History Characters / HonorHarringtonManticore

* GoingDownWithTheShip: Subverted in ''The Honor of the Queen''. His first command HMS ''Troubadour'' gets blown in half by PNS ''Saladin''/''Thunder of God'', but per the epilogue, he and about a hundred of his crew survive and make it to the {{escape pod}}s.

!![[AC:King Roger III Winton]]

The first of Manticore's monarchs to receive Prolong treatment, he spends most of his military career, and after retirement, his reign as King, to prepare the Star Kingdom of Manticore for what he sees as the inevitable war with the Peoples' Republic of Haven. Oversaw much of the Royal Manticoran Navy's pre-war expansion program, despite considerable political pushback both from his senior officers and from Parliament. When he was on the verge of forging an alliance with San Martin against Haven, he was assassinated via an [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident engineered grav-ski accident]], leaving his teenaged daughter Elizabeth to take the throne in his place.
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* BadassBoast: Which would become the epitaph on his grave:
-->[[GoodIsNotSoft I Will Build My House Of Steel]]
* DramaticIrony and ForegoneConclusion: He is the first member of the Royal Family to receive the new Prolong treatments, and is expected to have a long reign as King as a result. Much is made of the fact that there is plenty of time for him to put his various plans into effect (most notably forging an alliance with San Martin, training his daughter in her distant future duties as Queen, and reconciling with his son over a disagreement). And then he is assassinated.
* GuileHero: Knowing that he will never get Parliament to agree to pay for the research and development programs he needs for the RMN to have a fighting chance against the bigger People's Navy, he simply sets it up in secret, siphoning funds off from various other parts of the budget to fund it.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: He is assassinated via a sabotaged grav-ski, falling to his death.
* MilitaryMaverick: He spends most of his career as an outspoken proponent of an expansion of the Royal Manticoran Navy, as well as a transition from a large force of lighter units (best suited for protecting their vast merchant fleet) to a smaller force of powerful capital ships (better suited for power projection and defense of the home system). Most of his superiors in the Navy feel that [[ItWillNeverCatchOn such changes in doctrine are unnecessary.]]
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Served for several decades as an officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy, and took his duties very seriously. As a matter of fact, he served rather longer than anyone expected him to, given the presumption that he would leave the service at the first opportunity to take up his ''real'' duties as a Royal. He never rose above the rank of Captain due to the combination of his refusal to leverage his social status for promotion and his unorthodox views on naval doctrine.
* YoungFutureFamousPeople: The one story he appears in features multiple discussions about various junior officers, including an indication that Hamish Alexander and Sonja Hemphill were both already nursing a healthy rivalry back when they were lieutenants.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Although drugging Nimitz showed some foresight on his part, trying to assault a woman who grew up on a high-gravity planet (making her at least twice as strong as him) ''and'' is a member of the Academy's intramural unarmed combat team... did not.

* SleepingTheirWayToTheTop: What Pavel is convinced Honor must be doing with an admiral in exchange for his favor. In actuality, the admiral in question merely thinks (correctly) that she's a brilliant officer, as well as considering her to be the daughter he never had.

!![[AC: Travis Uriah Long]]

