cthia wrote:Your post certainly makes sense to me. And if someone is holding a gun to my head to get it right, I will certainly copy off your paper.
But again, just to get it on record so I can say I told you so when the next book comes out ...... while in a grav wave, all of the receivers may be protected by their own band of intense gravity, being inside the wedge. Much like the planet's intense atmosphere and magnetic field disperses the Sun's dangerous solar flares.
I am theorizing that the receivers may not be affected by grav waves * ... or the wedge itself, being inside the wedge, because the brunt of the gravity may be radiated outward and away, as I am proposing it is at the junction, whereby there appear to be a totally different set of equations operating 'behind the junction'.
But platforms operate outside the wedge. It is true that they seem to operate in a sea of wedges producing their own fields of gravity, but the critical distance (and time) from these wedges might not ever be reached. However, a stealthy platform that employs some technology to focus and direct gravity may be able to get close enough to GA platforms to make the GA soil its pants. And destroying platforms with intense directed gravity might be harder to detect and localize than firing missiles or grasers.
A stealthy MA platform developed to fry receivers might not need to produce a stronger field of gravity to fry the GA's bacon, rather than get close enough to the receivers that they are essentially in the frying pan.
All of this brings up another point I have been meaning to broach. People inside the wedge don't seem to be affected by the intense band of gravity created by the wedge either.
Overall, I may be grasping at straws, but 'Straw Men' seem to be employed quite extensively in the genre to spruce up sci-fi.
Well if you're trying to get it right; they definitely wouldn't be protected by a wedge while in a grav wave. You need sails there.
A wedge in a grav wave causes your instant destruction.
And you're not really 'inside' a set of sails as they project at 90 degrees from the hull. (Think a pair of giant washers, where the ship is a bolt stuck through them)
That said, being inside the wedge you are generally not affected by the wedge itself. (Well, until you get close to it). Though, during wedge atartup it does affect large areas around itself. That's why ships have to taper down towards their impeller rings. The alpha nodes starting up cause (apparently temporary) destructive levels of gravity -- and if the hull continued straight, without tapering in, it would be caught in that destructive start-up zone and torn apart.
OTOH being outside the wedge you're also generally not affected by it -- not until you get really close. There's no sign that wedges are affecting, say, satellite orbits. And shuttles and pinnaces seems to have no problem flying between ships with active wedges (and that wouldn't be the case if on approach they were being affected by gravity strong enough to sharply bend light)
Overall, I think a stealthy drone would have a better chance of frying a Keyhole II by non-gravimetric means. (basically sneak in and shoot/nuke it) -- though that would require getting really close.
But we'll see. Ultimately I'm making an argument from ignorance. I don't see now, given what little we know, that such a grav attack could work. But RFC has plenty of room to spring such a tech on us should he want to. (Normally he leave plenty of hints before such surprises; even if they're well hidden. But we might be missing them; or he might choose to spring something without hints)