History Characters / HonorHarrington

* MagneticHero: Theisman not only had [=McQueen=]'s nearly supernatural ability to inspire loyalty in others, but also the [[TheFettered determination to do right]] which she lacked. The result was a complete overthrow of the Committee and the first bona fide democracy to rule the Republic of Haven in over two centuries.

* HeroWorshipper: At age nine, she watched from a balcony on Grayson as then-Captain Honor Harrington made a defiant, heroic last stand against a far more powerful enemy force (in ''The Honor of the Queen'') to save her planet and its people. As a result she not only caught a serious case of hero worship for that same captain, but spent the next ten years doing her best to get to Saganami Island. Not only did she succeed, but she placed sixth in her class in the tactical curriculum (out of ''eleven thousand''), was taught by Honor herself, and is generally considered Honor's protege.

* ShellShockedVeteran: Upon returning to Manticoran service, there were concerns if he was ready to be back in command because of this. Turns out he was just fine, though not without struggle.

![[AC:Vice Admiral Augustus Khumalo]]

* BadassBureaucrat: Her talents may not lie in starship command, but that in no way detracts from her incredible political and diplomatic badass.

* EnsignNewbie: In her first appearance, she commands an away party that comes under heavy fire while still a midshipwoman.

An officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy, a titled peer of the Manticoran aristocracy and Queen Elizabeth III's first cousin through their mutual grandmother Queen Samantha II, Michelle was Honor Harrington's roommate at Saganami Island, helped her pass higher-dimensional mathematics, and is her oldest and closest friend. She was first introduced as Honor's executive officer in ''The Short Victorious War'', when Honor took command of the battlecruiser ''Nike''. Later she became Countess Gold Peak when her father, Earl Gold Peak, and her older brother, Calvin, were killed during the Peep/Masadan assassination attempt on Protector Benjamin and Queen Elizabeth. As a Rear Admiral, she was commanding Eighth Fleet's 81st Battlecruiser Squadron when her flagship was damaged and captured at the Battle of Solon. She was later released as President Pritchart's messenger to Queen Elizabeth, and was subsequently assigned to the Talbott Quadrant as the commander of Tenth Fleet, where her actions have initiated a state of war between Manticore and the Solarian League.

Well, as a LongRunner series that indeed has LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, it would be really nice to have at least some guide about them. It really helps that David Weber went for a right thing and have his characters nicely broken into several distinctive [[CastHerd Cast Herds]].

An officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy, a titled peer of the Manticoran aristocracy and Queen Elizabeth III's first cousin through their mutual grandmother Queen Samantha II, Michelle was Honor Harrington's roommate at Saganami Island, helped her pass higher-dimensional mathematics, and is her oldest and closest friend. She was first introduced as Honor's executive officer in ''The Short Victorious War'', when Honor took command of the battlecruiser ''Nike''. Later, she became Countess Gold Peak when her father, Earl Gold Peak, and her older brother, Calvin, were killed during the Peep/Masadan assassination attempt on Protector Benjamin and Queen Elizabeth. As a Rear Admiral, she was commanding Eighth Fleet's 81st Battlecruiser Squadron when her flagship was damaged and captured at the Battle of Solon. She was later released as President Pritchart's messenger to Queen Elizabeth, and was subsequently assigned to the Talbott Quadrant as the commander of Tenth Fleet, where her actions have initiated a state of war between Manticore and the Solarian League.

An officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy, a titled peer of the Manticoran aristocracy and Queen Elizabeth III's first cousin through their mutual grandmother, Michelle was Honor Harrington's roommate at Saganami Naval Academy, helped her pass higher-dimensional mathematics, and is her oldest and best friend. She was first introduced as Honor's executive officer in ''The Short Victorious War'', when Honor took command of the battlecruiser ''Nike''. Later, she became Countess Gold Peak when her father, Earl Gold Peak, and her older brother, Calvin, were killed during the Peep/Masadan assassination attempt on Protector Benjamin and Queen Elizabeth. As a Rear Admiral, she was assigned to Eighth Fleet as the commander of the 81st Battlecruiser Squadron when her flagship was damaged and captured at the Battle of Solon. She was later released as President Pritchart's messenger to Queen Elizabeth. Afterward she was assigned to the Talbott Quadrant, where her actions have initiated a state of war between Manticore and the Solarian League.

* AchievementsInIgnorance: Much of the Grayson technological advancement before joining the Manticoran Alliance was built on Grayson experimenting, during their relative isolation from the rest of the galaxy, with technologies and techniques long abandoned. The most notable is their fission technology, which without abandonment in a transition to fusion like everyone else, kept improving to the point they could make them more efficient, smaller scale, and higher output than thought to be even theoretically impossible by anyone else.

* ShutUpHannibal: Gives one to [[PresidentCorrupt President Tyler]] of the Monica System in ''Storm from the Shadows'', described elsewhere [[Awesome/HonorHarrington on this site]] as "the polite military version of '[[ParentheticalSwearing ...and the horse you rode in on]].'"

* UnderestimatingBadassery: Unusually for the trope, it was his own Navy fellows doing the underestimating, not his opponents -- they had considered him a [[ByTheBookCop by-the-book]] administrator lacking both imagination and experience, but his handling of the Monica crisis established that he was tough-minded enough for any three officers and willing to back his subordinates to the hilt.

Another career diplomat in Manticoran service, Baroness Medusa (then just Dame Estelle Matsuko) served as a Special Commissioner for the natives' rights in the very first book of the series, ''On Basilisk Station'' - for which she was apparently made a peer -- and, supposedly, in other diplomatic roles during the 14-years stretch between OBS and the ''Shadow Of Saganami''. There she was a special envoy of the Crown representing the Manticore's interests during the Talbott Cluster Constitutional Convention that developed the terms and conditions of Talbott's annexation into the Star Kingdom. Later on, when that long-winded and complicated process finally ended, she was made the first Governor of the newly formed Talbott Quadrant of the Star Empire of Manticore.

* UnexplainedAccent: His drawling accent is described as an "upper-crust" accent possessed by certain strata of the Manticoran aristocracy, but we've never seen any other character with the same accent despite having seen two relatives of his and an entire faction of overbred nobles.

* TheCaptain: Her preferred role. When she is finally promoted to flag rank she quickly finds herself missing the command chair.

* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Queen's first cousin and fifth in line to the throne.

** Adding a bit of levity in an otherwise dramatic dialog, this boast is an InUniverse ShoutOut to ''Literature/ThreeLittlePigs''.

* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Severed 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 too, given the presumption that he would leave the service at the first opportunity to take up his ''real'' duties as a Royal. Due to his refusal to leverage his social status for promotion, combined with his unorthodox views on naval doctrine, he never rose above the rank of Captain while in the Navy.