SPOILER end of the MA

PeterZ wrote:Militarily, I believe kzt has it right. Once the spider drive becomes dectectable and targetable, the rest is a matter distance, time, velocity and numbers. The equations will become pretty obvious to all concerned. An Apollo SDP that can see a spider at a great enough distance will eat it for lunch.

The nano tech s another matter. I do believe that's when the Princess of Beowulf comes into her own in the stories. Allison is one of the preminent geneticists in the galaxy. Nano-tech might not be genetics based, but the Mesan nano-tech is. That means it is something Ally can get her splendid mind around quite comfortably. Between she and her mother, they can get the answers readily enough.

The Princesses of Beowulf can do what Beowulfers do best! They can research biosciences to solve the MAligns nanotech advantage. One suspects one of the three Alexander-Harrington kids will chip in to that side of the family business.

n7axw wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Militarily, I believe kzt has it right. Once the spider drive becomes dectectable and targetable, the rest is a matter distance, time, velocity and numbers. The equations will become pretty obvious to all concerned. An Apollo SDP that can see a spider at a great enough distance will eat it for lunch.

The nano tech s another matter. I do believe that's when the Princess of Beowulf comes into her own in the stories. Allison is one of the preminent geneticists in the galaxy. Nano-tech might not be genetics based, but the Mesan nano-tech is. That means it is something Ally can get her splendid mind around quite comfortably. Between she and her mother, they can get the answers readily enough.

The Princesses of Beowulf can do what Beowulfers do best! They can research biosciences to solve the MAligns nanotech advantage. One suspects one of the three Alexander-Harrington kids will chip in to that side of the family business.

You better not let Allison catch you calling her the "Princess of Beowulf." She'll come after you with a club!!!

Don

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n7axw wrote:I've been thinking about about Herlander Simoes and his potential role at Bolthole...

We've all been assuming that the GA will soon have the streak. That seems reasonable enough. But how about the spider?

I am presuming that even though Simoes was not in on the specifics of how the spider was developed, that he can in a general way describe how it works. I am wondering if Hemphill's kids can take that description and work through the math and develop a prototype spider of their own. If they could figure out how to build one, it would seem to me to be a giant step to figuring out how to detect the thing which would go a long way toward overcoming the MA's basic advantage.

Don

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pappilon wrote:

n7axw wrote:I've been thinking about about Herlander Simoes and his potential role at Bolthole...

We've all been assuming that the GA will soon have the streak. That seems reasonable enough. But how about the spider?

I am presuming that even though Simoes was not in on the specifics of how the spider was developed, that he can in a general way describe how it works. I am wondering if Hemphill's kids can take that description and work through the math and develop a prototype spider of their own. If they could figure out how to build one, it would seem to me to be a giant step to figuring out how to detect the thing which would go a long way toward overcoming the MA's basic advantage.

Don

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Unfortunately, we are merely semi-omniscient readers. We know these projects were highly compartmentalized. We (some of youse guys anyways)have speculated that scientists on different projects "cross-pollinate" or actually chit-chat with each other at lunch, over cocktails at the official unofficial research department gets together. I'm a bit dubious in general and more specifically about Herlander, as he had fast become persona non grata . Besides, the streak and the spider have nothing in common.

And without the pressure cooker of combat, The psychological drive has lessened on R&D.

pappilon wrote:

n7axw wrote:I've been thinking about about Herlander Simoes and his potential role at Bolthole...

We've all been assuming that the GA will soon have the streak. That seems reasonable enough. But how about the spider?

I am presuming that even though Simoes was not in on the specifics of how the spider was developed, that he can in a general way describe how it works. I am wondering if Hemphill's kids can take that description and work through the math and develop a prototype spider of their own. If they could figure out how to build one, it would seem to me to be a giant step to figuring out how to detect the thing which would go a long way toward overcoming the MA's basic advantage.

Don

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Unfortunately, we are merely semi-omniscient readers. We know these projects were highly compartmentalized. We (some of youse guys anyways)have speculated that scientists on different projects "cross-pollinate" or actually chit-chat with each other at lunch, over cocktails at the official unofficial research department gets together. I'm a bit dubious in general and more specifically about Herlander, as he had fast become persona non grata . Besides, the streak and the spider have nothing in common.

And without the pressure cooker of combat, The psychological drive has lessened on R&D.

JohnRoth wrote:
In Albrecht's "Oh Shit" moment Benjamin (or was it Colin) says that Simöes was talking about the Spider drive, so he clearly knows about it, and I suspect he knows the high-level principle - he is, after all, a hyper-physicist and deals with things like the "walls" between hyper-space bands all the time. It's in his job description, and he has to be dealing with it for the Streak Drive.

We've seen two Spider drive ship classes in action: the Ghosts and the Sharks. Neither seems to have been built in a super-hurry out of the Honorverse equivalent of bailing wire, bubble gum and duck tape, thus this all precedes Herlander's snit fit about losing his foster daughter.

George J. Smith wrote:I was under the impression that Simöes was someone who could see the synergies between the various disciplines working on a project and pull them together to accomplish the task in hand.

IIRC he was working on improvements to the hyper generator to attain the breakthrough that gave access to the higher bands.

Joat42 wrote:

pappilon wrote:I kind of disagree with that. They showed a concept at Beowulf. Send in Mannerheim and the other RF forces with a fwe Lenny Ds leading the way and your defenders will be against the wall in short order. Yes, as long as there is no way to detect the Spider at ranges longer than light nanoseconds.

In my opinion the only thing the spider drive is useful for are sneak attacks and the silver bullets is a weapon that have very specific use cases on top of that. Regarding the Lenny Ds, as soon as an attack turns into a regular naval battle their survival rate drops to almost nothing unless they just shoot and scoot.

Anyway, from the MAligns viewpoint - persecuting active naval operations against the GA is stupid since it increases the risk of exposure and the possibility of MAlign tech falling into the GA:s hands.