Hunting the MAlignment: MWW Clue's

fallsfromtrees wrote:

SWM wrote:[6) Torch doesn't know anything about the MSN task force. Those ships were on the other side of the wormhole. The only people who saw them there was the exploration ship, just before it got blown to very tiny bits.

You end up with some very odd questions, but it does not necessarily add up to "There are bad guys on the other side of the wormhole". A paranoid person might come to that conclusion, but it is not automatic.

I think that the MSN he is referring to is the Mesa Space Navy task force that backed down in the face of Oversteegan and Roznak during the take over of Verdant Vista/Torch.

Right. And that one, while possibly curious, can be accounted for simply by noting that the MSN is basically a Manpower mercenary security force.

I'm not going to claim that Torch analysts ought to be positive the wormhole has a hostile force behind it and can be a backdoor into the system. But with what they know, it's reasonable to assess that as very improbable and not a basis for much if any commitment of Torch's strictly limited military might.

SWM wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:To enumerate:

1. The original information that there was a junction was incorrect. Who put it out there, and why?
2. Finding it on a general survey should have been almost impossible. This suggests it wasn't found from this side.
3. There was no evidence, once the rubble stopped bouncing, that anyone in the system knew there was a terminus. Maybe it got destroyed in the fighting, but maybe not.
4. The operation on Verdant Vista seemed to be ignoring sound management principles. Why?
5. If there is a wormhole there, why isn't Jessyk, Manpower or someone else exploiting it?
6. How did Admiral whoever's task group of the MSN get there all the way from Mesa? And why was it in the vicinity anyway?

All of this suggests that it's not what it seems, a point that's made explicitly in the stories. If it's not what it seems, what could it be hiding?

I won't argue that Torch couldn't have any suspicions, but I don't think it is nearly as clearcut as you do.

1) Valid, but since it was only a rumor to begin with, it could simply be a game of telephone rather than deliberate.
2) It could just as easily have been discovered just as easily be discovered by accident. Inconclusive.
3) I think they found evidence that they knew of the wormhole--what they didn't find was evidence of exploration of the wormhole. So point 3 and point 5 are actualy the identical, not separate points.
4) Valid question which they are already wondering about.
5) Valid question. On the other hand, it is also quite expensive and requires experts and complicated equipment to investigate a wormhole.
6) Torch doesn't know anything about the MSN task force. Those ships were on the other side of the wormhole. The only people who saw them there was the exploration ship, just before it got blown to very tiny bits.

You end up with some very odd questions, but it does not necessarily add up to "There are bad guys on the other side of the wormhole". A paranoid person might come to that conclusion, but it is not automatic.

That's the point I'm trying to hammer into people's heads. A competent analyst does not discard a hypothesis simply because they think it's unlikely. Stated another way, a competent analyst does not usually reach a conclusion. This tends to frustrate policy makers who want something definite, but working in the "hall of mirrors" doesn't lead to definite conclusions until it's all over and the rubble has stopped bouncing, and sometimes not even then.

And yes, fallsfromtrees was quite correct: it was the Mesan Space Navy, not the Mannerheim SDF (MSDF) I was referring to.

SWM wrote: You end up with some very odd questions, but it does not necessarily add up to "There are bad guys on the other side of the wormhole". A paranoid person might come to that conclusion, but it is not automatic.

True enough, but if there is anybody in Known Space that is paranoid about security and threats, wouldn't it have to be Jeremy X?

JohnRoth wrote:And yes, fallsfromtrees was quite correct: it was the Mesan Space Navy, not the Mannerheim SDF (MSDF) I was referring to.

IIRC from Crown of Slaves , the Mesan Navy unit 'just happened' to be cruising in the area near Torch, just a happy coincidence, yep, yep, yep....

And the textev, from the MSN commander:

"Before Mr. Takashi was forced to surrender his space station to the notorious terrorist Jeremy X, a dispatch boat had already been sent to summon assistance. Fortunately, the boat was still in communications range of the space station at the time of its surrender. Equally fortunately, the system authorities had been informed of the presence of my task group in the vicinity, conducting routine exercises."

JohnRoth wrote:

SWM wrote:I won't argue that Torch couldn't have any suspicions, but I don't think it is nearly as clearcut as you do.

