Hunting the MAlignment: MWW Clue's

SWM wrote:

n7axw wrote:Is the GA aware of the RF? I thought the mention of that was part of McBryde's download on a details to be revealed on a "after you get me out of here" basis.

No, the GA does not know that the RF exists. Top officials of the GA have speculated that the Alignment may have gained control of some systems across the League, but they have no evidence and no obvious way to identify them. It is pure speculation on their part.

If so, knowing that an RF does exist might make it worth while to picket systems within x number of light years of Mesa to watch and possibly track military traffic. Or perhaps one could conduct a wormhole search within those systems -- using proper stealth, of course.

Rather impractical, since there is no reason for the RF systems to be anywhere near Mesa. The wormhole to Visigoth puts Mesa within easy reach of half of the systems in the Core and a quarter of the Shell of the League.

Or, perhaps you could wait until the RF declared itself by joining together which could provide a proper focus for your search.

We don't know for sure that they plan to join together right away. They could just as easily each form separate mutual defense groups with local neighbors, and only later form a larger conglomeration for mutual defense.

Caution would seem to me to strongly suggest picketing the Torch wormhole. My idea of dropping a squadron of Nikes through there got shot down. But I would sure make sure that nobody could come through from the other side either. Maybe even a strong fleet base could be established there to serve the GA's interests in the area as well as to picket the wormhole.

It is plausible that a paranoid like Zilwicki or Ruth might decide to picket the wormhole. But it is equally plausible that they don't think of it. There is still no reason to suspect anything about the wormhole. That could easily change, but for now there is no special reason to do it except paranoia.

Even paranoiacs have enemies and sometimes paranoia is a survival skill. I couldn't more wholeheartedly disagree with you on your last point. Too much has happened around that wormhole already:

1.Slaves took control of the planet from Mesa who really would like to have it back or at least factored out of the equation.
2.A group of SS orphans under the sponsorship of Mesa tried to commit an Eridani violation by wiping out the population on Torch.
3.Harvest Joy disappears down the wormhole never to return. The most probable cause is enemy action. I know they don't know that, but how many ships have been lost to wormholes in the past? I could be stand to be corrected on this one, but I think the answer is 0, tall tales and legends not withstanding.

In short there is more than enough reason to be suspicious of that wormhole and its past association with Mesa to take the precautions of making sure that nothing can come through unchallenged from the other side.

Don

n7axw wrote:

SWM wrote:It is plausible that a paranoid like Zilwicki or Ruth might decide to picket the wormhole. But it is equally plausible that they don't think of it. There is still no reason to suspect anything about the wormhole. That could easily change, but for now there is no special reason to do it except paranoia.

Even paranoiacs have enemies and sometimes paranoia is a survival skill. I couldn't more wholeheartedly disagree with you on your last point. Too much has happened around that wormhole already:

1.Slaves took control of the planet from Mesa who really would like to have it back or at least factored out of the equation.
2.A group of SS orphans under the sponsorship of Mesa tried to commit an Eridani violation by wiping out the population on Torch.
3.Harvest Joy disappears down the wormhole never to return. The most probable cause is enemy action. I know they don't know that, but how many ships have been lost to wormholes in the past? I could be stand to be corrected on this one, but I think the answer is 0, tall tales and legends not withstanding.

In short there is more than enough reason to be suspicious of that wormhole and its past association with Mesa to take the precautions of making sure that nothing can come through unchallenged from the other side.

Don

Incorrect. The text tells us there is one wormhole from which no exploration mission has returned, despite multiple attempts. There have also been other missions which failed for various reasons. You have no cause to say that the most probable reason for the disappearance of the Harvest Joy is enemy action. I am willing to bet that, historically, there have been zero wormhole exploration missions lost to enemy action (before the Harvest Joy), and multiple missions lost to other causes.

Is it really paranoia if everyone really is out to get you?

As n7awx said, sometimes it's a survival trait.

SWM wrote:

n7axw wrote:In short there is more than enough reason to be suspicious of that wormhole and its past association with Mesa to take the precautions of making sure that nothing can come through unchallenged from the other side.

Don

Incorrect. The text tells us there is one wormhole from which no exploration mission has returned, despite multiple attempts. There have also been other missions which failed for various reasons. You have no cause to say that the most probable reason for the disappearance of the Harvest Joy is enemy action. I am willing to bet that, historically, there have been zero wormhole exploration missions lost to enemy action (before the Harvest Joy), and multiple missions lost to other causes.

I have the hunch that the other killer wormhole ("one" is a suspiciously specific number) is another Alignment-held one, maybe even another leading to Felix. If they could not claim the system for whatever reason, the next best thing would be to turn that wormhole into a death trap on their end, like they have now with Torch's.

There's some reason to be suspicious of the wormhole for its Mesan history. I'd grant that. But I'd still peg the likeliest explanation, given what is known on Torch, that it's simply another wormhole that's naturally very to absolutely dangerous.

