ThinksMarkedly wrote:[1] Doesn't matter if you're inside the RZ because you can safely enter hyper from there; it's only exiting that's deadly
Yes, I did mean two sets of translations: from n-space at the hyperlimit to alpha, from alpha to n-space at the mid-point; then again from that point back into alpha and then from alpha back to n-space near the Junction.
The reason for that is the RZ. Unfortunately, the RZ characteristics are still a bit under-defined. It mustn't be completely impossible to transit in and out of it, otherwise -- as I've argued before -- ships would have failed to either enter or exit hyperspace near systems with wormholes for centuries, thereby clearly spelling out "there's a wormhole in this system." The RZ is a cone whose base is the radius of the star's hyperlimit, so it covers nearly 50% of the area immediately outside the hyperlimit, on the plane of the system's ecliptic (which we're also told ships prefer). Ships were translating into and out of hyper in Manticore and Sigma Draconis for a long time without ever noticing this. It would also be a very simple test for any system: make four transitions, 90° apart, and see if one of them exhibits an RZ issue.
Like Felix.
Anyway, regardless of why a dogleg course is necessary, we know it is. When Truman came from Trevor's Star with Third Fleet to succour Home Fleet during the Battle of Manticore, she implemented a dogleg course. This was the direst of circumstances, a Case Zulu. If there's any reason for skipping the dogleg, this would be it. And yet she didn't. (though she also forgot to roll pods, so her judgment at the time was compromised as a result of being hit hard in the head by the Au-Thor's Hammer)
Later, Honor did take Eighth Fleet from the Junction to Manticore-A without a dogleg. She specifically had to ask her navigators to calculate this and they warned her of the dangers and imprecisions. And Adm. Chin accepted without question that Honor would arrive 70 million km away and thus, for all she knew, out of missile range.
With all that, I can say with confidence no civilian ship would take the direct route. It was another case of Case Zulu, but the civilian news or dispatch boat doesn't need to risk the lives of their occupants. The first to break the news would probably be the one closest to the hyper limit anyway, not the one that made the shortest course. Or the one luckiest to find a colleague already in the transit queue at the Junction.[/quote]But both of those were trying to go from the Junction towards Manticore. The restrictions aren't the same going the other way.
At All Costs wrote:fortunately, Manticore-B also lay far outside the resonance zone—the volume of space between the Junction and Manticore-A in which it was virtually impossible to translate between normal-space and hyper-space. Any wormhole terminus associated with a star formed a conical volume in hyper, with the wormhole at its apex and a base centered on the star and twice as wide as its hyper limit, in which hyper-space astrogation became less than totally reliable. The bigger the terminus or junction, the stronger the resonance effect . . . and the Manticoran Wormhole Junction, with its multiple termini, was the largest ever discovered. The resonance wave it produced was more of a tsunami, and it didn't just make astrogation "less than reliable." It made it the next best thing to flatly impossible, and any transition within the resonance (assuming someone could have plotted one in the first place) would have been no more than a complicated way to commit suicide.
At All Costs wrote:"Theo," she continued, pointing one index finger at Commander Kgari, "start plotting a new micro-jump. We'll go straight from here; no dogleg. I want us at least fifty million kilometers outside these newcomers. Seventy-five to a hundred would be better, but don't shave it any closer than fifty."
Kgari looked at her for a moment, and she tasted his shock. She was allowing him a much larger margin of error than Admiral Kuzak had allowed Third Fleet's units, but she was also requiring him to jump straight from a point inside the RZ to one on its periphery. Safety margin or no, that was extraordinarily risky, given the fact that his start point's coordinates were going to be subject to significant uncertainty, whatever he did.
But despite hus shock, his voice was clear.
At All Costs wrote:Honor Alexander-Harrington's eyes were brown ice as Theophile Kgari, in a virtuoso display of astrogation, dropped the massed superdreadnoughts of Eighth Fleet exactly where she'd told him to in a single jump right out of the center of the resonance zone.
This shows the asymmetry of the RZ. It's lethal to jump into. But it's only dangerous (making microjumps even less accurate than normal), and hard on the equipment, to jump out of. So even from a spot on the Manticore-A hyper limit that's within the RZ a ship willing to take the risk and wear and tear should be able to successfully enter hyper.
And of course near the Junction the RZ is much more concentrated leaving lots of open space beside or beyond the Junction where it's safe to emerge from hyper. Still, I agree that most civilian ships won't attempt that - they'll stick with the safe and routine trip through normal space out to the Junction. (And in many ways Astro Control and the Junction defenses probably prefer that). But a DB in a real hurry might well run that risk (after they they also routinely run the risk of pushing the risky upper edges of the Theta bands in order to shave as much time as possible of their hyper journeys) because they have a much different risk vs time-saving calculation than most civilan ships.
