What happens to all that debris?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Thanks for the passage and explanation tlb. It is always good to reread that. I adore AAC. That bugle sound of the cavalry coming always gives me goosebumps. It is what spurred the parody of Honor at the Bat over in the humor thread.

I didn't think Honor was in n-space because I couldn't understand why that large of a force coming out of the junction couldn't be seen by the Peeps. And who else would a force that large be. And if indeed Tourville was waiting in hyper to mousetrap Honor, then surely he could see the action. But I suppose he could have a ship waiting to hyper back out with the news.

Tourville wasn't waiting in hyper. He was deep in the hyperlimit and at this time had already fought Home Fleet and was taking fire from Third Fleet under Adm. Kuzak. You're thinking of Adm. Genevieve Chin.

The reason Adm. Chin had been in hyper was that she could attack all Alliance forces from behind. At this point, Tourville could see Home and Third Fleets. And Third Fleet had a few Invictus with Keyhole II (Adm. McKeon's division or squadron), which means Tourville's Second Fleet was taking heavy damage. They couldn't tell where Eighth Fleet was. It was possible Eighth hadn't been at Trevor's Star and had instead exited to attack somewhere in Haven space. So after waiting what they thought was enough, they sent a destroyer that had been in n-space back into Alpha to bring Adm. Chin and Fifth Fleet in.

Honor later arrived with Eighth. She wasn't waiting in hyper either. She made the fastest transit possible from the Junction to Manticore space. She did drop 70 million km out from Adm. Chin, who at this point was still outside the hyperlimit, meaning Eighth Fleet dropped very far from the limit too. The Hermes network between Manticore-A and the Junction was still operating and messages took barely 7 minutes one-way, so Honor had all the information she needed to attack before she left the Junction.


The Havenites could have made FTL messages too, but they'd need them carried by ship. That means it couldn't be as fast as Hermes. The way communications could have worked would be with two small Q-ships. One would observe Eighth Fleet beginning to show up and then come to the inner system to advise that yes, Eighth is eventually coming. The second would come when Eighth was mostly completely massed and was actually coming.

But even then, this strategy wouldn't (or didn't) work, for two reasons. First, Tourville and Second Fleet were taking heavy damage from Third Fleet, especially because of those Apollo missiles McKeon had. He needed Chin to come in and relieve him, lest there be nothing left of Second in the inner system, which would leave Chin and Fifth Fleet to face the remnants of Home, Third and Eighth Fleet from three different directions. Remember also that Eighth Fleet had been away from the terminus on the other side, so there was a long while when none of those ships had shown up at the Junction, so Tourville called Chin in.

And second, Honor made the mass transit and then came in without a dogleg. The second Q-ship wouldn't have known in advance those ships were coming until they did, at which point it would make the translation up to Alpha and come into the inner system. And they wouldn't come directly because it was indeed too risky, as posted above. That means this ship would have begun its transit late and Honor would have beat it to the inner system. Besides, it was a moot point anyway because Chin had already transited in.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The Havenites could have made FTL messages too, but they'd need them carried by ship. That means it couldn't be as fast as Hermes. The way communications could have worked would be with two small Q-ships. One would observe Eighth Fleet beginning to show up and then come to the inner system to advise that yes, Eighth is eventually coming. The second would come when Eighth was mostly completely massed and was actually coming.

Jonathan_S wrote:Actually I suspect that Junction control chased off all freighters as soon at the attacks started - so a Q-ship wouldn't have any cover to hide it while trying to keep an eye on emergences in the Junction.

Any freighter hanging around within sensor range would probably have been chased off; just like Diamonto's BCs -- the ones Tourville was hoping would give him a heads up when 3rd and then 8th fleet came through.

Once Haven's side lost visibility into the Junction area their forces were reduced to deduction -- and it led them astray because Honor took just long enough they though she wasn't coming.

