|
|
Deleted by topic administrator 12-01-2011 13:24
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson  11-26-2011
05:52 UT
|
~
Jackson Russell wrote:
> Question: do the little egg-shaped shuttles use gravity
> generators?
Not
sure what "shuttles" you have in mind. There were egg-shaped,
single-person air cavalry "mounts" described in both ~Cosmic Computer~
and ~Space Viking~ but these are conventional contragravity craft,
apparently not intended for exo-atmospheric work. None was ever
mentioned and I doubt they had any internal pseudogravity fields.
Remember Ashmodai! Remember Belphegor!
David
--
"Naturally. Foxx Travis would expect a soul to be carried in a holster." - Miles Gilbert (H. Beam Piper), "Oomphel in the Sky"
~
|
|
Jackson Russell
11-25-2011
21:10 UT
|
Well, I never said it would be easy, or even in canon. Question: do the
little egg-shaped shuttles use gravity generators? I suspect there
would be no tactical need, but it would be a point of clarity on the
gravity issue since the grav would have only a single area to cover and
hence not work like a tiny astral body.
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-25-2011
20:43 UT
|
~
Jackson Russell wrote:
> As for the other thing, is seems possible that a series of very
> small gravity generators used under the floor plates would
> do the job rather nicely. the problem then becomes a matter
> of miniaturization.
Right.
But we know--from ~Cosmic Computer~--that miniaturization is something
Federation designers were not very good at. (This is simply an
artifact of the era when Beam was writing but we've discussed here
previously how this might also be explained within canon.)
We
also know that there never was any _discussion_ in Beam's work of this
sort of complex gravity vector manipulation (again, other than perhaps
Abbot "lift-and-drive"). We also don't know what the effect of one
pseudogravity field is upon another, or even if two separate fields
would interact as we would expect two natural gravity fields to
interact. Bottom line is any sort of explanation like this for starship
ports is a substantial stretch beyond canon (and may have a variety of
awkward implications for other canon phenomena like contragravity and
Abbot life-and-drive).
Monster Ho!
David
--
"A girl
can punch any kind of a button a man can, and a lot of them knew what
buttons to punch, and why." - Conn Maxwell (H. Beam Piper), ~The Cosmic
Computer~
~
|
|
Jackson Russell
11-25-2011
19:52 UT
|
Well, the energy requirements would be monstrous, but not impossible to attain with M/E converters.
As
for the other thing, is seems possible that a series of very small
gravity generators used under the floor plates would do the job rather
nicely. the problem then becomes a matter of miniaturization. Assume
the gravgen in the heart of a ship were, say, 20 feet in diameter (I
work on the premise that it is spherical in design) then a series of
one centimeter (just for argument) gravgens could be peppered
throughout the floors. But the fun doesn't stop there. The gravity
would work on both sides of the plating, so while you walk normally on
the "top" (remember, it's all relative) the people under you would be
walking upside-down. Good way to free up a lot of floor space, really.
Assume the effective range of the gravity plates was six feet, then
something "dropped" from eight feet could go either up or down,
depending on the size of the chamber from floor to floor (ceilings
would not apply here.) Walls could be similarly lined allowing people
to Spiderman it from top to other top.
Now, would it be worth the
expense to create such a technology in light of how well Piper's
spherical ships work? Of course not. Just because something can be
done it doesn't always follow that it should be.
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-25-2011
19:38 UT
|
~
Jackson Russell wrote:
> It seems to me that the artificial gravity works just like the
> real thing. Everything is pulled into the direction of the
> gravity well. I suspect the gravity generator is spherical in
> design and acts like a pinpoint singularity.
Right.
I think the issue we're trying to sort out is whether or not, with
some sort of arrangement of very small pseudogravity generators, one
could construct a complex of artificial-and-natural gravity vectors at
the port of a starship to permit seamless boarding and egress for
passengers and crew while on planet. . . .
> And the weapon potential is pretty scary. Got an
> enemy so powerful you don't dare face him directly? Launch
> a singularity generator at his planet. It wouldn't even have
> to suck it in like a black hole, just screw with the tectonic
> plates and tidal forces. Earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes,
> oh my!
Scary
indeed! Fortunately (for Terro-humans, at least) either no one ever
thought of this . . . or the power requirements were unattainable.
For Sun and Cogwheel,
David
--
"You
either went on to the inevitable catastrophe, or you realized, in time,
that nuclear armament and nationalism cannot exist together on the same
planet, and it is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of
knowledge." - H. Beam Piper, ~Uller Uprising~
~
|
|
Jackson Russell
11-25-2011
14:08 UT
|
It seems to me that the artificial gravity works just like the real
thing. Everything is pulled into the direction of the gravity well. I
suspect the gravity generator is spherical in design and acts like a
pinpoint singularity. Such a device, if large enough with sufficient
power, could act like a black hole. Dump one in the core of a low
gravity planet and you could raise the grav to Terra-like levels.
