Honorverse ramblings and musings

cthia wrote:

They were officially rated 0.83 on the sentience scale, even using primitive tools like axes and fishing nets and were thought to be slightly more intelligent and mentally capable than Beowulf's gremlins or perhaps Earth's dolphins (HHA1.1: ABF). They were the twelfth—and physically smallest—intelligent species known to humans.

My question is whether the increase in mental ability from the genengineered celery affected their placement on the sentience scale.

SWM wrote:There is no evidence suggesting that treecats who eat celery regularly are smarter than treecats who don't. Remember, most treecats have only limited access to celery.

You should also remember that the measurement you cite of treecat intelligence was taken during the period that treecats were hiding their full intelligence. If they were measured again today, they would probably come out about 1.0 on the intelligence scale, because they are no longer misleading the testers.

cthia wrote:Nah! Just a .90 as these type tests are always culturally biased, as are SATs. No reason to discount 'species bias' as well.

fallsfromtrees wrote:And there you go with the species bias. Who is to say that the 'cats are not well about 1.0 on the sentience scale?

See what I mean? Species bias runs amok.

They probably are as intelligent as humans. BUT. Won't show up on the culturally and species biased tests.

cthia wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:And there you go with the species bias. Who is to say that the 'cats are not well about 1.0 on the sentience scale?

See what I mean? Species bias runs amok.

They probably are as intelligent as humans. BUT. Won't show up on the culturally and species biased tests.

Be fair. "Sentience" is a floppy, wiggly concept at best - me, I think if you get six different operational definitions out of it out of six heads, you've got an incredible degree of consensus. Trying to get that far and create a concept that can fairly apply to creatures from totally independent natural and social environments on alien worlds is a ludicrous hurdle. Chances are any of these figures are more or less extracted entirely from rectal orifices, even before considering how differently treecats and humans approach problem solving, apart from how well.

When Victor Cachat showed up on Honor's ship, she was concerned about his contingency measures. His suicide device. I can't remember her exact words, but I got the impression that she was a bit nervous. But I couldn't figure out why. Was it some sort of explosive device that could have taken her out as well? If so, how was that missed? And it seemed unlikely that Zilwicki would allow Victor to come within explosive range of Honor, since he knew about the device.

Or was it just concern for Victor's life?

Perhaps it was an electronic device that would inject him with some sort of fast acting poison.

I ask in case that type device was used in one of the stories I'm yet to read.

cthia wrote:When Victor Cachat showed up on Honor's ship, she was concerned about his contingency measures. His suicide device. I can't remember her exact words, but I got the impression that she was a bit nervous. But I couldn't figure out why. Was it some sort of explosive device that could have taken her out as well? If so, how was that missed? And it seemed unlikely that Zilwicki would allow Victor to come within explosive range of Honor, since he knew about the device.

Or was it just concern for Victor's life?

Perhaps it was an electronic device that would inject him with some sort of fast acting poison.

I ask in case that type device was used in one of the stories I'm yet to read.

If you haven't read Cauldron of Ghosts yet, folks don't offer the spoiler. It's explained in detail in the textev there.

cthia wrote:When Victor Cachat showed up on Honor's ship, she was concerned about his contingency measures. His suicide device. I can't remember her exact words, but I got the impression that she was a bit nervous. But I couldn't figure out why. Was it some sort of explosive device that could have taken her out as well? If so, how was that missed? And it seemed unlikely that Zilwicki would allow Victor to come within explosive range of Honor, since he knew about the device.

Or was it just concern for Victor's life?

Perhaps it was an electronic device that would inject him with some sort of fast acting poison.

I ask in case that type device was used in one of the stories I'm yet to read.

It's in AAC ... pg 676. Here's the direct quote:

"... Officer Cachat doesn't want to hurt anyone else. But I'd feel much more comfortable if you weren't quite so ready to hurt yourself Officer Cachat. It's rather hard to concentrate on what someone's telling when you're wondering whether or not he's going to poison himself or blow both of you up at the end of the next sentence."

There's no direct confirmation of what it was -- just that it was a device w/ a virtual keyboard VC used to deactivate it. He flipped it to Anton, at which point it exits the storyline ....

I personally thought it was an injector of some type -- needle or other injector through the pocket into the thigh and bye bye universe. However, from reading Honor's direct quotes she wasn't able to determine what it would do -- just that VC had it, and was prepared to use it.

