Chanur Explained, HUGE vanes -- I mean -- HUGE spoilers

Now the time has come to solve one of the many questions I always ask myself when reading my favourite scifi series.

What does AOS stand for?
I understand what AOS means -- it's the wavefront of information riding towards a receiver very far away (I'd appreciate a better explanation. I do understand it, but I find it hard to explain, specially in English), but I've not been able to find out what those three letters actually stand for.

I'll probably be back with more. But now back to the books!

Acquisition of Signal, I think

Acquisition?!? Are you serio- oh. Oh ok. Hey, I German!

I think so to. And as a person who is sometimes baffled by the US love for acronyms I often find this site helpful - Acronymfinder

Hah! And you know what? I really thought that "aquisition" was a joke and settled for simple "arrival of signal".

Thanks a lot for the link! I did google. You have no idea how many firms are called AOS!

Anyway, I WILL be back with more questions.

P.S.

I have never said thank you for the help I got with my abysmal English, over at the "My Latest Addiction" thread. When I found your posts, folks, the discussion had moved on, but I kinda felt bad for not saying thanks.
So. THANKS!

You're welcome!

(Not that I recall whether I was any help, but I'm sure you are welcome from any who were!)

vetch, i'd never call your english abysmal!

No, I believe the word abysmal is reserved for my German!

- S

Acquisition of Signal is a leftover NASA-ism, along with LOS - Loss of Signal - from spacecraft - Mercury capsules, then Gemini spacecraft being acquired or lost over the horizon of each ground station, long before it was all done by relay satellite in the Shuttle era. For Merc there were about 2 dozen ground stations right round the world, in Africa and Madagascar, including ships at sea [which the Soviets also used] and even converted 707 aircraft with huge antennae in bulbous noses, to fill gaps in the network.

For Apollo Command or Lunar modules there were 3 larger tracking stations, 120 degrees apart, in Goldstone Ca, outside Madrid in Spain, and here in Aust. at Parkes and Honeysuckle Creek-Tidbinbilla, so there was always one looking at the moon as Earth rotated. These are still used for unmanned deep space missions - Voyager, Cassini et al today.

No-one did acronyms quite like NASA in its heyday, not even the Air Force. Even astronauts found it baffling at times. It's only partly joking that NASA made up the acronyms and then fiddled the words to fit. PECSI was my favourite - Precision Environmental-Control-System Integrator. That's an air conditioner switch :D

Hkkt 1641 [0541GMT, 2142PST] Fr. 6 Nov 09

I do that a lot; my all-time favorite was from a post-apocalyptic story idea of mine, revolving around dueling underground bunkers - the Strategic Nuclear Aftermath Field Unit (SNAFU), and the Fortified Underground Bunker, Army Reserve (FUBAR)

What Star, Spence, and Sandor said!

If it makes you feel any better, Vetch, I thought it was a joke too...Very interesting to hear where it came from.

Busifer, thanks for the Acronym Finder link! My favorite of the possibles for "AOS" is "All Options Suck" ...one I'm sure I'll have an opportunity to use some time in the future!

Mitha said

Well, at the very least it should be an obligatory option in quizzes

Thanks again ~ I wasn't fishing for compliments, I know my usual English is okay-ish, though probably often circuitous and awkward, but people normally understand what I mean. The abysmal part was my "neither" grammar-fubar.

But thanks to Xheralt's input I have now learned more important English: fubar, tarfu, and susfu.

Oh, and Mitha's AOS might come handy, too!


edit: And thanks Hakkikt for the explanantions about AOS!

New question. Skkukuk: Py once asks him what rank he held among kif, and he doesn't answer. Not a "proper" question to ask, apparently.

We do know he came from one of Akkhtimakt's ships which Sikkukkut took at Mkks.


And I am thinking that he was very high ranking (captain?) and is embarrassed that he was made skku (slave) to Chanur.
On the other hand -- would a kif be thus embarrassed, or wouldn't it rather brag when it got the chance? So that he didn't want to answer Py's question coz he had no rank at all?
But for a low-ranking kif I find him too clever, and too good a fighter (Cherryh makes a point to describe this: "[...] her flesh shrank at the sudden purposeful grace with which Skkukuk came around that table and assumed the chair beside her — he slithered, on two feet: was, she suddenly recognized those moves, not skulking, not slinking — but moving with that fluidity very dangerous kif could use; very powerful kif; kif whose moves she instinctively kept an eye to when she saw them dockside and met them in bars. This was a fighter, among a species who were born fighting.")


What do you think?