Most favorite Honorverse tech

cthia wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:With grav plates and contragrav technology, the felt g-force is probably about 1/10th the actual G forces. Express elevators probably run at 20-30 Gs with no more felt acceleration than real-world express elevators.

If that's true, sounds like there may even be a need for inertial compensators on elevators as well. And OSHA better not slack on inspection, or some elevator rides are going to be fatal.

More people die in car accidents than elevator rides?

Elevators, still the safest way to fly.

Johnathan_S wrote:Nope, grav plates alone can 'sink' at least 50 g (not counting the MAlign super-grav plates) No compensator needed. (plus without a wedge or sail there's no place for a compensator to 'sink' the accel; so it can't function)

Still even in a 200 story tall building I doubt they'd run the elevators at more than maybe 1.75g accel - that's enough to run to the top floor in about 12 seconds (and your top speed hits 230 mph). And if the grav plate lost power the ~2.75g you felt (because of the ~1g normal gravity added to the 1.75g of additional accel) would be survivable.


Grav plates have enough extra capability that you could do silly things with them like unlinking the actual elevator motion from the motion you felt in the car. Feels like you're descending slowely while you're rocketing up. Or you're floating in 0g while moving. Of just feel as if you aren't moving at all. But I suspect the user experience is better when you do let the felt motion mirror the actual motion; just at reduced intensity. (Though for amusement park rides...)

Not necessarily for small kids or weakly and or handicapped adults. Or even the inebriated or under the influence. Die because you're high. Whatta double entendre.

But what about the descent? Even at 1.75 g the elevator outruns free fall and the top of your head will inevitably smash against the top of the elevator. I suppose a simple football helmet will do. lol

Because of the grav plates you may not feel you're about to die but you'll feel the splitting headache if you survive it.

Certainly, I think, a bit of handwaving is involved here - at least in a rubbing fashion of the knot atop your head.

Also, your experience with High-rises is most unusual. 12 seconds to traverse a 200 story building in the city, when someone on every floor wants on, and 50 % of those getting on want to get off, and after just one to five floors travel. Etc., etc., etc.

As I said, it seems relationships can begin and end on Honorverse elevators.

The Medusa/Honor Harrington class SD( P ) and how its myriad technologies broke the Peeps drive for conquest. That and how Grayson got the jump on build and commissioning them over her ally.

cthia wrote:

Johnathan_S wrote:Nope, grav plates alone can 'sink' at least 50 g (not counting the MAlign super-grav plates) No compensator needed. (plus without a wedge or sail there's no place for a compensator to 'sink' the accel; so it can't function)

Still even in a 200 story tall building I doubt they'd run the elevators at more than maybe 1.75g accel - that's enough to run to the top floor in about 12 seconds (and your top speed hits 230 mph). And if the grav plate lost power the ~2.75g you felt (because of the ~1g normal gravity added to the 1.75g of additional accel) would be survivable.


Grav plates have enough extra capability that you could do silly things with them like unlinking the actual elevator motion from the motion you felt in the car. Feels like you're descending slowely while you're rocketing up. Or you're floating in 0g while moving. Of just feel as if you aren't moving at all. But I suspect the user experience is better when you do let the felt motion mirror the actual motion; just at reduced intensity. (Though for amusement park rides...)

Not necessarily for small kids or weakly and or handicapped adults. Or even the inebriated or under the influence. Die because you're high. Whatta double entendre.

But what about the descent? Even at 1.75 g the elevator outruns free fall and the top of your head will inevitably smash against the top of the elevator. I suppose a simple football helmet will do. lol

Because of the grav plates you may not feel you're about to die but you'll feel the splitting headache if you survive it.

Certainly, I think, a bit of handwaving is involved here - at least in a rubbing fashion of the knot atop your head.

Also, your experience with High-rises is most unusual. 12 seconds to traverse a 200 story building in the city, when someone on every floor wants on, and 50 % of those getting on want to get off, and after just one to five floors travel. Etc., etc., etc.

As I said, it seems relationships can begin and end on Honorverse elevators.

Ion a normal descent the accel doesn't matter; the grav plates are keeping the experienced accel less than planetary gravity. And if the plates failed or lost power the elevators brakes would kick on. You might come off the floor but shouldn't hit the ceiling before the brakes pull you back to the floor.

