Dead Horses - Discussion

Loren Pechtel wrote:Lets say you're off by 1 meter per second in figuring your velocity. You fire at a target one light hour away--your beam is 3,600 meters away from where you intended to fire. That's a clean miss against almost anything you might want to shoot at.

Not what I want to shoot at. My target is >200 km long.

And I’m pretty sure that photons don’t pick up sideways movement anyhow.

“ In any non-accelerating inertial reference frame, the behavior of light observed in that reference frame is as though the reference frame is stationary.”

Loren Pechtel wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:How big is a ship from a light-hour away? A 500m long x 60 m tall CA would subtend an angle of .095 x .01 milli-arcseconds. The HST today can resolve .014 arc seconds at certain wavelengths. We'd need a 1000x improvement.

You just gave me a nasty thought: We are looking at beam divergence for grasers, but we aren't using gamma rays for our aiming. As you say, even the Hubble isn't even in the ballpark for resolving the target--how can you aim more accurately than you can resolve?

You use arbitrary large grav lenses and understand all the issues with pointing accuracy of your weapons. Like this isn’t the first time you tested this...

Thats why you test your solution by pointing the lens exactly where it should be. If you don’t have the target centered then you lose.

The pointing accuracy needed for a point defense laser or a regular graser at the edge of their envelope is kind of crazy if you do the calculation.

Loren Pechtel wrote:You just gave me a nasty thought: We are looking at beam divergence for grasers, but we aren't using gamma rays for our aiming. As you say, even the Hubble isn't even in the ballpark for resolving the target--how can you aim more accurately than you can resolve?

Angular resolution depends on the aperture and the wavelength of the image being resolved. For the same aperture, a wavelength 10x smaller resolves 10x better.

The HST sees visible light and near infrared. The JWST will see near infrared, which means it'll see "more poorly" than Hubble, despite being superior equipment, because it sees longer wavelengths.

Looks like gamma rays are no longer separated from X-rays by wavelength, but the old definition was wavelengths shorter than 10 pm or 0.01 nm. That's 2000x shorter than visible light.

kzt wrote:Not what I want to shoot at. My target is >200 km long.

And I’m pretty sure that photons don’t pick up sideways movement anyhow.

“ In any non-accelerating inertial reference frame, the behavior of light observed in that reference frame is as though the reference frame is stationary.”

I agree that you'd be shooting at very large targets, since they are the ones least likely to move in unexpected vectors.

But yes photons do pick up sideways movement. Your quotation is correct for the observer in that non-accelerating frame of reference, not for someone in another frame. From inside that frame, the other objects have tangential velocity components compared to what you, so you must account for that when shooting.

Just a quick one for the locked/stickied post.
One thing that was referenced recently in a thread was the 'Pearls of Weber' list.

I hadn't seen a link to
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/series/Harrington/
Placed anywhere obvious before.

Clearly stuff is quoted from it, but if you want to avoid people asking already answered questions, I would suggest a big neon-lit sign pointing new posters at it would be a good idea.

locarno24 wrote:Just a quick one for the locked/stickied post.
One thing that was referenced recently in a thread was the 'Pearls of Weber' list.

I hadn't seen a link to
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/series/Harrington/
Placed anywhere obvious before.

Clearly stuff is quoted from it, but if you want to avoid people asking already answered questions, I would suggest a big neon-lit sign pointing new posters at it would be a good idea.

The Dead horses is all but dead. no one has done any lifting but me and at this point I could care less. The Buckley pearls infodump was supposed to be mentioned on the intro page that never officially got written (because no one could even discuss it). Besides, it's also in the "links" at the top of the page, and each topic would have a link to the relevant infodump posts.

I guess I cannot say anymore that I don't care, because I just sat down and wrote the coverpage. <sigh> here it goes...

All new Forum readers, please read.

Welcome to the Honorverse Forum, which formerly was held at Baen's Bar.

Your first virtual beverage of choice is on us.

The following is an introduction to the Honorverse Forum. You are entering an ongoing conversation which is nearly 25 years old, of which this forum is just the latest host for the conversation. As members have come and gone over the years, topics and conversations have repeatedly been introduced, debated, fought over, and eventually solved, discarded, or agreed upon. Our current software platform has nearly 100,000 individual posts in over 2000 separate threads posted over the last 10 years just for the Honorverse as of this writing. Many of the long term posters have a massive wealth of professional knowledge; we are Scientists, Physicists, Astronomers, Engineers, Aerospace Professionals, IT Experts, Military Members and Veterans, as well as numerous other fields, and will bring our experience and knowledge here to share.

Occasionally, our esteemed author (David, aka The Mad Wizard Weber (MWW), aka "Runs With Celery" (RFC) ) will grace us with his knowledge, or one of his inner circle (BuNine) will do the same. The conversations are usually quite enlightening and interesting.

