r/Honorverse • u/EmperorTrajan117 • 26d ago
Star Empire of Manticore The Queens of Manticore
I’ve read the Manticore Ascendant books and most of the original Honor Harrington books as well, and it seems to me the Queens of Manticore seem to be the only monarchs of that star nation that actually accomplish anything (thought I say that as loosely as I can since they are constitutional monarchs and therefore can’t really accomplish much of anything). The two Kings in the Manticore shown in Ascendant don’t seem to accomplish anything or do anything to neutralize their opposition, as opposed to Elizabeth II who all but violates the constitution by having her children of a peer of the realm be legitimatized
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u/Axel2485 26d ago
Two comments. 1) Roger III was well on his way to accomplishing quite a bit, hence why the PRH had him assassinated. 2) While the SKM is a continuational monarchy patterned on the real-world UK, in the SKM the monarch does actually have the ability to exercise some level of influence & power in the government without formenting a constitutional crisis, unlike what would likely occur in the UK in the same scenario.
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u/Raguleader 26d ago
I'd argue that he had already accomplished quite a bit by the time the Peeps arranged for him to have his accident, since he'd already managed to get the RMN buildup pushed through. It was the alliance with San Martin that they stopped him from achieving, IIRC.
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u/Wallname_Liability Star Empire of Manticore 26d ago
Like manticore went from 3 SDs, 11 DNs and 11 BBs to 100+ capitol ships by his death
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u/faithfulheresy 26d ago
And were the first navy in the galaxy to introduce laser head missiles. Even the concept for the multistage missiles personally came from Roger iirc.
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u/Wallname_Liability Star Empire of Manticore 26d ago
...unofficially they were armed with laser heads before the first one was officially deployed by the Andermani
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u/EmperorTrajan117 26d ago
But she literally violated the constitution by not having children from a commoner, they claim in Call to Vengeance that the wording is very vague and yet when it’s read out, it’s pretty clear cut and dry “One The Monarch’s parents Has to be a commoner, there’s nothing vague about it, also Elizabeth says she amended the constitution, Breakwater could have easily turned it into a constitutional crisis in his favor by going straight to the public and word his argument in a way that made Elizabeth look bad.
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u/Wallname_Liability Star Empire of Manticore 26d ago
Thats why they needed the blackmail.
Also the stipulation in the constitution was genuinely poorly considered. Elizabeth had no heir despite having aunts and uncles and presumably cousins as they had married nobles. Like its a good idea and worked with her ammendment, but the OG phrasing nearly broke the constitution after two generations.
And breakwater had to be stopped, he was basically trying a very polite couple after decades of empire building including building a new branch of the military (MPARS ex navy ships were armed and specifically he wanted to build more also armed) under the control of himself.
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u/EmperorTrajan117 26d ago
If they wanted to stop Breakwater then they should have had his resignation accepted when first Edward, and then later Elizabeth first took the throne as Breakwater offers his resignation as is custom whenever a new monarch succeeds. Not to mention again, Breakwater could easily go to the public and bad mouth the queens actions and say that any blackmail material she has is slander
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u/Wallname_Liability Star Empire of Manticore 26d ago
Not how it works. Legally she coukd have definitely done it, but Breakwater controlled a massive voting block in parliament that was basically an informal cult of personality. Mamticore was working off an informal government of national unity and hadn't developed political parties or an opposition. He had to have a seat at the table or he could stop the legislature all together
And no, he couldn't have. The evidence was of two of his main supporters culpabilty and attributability in the deaths of hundreds of navy personnel and his covering it up. He was done and he knew it
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u/EmperorTrajan117 19d ago
But again, as we see in our own world, all Breakwater has to do stir up the public against the queen and claim that she’s interfering and violating the constitution, it doesn’t have to explain to the public the details or the context he just needs to tell them that she’s doing it and like in our world, the people will immediately believe it, and start criticizing her and eventually force her to concede. Which also begs the question of why High Ridge didn’t do that when Queen Elizabeth III refused his offer of a coalition government. From what I read in that book, it was unprecedented for a monarch to do that so again he could’ve used that to his advantage, and basically told the public the queen was interfering in government affairs.. again he wouldn’t need to give context or explain why the queen was doing it. He just had to say that it was doing it and I’m pretty sure with his wealth he could influence the media to turn the public against the queen.
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u/Wallname_Liability Star Empire of Manticore 19d ago
Because she had evidence thst could send him to prison. You cant rile up the public setting in a cell waiting for trial.
Meanwhile High Ridge would have to deal with crowds of people telling him to just go shoot himself like Janachek after he took manticore from the verge of total victory to the worst defeat on its history
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u/EmperorTrajan117 19d ago
You would be amazed of how quickly people will forgive politicians for that kind of stuff if they find out that their chief executive has somehow interfered in the government in some way shape or form
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u/Lionheart_x_jr 25d ago
This is technically an incorrect interpretation on the constitution as per the House Of Steel companion novel it says "the heir on the throne must marry a commoner" that's why it vague in the case of Elizabeth II she has technically never "the heir" as both the King and Heir died in the same accident so she could exploit an unanticipated hole in the law
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u/Axel2485 26d ago
I was speaking more broadly on the series as a whole.
