Book Discussion: all books: spoiler alert in effect…
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ArchivesCONVENTION APPEARANCES Miscon 2011, around Memorial Day, Missoula MT, CJ/Jane. Radcon 2011, Feb 14 ca., Red Lion in Pasco Wa, CJ, Jane, OSG. Note:ConDor, San Diego, CA, was a great con, and we may very well go back, if not in 2011, then in 2012. We are also considering Midsouthcon in 2011.
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Well, I’ll start. While the comment is specifically Alliance-Union, presumably the actual issue is somewhat common to all orbital stations.
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A while back we were discussing the size of stations, docking, etc., and part of the discussion was about the distance between adjacent decks or levels. In Heavy Time, one of the characters is thinking that there’s 100 feet between emergency-stair access doors for adjacent levels. That’s quite a bit more than I’d thought, but not unreasonable if you consider all the plumbing and auxiliary systems you need to house.
I suppose it depends how you define a “deck”. I suspect you put decks in for structural strength more than anything else. Then you cram in as many sub-levels within that volume as allowed by available space and defined by purpose. If the decks are indeed that far apart I bet theres a honeycomb of units stacked in there.
As used in HT, ‘deck’ was used to mean “levels upon which people normally walk”, e.g. offices, Helldeck, etc. Naturally there would be mezzanine levels (or call ‘em what you want) interleaved between decks which would contain what on my Navy ship would have been called auxiliary systems–cable runs, heat/ water, support systems, etc.
Ever since the last big discussion of spacestations I’ve been thinking about the differences between what I remember of the descriptions in Chanur and in the Heavy Time etc. and Foreigner universes. I’m not very good at spatial relationships or maths, so please bear with me while I explain my question.
Both HT and Bren describe docking at a very cold weightless dock (Bren) or core (HT), then travelling a ways to reach the weighted section.
That is consistent with the spacestations discussed, with a central weightless axis that the ships dock to, connected by spokes to a turning wheel that houses the people and the businesses. I forget if it was radius or circumference of almost 1 km that gave the 1 g weight sensation at reasonable turning speed; but inner deck-rings give a lower weight, and going ‘down’ to the 1g ‘central’ offices means moving outwards on the wheel, and going ‘up’ to the core means moving inwards.
The description in HT of travelling ‘up’ a line in the weightless core towards their ship (which also concurs with the colonists’ removal from the station in kyo territory), passing other docked ships on the way, demonstrates that the core axis can be a lot longer than the rim-thickness of the wheel, so a lot of ships can dock alongside this axis, not just on the two outer ends. If they need more docking space, they can just lengthen the central core-axis (probably evenly on both sides, for balance).
And if the station grows a lot, they can add another rim-thickness to the wheel, doubling the living-space and turning it into a cylinder. So far, I can understand things.
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But in Chanur’s universe, when the ship docks, it’s connected by an access tube to the docks: spacefarers walk down the tube, around the bend, and walk out onto the docks. The docks are clearly part of the wheel-rim: they curve up in the distance.
The bend in the tube was necessary because the docked ships were snugged in to the sides of the station, not left sticking straight out, to cause the least disruption to the station’s smooth rotation.
There was some discussion about how ships could dock in a zigzag pattern to use the dock-space more efficiently, and I can see that working, if all the uneven-numbered access tubes are longer and more steeply slanted than the even numbers: the ‘uneven’ ship would be docked nearer the ‘ceiling’ of the docks instead of the floor-level. This staggering of the docked ships seems to be most relevant to ships docking to the rim of the wheel, not to a (possibly quite long) central axis such as in HT, where evenly distributing weight would demand something like 2 or 4 ships of equal weight docked ‘across’ from each other.
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What I don’t understand is: if they are docked to the outside (rim, not lid) of the cylinder, wouldn’t going through an access tube to the dock mean they’d be climbing up the ramp to emerge from the floor of the docks?
The centrifugal g-force should mean that the rim of the wheel is the floor, shouldn’t it?
So does that mean the ships dock to the sides of the wheel?
Or just on one side?
I don’t remember ever reading about ships docked opposite each other on the same dock : there are always shops and bars and such on the opposite side to where the ships are docked.
So, perhaps the rim is always broad enough to accommodate a lot of living-space between the two sides with the docks – though I’ve always understood that the docks are just one broad ring-shaped deck, not that there are two: even the methane-breathers’ docks can be reached by walking around the ring, not passing through office-space and such to reach a second ring.
If the docks are only on one side of the wheel, that would make adding a new slice of cylinder to increase living space easier: otherwise half your docks would be out of commission while they were transformed to living-space and a new dock-ring added.
But doesn’t that also mean that stations are unable to grow to accommodate more ship traffic?
The radius of the wheel is determined by the desired g-force at the rim, so the cylinder couldn’t grow broader, only longer. You could double the docking-space just once, by using both sides of the wheel; thereby curbing any future expansion of the station.
As there is a vast difference in station-sizes, from Meetpoint to Annuurn, I don’t see how this works economically.
Can somebody please explain where I’m going wrong in my thinking?
Who says you’re wrong, Hanneke?
Beneath your feet, if you could only see it, is the starry void, and your horizon curves upward ahead of you and behind. On your left and right are gates (docking points) which pierce the ‘sides’ of the toroid station–using the can of soup analogy, about where the can opener blade cuts.
