Attacking Darius:

They had something like 24 4 million ton operational spiders executing missions. This isn’t going from hang gliders to F-35s. They have a yard, trained crews, designers and builders.

kzt wrote:They had something like 24 4 million ton operational spiders executing missions. This isn’t going from hang gliders to F-35s. They have a yard, trained crews, designers and builders.

I'm not saying no experience. But I am saying insufficient experience. Two dozen prototypes at a third or fourth of the size of your target ship is very good, but not enough. First, you still need to scale up. I have no clue if the build time scales with the mass or not; I suspect it's not. The best would be if it scaled with the linear dimensions, so it would only take 44% more time to build an LD than a Shark, but I also doubt they'd be that lucky. I'd expect something in-between, something like 2x as long.

Second, it's not just scaling up: this is supposed to be a full warship, not a prototype. You have to assume they made mistakes in the Shark that they have to fix now. Some of them would have been known before Operation Oyster Bay, because the LDs were already in construction. But one presumes that their first trial by fire would have revealed more and those may need to be incorporated into the design.

Third, you actually have to come up with a production line if you want to get to 100 ships in a reasonable amount of time. Hitting stride is not easy and they will have problems because everyone does. So the first few ships will take longer than the last batch.

Fourth, you have to scale out your production too if you want to build 100 in reasonable time. I have no clue how many build slips they had for building the 24 Sharks. I don't think it's likely to be 24 but neither just 4. And then I have no clue how you convert from battleship size to monitor size. I'd presume they built the last half of the slips to fit an LD because they knew they'd need it, but you still need to convert those, and this takes time.

Fifth, there's cost. Darius probably has no free market and the economy is likely dysfunctional in the long term, but there must still be one that makes it look like the citizens are free. They've been at it for over 170 T-years and plan to continue living there for at least 50 more without civil unrest. So there's only so much that their economy can produce per year.

Sixth and last, repeat all of the above for the production of spiders, graser warheads, torpedo bodies, etc. The only worse thing than a slow eggshell of a warship is a slow, toothless eggshell warship.

And none of this is touching MAN personnel issues. We're proposing growing a navy that before 1919 had a handful of destroyers and cruisers to one hundred ships that would carry 10,000 people aboard. Plus all the defence of the Darius system that this thread is talking about. Just where is the MAlign going to get that many people? How are they going to train them to operate hardware that didn't exist a decade ago? How long will it take them to train said people? How are they going to trust those people around that equipment and aboard those ships? remember why Jessica Milliken isn't dead and that the Darius population isn't militaristic so isn't likely to enlist in droves. There's not even a declared war to drum up a nationalistic sentiment.

So, for all of the above, I don´t expect to see more than 10 Leonard Detweiler-class vessels before the end of the series and this is assuming the time jump is nearly 10 years. At most, two dozen, if there's some retconning of the Darius demographics and some further ignoring of economic arguments. And for those reasons, I don't think those LDs will be used in risky operations, at least not until the Onion gets desperate.

WOAH NELLIE

Slow that cart before it overtakes the mule!

A, B, C, D, E, F, J, K, V ... are the only lines we are aware of.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Where are G, H, I, L, M, N, O, P
Not to mention Q, R, S, T, U

Wait... and W, X, Y, Z.

IINM, we are only aware of 10 lines out of a possible 26 if all of the alphabet designate a line. More if alphabet are used twice.

Where are all of those missing lines? If indeed they are. Were these lines given prolong? Has the MA extended the lifespan of recipients? We don't know whether or not a lot of the MA's people lived their lives abroad - as Alpha's gaining the knowledge of shipbuilding on other planets like the SL and Mesa, and inside other entities like Technodyne and Yildun. We don't know if there was a mini-Houdini long ago that was natural. People who just resigned from their careers and was whisked away.

I have always cautioned the masses on the use of statistics. Oftentimes statistics is utilized incorrectly and more often than not applied irresponsibly.

