Honorverse ramblings and musings

SWM wrote:

George J. Smith wrote:
I think the "Black Box" data would be included in the systems that are wiped either deliberately by the crew, or when an incorrect attempt is made to access those systems.

In Field of Dishonor the logs are used to prove what happened when Pavel Young legged it, I would think that those data are in some way similar to the data that are collected by present day "Black Boxes".

The point of black box recorders is that the crew _cannot_ access, change, or delete the data. The whole purpose is to provide accurate data which investigators know has not been tampered with. Yes, Honorverse ships carry logs, which record a lot of data including some of what would be recorded by a black box. But the fact that they can be deleted means they are, by definition, not black boxes.

In any case, the point made earlier is that military vehicles do _not_ carry black boxes, because they (necessarily) would be recording classified information. Cthia was postulating that they _should_ carry some kind of black boxes, but I don't think anyone else here agrees.

Well, not so much thinking that they should inasmuch as wondering why they don't. Computer data isn't as hardened against unauthorized access or ship destruction.

It's just that, at times, storyline indicated a need for black boxes. The incident when Byng fired on those ships. Had it not been for the ship left behind observing...

At Basilisk Station, if Fearless had lost the battle with the Q-ship, no records would have existed. And storyline noted it. I am sure there are many more incidences that a recorder would have been instrumental.

Though I do foresee that an unforeseen problem would have been the time that friendly forces would have entered the system in question to realize something had happened, the little black box could have left the system along with debris and is too far out of a reasonable search path. Anyways, it was a thought.

Oh! An aside:

I just had an epiphany. One reason we may have overlooked as to why US warplanes don't utilize black boxes is because they don't want US citizens to know of their black ops. "Oops!" lol

cthia wrote:Well, not so much thinking that they should inasmuch as wondering why they don't. Computer data isn't as hardened against unauthorized access or ship destruction.

It's just that, at times, storyline indicated a need for black boxes. The incident when Byng fired on those ships. Had it not been for the ship left behind observing...

At Basilisk Station, if Fearless had lost the battle with the Q-ship, no records would have existed. And storyline noted it. I am sure there are many more incidences that a recorder would have been instrumental.

Though I do foresee that an unforeseen problem would have been the time that friendly forces would have entered the system in question to realize something had happened, the little black box could have left the system along with debris and is too far out of a reasonable search path. Anyways, it was a thought.

The RMN ships involved in the New Tuscany Incident were totally annihilated, broken down to the atomic level. A black box could not have survived that. If anything like it did survive, would Byng want to keep it around, since every bit of data would contradict his version of events?

If CL Fearless had lost her battle, then she would similarly have been vaporised. At the very end, Captain Coglin had brought his ship back around and was going to completely destroy the Manticoran ship in order to hide evidence of his vessel being a Q-ship. I doubt he would have left any black boxes lying around either.

munroburton wrote:

cthia wrote:Well, not so much thinking that they should inasmuch as wondering why they don't. Computer data isn't as hardened against unauthorized access or ship destruction.

It's just that, at times, storyline indicated a need for black boxes. The incident when Byng fired on those ships. Had it not been for the ship left behind observing...

At Basilisk Station, if Fearless had lost the battle with the Q-ship, no records would have existed. And storyline noted it. I am sure there are many more incidences that a recorder would have been instrumental.

Though I do foresee that an unforeseen problem would have been the time that friendly forces would have entered the system in question to realize something had happened, the little black box could have left the system along with debris and is too far out of a reasonable search path. Anyways, it was a thought.

The RMN ships involved in the New Tuscany Incident were totally annihilated, broken down to the atomic level. A black box could not have survived that. If anything like it did survive, would Byng want to keep it around, since every bit of data would contradict his version of events?

If CL Fearless had lost her battle, then she would similarly have been vaporised. At the very end, Captain Coglin had brought his ship back around and was going to completely destroy the Manticoran ship in order to hide evidence of his vessel being a Q-ship. I doubt he would have left any black boxes lying around either.

Of course. There are times when a black box would not survive. Grav wave accidents for one.

Yes, Coglin was intending to completely destroy Fearless but it might not have worked out for him exactly that way. lol

But IIRC, both ships were originally headed for the hyper limit. Let's say Fearless had totally destroyed the Q-ship but was also destroyed herself, wouldn't her wreckage have continued to drift towards the limit, eventually being destroyed?

cthia wrote:But IIRC, both ships were originally headed for the hyper limit. Let's say Fearless had totally destroyed the Q-ship but was also destroyed herself, wouldn't her wreckage have continued to drift towards the limit, eventually being destroyed?

