Honorverse ramblings and musings

OrlandoNative wrote:Actually I don't think so. If grav waves *didn't* exist in n-space, then there wouldn't have been any concern that Wayfarer would be torn apart by the Selkar Sheer; since after her hyper converter was destroyed she was in n-space along with the Peep battlecruiser.

The wormhole junctions are like eddies or whirlpools - matter following certain paths through the stressed space get "sucked in" and end up popping out elsewhere.

Nope. If a hyper generator fails without warning (such as from battle damage) you don't drop onto n-space, you stay stuck in exactly the same hyper band you were in.
The Selker drift fight clearly shows Honor ordering Artemis to abandon Wayfaired and drop down to n-space. Wayfarer was still in the Delta bands.

(Now CoG shows a slightly different situation, a hyper generator failing from excessive wear "near" a habitable system. In that case RFC clarified that the safety systems detected the imminent failure and knew the ship was close enough to a habitable system to make it back on n-space if necessary; so they triggered an involuntary translation down to n-space just before the generator packed it in)

OrlandoNative wrote:The most interesting thing I think will be how they show the impeller drive. Realistically, since it's basically a shaped and directed gravity stress induced field, it shouldn't actually be *visible*. The only visible manifestation should be small jinks of individual stars (or other light sources) in the star field as a impeller drive ship moves across it.

Don't forget the wedge. I voiced interest in seeing that depicted onscreen very early on. And if you think the movie will distort the truth, the video game graphics of the wedge gave me much information. If the video game can clear up some confusion, I think the movie can manage to as well.

Hoping to see in the movie as well...
1. The wedge.
2. The impeller drive
3. Hyper travel
4. Downward translations and the bleed of the sails.
5. Deploying the sails.
6. Swinging onto the ship in zero-g
7. Flipping ship for a zero zero intercept
8. Rolling ship to offer impenetrable wedge
9. Ship in queue for wormhole translation
10. Forts
11. Binary system
12. Resonance zone
13. Grayson orbital farms
14. Grayson's domed cities
15. The misleading beauty of Grayson from space
16. The wardrobe of Grayson women
17. Protector's Palace
18. The legendary Grayson key worn by Honor
19. Steadholders
20. The Key worn by Honor
21. The holo tank of CIC (That initially wowed the Graysons)
22. Central War Room. THE PIT
23. Last but not least on this list. Nimitz.

Heck, every time Honor or some CO ordered, "stand her up on her toes," I wasn't quite sure what was going on. The image in my head was of the Probe in Earth orbit standing end on end to initiate contact with the whales who mimicked the same maneuver under the ocean. The Voyage Home.

Hi Cthia,

Stephanie was named 'Deathfang's Bane' by the treecats; as I've posted before I suspect it wasn't a one time battle but a life long mission she assumed as quickly as possible, and provided Lionheart's clan with any weapons she could think they could make or maintain such as slings or large crossbows or ballistae (crew served-needing 2-3 treecats each) NTM hexapuma sized traps etc [dead-falls that wouldn't be triggered by a treecat or two] that could be dissembled and hidden, or locked and 'safed' etc when human visitors other than her arrived.

Feel free to suggest other weapons she might have supplied, tried, or at least considered.

Imagine if she managed to explain the power of pulleys...

Of course if the thread takes off, it may need a whole separate new one.

L

cthia wrote:

cthia wrote:Should Star Trek's Prime directive be observed by Manticore? Should treecats be given weapons to use against hexapumas? It could upset the balance of nature in the bush. Heck, treecats could use frisbees manufactured with small explosives set to go off when it comes in the vicinity of pumas. Talk about a frisbee coming in hot!

At any rate, treecats have natural enemies, yet I haven't heard of treecat/human alliances benefiting the treecats in that respect. Treecats aren't ambushed by Peeps, they're ambushed by 'Pumas.

OrlandoNative wrote:Actually, that's an interesting question.

Manticore actually *does* observe something like the "Prime Directive" in regards to the natives of the Basilisk system.

As for treecats, however, given some of the stories in the anthologies they were "spying" on the human colonists before it would appear the colonists realized they were sentient - or at least *how* sentient. So, to some extent, "cultural contamination" has already occurred.

