Character Study of the Week: Rhonda Snord
Who: Rhonda Snord
What: Lieutenant, Cranston Snord’s Irregulars
Colonel (Commanding Officer), Rhonda Snord’s Irregulars
When: 2999 – 22 January 3073
Weapon of Choice: 2H Shadow Hawk
Highlander
Wrangler’s latest request is the natural follow-on from his previous one, the daughter of inimitable Cranston Snord, the irrepressible Rhonda Snord.
Rhonda has a number of similarities with her father. For one thing she is a bit of an oddball character, though not to the same degree, Rhonda never comes across as skirting the edge of crazy with a collection habit, but then she commanded a much larger unit. As I mentioned previously a company takes on the character of its commander quite regularly, a regiment less so. While a great many members still buy into the oddball aspects it inevitably has died down, particularly once the Clan bondsmen were integrated into the unit.
This is not to say she is without quirks, she still started out as a character in Cranston’s Irregulars, the company sized unit which did take its lead from their CO, and theoretically maintained that quirk, which is to say putting massive speakers on her ‘Mech and blaring rock and metal music across the battlefield.
For one thing she blasts music from her ‘Mech using custom installed speakers. The art for this looks quite ridiculous, but that’s not the point. If anything it’s a legitimate psychological tactic.
There are real life examples (which I won’t go into) but Elvis, Metallica (this concept goes back to the 80s and 90s so fill the space with whatever heavy metal you like) would be quite disconcerting.
Equally disconcerting would be a Highlander racing over the hill to bagpipes, yodelling, even polka.
Still, it shows an aspect of Rhonda that her father did not possess. Yes, it’s a quirk, just as Cranston had his, but it serves as a clear point of distinction.
At least it’s not the bagpipes.
Also, like her father, she is written as a tactical genius, a reasonably common affliction in Battletech. Pulp characters, of any variety, aren’t much fun if they’re irredeemable morons, and the best way to skip that in a high intensity combat setting like Battletech is to give them a touch of tactical brilliance.
This holds true in sci-fi and military pulp. It is fully possible, as a part of a maturation storyline, to have something of a fool as a main character, but they must learn, there’s no time for that in sourcebooks.
Rhonda is also very different from her father, not so much because the setting evolved, by the time the unit was hers the setting was still quite firmly science fiction pulp, but because she seems to be a much more mature, grounded individual.
This does not make her a follower of rules or any less iconoclastic than her father. While she spent the majority of her life in the Inner Sphere she was still the product of Clan culture and had to learn how to balance the two, choosing what she liked and discarding the rest. Including having a family by adoption.
Adoption? As has been pointed out in the Cranston article one of his more subtle oddball acts was bringing his daughter to the Inner Sphere, showing a sense of family that is alien to most of the Clans, even at the lower caste level.
This is a continuation of it, without the burden of pregnancy.
Yes, I said burden of pregnancy. While it is unfortunate, unpleasant, and even a little insulting to the average leader, there has been for a long time an unspoken expectation that female main characters in military sci-fi cannot engage in some unavoidably female acts, pregnancy and giving birth being one of them. Even raising the child, exhibited here in that since though she adopted Tasha the girl was largely raised by godmother Misha Auburn.
It is in part due to the stereotypical maleness of the military setting, which means that in order to be “equal” to a male character of similar standing a female character has to basically be the same. So, no giving birth, a little distance from any child, and yet still a key influence in their lives and career decisions. (Yes, I’m aware of Honour Harrington and quite frankly she is a sign of positively evolving attitudes.)
Actually there’s a lot of gender politics that could get rather ugly in here, so let’s just consider the matter addressed and move on.
Anyway, adopting a daughter, continuing the family line, the name, the reputation, being a parent and being more Inner Sphere than Clan, this is a point of similarity and divergence both, since Cranston would have made the conscious decision to be this bizarre by his culture of origin’s standards, while Rhonda would have been much more Spheroid in her attitudes, though undoubtedly her father would have had a clear and meaningful influence in this regard too.
However Rhonda is very different in purpose from her father, for one thing she plays a significant supporting role in one novel. Her presence serves to muddy the waters during the Civil War, effectively showing that just because one sides with the Loyalists they are not all automatically villains. She does this by honouring her contract and unit’s longstanding history with the Lyran realm. Even under renegotiation and after betrayal she is reluctant to turn against their long-time patron state and so sign up to fight along the Jade Falcon border alone.
