What happens to all that debris?

tlb wrote:The combat information center cannot always see every enemy: those with low power wedges sitting in stealth that have not been approached by a recon drone are not showing on the screen at all and so certainly not as red icons.

Even if they first appear when making the downward transition, they can disappear into stealth before the drones get anywhere close.

Right, and then there's ECM involved too. The other ships will be putting out a lot of energy to try and spoof the other side's sensors.

cthia wrote:*I was surprised their roles were not switched. I still switch them in my head. Tourville was the better tactician. He had simply been shitcanned for a previous screw up. Which isn't really a screw up when your adversary was the Salamander and you survived.

Which is probably why he was in n-space where he could see Home Fleet and other defences in Manticore. He was the commander on the scene, he needed to have the most information. If he had been sitting in Alpha, that means someone else might have engaged Home Fleet and got obliterated, meaning Third Fleet would be completely intact by the time he translated down. And he couldn't direct anyone in n-space: from n-space, he can send a scout or destroyer up to update Chin, but from Alpha he couldn't do the reverse and send her orders.

Jonathan_S wrote:And in the case of Cerberus I'm sure Honor felt some responsibility towards the prisoners that, for whatever reasons, refused to cooperate with her prison break and opted to remain behind.

She'd have cleaned up enough battle debris to make sure the remaining prisoners, and the farms that fed them, weren't going to have random chunks of ships raining down on them.

I don't think cleaning up was either necessary nor feasible at Cerberus. The peeps were heading for Cerberus, if it's going to hit I don't think she had enough time to sweep it. If it misses it's beyond escape velocity, it heads off into interstellar space. Ships basically always are either orbiting something or moving above escape velocity, there's almost no chance of leaving debris in a star system.

A ship destroyed in orbit could make a substantial mess but fusion bottle booms are portrayed as basically erasing the whole ship. (I disagree with that.) It shouldn't have left anything that can survive atmospheric entry and thus poses no threat to the planet.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:And in the case of Cerberus I'm sure Honor felt some responsibility towards the prisoners that, for whatever reasons, refused to cooperate with her prison break and opted to remain behind.

She'd have cleaned up enough battle debris to make sure the remaining prisoners, and the farms that fed them, weren't going to have random chunks of ships raining down on them.

I don't think cleaning up was either necessary nor feasible at Cerberus. The peeps were heading for Cerberus, if it's going to hit I don't think she had enough time to sweep it. If it misses it's beyond escape velocity, it heads off into interstellar space. Ships basically always are either orbiting something or moving above escape velocity, there's almost no chance of leaving debris in a star system.

A ship destroyed in orbit could make a substantial mess but fusion bottle booms are portrayed as basically erasing the whole ship. (I disagree with that.) It shouldn't have left anything that can survive atmospheric entry and thus poses no threat to the planet.

Just because something is moving at above escape velocity doesn't mean that its trajectory out of the system can't intersect with something important like a station or planet.

In this case the Peep forces were about 3 minutes from coming to a stop (relative to the planet) at their attack position just over 7 million km beyond the orbital and lunar defenses controlled by Camp Charon when Honor's ambush was sprung.

Still, even with the low acceleration of their transports, three minutes of deceleration remaining would place their velocity at dozens of times the escape velocity of the system. But their base velocity was mostly towards the planet and who knows what kind of side velocity might be added from the rapid destruction of their warships by Honor's energy mounts.

Yeah, at their probable velocity you're probably looking at around 3 hours or so for any debris still moving at roughly the ships' base velocity to cover the 7 million km or so to the planet. I don't think we know Charon's velocity around its star, but in that time Earth would have displaced about 1/3rd of a million km. But even if the ships were aimed directly at where the planet currently was the debris would only need to be deflected less than 3 degrees to be that far off it's line.

Most of the debris would miss, but with a large cloud caused by the destruction of multiple warships you might not was to trust to "most". Not when you've got a few hours to do cleanup and it'd be quick and easy to corral any pieces large enough they might have survivors and then run a wedge a few times through the area any remaining debris on course to the planet would be traveling. (The stuff not aimed at the planet could presumably be left to fly out the far side of the system)

Loren Pechtel wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:And in the case of Cerberus I'm sure Honor felt some responsibility towards the prisoners that, for whatever reasons, refused to cooperate with her prison break and opted to remain behind.

She'd have cleaned up enough battle debris to make sure the remaining prisoners, and the farms that fed them, weren't going to have random chunks of ships raining down on them.