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Here’s my view of things:
Taking the latter part of your post, for example, think of the common garden-variety airport you’ve probably used many times. As you walk down the concourse (down=toward the end), there are (usually) gates on both your left and right, with shops in the center of the walking area. Or there may be shops on left, gates on right, and down the concourse a ways, the opposite–gates left, shops right. Now visualize that the floor you are walking upon is the dock of the station, the rim (outermost surface) of the station, as far as you can get from the core (axis of rotation). If the station was a can of soup, you’d be walking on the inside surface of the Campbell’s label!
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The docked ships are oriented with their long axis in the same direction as the station’s core. The same rotational forces that give the illusion of gravity (actually centripetal acceleration) within the station act upon the ships, of course, so while in dock only part of the ship’s internal spaces are accessible to crew without mountaineering skills; the ship’s internal arrangement is a series of concentric circles about the core (just like the station) but the ship is rotating about the station’s core, not its own. So you only walk about and work within compartments in the ship which are oriented ‘down’ while in dock. An access tube runs from the ship’s airlock to the dock’s airlock; this access runs at a constant or near-constant distance from station core, so G is the same throughout its length. Walking ‘down’ (or ‘up’) the access tube is really just a conversational convention, like walking up or down the street–”going thataway,” not climbing or descending.
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So as you enter the station docks via the airlock from your ship, you experience G normal (perpendicular to) the deck, straight up through your body toward the rotational core of the station. You’ve entered the soup can via the outermost edge of the lid (or bottom, makes no difference). In front of you are shops, bars, etc., and beyond them are more docks, maybe–the other ‘end’ of the soup can. Or if it is a big station (and they seem to tend toward ‘huge’ since the given populations run to 100s of thousands, in terms of length this is a very large (tall) soup can (64oz instead of 15 oz, maybe). The docks take up only the volume toward the outermost ends of the bean can–the rest is probably one-G manufacturing, warehouses, offices, whatever.
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Of course the station is not a solid cylinder (can of soup), it is more like a very wide motorcycle wheel, complete with spokes. The label on the beans is the tread of the tire. the lifts run both through the spokes and within the body of the tire And, as you say, the core or axle can be as long as you need it to be, independent of the ‘width’ of the tire or rim.
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No doubt others will point out my errors. Hopefully I have not muddied the waters excessively.
Nope, spot on.
Back to “decks” – there’s the named deck (A Deck, Helldeck etc) and the literal deck – the one you’re walking on. If they’re 100 feet apart, then you have to accept that accomodation units, shops, factories etc have to be multi-story. Sub-decks, if you like. Otherwise it’s an awful lot of dead volume that has to be heated and filled with air. Yes, service ducts will occupy some of that space, but not that much.
Oh, I agree 100%. Not just sleepovers, but full-g manufacturing, etc., will need more than one story’s height. Warehousing, tree gardens, anything that you want 1g for (or whatever your rim acceleration is).
Regarding the size of a station.
“The radius of the wheel is determined by the desired g-force at the rim” — Not exactly. The centrifugal force is determined by the radius *and* the speed of rotation. So if you build a station wider/narrower, you adjust the rotation speed to match. Probably not a practical thing to change once the station is built, but when building a new (or replacement) station you’d have that flexibility.
Volume is going to be proportional to the length of the station, times the square of its radius. What that means is if you scale up in all three dimensions you can fit a *lot* of people. For instance, if you’ve got a radius of 300m (1,000 feet), a length of 400m (quarter mile), and occupy the outermost 200 feet of it (you don’t want low-g levels) you end up with 40 million cubic meters of inhabited volume. That’s something like 200,000 times the volume of my apartment. I imagine that could fit ten thousand people or more, in a station that only has two or three 100-foot occupied “decks” and isn’t as long as it is wide.
Hi I have finished Deceiver – and re-read it again! I think it is a terrific book, for several reasons, not least the omission of most of the wearying self doubt of the protagonist. As an aside, I think that the cover art is fabulous! Unlike most covers in the series, you get the impression the artist has read and achieved an encapsulation of what it is all about. I hope he is doing the covers for Betrayer and Intruder.
I do have some concerns (having re-read the entire series while waiting in OZ to get my Amazon copy)on the disjunction between this book and others – Cajeri being thoroughly instructed as to the four houses composing the Marid in one book, then suddenly there are five houses! Stil, I am awaiting Betrayer with baited breath. When????
There you have, hot off the keyboard, the truth as currently constituted—though I keep a notebook of these things, I do occasionally miscount.
thank you, thank you, for the clarification. I had thought I was keeping up with things prior to this confusion!
Looking forward to Betrayer. Regards
Well, looking at the spoiler and guidebooks which I have just managed to notice [typical -- look to the left, look to the right and middle and never hava a clue what's going on at the TOP!], I hate to admit I cannot remember the Finisterre series at all. Which books does this comprise? Just does not ring a bell….
That’s the Nighthorse series, IIRC. I’ld like to see anothe Nighthorse i possible.
, geez. Nighthorse and Rider books kicks on the neurons. Or maybe the smack knocked a few things loose. Thanks! Yep, there’s any number of more-ofs please.
well, now that was interesting. part of my post got sucked into a black hole. apparently one should not be cute and use non-traditional symbols. it does not like more-than, less-than symbols. basically i smacked myself on the forehead when you mentioned the nighthorse — rider at the gates [which was probably my favorite title for the connotations it evokes] books.