A Nasty Surprise

Jonathan_S wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:I figure that's going to be an inevitable change after the Beowulf incident. Dedicated platforms even if they still have normal human crews. Only inspected final destination cargo is allowed into habitats.

The cargo safety must have been much better than present day if freight yards were allowed inside habitats. These days we are cautious enough about train yards due to the hazardous cargoes sometimes carried.

That's still going to be a massive inspection task. And IIRC the major warehouses are separate stations. The bombs were in containers listed for delivery to some company physically on each station. You can put your container port as far outside the city as you like but it doesn't help much if something dangerous is in a container that's being shipped through there to a department store in the middle of downtown. These bombs basically blew up on the equivalent of the loading docks of a store.

A station with millions of people will need a lot of daily shipments of food, clothes, electronics, appliances, ect. etc. Basically what gets shipped into a fairly major 20th century city - to the residents, to the stores, to the construction sites, etc. etc. - for its internal consumption.

Now they can do a better job of making sure the recipient was expecting the shipment before letting it be transferred to the station. If that works it'll cut out the ability for a container to linger on the loading docks. But someone could still blow up the station, they'd just have to manage to insert the container with an expected waybill and blow it right after it enters the target -- before the recipient can open it up and realize it's not actually what was supposed to be in that container.



But even doing a manual inspection of just those necessary shipments to a station of millions would be a monumental task - and that only saves you if a bomb can't be disguised well enough to be likely to evade normal inspection.

Most people working with prisons know that prisoners have an advantage: they have all the time in the world to plan their mischief while the guards have their jobs to do.

There will be controls put on. What they will be I don't know. And I would guess that the Detweilers will not use that gimmick again. They have to know that if that becomes a regular tool, the entire family and perhaps the whole planet of Darius may just become a waste.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:I figure that's going to be an inevitable change after the Beowulf incident. Dedicated platforms even if they still have normal human crews. Only inspected final destination cargo is allowed into habitats.

The cargo safety must have been much better than present day if freight yards were allowed inside habitats. These days we are cautious enough about train yards due to the hazardous cargoes sometimes carried.

That's still going to be a massive inspection task. And IIRC the major warehouses are separate stations. The bombs were in containers listed for delivery to some company physically on each station. You can put your container port as far outside the city as you like but it doesn't help much if something dangerous is in a container that's being shipped through there to a department store in the middle of downtown. These bombs basically blew up on the equivalent of the loading docks of a store.

A station with millions of people will need a lot of daily shipments of food, clothes, electronics, appliances, ect. etc. Basically what gets shipped into a fairly major 20th century city - to the residents, to the stores, to the construction sites, etc. etc. - for its internal consumption.

Now they can do a better job of making sure the recipient was expecting the shipment before letting it be transferred to the station. If that works it'll cut out the ability for a container to linger on the loading docks. But someone could still blow up the station, they'd just have to manage to insert the container with an expected waybill and blow it right after it enters the target -- before the recipient can open it up and realize it's not actually what was supposed to be in that container.



But even doing a manual inspection of just those necessary shipments to a station of millions would be a monumental task - and that only saves you if a bomb can't be disguised well enough to be likely to evade normal inspection.

----------------

Right now (post-Beowulf), there are effectively no large shipping platforms about Beowulf.
As rebuilt, shipping / Trans-shipping platforms would (should) be physically separate from residential and industrial platforms until shipment is acknowledged as expected and inspected.
Same issue in this universe/time-line -- be suspicious of unexpected packages (std procedure in mil/government installations) or unexpected e-mails with attachments -- unless you like restoring from back-ups or paying off with Bit-Coin.

-- "Lessons 'Re-Learned' were not learned in the first place"

-- Stewart

stewart wrote:be suspicious of unexpected packages

Oh! Oh! From one of the Pink Panther movies:

Evil Henchman knocks on door, holding black ball with burning fuse. Clouseau opens door, wearing ridiculous disguise. Henchman is surprised to see unexpected person answering the door, but recovers quickly.
Henchman: "Special delivery."
Clouseau [Takes bomb]: "Errr…thank you."
Door closed, Clouseau turns to shop proprietor.
Clouseau: "Special delivery — a beaum. Were you expecting one?" [Double take] "A BEAUM!!"

Jonathan_S wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:I figure that's going to be an inevitable change after the Beowulf incident. Dedicated platforms even if they still have normal human crews. Only inspected final destination cargo is allowed into habitats.

The cargo safety must have been much better than present day if freight yards were allowed inside habitats. These days we are cautious enough about train yards due to the hazardous cargoes sometimes carried.

That's still going to be a massive inspection task. And IIRC the major warehouses are separate stations. The bombs were in containers listed for delivery to some company physically on each station. You can put your container port as far outside the city as you like but it doesn't help much if something dangerous is in a container that's being shipped through there to a department store in the middle of downtown. These bombs basically blew up on the equivalent of the loading docks of a store.

A station with millions of people will need a lot of daily shipments of food, clothes, electronics, appliances, ect. etc. Basically what gets shipped into a fairly major 20th century city - to the residents, to the stores, to the construction sites, etc. etc. - for its internal consumption.

