Honor/Hamish/Emily

Daryl wrote:Don't forget that this universe has 80 year olds looking like and feeling like 20 year olds. Neither forget that multiple wives were the norm in Grayson, or that thousands of years have passed since our time, and values change.
I'm in my 70s, been happily married for about 45 years, but if we were both rejuvenated, and told that we have another 250 years together I'm sure it would change things.

RFC hasn't addressed this effect in the Honorverse because prolong has only been available for around 100 years. Society hasn't had the time yet to adapt to those changes. If we do get a skip forward in time in the next couple of books, the fact that the first and second gen recipients are aged 120-150 and have been happily married for around a century may become relevant. Or at least begin to... I imagine the social inertia will take a few generations: if you're raised by parents that married for life, marrying for life may be an important goal for you.

Some other Sci Fi books/authors have addressed such. Peter F Hamilton did, notably in the Commonwealth universe, where not only is there rejuvenation, cloned bodies with memory download are a thing too. Someone with Emily's disability would simply go for "recycle" and get a new body. Aside from children, everyone is physically aged between 20 and 40 all the time (with a few exceptions that cultivate a look). In that universe, it appears marriages are always temporary, from the get go, but Hamilton doesn't really address the traditional religions. Those marriages often end at the next R&R (unless they're raising children, I guess), so when people emerge rejuvenated, they start anew.

In fact, the entire "Misspent Youth" book is about the first recipient of rejuvenation. I haven't read it yet, but it's on my list.

PS: we may get rejuvenation in the next 30-50 years.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:If she's not a push-over, does that change your analysis?

One can be non-confrontational and easily swayed in some circumstances and not others.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:If she's not a push-over, does that change your analysis?

Peregrinator wrote:One can be non-confrontational and easily swayed in some circumstances and not others.

Are you being non-confrontational or do you just not have an opinion based on the text?

tlb wrote:Are you being non-confrontational or do you just not have an opinion based on the text?

I apologize if I seem passive aggressive. I thought I had been open about the fact that my opinion is not based on the text at all. What Honor and Hamish are doing (or were doing up until Emily died) is wrong regardless of what Emily and/or the Alexanders' religious leaders think about it.

Daryl wrote:Don't forget that this universe has 80 year olds looking like and feeling like 20 year olds. Neither forget that multiple wives were the norm in Grayson, or that thousands of years have passed since our time, and values change.

Values do change but if anything, the Honorverse seems a bit more conservative, values-wise, than (say) 21st century USA. And the values to which the Alexanders subscribe are stressed a few times (IIRC) in the books, in fact we're explicitly told that theirs is a sacramental marriage.

Peregrinator wrote:

Daryl wrote:Don't forget that this universe has 80 year olds looking like and feeling like 20 year olds. Neither forget that multiple wives were the norm in Grayson, or that thousands of years have passed since our time, and values change.

Values do change but if anything, the Honorverse seems a bit more conservative, values-wise, than (say) 21st century USA. And the values to which the Alexanders subscribe are stressed a few times (IIRC) in the books, in fact we're explicitly told that theirs is a sacramental marriage.

”Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.”

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Daryl wrote:Don't forget that this universe has 80 year olds looking like and feeling like 20 year olds. Neither forget that multiple wives were the norm in Grayson, or that thousands of years have passed since our time, and values change.
I'm in my 70s, been happily married for about 45 years, but if we were both rejuvenated, and told that we have another 250 years together I'm sure it would change things.

RFC hasn't addressed this effect in the Honorverse because prolong has only been available for around 100 years. Society hasn't had the time yet to adapt to those changes. If we do get a skip forward in time in the next couple of books, the fact that the first and second gen recipients are aged 120-150 and have been happily married for around a century may become relevant. Or at least begin to... I imagine the social inertia will take a few generations: if you're raised by parents that married for life, marrying for life may be an important goal for you.