Since this is Rhonda she adds honour and integrity to her actions, siding with the Loyalists is neither a blind nor opportunistic act and is one of the small ways of demonstrating that the sides are not as clear cut good and evil as their leaders might otherwise indicate.
Knocking her out early is not to remove that element, but to remove a level headed voice of reason, something her opposite number in the negotiation, Archer Christifiori, would normally be but he himself is nearly killed along with his love interest and that leads to some rash judgements on his part which he is eventually called out on. More of that muddying going on.
However this is one novel, any character can be used for one novel in almost any fashion if the author is inventive enough, in this case it does not interfere with Rhonda’s main purpose, which is to help shepherd through the transition from the Succession Wars to the Clan Invasion, a transition that changes the setting radically on all levels, from the fictional, to the technological, to the rules themselves.
Seeds for this transition were laid in the first Snord’s Irregulars sourcebook, which subtly painted Rhonda as Cranston’ heir, the Rhonda Snord’s Irregulars sourcebook completed the act with her in command, most of the time given Cranston’s irascibility.
It shows that this is a new generation, not untouched by past events, shaped by them, but forging ahead into a new era.
Her ‘Mechs make a sort of sense, both as to her purpose and also from an evolutionary sense.
Both the Shadow Hawk and the Highlander are generalists, with good mobility and a rounded mix of weapons, which is ballistic, missile and energy.
In fact the Highlander is probably one of the best examples of the full evolution of the Shadow Hawk in terms of this weapons philosophy, the next best being the Orion and Atlas.
Because of their weapons mixes both make good command ‘Mechs for their eras and weight classes, though there are certainly better. But an eclectic generalist suits Rhonda, it highlights a certain flexibility and unpredictability, to which she is heir.
And as there are no rules for mounting speakers on a ‘Mech there’s no Highlander Rhonda available for critique. :P
So realistically did she have to die along with so many other visible, named characters in the Donner Bombing?
Her presence was somewhat odd, however the Irregulars are by now a significant unit. While not infallible their reputation, experience and expertise means that it is probably a good idea to include someone with so much capability in the conference. Additionally the Irregulars were one of the more active units along the Falcon border and would have had a great deal to report on matters.
But did she have to die like that? In a bomb blast that did not target her, but perhaps her as a part of a general decapitation strike.
The alternatives are as follows: One is that she dies of natural causes, but her father stole that thunder so while it is a possible option fiction does not like to repeat itself in that fashion without making a point of it.
Another is that she dies in battle. Against who though? This is the great Rhonda Snord who has faced Clan Jade Falcon several times and defeated them in humiliating fashion. Short of overwhelming force by the Falcons would it be realistic for them to suddenly get the drop on her? Would it be realistic for her to pull it off again? So that’s troubled.
Random accident? Even more preposterous than being caught in a celebrity bombing from a plot perspective, no reader would believe it.
Battle against someone else, in the border wars of the Jihad or against the Blakists? Similar to dying by the Falcons it diminishes the character for Rhonda to be suddenly out thought.
So she dies in a significant event of some dramatic, plot twisty randomness that was out of her ability to counter.
And like it or not the Donnor Bombing is a plot point, because it creates a vacuum into which Devlin Stone can walk into. Rhonda gets wrapped up in that because the bombing wipes out almost everyone of possible leadership significance who hasn’t already been killed, which means it’s a conference of notables in general.
It is also, if we are honest, a big piece of spring cleaning, because it removes a large number of important characters. Rhonda, Diana Pryde, numerous support characters.
So she dies in a bit of dramatic convenience.
The problem is that unlike her father Rhonda is too much of a notable personality from a fighting standpoint. She stands out too much after being involved in too many big things, she can’t easily fade away. Add to that the fact that unlike a lot of other notables she is not wholly unrealistic as the nature of the setting changed.
However as I said, Rhonda’s purpose was to help shepherd the transition from the Succession Wars era to the Clan Invasion, by the time of the Jihad her time was done much as her father’s was with the arrival of the Clans. Flippant as it may seem the Donnor Bombing also marks a convenient point for her to shuffle off in a definitive manner, her purpose served, her impression on the setting made.