The Two General's Problem

penny wrote:Can the registry of a DB be determined in hyper? Especially if it isn't broadcasting its registry in hyper. Which I doubt is galactic law. And not enough justification even if it is law.

Unknown. We know ships have IFF transponders which seem to normally broadcast their registration - and we also know they can be reset to broadcast false info.

Honor Among Enemies wrote:Resetting the transponder beacon of a starship was the equivalent of the old wet-navy trick of flying false colors. It was acknowledged as a legitimate ruse de guerre by most star nations and sanctioned by half a dozen interstellar accords, but the Andermani Empire had never formally accepted it.

From that same book it looks like ships normally run their transponders in hyper (certainly Wayfarer was running her transponder using one of her false Andy identities when she stumbled across the fleeing liner with the Hauptmans aboard)

But it looks like a ship has limited ability to verify that a transponder is broadcasting accurate information. All they seem to be able to do is compare what they can see of the ship with their onboard ship recognition database. That should be quite complete and up to date on ships registered by their own government but more hit and miss on other ships (foreign ships you'd presumably only have good info on if the system they're registered with had an information sharing agreement with you; if said ship had visited one of your ports; used one of your wormholes; or happened to be near one of your warships that was visiting a foreign port.

And in interstellar space you don't have to right to stop and inspect ships on suspicion like you might within the 12 hour limit around any of your stars.

So if the transponder is on, and you're close enough to read it, you can tell who they're claiming to be. But I don't know if you're allowed to investigate further in interstellar space if a ship isn't broadcasting their transponder info. And your ability to determine the transponder ID didn't match the known characteristics of the ship it was claiming to be is highly variable. And I'm also not sure what you're legally permitted to do even if you determine a ship is likely broadcasting a false transponder ID.

My guess would be that if you can prove they're registered by your government, or their stupid or unlucky enough to falsely claim to be registered by your government you can stop and inspect them even in interstellar space. Presumably countries could sign treaties allowing similar rights to warships of their treaty partner (so Manticore might have a treaty allowing them to inspect Grayson registered shipping). But otherwise you likely don't have any right to do anything even if you know they're lying about who they are.

Jonathan_S wrote:And in interstellar space you don't have to right to stop and inspect ships on suspicion like you might within the 12 hour limit around any of your stars.

But during an interstellar war, when a ship is arriving or departing an enemy or suspicious location (such as an unoccupied star system), are you saying that the ship would not be stopped and searched?

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:And in interstellar space you don't have to right to stop and inspect ships on suspicion like you might within the 12 hour limit around any of your stars.

But during an interstellar war, when a ship is arriving or departing an enemy or suspicious location (such as an unoccupied star system), are you saying that the ship would not be stopped and searched?

The rule around war zone might be different. It's not something RFC has elaborated on.

And you likely have good ship ident info on enemy warships (and their systems), so if it's a warship leaving an unclaimed star system you'd likely know if it was your enemies; in which case you can obviously attack it.

But if you found a freighter broadcasting no (or obviously false) ID departing from an unclaimed star near your enemy's (or your own) territory during time of war I don't know what the rules would be.

Jonathan_S wrote:But during an interstellar war, when a ship is arriving or departing an enemy or suspicious location (such as an unoccupied star system), are you saying that the ship would not be stopped and searched?

The rule around war zone might be different. It's not something RFC has elaborated on.

And you likely have good ship ident info on enemy warships (and their systems), so if it's a warship leaving an unclaimed star system you'd likely know if it was your enemies; in which case you can obviously attack it.

But if you found a freighter broadcasting no (or obviously false) ID departing from an unclaimed star near your enemy's (or your own) territory during time of war I don't know what the rules would be.[/quote]
Also, as a practical matter, in a war the fine points of international laws often get ignored. So even if you technically don't have the right to do anything that might not stop you.

