Concepts: Today's similarities and differences to the HV

penny wrote:Ok. Here’s the thing. Some of you have argued that Darius is a beautiful system and a beautiful planet that is not mired by military installations and stations. I had one poster long ago who argued with me vehemently about whether the MA even had a navy.

Let me be clearer on what I think is the case. The Darius system had been intended to be such a paradise and plausible deniability with "those malignant Alignment people in Galton." Its discovery pushed Galton into being more militaristic and even more oppressive. That does not mean zero industry - far from it. There's a lot of it that is required to keep a modern society supplied with its comforts. Someone has to make the countergrav units to install in high-rise buildings, for example.

But that changed with the advent of the spider drive. Then the MAlign Inner Onion made a decision that it would build spider ships in Darius, not Galton, so as to avoid keeping all eggs in the same basket. That meant they built the Darius Prime space station, and started building Ghosts there, and later the warships.

All of this is recent, so the military industry in Darius is nowhere near as developed as it was in Galton or is in any of the GA's capital systems, or a few more secondary ones.

Now, consider that there is a planned allotment of 100 LDs. How in the bejeebus are they going to hide the completion or the building of 100 LDs, and how are they going to make it look like they are only built for defense? Then there are the Sharks, the Ghosts and God only knows what other ships will be built.

Who says they're building 100, besides you? Or that there is a crash build of 100. I will be very surprised if they get a dozen by the end of the decade!

Anyway, I don't think anyone is under the illusion that the LDs are defensive units only. That charade is gone. How they've managed to explain to the workers, I have no clue. That's why lies have short legs.

Could it be that the first few will be built in Darius and the rest in some other classified location? They train in Darius space so they need some to train with.

That's highly unlikely for all the reasons we've discussed of there being a third hideout. The lightning has already struck twice. That applies to the MAlign as well as David Weber - reusing the same plot trick gets thin.

Anyway, if all ships are built at the same station, then wouldn’t Simoes have been able to give a lot more data about the Streak Drive? Maybe not, since it is simply an oversized compensator, but loose lips in close quartered slips sink ships.

Simões was never sent to Darius. He worked on Mesa, on streak drive theory. He may have been aboard a streak boat at some point in his life, but that's not a given.

Also, streak ships were probably built in Galton.

penny wrote:Continuing the thought, how was Simoes not able to give more detail on the spider ships if they were all built at the one station? Especially when that station is said to be much smaller than Hephaestus? It isn't like the ship looks like a conventional ship. And I don't recall him having any knowledge of a spider ship's appearance.

I also don't recall him giving enough knowledge about the streak drive as someone who would have worked on it from its inception. Which goes to support my notion of compartmentalization and need to know. I think he might have given enough detail that the demonic duo can figure it out, eventually. But, being that he was the lead scientist on improving it, he should have been able to give enough detail that the rest should be a cinch to figure out. Especially since textev gave testimony that the galaxy and the RMN had labored a long time trying to figure it out eons ago and had given up. The dummies.

I know all of you think it is a matter of time that the GA will have the Streak Drive, but I didn't get the same memo that they definitely would. In fact, I got the impression that Simoes knowledge was more theoretically than technical.

We were discussing why the Sharks had not been refitted to carry the g-torp internally instead of that jury-rigged system.

It is amazing that Herlander knew anything about the spider drive, since he was on Mesa and the spider development was on Darius. We do not know how much he knew.

We are not sure how much practical knowledge he had of the streak drive, but it does not matter; because Galton had the streak drive and the Grand Alliance now has Galton.

I believe the consensus is that the Sharks could not carry the G-torp internally (too large) and so had to jury-rig external supports. There is a quote that Theemile has as their signature that says the following: RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships.".

fixed the signature line and who has it

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penny wrote:Goodness grief! How did I cross those wires!

Continuing the thought, how was Simoes not able to give more detail on the spider ships if they were all built at the one station? Especially when that station is said to be much smaller than Hephaestus? It isn't like the ship looks like a conventional ship. And I don't recall him having any knowledge of a spider ship's appearance.

Because they weren't all built in one station, probably not even the same system. The streak-drive ships were probably built in Galton, not Darius. And Simões never went to either, so he would never have seen a spider-drive ship.

I also don't recall him giving enough knowledge about the streak drive as someone who would have worked on it from its inception. Which goes to support my notion of compartmentalization and need to know. I think he might have given enough detail that the demonic duo can figure it out, eventually. But, being that he was the lead scientist on improving it, he should have been able to give enough detail that the rest should be a cinch to figure out. Especially since textev gave testimony that the galaxy and the RMN had labored a long time trying to figure it out eons ago and had given up. The dummies.

As a scientist he may not have detailed knowledge of how the engineers applied his knowledge to the function. He knew it worked, which is 80% of the work, and must have had some inkling of how it worked because there would have been feedback to him and possibly some discussions to solve engineering problems, but that's all.

I know all of you think it is a matter of time that the GA will have the Streak Drive, but I didn't get the same memo that they definitely would. In fact, I got the impression that Simoes knowledge was more theoretically than technical.

Yup. But since knowing it is possible is 80% of the problem and with Simões there to tell them just what he was working on to solve the other 20%, they're practically there. The most difficult part will be to open up space in the ships for the much larger generator. Streak warships may only happen for the next design out of Bolthole, none of which we've seen.

That may further doom the destroyer type and push the minimum ship mass to 300k tonnes.

tlb wrote:It is amazing that Herlander knew anything about the spider drive, since he was on Mesa and the spider development was on Darius. We do not know how much he knew.