However, over the years, the same questions, concepts, and ideas repeatedly are brought up by new posters. Many times this is because the represented line of thought is a logical conclusion to the details given in the books. Unfortunately, this has created a situation where new members are repeatedly bring forward the same concepts and questions, argue them vigorously, then allow the idea to be put to bed, only to have another new poster revive the argument. In some cases, this has happened literally hundreds of times.

To which we would like to share locations where new posters can discover the posted knowledge outside the printed word on their own.

This forum and several other places on the internet hold massive amounts of data on the Honorverse that is not in the book series, gleamed from discussions from the author himself over the years.
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/series/Harrington/
http://weberfaq.thefifthimperium.com/
https://www.baen.com/faq
For those looking for more of David's older books to get up to date, there is the CD page containing images of the disks originally circulated with the Hardcover editions, containing electronic copies of David's Earlier works.
http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/
Also, Check the SITS and Jayne's source books - these were written by David and Members of BuNine and represent corrections to some of the ship data to make items consistent, and back stories that never made the book series which fill in the universe and give it color. While "official", these books are considered "less than Canonical" due to a few later changes/corrections, but 98+% of the verifiable data is correct. When referencing their data, we usually specify their source.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?keywords=Jayne%27s++intelligence&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?keywords=saganami+island&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=
Lastly, read House of Steel. This compendium on Manticore and Grayson has a lot of official background detail originally written for the Jayne's and SITS source books (and the rest of the series), but further updated and distilled into 1 official tomb.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=house+of+Steel&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

So if you have an idea you wish to post or discuss, please do some research, you might find the solution yourself. Make sure you are up to date on the reading (some points are obviously answered as the series progresses) because most posters are discussing the current story line, not an earlier point in the story, though they will definitely fill you in. Check the Pearls and see if your question/idea is addressed in one of David's older posts. Also review the last few pages of the forum, as well as a subject search - you might find an old discussion.

Lastly, and most importantly, the next few pages of this thread are our "Dead Horses List" - a list of items posted so frequently by new users that they have been beaten to death, just like a proverbial dead horse. Yes, these ideas have been mentioned so frequently many current posters have a stock response ready to answer your question, and the Author refuses to comment further on the topics. As earlier mentioned, you are stepping into a 25 year continuous conversation - some people get tired of the same topic over and over again, especially when the answer is already known, and to others, buried. There, of course, are other subjects which did not make the Dead Horses List that have also been thoroughly discussed, and if you mention them, you will probably get a no-nonsense response from a member who does not want to overly debate the topic - they will usually point you to an earlier discussion or the source book or post which answers your point. Please do not take it personally, the current members want the conversation to move on, not have the same ideas brought up every 100 posts.

On each of the following pages are the most frequently asked topics by new posters - the aforementioned Dead Horses. To save everyone the headache, we have compiled a quick response to these topics in 1 easy to find format. Each will have a discussion of the idea, what the conclusion of the idea is, and where to find out more on the topic.

Occasionally, Authorial Fiat is the simple answer why something does or does not happen a certain way- the Author just says it is this way. A good example of this is Relativity; it is pretty much ignored in the Honorverse. Originally, David set up the Honorverse so ships couldn't hit Einstein's speed bumps without incredible difficulty - but that changed as the series progressed. Do to this, everything about relativity but c itself is pretty much ignored for story line sake. It just is - we have to accept it if we want to enjoy the series.

And So - On to our Corral of Dead Horses.

And, you will find, Never, Ever mention the Grav Lance. You are warned.

Your own fault Theemile, as you said "I could care less", as opposed to "I couldn't care less".
Excellent summation. I'm surprised at just how well the series has survived the extreme scrutiny of so many fanatics (extreme fans) on here.
The author (all hail) sets the rules, and as it is his universe, so be it. Partially ignoring relativity is one rule, violating the second law of thermodynamics is another (do the sums on accelerating a 6MT SD(P) at 500 gravities for hours), and implying that Moore's law on computing ceases to work about now; is another.
Still a rollicking good series that should satisfy people interested in so many genres of fiction. Military science fiction is paramount, but many others are catered for as well.

The author explores many social aspects as well. The overall heroine is a genetically modified, part Asian, female fighter who overcomes all eventually. She is in a "menage au tois" with an older man and his permanently crippled wife, but it is played as as a very positive thing.
My life has been brighter because of the Honorverse, thanks David.

Excellent summary Theemile. My vote is that summary be extracted and placed as a true STICKY thread at the top of the forum, where it is likely to be read by a newcomer.

Truly excellent - thank you for actually caring.

Top work Theemile.

thank you for not walking away from this important project.