About
Commanding officer of ISV Endurance on her maiden voyage, 2240. A career explorer who came out of semi-retirement for the prestige of the first-of-class command — his last lap, and his amends. The "good captain" the reader gets for three chapters: real presence, real warmth, a mentor bond with Sloane and one quotable command philosophy handed to her. Dies of injuries from the sabotaged shakedown fold (console explosion during the fold collapse, –4).
Commanding officer of ISV Endurance on her maiden voyage, 2240. A career explorer who came out of semi-retirement for the prestige of the first-of-class command — his last lap, and his amends. The "good captain" the reader gets for three chapters: real presence, real warmth, a mentor bond with Sloane and one quotable command philosophy handed to her. Dies of injuries from the sabotaged shakedown fold (console explosion during the fold collapse, chapter 3–4). His name is cut deepest, alone at the top of the memorial wall: VANCE / PELL / YARROW / PRATT / SENGUPTA / OKEKE / BELLAMY / and those we could not bring (chapter 26), cut by Ferris's deck with a torch into the sealed frame-31 bulkhead). The Endurance never gets his steadiness back; Sloane spends the voyage trying to be Vance and learning she has to be someone else.
Career
Thirty years before 2240: an unnamed loss — "the old weight he'd told himself for thirty years he had made his peace with" (Dead Reckoning, chapter 3); the bible makes it a ship and part of a crew (unprinted). - 2240: CO, ISV Endurance, first-of-class command. Killed on the shakedown fold.
Relationships
- maya sloane — Mentor bond; the command philosophy he hands her is the one she cannot replicate and stops trying to.
- julian mercer — Geneva's undersecretary aboard; the chair Mercer takes is the one Vance's death empties.
- dominic ferris — His deck cuts the wall; Vance's name goes in first and deepest.