Felix junction, key aspect of the story (possible spoilers?)

George J. Smith wrote:A Question followed by a Daft idea and another question:

Why can't a ship's computer be programmed to raise aft sails based on velocity? The foresail would be raised by remote from Astro Control, (or another ship), once shipboard sensors determine there is sufficient velocity from the foresail the aft wedge would be reconfigured and the aft sail raised.

If that could be made possible, and I see no reason why a computer could not be so programmed, a large ship full of the most powerful explosives in the Honorverse could be sent through.

When the defenders open fire on the ship with their grazers the ship blows up. Now would the explosion be big enough to reach the defenders ships, or at least fry the sensors long enough for another ship to go through after?

I know there would be a problem with maybe the 2nd ship ramming the 1st if there weren't any defenders and the 1st ship was not destroyed, but could the computers also be programmed to reconfigure sails and accelerate after returning to normal space once the ship passes through the wormhole?

Peregrinator wrote:

Theemile wrote:To date, the best solution mentioned has been target saturation - throw so any small ships through at once that some have to get survive the emergence lane and escape to hyperspace. It's not so much an assault as a mission to identify the locus of the far end.

Heck of a lot of lives to waste though merely to identify the wormhole's terminus.

My thought (which I've shared before) is that someone will discover that all known "killer" wormholes have certain characteristics, observable from the outside, lacking in the Torch wormhole. At that point someone will put 2 and 2 together and realize that the Mesan Alignment has a "Bolthole" and that it's somehow connected to the Torch wormhole.

George J. Smith wrote:A Question followed by a Daft idea and another question:

Why can't a ship's computer be programmed to raise aft sails based on velocity? The foresail would be raised by remote from Astro Control, ...

JohnRoth wrote:There is only one other known "killer" wormhole. That's a mighty small sample.

Peregrinator wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:There is only one other known "killer" wormhole. That's a mighty small sample.

What's the other known killer wormhole? Genuinely curious - I know that such things are supposed to exist, but I don't know of any.

Torch of Freedom, Chapter 28 wrote:After she left, Wix let out his breath slowly. "Well," he said, "it is the most likely explanation."
Kare made a face. He had not, in fact, lied to the queen. As Wix had just stated, the most likely explanation was that the Harvest Joy couldn't return through the wormhole, for whatever reason, and was now slowly making its way back to Torch via hyperspace.
But . . . 
It wasn't the only possible explanation. 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.
"Yes, it is," he said. "The most likely explanation, by far."

Weird Harold wrote:

George J. Smith wrote:A Question followed by a Daft idea and another question:

Why can't a ship's computer be programmed to raise aft sails based on velocity? The foresail would be raised by remote from Astro Control, ...

Authorial Fiat. Wormholes cannot be transited by unmanned vehicles/probes.

n7axw wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:
Authorial Fiat. Wormholes cannot be transited by unmanned vehicles/probes.

Obiously David is the ruler of the Honorverse... but do you remember when and where this authorial fiat was proclaimed (ex-cathedra)..

Don

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Weird Harold wrote:
It is in a couple of places, IIRC. The "Pearls of Weber" is probably one place, but there may be a forum post or two also.

SYED wrote:Could a carrier survive transition long enough to deploy LAC? I could see a. Bunch of them capable of dealing with the mannerheim ships guarding the wormhole.