Jonathan_S wrote:Actually I suspect that Junction control chased off all freighters as soon at the attacks started - so a Q-ship wouldn't have any cover to hide it while trying to keep an eye on emergences in the Junction.

Any freighter hanging around within sensor range would probably have been chased off; just like Diamonto's BCs -- the ones Tourville was hoping would give him a heads up when 3rd and then 8th fleet came through.

Once Haven's side lost visibility into the Junction area their forces were reduced to deduction -- and it led them astray because Honor took just long enough they though she wasn't coming.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:True, which is why I said small Q-ships, probably more like couriers. If nothing else, they need a hypergenerator that can transit the ship faster than Eighth Fleet's superdreadnoughts. And at least not lose too badly in acceleration either. A freighter wouldn't cut it.

You're right, Junction Control and the RMN detachment there would have chased everyone out because Third Fleet's transit would want to have no headaches in the Junction area. And then Third Fleet would complete the job while waiting for its last ships to come through. But in this chaos, it's easy to lose two small ships that don't want to be found and are sitting 5 million km from the Junction with minimal wedge.

Though... one of those ships might have come into the inner system before the first Eighth Fleet ships showed up just advise that Eighth Fleet hadn't showed up. It would be useful for Tourville and Chin to know that, far more than no message. That would leave just one to advise "oops, our bad, they are coming."

Foraker and her wizards still hadn't figured out how to fit a grav pulse transmitter with any sort of bandwidth into something as small as a drone. But they could put a LAC in range for the drone to hit it with a whisker laser, and a LAC could carry an FTL com. They still couldn't real-time the raw drone data to Sovereign of Space, but they could get enough summarized information through to give Giscard a far better picture of what was happening than any previous Havenite fleet commander could have hoped for.

tlb wrote:But they do not need Q-ships to carry messages, Haven had FTL communication capability as of War of Honor, chapter 57:

Foraker and her wizards still hadn't figured out how to fit a grav pulse transmitter with any sort of bandwidth into something as small as a drone. But they could put a LAC in range for the drone to hit it with a whisker laser, and a LAC could carry an FTL com. They still couldn't real-time the raw drone data to Sovereign of Space, but they could get enough summarized information through to give Giscard a far better picture of what was happening than any previous Havenite fleet commander could have hoped for.

So I assume that was how Diamato's scout force was communicating before being chased away.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The LDs and the regular ships of the wall have a very, very distinctive difference: the wedge. The g-torps can easily be programmed not to shoot at anything that doesn't have a wedge. The only GA ships that wouldn't have a wedge in normal conditions are those so badly damaged that it collapsed. The MAN can sweep up later. Those aren't running.

No one is going to test the theory that the g-torps don't attack if you have no wedge. That's the same as standing up to a bully and saying they won't hit you if you wear glasses. They might not, but would you take the chance?

Brigade XO wrote:We have discussed this in view of various systems. It boils down to the fact that debris created by space battles are usually traveling at a fairly good rate of speed and in all sorts of directions depending on how the ships/stations, weapons blow up. Some have larger pieces and some small.

Most of that- including the things not originally moving slowly and/or already now heading down at a planet of some other system body are headed elsewhere and are going to exit the scene, possibly the system in time. Bits and pieces include dust size bits of metal or other things up to chucks of hull material and armor. If your not chasing it down- like the remains of the RMN ships where the RMN or friendly system SDF/ Rescue Service starts the process and takes the file with bouts- then somebody like Astro control is going to have to track about a gazillion things and either have them chased down and destroyed by wedge or let them go to oblivion.
Dropping debris just outside the hyperlimit is a very short term situation unless you give it enough velocity to maintain it's relative location to the least time course you expect "whomever" is going to pop out of hyper and come roaring in....otherwise it will drift (or file to stay in place) and otherwise duspurse away from the location

Sure, you can run down the larger stuff- like RMN and RHN after the Filerta fleet destruction but that is mostly to 1) recover any surviving SLN crew and stop damaged ships from exiting the system so they can be recovered for analysis and reclamation. Not for picking up a 40' section of armor that detached from a spinning 1/3 remains of an SD.There aren't enough ships.

