?

penny wrote:* Is the reason the GA didn't send a peaceful and respectful mission to Galton first because they were afraid that Galton would do to their disrespectful messengers what King Leonidas did to the disrespectful messenger sent by the Persians?

No, though Galton might do that too. The issue was the tactical loss of surprise.

In any case, war had been declared on the Mesan Alignment and this system was part of the Alignment by its own admission. Ergo, it was a legitimate enemy. Honor asking for its surrender was perfectly legal.

penny wrote:Huh? Pulling creates resistance. Ever participated in a tug of war?

I fail to see how that passage changes anything.

tlb wrote:Where exactly is this resistance? It is not in the Alpha wall, because by the author's words the tractor beam will "lock onto the wall". It is not in the ship or missile, which is just floating in space (you write as though it was sitting on sand paper). The only resistance is inertial, which is NOT friction. Your are basing your argument on a bad analogy. A "tug of war" is another bad analogy.

penny wrote:Tlb says there is no resistance then he goes on to say that the only resistance is inertial.

You keep saying there is friction (or perhaps resistance). The only resistance that I can see is inertia. So I simply asked where this friction resides (the resistance that you previously wanted to talk about).

You seem to be claiming that friction against the Alpha wall (with attendant heating) will help the spider drive stop faster; but the author says the beams were "reaching out, locking onto the alpha wall and pulling in micro-spaced bursts", so no friction there.

Why do you talk about a mechanical breakdown as though it were indication of friction at the Alpha wall? We get that the tractor beams are strong enough to break objects that we create. But they are not as strong as a sail or a wedge which can create ripples on the wall and no one talks about friction with them.

PS: Honor's fleet at Galton was not a peace mission, the Malign had done too much; it was a "reconnaissance in force". She did give them a chance to explain and they admitted everything.

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penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:(You'd then, presumably, need to quickly release and grab a new point closer to you and repeat the process -- each grab from each drive projector implying a brief force that collectively works to cancel out your base velocity)

Yes! The truth is in your own words. You need to grab a point closer to you. What's even better is to grab the point closest to you. Which would be the same for a spider-drive as it is for a train. The point on the rails of a train which are the closest is where the train actually sits.

Very late edit: To be clear, each tractor is reaching out and grabbing the wall closest to it. Therefore, there are as many overpowered Brembo brakes as there are tractors.

But all the tractor-like beam constantly reaching and grabbing, pulling, and releasing in microbursts is exactly how the spider drive works to acceleration the ship -- so why should this same action pull harder when applying acceleration in the opposite direction (e.g. showing down)?

The spider node emitters are going going to be rated for so much pulling power. Their attachment to the ship structure is only going to be designed to be so strong -- making it capable of transmitting far more power than usual would have significant trade-offs. And the crew still can only survive so many gs -- so there's not much engineering point in building a drive with pulling power (or stopping power if those are different) and anchor points capable of applying far more force than the crew can take.

Also, it's not clear how much the spider node emitters -- which I'd assume need to be very solidly attached to the ship, to pull it along at up to ~300g in it's limited duration emergency power settings - are build with a wide arc they can aim at. The ones built into the MAlign's various spider ships may not be able to grab beside or behind the ship; since accelerating it seems to only require them to grab somewhat ahead of it. So we don't know whether it's range of motion could even allow it to grab the closest point (which would be beside the ship) and, like a wedge or rocket powered ship might have to flip over to slow down




So we might have a situation where, in theory, it might have more power slowing down but, in real-world practice, the limits or its engineering and physiological limits of its crew means i doesn't. (Kind of like, in theory, a wedge could accelerate instantly to lightspeed; but, in practice, things propelled by it very very much can't

ThinksMarkedly wrote:It would have eventually been found. You can't hide your entire civilisation in the EM bands, so a nearby neighbour with sufficient spare capital to invest in astronomy would notice you eventually once light from your system propagated there. David has not used this argument and I actually doubt he will, but I also doubt he'll fail it.

Do note that Galton is about 200 light-years away from Mannerheim and was founded just over 200 T-years ago. Those two numbers being close is not a coincidence: the colony couldn't have been much closer. I'm guessing Darius has no developed neighbours within 150 light-years either. Plus, Darius hasn't had much of a space industry for 150 of its 180 years of existence, so no one closer than about 20 light-years would have anything to note in the first place.

In fact, discovering Darius may be one of the things he's having add backstory for, because as we've discussed, there's no way the GA can find it unless the information comes from Darius itself (fifth column leaking information out, etc.)

