What happens to all that debris?

cthia wrote:But still what happens to the debris from ships which explode in hyper? My guess would be debris suddenly reemerging in N-space.

But we know from HAE, that a ship which loses its sails in hyperspace does not transition to normal space; it needs the hyper generator to do that. So it does not seem that junk (such as the remains of the Havenite ship after Wayfarer's grasers destroyed it) would leave whatever band that it is in. Perhaps it remains until destroyed by a gravity wave.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:But still what happens to the debris from ships which explode in hyper? My guess would be debris suddenly reemerging in N-space.

But we know from HAE, that a ship which loses its sails in hyperspace does not transition to normal space; it needs the hyper generator to do that. So it does not seem that junk (such as the remains of the Havenite ship after Wayfarer's grasers destroyed it) would leave whatever band that it is in. Perhaps it remains until destroyed by a gravity wave.

Good point. I guess we do have to assume that grav shear immediately destroys all junk. But then if that is the case how do Solly ships survive hyper. LOL

This is an opportunity to ask another newbie question, from way back in the rear of the class. I'm talking rafters.

As I understand it, a ship needs sails and a hyper generator to enter and survive hyper. Without either the ship will be destroyed. So, what is the process to leave hyper that won't result in immediate destruction? Killing the generator? What does the generator generate?

And since it is patterned after the Age of Sail, I suppose going faster - transitioning to higher walls - is akin to tacking? Repositioning the sails to catch more wind.

Tacking, jibing, chicken jibes and beating all becomes interesting when trying to apply those maneuvers to what a ship is doing in hyper. If you have ever been sailing, you have an intimate relationship with the dangers of grav waves. An improper tack can kill. I've seen sloops broken like toy ships. I live near Hatteras Yachts and have had family and friends employed there. And I've had my hair blowing in the wind on the ocean, with the smell and taste
of the sea on my face.

.

cthia wrote:But still what happens to the debris from ships which explode in hyper? My guess would be debris suddenly reemerging in N-space.

tlb wrote:But we know from HAE, that a ship which loses its sails in hyperspace does not transition to normal space; it needs the hyper generator to do that. So it does not seem that junk (such as the remains of the Havenite ship after Wayfarer's grasers destroyed it) would leave whatever band that it is in. Perhaps it remains until destroyed by a gravity wave.

cthia wrote:Good point. I guess we do have to assume that grav shear immediately destroys all junk. But then if that is the case how do Solly ships survive hyper. LOL

This is an opportunity to ask another newbie question, from way in the rear of the class. I'm talking rafters.

As I understand it, a ship needs sails and a hyper generator to enter and survive hyper. Without either the ship will be destroyed. So, what is the process to leave hyper that won't result in immediate destruction? Killing the generator? What does the generator generate?

And since it is patterned after the Age of Sail, I suppose going faster - transitioning to higher walls - is akin to tacking? Repositioning the sails to catch more wind.

Tacking, jibing, chicken jibes and beating all becomes interesting when trying to apply those maneuvers to what a ship is doing in hyper. If you have ever been sailing, you have an intimate relationship with the dangers of grav waves. An improper tack can kill. I've seen sloops broken like toy ships. I live near Hatteras Yachts and have had family and friends employed there. And I've had my hair blowing in the wind on the ocean, with the smell and taste of the sea on my face.

You must have missed this recent post in another thread:

Jonathan_S wrote:Actually there's one mention of ship's tacking to beat "upwind" in grav waves - but only to say they don't need to anymore.

