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will be to let the troll(s) know that such
behaviour is not accepted on abd-w and to remind
other NG members Not To Feed the Trolls.
o 6.4.2. If someone on the ng mentions flinging the
wombat, this is where we came up with this tactic.
Flamewar DEFCON protocols are as follows:
+ 6.4.2.1. Five is peacetime
+ 6.4.2.2. Four is be alert
+ 6.4.2.3. Three is be worried
+ 6.4.2.4. Two is wombat lock and load
+ 6.4.2.5. One is Wombat Attack Inbound
o 6.4.3. Wombat Woman is honorary captain of the
FLINGers, but any member of the ng should be able to
take up marsupials in defense of the collective peace.
7) The Thread that Cannot/Will Not Die: Casting the Honor
Harrington Movie
* 7.1. Every newsgroup has its version of the endless thread,
ours seems to be casting of the Honor movie/miniseries.
* 7.2. There is a website set up for voting on the casting
call at http://www.nimitz.net/honor_harrington/. Thanks to
Randy and Anne Kaelber for putting this all together.
* 7.3. There's a new runner-up to this category -- the gun
thread. Several threads seem to degenerate into either
arguments about carrying guns or comparisons between the
weight of metal different people carry. This may be part of
what makes us such an unusually civil newsgroup.
8) Spoiler Protection
* 8.1. Not all of us in the newsgroup are able to get (and
devour) David's latest works promptly (e.g. if you live in
small towns or outside of the North American book
distribution system). Others wait until the hardback books
get released in paperback before they can join in the
discussions.
* 8.2. Many of us participate in other newsgroups and mailing
lists where spoiler protection is invoked. With Baen's
practice of posting a substantial number of sample chapters
online well before release of the books, the possibility of
inflicting spoilage on people who want to devour the book
all at once upon release or are waiting for paperback
release has now gotten too high. If you want to share
spoilerish commentary with the newsgroup, it would be
appreciated if you to note that clearly in the subject
header with a [spoiler] tag and include 25 blank lines and a
control-L before any of your comments or quotes of other
people's postings.
o 8.2.1. Someone recently quoted some material found on a
web site without clearly noting spoilage content and
many of us were not happy with the result. Con reports
seem to be especially suspect.
o 8.2.2. And of course, all the spoiler tags and blank
lines are useless if your subject heading is a blatant
spoiler! Discretion is the better part of valor.
9) Other Authors
* 9.1. Who is Lois McMaster Bujold, and why are so many folks
in a newsgroup dedicated to David Weber talking about her?
o 9.1.1. Lois McMaster Bujold is another of Baen Books'
top authors and a Hugo and Nebula winner for
installments of her Miles Vorkosigan saga. There seems
to be a fairly large overlap between Bujold fandom and
Weberphiles, so even though Bujold discussions are
technically off-topic, the newsgroup consensus seems to
be tolerating them with the addition of a [bujold] tag
in the subject line to allow folks to filter or
killfile those discussions. Further Bujold fannish
information can be found at http://www.dendarii.com.
* 9.2. Who is John Ringo?
o 9.2.1. John Ringo is an a.b.d-w/Baen's Bar mustang.
He's been a regular contributor both in our newsgroup
and on Baen's Bar for quite a while. Then he published
his own first book, A Hymn Before Battle, with Baen in
August 2000. He has, as of this writing, four books
published, including two co-authored with David, and
more on the way. John also remains an active
participant in a.b.d-w. John's novels are considered
on-topic in abdw. You can find more information about
John on his web page at http://www.johnringo.com/.
10) Other DW Resources on the Net/Web
* 10.1. Scott Deering's Unofficial David Weber Fan Club Page
http://www.movie-trailers.com/weber/ was one of the very
first fan sites, but seems to be rather out of date.
* 10.2. The Baen Books Website has sample chapters and a
discussion board for addicts of Baen products (large
Weberphile contingent) and a separate board for virtual
mercenaries to play in at http://www.baen.com/. They also
have a free library online of several published books,
including a number by David Weber at
http://www.baen.com/library.
