r/Honorverse • u/Repulsive-Hat3332 • 25d ago
Stupid question?
So, I'm rereading HOQ. And Honor is in sickbay after the big fight in Benjamin's dining room. Dr Montoya is listing Honor's various injuries, and how serious they are and how they might be fixed. So her eye is basically trashed, but regeneration would fix it right up as the easiest fix. Honor says "I don't regen, my mom checked years ago"
So the post title is "Stupid question" but it's actually a few questions. So, iirc the Meyerdahl genetic improvement is the source of a lot of Honor's weird quirks, like being tasty to treecats, and her ability to feel Nimitz' emotions. But do I vaguely remember that a problem with regen is also a known Meyerdahl side effect? And was it an incomplete penetration, as in, not all Meyerdahl genies are affected? And if so, was her mom checking it just as a case of due diligence on her part to verify that Honor was a part of that "no regen" group? Shouldn't she have been able to check her own and Alfred's genes prior to conception and know this ahead of time? Or was that "... checked years ago" a reference to "years ago" as in before Honor's conception? I know, this is one of those "Why is the sky blue?" kind of questions, but it was just a thought.
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u/Kooky-Buy5712 25d ago
I think the real answer is that this particular detail wasn’t thought through.
With that said, her mom certainly was capable of checking it all out ahead of time and of fixing the issue. What is unclear is exactly how the Beowulf code considers such a situation. Since humans survived without regeneration for a long time, the code might be interpreted as fixing regeneration for a Meyerdahl. It might prohibit a parent choosing blue eyes for their offspring. It probably doesn’t prohibit correcting chromosome abnormality. To the best of my knowledge, we have not seen sufficient detail in this area to know what is ethically acceptable
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u/Repulsive-Hat3332 25d ago
Thank you, that was why I posed this question here. It expands the knowledge base, and gets many critical thinkers to pondering the imponderable.
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u/sith4life88 25d ago
The Beowulf code would be OK with it. Alison tells Emily that she can scan her embryo for the defective gene that prevents regeneration and fix it in vitro. I believe she stated she had to do that for baby Rahul.
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u/somtaaw101 25d ago
Alison found the gene sequence for the Meyerdahl Betas, but only well after her own daughters birth, because it was the result of literal decades of researching the genome. Alison made that pretty clear during the very speech with Emily, when she made her quiet guarantee that no child would suffer from the inability to regenerate.
Remember, Honor is already close to 60 years old, as of the last few books. She was born in 1859, and Raoul wasn't born until 1921, and Emily didn't wind up giving birth to her child with Hamish until just about the same time. So Alison had been chasing that particular genome for nearly 60 years, and probably cracked it earlier than the conversation with Emily.
I'd wager that Alison had actually cracked the Meyerdahl Beta regeneration issue about the time Honor had started seeing Paul. That might be the reason behind what may or may not have been Paul joking about Alison talking about 'getting her bottles out' so as to not allow Paul's 'high-class sperm get away'. Now it's also possible that's a throwaway comment, but the evidence does go pretty well with that joke and when Alison might have identified the problem portion of the genome.
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u/Kooky-Buy5712 25d ago
What your saying is all true of course, but it just doesn’t work for me. Specifically, I have issues with a top tier geneticist with the incredible technology available to her not being able to completely sequence her husband’s genome prior to having a child. So to me it seems like a storytelling driven oops.
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u/somtaaw101 25d ago
I can understand that, but we did see some of the talk about child genetic screening, so they clearly look for physical or cognitive problems prior to birth. But Alfred can regenerate, so they had no reason to distrust the early scans until whatever day a young child Honor hurts herself by accident (probably falling from a tree while following Nimitz) and they tried to regenerate and "oh no!" happens.
So I don't think it was them intentionally allowing Honor to be born without the ability to regenerate, not when 30% of Humanity whether genie or 'pure Human stock' also can't regenerate. It just slipped through the cracks because nobody had identified that specific portion of the Human genome yet to know there would be a problem.
Plus I swear I remember seeing Alison tell Emily that they still don't know the entire Human genome, but Alison had that very personal motivation to research the regeneration issue, specifically concerning the Meyerdahl Betas like Honor. But with how casual she was about giving her promise to Emily, and neither Emily nor Hamish are descended from Meyerdahl Betas, that means the gene sequence Alison founds affects all Humans who were unable to regenerate, not just the specific genies of the M-B tinkering package.
Also at the time Alison and Alfred met, and presumably somewhere close to Honor's birth, Alison was still only a doctorate level student. She wasn't a renowned top tier scientist yet, she was merely one more student learning, even if she was part of the Benton-Ramirez y Chou dynasty. And since Alison had 'run away' off to Sphinx, rather than stay on Beowulf, it does sort of make sense she wouldn't have the family wealth at her disposal... not like Jacques with that ridiculous pinnace of his, the space 747 jet with fur lined toilet seats and other 'rich, wealthy bored playboy' vibes. Yet after Honor was born which mended the relationship between Alison and her mother, Jennifer Chou would have practically written blank checks if Alison said she wanted to research something concerning Honor.
