Brigade XO wrote:We know of two clear wormholes that lead into the network that will take you to Darius. One -the presumed fatal one at Torch and the one that Mannheim is hanging about waiting to obtain , very quietly, title to the system it is next too.
The far side of the Torch wormhole has a squadron of Manneheim BC sitting on it. Remember all that discussion of not being able to take a defended wormhole by attacking throught it? At this point, ANYTHING that goes into it is going to get blow to bits.
We have not yet been told what is on the other end of the one from the Mannheim connection but the Alignment should have some sort of defensive force there. We don't have a description of any sort of Astro Control on this end and we don't really have any conversation of what and when there is traffic using it. The Alignment isn't stupid. Even parking a couple of old former SLN warships on the far side of the terminus Manneheim is hiding would keep it safe.
We don't know where Darius is. We don't know where the Twins are. That is in relation to ANYTHING in the human occupied space about the area where we find the SL, it's Protectorates, the Haven Quadrant or anywhere else. If nobody knows where it is, how are you going to get there through hyper-space?
We can presume that the Alignment has at least one ship and crew capable of doing wormhole detection and exploration.
Daruis is an industrialized world with trained workforce and shipyards for building starships. It also is cloning/growing its population using the processes similar to Mesa. The Alignment has AT LEAST three star systems (Darius, and each of the twins- unless that is a binary system) within it's secret wormhole network so there is a lot of material to work with to build stuff from simple consumer goods to warships and munitions.
Sure, the Sharks and the Ghosts and their transport shops probably came in via the secret wormhole networkd but they would be home now at Darius. We don't even know if anybody on the ships in the Oyster Bay raids even know the cooridinates of one or more wormhole leading to the network. If I were the Alignment, I would have only the navigator on each transport with the info and so there are dam few people who could be captured and spill the data. We don't know the operational security of covering movements in and out of the network or how they have to work to get people to a point they can be then moved about in the rest of human space.
Going to be tough to get at Darius if you have to fight your way though at least two wormholes--and you don't yet know where either of them is.
We know the geometry of that network. It's a 4-terminus junction in the Felix system, 10 ly from Mannerheim. One terminus is at The Twins, and leads on to Torch. Another is probably at Darius or close to it. The other two go somewhere else; the Mannerheim government knows, very secretly, where they go and is exploring them while trying to get title to Felix.
It's a given that nobody is going to fight their way through a defended wormhole; we know the one at The Twins is defended, and if the one at Darius isn't, someone is being very, very sloppy.
I'm presuming that either Herlander Simoes or Zack McBryde knows the catalog number of The Twins, and will drop it into conversation at an opportune time, but that only gets you so far - unless the GA sends a very, very stealthy probe there and spots Mannerheim SDF ships in possession.
That, of course, after some more sturm und drang, will blow the RF's cover sky high and lead them to Felix. From there? I presume RFC has an idea, because I don't. Other than capturing an MAlign ship while its transiting from Darius.