SPOILERS: To End In Fire eARC discussion

Theemile wrote:What do we know about the Graser head?
1) multi second beam duration
2) Graser beam
a) 500,000km range against sidewalls / 1,000,000km without.
b) more energetic, larger beam than laser head
3) single beam per warhead.
4) use destroys missile/slags weapon.
5) larger than normal warhead

The answer is, it random walks it's beam around the probable area. But that means that the beam does not stay on target - it's sweaping around the volume attempting to cover as much of the volume before it dies - in short - it's not attempting to bore through the target like it could -

1) A Condor Pinnace @500tons? has a 2cm Graser with a short range. Tonnage for the graser and power reqs = ?

2) Power Draw on a Shrike Graser is so great even with its massive LAC power plant compared to a missile, it cannot power the Graser and Maneuver at the same time.

3) Even massive gargantuan SD Grasers cannot penetrate a DD sidewall over 400,000km. A much smaller version? Beyond Hopeless.

A) Hit probabilities for missiles at 60,000km very low
B) Half a million? Please. Even Ships Grasers do not usually attack at this range unless steady eddy approach as they know even old style DD sidewalls sneer off such attacks at range.

C) Beam focus radically decreases with distance. So power required to punch through sidewall appears in the books to be asymptotic/logrithmic

D)Sweeping around for 2 seconds... Power? Hello?
A Nuclear bomb pumped Laser works Because it has Gargantuan amounts of energy at its disposal dumping ALL of its energy into a tiny FRACTION(less than a hundredth) of a second and most of this energy is still deflected by the sidewall, letting only a fraction of energy through.

E) Now we are supposed to play make believe a much heavier volume intense Graser is NOT nuclear bomb pumped for POWER levels, but is capacitor fed(Requires vastly MORE volume yet) and has the energy levels to go through sidewalls at 500,000km for 2 seconds... By power duration alone to be equivalent to a LASERhead this is HUNDREDS of times greater power required all by itself even if it were NUCLEAR Bomb POWERED.

Now have have to add Far greater stand off range power drop off as well? We are talking roughly 1000X more power required over that of a single Nuclear bomb... All before one adds the ADDITIONAL drop in power density of Capacitors verses Nuclear bomb... True a lot of that nuclear bomb energy is wasted but still. This must be yet another order of magnitude.

We are talking 10,000X Volume required at minimum just to power the Graser compared to a Laser head using a nuclear device. Just how big are these missile to carry around equivalent of 10,000 nuclear bombs by volume just for power of the missile head before we talk drive power?... So by volume alone for the Graser as we do not have fusion plants powering this bugger, we are looking at something larger than a LAC... if the plot tech bible was going to be consistent... At least impeller drive missiles can claim they get their power from Elsewhere...

F) Oh yea and this vastly larger missile has drive sprint capabilities of a CM...

I would believe a GRASER Nuclear bomb pumped missile head, but a Missile sized bugger firing for 2 seconds by capacitors... How many orders of magnitude difference is there between a Hydrogen 10--->100Gt nuclear bomb and plasma capacitors... The difference is literally astronomical.

Plot pretzels... Sigh

Relax wrote:

Theemile wrote:What do we know about the Graser head?
1) multi second beam duration
2) Graser beam
a) 500,000km range against sidewalls / 1,000,000km without.
b) more energetic, larger beam than laser head
3) single beam per warhead.
4) use destroys missile/slags weapon.
5) larger than normal warhead

The answer is, it random walks it's beam around the probable area. But that means that the beam does not stay on target - it's sweaping around the volume attempting to cover as much of the volume before it dies - in short - it's not attempting to bore through the target like it could -

1) A Condor Pinnace @500tons? has a 2cm Graser with a short range. Tonnage for the graser and power reqs = ?

2) Power Draw on a Shrike Graser is so great even with its massive LAC power plant compared to a missile, it cannot power the Graser and Maneuver at the same time.

3) Even massive gargantuan SD Grasers cannot penetrate a DD sidewall over 400,000km. A much smaller version? Beyond Hopeless.

A) Hit probabilities for missiles at 60,000km very low
B) Half a million? Please. Even Ships Grasers do not usually attack at this range unless steady eddy approach as they know even old style DD sidewalls sneer off such attacks at range.

