The Two General's Problem

tlb wrote:No, no no; the comment about pressure was only concerned with your remark about ear popping due to changes in speed. Changes in speed do NOT cause the ear popping sound, that is due to the eustachian tube intermittently allowing air through to equalize pressure. That had nothing to do with space travel, it is normally felt when flying in an airplane.

The only part of my post that had to do with space was your comment about feeling velocity changes in ways that are bad for the body. Simply put the compensator (or gravity plate) isolates the people inside the ship from the effects of changing either the ship's speed or direction (that is any outside acceleration).

Well the way we do space travel ear popping sometimes would apply. All the current stuff the US uses (Dragon, Starliner, ISS) wouldn't have ear popping because they maintain pretty much standard atmospheric pressure (14.7 PSI).

But our older stuff operated on lower internal pressures (Mercury & Gemini 5.5 PSI, Apollo 5 PSI), and so when the hatches were closed and the air pressure dropped astronauts might well experience ear popping -- but for the exact same reason you do in a plane, relatively rapid change of air pressure.
Heck, I've had my ears pop driving up or down a mountain.

But yeah, it's definitely not from speed. No ears popping when doing 65 or whatever on a flat highway, but ears popping when doing 30 up a steep mountain road.

Jonathan_S wrote:Well the way we do space travel ear popping sometimes would apply. All the current stuff the US uses (Dragon, Starliner, ISS) wouldn't have ear popping because they maintain pretty much standard atmospheric pressure (14.7 PSI).

But our older stuff operated on lower internal pressures (Mercury & Gemini 5.5 PSI, Apollo 5 PSI), and so when the hatches were closed and the air pressure dropped astronauts might well experience ear popping -- but for the exact same reason you do in a plane, relatively rapid change of air pressure.
Heck, I've had my ears pop driving up or down a mountain.

But yeah, it's definitely not from speed. No ears popping when doing 65 or whatever on a flat highway, but ears popping when doing 30 up a steep mountain road.

Interesting information, but I would expect a ship in the Honorverse to maintain a constant cabin air pressure (no matter what speed changes are made, even when making hyperspace translations), so no ear popping sounds there.

Of course a combat situation might affect the cabin pressure, with subsequent eustachian tube activity.

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Well the way we do space travel ear popping sometimes would apply. All the current stuff the US uses (Dragon, Starliner, ISS) wouldn't have ear popping because they maintain pretty much standard atmospheric pressure (14.7 PSI).

But our older stuff operated on lower internal pressures (Mercury & Gemini 5.5 PSI, Apollo 5 PSI), and so when the hatches were closed and the air pressure dropped astronauts might well experience ear popping -- but for the exact same reason you do in a plane, relatively rapid change of air pressure.
Heck, I've had my ears pop driving up or down a mountain.

But yeah, it's definitely not from speed. No ears popping when doing 65 or whatever on a flat highway, but ears popping when doing 30 up a steep mountain road.

Interesting information, but I would expect a ship in the Honorverse to maintain a constant cabin air pressure (no matter what speed changes are made, even when making hyperspace translations), so no ear popping sounds there.

Of course a combat situation might affect the cabin pressure, with subsequent eustachian tube activity.

I'm sorry, my badd. I thought both of you knew that I was referring to the text Jonathan posted on the previous page from HotQ...

Fearless hit the gamma wall, and her Warshawski sails bled transit energy like an azure forest fire. Her velocity dropped almost instantly from .3 C to a mere nine percent of light-speed, and Honor’s stomach heaved as her inner ear rebelled against a speed loss the rest of her senses couldn’t even detect. DuMorne’s calculations had allowed for the energy bleed, and their translation gradient steepened even further as their velocity fell. They hit the beta wall four minutes later, and Honor winced again—less violently this time—as their velocity bled down to less than two percent of light-speed.

Honor winced at each ∆V.

penny wrote:I'm sorry, my badd. I thought you both knew that I was referring to the text Jonathan posted on the previous page from HotQ...

Fearless hit the gamma wall, and her Warshawski sails bled transit energy like an azure forest fire. Her velocity dropped almost instantly from .3 C to a mere nine percent of light-speed, and Honor’s stomach heaved as her inner ear rebelled against a speed loss the rest of her senses couldn’t even detect. DuMorne’s calculations had allowed for the energy bleed, and their translation gradient steepened even further as their velocity fell. They hit the beta wall four minutes later, and Honor winced again—less violently this time—as their velocity bled down to less than two percent of light-speed.