In this case, with all of the missing variables (which may indicate the existence of classified lines), it becomes downright irresponsible to utilize obviously broken, erroneous and incomplete data to form any kind of reliable and coherent statistical mapping.

And if you add to that the MA's need for OpSec then you may find yourself hypering into a H U G E spider's nest!

What's more? We don't even know the level of the malignant hacking of the genetic code. Can entire "experiences" be genetically encoded? Some species of animals are born with the innate knowledge of their ancestors. You yourself, Thinksmarkedly, championed a thread discussing those possibilities of even more advanced applications of genetic juggling of the DNA! Your own thread was so advanced in its applications that it turned my stomach.

And for the life of me, I cannot understand why people keep asking where the MA will get the population it needs for various consignments when they grow people in vats! You don't think an Alpha is smart enough to time their production to coincide with their needs???

With this continued kind of arrogant thinking, the butcher's bill is going to be "horrifically" high indeed. I agree, kzt. And the butcher doesn't even have to pad his bill or raise his prices. Business is good and the order for raw meat is increasing. Will the butcher even be able to keep up with the demand?

Consider this. SLN hubris does not only apply to technology. It applies to conception, innovation, application, imagination, utilization, forward thinking... the list is exhausting. I tend to think the spider drive alone would have taught us that. Let alone the graser torpedo and the smart cloth.

The entire problem Leonard Detweiler had with the entire human species centered around the whole of humankind's hubris.

Classified lines = entirely new paradigms = whole new worlds

Let's put this on the "line" ... Galton is simply a subset of Darius.

My Driver's Education instructor? What an awesome personality.

Do pay attention to the caution signs when driving on the road of statistics.

Darius is the resting place, presumably, of the Inner Onion. It is obviously a place of secrets and innovation. As a reader we were slowly exposed to the idea of genetic manipulation, and some of us - myself included - find much of their genetic manipulation to be too unsuitable for adults and children to be exposed to the reality of it. "For the betterment of mankind" can be an ugly and dangerous excuse.

Having said that, consider some of the genetic research that was considered appalling even to some members of the Alignment itself. Grossing me out, or the average human, is one thing, but grossing themselves out is another. But the end justifies the means in MAlign speak.

Those mysterious placeholders for lines could represent millions or even billions of people. When you have your own farm, there usually is no shortage of meat. They grow them in vats, people.

Mass indoctrination and training could be accomplished by genetic means. Experiences could be genetically instilled. Imbibed at birth.

Some lines could intentionally be engineered to be born as savants. Who tend to stick with a problem until it is solved. There is so much we do not know, so I caution complacency.

I am surprised Thinksmarkedly seems to have lost some of his institutional knowledge, considering his difficult and somewhat controversial but necessary thread, She shot him with her finger, for the sake of science.

penny wrote:What's more? We don't even know the level of the malignant hacking of the genetic code. Can entire "experiences" be genetically encoded? Some species of animals are born with the innate knowledge of their ancestors. You yourself, Thinksmarkedly, championed a thread discussing those possibilities of even more advanced applications of genetic juggling of the DNA! Your own thread was so advanced in its applications that it turned my stomach.

And for the life of me, I cannot understand why people keep asking where the MA will get the population it needs for various consignments when they grow people in vats! You don't think an Alpha is smart enough to time their production to coincide with their needs???

I agree that population growth is not a problem for a several hundred year old civilization that can produce people from vats.

However there is no evidence that knowledge, beyond the instinctual level, is being encoded. I have always thought that the training that the pleasure lines undergo was excessive and mostly unnecessary, but it does point to the lack of genetic implanting of experience. What are you talking about when you say that "Some species of animals are born with the innate knowledge of their ancestors"?

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:At any rate, if storyline wasn't misleading me that pulling off a complex microjump is a factor of ones astrogator, like Theophile Kgari, then shouldn't the MA - being the Alphas that they are - be able to handle complex microjumps with ease?

Even with the best navigator in the universe there’s a lot of mechanically induced uncertainties in a micro jump. It’s never going to be pinpoint accurate.

