Theemile wrote:RustyDust wrote:Hello everyone,
I just got around to registering. I've been a fan of the Honorverse books for around six years now. I devoured them in one two-month long mega-readathon, up to the available volumes.
I am a rabid fan, yet after three or four complete read-thrus of the complete books, spin-offs, anthologies, some online available stories, etc I have detected a few inconsistencies in the books.
I'd like to pose them as questions, rather than assuming I am right about it. So, without further ado:
1) Temporal inconsistency: In "The Promised Land" and "Ruthless" we come to see the story of Judith and Michael Winton. In this story Michael Winton's role first is that of quasi-ambassador to Massada, plus his help in gettting Judith and the refugee women to Manticore.
But in "Ruthless" Michael's role is that of the patsy to embarass his sister, Queen Elizabeth, so that the newly formed alliance contract with Grayson should become invalid and useless. This is pretty much the reason for the whole shenanigans of the second story.
Problem: this story plays 2-3 years after "The Promised Land", which was set in 1892 A.D., so it should play around 1894-1895. Unluckily for the temporal consistency, there was no contract of alliance with Grayson at that time. That is dealt with in the novel "Honor of the Queen", which is set in 1903 A.D., thus at least 8 years AFTER "Ruthless". Thus, the whole premise for the story becomes invalid. Unluckily it is also not possible to just rejigger the whole stories of the escape from Massada by a few years forward, as Michael would then have been a few years older, and his family and relatives would also have been older as well. But the story explicitly points to the specific ages of Michael's relatives.
A) Did anyone notice this? And
B) How would you propose to solve this conundrum in future editions of the books (should there be re-edited versions in the pipeline)?
2) In "Honor Among Enemies" during the last few chapters, the destroyer Hawkwing tears off in its 'unscheduled' exercise, while Artemis and the convoy the destroyer is guarding are in a grav-wave at several thousand gravities acceleration. Here comes the inconsistency:
Mr Weber specifically explained multiple times that missile combat in hyper is completely impossible as absolutely NO impeller wedge can form inside a grav-wave in hyper-space.
Thus there could also NEVER be sidewalls in H-space, as there would be no wedge floor and roof to anchor the sidewalls to.
But the description of the faked action of the destroyer includes multiple inconsistencies: the destroyer bringing up sidewalls before haring off, then multiple missile waves in rapid fire mode being fired at an imaginary target that Artemis could not detect,all while in H-space.
Is this an inconsistency, or did I miss info about alterations to sidewall generators that work off the Warshawski sails? Or missiles that work in H-space by employing Warshawski sails as propulsion?
3) How is any kind of communication possible inside H-space among ships of a convoy? As any kind of emmissions used for communications are basically light-speed or slower, but the ships themselves are travelling in a compressed H-space bubble at speeds effectively greater than the speed of light, anyone at the front of such a convoy could never recieve ANY kind of transmission from anyone behind them in the convoy.
4) How are pinnaces or shuttles able to travel between ships in a convoy in H-space as they can not generate warshawski sails themselves. As they leave the field of the Warshawski sails of the ship that is carrying them they should immediately be slower than the ships they just took off from, as these ships are under continuous acceleration. As pinnaces and shuttles are ONLY able to generate wedges, but not warshawksis they should not be able to travel inside a grav-wave at all by themselves. As such, transfer from one ship to another inside a grav-wave by pinnace or shuttle should be impossible.
Again, did I miss somethig there?
Hello RustyDust, Welcome to the Forum, as it's customary here: Sidle up to the bar and the first virtual Old Tilman's on us.
After that, My stock is running low, so If you find a local vendor, please let me know.
Let me handle a few things...
#2) this has been brought up before. I believe it was authorial error - It was meant to be set in Hyperspace between grav waves, not a grav wave itself. It's been awhile since I read the book. It might have been set in a Rift - a volume of space that a rogue wave travels. The Rogue waves move across these voids randomly, so Rifts are usually avoided unless they are in major trade paths, which one (the Sellkar?) does between Andermani and Silesian Space. When the wave isn't there, the Rifts are just like normal Hyper space, and are traversed via wedges. The problem is the wave can suddenly shift positions, so the rifts are traveled at a fairly low speed, so sensors will give you enough warning to shift to sails if the wave suddenly comes your way.
At that time, sidewalls required wedges to be stitched to and there has never been a hyperspace missile - It would require Alpha nodes to make the sails, and thus be the size of a small Dispatch boat, and as expensive to boot.
3) When you are in Hyper, each Band acts like a version of normal space - with a local light speed and similar physics rules. You just need the hyper generator to move between them - the generator is in standby mode when you are moving in a hyperband. The big difference is the grav waves that run through the bands. Light and radio still work the same, so you could still talk via radio and laser beam - you would just need to adjust for any gravity distortion of the signal - which would be easy with a digital signal.
4) same as #3 - when you are in "normal" hyper space, the physics rules are similiar enough that any thing you can do in normal space, you can do in Hyper space. The partical count is significantly higher, so I would assume the radiation count is also - so no sunbathing without SPF 9x10^8, and all swim trunks should be lead lined.
In an Grav wave, however, nothing can exist without Sails, so small craft, missiles or EVA is impossible, but in the spaces between waves (which is >90% of Hyper space) the normal rules apply.
I strongly suggest checking the pearls if you havn't, Joe Buckley (the one who launched a thousand deaths) has collected some of David's wisdom from conversations online.
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/series/Harrington/
2 - either the tac crew on the liner got it wrong and assumed that Hawkwing had deployed missile defence/decoys or they were between gravity waves under impeller (which makes the story work)
4 - Pinnace etc. can use Impeller whilst in H-Space as long as they aren't in a Gravity wave, as discussed in the novels a small vessel can reach a given speed faster, so they can build on the launching ships velocity to get where they are needed - see In Enemy Hands were Honor visits Alasdair for his birthday
1 - The easiest answer is that "Ruthless" actually happens later and the dates are wrong
or
SKM and Grayson were negotiating for along time, and the Ramsbottoms are referencing draft treats as they're objective was to shift the SKM foreign policy to stop wasting resources on "primitive" societies
or
There were multiple treats between the SKM and Graysons created, and that is what the Ramsbottoms were targeting
As for the "SKM didn't help the Graysons" during the pre-wormhole period/pre-PRH threat period, there is two possible reasons for that the SKM astro information might indicate that the system was un-inhabitable and/or uninhabited, and no one bother to double check it until a Grayson ship turned up somewhere else, given the slow data transfer speeds (also don't forget that historically the SKM hasn't it self been in the colonisation/survey business as its had no need)