A copper-plated moral decision for the 'Cats . . .

I wouldn't be surprised if, at least Honor and Nimitz, have discussed exactly what Nimitz should do under the circumstances.

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:How much of Honor's sharp shooter skills are available to her while under compulsion? Honor can shoot the lint off a gnat's ass, from the hip.

But that's hardly muscle memory, which is what we the current theory holds the nanites must be doing. Shooting is a lot of hand-eye coordination, an acquired skill that requires concentration.

By the way, we're not told it's the host's muscle memory. It's entirely possible, even likely, it's someone else's recorded action that gets stored in the nanites. For example, I doubt that Rajampet had practised turning his gun on his head often enough to have formed muscle memory of that. Same with Tim Meares: grabbing armsmen's weapons is not something he'd have had opportunity to do more than once. That means it's unlikely the nanites can control Honor's arm weapon, since the controls are unique to her. Even if they managed to steal her father's confidential records, they wouldn't include the information on how to operate the arm.

In fact, the nanite controlling her body could even make her a worse combatant than other people around. An arm accounts for, what, 15% of the body weight? It's also intricately linked to one's balance -- just try running without moving your arms!

Indeed, most of which is my point. I was simply following one of my thoughts upstream down the rabbit hole, that Beth can take care of herself if need be. I wouldn't be surprised if Beth's mess dress sword isn't just an accessory. I also wouldn't be surprised if she's accomplished on the shooting range. I certainly won't assume her exact genetic concoction is her only secret. After all, she's a Queen who wears pants. . . always ready to play the role of King and fight on the chessboard.

If not, and you're facing an unhampered Harrington under compulsion and she manages to put her hands on a pulser, "Game over man. Game over!" The MA wins that "possession" before she can be captured, disabled, or exorcised.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Galactic Sapper wrote:Translated to Harrington, that means the nanites could map the nerves used to control her arm. Not the hardware itself, but it could hijack and replace the nerve impulses that tell the arm what to do.

It's possible. But given how much technology, artificial intelligence, and storage has advanced in the Honorverse (namely: it hasn't much) compared to us, I suspect that mapping a totally foreign and one-of-a-kind solution isn't likely doable for nanites.

With that I mean it's possible to control the arm to do arm movements and at leasts keep the host's balance, but not use the built-in weaponry. Synthetic replacements exist and one assumes they were used far more often before regen became available (though we don't know when that was), so it's quite likely Mesa has access to enough of them to program the template in the nanites to learn how to control synthetic limbs. I imagine the hardware is coded to avoid external hacking and only accept neural input.

Implanted weapons were not common at all. And people don't usually learn motor kills of firing bullets from their fingers when they're growing up.

Of course I meant general arm movements when I said "gross muscle movement". The nerve commands in the remnant of her natural arm are the same that they were before it was amputated, and the arm was programmed to learn what those impulses meant through use - the arm conformed to her commands, not her learning which commands the arm would take. So if the nanites took over her nerves at shoulder level (or higher, most likely it's all spinal level or even motor cortex level), the arm would move perfectly naturally regardless of whether it was her real arm or her artificial arm. The nerves send the signals and the arm responds because to it those nerve signals are completely valid.

They could theoretically take over even the pulser in her arm, since the controls for it are based in the nerve commands to perform specific unusual hand movements. In practice, though, they should have no way of knowing exactly which movements those commands are encoded as.

For example, in WoH we're told the command to touch the tip of her index finger to the tip of her little finger causes the "skin" flap covering the magazine well to open, then clenching her fist afterward ejected the magazine. The nanites could be programmed to replicate those commands if the programmers ever got access to a list of what those commands were (and recorded the performance of those moves flawlessly).

cthia wrote:How much of Honor's sharp shooter skills are available to her while under compulsion? Honor can shoot the lint off a gnat's ass, from the hip.

None. We saw that with Mears--it was simple programmed moves, not using his abilities.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:That means it's unlikely the nanites can control Honor's arm weapon, since the controls are unique to her. Even if they managed to steal her father's confidential records, they wouldn't include the information on how to operate the arm.

In fact, the nanite controlling her body could even make her a worse combatant than other people around. An arm accounts for, what, 15% of the body weight? It's also intricately linked to one's balance -- just try running without moving your arms!

I disagree--everybody's muscle control is unique. Your body learns how it is wired and how to control your body (we saw Honor having to relearn this with her artificial arm.) If it's possible to use someone else's muscle memory the control must be working at a high enough level that the body's own knowledge of how to control itself can be used. Thus Honor's arm is usable. Her pulsar is not, however, as that is unique to her. Only someone with an identical arm could provide the muscle memory to fire it.

Galactic Sapper wrote:It is possible that the nanites could use Harrington's arm, at least for gross muscle movement. The nanites have to spend some time mapping the host's nervous system - there is enough variation in motor nerves that it's better to map the existing system rather than use a set nerve mapping that may not be entirely accurate for that person. We've only seen one person injected and then activated, but others have been injected out of view but gives an indication it takes at least several days for the nanites to go from injection to ready-to-act.

Once again, I must disagree--the nanites are not mapping the existing system. From what we saw with Honor's arm replacement the ability to accurately map neural control does not exist.

Also, the nanites can act in seconds. The assassination on Torch--they did it in two stages--one person infected another who actually did the deed.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

cthia wrote:How much of Honor's sharp shooter skills are available to her while under compulsion? Honor can shoot the lint off a gnat's ass, from the hip.

None. We saw that with Mears--it was simple programmed moves, not using his abilities.

I certainly agree. In fact I'm counting on it, or a simple chop to the throat while Honor is chatting Beth up will ensure the success of the MA's objective much better.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

Galactic Sapper wrote:It is possible that the nanites could use Harrington's arm, at least for gross muscle movement. The nanites have to spend some time mapping the host's nervous system - there is enough variation in motor nerves that it's better to map the existing system rather than use a set nerve mapping that may not be entirely accurate for that person. We've only seen one person injected and then activated, but others have been injected out of view but gives an indication it takes at least several days for the nanites to go from injection to ready-to-act.

Once again, I must disagree--the nanites are not mapping the existing system. From what we saw with Honor's arm replacement the ability to accurately map neural control does not exist.

Also, the nanites can act in seconds. The assassination on Torch--they did it in two stages--one person infected another who actually did the deed.

Is that, seconds after infection?

The assassin on Torch was just the one person and he was a variation on what was done to Mears. A set of nanites was tailored to him and somebody switched out his sample case with one containing the binary toxin.....and he had no idea what he was actualy doing.

Exactly how complicated are these nanites that they can store all this amount of data (muscle memory, targeting criteria, self-destruct parameters- well, kill the host by causing x). They also have to "remember" to dissolve in the host's bloodstream and body once they kill the host or the host dies.
How do you prevent them from killing the host if they are either given an injection for medical reasons or have a medical blood sample take?
Dam complicated and sophisticated little buggers.

Brigade XO wrote:The assassin on Torch was just the one person and he was a variation on what was done to Mears. A set of nanites was tailored to him and somebody switched out his sample case with one containing the binary toxin.....and he had no idea what he was actualy doing.

Exactly how complicated are these nanites that they can store all this amount of data (muscle memory, targeting criteria, self-destruct parameters- well, kill the host by causing x). They also have to "remember" to dissolve in the host's bloodstream and body once they kill the host or the host dies.
How do you prevent them from killing the host if they are either given an injection for medical reasons or have a medical blood sample take?
Dam complicated and sophisticated little buggers.

Nano tech is always handwavium in any universe it appears in. Willing suspension of disbelief is the only way any of it works.