* 10.3. Mike Weber's webpage is chock full of stuff that the
Family Weber is up to. Go to
http://weberworld.virtualave.net/ for the website
* 10.4. Cool Renderings of Ships (Check them out! The artists
are part of the newsgroup.)
o 10.4.1. http://www.ibfs.demon.co.uk/nojay/nike/
o 10.4.2.
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~captruss/RMN.html
o 10.4.3. Some drawings of missiles are at:
http://www.ameritech.net/users/jmrobert/shipkill.jpg
and at
http://www.ameritech.net/users/jmrobert/shipkill2.jpg
* 10.5. Aegys's Hall of Honor
(http://www1.jump.net/~fearless/)is another good starting
point for fans of the Honor Harrington books and contains
portions of the Royal Manticoran Encyclopaedia. This site is
a great addition and very helpful to fans of the series.
There's also a discussion board that is rather busy with
Weberphiles. The chat board URL is
http://disc.server.com/Indices/4096.html. Many of these
folks do online chat on Thursday evenings (6 PM Central US
time). Aegys also set up the Honor Harrington webring with a
listing of current sites at:
http://www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=honor_h;list.
* 10.6. Ed Hogg has created a website for the People's
Republic of Haven that counteracts the propaganda put forth
by the Manticoran Alliance. For another side to the story,
see: http://www.equus.demon.co.uk/peeprep/index.html.
* 10.7. Joe Buckley hosts Dahak's Orbit, which usually carries
chapters of upcoming books, among other interesting info
(such as this FAQ), at http://dahak.ne.mediaone.net/.
11) Miscellaneous Stuff
* 11.1. Other odd topics of conversation have included: the
relative merits of the cover art for the Honor books, one
fun thread that started out wondering what would happen if
Weber characters crossed over into the Star Trek universe,
then it cascaded to encompass other universes and inspire a
filksong, and comments about other books, TV shows, and
movies that newsgroup members enjoy. Note: spoiler
protection probably ought to be added to these discussions
out of courtesy. "Babylon 5" spoilers, especially, are
liable to result in your introduction to a certain gang of
bat-wielding Narns. You don't want that to happen, trust me!
* 11.2. Here's a question that needed an answer: "I see a lot
of references to E. E. "Doc" Smith and the Lensman universe
in the newsgroup....what's the connection to David Weber?"
Mike Richards wrote a very good capsule summary, enjoy!
o 11.2.1. Who is E.E. "Doc" Smith?
+ 11.2.1.1. Edward Elmer Smith, Ph. D., was a writer
of SF novels from the late twenties until his
death in the mid sixties. He was perhaps the first
author to write recognisable "Space Opera" novels,
with his Skylark and Lensman series
("Triplanetary", "First Lensman", "Galactic
Patrol", "Grey Lensman", "Second Stage Lensman",
"Children of the Lens" and "Masters of the
Vortex"). The latter books in particular featured
not-implausible science (based on what was
believed at the time it was written), a
meticulously detailed plot spread over several
self contained stories, characters changing and
developing, space battles on a galactic scale and
truly awesome weaponry. It was a source of
inspiration for the "Green Lantern" comics, and
was also one of the first SF series to portray any
strong female characters, with Clarissa MacDougal
(the "Red Lensman") and her daughters fully the
equal of anyone they met.
+ 11.2.1.2. Now, fifty years on, the books look
dated (particularly some of the science), but the
stories remain popular. They were among the SF
works that David (and Mike) Weber grew up with,
and favourable comparisons have been drawn in the
newsgroup.
+ 11.2.1.3. Most of Smith's work went out of print
in the early eighties, but the Lensman series has
just been reissued ("Ripping" in the UK, "Old
Earth Books" of Baltimore, Maryland in the US) and
the other books can often be found in second-hand
bookstores. The anime version bears little
relation to the stories other than some names.
