Suspension of Disbelief.

Loren Pechtel wrote: Population growth: It's not just a matter of contraception. In poor societies children aren't all that expensive (it doesn't take all that long before they're an aid to production) and they're the only insurance you have for old age (although it's not very good insurance.) In an industrialized society children become far more expensive (they need far more education and generally whatever they produce is for their own benefit, not the benefit of the family) the birth rate of course drops.

Loren, I do not mean to sound disrespectful, but you couldn't be more wrong. Having loads of children is hugely expensive for people in impoverished societies.

Firstly, the wear and tear on the mother's body because of near-constant pregnancy has such a detrimental effect on her long-term health that her life expectancy can typically be anything from twenty to thirty years lower than that of a mother in a developed society.

Secondly, having a lot of mouths to feed, from the limited yield of what is typically only a small plot of land, means that a farmer has that much less produce to sell on the market. This has all kinds of life-impacting consequences:

a. The farmer cannot improve his land with expensive modern fertilizer, or afford to purchase modern farming equipment, or transport whatever surplus he might be able to produce to more remote markets where he might get better returns.

b. As such, he is forced to rely on human labour in order to work his land, and since he doesn't have money to hire workers, he is dependent on the labour of his wife and children, which means that as the elder children get married and move away, he typically has to constantly replenish his supply of laborers. Having many children has nothing to do with productivity, but because otherwise he might not be able to work his land AT ALL.

c. No or little profit means that a farmer cannot afford decent healthcare, which in poor societies almost always is hugely expensive, unless the government is willing to go into high debt to provide such care. Typically, most rural people will live many days' travel from the closest clinic, and travel will almost always be terribly expensive, difficult and even dangerous because of the poor quality of the road network in rural areas.

d. Very few farmers will be able to afford to let their children attend school, especially high school, even when there is a high school within walking distance. There are rural districts in South Africa, which is one of the thirty largest economies in the world, where it can take a child up to three or more hours just to walk to school - one way. The consequences of little or no education does not require elaboration. Suffice to say that it means that young adults are tethered to the land.

It's a vicious cycle, and as rural populations grow and arable land becomes scarcer, the population pressure in turn leads to all kinds of turmoil that in turn make it more difficult for a society to escape poverty. The genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and the wars in the former Zaire (now the DR Congo) are just two examples of that.

No, Loren, there is nothing inexpensive about having lots of children in a poor society.

hanuman wrote:
Loren, I do not mean to sound disrespectful, but you couldn't be more wrong. Having loads of children is hugely expensive for people in impoverished societies.

Firstly, the wear and tear on the mother's body because of near-constant pregnancy has such a detrimental effect on her long-term health that her life expectancy can typically be anything from twenty to thirty years lower than that of a mother in a developed society.

Secondly, having a lot of mouths to feed, from the limited yield of what is typically only a small plot of land, means that a farmer has that much less produce to sell on the market. This has all kinds of life-impacting consequences:

a. The farmer cannot improve his land with expensive modern fertilizer, or afford to purchase modern farming equipment, or transport whatever surplus he might be able to produce to more remote markets where he might get better returns.

b. As such, he is forced to rely on human labour in order to work his land, and since he doesn't have money to hire workers, he is dependent on the labour of his wife and children, which means that as the elder children get married and move away, he typically has to constantly replenish his supply of laborers. Having many children has nothing to do with productivity, but because otherwise he might not be able to work his land AT ALL.

c. No or little profit means that a farmer cannot afford decent healthcare, which in poor societies almost always is hugely expensive, unless the government is willing to go into high debt to provide such care. Typically, most rural people will live many days' travel from the closest clinic, and travel will almost always be terribly expensive, difficult and even dangerous because of the poor quality of the road network in rural areas.

d. Very few farmers will be able to afford to let their children attend school, especially high school, even when there is a high school within walking distance. There are rural districts in South Africa, which is one of the thirty largest economies in the world, where it can take a child up to three or more hours just to walk to school - one way. The consequences of little or no education does not require elaboration. Suffice to say that it means that young adults are tethered to the land.

It's a vicious cycle, and as rural populations grow and arable land becomes scarcer, the population pressure in turn leads to all kinds of turmoil that in turn make it more difficult for a society to escape poverty. The genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and the wars in the former Zaire (now the DR Congo) are just two examples of that.

No, Loren, there is nothing inexpensive about having lots of children in a poor society.