It's in 'The Universe of Honor Harrington' at the end of the first anthology 'More Than Honor' (which, along with the appendix to SVW and the much later armor essay in IFF, provide the bulk of the collected reference materials on Honorverse propulsion, ships, etc.). It says

More than Honor: The Universe of Honor Harrington wrote:Of course, there wasn't always a grav wave going the direction a starship needed, but with the grav detector to keep a ship clear of naturally occurring grav waves impeller drive could, at last, be used in hyper-space. In addition, it was possible for a Warshawski Sail ship to "reach" across a wave (which might be thought of as sailing with a "quartering breeze") at angles of up to about 60° before the sails began losing drive and up to approximately 85° before all drive was lost. By the same token, a hypership could sail "close-hauled," or into a grav wave, at approach angles of 45°. At angles above 45°, it was necessary to "tack into the wave," which naturally meant that return passages would be slower than outgoing passages through the same region of prevailing grav waves. Thus the old "windjammer" technology of Earth's seas had reemerged in the interstellar age, transmuted into the intricacies of hyper-space and FTL travel. By 1750 pd, however, sail tuners had been upgraded to a point which permitted the "grab factor" of a sail to be manipulated with far more sophistication than Dr. Warshawski's original technology had permitted. Indeed, it became possible to create a negative grab factor which, in effect, permitted a starship to sail directly "into the wind," although with a marginally greater danger of sail failure.

cthia wrote:This is an opportunity to ask another newbie question, from way back in the rear of the class. I'm talking rafters.

As I understand it, a ship needs sails and a hyper generator to enter and survive hyper. Without either the ship will be destroyed. So, what is the process to leave hyper that won't result in immediate destruction? Killing the generator? What does the generator generate?

Actually you misunderstood. Ship normally do not need a sail to enter or survive hyper. You do need a hyper generator to enter or leave hyper - but not to move about within it.

Remember that in HAE, when Wayfarer has her final fight covering for the liner Artemis, that entire fight happened in a rift in hyperspace and LACs and shuttles were used to transfer people and cover Artemis with both using their impeller drive, and neither having hyper generators.

Scout ships survived (with luck in avoiding grav waves, or by sticking to well established routes) in hyper using reaction drives; and that was the only way to use hyper for a few centuries! In fact the Solarian League was founded, based on this limited hyper travel, about 3½ centuries before sails (or impeller drives) were invented.



Of course hyper travel got a lot safer in 1273 PD, about 30 years after the invention of the impeller drive, when Adrienne Warshawski of Beowulf invents both a grav wave detector and sails. Now you could see grav waves from far enough away to avoid them if you wanted, or use your sails to safely enter and use them - instead of having to stick to the majority of hyper that is the rifts between the waves. (Later sails also turn out to be necessary, in combination with a hyper generator, to use wormholes; but that wasn't known when they were invented).

Now, to be fair, one of the background annexes does say that freighter captains prefer to enter or leave hyper from within a grav wave - and in that situation you do need both hyper generator and sail to survive. But outside a wave all you need is a hyper generator to enter or exit hyper. (Or at least to be close enough to a ship that has one that it can bring you along for the ride Recall in HotQ the ex-Haven ships were able to bring LACs into hyper with them by pushing their hyper generator fields out to about 6 km beyond their hulls)



As for how to exit hyper should you lose a sail. Well if you're in a grav wave you'd better hope there's a friendly ship to tow you clear because you can't maneuver and it isn't safe to change hyper bands from within a grav wave with only one sail. That was clearly explained in SVW with the attack on the Mantie convoy (where Helen Zilwicki lost her mother). If you lose both sails in a grav wave; well at least you don't have to worry about it for long since your ship is very quickly torn apart by the grav turbulence. However if you suffered a drive failure while in a rift in hyperspace you could easily and fairly safely exit using just your hyper generator.

Mind you if you dropped out of hyper after a drive failure odds are you'd be somewhere in deep dark space; where no-one would ever find you -- so don't do that.. You'd probably have better luck staying in hyper and sending out distress messages hoping someone passes close enough to help you - or that your onboard capabilities allow you to repair the drive.

