Top 5 Hardest Pills To Swallow

Surely kzt and I aren't the only ones with medicine cabinets, or pills in them? You're in the RMN, be a man. Unless you're from Beowulf, then be a man and Be-a-wolf.

Oh come on, don't be afraid of runsforcelery's rank, he's only First Space Lord.

Two massive asteroids hitting a planet at nearly the same time. I mean, maybe it was some sort of zany alien colonization effort from some sort of really alien alien race.

The fact that a planet were the dominant plant life was fungus and and super creepy aliens was in no way related to Sid Meier's Alpha Centuri. When I read OBS, reading the description of Medusa that's exactly where my mind went. Turns out OBS was first.

The general level of sanity and lack of crazed evil of all parties in the Honorverse. I mean, has anyone even tried taking a brain apart molecule by molecule and then simulating the thing to make Strong AI. Or at least just to obtain immortality? What about using some perversion of regeneration tech to layer on extra brain matter to someone? I mean, you'd think at least Mesa would be run by crazy abominations that nature never intended, but no, there you have just a normal human narcissistic incestuous clone pack.

Especially jarring when contrasted with the last one: the general lack of concern over the survival of the human race. There was like one person who managed to think to herself "Hmm... maybe we should figure out what's offing all the pre-human civilizations." I mean you're surrounded by the corpses of alien civilizations and you bicker among yourselves? Even if there weren't ruins of civilizations, just the fact that other intelligent aliens exist should lead you to the conclusion that you shouldn't rest on your weapon development or ship production no matter how much better you are than the other human navies. Battle Fleet I'm looking at you. Although, it seems to affect basically everyone. Yes, its realistic human behavior, but its still hard to swallow!

Oh one thing that really bothers me: Are the Renaissance Factor and Renaissance Association two faces of the MAlign? Or is the Renaissance Association unrelated to the Factor? Either way its hard to swallow. If they aren't related, its just obnoxious. (Realistic, but obnoxious.) If they are related, what the hell? That just not fair.

munroburton wrote:

Duckk wrote:And I don’t recall off the top of my head – not saying there wasn’t one, just that I don’t recall it — an instance in which a Shrike towed 2,000,000 tons of pods at 700 gravities. A Shrike’s maximum acceleration rate is only about 640 gravities and 2,000,000 tons of pods would be somewhere in excess of 670. I don’t really think I’ve had anybody towing that many pods without Shannon Foraker’s donkeys. A Shrike is about 20,000-22,000 tons, and it can easily tow four or five times its own mass at moderate percentages of its maximum acceleration rate without compromising its stealth capability, so 35-40 Mark 23 pods would be easy. Considerably heavier loads could be towed (assuming sufficient tractor capacity). Can you give me textev where I have them towing numbers much greater than that, under stealth, at an acceleration higher than 400 gravities? I’m not saying that I haven’t done it; only that I don’t remember doing it and that if I did, I had committed a tactical faux pas.

Kzt is probably referring to the CUMV(L)s dropped by the FSVs in SoV.

"Each of the unmanned, automated vehicles had the capability to stow up to three hundred Mark 23 flatpack missile pods,"

Two LACs were with two of those things, I think. I'm confused by the arrangements myself - it mentions that those CUMVs have separate propulsion units, but doesn't explictly state they were used.

I apologize for not being clearer in that passage.

Yes, the LACs are "towing" the pods, but at only a fraction of their maximum power which is being "piggybacked" to the pod's own movement capability. They are accelerating at an even lower rate than Scotty's warships because they don't make turnover; they just go right on accelerating, which carries them passed the warships which do have to reverse acceleration. They are also positioned directly between the pods (which already have very weak impeller signatures) and the Solarians sensors, creating a shadow in which the pods can hide.

I thought that was clear from the relative positioning and velocity of the pods and the warships at the moment Scotty opens fire, but I can see where it might not have been quite as obvious as I'd thought it was.

Eagleeye wrote:

Theemile wrote:
This gives another question - Why does a Shrike only have an accel of 640 Gs when a Sag-C has a max aceel of ~740 and an SD that of of ~610?

I think, 640g was the accel of a Shrike-1 in the 2nd battle of Hancock. That battle is around ... oh, 10 or 12 years or so (?) in the past, and if one thing is for sure, it is that neither Manticores nor Graysons R&D have put their thumbs into their collective a**es in these years. So, if a Sag-C can accelerate with 740g, you can bet that a current-generation-Shrike or Ferret can accel with (at least) 950g; maybe even more as 1,000g

Proportionally speaking, the numbers in my previous post stand, but I will confess that I went to my files to look up the Shrike's maximum acceleration and I referenced a chart which is somewhat out of date. Given the amount of data being maintained in my own records and those Tom Pope and BuNine are managing for me, that can turn around and bite me on the posterior, and this is one case where it did. Know, I'm not going to tell you what the current-generation Shrike's maximum acceleration is, but I will tell you that there are still a lot of earlier-generation Shrike's in service with the acceleration rate I quoted. Upgrading a LAC's inertial compensator is . . . a bit of a chore, given that the vessel is basically wrapped around it. So what tends to happen is that front-line squadrons are reequipped with latest-generation LACs as new compensator levels come along and older LACs are withdrawn to duties like system-defense. Trust me, there are plenty of places where a nasty little ship capable of "only" 640 gravities of acceleration is incredibly useful!

