spoiler potential: caution: book questions.

Do not get into this page if you are trying to read a book. This is for after you’ve read it. Likewise follow the custom of putting a subject and then dropping down a number of lines to make it possible for a reader to duck out if they don’t want the information yet.

I will answer questions about pronunciation, etc, all the little questions I’m normally asked. I won’t discuss things that disturb my creative process, like where I’m going or such. You can theorize among yourselves.

457 Comments

  1. Phoenix_Rising

    I have a question as to the physics of the Earth Carriers (ECS-5 for example) The propulsion system that is used in Space-3, what do you envision it looking like? I have a few copies of Downbelow Station, and the 25th Anniversary DAW edition I have has jets of yellow flame shooting out of the back as propulsion. Is this how you see it when you play an internal video on them (or any ship, for that matter) pulling away from a station?

  2. CJ

    No. I also don’t see it bending a curve or racing through the heart of a space station, as in that painting. It has directionals, small releases that ease it out, and you wouldn’t necessarily see them operate except as a sparkle of frozen vapor in shadow, or puffs of vapor on sunside. You’d just see the ship move, slowly. And then the directionals would stop. But the ship would continue moving.

    Here is where navigation gets interesting, because a vector of motion, once established, persists until removed. Or: an object in motion travels forever in that direction until stopped. So you will have a microdrift in your next motion if you don’t remove that tiny push.

    Total change of direction while in motion? The one maneuver I haven’t seen any movie ship make is the logical one: rotate the ship 180 degrees and start hammering down the velocity you accumulated going the former direction, then accelerating back along your track.

    Also, velocity of your packet of space is relative: meaning if somebody is ahead of you, they appear to stand still; but if they’re coming your direction your combined V will make it impossible for you to see them. Hence the value of long-scan, which uses the system buoys to mark the location of everything going on in the system at all times, from erratic rocks to miners, orehaulers, maintenance craft and inbound or outbound freighters. You’re invisible on system entry, but your ‘squeal’ informs the buoys that receive it, and the system buoys, constantly trading info from positions all over, gradually not only mark your position but predict your position down a timeline and relay that info to longscan operators all over the system.

    • philospher77

      “Here is where navigation gets interesting, because a vector of motion, once established, persists until removed. Or: an object in motion travels forever in that direction until stopped. So you will have a microdrift in your next motion if you don’t remove that tiny push.
      Total change of direction while in motion? The one maneuver I haven’t seen any movie ship make is the logical one: rotate the ship 180 degrees and start hammering down the velocity you accumulated going the former direction, then accelerating back along your track.

      Your two statements explain why that isn’t considered a logical thing to do: an object in motion remains in motion unless acted upon by another force. And rotation IS motion. So, you need to apply force to rotate the ship 180 degrees, and then apply the appropriate force in the opposite direction to stop the rotation. Mess that up, and you spin back the other way. It’s a lot easier just to do vector math, especially since by adding rotation to the linear direction, you now have some very complex forces to consider when you want to apply your next movement. Tumbling is not easy to quantify.

      The simplest engineering fix would be to make the jets directable, so that you could apply a force in the appropriate direction to move your ship. (For example, if you are currently heading “north”, and want to go “northeast”, you need to apply force to go “east”.)

      • Jaxartes

        I don’t think rotation is that big a problem. The same basic facts (such as inertia) apply to rotation as to linear motion. Even the vector math. But there are a couple of things, with rotation, that make it easier. First, the distances are so much smaller, and therefore so are the forces involved. You can rotate the ship using little jets. Secondly, it’s easy to keep track of rotation. If the stars appear to be moving, you’ll know you’re rotating, and you can correct it.

        Keeping the big jet(s) pointed in a single direction makes it simpler. That jet is a specialist, in moving your ship through space, fast, serving as both engine and brake.

        I think the real reason this maneuver doesn’t appear in movies is that it contradicts assumptions built into our experience, perhaps even our instincts. They’re “rules” of motion that apply on or near Earth’s surface, but not in space: once moving, it takes work to keep moving; and the direction you’re facing is related to the direction you’re moving.

        • Walt

          Also you can rotate using momentum wheels (sometimes called gyroscopes, I think incorrectly): spin the wheel one way, the ship goes the other. All you need is power to rotate the wheels, not reaction mass.

  3. Apf

    Babylon 5 was the only show that had some realistic motions in. e.g a Star Fury flipping 180 on its axis to face behind it while still moving in the original direction and blowing up the bad guys that were following it

  4. cicely

    Ms. Cherryh, hello.

