Nomads in the HV?

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Going back to that freedom of navigation -- I don't really understand why this is codified into Honorverse interstellar law.

Ships basically don't drop out of hyper unless their destination is in that system - and so wouldn't even cross the 12-hour limit unless planning to visit a planet or habitat of that system -- where they don't have automatic freedom of navigation. And that's been true at this point for hundreds and hundreds of years. There just isn't anywhere in that outer 12-hour zone for ships from other systems to freely navigate to!
(Yeah there might well be asteroid miners or refineries or the like out there -- but they'd be soverign terriotiry of the system so I can't believe a ship from outside would be allowed to freely navigate right up to docking with them without getting explicit permissions anyway -- so what's the point of codifying their right to swan around in the mostly empty space they've no real reason to be in without permission to enter other parts of the system?

I guess it has a little use in that warships can navigate through that outer part of the system to maintain legal surveillance on potentially hostile systems (as the pickets from Hancock were doing to Seaford Nine in the runup to the first war). But it seems unlikely that a freedom of navigation would be enshrined into interstellar law solely to allow surveillance.


And it doesn't seem like ships need to ensure they exit hyper outside the 12 light-minute limit and request permission to cross it - instead they seem to exit hyper well within that 12 light-minute zone to save in-system transit time. So you don't seem to need the 12-hour limit as a defense identification zone. In either case the ships seem to get a reasonable amount of time to identify themselves and confirm they're permitted to continue (or to reenter hyper if they're denied permission)


It's a concept that makes a lot of sense on Earth's seas where the only way past such an extended zone is often through it -- but that just doesn't apply to how travel works in the Honorverse.

I understand why it has been codified. It is obvious. I included it in the opening post.

The codification protects the HV version of the contiguous zone. A ship is essentially traveling above private airspace when it is in hyper. If the ship drops out of hyper at the wrong time -- for whatever reason -- it is now in private airspace.

As a traveler in space, I must be able to essentially "cross above your airspace" in hyper and not be fired upon if there is an emergency, or engine problems or hyper generator problem or a myriad of other things that made me have to temporarily pull off the main highway and change my flat tire on private property. In other words that law protects me if that Demon Murphy intervenes. If not, hyper travel wouldn't be practical because it would be too dangerous. Especially early space travel when the MTBF rating of most ships' systems was a lot lower. A flat tire shouldn't become a death sentence or an act of war.

hyperspace = contiguous zone

Jonsthan_S wrote:But the 12-hour limit applies in normal space. It is NOT a rule about hyperspace; all of hyperspace is a free navigation zone -- you don't need any special rules about that.

Heck, the systems you might be passing 'above' can't even see that you're doing so because no sensor can see up into hyper (or down into normal space). Hyper isn't equivalent to an airplane flying overhead (and airplanes have different rules anyway).


The 12-hour rule says I can drop out into normal space in your outer system, and putter around there indefinitely as long as I don't cross the 12-minute limit (or approach any of your stations that might be out there) -- and there's just no reason a ship would be doing so during normal commerce.

And if a ship got a "flat tire" then the 12-hour limit isn't likely to help them. First, the odds that they'd experience the problem near an inhabited system is infinitesimal (actually that's not true, the most likely place to experience a problem is immediately after entering hyper; where they'd be making an emergency reemergence in the system they just left -- so a system they (presumably) had permission to have been conducing business in; no special rule needed.) And if they did reemerge in a random system along the way the 12-hour limit doesn't help because it doesn't let them get help. They'd still need to get permission to cross the 12-minute limit to limp to a station or planet to either contract for repair, get spare parts, or wait until they can send a request for help. (When Sirius faked her drive issue in OBS she wasn't out in the 12-hour zone. She had gotten permission to cross the 12-minute limit and wait in planetary orbit).

And, as I noted, ships don't normally exit hyper beyond the 12-minute limit. They exit within that "permission required" zone. A ship in distress would be even less likely to emerge additional hours from help.