Aside from the bobble on maximum acceleration rates, however, my reply remains valid.

quite possibly a cat wrote:

munroburton wrote:
"Each of the unmanned, automated vehicles had the capability to stow up to three hundred Mark 23 flatpack missile pods,"

Oh hey, I was wondering why they didn't have missile carrying drones. I totally missed that line.

Other pills that were hard to swallow... Hmm...

Its been a while, and I might be totally misremembering, but the Grayson skewed gender thing. If I remember correctly, Allison thought the reason was a recessive X-linked trait that caused spontaneous abortions. Now that would produced a higher rate of male births than female births. Except it would evolve out pretty quickly, unless it provided some other large benefit (or other weirdness). Furthermore, if ALL women were carriers and no men were and you had 100% penetrance you'd only get a 2 to 1 ratio. Getting a three to one ratio would require some women or men be homozygous for the trait, and therefore less than 100% penetrance (or other weirdness).

Then if I remember Allison had a solution that would wipe that gene out of the gene pool for new kids by getting rid of eggs with the trait. But that's a really bad if it provides some other large benefit. Its also a really bad idea if some people women are homozygous for said trait. Finally, if there is other weirdness you really don't want to go mucking about until you understand it!

Of course, if I remember correctly the Grayson people were skeptical and some women were worried it would make them sterile. And then that story thread never progressed again, which would be totally consistent with a scientist thinking they have a wonderful breakthrough, telling everyone about it in their excitement and then the breakthrough not panning out like they thought, which in reality is what usually happens when you first hear about a cool new bleeding edge medical breakthrough.

Of course, maybe I remembered something wrong.

You know, I had a point and then it wandered off...

DRONES!

The relative derth of armed drones was a head scratcher until I saw this super cool unmanned pop tow thing.

So I thought I had a bottle in my medicine cabinet and then it turns out I didn't and I have another bottle, but I'm not sure if I actually need to take it.

On Grayson, I worked with a maternal/fetal geneticist to design the problem and its outcomes.

Without going back into my copious notes, I'm not going to try to walk through every stage of the logic, but basically what we have here is a situation in which there are two separate modifications/mutations. One of them produces the change which binds heavy metals in sputum and mucus so that they can be expelled from the body; the other, in a completely separate chromosome, was collateral damage, unintended by the people trying to make sure humanity could survive on Grayson.

There is no benefit to the second and unintentional modification. It simply causes a lot of male embryos to spontaneously abort.

Allison eventually comes up with a way to repair that damaged chromosome without any of the potential bad consequences which (I think, if I recall the scene properly) she laid out for Clinkscales. In the meantime — and I'm not sure if it's in the same book or a later book — she comes up with an interim approach: a targeted nanotech which can be used to identify and destroy only ova which carry the defect, thus preventing them from ever being fertilized in the first place and leading to an aborted fetus. Many Grayson women turn down the nanotech because they are afraid that it will destroy too many of their ova and/or decrease their fertility.

kzt wrote:We'll I'll agree there are enough problems with storing pods on the hull. It was just previously stated the issue was reactor duration.

But I will ask how a DD or other ship without a pod bay is supposed to power up a pod reactor. Do they have to drop the wedge and maneuver it to dock it on the boat bay where they power up recon drone reactors?

Also not giving up thinking the the towing of roughly a SD(P) pod core by a LAC seems kind of crazyland.

I hope that I dealt with the "crazyland" aspect a couple of posts earlier.

Somebody mentioned the pods carried externally on some Andermani warships before the Empire developed proper pod-layers of its own. Those were very much a temporary expedient. They were built with more shielding than normal ship-deployed pods, but less than system-defense pods would normally carry. They did require power to be delivered to the pods from shipboard systems to spin up the pod grab drivers and the missiles' impellers, which required additional plasma conduits (but see one of my other comments below), and that was another reason they were regarded as temporary expedients to be dispensed with as soon as possible.

