Height in the Honorverse

DarkEnigma wrote:Greetings all! Long time lurker coming out of the shadows at last.

For my first post I wanted to talk about something I haven't seen touched on but which always struck me as odd: that is Weber's descriptions of height in the Honorverse.

First off, Honor's height; she's (roughly) 6'2" which is remarkable because she grew up on a world that has (roughly) a third more gravity than earth. Doesn't that mean that she would have grown to be over 8 feet tall on a planet with standard Earth gravity? If anything, heavy-worlders should be shorter than average, right?

Also, Weber's characters seem to use today's standards of height when describing whether someone is "tall", "short" or "average". The average height of humans has been slowly increasing over time. In fact average height has increased 4 inches in the last 150 years alone (although that is historically unusual). It seems to me that 6'2" would not be nearly as remarkable as Weber keeps saying it is (over and over and over...) 2000+ years from now.

What do you guys think?

(P.S. On a completely unrelated note, why does Weber use "Um" which denotes confusion when he really means "Hmm" which denotes careful thought?)

First, it's highly unlikely that the increase in human height will continue indefinitely. Most of the reason for the average height increase over the last hundred and fifty years has been improvements in diet and health care, not anything genetically inherent in the species. I personally don't expect us to turn into enormously tall people by present-day standards.

Second, I think the extent to which environment is going to cause someone to be taller or shorter because of gravitic differences is speculative, at best. At this time, we simply don't know what will happen, but we are assuming certain outcomes which may or may not prove to be justified. I'm of the opinion that assuming no changes in muscular or skeletal structure, heavy gravity environments are likely to select for smaller people, and given the amount of muscle those smaller people are going to require, most of the sacrifice in size will probably be in height. We don't know that, however. And in Honor's case, those factors have been taken out of the equation courtesy of the genetic engineering in her ancestry.

And, third, I disagree with the differentiation you are making between "um" and "hmm," which is why I don't feel bound to follow it.

runsforcelery wrote:And, third, I disagree with the differentiation you are making between "um" and "hmm," which is why I don't feel bound to follow it.

Here's the differentiation I make:

"um"="You may not be aware of _____, which could render your reasoning faulty. You should rethink that."

"hmm"="I was not aware of _____, which could render my reasoning faulty. I should rethink that."

As in "Um, that's not what 'dominant' means."

TheMonster wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:And, third, I disagree with the differentiation you are making between "um" and "hmm," which is why I don't feel bound to follow it.

Here's the differentiation I make:

"um"="You may not be aware of _____, which could render your reasoning faulty. You should rethink that."

"hmm"="I was not aware of _____, which could render my reasoning faulty. I should rethink that."

As in "Um, that's not what 'dominant' means."

I like your description Monster. Cool! And I can remember often saying ... "Um, about that..."

DarkEnigma wrote:Also, Weber's characters seem to use today's standards of height when describing whether someone is "tall", "short" or "average". The average height of humans has been slowly increasing over time. In fact average height has increased 4 inches in the last 150 years alone (although that is historically unusual). It seems to me that 6'2" would not be nearly as remarkable as Weber keeps saying it is (over and over and over...) 2000+ years from now.

What do you guys think?

A lot of the historically increasing average height is just a return to levels before the neolithic revolution, it definitely won't go on forever. Where the end point is with good nourishment over several generations? Not a clue but I guess not much more than now, IIRC above 2 m you start to get serious health problems. Of course with genetic manipulations and different gravities all bets are off.

The San Martinos live in the mountain mesas because the high grav on SM concentrates all the CO2 at sea level, making the (sea level) atmosphere dangerous (CO2 is heavier than oxygen).

MaxxQ wrote:The San Martinos live in the mountain mesas because the high grav on SM concentrates all the CO2 at sea level, making the (sea level) atmosphere dangerous (CO2 is heavier than oxygen).

The high gravity also means a steeper pressure gradient and higher pressure at sea level, increasing partial pressure even with constant concentration. At partial pressures above 1.6 bar, Oxygen becomes toxic.

aairfccha wrote:

MaxxQ wrote:The San Martinos live in the mountain mesas because the high grav on SM concentrates all the CO2 at sea level, making the (sea level) atmosphere dangerous (CO2 is heavier than oxygen).

The high gravity also means a steeper pressure gradient and higher pressure at sea level, increasing partial pressure even with constant concentration. At partial pressures above 1.6 bar, Oxygen becomes toxic.

Thanks for the reminder. Yeah, I forgot about that.

Thanks for all the great info. The consensus seems to be that Honor's genetic mod is what accounts for her height. Of course the obvious follow up question is will little Raoul (and any future children of Honor's) HAVE to grow up on a heavy world then or risk being a giant?

DarkEnigma wrote:Thanks for all the great info. The consensus seems to be that Honor's genetic mod is what accounts for her height. Of course the obvious follow up question is will little Raoul (and any future children of Honor's) HAVE to grow up on a heavy world then or risk being a giant?

Honor as a short mother. Shenanigans.

DarkEnigma wrote:Thanks for all the great info. The consensus seems to be that Honor's genetic mod is what accounts for her height. Of course the obvious follow up question is will little Raoul (and any future children of Honor's) HAVE to grow up on a heavy world then or risk being a giant?

And the plot thickens. Just like the Mars Trilogy, I always wondered what effect being born and spending most your life on the lowest grav planet then visiting the highest grav planet? I wouldn't expect it to be as severe as in the Mars Trilogy, where the Martians augmented themselves with special exoskeletons and medicinal additives to assist in breathing, but at the very least there would be hardships?