The Battle At The Red Sun II

Magnusson attacks Sector Aldebaran but which sector had he been the Admiral of?

A concentrated attack might damage a quantum-jumping ship but this is unlikely, apparently. Even when not jumping, a ship is protected by:

armor plating;
absorbers;
computer-controlled negafields.

Two ships are solid and therefore vulnerable to each other either when they are not jumping or when they are in phase. Ships can match phase because any given type of ship has a limited range of feasible frequencies and these are quantized, not infinitely divisible. Shifting frequencies is an evasive tactic. High-speed stochastic analysis can help an enemy to predict upcoming frequencies. Since the object is not only to avoid harm but also to inflict it, phase-change evasion is not always used and two opponents may both go relativistic to settle the matter.

Magnusson's flagship, N. Aquilae, planetoid-sized with a crew of hundreds and machines in their thousands, is at the center of his fleet. The Admiral and his staff are safe behind defensive missiles, projectiles, rays and shielding fields whereas fighting ships are necessarily less well protected.

Magnusson is tactically flexible whereas Rear Admiral Blenkiron of Sector Aldebaran merely holds his armada in standard configuration, hoping to reduce, then englobe, his enemy. However, some ships under Magnusson's command already orbit Battle Sun in relativistic mode with power turned down, additionally hidden by the dust and gas of a potential but unformed planetary system. At Magnusson's signal, the extra ships go hyper, their well-tuned engines protecting most of them from the danger of jumping too close to a star. They attack the Terran armada from all directions while Magnusson's fleet also thrusts through. Blenkiron does not know how to respond but, with his flagship captain's advice, he manages to retreat, preserving most of his ships but letting Magnusson take Sector Aldebaran in a classic victory.

Flandry has been compared to Hornblower. I find another Hornblower parallel in just one aspect of what happens with Blenkiron. In a Hornblower TV episode, young officer Hornblower issues an order. An older, experienced seaman replies, "That would be difficult to do, sir, unless you meant..." and then suggests a completely different order. Hornblower, smiling his thanks, says, "That is what I meant, of course!" The older man helps the younger man. The younger man is wise enough to heed advice and is also able to acknowledge the help non-verbally. No order has been disobeyed and there has been no insubordination. Similarly, although in different circumstances and at a much higher level in terms of rank, the flagship captain, Tetsuo Ogawa, saves the day and becomes a hero by diplomatically advising the panicked, un-Hornblower-like, Blenkiron.

See other battles in space here and here.

A Minor Space Battle

Mirkheim, X.

As the massively superior Baburite fleet approaches, the Hermetian flotilla under Admiral Michael Falkayn in the battleship, Alpha Cygni, flees from the Maian System. Eric Tamarin overhauls the flotilla in his personal spaceship. Falkayn assigns him to the destroyer North Atlantis. (Heir apparent and Admiral should not be in the same ship.) Some Baburite craft intercept the Hermetians while they are still too deep in the gravity well to go hyper. Falkayn orders his men to hold course and to fire at will. A missile from Caduceus stops a Baburite missile. The two groups pass through each other, exchanging fire. Most explosions are remote from North Atlantis. The Baburites concentrate their fire on Alpha Cygni. Obeying orders, the captain of North Atlantis does not go to assist but maintains his course. A warhead destroys Alpha Cygni's screens and interceptors and the Baburites pound what is left. Eric Tamarin becomes the new commander. The Hermetians go hyper and are not pursued. Attacking the battleship, the Baburites took losses and are now an inferior force with the rest of their armada too far away to catch up. Fighting FTL involves drawing alongside and trying to match phase, too much trouble to be worth trying with Hermes still to be conquered.

Phases (Or Phrases)

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, "hyperspace" is successive quantum jumps. Hyperjumping spaceships become solid to each other if they match the phases (or frequencies) of their jumps.

In Anderson's Psychotechnic History, "hyperspace" is an increase in phase velocity, made possible by the frequency of the engine's oscillators, or is a tachyon mode.

In The Peregrine, part of the Psychotechnic History, when the spaceship is in the fringes of a trepidation vortex:

"'Components of the vibration have the ship's resonance frequencies. They'll shake us apart, atom by atom.'" (CHAPTER XIII, p. 114)

The solution is to:

"'...get the ship as a whole in phase with the major space-pulsations -...'" (pp. 114-115)

- so Coordinator Trevelyan, having glanced at the ship's instruments, then subconsciously computed gravitational and electric potentials, gradients, magnetism, gyration, frequencies and amplitudes, directs the engine room how to:

"'Pulse the hyperdrive, sinusoid - here, I'll give you the figures.'" (p. 115)

It all sounds very similar.

When I worked in a labouring job at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, (see also Hospital) a member of the domestic staff informed me that a then current building project within the Infirmary was "Phrase One." We wondered how many Phrases there were going to be.