While I generally agree with you I would like to throw in a middle ground case. If you look at medieval Europe or ancient china those societies were relatively wealthy muscle powered societies. The ground was fertile enough to have enough non-farming specialists to organize into states. It's not an apples to apples comparison between those two examples above and modern extreme poverty. In medieval Europe and ancient China it was very advantageous to have many children

hanuman wrote:Firstly, the wear and tear on the mother's body because of near-constant pregnancy has such a detrimental effect on her long-term health that her life expectancy can typically be anything from twenty to thirty years lower than that of a mother in a developed society.

Yep, Honorverse colonists are almost certain to wear out the artificial wombs they brought along.

Honorverse (colonist) women can have as many children as they wish without any health penalty through "tubing" babies. They can even have multiple, simultaneous, children without health penalties. That would be especially useful for a brand new colony since fewer colonists would need to travel and more supplies and artificial wombs can be shipped instead.

Like a lot here the things that make it difficult to suspend disbelief are the advances that have not happened and errors in the biological sciences.
I would have expected major extensions in longevity long before the introduction of Prolong.
The regeneration technology is believable but the idea that some people can't regenerate is not. To get a mammal to regenerate you have to manipulate some very fundamental development mechanisms, so fundamental that I would expect everyone to have them. It was a piece of hand waving so that he could have regeneration but Honor wold be stuck with Nelson's injuries.
In genetics he does similar bits of hand waving. He talks about psychological traits being linked when there is no reason to expect them to be. For example he talks of increases in intelligence being linked to aggressiveness. Not likely.And like others here I would have expected more automation and more advanced AI. I can accept the absence of conscious machines.
He also talks about groups of gene modifications being locked to they get inherited together. But how would this be possible? The genetic system has developed to prevent this. If the genes are on different chromosome this is quite impossible. If they are on the same chromosome it might be possible to inhibit recombination but from an evolutionary viewpoint this is not a good idea. This is all stuff that was well known before he wrote the books.
Some of the social developments are things that I believe would not work out that way but I can accept them for the sake of the story. With some grumbles.
One of these is the development of a patriarchal society on Grayson when men are so outnumbered. And even more so on Masada where the men are so disrespectful and violent towards women.
And I found the Legislaturalist regime on Haven a bit hard to believe but recognize that MWW has not yet gone into the details of its formation.
Also the public on Haven calling for the continuation of the war with Manticore when Committee was not actually interested and the war was started by the previous regime is hard to believe.

Weird Harold wrote:

hanuman wrote:Firstly, the wear and tear on the mother's body because of near-constant pregnancy has such a detrimental effect on her long-term health that her life expectancy can typically be anything from twenty to thirty years lower than that of a mother in a developed society.

Yep, Honorverse colonists are almost certain to wear out the artificial wombs they brought along.

Honorverse (colonist) women can have as many children as they wish without any health penalty through "tubing" babies. They can even have multiple, simultaneous, children without health penalties. That would be especially useful for a brand new colony since fewer colonists would need to travel and more supplies and artificial wombs can be shipped instead.

This could be interesting for families that have a genetic predisposition for multiple births due to twinning or any other division.

JustCurious wrote:One of these is the development of a patriarchal society on Grayson when men are so outnumbered. And even more so on Masada where the men are so disrespectful and violent towards women.

Pretty much all pre-modern societies were run by men. Even the examples people cherry pick are usually not true if yo look below the surface. That's just how human societies across the planet have organized themselves, so it's pretty likely to reflect something deeper than culture.

The degree of respect women were offered varies greatly, from societies where they didn't have an individual name or were pretty much sold to those where they were fully part of the decision making, but in the vast majority of human societies men ran them.

Now the whole idea of Grayson fetishistizing the idea of the two handed single edge cutting sword as their main hand weapon seems pretty absurd. This is a very limited weapon that only works if your opponent plays along in their weapon choice, choice of armor and style of combat. There is a reason why nobody else stuck with that style sword.

And gunpowder isn't really hard to make. It's the concept that is hard, not the turning the concept into reality. So you are not going to regress past basic firearms.

I like stories in which the characters are emotionally believable, act in a believable way and the universe is internally consistent. And David is extremely good on these counts.

Everything else is really a non-issue for me.

Whether the characters ride horses - or dragons or starships does not matter to me. So suspension of disbelief is not a problem for me in the Honorverse. (Except I find dragons and starships way cooler than horses but that's not the point here.)

