Attacking Darius:

cthia wrote:Textev says that most of the waste heat is used. So only a small fraction of it is exhaust. I don't think blocking the waste heat would work at all. Consider appliances or equipment that give off waste heat. You don't want anything blocking that heat from being carried away from the equipment. That could cause all kinds of problems.

Right. It's not all and you really don't want to block the radiators.

Thermodynamics appears to have been bent and twisted, like Relativity, but not completely thrown out.

But suppose two or more Spiders "nesting" together can absorb the waste heat to power some kind of external subsystem that is used only when Spiders are together. It could be used to charge capacitors, spin the nest of Spiders, power an energy weapon, etc. The external system might even use all of the waste heat making it even stealthier.

If that energy could have been absorbed and put to work, then it would have. The fact that it had to be expelled indicates that it's at a high enough entropy state that it can't be used by any known technology available to the designers.

Of course, this is all assuming the tractors don't interfere with each other.

But about that. If they don't interfere with each other, then maybe they can be made to operate with each other... like two similarly charged magnetic fields pushing against each other to create motion.

True, that one I assume there are more solutions for. I also imagine the tractors can operate longitudinally from one another, so a train of spider ships could move in one direction. You just don't want to go side by side, because that one we do know won't work. We've been told the spider's tractor is strong enough to work as a very close range weapon.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:True, that one I assume there are more solutions for. I also imagine the tractors can operate longitudinally from one another, so a train of spider ships could move in one direction. You just don't want to go side by side, because that one we do know won't work. We've been told the spider's tractor is strong enough to work as a very close range weapon.

To know how close the ships could operate side by side we'd need to know a couple of things.
1) How far out do they stretch from the ship? (Just the 150 km of a large wedge? 1000 km? 50,000 km?)
2) What happens if two such tractors interact?
3) How wide are the spider tractors?
4) How much do they pivot while in action?

If they reach no further away than an SD's wedge then the other questions are basically moot and you could have spider ships safely operate in just as close formation as SDs do.

It they do stretch way further that you'd prefer the ships to be separated then you'd need to know the extent of their operating volume and what happens if they cross; and that'll tell you whether or not it's okay to have ships operating within spider drive tractor range of each other.

(Remember that the rows of projectors are arrayed 120 degrees apart, in a triangular formation, around the cicumphrence of the hull -- so it'd be easy for two ships in close company to avoid pointing their drive tractors at each other; even if close enough the drives would be crossing each other. So the real concern is drive interactions; not drive to hull contact)



Though I suppose as a stupid ship trick you could, assuming your normal tractors could take the strain, tractor two spider ships together spine to spine and then use only each one's two outward facing spider drive tractors keels to haul the linked pair of ships along (kind of like people going back to back to use their legs to cooperate in pushing themselves up a shaft)

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:But suppose two or more Spiders "nesting" together can absorb the waste heat to power some kind of external subsystem that is used only when Spiders are together. It could be used to charge capacitors, spin the nest of Spiders, power an energy weapon, etc. The external system might even use all of the waste heat making it even stealthier.

If that energy could have been absorbed and put to work, then it would have. The fact that it had to be expelled indicates that it's at a high enough entropy state that it can't be used by any known technology available to the designers.

I think it can be absorbed and put to work. And I think it has been. Textev says that only a fraction of the excess heat created by the Spider is expelled. I assume that most of it is used. The fact that a fraction of the excess heat had to be expelled may only mean that the excess heat exceeds the need of the closed system.

For instance, we have all stood next to and witnessed the amount of heat an air conditioner expels. But that waste heat could be repurposed and used for energy inside the home. However, an air conditioner is trying to cool the home by removing excess heat. So what is needed? What is needed is a compatible system that could use the excess heat inside, like a closed off sauna.

Jonathan_S wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:True, that one I assume there are more solutions for. I also imagine the tractors can operate longitudinally from one another, so a train of spider ships could move in one direction. You just don't want to go side by side, because that one we do know won't work. We've been told the spider's tractor is strong enough to work as a very close range weapon.

To know how close the ships could operate side by side we'd need to know a couple of things.
1) How far out do they stretch from the ship? (Just the 150 km of a large wedge? 1000 km? 50,000 km?)
2) What happens if two such tractors interact?
3) How wide are the spider tractors?
4) How much do they pivot while in action?

If they reach no further away than an SD's wedge then the other questions are basically moot and you could have spider ships safely operate in just as close formation as SDs do.

It they do stretch way further that you'd prefer the ships to be separated then you'd need to know the extent of their operating volume and what happens if they cross; and that'll tell you whether or not it's okay to have ships operating within spider drive tractor range of each other.

(Remember that the rows of projectors are arrayed 120 degrees apart, in a triangular formation, around the cicumphrence of the hull -- so it'd be easy for two ships in close company to avoid pointing their drive tractors at each other; even if close enough the drives would be crossing each other. So the real concern is drive interactions; not drive to hull contact)



Though I suppose as a stupid ship trick you could, assuming your normal tractors could take the strain, tractor two spider ships together spine to spine and then use only each one's two outward facing spider drive tractors keels to haul the linked pair of ships along (kind of like people going back to back to use their legs to cooperate in pushing themselves up a shaft)

What is the purpose of the tractor and the keel? Why do you think the tractor is as long (or possibly much longer) as 150 km?