In wartime in general the laws of war and the international laws that get strictly followed tend to be the ones where bad things are likely to happen to violators. Those could be direct reciprocal retaliation by your enemy; neutral governments outraged enough to stop trading with you and/or close their ports to your shipping; neutral government cutting off economic or military support; or the specific neutral you offended taking more direct economical or military action against you or in support of your enemy. (The later being something like how in WWI German unrestricted submarine warfare was no small part of what brought the US into the war against them)

(So 20 years back in the Honorverse if you saw a ship from, or even purporting to be from, the League doing something sketchy but technically legal it'd be really risk to stop them to investigate. The League would have been all too likely to respond by doing economically, or possibly even militarily, painful things to you to remind you their shipping isn't to be trifled with. OTOH if you did it the same to a ship registered from, say, Mesa then who's likely to care enough to bother you for technically violating international law over it?)

Jonathan_S wrote:It's still a non-zero risk because a streak drive still has to pass through all the lower bands on its way up to or down from the Kappa bands; so there's still some tiny residual non-zero chance it might emerge in one of them near a hostile ship.

I don't think so. You see, a Dispatch Boat NEVER has to enter enemy occupied space. The DB enters hyperspace and travels up the bands from Darius. There should be no warships in any band in hyperspace near Darius. It proceeds to the two fleets awaiting in the higher bands to attack. Those two fleets took the exact same route.

tlb wrote:But during an interstellar war, when a ship is arriving or departing an enemy or suspicious location (such as an unoccupied star system), are you saying that the ship would not be stopped and searched?

Jonathan_S wrote:The rule around war zone might be different. It's not something RFC has elaborated on.

And you likely have good ship ident info on enemy warships (and their systems), so if it's a warship leaving an unclaimed star system you'd likely know if it was your enemies; in which case you can obviously attack it.

But if you found a freighter broadcasting no (or obviously false) ID departing from an unclaimed star near your enemy's (or your own) territory during time of war I don't know what the rules would be.

Jonathan_S wrote:Also, as a practical matter, in a war the fine points of international laws often get ignored. So even if you technically don't have the right to do anything that might not stop you.

In wartime in general the laws of war and the international laws that get strictly followed tend to be the ones where bad things are likely to happen to violators. Those could be direct reciprocal retaliation by your enemy; neutral governments outraged enough to stop trading with you and/or close their ports to your shipping; neutral government cutting off economic or military support; or the specific neutral you offended taking more direct economical or military action against you or in support of your enemy. (The later being something like how in WWI German unrestricted submarine warfare was no small part of what brought the US into the war against them)

(So 20 years back in the Honorverse if you saw a ship from, or even purporting to be from, the League doing something sketchy but technically legal it'd be really risk to stop them to investigate. The League would have been all too likely to respond by doing economically, or possibly even militarily, painful things to you to remind you their shipping isn't to be trifled with. OTOH if you did it the same to a ship registered from, say, Mesa then who's likely to care enough to bother you for technically violating international law over it?)

The mind is drawn to the encounter of Captain Bachfisch's Pirate's Bane and the two Havenite destroyers in War of Honor.

Jonathan_S wrote:It's still a non-zero risk because a streak drive still has to pass through all the lower bands on its way up to or down from the Kappa bands; so there's still some tiny residual non-zero chance it might emerge in one of them near a hostile ship.

penny wrote:I don't think so. You see, a Dispatch Boat NEVER has to enter enemy occupied space. The DB enters hyperspace and travels up the bands from Darius. There should be no warships in any band in hyperspace near Darius. It proceeds to the two fleets awaiting in the higher bands to attack. Those two fleets took the exact same route.

Interesting concept, but we have not seen it in the books. A force waiting for other ships is usually at an uninhabited system in normal space, such as at a red dwarf, using it as a rendezvous point. Two examples are: in War of Honor Admiral Lester Tourville was waiting orders to attack Honor's forces at Sidemore in one of several such systems and in Shadow of Saganami Captain Aivars Terekhov gathered his forces at Point Midway, 38 light years from Monica, while waiting for the results of the reconnaissance mission.

This appears to happen because there are no landmarks in hyperspace to serve as an assembly point. From "The Universe of Honor Harrington" in More than Honor:

(1) Background (General) wrote:At ranges above about 20 LM (359,751,000 km.) that distortion becomes so pronounced that accurate observations are impossible. One says "about 20 LM" because, depending on local conditions, that range may vary up or down by as much as 12%—that is, from 17.6 LM (316,580,880 km.) to 22.4 LM (or 402,921,120 km.). A hypership thus travels at the center of a bubble of observation from 633,161,760 to 805,842,240 km. in diameter. Even within that sphere, observations and measurements can be highly suspect; in effect, the "bubble" may be thought of as the region in which an observer can tell something is out there and very roughly where. Exact, precise observations and measurements are all but impossible above ranges of 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 km., which would make navigational fixes impossible even if there were anything to take fixes on.

