Captain Zilwicki's options in SVW?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Also, a pirate has a few options. When attacking in n-space a pirate would want to get it over with immediately before help arrives or someone stumbles onto the attack. In hyper a pirate can choose not to contact the vessel it is pursuing. How can a freighter know it is a pirate approaching from astern if the vessel hasn't indicated its intentions? It could simply be a warship in a hurry. Unless, of course, certain maritime laws of right of way are observed in hyper. Even so, I was just informed of the immensity of the waves, so, what prevents what should be a common occurrence of a warship which is in a hurry and have far greater accel from overtaking without evil intentions of attacking? And if that is common as a sports car overtaking freighters on the interstate, then how can a freighter be sure? Why would a pirate prematurely tip its hand by establishing contact and ordering prey to heave to without first entering energy range?

Those are very good points. Like the false flag discussion on the other thread, a pirate does not have to raise the black flag until they're ready to demand surrender. The freighters have no way of knowing that the pursuers are hostile.

Or maybe they do: like in high seas, with very wide hyperspace travel lanes, even in a grav wave, someone on an intercept course wants something. I suppose authenticating the sender is easy, so a pirate can be spotted by either the failure to authenticate or lack of communications, the same way we have ways of authenticating websites with HTTPS (BTW, Duckk, when is the forum going to transition to HTTPS? LetsEncrypt certs are free).

Also, in n-space a pirate's sensors can detect anyone else who is around, thus know when the "coast is clear." If a pirate forces prey into n-space from hyper, how can the pirate know the conditions they are dropping into?

Good point too: a pirate wouldn't force a transition into a band or system that they don't know to be clear. So they wouldn't force a transition out of hyper when arriving at a system they're not in cahoots with.

But forcing a transition in outer space should be fine. The chances of there being someone else around are, literally, astronomically small (and I used "literally" in the proper sense).

Amen to https. Enquiring minds want to know.

What was Helen's family doing on that freighter? Isn't that asking for trouble? Are yachts attacked as well? Aren't they protected by law?

cthia wrote:
What was Helen's family doing on that freighter? Isn't that asking for trouble? Are yachts attacked as well? Aren't they protected by law?

There was an RMN personnel draft moving along with the convoy - Anton was assigned as a Ship engineer to go to the repair/fleet base being built at the destination (think of the convoy as a fleet base in a box, including staff). Some freighters are Freighter/passenger versions, and at least 1 of the convoy was one of these models. Since this was a long term assignment - families were being moved, as well as the staff. I don't know if Helen's Lt Cruiser (and the rest of the convoy's defenders ) was assigned to the new base on a permanent basis, someone was kind and gave her this assignment so she could see her family off, or if it was just a coincidence that she was along in the escort.

Theemile wrote:

cthia wrote:
What was Helen's family doing on that freighter? Isn't that asking for trouble? Are yachts attacked as well? Aren't they protected by law?

There was an RMN personnel draft moving along with the convoy - Anton was assigned as a Ship engineer to go to the repair/fleet base being built at the destination (think of the convoy as a fleet base in a box, including staff). Some freighters are Freighter/passenger versions, and at least 1 of the convoy was one of these models. Since this was a long term assignment - families were being moved, as well as the staff. I don't know if Helen's Lt Cruiser (and the rest of the convoy's defenders ) was assigned to the new base on a permanent basis, someone was kind and gave her this assignment so she could see her family off, or if it was just a coincidence that she was along in the escort.

Thanks for the info. And obviously Anton was still in the navy?

Do forgive me but my ocd, no, OCD is flaring up again and I cannot manage accepting that a ship can survive all of the twisting, turning and flipping in hyper. Those maneuvers have to put the sails in some very weird positions. The position of the sails is very important to ride the waves. Even for a wet navy, certain positions of the sails can be fatal.

In certain positions the sails may as well be nonexistent.

cthia wrote:

Do forgive me but my ocd, no, OCD is flaring up again and I cannot manage accepting that a ship can survive all of the twisting, turning and flipping in hyper. Those maneuvers have to put the sails in some very weird positions. The position of the sails is very important to ride the waves. Even for a wet navy, certain positions of the sails can be fatal.

In certain positions the sails may as well be nonexistent.

The sails are just plans of energy - they don't billow or move, and they certainly cannot swivel like a small sailboat (or schooner rigged ship's) can. The anology is more multi mast fixed sail like pre-1850's ships of the Line, where the main sails are set inline perpendicular to the long axis of the ship.

Anton didn't leave the navy until his posting to Earth (and the jerks in charge would not allow him to search for his abducted daughter.) about 6 years after this point in the story.

cthia wrote:
Do forgive me but my ocd, no, OCD is flaring up again and I cannot manage accepting that a ship can survive all of the twisting, turning and flipping in hyper. Those maneuvers have to put the sails in some very weird positions. The position of the sails is very important to ride the waves. Even for a wet navy, certain positions of the sails can be fatal.

