?

penny wrote:I went on to say that I fully agree. The GA cannot simply hyper in-system guns blaring without proof. And the MA has been very paranoid about losing pieces of their puzzle. And what can the GA legally do? Can a navy simply hyper in someone else's system and demand anything? Even if that anything is simply cooperation? Does even galactic law say that a navy must be given admittance to your system even in a time of peace? Why should a system have to allow another navy to trespass; to possibly see classified emplacements, mines, etc. The Andermani didn't seem to be under any obligation of allowing Honor access to space it controlled. So, not only must Darius be found, but incontrovertible evidence of many things must also be uncovered. So, the legality of attacking Darius alone because of the logistics involved in gathering certain proof might give Darius the warning of an impending attack.

Nice thought Theemile.

penny wrote:I went on to say that I fully agree. The GA cannot simply hyper in-system guns blaring without proof. And the MA has been very paranoid about losing pieces of their puzzle. And what can the GA legally do? Can a navy simply hyper in someone else's system and demand anything? Even if that anything is simply cooperation? Does even galactic law say that a navy must be given admittance to your system even in a time of peace? Why should a system have to allow another navy to trespass; to possibly see classified emplacements, mines, etc. The Andermani didn't seem to be under any obligation of allowing Honor access to space it controlled. So, not only must Darius be found, but incontrovertible evidence of many things must also be uncovered. So, the legality of attacking Darius alone because of the logistics involved in gathering certain proof might give Darius the warning of an impending attack.

Nice thought Theemile.

Jonathan_S wrote:Well, it's not like there's any interstellar police that can chase a navy away if it misbehaves. Or really any interstellar law beyond:
a) what treaties you've agreed to abide by

b) treaties widely enough accepted that blatantly refusing to abide by it will cause treaty signatories to take action against you. (e.g. you may not have signed the Cherwell Convention -- but if any signatories find slaves or slaving equipment on your ships they're going to take action against that despite the fact that you never actually agreed not to do that. Or if you don't abide by whatever interstellar framework applies to intellectual property the folks you're copying it from are likely to apply sanctions or cut you off from their markets)

c) edicts by entities powerful enough to unilaterally enforce them against any violators (e.g. the Eridani Edict)

And yeah, I doubt there's any interstellar treaty that grants other governments a right to inspect your naval facilities. And if there was there wouldn't be any widespread adoption of it.


However, on the real-politic level, if you suspect a system has been covertly attacking you there's nothing stopping you from rocking up with your fleet and laying down an ultimatum. "We have evidence pointing to you committing acts of war against us. Convince us of your innocence a state of war will exist between us" At that point, as part of the ultimatum, you can absolutely demand access to their classified naval facilities and information -- declaring that that's the only way you could be convinced that your intel was wrong.

They don't have to give you that access.
But if you're sufficiently convinced of their guilt you might well attack if they refuse.

Sure, bringing your fleet uninvited into their system is itself a hostile act, and arguable an act of war (or at least a casus belli). So don't do it unless you're willing to start a war over the issue. But if you're willing to start a war you can also offer to not start that war if they'll meet your demands. (Though they may then start the war anyway)

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The ships did decelerate from cruising speed about a day out too and that was not picked up, not even by the very sensitive gravitic network around Manticore. It's simple Maths to calculate the average speed the attackers took between the hyper transition and the attack, and that does not match the speed the weapons were moving at when they became detected. Given that there's an upper speed limit at 0.8c, that also puts a maximum distance that the attackers could have decelerated from and still achieved the attack velocity in that time period. So the RMN has to answer: if those had used wedges, could they have detected them?

From White Haven's reaction in the aftermath, the answer was "yes" and thus that explains why they thought it was a new drive system, not wedges. Even if it were wedges, the question remains: are the weapons detected and captured at Galton stealthy enough to have been missed during their deceleration phase?

tlb wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The ships did decelerate from cruising speed about a day out too and that was not picked up, not even by the very sensitive gravitic network around Manticore. It's simple Maths to calculate the average speed the attackers took between the hyper transition and the attack, and that does not match the speed the weapons were moving at when they became detected. Given that there's an upper speed limit at 0.8c, that also puts a maximum distance that the attackers could have decelerated from and still achieved the attack velocity in that time period. So the RMN has to answer: if those had used wedges, could they have detected them?