C) Beam focus radically decreases with distance. So power required to punch through sidewall appears in the books to be asymptotic/logrithmic

D)Sweeping around for 2 seconds... Power? Hello?
A Nuclear bomb pumped Laser works Because it has Gargantuan amounts of energy at its disposal dumping ALL of its energy into a tiny FRACTION(less than a hundredth) of a second and most of this energy is still deflected by the sidewall, letting only a fraction of energy through.

E) Now we are supposed to play make believe a much heavier volume intense Graser is NOT nuclear bomb pumped for POWER levels, but is capacitor fed(Requires vastly MORE volume yet) and has the energy levels to go through sidewalls at 500,000km for 2 seconds... By power duration alone to be equivalent to a LASERhead this is HUNDREDS of times greater power required all by itself even if it were NUCLEAR Bomb POWERED.

Now have have to add Far greater stand off range power drop off as well? We are talking roughly 1000X more power required over that of a single Nuclear bomb... All before one adds the ADDITIONAL drop in power density of Capacitors verses Nuclear bomb... True a lot of that nuclear bomb energy is wasted but still. This must be yet another order of magnitude.

We are talking 10,000X Volume required at minimum just to power the Graser compared to a Laser head using a nuclear device. Just how big are these missile to carry around equivalent of 10,000 nuclear bombs by volume just for power of the missile head before we talk drive power?... So by volume alone for the Graser as we do not have fusion plants powering this bugger, we are looking at something larger than a LAC... if the plot tech bible was going to be consistent... At least impeller drive missiles can claim they get their power from Elsewhere...

F) Oh yea and this vastly larger missile has drive sprint capabilities of a CM...

I would believe a GRASER Nuclear bomb pumped missile head, but a Missile sized bugger firing for 2 seconds by capacitors... How many orders of magnitude difference is there between a Hydrogen 10--->100Gt nuclear bomb and plasma capacitors... The difference is literally astronomical.

Plot pretzels... Sigh

If it IS all true, it would corroborate what I've been preaching all alone regarding some of the toys I posit the MA could produce. Namely, massively powerful grasers mounted on an LD firing for seconds.

One of the biggest objections was that the author always follows a believable pattern in logical progressions of the tech. But I always argued that those logical progressions have always been adhered to within each section of the Galaxy (as in the Haven sector) unless acted upon by an outside force, i.e., Grayson and its miniature power plant. At any rate, I argued that that logic shouldn't hold true for a completely different set of minds and tech completely removed from the Haven sector. The MA had already introduced a substantial breakthrough in graser technology. What was to say would be the next logical iteration in MA tech, by GA standards? You can't use a GA wrench on MA tech. The tools nor the logic fits.

Which means, a lot of the crazy tech that I submitted - which shouldn't be possible because it exceeds what plausibly could come next - is indeed possible. At any rate, it should be obvious that if it all scales up as it usually does, the Spider is going to pack one helluva stinger! As I predicted.

Relax wrote:

Theemile wrote:What do we know about the Graser head?
1) multi second beam duration
2) Graser beam
a) 500,000km range against sidewalls / 1,000,000km without.
b) more energetic, larger beam than laser head
3) single beam per warhead.
4) use destroys missile/slags weapon.
5) larger than normal warhead

The answer is, it random walks it's beam around the probable area. But that means that the beam does not stay on target - it's sweaping around the volume attempting to cover as much of the volume before it dies - in short - it's not attempting to bore through the target like it could -

1) A Condor Pinnace @500tons? has a 2cm Graser with a short range. Tonnage for the graser and power reqs = ?

2) Power Draw on a Shrike Graser is so great even with its massive LAC power plant compared to a missile, it cannot power the Graser and Maneuver at the same time.

3) Even massive gargantuan SD Grasers cannot penetrate a DD sidewall over 400,000km. A much smaller version? Beyond Hopeless.

A) Hit probabilities for missiles at 60,000km very low
B) Half a million? Please. Even Ships Grasers do not usually attack at this range unless steady eddy approach as they know even old style DD sidewalls sneer off such attacks at range.

C) Beam focus radically decreases with distance. So power required to punch through sidewall appears in the books to be asymptotic/logrithmic

D)Sweeping around for 2 seconds... Power? Hello?
A Nuclear bomb pumped Laser works Because it has Gargantuan amounts of energy at its disposal dumping ALL of its energy into a tiny FRACTION(less than a hundredth) of a second and most of this energy is still deflected by the sidewall, letting only a fraction of energy through.