In certain positions the sails may as well be nonexistent.

The joys of tacking (or wearing, if you can't risk tacking) the ship in the face of the wind. Even in our age of sail ships routinely put themselves in positions where their sails were temporarily ineffective while maneuvering - and those sails were physical object that could be damaged by excessive flapping while doing this.


We know in the Honorverse that before the sail tuner technology was improved to the point of negative grab factor (allowing them to sail directly up-wave) ships had to tack across the wave to make progress up-wave. Just like on with wind on earth than means they had to bring the ship across the eye of the wind/grav-wave where the sails had no 'bite' and might in fact be working against the ship, until momentum carried the ship far enough past that the sails regained their effectiveness on the alternate zig-zag. (Wearing, for those who don't know, is the other way to get around onto the opposite track relative to the wind. If a ship can sail up upwind at to 30 degrees from the wind tacking would require it to change heading 60 degrees, swinging its bow directly through the wind to come onto the opposite track, while wearing instead achieves that same track via a 300 degree turn away from the wind. A ship can't "stall" [aka get caught in the irons] while wearing, but it takes much longer and the ships loses more of its forward progress while doing so; so it's really the sign of a very unhandy ship, a very inexperienced crew, or a very cautious captain. But the Honorverse ships were specifically described as tacking)


I'd speculate that this Honorverse ability to tack means that the grav sails' stabilizing effect is somewhat independent of their propulsive effect. That they can keep a ship safely stabilized in any grav turbulence even while tacking through headings where the sail couldn't propel them forward. (And thus can also stabilize the ship while it flips; though given current tuner tech the ship could be acceleration bow-ward during the entire flip; turning it into more of a tight skid turn rather than an in-place flip)

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:
Do forgive me but my ocd, no, OCD is flaring up again and I cannot manage accepting that a ship can survive all of the twisting, turning and flipping in hyper. Those maneuvers have to put the sails in some very weird positions. The position of the sails is very important to ride the waves. Even for a wet navy, certain positions of the sails can be fatal.

In certain positions the sails may as well be nonexistent.

The joys of tacking (or wearing, if you can't risk tacking) the ship in the face of the wind. Even in our age of sail ships routinely put themselves in positions where their sails were temporarily ineffective while maneuvering - and those sails were physical object that could be damaged by excessive flapping while doing this.


We know in the Honorverse that before the sail tuner technology was improved to the point of negative grab factor (allowing them to sail directly up-wave) ships had to tack across the wave to make progress up-wave. Just like on with wind on earth than means they had to bring the ship across the eye of the wind/grav-wave where the sails had no 'bite' and might in fact be working against the ship, until momentum carried the ship far enough past that the sails regained their effectiveness on the alternate zig-zag. (Wearing, for those who don't know, is the other way to get around onto the opposite track relative to the wind. If a ship can sail up upwind at to 30 degrees from the wind tacking would require it to change heading 60 degrees, swinging its bow directly through the wind to come onto the opposite track, while wearing instead achieves that same track via a 300 degree turn away from the wind. A ship can't "stall" [aka get caught in the irons] while wearing, but it takes much longer and the ships loses more of its forward progress while doing so; so it's really the sign of a very unhandy ship, a very inexperienced crew, or a very cautious captain. But the Honorverse ships were specifically described as tacking)


I'd speculate that this Honorverse ability to tack means that the grav sails' stabilizing effect is somewhat independent of their propulsive effect. That they can keep a ship safely stabilized in any grav turbulence even while tacking through headings where the sail couldn't propel them forward. (And thus can also stabilize the ship while it flips; though given current tuner tech the ship could be acceleration bow-ward during the entire flip; turning it into more of a tight skid turn rather than an in-place flip)

I have to admit that I had my hand on my side iron ready to balk. Because none of that holds true in the middle of a squall, a very bad storm with rough seas. During a bad storm no one needs to be sailing.

In the Honorverse there are always stormy conditions. The waves are always dangerous and deadly. But, your last paragraph pulled it all together. If the sails create some sort of stabilizing effect, I can swallow that hard pill. It is just that it seems intuitive that the position of the sails is important even in the Honorverse. It helps explain why there are two sails instead of one.

But certain maneuvers would seem to place the sails in a very precarious position to carry out any of its function, even stabilization. Because certain positions would cancel out the existence of at least one of the sails. If not both.

Now, I understand the sails aren't a physical object rather than bands of energy. But these bands of energy have to be created by some sort of hardware housed on the exterior of the hull. This hardware should be improperly positioned during certain maneuvers as well, which would seem to make their function impossible.