The wreckage would indeed have continued drifting toward the hyper limit at her last velocity and vector. But it would not have been destroyed when it reached the hyper limit. It would have continued drifting into interstellar space. And no one else in the system knew what vector they were on. It is unlikely anyone would have found the wreckage, even if there were some remotely activated transponder.

SWM wrote:

cthia wrote:But IIRC, both ships were originally headed for the hyper limit. Let's say Fearless had totally destroyed the Q-ship but was also destroyed herself, wouldn't her wreckage have continued to drift towards the limit, eventually being destroyed?

The wreckage would indeed have continued drifting toward the hyper limit at her last velocity and vector. But it would not have been destroyed when it reached the hyper limit. It would have continued drifting into interstellar space. And no one else in the system knew what vector they were on. It is unlikely anyone would have found the wreckage, even if there were some remotely activated transponder.

IIRC from an earlier discussion, thr hyper limit is not some sort of wall you bump into. It is merely the pont of distance from a planet where it is safe to enter hyperspace.

Don

n7axw wrote:IIRC from an earlier discussion, thr hyper limit is not some sort of wall you bump into. It is merely the pont of distance from a planet where it is safe to enter hyperspace.

Don

All gravitional wells have a spherical hyper limit around it. The dominating gravity well is usually a star, though some outer gas giants outside of a star's hyper limit will generate their own relatively smaller hyper limit.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/93/1

Our sun is a G2, so would have a hyper limit of ~21.12 light minutes, or ~380 million kilometres. Mars orbit is at ~228m, Jupiter at ~779m. Inner planets' hyper limits are completely swallowed up by the parent star, so they don't get mentioned.

SWM wrote:

cthia wrote:But IIRC, both ships were originally headed for the hyper limit. Let's say Fearless had totally destroyed the Q-ship but was also destroyed herself, wouldn't her wreckage have continued to drift towards the limit, eventually being destroyed?

The wreckage would indeed have continued drifting toward the hyper limit at her last velocity and vector. But it would not have been destroyed when it reached the hyper limit. It would have continued drifting into interstellar space. And no one else in the system knew what vector they were on. It is unlikely anyone would have found the wreckage, even if there were some remotely activated transponder.

n7axw wrote:IIRC from an earlier discussion, thr hyper limit is not some sort of wall you bump into. It is merely the pont of distance from a planet where it is safe to enter hyperspace.

Don

Safe, in what manner, as it applies to the Honorverse? In various sci-fi reads, the reason a certain distance must be achieved before hyper, varies significantly in two regards.
1. Attempts to enter hyper fails because the gravity screws with the ships engine.
2. The ship's handling is thrown wildly out of control that it may crash into an object.
3. Entering hyper inside a star or planet's gravity well will destroy the planet or star.

1 & 2 are variations of the same. 3 is a horse of another color.

Which is it in the Honorverse?

cthia wrote:

n7axw wrote:IIRC from an earlier discussion, thr hyper limit is not some sort of wall you bump into. It is merely the pont of distance from a planet where it is safe to enter hyperspace.

Don

Safe, in what manner, as it applies to the Honorverse? In various sci-fi reads, the reason a certain distance must be achieved before hyper, varies significantly in two regards.
1. Attempts to enter hyper fails because the gravity screws with the ships engine.
2. The ship's handling is thrown wildly out of control that it may crash into an object.
3. Entering hyper inside a star or planet's gravity well will destroy the planet or star.

1 & 2 are variations of the same. 3 is a horse of another color.

Which is it in the Honorverse?

It's 4) the ship is destroyed if it tries to enter hyperspace inside the hyper limit.

SWM wrote:

cthia wrote:Safe, in what manner, as it applies to the Honorverse? In various sci-fi reads, the reason a certain distance must be achieved before hyper, varies significantly in two regards.
1. Attempts to enter hyper fails because the gravity screws with the ships engine.
2. The ship's handling is thrown wildly out of control that it may crash into an object.
3. Entering hyper inside a star or planet's gravity well will destroy the planet or star.

1 & 2 are variations of the same. 3 is a horse of another color.

Which is it in the Honorverse?

It's 4) the ship is destroyed if it tries to enter hyperspace inside the hyper limit.

Are you sure? Do you happen to recall where that was pointed out?

I remember the risks of attempting to exit hyper within the limit being laid out. (outer 20% no damage but remain in hyper; inner 80% destruction of the ship).
And I remember the risk of attempting to enter hyper while moving faster that 0.3c (destruction of ship)

But I can't seem to recall discussion of attempting to use a hyper generator while inside in n-space but within the hyper limit...

agree. entering hyper too early has not been covered, as far as i know