why the honorverse would be full of dead planets

Somtaaw wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Not exactly. Translating up or down hyperbands always bleeds off velocity (see the table) - so dropping from alpha to n-space robs you of 92% of your velocity. And a merchant can only work up to 0.5c in hyper; so it would arrive in n-space coasting at 0.04c (or 11,991 kps - fast but vastly short of the relativistic speed the original poster wanted for their sandcasting.

Well that and your standard merchy only has a max velocity of 0.6c, only military grade ships get upto 0.7c. Granted it doesn't seem like much of a difference between .6 and .7c, but I think there's larger difference than it appears to be.

You threw me for a second, but I went back and double-checked and this is incorrect.
Mil-grade: 0.8c (n-space) | 0.6c (hyper)
Civ-grade: 0.7c (n-sapce) | 0.5c (hyper)

Echoes of Honor: Ch. 9 wrote:A warship's particle and anti-radiation fields let her pull a maximum normal-space velocity of .8 light-speed in the conditions which obtained within the average star system (max speeds were twenty-five percent lower in h-space, where particle densities were higher, and somewhat higher in areas of particularly low densities), but merchant designers wouldn't accept the expense and mass penalties of generators that powerful. As a consequence, merchantmen were limited to a maximum n-space velocity of about .7 c and a max h-space velocity of no more than .5 c

Though for the heck of it I did recalculate what a ship with mil-grade shielding could carry over the Alpha wall into n-space. With it's higher hyper velocity of 0.6c it'll carry over a velocity of 0.048c (14,390 kps) compared to the 0.04c (11,991 kps) a ship with civilian shielding could carry.

A question what would the effect of the solar wind be on such fine particles. Not to mention the effects of solar heating of the same.

Earth is the central hub of a huge "empire", just imagine how much traffic it would have in orbit.
There is no way a large cloud of sand would be able to reach the surface undetected. No matter how fast it's moving.

Rob the Fiend wrote:Earth is the central hub of a huge "empire", just imagine how much traffic it would have in orbit.
There is no way a large cloud of sand would be able to reach the surface undetected. No matter how fast it's moving.

At .7C it's moving at roughly 210,000 km/sec. So yes, it would be detected before it hit, when everything in orbit explodes 0.1 or less seconds prior to the cloud hitting the atmosphere. Exactly how this is useful evades me, could you elaborate on this?

kzt wrote:

Rob the Fiend wrote:Earth is the central hub of a huge "empire", just imagine how much traffic it would have in orbit.
There is no way a large cloud of sand would be able to reach the surface undetected. No matter how fast it's moving.

At .7C it's moving at roughly 210,000 km/sec. So yes, it would be detected before it hit, when everything in orbit explodes 0.1 or less seconds prior to the cloud hitting the atmosphere. Exactly how this is useful evades me, could you elaborate on this?

I think he'd be getting at how there's probably hundreds of ships travelling in or out of orbit of Old Earth, not to mention Mars and the asteroid belt being the primary shipyard region.

Unless this sandcast were coming in from well north/south of the elliptical where all traffic and constructs are, given it's being released from so far out it'd expand and be hitting virtually everything from pluto inwards.

And that's assuming there isn't any sensor arrays that far out from the star, just to clear their sensors; most of the Haven sector entities had at least two tiers of sensor arrays, one inside the hyper limit and one outside it. [That's text-ev from SVW, Chapter 9 the Zuckerman incursion]

Granted even if an extra-hyperlimit sensor array gets whacked, that's not much warning but it's more warning than the sand magically avoiding anything until it's already hitting things in orbit of Earth itself.

Rob the Fiend wrote:Earth is the central hub of a huge "empire", just imagine how much traffic it would have in orbit.
There is no way a large cloud of sand would be able to reach the surface undetected. No matter how fast it's moving.

You need to keep in mind how big star systems are.

If you just look at the settled inner solar system (Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroid Belts) we are talking about a flat cylindrical shape with a volume of about 4 trillion km³.
Thats enough space to park 85 trillion Invictus SDP.

And if you look at the inner solar system in a spherical form and have the sandblast come in from north or south, thats a volume big enough to park 4 quadrillion Invicti.

In short, if the sand comes in at a somewhat unusual angle, the odds for it hitting something of relevance in time (!) to do anything about it are astronomical small.

Star Knight wrote:

Rob the Fiend wrote:Earth is the central hub of a huge "empire", just imagine how much traffic it would have in orbit.
There is no way a large cloud of sand would be able to reach the surface undetected. No matter how fast it's moving.

You need to keep in mind how big star systems are.

If you just look at the settled inner solar system (Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroid Belts) we are talking about a flat cylindrical shape with a volume of about 4 trillion km³.
Thats enough space to park 85 trillion Invictus SDP.

And if you look at the inner solar system in a spherical form and have the sandblast come in from north or south, thats a volume big enough to park 4 quadrillion Invicti.

In short, if the sand comes in at a somewhat unusual angle, the odds for it hitting something of relevance in time (!) to do anything about it are astronomical small.

Indeed, but if the sandcaster launch ship comes out of hyper on a non-standard approach angle (as in, non-zero inclination), at that distance of upwards of a light-month, questions WILL be asked.

Even the FNG sensor tech's going to wonder why a tramp freighter, came out of hyper that far out, and due to the distance even a 1 degree angle is going to add up to considerable elevation difference between ship and system. Which becomes decidedly non-standard behaviour, especially if they track how the ship accelerates well beyond the 0.3 "safe hyper" entry speed, then decelerates after a time before disappearing.

