# Enterprise vs. Honor Harrington **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 10, 2011, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042 "2011-06-10T23:41:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/41 "2011-06-13T18:12:34Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > Assuming the Dreadnought doesn’t see him coming and turn so that its sidewalls (or impeller wedge) are facing _Enterprise_. Yes, which is why you attack at faster than light speeds. a. They can’t see you. b. Even if they could detect you, there’s not enough time to do anything about it. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/42 "2011-06-13T18:21:44Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > Yes, which is why you attack at faster than light speeds. > > a. They can’t see you. > b. Even if they could detect you, there’s not enough time to do anything about it. a. The gravitic sensors in the Honorverse **do** work at faster-than-light speeds (possibly infinite speeds). b. They also work at ranges of several light-minutes. If _Enterprise_ was going at warp 5 (125_c_ in the TOS warp speed scale), and the dreadnought’s sensors picked it up from 20 light-minutes away, they’d have about 10 seconds to react. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/43 "2011-06-13T19:35:07Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > Relativistic physics, not a sneak attack. What I’ve outlined is a particular nasty version of the [Picard Maneuver](http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Picard_Maneuver). Enterprise encounters hostile ship which fires sublight missiles. Enterprise exercises the better part of valor and gets the fuck out. Spock being logical notes the sub-light nature of the advisory’s systems, and bam effective strategy, if Scotty can make the transporters lock on to an opening in the “wedge” Heh! I came in here just to ask about using the Picard Maneuver…and could also mention that at least once, a starship _has_ transported a[live photon torpedo aboard an enemy ship with disabled shields in combat](http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Dark_Frontier_%28episode%29#Act_One), resulting in the destruction of the enemy vessel. (The only online video clip I could find demonstrating this was a dubbed Czech bootleg, unfortunately) I’m woefully unfamiliar with the size and capability of the Honorverse ships in question, I regret to say. But count me as deeply afraid if 64-megatons worth of deuterium-antideuterium\* isn’t\* going to be enough to put a damper on their day. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/44 "2011-06-13T19:41:29Z")
And I’m pretty sure that even aside from onboard artificial gravity, a warp bubble itself would show up on Manticoran gravitic sensors. They probably wouldn’t have a clue what it _was_, but they’d see that there’s some sort of gravitational phenomenon moving around at super-c speeds. Oh, and quoth **Raguleader** : > [@](#): > > If they go hand-to-hand, Honor only gets to bring Nimitz if Kirk gets to bring Spock. Also, Kirk is not allowed to sneak aboard Honor’s ship and talk the ship’s tactical computer to death. Still not even a close fight. Spock’s ability at hand-to-hand is mostly based on the Vulcan nerve grip. Going into the fight, he’s not going to know enough about treecat anatomy to be able to use it against Nimitz, and if he goes for Honor’s left shoulder (as he usually seems to), he’ll be in for a big surprise. Honor, meanwhile, has had training and experience with pretty much every form of combat known to man[sup]\*[/sup]. - Off the top of my head, she’s fought life-and-death fights armed variously with: Bare hands, tableware, swords, gunpowder firearms, gravitic pulsers, her left finger, flechette guns, a suicide bomb, a yacht, a shuttlecraft, a pinnace, freighters, converted freighters, a destroyer, a light cruiser, a heavy cruiser, a battlecruiser, a superdreadnaught squadron, a fleet, and Parliamentary procedure. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/45 "2011-06-13T20:43:34Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > Heh! I came in here just to ask about using the Picard Maneuver… The Picard Maneuver should not **even** work in the _Star Trek_ universe. All combat-capable _Trek_ starships are armed with subspace sensor arrays that can pick up enemy ships at warp. Otherwise, a ship fleeing at warp speed would instantly become invisible. The Picard Maneuver would **only** work against an enemy ship whose tactical officers were so incompetent that they relied on their light-speed sensors to determine their target’s location. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/46 "2011-06-13T21:59:52Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > a. The gravitic sensors in the Honorverse **do** work at faster-than-light speeds (possibly infinite speeds). > > b. They also work at ranges of several light-minutes. If _Enterprise_ was going at warp 5 (125_c_ in the TOS warp speed scale), and the dreadnought’s sensors picked it up from 20 light-minutes away, they’d have about 10 seconds to react. Which is entirely irrelevant if you recall that they _only_ work at detecting ships using gravitic drives (they detect the gravity wedges, not the ships themselves). The Enterprise would not show up on those sensors. The “pop” of going in and out of warp might be detectable, if we want to say that’s the ship punching through they hyperwall with all the subtlety of a bullet through a paper target (then again, Starfleet ships don’t travel in hyper, they just bend true space to go superluminal). ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/47 "2011-06-13T22:01:00Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > The Picard Maneuver should not **even** work in the _Star Trek_ universe. > > All combat-capable _Trek_ starships are armed with subspace sensor arrays that can pick up enemy ships at warp. Otherwise, a ship fleeing at warp speed would instantly become invisible. **The Picard Maneuver would only work against an enemy ship whose tactical officers were so incompetent that they relied on their light-speed sensors to determine their target’s location.** In other words, Ferengi.😃 ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/48 "2011-06-13T22:15:29Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > Which is entirely irrelevant if you recall that they _only_ work at detecting ships using gravitic drives (they detect the gravity wedges, not the ships themselves). The Enterprise would not show up on those sensors. They work at detecting artificial gravity sources. Honorverse impeller drives are one kind of artificial gravity source, but they’re far from the only ones. The _Enterprise_’s own artificial gravity, which they use so that the filmmakers don’t have to use a KC-135 Vomit Comet to film the actors walking around on board, could surely be detected by Honorverse gravitic sensors. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/49 "2011-06-13T22:22:29Z")
Oops, double post. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/50 "2011-06-13T22:29:09Z")
And at the page break it’s **Trekkers - 0, Honorarians - 0**. We’ll be back after these words from our sponsors. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/51 "2011-06-13T22:58:59Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > They work at detecting artificial gravity sources. Honorverse impeller drives are one kind of artificial gravity source, but they’re far from the only ones. > > The _Enterprise_’s own artificial gravity, which they use so that the filmmakers don’t have to use a KC-135 Vomit Comet to film the actors walking around on board, could surely be detected by Honorverse gravitic sensors. I would go further and say they work at detecting gravity sources, period. Small planetoids and up. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/52 "2011-06-13T23:51:28Z")
And like I said, I’m pretty sure a warp bubble is a gravitational phenomenon. At least, it [can be modeled as such](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive). (yes, physicists have had a lot of time on their hands since Star Trek first aired) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/53 "2011-06-14T04:57:09Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And little did Kirk ever suspect that he would end his career by being beaten to death by a 6 foot plus genetically engineered cyborg woman… Yeah, but he expected to die alone, rather than taken from heaven just to fall off a bridge. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/54 "2011-06-14T18:05:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If it doesn’t run out of torps before then. How many does a ship like the Enterprise carry? A few dozen? And what do they do after they run out? They never said how many Kirk’s original _Enterprise_ carried, but I’d guess a coupla dozen. Picard’s _Enterprise_-D carried 275 (ST:TNG “Conundrum”) and I’m sure Kirk had a lot less in his much-smaller ship. Presumably they’d restock at a starbase or from a supply ship, although Janeway seemed able to manufacture them aboard (just like shuttlecraft :rolleyes: ). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/55 "2011-06-14T19:46:05Z")
Yeah, when _Voyager_ first started, I was pretty excited when they said exactly how many they had, and updated the count in my head every time they fired one. That’s good drama, seeing just how close you’re getting to running out of an important but irreplaceable resource. Until, of course, it became apparent that the writers just didn’t care. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/56 "2011-06-14T20:11:20Z")
Reading the Memory Alpha entry on photon torpedoes highlights how a lot of things in Star Trek have (as aired) contradictory capabilities. This complicates evaluating such a match up with Weber’s Honorverse. ---
**Author:** ![mrklutz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ebca7d/32.png) [@mrklutz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrklutz)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/57 "2011-06-14T21:49:14Z")
The dreadnaught has circuit breakers. Advantage: Harrington. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/58 "2011-06-14T21:52:30Z")
> [@mrklutz](#): > > The dreadnaught has circuit breakers. Advantage: Harrington. And crash cages for the seats! ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/59 "2011-06-14T21:55:00Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > And crash cages for the seats! And self-sealing space suits for the crew. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042/60 "2011-06-14T22:21:16Z")
> [@ExTank](#): > > And self-sealing space suits for the crew. And real alcohol!😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enterprise-vs-honor-harrington/585042.md?page=4)