An SoV out of order snippet

SCC wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:Nope. Herlander was never cleared for that info because he had no Need To Know. He was employed working on the streak drive, not on anything to do with astrogation and/or warp termini.) Remember when Albrecht and Collin are discussing his defection? One of them --- Collin, I think --- points out that he was never briefed in on the fact that Darius even existed, and if he didn't know that, he for darned sure didn't know anything about any classified worm holes!

Now, quite a few people inside the onion have undoubtedly figured out that there must be something like Darius out there, and the GA has for damned sure figured it out after Oyster Bay. But there's a huge difference between deducing that something "must" exist and actually demonstrating it's existence . . . especially to a skeptical Solarian League.

Not being informed about Darius doesn't mean he could never told about The Twins, it should be possible to completely black box the two (And it's the sort of thing I can see the MA doing, there's no reason for scientists working on the problem to see anything except grav data on The Twins), or even have heard about them from someone working on them, just idle office chat.

Yeah, I agree. He's a top level hyper-physicist, and he isn't fully briefed in on The Twins, especially since it's still a fairly hot topic among the MAlign's hyper-physics research community? And that a Mannerheim / MAN top officer not only knows about them, but knows that this is an anomaly that nobody knows the answer to? (ToF Chapter 50 again.) Doesn't make sense. Of course, the first bit about the officer is job-related, and the second bit may be disinformation.

Especially since there's no reason for him to know where it is, where the two termini are or that one of them is a major junction. There are lots of places to draw the box that still let one of the MAlign's top hyperphysicists know about something that's relevant to his field.

SCC wrote:Which means something interesting, research into The Twins and the Spider was NOT being done at the Gamma Center, nor was any other possibly hyper related research.

And how do we manage to get a Streak Drive Improvements project being done by a top hyper-physicist without any hyper-related research? So far, we don't know what the "Improvements" are. They could be access to the next higher band, or they could be shrinking the equipment, or they could be longer lifespan for the hyper-chipmunks on their little hyper-treadmills at the corners of the hyper-cube that makes the whole thing work.

Gah. I'm getting weird. I'd better take a shower and head off for church.

JohnRoth wrote:And how do we manage to get a Streak Drive Improvements project being done by a top hyper-physicist without any hyper-related research? So far, we don't know what the "Improvements" are. They could be access to the next higher band, or they could be shrinking the equipment, or they could be longer lifespan for the hyper-chipmunks on their little hyper-treadmills at the corners of the hyper-cube that makes the whole thing work.

No, we do know from textev that the streak drive is "basically a brute force solution." We know it is bigger than a conventional hyper-generator. And we know that it offers access to at least two additional hyper-bands.

Weird Harold wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:And how do we manage to get a Streak Drive Improvements project being done by a top hyper-physicist without any hyper-related research? So far, we don't know what the "Improvements" are. They could be access to the next higher band, or they could be shrinking the equipment, or they could be longer lifespan for the hyper-chipmunks on their little hyper-treadmills at the corners of the hyper-cube that makes the whole thing work.

No, we do know from textev that the streak drive is "basically a brute force solution." We know it is bigger than a conventional hyper-generator. And we know that it offers access to at least two additional hyper-bands.

But we also know that Herlander never worked on hardware, his research was all on the theoretical side. So that potentially limits what he could be working on:

Torch of Freedom, Chapter 17 wrote:"At the moment, no," McBryde said firmly. Even as he spoke, he felt the tiniest quiver of uncertainty, but he suppressed it firmly. Herlander Simões was a man trapped in a living hell, and despite his own professionalism, McBryde wasn't prepared to simply cut him adrift without good, solid reasons.
"In the longer term," he continued, "I think it's much too early to predict where he might finally end up."
Willingness to extend Simões the benefit of the doubt was one thing; failing to throw out a sheet anchor in an evaluation like this one was quite another.
"Is he in a position to damage anything that's already been accomplished?"
Bardasano leaned forward over her desk, folding her forearms on her blotter and leaning her weight on them while she watched McBryde intently.
"No, Ma'am." This time McBryde spoke without even a shadow of a reservation. "There are too many backups, and too many other members of his team are fully hands-on. He couldn't delete any of the project notes or data even if he were so far gone that he tried—not that I think he's anywhere near that state, at this point at least, you understand. If I did, I'd have already yanked him. And as far as hardware is concerned, he's completely out of the loop. His team's working entirely on the research and basic theory end of things."

Italics are the author's, boldface is my emphasis.

Vince wrote:But we also know that Herlander never worked on hardware, his research was all on the theoretical side. So that potentially limits what he could be working on:

This is true. However, I didn't list the entire description of the Streak Drive. IIRC, there was also mention of several apparently unrelated developments that were also incorporated to make the Streak Drive possible. Herlander Simoes probably worked on pulling all of the "apparently unrelated" research into a coherent whole and worked out the math to explain it.