I thought the tractor produces the intense band of gravity. Or is that the keel? And, can the spider drive be on, but idling? Like a car engine idles without moving? Therefore, ships may be able to get in closer to "dock" with each other since the intense band of gravity isn't being produced.

kzt wrote:Because translating without a working impeller drive or sidewall isn't a very good idea?

The point is that the ENTIRE FLEET was parked with their impellers cold. They has two BC(P) squadrons with warm drives, everyone else was cold.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:If the conclusion is that there's no point in a Saganami translating if the rest of the fleet stays behind, then I agree.

Otherwise, I don't. Each unit could have translated as quickly as it could physically bring up its impellers and generators to condition. But for some reason, the text says they couldn't go any faster than a CLAC. That's what I don't understand.

kzt wrote:What would have happened to them if 200 graser torps swept on it? "Commander Jones, you are the highest ranking officer left from 3rd fleet. Can you explain to the court of inquiry what happened to the rest of the fleet?"

Hence I find it feasible that the RMN still has no clue what the hell really happened to the orbital platforms. This wasn't just something David stuck in the last book like the planet, he's been showing that the RMN either doesn't understand

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Was this Operation Fabius?

KZT is talking about whether the RMN really understands what happened with Oyster Bay, not Operation Fabius: the SLN attack on Beowulf; where the SLN still lost a significant fraction of their forces, despite the Silver Bullets wiping out the Mycroft stations (because of the Apollo's ability to operate autonomously).

His point is that the Yawata Strike showed a level of stealthiness that would be fatal to any force that was sitting around thinking that early warning would give them time to get their wedges up. Although the Silver Bullet attacks to help Operation Fabius should have reinforced that point.

I am still in the process of rereading Uncompromising Honor and have not gotten to the incident with wedges down.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:To know how close the ships could operate side by side we'd need to know a couple of things.
1) How far out do they stretch from the ship? (Just the 150 km of a large wedge? 1000 km? 50,000 km?)
2) What happens if two such tractors interact?
3) How wide are the spider tractors?
4) How much do they pivot while in action?

If they reach no further away than an SD's wedge then the other questions are basically moot and you could have spider ships safely operate in just as close formation as SDs do.

It they do stretch way further that you'd prefer the ships to be separated then you'd need to know the extent of their operating volume and what happens if they cross; and that'll tell you whether or not it's okay to have ships operating within spider drive tractor range of each other.

(Remember that the rows of projectors are arrayed 120 degrees apart, in a triangular formation, around the cicumphrence of the hull -- so it'd be easy for two ships in close company to avoid pointing their drive tractors at each other; even if close enough the drives would be crossing each other. So the real concern is drive interactions; not drive to hull contact)



Though I suppose as a stupid ship trick you could, assuming your normal tractors could take the strain, tractor two spider ships together spine to spine and then use only each one's two outward facing spider drive tractors keels to haul the linked pair of ships along (kind of like people going back to back to use their legs to cooperate in pushing themselves up a shaft)

What is the purpose of the tractor and the keel? Why do you think the tractor is as long (or possibly much longer) as 150 km?

I thought the tractor produces the intense band of gravity. Or is that the keel? And, can the spider drive be on, but idling? Like a car engine idles without moving? Therefore, ships may be able to get in closer to "dock" with each other since the intense band of gravity isn't being produced.

My understanding is that the 3 keels would be some kind of raised ribs or protrusions, sticking out beyond the normal hull, and running down the length of the ship. The keels would house the large number of spider drive tractor emitters that the ship uses to haul itself forward.

The tractor beams, produced from the drive's tractor emitters, would be intense focused beams, bands, what-have-you, of gravity that link the physical emitter to the alpha wall* some distance ahead and to the side and then pull the emitters to pull the ship forward.

I suspect that, yes, the spider drive can be on without imparting acceleration. One obvious way would be to pull equally in equal and opposite directions imparting a net zero force. Depending on what you consider as being "on" the emitters should be able to be hot without actively projecting a tractor beam. (And it might be even possible to have it on and projecting tractor beams dialed down to be too weak to actually pierce and grab the alpha wall; though that's rampant speculation)

We don't get much detail about how the tractors work, but we know it needs at least 3 rows of them to work properly; and I'd assume that's because each can only pull in a straight line -- so to go forward you'd need to pull at least trilaterally so there was no net sideways force, only a net forward force. (But even to get that the angle of the tractor beams needs to be able to change, at least somewhat. If the angle couldn't change then attempting to pull forward would fail because you can't tow yourself forward from fixed points without shortening the beams - but shortening beams that are projecting somewhat off to the sides means changing the geometry of their angles.


I have no idea how long the tractor is. We know it has "insanely short range" for a weapon; less than a grav lance (so presumably below 100,000 km). But we don't know how much less. It could well be much shorter than 150 km -- however 150 km is far an SD is inside it's wedge; so my point was if it was 150 km (or less) then spider ships should be able to operate in (at least) as close a formation as SDs do.

