Why did everyone become dumb at the end of TEIF?

kzt wrote:The other issue is that the possibility of being identified is a whole lot higher if they can produce a list of ships to investigate and your secret ship is on it.

As they have no idea when the ghosts arrive they really don't have a good start, but I'd be deeply looking at events in the week before and after is I was an intel analyst who wasn't assigned to one of the primary RMN naval bases. If I was, well I'd probably be dead.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:That's an interesting question.

Follow-up question: did they do exactly that after the Beowulf Strike? The freighters that delivered the Silver Bullets must have come to the transfer stations.

They could use a different name and identifier on the freighter or an actual different freighter.

The freighters used for the Silver Bullets at Beowulf were totally normal in every way and probably carried freight to be delivered (perhaps they were the ones that dropped off the bombs for the orbitals). I will not repeat everything that Brigade XO wrote, but yes they could have picked up waiting freight and carried it on to new destinations.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:Text has been presented that shows the Ghosts were the first ones to test the maneuver that the Sharks used to fool the hyper detection grid at Manticore; therefore the Ghosts have to be hyper capable and being transported in a ship was out of convenience, not necessity (That is the same mistake I made and the text was presented to prove me wrong).

cthia wrote:I assumed that it actually was out of a necessity in the form of maintaining OpSec. Which assumes the Ghosts are of a totally divergent ship design that couldn't be risked seen in hyperspace, because stealth won't actually work in hyperspace. It is like an automotive manufacturer going to all of the trouble to mask a new car model when it takes it out for a spin. The MA simply used a freighter.

This brings up another point. The LDs have sails, but they won't be stealthy while in hyper which means someone can spot them while in hyper. Does that imply that the LDs have the streak drive that allows them to travel "first class" in the Alpha bands while every other warship has to travel in coach? LOL The Ghosts may have this ability as well.

The Ghosts ARE of a totally divergent ship design (the three keel design of all Spider drive vessels), but we assume that all hyper-capable Spider drive ships ARE equipped with the streak drive. Because, why not?

But the use of a freighter was NOT to hide the Ghosts (since we do assume they have the streak drive, the same as the Sharks - that did not use a freighter to travel through hyperspace), we have speculated on the reason and are not sure why. Was it limited fuel capacity, if so wouldn't they need a freighter ride back? However a rendezvous is simpler if they could travel a short way in hyper to the site.

I see. Well, it still could have been a limitation on range. Fuel. I remember that my car had just enough range to make it home from college on a full tank of gas, but it left no margin for error. Like detours or being stuck for extended periods of time in traffic. So, perhaps the MA didn't want to risk running into circumstances which made them burn extra fuel on the way to Manticore. And the voyage home would have been under a relatively full tank of gas.

cthia wrote:
This brings up another point. The LDs have sails, but they won't be stealthy while in hyper which means someone can spot them while in hyper. Does that imply that the LDs have the streak drive that allows them to travel "first class" in the Alpha bands while every other warship has to travel in coach? LOL The Ghosts may have this ability as well.

No, we don't know the LDs have Sails - We know the spider ships can use a wormhole, which conventional ships would use their sails to traverse.

Either:
1)Another mechanism is being used to produce a similiar effect allowing wormhole travel, most likely an application of the existing spider drive.
or
2)an entire separate, massive, redundant drive system is being used to produce sails using known Alpha node technology.

Most likely they use #2 because we have not been informed of #1... but that doesn't really make sense now, does it? Especially since we have not heard of #2's existence either?

Also sails are only used transiting a wormhole or a Grav wave - in the 95+% of hyper that is not in a Grav wave, sails are not used.

cthia wrote:This brings up another point. The LDs have sails, but they won't be stealthy while in hyper which means someone can spot them while in hyper. Does that imply that the LDs have the streak drive that allows them to travel "first class" in the Alpha bands while every other warship has to travel in coach? LOL The Ghosts may have this ability as well.

Yes and yes and no.

Yes, ships within a grav wave would have their sails up and thus would radiate a lot of energy. Any such ship would be detectable a long way away because of the sails.

Yes, LDs are expected to have a streak drive, allowing them to go into the Iota and Kappa bands, where they are effectively invisible to other ships. However, the GA does have access to Simões, so they're likely to have their own streak drive technology soon-ish, so that is by itself not sufficient concealment.

No, just being detectable at a distance does not compromise the ship. A wedge can be detected in FTL sensors a light-hour away in n-space, so probably the equivalent thereof in hyper too, and so should a sail. But unless the detecting ship is close by, that grav footprint is not sufficient to tell what that ship is. It can infer what type of ship it is because of the energy used in the wedge or sails, which are bigger the bigger the ship is. But not exactly sufficient for an ID.