    I would like to venture a perhaps-impertinant question, based on a long-ago occasion.

    Along time ago (around 1978-ish) in a galaxy far, far away (Oklahoma; Tahlequah, to be precise), I chanced one evening to luck into catching part of a radio interview you were doing, probably with a Tulsa station, but I noticed that the call-in questioners were doing it all wrong—no one was asking you questions about your work; all the questions seemed to be about Star Trek. This was annoying; I wanted to hear about your work (which was new to me, and which I liked very much), they should save the ST questions for ST writers/actors/producers, say, at a con. So, greatly daring, I called in a question, which you answered….but just then, a horde of squabbling education majors went racketing down the hall, and I didn’t get to hear the answer.

    Years have passed and the answer today would probably not be the same as the answer then, but still….

    (and now, the impertinance)

    ….which of your books do you like the best, and why? Which are you best pleased with?

    • CJ

      My emotional favorite, probably Morgaine, Chanur, and Foreigner.
      My intellectual favorite, Cyteen and Downbelow Station. They are their own kind of enjoyment to write.
      And then it seems to be whatever book I’m working on at the moment, if I’m lucky!

  5. Spiderdavon

    ooo – good question!

    Loved B5 – still working my way through the whole series on DVD. It’s about the only show to have realistic beamfire too.

  6. AbigailM

    Oh, YES to Busifer’s suggestion — I wauld buy audiobooks in a heartbeat. I realize production would be more involved and costly than the e-text, but doable, surely – these days you can rent studio time including recording staff, can’t you? You’d have to get some notion of demand, because the buyers in the first eager flush would, I guess, have to cover the studio cost, or something like that. I don’t know. But I would surely be a customer!!

    Re the motions of space vehicles — most people, including artists and TV directors, just have no concept of the effect on vehicles of not having the friction of the ground. Sliding on ice is really the only terrestrial comparable experience. (Most people don’t cope very well with that either, skaters with edged runners excepted.)

    • CJ

      Lol: try a new, faster set of blades and a speed buildup exceeding your skill…wah!

      I’ll think about the audiobooks thing, at least on a limited basis. It takes about an hour to read 30 pages, and I’m not sure how long my voice would hold out.

      What, you don’t want us to record our working sessions, complete with “Watch out for that truck!” “I know what I’m doing!” and “Ysabel, pull in your claws!”
      Probably kinda breaks the mood. 😆

      • Sabina

        On audiobooks. Going by various podcasts and free for fun audiobooks, one can get quite good results with a quite room and a microphone at home.

        So it doesn’t strain your voice so much, you could do them in installments, a chapter (two random chapters of Conspirator where around 30 pages) every one or two weeks.

      • Jcrow9

        Well, see, ***I*** think these working sessions, ‘books on tape plus soundtrack,’ would be hysterical. Distracting from the story, yes, but immensely entertaining. 😀
        Jeff

      • purplejulian

        oh, this is interesting! I also would buy audio books in a heartbeat …. so useful whe ones hands and hindbrain are engaged but entertainment is needed ..

  7. hanneke28

    On audiobooks: my dad still reads aloud for maybe half an hour (one or two chapters) after dinner, and started recording our favourite children’s books so we, and later the grandkids, could be kept quiet on long car trips. It usually takes him less than a month to record a book this way.
    Since he got a new recording device the sound quality is very nice; there seems no need to go to a studio for an acceptable reading voice recording if you’ve got a ordinarily quiet living room.
    He uses a Marantz PMD660, with a Sennheiser evolution e-835 vocal microphone (high output, high feedback rejection, cardioid dynamic(?)), with a support to keep the microphone 5-10 inches from his face. As the mike is directional, if you face the aquarium the mike points away from it, and shouldn’t be recording much (if any) of a pump-burr or water-gurgle.
    If I remember correctly your working sessions are mostly read in the car while driving, and I don’t think it could cope with filtering out all the car-noises. But if you do working sessions at home those might be usable. The Marantz allows you to divide files and paste them together, e.g. after you’ve taken out the doorbell or telephone which rang at an inconvenient moment, so that would also work for editing out importunate cats and such.