An officer of the Royal Manticoran Navy during the 16th Century PD. He was a "mustang", an officer promoted from the enlisted ranks.
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* AbusiveParents: ''A Call to Vengeance'' cements that Travis's mother isn't just the hands off parent presented in ''A Call to Arms''. She outright doesn't care about her second son, much to his brother's horror when he realizes this.
* AmbiguousDisorder: Travis need for following the rules due to them helping him structuring his life, his comprehension issues with social cues and other elements strongly imply he's somewhere on the Autism Spectrum, though clearly highly functional.
* AwesomeByAnalysis: Travis is able to figure out that one of the enemy ships has a malfunctioning autocannon due to the way it is maneuvering to keep one side facing their attacks. They exploit this to sneak a missile past that ship to lay in a sucker punch on the battlecruiser it was screening for.
* HandsOffParenting: Travis's mother seems to take a near-total disinterest in anything he does, ultimately giving him both ultimate freedom and ultimate lack of guidance. The result is a young man who feels lost in the world.
** Shown to be more in the order of parental neglect as of book 3, as it is revealed that she didn't even both to check if he'd lived or died after the battle in book 2.
* MilitaryMaverick: Averted. Travis is such a stickler for the rules and regulations that he often ends up antagonising not only his crewmates but also his superiors.
* PunnyName: Travis Uriah Long, sometimes known as "Travesty", due to one reading of his name being "Travis U. Long", as in Oolong Tea. Travis Tea.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: Gets assigned to instructor duty with the MPRS in ''A Call to Vengeance''. Travis naturally assumes this is a punishment due to his brother being one of Breakwater's allies, but soon learns he loves teaching.
** And again, when he is later transferred to the Bureau of Personnel, where naval careers go to die, [[spoiler: but this is a front for his real assignment with a new secret intelligence section]].
* RecruitersAlwaysLie: Travis joins the RMN on an impulse after seeing the recruiting posters (and the beautiful recruiting officer) advertising an exciting career defending the Star Kingdom and learning valuable skills. As it happens, the RMN of this time period is a demoralized undermanned service seemingly lacking any actual purpose.
* UpThroughTheRanks: Travis is a "mustang," that is, he is an officer who was promoted from the enlisted ranks.

** Tacitly acknowledged in his first appearance with regards to men like Reginald Houseman. He could have bought himself a Noble title, but he sneers at the House of Lords and its occupants, prefering to characterize himself as a man of humble origins. This doesn't stop him from sneering at the fact that Honor, who is of Yowman origins and thus barely more than a commoner when they met, still had the audacity to not bend to his political pressure.

* EvilIsPetty: Snubs most of his nation's allies and goes back on his predecessor's promises to them for no real reason, causing Manticore to ''lose'' most of those allies when the war goes hot again.

* KarmaHoudini: The only member of the High Ridge government who isn't charged with criminal offenses when the government dissolves (except Janacek, who blows his brains out before charges can be filed).

* IWantGrandkids: To the point of saying she'll bring semen vials to her next meeting with a boyfriend of Honor's. The boyfriend in question doesn't seem too unhappy at the prospect.

* ImprobableAimingSkills: With an anachronistic HandCannon from pre-Diaspora Earth, no less (i.e. an M1911A1).

* KillerRabbit: They're small, they're drop-dead cute, and [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes seven of their eight ends]] are pointy.

* MultiArmedAndDangerous: Treecats have "true-hands", "hand-paws", and "true-feet", so they have four arms. And they use them too.
* NameThatUnfoldsLikeLotusBlossom: Treecat names are descriptive.

* ChestOfMedals: See the list of [[JustForPun honors]] after her her name? That's but the ''highest'' awards [[FourStarBadass Honor's]] been decorated with in her [[OldSoldier half century of service]].

* MultiEthnicName: While this is ''everywhere'' in the Honorverse, hers was the first major example of this to appear. "Estelle" is originally French, and "Matsuko" is originally Japanese.

* InformedAbility: Sees surprisingly little close combat for a character who is introduced as a bruiser. When he ''does'' get into a personal-level fight, such as in ''Honor Among Enemies,'' he very quickly and efficiently incapacitates his foes.

* {{Bishounen}}: He and his HeterosexualLifePartner are called "Beauty and the Beast". Harkness is the beast. Take from that what you will.

* VillainKiller: Honor has quite a body count to her name. Most of them are nameless soldiers killed in naval engagements who couldn't be considered villains even in the best of times, let alone a GrayAndGreyMorality setting like this. It's the ''[[ItsPersonal personal]]'' kills that put her in this trope. Heroic though she undeniably is, Honor has the heart of a killer. If you're an evil person and get on her bad side, you better get your affairs in order ''fast''.[[note]]Denver Summerdale, Pavel Young, and William Fitzclarence could all attest to this, if they were still alive.[[/note]]