I don't think cleaning up was either necessary nor feasible at Cerberus. The peeps were heading for Cerberus, if it's going to hit I don't think she had enough time to sweep it. If it misses it's beyond escape velocity, it heads off into interstellar space. Ships basically always are either orbiting something or moving above escape velocity, there's almost no chance of leaving debris in a star system.

A ship destroyed in orbit could make a substantial mess but fusion bottle booms are portrayed as basically erasing the whole ship. (I disagree with that.) It shouldn't have left anything that can survive atmospheric entry and thus poses no threat to the planet.

Jonathan_S wrote:Just because something is moving at above escape velocity doesn't mean that its trajectory out of the system can't intersect with something important like a station or planet.

In this case the Peep forces were about 3 minutes from coming to a stop (relative to the planet) at their attack position just over 7 million km beyond the orbital and lunar defenses controlled by Camp Charon when Honor's ambush was sprung.

Still, even with the low acceleration of their transports, three minutes of deceleration remaining would place their velocity at dozens of times the escape velocity of the system. But their base velocity was mostly towards the planet and who knows what kind of side velocity might be added from the rapid destruction of their warships by Honor's energy mounts.

Yeah, at their probable velocity you're probably looking at around 3 hours or so for any debris still moving at roughly the ships' base velocity to cover the 7 million km or so to the planet. I don't think we know Charon's velocity around its star, but in that time Earth would have displaced about 1/3rd of a million km. But even if the ships were aimed directly at where the planet currently was the debris would only need to be deflected less than 3 degrees to be that far off it's line.

Most of the debris would miss, but with a large cloud caused by the destruction of multiple warships you might not was to trust to "most". Not when you've got a few hours to do cleanup and it'd be quick and easy to corral any pieces large enough they might have survivors and then run a wedge a few times through the area any remaining debris on course to the planet would be traveling. (The stuff not aimed at the planet could presumably be left to fly out the far side of the system)

As I said waaaaay upstream as well, Honor just didn't have the time to be doing any chores. She was too busy trying to get the hell out of Dodge. If she had known that she had the time for any extraneous time consuming maneuvers, then yes. But there was no way for her to know that. And if she had been still caught in town by sundown by the arriving Peep force, Honor would have been added to that orbital debris. I simply think garbage collection would have been an irresponsible maneuver under the circumstances.

Jonathan_S wrote:Just because something is moving at above escape velocity doesn't mean that its trajectory out of the system can't intersect with something important like a station or planet.

In this case the Peep forces were about 3 minutes from coming to a stop (relative to the planet) at their attack position just over 7 million km beyond the orbital and lunar defenses controlled by Camp Charon when Honor's ambush was sprung.

Still, even with the low acceleration of their transports, three minutes of deceleration remaining would place their velocity at dozens of times the escape velocity of the system. But their base velocity was mostly towards the planet and who knows what kind of side velocity might be added from the rapid destruction of their warships by Honor's energy mounts.

Yeah, at their probable velocity you're probably looking at around 3 hours or so for any debris still moving at roughly the ships' base velocity to cover the 7 million km or so to the planet. I don't think we know Charon's velocity around its star, but in that time Earth would have displaced about 1/3rd of a million km. But even if the ships were aimed directly at where the planet currently was the debris would only need to be deflected less than 3 degrees to be that far off it's line.

Most of the debris would miss, but with a large cloud caused by the destruction of multiple warships you might not was to trust to "most". Not when you've got a few hours to do cleanup and it'd be quick and easy to corral any pieces large enough they might have survivors and then run a wedge a few times through the area any remaining debris on course to the planet would be traveling. (The stuff not aimed at the planet could presumably be left to fly out the far side of the system)

cthia wrote:As I said waaaaay upstream as well, Honor just didn't have the time to be doing any chores. She was too busy trying to get the hell out of Dodge. If she had known that she had the time for any extraneous time consuming maneuvers, then yes. But there was no way for her to know that. And if she had been still caught in town by sundown by the arriving Peep force, Honor would have been added to that orbital debris. I simply think garbage collection would have been an irresponsible maneuver under the circumstances.

Honor and her forces would have been around for way more than the "around 3 hours or so for any debris still moving at roughly the ships' base velocity to cover the 7 million km or so to the planet". Even if there were no survivors from the ships hit with energy beams, she would still have had her forces check. Plus there were thousands of intervention troops on the transports and they would not have been dumped into space; all of them had to be moved to camps. Then the shuttles would return loaded with those who choose to join the trek to Trevor's Star. In all, this could have taken several days before the ships were ready to leave Hades for good.