This seemed to rule out any practical use of hyper-space until the development of the first "hyper log" (known as the "HL" by spacers) in 731 pd. The HL is analogous to the inertial guidance units first developed on Old Earth in the 20th century ce. By combining the input from extremely acute sensor systems with known power inputs to a vessel's own propulsive systems and running a continuous back plot of gravity gradients passed through, the HL maintains a real-time "dead reckoning" position. Early HLs were accurate to within no more than 10 LS per light-month, which meant that, in a voyage of 60 light-years, the HL position might be out by as much as two light-hours. Early hyper-space navigators thus had to be extremely cautious and make generous allowances for error in plotting their voyages, but current (1900 pd) HLs are accurate to within .4 light-second per light-month (that is, the HL position at the end of a 60 light-year voyage would be off by no more than 288 light-seconds or less than 5 light-minutes).

The navigation problem is demonstrated in Echoes of Honor chapter 38:

"We . . . overshot by one-point-three light-minutes, Citizen Admiral," Citizen Commander Huff replied. "Call it twenty-three-point-seven million klicks."

"I see." Darlington folded his hands behind him and rocked on his toes, digesting the information. Of course, it wasn't quite as simple as "overshot" might be taken to imply, he thought grimly. Task Group 12.4.2 had been supposed to emerge from hyper four million klicks from the Basilisk terminus, headed directly towards it with a velocity of five thousand kilometers per second.

But Citizen Commander Huff had blown it. In fairness, it was expecting a great deal to ask anyone to cut a hyper translation that close, but that was exactly what he'd been trained for years to do . . . and the reason TG 12.4.2 had dropped back into n-space less than two light-months out to allow him to recalibrate and recalculate.

However we have seen ships go from normal space to meet a force, usually waiting in ambush, as at Sidemore. But there it appears the ships assemble motionless at the proper spot, then all but one ascends into hyperspace. When the final ship receives the go sign, it ascends into hyperspace joining the waiting fleet. Since no distance is traveled, there is no erroneous displacement.

penny wrote:I don't think so. You see, a Dispatch Boat NEVER has to enter enemy occupied space. The DB enters hyperspace and travels up the bands from Darius. There should be no warships in any band in hyperspace near Darius. It proceeds to the two fleets awaiting in the higher bands to attack. Those two fleets took the exact same route.

While that is true, the arguments are that a) the DB can still suffer engineering casualties unrelated to the hyper band and b) the above is not an advantage, or at least a massive one.

As the post above about ranges in hyper says, unless you know exactly where the enemy is going to be, travel through hyper is effectively stealthy. It doesn't matter what your band is: simply by not going through known choke points, the DB cannot be seen, much less intercepted. And since you have lower bands too, even if you had to go through a choke point, you could choose any of the other bands in hope that the enemy isn't patrolling all of them.

And besides, this requires the enemy to know that there were two fleets poised to attack and might be communicating in the first place. How often does this happen?

Jonathan_S wrote:It's still a non-zero risk because a streak drive still has to pass through all the lower bands on its way up to or down from the Kappa bands; so there's still some tiny residual non-zero chance it might emerge in one of them near a hostile ship.

penny wrote:I don't think so. You see, a dispatch boat never has to enter enemy occupied space. The DB can simply enter hyper and travel up the bands from Darius. There should be no other warships in any other band in hyper near Darius. The DB then proceeds to the two fleets waiting in the higher bands to attack. Those two fleets took the exact same route as the DB.

tlb wrote:Interesting concept, but we have not seen it in the books. A force waiting for other ships is usually at an uninhabited system in normal space, such as at a red dwarf, using it as a rendezvous point.

-snip-

Bold mine and not tlb's.

I have been on my soapbox for a long time saying that dealing with the MAN will not be business as usual.