While hexapuma's are obviously a threat to individual (and possibly small groups of) treecats, it wouldn't appear they're a threat to the treecat species as a whole. Actually, in most cases it would appear the actual threat is more to a treecat not paying attention to their surroundings than one that is alert. Or ones that are too young or inexperienced to be able to keep/get out of the way.

In any case, treecats can now communicate directly with at least some humans, and, as far as I remember, NONE of them have asked for defensive weapons made by humans.

But should they have to ask before it should be offered? Treecats are sentient beings. They are living in the bush but are not savages. If they are to be accepted as equals to humans then they should be afforded the same rights and courtesies as humans. If we befriended a group of humans in a remote part of a planet and they were being killed by large predatory animals, would we not say "Here, this is a gun. Aim. Pull trigger. After the smoke clears, no more 'Puma."

Let the treecats decide after offering.

lyonheart wrote:Hi Cthia,

Stephanie was named 'Deathfang's Bane' by the treecats; as I've posted before I suspect it wasn't a one time battle but a life long mission she assumed as quickly as possible, and provided Lionheart's clan with any weapons she could think they could make or maintain such as slings or large crossbows or ballistae (crew served-needing 2-3 treecats each) NTM hexapuma sized traps etc [dead-falls that wouldn't be triggered by a treecat or two] that could be dissembled and hidden, or locked and 'safed' etc when human visitors other than her arrived.

Feel free to suggest other weapons she might have supplied, tried, or at least considered.

Imagine if she managed to explain the power of pulleys...

Of course if the thread takes off, it may need a whole separate new one.

L

Yeah, if she could convey the ideas behind basic machines to some memory singer with an engineering interest... well, treecat society would probably be "Little Romans in the Trees" by Honor Harrington's time.

Still, treecats handle hexapumas pretty well already. There are exceptions, but those are exceptions. Better agriculture and heating in the winter would make for fewer treekitten losses - Sphinx winters will always be more dangerous than hexapumas - and weirs, salted/dried fish, and pottery for food preservation would also do a lot for improving the food situation.

cthia wrote:Hoping to see in the movie as well...
1. The wedge.
2. The impeller drive
3. Hyper travel
4. Downward translations and the bleed of the sails.
5. Deploying the sails.
6. Swinging onto the ship in zero-g
7. Flipping ship for a zero zero intercept
8. Rolling ship to offer impenetrable wedge
9. Ship in queue for wormhole translation
10. Forts
11. Binary system
12. Resonance zone
13. Grayson orbital farms
14. Grayson's domed cities
15. The misleading beauty of Grayson from space
16. The wardrobe of Grayson women
17. Protector's Palace
18. The legendary Grayson key worn by Honor
19. Steadholders
20. The Key worn by Honor
21. The holo tank of CIC (That initially wowed the Graysons)
22. Central War Room. THE PIT
23. Last but not least on this list. Nimitz.

Heck, every time Honor or some CO ordered, "stand her up on her toes," I wasn't quite sure what was going on. The image in my head was of the Probe in Earth orbit standing end on end to initiate contact with the whales who mimicked the same maneuver under the ocean. The Voyage Home.

Some of that we should see; but HotQ doesn't use the wormholes at all, so I doubt we'll see the Junction in this movie - the plot just never goes there. So that seems to knock out your 9 and 12. (And the RZ isn't visual anyway it looks like just more space, unless you make the mistake of attempting to exit hyper-space there; then you just die. Rven in the stories where its important the only visual depiction I can thing of would be a colored or shaded warning zone on a navigation screen display.)

I'm also not sure how much we'll see visually of the Manticoran binary system. And if done correctly it's not very visually impressive. At 650+ light minute separation the two start are further apart than the Sun and Pluto. But just from Pluto the sun is smaller diameter than the human eye can resolve - it's just a bright dot (admittedly the very brightest dot in the sky by a huge margin). And a movie can't easily show that this one star is the sky is thousands of times brighter than the others. (Ok, maybe they could do an unrealistic, very FTL, tracking shot across across Manticore-B, past Gryphon, over to Manticore-A, past Sphinx, and down to Manticore; just to lay the scene. But that doesn't give a good feel for that the binary system really looks like.

