Eridani Edict Violation of the most Dismissive Kind...

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:Henke first used several ship carried Hermes buoy at Salon to control what was left of her wounded Agamemnon's pods as a Havenite SD squadron rolled up on her. She had ~300 pods, and the Hermes buoys were only able to tell the pods to "aim over there-ish... and fire!" using the hastily made lashup her tac department was able to set up.

4200 mk-16 missiles surprise fired inside energy range from behind the advancing squadron were only able to destroy a couple BCs (presumedly, upgraded Warlords) and damage a couple more - due to the limited FTL lashup Hermes allowed.

Yes, that's described the 2nd time that battle is described (1st in AAC, 2nd in Storm from the Shadows)

Of course unlike the Mk23's Honor used with Hermes as a bluff during the Battle of Manticore the Mk16's Ajax dropped couldn't receive FTL updates from Hermes at all. Basically all Hermes did was reduce the pre-launch update lag as Ajax continued her slow acceleration away from the impromptu minefield of pods full of Mk16s. Ghost Rider drones fed the latest info on the targets to Ajax via FTL, Ajax pushed that to the Hermes buoys dropped near the pods via FTL, and the Hermes buoys pushed the targetting updates into the missiles resting in their pods via comm laser (or possibly short ranged radio - but lightspeed links)

Then the launch order went from Ajax to the missiles the same way; Ajax to Hermes, Hermes to pods. But it sounds like once the missiles fired they were basically hands off -- even less control that Honor could give the Mk23s.

Storm from the Shadows wrote:Any sort of precise fire control over such a jury rigged control link, with its limited bandwidth and cobbled-up target selection, was impossible, of course. But it was good enough to ensure that each of those missiles had been fed the emissions signatures of the battlecruisers it was supposed to attack. Accuracy might be poor, compared to a standard missile engagement, and the EW platforms and penetration aids were far less effective without proper shipboard updates, but the range was also incredibly short, which gave the defense no time to react.

Still an innovative combination of available hardware to make the dropped missile-pod trap more effective.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Yes, that's described the 2nd time that battle is described (1st in AAC, 2nd in Storm from the Shadows)

Of course unlike the Mk23's Honor used with Hermes as a bluff during the Battle of Manticore the Mk16's Ajax dropped couldn't receive FTL updates from Hermes at all. Basically all Hermes did was reduce the pre-launch update lag as Ajax continued her slow acceleration away from the impromptu minefield of pods full of Mk16s. Ghost Rider drones fed the latest info on the targets to Ajax via FTL, Ajax pushed that to the Hermes buoys dropped near the pods via FTL, and the Hermes buoys pushed the targetting updates into the missiles resting in their pods via comm laser (or possibly short ranged radio - but lightspeed links)

Then the launch order went from Ajax to the missiles the same way; Ajax to Hermes, Hermes to pods. But it sounds like once the missiles fired they were basically hands off -- even less control that Honor could give the Mk23s.

[snip]
Still an innovative combination of available hardware to make the dropped missile-pod trap more effective.

Aren't Hermes Buoys stealthy? I got the impression that the Peeps were completely oblivious to them. I recall Tourville's astonishment at the lack of any significant lag time of Honor's response—fueling the feeling that they couldn't see them as Honor had to explain what they were and that they were seeded throughout the system. I'm sure the Peeps didn't see the need to target and destroy communications buoys after the fact, but still.

At any rate, because of the input I better understand the limitations. However, it seems the capability could still serve systems of interest such as Beowulf and Sphinx who may be behind receiving Mycroft or Moriarty and or have limited Keyhole II ships available. Are Hermes Buoys already emplaced and being used in Beowulf and Sphinxian Space?

Also, having the option at least available seems sobering, especially if the mysterious capabilities of a navy like the MAN do to the GA what the RMN did to the Peeps and begin localizing Mycroft and Moriarty and killing them.

Matter of fact, even if only good for a one time use before a perspective enemy gets a clue, a much cheaper system of this kind - which can be available now - can be used to effectively increase Torch's defenses. Especially against an unsuspecting enemy coming in all fat, happy and stupid. Like Byng and Crandall.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Yes, that's described the 2nd time that battle is described (1st in AAC, 2nd in Storm from the Shadows)

Of course unlike the Mk23's Honor used with Hermes as a bluff during the Battle of Manticore the Mk16's Ajax dropped couldn't receive FTL updates from Hermes at all. Basically all Hermes did was reduce the pre-launch update lag as Ajax continued her slow acceleration away from the impromptu minefield of pods full of Mk16s. Ghost Rider drones fed the latest info on the targets to Ajax via FTL, Ajax pushed that to the Hermes buoys dropped near the pods via FTL, and the Hermes buoys pushed the targetting updates into the missiles resting in their pods via comm laser (or possibly short ranged radio - but lightspeed links)

Then the launch order went from Ajax to the missiles the same way; Ajax to Hermes, Hermes to pods. But it sounds like once the missiles fired they were basically hands off -- even less control that Honor could give the Mk23s.

