I predict that the Solarian League will survive.

This is something that occurred to me a long time ago about Darius and the MAlign. If the Alignment is willing to go to extremes they can do just as was suggested earlier, plan their expansions.

Darius is totally isolated, no one but the Alignment knows where it is or what's going on there. They can literally grow their own work force and plan exactly how much resources they will use each year and how much they will spend.

Twenty thousand people for this, forty for that, etc. They can do the same allotting with other resources besides people. We need so much steel, so much nano factories, etc.

We also know, despite recent echo chamber actions by the Detweilers in their efforts to accelerate events, that the Alignment can plan a long long game. They don't need to rush to build ships or rush to do anything. They have time. Oodles of time. They can plan to come back out of the shadows in 50 years, or 100 with Darius having a population of 8 billion, 4 billion of it military. Ships out their ears built around whatever technology widgets they can create or steal. They didn't get the spider drive and sharks by being incompetent tech researchers, after all, maybe they'll come up with more tech that is radically different than the Alliance has. Darius just becomes a massive farm and manufacturing system for them. (Obviously those numbers are just thrown out there.)

Now this isn't likely to be what happens, but it's a possible way they could go if they wanted to be dictator style leaders. They could enforce this sort of draconian control where they dictate everything, just like a player in Sim City.

The discussion about worm hole transits and attacks was back on my thread about White Haven's assault on Trevor's Star when I questioned why there weren't sufficient fixed defenses (forts and mines) along with supporting mobile defenses on the Trevor's Star side which were run by the RoH to prevent just such an attack from Manticore to be successful. Even with White Haven's efforts to pull the RoH defending mobile forces out of place in a bid to go for San Martin by all appearances while the RMN Home Fleet transited the junction to take it out. Here's the link tot he thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8920

Long and short of attacking through a wormhole is that the attackers are at a severe disadvantage. They have no active or passive defenses for the immediate emergence except things under computer control. The defenders don't know when or if some one is coming through until they do, points against them. But they just set all their mines and weapons to automatically attack anything that comes through. The defenders definitely have the advantage.

Honor mused about a RoH attack that was simulated on Manticore through the WHJ using the massive numbers of battleships the RoH has/had. The battleships would get slaughtered, even knowing they would be transiting into hostile fields of fire. However a sufficiently determined force, willing to take the brutal pounding and losses could do it. (Basically if Haven had been willing to pay the piper from the start and not pussy foot around they could have taken the RMN and ruled Manticore along with the big cash cow that is the WHJ. Instead they pussy footed around and tried to get too cute, tried to be as conservative with lives and material as they could.)

So if it comes to cases, and Manticore figures out there's something important on the other end of the worm hole the Harvest Joy went through, they could force the crossing but at a terrible price. This isn't likely to happen as they have no reason to suspect what's on the other side or to be willing to feed meat into the grinder even if they did.

I am sure the members deeper inside the onion will continue to transit in and out. They'll also be maintaining their existing contacts and network of spies and such outside of Darius. No doubt they will continue to funnel tech and promising people to the Alignment.

It has been noted, I believe in War of Honor, when the Harvest Joy transits the new worm hole to the Talbott sector, that there is at least one worm hole that is a killer. Nothing has ever gone in and come back out, so it's presumed to end in the middle of a star, black hole or some such. (Though how it's possible given that you'd think that the star or black hole's gravity would create a hyper limit which preclude a working wormhole...) Given the vastness of space, it's probable that most wormholes do go somewhere you can emerge into, but it was bound to happen that there are a few you can't.

Fireflair wrote:This is something that occurred to me a long time ago about Darius and the MAlign. If the Alignment is willing to go to extremes they can do just as was suggested earlier, plan their expansions.

Darius is totally isolated, no one but the Alignment knows where it is or what's going on there. They can literally grow their own work force and plan exactly how much resources they will use each year and how much they will spend.

Twenty thousand people for this, forty for that, etc. They can do the same allotting with other resources besides people. We need so much steel, so much nano factories, etc.

We also know, despite recent echo chamber actions by the Detweilers in their efforts to accelerate events, that the Alignment can plan a long long game. They don't need to rush to build ships or rush to do anything. They have time. Oodles of time. They can plan to come back out of the shadows in 50 years, or 100 with Darius having a population of 8 billion, 4 billion of it military. Ships out their ears built around whatever technology widgets they can create or steal. They didn't get the spider drive and sharks by being incompetent tech researchers, after all, maybe they'll come up with more tech that is radically different than the Alliance has. Darius just becomes a massive farm and manufacturing system for them. (Obviously those numbers are just thrown out there.)

Now this isn't likely to be what happens, but it's a possible way they could go if they wanted to be dictator style leaders. They could enforce this sort of draconian control where they dictate everything, just like a player in Sim City.

