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Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young

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Re: Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young
Post by cthia   » Tue May 23, 2017 7:37 am

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Fox2! wrote:
John Prigent wrote:I seem to recall that Young wanted to humiliate Honor because she had not bowed and scraped to his 'superior' status and had in fact turned him down flat when he first approached her. A mere Yeoman-born female not wanting sex with an aristocrat, she had to be put in her place!

Cheers, John


A "mere Yeoman-born female" with ties to one of the meritocracy of Beowulf's most meritocratic families? A family with several members on the Planetary Board of Directors? (SNIP)
Robert_A_Woodward wrote:That is assuming that Pavel Young even knew that Honor's mother's birth name was Allison Carmena Elena Inez Regina Benton-Ramirez y Chou. And, for that matter, that he knew what that meant on Beowulf.

True.

OTOH. Perhaps he did do some research but mishandled the data and assumed that since her family tree has a root in Beowulf that that automatically equates to her being oversexed, wanton, loose and horny. Same as many idiots thinking the Dutch are all high and horny.

Like father like son, because for some reason Dimitri noted that she lacked a buck to rut between her legs. Pavel was just trying to be the buck.

"Be the buck Pavel, be the buck." He told himself.

But the buck got bucked when he tried to mount that horse.

At any rate, it would seem that even if he didn't know Allison's maiden name he'd know her married name. Ally would have been widely known in the Star Kingdom. And so too would have Alfred. The media certainly would have been responsible for squeezing quite a bit of juice on the Harrington name out of the grapevine.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young
Post by saber964   » Tue May 23, 2017 5:41 pm

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Fox2! wrote:

True. i think there is textev someplace that says that most Genies don't go around advertising that they are. Of course, some one who would know the signs - metabolism, reflexes, etc. - might suspect it.


Alison had no problem in recognizing not only that Alfred was a Genie, but a Myerdahl 2, at first glance.

Of course, she's Beowulf, and a geneticist in training, so she probably knew the subtle signs setting various mods apart, not only from "baseline" humans, but also from each other.



No not quite, she recognised the fact that he might be a genine. She speculated that Meyerdahl was a possibility along with several others she also discounted one because his coloring didn't match the baseline for the modifications. Also remember in CoS Berry could spot the Ndeble mod in several of the slaves aboard the Felicia III or being able to spot Scrags by their baseline appearance. FYI just finished rereading BatH.

Further FYI genetic modifications do not always mean heavy gravity but could mean modifications for higher or lower oxygen or other gases contained in the atmosphere e.g. Sphinx as a CO2 content of 1%.
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Re: Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young
Post by Theemile   » Tue May 23, 2017 7:40 pm

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saber964 wrote:
Fox2! wrote:
Alison had no problem in recognizing not only that Alfred was a Genie, but a Myerdahl 2, at first glance.

Of course, she's Beowulf, and a geneticist in training, so she probably knew the subtle signs setting various mods apart, not only from "baseline" humans, but also from each other.



No not quite, she recognised the fact that he might be a genine. She speculated that Meyerdahl was a possibility along with several others she also discounted one because his coloring didn't match the baseline for the modifications. Also remember in CoS Berry could spot the Ndeble mod in several of the slaves aboard the Felicia III or being able to spot Scrags by their baseline appearance. FYI just finished rereading BatH.

Further FYI genetic modifications do not always mean heavy gravity but could mean modifications for higher or lower oxygen or other gases contained in the atmosphere e.g. Sphinx as a CO2 content of 1%.


Or, like Grayson, immunization to environmental factors; in their case, increased heavy metal resistance. Other mods might be for low gravity, radiation resistance, or other environmental factors.
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RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young
Post by cthia   » Tue May 23, 2017 8:02 pm

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robert132 wrote:True. i think there is textev someplace that says that most Genies don't go around advertising that they are. Of course, some one who would know the signs - metabolism, reflexes, etc. - might suspect it. :)

ISTR this fact as well. Though I consider it a bit odd, most likely from my lack of a personal understanding (or missed textev).

