Cyborgs and Exoskeletons

quite possibly a cat wrote:I don't think there is any indication anything except for the wedges and spider drive is "reactionless" though. Even those are actually pushing on the hyperwall. True reactionless engines break the concept of energy.

Isn't the mass driver reactionless? The weight of the missiles in a pod exceed the pod's weight; but they are accelerated up to speed before they can get wedges up, not the pod. I thought the pulser used a variant of that.

The problems the Alignment had, that we are shown, is more with the brains of their lab products than the bodies. Isobel's line had instability problems and perhaps a tendency to go off the rails though she was acting enough withing the perimeters to be successful herself (and not get culled} and that they were no longer talking about culling the entire line.
"Culling"- just another way of saying murdeing a sentient being when applied to humans.

Implants arn't prohibited, just not routinely done except as part of repairs to people who have been damaged due to injuries etc. Honror's were at first not unusual, at least the first round which were "normal" repairs for the damage done in the fight with the Maccabees on Grayson.
Nerve damage to the eye and part of the face by it, the arm damage. She could go back to here career in the Navy and everyting clearly logged in her records. High quality work but not pushing the boundries.

Then Cordiela Ransom had all of the implants burned out, as brutaly and sadisticly as possible to both "deactivate them" in accordence with SS rules for prisoners and to hurt and incapasite Honor. That included all the work to repair the nerve damage to her face as well with replacement neural implants. When her father- as a physician in that field and with his ongoing association as a Sr. Surgeon with the Navy- oversaw (not sure if he did any of the actual work) the second round of surgeries to remove the destroyed components and replace them, it was then that the truly cutting edge stuff was added. Fully bionic eye tied into her optic nerve system with all that amazing focal/imaging capablity AND the tactical stuff (think Terminator eye) and then building in that pulser (with appropriate safeties) into her hand/finger and tying it into the eye's tactical capacity. And the arm is now much tougher. All of that clearly logged into her medical and military records and she would have had to have been cleared for that, particularly as she was going to be someone dealing with the Queen on a face-to-face basis.

The Alignment has, mostly, stayed with biological enhancements (multi-generational or single application for the life of the individual) and changes at a genetic level that should carry forward in breeding/cloneing of the products of it's labs. Besides, you start doing brain transplants and/or adding dozens of separate cybernetic replacements/additions to individuals in the Alignment and you are off in the universe of the BORG and it's the "human'/machine interface result that is important and you can't just pop them out of the replicators in a Mesa/Manpower style lab.

The recoil problem is covered by the same Honorverse physics that allows a SD to accellerate at 500 g for hours on end, without emitting detectable heat. Our best orbital rockets give about 5 g for about 20 minutes before they run out of fuel.
Doesn't worry me, consider the same period back in time that the Honorverse is forward in time. They didn't even have a thought about electricity, TVs, firearms, germ theory, or many things we now take for granted. One big breakthrough in the Unified Field Theory and we could be there.

quite possibly a cat wrote:Maybe somewhere there is a cult/world of transhumans who have combined the best genetic mods of Mfecane worlds, Scrags, Mesa and everyone else who screwed with genetics, along with the best cybernetics the galaxy has made.

When Honor is struggling with rehab and learning her cybernetic eye, she thinks about how some worlds embrace cybernetics the same way most worlds embrace bio-sculpt.

Somewhere there is at least one planet full of cyborgs. I don't think there is anywhere other than Mesa/Darius that dabbles extensively in genetic modification in the same way. I could easily be wrong about that, as just about every variation possible is out there somewhere.

tlb wrote:

quite possibly a cat wrote:I don't think there is any indication anything except for the wedges and spider drive is "reactionless" though. Even those are actually pushing on the hyperwall. True reactionless engines break the concept of energy.

Isn't the mass driver reactionless? The weight of the missiles in a pod exceed the pod's weight; but they are accelerated up to speed before they can get wedges up, not the pod. I thought the pulser used a variant of that.

I'm not sure what the firing pattern from the pods is. They always fire multiple missiles though so you can always just balance the recoil on the pod.

Weird Harold wrote:Somewhere there is at least one planet full of cyborgs. I don't think there is anywhere other than Mesa/Darius that dabbles extensively in genetic modification in the same way. I could easily be wrong about that, as just about every variation possible is out there somewhere.

See I knew there was something like that!

I know there are places that take advantage of Mesa's research outside of Mesa. There have to be some people who do that, but don't have brand loyalty.

I'd have to find the exact reference, but when Honor is getting the new arm she has an internal thought process about cybernetics. It's been mentioned once or twice in this thread but most everyone seemed to ignore it, there is a star system where cybernetics is not just common, but the norm, with whole sections of the body replaced, up to and including the entire body. Cybernetics are common for people who do not respond to regeneration in many places in the Honor-verse, and the common method is to make them look as human as possible.

I think the very first few posts covered the question of Emily and cybernetics. One, it keeps Honor-Hamish-Emily relationship simpler. Two, Emily wouldn't get on board if she couldn't effectively feel, look and act the same. Especially not at this late stage after the accident. I'm positive the tech exists in the Honor-verse to give her a cybermech body but plot device says Emily won't have, get or use it. Three, it's not really central to the story and would introduce more complications across the board. Cyber-soldiers, etc.

quite possibly a cat wrote:I know there are places that take advantage of Mesa's research outside of Mesa. There have to be some people who do that, but don't have brand loyalty.

As I recall, there is no hint of Mesan or MAlign involvement in the planets mentioned.

Weird Harold wrote:

quite possibly a cat wrote:I know there are places that take advantage of Mesa's research outside of Mesa. There have to be some people who do that, but don't have brand loyalty.

As I recall, there is no hint of Mesan or MAlign involvement in the planets mentioned.

Wait, no involvment in the planets with the cyborgs? Yup. There is basically nothing mentioned about them.

Or no involvement in the planets that take advantage of Mesan research? Because there's obvious Mesan involvement there! Although we've seen nothing about Malign involvement. I wonder how long it will take the Manticorians to realize that.

Bluesqueak wrote:But seriously, as soon as people started fighting in micro-gravity R&D departments would start researching guns that could neutralise all recoil.

That already existed to some degree in the 60s with the Gyrojet concept.

quite possibly a cat wrote:I don't think there is any indication anything except for the wedges and spider drive is "reactionless" though. Even those are actually pushing on the hyperwall. True reactionless engines break the concept of energy.

tlb wrote:Isn't the mass driver reactionless? The weight of the missiles in a pod exceed the pod's weight; but they are accelerated up to speed before they can get wedges up, not the pod. I thought the pulser used a variant of that.

quite possibly a cat wrote:I'm not sure what the firing pattern from the pods is. They always fire multiple missiles though so you can always just balance the recoil on the pod.

Only if they fire off in opposite directions. which would nearly waste half of the missiles in the pod. It would certainly waste the energy needed to turn those missiles around to the correct direction. The whole advantage of the new pod was the initial speed boost toward the target.