Tech they ought to have.

Disclaimer: I recognize that RFC set out with certain intentions with the Honorverse novels and certain technologies would get in the way of the story he is trying to tell. But with that being said...

I have always found it interesting that for all the amazing wonders of technology in the Honorverse that there are still certain pieces of technology that humanity does not have 2000 years in the future. Mind-Machine interfaces and cybernetic computer implants are completely absent. The ability to copy a human mind into a synthetic substrate and immerse a human consciousness into a virtual landscape completely eludes humans even after mastering counter-gravity and FTL travel. Never is there any mention of android servants or anti-matter being used as either a weapon or an energy source.

Again I am not criticizing as I imagine many of these technologies would make it difficult for Mr. Weber to tell the story he wants to tell. But it does make one wonder. What tech would you think humanity would have 2000 years from now that seems to be absent from Manticore, Old Terra, and the other worlds humanity has settled?

Mr Weber probably placed limits and governors on specific tech so he could instead concentrate on the character development.

What makes the books so readable is that the people literally, (pun intended) jump off the page at you. I even dream about the story lines.

He probably also laid off the alien creatures thingies for the same reason. It would detract from the storyline. My read on this.

GabrialSagan wrote:Disclaimer: I recognize that RFC set out with certain intentions with the Honorverse novels and certain technologies would get in the way of the story he is trying to tell. But with that being said...

I have always found it interesting that for all the amazing wonders of technology in the Honorverse that there are still certain pieces of technology that humanity does not have 2000 years in the future. Mind-Machine interfaces and cybernetic computer implants are completely absent. The ability to copy a human mind into a synthetic substrate and immerse a human consciousness into a virtual landscape completely eludes humans even after mastering counter-gravity and FTL travel. Never is there any mention of android servants or anti-matter being used as either a weapon or an energy source.

Again I am not criticizing as I imagine many of these technologies would make it difficult for Mr. Weber to tell the story he wants to tell. But it does make one wonder. What tech would you think humanity would have 2000 years from now that seems to be absent from Manticore, Old Terra, and the other worlds humanity has settled?

He's already told, is or is telling, many of those stories, just in other books. See the Fifth Imperium series, the Safehold series, and the Starfire series.

HB of CJ wrote:Mr Weber probably placed limits and governors on specific tech so he could instead concentrate on the character development.

What makes the books so readable is that the people literally, (pun intended) jump off the page at you. I even dream about the story lines.

He probably also laid off the alien creatures thingies for the same reason. It would detract from the storyline. My read on this.

That...completely ignores the first and last paragraphs of the OP and does not deal with the topic I am trying to discuss. We all know why RFC disregards certain pieces of tech in his novels.

What I am asking is what tech would you think humanity would have by the 41st century CE that is missing from the setting?

Communication with the treecats would be trivial. People have demonstrated real time automated ASL translation in a lab using an xbox IIRC.

Computers are huge and bulky in the Honorverse.

Nobody has heard of power cords.

Ground weapons are horribly unimaginative.

In story a combination of the Diaspora of Man and the events surrounding earths final war likely caused a stagnation of technological development. Since we are missing a considerable amount of history there could easily be other events that caused disruptions in technological development.

kzt wrote:Communication with the treecats would be trivial. People have demonstrated real time automated ASL translation in a lab using an xbox IIRC.

Computers are huge and bulky in the Honorverse.

Nobody has heard of power cords.

Ground weapons are horribly unimaginative.

Uh, everything to do with missile math or communications...

As if a missile has to hold lock and can't maneuver at 90 degrees from its line of sight. As if said ship magically disappears...

As if Lorelie aren't defeated 100% by a simple RD who watches where the missiles are coming from... A ship can't move very far in 3 minutes, 6 minutes... When their new change in heading on SD's is measured in minutes before one even counts the "accelerating part". And this is supposed to be "brilliant" "TOP OF THE LINE" defense... For who? Preschool kids? Not sure even they are that dumb. Even they can tell where snowballs are being thrown from...

Their communications are all mono analog, not even analog let alone digital. We were digital in the 70's. Even analog the bandwidth is via frequency... Number of missiles controlled should be restricted to bandwidth, not number of discrete transceivers.

Why you can't send the same message to 200 missiles all attacking the same ship as they need ALL the same information...

