"Why are you still alive?"

tlb wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The discrepancy of "decades" and "centuries" puzzled me when I read this part.

It will take many decades, both in hiding and then covertly manipulating events to get the Plan back on track. A lot more ground will continue to be lost during that time in hiding; which will add greatly to the cost.

It will take centuries after that, before the Plan has succeeded in all its details.

Prolong will throw everything off - the current crop of people will have memories stretching for 3 centuries, so integration after a couple generations is no longer an easy thing - Small town Doctors or priests will remember who was born when for 250 years, so it's not easy to hide multi-generation plants.

If the Detweilers were smart, their current major objective would be establishing a bolt hole, a thousand light years out in an odd direction.

Darius is vulnerable, if only because there has been a lot of traffic in and out of the Felix-Darius bridge (as opposed to the other three -at least- termini we have been shown on the map) and the security force for the Felix end is part of the Mannheim SDF. So there are ships -and people- who both have transited that wormhole and the information is floating around in ships computers and peoples heads.
Not as vulnerable as we would like but still there is a reasonable chance that Ruth and company may focus enough suspicion on Felix that it has to be curtailed as the operations transit point. If anybody finds out Mannheim is doing something that looks like it might be guarding a wormhole that nobody knows about things may get real tense really quickly.

It is POSSIBLE that one of those "unknown" destination( well, undisclosed and so very open-ended) termini could be several hundred light years away from much of anything in the know/explored section of the galaxy where humans have been colonizing.
If so it would be reasonable that the Alignment has set up a Site B for what it has on Darius but that would also mean that at a minimum it would have the Darius end of the wormhole getting fitted out with forts and minefields along with ships in a defensive posture to slam it closed should the GA come calling.

We know that there are multiple wormholes connected to Darius, Felix is getting the traffic and the Torch end is probably not getting any transits by the Alignment. Doing that would just be waving a flag at Torch and the GA. So where else can the Alignment get too?

The Alignment trying to make it look like they are gone and go back to slinking around in the dark is going to make it fun to keep an eye on it's opponents. That RF business person may be a conduit for present and future intelligence but the communications chain just got a lot more dangerous.

Brigade XO wrote:If so it would be reasonable that the Alignment has set up a Site B for what it has on Darius but that would also mean that at a minimum it would have the Darius end of the wormhole getting fitted out with forts and minefields along with ships in a defensive posture to slam it closed should the GA come calling.

There is no reason to do that, as it just wastes resources that should be defending Darius. The place to put forts, etc. is at the end away from Darius to deny anyone transit. Particularly if this is a new wormhole (not connected to Felix), then the Alignment can hope that it will not even be noticed by the Grand Alliance. Although frankly it would no longer be useful after the GA conquers Darius, because then the only reason to go back is to use the Felix wormhole; which would draw attention.

Better would be to pick a site without a wormhole, someplace that only the streak drive makes practical. Someplace that would not ordinarily useful for colonization; maybe a white dwarf star with burned out planets, one or more asteroid belts and a gas giant planet or two. Then build an orbital based civilization similar to Yildun. Finally communicate back by means of streak drive dispatch boats nominally affiliated with an otherwise respectable news organization.

tlb wrote:Better would be to pick a site without a wormhole, someplace that only the streak drive makes practical.

I don't think Streak drive is enough of a benefit that you'll find some place that is only practical to access via streak drive.

It's "only" 45% faster. (about 4350c vs a normal warship's 3000c). How far out would you have to go that it became impractical to bring sufficient fleet train for the Grand Alliance fleet to spend 1.45x as long covering the same distance to smite the MAlign's final base?

And, given that the GA has Simões and has announced that fact, the MAlign shouldn't assume their monopoly on streak drives will last for long.

tlb wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:If so it would be reasonable that the Alignment has set up a Site B for what it has on Darius but that would also mean that at a minimum it would have the Darius end of the wormhole getting fitted out with forts and minefields along with ships in a defensive posture to slam it closed should the GA come calling.

There is no reason to do that, as it just wastes resources that should be defending Darius. The place to put forts, etc. is at the end away from Darius to deny anyone transit. Particularly if this is a new wormhole (not connected to Felix), then the Alignment can hope that it will not even be noticed by the Grand Alliance. Although frankly it would no longer be useful after the GA conquers Darius, because then the only reason to go back is to use the Felix wormhole; which would draw attention.

Better would be to pick a site without a wormhole, someplace that only the streak drive makes practical. Someplace that would not ordinarily useful for colonization; maybe a white dwarf star with burned out planets, one or more asteroid belts and a gas giant planet or two. Then build an orbital based civilization similar to Yildun. Finally communicate back by means of streak drive dispatch boats nominally affiliated with an otherwise respectable news organization.

The placement of Felix is an ideal camouflage by itself.

1) only the Mannerheim military knows they are in the Felix system doing maneuvers

2) The legal battle for Mannerheim is murky enough to explain secret Mannerheim maneuvers there. A rumor of a previously undiscovered, yet extremely valuable, mineral deposit would be enough to Mannerheim's interest in a system relatively close to their home system.

3) no one who isn't actively patroling the Felix system is going to notice activity at the wormhole.

4) A Previously undiscovered wormhole itself is a perfect rationale for the behavior in #2.

5) To find Darius's location - a scout stills need to secure the wormhole, map it, then map it's other termini - a Wormhole who is protected by heavy forces of Mannerheim, who is a (supposed) neutral third party.

