The fate of the Dawn Star and the Archangels

Dilandu wrote:I REALLY doubt that "Hamilcar" could land on planets. And even if it - somehow - could... The effect for the surface would be comparable to the tremendously powerfull nuclear bombardment. To land the mass of several millions of tons on the surface, you need torch drive that could literally give the output on the megaton per second level. The future Zion location would be glassed all over, and a large part of Haven would be dangerously irradiated by such attempt.

You're assuming that the spacecraft was powered by something similar to a rocket or nuclear propulsion system as theorized by today's technology. If you remember, the Federation was at least 2 centuries in advance of today's capabilities.

I would suspect that they had the capability to neutralize inertia, and possibly tailor or nullify the effects of gravity. We never come across anything in the text about Merlin's recon skimmer's having any exhaust that might be seen or heard, after all. It's quite likely they had something similar to the contra-grav of the Honor Harrington universe. If so, the effective mass of the Hamilcar could have been virtually that of a feather at actual time of touchdown; and not need the kind of propulsive power release you're promoting.

The only problem would be if they intended to turn off the contragrav at some point; for that they would have to have a landing place strong enough to withstand the actual ship's mass. Obviously just ordinary ground wouldn't work out for that; they'd need either a prepared area similar to that of a spaceport, or else solid rock on the order of granite or basalt. I doubt limestone, sandstone, or any other obvious sedimentary-type rock would possess enough strength not to fracture.

OrlandoNative wrote:You're assuming that the spacecraft was powered by something similar to a rocket or nuclear propulsion system as theorized by today's technology. If you remember, the Federation was at least 2 centuries in advance of today's capabilities.

All gravity-based technology would be even more dangerous than torch drives. Recall Honorverse's capital ship impellers: tremendously dangerous in close contact, easily capable of penetrating through the crust of planet.

If you would try to land million-ton ship on something like gravity drive... I really doubt that there would be any bacteria left alive on Safehold.

We never come across anything in the text about Merlin's recon skimmer's having any exhaust that might be seen or heard,

The exaust would be in any case. The heat must go somewhere, and if you are running on something as weak as gravity, the ammount of energy (and heat) you need to produce is tremendous. I agree that Federation have some sort of hovering technoglogy, but it may perfectly not be the anti-gravity. It may be electromagnetic levitation, for example, in planetary magnetic field: same effect, much less energy required.

Or skimmer may just have old-fashioned turbojets, powered by fusion mini-reactors. After all, the simplest solutions are quite usually the best. Especially if you are talking about the heavily stealthed craft, that must NOT have termal emission comparable to the open-hearth furnace.

Dilandu wrote:All gravity-based technology would be even more dangerous than torch drives. Recall Honorverse's capital ship impellers: tremendously dangerous in close contact, easily capable of penetrating through the crust of planet.

If you would try to land million-ton ship on something like gravity drive... I really doubt that there would be any bacteria left alive on Safehold.

Safehold-verse Federation tech isn't Honorverse tech. One look at Merlin should be evidence of this (ie, Honorverse doesn't have the tech to upload minds despite being set ~1500 after when Merlin's PICA body was built).

There's no indication that Safehold-verse drive technology creates anything as nasty as an Honorverse impeller wedge. All Weber needs to do is to declare that Safehold-verse drive technology "doesn't work that way" and it'd be perfectly safe to land multi-million ton starships on planets.

If you have that kind of safe-for-planets landing system, then the only real issue with landing large ships is their sheer bulk and the amount of air that they're displacing every time they move.

The actual "gotcha" is more in the building of spacecraft than in their landing.

True spacecraft would tend to be built in space where "weight" isn't a consideration. Once all the drives, inertial dampeners, and gravity control apparatus was installed and working, there's no reason a vessel couldn't then land, since at that point all the construction issues are rendered mute.

That said, it's obviously easier to create facilities to handle shuttles than perhaps half mile long starships.

I never really supported the idea that the Hamilcar actually *landed* and was hidden on Safehold, I just noted that it's not entirely out of the question that it *could* have landed. And probably taken off again, as well.

Dilandu wrote:
All gravity-based technology would be even more dangerous than torch drives. Recall Honorverse's capital ship impellers: tremendously dangerous in close contact, easily capable of penetrating through the crust of planet.

If you would try to land million-ton ship on something like gravity drive... I really doubt that there would be any bacteria left alive on Safehold.

I don't think that follows. I never postulated that the Federation in the Safehold universe used a gravity based *drive*. I suggested that they might have something similar to the Honor-verse contra-grav. If you remember the various mentions in the texts, the Honor-verse had actual contra-grav harnesses roughly equivalent in function to today's parachutes (possibly minus the ability to glide, or maybe not). If those units - which were intended to be worn belted/harnessed to their users - "were dangerous in close contact"; then no one would ever survive *using* them. Which would probably have kept them from being developed in the first place.

Dilandu wrote:The exaust would be in any case. The heat must go somewhere, and if you are running on something as weak as gravity, the ammount of energy (and heat) you need to produce is tremendous. I agree that Federation have some sort of hovering technoglogy, but it may perfectly not be the anti-gravity. It may be electromagnetic levitation, for example, in planetary magnetic field: same effect, much less energy required.