Also not sure how much we'll see of forts. Grayon had some obsolete small ones in orbit, but the (then) modern Manticoran forts weren't part of the story. Maybe one could be seen in a flyby when Fearless leaves Manticore - but they only have so much screen time to cram the plot into so I'm not even sure if we'll see even that.

That said, most of the rest of your wish list seems likely to appear -- but I don't know how faithful to the books descriptions Evergreen is going to be; (certainly they're changing up the look of the ships to make them more visually distinct). Guess we'll have to wait and see.

JeffEngel wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Hi Cthia,

Stephanie was named 'Deathfang's Bane' by the treecats; as I've posted before I suspect it wasn't a one time battle but a life long mission she assumed as quickly as possible, and provided Lionheart's clan with any weapons she could think they could make or maintain such as slings or large crossbows or ballistae (crew served-needing 2-3 treecats each) NTM hexapuma sized traps etc [dead-falls that wouldn't be triggered by a treecat or two] that could be dissembled and hidden, or locked and 'safed' etc when human visitors other than her arrived.

Feel free to suggest other weapons she might have supplied, tried, or at least considered.

Imagine if she managed to explain the power of pulleys...

Of course if the thread takes off, it may need a whole separate new one.

L

Yeah, if she could convey the ideas behind basic machines to some memory singer with an engineering interest... well, treecat society would probably be "Little Romans in the Trees" by Honor Harrington's time.

Still, treecats handle hexapumas pretty well already. There are exceptions, but those are exceptions. Better agriculture and heating in the winter would make for fewer treekitten losses - Sphinx winters will always be more dangerous than hexapumas - and weirs, salted/dried fish, and pottery for food preservation would also do a lot for improving the food situation.

The question is "how basic"? There is a big difference between "basic tools" - which the treecats might be able to make on their own - and "machines"; which they probably couldn't.

Treecats could probably make spears, bows, clubs, stone axes and flint knives fairly easily. And nets and anything else made of rope or vines.

They should also be capable of making some kinds of pottery, and adobe bricks that could lead to more permanent structures and housing.

However, metal - which even most basic machines require for at least some parts - is something that generally requires *smelting*. Which generally requires fire. Something which most creatures covered by furry pelts usually try to stay away from as much as possible.

Also, there's the question of whether the treecats have any real inclination to use technology in the first place. They are well adapted to an arboreal, hunter-gatherer style environment, which they seem to like. There have certainly been cultures here on Earth that have "seen" technology being used by others around them but aren't really interested in using much, if any, of it themselves.

Saying that use of technology is "better" is, at best, a very subjected judgement, and, at worst, arrogance.

As for Stephanie, there's no indication in *any* of the literature that would indicate your position. Certainly if she had "given" the 'cats any weaponry, the capability to build and use it would have quickly spread amongst the clans... ...and while treecats *in general* are not usually warlike amongst themselves, something of that nature would probably have definitely shown up for use in Treecat Wars. It didn't, however.

Even in Honor's day, treecats don't seem all that interested in actual weapons. Nimitz has often helped protect Honor, but he's never used anything other than his claws (and possibly teeth) to do so. Surely he's *seen* enough weapons in use to understand *how* to use them, but he's never shown the slightest interest in doing so.

OrlandoNative wrote:

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:
Hi, Orlandonative. You are missing a point here.

Grav waves do NOT EXIST in n-space at all, except for wormhole/junction bridges. They are sort of like terrestrial lightning, I think, an energy flow of a specific direction and limited in space (a lot longer duration, though.) That is sort of the whole point of Hyperspace---the situation there is not the same as n-space.

Rob

Actually I don't think so. If grav waves *didn't* exist in n-space, then there wouldn't have been any concern that Wayfarer would be torn apart by the Selkar Sheer; since after her hyper converter was destroyed she was in n-space along with the Peep battlecruiser.

Wrong. She was still in hyperspace.

OrlandoNative wrote:I remember a post a few days ago (that right now I can't seem to find) about relativistic effects and the impeller drive. Specifically time dilation.

I've been thinking about that, and also have re-read a major portion (though not all) of HotQ; and thought about recent titles where MDM's achieve a significant percentage of c; and it's not clear that a vessel, or for that matter a missile, under impeller drive actually *does* undergo time dilation.

