Honorverse ramblings and musings

What I am wondering is just what is it that makes a streak drive a streak drive apart from a larger hyperdrive. Could it be that all we are talking about here is a new more efficient inertial compensator to go with the larger hyperdrive?

Don

n7axw wrote:What I am wondering is just what is it that makes a streak drive a streak drive apart from a larger hyperdrive. Could it be that all we are talking about here is a new more efficient inertial compensator to go with the larger hyperdrive?

Not likely. The problem isn't that you can't get into the Iota band, it's that you get torn apart as soon as you enter.

But this is, AFAIK the sum of all the data on the Iota band (other then the speed table).

"Despite himself, Alexander flinched. Dear God, she must have taken out all the interlocks. No ship had ever crossed into the iota bands and survived—no one even knew if a ship could survive there."


"The streak drive represented a fundamental advance in interstellar travel, and there was no indication anyone else was even close to duplicating it. For centuries, the theta bands had represented an inviolable ceiling for hyper-capable ships. Everyone had known it was theoretically possible to go even higher, attain a still higher apparent normal-space velocity, yet no one had ever managed to design a ship which could crack the iota wall and survive. Incredible amounts of research had been invested in efforts to do just that, especially in the earlier days of hyper travel, but with a uniform lack of success. In the last few centuries, efforts to beat the iota barrier had waned, until the goal had been pretty much abandoned as one of those theoretically possible but practically unobtainable concepts.

"But the Mesan Alignment hadn't abandoned it, and finally, after the better part of a hundred T-years of dogged research, they'd found the answer. It was, in many ways, a brute force approach, and it wouldn't have been possible even now without relatively recent advances (whose potential no one else seemed to have noticed) in related fields. And even with those other advances, it had almost doubled the size of conventional hyper generators. But it worked. Indeed, they'd broken not simply the iota wall, but the kappa wall, as well. Which meant the voyage from New Tuscany to Mesa, which would have taken anyone else the next best thing to forty-five T-days, had taken Anisimovna less than thirty-one."

n7axw wrote:What I am wondering is just what is it that makes a streak drive a streak drive apart from a larger hyperdrive. Could it be that all we are talking about here is a new more efficient inertial compensator to go with the larger hyperdrive?

Don

The inertial compensator has nothing to do with crossing bands of hyperspace. People were doing that long before the inertial compensator existed.

Weird Harold wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:To expand on that; it appears to take up more volume than a normal impeller drive.

Are you confusing Streak and Spider drives? there is textev that the Streak hyperdrive is larger than a conventional hyperdrive. I don't know of any such textev regarding the size requirements for a Spider drive.

No, wasn't getting them mixed up. And I agree there's no direct text-ev; but it's my belief that it does (hence the "appears to"; rather than say "we're told that it".

That belief is based off the description of the large number of spider "spikes" sticking out along the length of each of the 3 keels; which does sound (to me) like the spider drive will suck up more volume than the impeller drive.

n7axw wrote:What I am wondering is just what is it that makes a streak drive a streak drive apart from a larger hyperdrive. Could it be that all we are talking about here is a new more efficient inertial compensator to go with the larger hyperdrive?

Don

A streak drive is just a super military hyper generator. Do not confuse it with a drive that provides a propulsive effect (the word choice that David used is confusing for the casual reader). It is not a drive at all. And it has nothing to do with the inertial compensator or the ship's actual drive.

All any hyper drive does is get you into and out of hyper-space, as well as let you change bands within hyper-space. (Which in combination with Warshawski sails, also allows you to transit wormholes.) Without another means of propulsion (initially reaction drives, then later the impeller drive, then Warshawski sails, and (newest) the spider drive), you will go nowhere fast in hyper-space.

Use of a hyper drive to enter/exit hyper-space, transit a wormhole, or to change hyper bands within hyper-space, actually results in a severe braking effect. This effect applies to all the mass of the ship and everything inside it simultaneously and equally, allowing the ship and crew to experience the braking effect without damage or injury.