E) Now we are supposed to play make believe a much heavier volume intense Graser is NOT nuclear bomb pumped for POWER levels, but is capacitor fed(Requires vastly MORE volume yet) and has the energy levels to go through sidewalls at 500,000km for 2 seconds... By power duration alone to be equivalent to a LASERhead this is HUNDREDS of times greater power required all by itself even if it were NUCLEAR Bomb POWERED.

Now have have to add Far greater stand off range power drop off as well? We are talking roughly 1000X more power required over that of a single Nuclear bomb... All before one adds the ADDITIONAL drop in power density of Capacitors verses Nuclear bomb... True a lot of that nuclear bomb energy is wasted but still. This must be yet another order of magnitude.

We are talking 10,000X Volume required at minimum just to power the Graser compared to a Laser head using a nuclear device. Just how big are these missile to carry around equivalent of 10,000 nuclear bombs by volume just for power of the missile head before we talk drive power?... So by volume alone for the Graser as we do not have fusion plants powering this bugger, we are looking at something larger than a LAC... if the plot tech bible was going to be consistent... At least impeller drive missiles can claim they get their power from Elsewhere...

F) Oh yea and this vastly larger missile has drive sprint capabilities of a CM...

I would believe a GRASER Nuclear bomb pumped missile head, but a Missile sized bugger firing for 2 seconds by capacitors... How many orders of magnitude difference is there between a Hydrogen 10--->100Gt nuclear bomb and plasma capacitors... The difference is literally astronomical.

Plot pretzels... Sigh

The 256 ton mk28 Condor pinnance has a 2cm mk8 LASER, I believe the smallest graser mentioned is in the 40 CM range.

However, agree COMPLETELY on the rest - They never address in the book where the power to run said graser comes from, only that it has a multi second capability, so my review stayed "In Universe" reporting on what was said - and the advantages and disadvantages it would have.

I can see finding sufficient power on a 5Kton torpedo with a full up grav fusion plant aboard, as well as space for a 1500 ton Graser mount, but you are right - a capacitor fed, ~300 Ton missiles (for reference, a classic, single drive Capital missile is 120-130 tons) is a massive jump down and shouldn't have the room for the Graser, let alone enough power production/storage to fire it....

And, of course, it was never mentioned how a fairly standard, well researched and developed piece of kit (a small shipborne graser) is suddenly able to be downsized by a factor of ~25. (Let face it, even a 300 ton missile cannot have a warhead larger than 50 tons or so after sensors, AI and device power is taken into account) And, if this Gross miniaturiation of a Graser is possible, why couldn't a 50Kton Spider drive Scout ship (Ghost) not mount a single one? (let alone 20....)

(yes, I'm arbitrarily choosing that a huge missile is ~300 tons. As mentioned above that's the mass of a Pinnance, and a standard Capital missile was 120-130 tons. We could build bigger missiles, but then, as you point out, the CM derived sprint drive makes less and less sense, as the CM/warhead combo suddenly out-weighs normal missiles with less speed with no explanation on how that is possible (or where you found the parts). Let alone, the mass of Pods with 6 1000+ ton missiles is suddenly larger than that of a LAC. And pods of 6 5000 Ton missiles is just ridiculous, as they would be the size of Frigates.)

So you are right - It doesn't make sense and feels forced just to get a graser weapon at Galton and a plot point not thoroughly thought through.

Lets put power consumption in perspective. Lets start with Canon and then play with efficiency of conversion to work at actual power levels for a graser = to a single laser rod from an old capital 10Mton nuclear bomb pumped missile.

*** TLDR: MALIGN Fusion Capacitors must have an energy density greater than 10,000X that of oil *** Closer to 100,000(or nearly that of a fusion nuclear weapon itself).

10Mton Nuclear bomb(for capital grade missiles until recent developments and I like round numbers, I know they are bigger) = 4.18E16J
According to SftS, laser pulse is 0.005s
We want our Graser to fire for 1 second.
~= 4.18E15J*200 = 8.36E18W = 2.3E15Wh
1 Million tons of oil equivalent = 11.63TWh
1TWh = 1E12Wh
2300TWh of power is needed to fire said laser for a second
Or the equivalent of burning
2300/11.63 =~ 200 MILLION tons of OIL in one second

Now not all that nuclear power is directed onto said laser rods.

