I do hope this thread isn’t too old to revive. I have searched for other HH threads but didn’t find one, and my question is too trivial, IMHO, to warrant a thread of it’s own.
I have read the Harrington books up to, but not including, At All Costs(and I haven’t read the spoilers in this thread.)
My question is about prolong treatments. I know prolong, besides lengthening the lifespan, extends the time spent in one’s “teenage” appearance. It also lengthens pregnancy, from 9 months to about 11 months(cite: Echoes of Honor ) But somehow I haven’t figured out what the difference is between “first”, “second” , or “third” generation prolong.
Is one more refined than another, more sophisticated or less invasive? Does a third generation treatment let you live longer than, say, a first generation?
If anyone can point me to the answers in one of the books, I’d sure appreciate it. And if this thread was too old, feel free to say so and I’ll back out of it and start a seperate thread.
Baker, I can’t remember a specific book with which to cite, but it’s been brought up in a few of them. I don’t recall it being a major point of discussion though. My impression (which could be totally off, I know) is that you’re right – the first-generation prolong recipients had a less sophisticated version, and may not have as long of a lifespan. Honor is noted to be exceptionally young-looking in many descriptions, and that’s pretty much been attributed to being a third-generation prolong recipient. First- and second-generations looked older.
In “The Honor Of The Queen,” a comment is made that first-generation prolong fixes the appearance of the individual at a later age than sunsequent versions of the treatment.
There’s two stated differences between the generations of prolong treatments. First, the later generations keep you physiologically younger: Hence, Earl White Haven (who received first generation) has grey hair, but Honor (who received third) does not, and will not even when she reaches Hamish’s age. One presumes that a third-generationer would have a longer total lifespan, but this is never made explicit, and I don’t think there’s any mention of any prolong recipient dying of old age (it might be that it hasn’t been long enough since the process was invented for any of the recipients to have died yet).
Second, the older generations of treatments can be applied later in life. Third-generation prolong will only work if administered in childhood (never explicitly defined, but certainly before puberty), but the first generation was routinely given to folks in (I think) their 30s or so: There’s a short bit in Shadow of Saganami where one of the characters is reminiscing about the early days of Prolong, and how he thought his wife would be young enough to receive it, but she wasn’t. Leading, of course, to the nostalgic grief for her a century later, more commonly seen in fantasy literature.
Oh, and having now read At All Costs, I’m still not sure who is supposed to have the second invulnerable character shield. I can see a case for it being Andrew LaFollet, considering how Honor removed him from her own personal guard to head her son’s team. But that just means that Andrew is likely to jump between him and a bullet, instead of between Honor and a bullet – and I don’t for a moment suspect that the kid’s going to be safe from assassination attempts. Nor could her son (I can’t remember his name, except that he had altogether too many of them) be the second shielded character, since he wasn’t even around until this book, and probably not even contemplated until a couple of books ago, outside the time frame of when (I presume) Mrs. Weber laid down the law.
As others have said, its basically the generations or versions of the treatment…and it has to do with when the aging process starts to slow down. The earlier generations didn’t start to slow aging until the person was older…while the current generation (in the books) starts to slow the aging process at a pretty young age.
I always wonder if they will have a breakthrough that allows older folks to get the process…so that some of the really cool characters on Grayson, for instance, will be able to live longer.
I must admit, I’d like to see that old dinosaur Howard Clinkscales live longer. But I’m not sure he’d see the usefulness, at his age. But perhaps Protector Benjamin, or his daughter Rachel, now that she’s been “adopted” by Hipper. A Grayson with a treecat, that’s got to be strange.
Some of what you are asking about will be dealt with in At All Costs. As for Rachel, she is young enough to receive 3rd generation prolong. Even Benjamin’s brother is young enough to receive 2nd generation. But Benjamin is too old for any of them.
Chronos, that is exactly who I have heard will survive. Which is why he received his assignment.
This seems inconsistent with the books, which say that third-generation prolong extends the “awkward years” at the beginning of puberty. I’d consider 16 to be probably past the awkward years, and 18-19 certainly so.
In the books, the treecats have been described in great physical detail, but I have yet to see a treecat on book coverart. Have I missed an actual drawing/painting, or has it actually not been done at all?
One book said treecats who have adopted humans often suicide if their human dies. I think, although I’m not sure, that one of the books had a human who’s cat died, but the human went on living. Is that usual? Or do cats and humans usually die together, by war, accident, illness?
Are treecats naturally long lived, or does their lifespan lengthen to match their human? If Hipper was about fifty when he adopted Rachel, and if she gets prolong, that would be one old cat down the road.
