Path to Darius (Spoilers)

SWM wrote:
Here's another argument from David against a wormhole assault. This is the thread I meant to point to above. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3107&p=68448&hilit=wormhole+attack#p68448

Sorry, but I hadn't even read my first Honorverse novel until late summer 2013, didn't join the forums until 2014 and both those links are 2012 posts.

I do appreciate the links though.

SWM wrote:[snip]
4) The ship coming through can only use grasers, but the defenders can fire missiles from outside graser range, from pods, ships, or fortresses. The defenders can also put graser mines inside graser range, ready to attack an enemy coming through the wormhole. The ship coming through has no sidewalls to protect it from the attack, and no impeller wedge to protect the vulnerable ventral and dorsal surfaces.

And while the defenders would usually use laserheads (which explode far enough away that the missile wedge doesn't hit and get destroyed by the grav 'lane' the transiting ship is stuck it) they also have a range advantage with energy weapons.

IIRC sidewalls roughly halve the effective range of lasers or grasers. And since the transiting ship can't raise sidewalls (no wedge) the defending ships could close to the point where their broadside energy mounts are effective but they're still far enough back that their sidewalls make them immune to return fire.


Opposed wormhole assaults are just ludicrously stacked against the attacker.

Jonathan_S wrote:

SWM wrote:[snip]
4) The ship coming through can only use grasers, but the defenders can fire missiles from outside graser range, from pods, ships, or fortresses. The defenders can also put graser mines inside graser range, ready to attack an enemy coming through the wormhole. The ship coming through has no sidewalls to protect it from the attack, and no impeller wedge to protect the vulnerable ventral and dorsal surfaces.

And while the defenders would usually use laserheads (which explode far enough away that the missile wedge doesn't hit and get destroyed by the grav 'lane' the transiting ship is stuck it) they also have a range advantage with energy weapons.

IIRC sidewalls roughly halve the effective range of lasers or grasers. And since the transiting ship can't raise sidewalls (no wedge) the defending ships could close to the point where their broadside energy mounts are effective but they're still far enough back that their sidewalls make them immune to return fire.


Opposed wormhole assaults are just ludicrously stacked against the attacker.

not to mention, without the wedge, 1/2 the ship has zero hull armor, so firing on the corridor from multiple directions will allow easy critical hits on an intruder.

cthia wrote:

SWM wrote:
Here's another argument from David against a wormhole assault. This is the thread I meant to point to above. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3107&p=68448&hilit=wormhole+attack#p68448

Sorry, but I hadn't even read my first Honorverse novel until late summer 2013, didn't join the forums until 2014 and both those links are 2012 posts.

I do appreciate the links though.

It is a very frequently asked question. It's come up half a dozen times since you joined, and I've posted pointers to those infodumps every time. I assumed incorrectly you had read it before. Sorry!

At this point nobody in the GA (or mostly anywhere) has any idea there is a Darius or that it is on the end of a wormhole from a secret system of wormholes let alone that Felix has a wormhole.

They are looking for the Alignment and where their ships are comming from. Perhaps there is something like Bolthole but perhaps there is a system where the Alignment is in control and is building ships (hidden in the system away from traffic like the yards buiding ships near Spinx from Wayland or out at Blackbird).

They have no reason to suspect that Mannheim is hiding a wormhole terminus even if anybody in ONI of Manticore (or anybody else) knows that Mannheim is essentially conducting endless "maneuvers" at a star system they really do want to do something with.

That people have been dissapeared from Mesa is probably going to come up. Likely from the capture of McBride or someone else being moved by Houdini since at least Torch activly going after slaver bases and could stumble on a "package". It is also likely that someone will figure out that the massive wave of attacks, with the equally massive death toll, just happens to appear to include way too many people who are or might be attached to the Alignment or at least the bits and pieces of Manpower and support industry/systems. Tracking those who got off planet (as opposed to died) and then the resulting odd twists and turns of the ship movements are going to be interesting.

Theemile wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:A thought here:

Stars run about 4,000 stars per 100 ly cube. Wormholes are typically a few hundred ly. That means that simply checking every uninhabited star within range isn't an impossible task by any means. One destroyer is adequate, it doesn't need to ever cross the hyper threshold. Pop in, look for the electronic emissions of an inhabited world and leave. If you find an inhabited world not listed as such you come back loaded for bear.

The longest "known" wormhole is >900 lightyears - this gives a sphere with a radii of say 1000 light years. this gives a region of ~4x10^9 cubic light years. Your number gives 4 stars per .1 light year cube, so we can say there are ~1.6x10^9 stars in the region to check.

Have fun - Good luck and start soon.

But most of them aren't that long. For a reasonable distance they'll find it in time.

SWM wrote:Oh, I forgot one other point. While you are in the exit lane, you have to move very slowly, and cannot dodge. You basically spend from 30 seconds to 3 minutes as a sitting target with no sidewall or impeller or missiles.

While I agree it's not feasible to assault one I don't see that this follows. Under normal conditions that's the rule so there are no traffic oopses but in an assault situation there are not traffic lanes. You're still a duck but I see no reason you need to be a sitting one.

Loren Pechtel wrote:While I agree it's not feasible to assault one I don't see that this follows. Under normal conditions that's the rule so there are no traffic oopses but in an assault situation there are not traffic lanes. You're still a duck but I see no reason you need to be a sitting one.

It's up to you. You can stay in the lane or you can be torn into very, very small pieces by grav shear.

SWM wrote:

n7axw wrote:The RMN has had a hobby of collecting worm holes and junctions as of late...

Could it be that the break would come when it seized Felix? I'm not aware that they know about it, but that could come as a consequence of mucking around Mesa and following up on leads developed there.

I don't have any trouble imagining the RMN paying a visit to Mannerheim as a result of info gathered from a stray computer or a disgruntled individual who got left behind on Mesa when he should have been lifted out on Houdini...

None of this sounds likely, but I suspect that when the onion starts to unlayer, it will because of something very unlikely indeed.

Don

We know that Manticore does not know about the Felix Junction. No one left on Mesa knows about the Felix Junction, either. Almost no one on Mannerheim knows about the Felix Junction. The Mesan Alignment has been extremely careful not to leave clues around concerning the Felix Junction. They have successfully hidden the Felix Junction for over a hundred years.

We know that Manticore does not know about the Felix junction now. But the point I was making is that it is possible, although not probable, that clues exist that will reveal that in the future.

My entire point is that the discovery of Darius will happen because of improbabilities, if not this one, then something else. In short, in plain English, GA will need some sort of break to solve the mystery.

Don

Loren Pechtel wrote:

SWM wrote:Oh, I forgot one other point. While you are in the exit lane, you have to move very slowly, and cannot dodge. You basically spend from 30 seconds to 3 minutes as a sitting target with no sidewall or impeller or missiles.

While I agree it's not feasible to assault one I don't see that this follows. Under normal conditions that's the rule so there are no traffic oopses but in an assault situation there are not traffic lanes. You're still a duck but I see no reason you need to be a sitting one.

Read David's infodump in the last URL I posted. It contains David's explanation. Yes, there are traffic lanes, and those are merely for traffic control. But the actual entrance and exit of a wormhole has to be made from a very narrow aspect angle, with your Warshawski sail engaging the grav shear of the wormhole. If you deviate from that narrow lane, you get torn apart.