Maybe it's hidden by stellar dust, like Calvin/Bolthole, thus no EM signatures of civilization may escape.

tlb wrote:Obviously Darius has to be found and revealed to be evil at some point. It seems logical that Galton would have to be revealed as a whipping boy as part of that process. I am just not ready to say that Galton's secondary status is glaringly apparent from what we currently know (even though there should have been myriads of Cataphracts waiting for Honor's fleet, not just the ones shot after the surrender).

I just remembered that in his first Interview for the "Honorverse Today" podcast, RFC himself hinted that Audrey O'Hanrahan might play a role in the Discovery of Darius.

She doesn't know where Darius is, but she knows that it exists, and still has contact persons or communication channels which could be traced back.

So seeded with enough doubts by Zilwicki & friends whether Galton or Darius are responsible for things like the bombs on Mesa and Beowulf space stations, she might give them the lead.

Ok, I've suggested this before. As Ricardo Montalban said to Kirk, “It tasks me.” And misery loves company. There has to be a reason this isn't possible. I can count on you guys for finding holes in applications. Poor Shannon and Sonja.

Anyways, particle density always comes up as one of the reasons that top speed is limited.

Like I said, I broached the subject before. But now that I have discovered how easily gravity is managed, well… why can't a wedge-like particle screen sweep ahead of the ship? Intuitively at least, a wedge-like particle screen should be even more effective.

Granted, I am not certain of the manner that the existing particle screens work. IINM, they operate like repulser beams? Again, intuitively, that should prove to be less effective than a wedge-like shield projected ahead.

A repulser beam’s limitations should manifest itself much sooner than a wedge at speeds. The faster the ship travels the less time the repulser beam would have to react because of decreasing efficiency. Thus, the distance between the ship and the particles should decrease.

Incidentally, the operation of the particle screens seems to suggest that gravity beams operate instantaneously. Which is why I suggest the operation of the much more powerful tractors of a spider drive should also react… instantaneously. Similarly to the reason I prefer naturally aspirated engines over turbos. Any lag time just isn't acceptable, and could downright prove to be fatal.

Since wedge based ships enjoy a spindle shape, it seems to me to be an optimum shape for this application. But perhaps for whatever reason a spider ship's shape might assist in adopting this application.

Also, GA ships must flip to decelerate. What is protecting the ship from particles as it is flipping?

Another question. Would you all concur that intuitively, particle density should be much higher in hyper?

At any rate, why doesn't this work? Keep in mind that a wedge already withstands a much larger missile traveling at a significant percentage of C.

There were several people who suggested a wedge would even withstand my proposed NIMMs. Near Infinite Mass Missiles. See page 128 upstream in this thread for the beginning of that conversation.

The only thing I can conceive of that might thwart this application is the possible interference of the two wedges. Granting that the geometry of the ship taken in consideration with what creates a wedge would allow another umbrella-like wedge to be formed ahead of the forward wedge.

penny wrote:Ok, I've suggested this before. As Ricardo Montalban said to Kirk, “It tasks me.” And misery loves company. There has to be a reason this isn't possible. I can count on you guys for finding holes in applications. Poor Shannon and Sonja.

Anyways, particle density always comes up as one of the reasons that top speed is limited.

Like I said, I broached the subject before. But now that I have discovered how easily gravity is managed, well… why can't a wedge-like particle screen sweep ahead of the ship? Intuitively at least, a wedge-like particle screen should be even more effective.

Granted, I am not certain of the manner that the existing particle screens work. IINM, they operate like repulser beams? Again, intuitively, that should prove to be less effective than a wedge-like shield projected ahead.

A repulser beam’s limitations should manifest itself much sooner than a wedge at speeds. The faster the ship travels the less time the repulser beam would have to react because of decreasing efficiency. Thus, the distance between the ship and the particles should decrease.

Incidentally, the operation of the particle screens seems to suggest that gravity beams operate instantaneously. Which is why I suggest the operation of the much more powerful tractors of a spider drive should also react… instantaneously. Similarly to the reason I prefer naturally aspirated engines over turbos. Any lag time just isn't acceptable, and could downright prove to be fatal.

Since wedge based ships enjoy a spindle shape, it seems to me to be an optimum shape for this application. But perhaps for whatever reason a spider ship's shape might assist in adopting this application.

Also, GA ships must flip to decelerate. What is protecting the ship from particles as it is flipping?