I was under the impression that navies gathered way out in the boondocks in an uninhabited system so as not to be discovered. A navy can’t gather in hyper in a system’s backyard waiting to attack.

That is not true of the MAN. The MAN can gather in an inhabited system way above their head "looking down on the underlings." Navigation won’t be a problem to frequently traveled systems like the MBS, etc. And they certainly won’t have a problem finding their way back home. They would have mapped that region themselves for decades.

penny wrote:I don't think so. You see, a dispatch boat never has to enter enemy occupied space. The DB can simply enter hyper and travel up the bands from Darius. There should be no other warships in any other band in hyperspace near Darius. The DB then proceeds to the two fleets waiting in the higher bands to attack. Those two fleets took the exact same route as the dispatch boat.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:While that is true, the arguments are that a) the DB can still suffer engineering casualties unrelated to the hyper band

True. And don’t forget that it can be eaten by a giant amoeba. Thus, that is why all solutions to The Two Generals’ Problem always include a second messenger. There will always be two messengers.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:and b) the above is not an advantage, or at least a massive one.

I agree! Because it is much bigger than massive!

ThinksMarkedly wrote:As the post above about ranges in hyper says, unless you know exactly where the enemy is going to be, travel through hyper is effectively stealthy. It doesn't matter what your band is: simply by not going through known choke points, the DB cannot be seen, much less intercepted. And since you have lower bands too, even if you had to go through a choke point, you could choose any of the other bands in hope that the enemy isn't patrolling all of them.

Gasp! First. No need to worry about any of that if the DB travels in an exclusive band. I’m surprised you’re using that as an argument since all of you are so fixated on removing even the unlikeliest things that can happen like a giant amoeba. In fact, it amuses me that all of you would think that the chances of an HV ship actually failing without removing the safety interlocks is greater than Tester intervening and slapping the DB all the way back to Darius space! And we’re talking about relatively new ships.

But you are missing the size of the advantage. It isn’t simply about the chances of a DB being intercepted while traveling in hyper’s lowest bands. Which -- as all of you have consistently pointed out -- is non-zero.

It is about the massive fleet that can gather and throw a party and not worry about being discovered. A massive fleet that has gathered right above the enemy’s head! Do you all realize that the MAN can assemble its entire Home Fleet right above Manticore’s head? Not light years away in some uninhabited system!

And if the drunken and shameless wiki is correct about a projected 100 LDs, then that means the MAN can position 100 LDs right above the Queen’s head and sit. Laugh. Talk. Give someone a birthday party. Not be discovered. And not worry about being discovered. All while waiting for orders to attack!

ThinksMarkedly wrote:And besides, this requires the enemy to know that there were two fleets poised to attack and might be communicating in the first place. How often does this happen?

As often as an army catches a messenger trying to tiptoe through their camp in the dead of night. That is what this thread is about. It is a dead giveaway. No pun intended.

It happened to the Havenites when they thought they were tiptoeing through Pavel Young’s camp. Only to find out the Mother of all Loose Warheads had replaced him and figured out there was a fleet waiting in hyper to attack.

penny wrote:I have been on my soapbox for a long time saying that dealing with the MAN will not be business as usual.

I was under the impression that navies gathered way out in the boondocks in an uninhabited system so as not to be discovered. A navy can’t gather in hyper in a system’s backyard waiting to attack.

That is not true of the MAN. The MAN can gather in an inhabited system way above their head "looking down on the underlings." Navigation won’t be a problem to frequently traveled systems like the MBS, etc. And they certainly won’t have a problem finding their way back home. They would have mapped that region themselves for decades.

And yet the Basilisk terminal is a very well traveled area in hyperspace and a Havenite fleet missed, even after stopping to refresh their navigation. The author has made it clear that navigation in hyperspace is chancy for everyone.

There are no meeting places in hyperspace, so forces assemble in normal space at convenient distance away from the target. Thereby making sure that navigation errors will be small.

PS: Note that the assembly point is an uninhabited system, not just empty space (although an out of the way empty space would not have traffic), because they want some place that can be found by the ships coming together: an easily found object that is not otherwise interesting, like a red dwarf star.

PPS: It will be interesting to see how soon the Grand Alliance has streak drives of its own.