We are not sure how much practical knowledge he had of the streak drive, but it does not matter; because Galton had the streak drive and the Grand Alliance now has Galton.

There was probably some theoretical work done on the spider drive on Mesa, for the same reason that there was streak drive work done on Mesa. For example, the Mesan citizens had far more access to galactic information than the inhabitants of either Galton or Darius.

That probably means there was little reason for any top Dariusian scientist to leave Darius for a conference: just send the Mesan.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Mission of Honor wrote:Albrecht Detweiler reflected on exactly what that implied as he stood to one side on what would have been the flag deck aboard an actual warship and watched the enormous space station, gleaming in the reflected light of the F6 star called Darius, growing larger on the visual display as MANS Genesis approached it. The station—known officially as Darius Prime—orbited the planet Gamma, Darius’ only habitable world

BTW, I just want to point out that the Darius Prime space station is "gleaming in reflected light" and is orbiting the planet.

penny wrote:Continuing the thought, how was Simoes not able to give more detail on the spider ships if they were all built at the one station? Especially when that station is said to be much smaller than Hephaestus? It isn't like the ship looks like a conventional ship.

Why would you expect him to? Simoes was on Mesa and to the best of our knowledge knew nothing about Darius (other than the MAlign must have someplace other than Mesa they were building things) -- so he almost certainly never went there.

Meaning he'd almost certainly have never seen a Ghost or Shark; and definitely not an LD. He had some knowledge of the existence of the spider drive technology; and seemingly a very rudimentary understanding of its working mechanism. (Presumably from getting peripherally pulled in to assist the Mesan R&D groups focusing on that) But there'd be no good reason for him to have ever been briefed on any of the actual spider warship designs the MAlign was working on.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Anyway, I don't think anyone is under the illusion that the LDs are defensive units only. That charade is gone. How they've managed to explain to the workers, I have no clue. That's why lies have short legs.

Though they could always sell them to workers as being deterrent units.

They're obviously the good guys, so they'd never launch an unprovoked attack. But the universe is a dangerous place and to ensure Darius's continued peaceful existence they clearly must have a navy so powerful, dangerous, and survivable enough that nobody would dream they could get away with attacking Darius without suffering unacceptably disproportionate retaliation in return.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The streak-drive ships were probably built in Galton, not Darius. And Simões never went to either, so he would never have seen a spider-drive ship.

Actually I'd actually bet streak drive ships were built in both Galton and Darius. Nearly all the ones out and about in the galaxy -- so the streak dispatch boats, and covert ops ships, would have been built at Galton. But I'd bet that Albrecht's streak yacht was built at Darius, and that all the Ghost, Shark, and LDs were built at Darius and built with streak drives.

Jonathan_S wrote:Actually I'd actually bet streak drive ships were built in both Galton and Darius. Nearly all the ones out and about in the galaxy -- so the streak dispatch boats, and covert ops ships, would have been built at Galton. But I'd bet that Albrecht's streak yacht was built at Darius, and that all the Ghost, Shark, and LDs were built at Darius and built with streak drives.

Right, no reason for Darius not to build streak ships too, but I bet the majority of the non-spider ones came from Galton. Simões was obviously aware that ships were being built somewhere, but he clearly wasn't aware of where Galton was. There's no reason to imagine he knew there were two systems building ships.

But Jessica Milliken was almost certainly from Darius, not Galton, because her superior officer, Capt. Gowan Maddock, was. And RFC and Eric spent way too much time in TEiF talking about her for her not to be a Chekhov's Gun. See the "Why are you still alive?" thread.

tlb wrote:It is amazing that Herlander knew anything about the spider drive, since he was on Mesa and the spider development was on Darius. We do not know how much he knew.

We are not sure how much practical knowledge he had of the streak drive, but it does not matter; because Galton had the streak drive and the Grand Alliance now has Galton.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:There was probably some theoretical work done on the spider drive on Mesa, for the same reason that there was streak drive work done on Mesa. For example, the Mesan citizens had far more access to galactic information than the inhabitants of either Galton or Darius.

That probably means there was little reason for any top Dariusian scientist to leave Darius for a conference: just send the Mesan.

That would argue that all the Houdini scientific evacuees should go to Darius, instead of Galton; because there should be no one left alive on Galton that can say the spider drive works and we do not have it. At most, the documentation found on Galton should show that a spider drive was theorized, but proved unworkable.

PS: Should the proper name of a resident of Darius be Darian, instead of "Dariusian"?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:But Jessica Milliken was almost certainly from Darius, not Galton, because her superior officer, Capt. Gowan Maddock, was. And RFC and Eric spent way too much time in TEiF talking about her for her not to be a Chekhov's Gun.

She may be a clue, but we do not know yet to what. When they are introduced in ToF, all that is said is that they are part of the Mesan Alignment Navy, instead of the Mesa System Navy. But that only indicates that they are part of the Onion, without specifying their planet of origin.

So what did I miss in TEiF, that states they were not from Mesa?

tlb wrote:She may be a clue, but we do not know yet to what. When they are introduced in ToF, all that is said is that they are part of the Mesan Alignment Navy, instead of the Mesa System Navy. But that only indicates that they are part of the Onion, without specifying their planet of origin.

So what did I miss in TEiF, that states they were not from Mesa?

No. Zilwicki accuses her of being a member of the Alignment, but says nothing about planet or system of origin. At that point, he wouldn't know there were two.

But see the thread linked above for why I think she and Maddock had to come from the MAN of Darius, not the Galton Navy.