?

cthia wrote:But that dependence might be a result of not being able to reach viable ramming speeds. And those speeds, the god of the HV has decreed, apparently begins at ~ .9C.

tlb wrote:No, that statement is not part of the Honorverse; it is from a different series of books.

cthia wrote:Meh. That just means it is a different universe, but still governed by the mind of the same god.

No sure what you are implying here: The Sword of the South was also written by David Weber, I hope you do not think that the laws of its universe are the same as in the Honorverse.

We know that in other series he allows stronger AI and completely autonomous ships, but not in the Honorverse.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:But that dependence might be a result of not being able to reach viable ramming speeds. And those speeds, the god of the HV has decreed, apparently begins at ~ .9C.

tlb wrote:No, that statement is not part of the Honorverse; it is from a different series of books.

cthia wrote:Meh. That just means it is a different universe, but still governed by the mind of the same god.

No sure what you are implying here: The Sword of the South was also written by David Weber, I hope you do not think that the laws of its universe are the same as in the Honorverse.

We know that in other series he allows stronger AI and completely autonomous ships, but not in the Honorverse.

Granted, but it has been mentioned countless times before on this forum that one of the appeals of this particular god is his frugal use of handwavium.

The laws of physics seem to be an immutable object even for a god.

cthia wrote:The laws of physics seem to be an immutable object even for a god.

Do you think the wedge follows the known laws of physics? In Path of the Fury he has space ships that move because of a black hole in the bow. So don't try to tell me that he does not mutate the laws of physics in different ways in each of his series.

What the forum has been saying is that he is frugal in the use of handwavium WITHIN a series.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:The laws of physics seem to be an immutable object even for a god.

Do you think the wedge follows the known laws of physics? In Path of the Fury he has space ships that move because of a black hole in the bow. So don't try to tell me that he does not mutate the laws of physics in different ways in each of his series.

What the forum has been saying is that he is frugal in the use of handwavium WITHIN a series.

No, the wedge does not follow any know laws of physics. Quite the contrary. But then, the author voided physics in order to develop his propulsion system. That is nothing new under the heavens and within sci-fi books. Just about all authors abandon physics in favor of their starships' propulsion systems. Gotta get those warships to move.

But after this author uses his allotment of handwavium to get his warships to move, if it is true that he limits handwavium within a series suggests that most of the rest of the laws of physics, within the HV, will not be ignored?

cthia wrote:The laws of physics seem to be an immutable object even for a god.

tlb wrote:Do you think the wedge follows the known laws of physics? In Path of the Fury he has space ships that move because of a black hole in the bow. So don't try to tell me that he does not mutate the laws of physics in different ways in each of his series.

What the forum has been saying is that he is frugal in the use of handwavium WITHIN a series.

cthia wrote:No, the wedge does not follow any know laws of physics. Quite the contrary. But then, the author voided physics in order to develop his propulsion system. That is nothing new under the heavens and within sci-fi books. Just about all authors abandon physics in favor of their starships' propulsion systems. Gotta get those warships to move.

But after this author uses his allotment of handwavium to get his warships to move, if it is true that he limits handwavium within a series suggests that most of the rest of the laws of physics, within the HV, will not be ignored?

Granted, but the only rule that we know is that the wedge strengths have to at least match to achieve a kill. There is no evidence in the HV that excess speed will also work.

PS: the black hole in the nose of a ship is the most ridiculous violation of the known laws in any book that I have read. I would rather he used James Blish's spindizzy than that.

This reminds that a long time ago, Popular Mechanics (or possibly Popular Science) had a cover that showed delivery trucks unloading at upper stories while floating in air. The article claimed that Newton's action - reaction did not have to occur at the same time. It showed a test platform with vibrating weights where a piece of paper could slide under it. Although I was not yet in college, I still knew that was a load of crap: after delivering five flights up, reaction going to finally kick in and slam the truck to the ground!? How could such a magazine fall for such a con?

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:The laws of physics seem to be an immutable object even for a god.

tlb wrote:Do you think the wedge follows the known laws of physics? In Path of the Fury he has space ships that move because of a black hole in the bow. So don't try to tell me that he does not mutate the laws of physics in different ways in each of his series.