Honor winced at each ∆V.

No, I was confused by you referring to it as ear popping. Honor winced at going through the wall, the text specifically says it is NOT something that could be sensed as a change in velocity would be (except somehow by the inner ear, unless it is the brain interpreting it as coming from the inner ear). But note that is NOT the same thing as ear popping. The inner ear (not the ear drum) has to do with balance and any fault in it results in vertigo or nausea. There are a number of texts about nausea resulting from a crash translation. From OBS:

chapter 5 wrote:Killian held her rock-steady, and Honor blinked as the first, familiar wave of queasiness assailed her. Very few people ever really adjusted to the indescribable sensation of crossing the wall between n-space and hyper-space, and it was worse in a junction transit, for the gradient was far steeper. By the same token, however, it was over sooner, she reminded herself, and concentrated on looking unbothered as the rippling nausea grew stronger.

The maneuvering display blinked again, and then, for an instant no chronometer or human sense could measure, HMS Fearless ceased to exist. One moment she was here, in Manticore space; the next she was there, six hundred light-minutes from the star named Basilisk, just over two hundred and ten light-years distant in Einsteinian space, and Honor swallowed in relief as her nausea vanished, disappearing with the transit energy radiating from Fearless's sails.

In a number of places there is mention that this gets worse when more speed is carried through the translation; but this is all somehow a reaction to the transit.

Sure. But I'm not arguing whether anyone can detect a change in velocity. I'm arguing whether the effects caused by too drastic a change of velocity has the potential to be damaging to the body, if (assuming it can be done) a ship dives through the lower bands from the higher bands (particularly from the iota and kappa walls) lingering as little as possible in each lower band before entering n-space. Again, the potential for damaging certain organs of the body is the only reason I thought a ship spends several minutes in each band enroute to n-space. Hence my question, can a warship make a more direct descent to n-space.

Note, a streak drive ship should experience more of this effect.

Also, I consider a rebellion of the ear as detecting the change in velocity. It happens to me on rollercoasters that feature very steep drops, like the Loch Ness Monster. I chew gum to counteract the effect. Ear popping follows on very turbulent flights. Gum helps here as well. At any rate, Honor's side effects lessen with each descent. Because her body adjusts, or because of a diminishing effect due to a lower band, I dunno.

At any rate, I surmised the popping of the eardrums might result at too quick a dive to n-space; too steep a gradient; less pause or no pause in-between changes of bands. Hence, the MA might have eliminated the effects thus allowing for a more direct descent to n-space.

Anyway, I could never account for the nausea or the inner ear rebellion in any circumstance. I still can't.

penny wrote:Sure. But I'm not arguing whether anyone can detect a change in velocity. I'm arguing whether the effects caused by too drastic a change of velocity has the potential to be damaging to the body, if (assuming it can be done) a ship dives through the lower bands from the higher bands (particularly from the iota and kappa walls) lingering as little as possible in each lower band before entering n-space. Again, the potential for damaging certain organs of the body is the only reason I thought a ship spends several minutes in each band enroute to n-space. Hence my question, can a warship make a more direct descent to n-space.

Note, a streak drive ship should experience more of this effect.

Why aren't you arguing about the effect translation has on the body? That is why the nausea occurs. If you want to talk about a change in velocity, Fearless was going very slow both entering and leaving the wormhole transit to Basilisk.

If you really believe that; then a more direct descent to N-space is not what you want, because that is even more of a velocity change. But it could easily be that I still do not understand you: are you talking about the velocity change within a band or the change when going through a wall?

My personal belief is that the hyper-generator has to spin up each time a ship goes through a wall. If so, then there is no more direct way, each wall has to be be passed and the time spent in each descending band is due to the recharging of the generator.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:Sure. But I'm not arguing whether anyone can detect a change in velocity. I'm arguing whether the effects caused by too drastic a change of velocity has the potential to be damaging to the body, if (assuming it can be done) a ship dives through the lower bands from the higher bands (particularly from the iota and kappa walls) lingering as little as possible in each lower band before entering n-space. Again, the potential for damaging certain organs of the body is the only reason I thought a ship spends several minutes in each band enroute to n-space. Hence my question, can a warship make a more direct descent to n-space.

Note, a streak drive ship should experience more of this effect.