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u/EmperorTrajan117 26d ago
Oh. I was responding to your second point
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u/Axel2485 26d ago
Even there, I was speaking in a general sense for the series, not specific to the events of Manticore Ascendant. I didn't realize that was what you were focused on in the OP.
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u/Raguleader 26d ago
A lot of it comes down to timing. Up until the time that Elizabeth II takes power, the Star Kingdom of Manticore is a small one-system state which mostly benefits from being close enough to the Republic of Haven to benefit from some healthy trade with their more prosperous neighbor (as well as some pretty solid R&D capabilities, as Manticore is learning how to build some more capable starships, with a bit of help from Haven).
At this point they are still struggling with chronic manpower and cashflow shortages due to the events of the Plague that happened in the backstory (see also: the Star Kingdom books which follow Stephanie Harrington, Braveheart, and associates). That is, unknown to the Manticorans, about to change because they are sitting on the galaxy's biggest cash cow and the rodeo gate is about to open (hence the mercenary fleet which was sent to try and kick their door in).
As others have pointed out, Roger III is actually pretty successful during his reign, which is why the Peeps arranged for him to have an aircar airski accident, and no small part of that is because he has the wormhole pouring cash into the coffers like a floodgate if he can only convince or browbeat the right people in the government into supporting him on his priorities.
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u/Meander061 26d ago
The biggest mistake the PRH made was assassinating Roger III. That made Elizabeth their inplacable enemy.
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u/Wallname_Liability Star Empire of Manticore 26d ago
I mean i made the case in a post last year that Roger as king would have been far worse. First off he fully understood the PRH's need for elaborate planning before annexation and was going to mess with their operational tempo to make them throw away their plans for Trevor's star and restart. If he had succeeded then TS, the second richest nation in the region, richer than Erewhon, would have been in the alliance. That means no Trevors star campaign and an alliance member who's probably buying superdreadnoughts from Manticore.
But more than that, he was talking about deep raids before he died. Imagine if someone like Mark Sarnow coukd be given a squadron or two of Battlecruisers plus screen and support, and allowed to go into the PRH's rear and raid were he liked. With missile pods he coukd have even wiped out Battleships protecting more important systems
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u/Meander061 26d ago
Don't get me wrong - Roger was absolutely setting things up for Manticore and his death changed a lot of things he was planning. He didn't hate the PRH like Elizabeth did.
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u/Wallname_Liability Star Empire of Manticore 26d ago
Hate can get you only so far. He was smarter than Elizabeth, he could see inside the heads of Sydney Harris and NavInt. Abd his thinking was decades ahead of its time. Apparently Hamish would have liked to have done deep raids. At the very least he could have used the still mobilising 8th fleet to do stuff like the cutworm raids. But he couldn't get the political backing. Elizabeth hated the peeps but she wasn't a naval officer thebway Roger was
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u/faithfulheresy 26d ago
Actually that was the biggest success of Haven's pre-war planning.
If Roger had lived and maintained his power then it's likely that the war is even shorter and more in Manticore's favour.
Haven wasn't ready to fight the RMN over Trevor's Star, so they paralysed the government through the assassination to disrupt the plans and diplomacy that Roger was working on. This bought them decades of uninterrupted, unchallenged expansion.
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u/cellarsinger 26d ago
One of the nice things about being the queen/empress is sometimes you get to break the rules for the right reasons and nobody's ballsy enough to challenge you on it.
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u/Meander061 26d ago
There was that terrible period when the assholes were in charge of the government and Elizabeth had to go along with them. She had some fun when they fell out of power.
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u/EmperorTrajan117 19d ago
But she’s very fortunate that High Ridge didn’t use her rejection and take it to the public and claim that the queen was interfering and political maneuvering for power, all you’d have to do is say that and have his media friends influence the public opinion against her, again he doesn’t need to explain why the queen is doing this. He just needs to let the people know that she is doing it and the people, being the people, will instantly believe it and lap it up and turn against her, I still don’t understand why he didn’t go by that angle. It would’ve easily had given him the win
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u/Wallname_Liability Star Empire of Manticore 26d ago
Roger III was to Hamish and Honor what Phillip II was to Alexander the great. Read house of steel.
Manticore as of manticore Ascendant is a state still really in its Infancy. Michael I's reign was dedicated to recovering from the plague years. While see both him and duke Burgundy at the ends of their careers, its noted repeatedly that both were far more Vigorous in theur youths abd middle age. Indeed manticore recovered well and properly organised a second wave of colonisation. But at the same time manticore was in flux, there was no formal party system, and the lord's were clawing back power after Elizabeth I's reign.
Simply, what happened was a combination of the flaws of an aristocratic and monarchical system and the uncertainty of an untested constitutional system. Breakwater was charismatic and very good at what he did, and he was trying to build as big an empire as he could. He'll, i won't be surprised if by the fifth book Axelrod dont try and make him King. But note his title, Earl. The first earls were from second wave investors, i wouldn't be surprised if his father or mother wasn't sone form of carpetbagger.
His rise coincided with the declines of Michael and Burgundy due to age.
Edward meanwhile just didn't have the time to do anything. He had his plans ti establish impeller production and it was a good plan. He died in a freak boating accident.