+ 11.2.1.4. A "Lensman FAQ" is posted occasionally
on rec.arts.sf.written by Gharlane of Eddore.
12) The Filks
* 12.1. Mike Richards' Ladies Night on Argo can be found at:
http://www.z9m9z.demon.co.uk/filk/ladies.txt, and all of
his space-related filks are at
http://www.z9m9z.demon.co.uk/filk/space.htm.
There's a filk there about Path of the Fury as well and
the libretto to his generic do-it-yourself space opera at
http://www.z9m9z.demon.co.uk/filk/opera.txt.
* 12.2. The Gilbert and Sullivan filks from the newsgroup
filking challenge are at
http://www.warriorgoddess.org/weberfilk.html
* 12.3. There are also some terrific filks posted on Aegys'
discussion board, and Jonathan Cresswell has compiled them
on his own website at
http://www.netrover.com/~jcresswl/filkpg/filkpage.html. He's
got the most extensive collection of filks.
13) The Great ABD-W Typo Hunt
* 13.0. Note from the Deputy Mad Archivist: This section has
not been updated with this version of the FAQ. We've had
several new books published, and plenty of new typos found,
since the last version of this FAQ was created. However, all
of these are stored away somewhere in the secret depths of
the Mad Archivist's computer, which is currently
inaccessible since Cap'n Cynthia's ISP has just gone under
at this point.
* 13.1. Joe Buckley calls them Weberisms in his recent
compilation of the spoils of the Typo Hunt [Archivist's
Note: This is not to be considered a blanket indictment of
the quality of work the proofreaders are doing (Kate
Verleger gave a most impassioned defense of that most
thankless job) but when a writer like TOWiDW creates such
detailed universes, Deity alone knows that there are plenty
of opportunities for gremlins to do their will and have
discrepancies show up in the final product.] The top
offenders so far are:
o 13.1.1. Honor Harrington Series
+ 13.1.1.1. When Honor is knighted at the end of
Honor of the Queen, Sir Anthony Langtry says his
authority to do so is as Her Majesty's Ambassador
to Haven, not Grayson. Whoops! (attribution is
unclear, John Moreno and Splifford had this
discussion on both abd-w and rasfw recently, but
this could also have been brought up in the
infancy of the newsgroup)
+ 13.1.1.2. Sir Lucien Cortez, head of the RMN
BuPers, gets called Lucius several times. (Jeanne
Hedge posted about this one)
+ 13.1.1.3. Another contribution by Jeanne Hedge...
In HAE, at the Steilman-Wanderman Captain's Masts
(pgs 442-446 of the US hardcover edition):
Steilman's charges include violation of Article 35
(assaulting a fellow crewman). Wanderman is
charged with violating Article 36 (fighting with a
fellow crewman, with aggravated circumstances).
Yet when Captain Harrington passes punishment on
Wanderman, she says it is for violation of Article
35, with aggravated circumstances.
+ 13.1.1.4. The first paperback printing of Flag in
Exile gives the Gregorian equivalent date of 3919,
the second printing is corrected to 4019 and is
consistent with the time line in More than Honor.
(I caught that one in late 1997)
+ 13.1.1.5. Joe Buckley recently found this in his
re-reading of the saga: "One I spotted the other
day was during the scene when McKeon, Harrington,
and her Guard are in _Prince Adrian's_ lift after
Honor's arrival aboard and McKeon was discussing
the 'burn-before-reading' secret multi-stage
missiles and mentions that he worked on the first
field trials of the FTL coms when he was with
_Madrigal_. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but
he's only had _Troubadour_ and _Prince Adrian_. He
may well have worked *with* _Madrigal_ before he
showed up in Yeltsin in the same short squadron as
her, but it was when he was CO of _Troubadour_.