[snip]
Still an innovative combination of available hardware to make the dropped missile-pod trap more effective.

Aren't Hermes Buoys stealthy? I got the impression that the Peeps were completely oblivious to them. I recall Tourville's astonishment at the lack of any significant lag time of Honor's response—fueling the feeling that they couldn't see them as Honor had to explain what they were and that they were seeded throughout the system. I'm sure the Peeps didn't see the need to target and destroy communications buoys after the fact, but still.

At any rate, because of the input I better understand the limitations. However, it seems the capability could still serve systems of interest such as Beowulf and Sphinx who may be behind receiving Mycroft or Moriarty and or have limited Keyhole II ships available. Are Hermes Buoys already emplaced and being used in Beowulf and Sphinxian Space?

Also, having the option at least available seems sobering, especially if the mysterious capabilities of a navy like the MAN do to the GA what the RMN did to the Peeps and begin localizing Mycroft and Moriarty and killing them.

Matter of fact, even if only good for a one time use before a perspective enemy gets a clue, a much cheaper system of this kind - which can be available now - can be used to effectively increase Torch's defenses. Especially against an unsuspecting enemy coming in all fat, happy and stupid. Like Byng and Crandall.

Jonathan_S wrote:It's a good trick, but I don't think Manticore would release the medium bandwidth FTL technology built into Hermes buoys to places out of their control like Torch.

Also if you look at AAC you can see that the Hermes buoy, capable of handling many simultaneous video calls, was only able to handle about 7 Apollo pods "he realized there were less than sixty of them". A Keyhole II should be able handle at least 144 pods per salvo, and handle multiple salvos at a time.
Mycroft should be at least as good.

You'd need to seed a system with over 20 times as many Hermes buoys as it plausibly needs for normal communications to make even a weak approximation of a real Apollo strike. That's a lot of investment in a non-survivable tech that might only be good for a single missile launch use... Plus I'm not sure Manticore had that many spare before they lost their construction capabilities -- and I can't see Beowulf focusing on Hermes over Mycroft; not when they're getting the initial deployment to help secure their own system.

Shadow of Freedom, Ch 30 wrote:“They’re half a light-minute outside the hyper limit,” Garrett continued. “That puts them at a range of two-one-five-point-nine million klicks. Current closing velocity niner-one-three KPS. Acceleration five-point-seven KPS squared.”

-snipped-

“They’re only about ninety-six light-seconds from Mobius Beta, now. In fact, if there’s anything in orbit with active impellers, it’s got to be on the far side of the planet from us at the moment, or we’d already have picked it up.” “Good.” Terekhov tipped back in his command chair, gazing at the master plot. Quentin Saint-James had reentered normal-space twenty-six minutes earlier. During that time, she’d increased her n-space velocity to just over ninety-four hundred kilometers per second and traveled just under 7.8 million kilometers towards the planet officially designated Mobius Beta. During that same interval, the Ghost Rider recon platforms they’d deployed as soon as they’d made their alpha translation had traveled ten and a half light-minutes—almost 200 million kilometers—at their vastly higher acceleration. In fact, they were already decelerating towards a zero/zero rendezvous with the planet.

-snip-

If they end up driven to talk to us, they start out in a position of weakness, and Sollies just aren’t used to finding themselves places like that. And the longer we wait to talk to them , the longer they have to see our ‘superdreadnought’ coming at them and think about all the things it can do to them.” She smiled nastily. “I don’t care if they are the Invincible Solarian League Navy, that’s gotta make ’em nervous, Sir! And if we use a Hermes buoy when we finally do talk to them…”

Somtaaw wrote:We saw that Admiral Truman deployed at least one, and possibly several Hermes buoys when she was stealthed awaiting Fleet Admiral Tsang to make her threat against Beowulf Junction Control.

And we also saw Terekhov, and some of the other captains under Henke use them several times as part of their negotiations with Solarians carrying out self-tasked provocations.


Both of which seem to prove that all Manticoran ships carry Hermes buoys, and that these buoys are far from stationary, evidence from Mobius. Terekhov came out of hyper at

Shadow of Freedom, Ch 30 wrote:“They’re half a light-minute outside the hyper limit,” Garrett continued. “That puts them at a range of two-one-five-point-nine million klicks. Current closing velocity niner-one-three KPS. Acceleration five-point-seven KPS squared.”