  8. hanneke28

    Ms.Cherryh, you said you’ve done readings from Voyager in Night, and from what you said they sounded very complicated to make. Did you record them, and do they still exist? They might do well in the Closed Circle store. I know I’d buy audiobooks and readings! Especially if they’re in a voice that fits the book – certainly none can fit better than the original voice of the author herself.
    I’ve tried a few from Project Gutenberg, and a very American accent reading a very British or Canadian classic somehow doesn’t fit right in my ears.

  9. erynn

    Ms. Cherryh–Longtime fan, first-time commenter; although as a point of trivia, an email I wrote to you about ten years ago (after first finding your website) remains the only fan-mail I’ve ever written, to anyone. 😉 This hopefully sums up my appreciation levels.
    So, the question (and now that I’ve found this site I’m sure I’ll have more–I re-read Cyteen about once a year and there are always a few things I’m not quite able to figure out): are we supposed to infer that AE1 *did* leave notes and directions for Ari regarding Justin and how she should deal with him? She is evasive on this point with Justin himself and it’s hard to tell if she’s lying to him or her uncles about it. It’s strongly suggested that she is “following her predecessor’s notes”. But there is a complete lack (as far as memory serves) of any direct commentary on Justin from AE1 via Base One. At least–no commentary that we get to see on-stage. I would have loved to see AE1’s advice about Justin, or maybe even some perspective on what she did to him, in her notes to AE2. Did this conversation (for lack of a better word) happen off-stage, in your mind?

    • CJ

      Hmmm. I just located this question, thanks to Jane, who called it to my attention: and the answer is—what Ari I did is tell Ari II, in her advanced (later) notes, exactly what that session with Justin was, and did. She didn’t instruct her how to deal with him, but she did inform her he was an asset if she could use him correctly…or a great danger if she makes a mistake.

  10. selden

    Ms Cherryh,

    Some friends and I recently have been discussing Jump and the physics of spaceflight in the A/U universe. Unfortunately, I’ve been having problems reconciling some of the numerology.

    About how much of the mass of a freighter is given to reaction mass?

    About how far out is a nadir exit point?

    From various illustrations, including the sketch of Norway in early editions of Downbelow Station, I’ve gotten the impression that the reaction mass (water) probably is between 10% and 20% of the mass of a fully fueled ship. Is that about right? Or is it more like half or more? If I guess that about 10% of the water is used when leaving or entering each system or JumpPoint, though, that implies that the nadir exit point is quite a lot closer than the 4 LightHour distance of Pell’s corresponding zenith entry point. Expending only 1-2% of a ship’s mass, even if the exhaust is at c, doesn’t get the ship going very fast.

    I’ve been working on trying to illustrate some of your A/U stories in Celestia (a free 3D astronomical viewer). Of course, I could use numbers I’ve made up on my own, but it would be nice to use something near what was intended.

    Thanks for whatever help you can provide.

    Selden

    • CJ

      Ah, the questions that keep us honest.
      The ships use several engines. Getting out of dock, they’re under little laser-driven steam jets, as I envision it. Once they’re out and away, they’re under a maneuvering engine that is fusion-driven. Once well away from civilized areas, they switch to antimatter, which is the most efficient, and which also powers the jump engine. So they’re matter-hogs when getting underway, but increasingly efficient as they get going,ultimately capable of sucking up gas and dust they meet and using it, and they don’t go under constant burn: once they’ve achieved a velocity, that’s enough: they’ve got routine ship-things to do/maintain in their insystem running time.

  11. Parsifal

    Selden’s mention of the Norway sketch in Downbelow Station, reminds me of a question I’ve been meaning to ask.
    That sketch shows the ship’s frame as rugged, but with extensive cutaways exposing the rotating core. The kif ship designs described in the Chanur series seem like a better configuration for a warship, with the rotating core (or ring) completely enclosed by an armoured shell – and it seems to make engineering sense to put most of the armour mass and bulk on the frame rather than the core. Should we regard the Norway sketch as a partial cutaway?
    I’ve built a variety of 3D computer models from this sketch over the past twenty years or so, and attempted a fair amount of reverse engineering, extrapolating dimensions from likely deck-to-deck heights in the core – I used to do this sort of thing all the time as part of my job. The main difficulty I’ve found is in fitting realistically-sized riders side-by-side on the frame surface as shown. The rider configuration and dimensions were admittedly extrapolated from even less information – mainly the comparison with a manta in Hellburner, and the volume required for the stated crew and troop load – 4 crew and 40 troops, if I remember correctly.
    If the level of geekish obsession I’ve revealed here reminds anyone of ‘Galaxy Quest’, I suppose I’ll just have to live with it.