Since the issue isn't one for me really I find it difficult to name any one point which I have the most problems with where suspension of disbelief is concerned. I mean: I accept hyperspace travel and 100s of Gs of acceleration! So come one! Anything else really is a minor thing next to that

I guess the one thing I find hardest to believe within the rules of the Honorverse is that no one has had an Eridani Edikt violation in such a long time. I know David's rationale on why it didn't happen - and have a hard time buying it. But really: The story would be boring as hell - not to mention morally so not fun - if everyone went around blowing up planets in job lots. So I put this issue in the suspension of disbelief box next to the hyperspace travel and am fine with it.

[quote="JustCurious"]Like a lot here the things that make it difficult to suspend disbelief are the advances that have not happened and errors in the biological sciences.
I would have expected major extensions in longevity long before the introduction of Prolong.
The regeneration technology is believable but the idea that some people can't regenerate is not. To get a mammal to regenerate you have to manipulate some very fundamental development mechanisms, so fundamental that I would expect everyone to have them. It was a piece of hand waving so that he could have regeneration but Honor wold be stuck with Nelson's injuries.
In genetics he does similar bits of hand waving. He talks about psychological traits being linked when there is no reason to expect them to be. For example he talks of increases in intelligence being linked to aggressiveness. Not likely.And like others here I would have expected more automation and more advanced AI. I can accept the absence of conscious machines.
He also talks about groups of gene modifications being locked to they get inherited together. But how would this be possible? The genetic system has developed to prevent this. If the genes are on different chromosome this is quite impossible. If they are on the same chromosome it might be possible to inhibit recombination but from an evolutionary viewpoint this is not a good idea. This is all stuff that was well known before he wrote the books./quote]

See, I do not see any issues with this. I would think the opposite - that humanity could perfect the human genome/intelligence is more far fetched than it can do a ton of incredible things... But there are still trade-offs.

Take Honor not being able to regen. That is a known issue with the Meyerdahl first wave DNA. Something created centuries before Honor was even born to be a dominant strain. And, changing the extremely small aspect of the genetic code to allow regen (which is a minor, freak occurrence anyway) could lead to other troubles as well. Or it just wasn't solved when Honor was born and geneticists have since found the 'fix.'

Same with intelligence levels. I can easily believe that within our brains certain synapses and neurons impact each other in specific ways. Thus, by artificially increasing one you could be decreasing/increasing another via a hard-coded biological link that humanity has yet to solve. Because, isn't that what Mesa is all about? They continue to true and maximize 'good' qualities without triggering adverse side effects.

Both of those, to me, just fall under the law of unintended consequences, which I am entirely willing to believe still exists 2,000 years from now.

kzt wrote:Pretty much all pre-modern societies were run by men. Even the examples people cherry pick are usually not true if yo look below the surface. That's just how human societies across the planet have organized themselves, so it's pretty likely to reflect something deeper than culture.

But we've never had a society with such a lopsided sex ratio. Especially on Grayson where they had such a harsh environment and life was marginal under employing women is something that I can't see them being able to afford to do.
On Masada the society wide hostility towards women on the part of the men would leave the men with little in the way of emotional connection. And with women outnumbering them it is hard to see them getting away with it. The murder rate on Masada would be very high. Both killings of women by men and the other way round.

Erls wrote:
Take Honor not being able to regen. That is a known issue with the Meyerdahl first wave DNA. Something created centuries before Honor was even born to be a dominant strain. And, changing the extremely small aspect of the genetic code to allow regen (which is a minor, freak occurrence anyway) could lead to other troubles as well. Or it just wasn't solved when Honor was born and geneticists have since found the 'fix.'

You miss my point. To bring about regeneration in a mammal is a huge task. You have to manipulate fundamental developmental mechanisms, the ones that everyone has else they would not have been born at all. You are creating from from scratch processes that have been lost, not simply tweaking existing processes. So a mutation affecting existing processes is not likely to affect regeneration, if you can regenerate at all they you can work around minor problems.

Same with intelligence levels. I can easily believe that within our brains certain synapses and neurons impact each other in specific ways. Thus, by artificially increasing one you could be decreasing/increasing another via a hard-coded biological link that humanity has yet to solve. Because, isn't that what Mesa is all about? They continue to true and maximize 'good' qualities without triggering adverse side effects.

The parts of the brain involved in analysis and other intellectual activities are not the same as the ones involved in anger. Linking them feels very contrived and unlikely.