JeffEngel wrote:

SWM wrote:Incorrect. The text tells us there is one wormhole from which no exploration mission has returned, despite multiple attempts. There have also been other missions which failed for various reasons. You have no cause to say that the most probable reason for the disappearance of the Harvest Joy is enemy action. I am willing to bet that, historically, there have been zero wormhole exploration missions lost to enemy action (before the Harvest Joy), and multiple missions lost to other causes.

I have the hunch that the other killer wormhole ("one" is a suspiciously specific number) is another Alignment-held one, maybe even another leading to Felix. If they could not claim the system for whatever reason, the next best thing would be to turn that wormhole into a death trap on their end, like they have now with Torch's.

There's some reason to be suspicious of the wormhole for its Mesan history. I'd grant that. But I'd still peg the likeliest explanation, given what is known on Torch, that it's simply another wormhole that's naturally very to absolutely dangerous.

I doubt that the killer wormhole is Alignment-held, but I'll gladly amend my statement to "zero lost exploration missions attributed to enemy action."

SWM wrote:Incorrect. The text tells us there is one wormhole from which no exploration mission has returned, despite multiple attempts. There have also been other missions which failed for various reasons. You have no cause to say that the most probable reason for the disappearance of the Harvest Joy is enemy action. I am willing to bet that, historically, there have been zero wormhole exploration missions lost to enemy action (before the Harvest Joy), and multiple missions lost to other causes.

My recollection was that the text appeared to be in conflict.

We have a surprisingly specific reference in ToF

Torch of Freedom: Chapter 28 wrote:He'd been honest enough when he stressed how uncommon it was—these days, at least—for ships to be lost during wormhole surveys. Statistically, the odds were very much against anything of the sort having happened to Harvest Joy. On the other hand, though, there was a reason he'd deliberately avoided getting into any details concerning the disasters that could happen to survey ships. However unlikely they might be, they could happen, and some of them were . . . gruesome. The fate of the Dublin and her crew was still something no one involved in survey work wanted to contemplate or talk about, even a century and a half later.
And there was that one wormhole no one had ever come back from . . . at all.

That implies that the Dublin came back, or at least was found . . . somehow. And that there was more than one gruesome disasters to wormhole exploration ships, most of which were on wormholes that were later mapped and used safely. But there's still one that never was.

However the earlier book WoH (published 2002 vs 2009) seemed to say something differently

War of Honor: Chapter 34 wrote:Which mean Harvest Joy could pass safely through the hyper-space interface which had destroyed the probes . . . probably. Whether or not she would survive whatever lay on the other side of it was another matter, of course. After all, there were all of those deliciously terrifying, venerable legends about the rogue wormholes whose termini deposited doomed travelers directly into the heart of a black hole or some other suitably lethal destination. Not that anyone had ever actually found a wormhole where warships made transit in but never made transit out again.

Now I guess you could nitpick that "warships" aren't the same as "exploration ships". But then why would Harvest Joy's captain, Josepha Zachary, reassure herself that way? Or refer to the potential losses as "legends"?

After all "don't worry, wormholes only eat exploration ships, like mine, never warships; so there's no cause to worry" isn't much of a mental reassurance.

Hi guys,

Thanks for the additional posts and references. That was very helpful to jar my memory.

Let's start off assuming that we really don't know what happened to Harvest Joy. It could be either "natural causes" or enemy action.

On the one side, an event due to natural causes is certainly possible, although quite rare rather than 0 as in my previous post. Still, it can't be entirely ruled out.

Secondly it could be enemy action. This is one that doesn't lend itself very well to probability thinking because there is a quite a lot at stake. Thinking about this, one must remember that the planet was once under the control of Mesa who ran a pharmaceutical operation on the surface of Verdant Vista (Torch) that according to textev was of dubious economic value considering both income and expenses. So there couldn't have been a whole lot of motivation from that standpoint for maintaining. As for the loss of the slaves with the revolt, pst. They can be readily replaced from other sources. Reinforcing this point is that a group of state sec orphans who tried to attack Torch to wipe out the population. I emphasize wipe out the population. They didn't try to take the orbitals and regain control of the planet for Mesa. What that says is that Mesa had no interest in regaining the planet and its operation on the surface. They really wanted to render it useless not only for the slaves, but for anyone else.

In the context of all of this, Harvest Joy disappears. If I am in a position of responsibility for Torch, or for that matter, even Manticore or the remainder of the Haven Quadrant, what am I to think? We still really don't know what happened. But I believe that the only responsible assumption --that is the one that is least likely to bite us in the arse later -- is to assume enemy action. Too much of interest has already happened there. If I do take that point of view, it only follows that the wormhole must be covered with enough firepower to make the area reasonably secure.

Don

The minute Herlander Simo'es speaks the word "wormhole" (or even the more likely "hyper anomaly", in Herlander-speak), these two will be recalled via the fastest dispatch available. There simply are no greater experts. It was a given from the time that we saw Anton pack the man in that box.

dr

n7axw wrote:Hi guys,

Thanks for the additional posts and references. That was very helpful to jar my memory.

Let's start off assuming that we really don't know what happened to Harvest Joy. It could be either "natural causes" or enemy action.

