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Honorverse ramblings and musings

Join us in talking discussing all things Honor, including (but not limited to) tactics, favorite characters, and book discussions.
Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by saber964   » Sat May 20, 2017 9:42 pm

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cthia wrote:
Dauntless wrote:Ariel is male

female treecats rarely bond. very rarely.

Samantha was the most recent we know about, though she was an extra special case being a memory singer.

Wait, what? Ariel is a male???

After all this time that important fact escaped me???

It is because my mind hypers back to a time in High School when I dated an Ariel who was named after her grandmother. There's even a Disney character named Ariel, the Little Mermaid. A very lovely Ariel too. Both of them. So every time I read Ariel, my brain parses female and I recall camping trips and weekend beach stays, cuddling and... stuff.

I checked and Ariel is one of those unisex names like Sam.

I can't believe... my apologies anyways. It isn't as bad as when I found out that the tooth fairy isn't real... but darn.



Ariel is a common Jewish name, its Hebrew for Lion of god.
IIRC one Israeli PM was named Ariel.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by George J. Smith   » Sun May 21, 2017 4:34 am

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I'm re-reading Storm From the Shadows and something strikes me as a bit odd.
When BatCruRon 106 is deployed to Talbott, just after Artemis comes out of the wormhole terminus she is challenged by the terminus picket and Mike tells the comms op to respond, the comms op then activates the transponder.

So, why would the transponder be inactive going through the wormhole?
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by kzt   » Sun May 21, 2017 4:43 pm

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George J. Smith wrote:I'm re-reading Storm From the Shadows and something strikes me as a bit odd.
When BatCruRon 106 is deployed to Talbott, just after Artemis comes out of the wormhole terminus she is challenged by the terminus picket and Mike tells the comms op to respond, the comms op then activates the transponder.

So, why would the transponder be inactive going through the wormhole?

I suspect that would be to force the transponder to send a message, as it would be kind of silly to turn off the transponder entering a friendly system. But I don't know.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by Weird Harold   » Sun May 21, 2017 6:05 pm

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kzt wrote:
George J. Smith wrote:I'm re-reading Storm From the Shadows and something strikes me as a bit odd.
When BatCruRon 106 is deployed to Talbott, just after Artemis comes out of the wormhole terminus she is challenged by the terminus picket and Mike tells the comms op to respond, the comms op then activates the transponder.

So, why would the transponder be inactive going through the wormhole?

I suspect that would be to force the transponder to send a message, as it would be kind of silly to turn off the transponder entering a friendly system. But I don't know.


There are a variety of reasons for having the transponder off; a test of the local force's reaction, for example.

However, the most likely reason for activating the transponder in answer to a challenge in a new theater of operations is that the challenge demanded a specific transponder setting in response. Given travel times and distances, a "code-of-the-day" for all IFF systems wouldn't be practical, a challenge-response pair would be far more practical.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by cthia   » Sun Jun 04, 2017 7:31 pm

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kzt wrote:
George J. Smith wrote:I'm re-reading Storm From the Shadows and something strikes me as a bit odd.
When BatCruRon 106 is deployed to Talbott, just after Artemis comes out of the wormhole terminus she is challenged by the terminus picket and Mike tells the comms op to respond, the comms op then activates the transponder.

So, why would the transponder be inactive going through the wormhole?

I suspect that would be to force the transponder to send a message, as it would be kind of silly to turn off the transponder entering a friendly system. But I don't know.
Weird Harold wrote:There are a variety of reasons for having the transponder off; a test of the local force's reaction, for example.

However, the most likely reason for activating the transponder in answer to a challenge in a new theater of operations is that the challenge demanded a specific transponder setting in response. Given travel times and distances, a "code-of-the-day" for all IFF systems wouldn't be practical, a challenge-response pair would be far more practical.

Does this remind anyone else, as it does me every time I read it, of the time Duchess Harrington displayed her twisted sense of humor by not informing her squadron of an upcoming visit from the Protector's Own? It was quite a while before the red of enemy ships flashed green. Certainly seemed like a long disturbing while to her handicapped squadron?, anyways.