As for a hyper generator failure - well that wouldn't do much of anything. Same thing if you killed the generator's power. That's because the generator doesn't keep you in hyper - though it is normally kept at high readiness while in hyper to allow you to switch bands if necessary - it's only used during the process of actively changing hyper bands (including entering or exiting hyper; or when triggering a wormhole transit). That's why LACs, shuttles, or pinaces can be used in hyper (as long as you're outside a grav wave) even though none of them carry a hyper generator. So if it fails you're just stuck in the band you were in until you can either repair it or get the attention of another ship to help you out.

There was some discussion about hyper generator failure after ToF was published; with it's incident with Hali Sowle's generator (due to massively overdue routine maintenance - something like 100,000 hours past required servicing). In that case "Less than an hour after they made their upward alpha translation, Andrew Artlett was completely and totally vindicated.
Mainly because they'd just made an unscheduled—and most unpleasant—downward translation.
"Congratulations, you stupid goofballs. The hyper generator is now officially defunct. We're damned lucky it lasted long enough for the failsafes to throw us back into n-space before the stabilizer went." but in discussion afterward RFC said the safeties only did that because the hyperlog showed the ship was still reasonable close to an inhabited system. If they'd been further out the failsafes would have left them in hyper rather than stranding them in deep space. (Wasn't the failsafes' fault that it wasn't actually safe for the ship to crawl back to Mesa) But if the failsafes hadn't tripped the Hawi Sowle would have just been stuck in that hyper band until either Andrew repaired the part (which is ultimately what he did while they hung around in n-space) or they got somewhere they could attract the help of another ship passing through that area of hyper.

Jonathan_S wrote:

So there's clearly something I'm missing - either about single ship transits or about how a mass transit would work.

I think that would be PLOT

George J. Smith wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:

So there's clearly something I'm missing - either about single ship transits or about how a mass transit would work.

I think that would be PLOT

Possibly with some handwavium seasoning.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:This is an opportunity to ask another newbie question, from way back in the rear of the class. I'm talking rafters.

As I understand it, a ship needs sails and a hyper generator to enter and survive hyper. Without either the ship will be destroyed. So, what is the process to leave hyper that won't result in immediate destruction? Killing the generator? What does the generator generate?

Actually you misunderstood. Ship normally do not need a sail to enter or survive hyper. You do need a hyper generator to enter or leave hyper - but not to move about within it.

Remember that in HAE, when Wayfarer has her final fight covering for the liner Artemis, that entire fight happened in a rift in hyperspace and LACs and shuttles were used to transfer people and cover Artemis with both using their impeller drive, and neither having hyper generators.

Scout ships survived (with luck in avoiding grav waves, or by sticking to well established routes) in hyper using reaction drives; and that was the only way to use hyper for a few centuries! In fact the Solarian League was founded, based on this limited hyper travel, about 3½ centuries before sails (or impeller drives) were invented.



Of course hyper travel got a lot safer in 1273 PD, about 30 years after the invention of the impeller drive, when Adrienne Warshawski of Beowulf invents both a grav wave detector and sails. Now you could see grav waves from far enough away to avoid them if you wanted, or use your sails to safely enter and use them - instead of having to stick to the majority of hyper that is the rifts between the waves. (Later sails also turn out to be necessary, in combination with a hyper generator, to use wormholes; but that wasn't known when they were invented).

Now, to be fair, one of the background annexes does say that freighter captains prefer to enter or leave hyper from within a grav wave - and in that situation you do need both hyper generator and sail to survive. But outside a wave all you need is a hyper generator to enter or exit hyper. (Or at least to be close enough to a ship that has one that it can bring you along for the ride Recall in HotQ the ex-Haven ships were able to bring LACs into hyper with them by pushing their hyper generator fields out to about 6 km beyond their hulls)



As for how to exit hyper should you lose a sail. Well if you're in a grav wave you'd better hope there's a friendly ship to tow you clear because you can't maneuver and it isn't safe to change hyper bands from within a grav wave with only one sail. That was clearly explained in SVW with the attack on the Mantie convoy (where Helen Zilwicki lost her mother). If you lose both sails in a grav wave; well at least you don't have to worry about it for long since your ship is very quickly torn apart by the grav turbulence. However if you suffered a drive failure while in a rift in hyperspace you could easily and fairly safely exit using just your hyper generator.

