Excusez-moi

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.

penny wrote: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 Wiki says that Meyerdahl (or its System Defense force) is mentioned in A Call to Arms, which I have not read.

Stephanie's letter to her friend Maja states that it was an eleven week trip to Sphinx when the family moved (in "Honorverse Tech Bu9" contained in the Baen book of free stories from 2011).

tlb wrote:The Wiki says that Meyerdahl (or its System Defense force) is mentioned in A Call to Arms, which I have not read.

Yeah, there's one passing mention in a scene set on Sphynx

A Call to Arms wrote:“One of my uncle’s friends was part of the Intelligence department of the Meyerdahl System Defense Force before he emigrated to Sphinx,” Townsend said. "[...] and suggested that I be given the job.”

But that's it, nothing about the planet, the SDF, exactly where it is, just that one mention

I think we are given general things about the Meyerdahl modifications, not a lot of targeted specifics. We do find that the Alignment is finding it interesting in trying to ramp up intelligence without having to run into all sorts of problems such as psychotic personalities and anger management troubles. Sure, the Alignment (and Manpower as their bulk experimental and manufacturing company are turning out all sorts of sort of successful genetic tailoring but they keep running into problems which sound like they are presuming that if they do x they will get Y and keep rediscovering that genetics is not a plug-and-play "Heathkit" electronics package where you keep connecting wires and things and get even close to what you intended.
Genetics also deals with all sorts of pieces of genetic code that seems to be "junk" and nobody know why. But even in genes which science believes they have identified the base gene or combinations of genes that controls or direct something there turn out to be other genes- which have no other apparent connection- which can change developments of cell and organs or cause production of "new" enzymes which may or may not act in the same way as what you were originally studying. These are massively complex systems. Sometimes it's easy---you create G change and the embryo just dies....either massively/quickly like it stops forming any one of several systems or slowly and ugly as things start poisoning the embryo and there is no fix or backing off and it just dies. Or- worse- development seems to go along just great but the baby is born with all sort so physical and chemical imbalances that doesn't kill it for years but it is NEVER going to be a functioning human even if it does breath, take nourishment and expels waste. And we DON'T KNOW why. Which is why the Alignment's methods are so horrifying. They keep shining that "just this one last tweek here" and they will have a genius in X field.. .but what they get is a child who degenerates from something promising (artificially in a specific field) to a mental and psychological wreck that who can't function in any society and after perhaps a dozen years spirals down to something that is nearly alive. And this they think is PROGRESS...I know a lot of Real Estate lenders who this in a similar manner about taking hundreds of acres of woods and farms and turning them into strip-malls surrounded by expensive crackerbox housing and only saw the profits and income that could be earned. Progress was money dived not any sort of actual quality of life. Big Sigh

Jonathan_S wrote:It doesn't seem impossible that Meyerdahl wasn't even settled directly from Earth, but might have actually been a 2nd generation colony. (Unlikely given the massive resources it took to make a reaction drive sub-light colony ship; but the text seems silent on the matter)

I disagree it's unlikely. All it takes is that the colony ship that brought to the first destination not get dismantled in setting up the colony. Give it a decade or two of space industry, you can replenish all the resources it needs to go on to the next destination. In fact, if it's a generational ship instead of sleeper ship, they may even have the necessary population already aboard due to growth. And if it is so, then there's a non-zero chance you have factions aboard that don't want to live on the same planet as those who did settle. Or don't want to live on a planet at all.

This is even assuming the colony expedition is a single ship, something I've argued is unwise (single point of failure). If you had two or three, then one of them might decide that it wants to proceed onwards, after exchanging colonists with the ships that aren't going, and replenishing reserves.

Even if you did dismantle it, assuming they weren't stupid to lose all their space-based industry and know-how, they can easily build another one in a century or less. Earth / Sol must have been sending them in droves, so the cost of the ship itself is not that great. In fact, if we took one of the Anthology short stories as true, reaction-thrust ships were being sent several times a year from Sol.

Or even all of the scenarios combined: none of the ships get dismantled so they all will journey onwards, and the colony did build another trio to sail forth.

Plus, you don't actually need to do a good job at it. With sufficiently many colonies doing this sufficiently many times, averages say there will be some success. We have two examples of colony expeditions that weren't exactly successful: Calvin's Hope and Grayson. The former was apparently sufficiently-well funded, but not with support of the government, so if the new colony's government did want to support a new ship, they could. On the latter's case, they were so adverse to technology that it's a miracle they even consented to boarding the ship in the first place (they must have all considered that to be their Test).

tlb wrote: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:

Also available on Baen's website: https://www.baen.com/darkfall

Jonathan_S wrote: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 **

True story: my first semester at the University, we had Mechanics A. On the second, we had its follow up: Mechanics II.

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].

