Harrington Genome, and the Mesans

Brigade XO wrote:Probably the worst thing they could do --for so many reasons-- would be clone Honor and create a sizable group of clone-sibs (both male and female) and raise them as Janissaries with full indoctrination in the Alignment (and significant physical training over years) plus training them to be either Naval commanders or a varitety of other careers for the Alignment. Honor raised as an Alpha in the Alignment Navy or a command specialist as her uncle on Beowulf could be formidable
Thing is it will take 20 plus years for that to produce someone who has even the basic skills at any particular task set and you won't have created the personality that is Honor Harrington

Interesting to speuclate though.

There's no guarantee that Honor clones would be anywhere nearly as capable as she is. Even without going into the nature-vs-nurture discussion, there's a difference in opportunities. Honor learned from the best tacticians and strategists of her generation, had access to state-of-the-art technology, simulators, and ships. She also had quite a few opportunities for independent command that helped her hone her skills, experiences which someone could write books about (I hear someone has).

She's now 64 T-years old (37 Manticoran years). Will the alignment have enough time to bring up someone like that? Even with accelerated growth and learning, you can't impart enough experience to someone in short enough time to make a difference to the Alignment. if they do have 50 T-years to wait (Raoul and Katherine's time), then I'd expect that the people who saw Honor's efforts and were impressed by them to have long forgotten about the fact in their echo chamber. They'll have turned back to their old plans. However much they may bemoan losing her line's genes in their general pool, their arrogance will convince them they can do better ("have already done better") with their own efforts.

More importantly, they won't have nearly as many opportunities, not if they want to keep their commanders a secret. If they do, then fleet exercises in Darius won't give the experience needed. Sneaky ambush actions won't give them the equivalent expertise. And if they seed them through the RF navies to take opportunity of the post-OFS galaxy, those commanders will become known and someone will eventually wonder why they resemble the Harringtons so much.

Brigade XO wrote:It is just possible that the Alignment could get samples of Alfred's blood or tussue or Honor or her children or her siblings. How? Medical labs.

Did we ever find out who leaked "Honor's pregnant" to the newsies? As I recall it was thought to have been a tech at the clinic she went to to have the fetus tubed, but I don't recall a solid ID ever being made.

A Mesan agent at the clinic could easily have gotten a blood/tissue sample, and might have seen the opportunity to make life miserable for one of Manticore's top officers at the same time.

I believe that any genetic tendency towards exaggerated aggression would be a required trait for Mesan Alpha lines. One would have to have an extremely aggressive tendency to embrace their political philosophy. Their genetic tendency for aggression would be enhanced by a tendency to remain intelligent and analytical while angry. This makes them more effective killers.

Mesa's political philosophy would encourage the aggression. I wonder what the homicide rate is amongst Mesa's Alpha lines? I bet it is extremely high. The alignment and Mesan governments probably encourage this aggression by tolerating homicides of slaves, Seccies or may be even people of Beta and Gamma lines.

An analogy would be Japanese Samurai, midevil European nobility, Latin American aristocracy, slave state plantation owners, Africaners in South Africa. After a few thousand years of natural selection, there would probably be genetic as well as philosophical tendency for people of these groups to be more violent. There would be a similar genetic tendency for their subjects to be less violent to avoid provoking their aristocrats. The tendency of aristocrat males to inseminate slave females would undermine this greater submissiveness.


Consider the effect on the psyche of a Mesan Alpha that is embedded in a planet of more genetically "normal" people whose society has a low tolerance for interpersonal violence. They have been indoctrinated on their home planet and try to indoctrinate their children and grandchildren. However; the Mesans embedded in other cultures need to restrain their aggression or at least be discrete about killing people. Some of their children and grandchildren will realize that the Mesan prediliction for arrogance and violence is maladaptive or may be even evil.

The result is people like the Harrington ancestors who went rogue. They taught their children and grandchildren who and what they were and indoctrinated them on the need to restrain their aggression. The early Harringtons encouraged their children to be scientists and physicians, not soldiers. That tradition is passed on but not the truth of their true genetic origins.

Many generations later, Alfred Harrington joins the Royal Manticoran Marine corp. During training, he is encouraged to be more aggressive but to channel his aggression appropriately. Things seem to be fine until he gets in his first battle. He is amazed and terrified to find himself experiencing a killing rage that is accompanied by the ability to remain extremely analytical as he kills the enemy. Alfred is so terrified by his inner beast that he decides to become a doctor. Except for killing a dozen or so people who made the mistake of abducting and torturing his future wife (I still say that Alluson should have been fully naked), Alfred becomes a calm, mild mannered physician that someone might assume is a wimp.

Because Alfred does not understand the genetic origin of his inner beast, he encourages his daughter's dream of joining the RMN. All is well, even when Honor engages in space battles. Her enhanced aggression is an extreme asset, but her enhanced aggression is less obvious because the nature of a space battle is like a video game. Her homicidal tendencies finally become obvious at Blackbird base, but other people restrain her. Then Honor engages in real hand to hand combat, not just practice. (I need to check the chronology here) We assume that her interruption of the assasination attempt on Protector Benjamin is her first experience with lethal, interpersonal violence. She is too wounded and distracted by the subsequent space battles to understand what happened. However; subsequent events compel her to unleash her beast again and again, undermining her restraint.

You of all people forgot the Academy shower scene with Pavel Young, TFLY?!?!?