Mind you if you dropped out of hyper after a drive failure odds are you'd be somewhere in deep dark space; where no-one would ever find you -- so don't do that.. You'd probably have better luck staying in hyper and sending out distress messages hoping someone passes close enough to help you - or that your onboard capabilities allow you to repair the drive.

As for a hyper generator failure - well that wouldn't do much of anything. Same thing if you killed the generator's power. That's because the generator doesn't keep you in hyper - though it is normally kept at high readiness while in hyper to allow you to switch bands if necessary - it's only used during the process of actively changing hyper bands (including entering or exiting hyper; or when triggering a wormhole transit). That's why LACs, shuttles, or pinaces can be used in hyper (as long as you're outside a grav wave) even though none of them carry a hyper generator. So if it fails you're just stuck in the band you were in until you can either repair it or get the attention of another ship to help you out.

There was some discussion about hyper generator failure after ToF was published; with it's incident with Hali Sowle's generator (due to massively overdue routine maintenance - something like 100,000 hours past required servicing). In that case "Less than an hour after they made their upward alpha translation, Andrew Artlett was completely and totally vindicated.
Mainly because they'd just made an unscheduled—and most unpleasant—downward translation.
"Congratulations, you stupid goofballs. The hyper generator is now officially defunct. We're damned lucky it lasted long enough for the failsafes to throw us back into n-space before the stabilizer went." but in discussion afterward RFC said the safeties only did that because the hyperlog showed the ship was still reasonable close to an inhabited system. If they'd been further out the failsafes would have left them in hyper rather than stranding them in deep space. (Wasn't the failsafes' fault that it wasn't actually safe for the ship to crawl back to Mesa) But if the failsafes hadn't tripped the Hawi Sowle would have just been stuck in that hyper band until either Andrew repaired the part (which is ultimately what he did while they hung around in n-space) or they got somewhere they could attract the help of another ship passing through that area of hyper.

Outstanding post Jonathan! This is another post that belongs in the back of every book for us non techies who got crushed by the Crusher! Simply brilliant!

You gave me a lot of toys to play with. Namely, couldn't anyone who wishes to totally shut down their end of a junction or terminus simply erect a massive wall at the exit door? Or a sea of mines so thick gravity can't even penetrate it? If they're not using it, yet.

I didn't know a ship could simply linger in hyper. IOW, come to a full stop? I know it would be following the rules of sail, but still it eluded me. So you're saying an LD or three can sit in hyper just off the side of oncoming traffic and lay waste at will? There's no reason to think an LDs stealth doesn't work in hyper, but conventional ships are barenaked ladies without sidewalls. The MA can turn well traveled hyper routes into spider webs. I always anticipated engagement in hyper to begin at some point in the series. The MA can sit like spiders awaiting the flys.

This reminds me of the battle Kirk had with Khan in the Mutara Nebula. Inside a nebula sensors only operate at very short ranges. Both ships had to proceed at almost a crawl to do battle, and it became a guessing game. The smarter opponent wins. Khan and his crew were essentially Alphas too. And he would have taken Kirk, except for the fact that the Enterprise had an Alpha too. A Vulcan.

The MA can become the first Navy to introduce the tactic of ambushing in hyper! They can make people afraid to enter hyperspace. And even worse if they have increased their own sensor ability in hyper . . .

They can even choose a specific point in hyper to set up the ambush such that if an opponent runs scared and drops out of hyper they would be dropping out into the jaws of another ambush. Out of the frying pan into the fire.

The author certainly has a lot of Tum-Te-Tums in his Lego box!

One question though. How could being forced to drop out of hyper leave you stranded? Isn't it simply a matter of navigating according to the stars? You mean there could be ships Lost In Space?

cthia wrote:The MA can become the first Navy to introduce the tactic of ambushing in hyper! They can make people afraid to enter hyperspace. And even worse if they have increased their own sensor ability in hyper . . .