Destroyers without bays are entirely capable of charging up pods' onboard capacitors, but only at the rate of one or two at a time, because most warships have at least a couple of your "extension cords" built in — usually on their dorsal hulls, where the wedge will protect them in combat. What a destroyer (or any other vessel without an internal missile core) can't do is to power up whole lots of them in a short period of time. That means that if they are planning to deploy pods in combat, they have to take the time to individually power them up before they are going to be needed. It's a prep stage for combat that I hadn't really realized that I may never have shown in the books. I thought I had, but when I started to tell you that I had, I realized that I couldn't remember where I had done it. Which suggests, to my mighty intellect, that perhaps I actually didn't.

At any rate, this is where capacitor dwell time does come into play, which may be the source of the confusion. The other factors are also relevant where the notion of permanent/long-term attachment of missile pods as a sort of strap on box launcher is concerned, but as a general rule, it's probable that the capacitors would usually "go flat" before any of the other issues degraded the missiles themselves and rendered them in operative. But they're why you couldn't leave scads of pods on the exterior of a warship in definitely even if you had lots of "extension cords" . . . or Velcro.

quite possibly a cat wrote:Two massive asteroids hitting a planet at nearly the same time. I mean, maybe it was some sort of zany alien colonization effort from some sort of really alien alien race.

The fact that a planet were the dominant plant life was fungus and and super creepy aliens was in no way related to Sid Meier's Alpha Centuri. When I read OBS, reading the description of Medusa that's exactly where my mind went. Turns out OBS was first.

The general level of sanity and lack of crazed evil of all parties in the Honorverse. I mean, has anyone even tried taking a brain apart molecule by molecule and then simulating the thing to make Strong AI. Or at least just to obtain immortality? What about using some perversion of regeneration tech to layer on extra brain matter to someone? I mean, you'd think at least Mesa would be run by crazy abominations that nature never intended, but no, there you have just a normal human narcissistic incestuous clone pack.

Especially jarring when contrasted with the last one: the general lack of concern over the survival of the human race. There was like one person who managed to think to herself "Hmm... maybe we should figure out what's offing all the pre-human civilizations." I mean you're surrounded by the corpses of alien civilizations and you bicker among yourselves? Even if there weren't ruins of civilizations, just the fact that other intelligent aliens exist should lead you to the conclusion that you shouldn't rest on your weapon development or ship production no matter how much better you are than the other human navies. Battle Fleet I'm looking at you. Although, it seems to affect basically everyone. Yes, its realistic human behavior, but its still hard to swallow!

Oh one thing that really bothers me: Are the Renaissance Factor and Renaissance Association two faces of the MAlign? Or is the Renaissance Association unrelated to the Factor? Either way its hard to swallow. If they aren't related, its just obnoxious. (Realistic, but obnoxious.) If they are related, what the hell? That just not fair.

Um, what pre-human civilizations? There's exactly one short story that refers to any pre-human interstellar civilization, and it was written by David Drake, not by myself. I liked the story, so I let it go, but while the Honorverse does have at least a few sentient alien species in it — treecats, anyone? — the explored portion of the galaxy is totally dominated by those pestiferous humans and no technologically advanced alien race has been encountered. I'll give you the Acchultani in the Dahak books and the Gbaba in the Safehold books, but I don't thiiiiink any of them have staked out any bridgeheads in the Honorverse.

The Renaissance Factor and the Renaissance Association are not associated in any way. Oh, my, of course not!

In fact, the Renaissance Association has no affiliation with the Renaissance Factor at all. That's not to say that the Association hasn't been infiltrated here and there by Alignment operatives to shape, drive, and otherwise use the abolition movement for its own purposes, but the vast majority of the Association's members (like 99.99999999999%) have nothing at all to do with the Alignment.

The Renaissance Factor's name, on the other hand, was chosen with malice aforethought, for two reasons. First, to indicate that it represented a "Renaissance" from the League's decay, moral bankruptcy, corruption, cronyism, etc., etc. Remember that it is supposed to begin purely as a spontaneously arising local federation of star systems, banding together in the name of collective security as the galaxy goes crazy.

There is a sort of second string to that bow, however. The Renaissance Factor is not the public face of the Mesan Alignment, because the very existence of the Mesan Alignment will never become known (and if anyone does argue that it exists, the "everyone knows" public opinion of the galaxy will decide that the anyone in question is obviously a crazed, conspiracy-theory driven paranoiac). In fact, one of the outstanding traits of the Renaissance Factor is going to be its uncompromising denunciation of the institution of genetic slavery, and it will be highly condemnatory of the Mesa System government's historically cozy relationship with Manpower Inc. this is another reason why they have chosen to call themselves the Renaissance Factor as a serendipitous, totally unpremeditated but my-isn't-it-appropriate? bit of resonance with the already existing Renaissance Association. A complete coincidence, of course, but probably the work of some higher force recognizing the closely united purpose and benevolent, caring, kindly, and compassionate view of the galaxy both of them enshrine.

