Not Her Own

Haven't read the entire series but still spoil myself.

So Honor is basically a super soldier?

1. Are her accomplishments really her own? Or are they the result of her enhancements? Would she be where she is without them?

2. Is this public knowledge? If so, what would reaction/repercussions be if they were?

MC1560 wrote:Haven't read the entire series but still spoil myself.

So Honor is basically a super soldier?

1. Are her accomplishments really her own? Or are they the result of her enhancements? Would she be where she is without them?

2. Is this public knowledge? If so, what would reaction/repercussions be if they were?

That may be an overstatement: physically she inherited the Meyerdahl genetic enhancement that fitted people for a heavy gravity planet, The version she has may have included a moderate IQ enhancement. This seems also to have given her above average hand - eye coordination. This is fairly public knowledge, as Eloise Pritchart commented upon it when they met in Mission of Honor.

Then you add her empathetic sense and her years of training in martial arms, both unarmed and with weapons.

There has been discussion in the past as to how a fight between her and Thandi Palane would proceed. Thandi has a more exaggerated physique, but Honor's anticipation due to the empathic sense might be enough counter.

So a good part of what she is can be traced to genetics, but the years of training are all hers.

As to where she would be without them; do you plan to remove her strength, extra IQ, coordination and empathetic sense? If you do all that she might be ordinary. As it is, she is within the bounds of others with the Meyerdahl Mod; except for the empathetic sense.

I think Thandi better fits the concept of a super soldier.

tlb wrote:So a good part of what she is can be traced to genetics, but the years of training are all hers.

As to where she would be without them; do you plan to remove her strength, extra IQ, coordination and empathetic sense? If you do all that she might be ordinary. As it is, she is within the bounds of others with the Meyerdahl Mod; except for the empathetic sense.

I think Thandi better fits the concept of a super soldier.

And even Cachat knew before he actually shacked up with Thandi, that she's only a super soldier so long as she stays fed, if put on starvation rations in a POW camp and she's going to be the first one to die, possibly within a few weeks.


If Honor were also in the same camp, from the same point in time (captured from the same shuttle), she'd be following Thandi into the grave approximately 1 month later. We know she (barely) survived a mere month on on the PNS Tepes with Ransom, and the one guard was quite baffled by how she was starving away on what he thought was normal rations, he wasn't deliberately starving Honor. Google says the recommended daily intake of calories is approximately 2000 calories per day for women, and Honor probably needs 3000+, while Thandi probably needs 4000-5000 or more per day.



There's only really been 1 time where Honor's half-treecat part truly saved her life, and that was the assassination attempt on her own superdreadnought by Lt Meares. Every other instance she's fought with her own bare hands, or on the duelling field, a normal human could have done the same things if they'd also spent years training in hand-to-hand and pistol use. One exception is possibly the "Save Protector Benjamin from the Maccabeus plot", you need a trained martial artist who was also adopted by a treecat to have survived that fight. Harold Tschu could have done it if he wasn't an engineer who seemingly only took the mandatory Navy "Basic Hand to hand" course at Saganami, like Aubrey Wanderman did, before Steillman inspired him to go play tag with Wayfarer's Marines.

All other instances of combat were naval ones (which is to say a good 80% of her fights), which are honestly primarily intelligence fights rather than something based on strength or reflexes. Meyerdahl Beta's are heavy on strength and reflexes, because they're to make humans compatible with heavy-grav planets you need the strength simply to compensate for the grav, and higher reflexes allow you to compensate for dropping things. The same bowl knocked off a counter her on Earth vs Sphinx and you need faster reflexes to react on Sphinx.


And there's straight proof unenhanced humans can match Honor on the battlefield. So far as we know, both Tourville and Oliver Diamotto are genetically pure humans, Tourville's beaten her twice straight up (Honor's returned the favors) and Oliver was identified as "having the touch" as early as Second Hancock (first-gen Shrikes first use). Captain Hall spent weeks honing that before she died to the gen-one Shrikes. He needs more experience, since in 20 years he's gone from a simple Commander to Vice Admiral, while Honor spent 30 years just going from Ensign (middy cruise on War Maiden) to Commander and taking command of CL Fearless. Give him another 20-30 years to practice and train and Oliver Diamoto could possibly give Honor a run for her money.

Take away Honor's genetic enhancements, and she'd still have pulled off some/most of everything she's ever done, because it's all from training and unrelenting practice.


Thandi on the other hand, fully relies on her "super soldier" genes. She physically beat the crap out of her female Scrags/Amazons to establish dominance over them, including several broken bones. Then she used her strength to crush entire skulls during the whole incident on Wages of Sin; not to mention the aftermath of the "1-man breach operation" she did on Mesa and took out an entire gang before they could react.



Take away Thandi's genetic enhancements, and she'd be at best an average Marine, physically speaking for combat purposes. Although she seems to be dutifully applying herself to learning the naval side as hard as she can, so she's one of those butterbars. One that isn't actually afraid to lean on her NCO's with more experience and employ that experience while maintaining authority as the actual leader.

MC1560 wrote:Haven't read the entire series but still spoil myself.

So Honor is basically a super soldier?

1. Are her accomplishments really her own? Or are they the result of her enhancements? Would she be where she is without them?

2. Is this public knowledge? If so, what would reaction/repercussions be if they were?

There was a whole rather strenuous chain on whether or not her empathic sense and link to Nimitz was an unfair advantage, and hence a cheat, in her duel with Steadholder Mueller on Grayson.

The text makes no reference to any warning from Nimitz, emphasizing that Honor took in the entire gestalt of her opponent, and had no idea of how she had chosen the moment to strike. Just a lifetime spent in training for unarmed combat, and a career reading her opponents. Plus, unlike Mueller, she understood that she stood on death ground, not in a training salle. It was not a time and place to embarrass her opponent. It was a time and place to kill him. A time and place she had been before. And he had not. Until he fell to the floor in three pieces. And then, it was too late.

