Honorverse ramblings and musings

Duckk wrote:I have no idea where you keep getting these incorrect ideas. Honor specifically notes that foil and epee fencing is still practiced on Manticore when she started learning swordfighting on Grayson in FiE. Hamish Alexander was noted for being a practitioner during his Academy days, and several others (such as Oversteegan) seem quite familiar with it.

I know Duckk.

But it doesn't seem to be HUGE! As baseball and swordplay is to Grayson.


I would more than half-ass expect Pavel Young to have participated in the sport, being the quintessential well bred aristocrat that he was so fond of pointing out. But he trips over his own sword.

It's almost as if the books, expansive as they are, can not cover every single corner of Manticore's pop culture.

...also, why would fencing be "huge"? Unlike Grayson, Manticore never went through a period where swordplay was an actual skill actual people had to learn.

You might as well ask why professional wrestling (which in its execution is also rather "brainy") isn't big...

The E wrote:It's almost as if the books, expansive as they are, can not cover every single corner of Manticore's pop culture.

...also, why would fencing be "huge"? Unlike Grayson, Manticore never went through a period where swordplay was an actual skill actual people had to learn.

You might as well ask why professional wrestling (which in its execution is also rather "brainy") isn't big...

The expansive explanation, though true, is also a fact regarding many things in the series and if we assume that cop-out would dispel the need to discuss many things. I had already told myself "Self, DW is but human and fallible. Unlike many in the forum."

At any rate, if you bother to read the included post of this thread, you'll see that fencing was traditionally the playground of the rich, aristocratic and brainy. Which are all the hallmarks of the aristocratic, affluent, well-educated Manticorans.

And because Manticore is the focal point of the entire series.

And because there isn't another single sport ON MANTICORE that is given as much illumination as Grayson's. And because you can tell a lot about a country by its sports.

And because, well, it is the ramblings and musings thread.

Duckk wrote:I have no idea where you keep getting these incorrect ideas. Honor specifically notes that foil and epee fencing is still practiced on Manticore when she started learning swordfighting on Grayson in FiE. Hamish Alexander was noted for being a practitioner during his Academy days, and several others (such as Oversteegan) seem quite familiar with it.

It is also practiced in the U.S. Which is about all one can say about the U.S. program, comparatively, if the Olympics is a meter stick. Except that we still need more practice.

We did break into the Top 5 in medals in 2013 with one silver, one gold.

Yet I would expect much more from a system that boasts the highest concentration of aristocrats as Research Triangle Park has PHD's.

You're assuming that people 2 millennia in the future will have the same connotations with "aristocracy" that you have, when it has been established that the manticoran concept of dueling has started with firearms, not evolved to use firearms instead of swords. A manticoran noble house is far more likely to own a set of dueling pistols (and maybe train in their use) than they are to own a set of dueling swords, IMHO.

The E wrote:You're assuming that people 2 millennia in the future will have the same connotations with "aristocracy" that you have, when it has been established that the manticoran concept of dueling has started with firearms, not evolved to use firearms instead of swords. A manticoran noble house is far more likely to own a set of dueling pistols (and maybe train in their use) than they are to own a set of dueling swords, IMHO.

I had never heard the phrase "From Aristocracy to Aristotle" until visiting Greece the summer just before entering high school. The phrase infers that the mindset of the aristocracy will never fall any lower than that of Aristotle himself. It is found in the boastings of Pavel Young. In the drawls of Oversteegen. "We shall always be cultured even if we are not always wealthy." As it was explained to me from an aristocratic family who was very close friends of my mothers. "The cultured shall always be civilized. The civilized handle their disputes in a civilized manner. Hence, a duel involving swords that merely draw blood."

Yes, my connotations of aristocracy are preconceived from travel and interaction with other cultures who are descendant from one or more of several thousand aristocratic families still in existence. Travel and exposure to other cultures was something that my mother was rather fond of.

So yes. My notions of the aristocracy are indeed preconceived. But taught by descendants of the very old aristocracy in Greece.

Which is why I, I, am surprised that Manticoran dueling did not evolve to encompass swords that merely draw blood, instead of gasp, pistols.

Don't fret it, the surprise is merely my own and is not meant to offend anyone's, "sensibilities."

Cthia,

The Aristocrats don't use swords because they want a good chance of killing their opponent. As it stands pistols, even .45 230 grain ACPs are rarely deadly in a Manticoran duel. Killing requires a head shot that destroys the brain. That's not easy. There is no way either a sabre or a foil can cause terminal damage outside a thrust through the eye followed by lots of vigorous motion. En epee might pierce the skill but wont mangle the brain much as it is very stiff.

Even back in the day, duelists survived fencing injuries often enough that they used poison on epees to reduce survivability. With Honorverse medicine, dueling with swords (epees, foils or sabres) could be a pretty safe (survivable) blood sport, like MMA.

cthia wrote:I had never heard the phrase "From Aristocracy to Aristotle" until visiting Greece the summer just before entering high school. The phrase infers that the mindset of the aristocracy will never fall any lower than that of Aristotle himself. It is found in the boastings of Pavel Young. In the drawls of Oversteegen. "We shall always be cultured even if we are not always wealthy." As it was explained to me from an aristocratic family who was very close friends of my mothers. "The cultured shall always be civilized. The civilized handle their disputes in a civilized manner. Hence, a duel involving swords that merely draw blood."