  12. wayspooled

    haha! I love it! 😀

  13. CJ

    I did the sketch for my own benefit, and DAW opted to include it in the book.
    Since the armor of the ship, against hostile action or random rocks, is a field it generates, it doesn’t need extensive armor, and does best if it can avoid a lot of mass. At the speed of these ships, even inerts (big slugs with no explosive ability) pack the punch of a meteorite impact, and worse. The energies generated are serious nastiness: if what you run into overpowers the field, you would be toast.

  14. Spiderdavon

    Ah! I assumed that the effect shield was a handy byproduct of the drop down to normal space which would (presumably) decay after the first v-dump. You make it sound more like something that can be turned on and off at will. Could you elaborate please?
    And on the earlier post, are you talking about some variation on the Bussard ramjet?
    Sorry to get all techy, but there are a few of us geeks out here who love this stuff!

  15. CJ

    You can ‘flare’ the jump engines, which help you brake. If they don’t shut down properly of course, you marry the local sun. But partially forming the bubble plus the solar wind helps slow you down. (Fictionally speaking: I actually have no idea how the two would interact, nor does anybody else.) I originally thought of the ramjet, but I then thought, hey, you’ve got something like an exotic field around the ship that’s capable of taking things in the regular universe apart at the atomic level. (again: fictional.) So maybe it can transmogrify the particles of that matter for its own use simply by incorporating its subatomic particles into its surrounding shield. It would be a major power savings.

    • Jcrow9

      Well, and outbound ships can also “pulse up” by briefly flaring the Jump field, right? At least the warships do. That would result in a dramatic increase in speed without expenditure of any reaction mass. Why can’t (or don’t) merchanters do that? (hurriedly ransacking memory cells to see if you’ve ever had a merchie do that) Merchanters are all about the money, and water costs. Figuring out how to boost up without boosting ought to be popular!

      • CJ

        Time is money for the merchanters, but they also have to live their lives and do their maintenance, so they’re not inclined to be the hare, more the stable tortoise.

  16. Spiderdavon

    I recall a passage in the Chanur books where the Pride pulses the field to reach outbound v. Can’t think of any mercantile examples in the A/U books, although I’ve been assuming that they do pulse up just as the trank is kicking in. If they can get that last few kps without expending reaction mass then that makes good commercial sense??

  17. maj_walt

    I’m reading Downbelow Station again– (it’s even better the second go around)– but I wanted to ask you about the Earth Company. I have a general idea of what it is supposed to be, but wanted to be sure that I was correct.

    Basically it is a conglomeration of corporations that have become a nation unto itself. Sort of a dictatorship of beaurocracy (very similar to our State Govermnemt of California). It’s citizenry are pretty much the workers, and the leaders are the CEO’s, etc.

    What authrority does the UN have over the EC if any? Are Earth based corporations independend of the EC or are they tied in somehow? It seems that the entire global economy is heavily dependent upon the EC — so the UN would do very little to upset the apple cart.

    Am I pretty close? (Man this is a great book — I love it!)

  18. CJ

    The fleet was launched as a result of the splintering of humanity, when part of the colonists founded Cyteen and began to set up an independent “why deal with Earth, it’s too far” philosophy. Earth wanted to enforce its rules, the Beyond resisted, Earth slammed down a no-emigration barrier, the Beyond got less trustful, and when Earth tried to enforce tariffs on the stations it did control (with which the Beyond traded) the Beyonders armed their ships, etc. Earth launched the Fleet (Hellburner) to control and defend the Great Circle Trade (which included Earth). The Fleet, like most spacefarers, developed their own ethic and became their own reason for being, ostensibly enforcing the Earth Company’s rules (the conglomerate that had commercial interests in space) but actually increasingly formulating their own policy, under Mazian, the leader who had championed funding the Fleet, schmoozed well to get the money, and who had increasing attitude.

  19. Spiderdavon

    Now there’s a question. In Hellburner, Mazian is described as the Fleet’s Com One, a senior position in Merchanter heirarchy, but not a captain. EC, not understanding this, treat him as overall commander, which characters like Sato and Graf seem to find somewhat baffling.
    You’d have thought that once the Fleet departed, the true command structure would have re-asserted itself and old Conrad would have found himself back on Com, yet the Fleet end up being called Mazianni. How did he end up in charge with ambitious captains like Porey around? Or didn’t anybody else want the job?

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