(In Enemy Hands)
+ 13.1.1.6. In Enemy Hands also provided additional
fuel for Joe's musings: "Then we have a section
that several rereadings has failed to illuminate:
About the time when _Prince Adrian_ is about to
translate out of hyper, we get a discourse on the
relative lack of sophistication of the _Prince
Consort_ class ships' accomodations. I have yet to
sort out what he means when he jumps from
discussing _Prince Consorts_ to _Crown Princes_ to
_Star Knights_. The _Prince Consorts_ and the
_Star Knights_ are easy enough to see, but where
do the _Crown Princes_ fit into that discourse?
Unless the _Crown Princes_ were supposed to have
had the squadron flag accomodations before the
_Star Knights_ rolled out.
+ 13.1.1.7. And Joe found the following in the
prologue to Echoes of Honor: Something that stuck
out at me when I first read the prologue to
_Echoes of Honor_ was during Boardman's mention
the _Sirius_. Well, correct me if I'm wrong (and
I'm sure *someone* will!), but in _On Basilisk
Station_, she was designated PMSS _Sirius_." Joe
suggests "If you want some more fun with _tHotQ_,
reread the section where the Grayson/Manticore
task force gets spanked. Particularly where it
discusses the engagement envelope for _MSN
Principality_/_PNS Breslau_. ( Re: closest
approach of Graysons to _Breslau_ being one
hundred million kilometers.)
+ 13.1.1.8. Jack Tingle found a rather serious
timeline problem: "As an exercise, I put together
a simple timeline from the HH books. Frankly, it
doesn't hold water. There's a 0.52% error in the
long term time line, and all of the events in
"TSVW" had to have taken no more than 2 days.
That's the time between HH assuming command of the
Nike and the final battle as reported in Lord
Young's court martial. (RE: Honor assumed command
of _Nike_ on 6/21/282 and White Haven stated at
the courts' opening that the events in question
took place on or about 6/23/282.)
+ 13.1.1.9. Navbuoy noticed the following
discrepancy: Honor got an elevation in rank from
Knight Companion to Knight Commander between THotQ
and tSVW.
+ 13.1.1.10. Brom O'Berin has the following inquiry
about the Manticore wormhole termini... OBS
paperback version pg 52 describes the Manticore
wormhole as having 'no less than six additional
termini' ... plus 'the survey readings suggested
there should be at least one more undiscovered
terminus' ... and the diagram at the front of OBS
shows and names six (Basilisk, Republic of Haven,
Phoenix, Solarian League, Mazapan and Anderman
Empire) termini ...However the MTH appendix
(Universe of HH) ... in (4)(B) on the Manticore
Junction - pg 350 - has the junction connected to
_five_ additional termini (names all but Mazapan)
plus possibility of one, maybe more undiscovered
termini ...Which one is canon ... or blooper, etc.
+ 13.1.1.10.1. Joe Buckley replies: "I'd
imagine that _MTH_ was in error, since Book 1
(_OBS_) mentioned the six and named them, as
well as all of the subsequent Junction Maps
showed all six. (Unless, of course, this is a
further example of letting the treecat out of
the bag early like his FTL-comm pulse rate
fiasco.) Just my two bits.
+ 13.1.1.11. Brom O'Berin also had the following
question about the number of Honor's hyper-capable
commands: "How about where Honor in uniform is
described as having _six_ gold stars ...
representing 6 hyper-capable commands. Unless I
have Alzheimer's, shouldn't that be five ... for
'Hawkwing' (DD), 'Fearless' (CL), 'Fearless' (CA),
'Nike' (BC), and 'Wayfarer' (AMC)?
+ 13.1.1.12. An unknown contributor found the
following discrepancy between On Basilisk Station
and the technical appendix in More than Honor
(thanks to Joe Buckley for finding it for me):
"Well, IIRC, the Honorverse forts are *not*
driveless. They can maneuver slightly. I seem to
recall a mention of their being able to pull about
100g's (perhaps in OBS?), but that was negated by
the acceleration tables supplied in MtH."