So far, the only (and very oblique, as far as any "why" goes) reference seems to be in HotQ when Fearless is on it's way to Yeltsin's Star from Manticore. There's a mention that while part of the voyage takes 10 days, it only takes 9 on the "ship's clocks". We know, from pretty much *all* the books, that while it takes time in n-space to go from the hyper limit to planetary orbit, in most cases that's a mere number of hours; and in general using non-relativistic speeds - so time dilation shouldn't apply for *that* part of the journey.

Actually, there are several other references in other books, to the effect that perceived time of travel is less than time passage in the systems. Ships are traveling at relativistic speeds in hyperspace--compared to the velocity of light in those hyperspace bands. Warships are limited to only 0.6 c in hyperspace, so the relativistic effects are lower. But plug in the numbers: 0.6 c gives a dilation factor of 0.866, times 10 days gives 8.66 days, rounding to the 9 days that David quotes in the books.

He's made it pretty clear that ships do experience relativistic time dilation, even in hyperspace. He doesn't want plug in numbers all the time, so he doesn't mention it often, and explains that ships reset their clocks after travel.

Here is explicit textev that ships (and presumably missiles) in an impeller wedge experience relativistic time dilation:

The Shadow of Saganami wrote:"Eighteen o'clock sounds fine, Mr. Wexler," Terekhov said, checking to be sure the ship's clocks had been recalibrated to the base time of the rest of the universe--and to the local planetary day--after Hexapuma dropped below relativistic velocities.

Jonathan_S wrote:Nope. If a hyper generator fails without warning (such as from battle damage) you don't drop onto n-space, you stay stuck in exactly the same hyper band you were in.
The Selker drift fight clearly shows Honor ordering Artemis to abandon Wayfaired and drop down to n-space. Wayfarer was still in the Delta bands.

(Now CoG shows a slightly different situation, a hyper generator failing from excessive wear "near" a habitable system. In that case RFC clarified that the safety systems detected the imminent failure and knew the ship was close enough to a habitable system to make it back on n-space if necessary; so they triggered an involuntary translation down to n-space just before the generator packed it in)

At the time Artemis was to hide, both ships were still capable of hyper flight - Artemis's hyper generator was *damaged* but not not totally destroyed - she just couldn't go "high" enough to be able to escape. Probably wouldn't have been able to anyway, since it's unlikely a passenger liner would have the capability to outrun most, if not all, warships smaller than a battleship or dreadnaught.

In any case, there appears to be some dichotomy within the series on this subject. In some of the earlier books, it would *appear* that ships could be tracked, intercepted, and even attacked while in hyper. Yet, especially in the latter books, that doesn't seem to be the case. All recent battles have been fought in normal space. Even in ART, the ships Honor had "hiding" in hyper didn't apparently detect the incoming 10th Fleet and give advance warning. There are other, similar situations throughout the latter half of the Havenite conflict where "traps" later sprung should have been detectable by the other side *if* the capabilities alluded to or stated in earlier books had really existed.

Also, if ships whose hyper generators failed remained in hyper, it would seem to me that this would have become a regular part of the story line by now. Given the large number of starships involved in various battles and even just ship movements, surely by now some number of ships would have been lost merely traveling from point A to point B even without any battles. Yet there's never been a mention that "ship so-and-so appears to have been lost in transit". Or even where a ship later "limped" in late. However, the *only* case where we see something even similar to this is with Cachet and Zwilniki.

As for your supposition that some sort of safety override would throw a ship back into n-space upon imminent hyper generator failure *if* the ship were "close enough" to a habitable system, that doesn't really make much sense. If one goes by the earlier books in the series, sensor capability in hyper is much degraded over sensor capabilities in n-space. So chances are a ship which remained in hyper without any capability to drop back into n-space would never be found even if someone knew, approximately, where to search.

Realistically, if a ship whose hyper generator - but not the *rest* of it's propulsion systems - failed while in hyper was going to do *anything* it would make more sense to stay there, crawl to the nearest *inhabited* (not merely "habitable") and frequently visited system, and then wait there in hyper until a ship came by and call for help.