Honor Harrington

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Honor Stephanie Harrington is a fictional character, the eponymous heroine of a series of science fiction books set in the "Honorverse", written by David Weber and published by Baen Books.

An officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy (RMN), the space navy of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, Harrington bears a striking professional resemblance to both the real life Admiral Lord Nelson, Captain Thomas Cochrane, and the fictional (composite) character Horatio Hornblower. Like Nelson, she loses an eye and an arm in combat; her initials are the same as Hornblower's, and like all three officers, she has a genius for tactical command throughout the series and becomes a living legend by using those skills in several major engagements—battles for which the press dubs her The Salamander for always seeming to be "where the fire is hottest". By the tenth main-line novel (Ashes of Victory) Honor has emerged as a strategist of note as well, and has been promoted to the rank of Admiral in both the Manticoran and Grayson space navies.

Other parallels with real history include the political situation. During much of Harrington's career, her native Star Kingdom of Manticore is at war with the neighboring People's Republic of Haven (PRH), a conflict that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Napoleonic Wars between the British Empire and France. Last but not least, Weber references the author of Hornblower within the series on at least one occasion, a minor instance of "breaking the fourth wall", as an homage.

1 Early life
2 Career
3 Character trademarks
4 Honor Harrington in other media
5 Notes
6 External links

[edit] Early life

Honor was born on October 1, 3961 AD, at Craggy Hollow (the Harrington family home), County Duvalier, in the Duchy of Shadow Vale on the planet Sphinx, one of the three inhabited worlds of the Manticore system. She is the daughter of neurosurgeon Alfred Harrington and physician/geneticist Allison Benton-Ramirez y Chou Harrington. Socially, by virtue of her father's ancestry, she was born a yeoman—a descendent of the second wave of settlement of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, not a member of the nobility (who for the most part can claim descent from the first colonists) nor a zero balancer. Additionally, her paternal ancestors were "genies", people genetically engineered (specifically with the Meyerdahl Beta modification) to survive on high gravity planets such as Sphinx. She was raised in the Third Stellar Missionary Communion (Reformed), but is not significantly religious.

Honor is one of the few people adopted by a Sphinxian treecat, an intelligent indigenous species. This occurred when she was a child, a rarity among treecat adoptions. She has dubbed her 'cat Nimitz (after a Terran wet-navy Admiral). After conducting considerable research on them, she eventually became one of the foremost experts on treecats.

[edit] Career

Harrington attended the Royal Manticoran Saganami Naval Academy on Manticore's Saganami Island, and became an officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy. She is one of the RMN's best tacticians, and while she can make effective tactical evaluations, often quickly, and intuitively, her formal mathematical skills are erratic and unreliable, despite high aptitude scores, though her navigational skills are excellent. The gap between her anticipated and actual mathematical performance was a source of much irritation, and more than a few problems while at the Academy. At Saganami Island, her roommate was Michelle Henke, cousin of Queen Elizabeth III of Manticore. Having been shy and lacking in self-confidence, Harrington learned much from "Mike" Henke during those years.

Harrington considered trying out for the Academy pistol team (having learned a good bit from her Uncle Jacques), but chose instead the unarmed combat team. She has since earned an eighth-degree black belt in the martial art of coup de vitesse. While at the Academy, she set a sailplane record (for combined altitude, time spent aloft, and acrobatics) which (as of the latest book) still stands.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

During her time at the Academy, Harrington unwittingly became the target of a perverse, boorish midshipman, Lord Pavel Young, heir to the Earldom of North Hollow. When Young attempted to rape her in the showers, she defended herself, sending him to the hospital. Academy administrators suspected that Young had tried to assault her, but her own misplaced sense of shame kept her from disclosing the facts. Young thus escaped with a reprimand rather than dismissal from the Academy; in the following decades, he did his best to sabotage her RMN career. Despite his efforts, and those of his friends, Harrington's career progressed well, if erratically. Because of her outstanding abilities, which was recognized early on by one of her instructors, Captain (later Admiral) Raoul Courvoisier, the Young clan's enmity was not enough to derail her career.

Her midshipwoman cruise aboard Captain Bachefisch's RMN War Maiden gave some evidence of her ability as a combat tactician during an engagement with a local Silesian rebel warship. With the rest of the chain of command either killed, disabled, or out of communication, Harrington was forced to assume command. She finished off the opposing ship and was promoted, ahead of her class, to ensign.

While a Commander, Harrington graduated high in her class from the RMN's tough Advanced Tactical Course, and immediately assumed command of the light cruiser HMS Fearless. Her exploits while posted at Basilisk Station brought her widespread fame and placed her firmly on the fast track to senior rank. During subsequent assignments, she proved to have something akin to the Nelson touch, earning the devotion of her officers and enlisted personnel, as well as the high regard of both Manticore's allies (especially the citizens of the planet Grayson, whom she saved from conquest by Masada and Haven more than once), and her military opponents. However, despite her best efforts, she also made new political enemies and suffered more than one personal loss at their hands.

In the course of her career, Honor Harrington becomes a Duchess of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, a Grayson Steadholder, and an Admiral in both the Grayson Space Navy and the Royal Manticoran Navy. She has also earned several medals for bravery, including the Parliamentary Medal of Valor after she saved both Queen Eliabeth III and Protector Benjamin Mayhew IX (the heads of state of Manticore and Grayson respectively) from a surprise attack by Masadan fanatics assisted by Haven's State Security. She had earlier refused the medal for masterminding the escape of hundreds of thousands of prisoners (the largest escape in history) from the secret Havenite prison planet Hades. She has also received the Monarch's Thanks on several occasions, for example lifesaving during an avalanche on Gryphon and her handling of an accident on HMS Manticore. She is the only living holder of the Star of Grayson, awarded to her twice.