From White Haven's reaction in the aftermath, the answer was "yes" and thus that explains why they thought it was a new drive system, not wedges. Even if it were wedges, the question remains: are the weapons detected and captured at Galton stealthy enough to have been missed during their deceleration phase?

As far as the RMN knows, this hyper transition you mention was a sensor "ghost"; you only know it was not because you read the book. The defenders have no way of knowing where or when the transition was made and so have no way of knowing what acceleration profile the weapons took to get where they fired. You are correct that an initial reaction was a new drive system, but that can just be incredulity that their sensors failed to prevent the attack.

Theemile wrote:However, various sensor readings accumulated after the attack and compiled together will give the missile trajectories, giving the vector and final flight profile of the missiles - which should point right back to the launch point - and then the flight path of the launch vehicles. It might be interesting to see what data was accumulated by the various sensors but ignored by the filters, but is now obvious when taken in total.

tlb wrote:

Theemile wrote:However, various sensor readings accumulated after the attack and compiled together will give the missile trajectories, giving the vector and final flight profile of the missiles - which should point right back to the launch point - and then the flight path of the launch vehicles. It might be interesting to see what data was accumulated by the various sensors but ignored by the filters, but is now obvious when taken in total.

I agree that the data will be interesting; but am not sure that it can indicate much about the launch vehicles or launch point, which could have been outside the hyper-limit.

One thing I wonder is about the platform that was put in place to collect the target data from the Ghost scouts and pass it on to the missile pods. I do not remember anything about it destructing and we know that a piece of the messaging was overheard, so there should be a search for the source. If found, what would that tell us?

tlb wrote:One thing I wonder is about the platform that was put in place to collect the target data from the Ghost scouts and pass it on to the missile pods. I do not remember anything about it destructing and we know that a piece of the messaging was overheard, so there should be a search for the source. If found, what would that tell us?

Mission of Honor wrote:One more T-month until we put the guidance platforms in place.
[...]
The guidance platforms were even stealthier than his ships. Someone would have to almost literally collide with one of them to spot them, and they’d be positioned well above the system ecliptic, where there was no traffic to do the colliding. He would have been happier if the platforms had been a little smaller—he admitted that to himself, as well—but delivering targeting information to that many individual missiles in a time window as short as the Oyster Bay ops plan demanded required a prodigious amount of bandwidth. And, despite everything, it was highly likely the Manties were going to hear something when they started transmitting all that data.

Mission of Honor wrote:Once all their sensor data had been collected, organized, and analyzed, Apparition would know what to tell the guidance platforms.

Mission of Honor wrote:The torpedoes had begun accelerating well before they or any of the missile pods accompanying them reached the range at which any transmission from the communications platforms the Ghost-class scout ships had emplaced could have reached them. On the other hand, they had less need for any additional information than the missiles did.

penny wrote:I also agree that any data collected would be interesting. (I'd like to have a copy of it myself.) But I am also unsure the data would be the source of any usable enlightenment. There are just too many variables. For instance, aren't we all under the impression the g-torps are maneuverable? Calculating a launch point from a final profile of a maneuvering attack missile without the missile’s acceleration profile as well, would take a magician’s trick in triangulation. Do consider that we all suggest the g-torp is not only maneuverable, but loiterable.

As far as those filters, even if we assume all the data that is filtered is saved, what could it possibly yield, if the filtered data is lost and corrupted among other filtered data. I assume that it would be... lost that is, among a lot of other filtered data. Filters are usually set at a certain threshold because of other trivial phenomena setting them off.

Consider a simple motion detector in your yard that sees a lot of rodents during its time of operation. Like at night when there are lots of four-legged animals setting it of. And many two-legged animals as well, like birds.

So a user sets the filters at a realistic usable threshold because of those constant false triggers. I'd expect lots of false triggers below a certain threshold in the very busy MBS.

Not to mention the implication that lowering the threshold of the filters would raise the GA’s ability to detect the g-torps.

penny wrote:Do consider that we all suggest the g-torp is not only maneuverable, but loiterable.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:Do consider that we all suggest the g-torp is not only maneuverable, but loiterable.

I do not believe that is true, it is the Silver Bullets that were specifically designed to loiter. The G-torpedoes do not have the ability to trickle charge the plasma capacitors, so they have only what power remains when they reach the attack point.