I'd expect the original to be retroactively referred to as "A" or "Alpha" after the second one came along. Or just not at all - we heard some of that when the new COVID-19 strains started showing up, were given Greek letter names, but the original wasn't.

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)

Oh, yeah. Alpha-level software is of lesser quality than beta releases. Beta readers get a late draft of the story, presumably because the alpha readers are only the author, their significant other, and the editor. Alpha radiation can be usually shielded with a sheet of paper, but you need some more for beta and quite a bit more for gamma (because having less mass - or none at all - for the same energy level they are moving much faster).

Jonathan_S wrote: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].

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I'd expect the original to be retroactively referred to as "A" or "Alpha" after the second one came along. Or just not at all - we heard some of that when the new COVID-19 strains started showing up, were given Greek letter names, but the original wasn't.

The militaries seem to leave the base model unadorned and add letter, and possibly number, indicators for the variants. From Reddit on US tank model numbers:

M denotes a standardized model of any given thing.

A denotes a standardized variant of that thing. In the case of the Sherman, this largely had to do with hull form and the engine. However on other tanks it can mean different things. For example, on the M1A1 Abrams, a major part of the upgrade package was a new gun.

E denotes a variant of that thing which is under evaluation; ie not generally being ready for widespread adoption. So, for example, the E8 program for the Sherman was to evaluate the use of the HVSS system on the tank. Once adopted, tanks using the HVSS system would simply receive an HVSS suffix. This is why, for example, the term "M4A3E8" would not be used to refer to such a tank once these features were adopted and made available to tanks in combat. Instead it would be an "M4A3(76)W HVSS". An outlier would be something like the M4A3E2. Because the Army needed an assault tank, the E2 program was made an expedient measure, and thus the tanks were simply sent off to Europe before the program could receive a proper designation.

To further complicate matters, the US is very fond of using both abbreviations and adopting an "A,B,C..." style naming scheme to differentiate between models of tank. For example, the upgrade linage of the M1 Abrams in US service goes:

M1

M1IP (abbreviation of Improved Protection)

M1A1 (so back to the standard we talked about)

M1A1HA (both the standard and an abbreviated Heavy Armor)

M1A1HC (standard and abbreviated Heavy Common)

M1A1D (standard and abbreviated Digital)

M1A1 AIM v.1 (standard with abbreviated Abrams Integrated Management along with a seemingly arbitrary Version.1 tacked on, since I guess we're using that nomenclature now)

M1A1 AIM v.2 (Standard and abbreviated, although I guess we're sticking with the Version usage)

M1A2 (back to standard)

M1A2 SEP (standard and abbreviated System Enhancement Package)

M1A2 SEPv2 (standard and abbreviated System Enhancement Package version 2, so we're still using version, but now the notation has changed again...)

M1A2 SEPv3 (standard and abbreviated. Makes sense, right? Except no, fuck you, we're also gonna call it M1A2C for a little while for no reason)

M1A2 SEPv4 (standard and abbreviated. Remember that M1A2C silliness? Well now this is M1A2D. Also try not to get it mixed up with M1A1D... ya know what, just forget it)

M1A3 (Alright, here we go again...)

tlb wrote:The militaries seem to leave the base model unadorned and add letter, and possibly number, indicators for the variants. From Reddit on US tank model numbers:

This wasn't military.

But it was scientific, so I expect the scientists had a long, numerical designation for the modification, like again the COVID-19 strains did. The "popular" name would have been given by neither military nor scientists, or at least by a science communicator trying to simplify things for the main population.

tlb wrote:The militaries seem to leave the base model unadorned and add letter, and possibly number, indicators for the variants. From Reddit on US tank model numbers:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:This wasn't military.

But it was scientific, so I expect the scientists had a long, numerical designation for the modification, like again the COVID-19 strains did. The "popular" name would have been given by neither military nor scientists, or at least by a science communicator trying to simplify things for the main population.

I expect you are correct; but this was before the Final War, so they might have had military ties. But I was thinking more in terms of a bureaucracy and possible naming standards, like the militaries today.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:I'd expect the original to be retroactively referred to as "A" or "Alpha" after the second one came along. Or just not at all - we heard some of that when the new COVID-19 strains started showing up, were given Greek letter names, but the original wasn't.

Same thing I was thinking, hence, my naming convention.

But then...



alpha male
noun
1. The dominant male in a group of animals.
2. A large and muscular dominating, controlling, protecting, successful, and leading man.

I also wonder if the MA's Alpha is built upon the base model, which is bereft of the beta afterthought enhancement. If the MA perfected what the beta started, I'd wager they needed to start with a fresh slate.

Also, I don't think we can bank on the MA's mods to concentrate on a specific ingredient... Intelligence, muscle mass, etc. But then, the MA seems to specifically advertise their IQ advancement, superiority.

P.S. It could be as simple as the author not wanting to confuse us. Well, if so, he failed. LOL