The "Honor's pregnant" bit was leaked by someone in the Dr's office. Can't remember if they were ever identified but it was something that was too good a tidbit to pass up. Remember there were lots of levels of espionage, some if it just social/political. It certainly became a social scandal (or tried to be before Emily effectively shut that end down) and was at the same time a political one with Earl of White Haven and the government, also effectivly shut down.

As far as the Harrington Line going rogue, there has never been any indication that Stephanie's parents were moving on/fleeing from the Alignment or anyone else when the emigrated to Manticore.They were looking to get a better place in life with their skills and Manticore was looking for exo-botonists & and exotic-verternarians so they got a real jump.
Nobody was chasing them, nobody was looking for them. If you read the early books (Stephanie's ) you find her writing to friends back where she grew up. If there had been any attempt for the Harringtons to vanish, they certainly wouldn't have let her do that.
Much more likely that at some point the knowledge (If it had been known to a much earlier Harrington- or some other surname line) they were part of what is now the Alignment was lossed or dropped and they fell off the radar as just another experiment or potential sleeper line that went inactive for any number of reasons.

Quite correct Brigade, the Harringtons didn't 'go rogue' they just saw a career opportunity and jumped at it, but Richard & family weren't currently Mesan agents at the time... the Mesan's were sitting back waiting for a more appropriate member to re-establish contact with the genome.


Then the Harringtons suddenly moved to Sphinx from wherever they were at the time (Meyerdahl itself?), and Mesa quite literally could not re-establish contact because the Manticore wormholes hadn't been discovered. Even if they'd known immediately where the Harringtons had moved to, Mesa had no easy way to keep slipping spies into Manticore to watch the Harrington genome, restablish contact, or even simply sending reports up the chain.

So the Alignment essentially waved farewell because there was nothing they could do short of simply culling all the Harringtons, but there IS the possibility they may have restarted the general line from their last accepted agents. So in theory there could be a whole other Harrington line somewhere based on the same Alpha-line history, just missing all the genetic drift that started happening from Stephanie (Death Fang's Bane) right up to Honor & Raoul.

Honor isn't just descended from people with the Meyerdahl mods, but from the Meyerdahl Beta mods. It was also mentioned in text that Allison Harrington knows about all the Harrington mods. This argues that the Beta mods were a Star Line genotype. What we don't know is just how well known the Beta mods truly were. I suspect that the Hartington Alpha Line started with the Meyerdahl Beta modes and were tweaked for emotional stability to offset their aggression. Hence just how attractive Stephanie was to Lioheart.

Allison Harrington has the Harrington genotype mapped to a fare thee well. She knows just where the Harringtons diverged from the Beta mods. Odds are very high Allison has also noticed some similarities in the Harrington gene map to some gene sequences from genetic slaves she has seen. Now, that the Mesan Alignment has been revealed, Allison has to start connecting the dots. By the time Raoul begins the next arc, Allison and the rest of the Benton-Ramierez y Chous will have a solid set of Star Line gene sequences isolated. I further suspect Allison will tell her daughter about her Star Line connections.

PeterZ wrote:Honor isn't just descended from people with the Meyerdahl mods, but from the Meyerdahl Beta mods. It was also mentioned in text that Allison Harrington knows about all the Harrington mods. This argues that the Beta mods were a Star Line genotype. What we don't know is just how well known the Beta mods truly were. I suspect that the Hartington Alpha Line started with the Meyerdahl Beta modes and were tweaked for emotional stability to offset their aggression. Hence just how attractive Stephanie was to Lioheart.

Allison Harrington has the Harrington genotype mapped to a fare thee well. She knows just where the Harringtons diverged from the Beta mods. Odds are very high Allison has also noticed some similarities in the Harrington gene map to some gene sequences from genetic slaves she has seen. Now, that the Mesan Alignment has been revealed, Allison has to start connecting the dots. By the time Raoul begins the next arc, Allison and the rest of the Benton-Ramierez y Chous will have a solid set of Star Line gene sequences isolated. I further suspect Allison will tell her daughter about her Star Line connections.

This seems like it could be dangerous if taken too far. Especially in the Old Star Kingdom and Beowulf, having it come out that particular people are some sort of "genetic sleeper agents" could lead to severe bigotry and persecution - even if treecats are able to clear the person of any official suspicion of being connected to the MAlignment, that doesn't clear them of such suspicions being held by the general public.

jchilds wrote:You of all people forgot the Academy shower scene with Pavel Young, TFLY?!?!?

I didn't forget the academy shower scene. I was just uncertain of how to address it in an already long post.
My theory is that Honor's refusal to report it or testify against Pavel Young was a confused reaction to the extreme homicidal impulse that she had struggled to suppress. Her embarrassment and shame was that she had found it difficult to resist the urge to kill him. (I have been there, done that. Regret not killing the vermin in question rather than calling 911). Keep in mind that Honor was able to THINK TACTICALLY in spite of her embarrassment and stress.

Galactic Sapper wrote:This seems like it could be dangerous if taken too far. Especially in the Old Star Kingdom and Beowulf, having it come out that particular people are some sort of "genetic sleeper agents" could lead to severe bigotry and persecution - even if treecats are able to clear the person of any official suspicion of being connected to the MAlignment, that doesn't clear them of such suspicions being held by the general public.

In an era with nanobot DNA virus programming for assassins, some people will have to wonder if it is possible to implant false personalities, or hidden personalities that can spoof treecats. And if there are hidden Mesan lines wandering around, do any have hidden personalities? And just because you havn't seen them (YET!) doesn't mean they aren't there.

We, as readers, may know better (we think). But an Honorverse layman who hears enough "Facts" may jump to conclusions.