Another question. Would you all concur that intuitively, particle density should be much higher in hyper?

At any rate, why doesn't this work? Keep in mind that a wedge already withstands a much larger missile traveling at a significant percentage of C.

There were several people who suggested a wedge would even withstand my proposed NIMMs. Near Infinite Mass Missiles. See page 128 upstream in this thread for the beginning of that conversation.

The only thing I can conceived of that might thwart this application is the possible interference of the two wedges. Granting that the geometry of the ship taken in consideration with what creates a wedge would allow another umbrella-like wedge to be formed ahead of the forward wedge.

I agree, the thing you are talking about is called a buckler and should work great as a particle shield. Note that you do not want to completely close the front aspect, because then the ship cannot maneuver. When the ship flips, then have the buckler in the rear aspect.

Why do you think the action of either the particle shield or spider tractor beam is instantaneous? At the distances involved, light speed is close enough to instantaneous.

Yes, there is much less lag time for a naturally aspirated engine over a turbo; but not zero lag. It is also true that a supercharged engine has much less lag.

PS: Presumably a spider ship only has Alpha nodes to project sails. To project a buckler it would also need Beta nodes, the same as a wedge ship. Moreover if a spider ship has to flip to slow down then it would not have the wedge protection while doing so (unless it actually brought up a wedge, just so it could flip).

PPS: The limitation on the particle shield is what sets the maximum speed. Whether it is due to the effect you mention or something else is up to the author. We do know that the chaser weapons are also involved for more massive obstacles, so it could be the reaction time for them that sets the max speed when using standard particle shielding.

penny wrote:Also, GA ships must flip to decelerate. What is protecting the ship from particles as it is flipping?

Another question. Would you all concur that intuitively, particle density should be much higher in hyper?

The rad and particle shielding appear to be omnidirectional - rather than a shield projected directly ahead of the ship's bow. So they'd still protect it as it performed its flip maneuver.

There's been speculation here before about whether a buckler wall might work to clear particles or micrometeorites from a ship's path -- however because the buckler is only slightly wider than the ship's maximum beam (width) it would carve only a very narrow path (possibly too narrow to prevent particles angling in behind it into the ship's path).
It also wouldn't provide any protection during a flip maneuver or if you have to change vector so were accelerating at an angle to your base velocity.
(The former, if sidewalls do provide extra protection, you could possibly mitigate by switching from buckler to full bow wall; then using thrusters to pitch until your wedge was interposed. But the later seems insolvable)

And in any case, the characters aren't stupid - and if a buckler was a practical solution to breaking the speed limit someone would already have done it. So it seems likely that, for whatever reason, RFC either doesn't want it to work that way or the maneuvering issues is insolvable and that's why they don't use it. (And issue that might apply to your wedge idea too)

And we don't need to intuit particle density in hyper. We're repeatedly and explicitly told that it is higher there and that higher particle density is why ships have a lower top speed in hyper than they do in n-space. (0.6c for warships in hyper vs 0.8c in n-space)

penny wrote:At any rate, why doesn't this work? Keep in mind that a wedge already withstands a much larger missile traveling at a significant percentage of C.

There were several people who suggested a wedge would even withstand my proposed NIMMs. Near Infinite Mass Missiles. See page 128 upstream in this thread for the beginning of that conversation.

The only thing I can conceive of that might thwart this application is the possible interference of the two wedges. Granting that the geometry of the ship taken in consideration with what creates a wedge would allow another umbrella-like wedge to be formed ahead of the forward wedge.

I agree that particles or micrometeorites aren't going to get through a wedge to damage the ship.

That said, I can think of several potential issues with your extra wedge idea
1) As you mentioned, wedge interference could be a big one -- you'd have to keep the wedges separated enough not to interfere.
That likely means it has to be out beyond the leading edge of the ship wedge (rather than tucked inside the throat of the ship's wedge. That'd mean it has to be formed hundreds of km away from the bow of the ship -- which might mean the spacing is so large that the new bow wedge can't be interposed when the ship has to turn and start building up a side vector (as particles would no longer be coming from straight ahead).

2) It's unclear if you can create just one wedge plane of if they always have to be formed in pairs. That pairing might cause more issues with how you project the extra bow wedge.