Good enough for jumping into MDM range, but trying for anything more accurate is just playing the lottery. And worse those uncertainties also apply between each ship in the same formation; so a fleet attempting a micro jump is likely to find a significant percentage of its ships scattered beyond mutual missile defense range of each other.

Remember that when the Peep fleet raided Basilisk Station the defensive wallers stationed out by the terminus weren’t willing to risk the dispersion they suffer if they hyper jumped after the Peep fleet; despite the significant time saving is relieving Basilisk had the jumped. Instead they charged the lightminutes towards them in normal space.

Of course all this leaves out the main reason micro jumping isn’t a common tactic — most things you want to fight over, and most fights for them, occur well within the hyper limit. No jumping, micro or otherwise, possible

Forgive me for stooging around at the edge of the system before opening lines of communication. I was awaiting my drone to get into position.

But I always wondered how correct that is. Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt it, and it has been pointed out to me before. But just how true is it; as in how does it actually apply when mentally testing its validity.

As it reads, if a ship tries to jump from X to Y, it will differ every time if the same ship tries to jump from X to Y again even when entering the exact same variables under the exact same conditions. I don't think it is that complicated. Here is what I think. "A" specific ship will always microjump to the exact same location from the exact same location (and orientation may apply) when the exact same variables are entered. Calculated ship speed, drift, etc. These are variables that can greatly complicate the jump.

The same microjump will undoubtedly differ with each ship in the formation due to several factors. Position, orientation (possibly?), And varying differences in the mechanical parts that carry out the jump. And the above mentioned speed and drift of the ship. But I do believe that the same ship can consistently duplicate a microjump (with a small % error) under the exact same conditions by entering the exact same data. It seems as if that notion would have to be so, or the most skilled astrogators like Theophile Kgari wouldn't be able to consistently pull off the impossible if certain aspects of complex jumping are not the same. If not so, the entire exercise would be no more than guessing. There has to be some constants.

There are inconsistencies, yes. But my notion is that an accomplished astrogator can consistently remove himself from the % of error. For instance, how are variables input? Does the computer automatically handle precision of decimal places? Can an astrogator come to know his own ship and hardware?

If all of my horrific simplification is true, then might someone who is genengineered with a savant-like mind be able to become more attuned with the complexity of microjumping as it applies to his own hardware?

"I know the ship. We can push her beyond specifications Captain. Trust me. She'll hold together." Says Scotty who is intimately familiar with his hardware.

That is why I suggested that astrogators should be able to take their ships out for a test drive and execute microjump after microjump and compare what is to what was to what he thought.

The MA's possibly savant-like astrogators may be able to see certain things in their mind.

penny wrote:Forgive me for stooging around at the edge of the system before opening lines of communication. I was awaiting my drone to get into position.

But I always wondered how correct that is. Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt it, and it has been pointed out to me before. But just how true is it; as in how does it actually apply when mentally testing its validity.

As it reads, if a ship tries to jump from X to Y, it will differ every time if the same ship tries to jump from X to Y again even when entering the exact same variables under the exact same conditions. I don't think it is that complicated. Here is what I think. "A" specific ship will always microjump to the exact same location from the exact same location (and orientation may apply) when the exact same variables are entered. Calculated ship speed, drift, etc. These are variables that can greatly complicate the jump.

The same microjump will undoubtedly differ with each ship in the formation due to several factors. Position, orientation (possibly?), And varying differences in the mechanical parts that carry out the jump. And the above mentioned speed and drift of the ship. But I do believe that the same ship can consistently duplicate a microjump (with a small % error) under the exact same conditions by entering the exact same data. It seems as if that notion would have to be so, or the most skilled astrogators like Theophile Kgari wouldn't be able to consistently pull off the impossible if certain aspects of complex jumping are not the same. If not so, the entire exercise would be no more than guessing. There has to be some constants.

There are inconsistencies, yes. But my notion is that an accomplished astrogator can consistently remove himself from the % of error. For instance, how are variables input? Does the computer automatically handle precision of decimal places? Can an astrogator come to know his own ship and hardware?

