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Left or Right?

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Left or Right?
Post by dscott8   » Mon Sep 04, 2023 11:06 am

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This is a very trivial question, but I'm obsessed with it.

There are several references to Nimitz riding on Honor's right shoulder. It seems to me that his presence there would interfere with rendering a proper salute, and that by regulation, treecats should ride the left shoulder of personnel in uniform.

Thoughts?
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Re: Left or Right?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Mon Sep 04, 2023 1:39 pm

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dscott8 wrote:This is a very trivial question, but I'm obsessed with it.

There are several references to Nimitz riding on Honor's right shoulder. It seems to me that his presence there would interfere with rendering a proper salute, and that by regulation, treecats should ride the left shoulder of personnel in uniform.

Thoughts?


That was irrelevant to him. Likely, he'd think it's one of those two-legs silly concepts, like that of leaving defeated enemies alive.

No, he rode on the same shoulder that Lionheart (Climbs Quickly) rode on Stephanie (Death Fang's Bane). He's a descendant of Climbs Quickly's sister, from the same clan, and Honor is a descendant of Stephanie. They're probably also not the first such pairing in the intervening centuries. Tradition would have mattered to him a lot more.
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Re: Left or Right?
Post by Jonathan_S   » Mon Sep 04, 2023 2:51 pm

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Random text search contributions - looked through the books for "left shoulder" and "right shoulder".

Nimitz once rode on Tschu's left shoulder; of course Samantha was already riding on his right one. [Honor Among Enemies]

"Ariel rode on Elizabeth's left shoulder, while Monroe rode on Justin's right shoulder" [War of Honor]

"Fisher, who rode Scott's right shoulder" [Worlds of Honor: The Stray]

"It sat on its person's right shoulder, its tail hanging down her back while its remaining true-hand rested on her head, and the artist had captured the love in both of her subjects' eyes with haunting fidelity." [Worlds of Honor: What Price Dreams]

"[Stephanie Harrington]'d rigged a light harness with a tough fabric pad on top of her right shoulder, and the six-limbed treecat had sunk the curved claws of his mid-limb feet lightly into the padding for balance." [A Beautiful Friendship]

That's not many examples; so it's hard to see a pattern. 'Cats clearly don't always ride on right shoulders; because even in a single 'cat situation we have Ariel as a counter example.


"Like most Grayson women's hats, this one was broad-brimmed, but its right side turned sharply up. The rolled brim resembled a Sphinx Forestry Commission ranger's bush hat, and she'd insisted upon it largely for the same reason the SFC had: treecats rode their people's shoulders, and a normal brim would have gotten in Nimitz's way." But this doesn't say that there's whether the ranger's bush hats were standardized as to which side was turned up - so we don't know whether they required their 'cats to ride a certain shoulder (but my bet would be that they didn't).

I suspect Nimitz got used to riding Honor's right shoulder long before she had to worry about things like saluting. And from the tiny amount of evidence it seems like there's a tendency to prefer the right shoulder.

I wonder if it's as simple as 'cats preferring to ride on their person's dominant hand shoulder? (And humans are about 90% right-handed). Your dominant side is probably a bit stronger; as so better able to bear the 'cat's weight; OTOH it's probably more restrictive to have your more useful hand's arm somewhat restricted by having a heavy weight on that shoulder.

Heck, if 'cats differ in their dominant hands they might prefer to ride so that their dominant true-hand is on the outside; where it could be used to grab or manipulate things their person moves past.

Or it might just be a random preference thing.

But unless there's a quite strong reason to force 'cats whose person has joined the military to left their person's right shoulder free I suspect they stick with riding however they started doing when they first bonded. (And the 'cats are smart enough they probably just don't ride on the shoulder in a situation where a bunch of salutes need to be exchanged -- and they shouldn't be too much in the way if the odd unexpected need to salute comes up. So I suspect saluting isn't sufficient reason for the armed forces to override a 'cat's shoulder preference)
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Re: Left or Right?
Post by phillies   » Mon Sep 04, 2023 3:49 pm

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dscott8 wrote:This is a very trivial question, but I'm obsessed with it.

There are several references to Nimitz riding on Honor's right shoulder. It seems to me that his presence there would interfere with rendering a proper salute, and that by regulation, treecats should ride the left shoulder of personnel in uniform.

Thoughts?


Do we have any idea what a Manticoran salute looks like?
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Re: Left or Right?
Post by dscott8   » Mon Sep 04, 2023 5:18 pm

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phillies wrote:
dscott8 wrote:This is a very trivial question, but I'm obsessed with it.

There are several references to Nimitz riding on Honor's right shoulder. It seems to me that his presence there would interfere with rendering a proper salute, and that by regulation, treecats should ride the left shoulder of personnel in uniform.

Thoughts?