They can even choose a specific point in hyper to set up the ambush such that if an opponent runs scared and drops out of hyper they would be dropping out into the jaws of another ambush. Out of the frying pan into the fire.

The author certainly has a lot of Tum-Te-Tums in his Lego box!

One question though. How could being forced to drop out of hyper leave you stranded? Isn't it simply a matter of navigating according to the stars? You mean there could be ships Lost In Space?

In The Short Victorious War, chapter 18, the Peeps ambushed the convoy being protected by Captain Helen Zilwicki:

Captain Helen Zilwicki's face was stone as she listened to MacAllister's analysis of the threat thirteen and a half light-minutes behind her tiny squadron. Six of them to her five, and all of them bigger and far more heavily armed. Even the technical edge her ships might have exploited in normal space would hardly matter here, for it paid its biggest dividends in missile engagements, and missiles were useless within a grav wave. No impeller drive could function there; the wave's powerful gravitational forces would burn it out instantly. Which meant any missile vaporized the second its drive kicked in—and that none of her ships had the protection of their own impeller wedges . . . or sidewalls.

If you are forced to drop out of hyperspace, such as in chapter 54 of Torch of Freedom; then you have to hope that you have enough fuel to get you to an inhabited planet at sub light speed velocity, otherwise you become disappeared for unknown reasons.

cthia wrote:You gave me a lot of toys to play with. Namely, couldn't anyone who wishes to totally shut down their end of a junction or terminus simply erect a massive wall at the exit door? Or a sea of mines so thick gravity can't even penetrate it? If they're not using it, yet.

I didn't know a ship could simply linger in hyper. IOW, come to a full stop? I know it would be following the rules of sail, but still it eluded me. So you're saying an LD or three can sit in hyper just off the side of oncoming traffic and lay waste at will? There's no reason to think an LDs stealth doesn't work in hyper, but conventional ships are barenaked ladies without sidewalls. The MA can turn well traveled hyper routes into spider webs. I always anticipated engagement in hyper to begin at some point in the series. The MA can sit like spiders awaiting the flys.

This reminds me of the battle Kirk had with Khan in the Mutara Nebula. Inside a nebula sensors only operate at very short ranges. Both ships had to proceed at almost a crawl to do battle, and it became a guessing game. The smarter opponent wins. Khan and his crew were essentially Alphas too. And he would have taken Kirk, except for the fact that the Enterprise had an Alpha too. A Vulcan.

The MA can become the first Navy to introduce the tactic of ambushing in hyper! They can make people afraid to enter hyperspace. And even worse if they have increased their own sensor ability in hyper . . .

They can even choose a specific point in hyper to set up the ambush such that if an opponent runs scared and drops out of hyper they would be dropping out into the jaws of another ambush. Out of the frying pan into the fire.

The author certainly has a lot of Tum-Te-Tums in his Lego box!

One question though. How could being forced to drop out of hyper leave you stranded? Isn't it simply a matter of navigating according to the stars? You mean there could be ships Lost In Space?

Problem with trying to shut down the exit of a wormhole with a giant wall or mines thick enough to walk across is that it's got some pretty serious grav turbulence close to the terminus. That's why ships need to switch to sails for the final approach to the transition point. (Any why they use sidewalls or launch anything while within that arrival or departure lane). That gravity tubulence would tear apart and rapidly disperse the wall or the mines.

OTOH ships arriving are so vulnerable that standoff laserhead mines placed around the periphery of the grav turbulence can devastate any ship making an unauthorized transit.

A ship could wait in hyper for an ambush. But there are a few problems with that - namely very short sensor ranges (IIRC about 9 million km to even see another ship that's making no attempt to hide), ships moving through hyper tend to do so at their maximum safe velocity, and you can't see into other hyper bands so a ship might fly past in a higher or lower band and you'd never know. Still, in certain situtations it's possible - the Peeps that ambushed Artemis and Hawkwing were basically lying still in a patrol line in a rift (so not within a grav wave) in the Delta bands of hyper - because that particular area of Silesia was both relatively high traffic and one where ships had to proceed at low velocity for safety.


