Regeneration

Annachie wrote:Industrial injuries can be a fun topic.

One of the Time Team regulars grew up in I think it was Manchester and had a mother who worked the looms in a textile mill.
In an epidode he said that neither his mother, nor any of her loom working friends, had all their fingers.

I don't know an old telephone exchange tech who doesn't have hearing loss (including myself)

Similar with fingers and rail yard workers.

Makes me wonder how that extends into various Honorverse planets.
We've seen one example in the Talbot sector (the name escapes me)



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You are probably thinking of Helga Boltiz's (sp?) description of life on Dresden.

Annachie wrote:Industrial injuries can be a fun topic.

One of the Time Team regulars grew up in I think it was Manchester and had a mother who worked the looms in a textile mill.
In an epidode he said that neither his mother, nor any of her loom working friends, had all their fingers.

I don't know an old telephone exchange tech who doesn't have hearing loss (including myself)

Similar with fingers and rail yard workers.

Makes me wonder how that extends into various Honorverse planets.
We've seen one example in the Talbot sector (the name escapes me)



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It also depends on the industry. My uncle was an old time sawmill worker, operator and owner. He had IIRC only six and half fingers between both hands total.

I wanted to ask a question about regen, and did not want to begin a new thread if one already existed. One does. But this thread does not talk about regen itself. I have finally started on Toll of Honor. Anyway, how does regen work? I think I'm pretty much convinced it is a process that occurs over months. Initially I thought it was a much shorter process. What was the movie, reanimation or something? Sort of like a laser printer type thing? I know, such an active imagination I have. Anyway, I can't shake trying to imagine the entire process. What is it, several new inches of growth a day? What about ghost feelings and pains?

Is there explicit textev somewhere that I've missed?

penny wrote:I wanted to ask a question about regen, and did not want to begin a new thread if one already existed. One does. But this thread does not talk about regen itself. I have finally started on Toll of Honor. Anyway, how does regen work?

Really well, for the most part!

I think I'm pretty much convinced it is a process that occurs over months. Initially I thought it was a much shorter process. What was the movie, reanimation or something? Sort of like a laser printer type thing? I know, such an active imagination I have. Anyway, I can't shake trying to imagine the entire process. What is it, several new inches of growth a day? What about ghost feelings and pains?

Is there explicit textev somewhere that I've missed?

No, that would be printed organic replacements. Other Sci-Fi settings have that, but that's not the HV.

I understood that doctors induce the body to regrow the missing limb, while holding the area where it will grow into in something similar to a cast, but far more technological. This cast-like thing would also manage the neurotransmitters so you wouldn't feel anything, bu we're told people actually do.

penny wrote:I wanted to ask a question about regen, and did not want to begin a new thread if one already existed. One does. But this thread does not talk about regen itself. I have finally started on Toll of Honor. Anyway, how does regen work? I think I'm pretty much convinced it is a process that occurs over months. Initially I thought it was a much shorter process. What was the movie, reanimation or something? Sort of like a laser printer type thing? I know, such an active imagination I have. Anyway, I can't shake trying to imagine the entire process. What is it, several new inches of growth a day? What about ghost feelings and pains?

Is there explicit textev somewhere that I've missed?

I couldn't remember anything, but fortunately a text search for regen turned up a couple useful bit of textev.

One talking about Sarnow getting patched up after his flag bridge got hit during First Hancock.

Field of Dishonor wrote:"He looks like hell," Webster said candidly, "but the medics are pleased. He lost both legs right at the knee, and his internal injuries are nothing to sneeze at, but they say the quick heal's taken hold nicely. You couldn't prove it by me, but that's what they say. Of course, he's going to be on the sick list for months once they start regenerating his legs."

Another about Lt. Michael Gearman (small boat specialist) about to get assigned to HMS Minotaur before she headed out to Hancock to test out LAC doctrine.

Echoes of Honor wrote:But that was all right with Gearman. After nineteen months of regen therapy, he'd had about all the leave he could stand. He was eager to get back to work, and whatever his commiserating friends might have to say about Manticore-B's being the armpit of the Manticore Binary System, he suspected his new assignment might be far more interesting than they expected.

(Later in the book we learn he'd lost a leg, up to at least the thigh, when the SD he was serving on got "battered to wreckage")

All the other "regen"" or regeneration" references I found were about Honor being unable to, Emily being unable to, or about 30% of the human race being unable to.

Still, these two quotes are more that enough to show that in the Honorverse regeneration therapy is, as you'd rethought, a months long process.

My guess is that it shomehow involves stem cels. First, recreating the lost limb in a simulated embryonal environment, then growing it with accelerated speed to adulthood size.

And, of course, everything is much more complicated than it sounds here, that's why it's SciFi and not reality right now.

markusschaber wrote:My guess is that it shomehow involves stem cels. First, recreating the lost limb in a simulated embryonal environment, then growing it with accelerated speed to adulthood size.

And, of course, everything is much more complicated than it sounds here, that's why it's SciFi and not reality right now.

Good guess. Beats me.


