#david weber

One choice I think would be good for this that I can think of offhand: HDG X Mutineer's Moon, after the liberation of the Achuultani/Aku'Ultan.

@azdoine, @aloeveracious.

Disclaimer: it has been a really long time since I read Empire from the Ashes (I am working from old memories here so please just mentally add a bunch of if I remember correctly disclaimers), and I have only cursory familiarity with HDG, and I'm kinda prioritizing assumptions that would yield an interesting scenario over strict adherence to canon (of either setting) here.

You could do it as a fusion crossover fairly easily. The Affini originated in the Triangulum galaxy, so you can say they hadn't reached the Milky Way yet at the time of the Aku'Ultan master computer's last round of galaxy-wide genocides. The Aku'Ultan would have tangled with the Affini eventually this time around if the Fifth Imperium wasn't there, but the Aku'Ultan ran into the Fifth Imperium and lost that war first.

The Fifth Imperium are relatively OK folks, but as written by a guy with probably center-right Red Tribe sensibilities. They have some technologies that probably would be quite interesting to the Affini, e.g. they can stop biological senescence artificially, which IIRC in most versions of HDG the Affini can't do. And, most importantly, they're people who'd politely but firmly reject domestication ... and would plausibly have the firepower to make that stick.

Oh, an Affini light feral control vessel is 15 kilometers long? That's cute, in the Mutineer's Moon universe Luna was a Fourth Imperium warship disguised as a natural object. Yes, that Luna; the moon in the fucking sky! By this point the Fifth Imperium would have a whole fleet of warships like that. When the Aku'Ultan attacked Sol they threw one of the solar system's major gas giant moons at Earth (the defenders were able to fragment/deflect it).

Going by the 15 km figure, Affini warships seem similar in size to Aku'Ultan warships. The Aku'Ultan fleet was a serious threat to the Fifth Imperium fleet, due to having a lot more ships (it was a classic Baen books "the enemy might prevail through sheer weight of numbers" situation). I don't think we got any hard numbers on Aku'Ultan industrial capacity, population, etc., but given the way the war played out seems plausible the Affini have a lot more ships and resources than the Aku'Ultan did.

Point: somebody on Spacebattles pointed out that, if you do the math, the Aku'Ultan fleet being able to be any kind of threat to the Fifth Imperium fleet suggests Aku'Ultan warships are way better pound for pound. Seems like a reasonable extrapolation here that the Aku'Ultan have some major technological advantages over the Fifth Imperium (after all, they're the cause of the Great Silence in the Mutineer's Moon universe, they've been around for a long time - I don't remember if we ever got a number in canon but plausibly their civilization is a lot older than the Compact). At the point of this crossover, the liberated Aku'Ultan would be on friendly terms with the Fifth Imperium, and they got just freed from eons of slavery to their master computer, so I expect they'd have a pretty hostile reaction when the Affini propose to "domesticate" them. So plausible that by the time of this crossover Fifth Imperium battle planetoids have gotten a major upgrade, or if they haven't they're going to when the Fifth Imperium and the Aku'Ultan find themselves faced with a powerful new enemy and have zero reason to not give each other all the help they can.

I think the interesting balance here would be that the Affini could conquer the Fifth Imperium if they really tried, but it would be basically the Compact's equivalent of Operation Downfall. They would have to throw like a quarter of the entire Compact navy at the Fifth Imperium, and accept winning only by drowning the Fifth Imperium in the blood (err, sap?) of trillions of martyrs to the cause of "wanna be service dom(me)s so bad we do imperialism about it."

And, y'know, I think they just might do that! Or at least, that seems as plausible a reaction as any here. A society that rejects them and cannot be conquered is a living, breathing flaming atomic middle finger to ideas of how the universe works and should works that are deeply embedded in their culture in a way humans can hardly even imagine. And I'll give the "Affini are good" talking point this much, I think they're a lot more interesting if you assume they're not selfish, they genuinely do imperialism and enslave people because they think that's what's best for those people and they believe in that creed hard and if it came to it they would fight for it with great personal courage and selflessness.

But I think there is a leverage point Emperor Colin I could use to negotiate for the survival of the Fifth Imperium and their allies. I expect the Affini would be extremely averse to non-Affini civilian casualties. So...

... When the Affini ambassador bluntly informs Emperor Colin that an unprecedented armada of a third of the Compact's entire feral control force is being marshaled and will arrive at Sol in five months and then he or some other suitable representative of humanity will be signing that domestication treaty, one way or another (said in approximately the tone of a mother telling her unruly toddler that they will be getting that vaccine injection)...

