Honor Harrington's Aristocratic Style

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:Dorms are very strict when it comes to having a stove or an oven. That is a no no. Some dorms are allowed to have a microwave. But hot plates are out. Fire hazard. Some dorms are allowed to have refrigerators. Not all of them, but some. However, they are always limited to the small dorm sized refrigerators. Those things are not going to be able to store enough food for the likes of Honor. Honor has to eat several times a day. Some cafeterias will allow you to eat all you can eat. Some. Not all. Not many either. Some simply have one day a week where they will set up a buffet. But an all you can eat buffet, or a policy in general that you can eat all you can eat is not going to help Honor. She isn't like a camel who can store food for the next meal. Honor needs constant access to food. She won't be getting that in a University setting. And those small dorm fridges are only going to store so much. And some of that has to be shared with Michelle.

And it isn't about being able to afford to buy food off campus. University life can get very busy. Especially during exam week. Students don't have the time to constantly visit a restaurant or fast food place even if one is open at 2 AM when they are burning the night oil. Don't you remember your days at Uni? Studying for days? No time to even make it to the cafeteria? No bath for a week? Just studying, cramming, studying, cramming, studying. You frighten yourself when you look in the mirror.

But I don't know ANY college cafeteria that supports you taking food out. They simply cannot afford that.

I hear Academies are even stricter!

Current dorms are strict about heat sources in dorm rooms -- mostly, as I understand it, from fire risk. But we've no idea what Manticoran fire safety or dorm rules are many centuries in our future.

But as Honor noted heavy grav modifications are the most common genetic modification -- the extra muscles are going to require extra food, and with a heavy grav (1.3g) world in their system heavy grav adapted cadets/college student are going to be common. The Academy (and other universities) have had centuries to work out how to ensure that people with those extra dietary requirements aren't starved and don't have to resort to stealing (or even just "stealing") food to keep themselves healthy.


Could be lots of things - and doesn't necessarily require food storage and prep in the dorm rooms. Maybe dorms have some shared kitchen areas where they can fix themselves (or microwave) a quick mid-meal snack. Maybe the cafeteria has some lines open 24/7. Maybe it's meal vending machines on each floor. Maybe they've got automated bot delivery of food to the dorm rooms. Heck, maybe they've got sci-fi shelf-stable self-heating food packets.
But it'll be something. It'll be routine and normal. And it'll be available to every student that needs extra food between and/or during meals.

Honor isn't blazing a new path here. She's far from the first heavy work "genie" to attend and she won't be the last.

Good ideas! Except the bot. Unless the bot is packing a weapon, it would be robbed. LOL All college students are always hungry. That is common motivation for moving off campus the second year. Most universities require living on campus the first year. I think Academies require all four years on campus?

penny wrote:I hear Academies are even stricter!

tlb wrote:If you think Academies are strict, then you might consider how they feel about thieves.

penny wrote:Probably a lot better than they feel about those who endanger others by smuggling in hot plates, stoves and full sized refrigerators.

It is an honor code violation. Depending on how the rules are set up the other things might be also and ALL honor code violations can get the offender kicked out (even if someone is related to the Queen).

PS: Robbing a food delivery bot is also an honor offense.

Sorry Penny, but you are extrapolating the US college experience from whenever you went there, to 3 millenia hence on the other side of the galaxy.
My University (college) experience from 55 years ago in Australia was quite different. We had more than enough food, but being students occasionally got the "munchies" at 2 am. So off we would go to a hamburger joint (pre McDonalds). I remember being pulled over for having 3 girls in my two seater sports car. Happy days.
I remember being sprung with a hotplate that I was using to run a vodka still. I also remember the gardners nurturing a 2 metre plant at the admin entrance that they all thought some one else had planted. Supplied many with some relaxed evenings.
Our society is already well monitored, in 3 millenia I imagine that the AIs would have vetted Honor as being harmless to Mike without any intervention.

Daryl wrote:Sorry Penny, but you are extrapolating the US college experience from whenever you went there, to 3 millenia hence on the other side of the galaxy.
My University (college) experience from 55 years ago in Australia was quite different. We had more than enough food, but being students occasionally got the "munchies" at 2 am. So off we would go to a hamburger joint (pre McDonalds). I remember being pulled over for having 3 girls in my two seater sports car. Happy days.
I remember being sprung with a hotplate that I was using to run a vodka still. I also remember the gardners nurturing a 2 metre plant at the admin entrance that they all thought some one else had planted. Supplied many with some relaxed evenings.
Our society is already well monitored, in 3 millenia I imagine that the AIs would have vetted Honor as being harmless to Mike without any intervention.

