Range of FTL communication

Weird Harold wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:I rather doubt there's a broadcasting Hermes buoy, that's for just any ship in system to take use of. We have no evidence civilian ships have pulse-transmitters of old, even the ones from HotQ days. The grav-pulse concept is an military advantage that the RMN (and RHN, IAN) would be guarding jealously.

It doesn't require FTL comm to use a Hermes Buoy -- that's the whole point. With Hermes, you transmit a normal laser-comm or radio-frequency comm at the Buoy and it relays it with FTL comm to another Hermes. The second Hermes either re-transmits in the original mode or relays to another Hermes with FTL comm. Neither sender nor receiver need FTL capability.

Well it's a lot of the point. But Military ships could presumably still use grav pulse comms to talk to a Buoy eliminating even that little lightspeed lag (or not so little if they're dozens of lightseconds away from the nearest Buoy).
The the Buoy would still do it's primary job of using FTL grav pulse to relay the call along to its destination.

Jonathan_S wrote:Well it's a lot of the point. But Military ships could presumably still use grav pulse comms to talk to a Buoy eliminating even that little lightspeed lag (or not so little if they're dozens of lightseconds away from the nearest Buoy).
The the Buoy would still do it's primary job of using FTL grav pulse to relay the call along to its destination.

I'd imagine that's the standard mode of operation for ships of the old Manticoran Alliance, and if RHN ships can't already access Hermes via their grav-pulse comms then I expect it'll be one of the first upgrades they get. Using a comm laser to connect to the buoy would probably only be done if the ship was pulling out all the stops to remain stealthy and didn't want to emit even the highly-direction pulses of the latest grav-pulse comms.

Weird Harold wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:I rather doubt there's a broadcasting Hermes buoy, that's for just any ship in system to take use of. We have no evidence civilian ships have pulse-transmitters of old, even the ones from HotQ days. The grav-pulse concept is an military advantage that the RMN (and RHN, IAN) would be guarding jealously.

It doesn't require FTL comm to use a Hermes Buoy -- that's the whole point. With Hermes, you transmit a normal laser-comm or radio-frequency comm at the Buoy and it relays it with FTL comm to another Hermes. The second Hermes either re-transmits in the original mode or relays to another Hermes with FTL comm. Neither sender nor receiver need FTL capability.

Correct.... however, the Hermes Buoy then becomes a nice, broadcasting "hey, anybody want free FTL tech thans one of the reasons Manticore is kicking the crap out of everyone? Come one, come all" message.

By not advertising that everyone, their sister, and even the treecats can now speak at near real-time anywhere in the Manticore system, would you (as an RMN admiral) actually suggest to give every non-Alliance civilian the possibility of stealing a whole Hermes Buoy?

Civilian calls punched into the existing hard-wired planetary communications grids might end up utilizing the Hermes Buoys to give the Manticore citizens the FTL transmissions, but I still remain highly doubtful that ships get that kind of access. Especially those belonging to other star nations, notably the Solarian League of whom the Grand Alliance is now in a state of war with.

Somtaaw wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:It doesn't require FTL comm to use a Hermes Buoy -- that's the whole point. With Hermes, you transmit a normal laser-comm or radio-frequency comm at the Buoy and it relays it with FTL comm to another Hermes. The second Hermes either re-transmits in the original mode or relays to another Hermes with FTL comm. Neither sender nor receiver need FTL capability.

Correct.... however, the Hermes Buoy then becomes a nice, broadcasting "hey, anybody want free FTL tech thans one of the reasons Manticore is kicking the crap out of everyone? Come one, come all" message.

By not advertising that everyone, their sister, and even the treecats can now speak at near real-time anywhere in the Manticore system, would you (as an RMN admiral) actually suggest to give every non-Alliance civilian the possibility of stealing a whole Hermes Buoy?