If all of my horrific simplification is true, then might someone who is genengineered with a savant-like mind be able to become more attuned with the complexity of microjumping as it applies to his own hardware?

"I know the ship. We can push her beyond specifications Captain. Trust me. She'll hold together." Says Scotty who is intimately familiar with his hardware.

That is why I suggested that astrogators should be able to take their ships out for a test drive and execute microjump after microjump and compare what is to what was to what he thought.

The MA's possibly savant-like astrogators may be able to see certain things in their mind.

Whereas I suspect that on such short jumps minor variations or fluctuations on the hyper wall, small classical or even quantum variations of conditions within the ship's hyper generator (too minor for its sensors to detect and compensate for), and even wear on the hyper generator from proceeding jumps all conspire to add randomness to transitions. So if the same ship tried to repeatedly duplicate the exact same microjump from the exact same place it'd get quite a significant dispersion in exit points.

If that's true then possibly research into better ways to monitor those variables might allow for more accurate microjumps -- but some might be inherently unmonitorable. But that, given the current uncertainly and "noise" in the relevant variables, navigator skill can't do all that much to improve things.

Jonathan_S wrote:Whereas I suspect that on such short jumps minor variations or fluctuations on the hyper wall, small classical or even quantum variations of conditions within the ship's hyper generator (too minor for its sensors to detect and compensate for), and even wear on the hyper generator from proceeding jumps all conspire to add randomness to transitions. So if the same ship tried to repeatedly duplicate the exact same microjump from the exact same place it'd get quite a significant dispersion in exit points.

If that's true then possibly research into better ways to monitor those variables might allow for more accurate microjumps -- but some might be inherently unmonitorable. But that, given the current uncertainly and "noise" in the relevant variables, navigator skill can't do all that much to improve things.

It seems reasonable that the chaotic nature of the hyperwall and the other mechanical variations are going to introduce some flucuations that cannot be accounted for. On long trips the guidance of the hyperlog will help to compensate, but a microjump will not gain from that.

One question I have is whether it is possible to sense the normal space hyperlimit from the lowest band? If so, then that would help when approaching a star system or Honor's jump in the Battle of Manticore.

All in all, there is an element of chance in how well the final position is achieved and the dice may be weighted according to the needs of the story.

tlb wrote:It seems reasonable that the chaotic nature of the hyperwall and the other mechanical variations are going to introduce some flucuations that cannot be accounted for. On long trips the guidance of the hyperlog will help to compensate, but a microjump will not gain from that.

It's also possible that the hyper generator takes a while to "calm down" after a jump. On a long trip it'd have time for any fluctuations, stress, power or thermal build up, etc. etc. to dissipate before you used it again to exit hyper. But on a microjump you're using it to exit hyper very shortly after using it to enter hyper.

So there might be internal variations within it from its recent use that aren't (and possibly can't be) accounted for which affect its repeatable accuracy.

Jonathan_S wrote:

tlb wrote:It seems reasonable that the chaotic nature of the hyperwall and the other mechanical variations are going to introduce some flucuations that cannot be accounted for. On long trips the guidance of the hyperlog will help to compensate, but a microjump will not gain from that.

It's also possible that the hyper generator takes a while to "calm down" after a jump. On a long trip it'd have time for any fluctuations, stress, power or thermal build up, etc. etc. to dissipate before you used it again to exit hyper. But on a microjump you're using it to exit hyper very shortly after using it to enter hyper.

So there might be internal variations within it from its recent use that aren't (and possibly can't be) accounted for which affect its repeatable accuracy.

If that were so it'd seem pulling off a dogleg near the hyper limit would be ill-fated and inadvisable.

I certainly did not consider quantum fluctuations in the hyper generator and the wall, which I would agree is very important. But shouldn't a good astrogator take those factors into consideration and apply the recommended weight to each one. Found in the front of the book in the coursebook Astrography 101? :

I still can't see an astrogator's job merely being inputting beginning and ending coordinates in the GPS and letting the computer do the rest. Or storyline led me astray.