To understand hyper generators and the streak drive in the Honorverse, you absolutely need to understand the sentences I've emphasized in bold and underlined in the following quote in the short story (written by David Weber) in the book:

More Than Honor, The Universe of Honor Harrington, (1) Background (General) wrote:The major problem limiting hyper speeds was that simply getting into hyper did not create a propulsive effect. Indeed, the initial translation into hyper was a complex energy transfer which reduced a starship's velocity by "bleeding off" momentum. In effect, a translating hypership lost approximately 92% of its normal-space velocity when entering hyper. This had unfortunate consequences in terms of reaction mass requirements, particularly since the fact that hydrogen catcher fields were inoperable in hyper meant one could not replenish one's reaction mass underway. On the other hand, the velocity bleed effect applied equally regardless of the direction of the translation (that is, one lost 92% of one's velocity whether one was entering hyper-space from normal-space or normal-space from hyper-space), which meant that leaving hyper automatically decelerated one's vessel to a normal-space velocity only 08% of whatever its velocity had been in hyper-space. This tremendously reduced the amount of deceleration required at the far end of a hyper voyage and so made reaction drives at least workable.

The 3 types of hyper generators in use in the Honorverse today:

Merchant hyper generator - highest hyper band attainable is the Delta band.

Military hyper generator - highest hyper band attainable is the Theta band. More massive, and costs more to build, maintain and operate (power, personnel) than a merchant hyper generator.

Streak drive (super military hyper generator) - Utilizes advances in other fields and a brute force method to achieve the highest hyper band currently attainable by anyone (the Kappa band, 2 hyper bands higher than a regular military hyper generator). More massive, and costs more to build, maintain and operate (power, personnel) than a military hyper generator. Currently in use only by the Mesan Alignment.

Having reached the rank of Admiral, Theodosia Kuzak gained a reputation as a stern and humorless disciplinarian which was totally at odds with the personality she revealed to her closest friends, such as Admiral Hamish Alexander, Earl White Haven. (HH4)

This always strikes me as a bit odd because the MO reminds me of Sandra Crandall a bit much. It is NOT the Kuzak I know.

Admiral Kuzak served as a member of the court martial that tried Pavel Young for cowardice and desertion, and she was one of the court members willing to convict him on all charges and send him before a firing squad. Despite the compromise brokered by Admiral Sonja Hemphill which allowed the court to avoid deadlock, Kuzak voted to convict Young on all specifications of the case. (HH4)

I have to admit that I thought Dmitri Young's high powered lawyers would have Theodosia and Hamish dismissed for partiality. I kept expecting it.

I'm not saying that I think she was partial, just that, with certain information at his disposal, Dmitri could have made a mockery of the proceedings. At least that's what I thought and expected.

cthia wrote:

Having reached the rank of Admiral, Theodosia Kuzak gained a reputation as a stern and humorless disciplinarian which was totally at odds with the personality she revealed to her closest friends, such as Admiral Hamish Alexander, Earl White Haven. (HH4)

This always strikes me as a bit odd because the MO reminds me of Sandra Crandall a bit much. It is NOT the Kuzak I know.

It might be useful to cite where you are getting quotes from.

There isn't a lot of text about Kuzak. But, as I recall, the text does describe Kuzak's command style as stern and disciplinarian, so this certainly fits with what I thought of her. I seem to recall White Haven's thoughts about the discrepancy between Kuzak's public and private demeanors.

cthia wrote:

Admiral Kuzak served as a member of the court martial that tried Pavel Young for cowardice and desertion, and she was one of the court members willing to convict him on all charges and send him before a firing squad. Despite the compromise brokered by Admiral Sonja Hemphill which allowed the court to avoid deadlock, Kuzak voted to convict Young on all specifications of the case. (HH4)

I have to admit that I thought Dmitri Young's high powered lawyers would have Theodosia and Hamish dismissed for partiality. I kept expecting it.

I'm not saying that I think she was partial, just that, with certain information at his disposal, Dmitri could have made a mockery of the proceedings. At least that's what I thought and expected.

I don't believe there is any mechanism for dismissing members of a court martial for partiality. My impression was that they were chosen at random and that was that.

cthia wrote:

Having reached the rank of Admiral, Theodosia Kuzak gained a reputation as a stern and humorless disciplinarian which was totally at odds with the personality she revealed to her closest friends, such as Admiral Hamish Alexander, Earl White Haven. (HH4)

This always strikes me as a bit odd because the MO reminds me of Sandra Crandall a bit much. It is NOT the Kuzak I know.

You may be reading "stern and humorless disciplinarian" too harshly, and/or Crandall's character too generously.

A stern disciplinarian can still be fair about it, personally generous, and committed to the welfare of her people. She's just a stickler for the rules and for discipline.

Crandall, by contrast, had no care for discipline. The abuse of her people and setting them at one another will tend to erode discipline, not encourage it. And she wasn't stern or humorless, either. She had a sense of humor - a crude, cruel one, that was inflicted on her victims (i.e., subordinates) as often and as freely as she liked.