Honor Harrington's rank and titles as of the end of the events in At All Costs include Admiral of the Fleet and Captain HMS Unconquered Lady Dame Honor Stephanie Alexander-Harrington, Steadholder Harrington, Duchess Harrington, Countess White Haven. Her claim to "Countess White Haven" is unclear but arguable, but in any event is not held in her own right. Legally, Steadholder Harrington, Duchess Harrington, and the Admirals Harrington are different entities inhabiting the same body. With the acquiescence of the Manticoran Foreign Office and the backing of the Queen, Steadholder Harrington's Grayson Armsmen (personal bodyguards) are permitted to accompany her on RMN vessels.

Honor Harrington is widely regarded as a military genius by the public and has been given the nickname "The Salamander" by newsies for always being in the "heat of the action", but always emerging (relatively) unscathed.

The People's Republic of Haven once tried Harrington in absentia on trumped-up charges of murder (resulting from a Havenite attempt to seize Medusa in the Basilisk system), convicting her and sentencing her to death. Neither she, nor anyone else outside of Haven, took this seriously for many years. But when she was captured while escorting a convoy, the conviction was revived. The sadistic PRH Public Information (i.e., propaganda) Secretary, Cordelia Ransom, personally transported her to the PRH's secret prison planet aboard her private battlecruiser, PRHN Tepes. Honor was rescued by her fellow captive crewmates, and Tepes (along with the Secretary) was blown up to mask their escape.

To avoid embarrassment and assuming Harrington was dead, Ransom's subordinates released a fake video recording of her "execution". As a result, simultaneous state funerals were staged for her on both Manticore, and Grayson. Her empty coffin was buried next to the similarly empty graves of naval heroes Ellen D'Orville and Edward Saganami in King Michael's Cathedral in Landing City on Manticore. The Grayson Space Navy named a starship class after her. Despite her protests upon her return, the Graysons found various inventive reasons to avoid renaming it—much to her embarrassment. A very large statue of her was also erected outside Grayson's Parliament building at its public entrance. It too proved to be beyond her power to change.

At the opening of At All Costs, Honor was appointed commanding officer of the cruiser HMS Unconquered, the RMN's equivalent of HMS Victory or USS Constitution—a ship kept in commission for its historical significance. It had the distinction of being the only ship to have been commanded by both Manticoran naval legends, Edward Saganami and Ellen d'Orville. Appointment to the crew is a largely ceremonial honor bestowed by the Manticoran monarch.

During her career Honor Harrington has held the following posts:

Midshipwoman, heavy cruiser HMS War Maiden: "Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington" (short story)
Sailing Master, frigate HMS Osprey
Commanding Officer, Light Attack Craft HMLAC 113
Executive Officer, heavy cruiser HMS Broadsword
Tactical Officer, superdreadnought HMS Manticore
Commanding Officer, destroyer HMS Hawkwing
Student, Advanced Tactical Course, Saganami Island
Commanding Officer, light cruiser HMS Fearless (CL-56): On Basilisk Station
Commanding Officer, heavy cruiser HMS Fearless (CA-286): The Honor of the Queen
Commanding Officer, battlecruiser HMS Nike (BC-413): The Short Victorious War
Commanding Officer, GSN's First Battle Squadron: Flag in Exile
Commanding Officer, armed merchant cruiser HMAMC Wayfarer: Honor Among Enemies
Commanding Officer, Commanding Officer RMN Cruiser Squadron Eighteen (CruRon 18): In Enemy Hands
Commanding Officer, "Elysian Space Navy": Echoes of Honor
Commandant, Saganami Island Advanced Tactical Course, and Tactical Instructor RMN Naval Academy - Ashes of Victory
Commanding Officer, GSN's Protector's Own Squadron: Ashes of Victory–At All Costs
Commanding Officer, RMN Sidemore Station: War of Honor
Commanding Officer, RMN Eighth Fleet: At All Costs
Commanding Officer, HMS Unconquered: At All Costs
Admiral of the Fleet, and Commanding Officer, RMN Home Fleet: At All Costs

[edit] Character trademarks

Honor loathes coffee and finds hot chocolate to be far superior.

She owns and practices with a replica Colt M1911 .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol, a weapon considered to be an anachronistic "hand cannon" by her contemporaries, who prefer pulsers, which fire small-calibre darts at extremely high velocity using a gravitic propulsion system. She acquired a taste for obsolete handarms from her uncle, Jacques Chou, who is an active member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. His training made her a pistol expert (useful on Sphinx outside its protected areas, given its native predators).

She also wears an eyepatch from time to time, due to the loss of her left eye while defending Protector Benjamin Mayhew from an assassination attempt. Normally she uses a prosthetic eye, though on occasion it has been disabled (as when she was captured and transported to Hades). Additionally, some of the nerves on the left side of her face were damaged during the same incident, and were replaced with natural-looking circuitry.

She lost her left arm during the escape from Tepes and had it replaced by a cybernetic arm which, among other interesting features, contains a hidden pulser pistol inside the index finger, a weapon which has saved her life on at least one occasion.

Honor practices a fictional martial art known as coup de vitesse. As of War of Honor, Honor has earned an eighth level black belt. There is only one higher rank. Her proficiency has saved her and others several times.

Honor became proficient with the katana, which by a quirk of history is used ceremonially by Steadholders (and is the center of a martial art) on Grayson.

[edit] Honor Harrington in other media

An Honor Harrington movie was announced by Echo Valley Entertainment.^[1] However, later information suggested that it would actually be a television series, to be written and produced by Peter Sands. ^[2]

An Honor Harrington wargame, Saganami Island Tactical Simulator (SITS), was released at Gencon in 2005 by Ad Astra Games. ^[3]