Civilian calls punched into the existing hard-wired planetary communications grids might end up utilizing the Hermes Buoys to give the Manticore citizens the FTL transmissions, but I still remain highly doubtful that ships get that kind of access. Especially those belonging to other star nations, notably the Solarian League of whom the Grand Alliance is now in a state of war with.

I could see specific non-planetary data/voice traffic routed through Hermes buoys on a 'bandwidth avalible' basis. Such as from the junction to Manticore, or maybe even to some of the larger belt extraction platforms. But the authorized ships would presumably broadcast to the normal lightspeed comm networks and it would be forwarded via Hermes. That's especially doable around the junction because Astro control, as a quasi-military, governmental departement has access to use FTL comms - so there's already several semi-secured points you could use to bridge the traffic. And doing that shouldn't expose the Hermes buoys to any more risk of being stolen than they already had just by sitting in a 7 lh long chain between the Junction and the inner system to relay the military and official astro control communications.

Jonathan_S wrote:I could see specific non-planetary data/voice traffic routed through Hermes buoys on a 'bandwidth avalible' basis. Such as from the junction to Manticore, or maybe even to some of the larger belt extraction platforms. But the authorized ships would presumably broadcast to the normal lightspeed comm networks and it would be forwarded via Hermes. That's especially doable around the junction because Astro control, as a quasi-military, governmental departement has access to use FTL comms - so there's already several semi-secured points you could use to bridge the traffic. And doing that shouldn't expose the Hermes buoys to any more risk of being stolen than they already had just by sitting in a 7 lh long chain between the Junction and the inner system to relay the military and official astro control communications.

That's essentially what I'm seeing, and saying. There's only the one network, that's primarily for military (and quasi-military) usage and only those know (more or less) where the Hermes Buoys directly might be.

Civilians just place calls as normal, and there's a chance of it being forwarded at FTL speeds. Such as the numerous calls that Dr Arif placed to Honor, in regards to various 'cat topics. None of those had any real military reason to be FTL, both sides of the calls were planet-side, both sides involved Manticoran nationals.

Naval ship to naval ship would definitely involve the FTL, and planet side Admiralty to naval forces would as well. But, I just can't quite wrap my brain around just any Joe Blow with a two-bit dispatch boat being able to access FTL transmission speeds.

I can all but guarantee that even most Manty civilians do not have access to the FTL communications web. In fact, I would be shocked if its usage wasn't limited to:

1- Naval use.
2- Crown/governmental use.
3- Paramilitary use such as Astro Control.
4- Economic necessity among critical platforms and vessels that have been cleared for it. Eg, I'm sure that regional/planetary HQs for Hauptman's Cartel and Grayson Sky Domes have been cleared due to their extensive military contracts and importance, but only a relatively few are allowed to use it for critical communications only.
5- Sensitive civilian communications cleared on an 'as needed' basis. Basically, people who use FTL in their official capacity using it for personal among family/friends who know about it. Think Honor talking to Dr. Arif or her parents.

And, until FTL becomes something that is found among all first and second tier navies, I would see the SKM keeping FTL away from the population at large.

Now, once the FTL secret is out and common among all first and second tier navies, I would bet that the SKM will have a dedicated civilian communications web all set to go that is free of charge for SKM citizens, and just happens to cost a bit for non-SKM citizens (or non-alliance shippers) to use.

Erls wrote:I can all but guarantee that even most Manty civilians do not have access to the FTL communications web. In fact, I would be shocked if its usage wasn't limited to:

1- Naval use.
2- Crown/governmental use.
3- Paramilitary use such as Astro Control.
4- Economic necessity among critical platforms and vessels that have been cleared for it. Eg, I'm sure that regional/planetary HQs for Hauptman's Cartel and Grayson Sky Domes have been cleared due to their extensive military contracts and importance, but only a relatively few are allowed to use it for critical communications only.
5- Sensitive civilian communications cleared on an 'as needed' basis. Basically, people who use FTL in their official capacity using it for personal among family/friends who know about it. Think Honor talking to Dr. Arif or her parents.