The discussion about worm hole transits and attacks was back on my thread about White Haven's assault on Trevor's Star when I questioned why there weren't sufficient fixed defenses (forts and mines) along with supporting mobile defenses on the Trevor's Star side which were run by the RoH to prevent just such an attack from Manticore to be successful. Even with White Haven's efforts to pull the RoH defending mobile forces out of place in a bid to go for San Martin by all appearances while the RMN Home Fleet transited the junction to take it out. Here's the link tot he thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8920

Long and short of attacking through a wormhole is that the attackers are at a severe disadvantage. They have no active or passive defenses for the immediate emergence except things under computer control. The defenders don't know when or if some one is coming through until they do, points against them. But they just set all their mines and weapons to automatically attack anything that comes through. The defenders definitely have the advantage.

Honor mused about a RoH attack that was simulated on Manticore through the WHJ using the massive numbers of battleships the RoH has/had. The battleships would get slaughtered, even knowing they would be transiting into hostile fields of fire. However a sufficiently determined force, willing to take the brutal pounding and losses could do it. (Basically if Haven had been willing to pay the piper from the start and not pussy foot around they could have taken the RMN and ruled Manticore along with the big cash cow that is the WHJ. Instead they pussy footed around and tried to get too cute, tried to be as conservative with lives and material as they could.)

So if it comes to cases, and Manticore figures out there's something important on the other end of the worm hole the Harvest Joy went through, they could force the crossing but at a terrible price. This isn't likely to happen as they have no reason to suspect what's on the other side or to be willing to feed meat into the grinder even if they did.

I am sure the members deeper inside the onion will continue to transit in and out. They'll also be maintaining their existing contacts and network of spies and such outside of Darius. No doubt they will continue to funnel tech and promising people to the Alignment.

It has been noted, I believe in War of Honor, when the Harvest Joy transits the new worm hole to the Talbott sector, that there is at least one worm hole that is a killer. Nothing has ever gone in and come back out, so it's presumed to end in the middle of a star, black hole or some such. (Though how it's possible given that you'd think that the star or black hole's gravity would create a hyper limit which preclude a working wormhole...) Given the vastness of space, it's probable that most wormholes do go somewhere you can emerge into, but it was bound to happen that there are a few you can't.

Nit. David later told us that the Havenite BB senario was pre- laserhead, against energy range weapons. Now, laserhead have the standoff range to cover the entire emergence lane, and MDMs have the sprint speed to still engage ships in the emergence lane, while their launchers are located safely outside energy range.

The Massed BB attacks against 1920pd defenses would only have the effect of running down the defender's missile supply.

Let's assume that the RF and MAlign gather 75% of the Core and Shell into their alliance with the GA gathering in 25% into theirs. Just as the MAlign planned. However, the MAlign planned that the GA would have only a middling to poor reputation with the Verge and Protectorates due to a sufficiently successful operation Janus. As aresult, the GA would gather only 25% of the Verge and Protectorates.

Given how operation Janus failed and backfired, let's suppose the GA is able to gather 75% of the Verge and Protectorates within 5 years. How many worlds in the Core and Shell? How many in the Verge and Shell? I suspect there are far more worlds outside the Core and Shell. Now if Manticore uses their WHJ fees to invest in those worlds and grow their economies, how long would it take those Verge and ex-Protectorate worlds to have a larger aggregate economy than the ex-League member worlds controlled by the RF?

That sort of dynamic could easily impose time pressures on the MAlign. Especially if there is any delay in discovering their miscalculation.

Grr... third time I've tried to post this, but here we go again....

I missed the memo on that, but I'll almost buy that for a dollar. I'm not quite willing to bite off on those musings being pre-laserhead. Mostly because we have laserheads from the beginning of the series and they're a standard part of the missile load out. Granted, they are also still using nuclear warheads too, however I can't imagine that the system defense missiles aren't the biggest, nastiest laserheads which can be assembled. More over they'd want a realistic simulation for the results of a home system wormhole invasion. I'd have to think the RMN gamed out the BB assault with laserheads in play.

Of course RFC can put however he wants, his universe after all

As for a modern wormhole assault, that's a relevant point. With ERM, DDM, and MDMs flying around it probably is a terminally suicidal effort to try and force a wormhole. Even if you wanted to feed SDs into the meat grinder.

Fireflair wrote:Grr... third time I've tried to post this, but here we go again....

I missed the memo on that, but I'll almost buy that for a dollar. I'm not quite willing to bite off on those musings being pre-laserhead. Mostly because we have laserheads from the beginning of the series and they're a standard part of the missile load out. Granted, they are also still using nuclear warheads too, however I can't imagine that the system defense missiles aren't the biggest, nastiest laserheads which can be assembled. More over they'd want a realistic simulation for the results of a home system wormhole invasion. I'd have to think the RMN gamed out the BB assault with laserheads in play.

Of course RFC can put however he wants, his universe after all

As for a modern wormhole assault, that's a relevant point. With ERM, DDM, and MDMs flying around it probably is a terminally suicidal effort to try and force a wormhole. Even if you wanted to feed SDs into the meat grinder.

