What happens in Hyperspace near a Star?

I've been following the Honorverse for more that 20 years, but one thing I have not figured out is what happens in Hyperspace near a star. Specifically, is there hyperspace corresponding to the region inside the hyper limit, or does hyperspace just the space equivalent to the area inside the hyper limit as non-existent, i.e. is it folded, so if you go past the point where you would enter, you then go to the other side?

And does extremely intense gravity fields in normal space have any effect (other than hyper limits) on hyperspace? I.e., what does a neutron star or black hole do if anything to the corresponding points in hyperspace.

I've been wondering this for a long time, so I thought I'd ask if this has been discussed?

-- Bob G

BobG wrote:I've been following the Honorverse for more that 20 years, but one thing I have not figured out is what happens in Hyperspace near a star. Specifically, is there hyperspace corresponding to the region inside the hyper limit, or does hyperspace just the space equivalent to the area inside the hyper limit as non-existent, i.e. is it folded, so if you go past the point where you would enter, you then go to the other side?

And does extremely intense gravity fields in normal space have any effect (other than hyper limits) on hyperspace? I.e., what does a neutron star or black hole do if anything to the corresponding points in hyperspace.

I've been wondering this for a long time, so I thought I'd ask if this has been discussed?

-- Bob G

A Gravity well in N-space affects the alpha wall - the membrane between n-space and the alpha band. The outer representation of the grav well is the hyperlimit, the outer 3rd (or half, memory fuzzy) of the well is non-porus and you bounce off the wall, back into hyper, the inner half/ 2/3rds is extremely reactive and causes spectacular results (for everyone else watching you). I would assume Warshawskis can determine this distortion of the wall.

Theemile wrote:A Gravity well in N-space affects the alpha wall - the membrane between n-space and the alpha band. The outer representation of the grav well is the hyperlimit, the outer 3rd (or half, memory fuzzy) of the well is non-porus and you bounce off the wall, back into hyper, the inner half/ 2/3rds is extremely reactive and causes spectacular results (for everyone else watching you). I would assume Warshawskis can determine this distortion of the wall.

I would actually assume Warshawskis sensors can't determine the distortion of the wall. If they could see the star, or see it's distortion there'd be way less concern expressed in the books about the risks of aiming to emerge close to the hyper limit.

The way those concerns are phrased seem to corroborate statements that sensors in hyper can't see anything about (or caused by) stuff in n-space. So your navigation, including final approach to the destination star system, is limited to inertial navigation via the hyper log. You're never going to get a sensor reading to cross check the hyper log - but if sensors could see the distortion then that would be a reading that the navigators could use to determine range to the hyper limit. (And so never risk overshooting or exiting far short)

Its contradictory, as you are supposedly not able to detect stars in n-space from alpha, but that isn’t the behavior described.

There are a lot of odd things about hyperspace that suggest it wasn't fully developed by David. Like, say, you are in formation with another ship 300,000 km away in n-space and you both translate to alpha at the same time with no movement vector. On alpha, what is your range to that ship?

Jonathan_S wrote:I would actually assume Warshawskis sensors can't determine the distortion of the wall. If they could see the star, or see it's distortion there'd be way less concern expressed in the books about the risks of aiming to emerge close to the hyper limit.

The way those concerns are phrased seem to corroborate statements that sensors in hyper can't see anything about (or caused by) stuff in n-space. So your navigation, including final approach to the destination star system, is limited to inertial navigation via the hyper log. You're never going to get a sensor reading to cross check the hyper log - but if sensors could see the distortion then that would be a reading that the navigators could use to determine range to the hyper limit. (And so never risk overshooting or exiting far short)

Your thinking corresponds with my own. AFAIK the Warshawskis can only detect the difference in grav-sheering forces (up to a couple of lightminutes out if I remember correctly) when in hyper which is then used to tune the drag of the sails so the grav-sheering doesn't shred the ship to pieces.

kzt wrote:Its contradictory, as you are supposedly not able to detect stars in n-space from alpha, but that isn’t the behavior described.

I can't remember an instance where they unequivocally said they detected a star from hyper. What has come up though, is that the astrogator for example has said that the ship is nearing the hyperlimit or a star system but I have put that down to the hyper-log.

kzt wrote:There are a lot of odd things about hyperspace that suggest it wasn't fully developed by David. Like, say, you are in formation with another ship 300,000 km away in n-space and you both translate to alpha at the same time with no movement vector. On alpha, what is your range to that ship?

I would expect it to be at the same distance, at least that is what I have inferred from the books.

Joat42 wrote:

kzt wrote:Its contradictory, as you are supposedly not able to detect stars in n-space from alpha, but that isn’t the behavior described.

