Very Long Range Exploration In The Honorverse? ...

This might already have been discussed. Have the various "Powers That Be" conducted very long range surveys of unknown space outside the Honerverse? How far have such explorations gone?

How far out will they go? Assume hyperspace only. Assume looking for new worm holes. New habitable planets. What and who is out there? Any surprises in store? HB of CJ (old coot) Junior Captain.

HB of CJ wrote:This might already have been discussed. Have the various "Powers That Be" conducted very long range surveys of unknown space outside the Honerverse? How far have such explorations gone?

How far out will they go? Assume hyperspace only. Assume looking for new worm holes. New habitable planets. What and who is out there? Any surprises in store? HB of CJ (old coot) Junior Captain.

In the beginning, there probably was a good bit of exploration, simply because of population pressure and dissident groups wanting to get away. Since core world governments probably sponsored the population reduction explorations, and the various dissident groups spent their own money, it would have been a good market.

Now, most of the dissidents have relocated, and it would appear the population numbers are at least somewhat controlled, at least in the more populous star systems, so exploration would probably be a less lucrative proposition. I doubt it's totally ceased, but the major incentives aren't there any longer.

That said, the discovery of a new wormhole probably would fuel things a bit, if the other end turned out to be somewhere as yet not explored. How *much* exploration would be done would probably depend on how far "outside the boundaries" the other end *was*. For example, a newly discovered wormhole that ended, say, 20 light years away from the closest inhabited system in the verge might trigger quite a bit of exploration of the surrounding area, since the terminus could be easily exploited almost immediately by merchant shippers in that area of the verge, and possibly even the neighboring shell. If it ended 900 light years away from *any* inhabited system, there might not be any perceived reason to do much more than look at the few closest stars, and possibly just the one closest... ...to put in a small colony just for "ownership" purposes.

The fact is that currently there's no pressing *reason* for large scale exploration, other than simple curiosity, and that simply doesn't pay the bills for it.

You don;t have to explore a lot of stars per year for the number of explored systems to add up over a thousand plus years.

kzt wrote:You don;t have to explore a lot of stars per year for the number of explored systems to add up over a thousand plus years.

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Possibly HB's point is, as others have said, the universe (even the Honorverse) is REALLY, REALLY BIG.

Thus far, only the MA knows where Darius is.

Other than in some data repository owned by the successors to NASA and ESA, is there a collection point for where all the old colony ships and exploration ships went ? I would say, likely not.
Note that Grayson and Masada were only "re-discovered" in the 1800's PD.

-- Stewart

stewart wrote:

kzt wrote:You don;t have to explore a lot of stars per year for the number of explored systems to add up over a thousand plus years.

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Possibly HB's point is, as others have said, the universe (even the Honorverse) is REALLY, REALLY BIG.

Thus far, only the MA knows where Darius is.

Other than in some data repository owned by the successors to NASA and ESA, is there a collection point for where all the old colony ships and exploration ships went ? I would say, likely not.
Note that Grayson and Masada were only "re-discovered" in the 1800's PD.

-- Stewart

You want to complicate that? given the timeline, the last sub-light colony ships from Terra are just now passing the distance from Terra to Manticore. They still have 5-900 years left in their journey, to put them out past what was settled space when they sailed.

So the most distant colonies, haven't even ended their voyages yet, let alone formed their colony.

Theemile wrote:
You want to complicate that? given the timeline, the last sub-light colony ships from Terra are just now passing the distance from Terra to Manticore. They still have 5-900 years left in their journey, to put them out past what was settled space when they sailed.

So the most distant colonies, haven't even ended their voyages yet, let alone formed their colony.

This is an interesting thought. What it does mean is that ships in hyper could be waiting for them when they get there...either to greet them when they arrive or to steal the planet out from under them.

Don

I remember something being said in one of the books about people continually exploring and moving out to get away from Frontier Security.

richardinor wrote:I remember something being said in one of the books about people continually exploring and moving out to get away from Frontier Security.

It's in Torch of Freedom (which I just started re-reading). There's an excerpt from a book publish several decades into the future talking about how some inhabitants of the Verge were from families that had moved three, four, even five times to stay ahead of OFS.

n7axw wrote:This is an interesting thought. What it does mean is that ships in hyper could be waiting for them when they get there...either to greet them when they arrive or to steal the planet out from under them.

Don

IIRC, Don, the Manticore Trust (who originally funded the 'slowboat' colonization project to Manticore) had ships in orbit waiting for the Colonists when they arrived, and again, IIRC, they were armed against any potential 'claim jumpers'.

To the OP, no doubt that exploration is still ongoing and new planets are being colonized 'out there', but since those colonies are probably fairly new and fairly small and don't have a place in the Great Galactic Polity yet, they really are not part of the main story.

Would be an interesting side story sometime, however...

n7axw wrote:

Theemile wrote:
You want to complicate that? given the timeline, the last sub-light colony ships from Terra are just now passing the distance from Terra to Manticore. They still have 5-900 years left in their journey, to put them out past what was settled space when they sailed.

So the most distant colonies, haven't even ended their voyages yet, let alone formed their colony.

This is an interesting thought. What it does mean is that ships in hyper could be waiting for them when they get there...either to greet them when they arrive or to steal the planet out from under them.

Don

At the time, Manticore was odd in having the extra cash to place into the trust. Not saying they were alone, but they were an exception to the rule that colonies put every penny in the expedition.

Without the trust and some smart financial advisors, there would have been no frigates or advisors waiting for the colonists.

So the average colony is not expecting a welcome when they land.