And you still need to be relatively close by to see it.

Pounding how? In the aftermath of OB, you need to maintain cohesion in the Home System, the RMN didn't actually know the attack was over. So, pounce with what? LACs aren't hyper capable. And if they are in the habit of chasing after ghosts in an attack of that nature, that is a good way to be lured into an ambush. Several ambushes.

I agree it could lead to an ambush, but catching the perpetrators would be very high on their minds. They might not be thinking rationally at this stage. And the RMN had ships to spare, since the Python Lump had just come out of the shipyards: there were 50-60 brand, new capital ships working up somewhere. As I argued in the other thread, the one place those wouldn't be is somewhere predictable, so dispersing them to go after sensor ghosts would actually be a good idea.

Jonathan_S wrote:I agree that on grav sensors you can't see the hyper generator operation on a hyper out.
Thought its possible that from close enough range you can tell the difference between an impeller wedge that disappears instantly because the ship hypered out and a wedge that was shut down (i.e. seeing a quick but non-instant drop in power output on the shutting down wedge).

But that's probably irrelevant - a freighter that within even a couple million km of the Junction is probably perfectly observable on the Junction defenses light-speed sensors. Especially if it's just left the Junction and thus been tracked the whole way. They'd easily be able to tell that a freighter that's that close hadn't hypered out because while they'd see the wedge disappear the ship itself would still be there on radar and optical sensors from all the RDs and sensor platforms forming the surveillance shell around the Junction.

All of that, plus the fact that this ship that has just dropped wedge is moving at 0.005c. It can't bring up its wedge again until it's at a minimum of one light-hour of the Junction, which is the regular sensing range of wedges. The MAN would have to assume the Junction have much better equipment and, while not as good as that of the inner system, should be good for (say) 6 light-hours. So this ship moving at 1/200th the speed of light would need to basically coast for 1200 hours until it can bring up the wedge to make it to the RV point. It could use thrusters, but this is a freighter, not a warship, so its bunkerage of reaction mass is not expected to be high.

Two more problems: first, that while it's still close by the Junction, some other ship might drop in out of hyper close to it and see it's still there. It would send a "hey buddy, everything ok?" call, which the Junction Traffic Control would listen to. And then a pinnace with an engineering team would come aboard.

Second, if it came through the Junction, it would run the risk of a random inspection by the authorities. And then they'd see this ship is completely empty and has some interesting cradles aboard.

However - knowing the timing of OB if they'd really wanted to use a freighter to pick up the Ghosts all they'd need to do is have one scheduled to arrive at Sphinx a few hours after OB is supposed to start. So when the OB attack kicks off it'd be trundling its way in normal space between the Junction and the hyper limit - and could then pretend to panic and then 'flee' or 'hide'. At that point it's far enough from anybody that it's probably not being tracked on lightspeed sensors -- and even if it is the defenders are too busy to deal with one apparently panicking freighter that's decided to try to hide until the situation is clearer.

The MBS would be in lockdown at this time. All arriving ships would congregate in an area and not make it to the stations (which weren't there any more anyway) and no departures would be allowed.

I had discarded the idea of a freighter arriving at the Junction and making it through n-space to Manticore because that's heavily trafficked. Any number of other freighters would see such a ship departing from the least-time course and would signal it. That highway is probably also heavily used by Manticore-friendly warships, which could see such a departure. In fact, warships patrolling the lane are very likely SOP even in peace times. Any pirate worth his or her salt would have a field day with the Junction-Manticore traffic.

And it would have to depart, because the Ghosts wouldn't dare come near the Junction-Manticore traffic. Their stealth may be good, but not while they're being loaded aboard a freighter. Let's say there are 1000 ships at any moment making the journey. The distance is 7 light-hours and the trip takes roughly 40 hours at 150 gravities (the typical of a freighter). If those were evenly separated, they'd be spaced about 2.4 minutes apart. Since the freighter has to drop its wedge for the Ghosts to load aboard, it will coast for the entire operation. If that lasts an hour, the freighter would be passed by 25 ships.

And since this is after the attack, the RMN would have increased the patrol.

cthia wrote:This brings up another point. The LDs have sails, but they won't be stealthy while in hyper which means someone can spot them while in hyper. Does that imply that the LDs have the streak drive that allows them to travel "first class" in the Alpha bands while every other warship has to travel in coach? LOL The Ghosts may have this ability as well.

Theemile wrote:No, we don't know the LDs have Sails - We know the spider ships can use a wormhole, which conventional ships would use their sails to traverse.