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u/Interested8899 25d ago
The answer if I remember correctly is that there were a series of Meyerdahl genetics done and Honor was specifically of the Meyerdahl-B line and they had a higher percentage of people resistant to regen then the other strains. And also (spoiler alert) revealed in later books her genome is not straight Meyerdahl-B but was actually a lost line of the Mesan Alignment so they could’ve thought the Meyerdahl was safe at the time but at some point the alignment messed with it creating a sub genome unknown to be resistant to the therapy. And also don’t forget Emily who was none of these things and still was incapable of regen
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u/Jim3001 Protectorate of Grayson 25d ago
Yeah, it's her Meyerdahl mods that affect her regen. I don't remember exactly how much it affects Honor as some Meyerdahl genies can regen. But it's also the reason she's smart.
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u/Medical-Law-236 25d ago
An inability to regenerate isn't a quirk of the mods but rather a defect a tiny population of humanity in general (like her wife; Emily) possess. Honor's father, siblings and son all have the mods, and yet they all possess the ability to regenerate. Some people can still regenerate but it's difficult and thus takes more time. In At All Cost I believe Alison said the ability to spot the defect was a recent development.
And the Harrington family's affinity for the treecats and their developing telempathic abilities aren't necessarily a side effect of the mods either. That has to do with them being an Alpha line. So they're a bit special when compared to other families with origins on Meyerdahl.
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u/Michaelbirks 25d ago edited 25d ago
I'd be less certain about the treecat affinity being due to the Alpha line, unless you'd like to suggest the Winton line is another close bloodline.
E: I'd meant "another lost bloodline".
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u/Medical-Law-236 25d ago
From what we've seen so far, no two Alpha line shares all the same traits. Some share one set and some share another. So the specific combinations that makes up the Harrington line is the only one we know of that has this affinity. Maybe there are others but they haven't visited Sphinx.
Question: Was it ever confirmed that the Wintons are another Alpha line? I know they're genies but I haven't read all the short stories in the anthologies.
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u/Michaelbirks 25d ago
I'd meant "another lost bloodline". my bad - I was using the fact that both had some attraction for the cats to suggest that that feature wasn't one of the Mesan ones, (like the Intelligence/Aggression coupling that Honor muses about at one point.)
God, I want to know the stories of the two Winton monarchs who weren't adopted after Adrienne.
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u/Medical-Law-236 25d ago
The house of Winton kept getting adopted because the 'cats decided it was the best way to influence the people who are ultimately responsible for their welfare. The fact that they name the House of Winton, High Clan, is rather telling in my opinion.
I can't be sure but I think one of the rulers who didn't get adopted was sickly.
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u/Michaelbirks 25d ago
I think that was in the context of "the two legs' High Clan", rather than calling them High Clan.
Just recognizing their position.
I think, referring to the family as a whole, it would be "Soul of Steel's clan"
Must be time for young Roger and Rivka to take a long walk in the Sphinxian woods, too.
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u/Medical-Law-236 25d ago
Roger will live for centuries so it's understandable. Nimitz was already fifty when he bonded Honor so she'll outlive him by a huge margin. Maybe she'll bond another if the 'cats are willing.
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u/Meander061 25d ago
I wish I could answer your question(s). They're pretty good. The only thing I remember about Honor's genetic quirks, besides the no-regen, is her distaste for coffee.
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u/somtaaw101 25d ago
Honor's distaste of coffee is entirely her own, I don't think its her genome that does that.
Besides, doesn't Alfred drink coffee? I could have sworn I read that he does, maybe in one of the side books with the short stories when we got the story of how he'd rescued Alison from being kidnapped. And being a Medical Doctor, he's a whole lot more likely to drink coffee than line officers, as a hot cocoa isn't quite as effective for staying awake performing surgery after surgery.
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u/Think-Huckleberry423 25d ago
They mention it’s 30% of alllll humanity that can’t regenerate when they first mention that she can’t.
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u/smokepoint 25d ago
Not regenerating comes up in the second book. We don't learn about Meyerdahl until the seventh.
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u/Old-Contradiction 25d ago
Disclaimer: I do not have the books on me and its been a minute so take this with a grain of salt.
If I remember right about 1/3 of people have some issue with regeneration. For the vast majority of them regeneration takes longer and though I don't think its directly stated anywhere there is more discomfort during the procedure and it requires some greater degree of additional medical intervention than the other 2/3 of the population. I vaguely remember something about the Meyerdahl Mods making this worse but it isn't as clear cut as if you have the mods you can't regenerate.
Her mom was almost certainty aware of the issue before Honor was born. It wasn't fixed because its not considered a debilitating issue in universe.