... Emperor Colin politely but firmly points out that while it's true his people could not defeat such a force, the Affini can't keep a third of their fleet over every inhabited world and other fixed population center in the Compact (and in fact will have to strip their defense forces substantially for Operation Earthfucker), and the Fifth Imperium battle planetoids would make a highly effective raiding force against the Compact. The Fifth Imperium cannot win a total war against the Compact, but in such a situation they could, to use an appropriately grim old Earth cinematic reference, muss the Affini's hair. And while he certainly doesn't want to harm civilians, if his people are backs to the wall staring down the barrel of inevitable defeat followed by being a slave race for millions of years like the Aku'Ultan were, they are willing to do what it takes to make sure this is a war both sides lose, kind of like this (but on a much grander scale):

You know, a battle planetoid wouldn't even have to use its weapons to kill most of the people on a planet; it could just park in low orbit and let its gravity drag kilometers-high tides over the world's continents. Oh, and did you know 5E "FTL" can cause stars to go nova as a side effect if you're not careful with it? All those poor cuties... :(

Oh, the Aku'Ultan would also be fighting against the Compact in this too and, well, it's an awful thing to say, to suggest they dip into the well of their long dark night of grotesque slavery that they have so recently escaped, but they're very experienced in that kind of warfare. Could the defenses of a Compact planet deal with a 1.8 X 10^21 kg projectile on collision course with the planet at a relative velocity of dozens to hundreds of km/s? Cause the Aku'Ultan threw that at Earth.

That threat makes the Affini back down, saves Earth and Birhat and the Aku'Ultan and Pardal from Affini conquest (Emperor Colin is tremendously relieved that he didn't have to actually do it).

I am not sure whether the Fifth Imperium canonically has "FTL" that's "fast" enough to let them reach a significant amount of the Compact, but for purposes of having an interesting scenario I'm assuming they do. Anyway, IIRC the Aku'Ultan teracides were galactic in scope, if the 5E doesn't the Aku'Ultan probably do, and have basically every incentive to share the tech at this point.

I don't think it'd be over at that point, I think this would be the start of a 5E/Compact Cold War.

Colin MacIntyre i.e. Emperor Colin I struck me as a basically good person ... as written by a center-right guy with Red Tribe cultural sensibilities. He's probably the kind of guy who unironically gets a bit misty-eyed at the "... we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." kind of Americana and sheds a single manly tear at a ceremony to honor all the U.S. soldiers who "gave their lives for freedom" over the centuries.

Imagine what he's going to think and feel when he sees stuff like this:

Above all else, you, Elvira, must obey your Guardian, Akash Nele, Third Bloom in all things. This is for your safety, wellbeing, and care. ☐ Your Guardian, Akash Nele, Third Bloom, owns you. You are her property. You do not have political rights in the Affini Compact. ☐ You do have a guarantee of your wellbeing, as defined in Section 57 of the Human Domestication Treaty. ☐ This guarantee of wellbeing does not preclude your Guardian from disciplining you, as outlined in Section 61 of the Human Domestication Treaty. ☐ As the property of your Guardian, she may add, remove, or modify conditions of your wardship at any time for any reason within the limits established by the Human Domestication Treaty. ☐ Your full name is Elvira Nele, Second Floret from this moment forward. ☐ Below this line are additional terms that your Guardian, Akash Nele, Third Bloom, has stipulated. ☐ It is unbecoming for wards to swear. You must limit your language as such. ☐ You are disallowed any secrets not specifically allowed by your Guardian. You are disallowed to hide any part of your body from your Guardian. ☐

Or somebody shows him some florn, the kind that focuses on when the mind breaks and the captive accepts domestication...

And he realizes that that stuff is probably still happening on other parts of the borders of the Compact, or if it isn't will be in the future, the next time any Affini probes and explorers, anywhere, encounter people who cannot withstand the Compact's might like his did. Affini expansion is a forever war against all free people, it is happening in all directions, it has not stopped, it will not stop until the universe dies or it runs out of universe or it is stopped.

To use a metatextual metaphor, I don't think Colin would realize he's switched genres. From his perspective, from the outside, the Affini would look like pretty classic Baen books villains, albeit more disturbingly "R-rated" than most. A vast, ancient, arrogant evil empire that has changed little in a hundred thousand years except that it's gotten bigger, technologically inferior to the Fifth Imperium but still dangerous by the sheer weight of numbers they can bring to bear, determined to conquer the universe, hostile to all free people.