Or skimmer may just have old-fashioned turbojets, powered by fusion mini-reactors. After all, the simplest solutions are quite usually the best. Especially if you are talking about the heavily stealthed craft, that must NOT have termal emission comparable to the open-hearth furnace.

What "heat"? It's never been noted anywhere that whatever powers the skimmers generates any. Or at least not any significant amount. Note: The high speed *passage* of a skimmer through the atmosphere produces heat, from atmospheric friction due to the velocity; but other than that nothing has been said about heat. For that matter, Merlin himself has a small nuclear reactor built into him, but he doesn't "fry" anything he's close to. Maybe it's "cold fusion" LOL

There's also no text concerning a need to "change over" propulsion systems when a recon skimmer goes into orbit. Turbojet engines can't function in space, since there's no air. In air, they're noisy. You can find ways to absorb or deflect electromagnetic energy (and thus theoretically stealth a craft against radar detection, visual sighting, and other detectors based on electromagnetic emissions, but it's hard to stealth *sound* in the open. Unless you just don't make any, or at least not enough to rise above "background noise" levels.

OrlandoNative wrote:What "heat"? It's never been noted anywhere that whatever powers the skimmers generates any.

Any action generates heat. This is the basics of termodynamic.

Unless the Federation found ways to circumvent the termodynamics - and in that case I couldn't see any way how they could lose the war against Gbaba (basically, if you have such technology, you have more than Clarktech - you have Godtech, and could just rebuild the basics of the Universe) - they are still forced to deal with them. And any energy degraded to heat.

The gravity is pretty weak, actually. Unless some mass is VERY BIG, you could not have much use for gravity. Of course, mass&energy are connected, and so you could substitute (in theory) one for other... But you need A LOT of energy. And because no process is 100% effective, producing and using such energy would produce heat. A lot of heat.

Since the suggestion was to put the Hamilcar into the hole left by the pocket nuclear device which eliminated Langhorne, Bedard, et al, I would like to suggest that:

A) the hole as created probably wasn't big enough for a TF Transport capable of carrying hundreds of thousands of bodies, even if they are in stasis. It was after all, a small nuclear device, not one of the larger Russian devices.

B) that whatever portion of the Hamilcar was left above ground to act as the temple would be easily recognizable as a TF spaceship by anyone familiar with the technology. For example, Nimue Alban.

In light of this, I suggest that if the Hamilcar was not dropped into the sun as the rest of the TF ships were, then it is probably floating out in the asteroid belt in quiet mode (as was the watch ship during the 1st Gbaba attack in OAR) or on a long trip to nowhere and back.

In my original post I stated that the ship would be reconfigured.
Why you use need all that storage spaces? What would really be needed is the AI, manufacturing facilities, med labs and engine to land. By the time you reconfigure the ship it might look allot different. But I do agree that sending the ship on path so it would return in 1000 years would be a good idea. Then on it's return either it would active what's under the temple or what's under the temple could active the ship. Either way I think the ship and it's AI could be very important to advancing Savehold.

OrlandoNative wrote:The actual "gotcha" is more in the building of spacecraft than in their landing.

True spacecraft would tend to be built in space where "weight" isn't a consideration. Once all the drives, inertial dampeners, and gravity control apparatus was installed and working, there's no reason a vessel couldn't then land, since at that point all the construction issues are rendered mute.

That said, it's obviously easier to create facilities to handle shuttles than perhaps half mile long starships.

I never really supported the idea that the Hamilcar actually *landed* and was hidden on Safehold, I just noted that it's not entirely out of the question that it *could* have landed. And probably taken off again, as well.

I really don't think Hamilcar was designed to be able to land on a planet. Why on Safehold would it need to, even if you had technology that made it possible?

I assume ships like that are enormous, built in orbit, and are orbit-to-orbit vehicles. For getting stuff to/from a planetary surface, that's what shuttles that are designed to land are for.

The discussion took of from the notion that Hamilcar was not discarded by dropping into the local sun, and might still be somewhere in system. The main concern would be a possible Gbaba automated probe survey looking for other sentient species for the Gbaba to destroy. We don't know what they were doing when the encountered humanity, and there's no guarantee they weren't expanding and wouldn't eventually reach Safehold's neck of the galactic woods.

What the probe would be listening for is activity in the electromagnetic spectrum (or in hyperspace mentioned briefly in OAR in the context of "hypercom" communications). But if it's using active scanning of some sort and picks up Hamilcar, there is no way it can be anything but artificial.

So you wouldn't want it in orbit near Safehold, and would want to stash it elsewhere. An asteroid belt might be a place. Safehold itself wouldn't be.
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Dennis

DMcCunney wrote: The main concern would be a possible Gbaba automated probe survey looking for other sentient species for the Gbaba to destroy. We don't know what they were doing when the encountered humanity, and there's no guarantee they weren't expanding and wouldn't eventually reach Safehold's neck of the galactic woods.

If I'm not mistaken, RFC stated in one Infodump that Gbaba did NOT roam the Galaxy, searching for species to destroy. They stayed in their own, pretty compact, part of space, and acted ONLY if someone appeared in their neighborhood. They are not expansionists: they are, actually, isolationists.