Why would someone's characterization as a genie be something to hide? It is as if they are ashamed of it, or rather that there is prejudice, or non-acceptance, against it. Why must it be kept a secret? ISTR that Beth keeps her gene recipe a secret as well. Why? It isn't as if genies are rare and misunderstood -- or that there are many designations (MA) that are unaccepted or fraught with controversy.

Slave lines withstanding my inability to understand preferred secrecy.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young
Post by Theemile   » Tue May 23, 2017 8:24 pm

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cthia wrote:ISTR this fact as well. Though I consider it a bit odd, most likely from my lack of a personal understanding (or missed textev).

Why would someone's characterization as a genie be something to hide? It is as if they are ashamed of it, or rather that there is prejudice, or non-acceptance, against it. Why must it be kept a secret? ISTR that Beth keeps her gene recipe a secret as well. Why? It isn't as if genies are rare and misunderstood -- or that there are many designations (MA) that are unaccepted or fraught with controversy.

Slave lines withstanding my inability to understand preferred secrecy.


Up until the 80's there were places in the US where, if someone found out you had a smidge of African-American heritage, you would be fired from your job and ostracized, even if you otherwise looked white. In the 50's, such behavior was prevalent across the country. Of course, how African Americans were (and still are to lesser degrees) treated was deplorable for a modern, advanced society.

Anti Jewish behavior, which we all know rose to insane heights in Europe the 1940s, has persisted for centuries; one could say it was persisted for at least 1700 years.

So who is to say what irrational prejudices exist 2000 years from now. Nightmares of genetically modified super-soldiers sterilizing Earth could persist as long as the anti-Jewish sentiment has persisted in western civilization. Add in the disgust at the genetic slave trade, and the fear could persist for 1200 years.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young
Post by Weird Harold   » Tue May 23, 2017 8:57 pm

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cthia wrote:ISTR this fact as well. Though I consider it a bit odd, most likely from my lack of a personal understanding (or missed textev).


More Than Honor
A Beautiful Friendship
Chapter II wrote:
Not that there was anything much to draw anyone's attention to the changes the geneticists had whipped up for Meyerdahl's colonists. Mass for mass, Stephanie's muscle tissue was about twenty-five percent more efficient than that of "pure strain" humans, and her metabolism ran about twenty percent faster to fuel those muscles. There were a few minor changes to her respiratory and circulatory systems and some skeletal reinforcement, as well, and the modifications had been designed to be dominant, so that all her descendants would have them. But her kind of genie was perfectly interfertile with pure-strainers, and as far as she could see all the changes put together were no big deal. They just meant that because she and her parents needed less muscle mass for a given strength, they were ideally suited to colonize high gravity planets without turning all stumpy and bulgy-muscled. Still, once she'd gotten around to studying the Final War and some of the anti-genie movements, she'd decided Daddy and Mom might have had a point in warning her not to go around telling strangers about it. Aside from that, she seldom thought about it one way or the other . . . except to reflect somewhat bitterly that if they hadn't been genies, the heavy gravities of the Manticore Binary System's habitable planets might have kept her parents from deciding they simply had to drag her off to the boonies like this.


This is from Stephanie Harrington's POV, but the reasonable precaution of "passing for normal" is passed on down to Honor's generation.
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Re: Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young
Post by robert132   » Wed May 24, 2017 11:04 am

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Theemile wrote:
cthia wrote:ISTR this fact as well. Though I consider it a bit odd, most likely from my lack of a personal understanding (or missed textev).

Why would someone's characterization as a genie be something to hide? It is as if they are ashamed of it, or rather that there is prejudice, or non-acceptance, against it. Why must it be kept a secret? ISTR that Beth keeps her gene recipe a secret as well. Why? It isn't as if genies are rare and misunderstood -- or that there are many designations (MA) that are unaccepted or fraught with controversy.

Slave lines withstanding my inability to understand preferred secrecy.


Up until the 80's there were places in the US where, if someone found out you had a smidge of African-American heritage, you would be fired from your job and ostracized, even if you otherwise looked white. In the 50's, such behavior was prevalent across the country. Of course, how African Americans were (and still are to lesser degrees) treated was deplorable for a modern, advanced society.

Anti Jewish behavior, which we all know rose to insane heights in Europe the 1940s, has persisted for centuries; one could say it was persisted for at least 1700 years.

