Height

[Brad Zeak]

I apologize if this topic already exists somewhere and I'll admit, I'm only on Book 4. However is it just me or in the Honorverse, has humanity shrunk? It seems as if every new person Honor is introduced to, she's taller than them and she's only 6'2". In fact the only person I can recall being introduced who is taller than her is Thor Simengaard who is 6'6" but he's the product of genetic engineering. But other than that, she seems to tower over Manticorans, Gryphons, and Graysons. I don't remember seeing much mention of her height is normal for Sphinx or not. I could just seing something that isn't there. I know I'm 6'1" and I encounter people who are taller than me all the time. So I find it strange that such a big deal is made of a woman being just 1 inch taller than me but is a full head taller than most people she encounters.

[Zachary White]

I apologize if this topic already exists somewhere and I'll admit, I'm only on Book 4. However is it just me or in the Honorverse, has humanity shrunk? It seems as if every new person Honor is introduced to, she's taller than them and she's only 6'2". In fact the only person I can recall being introduced who is taller than her is Thor Simengaard who is 6'6" but he's the product of genetic engineering. But other than that, she seems to tower over Manticorans, Gryphons, and Graysons. I don't remember seeing much mention of her height is normal for Sphinx or not. I could just seing something that isn't there. I know I'm 6'1" and I encounter people who are taller than me all the time. So I find it strange that such a big deal is made of a woman being just 1 inch taller than me but is a full head taller than most people she encounters.

She and I have an encounter - and while my height is never specified - I’m 6’4 - so, I’ve got her there :p


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[Samirah Johnstone]

Admiral White Haven is taller (though not sure it is mentioned how much taller exactly). And there are others.

However, it is quite realistic that many who go to space aren't going to be quite as tall as you would see elsewhere. And for the Graysons, they wouldn't on average be anywhere close to as tall either because of nutrition and diet and other factors.

But she is tall for a female, especially in space I think is what it boils down to.

[Brad Zeak]

I guess. My wife is 6'1" and her sister is like 6'3". But the amount of men who seem to be only 5'... it's one thing right now for short folks to be in space but this is over 2,000 years from now and they build ships that fit 8,000 people on them...I guess it just seems suprising to me how many people she's taller than.

[Joe Grieco]

Trust me on this - height can be a factor in a cramped personal area. I served on Submarines, and at 5'11', it was a bit cramped, especially regarding the length of a bunk. Honor's father, and one of my shipmates, were 6'5". Think about this on racks routinely designed for people who were 5'8" or 5'9".

[Brad Zeak]

Trust me on this - height can be a factor in a cramped personal area. I served on Submarines, and at 5'11', it was a bit cramped, especially regarding the length of a bunk. Honor's father, and one of my shipmates, were 6'5". Think about this on racks routinely designed for people who were 5'8" or 5'9".

Right but that's with modern day building techniques. I mean, how cramped is a Battlecruiser in the Honorverse? Didn't they manage to fit the entire crew of one into a corridor when Henke left for her own command? Like I said, it just seems strange to me that they make such a huge deal of her height and it seems as if the males are really short but maybe it's because I'm so used to the 6' plus members of my family. At 6'1" I am the shortest male in my family

[John Fairbairn, KDE, GACM]

... I'm so used to the 6' plus members of my family. At 6'1" I am the shortest male in my family.

Spacer Zeak -

I come from a different genetic background ... Gaelic. I say different, because it is quite common amongst the Gaels for males to be tall (above 6 feet) and females to be short (under 5 feet 3 inches). Also, I have a combined genetic coding for height, which comes from a father who was 6 feet 1 inch tall, and a mother who was 5 feet even (her mother was 4 feet 10 inches, and her father was 5 feet tall) In my case, my genetic heritage expressed as 5 feet 11 inches at age 25. I am the shortest male in my father's family. All of the others are 6 feet tall or taller.

My wife also is Gaelic, and is an odd lot. Her mother and father were even in height, at 5 feet 5 inches. Her genetics expressed at 5 feet 8 inches at age 25.

However, then our family experienced a dichotomy. As expected from two parents, both of whom are 'tall', my son followed true to form. His genetics expressed at 6 feet 3.5 inches. However, my daughter is the spitting image of my mother, in figure, features, and nearly so in height - 5 feet 2 inches, 105 lbs. Her husband is 6 feet tall.

Now my grandson, at age 13, already is 5 feet 9 inches and bids fair to overtake his uncle. My daughter looks up at him and just shakes her head. But he does not mess with her - she used to be an assets protection officer in a mall security force. The greater-than 6 foot, 200 lb cops with whom she trained hated to do take-down training with her - she'd inevitably put them onto the mat, hard. Heck, I wouldn't mess with her, and neither would her brother. She'd body slam either one of us around like a dirty mop.

Genes iz weird, Dude.

[Rob Fiedeldey]

Supposedly being 6' 2" makes you taller than like 90% of the people on the planet.

[Chester Beedle]

You and your family are taller than most of the people on this planet.
https://usercontent2.hubstatic.com/6304377_f520.jpg

If you go just by the average (true average, not the mistaken meaning of "most common,") the Dutch are the tallest on Earth. Their average is 6 feet.

It's possible that people will continue to grow a few more inches, so that could be something to think about, but then if Mr. Weber had just added 4 inches to today's heights it would have been a little more difficult for people to place the height in their minds. Most people are familiar with someone who is 5'10" and that someone who is 6'4" is pretty tall. Harder to visualize that everyone is say 6'6".

Even in the future when ships are huge, it's still a good idea to conserve resources and not waste materials just to make roomier, more comfortable ships. The USS Nimitz class aircraft carrier of the US Navy has a crew of 5,000+, and while a bit bigger than ships in the past, the basic conservation of resources is not likely to change. In my wild guesses.

[Philip Culmer]

"Most common" is not necessarily not "true average", though it's probably not what people tend to mean when that use the word; in statistics, there are three averages :

• the Mean, which is what most generally think of when they say average, which is where you add everything up and divide by the number of entities,
• the Median, where you put everything in value order and take the one in the middle, and
• the Mode, which is the most common.

In a lot of things, the median is probably more representative than the mean, especially when you have an asymmetric long-tail distribution, like income: the high values at the top make the mean a lot higher than the median, so the median tends to give a better picture of how well-off people are. For a bell-curve distribution like height, the mean and the median are usually pretty close.