3) The only way we know to form something as powerful as wedges is with impeller rings, and the wedge forms in a very specific placement relative them them -- so to project a bow wedge out in front of the ship you might need some way to stick an extra impeller ring out there - then power it. (Quite likely requiring some kind of remove platform)

4) If you have to use a remote platform then how does it maintain station with the ship? It can't use the wedge it's generating because to shield the ship from particles that wedge needs to be basically perpendicular to the ship's wedge; so it's pointing the wrong way to accelerate with the ship. The platform would almost certainly be sitting between the two planes of its wedge and I don't think you can use pressor on a wedge, so the ship likely can't push the platform and its wedges ahead of it. (And the wedge is far enough away, and wide enough, that you can't practically build a physical structure to reach around the edges of it to grab the platform -- such a structure would be hundreds of times the size of the ship it was mounted to; and wreck the compensation field.

Also, top speed just isn't all that important. In normal space ships essentially never reach it -- even with the acceleration RMN ships can now pull (say 600g) you'd have to accelerate in a straight line for over 11 hours, covering 4.5 lighthours (so way more that the diameter of any hyper limit), just to reach the current top speed of 0.8c.
And in hyper it might help shave some time off the journey (though far less than going up one more hyper band) except ships spend as much time as possible in grav waves where your extra wedge idea can't be used -- so it'd be a lot of extra mass and complexity for something that could almost never be used.

It occurs to me that I probably should have written my previous post the other way around.

How important is top speed to an Honorverse ship?

In normal space acceleration is important but top speed basically never is. Ships just normally never go far enough in normal space to work up to their full speed. Even a modern RMN destroyer running from Manticore to the Junction (7 lighthours) isn't quite long enough to work up to her full speed (assuming she wants to stop at the Junction).

Wolfhound-class max normal accel is 706.2g (90% of her zero safety margin accel of 784.7g), on that 7 LH run her velocity would peak at 0.76c, just over 9 hours into the run, as she made turnover. And given that most combat happens within a hyper limit (which is less than 1 LH in diameter) and ships can carry negligible velocity in from hyper, and outside of very, very, unusual circumstances top speed is just never an issue for regular ships.

And in hyper top speed does have an effect (though far less of one than which hyper band you're in). by far the most common place to find a ship actually traveling at her top speed is while sailing down a grav wave between systems. (Of course she doesn't have wedge or sidewalls available to her there -- so no method of increasing top speed that relies on those will work in this situation where a top speed boost would give the most advantage).

So you can see why likely not a lot of effort had gone into improving top speeds -- and certainly not with systems that can't work in a grav wave.



Now, a Spider ship that needs to sneak into a system with a first class deep space gravitational detection array does have to make much, much, longer normal space transit than any normal ship. The ones that attack Manticore had to drop out of hyper lightmonths out, not to avoid detection (their emergence was detected) but to have enough time before a reaction force could arrive that they were able to use their Spider drives to sneak away. So a mechanism that let them improve their top speed would shave some time off their insertion - though even improving it to 0.95c would only shave 15% of a trip that takes months.

However a spider ship isn't going to accept any speed improving system based on wedge technology because that'd give up the very stealth they rely on to sneak in. Also, to avoid making the kind of charge particle wakes that let Honor's fleet detect the attacks at Galton, the spider ships may be keeping their peak velocity well below the 0.8c that normal rad shielding can already provide.


So even for Spider ships there just doesn't seem to be much benefit in researching improved top speeds -- and certainly not in any mechanism for that based around a wedge or wedge-like strong artificial gravity projection.

Jonathan_S wrote:There's been speculation here before about whether a buckler wall might work to clear particles or micrometeorites from a ship's path -- however because the buckler is only slightly wider than the ship's maximum beam (width) it would carve only a very narrow path (possibly too narrow to prevent particles angling in behind it into the ship's path).
It also wouldn't provide any protection during a flip maneuver or if you have to change vector so were accelerating at an angle to your base velocity.
(The former, if sidewalls do provide extra protection, you could possibly mitigate by switching from buckler to full bow wall; then using thrusters to pitch until your wedge was interposed. But the later seems insolvable)

I am not sure that a buckler is limited to being only slightly wider than the ships beam. But if it is, the solution would be to form it closer to the ship, so the wedge and sidewalls stop anything that tries to angle in behind. That also takes care of the ship while flipping (which will require a second buckler behind before the front buckler is turned off) or turning.

I think your point about the problem with anything other than sails, while in a gravity wave, is sufficient to explain why no one has bothered to replace the normal particle shielding.

PS: We are only told of the wedge forming two walls, above and below the ship. Anything else is a sidewall (which can be pierced), so there is not a way to form a single wedge wall in front of the ship.