And, until FTL becomes something that is found among all first and second tier navies, I would see the SKM keeping FTL away from the population at large.

Now, once the FTL secret is out and common among all first and second tier navies, I would bet that the SKM will have a dedicated civilian communications web all set to go that is free of charge for SKM citizens, and just happens to cost a bit for non-SKM citizens (or non-alliance shippers) to use.

Not pick

Dr. Arif is a member of the government, she is head of the Crown Commission on Treecats and at the very minimum Honor is an unpaid consultant and expert on treecats. Also I wouldn't be surprised that Honor doesn't sit on or chair a committee in the Lord's that has oversight CCT and the SFS/C.

Dafmeister wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:I don't know of any textev, but I suspect that there are multiple types of "Hermes Buoy" in service. The tpe we've seen in use by the RMN are essentially RD Drones with similar stealth characteristics and range. The Communications chain around Manticore A from the WHJ to Manticore is probably larger and more powerful to cover more channels over longer distances than the "Communications Drone" used by RMN warships.

Very likely. In fact, now that I think about it, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were two completely independent Hermes networks in the Manticore system. A civilian network, where the relays are completely unstealthed and probably broadcast a beacon signal so that half-blind merchant ships can find them, and a military network where the buoys are stealthed to the eyeballs.

It doesn't seem to be an officially-acknowledged capability until 2nd Manticore, though some civilians may have noticed that too much information is moving too fast. From Rising Thunder:

The Junction traffic-control net had just gone berserk ... the first intimation that something untoward was occurring a few light-hours away ... Not that he as particularly pleased by how quickly that consternation had manifested itself. It only confirmed what [SLN Lt. Trudeau] and the rest of the ship's company of SLNS DB 17025 had already decided had to be the case: the Manties really did have FTL communications.

When Honor arrives off San Martin with her fleet from Cerebus, she is sitting outside the hyper limit almost right on top of the Hemes Buoy to transmit her "I'm back" message. That would suppose that yet, San Martin has at least one Bouy stationed there and that the locations are known (in at least a general sense) by senior naval officers.

The Hermes Bouys are going to need to be parked for tactical reasons in various parts of systems and probably have station-keeping ability, they are also going to need long term power so there will be something to keep them running for long periods of time. That, along with stealthiness and probably anti-tampering devices, would be minimum requirements.

Brigade XO wrote:When Honor arrives off San Martin with her fleet from Cerebus, she is sitting outside the hyper limit almost right on top of the Hemes Buoy to transmit her "I'm back" message. That would suppose that yet, San Martin has at least one Bouy stationed there and that the locations are known (in at least a general sense) by senior naval officers.

The Hermes Bouys are going to need to be parked for tactical reasons in various parts of systems and probably have station-keeping ability, they are also going to need long term power so there will be something to keep them running for long periods of time. That, along with stealthiness and probably anti-tampering devices, would be minimum requirements.

After her return from Cerberus, and prior to her tour of duty as "Commanding Officer, Marsh", she planned her unscheduled drill with the Grayson's Own. Who had their wall of battle rotated ever so slightly to specifically defeat 'Allied Usage of Ghost Rider Drones'.

Think there were a few other cases of similar, one from the Havenite side was Foraker projecting where sensor drones were which ultimately led to Honor's capture by Tourville in Adler.


This would suggest that there's a very specific way things get deployed. Hermes Buoy's had never been referred to previously, which could imply the only way Honor knew about them, was when she commanded the WDB, in which case they were a purely paper designed before her capture.... and Manticore never once considered computer-generated randomization for seeding their sensors. Instead of the easy to predict one pattern for all situations and solar systems.

After all, it was that very same, exacting pattern that enabled the pre-CPS Legislaturalist attacks to be pulled off so well. And one could argue historical events, such as WWII German's having patrols you could time to the heartbeat where every sentry would be.