What happens to all that debris?

cthia wrote:Theemile's thinking may be in tune with my own. I can accept something totally boring happening, like some ships having to catch the next trip.

The problem with that is it seems so arbitrary. To effect a mass transit then the wormhole has to "see" all ships as one whole mass. They must all have crossed a certain threshold or invisible line as it were. Unless the worm has eyes to resolve the "photo finish" it becomes arbitrary to determine which ships make it. And from which, or both, directions. Perhaps the MAlign knows more.

It also begs the question of the limits being exceeded while towing LACs. Does it blow out the tractors, destroy the LACs and/or damage the towing ships, and yadda. All rhetorical questions of course.

My speculation is that you wouldn't get a partial transit; either all the ships would go or none of them would. But we've really no way to know.

As for towing LACs - I don't think you can tow them through a wormhole. (Well, maybe, if they tractor themselves hard against your hull - but not if they're being towed behind; like Saladin and Principality did in HotQ)
LACs don't have sails I'd assume the same rule as in a grav wave would apply, anything without at least one sail to stabilize it would be destroyed by the grav turbulence. Ships can't successfully tow decoys or pods in the entry/exit lane of a wormhole and I'd assume the same is normally true for LACs.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Theemile's thinking may be in tune with my own. I can accept something totally boring happening, like some ships having to catch the next trip.

The problem with that is it seems so arbitrary. To effect a mass transit then the wormhole has to "see" all ships as one whole mass. They must all have crossed a certain threshold or invisible line as it were. Unless the worm has eyes to resolve the "photo finish" it becomes arbitrary to determine which ships make it. And from which, or both, directions. Perhaps the MAlign knows more.

It also begs the question of the limits being exceeded while towing LACs. Does it blow out the tractors, destroy the LACs and/or damage the towing ships, and yadda. All rhetorical questions of course.

My speculation is that you wouldn't get a partial transit; either all the ships would go or none of them would. But we've really no way to know.

As for towing LACs - I don't think you can tow them through a wormhole. (Well, maybe, if they tractor themselves hard against your hull - but not if they're being towed behind; like Saladin and Principality did in HotQ)
LACs don't have sails I'd assume the same rule as in a grav wave would apply, anything without at least one sail to stabilize it would be destroyed by the grav turbulence. Ships can't successfully tow decoys or pods in the entry/exit lane of a wormhole and I'd assume the same is normally true for LACs.

If I'm remembering correctly, the biggest problem with simultaneous transit is the risk of ships "interspercing" with each other during transit. The 2 ships come through literally on top of each other - and the more ships come through, the more likely they interspersion. I guess I've always assumed that a over-max transit is nothing but a mass inspersion.

Theemile wrote:If I'm remembering correctly, the biggest problem with simultaneous transit is the risk of ships "interspercing" with each other during transit. The 2 ships come through literally on top of each other - and the more ships come through, the more likely they interspersion. I guess I've always assumed that a over-max transit is nothing but a mass inspersion.

I know inter-penetration during simultaneous wormhole usage (and the destruction resulting from it) is a significant (and often seen) issue in RFC's Starfire universe but I wasn't recalling it being mentioned in the Honorverse.

But I also wouldn't swear it wasn't said somewhere.

Still, the main issue seems to be there's so little written about mass wormhole transits in this universe we're mostly left in the dark. Stuck trying to support a hypothesis from only the thinnest textual hints.

There are incoming and outgoing transit corridors, how do ships transit en-masse without wedge/sail fratricide if they have to be in the same corridor? If they don't have to be in the same corridor then why all the kerfuffle about get the transit vectors correct?

It's all PLOT

Take it for what it is, a story.

George J. Smith wrote:It's all PLOT

Take it for what it is, a story.

You have said this to several questions and I am not sure how useful it is. On the the one hand you are right, it is all plot and the writings of the author(s) are are the only definitive source. On the other hand, we like and expect continuing stories to have an internal consistency; so when a question pops up about an element in the latest story we can analyze and decide whether there is an answer that arises from earlier text or not. So what we are trying to consider is the internal logic and consistency, which are ignored if the main answer is only "it's all plot".

I wonder how large the junction volume is - so far, can't find any references to it.

I may be wrong, but my impression is that it's vast. On the order of a gas giant or even larger. That would allow plenty of room to provide clear distance from emergence zones, designated as "inbound lanes", even without using two-dimensional formations.

To enable mass transits, there must be flexibility in aligning with outbound gravity waves. The threshold they cross to transit is likely a vast spherical field, which appears as a slightly convex wall from the perspective of a ship/fleet. Outbound lanes are probably more administrative than physics, placed wherever it suits Astro Control to have traffic queues.

tlb wrote:

George J. Smith wrote:It's all PLOT

Take it for what it is, a story.

You have said this to several questions and I am not sure how useful it is. On the the one hand you are right, it is all plot and the writings of the author(s) are are the only definitive source. On the other hand, we like and expect continuing stories to have an internal consistency; so when a question pops up about an element in the latest story we can analyze and decide whether there is an answer that arises from earlier text or not. So what we are trying to consider is the internal logic and consistency, which are ignored if the main answer is only "it's all plot".