Now Manticore has arrays that reach multiple light months out, Haven does as well, and Grayson arrays reach pretty far out, than assuming a single light-month would be the minimum even Solarian systems would keep at least a half-assed watch on. So really odd behaviour, at odd angles from system, in combination with a really odd distance, even a Mandarin's gonna suggest somebody do something, instead of laissez faire "its not my problem, I'll file it and everybody ignore it" mentality.

Somtaaw wrote:Indeed, but if the sandcaster launch ship comes out of hyper on a non-standard approach angle (as in, non-zero inclination), at that distance of upwards of a light-month, questions WILL be asked.

By whom? Who would care?
If the ship is even detected. Im not sure but i think its even said in one book that Manticores vast arrays are highly unusual.
Earth has no need for arrays with that kind of detection ranges.

Somtaaw wrote:Even the FNG sensor tech's going to wonder why a tramp freighter, came out of hyper that far out, and due to the distance even a 1 degree angle is going to add up to considerable elevation difference between ship and system. Which becomes decidedly non-standard behaviour, especially if they track how the ship accelerates well beyond the 0.3 "safe hyper" entry speed, then decelerates after a time before disappearing.

Engineering casualty.
They accelerate because they think they cant fix the hyper generator and decide to continue in n-space. But turns out they can fix the hyper generator after all, so they decelerate and transit to hyper.

Anyway, the simplest solution to avoid unwanted attention: Just send a message with some explanation.
You could also claim to conduct engine tests, waiting for paperwork, killing time, whatever.
It doesnt have to make much sense, it must just stall them until you hyper out again.

Somtaaw wrote:Now Manticore has arrays that reach multiple light months out, Haven does as well, and Grayson arrays reach pretty far out, than assuming a single light-month would be the minimum even Solarian systems would keep at least a half-assed watch on.

Prior to the lastest books we assumed quite a lot about the Sollies. Didnt really turn out that way.
Why would you need a lightmonth array in peacetime??

So really odd behaviour, at odd angles from system, in combination with a really odd distance, even a Mandarin's gonna suggest somebody do something, instead of laissez faire "its not my problem, I'll file it and everybody ignore it" mentality.

Nope they wont. Even if this thing makes it past the first level of the bureaucracy, some higher authority will eventually kill it.
Or they just kick it around until the freighter hypers out again. We are talking a couple of hours here, the decisions necessary could easily take days.

We are talking about the guys who managed to 'file away' an entire war next door for two decades. To think someone would actually manage to get someone to check out some stupid freighter in the middle of nowhere just because its navigation was way off - just no.

We've got two schools of thoughts regarding Solarian incompetence I'm noting.

We've got the "they're still capable of breathing without life support, so they CAN'T possible be THIS stupid?!?" school.

and we've got the "they've screwed up or avoided admitting things have happened for decades, there isn't anything they cant screw up" school.

RFC sorta wrote himself into a corner regarding Solarian stupidity, because they've managed not to disintegrate the League decades, if not centuries ago due to being complete and utter bunglers. But at the same time, every single bit we've seen, indicates Solarians are so incredibly incompetent they personify that stupid meme picture




Did Murphy go breeding throughout the Solarian League, and everyone that populates it is a direct descendant, that they can manage "if it can be screwed up, it will be screwed up" so thoroughly?

Star Knight wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:Indeed, but if the sandcaster launch ship comes out of hyper on a non-standard approach angle (as in, non-zero inclination), at that distance of upwards of a light-month, questions WILL be asked.

By whom? Who would care?
If the ship is even detected. Im not sure but i think its even said in one book that Manticores vast arrays are highly unusual.
Earth has no need for arrays with that kind of detection ranges.

Somtaaw wrote:Even the FNG sensor tech's going to wonder why a tramp freighter, came out of hyper that far out, and due to the distance even a 1 degree angle is going to add up to considerable elevation difference between ship and system. Which becomes decidedly non-standard behaviour, especially if they track how the ship accelerates well beyond the 0.3 "safe hyper" entry speed, then decelerates after a time before disappearing.

Engineering casualty.
They accelerate because they think they cant fix the hyper generator and decide to continue in n-space. But turns out they can fix the hyper generator after all, so they decelerate and transit to hyper.

Anyway, the simplest solution to avoid unwanted attention: Just send a message with some explanation.
You could also claim to conduct engine tests, waiting for paperwork, killing time, whatever.
It doesnt have to make much sense, it must just stall them until you hyper out again.

Somtaaw wrote:Now Manticore has arrays that reach multiple light months out, Haven does as well, and Grayson arrays reach pretty far out, than assuming a single light-month would be the minimum even Solarian systems would keep at least a half-assed watch on.

Prior to the lastest books we assumed quite a lot about the Sollies. Didnt really turn out that way.
Why would you need a lightmonth array in peacetime??

So really odd behaviour, at odd angles from system, in combination with a really odd distance, even a Mandarin's gonna suggest somebody do something, instead of laissez faire "its not my problem, I'll file it and everybody ignore it" mentality.

Nope they wont. Even if this thing makes it past the first level of the bureaucracy, some higher authority will eventually kill it.
Or they just kick it around until the freighter hypers out again. We are talking a couple of hours here, the decisions necessary could easily take days.

We are talking about the guys who managed to 'file away' an entire war next door for two decades. To think someone would actually manage to get someone to check out some stupid freighter in the middle of nowhere just because its navigation was way off - just no.

The Sollies are not the most efficient folk in the galaxy, to be sure. But they are not really using stupidity as a requiement to join the club.

Amongst any group of people there will be those who are both competent and trying to do their jobs, frequently on the lower levels such as the noncoms and the lower officer corps.

I suspect that they would react, perhaps not as quickly as Manticore or Haven. But they would react in time to deal with the issue.

Don

-