Yes, my connotations of aristocracy are preconceived from travel and interaction with other cultures who are descendant from one or more of several thousand aristocratic families still in existence. Travel and exposure to other cultures was something that my mother was rather fond of.

So yes. My notions of the aristocracy are indeed preconceived. But taught by descendants of the very old aristocracy in Greece.

Which is why I, I, am surprised that Manticoran dueling did not evolve to encompass swords that merely draw blood, instead of gasp, pistols.

Don't fret it, the surprise is merely my own and is not meant to offend anyone's, "sensibilities."

I'd just mention that Manticore's nobility isn't really descended from existing Earth nobility (though it's certainly possible that a few few aristocrats happened to join into the colony expedition)

We're told in the More than Honor anthology that "Sixty percent of the colonists were Western Europeans, with most of the remainder drawn from the North American Federation, the Caribbean, and a very small minority of ethnic Ukrainians. The total expedition consisted of 38,000 adults and 13,000 minor children" (and left about 2877 AD, 775 PD)
But the original charter had no nobility or aristocratic trappings - those were added, deliberately (rather than organically), about 70 years after the founding of the colony in order to preserve status of surviving original colonists families when rapid immigration had to be instituted in the wake of the devastating plague.

So while I can see your surprise, I personally, don't find it odd that the traditions the newly minted nobility picked and choose don't have amazing commonality with all the traditions of descendants of long standing nobility. (And of course in 850 years from now, when the Manticoran expedition would have left Earth, who knows how popular sword sports might still be)

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:I had never heard the phrase "From Aristocracy to Aristotle" until visiting Greece the summer just before entering high school. The phrase infers that the mindset of the aristocracy will never fall any lower than that of Aristotle himself. It is found in the boastings of Pavel Young. In the drawls of Oversteegen. "We shall always be cultured even if we are not always wealthy." As it was explained to me from an aristocratic family who was very close friends of my mothers. "The cultured shall always be civilized. The civilized handle their disputes in a civilized manner. Hence, a duel involving swords that merely draw blood."

Yes, my connotations of aristocracy are preconceived from travel and interaction with other cultures who are descendant from one or more of several thousand aristocratic families still in existence. Travel and exposure to other cultures was something that my mother was rather fond of.

So yes. My notions of the aristocracy are indeed preconceived. But taught by descendants of the very old aristocracy in Greece.

Which is why I, I, am surprised that Manticoran dueling did not evolve to encompass swords that merely draw blood, instead of gasp, pistols.

Don't fret it, the surprise is merely my own and is not meant to offend anyone's, "sensibilities."

I'd just mention that Manticore's nobility isn't really descended from existing Earth nobility (though it's certainly possible that a few few aristocrats happened to join into the colony expedition)

We're told in the More than Honor anthology that "Sixty percent of the colonists were Western Europeans, with most of the remainder drawn from the North American Federation, the Caribbean, and a very small minority of ethnic Ukrainians. The total expedition consisted of 38,000 adults and 13,000 minor children" (and left about 2877 AD, 775 PD)
But the original charter had no nobility or aristocratic trappings - those were added, deliberately (rather than organically), about 70 years after the founding of the colony in order to preserve status of surviving original colonists families when rapid immigration had to be instituted in the wake of the devastating plague.

So while I can see your surprise, I personally, don't find it odd that the traditions the newly minted nobility picked and choose don't have amazing commonality with all the traditions of descendants of long standing nobility. (And of course in 850 years from now, when the Manticoran expedition would have left Earth, who knows how popular sword sports might still be)

Indeed Jonathan. It is simply the fact that since "dueling" was adopted at all on Manticore implies, in my limited warped brain, that aristocrats of yore had a hand in it.

Incidentally, the Dreyfus Protocol seems more in tune to what I learned in Greece. Fencing was adopted to draw blood ONLY, which served to reinstate the honor that had been impugned.

Which seems more in tune to what I learned while in Greece.

The Dreyfus Protocol was the more commonly set of rules, and standard challenges were usually expected to adhere to it unless certain circumstances justified that the Ellington Protocol was to be used in its stead.

Under Dreyfus, magazines were limited to five rounds apiece, duelists were limited to single round exchanges, and the duel ended when the first blood was drawn.

Duelists began at the centre of the field, facing away from each other.

On the command "Walk", duelists were to walk 30 paces each, at which point the command "Stop" would be given. On the command "Turn", duelists were to turn to face each other and fire one round each. If neither was hit, duelists would be ordered "Walk" and would take two paces forward. At the command "Fire" both would fire again. The process would be repeated until someone was wounded, either party declared that honor had been satisfied, or magazines were empty. (HH5)

It has nothing to do with the aristocracy, and everything to do with the Star Kingdom being a frontier planet. Law enforcement could be hours away, so the colonists had to adopt a "fix it yourself" attitude. Eventually this evolved into a codified set of rules to ensure fairness, and the rest is history.