For me, if everything is solely plot driven, I find the work to be very unappealing. There has to be consistent rules that make sense, and if they go against reality, there needs to be a rational. If not, it's just a fever dream of whatever fell onto the paper.

And yes, I'm a scientist, an analyst. I look for patterns in everything and try to fit the pieces together. Everything I do, I look for ways to put things together and make them work, to find and apply rules, and analyze when things don't work. And when the parts do not fit, something to me is wrong. And if they deliberately do not fit, then that work is not for me.

So Yes, I'm attracted to books with infodumps, and internal logic. And many of my friends are attracted to the same.

munroburton wrote:I wonder how large the junction volume is - so far, can't find any references to it.

I may be wrong, but my impression is that it's vast. On the order of a gas giant or even larger. That would allow plenty of room to provide clear distance from emergence zones, designated as "inbound lanes", even without using two-dimensional formations.

I think we were told it's about a light second. I just don't remember if that's radius or diameter. Either way, it's way larger than a gas giant, but that's the Junction as a whole. The volume for the departure lanes is never explained. The hyper limit of the Junction is 1 million km in radius.

To enable mass transits, there must be flexibility in aligning with outbound gravity waves. The threshold they cross to transit is likely a vast spherical field, which appears as a slightly convex wall from the perspective of a ship/fleet. Outbound lanes are probably more administrative than physics, placed wherever it suits Astro Control to have traffic queues.

My guess is that a mass transit involves placing all the ships together in the departure "lane" (which is more a volume than a straight line) and then all of them switching to sails before they all activate their hyper generators. This probably means that coordinating the mass transit takes time too: all the ships need to get into position and stop, otherwise some of them will move out of the departure locus. Then they all start moving in the right vector, very slowly. Then they all switch to sails, then they all very precisely activate their generators.

So there's probably a minimum mass of mass transit that makes it worth it. And this is probably only for drilled navigation crews (they probably do it simulated, not for real). Anyone else is simply told to go piss off.

By the way, this would call for the existence of a ferry vessel. Anything smaller than 50,000 tonnes is told to dock to the ferry and the ferry then transits. 50 dispatch boats massing 20,000 tonnes each would require 50 minutes to push through, for the cost of just 1 million tonnes transited. That allows the ferry to be 1.5 million tonnes and still barely lock down the Junction, for the total transit time spent of 1 minute.

Moreover, ferry vessels can be staged in parallel, so arriving ships simply dock to the next one available.

Unless, of course, small ships transiting aren't common at all. I get the impression that the vast majority of ships transiting are huge freighters, which means they probably have more than 60 seconds of lockdown time. The few DBs and private yachts that want to transit simply have to pay the same price as a freighter, which probably discourages most unnecessary transit.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Since there are inbound and outbound lanes shouldn't there be two-way traffic at all times thru the junction? There probably is.

There can't be simultaneous 2 way traffic because, while there are separate lanes, the wormhole "lock down" is bidirectional and so prevents continuous two-way traffic.


A ship comes through and the next outbound (or inbound) ship physically cannot use the wormhole for 10 seconds (anything up to 2.5 mtons), to 120 seconds (an 8.8 mton Harrington II SD(P)), or more if there are even larger ships out there.


However we don't know if a ship takes any damage from attempting to use the wormhole before it unlocks; so we don't know whether the attempt is dangerous or not.

It should be possible if it appears to the worm as a "mass transit" of just two ships, synchronized bidirectionally. Why should the worm care if mass transits are bidirectional?

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Thanks. I know it is all mass limited. It's just easier to talk ships.

I can see the whole ordeal needing some other requirements other than timing, but by the same token whatever the requirements are, they could be satisfied on both sides.

Depending on the results from the other post fielded by Theemile regarding a mass transit exceeding the mass limit, if the mass transit is destroyed then up to 450 BCs or 44 SDs can be wiped out at the push of the transit button.

"HANDS OFF THAT BUTTON!"

I don't know if Theemile is correct. I don't recall any specific mention in the books of what happens when you exceed the mass limit.

All I can offer is that the mass limit of wormholes was determined somehow, and yet when talking of wormhole exploration nobody shared a grizzly tale of the first time a mass transit limit was exceeded. That might be the thinnest hint that exceeding the limit might be rather boring; with a bunch of ships simply failing to transit and instead continuing in normal space as their momentum carries them past the entry point.

OTOH lack of such a grizzly story might just mean there hasn't been reason for RFC to think about it or share such a tale. So if it become relevant to his stories we might yet hear of the first folks that discovered wormhole mass transit limits -- and whether that was farce or disaster.

It could also turn out that the wormhole punishes the attempt by shutting down the wormhole for 17 hours anyway. Wouldn't that be a bitch the MAlign didn't warn about. They wanted it to be a surprise. If so, it could turn out as a way to prevent what Hamish did and lock that fleet out of the fight. Courtesy of MA research and deviousness.

That a good enough exploit ThinksMarkedly?