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Brigade XO wrote:Among the things they might be looking for is anything related to:
a Streak Drive,
anything related to what we are calling the G-torpedos,
any ship or manufacturing that uses something other than impeller wedges for movement,
any plans for what the Alignment was calling Oyster Bay.
anyny plans or specs for the Galton Navy or non-military interstellar craft.
Do ANY of the shipyards or supporting fabrication infrastructure still exist, even if only parts with heavy damage.
Any records of shipments of weapons- or anything else- out of system and delivery points or end-users.
Any "Astro control" records of non-Galton shipping visiting the system.

What are the chances that the GA is running medical testing on the (at least) remains of identifiable senior military and non-milady personnel to try and identify any "interesting" modifications to DNA as is suggested by what is already known/belived of the Alignment?

Didn't Jack's little info-dump provide information on some personnel on the Houdini lists? I suspect that the Intel folks will also be looking for:
a) anybody, or any bodies, that match personnel evacuated from Mesa.
b) any discrepancy in names or numbers between those believed to have been evacuated and those found at Galton.

They'd want to talk to, or investigate the former. And too many of the latter might (correctly) indicate that the MAlign has at least one more site beyond Galton.

Jonathan_S wrote:Didn't Jack's little info-dump provide information on some personnel on the Houdini lists? I suspect that the Intel folks will also be looking for:
a) anybody, or any bodies, that match personnel evacuated from Mesa.
b) any discrepancy in names or numbers between those believed to have been evacuated and those found at Galton.

They'd want to talk to, or investigate the former. And too many of the latter might (correctly) indicate that the MAlign has at least one more site beyond Galton.

And the technology for the nanites.

In the Selker Rift there is a rogue wave called the Selker Shear, as we all know. I've always visualized the Selker Shear to be like an unexpected very powerful Tsunami. The Streak Drive may be able to tame the Shear, well, ride the wave like a surfer hanging ten. And if that is possible for a Streak Drive, who knows what velocity a Streak Boat can attain riding the Shear. Groovy dude, like groovy man.

penny wrote:In the Selker Rift there is a rogue wave called the Selker Shear, as we all know. I've always visualized the Selker Shear to be like an unexpected very powerful Tsunami. The Streak Drive may be able to tame the Shear, well, ride the wave like a surfer hanging ten. And if that is possible for a Streak Drive, who knows what velocity a Streak Boat can attain riding the Shear. Groovy dude, like groovy man.

Too bad that your imagination did not remember that the streak drive is a hopped up hyper-generator and only has effect when changing hyper bands (or transitioning in or out of normal space). It has nothing to do with physical movement within a band (or normal space).

The maximum velocity is set by particle shielding, not the strength of the drive.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:In the Selker Rift there is a rogue wave called the Selker Shear, as we all know. I've always visualized the Selker Shear to be like an unexpected very powerful Tsunami. The Streak Drive may be able to tame the Shear, well, ride the wave like a surfer hanging ten. And if that is possible for a Streak Drive, who knows what velocity a Streak Boat can attain riding the Shear. Groovy dude, like groovy man.

Too bad that your imagination did not remember that the streak drive is a hopped up hyper-generator and only has effect when changing hyper bands (or transitioning in or out of normal space). It has nothing to do with physical movement within a band (or normal space).

The maximum velocity is set by particle shielding, not the strength of the drive.

Though it's not impossible that the Steak Drive could negate the Selker Shear, though in a totally different way that Penny is imagining.

That's because the Shear might not actually stretch all the way up into the Kappa bands -- so there's some chance that a Streak Drive equipped boat could simply fly 'over' it. (As some grav waves are known not to reach all bands of hyper) However it'd probably take years of surveying to establish with any certainty that the Shear doesn't sometimes materialize in the Kappa bands -- as it's hard to prove a negative [G]

When surfing, a surfer goes faster when he surfs across the face of the wave. Called trim. Because of wave energy. Trimming is the act of cutting back (across the wave) to gain speed.

When sailing, there are a few techniques to increase speed by trimming the mainsail according to the wind and wind pressure.

Likewise, perhaps the MA has improved the dynamics of the Warshawski Sail and made it more efficient. Or, rather, in the case of the Selker Shear, safer or manageable.

In addition, I was thinking the streak drive may actually enable the ship to interact with a wave in a totally different manner. For example, instead of bouncing off a wave, can ride the outside of a wave.

penny wrote:When surfing, a surfer goes faster when he surfs across the face of the wave. Called trim. Because of wave energy. Trimming is the act of cutting back (across the wave) to gain speed.

When sailing, there are a few techniques to increase speed by trimming the mainsail according to the wind and wind pressure.

Likewise, perhaps the MA has improved the dynamics of the Warshawski Sail and made it more efficient. Or, rather, in the case of the Selker Shear, safer or manageable.

In addition, I was thinking the streak drive may actually enable the ship to interact with a wave in a totally different manner. For example, instead of bouncing off a wave, can ride the outside of a wave.