1) Valid, but since it was only a rumor to begin with, it could simply be a game of telephone rather than deliberate.
2) It could just as easily have been discovered just as easily be discovered by accident. Inconclusive.
3) I think they found evidence that they knew of the wormhole--what they didn't find was evidence of exploration of the wormhole. So point 3 and point 5 are actualy the identical, not separate points.
4) Valid question which they are already wondering about.
5) Valid question. On the other hand, it is also quite expensive and requires experts and complicated equipment to investigate a wormhole.
6) Torch doesn't know anything about the MSN task force. Those ships were on the other side of the wormhole. The only people who saw them there was the exploration ship, just before it got blown to very tiny bits.

You end up with some very odd questions, but it does not necessarily add up to "There are bad guys on the other side of the wormhole". A paranoid person might come to that conclusion, but it is not automatic.

That's the point I'm trying to hammer into people's heads. A competent analyst does not discard a hypothesis simply because they think it's unlikely. Stated another way, a competent analyst does not usually reach a conclusion. This tends to frustrate policy makers who want something definite, but working in the "hall of mirrors" doesn't lead to definite conclusions until it's all over and the rubble has stopped bouncing, and sometimes not even then.

And yes, fallsfromtrees was quite correct: it was the Mesan Space Navy, not the Mannerheim SDF (MSDF) I was referring to.

I don't think that anyone has suggested that the analysts would or should discard the idea. What I have been saying is that it is not unreasonable for those analysts to not come up with the idea in the first place. I agree completely that a good analyst should not simply toss away the idea once someone suggests it. But it hasn't been suggested yet in text, and all I'm saying is that it is plausible for no one to have come up with the idea yet.

Someone has got to collect a lot of information from scattered (as in interstellar distant) places after people on the location at each of those distant places have asked the right questions in interviews/interrogation and dug though massive computer files. Then someone has to be able to both get all that mountain of data, sift through it, and draw conclusions. They also have to "notice" things the way Anton Zilwicki and Victor or Princess Ruth do. Having one of those Ah-HA! moments or just something tap you lightly in the mind and you go "what the....?" dose work if you are open to noticing things that look "odd".

For instance:
The Torch frigates capture the station through which the ship carrying Zack McBride traveled. One frigate lost its boats when the transport ship it was running down was destroyed by the GAUL on the transport. No answer comming out from that particular piece BUT we have all that "internal" view of what the woman in operations area of the station who finds both the amount of activity and the pressure applied to staff on the station by management both unusual and way out of line with any reason she can think of. Her boss, who is the one who hit her with the repremand is the same way. So, when do they get questioned by someone from Torch. That is presuming they either/both survive the taking of the station - we do NOT see in the story that either the station is destoryed, that people are killed there, or actually much at all. But, IF Torch wants to continue to follow down on where slaving operations are/have been and who/what was involved, you might think that they are at least going to strip all of the stations records to find out what ships and what people have been around and through there EVER. At the same time they would want to question all sorts of people including the station management and the people actualy doing ship related operations to find out things- even impressions- of who went where and why. Asking about cycles and peaks in traffic and locations (originations of incomming ships/cargo, destinations & flight plans of ships/cargo leaving) would seem reasonable.
Ok, it's two frigates, a bunch of Marines and we don't know who else who might be tasked (or specificaly sent along) to dig for information.

That information should be sent back at least to Torch for analysis. When someone looks at it and when (not if) people are looking for slaver and related movements, it sould generate at least a list of places and ships to be investigated. It appears from the books that stations routinely match sensor readings of ships againt some databases created at least locally to identify the ships beyond their transponders and voice communication.

If (and at least Zilwicki does and has mentioned it) people suspect that the Alignment was running people off Mesa and covering that with dissasters, the people looking at intelligence data on the slavers and Mesa will also start looking to see where ships went to see what happened in the relevent time frame of what we know as Houdini.

Massive background work, rarely talked about. You have to sort and be able to see or at least consider what shows up when you can look through data.

SWM wrote:I won't argue that Torch couldn't have any suspicions, but I don't think it is nearly as clearcut as you do.