+ 13.1.1.13. Scott Powers caught the following, and
Navbuoy confirmed that this is a major typo in the
series: In "On Basilisk Station" the forts are
described this way: "The smallest fortress out
there massed close to sixteen million tons, twice
as a superdreadnaught" (Chap. 5, pg. 55). Later in
that same chapter, is this: "the 'forts' in the
outer ring had to be able to move to fill in the
gaps and mass upon an attacker. Their maximum
acceleration rates were low, well under a hundred
gravities, but their initial position had been
very carefully planned. Their acceleration would
be enough to intercept attacking forces headed
in-system, and their engines were sufficiently
powerful to generate impeller wedges and sidewalls
to protect them." (pg. 57) In "More Than Honor",
at the back of the book, in the section titled
"The Universe of Honor Harrington" 8,500,000 tons
is the limit of a warships size, with maximum
acceleration dropping rapidly. An SD has an
acceleration of 420 gees, a ship of 9,547,500 tons
would have an acceleration of 1 g. (Pg.309-310) By
this, we can assumethat the 16,000,000 ton forts
would have an acceleration of effectively ZERO
gees. Either I missed something, or DW did.
+ 13.1.1.14. Casey Lazo says, "My favorite is in
Honor Among Enemies (I think): the one with the
reference to the *Sky* Kingdom (of Manticore).
IIRC, it appeared in both the hardcover and
paperback releases.
+ 13.1.1.15. Casey also found the following in the
online version of Chapter 14 of Echoes of Honor:
"[Honor] stepped closer, moving slightly to one
side to get the sunset out ofher *eyes*..." ?!?
Unless she's developed a third eye, that ought to
have been in the singular, ne?
+ 13.1.1.16. On page 6 of Field of Dishonor, TZ
found: "The heaviest Manticoran units were 6
battlecruisers, 3 of them already circled by the
flashing yellow bands of combat damage, and 6
superdreadnoughts led the Peeps charging up their
wakes." However, Admiral Chin's heaviest unit was
a dreadnought and not a superdreadnought.
+ 13.1.1.17. Thomas Ambuehler points out a German
typo in Honor Among Enemies: "When the Andermani
Admiral Rabenstrange challenges the Q-ship, he
firstly uses German, and he says "Gutten Morgen,
Kapitain!" This really struck me like a bolt. It
should be "Guten Morgen, Kapit”n!" But that is
only because he used my mother tongue." That just
goes to show that typo hunting is an international
and multilingual pastime!
+ 13.1.1.18. Here's a typo that Miguel Velez had to
remind me about after an eleven-month lapse (my
bad): In IEH, there's a line about Haven being
over 1800 light-years from Earth which justifies
not recalling the Foreign Secretary and making him
take a six month trip back home. However, Miguel
noted that the appendix of MTH states that Haven
is 667 LY from Earth (155 LY more than Manticore).
David confirmed that it is a typo, but that the
six month transit time is about right. DW
elaborated further: "Assume the distance is 620
LY; to make the trip in 6 months, you'd have to
average around 1,240 times the speed of light
which is just about right for a "fast" merchant
ship. Given that merchies don't go above the Delta
bands, where the maximum attainable effective
velocity is about 1,100 cee (don't have the tech
manual in front of me), even at 6 months, you'd
have to assume a merchie in the Epsilon bands (max
effective V = about 1,400 cee) to get a 6 months
turn around. Now, if they put him on a courier
boat and ran him home clear up in the Zeta bands
(which they wouldn't normally do with an important
diplomat), they could cover 620 LY in about 3.5
months, which is still a pretty long time.
Assuming your 667 LY figure is right (and it
probably is) a merchant ship in the Epsilon bands
should take about 5.6 months--still close to the 6
month transit figure. A courier boat would take
about 3.7 months for the same trip. Yes, I suppose
you can go ahead and post it with Cynthia. As I
said, I'm not sure how it got in there in the
first place. Sigh."
o 13.1.2. Dahak/Fifth Imperium
+ 13.1.2.1. Just to show you that we're not just
picking on the Honorverse for typos, Jason found
the following in Mutineer's Moon: "In the October
'94 edition, p156, when Colin is getting ready for
the fighter strike. Sentence reads "He hung his
gray gun on his suit webbing" As that's the only
mention of gun color that I've come across, I
presume it's supposed to read "grav gun"."