Obvious next move is expanding the anti-Affini alliance and a policy of containment.

An Affini pacification fleet arrives at the capital system of some alien polity a few thousand light years spinward from Sol. They find a Fifth Imperium battle planetoid in high orbit of the capital planet (has to be high orbit, to avoid tidal disruption). The battle planetoid's captain politely but firmly informs the Affini fleet that the Wusnuwaxa have signed a mutual defense pact with the Fifth Imperium and also wish to convey a firm "thanks, but no thanks" on the domestication treaty proposal and she suggests the Affini honor their wishes seeing as the mutual defense treaty means her battle planetoid will use its weapons to defend the Wusnuwaxa's right to exclude the Affini from their sovereign territory and her battle planetoid outmasses the pacification fleet facing it by five orders of magnitude.

A few thousand light years farther up the Sagittarius Arm, an Affini pacification fleet dispatched to complete the pacification of the Agdaw encounter unexpectedly effective resistance. The ships are of indigenous design, but they are armed with weapons clearly derived from Fifth Imperium technology and are ten times the size of the biggest battleships the Agdaw were building a year ago and they outnumber Affini intelligence's estimates for the entire Agdaw navy by three orders of magnitude (clearly, advanced Fifth Imperium automation has also been applied to lighten the requirements for skilled spacers to run them). The Affini suffer their worst naval defeat in the last fifteen millennia.

A few months later, a rebellion begins on a Khetari world; a rebellion armed with smuggled Fifth Imperium weaponry, supplied by smuggled Fifth Imperium fabricators (they're not as versatile as compilers, but you don't build moon-sized battleships without some serious automated industrial machinery) and some of the fighters seem to have received enhancements similar to Fifth Imperium Marines (IIRC the Khetari were conquered within living memory of the conquest of the Terrans canonically, so I figure Khetari space is a place where the flame of resistance may still linger). Astonishingly, the rebels are able to quickly seize control of the planet, at which point they promptly send a call for help to the Fifth Imperium...

I think you might end up with a dynamic that actually dovetails pretty well thematically. The Affini have a rancid self-presentation (by human standards), but they're less evil than they seem at face value. So the Compact doesn't have all that much internal discontent. So the Fifth Imperium doesn't have all that much success triggering internal rebellions (when they succeed, it's usually on worlds that were conquered within living memory). But they have great success showing up as saviors of independent societies the Affini are about to conquer, who promptly and gratefully join the containment alliance of their saviors. So you might eventually end up with a situation where the Compact's doing fine internally, but it's contained, ringed by a diverse alliance that rivals it in size and blocks its expansion. The Affini can't conquer anymore, and they're forced to sit with the existence of trillions of sapient beings who reject their domination and can make that stick.

Ooof. This is an interesting one. I like so many.

Does Dinotopia count? It has steampunk-y elements. That's kind of sci fi, right?

I grew up with Star Wars but in an extremely backward way where I was vaguely aware of the movies but read Expanded Universe books first so for many years Star Wars TO ME was Jacen and Jaina and weird background characters from the cantina scene and to me that's still Star Wars in my heart of hearts and how I engage with it.

I think it really depends on my mood.

Feeling cozy and low-stakes? Becky Chambers' Wayfarers series and the aforementioned Dinotopia. Also Nathan Lowell's Golden Age of the Solar

Want big war machines and mil sci-fi? I love David Drake's Hammer's Slammers series for big hovertanks and Honor Harrington for HORNBLOWER IN SPESS!

Wacky sci fi shenanigans and also puppets? I'm a Farscape girlie forever.

Hey, remember when I reviewed In Enemy Hands and said that Honor Among Enemies felt a lot like a bridge novel to something else in the series? Well In Enemy Hands was definitely that, but Echoes of Honor dials everything up to eleven. Don't get me wrong: all of the books in the series have been good. I would genuinely say that it's a series that gets better the deeper you get into it, but Echoes of Honor is the absolute pinnacle of this series so far. (New prediction for those keeping scores at home: In Enemy Hands, Echoes of Honor, and Ashes of Victory are going to be the best three-book arc in this series.)

Echoes of Honor starts, shockingly, with footage of Honor's execution being broadcast on galactic newsfeeds. Witnessed by Honor's parents on Grayson, it leaves the Star Kingdom of Manticore with a grim determination to avenge her and sends Grayson into an absolute fury. Funerals are held on both planets and an empty coffin is interred in the Royal Cathedral. The first part of the book deals with the immediate fallout of Honor's purported death. Her parents mourn along with her household staff on Grayson- including her faithful steward, Mac. The question of succession to her steading is a tricky one, but ultimately, her parents- who had always planned on having more children, eventually- because, thanks to the genetic prolong treatments, they could- decide to have them-- but only after some contemplation of their own.

