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Stuck in hyper space

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Re: Stuck in hyper space
Post by Weird Harold   » Tue Jun 03, 2014 2:17 pm

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SWM wrote:Hm. That's a plausible interpretation. I can't think of any text that would contradict that view.


A bit if textev that may or may not provide confirmation:

Honor Among Enemies
Chapter Nine
Wayfarer's Wormhole Transit to Gregor wrote:
Engineering had more than its share of rough spots, but Tschu had put his best people on the duty roster for the transit, and Wayfarer's impeller wedge dropped to half strength as her forward nodes reconfigured smoothly. They no longer produced their portion of the wedge's total strength; instead, their beta nodes were out of the circuit entirely while their alpha nodes generated the all but invisible, three-hundred-kilometer-wide disk of a Warshawski sail, and Honor watched red numerals dance as her ship continued creeping forward under the power of her after nodes alone and the sail edged deeper into the Junction.

"Stand by for aftersail," she murmured to Tschu, never looking away from her repeaters.

"Standing by," the engineer replied

At this velocity there was a safety margin of almost fifteen seconds either way before the grav wave's interference would blow Wayfarer's after nodes, but a poorly executed transit could produce nausea and violent dizziness in a crew. Besides, no captain wanted to look sloppy, and Honor watched the numbers for the foresail spin upwards with steadily mounting speed until, suddenly, they crossed the threshold. The sail was now drawing enough power to provide movement independent of the wedge, and she nodded sharply.

"Rig aftersail now!"

"Rigging aftersail, aye," Tschu replied instantly, and Wayfarer twitched gently as her wedge disappeared entirely. She moved forward more quickly, gathering way under Warshawski sail alone even though she was still technically in normal space, and a time-to-transit icon flashed brightly, ticking downward in the corner of Honor's display.

"Stand by for hyper," she said. Then—"Hyper now!"

"Aye, aye, Ma'am."

Tschu threw power to the generator at precisely the right instant, and HMS Wayfarer vanished. For a fleeting instant no chronometer or human sense could measure, she simply ceased to exist, and then, suddenly, she was no longer in Manticore but seven hundred light-minutes from the F9 furnace known as Gregor-A, one hundred and eighty light-years distant from Manticore in Einsteinian space. The disks of her sails were blazing blue mirrors as they bled transit energy, and her hyper generator kicked back off at the conclusion of its programed burst of power. The ship slid forward once more, this time riding out of the terminus instead of into it, and Honor nodded in pleasure at how smoothly it had gone.

"Transit complete," Chief O'Halley announced, and Honor nodded again.

"Thank you, Chief. And you, Mr. Kanehama. That was well executed." She saw the astrogator's pleasure at her complement and looked back at Tschu.

"Reconfigure to impeller, Mr. Tschu."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am. Reconfiguring to impeller now."

Wayfarer folded her wings as she slid free of the grav wave, and Chief O'Halley needed no instruction to bring her wedge up quickly. The ship accelerated clear of the transit threshold, clearing the way for Parnassus to follow her as she headed down the Gregor arrival lane, and Honor checked her plot once more.


Note that rather than working together to form the wedge, each alpha node ring works to form its own pair of sails... The Beta nodes do nothing in sail mode.
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Re: Stuck in hyper space
Post by SWM   » Tue Jun 03, 2014 2:49 pm

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Oh, it is definitely true that the beta nodes do not contribute to the Warshawski sail, and that each ring of alpha nodes produces a separate sail. That's pretty clear from David's infodumps. There is even mention at one point that getting up a single sail is pretty worthless.

As for the rest of that text, I don't think you can really use it as evidence for either conclusion. All it says is that half of the nodes which had been contributing to the wedge had stopped contributing; that could mean that both betas and alphas had been contributing, or it could mean that just the betas had been contributing.