I can't remember an instance where they unequivocally said they detected a star from hyper. What has come up though, is that the astrogator for example has said that the ship is nearing the hyperlimit or a star system but I have put that down to the hyper-log.

kzt wrote:There are a lot of odd things about hyperspace that suggest it wasn't fully developed by David. Like, say, you are in formation with another ship 300,000 km away in n-space and you both translate to alpha at the same time with no movement vector. On alpha, what is your range to that ship?

I would expect it to be at the same distance, at least that is what I have inferred from the books.

So how does David say hyperspace works to allow FTL? Assume the ships instead jumped out on opposite sides of the system, exactly on the hyperlimit. How large is the hyperlimit on alpha? How large is the hyperlimit on gamma? What does that number on gamma correspond to in n-space?

Joat42 wrote:

kzt wrote:Its contradictory, as you are supposedly not able to detect stars in n-space from alpha, but that isn’t the behavior described.

I can't remember an instance where they unequivocally said they detected a star from hyper. What has come up though, is that the astrogator for example has said that the ship is nearing the hyperlimit or a star system but I have put that down to the hyper-log.

kzt wrote:There are a lot of odd things about hyperspace that suggest it wasn't fully developed by David. Like, say, you are in formation with another ship 300,000 km away in n-space and you both translate to alpha at the same time with no movement vector. On alpha, what is your range to that ship?

I would expect it to be at the same distance, at least that is what I have inferred from the books.

I cannot remember any mention of it either, but the hyper logs are important because they are the only method of navigation in H-space, so my assumption is obviously wrong. but can you imagine GUESSING where the star is knowing that if you are off and wait too long, you could explode? It is not unheard of for Subs, with the terrestrial analogue of the system to hit undersea mountains.

Though, as many have posted, why don't systems post a beacon in H-Space and regularly re-set it? This is analogous to Buoys and lighthouses of which marked harbor entrances for centuries.

kzt wrote:So how does David say hyperspace works to allow FTL? Assume the ships instead jumped out on opposite sides of the system, exactly on the hyperlimit. How large is the hyperlimit on alpha? How large is the hyperlimit on gamma? What does that number on gamma correspond to in n-space?

Here is how I understand it: A hyperspace-band determines the factor how much faster you are accelerating compared to n-space. That does not translate to that distances are shorter in hyperspace, but it means that 1g acceleration in hyperspace is comparable to 1500g's in n-space or whatever the factor is for a particular hyper-band. That also means that the distances between 2 stationary objects translating into hyperspace will still be at the same distance. If this was not the case and distances really change when translating that would also mean that things would change size and the distance advantage would disappear. We can with some certainty tell that is not happening in the books, because we know ships can exist in hyper with a broken generator which means it doesn't protect against changes in physical distance which otherwise would have interesting effects if it broke.

The hyperlimit is mostly determined by a stars spectral class, so if you drop out of hyper and take a reading of a stars distance and spectral class you know with some certainty where the hyperlimit is and can then use the hyper-log to travel to a safe distance before dropping into n-space to get better readings so you can nail down more exactly where the hyper-limit is.

Joat42 wrote:

kzt wrote:There are a lot of odd things about hyperspace that suggest it wasn't fully developed by David. Like, say, you are in formation with another ship 300,000 km away in n-space and you both translate to alpha at the same time with no movement vector. On alpha, what is your range to that ship?

I would expect it to be at the same distance, at least that is what I have inferred from the books.

The books seem to imply that. Yet they also say that the Alpha bands of hyperspace are 62 times smaller than normal space (letting ships travel between stars 62 times faster).

So what keeps the ships from ending up just roughly 4800 km apart in the Alpha bands (or correspondingly a convoy or attack getting spread out 62x as wide. Logically it can't be non-uniform compression of hyperspace (having the area are stars be less compressed) because FTL signals (which travel at the speed of light of the next higher hyper band) are still 62c within and around star systems. (Plus non-uniform compression that you can't directly measure would make navigation a nightmare)

OTOH uniform compression implies that even with the short sensor range that exists in hyper a ship should be able to hang out in the Alpha bands and see ships popping up into hyper from at least the majority of the system perimeter. Civilian sensors in hyperspace have no better than an 8 light minute range, and military ones can be good for 10+. A 10 light-minute range in Alpha should, given uniform expansion, let a ship in Alpha see any ship that enters hyper from anywhere in about an n-space light-hour diameter. And since a hyper limit on most stars is less than a light hour in diameter...
Yet somehow pirates waiting in hyper for departing ships isn't seen as a viable tactic.



Now there are possible reasons even if hyperspace compression is uniform; that aren't described in the books or even fully fleshed out in the tech bible.

We know, from the HotQ description of Honor's little convoy to Grayson than you can drop from hyper to n-space in a continuous transition without having to wait in each hyper band for your generator's capacitors to recharge. If the same is true upward then a departing merchant ship would have their choice of 4 separate major bands to initially climb to (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta) and they might routinely pick their band at random move a ways out and then if necessary finish climbing to their cruise band.