How are junction fees paid and collected

Jonathan_S wrote: If it's one bi-directional lane just split for human traffic control conventions into entry and exit channels then yeah, you'd probably be able to hit the reverse and head back towards the combined entry/exit point.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Now, if someone else's warship was barging through, without permission, in time of peace you'd probably let them go and have your diplomats sort it with their diplomats after the fact. It's not worth potentially starting a war attempting to force a naval warship to follow Astro Control instruction.

Foreign warships may not have freedom of passage through the junction. I agree that if it attempted to force through, the RMN may opt to let it go rather than start a pointless war, or get service personnel killed by trying to board it. But it wouldn't be allowed to happen more than once: if the a warship from the same nation attempted to do it again, it would be shot out of the sky.

The host nation isn't required to allow foreign warships anywhere in space they control. They have to ask to enter it. If they have an engineering casualty, they may request succour and then will be required to leave ASAP once the issue is addressed. This includes warships from belligerents in some war that the host nation is neutral in, with limits on how much time or what it can do, if it doesn't want to be permanently interned.

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote: If it's one bi-directional lane just split for human traffic control conventions into entry and exit channels then yeah, you'd probably be able to hit the reverse and head back towards the combined entry/exit point.

This has always been my personal choice. The wormhole is just a hole with no preference; but inbound and outbound lanes were developed, so that no ship exiting a wormhole runs into a ship about to enter. So there has to be experimentation (maybe) about where you exit, if you enter away from the center.

However if this maneuver is being attempted to scout a hostile exit, I doubt (even if the cycle time of the hyper-generator weren't a problem) that this could be done quickly enough to avoid the grasers of the defending force.

penny wrote:I always thought it rather odd that the hyper generator discharges after just one transit. Transits are said to be instantaneous. An immeasurable amount of miniscule time. So what actually discharges the hyper generator so quickly.

tlb wrote:Since most (all?) wormholes are outside of recognized territorial limits, I would expect that warships have the same right to pass through a wormhole with the payment of the appropriate fee as any freighter or passenger ship; unless there has been a published diplomatic note excluding classes of vessels from specific systems.

Jonathan_S wrote:I was more thinking of a situation where there was a neutral warship that was allowed to be there that suddenly started ignoring Astro Control and heading for the terminus without any actual right to do so. (And yes, one of the consequences of that action might well be for their nation's ships to lose their rights to visit your space or use your termini)

Jonathan_S wrote:* If it's one bi-directional lane just split for human traffic control conventions into entry and exit channels then yeah, you'd probably be able to hit the reverse and head back towards the combined entry/exit point.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

tlb wrote:Since most (all?) wormholes are outside of recognized territorial limits, I would expect that warships have the same right to pass through a wormhole with the payment of the appropriate fee as any freighter or passenger ship; unless there has been a published diplomatic note excluding classes of vessels from specific systems.

That might be true, except that Manticore is not a signatory to the treaty that recognises the freedom of navigation through wormholes. This is mentioned somewhere (I'm guessing) on MoH.

Therefore, it's a distinction without a difference. If the nation controlling the wormhole wants to deny passage of some foreign warship and has the firepower to enforce it, there's little recourse this warship can have. That may result in a diplomatic incident and some ambassador posturing in the capital city of the controlling nation, some threats of tariffs or sanction, but one would assume the host nation is aware of those possibilities and the relative balance of power before they denied passage.

A Rising Thunder wrote:“The Shingaine Convention on free passage mandates that all warp termini be open to all traffic,” Kolokoltsov shot back.
“Does it?” Carmichael arched his eyebrows, then shrugged. “Well, I’m prepared to take your word for that, Mr. Permanent Senior Undersecretary. Unfortunately, the Star Empire of Manticore isn’t a signatory of the Shingaine Convention.” He smiled pleasantly. “Besides, it’s my understanding that that particular provision of the Convention has been violated several times already.”
Kolokoltsov’s molars ground together. The Shingaine Convention had been sponsored by the Solarian League seventy T-years ago expressly as a means to pressure the then-Star Kingdom of Manticore. The Star Kingdom had already been beginning its preparations for its decades-long war against the People’s Republic of Haven, and it had demonstrated that it was only too prepared to use its control of the Manticoran Wormhole Junction as a lever to pressure the League’s foreign policy in its own favor if it decided that was necessary. The League wasn’t used to dancing to anyone else’s piping—it was supposed to provide the dance music in its relations with other star nations—so it had convened a meeting of “independent star nations” in the Shingaine System which had obediently produced the Shingaine Convention. The Solarian League had immediately recognized it as the basis of its “open door” policy, with the clear implication that it would enforce its interpretation of interstellar law by force if necessary.
But as Carmichael had pointed out, the Star Empire had never signed it and so, technically, wasn’t bound by its provisions. Nor had Manticore ever shown any particular desire to kowtow to Solarian pressure on the matter. For that matter, as Carmichael had implied, the League would be on shaky ground if it did insist on enforcing those provisions, since the Office of Frontier Security had excluded independent Verge star systems from warp termini it controlled on several occasions over the last half-T-century or so as a means to pressure them into accepting OFS “protection.”

tlb wrote:Since most (all?) wormholes are outside of recognized territorial limits, I would expect that warships have the same right to pass through a wormhole with the payment of the appropriate fee as any freighter or passenger ship; unless there has been a published diplomatic note excluding classes of vessels from specific systems.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:That might be true, except that Manticore is not a signatory to the treaty that recognises the freedom of navigation through wormholes. This is mentioned somewhere (I'm guessing) on MoH.

Therefore, it's a distinction without a difference. If the nation controlling the wormhole wants to deny passage of some foreign warship and has the firepower to enforce it, there's little recourse this warship can have. That may result in a diplomatic incident and some ambassador posturing in the capital city of the controlling nation, some threats of tariffs or sanction, but one would assume the host nation is aware of those possibilities and the relative balance of power before they denied passage.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:* If it's one bi-directional lane just split for human traffic control conventions into entry and exit channels then yeah, you'd probably be able to hit the reverse and head back towards the combined entry/exit point.

This one is highly unlikely. When Harvest Joy initially transited to Lynx, it needed time to scan the terminus to find the lane back to Manticore.

Moreover, if they were the same, it would be possible to scout a hostile wormhole: make a ship with two hypergenerators charged, then transit, reverse course, and transit again within 2 seconds. That's enough for someone to fire from 1 light-second away, but if this is unexpected, you may get away with it.

runsforcelery wrote:However, this is where the problem of "nested" hyper generators comes in, because you cannot have a hyper generator online inside another hyper generator's translation field. That means you can't even have it at Routine Readiness. The inner hyper generator would have to be at Powered Down status".