-snipped-

“They’re only about ninety-six light-seconds from Mobius Beta, now. In fact, if there’s anything in orbit with active impellers, it’s got to be on the far side of the planet from us at the moment, or we’d already have picked it up.” “Good.” Terekhov tipped back in his command chair, gazing at the master plot. Quentin Saint-James had reentered normal-space twenty-six minutes earlier. During that time, she’d increased her n-space velocity to just over ninety-four hundred kilometers per second and traveled just under 7.8 million kilometers towards the planet officially designated Mobius Beta. During that same interval, the Ghost Rider recon platforms they’d deployed as soon as they’d made their alpha translation had traveled ten and a half light-minutes—almost 200 million kilometers—at their vastly higher acceleration. In fact, they were already decelerating towards a zero/zero rendezvous with the planet.

-snip-

If they end up driven to talk to us, they start out in a position of weakness, and Sollies just aren’t used to finding themselves places like that. And the longer we wait to talk to them , the longer they have to see our ‘superdreadnought’ coming at them and think about all the things it can do to them.” She smiled nastily. “I don’t care if they are the Invincible Solarian League Navy, that’s gotta make ’em nervous, Sir! And if we use a Hermes buoy when we finally do talk to them…”

In a span of 26 minutes, the Ghost Rider drones were already decelerating before Terekhov was even close to turnover of his own, and Helen Zilwicki suggested using a Hermes buoy in her pop quiz. A few pages after my quote evidence, for a total of 2.5 hours and Quentin Saint-James being just 31 million kilometers from the Sollies is when they actually used the Hermes.

They may not necessarily be exactly as fast as Ghost Rider, but the Hermes buoys sure aren't anything to sneeze at for speed, since it had to be in position ahead of Manticoran ships, and also be so stealthy nobody notices it getting into position.

Somtaaw wrote:We saw that Admiral Truman deployed at least one, and possibly several Hermes buoys when she was stealthed awaiting Fleet Admiral Tsang to make her threat against Beowulf Junction Control.

cthia wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:We saw that Admiral Truman deployed at least one, and possibly several Hermes buoys when she was stealthed awaiting Fleet Admiral Tsang to make her threat against Beowulf Junction Control.

This fact is what made me think that Beowulf had buoys already emplaced in the system. The memory on one side of my brain distorted the facts on the other. It simply appears to be an up-the-sleeve ace-in-the-hole sort of a trick. That may come in handy if it is polished and canned. The control of sixty Apollo missiles can target and destroy an enemy's flagship sobering the next move of he who inherits the reigns.

It's how it appears to someone who got a "D" on the Crusher, anyway.

And Young was copying off of me. So how the hell did he pass?! LOL

cthia wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:We saw that Admiral Truman deployed at least one, and possibly several Hermes buoys when she was stealthed awaiting Fleet Admiral Tsang to make her threat against Beowulf Junction Control.

This fact is what made me think that Beowulf had buoys already emplaced in the system. The memory on one side of my brain distorted the facts on the other. It simply appears to be an up-the-sleeve ace-in-the-hole sort of a trick. That may come in handy if it is polished and canned. The control of sixty Apollo missiles can target and destroy an enemy's flagship sobering the next move of he who inherits the reigns.

It's how it appears to someone who got a "D" on the Crusher, anyway.

And Young was copying off of me. So how the hell did he pass?! LOL

Jonathan_S wrote:Sure - but you don't normally need Hermes to do that if you've got a Keyhole II equipped SD(P). The Keyhole II max non-relayed control range for Apollo appears to be at least 80 million km (over 4.4 lm; or 34% the distance from Earth to Mars on closest approach). That significantly in excess of the max effective range of non-FTL controlled MDMs.

So, assuming you've identified the flagship you can already snipe from beyond it's effective range without resorting to Hermes. (Now there are some times when, like Honor, you need still more range to bluff or dissuade an enemy you can't otherwise cut off in time -- but in the normal case Apollo already lets you out range any effective response)


And if you don't have a Keyhole II equipped ship (or fort) it's not 100% clear you can use a couple Hermes buoys to turn the lightspeed fire control links into the FTL links that the Mk23E understands. That seems to be a more complicated action than doing a store and forward of an FTL signal (what Honor did to extend that limited control of the < 60 missiles) or doing the FTL to lightspeed translation that Michelle did with her pod minefield.

After all we've seen ships transmit FTL video via their onboard transmitters - yet be unable to use those same transmitters to FTL control as much as a single pod of Apollo missiles. Unless outfitted with Keyhole II and the tons of supporting computer infrastructure, David appears to have decided you just cannot achieve FTL missile control at this time.

cthia wrote:Jonathan, your post also answered w/o my asking whether FTL missile control can be obtained by using optimally placed Hermes buoys to augment the signal as step up signal enhancers. Functioning sort of like step up signal transformers. RFC says no.