What is the efficiency of the Gravity lens?
50%? 2X 180 degree cone
66%? 4X 120 degree cone
75%? 8X 90 degree cone
SftS seems to show even NARROWER beam than 75% spherical reduction, but I like even numbers so... Sue me.

Distance of 10m x 0.5m diameter long laser rods, 10 rods to a capital missile?(50m^2 of collection area) As little as 5m from warhead is possible. A more realistic distance is 10m

Grav50% @5m = 1/3 energy collected
Grav50% @15m = 3.5% energy collected
Grav75% @5m = too close does not work
Grav75% @10m = 1/3 energy collected
Grav75% @15m = 1/7th energy collected

So, roughly speaking 1/7th to 1/3 of nuclear blast is collected by a capital grade 10 laser rod missile package. Lets go with 25% so of a 10Mton nuc ~1E16j hits the laser rods for 0.005s

Laser rod conversion fraction =??? It is not 100%, that violates physics. 10%? 1%? Lets go with 10%(powers of 10 baby)

1E16J over 10 Laser rods = 1E15J/laser Rod
10% conversion factor = Power of laser = 1E14J

1E14J firing for 0.005s = 200E14W = 5.5E12Wh
1Million tons of Oil Equivalent = 11.5TWh
1TWh = 1E12Wh so, if you wanted said laser beam to fire for 1 second you have to have the Capacitor energy bank equivalent of 500,000tons of oil at 100% conversion factor

To make an Honorverse Graser Torpedo work using a CM drive... its tonnage cannot be over??? 10-->100tons. Lets assume MALIGN figured something out Manticore did not and it is 100t(Uh, why are their missiles normal stages such suckage then? )

In said 100t we have to have the CM impeller drive capacitors, impellers, Graser head, thrusters, etc, and the power to fire it for 2+ seconds. Lets just assume the Graser takes up zero and we have 100t of capacitors ... That means the capacitors MUST have an energy density 10,000X that of oil at minimum. Our Current best nuclear power generation is only about 20,000X that of oil today. Theoretically it can be as high as 100X to 1000X that if we go to Fusion.

All the above assumes said graser is ONLY as powerful as a SINGLE laser rod from a 10Mton nuclear warhead missile with a max attack range through a sidewall of 50,000-->100,000km.

If you want the Graser to be More POWERFUL... attack from a longer range, have oh I don't know, realistic CM drive tonnage distribution between systems, we are looking at over 100,000X energy density required in said capacitors compared to oil and nearly an order of magnitude better than nuclear power today and only an order of magnitude lower than a fission nuclear bomb....

Oh right, and best "capacitor" we have today is maybe 1Wh/kg... Where oil is ~10,000Wh/kg No worries, only need a 10,000X increase to come close to oil and another 100,000X on top of that Just a tidy Billion times more energy dense... tiddly winks man tiddly winks.

turol wrote:This is a thread for disussing To End In Fire eARC.
THERE ARE SPOILERS BELOW!
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The book wasn't bad but it felt... rushed. Galton came out of nowhere and given its status it should have at least been mentioned two books earlier. Also the hunt for them could easily have been extended into two or three books so we'd gotten a lot more superspy action.

Sorry but this post reflects a level of being obtuse beyond what one would expect to encounter when discussing a David Weber or Eric Flint novel. Honors and O'Hanarahan's internal monologues in the final chapters of the book reflect why these deeply thoughtful authors wrote this book in the first place.

One would have to be brain dead not to expect something like Galton to complete Honor's story arc. NOW, Raoul can truly start anew. However, whatever and wherever HIS story begins, it can start fresh. Honors survival requires something to be eliminated to offset the knowledge her survival made possible. That and just what other elements of generic mods Emily requested for Andrew interest me. No Meyerdahl mods, but what else of honor's genetic profile did Emily include in her final gift to her spouses? She KNEW she was dying. She knew her child would be her final gift to her mates. What did she bestow to them in her final to all gesture of love?

daspletosaurus wrote:Here's what has me bothered. Oyster Bay demonstrated a radically new technology that nobody had an answer for. Nobody in the GA has any firm idea what to even look for. And yet not a single mention during the planning phase of the attack on Galton, no discussion about any special precautions or modifications to the defensive doctrine. Furthermore, not a whiff of it during the actual attack.