That doesn't mean I think you are wrong; you and Themonster have half convinced me that the alphas contribute to the wedge.
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Re: Stuck in hyper space
Post by Weird Harold   » Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:13 pm

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SWM wrote:As for the rest of that text, I don't think you can really use it as evidence for either conclusion. All it says is that half of the nodes which had been contributing to the wedge had stopped contributing; that could mean that both betas and alphas had been contributing, or it could mean that just the betas had been contributing.


The way it was worded implies both types contribute to the wedge. If that were not the case, I would expect something like this:

"The forward beta nodes dropped their portion of the wedge and the Alpha Nodes came online to produce a 300Km wide Warshawski Sail."
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

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Re: Stuck in hyper space
Post by SWM   » Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:21 pm

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Weird Harold wrote:
SWM wrote:As for the rest of that text, I don't think you can really use it as evidence for either conclusion. All it says is that half of the nodes which had been contributing to the wedge had stopped contributing; that could mean that both betas and alphas had been contributing, or it could mean that just the betas had been contributing.


The way it was worded implies both types contribute to the wedge. If that were not the case, I would expect something like this:

"The forward beta nodes dropped their portion of the wedge and the Alpha Nodes came online to produce a 300Km wide Warshawski Sail."

That would certainly make it clear, but the lack of that explicit statement does not imply the opposite. The statement as printed in the text does not give evidence either way.
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Re: Stuck in hyper space
Post by FLHerne   » Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:24 pm

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I'm sure there's mention of Alpha nodes being knocked out and causing a loss of acceleration under impeller drive, during one of the many battle scenes. Not sure where to find it though.
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Re: Stuck in hyper space
Post by Relax   » Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:33 pm

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We have the answer with the introduction of the SHRIKE LAC in EoH. Why Beta squared are much better for acceleration, but NOT as good AS alpha nodes, but vastly less mass.

I do not time to look up exact quote. Very late very short lunch here. Gotta go. Inquisitive minds will find it with RIP Richard Maxwell as he arrives on "Candice."

Enjoy
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Re: Stuck in hyper space
Post by Jonathan_S   » Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:41 pm

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Relax wrote:We have the answer with the introduction of the SHRIKE LAC in EoH. Why Beta squared are much better for acceleration, but NOT as good AS alpha nodes, but vastly less mass.

I do not time to look up exact quote. Very late very short lunch here. Gotta go. Inquisitive minds will find it with RIP Richard Maxwell as he arrives on "Candice."

Enjoy
Is this the quote you were thinking of?
Echoes of Honor wrote:What matters for our present purposes, however, is that the new [beta-squared] nodes are very nearly as powerful as old-style alpha nodes, and we've also built much heavier sidewall generators into the Shrike to go with them. The result is a sidewall which is about five times as tough as anything ever previously mounted in a LAC
It certainly implies that Alpha nodes both contribute to the wedge, and do so more "powerfully" than Beta nodes. (Otherwise why compare the relative strengths if that strength can't be used for the same thing; to generate a powerful wedge)
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Re: Stuck in hyper space
Post by Relax   » Tue Jun 03, 2014 7:05 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:
Relax wrote:We have the answer with the introduction of the SHRIKE LAC in EoH. Why Beta squared are much better for acceleration, but NOT as good AS alpha nodes, but vastly less mass.

I do not time to look up exact quote. Very late very short lunch here. Gotta go. Inquisitive minds will find it with RIP Richard Maxwell as he arrives on "Candice."

Enjoy
Is this the quote you were thinking of?
Echoes of Honor wrote:What matters for our present purposes, however, is that the new [beta-squared] nodes are very nearly as powerful as old-style alpha nodes, and we've also built much heavier sidewall generators into the Shrike to go with them. The result is a sidewall which is about five times as tough as anything ever previously mounted in a LAC
It certainly implies that Alpha nodes both contribute to the wedge, and do so more "powerfully" than Beta nodes. (Otherwise why compare the relative strengths if that strength can't be used for the same thing; to generate a powerful wedge)


Apparently it is the quote I was remembering. I was thinking the quote as being a bit more emphatic than that. Maybe in my mind in combination with an additional pearl when talking about beta squared nodes, it had more impact.

