Honorverse ramblings and musings

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Another thing to consider is that black boxes, here on Earth, are primarily a civilian commercial aviation thing. Most military aircraft don't carry them (and the ones that do usually turn them off if the plane is going into combat).

The military views the risk of not figuring out what caused a crash to be worth it to avoid the risk an enemy could glean useful intelligence from the black box of a plane downed where their forces can reach it.


Since most of the ships 'on screen' in the Honorverse are warships it wouldn't be surprising if they deliberately omitted true blackboxes that might well be carried on merchant ships.

I don't know Johnathan. Now I surely cannot claim to know our government's reasons for not utilizing blackboxes on military aircraft - getting into the minds of split personalities is daunting. lol

ahem

But my perceived reasoning is that the military will not always have access to a downed plane, and anyone else would. In the Honorverse, in the great expanse of space those worries would be negated. Only the navy of the black box would be able to find it. And it could be programmed to only record data of enemy ships exclusively, if need be.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Another thing to consider is that black boxes, here on Earth, are primarily a civilian commercial aviation thing. Most military aircraft don't carry them (and the ones that do usually turn them off if the plane is going into combat).

The military views the risk of not figuring out what caused a crash to be worth it to avoid the risk an enemy could glean useful intelligence from the black box of a plane downed where their forces can reach it.


Since most of the ships 'on screen' in the Honorverse are warships it wouldn't be surprising if they deliberately omitted true blackboxes that might well be carried on merchant ships.

I don't know Johnathan. Now I surely cannot claim to know our government's reasons for not utilizing blackboxes on military aircraft - getting into the minds of split personalities is daunting. lol

ahem

But my perceived reasoning is that the military will not always have access to a downed plane, and anyone else would. In the Honorverse, in the great expanse of space those worries would be negated. Only the navy of the black box would be able to find it. And it could be programmed to only record data of enemy ships exclusively, if need be.

Johnathan_S wrote:That's not necessarily true. The black box is present even when the ship surrenders, or is disabled and captured. In those situations the winning fleet would definitely be able to find it and attempt to dump it's contents and review them (along with any other computers) for intel.

There's no guarantee, even with the vastness of space in the Honorverse, that a black box will only be recovered by the navy that installed it. Therefor they'd definitely consider the risk of hostile intelligence services getting access to it when contemplating whether to install one or what information should be written to one.

cthia wrote:But seriously, that is why I said only data from enemy ships are recorded into black boxes, or any other non-classified data. In fact, I was only initially thinking it would record data like enemy ships in the area and if they fired and if we fired and who fired first and the communication logs between the two. So that incidents like what happened at Basilisk Station would be known even if Fearless had been destroyed. Wouldn't matter if an enemy obtained your blackbox, they'd only be getting info they already know. And if they spend so much time looking for it, because they can't activate its beacon -- it just may hold them in the system long enough for the cavalry to arrive.

HMS FEARLESS - CA 286
or
HMS FEARLESS - CL 56

Dauntless wrote:hard to say.

CL fearless was instrumental in stopping an attempt to seize bassilisk and its terminus of the junction, very likely making the later war much more winnable. Of its history before Honor took command we know nothing beyond it was old and had seen a lo of light years.

CA Fearless we have a slightly better idea, it spent its first couple of years after commission, pirate hunting and convoy duty. Then the events in yeltsin, again stopping peeps from securing advantageous astrographic position or fanatical ally and cementing an alliance that has brought a navy roughly half as strong (arguably more given their starting point) as the RMN to their side in numerous battles for the last 20 years.



if we go off straight tonnage destroyed, then given the CL fearless destroyed an 8 m-ton q-ship, it has a major lead over its heavy cruiser cousin

CA fearless killed a few pirates (wasn't there something about a privater squadron?) a peep sultan class BC, and a peep destroyer but that is only a bout a 100 Ktons which is minor. given the lack of detail about exactly how many pirate ships destroyed then CL fearless has a huge lead. even more so given that fearless has never again appeared in any form after yelstin

cthia wrote:

Dauntless wrote:hard to say.

CL fearless was instrumental in stopping an attempt to seize bassilisk and its terminus of the junction, very likely making the later war much more winnable. Of its history before Honor took command we know nothing beyond it was old and had seen a lo of light years.