Similar coming up you should only experience the excess accel for a moment before the after system kick the brakes on and the accel comes off.

And obviously if you're stopping on most floors there's no point in super high accel since you never build up any speed and waste all your time with the door open waiting for people to get on and off. But at 200 floors you'd have to have decent routing designs, express elevators, and grouping riders.

cthia wrote:

Johnathan_S wrote:Nope, grav plates alone can 'sink' at least 50 g (not counting the MAlign super-grav plates) No compensator needed. (plus without a wedge or sail there's no place for a compensator to 'sink' the accel; so it can't function)

Still even in a 200 story tall building I doubt they'd run the elevators at more than maybe 1.75g accel - that's enough to run to the top floor in about 12 seconds (and your top speed hits 230 mph). And if the grav plate lost power the ~2.75g you felt (because of the ~1g normal gravity added to the 1.75g of additional accel) would be survivable.


Grav plates have enough extra capability that you could do silly things with them like unlinking the actual elevator motion from the motion you felt in the car. Feels like you're descending slowely while you're rocketing up. Or you're floating in 0g while moving. Of just feel as if you aren't moving at all. But I suspect the user experience is better when you do let the felt motion mirror the actual motion; just at reduced intensity. (Though for amusement park rides...)

Not necessarily for small kids or weakly and or handicapped adults. Or even the inebriated or under the influence. Die because you're high. Whatta double entendre.

But what about the descent? Even at 1.75 g the elevator outruns free fall and the top of your head will inevitably smash against the top of the elevator. I suppose a simple football helmet will do. lol

Because of the grav plates you may not feel you're about to die but you'll feel the splitting headache if you survive it.

Certainly, I think, a bit of handwaving is involved here - at least in a rubbing fashion of the knot atop your head.

Also, your experience with High-rises is most unusual. 12 seconds to traverse a 200 story building in the city, when someone on every floor wants on, and 50 % of those getting on want to get off, and after just one to five floors travel. Etc., etc., etc.

As I said, it seems relationships can begin and end on Honorverse elevators.

Johnathan_S wrote:Ion a normal descent the accel doesn't matter; the grav plates are keeping the experienced accel less than planetary gravity. And if the plates failed or lost power the elevators brakes would kick on. You might come off the floor but shouldn't hit the ceiling before the brakes pull you back to the floor.

Similar coming up you should only experience the excess accel for a moment before the after system kick the brakes on and the accel comes off.

And obviously if you're stopping on most floors there's no point in super high accel since you never build up any speed and waste all your time with the door open waiting for people to get on and off. But at 200 floors you'd have to have decent routing designs, express elevators, and grouping riders.

Ok. Grav plates work by altering the effect of gravity to lessen the effect of g-forces. The only way I can imagine the mechanics of that is by literally altering local gravity - gravity inside the elevator.

Problem is, when you alter -- lessen -- local gravity you also alter the corresponding effect of local gravity - you will free fall at a much lower rate directly proportional to the gravity setting; and that will exacerbate the problem because the elevator itself will still need to manage normal acceleration lest it never reaches its destination.

Some sort of harness system seems inevitable. Step in, strap in. Which would seem very problematic to infants and others.

I've been in many elevator systems of High-rises and for the most part they travel noticeably faster than the average elevator - some, significantly so. When coming to a stop and accelerating you have to hold on. (grab holds are found in all elevators) Oftentimes you are thrown off-balance or have to catch someone who isn't braced. And those elevators achieve nowhere near the acceleration as would an Honorverse elevator.

I'd propose that elevator systems are configured to serve no more than ten floors.

Elevator A: Floors 1-10
Elevator B: Floors 11-20
...

And of course, for the physically fit and correct age there are express elevators - a safe way to fly.

cthia wrote:Ok. Grav plates work by altering the effect of gravity to lessen the effect of g-forces. The only way I can imagine the mechanics of that is by literally altering local gravity - gravity inside the elevator.

Problem is, when you alter -- lessen -- local gravity you also alter the corresponding effect of local gravity - you will free fall at a much lower rate directly proportional to the gravity setting; and that will exacerbate the problem because the elevator itself will still need to manage normal acceleration lest it never reaches its destination.