What no one knows- but the reader does- is that Honor is very much alive and well and on the Prison Planet Hades and starts formulating plans with her crew to find some allies and get off the planet.

Behind enemy lines, we see Esther McQueen continue to build her power structure as Haven deals with the fallout of Cordelia Ransom's death and the explosion of the Tepes-- believed also to have killed Honor and the rest of the prisoners. Esther is formulating a plan to hit Manticoran Alliance hard and in places they're not expecting and wants the help of Admirals Theisman, Tourville and Giscard to help her-- all three Admirals that had fallen out of favor with the Ministry of State Security, formerly headed by Ransom. She gets the Admirals that she wants-- and we find out some interesting things: Tourville and Foraker have kept silent on the footage on her console that seemed to indicate that someone could have survived the explosion of the Tepes. Giscard is having an affair with his People's Commissioner, Eloise Prichard. But nevertheless: the Peep Offensive pushes forward.

On Hades, Honor has found some allies-- including what might be my favorite callback to earlier books, the father, presumed dead of Tomas Ramirez. (I wish I could remember which book, but Tomas is a Marine, from San Martin and hates the Peeps. His Dad Jesus is pretty much the same, but older and really hates the Peeps.) They put together a plan to take over the main command and control center of the prison planet and set about figuring out what to do next. The Prisoners-- many of whom have been on Hades for decades want some measure of accountability against their jailers- for obvious reasons, but Honor is not interested in vigilante justice. She wants them to be put on trial-- but there's a hitch: she puts them on trial using Peep Laws, because she doesn't want to hand State Security a potential propaganda victory. She also has to figure out how to acquire shipping to get nearly half a million prisoners off the planet and home, a job made that much harder by the start of the Peep Offensive, entangling Alliance forces in a frantic defense and making it highly unlikely they would be able to send assistance to evacuate everyone.

Hey, do you remember Alice Truman? (She's one of the characters that sort of wanders in and out of these books, the same way Michelle Henke does.) She's been 'up to something' and what that something is sure seems like an aircraft carrier in space, except instead of fighter jets, she's stocked with LACs and when things kick off on the military front, they kick ass. (Also, White Haven, still riddled with guilt, is hounding his superiors to get his fleet fully put together so he can do something with it and when things kick off for him, he sends the whole damn fleet on a two-jump, incredibly risky, insane amount of tonnage hyperspace hop through to Manticore (from Grayson) and then onto Basilisk. Also very badass, even if it doesn't prevent the Allies from taking heavy losses in the system.)

Honor and company, having concluded that they're on their own start acquiring ships bit by bit, and eventually their luck appears to run out as the disappearances start to be noted and a sizable force concludes that something has gone badly wrong in Hades and sends forces enough to put down any potential takeover. Honor being Honor lures them into a trap, gets all the ships she needs, and with her 'Elysian Space Navy' heads back home to inform a stunned White Haven and the rest of the Alliance that reports of her death, were, in fact, exaggerated.

Overall: I love how this book is structured-- we go from non-Hades (Peep, Manticore, Grayson, points between) to Hades sections alternating throughout and it just works. The whole story takes place over the course of two years, which feels about right to me-- it's time enough for news of Honor's death to get out, for people closest to her to mourn and start to move on, but also gives her and her crew enough time to find allies, make plans, take over and do what they need to do. The timeline is just right. The structure is perfect.

I get that you're always going to see Honor Harrington front and center in these books- it is, after all, kind of her series. But these books also become exponentially more interesting to me when Weber pulls his focus out just a bit wider and we see more of the Honorverse at large. I like exploring the political tensions in the Alliance. I like seeing the Graysons muddle through what to do about her steading. I like that we get to see more of her parents than we've ever seen before. It makes the universe deeper, richer, the stakes higher and more meaningful.

I've often thought that naming her Honor was just a bit too on the nose, but you know what? I don't care. She's awesome. She brings people up and doesn't tear them down. I don't think she'd like the notion that she inspires devotion and loyalty amongst the people that follow her and I think she would be the first to tell you that 'there's no I in team' and that's probably what I find most compelling about the character. She doesn't make it all about herself, in fact you could argue that her character flaw is a tendency to go hard in the opposite direction, even past the point of what seems reasonable and achievable, but she always seems to get there in the end.