So who is to say what irrational prejudices exist 2000 years from now. Nightmares of genetically modified super-soldiers sterilizing Earth could persist as long as the anti-Jewish sentiment has persisted in western civilization. Add in the disgust at the genetic slave trade, and the fear could persist for 1200 years.


Well put. Prejudices exist, often without rational thought or reasoning.

What we today might consider odd or silly might have earned one a guest spot at a lynching or burning at the stake 200 or 400 years ago.

I suspect mankind, no matter how technologically or socially advanced, is still going to have new batches of illogical prejudices or bigotry to deal with or understand.

In some ways our brains are wired to "prejudge" people or situations as a survival trait. "Something doesn't 'feel' right about him or her," so it takes effort for that person to earn our trust.

Conversely those "feelings" might cause us to "like" someone the instant we meet or feel an attraction to that person, not necessarily physically either if of the opposite sex.

RFC's Treecats might consider it a human manner of "tasting that person's 'mindglow'" even though humans are "mindblind." (Damn it, I wish I had had a treecat partner in my prior life as a security manager.) ;)
****

Just my opinion of course and probably not worth the paper it's not written on.
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Re: Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young
Post by Jonathan_S   » Wed May 24, 2017 2:46 pm

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Theemile wrote:She being a genie or not is irrelevant. Knowing that she is a yeoman from Sphinx indicates that she is a native of the planet, so her body is completely conditioned to live normally in 1.3+ G. So she automatically has 1/3 more muscle mass than someone otherwise identical from Earth it Manticore.
That's not necessarily true. The books implied that as soon as they they afford it many people put grav plates in their homes to adjust the Sphinx grav down to 1g; and there's no reason to think that many offices and businesses wouldn't offer than amenity as well. Plus there are wearable counter-grav units capable of giving you a 1g environment even while out and about.

So it's possible that someone could live on Sphinx and not be exposed to the higher gravity often enough to build up increased muscle mass. (Admittedly that seems more likely in an adult who moved there than a kid born and raised there)
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Re: Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young
Post by robert132   » Wed May 24, 2017 4:22 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:That's not necessarily true. The books implied that as soon as they they afford it many people put grav plates in their homes to adjust the Sphinx grav down to 1g; and there's no reason to think that many offices and businesses wouldn't offer than amenity as well. Plus there are wearable counter-grav units capable of giving you a 1g environment even while out and about.

So it's possible that someone could live on Sphinx and not be exposed to the higher gravity often enough to build up increased muscle mass. (Admittedly that seems more likely in an adult who moved there than a kid born and raised there)


True, they might install grav plating in their homes or wear countergrav units no matter what world they live on for comfort. However, if the tech fails (and it does) someone who spends most of their time in a lighter grav environment is going to find themselves at a marked disadvantage if it occurs in a "survival" situation, ie the grav fails because of massive building damage and you MUST BUG OUT NOW or die.

People born to and adapted to that environment (Sphinx) would probably be less likely to want or require the lighter grav unless they were of advanced age or otherwise infirm, in which case why stop at 1.0G and not go for 0.5G or less?

I don't recall off hand if RFC mentioned it in any of his Honorverse stories but I can see definite advantages for Low Gee or Zero Gee treatment or recovery rooms in hospitals. I know the Life Support chairs he describes often come with counter-grav, probably also other patient handling equipment including beds, transport chairs and so forth.

Hmm. We have GOT to learn how to generate and control gravity. (I work in the healthcare industry, kinda like Radar O'Reilly did.)
****

Just my opinion of course and probably not worth the paper it's not written on.
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Re: Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young
Post by Weird Harold   » Wed May 24, 2017 5:35 pm

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robert132 wrote:True, they might install grav plating in their homes or wear countergrav units no matter what world they live on for comfort. However, if the tech fails (and it does) someone who spends most of their time in a lighter grav environment is going to find themselves at a marked disadvantage if it occurs in a "survival" situation, ie the grav fails because of massive building damage and you MUST BUG OUT NOW or die.



One of the Stephanie Harrington YA novels deals with a very similar situation; a group of scientists get stranded without the means to recharge their countergrav units...
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

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