Perhaps my memory is faulty, but isn't the "arriving Peep force" that you talk about, the one that she just captured?

I haven't reread EoH for some time so forgive if my numbers are not 100% accurate.

they were loading the best part of 50,000 people onto those ships, with only the shuttle pool from Camp Charon.

numbers were never given for how many shuttles survived the take over, let assume 20. let us also assume they could hold 100 people each. so that is 2000 people per trip.

I believe the BC were schedule to hold roughly 5,000, so 3 complete round trips per BC. from other books average duration of surface to orbit tends to be 90 to 120 mins. they were probably willing to push a bit we'll use the 90min figure.

so 3 hours per trip per BC not including loading/unloading time which would probably be another 30 mins on each end.

so 4 hours per trip means that each BC took 12 hours to load and there were 5 I think? so just loading the BC would take almost 3 days.

that is plenty of time for some of the lighter ships to be used in clearing debris, especially as it also works as extra training time, something the ESN badly needed even after the fight.

after loading the BC can also spend some time on clean up while the smaller ships load up.

Yes Honor was pressed for time but if it was dead time being eaten up by the loading anyway then it is no extra increase to the risk that was already part of the plan.

don't forget the force she has just captured was the one sent because someone smelled a rat in the first place. no other force will come for sometime because only 1 person even thought there was a problem to start with and he is no longer a problem and he used most of what was quickly available for the attack anyway.

so someone else has to realise there is a problem and then they have to find ships and troops which are likely thin are the ground after being used in this attack, plus the demand for ships/troops for the fontline ops.

not impossible but certainly not likely to happen "soon".

I believe that it is the fast transports that will hold the most.

A overall total of about 400 thousand escapees, when the first group of 286 thousand in the slower transports (from the earlier ship capture) finally arrive.

Dauntless wrote:I haven't reread EoH for some time so forgive if my numbers are not 100% accurate.

they were loading the best part of 50,000 people onto those ships, with only the shuttle pool from Camp Charon.

numbers were never given for how many shuttles survived the take over, let assume 20. let us also assume they could hold 100 people each. so that is 2000 people per trip.

I believe the BC were schedule to hold roughly 5,000, so 3 complete round trips per BC. from other books average duration of surface to orbit tends to be 90 to 120 mins. they were probably willing to push a bit we'll use the 90min figure.

so 3 hours per trip per BC not including loading/unloading time which would probably be another 30 mins on each end.

so 4 hours per trip means that each BC took 12 hours to load and there were 5 I think? so just loading the BC would take almost 3 days.

that is plenty of time for some of the lighter ships to be used in clearing debris, especially as it also works as extra training time, something the ESN badly needed even after the fight.

after loading the BC can also spend some time on clean up while the smaller ships load up.

Yes Honor was pressed for time but if it was dead time being eaten up by the loading anyway then it is no extra increase to the risk that was already part of the plan.

don't forget the force she has just captured was the one sent because someone smelled a rat in the first place. no other force will come for sometime because only 1 person even thought there was a problem to start with and he is no longer a problem and he used most of what was quickly available for the attack anyway.

so someone else has to realise there is a problem and then they have to find ships and troops which are likely thin are the ground after being used in this attack, plus the demand for ships/troops for the fontline ops.

not impossible but certainly not likely to happen "soon".

Wouldn't all of her forces be needed for troop transport? The shuttles could ferry them off the planet much quicker than transferring them to the ships. Every ship would be needed. And there is no way Honor could have known that other unscheduled units wouldn't show up.

cthia wrote:Wouldn't all of her forces be needed for troop transport? The shuttles could ferry them off the planet much quicker than transferring them to the ships. Every ship would be needed. And there is no way Honor could have known that other unscheduled units wouldn't show up.

Yes, all her ships would eventually be used to carry escapees; but the troop transports would be loaded first, while the big warships would go back to the ambush positions and the small warships would be free for other tasks (all warships eventually rotate through refueling). All of the transports would have their own shuttles so the initial number at Camp Charon would not be the limiting factor. The limiting activities are just moving the intervention troops off the ships and out to the various camps and in return bringing back the prisoners that want to leave and loading them on the ships. The final task is setting up the new administration at the camp to keep the prisoner sites supplied with food. Would that be in the hands of StateSec or some of the prisoners that stayed behind (I expect StateSec)?.