Post by Avatar on Sept 1, 2019 14:12:12 GMT
This essay is published to go with Chaos Full Glory, Into The Chasm of Night and Shatter the Dream
An Essay; Ship Captains and Leadership
When I first wrote this duology (soon to be trilogy) I began with a vision of B-5 that is distinctly at variant with a lot of the fan-fiction I read or of the authorized fiction.
JMS was/is a pacifist. But unusually, he knows a great deal about the military/political realities of a civilization,.and he writes military Science Fiction well. Unlike the incompetent treatments of Berman Trek or of the recent Lucas garbage;(George's watered down Star Wars, and wrecked it with some abysmal gaffes in CGI and presentation in the pre-quels) JMS, even in the Legend of the Rangers flub, and the novels, as well as AoG(and as far as I can tell Mongoose(TM) fluff) kept a tight grip on the premise. He emphasized, the REAL feel of the technology, but inside that reality told a very human story of people in conflict amidst a very deadly universe.
That is the vision I tried to reflect in my variant.
Where I departed, though, is in my treatment of the people I write about. I write about the ship's crews of two(now three) ships.
These are supposed to be working crews in three ships led by three dynamic ship's Captains against the background of a functioning very efficient rather impersonal command structure to which they respond.
I will discuss each ship's Captain in light of the presentation and what I tried to show in the story.
Captain Thomas Caldwell;
He's not the best leader or frankly the best tactician. He's an organization/career officer. He takes a new ship/fleet with which he's unfamiliar and a polyglot crew of native and foreign personnel. I modeled him on Oliver Hazard Perry in demeanor, and in the problems he faced. (www.brigniagara.org/perry.htm ) At DAGAB II, he wins a famous victory very much as Perry won his own;(www.brigniagara.org/battle.htm )by keeping his head, going after the heart of the enemy command and defeating it.
You can see in his leadership style and in his problems that he does the best he can with inadequate preparation, personnel, and equipment. I tried to show in Chasm the process, and just how technology as well as personnel conflicts impede Caldwell in his own performance.
Notice how Caldwell fixated on his opposite number and made him the objective?
Captain Janet Heller
This woman is modeled on Arleigh Burke (navysite.de/people/aaburke.htm) Her actions in her fights closely mimic Arleigh Burke's victories; (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat...ugusta_Bay) and (navysite.de/cg/capehist.htm) in the descriptions I supplied in STD in intent and effect. As for her personality? Ernest King applies (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_King).
In describing her and SPRUANCE, I tried to show how careful leadership uses training, and mission-oriented objectives to give a ship or a fleet a personally stamped and imposed character. Nobody after reading Shatter should be surprised that this novella contains some of my own personal experience in this area, as I modeled Janet Heller. Mission-driven commanders are, fortunately for America, common in our nation's service, as is the high-quality training that they give their units, as well as the careful tactics they employ to overcome technical and tactical shortcomings. What is not common, is the personal drive to vengeance that such a rare combination, as Janet Heller represents. Ernest King is the closest I could come in my mind in American history to such a person, though Halsey is an(incompetent) close competitor. I toned down the libido, and the alcoholism, and raised the anger a notch, and voila, I had a person who would fixate on her own personal demon. It made, for me, an interesting personal story inside the bigger treatment. I should emphasize that Heller planned her personal vengeance inside the bigger war, using her opportunities to steer ISA policy and grand strategy to achieve her own objective, when it coincided with the ISAN overall scheme of operations. So I guess I added a little dash of MacArthur at the end.(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur).
Captain Sarah Lockhart.
The Captain of Stauffenberg, I'm modeling on Raymond Spruance (www.centuryinter.net/midw...uance.html). You will see how this plays out(this section will be rewritten after the story ends) as I write. Chaos.
What I intend is that Sarah Lockhart will show how competence and a Shermanesque approach will drive the story. There will be some story surprises along the way,(already seen in Chapter 1), but from the military leadership perspective you will see a lot of the problems that Spruance had with Halsey's staff reflected and how he corrected it.
