Tag Archives: Barakhan

Plan B – Chapter 33

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War Zone

In which there is a battle for Lytaxin.

Of course the Tree is at the centre of the protected area. But I don’t think that means that Erob is not important to Korval, or that its inclusion in the protection is only incidental, only that the Tree is the most valuable of all the valuable things Korval sought to protect. Considered rightly, I think, it says how much honor Korval did Erob by giving them a Tree; it shows that a Tree is no mere ornament, but a thing which Korval is obliged to protect for as long as it stands, and there are many clans that Korval would not choose to allow to benefit from such protection, even incidentally.

This chapter sees the flowering of seeds planted near the beginning of this novel, or even earlier. The development of the Val Con and Miri’s lifemate bond is one of the more obvious. Another is Pod 77’s attack on the Yxtrang battleship, which uses a chain of events Nelirikk tried to point out, and was ignored, back when he was still Nelirikk No-Troop.

Plan B – Chapter 31

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Dutiful Passage
Lytaxin Orbit

In which Tactical Defense Pod 77 has a plan.

A couple of things come to mind about this chapter, but they would be better said later, after it has been revealed what is going on.

I’ve been idly speculating, between chapters, about whether it would have done them any good if one of the people on the surface had known about Pod 77 and been able to get it going sooner. Would it have been able to do anything for them that they haven’t done anyway? The strike it’s about to take will be pretty impressive, but it depends a lot on various factors, including timing and the unknowing co-operation of the Yxtrang. It probably couldn’t have done it any earlier, and it’s going to work now only because the Yxtrang have no idea the Pod exists; if it had been active earlier, they might have been able to take measures against it.

Plan B – Chapter 30

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Erob’s Boundary
War Zone

In which Val Con has a plan which is too audacious to fail.

Over the course of this book, I’ve been having trouble figuring out what it means for a Liaden to be one of “the line direct”. Earlier, Nova said that Miri’s heirloom showed her grandmother was one of the line direct and that would make her easier to identify, and I thought maybe that meant the line direct was whichever family line a clan’s delm was chosen from: Line Tiazan in Miri’s case, or Line yos’Phelium in Korval. But here is Shan counting himself and Priscilla as members of the line direct, so at least in Korval’s case it’s not just yos’Phelium.

But now that I’m thinking about it, I recall a scene back in Scout’s Progress where the term is used to distinguish between someone who might wear Korval’s crest because they’re actually a member of the clan and someone who might wear Korval’s crest because they’re an employee in one of Korval’s businesses. So, I guess that’s what it means, and that does fit the bit with Miri’s heirloom: knowing that her ancestor was an actual member of Clan Erob and not just someone who happened to work for them at some point would make it easier to narrow down who she is. (I’m not sure I see the usefulness of the concept in general: wouldn’t every person be in the line direct of their own clan? But then again, Liadens don’t really do “in general”; there’s always a context. Whenever a Liaden says “the line direct”, the meaning would always be outlined by who’s speaking, who they’re speaking to, and what hats they’re wearing.)

Plan B – Chapter 27

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Erob’s Boundary
Quarry War Zone

In which the Yxtrang come off second-best in an argument.

I’m glad Dustin survived; I would have felt bad if he’d gotten killed because Shan maneuvred him into taking him back to the lifeboat.

I’m struck by the detail that the Yxtrang have one kind of rifle for ordinary troopers and a different kind for officers. I mean, I know we recently learned that the Commander of the Gyrfalks owns a particularly nice pistol, but that’s presumably because she made an individual decision that she wanted it, and probably saved up some of her own money to get it, not because of a standard rule. I wonder what the difference is between the Troopers Regular Field Long Arm and the Officers Personal Duty Long Arm: Is the officer version functionally the same, just with extra frills? Or do the officers get a weapon that works better than the regular trooper version? Or worse?

Priscilla’s flash of memory is interesting, because I don’t think it’s hers. The involvement of the red counter suggests that it’s an older memory, from Moonhawk or Lute, though none of the stories we’ve yet been told about them has anything to match it.

Plan B – Chapter 21

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Dutiful Passage
In Jump

In which the Passage is welcomed to Lytaxin.

Another chapter where much happens, but all I can find to talk about is minor details like this:

The message signed by Grandmother Cantra establishes that Plan B is very old. It’s even older than the Council of Clans, which wasn’t chartered until the sixth year after Planetfall.

Plan B – Chapter 15

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Erob’s Hold
Freeze-Dry Prison

In which the Lytaxin Combined Forces gain a new recruit.

Val Con reporting Nelirikk as an example of a “potentially sapient race” is one of my favourite moments in a chapter with many excellent moments.