Another thing, do people like Honor who does not regenerate still respond to quick heal? Textev frequently comments about how someone is responding well to quick heal. Is that because people sometimes fail to respond to quick heal?

Anyway, as I said I thought the limbs would be grown back quickly and that the bulk of the downtime would be learning to use that limb all over again. And I wonder -- since the limbs are gone, like the legs -- if those legs can be regrown back longer. Increasing height. I suppose the original genetic code decides that.

I never imagined that the limbs would be regrown in the laboratory then reattached. Anyway, am I correct that there are some things Regen can't do? For instance, if a body is severed just under the ribcage, then that is a tall order for Regen.

I suppose, if caught in time, there is no reason that someone whose body has been severed and mangled from the neck down can't be kept alive by artificial means and the bulk of the body regenerated? That would be a VERY tall order for regen, I know, but why would it be impossible?

So many questions.

penny wrote:Another thing, do people like Honor who does not regenerate still respond to quick heal? Textev frequently comments about how someone is responding well to quick heal. Is that because people sometimes fail to respond to quick heal?

Honor responses to quick heal.
After the duel with Young, where Honor's shoulder was "shattered"

Field of Dishonor wrote:Fritz Montoya put her under to repair her shoulder. He hadn't been able to use all original parts; the bullet had shattered her left scapula, then torn up and out through the point of her shoulder, demolishing the joint in passing and barely missing the main artery. Quick heal could do a lot, yet Fritz had been forced to rebuild her shoulder socket to give it something to work around

Or after her pinnace was shot down, before the duel with Steadholder Burdette

Flag in Exile wrote:The dark line of a deep cut, already responding to quick heal, seamed her forehead, and her right cheek was brutally bruised and discolored. The fluffy pelt of the treecat on her shoulder was singed and scorched, yet he held his head as high as she held her own, gazing, as she, straight at the Protector.
[snip]
Honor had slept for less than three hours in the fifty since her pinnace went down, that she had four broken ribs quick heal had only begun to repair

So whatever causes quick heal to work well, or to fail to fully fix something, doesn't appear to be related to the genetics which impact regeneration therapy.

penny wrote:Anyway, as I said I thought the limbs would be grown back quickly and that the bulk of the downtime would be learning to use that limb all over again. And I wonder -- since the limbs are gone, like the legs -- if those legs can be regrown back longer. Increasing height. I suppose the original genetic code decides that.

I never imagined that the limbs would be regrown in the laboratory then reattached. Anyway, am I correct that there are some things Regen can't do? For instance, if a body is severed just under the ribcage, then that is a tall order for Regen.

I suppose, if caught in time, there is no reason that someone whose body has been severed and mangled from the neck down can't be kept alive by artificial means and the bulk of the body regenerated? That would be a VERY tall order for regen, I know, but why would it be impossible?

So many questions.

And so few answers. For all its impact on Honor, regeneration is very little covered in the books. We just aren't given details about what it can and can't do, exactly how it works, or the like.

It obviously can regrow limbs, even high amputated ones. And based on comments around Honor and Emily's injuries it can apparently regrow eyes, facial nerves, or a damaged spinal cord.
But beyond that is anybody's guess <shrug>

I believe Quick Heal and Regen therapy are two completely differnt things.

Quick Heal would be pushing the body's ability to just heal an injury. So for broken or cracked ribs you are accelerating what "most" people can do over time with normal healing. Same with closing cuts etc.

Regen is actually growing a limb. At the present time, humans are not able to regrow a lost limb or something like an eye or kidney, not even an ear. The thought that it might involve Stem Cells is interesting but since what the patients are growing are apparently still something that had their own DNA, it may be that their level of medicine is able to clone or force stem cell production from the patient's body. It's not explained but there is no hint that they are getting donor cells from elsewhere.

At this point we may never learn exactly how this is supposed to be done but it works in the series so that's ok.

Brigade XO wrote:I believe Quick Heal and Regen therapy are two completely differnt things.

Quick Heal would be pushing the body's ability to just heal an injury. So for broken or cracked ribs you are accelerating what "most" people can do over time with normal healing. Same with closing cuts etc.

Regen is actually growing a limb. At the present time, humans are not able to regrow a lost limb or something like an eye or kidney, not even an ear. The thought that it might involve Stem Cells is interesting but since what the patients are growing are apparently still something that had their own DNA, it may be that their level of medicine is able to clone or force stem cell production from the patient's body. It's not explained but there is no hint that they are getting donor cells from elsewhere.

At this point we may never learn exactly how this is supposed to be done but it works in the series so that's ok.

Yes, it is two separate treatments, but I was only enquiring if Honor would have a resistance to quick heal since text says some people do not respond as quickly or as well as others. Jonathan's post put that to rest.

As a matter of fact, how could I have forgotten the discussion we had quite some time ago about how Honor dueled Burdette with broken ribs. How was that possible since she was only administered quick heal and no surgery. There had been some question whether quick heal repaired bones.

I don't think this is a spoiler, but I just got confirmation in Toll of Honor that quick heal does indeed repair broken bones.