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Suspension of Disbelief.

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Re: Suspension of Disbelief.
Post by hanuman   » Sat Oct 10, 2015 8:49 pm

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George J. Smith wrote:From A Cauldron of Ghosts.

The appointment of Queen Berry's boyfriend Hugh Arai to be in charge of the Torch whilst virtually all of the Torch government traipse off to Manticore.


Four points that are important to consider:

1. Hugh is an ex-slave himself.

2. Hugh is a member of Beowulf's Biological Survey.

3. Hugh was the head of Berry's personal security team for a while.

4. Hugh is Berry's choice for Regent.

Torch is a very young star nation, whose population is almost entirely made up of first-generation immigrants. It's government structure is still evolving, there hasn't been time for distinct political factions to emerge, the entire nation was founded to provide ex-slaves and other marginalized groups with a homeland and is for the time being united behind a common and universally-supported goal, and it is still small enough that the citizenry has an intimate personal knowledge of and relationship with their leaders. The four points I enumerated all contribute to and strengthen the citizens' knowledge of and trust in Hugh, as does their respect for and trust in Berry.
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Re: Suspension of Disbelief.
Post by Lord Skimper   » Sun Oct 18, 2015 12:25 pm

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Aegis99 wrote:For me it's the fact that somehow humans managed to come up with the babies to populate thousands of worlds with populations into the billions. It's pretty clear that the major controlling factor of human population growth is the level of female education (absent the use/threat of force). If your women are educated enough to contribute to a star-faring civilization (college minimum) then you are going to really struggle to just maintain replacement level baby production, much less manage to fill up thousands of planets.

I'll grant exceptions like Grayson and Masada. But I don't buy that a wealthy, well educated, gender-equal society like Manticore could get a population into the billions, even in a few centuries. Manticore has spent twice as long as a wealthy technological society than the US has existed at all. Here in the US we didn't really become a wealthy and educated (or at least women getting educated) until just over a century ago, and we're already only barely at replacement.


just remember on the honorverse all babies are test tube born.
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Re: Suspension of Disbelief.
Post by Duckk   » Sun Oct 18, 2015 1:58 pm

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just remember on the honorverse all babies are test tube born.


No they aren't.
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Re: Suspension of Disbelief.
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Sun Oct 18, 2015 2:04 pm

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No. Honor chose the test tube route because she wasn't in a position to go through pregnancy.

Lord Skimper wrote:just remember on the honorverse all babies are test tube born.
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Re: Suspension of Disbelief.
Post by Lord Skimper   » Sun Oct 18, 2015 3:25 pm

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Well they could be, this frees up your population to do other things with a yearly doctors visit while increasing your population.
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Re: Suspension of Disbelief.
Post by Roguevictory   » Sun Oct 18, 2015 4:04 pm

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Lord Skimper wrote:Well they could be, this frees up your population to do other things with a yearly doctors visit while increasing your population.


There will probably always be people that prefer natural pregnancy to tube pregnancy in the honorverse or IRL if the tech is developed for that matter.
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Re: Suspension of Disbelief.
Post by munroburton   » Sun Oct 18, 2015 4:30 pm

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Roguevictory wrote:
Lord Skimper wrote:Well they could be, this frees up your population to do other things with a yearly doctors visit while increasing your population.


There will probably always be people that prefer natural pregnancy to tube pregnancy in the honorverse or IRL if the tech is developed for that matter.


Indeed, one such example is Alison Harrington, who carried our eponymous heroine to term on a higher-G planet than she was accustomed to. What I find interesting from that section of textev is, tubing a baby appears to be significantly cheaper than fitting a house(or the Harrington home) with grav-plates.
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Re: Suspension of Disbelief.
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sun Oct 18, 2015 8:46 pm

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munroburton wrote:
Roguevictory wrote:
There will probably always be people that prefer natural pregnancy to tube pregnancy in the honorverse or IRL if the tech is developed for that matter.


Indeed, one such example is Alison Harrington, who carried our eponymous heroine to term on a higher-G planet than she was accustomed to. What I find interesting from that section of textev is, tubing a baby appears to be significantly cheaper than fitting a house(or the Harrington home) with grav-plates.

Certainly it appears the out-of-pocket costs were lower since she chose against tubing for non-economic reasons; but we're told that grav plates weren't affordable for them at that time.
(Though some of that might be that grav plates presumably have a non-trivial ongoing operational cost (power consumption); over an above their purchase and installation costs)

However wasn't Alfred still working for BuMed at the time? Naval health coverage might well subsidize, or just provide, tubing service for military families. That might be distorting our view of the relative costs.
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Re: Suspension of Disbelief.
Post by saber964   » Sun Oct 18, 2015 9:07 pm

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Jonathan_S" [quote="munroburton wrote:
Roguevictory wrote:
There will probably always be people that prefer natural pregnancy to tube pregnancy in the honorverse or IRL if the tech is developed for that matter.


Indeed, one such example is Alison Harrington, who carried our eponymous heroine to term on a higher-G planet than she was accustomed to. What I find interesting from that section of textev is, tubing a baby appears to be significantly cheaper than fitting a house(or the Harrington home) with grav-plates.

Certainly it appears the out-of-pocket costs were lower since she chose against tubing for non-economic reasons; but we're told that grav plates weren't affordable for them at that time.
(Though some of that might be that grav plates presumably have a non-trivial ongoing operational cost (power consumption); over an above their purchase and installation costs)

However wasn't Alfred still working for BuMed at the time? Naval health coverage might well subsidize, or just provide, tubing service for military families. That might be distorting our view of the relative costs.[/quote]


IIRC Beowulf has a planet wide cultural prohibition against tubing.
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Re: Suspension of Disbelief.
Post by kzt   » Sun Oct 18, 2015 9:45 pm

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munroburton wrote:Indeed, one such example is Alison Harrington, who carried our eponymous heroine to term on a higher-G planet than she was accustomed to. What I find interesting from that section of textev is, tubing a baby appears to be significantly cheaper than fitting a house(or the Harrington home) with grav-plates.

Economics are not the strong point of Honorverse stories.
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