I’m at work, so I can’t put my hands on them, but I think one or two of the books did have Nimitz on the cover with Honor. And there was an ancillary book of stories that went into Samantha’s quest to find her person and why it was so remarkable. Someone better equipped to search will come along shortly, or I’ll get back to you on that this evening.
Samantha! I can’t remember the name of her person, but the reason that was given for her survival was that she was already mated to Nimitz and thus had something else to live for.
Bother, that was also explained in that short story. I’ll have to look that book up for you when I get home, but I do remember that they naturally have much longer lives than humans, and that the treecats who adopted felt that losing the lifespan was worth it because of the bond. Prolong made that easier for them, I believe, although I think it’s still not exactly even.
Several of the books have treecats on them. The best one (IMHO) is on the latest book (At All Costs), showing Honor and Nimitz looking down at a baby while Nimitz dangles a Star of Grayson (well, I assume thats the award) over the baby and the baby reaches up to grasp it. But there are a few other books (at least the versions I have) with Honor and Nimitz on the covers.
It was the opposite that I recall…it was Samantha (Nimitz mate). Her human was blown appart in a space battle (I think he was the chief engineer on one of Honors ships), but her love for Nimitz (and Honor’s telepathic ability perhaps) kept her from suiciding.
They are longer lived than humans without prolong…a point that was made in one of the books showing what Treecats would have to give up early on in their relations with humans. I think they generally live about as long as humans do on prolong though so it works much better now.
I just found that At All Costs cover(thanks xtisme!), and while the depiction of Nimitz is interesting it doesn’t fit the mental picture I had built up. While I realize there had to be a reason the settlers of Sphinx called them treecats**, I hadn’t put such a feline face on the species, not in my head. For whatever reason I was thinking more of a ferrety look, or a meerkat.
My edition of On Basilisk Station has Honor carrying a rather demon-possessed looking version of Nimitz. AAC has Nimitz, as mentioned; treecats are also on Changer of Worlds and Worlds of Honor. Also, the Japanese editions have Nimitz, but he looks like a Pokemon or something. Urk.
I think the natural treecat lifespan is about 250 years, and the prolong enhanced human lifespan is something like 300 or more, estimated.
Yeah, most of the ones with Treecats on them of the earlier additions weren’t too good. Several of them you actually have to look closely to see the treecat in them. For instance, IIRC Flag in Exile has a picture of Honor dueling with a sword…and you can just make out Nimitz sitting next to Benjamin Mayhew’s chair as they look on. Several covers like that…all with rather demented looking Nimitz’s IMHO.
They (well, mostly Nimitz) show up on various book covers, especially the Mattingly covers. At All Costs is one of the most prominent ones, with Nimitz sitting on Honor’s shoulder dangling her Star of Grayson over her baby (I can’t remember his name) to amuse it. There are also prominent Treecat renditions on some of the Worlds of Honor book covers, including Worlds of Honor and Changer of Worlds, IIRC.
Something that has amused me about treecats is how David Weber seems to constantly use cat references to describe them, while the authors of the spin-off stories seem to favor Ferret and Weasel references to describe them. So picture something physically like a ferret (long, thin, and wiggly), but with a cat’s head, I guess.
Given the close physical proximity of treecats to their humans (and the very strong mutual protection instinct bonded pairs tend to have), it’s generally common for something that causes the death of one to be involved in the death of the other, be it the destruction of a ship, or an assassin, etc.
Samantha’s bonded human died on HMS Wayfarer, but survived because she was also bonded with Nimitz (and thus had something to live for). King Roger’s treecat went into a catatonic state after his death in one of the Worlds of Honor books, and only found the will to live when Queen Elizabeth’s fiance (whose name escapes me at the moment) was attacked by one of those responsible for Roger’s death, and the treecat leapt to his defense (they ended up bonding during the ensuing fight, and that treecat is now the Prince Consort’s bonded 'Cat.)
Oi… Samantha survived. her bonded human has remained quite dead for the duration of the Honor Harrington series thus far.
Also, I don’t think they’ve had any third-gen prolong recipients who have also been Treecat bond-ees who have had a chance to die of old age yet (they’ve had a hard enough time giving the first-gen recipients time to die of old age, in fact), so it has yet to be seen how that works with treecats now having shorter theoretical lifespans than their humans.
Baker, the book I was thinking of (or one of them at least) is Worlds of Honor, which is a compilation. The relevant story What Price Dreams was written by David Weber, although several others in the book aren’t.
And it seems that I’ve gone and mixed things up again (of course!) because that story is about the Queen’s adoption, not about Samantha. I was sure I’d read her story too, but my David Weber books have overflown the bookshelves and I’m not sure that I’m looking at all of them.
I’m off to go reread this one though – after you’ve read the series enough times, it’s fairly easy to just pop in on some old friends in the middle of their tale.