On the one side, an event due to natural causes is certainly possible, although quite rare rather than 0 as in my previous post. Still, it can't be entirely ruled out.

Secondly it could be enemy action. This is one that doesn't lend itself very well to probability thinking because there is a quite a lot at stake. Thinking about this, one must remember that the planet was once under the control of Mesa who ran a pharmaceutical operation on the surface of Verdant Vista (Torch) that according to textev was of dubious economic value considering both income and expenses. So there couldn't have been a whole lot of motivation from that standpoint for maintaining. As for the loss of the slaves with the revolt, pst. They can be readily replaced from other sources. Reinforcing this point is that a group of state sec orphans who tried to attack Torch to wipe out the population. I emphasize wipe out the population. They didn't try to take the orbitals and regain control of the planet for Mesa. What that says is that Mesa had no interest in regaining the planet and its operation on the surface. They really wanted to render it useless not only for the slaves, but for anyone else.

In the context of all of this, Harvest Joy disappears. If I am in a position of responsibility for Torch, or for that matter, even Manticore or the remainder of the Haven Quadrant, what am I to think? We still really don't know what happened. But I believe that the only responsible assumption --that is the one that is least likely to bite us in the arse later -- is to assume enemy action. Too much of interest has already happened there. If I do take that point of view, it only follows that the wormhole must be covered with enough firepower to make the area reasonably secure.

Don

I worry that the analysis is borrowing a sense of likelihood from what we know and the Torches do not.

On the other hand, they have to consider that (1) Manpower is apparently set up as a mustache-twirling cartoon villain organization as a cover for the Alignment (or something - they've postulated it as a theoretical entity without having that name), so setting up Verdant Vista as a hellhole with a security problem and a bad business model is plausible for Manpower, and (2) Torch is at war with Mesa and has powerful friends. So there needn't be anything else valuable in the system to account for the PNE's attack.

And for their own part, they are at war with Mesa and have a very small navy, particularly and necessarily in terms of crews and officers. Guarding what they have every reason to believe is an astrophysical toilet bowl, while Manpower flings planet-burning fleets at Torch - with fleet units they cannot spare - would be about as bad a use of resources as they could contemplate.

It's a dangerous universe. Trying to secure everything secures nothing. When there's no reason to think something is a threat, when there's plausible reason to suppose that physics done the dirty deed, when you do definitely do have needs and uses for the tiny military elsewhere - you've got powerful reason to economize and put it elsewhere.

n7axw wrote:Hi guys,

Thanks for the additional posts and references. That was very helpful to jar my memory.

Let's start off assuming that we really don't know what happened to Harvest Joy. It could be either "natural causes" or enemy action.

On the one side, an event due to natural causes is certainly possible, although quite rare rather than 0 as in my previous post. Still, it can't be entirely ruled out.

Secondly it could be enemy action. This is one that doesn't lend itself very well to probability thinking because there is a quite a lot at stake. Thinking about this, one must remember that the planet was once under the control of Mesa who ran a pharmaceutical operation on the surface of Verdant Vista (Torch) that according to textev was of dubious economic value considering both income and expenses. So there couldn't have been a whole lot of motivation from that standpoint for maintaining. As for the loss of the slaves with the revolt, pst. They can be readily replaced from other sources. Reinforcing this point is that a group of state sec orphans who tried to attack Torch to wipe out the population. I emphasize wipe out the population. They didn't try to take the orbitals and regain control of the planet for Mesa. What that says is that Mesa had no interest in regaining the planet and its operation on the surface. They really wanted to render it useless not only for the slaves, but for anyone else.

In the context of all of this, Harvest Joy disappears. If I am in a position of responsibility for Torch, or for that matter, even Manticore or the remainder of the Haven Quadrant, what am I to think? We still really don't know what happened. But I believe that the only responsible assumption --that is the one that is least likely to bite us in the arse later -- is to assume enemy action. Too much of interest has already happened there. If I do take that point of view, it only follows that the wormhole must be covered with enough firepower to make the area reasonably secure.

Don

Given that, as far as there is any available evidence, there was NO known scientific evaluation of the Torch wormhole from its fortuitous discovery until the request for assistance by the new Torch government, and further given that no-return wormholes are a known 1-in-200 (at least) occurrence in the history of wormhole investigation, the responsible assumption is that it is a naturally dangerous wormhole.

With a small, back of the mind, caveat that, in addition to black hole, dense astroids, solar flares, wormhole instability, intersecting hyper anomalies, etc, etc, etc, there might be some form of bogeymen on the far end.

Recall that in the history of wormhole investigation there is no such thing as an unexploited, untrafficed, surveyed wormhole. The economic imperatives are too great. There IS, however, a known instance of a ship eater wormhole.

Any reasonable military run by Thandi Palane and Jeremy X, in a former Manpower system, will, of course, seed a moderate number of mines and gravitic sensors in the vicinity of said wormhole, because thoughts of bogeymen do keep them up at night. But not too much under the circumstances.

dreamrider