Have computers that easily fit in an artificial hand/eye allowing it to work, yet CM's and RD's cannot communicate with each other with very simple information in a layered defense... Something we could have done in the early 80's and had even proposed for over the horizon swarm tactics without the use of satellites. Might notice, but this has been repurposed by DARPA again...

Pods that can't fire CM's to counter an alpha strike This one is just obstinate obstreperousness on RFC's part. As if even an old ship couldn't hold back a pod or two on tractor for anti Alpha strike swarm tactics. Should have been used in the first Havenite war...

Why missile tubes need to "fire missiles at all" instead of just dump them out the back when you are accelerating at 500+ G's..... Math? Say what?

The absurdity that there is actually a defense officer of more than a single person who does anything other than flip an ON switch... As if a person can do anything constructive that hasn't already been pre programmed weeks, months, years in advance.

Why it takes a "genius" to build ships using computer control who 3d build the danged things on the nanoscale to begin with... Even someone with a dunce cap should be able to do so. How hard is it to hit "GO". Should have had built many 10's of thousands of ships instead of a couple hundred over many years.

Have FTL/LS video communications, with amazing stealth, its corresponding very large bandwidth, yet somehow can't use this for missiles of any type...

Relax wrote:
Why missile tubes need to "fire missiles at all" instead of just dump them out the back when you are accelerating at 500+ G's..... Math? Say what?

Well that one actually makes sense. The mass drivers used in missile launchers, is to get the physical missile as far away from the ship, in as short a time as possible, so it can activate it's own wedge without getting fried by the launch ship.

If it weren't for that tidbit of wedge mechanics, you're totally right there's no need to have a mass driver missile launcher, when almost throwing them out a cargo hatch does the job just as well.

Relax wrote:The absurdity that there is actually a defense officer of more than a single person who does anything other than flip an ON switch... As if a person can do anything constructive that hasn't already been pre programmed weeks, months, years in advance.

And this actually makes sense as well. If you have an idiot operating it, who relies on canned software, versus someone who is operating the same software but operating on training and intuitive leaps... the operator wins.

Canned software is only good, as long as things don't change, and during a battle, things are going to change quickly and in ways you cannot always predict you can almost count on that.

Now we saw this all in the books already, and it does hold together. Thunder of God was being operated by a bunch of idiots, who were barely able to operate it at all, and never had been comprehensively trained by Theisman.

On the other side, you had Cardones who spent years on Sagananami Island in the tactical schools, then his middy cruise, goes on to Basilisk Station (and that particular battle), and finally goes on a two year patrol in Silesia before winding up fighting Thunder.

Cumulatively, that works out to something between 6 to 10 years of operating the tactical panel, and learning to do tricks while also surviving hostile fire. Versus whatever a planet-bound programmer can think up, without ever having to improvise while also limited to situations he can think up and computer simulations to test it.


And that's also not counting what happens if your computer storage gets damaged, and those pretty canned defense strategies gets wiped, which I will concede would be a pretty freak hit. But considering how often we see a hit to a boat bay, that goes on to destroy CIC (probable location of canned software), then flag bridges or real bridge or the fusion cores... yeah I'll take a live tactical console operator over "computer, activate defense plan..." anyday of the week.

Somtaaw wrote:

Relax wrote:
Why missile tubes need to "fire missiles at all" instead of just dump them out the back when you are accelerating at 500+ G's..... Math? Say what?

Well that one actually makes sense. The mass drivers used in missile launchers, is to get the physical missile as far away from the ship, in as short a time as possible, so it can activate it's own wedge without getting fried by the launch ship.

If it weren't for that tidbit of wedge mechanics, you're totally right there's no need to have a mass driver missile launcher, when almost throwing them out a cargo hatch does the job just as well.

At 5 kps^2(~510g), it only takes five or six seconds for something dropped out of the rear to clear the wedge perimeter of a SD(150km from center to edge).

So nothing stops a warship from launching both its broadsides, waiting six seconds and boom, double-stack salvo on its way.

The purpose of the mass-driver launchers may be simply to scatter the missiles widely enough that they can all activate without wedge fratricide. But this is easily solvable with staggered activations.

The only other reason I can think of for needing that additional five seconds gone is perhaps during hard defensive maneuvering - to prevent the wedge from sweeping them up. However, again, I don't think honorverse warships turn or roll that quickly(a DD takes 100sec to turn 90 degrees)... and the rear opening of the wedge is the widest anyway.