After all, they're the good guys, aren't they?

Hello RunsForCelery!

I assumed the Shrike tractors had only a couple because they were mass/space limited so that they couldn't carry the masses some fans suggested, while coast guard type LAC's would have more tractor capability as part of their job description, so the old LAC's of Nuncio could tow the Emerald Dawn to Pontifex rather easily.

My ball park figure for a RMN ten Mk-23 missile pod with the on-board fusion reaction is 2000 tons or less, while RHN 16 missile pods are nearer 3000 tons, though that's never been baldly stated, IIRC.

My concern regarding tractoring pods was the mass ratio, forex from Monica, 40 for a Sag-C was about a sixth, the SK's a bit less, but the Chanson class with ten pods was near a quarter, the light cruisers with their 15 between 20-22%, and while the SD's in AAC at Manticore tractoring 580 was only 13-14.5% of 8-8.5 Mt, that's still a lots of mass to manage.

Anyone else remember Bugs Bunny's "a whole mess of Messerschmidt's!"?

Still, towing something 30 times the Katana's mass is very impressive given the previous implied limits, though being of the latest type and without tugs on-board, possibly for that very reason, if towing did become necessary.

But I loved the story [GREAT!], and if someone as good as Tamaguchi could be so seemingly easily trapped, who else has a chance?

If there were time or space for it, I'd love to see some of the smarter known SLN POW's [FF of course] discussing just how much deeper the hole they're in is, given how ignorant they still are.

L

runsforcelery wrote:

munroburton wrote:quote="Duckk"And I don’t recall off the top of my head – not saying there wasn’t one, just that I don’t recall it — an instance in which a Shrike towed 2,000,000 tons of pods at 700 gravities. A Shrike’s maximum acceleration rate is only about 640 gravities and 2,000,000 tons of pods would be somewhere in excess of 670. I don’t really think I’ve had anybody towing that many pods without Shannon Foraker’s donkeys. A Shrike is about 20,000-22,000 tons, and it can easily tow four or five times its own mass at moderate percentages of its maximum acceleration rate without compromising its stealth capability, so 35-40 Mark 23 pods would be easy. Considerably heavier loads could be towed (assuming sufficient tractor capacity). Can you give me textev where I have them towing numbers much greater than that, under stealth, at an acceleration higher than 400 gravities? I’m not saying that I haven’t done it; only that I don’t remember doing it and that if I did, I had committed a tactical faux pas.quote

Kzt is probably referring to the CUMV(L)s dropped by the FSVs in SoV.

"Each of the unmanned, automated vehicles had the capability to stow up to three hundred Mark 23 flatpack missile pods,"

Two LACs were with two of those things, I think. I'm confused by the arrangements myself - it mentions that those CUMVs have separate propulsion units, but doesn't explictly state they were used.

I apologize for not being clearer in that passage.

Yes, the LACs are "towing" the pods, but at only a fraction of their maximum power which is being "piggybacked" to the pod's own movement capability. They are accelerating at an even lower rate than Scotty's warships because they don't make turnover; they just go right on accelerating, which carries them passed the warships which do have to reverse acceleration. They are also positioned directly between the pods (which already have very weak impeller signatures) and the Solarians sensors, creating a shadow in which the pods can hide.

I thought that was clear from the relative positioning and velocity of the pods and the warships at the moment Scotty opens fire, but I can see where it might not have been quite as obvious as I'd thought it was.

quite possibly a cat wrote:Two massive asteroids hitting a planet at nearly the same time. I mean, maybe it was some sort of zany alien colonization effort from some sort of really alien alien race.

SNIP.

Well - comet Shoemaker-Levy hit Jupiter with a chain of about 20 fragments up to about 2km in diameter

[the Chicxlub asteroid was believed to be about 15km in dia, so a fair bit bigger, but not impossibly so]

Apparently comet SL had pased within the Roche limit of Jupiter on an earlier pass and had broken up into this 'road train' of fragments.

So, there is a known mechanism for such an event, and it seems to me that the story line is not impossible at all.

runsforcelery wrote:

kzt wrote: SNIP.

I hope that I dealt with the "crazyland" aspect a couple of posts earlier.

Somebody mentioned the pods carried externally on some Andermani warships before the Empire developed proper pod-layers of its own. Those were very much a temporary expedient. They were built with more shielding than normal ship-deployed pods, but less than system-defense pods would normally carry. They did require power to be delivered to the pods from shipboard systems to spin up the pod grab drivers and the missiles' impellers, which required additional plasma conduits (but see one of my other comments below), and that was another reason they were regarded as temporary expedients to be dispensed with as soon as possible.

SNIP

Thanks for clearing that up. I had the feeling from the book that they were regarded as something of a lashup at the time by Honor.