I yield to all of you on this. Jonathan's post convinced me. I experienced five different universities. Two for my undergrad degree. Two for grad school. And one I visited rather often.

All of them had adequate food except one. But that was decades ago. And the one that had inadequate food has adequate food now. But ALL of those were during operating hours. From 6pm - 6am students are at the mercy of fast food joints. Or at the mercy of the occasional student who sold hotdogs late at night. But, being cut off from food for 12 hrs a day is fine for us. Honor would end up eating Michelle. OOPS. Wrong choice of words.

Anyway, I yield on this one.

PS I had two girls in a two seater manual many times. But it wasn't easy. The second girl always interfered with operating the stick. How did you get three girls???

Oh!!! ... Bad boy! LOL LOL LOL



PPS I yield on the issue about the food. Not about the two becoming roomies by chance.

Hi Penny,
It was an Austin Healey with a roll bar. One in the passenger seat, two sitting up high behind hanging on for dear life, while laughing the whole way. Miss Uni 1969, Miss Uni 1970 and two just as spectacular. The police allowed them to sweet talk them out of booking me, but I had to do three trips back to our dorm. My point was that things will have changed by Honor's time. Good point about her appetite.

There is something I don't understand. Did textev say that Honor didn't have any friends or that she didn't have many friends?

Michelle was her roommate, and Michelle should have had lots of friends. Well, at least a couple that she considered as friends before she met Honor. As collegiate life goes, I would think that Honor was exposed to Michelle's friends. And if Honor became Michelle's best friend then I would rather think that Michelle's friends had to accept Honor. But perhaps Michelle didn't have many who she could truly call a friend, rather than those who simply tried to suck up to royalty. But text doesn't say that Michelle had no friends, just Honor.

I had lots of friends in college. I was popular in High School and college. My roommate not so much. But he benefited by being around my friends. Especially all of the girls who always visited my dorm room. He dated several of them.

Seems as if Honor would have met Michelle's friends and hit it off. Maybe not.

Anyways, why would the Academy not want to place an aristocrat with Michelle? On the one hand ye all say that the powers that be would not interfere. OTOH, some of you say they might intercede by making sure Michelle gets a Commoner as a roommate. Isn't that having it both ways?

penny wrote:There is something I don't understand. Did textev say that Honor didn't have any friends or that she didn't have many friends?

Not that I can recall. It didn't talk much about Honor when she was younger, and so didn't say much one way or the other about friends she might (or I guess might not) have had.

SVW does mentioned she had "Friends, yes; friends she would die with or for, but never lovers." And that Young drugged Nimitz by "slipping cotanine into the celery one of her friends kept feeding to her damned treecat" - and mentally fuming that "the bitch always had too many friends"

So I've no reason to think that she had few to no friends in the Acadamy.

penny wrote:Michelle was her roommate, and Michelle should have had lots of friends. Well, at least a couple that she considered as friends before she met Honor. As collegiate life goes, I would think that Honor was exposed to Michelle's friends. And if Honor became Michelle's best friend then I would rather think that Michelle's friends had to accept Honor. But perhaps Michelle didn't have many who she could truly call a friend, rather than those who simply tried to suck up to royalty. But text doesn't say that Michelle had no friends, just Honor.

I had lots of friends in college. I was popular in High School and college. My roommate not so much. But he benefited by being around my friends. Especially all of the girls who always visited my dorm room. He dated several of them.

Seems as if Honor would have met Michelle's friends and hit it off. Maybe not.

Anyways, why would the Academy not want to place an aristocrat with Michelle? On the one hand ye all say that the powers that be would not interfere. OTOH, some of you say they might intercede by making sure Michelle gets a Commoner as a roommate. Isn't that having it both ways?

I would think that Palace security would want to avoid any roommate whose parent might want friendship with Michelle cultivated as a way of attempting to politically influence the Crown. That wouldn't necessarily be a member of the nobility; but they seem more likely to be in politics - but that might apply equally to someone from a major industrial or financial family. (And equally the Crown might want to avoid that to prevent even an appearance of later favoritism; even if no actual favoritism existed -- sure it's unlikely for Mike to end up Queen; but if she does it might be bad optics to have her former roommate siting in the House of Lords lobbying her for things. Though of course as it happened her roommate ended up there anyway )

And it'd probably be a bad idea to partner even a cousin of Beth up with the offspring of a rabid member of the Conservative Association. That's not so much oil and water as C-Stoff and T-Stoff -- igniting almost explosively on contact.

But I don't know whether they specifically had 'commoner' as one of the prerequisites to be selected as her roommate.

penny wrote:Probably a lot better than they feel about those who endanger others by smuggling in hot plates, stoves and full sized refrigerators.