Perhaps the best you can do is park a few ships on the projected incoming ballistic track against surviving station using wedges and light screen to intercept stuff that's visible on sensors. Even have any patrols you are then running to orient the wedges to act like brooms. But most of the small stuff is just going to either go away, deorbit into something or otherwise be destroyed.

So much of this kind of debris SHOULD be in relatively long term (but probably ultimately unstable because of system mechanics) is will be next seen/encountered in several hundred years as it comes back in. Even Monica should be able to spot half a BC that was not recovered after the fight and has finally swung back into the habitat planet part of the system- and be able to take care of it with its Astro Control.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Thanks for the passage and explanation tlb. It is always good to reread that. I adore AAC. That bugle sound of the cavalry coming always gives me goosebumps. It is what spurred the parody of Honor at the Bat over in the humor thread.

I didn't think Honor was in n-space because I couldn't understand why that large of a force coming out of the junction couldn't be seen by the Peeps. And who else would a force that large be. And if indeed Tourville was waiting in hyper to mousetrap Honor, then surely he could see the action. But I suppose he could have a ship waiting to hyper back out with the news.

Tourville wasn't waiting in hyper. He was deep in the hyperlimit and at this time had already fought Home Fleet and was taking fire from Third Fleet under Adm. Kuzak. You're thinking of Adm. Genevieve Chin.

The reason Adm. Chin had been in hyper was that she could attack all Alliance forces from behind. At this point, Tourville could see Home and Third Fleets. And Third Fleet had a few Invictus with Keyhole II (Adm. McKeon's division or squadron), which means Tourville's Second Fleet was taking heavy damage. They couldn't tell where Eighth Fleet was. It was possible Eighth hadn't been at Trevor's Star and had instead exited to attack somewhere in Haven space. So after waiting what they thought was enough, they sent a destroyer that had been in n-space back into Alpha to bring Adm. Chin and Fifth Fleet in.

Honor later arrived with Eighth. She wasn't waiting in hyper either. She made the fastest transit possible from the Junction to Manticore space. She did drop 70 million km out from Adm. Chin, who at this point was still outside the hyperlimit, meaning Eighth Fleet dropped very far from the limit too. The Hermes network between Manticore-A and the Junction was still operating and messages took barely 7 minutes one-way, so Honor had all the information she needed to attack before she left the Junction.


The Havenites could have made FTL messages too, but they'd need them carried by ship. That means it couldn't be as fast as Hermes. The way communications could have worked would be with two small Q-ships. One would observe Eighth Fleet beginning to show up and then come to the inner system to advise that yes, Eighth is eventually coming. The second would come when Eighth was mostly completely massed and was actually coming.

But even then, this strategy wouldn't (or didn't) work, for two reasons. First, Tourville and Second Fleet were taking heavy damage from Third Fleet, especially because of those Apollo missiles McKeon had. He needed Chin to come in and relieve him, lest there be nothing left of Second in the inner system, which would leave Chin and Fifth Fleet to face the remnants of Home, Third and Eighth Fleet from three different directions. Remember also that Eighth Fleet had been away from the terminus on the other side, so there was a long while when none of those ships had shown up at the Junction, so Tourville called Chin in.

And second, Honor made the mass transit and then came in without a dogleg. The second Q-ship wouldn't have known in advance those ships were coming until they did, at which point it would make the translation up to Alpha and come into the inner system. And they wouldn't come directly because it was indeed too risky, as posted above. That means this ship would have begun its transit late and Honor would have beat it to the inner system. Besides, it was a moot point anyway because Chin had already transited in.

cthia wrote:But the part of that tactic that threw me is that the RMN can always see the blood red icons of enemy ships. Even though upward translations leave no clue, wouldn't CIC register one less ship when the destroyer hypered out? Which would have made it obvious what was coming?