Speculating on the GA-MAlign Conflict

hanuman wrote:I want to offer an amendment to that statement. Not everyone with a Mesan genetic signature is a member of the Alignment. However, since everyone with an Alignment genetic signature (Alpha-, Beta- and Gamma-lines) is a member of the Alignment, and since the Alignment has removed all of its members who are not intelligence agents to Darius, I think it'd be fair to argue that any individual both on Mesa and elsewhere whose genome corresponds to that genetic signature is either an Alignment intelligence operative or a sleeper agent.

kzt wrote:

hanuman wrote:I want to offer an amendment to that statement. Not everyone with a Mesan genetic signature is a member of the Alignment. However, since everyone with an Alignment genetic signature (Alpha-, Beta- and Gamma-lines) is a member of the Alignment, and since the Alignment has removed all of its members who are not intelligence agents to Darius, I think it'd be fair to argue that any individual both on Mesa and elsewhere whose genome corresponds to that genetic signature is either an Alignment intelligence operative or a sleeper agent.

So you want to have the entire ballroom and population of Torch arrested as Mesa sleepers? Good luck with that.

But seriously, Mesa used their slave lines to test out feature used in the regular population, so yes, most slaves are going to have significant parts of the "genetic signature".

JohnRoth wrote:

n7axw wrote:We the readers do know that the area on the other side of the Torch wormhole is covered by Mannerheim's SDF since it was one of their warships that took out Harvest Joy. That implies that one of the wormholes is close enough to Mannerheim to make that practical. We also know from textev that another wormhole in the same area leads to Darius.

This is the Felix junction, in the Felix system, which is 10 ly from Mannerheim. The junction has four termini, including Darius, the Twins and two others, none of which we know the locations of.

Knowing this doesn't help, because we don't know where Mannerheim is, either.

n7axw wrote:While we don't know the actual distances in hyperspace, the time of travel through wormholes from Mannerheim to Darius shouldn't be all that bad.

Don

Since the Felix Junction is only 10 ly from Mannerheim, it's only a couple of days away.

n7axw wrote:We the readers do know that the area on the other side of the Torch wormhole is covered by Mannerheim's SDF since it was one of their warships that took out Harvest Joy. That implies that one of the wormholes is close enough to Mannerheim to make that practical. We also know from textev that another wormhole in the same area leads to Darius.

While we don't know the actual distances in hyperspace, the time of travel through wormholes from Mannerheim to Darius shouldn't be all that bad.

Don

SWM wrote:

n7axw wrote:We the readers do know that the area on the other side of the Torch wormhole is covered by Mannerheim's SDF since it was one of their warships that took out Harvest Joy. That implies that one of the wormholes is close enough to Mannerheim to make that practical. We also know from textev that another wormhole in the same area leads to Darius.

While we don't know the actual distances in hyperspace, the time of travel through wormholes from Mannerheim to Darius shouldn't be all that bad.

Don

As JohnRoth wrote, the Felix system is 10 light-years from Mannerheim. One of the four termini there leads to Darius, another leads to the Twins. Another link from the Twins goes to Torch. The Mannerheim SDF ships were waiting for the Harvest Joy at the Twins.

That was a quick fix to the problem of defending that wormhole. David has hinted that the Alignment would be stupid if they didn't install a more permanent and even more effective security system there as soon as they could (he has explained at length how effective mines and pods are at wormhole transit defense). And we know that the Alignment is not stupid.

n7axw wrote:We the readers do know that the area on the other side of the Torch wormhole is covered by Mannerheim's SDF since it was one of their warships that took out Harvest Joy. That implies that one of the wormholes is close enough to Mannerheim to make that practical. We also know from textev that another wormhole in the same area leads to Darius.

While we don't know the actual distances in hyperspace, the time of travel through wormholes from Mannerheim to Darius shouldn't be all that bad.

Don

SWM wrote:As JohnRoth wrote, the Felix system is 10 light-years from Mannerheim. One of the four termini there leads to Darius, another leads to the Twins. Another link from the Twins goes to Torch. The Mannerheim SDF ships were waiting for the Harvest Joy at the Twins.

That was a quick fix to the problem of defending that wormhole. David has hinted that the Alignment would be stupid if they didn't install a more permanent and even more effective security system there as soon as they could (he has explained at length how effective mines and pods are at wormhole transit defense). And we know that the Alignment is not stupid.

n7axw wrote:Nope. Not stupid. But we also have more than ample evidence to know that they aren't infallible.

Don

Amaroq wrote:I agree that coming from the Torch wormhole end will probably make it very difficult to stumble upon the Alignment's secret wormholes due to the presence of the BC guard dogs. We don't know which Mesans know about the existence of those wormholes and systems and whether they could fall into GA hands. The pair at the end of CoG at Parmley Station could potentially defect/be taken by the GA but again we don't know how deep into the Onion either of them were and what knowledge they have to give.

Finding Darius from the Mannerheim end is equally tricky simply because the GA has no reason to suspect them. What I'm uncertain about is the status of the Felix system. Mesa discovered the wormhole terminus there but I interpreted the text as saying the system and the planet had already been discovered and mapped previously but the wormhole wasn't found until later. If there is a record of the Felix system somewhere perhaps that can be the first step towards finding Darius.

Maybe the Super Spy Duo can do a little reverse thinking and concentrate on those nations and entities that seem to be a little too excessively anti-genetic slavery. Something in the vein of, "Methinks they doth protest too much perhaps they're hiding something." It would be interesting but probably too time-consuming and too prone to not being able to distinguish the real anti-slavery people from the ones trying just a bit too hard.

Torch of Freedom, Chapter 50 wrote:Useless as the Felix System had turned out to be, colonization rights to it had been purchased by a Solarian corporation better than five hundred T-years ago. Since then, they had passed through the hands of at least a dozen levels of speculators—always trading downward, once the newest owner discovered how difficult it would have been to attract colonists to the system when there were so many other, more attractive potential destinations. By now, there were actually four separate corporations which claimed ownership, and none of them were likely to relinquish their claims without seeking at least some compensation to write off against their bad debt.

If Mannerheim suddenly showed an interest in the system, someone was going to wonder why. Aside from the Jessyk survey (which had been poaching on someone else's property, not that one would have expected that consideration to weigh heavily with Jessyk, of course), no one had ever bothered to update the original survey of the system. But if Mannerheim started offering to acquire the colonization rights, that was almost inevitably going to change, since the contending "owners" would certainly suspect (correctly) that Mannerheim knew something about it that they didn't. So they'd go and take a look for themselves, in the course of which they would discover the junction for themselves. At which point all manner of litigation, claims, counterclaims, and demands for immense compensation would come frothing to the surface.

So Mannerheim had the perfect cover for keeping the junction's existence under wraps while it very carefully and quietly, through a web of agents and arm's-length associations, sought to acquire ownership of Felix for itself without anyone's noticing. Those members of the MSDF who were not themselves Mesans but who were aware of the Felix Junction's existence knew exactly why they were supposed to keep their mouths shut about it. And they didn't know that the "official" survey information which had been shared with them didn't include the Darius Terminus . . . or the SGC-902-36-G Terminus.

JohnRoth wrote:In addition, the Torch series has ended and to the best of my knowledge there are no more novel-length collaborations between Weber and Flint planned in the Honorverse, which I expect means that Anton and Victor will be seen in bit parts, if at all.