That's actually more valuable to Gram and Bolthole because either or both will build a better version without trying to reverse engineer the MAlign's version.

Weird Harold wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:And how do we manage to get a Streak Drive Improvements project being done by a top hyper-physicist without any hyper-related research? So far, we don't know what the "Improvements" are. They could be access to the next higher band, or they could be shrinking the equipment, or they could be longer lifespan for the hyper-chipmunks on their little hyper-treadmills at the corners of the hyper-cube that makes the whole thing work.

No, we do know from textev that the streak drive is "basically a brute force solution." We know it is bigger than a conventional hyper-generator. And we know that it offers access to at least two additional hyper-bands.

That's the CURRENT streak drive. He's working on an IMPROVEMENTS project. If it's not hardware (and Vince dug up good quote to show it isn't) then what is it?

Um, does the phrase "straining at gnats" strike and responsive chords here?

Some of you guys are trying to way over-analyze from the information you've actually been given. Not all hyper physicists are involved in worm hole research any more than every astro physicist is deeply involved in the search for exo-planets.

The naval officer who knows about the Twiins has a Need To Know about them because of who he is and what he's likely to be involved in doing for the Alignment in the immediate future under the original pre-Oyster Bay game plan. Herlander's work did not require that he know squat about them, and the folks inside the Onion scientific community who are trying to figure out how they came to be are no more concerned with the streak dirve than he is with worm hole gravitic anomalies.Sure, there's a lot of shared basic theory, and they're going to follow the same journals, but the very existence of the Twins is classified, and no one knows about them except:

(1) the surveyors who found them;
(2) the military personnel charged wiith figuring out how to use them and how to preserve the secret;
(3) the hyper physicists trying to puzzle out what their existence means for accepted theoretical models;
(4) individuals coordinating the activities of the first three groups, like Zach McBryde.

Everyone else, including Herlander, has been excluded from the briefing chain.

runsforcelery wrote:snip, but the very existence of the Twins is classified, and no one knows about them except:

(1) the surveyors who found them;
(2) the military personnel charged wiith figuring out how to use them and how to preserve the secret;
(3) the hyper physicists trying to puzzle out what their existence means for accepted theoretical models;
(4) individuals coordinating the activities of the first three groups, like Zach McBryde.

Everyone else, including Herlander, has been excluded from the briefing chain.

Oooh, oooh, and Zach McBryde is currently running around the galaxy without a keeper!

I am reminded of an event in the Manhattan project. The bomb people were at Los Alamos. There were isotope separation people at Oak Ridge, who did not know about the bomb. The folks at Los Alamos realized that a change proposal from Oak Ridge would lead to a critical configuration being assembled. Furthermore, there was a fair likelihood that Oak Ridge would do this by mistake, because they had no idea there was a danger. That's compartmentalization.

runsforcelery wrote:Um, does the phrase "straining at gnats" strike and responsive chords here?

Some of you guys are trying to way over-analyze from the information you've actually been given. Not all hyper physicists are involved in worm hole research any more than every astro physicist is deeply involved in the search for exo-planets.

The naval officer who knows about the Twiins has a Need To Know about them because of who he is and what he's likely to be involved in doing for the Alignment in the immediate future under the original pre-Oyster Bay game plan. Herlander's work did not require that he know squat about them, and the folks inside the Onion scientific community who are trying to figure out how they came to be are no more concerned with the streak dirve than he is with worm hole gravitic anomalies.Sure, there's a lot of shared basic theory, and they're going to follow the same journals, but the very existence of the Twins is classified, and no one knows about them except:

(1) the surveyors who found them;
(2) the military personnel charged wiith figuring out how to use them and how to preserve the secret;
(3) the hyper physicists trying to puzzle out what their existence means for accepted theoretical models;
(4) individuals coordinating the activities of the first three groups, like Zach McBryde.

Everyone else, including Herlander, has been excluded from the briefing chain.

I have to say its the out of order snippets that are getting me more excited for this book. When i thought it would be mainly Talbot area centered with Scotty and Sir Hoarace playing with some sln units and trying to figure out how to NOT kill them all i was very interested. but figured the main plot wouldn't actully move too much.

Now we see that Maya will be involved as well as other parts of the entire important universe i'm getting really excited to see where all this leads to and expect this book to signifigantly move us past the realative deadlock (timeline wise) that we have had for the last 3 or 4 books.

Will we see Maya breakaway in this book? (still 1 - 2 years before Erewhon delivers thier first SD(p) i think). will we see more tidbits from the MAlign come to lite for the good guys.

The fact we get to meet Aivars wife, and see Ginger again is a good thing too. Because we know something interesting(tm) must be coming for Ginger after surviving Weyland

Sorry to ask a foolish question but could any one give me some info dumps on the "twins?"