I sincerely hope this is a plot point, because otherwise the entire leadership of the Grand Alliance is holding the galaxy's largest idiot ball.

Worse yet. Gail Weiss was prohibited from using that tech in gaming the Galton defense. The lack of that tech in Galton argues they could NOT have conducted Oyster Bay. So even if the lack of discussion about spider drive ships during the planning stages by Honors staff was based on data Scotty's recon drones collected, not addressing that absence was very odd.

The Detweilers screwed the pooch when they used spider drive ships and torpedos in Oyster Bay but denied Galton that tech when setting that star system up as their sacrificial patsy in their Alamo Gambit. Regardless of whether Honor's staff discussed this topic "on screen" or not. Victor, Anton, Damien and Indy will be asking about the lack of the spider drive at Galton. Had the Detweilers given Galton the spider drive, there would not have been anything to suggest Galton wasn't the MAlign's strategic headquarters.

PeterZ wrote:

daspletosaurus wrote:Here's what has me bothered. Oyster Bay demonstrated a radically new technology that nobody had an answer for. Nobody in the GA has any firm idea what to even look for. And yet not a single mention during the planning phase of the attack on Galton, no discussion about any special precautions or modifications to the defensive doctrine. Furthermore, not a whiff of it during the actual attack.

I sincerely hope this is a plot point, because otherwise the entire leadership of the Grand Alliance is holding the galaxy's largest idiot ball.

Worse yet. Gail Weiss was prohibited from using that tech in gaming the Galton defense. The lack of that tech in Galton argues they could NOT have conducted Oyster Bay. So even if the lack of discussion about spider drive ships during the planning stages by Honors staff was based on data Scotty's recon drones collected, not addressing that absence was very odd.

The Detweilers screwed the pooch when they used spider drive ships and torpedos in Oyster Bay but denied Galton that tech when setting that star system up as their sacrificial patsy in their Alamo Gambit. Regardless of whether Honor's staff discussed this topic "on screen" or not. Victor, Anton, Damien and Indy will be asking about the lack of the spider drive at Galton. Had the Detweilers given Galton the spider drive, there would not have been anything to suggest Galton wasn't the MAlign's strategic headquarters.

As I mentioned in an earlier post on this thread, Galton's "proof" that they were responsible for Oyster Bay included production records and shipments of a large number of missiles with gazer warheads. However, that would have resulted in missile traces right before the gazers ripped the space stations apart, which didn't happen. To repeat myself, the Galton plan should have had highly stealthed drones with the gazers attacking the space stations (with, of course, production records and shipments for them). Note that the drones would only be under several hundred G's in their attack run, and thus being undetected would have had some plausibility. And of course, more of these drones would had been present in the Galton defense in considerable numbers.

The GA knows about the spider drive. Its absence in Galton argues for another MAlign bastion. The recon drone issue is additional evidence. The Sets screwed the pooch when they tried to keep the spider drive for themselves.

Torlek wrote:Yeah, Galton was retconned in to have something to shoot at. Finding it looked too easy. I didn't love it.

Also, I did not like the O’Hanrahan plotline. She is fanatically loyal enough to accept having her leg shot off. She is somewhat okay with nuking incriminating evidence but not okay with terror bombing nukes. And her motivation is apparently better medical technology, which requires justifies and requires a conspiracy. I get a conspiracy for genetic super philosopher-kings but not for medical technology. Also the story they feed her about the two Engagement offshoots does not make sense. She was on Mesa when the nukes go off and they had enough intelligence to help her dodge those by controlling her hotel choice but did not do anything else because of decision paralysis. And buying that we are just the slightly ruthless offshoot of the Engagement all the really bad things are done by that other offshoot. That woman is supposed to be among the best investigative journalist anywhere and she swallowed that convoluted mess. I get motivated reasoning but this is stretching it.

In regards to O'Hanrahan, there where really no exposition on her feelings and thoughts after she met with her contact, which makes me think it's something that will be addressed in the future. We know that she is no dummy, so from that standpoint it will be interesting to see if she will be able to put everything into context or not.

I suspect O'Hanrahan was looking for a reason some other organization than hers did those horrible things the GA is blaming on her Alignment. She knows that going after the story of the GA search for Alignment will bring her in contact with treecats. They can tell if she is lying or is driven by motives inimical to those of the GA. So Audrey has a powerful incentive to NOT pick apart the BS story Phoebe gave her.