Excusez-moi

Jonathan_S wrote:Most likely all four sets were made before the (sub-light) colony ship headed off for Meyerdahl. But the text doesn't say. So it's possible (but seems unlikely to me) that one or more of the four original mods were done after arrival. But in any case the Meyerdahl settlers had heavy world mods from (or nearly from) the beginning of their settlement. And as successful heavy worlders (thanks to those mods) many were recruited to move to Sphynx when the MBS needed additional colonists after the losses of the plague years.

But the text does say that they were all part of the same project and for the first wave colonization.

I assume that the genetic designers were afraid of something like a monoculture and wanted a mix of problem solving attitudes. It would be interesting to know what the other two modifications were off the base Meyerdahl form (I think of them as base Meyerdahl, plus A, B and C mods).

Note that the text also says that the aggression that was a side effect of the IQ enhancement could be an asset in a place like a new colony that faced unknown dangers. However we do not know whether the genetic designers were initially aware of the side effect; although it seems likely they would learn of it if the Meyerdahl colonists used a generation ship, since the bulk of people going would have to be of a minimum age to run the ship.

PS: Oops, that depends on what type of colony ship. A true generation ship (if I remember correctly) has everyone awake and bearing children; which would mean that the generation that launched with the ship need not have the Meyerdahl modifications as long as all their children would have it. But would people really be trusting enough to launch without seeing the results of the modifications?

tlb wrote:But the text does say that they were all part of the same project and for the first wave colonization.

I assume that the genetic designers were afraid of something like a monoculture and wanted a mix of problem solving attitudes. It would be interesting to know what the other two modifications were off the base Meyerdahl form (I think of them as base Meyerdahl, plus A, B and C mods).

Note that the text also says that the aggression that was a side effect of the IQ enhancement could be an asset in a place like a new colony that faced unknown dangers. However we do not know whether the genetic designers were initially aware of the side effect; although it seems likely they would learn of it if the Meyerdahl colonists used a generation ship, since the bulk of people going would have to be of a minimum age to run the ship.

PS: Oops, that depends on what type of colony ship. A true generation ship (if I remember correctly) has everyone awake and bearing children; which would mean that the generation that launched with the ship need not have the Meyerdahl modifications as long as all their children would have it. But would people really be trusting enough to launch without seeing the results of the modifications?

I'm not sure if any of the Honorverse colonies used true generation ships (where everyone who arrived was several
generations separated from everyone who started out). Depends on how fast they were and how far they were going - though based on the timeline there were three centuries of colonization before the practical, long-term cryogenic hibernation was perfected. [Note: The wiki claims cryo didn't become "widely available" until 478 PD (173 years later) but I can't find anything in the books backing that up so I'm just using the earlier 305 PD 'perfected' date]

But even those early colony ships appeared capable of noticeable fractions of lightspeed, and the early colonies don't appear to be all that far from Earth. Though I guess Beowulf, at 60 LY, might have taken at least most of an entire generation to reach... (Depends on when modern military-grade particle shielding was invented. If you look at the timeline the only way Jason covered the 512 LY from Sol to Manticore in the know elapsed time of 641 years is if it spent most of the trip at 0.8c -- as fast as a modern warship. Also means she "only" experienced ~385 years; about 60% of the "actual" time)

Hmm, in ABF, we're told that that "Meyerdahl had been settled for over a thousand years . . . and Sphinx hadn't" so that'd put the arrival of that colony ship no later than the very late 5th century PD. That's marginal for it to have been a cryo-colony ship - as practical cryo was only invented in 305 PD; so even if Meyerdahl had left as soon as Grayson (314 PD) they'd be pushing it to arrive by, say, 499 PD.

Though I guess if their colony ship was as fast as the much later Jayson they could have made it as much as 140 LY if they'd left that early. So, if we only knew where Meyerdahl was we might know whether or not they were plausibly a cryo-colony.

Jonathan_S wrote:I'm not sure if any of the Honorverse colonies used true generation ships (where everyone who arrived was several
generations separated from everyone who started out). Depends on how fast they were and how far they were going - though based on the timeline there were three centuries of colonization before the practical, long-term cryogenic hibernation was perfected. [Note: The wiki claims cryo didn't become "widely available" until 478 PD (173 years later) but I can't find anything in the books backing that up so I'm just using the earlier 305 PD 'perfected' date]

But even those early colony ships appeared capable of noticeable fractions of lightspeed, and the early colonies don't appear to be all that far from Earth. Though I guess Beowulf, at 60 LY, might have taken at least most of an entire generation to reach... (Depends on when modern military-grade particle shielding was invented. If you look at the timeline the only way Jason covered the 512 LY from Sol to Manticore in the know elapsed time of 641 years is if it spent most of the trip at 0.8c -- as fast as a modern warship. Also means she "only" experienced ~385 years; about 60% of the "actual" time)

Hmm, in ABF, we're told that that "Meyerdahl had been settled for over a thousand years . . . and Sphinx hadn't" so that'd put the arrival of that colony ship no later than the very late 5th century PD. That's marginal for it to have been a cryo-colony ship - as practical cryo was only invented in 305 PD; so even if Meyerdahl had left as soon as Grayson (314 PD) they'd be pushing it to arrive by, say, 499 PD.