Either:
1)Another mechanism is being used to produce a similiar effect allowing wormhole travel, most likely an application of the existing spider drive.
or
2)an entire separate, massive, redundant drive system is being used to produce sails using known Alpha node technology.

Most likely they use #2 because we have not been informed of #1... but that doesn't really make sense now, does it? Especially since we have not heard of #2's existence either?

Also sails are only used transiting a wormhole or a Grav wave - in the 95+% of hyper that is not in a Grav wave, sails are not used.

Note that sails are also needed to cross the wall between bands according to "The Universe of Honor Harrington" in More Than Honor.

Prior to the Warshawski Sail, not only had dimension shear made translating into the upper bands dangerous, but the successive velocity losses had made it highly uneconomical for any reaction drive ship. Now the lost velocity could be rapidly regained and the higher, "faster" bands could be used to sustain a much higher average velocity. As a result, the dreaded grav wave became the path to ever more efficient hyper travel, and captains who had previously avoided them in terror now used their new instrumentation to find them and cruised on standard impeller drive between them.

We have not seen a Shark transition a wormhole, only a transition from hyperspace to normal space was shown; but since the only quick route to or from Darius involves a wormhole, then it would be foolish to avoid it. Also if sails are needed to take advantage of the streak drive, then it would be advisable to have them.

The sharks are test vehicles for the Leonard Detweiler class; so if they have sails, then the LD's will also for the same reasons.

tlb wrote:

Theemile wrote:Also sails are only used transiting a wormhole or a Grav wave - in the 95+% of hyper that is not in a Grav wave, sails are not used.

Note that sails are also needed to cross the wall between bands according to "The Universe of Honor Harrington" in More Than Honor.

Prior to the Warshawski Sail, not only had dimension shear made translating into the upper bands dangerous, but the successive velocity losses had made it highly uneconomical for any reaction drive ship. Now the lost velocity could be rapidly regained and the higher, "faster" bands could be used to sustain a much higher average velocity. As a result, the dreaded grav wave became the path to ever more efficient hyper travel, and captains who had previously avoided them in terror now used their new instrumentation to find them and cruised on standard impeller drive between them.

That's not what that quote says. Clearly sails aren't needed to cross the hyper walls because there were hyper-capable reaction drive scout ships using the Alpha bands before the invention of the impeller wedge, much less the Warshawski sail. The quote even alludes to them.

We're given the history of hyper travel and it was basically.
1) reaction drive scout ships using just the Alpha band.
2) impeller drive scout ships using the low hyper bands -- very dangerous as they could go faster but could not yet detect grav waves (but would be destroyed instantly if their wedge impacted one).
3) Warshawski detectors invented -- impleller drive ships could now detect and avoid grav waves; making hyper travel safer.
4) The Warshawski sail is invented -- ships can now use them to ride grav waves.

Clearly up through stage 3 ships weren't using the (yet to be invented) sails when cracking hyper walls.

Also we know most star systems are not located within grav waves, because the few that are are highlighted as a concern because it's more likely for damaged ships to be trapped and unable to escape. So clearly ships are crossing hyper walls, in the absence of a grav wave and sails, when arriving at or departing most star systems.


Now somewhere in the books or pearls I seem to remember that merchant skippers prefer to cross hyper walls from within a grav wave as the wave and sails do make for a smoother transition that puts less wear on the ship (so longer intervals between required maintenance) -- but that's not the same thing as sails being a necessity.

Theemile wrote:Also sails are only used transiting a wormhole or a Grav wave - in the 95+% of hyper that is not in a Grav wave, sails are not used.

tlb wrote:Note that sails are also needed to cross the wall between bands according to "The Universe of Honor Harrington" in More Than Honor.

Prior to the Warshawski Sail, not only had dimension shear made translating into the upper bands dangerous, but the successive velocity losses had made it highly uneconomical for any reaction drive ship. Now the lost velocity could be rapidly regained and the higher, "faster" bands could be used to sustain a much higher average velocity. As a result, the dreaded grav wave became the path to ever more efficient hyper travel, and captains who had previously avoided them in terror now used their new instrumentation to find them and cruised on standard impeller drive between them.

Jonathan_S wrote:That's not what that quote says. Clearly sails aren't needed to cross the hyper walls because there were hyper-capable reaction drive scout ships using the Alpha bands before the invention of the impeller wedge, much less the Warshawski sail. The quote even alludes to them.

