Height in the Honorverse

Greetings all! Long time lurker coming out of the shadows at last.

For my first post I wanted to talk about something I haven't seen touched on but which always struck me as odd: that is Weber's descriptions of height in the Honorverse.

First off, Honor's height; she's (roughly) 6'2" which is remarkable because she grew up on a world that has (roughly) a third more gravity than earth. Doesn't that mean that she would have grown to be over 8 feet tall on a planet with standard Earth gravity? If anything, heavy-worlders should be shorter than average, right?

Also, Weber's characters seem to use today's standards of height when describing whether someone is "tall", "short" or "average". The average height of humans has been slowly increasing over time. In fact average height has increased 4 inches in the last 150 years alone (although that is historically unusual). It seems to me that 6'2" would not be nearly as remarkable as Weber keeps saying it is (over and over and over...) 2000+ years from now.

What do you guys think?

(P.S. On a completely unrelated note, why does Weber use "Um" which denotes confusion when he really means "Hmm" which denotes careful thought?)

DarkEnigma wrote:Greetings all! Long time lurker coming out of the shadows at last.

For my first post I wanted to talk about something I haven't seen touched on but which always struck me as odd: that is Weber's descriptions of height in the Honorverse.

First off, Honor's height; she's (roughly) 6'2" which is remarkable because she grew up on a world that has (roughly) a third more gravity than earth. Doesn't that mean that she would have grown to be over 8 feet tall on a planet with standard Earth gravity? If anything, heavy-worlders should be shorter than average, right?

Also, Weber's characters seem to use today's standards of height when describing whether someone is "tall", "short" or "average". The average height of humans has been slowly increasing over time. In fact average height has increased 4 inches in the last 150 years alone (although that is historically unusual). It seems to me that 6'2" would not be nearly as remarkable as Weber keeps saying it is (over and over and over...) 2000+ years from now.

What do you guys think?

(P.S. On a completely unrelated note, why does Weber use "Um" which denotes confusion when he really means "Hmm" which denotes careful thought?)

I have to admit that the same thing crossed my mind. I didn't bring it up because well...vehement arguments.

Perhaps you were reminded of it from the same literary source as I. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. The Martians, humans born on Mars, grew tall, spindly and frail because of the much lower gravity. Because I'm not the type who questions sci-fi to that point, I always created my own solution...genetic manipulation.


As fas as 'Um' and 'Hmm' we discussed 'Um.'
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5495

Edit: Very nice question and concern. Thanks for sharing!

Part of it has to do with the fact that the Harrington bloodline were genetically engineered to specifically live on heavy worlds like Sphinx. So she has stronger muscles which would explain how she can grow so tall on a "heavy world."

Dieu_Le_Fera wrote:Part of it has to do with the fact that the Harrington bloodline were genetically engineered to specifically live on heavy worlds like Sphinx. So she has stronger muscles which would explain how she can grow so tall on a "heavy world."

Anybody know what the gravity on Myerdahl is? Perhaps to Honor's genetics Sphinx is a low-grav world?

It is possible that Myerdahl is heavier than Sphinx. I believe reading that San Martin is the heaviest of the worlds colonized? I could be wrong though!

DarkEnigma wrote:
First off, Honor's height; she's (roughly) 6'2" which is remarkable because she grew up on a world that has (roughly) a third more gravity than earth. Doesn't that mean that she would have grown to be over 8 feet tall on a planet with standard Earth gravity? If anything, heavy-worlders should be shorter than average, right?

I believe Weber briefly touches on the subject when he's describing the Meyerdahl mods. They are specifically designed so that the people don't have that squat, lumpy body that is generally associated with heavyworlders. The Meyerdahl mods were intended to create an all-purpose heavyworld type that wouldn't be externally different from unaltered humans (perhaps to avoid discrimination?).

Dieu_Le_Fera, you are correct San Martin is the heaviest gravity world humans have settled in the Honorvers. I believe it's 2.7 g or something around there. Yikes!

I got the impression that Meyerdahl had higher gravity than Sphinx but I'm not certain where I read/heard it. I don't think we're given an exact measurement of Meyerdahl's gravity.

Dieu_Le_Fera, you are correct San Martin is the heaviest gravity world humans have settled in the Honorvers. I believe it's 2.7 g or something around there. Yikes!

Yeah, I remembered it was something crazy like that. All the settlements on San Martin are high in the mountains to help try to counter the gravity if I recall right.

Dieu_Le_Fera wrote:

Dieu_Le_Fera, you are correct San Martin is the heaviest gravity world humans have settled in the Honorvers. I believe it's 2.7 g or something around there. Yikes!

Yeah, I remembered it was something crazy like that. All the settlements on San Martin are high in the mountains to help try to counter the gravity if I recall right.

IIRC it's actually to help with the air; something about the sea level pressure being high enough that the oxygen in the air becomes toxic.

DarkEnigma wrote:Greetings all! Long time lurker coming out of the shadows at last.

For my first post I wanted to talk about something I haven't seen touched on but which always struck me as odd: that is Weber's descriptions of height in the Honorverse.

First off, Honor's height; she's (roughly) 6'2" which is remarkable because she grew up on a world that has (roughly) a third more gravity than earth. Doesn't that mean that she would have grown to be over 8 feet tall on a planet with standard Earth gravity? If anything, heavy-worlders should be shorter than average, right?

Also, Weber's characters seem to use today's standards of height when describing whether someone is "tall", "short" or "average". The average height of humans has been slowly increasing over time. In fact average height has increased 4 inches in the last 150 years alone (although that is historically unusual). It seems to me that 6'2" would not be nearly as remarkable as Weber keeps saying it is (over and over and over...) 2000+ years from now.

What do you guys think?

(P.S. On a completely unrelated note, why does Weber use "Um" which denotes confusion when he really means "Hmm" which denotes careful thought?)

First, it's highly unlikely that the increase in human height will continue indefinitely. Most of the reason for the average height increase over the last hundred and fifty years has been improvements in diet and health care, not anything genetically inherent in the species. I personally don't expect us to turn into enormously tall people by present-day standards.

Second, I think the extent to which environment is going to cause someone to be taller or shorter because of gravitic differences is speculative, at best. At this time, we simply don't know what will happen, but we are assuming certain outcomes which may or may not prove to be justified. I'm of the opinion that assuming no changes in muscular or skeletal structure, heavy gravity environments are likely to select for smaller people, and given the amount of muscle those smaller people are going to require, most of the sacrifice in size will probably be in height. We don't know that, however. And in Honor's case, those factors have been taken out of the equation courtesy of the genetic engineering in her ancestry.

And, third, I disagree with the differentiation you are making between "um" and "hmm," which is why I don't feel bound to follow it.

runsforcelery wrote:And, third, I disagree with the differentiation you are making between "um" and "hmm," which is why I don't feel bound to follow it.

Here's the differentiation I make:

"um"="You may not be aware of _____, which could render your reasoning faulty. You should rethink that."

"hmm"="I was not aware of _____, which could render my reasoning faulty. I should rethink that."

As in "Um, that's not what 'dominant' means."