In the next part of the essay I will discuss some of the opposition and supporting leadership models and how it affects the stories I wrote/write.
---------------------------------------
Leaders in the Opposition.
For the most part, it will surprise a lot of people to know that a commander in real life will have a staff officer and/or an intelligence group that fixates on the enemy commander.
You see this with the interaction of Raskallon and Acamos. Janet Heller exploits this in planning her own actions.
You see that Morado when he changes sides is exploited immediately by Caldwell to overcome, Jathren.
Now that may look like cheap soap opera and the enemy may look very stupid as I write them , but I used historical models for Jathren and for Acamos.
The model I chose for Jathren I modeled on a combination of Xerxes of Persia, Darius of the same empire and for his arrogance, Tojo of Japan.
For Acamos I went to American history. Jimmy Carter to the core is the model for this erson. For scheming and sheer ineptitude it is hard to find a better real person to serve as a model.
Ishdai? Admiral Nagumo.
For such unnamed opponents like the mercenaries at TINAR I chose bits and pieces like the Spanish squadron that Dewey slaughtered at Manila Bay as a historical model or the Japanese at Koulambangara.
Molitor? The agent Serge that served Stalin so well was the model.
As for the NGS? Navy Warplans in Washington under whatever changing nomenclature throughout our history is the inspiration. That group makes the Prussian General Staff; or the Stavka look like the bunch of amateurs that they are. Remember that SPRUANCE was trained out of that organization.
ANI I frankly modeled on the OSS. While that organization had some notable historical successes; it was an amateur outfit compared to the British or Italian Secret Services and I so write it when I discuss it in relation to EFNI (credit JackKnife) or the Centauri Secret Service.
Abigail Sanders for example is modeled directly on William Colby, who was controversial and somewhat tainted as America's CIA director (www.arlingtoncemetery.net/wcolby.htm).
I will let the stories speak for themselves; as to how the opposition stacks up, as I intended to concentrate on the objects of my interest, the heroes which I described above.
Avatar.
An Essay; Ship Captains and Leadership
When I first wrote this duology (soon to be trilogy) I began with a vision of B-5 that is distinctly at variant with a lot of the fan-fiction I read or of the authorized fiction.
JMS was/is a pacifist. But unusually, he knows a great deal about the military/political realities of a civilization,.and he writes military Science Fiction well. Unlike the incompetent treatments of Berman Trek or of the recent Lucas garbage;(George's watered down Star Wars, and wrecked it with some abysmal gaffes in CGI and presentation in the pre-quels) JMS, even in the Legend of the Rangers flub, and the novels, as well as AoG(and as far as I can tell Mongoose(TM) fluff) kept a tight grip on the premise. He emphasized, the REAL feel of the technology, but inside that reality told a very human story of people in conflict amidst a very deadly universe.
That is the vision I tried to reflect in my variant.
Where I departed, though, is in my treatment of the people I write about. I write about the ship's crews of two(now three) ships.
These are supposed to be working crews in three ships led by three dynamic ship's Captains against the background of a functioning very efficient rather impersonal command structure to which they respond.
I will discuss each ship's Captain in light of the presentation and what I tried to show in the story.
Captain Thomas Caldwell;
He's not the best leader or frankly the best tactician. He's an organization/career officer. He takes a new ship/fleet with which he's unfamiliar and a polyglot crew of native and foreign personnel. I modeled him on Oliver Hazard Perry in demeanor, and in the problems he faced. (www.brigniagara.org/perry.htm ) At DAGAB II, he wins a famous victory very much as Perry won his own;(www.brigniagara.org/battle.htm )by keeping his head, going after the heart of the enemy command and defeating it.
You can see in his leadership style and in his problems that he does the best he can with inadequate preparation, personnel, and equipment. I tried to show in Chasm the process, and just how technology as well as personnel conflicts impede Caldwell in his own performance.
