Raul Alexander-Harrington

I was re-reading AAC and a thought occurred,

Alison talking to Emily in AAC

You know what Honor's been through in terms of physical injury. Nothing that's happened to her was as severe as what happened to you, but it was more than enough to make her worry about passing her inability to regenerate on to her children. Fortunately for her, her mother happens—if I may be pardoned for blowing my own horn—to be one of the Star Kingdom's leading geneticists. I made identifying the gene group which prevents her from regenerating a personal project, and I found it years ago. The problem child is a dominant, unfortunately, but it's not associated with the locked sequences of the Meyerdahl modifications...snip

Raul has the heavy worlder genes of the Meyerdahl modifications, how is that going to affect him growing up on Manticore which is not a heavy world in comparison to Meyerdahl & Sphinx?

I daresay not much. He'll have the same appetite, metabolism and so on Honor(and her father) has. Probably end up at least ten centimetres taller than her, though.

If it's a concern in any way, the family's rich enough to install grav plating everywhere he might need it.

It is an interesting question George. I've often asked myself that same thing as well. My luggage stems from being a fan of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. In which the Martians had severe difficulties (some life threatening) when returning to Earth for a simple visit. They had to limit their exposure to such a difference in gravity — whose adverse effects ranged from the very same problems experienced with astronauts who "enjoyed" extended stays in space. And since the Mars Trilogy was so well researched — billed as the definitive bible for future colonization efforts, well...

wiki wrote:Humans venturing into the environment of space can have negative effects on the body. Significant adverse effects of long-term weightlessness include muscle atrophy and deterioration of the skeleton (spaceflight osteopenia). Other significant effects include a slowing of cardiovascular system functions, decreased production of red blood cells, balance disorders, eyesight disorders and a weakening of the immune system. Additional symptoms include fluid redistribution (causing the "moon-face" appearance typical in pictures of astronauts experiencing weightlessness), loss of body mass, nasal congestion, sleep disturbance, and excess flatulence.

I never thought that David handled that issue quite well.

shrug

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of ... human_body

cthia wrote:It is an interesting question George. I've often asked myself that same thing as well. My luggage stems from being a fan of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. In which the Martians had severe difficulties (some life threatening) when returning to Earth for a simple visit. They had to limit their exposure to such a difference in gravity — whose adverse effects ranged from the very same problems experienced with astronauts who "enjoyed" extended stays in space. And since the Mars Trilogy was so well researched — billed as the definitive bible for future colonization efforts, well...

wiki wrote:Humans venturing into the environment of space can have negative effects on the body. Significant adverse effects of long-term weightlessness include muscle atrophy and deterioration of the skeleton (spaceflight osteopenia). Other significant effects include a slowing of cardiovascular system functions, decreased production of red blood cells, balance disorders, eyesight disorders and a weakening of the immune system. Additional symptoms include fluid redistribution (causing the "moon-face" appearance typical in pictures of astronauts experiencing weightlessness), loss of body mass, nasal congestion, sleep disturbance, and excess flatulence.

I never thought that David handled that issue quite well.

shrug

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of ... human_body

Actually, David handled it very well... by giving the Honorverse grav technology. These negative effects are only relevant over long-term exposure to weightlessness. The only time we see anyone weightless in the HV is when someone is travelling along the boarding tube from a pinnace/cutter/assault shuttle to the main ship (or vice-versa), and during military boarding of enemy ships by way of spacewalking.

Neither of those situations last long enough for the body to become acclimated to weightlessness - that's a time-frame measured in months. And, as munroburton pointed out, grav plating can be installed in the house and they can up the G's, just as Honor does during her workouts.

Oh Raul will likely spend a solid chunk of time at the Harrington freehold on Sphinx growing up.

pnakasone wrote:Oh Raul will likely spend a solid chunk of time at the Harrington freehold on Sphinx growing up.