So for ships in trouble you wouldn't want a generic freedom to navigate around the normal space of a system's outer limit -- you'd want rules about providing assistance to ships in distress; and those could work just as well if the entire solar system required the same permissions to remain in as the inner system areas inside the 12-hour limit. (Which in Earth terms is basically everything inside the asteroid belts; as the 12-minute limit reaches nearly to Jupiter)

A SNAFU. The Demon Murphy.


To see this as an analogue of the contiguous zone, which I do. Normal space is the surface of the water and hyper space is neutral airspace about the surface. My point is that a ship could experience an emergency which causes them to drop out of hyper damn near inside the 12 minute limit and momentum carries them in.

Hearken back to an early time of space exploration in the HV. A time when ships’ systems were not as robust. When MTBF was nothing like it is now and ship systems broke down quite a bit. If your navigation goes down and your hyper generator fails you might have to drop out of hyper wherever you are at the time. In the early days of galactic exploration, maps were not as detailed or complete. Astrogators are not created equal, and I imagine getting lost in space was not an impossibility. If communications are also down, one cannot sprint a request for assistance. And some systems were probably a bit jumpy. That law protects the rights of innocent travelers from some asshole who is simply having a bad day.

It does not matter if a system can see you in hyper crossing over "their airspace." That does not matter. What matters is if you are caught with your pants down in someones territorial waters. Submarine stealth is quite good nowadays. Even though the US might miss a Russian sub invading territorial waters, what matters is if it is caught there.

There is no way to pass that incursion off as a mistake. In the HV it might not have been so cut and dry in the early days of space travel.

That law prevents some system from shooting before asking questions, and it also protects the owner from having his ship confiscated. I imagine there was lots of that going on as well. Just like our present day police precincts, one way to solve a shortage of funds to buy vehicles is to confiscate vehicles operating illegally.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:Indeed, but who wants to live in Parmley? The few people we met there want out.

A nomad. He is not actually living there most of the time. It's simply his mailing address, and the address on his ID.

penny wrote:To see this as an analogue of the contiguous zone, which I do. Normal space is the surface of the water and hyper space is neutral airspace about the surface. My point is that a ship could experience an emergency which causes them to drop out of hyper damn near inside the 12 minute limit and momentum carries them in.

Normal space is just that. It's not water and you can't see into.
When you are dealing with planetary systems in the Honorverse, it's the distance from the star in NORMAL SPACE. You can't see ships in hyperspace from normal space. If you were going to try to patrol hyperspace in some area around your star you would have to put ships- multiple ships- in some pattern around the sphere of hyperlimit of your system and have some regular sequence of having ships jump out to query them for reports unless you wanted anybody spotting some ship lurking around your system to drop back into normal space to deliver the report.

On Earth, the airspace over a nation is NOT just open to anybody's aircraft flying though it. They need to file flight plans and be approved (or regularly scheduled commercial air traffic) but they are also going to be using transponders.
There are a number of places that don't allow aircraft to fly over some or actually ANY of their airspace or inside x-distance outside of whatever limit they outside water areas of their and...good way to get shot down. North Korea comes to mind.

If you have somebody with an engineering casualty and the ship does a crash transition just outside your hyperlimit it is also probably going to be screaming for help and have it ID transponder dialed up to max power.
At that point it also becomes a question if you have anything in a position to do anything about said ship ranging from being able to give it aid before it blows though your system and back out into hyperspace at interesting speed or intercept it such you can defend against it if has arrived with intent to harm.

Brigade XO wrote:

penny wrote:To see this as an analogue of the contiguous zone, which I do. Normal space is the surface of the water and hyper space is neutral airspace about the surface. My point is that a ship could experience an emergency which causes them to drop out of hyper damn near inside the 12 minute limit and momentum carries them in.