IIRC the sim wasn't pre-laserhead but it was a pre-war sim and without real combat experience with laserheads Manticore hadn't let the sim make them near as effective as actual combat would show them to be. (And it would have been prepod)

The counterintuitive thing is that, within reason, smaller ships are better for wormhole assaults against laserheads, and possibly against energy batteries, because while they carry less armor, and less PDLCs per ship they accelerate faster and mount more PDLCs per ton.

Still the Legislaturalists would have been better off throwing all those BBs in support of their wall directly at Manticore and ignoring the junction. At the start of the war they really did have enough force - should they choose to choose to pay the very steep price - to most likely win all full out deep strike assault.

PeterZ wrote:
The only likely way to discover Darius, then is to get a clue about materials exported to Darius. The more stuff that gets sent in, the more likely someone gets an idea there is something being hidden. Something like a secret wormhole terminus.

If they send nothing to Darius, the that limits how quickly Darius can grow. If they push the envelope on growth, keeping the secret becomes more difficult.

With regard to the Darius wormhole, do we KNOW for a fact that the Darius end of this thing is a single tram line or could it be in fact a two or more tram line junction?

I'm joining this discussion rather late, but I've not read anything that answers that question. A second tramline with its other end unknown to the SL or GA (or anyone else for that matter) could be of benefit to the MA by providing another exit into space of interest to the MA.

robert132 wrote:With regard to the Darius wormhole, do we KNOW for a fact that the Darius end of this thing is a single tram line or could it be in fact a two or more tram line junction?

The Darius Terminus is one of four destinations from the Felix Junction. I know of no hint anywhere that it is possible for two junctions to be linked.

JohnRoth wrote:

cthia wrote:
I've long since wondered, if by some Weber chance, whether the MAlign might be the first to successfully traverse a defended wormhole.

1. We have huge gaping holes in our MAlign intelligence, their technology, etc.

2. They can grow kamikazes to assault the wormhole in droves in cheaply built ships, quickly built simply to take the heat and be a distraction and meat for the grinder in wormhole assaults while they sneak ships in.

3.The MA can create a line simply to live to die.

Wormholes have "mass" limits and then need time to recover before another transit can happen. That mass limit allows the defender to size the blocking force appropriately.

There must be some inaccuracies in my understanding. Please correct me.

There is a mass limit, but recovery time varies with the mass transited. So long as the mass limit, specifically, isn't transited which totally shuts down the wormhole for hours? Correct?

So if the MAN would transit many very small targets that are difficult to kill for some reason of new technology, while using the distraction to sneak in the cavalry...

PeterZ wrote:Interesting twist? Perhaps 20 years later. For this story, the MAlign can't build enough of the LennyDs to do anything more than inconvenience the GA. The MAlign would be massively stupid to reveal that capability before they have a decisive edge. No matter how effective the LennyDs are, the MAlign don't have enough to offset the GA SD advantage, especially when KHII capabilities are tossed into the mix.

I would love for the LennyDs to be deployed so early. That would guarantee both Haven and Manticore would fixate on the MAlign like a pit bull clamped on a victim's throat. That's not a twist as much a concession that the GA will be driven to build the biggest, baddest hammer their sneaky minds can envision to smash those elitist modder pockers!

The pen is mightier than the sword, or the timeline.

After the last book there were so many enraged fans spouting shocking incoherent vehemence against RFC about a stagnant timeline that failed to advance, that he could easily decide to jump several decades into the future and cover what we missed in flashbacks.

Which would set the stage just fine for a MAlignant version of Chubby Checker's interesting twist.

cthia wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:Wormholes have "mass" limits and then need time to recover before another transit can happen. That mass limit allows the defender to size the blocking force appropriately.

There must be some inaccuracies in my understanding. Please correct me.

There is a mass limit, but recovery time varies with the mass transited. So long as the mass limit, specifically, isn't transited which totally shuts down the wormhole for hours? Correct?

So if the MAN would transit many very small targets that are difficult to kill for some reason of new technology, while using the distraction to sneak in the cavalry...

You are basically right. Each use does create a "transit window" which briefly destabilizes the wormhole, blocking transits. And the minimum "transit windows" is 10 seconds, no matter how small the ship(s) tonnage. IIRC about 2.5 mtons is as large as you can go without creating a longer delay, and past that it's proportional to the square of the tonnage so larger transits create much larger delays.

So you could stream in a suicidal super-BC every 10 seconds. Of course at that tight a sequencing after the first few have been killed the follow on ships will be immolated by impact with the debris without any further action by the defenders.


As a general rule though you'd need significantly more forces to assault through a wormhole than you'd need to defeat it's defenders if you sent the force through hyper. So even if we accept that the MAlign can grow or install disregard for utter disregard for personal survival in their ship's crews, and had no care about the human cost of the attack, the economic cost would be far lower attacking conventionally than going through the wormhole -- so it still seems quite unlikely they'd do so.