1) Valid, but since it was only a rumor to begin with, it could simply be a game of telephone rather than deliberate.
2) It could just as easily have been discovered just as easily be discovered by accident. Inconclusive.
3) I think they found evidence that they knew of the wormhole--what they didn't find was evidence of exploration of the wormhole. So point 3 and point 5 are actualy the identical, not separate points.
4) Valid question which they are already wondering about.
5) Valid question. On the other hand, it is also quite expensive and requires experts and complicated equipment to investigate a wormhole.
6) Torch doesn't know anything about the MSN task force. Those ships were on the other side of the wormhole. The only people who saw them there was the exploration ship, just before it got blown to very tiny bits.

You end up with some very odd questions, but it does not necessarily add up to "There are bad guys on the other side of the wormhole". A paranoid person might come to that conclusion, but it is not automatic.

JohnRoth wrote:That's the point I'm trying to hammer into people's heads. A competent analyst does not discard a hypothesis simply because they think it's unlikely. Stated another way, a competent analyst does not usually reach a conclusion. This tends to frustrate policy makers who want something definite, but working in the "hall of mirrors" doesn't lead to definite conclusions until it's all over and the rubble has stopped bouncing, and sometimes not even then.

And yes, fallsfromtrees was quite correct: it was the Mesan Space Navy, not the Mannerheim SDF (MSDF) I was referring to.

SWM wrote:I don't think that anyone has suggested that the analysts would or should discard the idea. What I have been saying is that it is not unreasonable for those analysts to not come up with the idea in the first place. I agree completely that a good analyst should not simply toss away the idea once someone suggests it. But it hasn't been suggested yet in text, and all I'm saying is that it is plausible for no one to have come up with the idea yet.

Well, maybe. The logic chain as I see it starts with this question: if it would have been horribly unlikely for a normal survey to find it, how did they find it? "From the other side" is an answer that ought to occur to anyone with two brain cells more than a wombat.

The next question is then: why aren't they exploiting it? There are a half dozen obvious answers for why an organization they suspect might not be quite what it seems isn't exploiting a prize resource.

Once they've got that far, "enemy action" as a reason for the Harvest Joy not coming back is one fairly obvious conclusion.

JohnRoth wrote:

SWM wrote:I don't think that anyone has suggested that the analysts would or should discard the idea. What I have been saying is that it is not unreasonable for those analysts to not come up with the idea in the first place. I agree completely that a good analyst should not simply toss away the idea once someone suggests it. But it hasn't been suggested yet in text, and all I'm saying is that it is plausible for no one to have come up with the idea yet.

Well, maybe. The logic chain as I see it starts with this question: if it would have been horribly unlikely for a normal survey to find it, how did they find it? "From the other side" is an answer that ought to occur to anyone with two brain cells more than a wombat.

The next question is then: why aren't they exploiting it? There are a half dozen obvious answers for why an organization they suspect might not be quite what it seems isn't exploiting a prize resource.

Once they've got that far, "enemy action" as a reason for the Harvest Joy not coming back is one fairly obvious conclusion.

Except that no one has come up with the idea of "from the other side". I do agree that once someone has that inspiration, the rest will follow once Zilwicki and Helen get hold of it.

Of course, that won't help them terribly much, since they still won't have a way to get through the wormhole. But it would probably inspire them to defend against entry through the wormhole, which is something.

Even if they got a nice letter from the MA telling them that this was their WH and that intruders would be shot, how would it help?

There is no practical approach to force a defended WH that has anyone even vaguely competent defending it.

I have felt for months that the circumstances surrounding that wormhole are supicious enough that it bears watching, and yes, guarding against the possibility of something coming through from the other side.

Don

kzt wrote:Even if they got a nice letter from the MA telling them that this was their WH and that intruders would be shot, how would it help?

There is no practical approach to force a defended WH that has anyone even vaguely competent defending it.

To any and all newer posters...lest ye be tempted to answer kzt's implict challenge in sucessfully attacking a wormhole, please don't go there. Like the Solly SD's, it is a topic that has been tossed to and fro among the Forum denizens and despite numerous ideas (I liked mine the best, of course), none stood up under critique.

That said, if you really, really think you have an idea nobody else could possibly have considered....well, we'll see.