Any insights?

As I was revisiting "Storm from the Shadows," I encountered this passage: "Artemis' combat information center had analyzed the (slowly) arriving sublight transmissions from the recon probes." I previously believed that radio waves and, of course, "whisker beams," traveled at the speed of light. Do you have any insights on this matter?

JoseWilson wrote:As I was revisiting "Storm from the Shadows," I encountered this passage: "Artemis' combat information center had analyzed the (slowly) arriving sublight transmissions from the recon probes." I previously believed that radio waves and, of course, "whisker beams," traveled at the speed of light. Do you have any insights on this matter?

Doing a search, while 99% of the time David Weber used that word it was in relation to ships, LACs, shuttles, or missiles there were two other spots it was used in reference to communication.

"Time of response to our sublight challenge, Harper?" Honor asked her com officer. [War of Honor]

And she was continuing to transmit her sublight challenges and demands that he identify himself as she came. [War of Honor]

However I believe is all three cases it was used as a sloppy shorthand for "non-FTL communication" from a navy that had become used to grav-based FTL communication links; rather than some kind of actually slower than laser, or slower than radio, signal.

Recon drones typically use FTL comms, but they have alternatives.

I have no idea why David wrote it that way (maybe he should let Baen edit him?) but I think he is saying light speed comms.

kzt wrote:Recon drones typically use FTL comms, but they have alternatives.

I have no idea why David wrote it that way (maybe he should let Baen edit him?) but I think he is saying light speed comms.

We could be pedantic - even light does not move at c in 99% of observable conditions - Since light speed (c) is defined as the speed of light in a vacuum (ie, with ZERO particle interactions) and even the interstellar medium is not a perfect vacuum, Light will always be observed to move Slightly slower than the definition of "The Speed of Light" (c).

So TECHNICALLY, Sub-Light is correct terminology.

Fully agree. We can become too "trainspotterish" about fine details.
Sublight obviously means not FTL" in the author's fictional story.

Jonathan_S wrote:

JoseWilson wrote:As I was revisiting "Storm from the Shadows," I encountered this passage: "Artemis' combat information center had analyzed the (slowly) arriving sublight transmissions from the recon probes." I previously believed that radio waves and, of course, "whisker beams," traveled at the speed of light. Do you have any insights on this matter?

Doing a search, while 99% of the time David Weber used that word it was in relation to ships, LACs, shuttles, or missiles there were two other spots it was used in reference to communication.

"Time of response to our sublight challenge, Harper?" Honor asked her com officer. [War of Honor]

And she was continuing to transmit her sublight challenges and demands that he identify himself as she came. [War of Honor]

However I believe is all three cases it was used as a sloppy shorthand for "non-FTL communication" from a navy that had become used to grav-based FTL communication links; rather than some kind of actually slower than laser, or slower than radio, signal.

Theemile wrote:We could be pedantic - even light does not move at c in 99% of observable conditions - Since light speed (c) is defined as the speed of light in a vacuum (ie, with ZERO particle interactions) and even the interstellar medium is not a perfect vacuum, Light will always be observed to move Slightly slower than the definition of "The Speed of Light" (c).

So TECHNICALLY, Sub-Light is correct terminology.

Plus, transceivers introduce non-zero delays because computers (even molycirc ones) aren't instantaneous.

But it seems that "sublight" is used in the Honorverse novels to mean "light-speed".

ThinksMarkedly wrote:But it seems that "sublight" is used in the Honorverse novels to mean "light-speed".

I think its just a brainfart, don't read too much into it. Ships moving in hyper are traveling FTL but are considered sublight in normal space - rfc mistakenly carried that thinking over to communications in this instance since everywhere else it is referred to as lightspeed comms.

Joat42 wrote:I think its just a brainfart, don't read too much into it. Ships moving in hyper are traveling FTL but are considered sublight in normal space - rfc mistakenly carried that thinking over to communications in this instance since everywhere else it is referred to as lightspeed comms.

You can always just explain it away by saying that the characters use physically-erroneous expressions, but RFC knew all along.