He's going to be bouncing around four planets. Bay House and White Haven on Manticore, Craggy Hallow on Sphinx, Harrington Estates on Gryphon and Harrington Steading on Grayson. The gravity IIRC is 1.01 1.35 1.05 and 1.17 respectively

cthia wrote:It is an interesting question George. I've often asked myself that same thing as well. My luggage stems from being a fan of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. In which the Martians had severe difficulties (some life threatening) when returning to Earth for a simple visit. They had to limit their exposure to such a difference in gravity — whose adverse effects ranged from the very same problems experienced with astronauts who "enjoyed" extended stays in space. And since the Mars Trilogy was so well researched — billed as the definitive bible for future colonization efforts, well...

wiki wrote:Humans venturing into the environment of space can have negative effects on the body. Significant adverse effects of long-term weightlessness include muscle atrophy and deterioration of the skeleton (spaceflight osteopenia). Other significant effects include a slowing of cardiovascular system functions, decreased production of red blood cells, balance disorders, eyesight disorders and a weakening of the immune system. Additional symptoms include fluid redistribution (causing the "moon-face" appearance typical in pictures of astronauts experiencing weightlessness), loss of body mass, nasal congestion, sleep disturbance, and excess flatulence.

I never thought that David handled that issue quite well.

shrug

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of ... human_body

MaxxQ wrote:Actually, David handled it very well... by giving the Honorverse grav technology. These negative effects are only relevant over long-term exposure to weightlessness. The only time we see anyone weightless in the HV is when someone is travelling along the boarding tube from a pinnace/cutter/assault shuttle to the main ship (or vice-versa), and during military boarding of enemy ships by way of spacewalking.

Neither of those situations last long enough for the body to become acclimated to weightlessness - that's a time-frame measured in months. And, as munroburton pointed out, grav plating can be installed in the house and they can up the G's, just as Honor does during her workouts.

I disagree. It isn't so simple to handwave away. I only cited the reference to astronauts as an exhibit to the kinds of problems faced. The Mars trilogy really did the subject some justice. Prolonged periods of time are not as long as you may think.

Also, what happens when there are ships shared by crew of different planets?

For that matter, why weren't there many deaths on Hades amongst, for one, the San Martinos and one Mateo's son? There were different races on Hades for quite some time.

Edit:
It isn't just an extended exposure to weightlessness. It is an extended exposure to a significant difference in native gravity. A "significant difference" is common place in the Honorverse. And you shouldn't read too much into "significant difference" or "extended periods" for that matter.

The human body is a magnificent piece of excellence within a very frail level of tolerance.

There are many humans who can't go from, say, a low sea level to, say, Denver. Mile High stadium gets so many college footballers cut it isn't funny. They simply cannot breathe. The human body doesn't have nanites or smart paint to adjust back and forth.

cthia wrote:I disagree. It isn't so simple to handwave away. I only cited the reference to astronauts as an exhibit to the kinds of problems faced. The Mars trilogy really did the subject some justice. Prolonged periods of time are not as long as you may think.

Also, what happens when there are ships shared by crew of different planets?

For that matter, why weren't there many deaths on Hades amongst, for one, the San Martinos and one Mateo's son? There were different races on Hades for quite some time.

Edit:
It isn't just an extended exposure to weightlessness. It is an extended exposure to a significant difference in native gravity. A "significant difference" is common place in the Honorverse. And you shouldn't read too much into "significant difference" or "extended periods" for that matter.

I'd argue that most people in the Honorverse actually don't live on planets with significant differences in Gravity. Mars is 1/3 the gravity of Earth; that's pretty significant, but most planets in the Honorverse seem to be in the 0.8 - 1.2 gravity range. That's not so significant.

If you threw prisoners from a 0.8 gee world on the extremely high gravity (2.7 gees) San Martin and expected them to be able to move around you might expect some significant injuries or even deaths. But going the other way is unlikely to cause issues until you suddenly move back to the heavy grav environment.
True microgravity can cause bone loss issues even in fully grown people that are very slow to recover, but somewhat reduced gravity is not thought to cause those issues to the same extent.

But the nice thing about grav plates is you can adjust them room by room, and you can slowly scale up the gravity to work your way back up to your normal baseline. You'd still be having issues (unless Honorverse medical nanotech can deal with the bone density issues in a way that current tech can't) if you were spending a month or more in zero g, but spending it at 0.8 gees when you're used to 1.1 gees (or even 2 gees) should cause far less degradation than microgravity.


But I admit that's a laymen's understanding. Though I would say that nobody has data on prolonged exposure to somewhat reduced gravity. We've got tons of data about 1g, and a moderate amount about 1 - 12 month stays in 0g. But basically non about 0.3g or 0.8g or 1.2g - so I believe a fair bit of this is speculation on all parts.

Didn't they have grav belts among the scientists in Fire Season, them that were not used to high gravity?
Or gene modded.