CA Fearless we have a slightly better idea, it spent its first couple of years after commission, pirate hunting and convoy duty. Then the events in yeltsin, again stopping peeps from securing advantageous astrographic position or fanatical ally and cementing an alliance that has brought a navy roughly half as strong (arguably more given their starting point) as the RMN to their side in numerous battles for the last 20 years.



if we go off straight tonnage destroyed, then given the CL fearless destroyed an 8 m-ton q-ship, it has a major lead over its heavy cruiser cousin

CA fearless killed a few pirates (wasn't there something about a privater squadron?) a peep sultan class BC, and a peep destroyer but that is only a bout a 100 Ktons which is minor. given the lack of detail about exactly how many pirate ships destroyed then CL fearless has a huge lead. even more so given that fearless has never again appeared in any form after yelstin

Fair enough.

This is what I imagine Fearless's old age Scotty would say about his beloved Fearless - CL 56.

"She was old and retarded. I mean 'burp' she was handicapped and her Commander was retarded. Her armament was gutted and our sweet Honor here told us to lay in an intercept course for a Q-ship. A Q-ship! We were a gutted pinto on a course to intercept a freight train and force it force it mind you to stop! We were all like, 'if we catch your damn train Skipper, what do we do with it?!?' We said we'd follow her to Hell and I be damn if it isn't where she took us as soon as we broke orbit! Pound for pound that Fearless had balls of Battle Steel -- and our captain collected balls!" lol

On Basilisk Station, Chapter 32 wrote:And then there had been the long voyage home. The long, slow voyage that had seemed to crawl, for Fearless's communications had been out. There was no way to tell Dame Estelle or the Admiralty what had happened, who had won, or the price her people had paid. Not until Fearless limped brokenly back into Medusa orbit thirteen hours after she'd left it and a white-faced Scotty Tremaine brought his pinnace alongside her air-bleeding wreck.

The Short Victorious War, Chapter 6 wrote:"I know I'm making you uncomfortable, Samuel, but you're the only member of my staff who's actually met her, and—" The admiral waved his hand, unwilling to explain the reason for his concern, and Webster sighed.
"In that case, Admiral, all I can say is that she's the best," he said finally. "We had some serious problems when they banished us to Basilisk, and the Captain—well, she dealt with them, Sir, and I never heard her raise her voice once while she did it. You know what Basilisk Station used to be like, and we weren't exactly the best crew anyone ever gave a captain, either. Not when we arrived. But, by God, Admiral, we were when we left!"
Sarnow leaned back, surprised by Webster's vehemence, and the com officer looked away before he went on.
"The Captain gets the best out of her people—sometimes more than they ever guessed they could give—and I don't really think it's anything she does. It's who she is, Sir. You trust her. You know she'll never let you down, and when the shit hits the fan, you know she'll get you out of it if anyone can. I'm a com officer, not a tac specialist, but I saw enough in Basilisk to realize how good she really is. I don't know if you've been briefed on just how BuShips butchered our armament, Admiral, but we were so far out of our league it was pitiful. We all knew that from the start, but the Captain took us in anyway. The Peeps smashed us into a wreck, Sir—three-quarters of our people were dead or wounded, but she kept right on coming, and somehow she took them out. I don't know if anyone else could have done it, but she did."
The lieutenant commander's voice was soft, almost inaudible in the quiet cabin, and he stared down at his hands.
"We blamed her for getting us sent to Basilisk when we first arrived. It wasn't her fault, but that didn't change the way we felt, and it showed. But by the time it all broke loose, we would have followed her into Hell. In fact, I guess that's just about what we did . . . and we'd do it again."
Webster blushed at his own intensity. "I'm sorry, Sir. I don't know if that's what you wanted to know, but—" He shrugged almost helplessly.

George J. Smith wrote:I think the "Black Box" data would be included in the systems that are wiped either deliberately by the crew, or when an incorrect attempt is made to access those systems.

In Field of Dishonor the logs are used to prove what happened when Pavel Young legged it, I would think that those data are in some way similar to the data that are collected by present day "Black Boxes".