Honorverse ramblings and musings

There it is! Thanks, Theemile.

Something occurred to me, born of the Letter to Eloise in the Humor thread.

With Honorverse way of life, do you think it would be romantic if Javier had secretly left his sperm as part of a Last Will and Testament for Eloise? Do you think it would cross a line in Eloise's eyes? Would it expect too much?

Do you think it would be good for storyline?

cthia wrote:Something occurred to me, born of the Letter to Eloise in the Humor thread.

With Honorverse way of life, do you think it would be romantic if Javier had secretly left his sperm as part of a Last Will and Testament for Eloise? Do you think it would cross a line in Eloise's eyes? Would it expect too much?

Do you think it would be good for storyline?

to be honest it is something i've expected to see ages ago after Field of Honour, given there were talks of collecting a sample from Paul tankersly given his and Honor's likely to be erratic schedules.

I can easily see it being something offered free as a perk to sign up. yes you may die but there will be something left for your loved one's and it will be kept on ice at navy expense, and if they are so inclined (and have legal control of the sample) they could have children even if one "parent" was no longer around. might be kind of tricky for non married couples unless something is explicitly laid out in a will.

David kind of touched on this in the Bolo book "Old Soldiers". One of the major characters was Dead, for a certain value of dead, (bonus points for those who can tell what practhett book) but as she had left eggs behind her Fiancée was able to use them to have a family of her children.

I hope Giscard did leave something behind but its been what nearly 2 years since battle of Lovat? that seems a long time to not do anything with said sample. then again being president of a steller government must be time consuming/stressful, she might be waiting until she retires.

Dauntless wrote:

cthia wrote:Something occurred to me, born of the Letter to Eloise in the Humor thread.

With Honorverse way of life, do you think it would be romantic if Javier had secretly left his sperm as part of a Last Will and Testament for Eloise? Do you think it would cross a line in Eloise's eyes? Would it expect too much?

Do you think it would be good for storyline?

to be honest it is something i've expected to see ages ago after Field of Honour, given there were talks of collecting a sample from Paul tankersly given his and Honor's likely to be erratic schedules.

I can easily see it being something offered free as a perk to sign up. yes you may die but there will be something left for your loved one's and it will be kept on ice at navy expense, and if they are so inclined (and have legal control of the sample) they could have children even if one "parent" was no longer around. might be kind of tricky for non married couples unless something is explicitly laid out in a will.

David kind of touched on this in the Bolo book "Old Soldiers". One of the major characters was Dead, for a certain value of dead, (bonus points for those who can tell what practhett book) but as she had left eggs behind her Fiancée was able to use them to have a family of her children.

I hope Giscard did leave something behind but its been what nearly 2 years since battle of Lovat? that seems a long time to not do anything with said sample. then again being president of a steller government must be time consuming/stressful, she might be waiting until she retires.

Me too; I thought it would happen with Paul! In fact, I was surprised and disappointed that it didn't.

with Paul i suspect he was dead and likely buried or whatever before anyone gave a thought to it. I mean Mike Henke took the news personally and in a warship so Honour knew within about a T-week of the event but would local family leave it that long to bury etc.

but technically she had no status to determine what if anything could be done re sample. she was just his girlfriend, strong signs of wife+kids in the future but in the then technically a nobody.

His parents/siblings might have known about the relationship and would likely have wanted her there for the service but navy family they know she had duties elsewhere and are unlikely to have considered delaying it for more then a couple of mins

Regarding survivability of a ship and components, I've always wondered why ships don't have little black boxes. Why hasn't that practice survived in the Honorverse. The indestructible black box that can survive all but the most extreme of ship explosions. Solar powered beacon, activated by a certain frequency from ships scanning wreckage sites. Then you'd have an idea of what happened in instances like Basilisk Station if Honor hadn't survived.

cthia wrote:Regarding survivability of a ship and components, I've always wondered why ships don't have little black boxes. Why hasn't that practice survived in the Honorverse. The indestructible black box that can survive all but the most extreme of ship explosions. Solar powered beacon, activated by a certain frequency from ships scanning wreckage sites. Then you'd have an idea of what happened in instances like Basilisk Station if Honor hadn't survived.

It probably has, only it's every single computer system aboard the vessel acting as a black box. If the ship or derelict is reachable, the data can be recovered from any intact storage devices. After all, the true function of a black box is purely to tell investigators what happened aboard the airplane to make it crash. It's simply that the rest of the airplane's isn't hardened to that degree(severe weight penalty).