Yeah, it would be a waste of sols as long as there are perfectly
serviceable planets with already suitable gravity levels, but the
potential is there. And the weapon potential is pretty scary. Got an
enemy so powerful you don't dare face him directly? Launch a
singularity generator at his planet. It wouldn't even have to suck it
in like a black hole, just screw with the tectonic plates and tidal
forces. Earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes, oh my!
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
|
David Johnson
11-25-2011
13:47 UT
|
~
Jonathan Crocker wrote:
>> Of course, that begs the question: why were the early
>> Federation hyperships globular? A globular design "wastes" a
>> lot of space when you're filling it with parallel decks.
>
> True... ...unless the field generated by the hyperdrives is also
> spherical, and would slice off anything extending outside the
> field, therefore a spherical ship becomes the most effective way
> to haul the maximum amount of ship through hyperspace.
Ah, that makes sense.
> With a little more handwaving you could even include the gimbals
> - they finally got ship's pseudograv working sometime after this
> story, and then they didn't need to waste all that valuable
> space on the gimbal mechanisms.
It
seems to me that pseudogravity always seemed to work in the "spherical"
fashion too. There never seems to be any "anti-gravity" in Beam's work
that has manipulatable vectors. You have pseudogravity pulling
everything toward the generator at the center of a hypership. And you
have contragravity pushing against the local (natural) gravity vector.
But you don't ever see anything like a "tractor beam" or other sort of
manipulatable artificial gravity field (except, perhaps, the Abbot
"lift-and-drive") so I would think you'd need those gimbal-ports
regardless.
Monster Ho!
David
--
"Ravick had been in
power too long, and he was drunker on it than Bish Ware ever got on
Baldur honey-rum. As an intoxicant, rum is practically a soft drink
beside power." - Walt Boyd (H. Beam Piper), ~Four-Day Planet~ ~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-24-2011
20:05 UT
|
~
Name Your Favorite Piper Trope
Some great critical analysis of Beam's work here (even though it's awkward to admit to from time to time):
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HBeamPiper
It's a wiki so there's plenty of opportunity to add your own observations.
Enjoy,
David
--
"Why not everybody make friend, have fun, make help, be good?" - Diamond Grego (H. Beam Piper), _Fuzzy_Sapiens_
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-24-2011
20:01 UT
|
~
Where the Niflheim is Niflheim!?!
A neat, thoughtful analysis here in an effort to correct some in-canon errors about the location of Niflheim:
http://enderra.com/2011/11/24/mapping-h-be...er-part-3-niflheim/
Be sure to provide your own input.
David
--
"You
know any kind of observation that doesn't contaminate the thing
observed, professor?" - Tortha Karf (H. Beam Piper),
_Lord_Kalvan_of_Otherwhen_
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-24-2011
19:30 UT
|
~
Jimmy Simpson shared his effort to map Terro-human Future History space some time ago:
http://librarydata.jtas.net/TFH.htm
Here's a more recent effort by another Piper fan that's not yet begun to grapple with the three-dimensional aspects:
http://enderra.com/2011/11/21/mapping-h-beam-piper-part-2/
Enjoy,
David
--
"It
would be natural for me to supply details for the future. But . . . a
lot of this stuff is based on unpredictable and arbitrary factors that
can't be inferred from anything in the present." - Edward Chalmers (H.
Beam Piper), "The Edge of the Knife"
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-24-2011
18:58 UT
|
~
How Big is a Hypership?
Wonderful examination of the comparative size of Beam's hyperships here:
http://enderra.com/2011/10/14/starsship-sizes/
There are comparisons to both fictional and actual craft and even to a few terrestrial landmarks.
Enjoy,
David
--
"We
talk glibly about ten to the hundredth power, but emotionally we still
count, 'One, Two, Three, Many.'" - Otto Harkaman (H. Beam Piper),
_Space_Viking_
~
|
|
Jonathan Crocker
11-24-2011
16:13 UT
|
>Of course, that begs the question: why were the early Federation
>hyperships globular? A globular design "wastes" a lot of space when
>you're filling it with parallel decks.
True... ...unless the
field generated by the hyperdrives is also spherical, and would slice
off anything extending outside the field, therefore a spherical ship
becomes the most effective way to haul the maximum amount of ship
through hyperspace.
And obviously they never got the knack of
having more than one field per ship, else they'd have moved away from
spherical ships at some point.