In my dorm there were a number of people on probation for a hot plate. My roommate and I got caught with a hot plate as well. One of the hot blondes in the room flirted our way out of it. To augment the small sized fridges, almost the entire dorm would hang beer, soft drinks, cartons of juices, etc , out the window. Mother nature would keep it cold in a cold climate.

But I'd bet Thandi's phone number that celery was stolen for Nimitz. Ok, stolen might be too strong a word. Let's say, appropriate.

Our students dorm had a small kitchen for each pair of 2 bedrooms. Two hot plates, a fridge big enough for 2 people, a small sink to wash dishes, and a bit of storage room. No luxury, but sufficient.

And apart from the fact that Nimitz shouldn't get too much celery, due to the well known digestive problems this causes, they can just buy it. If the cafeteria doesn't sell it, they can go out at a groceries maybe in the evening or weekend when they can leave the premises for a few hours. She's not the first cadet with a treecat, and solutions have been found.

Throughout all the books and anthologies, they write about Honors problems at Saganami Island: Pavel Young, her lack of self esteem, her self-perception as a overly tall horse with lack of boobs (IIRC), math, hypernavigation, ... No single mention of food logistics, neither for her nor for Nimitz. That makes me think it wasn't that much of a problem after all.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:There is something I don't understand. Did textev say that Honor didn't have any friends or that she didn't have many friends?

Not that I can recall. It didn't talk much about Honor when she was younger, and so didn't say much one way or the other about friends she might (or I guess might not) have had.

SVW does mentioned she had "Friends, yes; friends she would die with or for, but never lovers." And that Young drugged Nimitz by "slipping cotanine into the celery one of her friends kept feeding to her damned treecat" - and mentally fuming that "the bitch always had too many friends"

So I've no reason to think that she had few to no friends in the Acadamy.

penny wrote:Michelle was her roommate, and Michelle should have had lots of friends. Well, at least a couple that she considered as friends before she met Honor. As collegiate life goes, I would think that Honor was exposed to Michelle's friends. And if Honor became Michelle's best friend then I would rather think that Michelle's friends had to accept Honor. But perhaps Michelle didn't have many who she could truly call a friend, rather than those who simply tried to suck up to royalty. But text doesn't say that Michelle had no friends, just Honor.

I had lots of friends in college. I was popular in High School and college. My roommate not so much. But he benefited by being around my friends. Especially all of the girls who always visited my dorm room. He dated several of them.

Seems as if Honor would have met Michelle's friends and hit it off. Maybe not.

Anyways, why would the Academy not want to place an aristocrat with Michelle? On the one hand ye all say that the powers that be would not interfere. OTOH, some of you say they might intercede by making sure Michelle gets a Commoner as a roommate. Isn't that having it both ways?

I would think that Palace security would want to avoid any roommate whose parent might want friendship with Michelle cultivated as a way of attempting to politically influence the Crown. That wouldn't necessarily be a member of the nobility; but they seem more likely to be in politics - but that might apply equally to someone from a major industrial or financial family. (And equally the Crown might want to avoid that to prevent even an appearance of later favoritism; even if no actual favoritism existed -- sure it's unlikely for Mike to end up Queen; but if she does it might be bad optics to have her former roommate siting in the House of Lords lobbying her for things. Though of course as it happened her roommate ended up there anyway )

And it'd probably be a bad idea to partner even a cousin of Beth up with the offspring of a rabid member of the Conservative Association. That's not so much oil and water as C-Stoff and T-Stoff -- igniting almost explosively on contact.

But I don't know whether they specifically had 'commoner' as one of the prerequisites to be selected as her roommate.

In Midshipwom Harrington Honor seemed quite relaxed and friendly (as in friends) with her roomates, so I don't think I would go so far as to day she didn't have or make friends.

penny wrote:PPS I yield on the issue about the food. Not about the two becoming roomies by chance.

I don't think it was left completely to chance, but I don't think it was preordained either.

Let's say that every class year of the Academy had 150 young women applying as cadets. I don't think the pool of those who would have been in the selection lottery for Michelle would be 149. But I also think it was much higher than 5. It would probably be around 50.

Palace security would have done vetting alongside the Academy's. I don't suppose that anyone who would have failed Palace security would have been allowed at the Academy in the first place. Or, put another way, Palace vetting would be reviewing the results from the Academy and simply agreeing with their methods and means.

Where they may have participated is in excluding those cadets who would clearly try to incur favour with the Royal Family, because that would lead very quickly to Mike asking to be assigned a new roommate. Other than that, I don't think there was any finger on th scale. Imagine what would happen if Mike found out that the Palace had selected her roommate! She has the Winton stubbornness gene, after all.