We have only one vague data point about it's length -- and technically that's not even about an unmodified spider drive tractor emitter; that's for some hypothetical weaponization of it. So it's probably shorter ranged than it's "insanely short range" bad idea weapon derivative. So it probably can't be over 100,000 km but I guess in theory it might be only centimeters (or less) long -- we just don't know.

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* Or next higher hyper band wall; if the ship is in hyper.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:If that energy could have been absorbed and put to work, then it would have. The fact that it had to be expelled indicates that it's at a high enough entropy state that it can't be used by any known technology available to the designers.

cthia wrote:I think it can be absorbed and put to work. And I think it has been. Textev says that only a fraction of the excess heat created by the Spider is expelled. I assume that most of it is used. The fact that a fraction of the excess heat had to be expelled may only mean that the excess heat exceeds the need of the closed system.

For instance, we have all stood next to and witnessed the amount of heat an air conditioner expels. But that waste heat could be repurposed and used for energy inside the home. However, an air conditioner is trying to cool the home by removing excess heat. So what is needed? What is needed is a compatible system that could use the excess heat inside, like a closed off sauna.

If you tried to put all the heat extracted from a house when cooling it into a sauna; that sauna would get too hot and some of the heat would have to be dumped outside. That may sound like I am agreeing with your statement "that the excess heat exceeds the need of the closed system". Perhaps I am, but the point is that it will always be the case that the heat generated in a closed system will build up to a point were some will have to be dumped outside. There is simply no way to turn all heat into useful energy, in this example it takes extra energy to pump heat from one room to another.

There are ways to store excess heat and release it later when that is less of a problem; there are some clever systems for houses that store daytime heat and release it at night, for example (that is basically what adobe walls of the correct thickness do).

tlb wrote:His point is that the Yawata Strike showed a level of stealthiness that would be fatal to any force that was sitting around thinking that early warning would give them time to get their wedges up.

Their early warning is the first ship in the fleet exploding. However that is probably less than 100 ms before all the graser torps are engaging. So there is almost no chance for even a fully automated system to do do anything.

Then 3 seconds later the survivors can try to figure out what happened. And hope their isn't a second wave coming, because they won't have sidewalls or wedges up for many minutes.

On the other hand, assume that someone in the fleet somehow noted something at a million KM out. They have 30 seconds to do something. What can they do?

My guess is not a whole lot. You might be able to stop some percentage, but not a large percentage.

Given that the fleet is basically a sitting duck, consider that a better option for the torpedoes AI might be to ram at 30,000 km/sec for about 10,000 gigaton equivalent each.

tlb wrote:Perhaps I am, but the point is that it will always be the case that the heat generated in a closed system will build up to a point were some will have to be dumped outside. There is simply no way to turn all heat into useful energy, in this example it takes extra energy to pump heat from one room to another.

The Honorverse in general, not just spiders or RMN drones, totally violates the laws of thermodynamics. So you can't really argue 'science' here. David hasn't even provided any real in-universe explanation.

It's like barricade. All plot, no logic.

cthia wrote:I think it can be absorbed and put to work. And I think it has been. Textev says that only a fraction of the excess heat created by the Spider is expelled. I assume that most of it is used. The fact that a fraction of the excess heat had to be expelled may only mean that the excess heat exceeds the need of the closed system.

I disagree. I'm saying that if it could have been put to work, it would have been put to work. It wasn't.

I don't believe it's because it exceeds the power requirements of that closed system. First of all, because that's impossible and would mean that it could indefinitely recycle all its energy, with an efficiency of 100% and that's not possible. Second and most importantly, it's because we know they would like not to emit that radiation at all, so they're doing it only because they have to.

No, it's expelling energy, however tiny a fraction it is, because it can´t reuse the energy in that form. The entropy is too high and no more useful Work (in the Physics sense of Work) can be done with it.

For instance, we have all stood next to and witnessed the amount of heat an air conditioner expels. But that waste heat could be repurposed and used for energy inside the home. However, an air conditioner is trying to cool the home by removing excess heat. So what is needed? What is needed is a compatible system that could use the excess heat inside, like a closed off sauna.

Yes, excess heat can, sometimes, be repurposed. I was thinking of the Formula 1 MGU-H, which uses some of the exhaust heat generated by the combustion engine to power the turbocharger, thereby increasing the efficiency of the full process. That's why Formula 1 was proudly displaying "Most efficient hybrid engine" signs all throughout 2020 and 2021.

So you could, in theory, couple the heat exhaust of an AC in cooling mode with another energy production mechanism to create electric energy and feed that back into the system. But it cannot recover ALL the energy expended as heat this way: the Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't allow. And, of course, it wouldn't work while the AC is running in heating mode, since it expels cold air out.

My point is: Thermodynamics. Unless RFC has allowed a perpetual motion machine (not related to hyperspace at least), then the LD cannot use all its heat energy. Some of it is waste and must be expelled.