Incidentally, Val Con’s account of their first meeting confirms that he held the rank of captain before being promoted to commander, though that still seems to me backward from the way I’m used to seeing ranks work. Come to think of it, the same thing is visible this chapter with the mercs — Commander Carmody outranks Captain Robertson — but I don’t think I ever paid that much attention before because I figured a merc unit might use whatever ranks it likes, and it makes sense for Suzuki and Jase to be the Commanders when they’re the ones in command of the unit. For that matter, it’s been mentioned in the past that the individual in command of the Scouts is the Scout Commander, which is presumably different from being a scout with the rank of Commander. At this point, I’m about ready to just throw up my hands and go on to a less confusing subject.

The name of Nelirikk’s “toy”, the Shibjela, calls back (or forward, if one is reading in publication order) to a weapon called a “shib” that Jela carries in Crystal Soldier. The two weapons don’t actually seem very similar beyond being worn, contrary to their names, concealed in the belt; Jela’s shib is described as more like a whip, with a flexible ceramic cutting edge that can slice through bone. Perhaps it was the product of old technology since lost, or perhaps what was lost was a detailed description of what it actually was, and either way the Shibjela is somebody’s best attempt to recontruct it with the knowledge and technology available.

I did wonder briefly if the medic named Chen, who comes to attend to Nelirikk at the end of this chapter, was the same person as “Doc Tien”, who saw to him when he was first brought in, give or take someone’s attempt to pronounce a name from an unfamiliar culture. But Chen is male and Tien was female, so that’s unlikely.

I wonder what it says about the Yxtrang worldview that they have one God of Quartermasters but multiple Gods of Irony.

Plan B – Chapter 13

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Lytaxin
Erob’s Combat Practice Grounds

In which Jason has somebody Val Con needs to talk to.

There are some interesting resonances in the various reactions to the captured Yxtrang. The Yxtrang collectively have done some undeniably unpleasant things, but the way Emrith Tiazan dehumanizes the captive, calling him “it” and “that thing”, has unpleasant echoes of several instances when less sympathetic Liadens have applied the same attitude to Terrans. I’m also reminded of Val Con’s remark to Miri, way back near the beginning of Agent of Change, that it’s more useful to think and speak of particulars — “Val Con”, “Miri”, “Edger” — than groups like “‘the Liadens’, ‘the Clutch’, ‘the humans’, or even ‘the Yxtrang’.” Of course, in this case, Val Con has a head start in that he’s already met and spoken with an individual Yxtrang — but then again, the fact that he even attempted such a conversation is a sign he already held that attitude.

I also note that all the way through, Jase is referring to the prisoner as a person as if that’s an entirely uncontroversial thing. As a merc, I expect he’s had experience at distinguishing individual soldiers from the armies they serve, and remembering that the former are people no matter what inhuman things the latter do. But from from what we’ve seen of him, I kind of think he might in any case have been the kind of person who assumes people are people until they prove otherwise.

Plan B – Chapters 7 & 8

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14th Conquest Corps
Lytaxin

Liad: Department of Interior Command Headquarters

In which Nelirikk No-Troop sympathizes with a squirrel, and Lytaxin is defended by a ship orbiting Waymart.

I’m getting the idea that the Yxtrang are very concerned with saving face, to the point that they insist on appearing effective even at the expense of actual effectiveness: their response to making an error, here as at the end of Agent of Change, is to cover it up, even if that means nobody gets to learn from the situation and avoid future errors. When Nelirikk offers unsolicted advice — which, worse, turns out to be correct after the General ignores it — the General is more concerned about having his authority undermined than about finding out what other advice Nelirikk might be able to offer. And, as Nelirikk himself notes, the whole thing might have been avoided if the Yxtrang Command had chosen to learn from his previous encounter with a Liaden Scout, instead of shoving that under the carpet too.

(And then there’s the incidental business of Over-Technician Akrant, whose career is ruined because his carelessness ruined the General’s big entrance, even though the big entrance was, as far as I can see, entirely ceremonial and made no actual difference to the progress of the campaign.)

That’s an interesting detail about Yxtrang high command being situated at “Temp Headquarters”. I wonder if it’s genuinely temporary, or if by now it’s become settled and retains the name only by tradition.

It didn’t occur to me the first time it was mentioned, but here is the Department of the Interior sending Tyl Von sig’Alda out in a ship that frequently if not continually reports its status back to Headquarters by pin-beam — and, as we have been recently reminded, pin-beam is generally regarded as expensive and only for use in particularly important circumstances. So that says something about the Department’s priorities, even if the pin-beam beacon is just another of the special accoutrements attaching to sig’Alda’s special mission, like the deputy badge and the code phrase. (If all the Department’s ships are similarly equipped, that says something else again.)