We're given the history of hyper travel and it was basically.
1) reaction drive scout ships using just the Alpha band.
2) impeller drive scout ships using the low hyper bands -- very dangerous as they could go faster but could not yet detect grav waves (but would be destroyed instantly if their wedge impacted one).
3) Warshawski detectors invented -- impleller drive ships could now detect and avoid grav waves; making hyper travel safer.
4) The Warshawski sail is invented -- ships can now use them to ride grav waves.

Clearly up through stage 3 ships weren't using the (yet to be invented) sails when cracking hyper walls.

Also we know most star systems are not located within grav waves, because the few that are are highlighted as a concern because it's more likely for damaged ships to be trapped and unable to escape. So clearly ships are crossing hyper walls, in the absence of a grav wave and sails, when arriving at or departing most star systems.

Now somewhere in the books or pearls I seem to remember that merchant skippers prefer to cross hyper walls from within a grav wave as the wave and sails do make for a smoother transition that puts less wear on the ship (so longer intervals between required maintenance) -- but that's not the same thing as sails being a necessity.

Perhaps I could have worded the statement about sails being needed better, but the quote is clear enough about the upper bands and these days no one goes into hyper just to ride the Alpha band. Yes there was travel in the Alpha band before the invention of the sail. But one further quote from the same place explains that:

The second problem was that the interfaces between any two hyper bands are regions of highly unstable and powerful energy flows, creating the "dimensional shear" which had destroyed so many early hyperships, and dimensional shear becomes more violent as band levels increase. Moreover, even the relatively "safe" lower bands which could be reliably reached were characterized by powerful energy surges and flows—currents, almost—of highly-charged particles and warped gravity waves. Adequate shielding could hold the radiation effects in check, but a grav shear within any band could rip the strongest ship to pieces.

So in order to make use of the streak drive, a ship has to have sails in order to cross the upper band walls.

Jonathan_S wrote:That's not what that quote says. Clearly sails aren't needed to cross the hyper walls because there were hyper-capable reaction drive scout ships using the Alpha bands before the invention of the impeller wedge, much less the Warshawski sail. The quote even alludes to them.

Right, but they are needed to use wormholes, or some equivalent technology that performs the same function must be there.

It is possible that the LDs, Sharks and Ghosts are built without the capability to use wormholes. With the spider, they wouldn't have the problem of reaction ships and could re-accelerate when going up and down the bands. Without a wedge, a grav wave might not be too dangerous -- and it's possible they have a Warshawski even if they don't have Warshawski Sails.

But that would mean always going the long way via hyperspace. Even with a streak drive, they'd still be much slower than ships that could transit wormholes, which is a military disadvantage. And if that's the case, then we also have an upper limit for the distance between Manticore and Darius, because the Sharks would have gone the long way to reach it for Oyster Bay.

I think it's far more likely they can transit wormholes, especially given that Darius has a terminus. Though the only wormhole that they're likely to transit is Felix's. How the Sharks did get from Darius to Manticore would be an unknown: they could have made the trip in hyperspace, they could have come from Felix (which is 12 light-years from Mannerheim and we kind of know where Mannerheim is, so this is unlikely), or they could have used one of the other termini of that Junction to get even closer. My bet would be the latter case.

It's also likely the technology is an alpha node in a traditional ring configuration.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:It is possible that the LDs, Sharks and Ghosts are built without the capability to use wormholes. With the spider, they wouldn't have the problem of reaction ships and could re-accelerate when going up and down the bands. Without a wedge, a grav wave might not be too dangerous -- and it's possible they have a Warshawski even if they don't have Warshawski Sails.

But that would mean always going the long way via hyperspace. Even with a streak drive, they'd still be much slower than ships that could transit wormholes, which is a military disadvantage. And if that's the case, then we also have an upper limit for the distance between Manticore and Darius, because the Sharks would have gone the long way to reach it for Oyster Bay.

I think it's far more likely they can transit wormholes, especially given that Darius has a terminus. Though the only wormhole that they're likely to transit is Felix's. How the Sharks did get from Darius to Manticore would be an unknown: they could have made the trip in hyperspace, they could have come from Felix (which is 12 light-years from Mannerheim and we kind of know where Mannerheim is, so this is unlikely), or they could have used one of the other termini of that Junction to get even closer. My bet would be the latter case.

The crossing into the upper level bands is unsafe for any ship without a sail, even those without a wedge. Without a sail the early ships were limited to the first three bands; the quotes make that quite clear. So for any ship to make use of the streak drive, it has to have sails. Not even a spider-drive ship can go too far up the bands without them.

The only unanswered question is whether the bigger spider-drive ships also have a compensator for use with those sails? Without a compensator any manned ship is limited to accelerations that artificial gravity make livable; so the utility of the sail is severely curtailed.