Notice how Caldwell fixated on his opposite number and made him the objective?
Captain Janet Heller
This woman is modeled on Arleigh Burke (navysite.de/people/aaburke.htm) Her actions in her fights closely mimic Arleigh Burke's victories; (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat...ugusta_Bay) and (navysite.de/cg/capehist.htm) in the descriptions I supplied in STD in intent and effect. As for her personality? Ernest King applies (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_King).
In describing her and SPRUANCE, I tried to show how careful leadership uses training, and mission-oriented objectives to give a ship or a fleet a personally stamped and imposed character. Nobody after reading Shatter should be surprised that this novella contains some of my own personal experience in this area, as I modeled Janet Heller. Mission-driven commanders are, fortunately for America, common in our nation's service, as is the high-quality training that they give their units, as well as the careful tactics they employ to overcome technical and tactical shortcomings. What is not common, is the personal drive to vengeance that such a rare combination, as Janet Heller represents. Ernest King is the closest I could come in my mind in American history to such a person, though Halsey is an(incompetent) close competitor. I toned down the libido, and the alcoholism, and raised the anger a notch, and voila, I had a person who would fixate on her own personal demon. It made, for me, an interesting personal story inside the bigger treatment. I should emphasize that Heller planned her personal vengeance inside the bigger war, using her opportunities to steer ISA policy and grand strategy to achieve her own objective, when it coincided with the ISAN overall scheme of operations. So I guess I added a little dash of MacArthur at the end.(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur).
Captain Sarah Lockhart.
The Captain of Stauffenberg, I'm modeling on Raymond Spruance (www.centuryinter.net/midw...uance.html). You will see how this plays out(this section will be rewritten after the story ends) as I write. Chaos.
What I intend is that Sarah Lockhart will show how competence and a Shermanesque approach will drive the story. There will be some story surprises along the way,(already seen in Chapter 1), but from the military leadership perspective you will see a lot of the problems that Spruance had with Halsey's staff reflected and how he corrected it.
In the next part of the essay I will discuss some of the opposition and supporting leadership models and how it affects the stories I wrote/write.
---------------------------------------
Leaders in the Opposition.
For the most part, it will surprise a lot of people to know that a commander in real life will have a staff officer and/or an intelligence group that fixates on the enemy commander.
You see this with the interaction of Raskallon and Acamos. Janet Heller exploits this in planning her own actions.
You see that Morado when he changes sides is exploited immediately by Caldwell to overcome, Jathren.
Now that may look like cheap soap opera and the enemy may look very stupid as I write them , but I used historical models for Jathren and for Acamos.
The model I chose for Jathren I modeled on a combination of Xerxes of Persia, Darius of the same empire and for his arrogance, Tojo of Japan.
For Acamos I went to American history. Jimmy Carter to the core is the model for this erson. For scheming and sheer ineptitude it is hard to find a better real person to serve as a model.
Ishdai? Admiral Nagumo.
For such unnamed opponents like the mercenaries at TINAR I chose bits and pieces like the Spanish squadron that Dewey slaughtered at Manila Bay as a historical model or the Japanese at Koulambangara.
Molitor? The agent Serge that served Stalin so well was the model.
As for the NGS? Navy Warplans in Washington under whatever changing nomenclature throughout our history is the inspiration. That group makes the Prussian General Staff; or the Stavka look like the bunch of amateurs that they are. Remember that SPRUANCE was trained out of that organization.
ANI I frankly modeled on the OSS. While that organization had some notable historical successes; it was an amateur outfit compared to the British or Italian Secret Services and I so write it when I discuss it in relation to EFNI (credit JackKnife) or the Centauri Secret Service.
Abigail Sanders for example is modeled directly on William Colby, who was controversial and somewhat tainted as America's CIA director (www.arlingtoncemetery.net/wcolby.htm).
I will let the stories speak for themselves; as to how the opposition stacks up, as I intended to concentrate on the objects of my interest, the heroes which I described above.
Avatar.