Some other Sci Fi books/authors have addressed such. Peter F Hamilton did, notably in the Commonwealth universe, where not only is there rejuvenation, cloned bodies with memory download are a thing too. Someone with Emily's disability would simply go for "recycle" and get a new body. Aside from children, everyone is physically aged between 20 and 40 all the time (with a few exceptions that cultivate a look). In that universe, it appears marriages are always temporary, from the get go, but Hamilton doesn't really address the traditional religions. Those marriages often end at the next R&R (unless they're raising children, I guess), so when people emerge rejuvenated, they start anew.

In fact, the entire "Misspent Youth" book is about the first recipient of rejuvenation. I haven't read it yet, but it's on my list.

PS: we may get rejuvenation in the next 30-50 years.

He's hinted round the edges at it - the whole thing with Bannister and Van Dort, for example, is the only case specifically mentioned of their kind so far but I suspect it's something you'll have seen throughout societies as prolong becomes 'a thing' and individuals discover they have a life expectancy a power of ten removed from that of the person they've fallen in love with.

In reverse I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Mesan genetic slaves and their descendants have all sorts of nasty hereditary genetic conditions which decrease their lifespan. Certainly if I was producing human beings as a disposable product I'd probably make sure they were genetically unable to use prolong and regeneration.

By comparison, you're right that a society with a century or more of prolong under its belt is likely to have social implications. In addition to the example you mention I find myself thinking of the Altered Carbon series.

locarno24 wrote:In reverse I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Mesan genetic slaves and their descendants have all sorts of nasty hereditary genetic conditions which decrease their lifespan. Certainly if I was producing human beings as a disposable product I'd probably make sure they were genetically unable to use prolong and regeneration.

By comparison, you're right that a society with a century or more of prolong under its belt is likely to have social implications. In addition to the example you mention I find myself thinking of the Altered Carbon series.

Mesan slaves not only were never given prolong treatments, they did indeed have shorter life spans. But it does look prolong works on them, just see Paulo d'Arezzo.

An interesting aspect of the Honorverse, compared to the Commonwealth or Altered Carbon universes, is that prolong is a treatment that you need to get, otherwise you'll have a normal lifespan only. Miss it, and you won't get it, so irreversible, regular lifespan can be seen in any group of people who lost contact with the outside world. See the Parmley Station people.

It's also not effective immortality, or at least David hasn't addressed this yet. Cyclic rejuvenations are effective immortality, not to mention the ability to go for "emergency relife" in any situation of bodyloss ("sleeve death" in Altered Carbon parlance). The dynamics of the Honorverse would be very, very different in that case. For example, Tom Caparelli and Pat Givens would simply have a new forced-growth clone body grown and their last memory stores downloaded into it -- probably from before they left for Beowulf. All of the 43 million deaths in the Beowulf Strike and the 5 million in the Yawata one would still be around, though not the 2800 treecats.

tlb wrote:Are you being non-confrontational or do you just not have an opinion based on the text?

Peregrinator wrote:I apologize if I seem passive aggressive. I thought I had been open about the fact that my opinion is not based on the text at all. What Honor and Hamish are doing (or were doing up until Emily died) is wrong regardless of what Emily and/or the Alexanders' religious leaders think about it.

No need to apologize; I just had not caught that you were basing your opinion on a personal precept, rather than what is in the text. If I understand your code, monogamy is a moral absolute; so a group of three or more people in a marriage is totally wrong.

You are certainly free to believe that stricture, but various societies in the book (and at various times on our Earth) obviously think otherwise. Therefore it is contrary to Honorverse canon and the rest of us can ignore it, if we wish.

One of the unspoken corollaries of severely expanded life span like prolong is that the probability of dying violently goes up a lot. Even with no other changes, a 1 in 10,000 chance of any given person dying of accident or hostile action means about 0.7% chance of a person dying violently in a 70 year lifespan, vs 3% for a 300 year life span, trending toward 100% the longer the lifespan is (thinking Poul Anderson's Boat of a Million Years).