But generally if you're trying to ambush a freight mid-hyper and you're floating around stationary in the Delta bands, and you're lucky enough for a ship to pass within your 9 million km sensor range. You'll see the ship appear 9 million km away and likely be moving at their sustained velocity of 0.5c, so 2 minutes later they're back out of your sensor range never to be seen again. And that's the best case and headed straight at you, if they're way off to the side they might appear on your sensors for just a couple seconds. Not even an RMN warship's acceleration could keep them in sight when they've got a 0.5c head start and sensor ranges are that close.

Now you could instead stake out right outside the hyper limit of an inhabited system - but arriving traffic doesn't have to slow to a stop and also if they take a more gradual transition may start dropping from their transit band well short of the system - so if you try to ambush traffic in the delta bands you need to be stationed a lot further out which means your 9 million km sensor range covers far, far, less of the possible volume a ship might be coming through. But positioning yourself in the Alpha bands is likely fruitless because ships transit through them back into n-space too quickly for your weapons to be likely to catch them.

For outgoing you've probably got a better idea of where the ships are going to be entering hyper, it's probably on the side of the system currently closest to the inhabited planet, and it's probably not much outside the hyper limit. OTOH you're not sure which hyper band the ship is going to pick for it's initial stop point, and randomizing that would greatly complicate the ambush attempt. (I think you can do a fairly continuous transition from n-space to a final hyper band; I don't think you need to wait to recharge your hyper generator after each change of hyper bands as you climb towards Delta or Theta for your long journey.


As to no sidewalls - remember that that is only true when you are inside a grav wave. Out in a rift you've got impellers, missiles, sidewalls, decoys - it's exactly like fighting in normal space except way worse sensor range. But if an LD wanted to ambush a ship in a grav wave then the LD isn't stealthy because to survive in the grav wave it needs sails of its own and those are just as visible to grav sensors as the sails of its target. And now it can't use missiles or graser torps to attack, so it needs to get within about 1 million km so it can engage with its energy weapons.


And again, if the MAlign adopted this tactic they wouldn't be the first navy to ambush in hyper. My previous post already mention twice that Haven used that tactic (once in a grav wave, and once in a rift).

But a hyper ambush does require special circumstances (as in HAE) or very good knowledge of ship's planned course (as apparently was the case in SVW; presumably Haven spies getting the convoy routing details). And I suspect that Manticore learned pretty quickly to start using somewhat evasive routing on their military convoys - you don't have to alter your timing or course much to vastly decrease the chances of happening through an ambusher's sensor range. RFC has been pretty clear that, if anything, seeing 2 ambushes in hyper in the books is an overrepresentation of how often this is can succeed in even seeing a target.

tlb wrote:If you are forced to drop out of hyperspace, such as in chapter 54 of Torch of Freedom; then you have to hope that you have enough fuel to get you to an inhabited planet at sub light speed velocity, otherwise you become disappeared for unknown reasons.

Exactly. Well not just fuel; also life support, food, spare parts. A normal ship is unlikely to be equipped to operate without resupply or access to spares for more than maybe a year or two.

So if your hyper generator is failing and the failsafes dumped you even just 3 LY from an inhabited system you're unlikely to be able to survive the 4-5 years it'd take to cover that piddly distance without access to hyper.

Now if you can patch up the hyper generator with onboard supplies then it doesn't mater if you're in hyper or in normal space; once it's repaired you can then use hyper to get to an system for supplies and a complete overhaul. But if you can't repair it then better to have stayed in hyper - your odds of getting the attention of another ship are low (see the sensor range issues from my last post) but they're infinitely higher than trying to get attention from normal space where you're likely the only people within lightyears!