Normal space is just that. It's not water and you can't see into.
When you are dealing with planetary systems in the Honorverse, it's the distance from the star in NORMAL SPACE. You can't see ships in hyperspace from normal space. If you were going to try to patrol hyperspace in some area around your star you would have to put ships- multiple ships- in some pattern around the sphere of hyperlimit of your system and have some regular sequence of having ships jump out to query them for reports unless you wanted anybody spotting some ship lurking around your system to drop back into normal space to deliver the report.

On Earth, the airspace over a nation is NOT just open to anybody's aircraft flying though it. They need to file flight plans and be approved (or regularly scheduled commercial air traffic) but they are also going to be using transponders.
There are a number of places that don't allow aircraft to fly over some or actually ANY of their airspace or inside x-distance outside of whatever limit they outside water areas of their and...good way to get shot down. North Korea comes to mind.

If you have somebody with an engineering casualty and the ship does a crash transition just outside your hyperlimit it is also probably going to be screaming for help and have it ID transponder dialed up to max power.
At that point it also becomes a question if you have anything in a position to do anything about said ship ranging from being able to give it aid before it blows though your system and back out into hyperspace at interesting speed or intercept it such you can defend against it if has arrived with intent to harm.

It is in the contiguous zone.

I still do not see a reason that a ship cannot drop out of hyper just beyond a system's perimeter. "I am not in your system!"

penny wrote:I still do not see a reason that a ship cannot drop out of hyper just beyond a system's perimeter. "I am not in your system!"

Everyone is saying that they can "drop out of hyper just beyond a system's perimeter" and there are legal requirements that must be met. Note that the original 12 mile limit on Earth was set by the range of fire of the guns at that time. So with longer range weapons, a longer territorial limit is needed.

runsforcelery wrote:The other is the 12-minute limit — that is a sphere defined as extending 12 light-minutes beyond the star's hyper limit (or up to around 35-40 light-minutes from the primary. This is the zone in which freedom of passage is not a common right. Warships of another star nation, for example, may not cross the 12-minute limit without identifying themselves and requesting right of passage (the SLN frequently ignores this provision, by the way). All commercial/private ships become subject to inspection, traffic laws, commercial law, taxes, etc. Critical industrial facilities, population centers, etc., are normally located within the 12-minute limit for reasons of military security, and "crossing the limit" without identifying one's self is a violation of international law for a merchant vessel and an act of war by a warship. This may be thought of as the 12-mile limit recognized by the 1982 UN Convention on Law of the Sea, again applied to star systems.

There are examples of nomads mentioned in the books, ToF talks about the "gypsy" freighters that wander around looking for freight to carry.

penny wrote:I still do not see a reason that a ship cannot drop out of hyper just beyond a system's perimeter. "I am not in your system!"

Like when you put your hand in front of your sibling's face an inch / a few centimetres and say "I'm not touching you!"

More to the point, they can but if they really are 6 light-hours away, they will either not be noticed and they can do however they wish over there, or they will be and the system's defence force / guard will come. Probably to offer help and rescue the stranded ship. And also to impose a fine and require their navigators to go back to school and to send an inspection team to look into the hyperlog's functioning.

They may resist being boarded. I don't know what the legalities would be here. If someone dropped out of hyper within 10 million km of an installation near Pluto, you can bet the SLN would assert territorial space and require the ship to be boarded.

penny wrote:To see this as an analogue of the contiguous zone, which I do. Normal space is the surface of the water and hyper space is neutral airspace about the surface. My point is that a ship could experience an emergency which causes them to drop out of hyper damn near inside the 12 minute limit and momentum carries them in.

That's be a pretty unlikely timing for an emergency.

A merchant ship approaching a system in hyper could cross the entire ~5.5 LH between the edge of the 12-hour zone (6 LH radius from the star) and the edge of the 12-minute zone (12 LM beyond the hyper limit) in under 19 seconds.

If they make an emergency exit sooner they'd be out in interstellar space. (And for something like 99% of their journey they'd be lightyears from the nearest star. Oops*) But if their emergency could wait until they'd crossed the 12-hour limit it can likely wait the seconds it would take to emerge near the hyper limit where assistance is closer to hand.