I got the impression that it was only a big deal after the prolonged period of silence.

Also, would it always be advisable to be broadcasting when a system could have fallen or have been retaken by the enemy? So would a force always want to enter a system broadcasting for certain that you're the enemy?

BTW, I've always wondered, why can't transponders be faked if an enemy ship is captured without computers being scrubbed and certain codes acquired? Not sure what benefit it could serve, but still.

Late edit: It also seems to be common practice of a two-color only warning system, iinm. No yellow for caution, until such time as the ship(s) are identified?

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by cthia   » Wed Jun 21, 2017 3:11 pm

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If the streak drive is simply accomplished using oversized hyper generators -- surely it can't be that simple -- but if it is basically that simple, why hasn't someone like the RMN thought of it?

Basically all Herlander has to do is mention the size of the hyper generators to set them on the right path.

The streak drive was a revolutionary hyper drive for starships that was invented by the Mesan Alignment in the early 20th Century PD.

For centuries, the theta band had represented an inviolable maximum for hyperspace travel. By using hyper generators almost twice the size of conventional ones used by most other star nations, the Mesans broke the iota wall and the kappa wall, reducing, for example, the transit time from the New Tuscany System to Mesa from forty-five to less than thirty-one standard days. This made possible a conventional looking, but faster than any existing, dispatch boat design which allowed the Alignment to get news faster than it should have been able to, and to issue and distribute orders equally quickly.

Dr. Herlander Simões was one of the key scientists involved in the creation of the drive before he defected to the Republic of Haven. (HH12)

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by Duckk   » Wed Jun 21, 2017 3:51 pm

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A streak drive is larger than a hyper drive. A larger hyper drive does not imply a streak drive. Or in other words, A implies B, but B does not imply A. This is basic propositional logic. Being larger is a necessary condition of being a streak drive, but not a sufficient one.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by cthia   » Wed Jun 21, 2017 4:13 pm

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Duckk wrote:A streak drive is larger than a hyper drive. A larger hyper drive does not imply a streak drive. Or in other words, A implies B, but B does not imply A. This is basic propositional logic. Being larger is a necessary condition of being a streak drive, but not a sufficient one.

I'm an accomplished programmer who completed advanced logic courses at the local university before entering high school.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by munroburton   » Thu Jun 22, 2017 6:22 am

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Bear in mind neither the Streak drive nor hyper generator are actually forms of propulsion. They're magical interdimensional-jumping devices. Kind of like Babylon 5's jump generators - but creating a bubble around the ship instead of ripping a hole in space to pass through.

So using any engine as an analogy is poor. However, think of it not as replacing a 4 litre v8 with a 8 litre v16, but more like replacing a 4 litre v8 with a 6 litre inline-8 equipped with a supercharger. At this point, only the Mesans have invented the "supercharger" component which gives the streak drive access to two additional bands of hyperspace.

Dr Simoes is indeed helping the GA duplicate this technology. Depending how much time passes in Uncompromising Honor, I'm hoping we might get to see a working GA prototype.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by robert132   » Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:00 pm

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munroburton wrote:Bear in mind neither the Streak drive nor hyper generator are actually forms of propulsion. They're magical interdimensional-jumping devices. Kind of like Babylon 5's jump generators - but creating a bubble around the ship instead of ripping a hole in space to pass through.

So using any engine as an analogy is poor. However, think of it not as replacing a 4 litre v8 with a 8 litre v16, but more like replacing a 4 litre v8 with a 6 litre inline-8 equipped with a supercharger. At this point, only the Mesans have invented the "supercharger" component which gives the streak drive access to two additional bands of hyperspace.

Dr Simoes is indeed helping the GA duplicate this technology. Depending how much time passes in Uncompromising Honor, I'm hoping we might get to see a working GA prototype.


I suspect that we might find that the solution to the Streak Drive may be so simple that the Manty (and other) hyper physicists may slap their foreheads (Homer Simpson-like) "Why didn't we think of that" similar to the answer to the less sophisticated (advanced) yet more efficient Grayson compensators.
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Just my opinion of course and probably not worth the paper it's not written on.
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