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Questions on Terran Federation Tech

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Questions on Terran Federation Tech
Post by GundamChief   » Sun Jul 15, 2018 6:55 pm

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I've been looking through the books again, and while the stories have always been about Safehold and Merlin/Nimue's actions in it, there were always small snippets here and there regarding the capabilities of the old Federation.

One thing has me wondering a bit however.

The use of Hyperspace in this universe. I can't really tell which variation of Hyper Space travel it is. There are alot of variations throughout fiction, but there are primarily three types generally used.

1: A dimension where velocity is a a few orders of magnitude higher than our physical universe (Star Wars).

2: A dimension where distances are shorter than in our physical universe (Babylon 5).

3: A Dimension where you are everywhere at once and then back to a small point upon leaving it. Teleporting drive essentially (Battlestar Galactica/Battletech).

I haven't really read the Honor Harrington books (and probably should), but it probably can be the same drive, but I don't know.

So can anyone here say which type of Hyper the Terran Federation had? If it's something Weber is more or less ripping from Honor Harrington, than it would explain to me why it doesn't seem to fit in one box, but is taking from a few :P
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Re: Questions on Terran Federation Tech
Post by Annachie   » Mon Jul 16, 2018 1:39 am

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The impression I got was that it is more like Star Trek's warp drive.
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Re: Questions on Terran Federation Tech
Post by evilauthor   » Mon Jul 16, 2018 7:36 pm

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Not much has been said. What little that has been said though...

1)FTL travel is not instantaneous. It takes time to go from place to place. IIRC Safehold is ~20 years travel time from Earth.

2) You cannot drop out of hyperspace next to a planet. This would imply some kind of proximity limit that prevents ships from doing that, something that Weber has used in many different sci fi settings that he's written.

3) You can track ships and fight battles in hyperspace. The original Nimue Alban died in one such battle which was used to cover the escape of the actual Project Ark ships.

If I had to guess from the available evidence, hyperspace travel in the Safehold-verse is mostly like hyperspace travel in the Honorverse. The only difference is any mention of things like hyperspace currents or what not.
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Re: Questions on Terran Federation Tech
Post by shayvaan   » Tue Jul 17, 2018 5:32 pm

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Hyperspatial travel does seem (so far any way) more like the honorverse. So far, we have seen that you can manuver and fight there. It is also seems that, unlike the honorverse there is only 1 band, since otherwise Project Ark's ships could have played hopscotch with them and probably avoided the Gbaba altogether (although it is also possible that there is some other disadvantage that would make that impracticle for such a long (10 year) voyage.
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Re: Questions on Terran Federation Tech
Post by Daryl   » Wed Jul 18, 2018 6:08 am

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"I haven't really read the Honor Harrington books (and probably should),".
Not probably should, just should. Missing one of life's treats. Ironically I wish I hadn't, so had the opportunity to do so fresh again.
Honorverse has multilevel hyperspace, along with instantaneous gate travel between selected places. Other efforts by the master are illustrated in various series.
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Re: Questions on Terran Federation Tech
Post by evilauthor   » Wed Jul 18, 2018 12:11 pm

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shayvaan wrote:Hyperspatial travel does seem (so far any way) more like the honorverse. So far, we have seen that you can manuver and fight there. It is also seems that, unlike the honorverse there is only 1 band, since otherwise Project Ark's ships could have played hopscotch with them and probably avoided the Gbaba altogether (although it is also possible that there is some other disadvantage that would make that impracticle for such a long (10 year) voyage.


It could be that Safehold hyperspace is identical to Honorverse hyperspace and it's only that the Terran Federation was too primitive or at least too inexperienced (they're 24th/25th century compared to Honorverse 41st century after all) to discover and utilize all the neat features the Honorverse had.

One thing they and Gbaba certainly don't have are sensors that can look from hyperspace into normal space and back like in the Apocalypse Troll. If this tech existed, the Operation Ark shell game would never have worked.
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Re: Questions on Terran Federation Tech
Post by Daryl   » Thu Jul 19, 2018 6:21 am

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Imagine if the Gbaba were to interact with the Honorverse at their current level of warfare technology?
"What was that?". "Don't worry, just some genocidal aliens made a very big mistake, all taken care of".

Mind you I haven't seen any PICA level technology in the Honorverse?

evilauthor wrote:
shayvaan wrote:Hyperspatial travel does seem (so far any way) more like the honorverse. So far, we have seen that you can manuver and fight there. It is also seems that, unlike the honorverse there is only 1 band, since otherwise Project Ark's ships could have played hopscotch with them and probably avoided the Gbaba altogether (although it is also possible that there is some other disadvantage that would make that impracticle for such a long (10 year) voyage.


It could be that Safehold hyperspace is identical to Honorverse hyperspace and it's only that the Terran Federation was too primitive or at least too inexperienced (they're 24th/25th century compared to Honorverse 41st century after all) to discover and utilize all the neat features the Honorverse had.

One thing they and Gbaba certainly don't have are sensors that can look from hyperspace into normal space and back like in the Apocalypse Troll. If this tech existed, the Operation Ark shell game would never have worked.
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Re: Questions on Terran Federation Tech
Post by Dauntless   » Thu Jul 19, 2018 10:13 am

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most of a PICA is no probably for honorverse tech.

about the only real thing that honorverse couldn't do would be the "recording" of the person to drive the PICA. some of the other software might also be be an issue.
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Re: Questions on Terran Federation Tech
Post by eldrwyrm   » Thu Jul 19, 2018 2:42 pm

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evilauthor wrote:It could be that Safehold hyperspace is identical to Honorverse hyperspace and it's only that the Terran Federation was too primitive or at least too inexperienced (they're 24th/25th century compared to Honorverse 41st century after all) to discover and utilize all the neat features the Honorverse had.

:shock: So what you're saying is that Safehold is a historical world that has slipped into obscurity in the time of Honor Harrington. Perhaps the reason that there are no PICA's is that they were historically banned at one point because of the evil wrought by the Archangels return. :evil:
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Re: Questions on Terran Federation Tech
Post by Cyradis4   » Thu Jul 19, 2018 4:46 pm

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I personally think you guys are trying to project Honeververse onto Safehold. I've noticed that David Weber has zero problem with inventing new types of propulsion systems.

Dahak: 2 drives, one an "instantaneous" and the other a "set point to set point only" hyperdrive. No layers, no grave waves. Instant communication and at the end instant travel too.

Apocolypse Troll: Hyperspace with "bands" that you could see through and fight across. No instant long distance communication, if memory serves.

Empire of Man: Point to point "hyperspace" where each jump is limited, and it takes multiple jumps to get to another place. No way to see over the wall.

In Fury Born: You can see "in" hyperspace, and you can see approaching ships in hyper, and you can easily change directions and adjust in it and fight in it. I forget if it has long distance coms. I want to say "yes", of some sort. Need to re-read....

HonorVerse: Layered hyperspace, where you can't see past the various layers and can only go so fast in each one. Has grave waves and wormholes. No long distance coms.

Safehold: Can't see across the threshold, but can talk to far away places and can move and fight in the hyperspace. No mention of layers, can adjust speed and course. No mention of grave waves, no mention of layers. Strikes me as much closer to the Star Trek Warp Drive than to Honorverse. Or maybe more like In Fury Born. That universe also has AIs.....
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