+ 13.1.2.2. Joe Buckley found this as well: "Another
little glitch that I always trip over is in "Heirs
of Empire", just after _Isreal_ (spelling?) is
unceremoniously ejected from _Imperial Terra_ and
the kids are doing their systems checks: Harriet
refers to her brother Sean during her part of the
brief as *Colin*.
+ 13.1.2.3. And another goodie caught by Joe's eagle
eyes: "When Gen. Hatcher is discussing recent
developments of the Siege with (I believe) Horus
and the Achuultani use of Iapetus as a bludgeon,
he mentions that the current orbital position of
Saturn puts it 1.5 *trillion* kilometers from
Earth."
o 13.1.3. The Lay of Bahzell Bloody-Hand
+ 13.1.3.1. Daniel Bernstein found this in Oath of
Swords: On page 192, when Bahzell and Brandark are
counting their money, it says "...and Bahzell sat
back to let Brandark count it." At the bottom of
the same page, though, we have "Bahzell finished
counting..."
14) Frogs and Buzzards and Tortoises, oh my!
* 14.1. Kate Verleger, our Judge Advocate General, and
resident chief of amphibian artillery has described the
tradition of lobbing frogs at punsters. Other abd-w denizens
have adapted this tradition recently to include other
members of the animal kingdom such as buzzards and
tortoises. Look out Below! We've got a whole group of folks
(ROMANCE) who are the chief flingers of animalia and their
preferred target are snerkers who publicly gloat about
privileged information online. Check out
http://members.aol.com/gwynedd/beatrice/index.html#top for
the history, including a contribution by the Mad Wizard
Weber himself.
o 14.1.1. As requested, here is a short history of the
role of Frogs in mechanized warfare. (edit it as you
see fit: I decided I'd better err on the side of
caution and be as complete as possible).
o 14.1.2. The tradition of Frogs in Warfare is a long and
honorable one, whose origins date back approximately
twenty years to Bryn Mawr College, outside of
Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania.
o 14.1.3. At this college is a dormitory called Denbigh
Hall, and in this dorm is a common room called a back
smoker. The point of back smokers, originally, was to
provide students a place in the back of the dorm where
they could smoke in peace and not disturb anyone, and,
not so coincidentally, burn down the building (again).
o 14.1.4. As time progressed, a particular sort of people
tended to collect in the back smoker: among the more
illustrious Denbigh Back Smoker (DBS) alumnae is the
author Caroline Stevermer (Bryn Mawr '77), and to whose
denizens her novel, _A College of Magics_, is
dedicated. As the people collected in the DBS, so did
the books they tended to read[0]
o 14.1.5. The inhabitants of the DBS developed two means
of communicating with one another: face to face
conversation, and a sort of bound bulletin board,
called the DBS Diary. In the Diary, the Mawrtyrs would
write anonymously, under pseudonyms, or under their own
names, messages to one another or the group at large.
+ 14.1.5.1. For example, "May 5, 1995: Calamity is
happy to announce the birth of a Senior Thesis (52
pages text, 6 pages endnotes, 5 pages
bibliography), at approximately 3 am this morning,
"A Spectrum of Characters: Religion, Love and
Responsibility in _The Brothers Karamazov_".
Viewing upon request, IBM WP 5.1 or paper only."
+ 14.1.5.2. Alternatively, "Cheat session for Spring
Ball Erd Liv Rm 12 pm Sat. --Amy L."[1]
o 14.1.6. In approximately 1980, someone left to the DBS
as a May Day Gift (gifts are traditionally given by
upperclasswomen to younger students on the morning of
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