Now if they're heading out of the system it'll take them longer to accelerate out of the 12-hour zone; they also wouldn't need a special 6 LH buffer zone since they'd just departed from within the 12-minute zone.


Look, I totally understand interstellar law needing to codify that ships in distress must be allowed to drop in on systems for assistance. But the 12-hour limit grants a whole lot of permissions not required for that, while not actually providing permission for ships in distress to emerge where they need to to actually get somewhat timely assistance (near the hyper limit)

I just can't seen any good reason why allowing a ship in distress to heave to in any inhabited system requires allowing any ship to wander indefinitely around the normal space of a system's outer reaches regardless of any bona fide business there.

I don't see it an analogous to a country's contiguous zone. The contiguous zone often stretched across bottlenecks that shipping lanes must pass through, and ships with legitimate business on the far side of that bottleneck (English Channel, Straits of Gibraltar, etc.) need freedom to navigate through it to reach their destination. That simply isn't the case with the Honorverse's 12-hour limit. A ship on a normal passage between two systems would never drop out of hyper to pass through some 3rd system's 12-hour limit area (outside of an emergency) because it'd be a massive pointless detour -- not the only reasonable (or potentially only possible) way to reach their legit destination.

And the contiguous zone isn't established for emergencies; there are other laws of the sea that cover the rules for ships in distress - just like there certainly must be in the Honorverse.

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* This issue caused RFC to come back with an infodump after the scene were a hyper-generator emergency on the Hali Sowle explaining how those automatic safety systems work; why they did dump the Hali Sowle back into normal space; but why they wouldn't do so if the hyperlog showed they weren't within n-space range of an inhabited system. If your hyper generator dies when you're between system you want to stay in hyper. At least that'll let you reach a populated system where there enough hyper traffic you can hope to catch someone's attention and alert them to your inability to leave hyper. If you drop out of hyper in deep space you just get to die once you run out of food, potable water, or spare parts.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:To see this as an analogue of the contiguous zone, which I do. Normal space is the surface of the water and hyper space is neutral airspace about the surface. My point is that a ship could experience an emergency which causes them to drop out of hyper damn near inside the 12 minute limit and momentum carries them in.

That's be a pretty unlikely timing for an emergency.

A merchant ship approaching a system in hyper could cross the entire ~5.5 LH between the edge of the 12-hour zone (6 LH radius from the star) and the edge of the 12-minute zone (12 LM beyond the hyper limit) in under 19 seconds.

If they make an emergency exit sooner they'd be out in interstellar space. (And for something like 99% of their journey they'd be lightyears from the nearest star. Oops*) But if their emergency could wait until they'd crossed the 12-hour limit it can likely wait the seconds it would take to emerge near the hyper limit where assistance is closer to hand.

Now if they're heading out of the system it'll take them longer to accelerate out of the 12-hour zone; they also wouldn't need a special 6 LH buffer zone since they'd just departed from within the 12-minute zone.


Look, I totally understand interstellar law needing to codify that ships in distress must be allowed to drop in on systems for assistance. But the 12-hour limit grants a whole lot of permissions not required for that, while not actually providing permission for ships in distress to emerge where they need to to actually get somewhat timely assistance (near the hyper limit)

I just can't seen any good reason why allowing a ship in distress to heave to in any inhabited system requires allowing any ship to wander indefinitely around the normal space of a system's outer reaches regardless of any bona fide business there.

I don't see it an analogous to a country's contiguous zone. The contiguous zone often stretched across bottlenecks that shipping lanes must pass through, and ships with legitimate business on the far side of that bottleneck (English Channel, Straits of Gibraltar, etc.) need freedom to navigate through it to reach their destination. That simply isn't the case with the Honorverse's 12-hour limit. A ship on a normal passage between two systems would never drop out of hyper to pass through some 3rd system's 12-hour limit area (outside of an emergency) because it'd be a massive pointless detour -- not the only reasonable (or potentially only possible) way to reach their legit destination.