What the forum has been saying is that he is frugal in the use of handwavium WITHIN a series.

cthia wrote:No, the wedge does not follow any know laws of physics. Quite the contrary. But then, the author voided physics in order to develop his propulsion system. That is nothing new under the heavens and within sci-fi books. Just about all authors abandon physics in favor of their starships' propulsion systems. Gotta get those warships to move.

But after this author uses his allotment of handwavium to get his warships to move, if it is true that he limits handwavium within a series suggests that most of the rest of the laws of physics, within the HV, will not be ignored?

Granted, but the only rule that we know is that the wedge strengths have to at least match to achieve a kill. There is no evidence in the HV that excess speed will also work.

PS: the black hole in the nose of a ship is the most ridiculous violation of the known laws in any book that I have read. I would rather he used James Blish's spindizzy than that.

But it wouldn't be the excess speed that would kill in a ramming attack. It would be the concentrated localized energy on impact; which should be immensely greater thus more destructive -- at speeds that are a human hair away from C -- than the energy released by any type of warhead.

Actually, that propulsion system makes a lot of sense to me. Theoretically. If a localized black hole can be created and manipulated, it would create an enormous attraction. The logic works for me, if the black hole can be created. In fact, that simply appears to be somewhat of a variation of StarTrek's use of warp nacelles that create a localized phenomena in space time.

tlb wrote:PS: the black hole in the nose of a ship is the most ridiculous violation of the known laws in any book that I have read.

cthia wrote:Actually, that propulsion system makes a lot of sense to me. Theoretically. If a localized black hole can be created and manipulated, it would create an enormous attraction. The logic works for me, if the black hole can be created.

It is ridiculous because the only motion that it imparts to the rest of the ship, is to be drawn into the black hole. So there has to be something that holds the ship out and that has to completely cancel the hole's force on the ship.

Therefore, where does the system get net motion? If an astronaut stands on an asteroid, the two of them do not start moving due to the force the asteroid is imposing on the person; there still has to be an unbalanced force to cause movement. You cannot justify that to me by saying Star Trek does it.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:PS: the black hole in the nose of a ship is the most ridiculous violation of the known laws in any book that I have read.

cthia wrote:Actually, that propulsion system makes a lot of sense to me. Theoretically. If a localized black hole can be created and manipulated, it would create an enormous attraction. The logic works for me, if the black hole can be created.

It is ridiculous because the only motion that it imparts to the rest of the ship, is to be drawn into the black hole. So there has to be something that holds the ship out and that has to completely cancel the hole's force on the ship.

Therefore, where does the system get net motion? If an astronaut stands on an asteroid, the two of them do not start moving due to the force the asteroid is imposing on the person; there still has to be an unbalanced force to cause movement. You cannot justify that to me by saying Star Trek does it.

A black hole creates an enormous attraction. Hence, the aforementioned Schwarzschild radius / event horizon which prevents even light from escaping because of an enormous gravitational attraction.

Therefore, as a sort of spin on the mechanism used on the Maglev trains that continuously turn on and off the magnetic portion of a track to keep the train moving at high speeds, an entity who can manipulate black holes can quickly create them off the bow of the ship in rapid succession right at the Schwarzschild radius to keep the ship moving very quickly.

Sort of like you tried to do as a kid when you held a magnet just out of reach of a metal object to get it moving.

cthia wrote:Therefore, as a sort of spin on the mechanism used on the Maglev trains that continuously turn on and off the magnetic portion of a track to keep the train moving at high speeds, an entity who can manipulate black holes can quickly create them off the bow of the ship in rapid succession right at the Schwarzschild radius to keep the ship moving very quickly.

I actually mentioned this as the only possible answer the last time I discussed this ridiculous method in this forum. I rejected it then and now, because the energy required to repeatedly create and destroy would be better spent by just moving the ship (and no you cannot regain all the energy needed to create a new one, when you destroy the previous one). This does even begin to discuss the oscillating tidal effects such a process would entail, that are most likely to destroy the ship after killing all life on it.
How do Honorverse ships generate energy?

Been a while since I've read the fury series but I think that's exactly how it's described. The ship is continuously creating black holes that briefly exist one after another ahead of it and the ship is sucked foward by them. There is also some mechanism that prevents the ship from being crushed instantly in this process. It's at least as fictonally believable as a "wedge", "compensator","grav plates", and insanely massive amounts of free energy from hypespace to me.