A whole series of events would need to occur (including calling out Mannerheim and battling their forces) before Darius could be found through scouting Felix. In fact, Darius would be better protected if Mannerheim stops patroling the Felix wormhole, and just patrols the Felix system - and places a trap on the Darius side of the wormhole. Houdini is done, and no other traffic needs to reach Darius (except communications), and no one can search Felix without alerting the Felix defenses. So no defenses at the wormhole means nothing to detect on normal sensors in a "quick" sweep.

tlb wrote:Better would be to pick a site without a wormhole, someplace that only the streak drive makes practical.

Jonathan_S wrote:I don't think Streak drive is enough of a benefit that you'll find some place that is only practical to access via streak drive.

It's "only" 45% faster. (about 4350c vs a normal warship's 3000c). How far out would you have to go that it became impractical to bring sufficient fleet train for the Grand Alliance fleet to spend 1.45x as long covering the same distance to smite the MAlign's final base?

And, given that the GA has Simões and has announced that fact, the MAlign shouldn't assume their monopoly on streak drives will last for long.

Certainly the Grand Alliance could get to the new Alignment base, if they knew where it was. The problem for them that I am proposing is that every additional light year outward increases the volume to search, and I am suggesting a minimum distance out of 4 months travel time. If traffic is managed correctly then the GA would not even know which direction to head if they ever became suspicious of a specific dispatch boat.

PS: I see where you get the figure of 1.45 times:

Which meant the voyage from New Tuscany to Mesa, which would have taken anyone else the next best thing to forty-five T-days, had taken Anisimovna less than thirty-one.

So the multiplication factor for the increase in speed between bands decreases rapidly in the higher bands?

tlb wrote:Certainly the Grand Alliance could get to the new Alignment base, if they knew where it was. The problem for them that I am proposing is that every additional light year outward increases the volume to search, and I am suggesting a minimum distance out of 4 months travel time. If traffic is managed correctly then the GA would not even know which direction to head if they ever became suspicious of a specific dispatch boat.

Fair. I wouldn't tend to phrase that as "only practical by streak drive", but putting the base far enough out makes it far less likely to be stumbled over -- and if any traffic between their and Darius goes direct and doesn't make any stops or use anybody else's wormholes there will be no paper trail to follow, nor anybody to notice that traffic.

tlb wrote:PS: I see where you get the figure of 1.45 times:

Which meant the voyage from New Tuscany to Mesa, which would have taken anyone else the next best thing to forty-five T-days, had taken Anisimovna less than thirty-one.

So the multiplication factor for the increase in speed between bands decreases rapidly in the higher bands?

Yep - that gave the most accurate ratio; though SftS also gave us "It's only sixty light-years from Beowulf to Mesa via the Visigoth Wormhole. That's only five days for a streak boat" which provided a helpful cross-check.

The multiplicative factor definitely drops quickly as you go up; though after Theta it starts getting faster again; but who knows how the curve goes after Kappa.
Alpha is 62x faster than normal space,
Beta is 12.37x faster than Alpha,
Gamma is 1.92x faster than Beta,
Delta is 1.48x faster than Gamma,
Epsilon is 1.32x faster than Delta,
Zeta is 1.24x faster than Epsilon,
Eta is 1.20x faster than Zeta,
Theta is 1.16x faster than Eta,
Iota is 1.20x faster than Theta,
Kappa is 1.21x faster than Iota.
Most of those are simply math from the numbers is the speed by hyper band table from the Pearls site; Kappa is simple math based off the radio established above

Incidentally, this should make Apollo, FTL comms, and even detection of wedges far less useful above the Alpha bands. Those signals propagates as ripples on the next higher hyper band's wall, and at the speed of light of that higher hyper band; hence 62x faster when in normal space. But if you're a warship in the Theta bands your FTL is only 20% faster than light, rather than 6200%! (and even in the Alpha bands you dropped five-fold from 6200% to 1237%)

tlb wrote:Certainly the Grand Alliance could get to the new Alignment base, if they knew where it was. The problem for them that I am proposing is that every additional light year outward increases the volume to search, and I am suggesting a minimum distance out of 4 months travel time. If traffic is managed correctly then the GA would not even know which direction to head if they ever became suspicious of a specific dispatch boat.

Jonathan_S wrote:Fair. I wouldn't tend to phrase that as "only practical by streak drive", but putting the base far enough out makes it far less likely to be stumbled over -- and if any traffic between their and Darius goes direct and doesn't make any stops or use anybody else's wormholes there will be no paper trail to follow, nor anybody to notice that traffic.

When a round trip for a normal ship takes about a year, then I would say that "only practical by streak drive" does a pretty good job of describing the situation. Even by streak boat, we are talking distances that are too long for any sort of command and control; so this is only useful as a deep space hideaway, to fall back to if Darius is lost to the Grand Alliance. To be extra safe the long range dispatch boats do not make the full trip; instead there is an exchange point (that is not on a straight line from Darius to the Hideaway) for the Darius ships (which do not know the Hideaway location) carrying information and data backups to transfer to a hidden electronic mailbox that could only be accessed with the proper keys. The only time a Darius ship would wait around and get the navigation information is when it brings news that Darius has fallen. At that point the mailbox is destroyed, so any late arriving Hideaway ship will know the bad news.

PS: thank you for the numbers.

Theemile wrote:5) To find Darius's location - a scout stills need to secure the wormhole, map it, then map it's other termini - a Wormhole who is protected by heavy forces of Mannerheim, who is a (supposed) neutral third party.

That's a non-issue.

A GA task group drops in: "We have strong reason to believe this wormhole is being used by the MAlign and will be scouting it. We are making no claims on this system or the wormhole. Leave us alone and we will leave you alone." Mannerheim has nothing that can challenge such a force and whoever is in charge there will either not know (and thus be inclined to cooperate) or will know (and will want to hide that fact and thus cooperate.)

The real problem is the other end of the link is no doubt guarded.