I agree with what you say about sails and surfing, but the streak drive has nothing to do with motion within a hyperspace band. Its ONLY effect is in allowing access to higher bands than a normal hyper-generator can manage.

penny wrote:When surfing, a surfer goes faster when he surfs across the face of the wave. Called trim. Because of wave energy. Trimming is the act of cutting back (across the wave) to gain speed.

When sailing, there are a few techniques to increase speed by trimming the mainsail according to the wind and wind pressure.

Likewise, perhaps the MA has improved the dynamics of the Warshawski Sail and made it more efficient. Or, rather, in the case of the Selker Shear, safer or manageable.

In addition, I was thinking the streak drive may actually enable the ship to interact with a wave in a totally different manner. For example, instead of bouncing off a wave, can ride the outside of a wave.

Sails can already accelerate hard enough to overwhelm the inertial compensator and turn all the occupants to mush. What you'd need to, somehow, improve is the depth of the "inertial sump" which doesn't sound like it is influenced by any aspect of the sail -- that seems to be an effect of the inertial compensator. When the RMN got better acceleration it wasn't because of breakthroughs in sail or wedge design; it was (Grayson inspired) breakthroughs in compensator design that allowed deeper sumps and/or more efficient use of the sumps by the compensator.

Here's what RFC says about sail acceleration

More Than Honor: The Universe of Honor Harrington wrote:The natural grav waves of hyper-space, with their incomparably greater power, offered a much "deeper" sump than the artificial stress bands of the impeller drive, which meant that a Warshawski Sail ship could deflect vastly more g force from its passengers than one under impeller drive. In general terms, the compensator permitted humans to endure acceleration rates approaching 550 g under impeller drive and 4-5,000 g under sail, which allows hyperships to make up "bleed-off" velocity very quickly after translation. These numbers are for military compensators, which tend to be more massive, more energy and maintenance intensive, and much more expensive than those used in most merchant construction.

(And hopefully those MAlign ships are packing an inertial compensator despite being unable to use it under spider drive -- else their acceleration limit even in a wave will remain the 150g or so their crew can sustain long term (somewhat higher if they're willing to be subject to 2 or 3g on a long term basis)

But frankly improving sail acceleration is a really marginal benefit. Ships almost never fight in a grav wave, so tactical acceleration is basically moot. And strategically it just doesn't take much difference because you already reach your top speed so quickly. Doubling your acceleration (from the 5000g in the quote) would drop your total trip time by, just under 31 minutes. Instead of taking 61.2 minutes to hit top speed (0.6c) it now takes 30.6 minutes. Doesn't mater how long the trip is; you save about half an hour.

In contrast, the streak drive, by allowing you to climb two hyper bands further, will cut the trip time by 31% - which is going to save you vastly more than a half hour on any real trip.


You recently said something similar about how you thought the streak drive might affect how ships interact with grav waves. I forget which poster reminded you that because the streak drive is only an improved hyper generator that this simply can not be the case.
Hyper generators have no affect on how a ship moves once it is within a given hyper band; they only allow it to cross hyper walls between bands.

"Streak drive" is just a slightly deceptive cover name, like the US calling it's WWII air dropped anti-submarine acoustic homing torpedo the Mark 24 mine. Hopefully mislead any unauthorized person who overhears or comes across a passing reference to it -- in a way they wouldn't if you called it the streak hyper generator (plus that's just an awkward mouthful to say every time)

Jonathan_S wrote:You recently said something similar about how you thought the streak drive might affect how ships interact with grav waves. I forget which poster reminded you that because the streak drive is only an improved hyper generator that this simply can not be the case.
Hyper generators have no affect on how a ship moves once it is within a given hyper band; they only allow it to cross hyper walls between bands.

Unless there are strategically-significant grav waves accessible in those bands that aren't present in the lower ones. That is going to require years of mapping hyperspace to know, though: the waves don't have to be in the direct path from points A to B.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:You recently said something similar about how you thought the streak drive might affect how ships interact with grav waves. I forget which poster reminded you that because the streak drive is only an improved hyper generator that this simply can not be the case.
Hyper generators have no affect on how a ship moves once it is within a given hyper band; they only allow it to cross hyper walls between bands.

Unless there are strategically-significant grav waves accessible in those bands that aren't present in the lower ones. That is going to require years of mapping hyperspace to know, though: the waves don't have to be in the direct path from points A to B.

That would allow the ship to climb to hyper bands high enough to access such a hypothetical wave. And I'd mentioned another possibility - that some of the known rogue waves might not reach as high as the kappa bands.

Once that multi-year surveying was done your option could let ships travel more safely through those new waves; and my option could let them climb 'over' dangerous rogue waves without having to slow down and pick their way slowly past.

But neither is the hyper generator changing how the ship sails any given wave (which is what penny was proposing) -- it still merely provides access to higher hyper bands.