Some sort of harness system seems inevitable. Step in, strap in. Which would seem very problematic to infants and others.

I've been in many elevator systems of High-rises and for the most part they travel noticeably faster than the average elevator - some, significantly so. When coming to a stop and accelerating you have to hold on. (grab holds are found in all elevators) Oftentimes you are thrown off-balance or have to catch someone who isn't braced. And those elevators achieve nowhere near the acceleration as would an Honorverse elevator.

I'd propose that elevator systems are configured to serve no more than ten floors.

Elevator A: Floors 1-10
Elevator B: Floors 11-20
...

And of course, for the physically fit and correct age there are express elevators - a safe way to fly.

Actually, grav plates are used to increase the gravity, not decrease it. Or, more precisely, grav plates pull, not push or merely cancel gravity. You can put grav plates on the ceiling, and use that to effectively decrease gravity. That is what spider ships do. Apparently you can also adjust the direction of the gravity, somewhat. When Honor used her trick with thrusters, she probably had the grav plates in the floor pulling at a steep angle which partially offset the acceleration from the thrusters.

In an elevator, you could have grav plates in both ceiling and floor. When accelerating upward, the plates in the ceiling would pull upward to counter some of the apparent g-force downward. When accelerating downward, the plates in the floor would pull downward to counter some of the apparent g-force upward.

It does work, if you accept the ability to build grav plates in the first place. Think about Einstein's elevator model. If you are enclosed in an elevator room and feel 1 g downward, you cannot tell whether the room is accelerating at 1 g in the absence of gravity, or the room is stationary and there is a gravitational field pulling you down to the floor. This situation with grav plates is the same. If you feel 1 g downward, you cannot tell whether you are stationary on a planet, or accelerating upward at 10 gees in a 1 g gravitational field while a grav plate in the ceiling pulls upward with 10 gees. It all feels the same, and you still stay on the floor, feeling 1 gee.

I'm pretty sure they've got a good handle on elevators in the Honorverse - look at the system they use in Hephaestus and Vulcan.

On Basilisk Station, Ch. 1 wrote:She shrugged and punched her destination into the capsule's routing panel, then set down her briefcase and resigned herself as it flashed away down the counter-grav tubeway. Despite a peak speed of well over seven hundred kilometers per hour, the capsule trip would take over fifteen minutes—assuming she was lucky enough not to hit too many stops en route.


The deck shivered gently underfoot. Few would have detected the tiny bobble as one quadrant of Hephaestus's gravity generators handed the tube off to another, but Honor noticed it. Not consciously, perhaps, but that minute quiver was part of a world which had become more real to her than the deep blue skies and chill winds of her childhood. It was like her own heartbeat, one of the tiny, uncountable stimuli that told her—instantly and completely—what was happening around her.

jchilds wrote:I'm pretty sure they've got a good handle on elevators in the Honorverse - look at the system they use in Hephaestus and Vulcan.

We've gotten numerous "looks" at the people movers in starships over the series; they seem to generally be another Science Fiction standard, "programmable" elevators that can move laterally as well as vertically.

A vacuum-tube transport such as the one you cited for Hephaestus is only practical in space, where the problem isn't maintaining vauum, but maintaining pressure. On a planet's surface, the reverse is true and speeds such as that cited are less practical as maintaining a vacuum is more difficult.

Weird Harold wrote:On a planet's surface, the reverse is true and speeds such as that cited are less practical as maintaining a vacuum is more difficult.

1) Pressure differential does not care which direction you are going in. Same work is applied. A leak is a leak.

2) If vacuum, or far more likely, partial vacuum compared to STP conditions fails on planets surface, no one dies...

cthia wrote:As I said, it seems relationships can begin and end on Honorverse elevators.

Best quip I have read in quite some time.

Relax wrote:1) Pressure differential does not care which direction you are going in. Same work is applied. A leak is a leak.

If the ambient pressure is at or near zero, it's easier to maintain pressure near zero -- leaks to ambient pressure don't matter. They do matter when the ambient pressure is "sea-level."

You are correct that pressure differential is a key consideration, but the ambient pressure is what any leak will try to equalize to.