And the contiguous zone isn't established for emergencies; there are other laws of the sea that cover the rules for ships in distress - just like there certainly must be in the Honorverse.

---
* This issue caused RFC to come back with an infodump after the scene were a hyper-generator emergency on the Hali Sowle explaining how those automatic safety systems work; why they did dump the Hali Sowle back into normal space; but why they wouldn't do so if the hyperlog showed they weren't within n-space range of an inhabited system. If your hyper generator dies when you're between system you want to stay in hyper. At least that'll let you reach a populated system where there enough hyper traffic you can hope to catch someone's attention and alert them to your inability to leave hyper. If you drop out of hyper in deep space you just get to die once you run out of food, potable water, or spare parts.

Why is dropping out of hyper in intersteller space 99 light years away from civilization a bad thing? As long as the ship is fully functioning it can just get back into hyper after a good night's sleep. Instead of having some cop knocking on your window and shining a light on you because you pulled over to get some rest while driving all night long.

Hey Thinksmarkedly, I guess it is sorta like that with your sibling. But be that as it may, it is still legal. As I said before in another thread, governments toe that line all of the time. “We did not cross the 37th parallel."

Anyway, a nomad just wants to pull over and get some sleep. Can't do it in some system's parking lot or they'll call the cops just like the big department stores.


I suppose setting up house in hyperspace would be a better option. Unless within the vicinity of a rogue grav wave where it would be just as dangerous as pulling over on the side of the road where a drunk driver can knock your rear end into your throat.

penny wrote:Why is dropping out of hyper in intersteller space 99 light years away from civilization a bad thing? As long as the ship is fully functioning it can just get back into hyper after a good night's sleep. Instead of having some cop knocking on your window and shining a light on you because you pulled over to get some rest while driving all night long.

Hey Thinksmarkedly, I guess it is sorta like that with your sibling. But be that as it may, it is still legal. As I said before in another thread, governments toe that line all of the time. “We did not cross the 37th parallel."

Anyway, a nomad just wants to pull over and get some sleep. Can't do it in some system's parking lot or they'll call the cops just like the big department stores.


I suppose setting up house in hyperspace would be a better option. Unless within the vicinity of a rogue grav wave where it would be just as dangerous as pulling over on the side of the road where a drunk driver can knock your rear end into your throat.

The goalposts seem to be moving.

You had started by talking about "a ship could experience an emergency which causes them to drop out of hyper" if the emergency is with the hyper generator then dropping out 99 LY from anything is a very bad thing because you're no more able to fix the generator but now if it refuses to work you're centuries of n-space travel from anybody who can help you and there's no way to call for help. So you run out of resources and die.

If there's some emergency with the ship that doesn't involve the hyper generator then dropping out of hyper in the middle of nowhere in deep interstellar space doesn't help you fix it; doesn't gives you any extra resources, and delays you in reaching someone who could help you. Best case you either had the resources to fix it, or enough time to reach help even with this pointless detour -- in which case at least leaving hyper didn't make things worse; but that's your best case.

If you don't have an emergency then the bad bit about leaving hyper is it significantly delays your arrival because no only do you spend however long you're taking a break making effectively zero progress towards your goal, but you've thrown away over 97% of the velocity you'd built up so once you reenter hyper you've also got to spend those hours again working up to your cruising speed.

Honorvese starships aren't one-man crews. Even Honor's little non-hyper runabout has a 2nd crewman, Wayne Alexander the flight engineer. Her hyper-capable yacht probably has at least a 5 man crew (I'd guess 3 able to stand bridge watch, including a licensed captain, plus an engineer and at least one engineering rating). So a ship in hyper doesn't need to pull over when one person gets tired - they carry enough crew that you stand reasonable watches so your watch should be over before you're too tired to 'drive'; and if for some reason you can't last that long you'd call for another crew member to relieve you. (Not that there should be all that much for to do during most bridge watches in hyper; the ship's almost certainly going to on autopilot anyway; sailing along on its days to weeks long journey to the next stop)