Technical questions re military hardware.

SWM wrote:Okay, I found my notes on distances mentioned in the text. Here is what we know about Manticore, Trevor's Star, and Haven.

The Short Victorious War:
"Haven was almost three hundred light-years from Manticore"

Flag in Exile
"Trevor's Star was over two hundred light-years from Manticore. It would take a superdreadnought over a month to make the hyperspace voyage between them"

War of Honor
"Basilisk, for example, was barely two hundred light-years from the Manticore System, while Trevor's Star and Gregor were both even closer than that."

War of Honor
"the dispatch boat took the better part of two weeks to get here [Haven] from Trevor's Star."

Mission of Honor
"Transit time [from Yeltsin to Manticore] was under four days for a dispatch boat, as compared to the roughly six and a half between the Junction's Trevor's Star terminus and the Haven System"

House of Steel:
"the Haven System lay over 250 light-years from the Manticore Binary System"

In addition, several of the maps mark the Manticore-Trevor's Star bridge as 210 light-years.

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Taking all this into account, I feel fairly sure that the "six and a half" days in MoH is an error. "The better part of two weeks" from WoH fits the numbers much better. However, House of Steel appears to significantly shrink the distance between Manticore and Haven. If that represents a remapping of the Honorverse, then 6 1/2 days might be possible.

Given the two planets' current positions, a good astrogator could actually have dropped a fleet back into normal-space closer to Manticore than any mobile units deployed around Sphinx.

hanuman wrote:I'm rereading 'A Rising Thunder' right now, and Filareta has just arrived in the Manticore system. This passage caught my attention:

Given the two planets' current positions, a good astrogator could actually have dropped a fleet back into normal-space closer to Manticore than any mobile units deployed around Sphinx.

The Kindle location is 4155 at about 55%.

I just need to clarify something. The passage means that Sphinx and Manticore have moved so far apart from each other in their orbit around Manticore-A that a ship or fleet can translate into n-space at a point that is closer to Manticore than Sphinx is, right?

KNick wrote:You are correct in your interpretation.

hanuman wrote:At first I thought it meant that somehow the incoming ships could translate to n-space closer to Manticore than to Sphinx for some reason, but then I realized that is completely impossible.

Hah, that's what happens after eleven hours at work...the brain isn't all that fresh anymore. Or it might just be that I'm getting old...the mind tends to be the first thing to go, or so I'm told.

KNick wrote:

hanuman wrote:I'm rereading 'A Rising Thunder' right now, and Filareta has just arrived in the Manticore system. This passage caught my attention:

[[Given the two planets' current positions, a good astrogator could actually have dropped a fleet back into normal-space closer to Manticore than any mobile units deployed around Sphinx.]]

The Kindle location is 4155 at about 55%.

I just need to clarify something. The passage means that Sphinx and Manticore have moved so far apart from each other in their orbit around Manticore-A that a ship or fleet can translate into n-space at a point that is closer to Manticore than Sphinx is, right?

You are correct in your interpretation.

Jonathan_S wrote:I haven't checked whole the passage; but that could only be due to the resonance zone generated by the Junction (which makes it impossible to safely exit hyperspace within the that zone)

Sphinx is always going to be closer to the hyper limit that Manticore; it averages 8.7 lm closer and their orbits aren't eccentric enough to cross (Neptune - Pluto style) . But the Junction's RZ is broad enough that a planet can be more than that distance inside it.


If Sphinx on part of it's orbit that's deeply in the zone, but Manticore is well clear you can pop out of hyper near the spot on the limit closest to Manticore, but you can't get that close to Sphinx; so you'd end up having to drop out way off to the 'side' and cut a diagonal across to Sphinx.

SWM wrote:No, that is following the same misinterpretation that confused Hamuman for a few seconds. What it is saying is that at this point in time, there is a region of space into which ships can translate which is closer to Manticore than to Sphinx. Basically, it means that Manticore is on one side of Manticore A, and Sphinx is on the other side, so ships can translate on the side of Manticore A which is closer to Manticore.

Dafmeister wrote:

SWM wrote:No, that is following the same misinterpretation that confused Hamuman for a few seconds. What it is saying is that at this point in time, there is a region of space into which ships can translate which is closer to Manticore than to Sphinx. Basically, it means that Manticore is on one side of Manticore A, and Sphinx is on the other side, so ships can translate on the side of Manticore A which is closer to Manticore.

I believe the astronomical term would be to say that Manticore and Sphinx are 'in opposition'.

SWM wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I haven't checked whole the passage; but that could only be due to the resonance zone generated by the Junction (which makes it impossible to safely exit hyperspace within the that zone)

Sphinx is always going to be closer to the hyper limit that Manticore; it averages 8.7 lm closer and their orbits aren't eccentric enough to cross (Neptune - Pluto style) . But the Junction's RZ is broad enough that a planet can be more than that distance inside it.


If Sphinx on part of it's orbit that's deeply in the zone, but Manticore is well clear you can pop out of hyper near the spot on the limit closest to Manticore, but you can't get that close to Sphinx; so you'd end up having to drop out way off to the 'side' and cut a diagonal across to Sphinx.

No, that is following the same misinterpretation that confused Hamuman for a few seconds. What it is saying is that at this point in time, there is a region of space into which ships can translate which is closer to Manticore than to Sphinx. Basically, it means that Manticore is on one side of Manticore A, and Sphinx is on the other side, so ships can translate on the side of Manticore A which is closer to Manticore.