Dilandu wrote:runsforcelery wrote:
First, inferiority is a matter of degree. For example, assume that the computation speed of Honorverse computers is just as fast as that of the Federation (which it is) but that Honorverse software lacks full sentience. Give the programmers sufficient insight into the weapons involved, and the degree to which a self-aware system able to rethink on the fly is better able to out-synthesize a system which isn't self aware but has been provided with decision trees which cover essentially all the possible permutations of how its own and its opponents weapons can be employed, and the "awareness" of the true AI is of limited utility.
The ability to create fully sentience software is the question of architecture of systems. Basically if you could not create it, your computers are just more primitive, even if they could make calculation at the same speed by "brute force".
Considering how manpower-consuming are Honorverse's ships, and how often manual operations are mentioned in series:
"Acknowledged," Abigail replied, and turned to look at Vassari. The chief was staring intently at his display, and when she glanced into her own, Abigail saw the red sighting circle projected across the drone's small bead of light. The targeting solution looked good, but although the energy mount was tracking smoothly, holding the drone centered in the cross-hairs, it wasn't firing.
Abigail felt the other five members of Graser Thirty-Eight's crew staring at her, but she kept her own eyes on the plot. It had seemed like a good idea when she and Vassari came up with it; now, she wasn't nearly as certain. The drone was almost a third of the way through its pass, and still the laser designator hadn't fired. If it didn't do something soon, they were going to come up with a score of zero, and none of the other mounts had managed to do quite that poorly. She hovered on the brink of ordering Vassari to open fire anyway, on the theory that at least something would have to get through, but she closed her lips firmly against the temptation. It either worked, or it didn't; she wasn't going to second-guess herself in mid-flight and risk losing any opportunity of success. Besides, even if she—
"Got it!" Chief Vassari barked suddenly, and the laser designator "opened fire" before the words were fully out of his mouth.
Abigail watched the plot's sidebar, and her face blossomed in a huge smile as the rest of her crew began to cheer and whistle. The computers had identified the repetition of one of the earlier fly-bys, and Vassari's fire plan had instructed them to synchronize the mount's pulse rate with the recognized spin rate of the target. It meant that they weren't pumping out the maximum possible amount of destructive energy, but what they were pumping out was precisely timed to catch the drone at the moment that it turned the open side of its wedge towards the ship. The energy-on-target total shot up like a homesick meteor, and Abigail wanted to cheer herself as the laser designator systematically hammered the drone.
- with all respect, but if Honorverse's computers required human input to do such analysis, then they are VERY dumb. Worse than modern comps.
You do realize that in the scene you cited the entire firing procedure is computer-controlled? The Chief isn't saying "Now we can squeeze the trigger;" he's saying "The computer's found what we've been looking for and is now firing."
You also realize that it was a training exercise, and that one of the objects thereof was to encourage snotties to think out of the box with the crews of weapons mounts which are in local control because they've been cut off from centralized control? Part of the exercise's objectives was to see if
Abigail would notice the opportunity, not if the computers could spot it.
Computers were about twenty-
seven years less developed when I began the series than they are today. I am sort of stuck with aspects of Honorverse cyber technology that are "grandfathered in" after all this time. And, I will acknowledge, I deliberately structured a computer-human interface which required the human element because it was the human element about which I intended to write. Despite that, from the very beginning, there have been computers doing one hell of a lot on a dynamic basis behind the scenes because, frankly, it wasn't
necessary to talk about them and because this isn't a literary universe designed to allow human beings to push a button at the beginning of the engagement and then just sit there and wonder if they are going to survive it.
Perhaps if I were launching the Honorverse today, I would have selected a different combat environment. I didn't, but some of the conclusions you are drawing are being drawn on the basis of
absence of evidence. As I have pointed out upon more than one occasion, if anyone out there thinks that I believe you can maneuver and direct a several million tons superdreadnought using a joystick and the Mark one eyeball, I have a bridge I would like to sell you. Other aspects of Honorverse computer technology follow the same model as the joystick interface that puts a planet-eating impeller wedge under "fingertip control" by the helmsman.
And, I might point out, that comments on the stupidity of Honorverse computers notwithstanding, you haven't said anything here that contradicts my point about a
Mikasa with Aegis fire control somehow miraculously defeating an
Iowa with the Mark 38 fire control system and the Mark 8 Rangekeeper.
Mikasa is still on the bottom of the Pacific in record time, no matter what electronics fit she has.