Do we have any idea what a Manticoran salute looks like?

Image
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Re: Left or Right?
Post by tlb   » Mon Sep 04, 2023 6:46 pm

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phillies wrote:Do we have any idea what a Manticoran salute looks like?

Why, instead of returning the salute, does she have a gun in her hand?

If the salute hand does not need to touch the face, then there is enough leeway to salute with the hand on the same side as the cat.
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Re: Left or Right?
Post by Theemile   » Tue Sep 05, 2023 8:41 am

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tlb wrote:
phillies wrote:Do we have any idea what a Manticoran salute looks like?

Why, instead of returning the salute, does she have a gun in her hand?

If the salute hand does not need to touch the face, then there is enough leeway to salute with the hand on the same side as the cat.


That was the cover of "Field of Dishonor" - the intention was she was on her way to dual with Young.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Left or Right?
Post by tlb   » Tue Sep 05, 2023 10:03 am

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tlb wrote:Why, instead of returning the salute, does she have a gun in her hand?

Theemile wrote:That was the cover of "Field of Dishonor" - the intention was she was on her way to dual with Young.

So, it's artistic license. The covers tend to show the cat on her left shoulder.
Chapter 32 wrote:. He could see only her left profile from where he stood, watching numbly as Castellaño recited the useless formal plea for reconciliation before he examined and selected the pistols. Ramirez and Stefan loaded the magazines at his command, their fingers flicking, flicking on the brass cartridge cases, and the stillness—the focused, empty calm of Harrington's expression—mocked his own terror more cruelly than any sneer. Her confidence was a fist about his heart, squeezing with fingers of steel, and panic filled him like poison.
She'd destroyed him. She would complete his destruction in a few more moments, yet his death would be no more than a punctuation. His decades-long efforts to punish her, to break and humble her, had failed. More than failed, for she'd turned the tables and brought him to this shameful, degrading end after agonizing days of waiting for the axe to fall. She hadn't just made him afraid; she'd made him know he was afraid, exposed his shameful terror for all to see and made him live with it night after night, until he woke whimpering in his sweatsoaked sheets.
Hate pushed back some of the fear, but that was a mixed blessing. The paralysis eased, yet that only made the strobes of his panic sharper, more terrible in the clarity with which he perceived them. Sweat oozed down his temples in fat, oily snakes, and the air felt suddenly colder. The automatic pistol weighed his right hand like an anchor when he took it, and the fingers of his left hand were so numb he almost dropped the magazine Stefan handed him.
"Load, Lady Harrington." North Hollow's eyes were wide and fixed, showing white all around their rims, as he watched Harrington slide the five-round magazine into the butt of her pistol with a smooth precision so graceful it seemed choreographed.
"Load, Lord North Hollow," Castellaño said, and he fumbled clumsily with his weapon. The magazine tried to slip from his sweaty fingers, twisting like a live thing before he got it in place, and he flushed with humiliation while Castellaño waited for him to complete the simple mechanical task.
As usual with a duel, neither principal had a gun until the weapons were examined by the conducting officer.
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Re: Left or Right?
Post by Theemile   » Tue Sep 05, 2023 3:22 pm

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tlb wrote:
Theemile wrote:That was the cover of "Field of Dishonor" - the intention was she was on her way to dual with Young.

So, it's artistic license. The covers tend to show the cat on her left shoulder.<snip>As usual with a duel, neither principal had a gun until the weapons were examined by the conducting officer.

Exactly - "Telling 100 points of a story in a second with a brush" as my Art Professor father-in-law used to say.

Like making a movie trailer in a single image - tell the story basics, amp up the juicy parts (bullets, explosions, sex), sell the book - heck with the actual story line.

You've got to admit, it is a compelling image - Her crew backing her, as leaves her warship and she stomps past, gun in hand, composure focused of the goal of destroying the monster she must destroy by hand- on the field of Dis-Honor.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Left or Right?
Post by Daryl   » Tue Sep 05, 2023 8:43 pm

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Except that she didn't take Nimitz to duels, as he wouldn't have been able to control himself if she lost.
Theemile wrote:That was the cover of "Field of Dishonor" - the intention was she was on her way to dual with Young.

So, it's artistic license. The covers tend to show the cat on her left shoulder.<snip>As usual with a duel, neither principal had a gun until the weapons were examined by the conducting officer.[/quote]
Exactly - "Telling 100 points of a story in a second with a brush" as my Art Professor father-in-law used to say.

Like making a movie trailer in a single image - tell the story basics, amp up the juicy parts (bullets, explosions, sex), sell the book - heck with the actual story line.

You've got to admit, it is a compelling image - Her crew backing her, as leaves her warship and she stomps past, gun in hand, composure focused of the goal of destroying the monster she must destroy by hand- on the field of Dis-Honor.[/quote]
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