Though I guess if their colony ship was as fast as the much later Jayson they could have made it as much as 140 LY if they'd left that early. So, if we only knew where Meyerdahl was we might know whether or not they were plausibly a cryo-colony.

According to the short story "Dark Fall" (available from the Baen library in the 2018 book of free stories), Calvin's Hope was a generation ship launched at the time of Beowulf's colonization:

It was late in Calvin’s Hope’s day, and he’d decided to take the watch by himself. It wasn’t as if the nav deck needed manning, and the truly critical parts of the huge ship’s infrastructure had always been managed from Engineering and Environmental. But there’d been someone here—usually only a single someone, admittedly, but someone—every day for the last three and a half centuries.
Well, he amended, hooking a toe through a safety loop, for the last four centuries, as the rest of the universe had told time. The time dilation affect at fifty percent of light-speed was significant, and Vincent Anderson had spent his entire forty-three years—subjective—tearing through the cosmos at that velocity. His parents had spent their entire lives doing precisely the same thing, and so had their parents. In fact, his great-great-grandparents had been only in their thirties when the shuttles delivered them to their new home in space. He was the eighth captain Calvin’s Hope had known since it departed the Sol System, 135 years after the Beowulf Expedition, on its own long, lonely voyage, and they were farther from Earth than any humans had ever traveled.

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I'm not sure if any of the Honorverse colonies used true generation ships (where everyone who arrived was several
generations separated from everyone who started out). Depends on how fast they were and how far they were going - though based on the timeline there were three centuries of colonization before the practical, long-term cryogenic hibernation was perfected. [Note: The wiki claims cryo didn't become "widely available" until 478 PD (173 years later) but I can't find anything in the books backing that up so I'm just using the earlier 305 PD 'perfected' date]

But even those early colony ships appeared capable of noticeable fractions of lightspeed, and the early colonies don't appear to be all that far from Earth. Though I guess Beowulf, at 60 LY, might have taken at least most of an entire generation to reach... (Depends on when modern military-grade particle shielding was invented. If you look at the timeline the only way Jason covered the 512 LY from Sol to Manticore in the know elapsed time of 641 years is if it spent most of the trip at 0.8c -- as fast as a modern warship. Also means she "only" experienced ~385 years; about 60% of the "actual" time)

Hmm, in ABF, we're told that that "Meyerdahl had been settled for over a thousand years . . . and Sphinx hadn't" so that'd put the arrival of that colony ship no later than the very late 5th century PD. That's marginal for it to have been a cryo-colony ship - as practical cryo was only invented in 305 PD; so even if Meyerdahl had left as soon as Grayson (314 PD) they'd be pushing it to arrive by, say, 499 PD.

Though I guess if their colony ship was as fast as the much later Jayson they could have made it as much as 140 LY if they'd left that early. So, if we only knew where Meyerdahl was we might know whether or not they were plausibly a cryo-colony.

According to the short story "Dark Fall" (available from the Baen library in the 2018 book of free stories), Calvin's Hope was a generation ship launched at the time of Beowulf's colonization:

It was late in Calvin’s Hope’s day, and he’d decided to take the watch by himself. It wasn’t as if the nav deck needed manning, and the truly critical parts of the huge ship’s infrastructure had always been managed from Engineering and Environmental. But there’d been someone here—usually only a single someone, admittedly, but someone—every day for the last three and a half centuries.
Well, he amended, hooking a toe through a safety loop, for the last four centuries, as the rest of the universe had told time. The time dilation affect at fifty percent of light-speed was significant, and Vincent Anderson had spent his entire forty-three years—subjective—tearing through the cosmos at that velocity. His parents had spent their entire lives doing precisely the same thing, and so had their parents. In fact, his great-great-grandparents had been only in their thirties when the shuttles delivered them to their new home in space. He was the eighth captain Calvin’s Hope had known since it departed the Sol System, 135 years after the Beowulf Expedition, on its own long, lonely voyage, and they were farther from Earth than any humans had ever traveled.