In reading the entire passage, I almost get the impression it was some kind of test on VC's part to prove what Anton had relayed regarding Honor, especially Anton's quips as to what Berry, Thandi, and Ruth would do to him if VC suicided. But that may also be influenced by later stories on the relationship between the super spies.

SharkHunter wrote:

cthia wrote:When Victor Cachat showed up on Honor's ship, she was concerned about his contingency measures. His suicide device. I can't remember her exact words, but I got the impression that she was a bit nervous. But I couldn't figure out why. Was it some sort of explosive device that could have taken her out as well? If so, how was that missed? And it seemed unlikely that Zilwicki would allow Victor to come within explosive range of Honor, since he knew about the device.

Or was it just concern for Victor's life?

Perhaps it was an electronic device that would inject him with some sort of fast acting poison.

I ask in case that type device was used in one of the stories I'm yet to read.

If you haven't read Cauldron of Ghosts yet, folks don't offer the spoiler. It's explained in detail in the textev there.

And here I was all proud of myself for finding the passage. Guess I need to grab CoG ....

cthia wrote:When Victor Cachat showed up on Honor's ship, she was concerned about his contingency measures. His suicide device. I can't remember her exact words, but I got the impression that she was a bit nervous. But I couldn't figure out why. Was it some sort of explosive device that could have taken her out as well? If so, how was that missed? And it seemed unlikely that Zilwicki would allow Victor to come within explosive range of Honor, since he knew about the device.

Or was it just concern for Victor's life?

Perhaps it was an electronic device that would inject him with some sort of fast acting poison.

I ask in case that type device was used in one of the stories I'm yet to read.

SharkHunter wrote:If you haven't read Cauldron of Ghosts yet, folks don't offer the spoiler. It's explained in detail in the textev there.

warspite1515 wrote:
And here I was all proud of myself for finding the passage. Guess I need to grab CoG ....

CoG has been out since April. What kind of die hard Weber fan leaves one of his books unread for that long?

fallsfromtrees wrote:
I ask in case that type device was used in one of the stories I'm yet to read.

SharkHunter wrote:If you haven't read Cauldron of Ghosts yet, folks don't offer the spoiler. It's explained in detail in the textev there.

warspite1515 wrote:
And here I was all proud of myself for finding the passage. Guess I need to grab CoG ....

CoG has been out since April. What kind of die hard Weber fan leaves one of his books unread for that long?[/quote]

I take full responsibility for my total oversight ... just missed the release completely somehow. I have been informed court-martial proceedings will be held on the morrow; I beg mercy from the Admiralty Court.

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:Purple Thorn is also the more natural cat supplement. They can digest it, therefore my friends discussion considers it to be worth looking into modifying certain aspects of it, since it is the natural solution provided by nature.

Step one would be to domesticate Purple Thorn to remove the "rare and difficult" problem. A generation or two of selective breeding without any other genengineering should produce a stable, natural, control to begin genengineering from.

I'd still focus on extraction or synthesis -- preferably synthesis so extra-Sphinxian colonies will have a reliable supply.

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Why "domesticate" purple thorn when the 'cats have already shown a preference for celery.
The extra-Sphinxian colonies can take Sphinx-strain celery. It will likely be easier to grow on Earth-terra-formed planets that can support other terran foods.
It also avoids introducing a non-native species plant (purple thorn) onto other planets.

-- Stewart

cthia wrote:Purple Thorn is also the more natural cat supplement. They can digest it, therefore my friends discussion considers it to be worth looking into modifying certain aspects of it, since it is the natural solution provided by nature.

Weird Harold wrote:
Step one would be to domesticate Purple Thorn to remove the "rare and difficult" problem. A generation or two of selective breeding without any other genengineering should produce a stable, natural, control to begin genengineering from.

I'd still focus on extraction or synthesis -- preferably synthesis so extra-Sphinxian colonies will have a reliable supply.

stewart wrote:

---------------

Why "domesticate" purple thorn when the 'cats have already shown a preference for celery.
The extra-Sphinxian colonies can take Sphinx-strain celery. It will likely be easier to grow on Earth-terra-formed planets that can support other terran foods.
It also avoids introducing a non-native species plant (purple thorn) onto other planets.

-- Stewart

But Sphinxian celery grown off Sphinx may not have the same chemical composition and therefore not satisfy the requirements of the 'cats.