How long does a Prolong recipient live?

saber964 wrote:They probably tested the effects of pro-long on lab animals like rats which have a fairly short life span which IIRC is 3-4 years.

Given the frequency at which drugs fail phase 2 or 3 testing (which is done following very extensive animal testing) that is not exactly proof of anything other that it works in rats. There are a LOT of medical conditions we can cure in rats that we can't even effectively treat in humans.

George J. Smith wrote:ISTR textev that Honor wondered how the 'cats would react to the fact that 2 legs would live longer than 'cats.

IIRC It was in "Beginnings" Story was "Best Laid Plans". Honor was walking in the wilds and notices a pair of treecats which starts her musing about it.

What are the odds that the MAlign has perfected and increased the effectiveness of prolong, especially since Manpower was in the habit of applying it to kids to whet the appetite of sexual deviants?

Of course, human trials are usually after computational, lab, and animal testing to verify how drug treatment works along it's course. Unfortunately, I doubt anyone wanted to wait the full trial period for the human phase.

cthia wrote:What are the odds that the MAlign has perfected and increased the effectiveness of prolong, especially since Manpower was in the habit of applying it to kids to whet the appetite of sexual deviants?

100%. It's in the infodumps somewhere (the ones on this site, not the ones on Jiltanith).

Mesan Alphas have a significantly longer lifetime than normals without prolong; prolong extends that significantly. There's also a note in SoV that Damien H. received a booster shot that would increase his lifespan by a century. However, I doubt that he had 3rd generation prolong - given his backstory that he joined the Solarian G. to escape his cesspit of a home planet, the fact that he has prolong at all is interesting.

I'd like to see textev on the idea that Manpower is using prolong to create sex slaves for people with [redacted] tastes. Not that I would put it past them, but my limited knowledge of the situation suggests that it wouldn't create the product that such people want.

robert132 wrote:

kzt wrote:Until they die.

The Honorverse is performing a massive uncontrolled experiment on all of humanity.

I would expect that even WITHOUT Prolong, state of the art medical science in the Honorverse era would extend the useful human life from today's expectancy of 70 to 80 years to a possible 120 years or more, give or take depending upon the abuse you might heap on your body from "recreational" drugs or other such idiocy.

In fact, we have some examples of people, RMN Admirals, who never received prolong. Hamish's father was over 110 T-years old during _On Basilisk Station_. He had died sometime in the interval between that and _The Honor of the Queen_. Vice Admiral Jonas Adcock was 114 at the time of _In Enemy Hands_ (I think he died 2 years later).

Louis R wrote:From which, BTW, Dennis, you should be able to determine that some of what's been said is incorrect, and more simplified.

Such as?

I estimated a potential Prolong lifespan between 300 and 400 years. The fact that it was not "one and done" was established elsewhere. I implicitly assumed around 300 years as normal, with longer in special cases depending upon recipient.

One point about Prolong was established in the effect on Treecat adoptions of humans. Treecats have a lifespan of about 250 Earth years, that the tragedy for treecats, pre-prolong, was the the human they bonded with was likely to die long before they did. With Prolong, that was no longer the case, giving a Prolong recipient a lifespan at least as long as a treecat's.

The stuff in the Infodump clarified but did not fundamentally change my assumptions. For instance, while later generation Prolong was administered earlier, and froze cosmetic age at an earlier state, there was no indication total lifespan was longer with later generation Prolong. And someone older than 19 could still get the first generation treatments up till age 25, which could be significant for folks in places like the Talbott Quadrant who could now potentially get Prolong through Manticore.

Establishing the necessary infrastructure to produce Prolong locally would be a longer term development, and that the infrastructure should be extremely expensive is no surprise. Advanced pharmaceuticals and the infrastructure needed to produce them are extraordinarily expensive now, and the reasons are the same.

And in any case, my speculation was prompted by Damien Hardahap getting a Prolong booster from the Alignment he was told would add a century to his life. I don't see Isobel Bardasanno having a reason to lie about that, and it indicates the Alignment research efforts extended to more than things like the Streak and Spider drives, and they may well have Prolong more effective than Beowulf's.
______
Dennis

JohnRoth wrote:I'd like to see textev on the idea that Manpower is using prolong to create sex slaves for people with [redacted] tastes. Not that I would put it past them, but my limited knowledge of the situation suggests that it wouldn't create the product that such people want.

I remember suggesting it here, not sure it ever made it into a book. But given the way that manpower is set up and what they are noted to have done, modifying prolong to exaggerate the aging pause at early tanner stage 3 or so seems like a perfectly logical move for them if it's fairly easy to do and has customer demand. There are a huge number of brain changes that start occurring at age 10-11 or so that they would want to slow in concert, so intellectually they stay kids. Not nice people.

kzt wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:I'd like to see textev on the idea that Manpower is using prolong to create sex slaves for people with [redacted] tastes. Not that I would put it past them, but my limited knowledge of the situation suggests that it wouldn't create the product that such people want.

I remember suggesting it here, not sure it ever made it into a book. But given the way that manpower is set up and what they are noted to have done, modifying prolong to exaggerate the aging pause at early tanner stage 3 or so seems like a perfectly logical move for them if it's fairly easy to do and has customer demand. There are a huge number of brain changes that start occurring at age 10-11 or so that they would want to slow in concert, so intellectually they stay kids. Not nice people.

It leaves the taste of child abuse in my mouth. Piled atop an already heaping helping of child abuse.

JohnRoth wrote:

cthia wrote:What are the odds that the MAlign has perfected and increased the effectiveness of prolong, especially since Manpower was in the habit of applying it to kids to whet the appetite of sexual deviants?

100%. It's in the infodumps somewhere (the ones on this site, not the ones on Jiltanith).

Mesan Alphas have a significantly longer lifetime than normals without prolong; prolong extends that significantly. There's also a note in SoV that Damien H. received a booster shot that would increase his lifespan by a century. However, I doubt that he had 3rd generation prolong - given his backstory that he joined the Solarian G. to escape his cesspit of a home planet, the fact that he has prolong at all is interesting.

I'd like to see textev on the idea that Manpower is using prolong to create sex slaves for people with [redacted] tastes. Not that I would put it past them, but my limited knowledge of the situation suggests that it wouldn't create the product that such people want.

I'm gobsmacked that I'm actually right about that. Thanks. The MA may also have smoothed the awkward stage a bit.