Thanks. I'd obviously forgotten that

And not only a generation ship, but one with a lower (though still substantial) cruising speed (0.5c) than the later Jayson (0.8c) that left for Manticore (775PD - 150PD) 625 years later

Jonathan_S wrote:Thanks. I'd obviously forgotten that

And not only a generation ship, but one with a lower (though still substantial) cruising speed (0.5c) than the later Jayson (0.8c) that left for Manticore (775PD - 150PD) 625 years later

Actually, if you remember, David re-wrote that short story after a couple of posters pointed out it did not follow the posted tech time, and the story timeline set in Beginnings. The original version was an early cryo ship, and we pointed out such tech wasn't available yet so he updated the story.

The original timeline had the cryo ship leaving a few years after the Beowulf colony left (In the time period where it was stated that Earth paused colonization for about 75 years iirc), and went way out to the back of beyond (350 light years) on just humanity's ~second or third colonization attempt.

Theemile wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Thanks. I'd obviously forgotten that

And not only a generation ship, but one with a lower (though still substantial) cruising speed (0.5c) than the later Jayson (0.8c) that left for Manticore (775PD - 150PD) 625 years later

Actually, if you remember, David re-wrote that short story after a couple of posters pointed out it did not follow the posted tech time, and the story timeline set in Beginnings. The original version was an early cryo ship, and we pointed out such tech wasn't available yet so he updated the story.

The original timeline had the cryo ship leaving a few years after the Beowulf colony left (In the time period where it was stated that Earth paused colonization for about 75 years iirc), and went way out to the back of beyond (350 light years) on just humanity's ~second or third colonization attempt.

Thanks again. I sort of remembered the rewrite but had obviously forgotten the details.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:
Actually, if you remember, David re-wrote that short story after a couple of posters pointed out it did not follow the posted tech time, and the story timeline set in Beginnings. The original version was an early cryo ship, and we pointed out such tech wasn't available yet so he updated the story.

The original timeline had the cryo ship leaving a few years after the Beowulf colony left (In the time period where it was stated that Earth paused colonization for about 75 years iirc), and went way out to the back of beyond (350 light years) on just humanity's ~second or third colonization attempt.

Thanks again. I sort of remembered the rewrite but had obviously forgotten the details.

Here is the original - and the posts complaining about it....

http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8822&p=246162&hilit=calvin%27s+hope#p246162

Jobathan_S wrote:Though I guess if their colony ship was as fast as the much later Jayson they could have made it as much as 140 LY if they'd left that early. So, if we only knew where Meyerdahl was we might know whether or not they were plausibly a cryo-colony.

Jonathan, do you mean where in the Solarian League Meyerdahl is located? Because the drunken wiki says Meyerdahl is a League Colony, if the drunken wiki was sober last I saw it. Which is partly responsible for me assuming the Meyerdahl mod originated in the Sol System.

@tlb. I like your classification of the mods better than my own (textev says there were four different mods.)

I am glad you brought up the part about the side effect of aggression being a bonus for survival in the dog eat dog, puma eat two-leg world. Everytime I come across that I think of how we were given the best examples of that with Stephanie and Honor in the wild going up against peak bears and hexapumas. And if navy battles are a jungle, then the benefit of Honor's aggression is obvious.

Anyway, the four mods…

tlb’s classification: Meyerdahl [A B C]
mine: Meyerdahl [B C D]

tlb thinks the base mod would be separate from the Alpha mod. I assumed the base mod is the Alpha mod. But I felt my classification leaves something to be desired.

What confuses me is the idea of an Alpha mod bereft of the IQ enhancer??? Or am I incorrect that the Beta mod is the first mod to receive the IQ enhancer???

Or, is the Alpha mod more concerned with intelligence natively, at the expense of all else?

That's why I thought the A nomenclature wasn't used. The first of something need not be called the first. Or A. But I think I am wrong.

Yet, I can't accept that an Alpha mod is not modded for intelligence out of the gate, with a higher IQ than the beta mod, where the beta mod added IQ as an afterthought.

I must've digested that incorrectly as well, that the Beta mod was the first to get the IQ enhancement.

Also, IINM, the Meyerdahl mods are not the only mods bred for muscle mass. They're just the most successful?

Is it subtly implied that since the beta mod is more successful, there might be more of the beta mod still alive than the other mods? Being that the Beta mod was more adaptable in the wild.

penny wrote:Yet, I can't accept that an Alpha mod is not modded for intelligence out of the gate, with a higher IQ than the beta mod, where the beta mod added IQ as an afterthought.

I must've digested that incorrectly as well, that the Beta mod was the first to get the IQ enhancement.