* VillainKiller: Honor has quite a body count to her name. Most of them are nameless soldiers who couldn't be considered villains even in the best of times, let alone a GrayAndGreyMorality setting like this. It's the ''[[ItsPersonal personal]]'' kills that put her in this trope. Heroic though she undeniably is, Honor has the heart of a killer. If you're an evil person and get on her bad side, you better get your affairs in order ''fast''.[[note]]Denver Summerdale, Pavel Young, and William Fitzclarence could all attest to this, if they were still alive.[[/note]]

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Although drugging Nimitz showed some foresight on his part, trying to assault a woman who grew up on a high-gravity planet (making her at least twice as strong as him) ''and'' is a member of the Academy's intramural unarmed combat team... does not.

* RageAginstTheReflection: In ''Field of Dishonor'', he enters his new office and comes face to face with a large wall mirror. He promptly rips it off the wall and smashes it to the floor, because seeing his reflection triggered a flashback to the deeply humiliating InsigniaRipOffRitual that drummed him out of Her Majesty's Navy. It's the first sign that he's genuinely losing his marbles.

* NameThatUnfoldsLikeALotusBlossom: Since the mid-series, due to the increased involvement of the Treecats in the Manticoran affairs, more and more of the human characters start to get a Treecat name, which always describe the key feature of the person's character. The 'cat names are shown in italics on this page.

* BerserkButton: Anyone who seriously thinks about harming a treecat's human in their presence will find themselves facing a small furry buzzsaw.

* IntelligentGerbil: Doesn't quite fit here but is closer than any of the other Alien tropes.
* KillerRabbit: [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes Seven of their eight ends]] are pointy.

* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Despite otherwise being carnivores, Treecats love Celery. It's mostly because they just find it so damn ''tasty'', though the presence of a "telepathy vitamin" doesn't hurt.

* ISurrenderSuckers: Tried to do this during the duel with Honor, but failed miserably, which led to his KarmicDeath.

* UpperClassTwit: Much of his evilness stemmed from his truly monumental stupidity. There was a lot of deeds to which his much more intelligent Magnificent Bastards of a father and wife, or somewhat less magnificent, but still quite talented bastard of a brother would've never resorted to, if only for their potential to backfire.

* BadassBaritone: Has a notably deep voice. Total badass. Also the ultimate military authority in the Talbott Quadrant.

* JoinTheArmyTheySaid: Travis joins the RMN on an impulse after seeing the recruiting posters (and the beautiful recruiting officer) advertising an exciting career defending the Star Kingdom and learning valuable skills. As it happens, the RMN of this time period is a demoralized undermanned service seemingly lacking any actual purpose.

* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: In her younger years she had it ''hard''. It explains a lot about her later somewhat hardass character.

* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: Much PurpleProse on the way she keeps her emotions behind a cool, professional demeanor.

** ''Shadow of Victory'' introduces [[RichIdiotWithNoDayJob Charlie O'Daley]], Aivars Terekhov's brother-in-law, who also speaks this way, is an another of the "working aristocrats", and is mentioned to be the Oversteegen's long-time associate, so it's probably an affectation of their social club or other close-knit community within an aristocratic class.

The younger brother of Sinead Terekhov (nee O'Daley), and thus Sir Aivars' brother-in-law, he's on the outside is your common [[RichIdiotWithNoDayJob wealthy aristocratic layabout]] with too much time on his hands and a ''really'' questionable [[ThePrankster sense of humor]]. Even the fact that he technically ''has'' a day job at the Foreign Office, everyone just see it [[OneHourWorkWeek as a sinecure]] [[ScrewTheRulesIhaveConnections brought in by his brother-in-law's connections]]. In reality, though, Charlie is a first rate field agent of the Special Intelligence Service, and one of the foremost counterintelligence specialists in the Star Empire. He is the one saddled with the Yawata Strike investigation, after all. This doesn't change the fact that he ''is'' as much of InsufferableGenius as "Horrible" Hemphill, and that he shares the same annoying FunetikAksent with his friend and associate Michael Oversteegen.

* RichIdiotWithNoDayJob: Well, he technically ''has'' a day job, but it's a pure window dressing.