Damage in the Honorverse seems to fall into two categories - either it's so severe or in such isolated circumstances that the vessel is lost without a trace, either in hyperspace or vaporised by a blown reactor, or the damage is sufficiently repairable out of internal resources that the ship can limp into a system(or it's already in a system).

munroburton wrote:

cthia wrote:Regarding survivability of a ship and components, I've always wondered why ships don't have little black boxes. Why hasn't that practice survived in the Honorverse. The indestructible black box that can survive all but the most extreme of ship explosions. Solar powered beacon, activated by a certain frequency from ships scanning wreckage sites. Then you'd have an idea of what happened in instances like Basilisk Station if Honor hadn't survived.

It probably has, only it's every single computer system aboard the vessel acting as a black box. If the ship or derelict is reachable, the data can be recovered from any intact storage devices. After all, the true function of a black box is purely to tell investigators what happened aboard the airplane to make it crash. It's simply that the rest of the airplane's isn't hardened to that degree(severe weight penalty).

Damage in the Honorverse seems to fall into two categories - either it's so severe or in such isolated circumstances that the vessel is lost without a trace, either in hyperspace or vaporised by a blown reactor, or the damage is sufficiently repairable out of internal resources that the ship can limp into a system(or it's already in a system).

Another thing to consider is that black boxes, here on Earth, are primarily a civilian commercial aviation thing. Most military aircraft don't carry them (and the ones that do usually turn them off if the plane is going into combat).

The military views the risk of not figuring out what caused a crash to be worth it to avoid the risk an enemy could glean useful intelligence from the black box of a plane downed where their forces can reach it.


Since most of the ships 'on screen' in the Honorverse are warships it wouldn't be surprising if they deliberately omitted true blackboxes that might well be carried on merchant ships.

With the Honorverse level of genetic modification, does the ability to subtly alter one's DNA exist, to the point that a DNA scan will yield false results?

****** *

The MAlign, who doesn't care anything about slaves, can program them to become terrorists. Thousands of redesigned slaves given new directives, with certain... failsafes. Human kamikazes. Prudent or not, it seems the potential is there. The possibilities are endless.

It is frightening, that in the end game with Manticore after war begins, one has to consider that the MAlign has not even begun to tap the potential of their nanite warfare. They could release a terrorist epidemic on Manticore and throughout the galaxy.

munroburton wrote:

cthia wrote:Regarding survivability of a ship and components, I've always wondered why ships don't have little black boxes. Why hasn't that practice survived in the Honorverse. The indestructible black box that can survive all but the most extreme of ship explosions. Solar powered beacon, activated by a certain frequency from ships scanning wreckage sites. Then you'd have an idea of what happened in instances like Basilisk Station if Honor hadn't survived.

It probably has, only it's every single computer system aboard the vessel acting as a black box. If the ship or derelict is reachable, the data can be recovered from any intact storage devices. After all, the true function of a black box is purely to tell investigators what happened aboard the airplane to make it crash. It's simply that the rest of the airplane's isn't hardened to that degree(severe weight penalty).

Damage in the Honorverse seems to fall into two categories - either it's so severe or in such isolated circumstances that the vessel is lost without a trace, either in hyperspace or vaporised by a blown reactor, or the damage is sufficiently repairable out of internal resources that the ship can limp into a system(or it's already in a system).

Johnathan_S wrote:Another thing to consider is that black boxes, here on Earth, are primarily a civilian commercial aviation thing. Most military aircraft don't carry them (and the ones that do usually turn them off if the plane is going into combat).

The military views the risk of not figuring out what caused a crash to be worth it to avoid the risk an enemy could glean useful intelligence from the black box of a plane downed where their forces can reach it.


Since most of the ships 'on screen' in the Honorverse are warships it wouldn't be surprising if they deliberately omitted true blackboxes that might well be carried on merchant ships.

I don't know Johnathan. Now I surely cannot claim to know our government's reasons for not utilizing blackboxes on military aircraft - getting into the minds of split personalities is daunting. lol

ahem

But my perceived reasoning is that the military will not always have access to a downed plane, and anyone else would. In the Honorverse, in the great expanse of space those worries would be negated. Only the navy of the black box would be able to find it. And it could be programmed to only record data of enemy ships exclusively, if need be.