Why aren't you arguing about the effect translation has on the body? That is why the nausea occurs. If you want to talk about a change in velocity, Fearless was going very slow both entering and leaving the wormhole transit to Basilisk.

If you really believe that; then a more direct descent to N-space is not what you want, because that is even more of a velocity change. But it could easily be that I still do not understand you: are you talking about the velocity change within a band or the change when going through a wall?

My personal belief is that the hyper-generator has to spin up each time a ship goes through a wall. If so, then there is no more direct way, each wall has to be be passed and the time spent in each descending band is due to the recharging of the generator.

Ditto. It's all related.

Anyway, I am questioning that as well. Above I stated that I cannot account for the effect, in any case.

BTW, I also thought it odd that the same symptoms fail to appear when stilletos from the bomb-pumped lasers hit the ship making it lurch. Like "hitting a wall."

My inner ear rebels instantly on very steep vertical drops like rollercoasters, and the piddling drop of planes during turbulence, on the ocean during very rocky seas, and on the swing on playgrounds as a kid. Swings made me nauseous. Heck, once upon a time reading while moving in a car caused me nausea. But somehow, reading on a high speed train never did.

Here is my personal take on all of this, repeating some things I have already said. I do not expect many (if any) to agree; but if people have better ideas, then let us hear them.

Within normal space or a hyperspace band, the compensator isolates the crew from all outside acceleration (whether due to velocity or direction changes). However if the hull is hit by something (including an energy beam), then there is some inside acceleration, which could be felt.

The discomfort of passing though a wormhole or hyperspace wall is due to something acting directly on the brain, which has the same symptoms as the nausea created by vertigo (the brain is interpreting it as an upset of the inner ear). So the effect is not purely psychological (as shown by the nausea dependence on the velocity when entering the transition), the hyper-generator and/or field of the wall is acting somehow on the delicate currents of the brain.

The hyper-generator has to spin up each time a ship goes through a wall and the time spent in each intermediate band is due to the recharging of the generator. There is no shortcut that allows skipping some bands.

tlb wrote:Here is my personal take on all of this, repeating some things I have already said. I do not expect many (if any) to agree; but if people have better ideas, then let us hear them.

Within normal space or a hyperspace band, the compensator isolates the crew from all outside acceleration (whether due to velocity or direction changes). However if the hull is hit by something (including an energy beam), then there is some inside acceleration, which could be felt.

The discomfort of passing though a wormhole or hyperspace wall is due to something acting directly on the brain, which has the same symptoms as the nausea created by vertigo (the brain is interpreting it as an upset of the inner ear). So the effect is not purely psychological (as shown by the nausea dependence on the velocity when entering the transition), the hyper-generator and/or field of the wall is acting somehow on the delicate currents of the brain.

The hyper-generator has to spin up each time a ship goes through a wall and the time spent in each intermediate band is due to the recharging of the generator. There is no shortcut that allows skipping some bands.

I question why you'd be able to feel anything else beyond what is already felt. To expect the crew to feel laser hits is to expect the compensator to fail momentarily. A momentary failure should turn crew to paste.

tlb wrote:Within normal space or a hyperspace band, the compensator isolates the crew from all outside acceleration (whether due to velocity or direction changes). However if the hull is hit by something (including an energy beam), then there is some inside acceleration, which could be felt.

penny wrote:I question why you'd be able to feel anything else beyond what is already felt. To expect the crew to feel laser hits is to expect the compensator to fail momentarily. A momentary failure should turn crew to paste.

I seems to me that somewhere you mentioned that there are examples of ships receiving internal damage from being hit. So I do not understand the distinction that you are trying to make in this sentence: "I question why you'd be able to feel anything else beyond what is already felt". What is the "else" that is beyond what it already felt? I was trying to say that the hit will have effects that cannot be dampened by the compensator: that the compensator only nullifies external accelerations and not those within the hull.

If you read the following quote, I hope you can see that the crew are definitely going to feel the effects of something like the following hit. From Honor Among Enemies:

Chapter 21 wrote:Webster's ship shuddered as that solitary hit ripped into her unarmored hull, and damage alarms wailed. Missile Three vanished, and the same hit smashed clear to Boat Bay One and tore two cutters and a pinnace—none, fortunately, manned—to splinters. Seventeen men and women were killed, and eleven more wounded, but for all that, Scheherazade got off incredibly lightly.