was of them) from Manticore itself. This has some rather obvious C^3I problems (part of the reason why Warnecke's piracy ring caused so much damage). Also in HAE, Honor saved March from Warnecke's thugs and mentioned that she was going to recommend that the Admiralty set up a base there. So what would that base be? My guess is that it will be command post for a Vice Admiral who would be responsible for piracy suppression for the region between the Andermann Empire and Basilisk. In my mind this is a good command post for Honor to gain experience at sending people out for operations and waiting for days or weeks for them to return or not. For that matter, Dave Weber has been quoted that Honor will be spending time in Silesia at some time in the future. So if this doesn't show up in the next book, it could be in a later title. June 9, 2000 note: Have to wait for that later title, Honor #10? March 1, 2003 Note: Well, she is finally sent to Sidemore in War of Honor.

Question 11: A Peace Treaty in the future?

Protector Mayhew is going to insist that the government of Haven EXPLICITLY reject the Harris regime's show "trial" of Honor for murder. Wipe that abomination off the books or no deal (and there is certainly a large number of people on Manticore, starting with the House of Winton, that would agree that this is an entirely reasonable request). And while they are at it, they should also require that Haven confirm the results of the court-martials on Hades. I would be reluctant to make any significant territorial concessions just for peace. Haven might try a "Victory" offensive that takes Alliance star systems in order to trade for systems captured by Manticore earlier in the war. In this case, they would most likely have a good idea that a peace treaty was coming up (contacts in the League perhaps?). June 9, 2000 note: No special "Victory" offensive as such, as for the peace treaty, must defer again to Honor #10. March 1, 2003 Note. No treaty thanks to the High Ridge cabal.

Question 12: What is the motive of Haven's Secret League Supplier?

I have thought of several possibilities: Amoral greed, free-trade idealism, anti-monarchial mania, and ambition to be Emperor of Humanity (or at least a large fraction thereof). It is possible to distinguish between them (though DW hasn't revealed enough to do so). If the motive is amoral greed, then Haven is probably being overcharged for the goods (the supplier would probably be interested in buying samples of any captured RMN technology). If the motive is free-trade idealism, then Haven is probably being charged a fair price (again, captured technology probably would be of interest). If the motive is anti-monarchial mania, then Haven is getting a price break (however, there should be little interest in captured technology). If the motive is imperial ambition, then the supplier is pretending to either greed or idealism (because there will certainly be an interest in captured technology). If there is a would-be Emperor out there, I would suspect that "some" (relatively speaking) of the League's massive mothballed reserve fleet have been secretly "liberated" and are being refit with the best tech our Emperor in waiting has. We will have to await events.

Incidentally, my inspiration for the Emperor was a post made on 'rec.arts.sf.written' a couple of years ago. Somebody, while comparing E. E. "Doc" Smith with David Weber, made the statement that in Smith's Lensman series there was another enemy secretly backing the current enemy (and behind that enemy was another enemy as well) but, in Weber's Honor Harrington stories, Haven is the enemy and there is nothing behind them. My reaction was: "How do you know this?" "Is a secret enemy impossible?" And so I thought of a secret enemy. June 9, 2000 note: This speculation will probably come to nothing, but I still have hopes that the motive isn't greed. November 13, 2005 Note: Mesa appears to be harboring an Emperor in waiting. Mesa itself wasn't Haven's secret supplier, but it has a close, albeit quiet, relationship with that supplier (Technodyne). It appears that Technodyne was motivated by amoral greed.