One quibble: "Super soldier" implies that the person was designed as a fighting machine and that has not been true since the Final War in Earth's history. The fact that there are people who can defeat those remnants of the super soldier program in single unarmed combat does not alter that fact. Physically Thandi is a normal person from Ndebele.

MC1560 wrote:
1. Are her accomplishments really her own? Or are they the result of her enhancements? Would she be where she is without them?

This is one of the narrative drawbacks of supermen. Clark Kent throwing himself on a hand grenade isn't really heroic because he knows that there is exactly zero chance that he'll be seriously injured.

Somtaaw wrote:

tlb wrote:So a good part of what she is can be traced to genetics, but the years of training are all hers.

As to where she would be without them; do you plan to remove her strength, extra IQ, coordination and empathetic sense? If you do all that she might be ordinary. As it is, she is within the bounds of others with the Meyerdahl Mod; except for the empathetic sense.

I think Thandi better fits the concept of a super soldier.

And even Cachat knew before he actually shacked up with Thandi, that she's only a super soldier so long as she stays fed, if put on starvation rations in a POW camp and she's going to be the first one to die, possibly within a few weeks.


If Honor were also in the same camp, from the same point in time (captured from the same shuttle), she'd be following Thandi into the grave approximately 1 month later. We know she (barely) survived a mere month on on the PNS Tepes with Ransom, and the one guard was quite baffled by how she was starving away on what he thought was normal rations, he wasn't deliberately starving Honor. Google says the recommended daily intake of calories is approximately 2000 calories per day for women, and Honor probably needs 3000+, while Thandi probably needs 4000-5000 or more per day.



There's only really been 1 time where Honor's half-treecat part truly saved her life, and that was the assassination attempt on her own superdreadnought by Lt Meares. Every other instance she's fought with her own bare hands, or on the duelling field, a normal human could have done the same things if they'd also spent years training in hand-to-hand and pistol use. One exception is possibly the "Save Protector Benjamin from the Maccabeus plot", you need a trained martial artist who was also adopted by a treecat to have survived that fight. Harold Tschu could have done it if he wasn't an engineer who seemingly only took the mandatory Navy "Basic Hand to hand" course at Saganami, like Aubrey Wanderman did, before Steillman inspired him to go play tag with Wayfarer's Marines.

All other instances of combat were naval ones (which is to say a good 80% of her fights), which are honestly primarily intelligence fights rather than something based on strength or reflexes. Meyerdahl Beta's are heavy on strength and reflexes, because they're to make humans compatible with heavy-grav planets you need the strength simply to compensate for the grav, and higher reflexes allow you to compensate for dropping things. The same bowl knocked off a counter her on Earth vs Sphinx and you need faster reflexes to react on Sphinx.


And there's straight proof unenhanced humans can match Honor on the battlefield. So far as we know, both Tourville and Oliver Diamotto are genetically pure humans, Tourville's beaten her twice straight up (Honor's returned the favors) and Oliver was identified as "having the touch" as early as Second Hancock (first-gen Shrikes first use). Captain Hall spent weeks honing that before she died to the gen-one Shrikes. He needs more experience, since in 20 years he's gone from a simple Commander to Vice Admiral, while Honor spent 30 years just going from Ensign (middy cruise on War Maiden) to Commander and taking command of CL Fearless. Give him another 20-30 years to practice and train and Oliver Diamoto could possibly give Honor a run for her money.

Take away Honor's genetic enhancements, and she'd still have pulled off some/most of everything she's ever done, because it's all from training and unrelenting practice.


Thandi on the other hand, fully relies on her "super soldier" genes. She physically beat the crap out of her female Scrags/Amazons to establish dominance over them, including several broken bones. Then she used her strength to crush entire skulls during the whole incident on Wages of Sin; not to mention the aftermath of the "1-man breach operation" she did on Mesa and took out an entire gang before they could react.



Take away Thandi's genetic enhancements, and she'd be at best an average Marine, physically speaking for combat purposes. Although she seems to be dutifully applying herself to learning the naval side as hard as she can, so she's one of those butterbars. One that isn't actually afraid to lean on her NCO's with more experience and employ that experience while maintaining authority as the actual leader.

Victor is either very brave or a selfish lover. Can you imagine the force exerted by her "pelvic" muscles if she is truly having an orgasm? Victor could loose critical portions of his anatomy.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Victor is either very brave or a selfish lover. Can you imagine the force exerted by her "pelvic" muscles if she is truly having an orgasm? Victor could loose critical portions of his anatomy.

I suspect the real danger is in leaving Thandi feeling ... incomplete. She might take it out on those "critical portions of his anatomy" in a more serious manner.

Another thing to consider in Honor's accomplishments:

Her skill at training subordinates to a high standard so that when the s--- hit the fan, it was generally the opposing force that got the short end of the stick. For example, Rafe Cordones realizing that "Thunder of God" was running a canned sequence -- arguably saved Fearless, working with Sarnow in SvW, etc. -- the small craft coming back to Wayfarer, etc. -- executed by RMN personnel who benefitted from her style of captaincy, etc.

Where her "genetic mod" advantages might play out is in that sphere is "quicker arrival at the solution" from disparate information sources, such as in OBS, the battle action at Solon, etc.

And remember, even if she had higher than average IQ (was that mentioned, I don't remember?) it didn't help her is some situations.
She almost flunked out of Saganami on her super poor math skills.
It took, I believe, Mike and Raoul Courvosier to tutor he so she just barely squeaked by.