List of Planets in The Honorverse - G

G

Grayson

See Protectorate of Grayson.

Protectorate of Grayson

The planet Grayson was settled in the year 988 P.D. (Post Diaspora; equivalent to 3091 on present-day calendar) by the Reverend Austin Grayson (originally from the State of Idaho on Old Earth) and his followers, all members of the Church of Humanity Unchained. The settlers' intention was to start a new life totally free of technology and live the way the Bible said people should live. This dream was foiled before their ship even landed because Grayson has an unusually high concentration of heavy metals in its soil which made anything indigenous poisonous. As a result technology was necessary just to survive and the doctrinal view of technology became that technology in and of itself was not un-Godly, but the way it had consumed Man's life on Earth was. Not all Graysons accepted this reinterpretation, and over the course of several hundred years a political rift developed between the Moderates (those willing to employ technology to a limited extent), and the Faithful (those who wanted nothing to do with technology). War eventually broke out between the two groups. After a civil war a truce was called, resulting in a treaty by which the Faithful would leave Grayson for the planet Masada in the nearby Endicott system. In the six hundred years since the Faithful's exile, there have been several interplanetary wars between Grayson and Masada. The Masadans have promised to exterminate the Graysons in the name of God. The Church of Humanity Unchained practiced polygamy even before they came to Grayson. The planet's environment was so dangerous that the original colonists required genetic engineering to survive. However, the genetic alterations unintentionally resulted in a sex-linked genetic defect that killed many males before birth. As a result, live female births outnumbered male births 3:1, and the practice of polygamy continued. When first introduced in the Honorverse, Grayson women were afforded no political or legal rights; They could not vote, sit on juries, own land, or hold a title. Throughout the course of the novels, largely due to the influences of Honor Harrington and Manticore, this changes. Eventually, the laws are changed sufficiently so that even the hereditary steading titles can be passed to women, with the sole exception of the protectorship. The people of Grayson have maintained traditions, customs and attire which were millenary by Honor Harrington's time. Grayson, for example, is the only world where neckties are still in use. The traditional music of Grayson evolved from Old Earth's country western style. It is, together with Earth and another seven planets (out of the 2000+ worlds inhabited by humanity) one of the last planets where baseball is still played. Swordfighting is also practiced as a martial art; the mainstream style of swordfighting used on Grayson has been developed using the old movie Seven Samurai as a model. The official planetary day is still Earth's 24-hour day and the official year lasts 365 Earth days. The planet is ruled by a Council headed up by a Protector. Since the Rev. Grayson's death, the office of Protector has been vested upon a member of the Mayhew family. For the past five generations, the Council has worked to reduce the amount of autonomous power welded by the Mayhew clan. Prior to the Grayson-Manticore alliance the Protectorate had become a largely ceremonial (if influential) position. Grayson's sudden war with its neighbor Masada allowed the current Protector, Benjamin Mayhew IX, to recover most of the office's executive authority, leading to what became known as the Mayhew Restoration. Whereas most monarchs (such as the Queen of Manticore) are referred to as "the Crown", the Protector is referred to as "the Sword". The legislative branch of the Protectorate of Grayson is a bicameral legislature. Its houses are the Conclave of Steadholders (upper house), formed by Grayson's eighty-two Steadholders, and the Conclave of Steaders (lower house), a body formed by the elected representatives of the population of Grayson. All Government and legislative offices are located at Austin City, the Protectorate's capital. Local government in Grayson is left to feudal lords known as the Steadholders. Each Steadholder rules over a Steading which bears the name of its founder. The capital of each Steading is also named after the Steading's founder. Steadholders are entitled to have a personal guard force, and their official badge is a Key (The Steadholders' collective is referred to as "the Keys"). Within their Steadings, the Steadholder's word is law, provided that he respects Grayson's written Constitution, judicial precedent, and the authority and rights of the Church of Humanity Unchained. Steadholders are immune to judiciary prosecution and the position of Steadholder is hereditary; however, under the "Strathson Precedent", a Steading escheats to the Protector if the Steadholder dies without an heir. There is no separation of church and state whatsoever on Grayson. Civil government is considered as the executive and protective arm of the Church of Humanity Unchained, and the Church is viewed as the spiritual core of the state. One hundred Terran years before the events of Field of Dishonor, the Act of Toleration granted freedom of religion to the citizens of Grayson. In the course of the series, Grayson and Manticore have become allies, and Grayson has moved very quickly into the modern world. Because it was very isolated, Grayson had developed its own technological approach. For instance, Grayson developed high efficiency nuclear fission reactors which had been long abandoned by the rest of the Galaxy. They have also contributed to naval vessel design in conjunction with Manticore, making the Grayson Navy and the Royal Manticoran Navy the most advanced in the Galaxy. Honor Harrington, after her defense of the planet from Masadan attack and of protector Benjamin Mayhew IX personally, was made the first female Steadholder shortly before the first Haven-Manticore War began. She was also awarded the Star of Grayson, the highest medal of valor available. Later, she became the second highest-ranked officer in the Grayson Navy. Using her prize money from customs seizures and enemy vessels captured in battle, she has financed the development of a modern shipyard, and pioneered the use of very large crystplast domes as protection from the Grayson environment.

Gregor

a planet in the Andermani Empire, located near a Manticore Wormhole Junction terminus. The Gregor system belongs to the Andermani Empire, except for the Gregor Wormhole Terminus, which belongs to the Star Kingdom of Manticore.

Grendelsbane

Major Manticore Alliance Shipyard.

Gryphon

the third habitable planet of the Manticore system. Its surface gravitation is 1.01 G. It is the only habitable planet in the Manticore B sub-system, with a planetary population at the turn of the 20th Century post diaspora of 575 million, plus another 298 million living in Manticore-B's asteroid belts. It has a very considerable axial tilt, leading to extreme seasonal weather. The planet's environment is not very pleasant, with extremely harsh winters with snowfall measured in meters. As a result, natives of Gryphon tend to be a very tough bunch, and also a little contemptuous of people who were not born on Gryphon. On the other hand, Gryphon's weather has made the planet the Star Kingdom's leading ski resort, with tourism accounting for twenty percent of the gross planetary product. Gryphon's economy is mainly agrarian, although the extraction of minerals from Manticore-B's asteroid belts served as the base of a sprawling space industry. Gryphon is much more sparsely populated than either Sphinx or Manticore, but a higher percentage of its population join the Royal Manticore Navy. Its society is very rough-edged, and people tend to view Manticorans and Sphinxians as soft. In Manticoran politics natives of Gryphon are considered to be conservative royalists. The commoner population of Gryphon holds a significant degree of distrust and resentment towards the Kingdom's aristocracy, which has had its peak with the so-called "Gryphon Uprising", a series of low-level conflicts early in the history of the Star Kingdom between the aristocracy and the commoners regarding the ownership and use of lands. A commission sent by the Crown to deal with the problem concluded that the commoners' grievances were justified, and acted accordingly. As a consequence, the commoners of Gryphon are staunch supporters of the Crown as defender of the commoner population against the aristocracy, while the planetary aristocracy is mostly of conservative political leanings (supportive of the rule and privileges of the Star Kingdom's nobility). Several references are made to "Gryphon granite," presumably a dense mineral composite. Gryphon is also famous for the Kodiak Maximus, a species of large carnivores with highly valued fur.