The Maya Crisis...

--snipping--

JeffEngel wrote:Heck, if an SLN counter-strike were gathering in a particular place - like that hypothetical base near Joshua - Barregos would collect favors by creating a situation where the GA could whack a lot of light SLN units in concentration.

I must admit it... very evil laugh...

I like that Rozak little birdy tweet in the right ears. Followed by another demonstraton that FF really really doesn't want to play with the big boys. But striking wedges and then going off to clean the posterior portions of their skin suits will be allowed for said concentrated SLN ships. Bwahahahahah!

Annachie wrote:I think that the will activate it but not actually say anything. Just stop reporting to the league or sending them money.

On the contrary, as loyal citizens of the Solarian League I'm sure they will continue to send money as long as there is a League to send it to! What do you mean the money didn't arrive ... <pause> Again?

lol. I'm shocked, very shocked to hear that the transport we sent got taken by pirates.

you will need to send us more ships if you want the next payment to make it.

All interesting but all ignoring the elephant in the room. The Torch wormhole may have been ignored by a criminal, merchinary, transeller. Not so by an underhanded, evil shadow empire. I expect the Malignment to turn up the heat in Maya to cover the back door. Also the forces of light and warm milk should smell something rotten in Torch.

lelder wrote:All interesting but all ignoring the elephant in the room. The Torch wormhole may have been ignored by a criminal, merchinary, transeller. Not so by an underhanded, evil shadow empire. I expect the Malignment to turn up the heat in Maya to cover the back door. Also the forces of light and warm milk should smell something rotten in Torch.

Part of the argument in favor of supposing the wormhole is that previously unknown ship-eater was that there was no reason to suppose that it could be held in such force as to kill anything coming through combined with the fact that Mesans did not effectively defend Verdant Vista to begin with.

With the recognition that behind grubby, banal Mesa there has been the far more serious Mesan Alignment, that argument loses some force. There's plenty of value in keeping the far end of an apparently useless killer wormhole while not forcefully keeping the system at the far end of it, if it's a valuable national secret and you're confident you can retake the other end of it when you really need to.

But that in turn means that Torch now has reason to defend their end of the wormhole with a tolerably sensible expectation that there may be a hostile force on the other end willing to come through at a time of its choosing. Fortunately, defending a wormhole terminus against an attack through the wormhole is not that hard. Park anything with the means to control missile pods there along with the pods and you can smoke whatever comes through. Park fortresses there and you've got a defense that will hold up against significant forces coming at it conventionally.

So the forces of evil may certainly be interested in the place again, but they're not going to have the backdoor in without coming out of the shadows - especially now that they'd be immediately suspected of being the relevant black-hats by the Grand Alliance and anyone in the League (or Maya Sector) who does not swallow what Education and Information offers. They wouldn't get away with deniability with a "rogue" StateSec mercenary group again, or even an attack on Torch by invisible starships - not, at least, until there is so much chaos that that sort of thing will go unnoticed.

To the OP:

At one time, RFC has said only 5 wormhole termini exist in the SL. Off hand we have seen most of them already in Manticore's hands outside of Visgoth.

By my count there is only one other than Visgoth unaccounted for and has not seen text yet.

Of course RFC could just retcon the 5 and add a few more that were "recently" discovered.

Relax wrote:To the OP:

At one time, RFC has said only 5 wormhole termini exist in the SL. Off hand we have seen most of them already in Manticore's hands outside of Visgoth.

By my count there is only one other than Visgoth unaccounted for and has not seen text yet.

Of course RFC could just retcon the 5 and add a few more that were "recently" discovered.

Alternatively, depending on the exact wording he used, he might also semi ret-con some as wormhole termini of independent systems that just happen to be located within the sphere of the League. We know not every world within the Shell is a League member.

Presto - any wormholes associated with those system aren't within the League (politically).

JeffEngel wrote:

lelder wrote:All interesting but all ignoring the elephant in the room. The Torch wormhole may have been ignored by a criminal, merchinary, transeller. Not so by an underhanded, evil shadow empire. I expect the Malignment to turn up the heat in Maya to cover the back door. Also the forces of light and warm milk should smell something rotten in Torch.

Part of the argument in favor of supposing the wormhole is that previously unknown ship-eater was that there was no reason to suppose that it could be held in such force as to kill anything coming through combined with the fact that Mesans did not effectively defend Verdant Vista to begin with.

With the recognition that behind grubby, banal Mesa there has been the far more serious Mesan Alignment, that argument loses some force. There's plenty of value in keeping the far end of an apparently useless killer wormhole while not forcefully keeping the system at the far end of it, if it's a valuable national secret and you're confident you can retake the other end of it when you really need to.

But that in turn means that Torch now has reason to defend their end of the wormhole with a tolerably sensible expectation that there may be a hostile force on the other end willing to come through at a time of its choosing. Fortunately, defending a wormhole terminus against an attack through the wormhole is not that hard. Park anything with the means to control missile pods there along with the pods and you can smoke whatever comes through. Park fortresses there and you've got a defense that will hold up against significant forces coming at it conventionally.

So the forces of evil may certainly be interested in the place again, but they're not going to have the backdoor in without coming out of the shadows - especially now that they'd be immediately suspected of being the relevant black-hats by the Grand Alliance and anyone in the League (or Maya Sector) who does not swallow what Education and Information offers. They wouldn't get away with deniability with a "rogue" StateSec mercenary group again, or even an attack on Torch by invisible starships - not, at least, until there is so much chaos that that sort of thing will go unnoticed.

We know, although the good guys don't (yet), that the primary reason for developing Torch was to secure the path through The Twins to the Felix junction (which leads to Darius and fingers Mannerheim as a co-conspirator). The fact that it's a back door into the Haven Sector is nice, but that reason came after.

RFC has also said somewhere (I think on this forum) that, just because he hasn't shown it in one of the books, it doesn't mean that they aren't taking military precautions against a force coming through the wormhole.

JohnRoth wrote:We know, although the good guys don't (yet), that the primary reason for developing Torch was to secure the path through The Twins to the Felix junction (which leads to Darius and fingers Mannerheim as a co-conspirator). The fact that it's a back door into the Haven Sector is nice, but that reason came after.

Right. I'm just saying that, with the revelation of the existence of the Mesan Alignment, Torch has a logic chain now that they didn't before that would give them some reason to suspect the wormhole leads somewhere actively, murderously defended instead of to some natural killer phenomenon. What we know is (in much better detail) something they've got some reason now to take as a serious suspicion, that would have been sheer nuttiness before.

Weird Harold wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Just my thinking here, but I'm of the opinion that the Maya Crisis will start from the League side deciding that FF needs to go boot stomp on that uppity (revenue positive) sector ...

Wouldn't the FF force ordered to "stomp on that uppity ... sector" be the one commanded by Adm Rozhak? (sp)

I think that the Maya sector's preparations for "the Sepoy Option," especially the military build-up, are going to be largely unnecessary because the Solarian League won't have the military assets to make more than ineffective diplomatic noises.

Frontier Fleet has (at best) battlecruisers. And by the "modern" standards of the Erwehon / Manticore / Haven / Torch fleets, they're very much outclassed. The (albeit short) battle of the Maya sector no doubt taught Rozhak an awful lot, even if he was fighting StateSec forces. While I don't believe a Maya Sector versus Frontier Fleet conflict would be a bed of roses, I DO believe that Maya would prevail pretty quickly.

Interesting notion about the first domino falling in the verge... Maya sector could well be first, and the Solarian League could die a death of a thousand cuts.