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

Weird Harold wrote:

Uncompromising Honor
SLN Transit from Prime to Ajay wrote:“I have the destroyers’ impeller signatures, Sir,” Captain Absolon Badrani’s plotting officer announced as SLNS Hindustan reemerged into everyone else’s universe.

“Very good,” Badrani acknowledged absently. His attention was on his helmswoman as the Nevada-class battlecruiser glided out of the terminus. Hindustan’s sister ship Océan was on her heels, and Captain Hackenbroch had an acid personality backed up by a scalpel-sharp sarcasm. She was bound to say something rude if Hindustan was clumsy about getting out of her way.

Not that Océan would be coming through that quickly. Admiral Isotalo had ordered a twenty-five second interval between transits. That was far longer than anyone would ever need. True, it would be another—he checked the display—fifty-three seconds before he could reconfigure from Warshawski sail to impellers, but those sails provided all the acceleration he’d need to keep Hindustan out of Océan’s way.

Earlier in the battle of Prime/Ajay it is explicitly stated that the time from Transit to Impeller drive on the Prime-Ajay bridge is 80 seconds. With 25 second intervals, there should be three ships in the inbound lane at one time, all vulnerable without wedges or sidewalls.

Weird Harold wrote:

Uncompromising Honor
SLN Transit from Prime to Ajay wrote:“I have the destroyers’ impeller signatures, Sir,” Captain Absolon Badrani’s plotting officer announced as SLNS Hindustan reemerged into everyone else’s universe.

“Very good,” Badrani acknowledged absently. His attention was on his helmswoman as the Nevada-class battlecruiser glided out of the terminus. Hindustan’s sister ship Océan was on her heels, and Captain Hackenbroch had an acid personality backed up by a scalpel-sharp sarcasm. She was bound to say something rude if Hindustan was clumsy about getting out of her way.

Not that Océan would be coming through that quickly. Admiral Isotalo had ordered a twenty-five second interval between transits. That was far longer than anyone would ever need. True, it would be another—he checked the display—fifty-three seconds before he could reconfigure from Warshawski sail to impellers, but those sails provided all the acceleration he’d need to keep Hindustan out of Océan’s way.

Earlier in the battle of Prime/Ajay it is explicitly stated that the time from Transit to Impeller drive on the Prime-Ajay bridge is 80 seconds. With 25 second intervals, there should be three ships in the inbound lane at one time, all vulnerable without wedges or sidewalls.

n7axw wrote:Or... they could dump a whole bunch of ships at once. I don't know maxamim tonnage for Felix, but that does raise the possiblity of providing more targets than the defense could deal with...

Don

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JohnRoth wrote:
From Felix? I thought the problem was to identify the other end of the Torch wormhole, and that's not at Felix, it's at The Twins.

If the GA actually twigs to the Felix junction, it's going to cut of MAlign access to The Twins, which means that automated defenses will eventually decay into uselessness - all the ones in the books need to be maintained regularly.

Theemile wrote:Currently, there are no automated defenses at the twins - the Mannerheim BC squadron there to defend it was only there temporarily to deal with the Harvest Joy - if they act quick (or under enough secrecy), the GA could probably transit unharrased, unless Mannereim has changed their tactics.

kzt wrote:

Theemile wrote:Currently, there are no automated defenses at the twins - the Mannerheim BC squadron there to defend it was only there temporarily to deal with the Harvest Joy - if they act quick (or under enough secrecy), the GA could probably transit unharrased, unless Mannereim has changed their tactics.

We have no idea from the text. That was some time ago. And David has hinted that they have made some changes.

Theemile wrote:Currently, there are no automated defenses at the twins - the Mannerheim BC squadron there to defend it was only there temporarily to deal with the Harvest Joy - if they act quick (or under enough secrecy), the GA could probably transit unharrased, unless Mannereim has changed their tactics.

kzt wrote:We have no idea from the text. That was some time ago. And David has hinted that they have made some changes.

SYED wrote:Fixed defences are a huge investment in resources and man power. I think they are more likely to wait until they can more freely access the wormhole terminii, so make the process more simplified.

SYED wrote:Fixed defences are a huge investment in resources and man power. I think they are more likely to wait until they can more freely access the wormhole terminii, so make the process more simplified.

Somtaaw wrote:

SYED wrote:Fixed defences are a huge investment in resources and man power. I think they are more likely to wait until they can more freely access the wormhole terminii, so make the process more simplified.

Standard fixed defenses yes.... but that's because Manticore didn't want automated defenses that might accidentally blow away a civilian ship with thousands of passengers.


In the Twins, which is for all intents and purposes, the Mesan equivalent of Trevor's Star, a "closed" military system. They could very easily decide to defend the Torch connection with defenses that automatically destroy ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that is inbound from Torch the moment it's detected.

The only thing that would cost them is time and manpower (pun intended) to emplace those mines, missile pods, and laser platforms. Once they're emplaced, they could go months between maintenance cycles because those defenses will hardly fire.