When in doubt, OBS through SVW will have the answer.
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Re: Stuck in hyper space
Post by Vince   » Tue Jun 03, 2014 8:22 pm

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Here are some quotes that indicate that the alpha nodes do participate in the impeller wedge.
To find these, search for "folded". Most of the results will be people folding their arms or hands, or papers, but "sails" or "wings" in close proximity to "folded" indicates a ship's transition from Warshawski sail to impeller wedge.
On Basilisk Station, Chapter 5 wrote:Honor nodded her satisfaction and glanced up at the visual display just as a stupendous bulk carrier erupted from the junction. It was an incredible sight, one she never tired of, and the display's magnification brought it to arm's length. That ship had to mass over five million tons, yet it blinked into sight like some sort of insubstantial ghost, a soap bubble that solidified into megatons of alloy in the blink of an eye. Its huge, immaterial Warshawski sails were circular, azure mirrors, bright and brilliant for just an instant as radiant transit energy bled quickly into nothingness, and then it folded its wings. The invisible sails reconfigured into impeller stress bands, and the freighter slowly gathered way, accelerating out of the nexus while it cleared its final destination with Junction Central and requested insertion into the proper outbound lane to continue its voyage.

***Snip***

"Aye, aye, Ma'am. Reconfiguring to impeller now."
Fearless folded her sails back into her impeller wedge and moved forward more rapidly, accelerating steadily down the Basilisk outbound traffic lane, and Honor gave an inner nod of satisfaction. Shiphandling was one of the very few areas in which she never questioned her own competence, and the routine maneuver had gone as smoothly as even she could have asked for. She hoped that might be a sign for the future.
Italics are the author's, boldface text is my emphasis.

The Honor of the Queen, Chapter 5 wrote:“Reconfigure to impeller drive, please, Mr. Higgins.”
“Aye, aye, Ma’am. Reconfiguring now,” Higgins acknowledged, and Fearless folded her Warshawski sails into her impeller wedge.
There was no internal sign of the change, but Honor’s engineering readouts and visual display told the tale. Unlike Warshawski sails, which were invisible in normal space except for the brief moment in which they radiated the energy bleed of a translation, the stressed gravity bands of an impeller drive were almost painfully obvious. Now they sprang into existence above and below Fearless, angled towards one another in a wedge open both ahead and astern, and stars red-shifted as a gravity differential of a hundred thousand MPS2 grabbed at their photons. The cruiser floated within her wedge, like a surfer poised in the curl of a wave which hadn’t yet begun to move, and Honor watched her communications officer.
Italics are the author's, boldface text is my emphasis.

There are others, but here is a clear statement that the alpha nodes do help power the impeller wedge.

War of Honor, Chapter 34 wrote:"Rig foresail for transit," Zachary commanded.
"Rigging foresail, aye."
To a visual observer, nothing about Harvest Joy changed in any respect as Hooja threw the switch down in Main Engineering, but Zachary's instruments were another matter entirely. Harvest Joy's impeller wedge dropped instantly to half strength as her forward beta nodes shut down and the matching alpha nodes reconfigured. They no longer generated their portion of the survey ship's normal-space stress bands; instead, they projected a Warshawski sail, a circular disk of focused gravitational energy, perpendicular to Harvest Joy's long axis and extending for over three hundred kilometers in every direction.
Italics are the author's, boldface and underlined text is my emphasis.

But for absolute proof that the alpha nodes do help generate an impeller wedge:
Both War of Honor & At All Costs, Glossary wrote:Alpha nodes—
The impeller nodes of a starship which both generate its normal-space impeller wedge and reconfigure to generate Warshawski sails in hyper-space.
Boldface is the author's.

I also remember (IIRC it was in text) a statement that a few (hyper capable) merchant freighters only had alpha nodes, but that almost all hyper capable ships had both alpha and beta nodes, because it reduced running costs (wear and tear on the alpha nodes).
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