Also, IINM, the Meyerdahl mods are not the only mods bred for muscle mass. They're just the most successful?

Is it subtly implied that since the beta mod is more successful, there might be more of the beta mod still alive than the other mods? Being that the Beta mod was more adaptable in the wild.

We do not know that the Beta mod is more adaptable or more successful. If they truly have slightly more aggression, then we might expect there to be less survivors (just as more boys die from doing foolish things, then normally girls do). We do not know how the other modifications changed the Base Meyerdahl form, which by itself contained all the changes needed to live in higher gravity.

Allison made the comment about the Meyerdahl changes being better, but she might be prejudiced. From In Enemy Hands, just down from the previous quote from that book:

She made a graceful gesture with one hand, and he nodded slowly. "I knew about the modifications for Quelhollow, but those are much more readily apparent than what you seem to be talking about," he observed.
"Well, Quelhollow had some other environmental concerns, whereas my ancestors were more of a . . . generic design, I suppose. Basically, my muscle tissue is about twenty-five percent more efficient than a 'pure human's,' and there are a few changes to my respiratory and circulatory systems, plus some skeletal reinforcement. The idea was to fit us for heavy-grav planets generally, not one in particular, and the geneticists made the changes dominant, so that every parent would pass them on to every child."

PS: One of the members of the Pavel Young court martial was from Quelhollow and was described there.

penny wrote:

Jobathan_S wrote:Though I guess if their colony ship was as fast as the much later Jayson they could have made it as much as 140 LY if they'd left that early. So, if we only knew where Meyerdahl was we might know whether or not they were plausibly a cryo-colony.

Jonathan, do you mean where in the Solarian League Meyerdahl is located? Because the drunken wiki says Meyerdahl is a League Colony, if the drunken wiki was sober last I saw it. Which is partly responsible for me assuming the Meyerdahl mod originated in the Sol System.

The drunken wiki may be assuming facts not in evidence.

Given when the colony was founded it likely is within League space and a League world; but I didn't see anything in the books that outright said that.

Anyway, basically I was thinking that since we knew when Meyerdahl was founded that if we knew how much distance their colony ship had had to travel we could work out whether or not it could possibly have left after the perfection of cryo-colonization.

penny wrote:@tlb. I like your classification of the mods better than my own (textev says there were four different mods.)

I am glad you brought up the part about the side effect of aggression being a bonus for survival in the dog eat dog, puma eat two-leg world. Everytime I come across that I think of how we were given the best examples of that with Stephanie and Honor in the wild going up against peak bears and hexapumas. And if navy battles are a jungle, then the benefit of Honor's aggression is obvious.

Anyway, the four mods…

tlb’s classification: Meyerdahl [A B C]
mine: Meyerdahl [B C D]

tlb thinks the base mod would be separate from the Alpha mod. I assumed the base mod is the Alpha mod. But I felt my classification leaves something to be desired.

What confuses me is the idea of an Alpha mod bereft of the IQ enhancer??? Or am I incorrect that the Beta mod is the first mod to receive the IQ enhancer???

Or, is the Alpha mod more concerned with intelligence natively, at the expense of all else?

That's why I thought the A nomenclature wasn't used. The first of something need not be called the first. Or A. But I think I am wrong.

Yet, I can't accept that an Alpha mod is not modded for intelligence out of the gate, with a higher IQ than the beta mod, where the beta mod added IQ as an afterthought.

I must've digested that incorrectly as well, that the Beta mod was the first to get the IQ enhancement.

Also, IINM, the Meyerdahl mods are not the only mods bred for muscle mass. They're just the most successful?

Is it subtly implied that since the beta mod is more successful, there might be more of the beta mod still alive than the other mods? Being that the Beta mod was more adaptable in the wild.

We've no idea what the naming scheme was, just that there are four variants and one is called Beta. For all we know the 4 might be called Meyerdahl Two, Meyerdahl Beta, Meyerdahl ii, and Meyerdahl **

Okay, more seriously they probably did use Greek letter suffixes on all of them. But we don't know whether there one that was considered the base and given no suffix, or if all four had suffixes [A, B, C, or D].

And while from this very late date it might seem odd to have an Alpha mod (assuming there even was one with that suffix) without an IQ modifier, keep in mind that these were presumably named back when they were cooked up -- so something like 600 years before Detweiler was even born (much less when the MAlign assigned the name Alpha line to their most uplifted eugenic group); so Alpha wouldn't have had that specific connotation yet. (Heck, for nearly everybody in the universe it still doesn't; it's mostly just us readers who know what the MAlign calls their self-appointed Übermensch)