With a little more handwaving
you could even include the gimbals - they finally got ship's pseudograv
working sometime after this story, and then they didn't need to waste
all that valuable space on the gimbal mechanisms. Of course, that would
make disembarking from the south pole of a ship a bit of a problem on a
planet, but that can be solved planetside, or with contragrav lifters.
|
|
David Johnson
11-24-2011
03:15 UT
|
~
Jonathan Crocker wrote:
> A. Those gimbals work so well, there's no point even mentioning them
That
could be it, of course. They'd have to work _real_ well for Walt to
drag his "contragravity hamper" through them without much difficulty,
but it's certainly a possibility.
> B. Technology changed,
early Federation ships had flat decks stacked like a skyscraper's, later
ships switched to the 'layers of spheres' we read about later
Hmm,
that seems odd but it could work. Beam never actually used the term
"pseudogravity" ("pseudograv") until ~Space Viking~ and ~Cosmic
Computer~. Not only do both _occur_ after ~Four-Day Planet~ but they
were _written_ after it as well. . . .
Perhaps "spherical
pseudogravity" was an innovation of the later Federation era. Of
course, that begs the question: why were the early Federation hyperships
globular? A globular design "wastes" a lot of space when you're
filling it with parallel decks.
Monster Ho!
David
--
"In
a religious community, the village atheist keeps his doubts to
himself." - Rodney Maxwell (H. Beam Piper), ~The Cosmic Computer~
~
|
|
Jonathan Crocker
11-23-2011
22:05 UT
|
I'd say there were a few options -
A. Those gimbals work so well, there's no point even mentioning them
B.
Technology changed, early Federation ships had flat decks stacked like a
skyscraper's, later ships switched to the 'layers of spheres' we read
about later
C. Piper changed his mind/forgot that scene when he wrote later books.
Jon
|
|
David Johnson
11-22-2011
19:39 UT
|
~
Entering a Hypership on Planet
Been rereading ~Four-Day
Planet~ and ran across this account of Walt Boyd coming aboad the
~Pennemunde~ after it was brought down to the surface of Fenris at Port
Sandor:
"The ~Pennemunde~ settled down, turning slowly to get her
port in line with the gate, and lurched off contragravity and began
running out a bridge to the promenade. . . . We all went out onto the
bridge, and across the pit to the equator of the two-thousand foot
globular ship."
As far as I recall, this is the only scene we get in
the Terro-human Future History (TFH) of folks entering a large
hypership on foot through a personnel port.
Now, I don't believe we
get an account of how the pseudogravity works inside the ~Pennemunde~
(or any of the other Federation hyperships of the ~Four-Day Planet~ era)
but from other TFH works we know that pseudogravity works from the
center of the globular hyperships with the decks not running parallel to
the equator or some other "great circle" section of the hypership but
rather as successively smaller shells from the outer hull inward.
Given
this circumstance, I'd always assumed that the only way to enter a
hypership planetside would be through a port at the "north pole" of the
ship because that would be the only place where the external gravity
field vector of the planet would be aligned with the internal
pseudogravity vector of the ship. A person trying to enter at the
equator would have to quickly move somehow from the vertical gravity
field outside the ship to the "horizontal" gravity field inside. That
could be done, particularly if there were some sort of complex gimbal
mechanism to help make the transition, but no such mechanism--or
transition--is mentioned in the account from ~Four-Day Planet~.
Any idea what's going on here?
Monster Ho!
David
--
"You
know, it's never a mistake to take a second look at anything that
everybody believes." - Rodney Maxwell (H. Beam Piper), "Graveyard of
Dreams"
~
|
|
David Johnson
11-15-2011
13:27 UT
|
~
Could this Aussie be Beam's inspiration for Jack Holloway?
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/holloway-edward-james-jack-10523
Or
perhaps an early ancestor, given that Terro-humans of Jack Holloway's
era were descendants of the peoples of Terra's Southern Hemisphere. The
politics don't fit Beam's Holloway but surely that photo was Michael
Whelan's model for his '70s-era cover illustration for ~Little Fuzzy~.
Yeek!
David
--
"You
know, it's never a mistake to take a second look at anything that
everybody believes." - Rodney Maxwell (H. Beam Piper), "Graveyard of
Dreams"
~
|
| |
Spam messages 897-895 deleted by QuickTopic between 10-06-2011 08:39 AM and 01-18-2016 01:08 AM |
David "PiperFan" Johnson 08-28-2011
06:32 UT
|
~
Just added several new images to the Terro-human Future History Gallery at Zarthani.net:
http://www.zarthani.net/future_history_gallery.htm
The most exciting being this previously-unknown illustration for "Naudsonce" from the cover of a German anthology.
Enjoy,
David
~
|
New Topic
My Topics
Views:
35310
(Unique:
9358
) / Subscribers:
27 | What's this?