Now they can do a better job of making sure the recipient was expecting the shipment before letting it be transferred to the station. If that works it'll cut out the ability for a container to linger on the loading docks. But someone could still blow up the station, they'd just have to manage to insert the container with an expected waybill and blow it right after it enters the target -- before the recipient can open it up and realize it's not actually what was supposed to be in that container.



But even doing a manual inspection of just those necessary shipments to a station of millions would be a monumental task - and that only saves you if a bomb can't be disguised well enough to be likely to evade normal inspection.

This is why any station should be self-sustaining and be high on recycling. Shipments should be scrambled into individual atoms so bombs or nanotech can't be delivered. Also you should regularly back up everything on the station so it can be resurrected at a later date. Especially the people. Take them apart molecule by molecule. As you go replace the brain with artificial neurons cell by cell and replace the body with a better one.

This should be really easy in the Honorverse since you can just bounce everything off an impeller, then collect the dust and reassemble it.

Honestly, its like their trying to be destroyed by self-replicating nanotech.

stewart wrote:Right now (post-Beowulf), there are effectively no large shipping platforms about Beowulf.
As rebuilt, shipping / Trans-shipping platforms would (should) be physically separate from residential and industrial platforms until shipment is acknowledged as expected and inspected.
Same issue in this universe/time-line -- be suspicious of unexpected packages (std procedure in mil/government installations) or unexpected e-mails with attachments -- unless you like restoring from back-ups or paying off with Bit-Coin.

-- "Lessons 'Re-Learned' were not learned in the first place"

-- Stewart

I'm not sure that's true. The containers were said to be in the Freight Hubs of the 3 largest stations. Nothing I saw said the main shipping facilities were part of the Alpha, Beta, or Gamma stations.

But the closest thing I could find to support that near the bit that said

Uncompromising Honor wrote:Beowulf Alpha had expanded over the centuries in carefully planned additions, each incorporated into the existing structure only after carefully considering its impact upon the entire station, and strict zoning re-quirements had insured that it was home to very little heavy industry. There was a lot of light industry, dedicated to consumer-oriented products, but Beowulf had always tended to segregate its heavier indus-try—and the accidents which could occur on those sorts of industrial sites—away from its residential areas.

It goes on to mention at least three more stations in Beowulf orbit (the Ivaldi Alviss platforms where the Mk23 construction lines were added).

But the "open-space orbital holding areas" for containers mentioned later would still be there around Beowulf. Any cargo being transshipped at Beowulf (rather than being delivered to, or originating from, one of the 3 destroyed stations) would I assume only go through those orbital holding areas - not through the cargo hubs of the stations.


Now the rebuilding can go a couple steps further and prohibit reestablishment of the few exceptions to the no heavy industry rule on those residential stations as well as forcing as much as possible of the light industry off station. But that means way more station to station orbital traffic -- which is also a high risk activity (not to mention a major bottleneck and economic cost).

And as mentioned earlier they can do a better job of confirming a given shipment is expected before allowing it on-station. But despite all that a station with several million inhabitants living, shopping, and commuting (if not actually working - if their jobs got exiled to a separate stations) is still going to have far too much daily cargo being delivered to fully inspect it all without turning a huge amount of the station and its personnel into customs and security inspection facilities and staff!

Jonathan_S wrote:

stewart wrote:Right now (post-Beowulf), there are effectively no large shipping platforms about Beowulf.
As rebuilt, shipping / Trans-shipping platforms would (should) be physically separate from residential and industrial platforms until shipment is acknowledged as expected and inspected.
Same issue in this universe/time-line -- be suspicious of unexpected packages (std procedure in mil/government installations) or unexpected e-mails with attachments -- unless you like restoring from back-ups or paying off with Bit-Coin.

-- "Lessons 'Re-Learned' were not learned in the first place"

-- Stewart

I'm not sure that's true. The containers were said to be in the Freight Hubs of the 3 largest stations. Nothing I saw said the main shipping facilities were part of the Alpha, Beta, or Gamma stations.

But the closest thing I could find to support that near the bit that said

Uncompromising Honor wrote:Beowulf Alpha had expanded over the centuries in carefully planned additions, each incorporated into the existing structure only after carefully considering its impact upon the entire station, and strict zoning re-quirements had insured that it was home to very little heavy industry. There was a lot of light industry, dedicated to consumer-oriented products, but Beowulf had always tended to segregate its heavier indus-try—and the accidents which could occur on those sorts of industrial sites—away from its residential areas.

It goes on to mention at least three more stations in Beowulf orbit (the Ivaldi Alviss platforms where the Mk23 construction lines were added).

But the "open-space orbital holding areas" for containers mentioned later would still be there around Beowulf. Any cargo being transshipped at Beowulf (rather than being delivered to, or originating from, one of the 3 destroyed stations) would I assume only go through those orbital holding areas - not through the cargo hubs of the stations.


Now the rebuilding can go a couple steps further and prohibit reestablishment of the few exceptions to the no heavy industry rule on those residential stations as well as forcing as much as possible of the light industry off station. But that means way more station to station orbital traffic -- which is also a high risk activity (not to mention a major bottleneck and economic cost).

And as mentioned earlier they can do a better job of confirming a given shipment is expected before allowing it on-station. But despite all that a station with several million inhabitants living, shopping, and commuting (if not actually working - if their jobs got exiled to a separate stations) is still going to have far too much daily cargo being delivered to fully inspect it all without turning a huge amount of the station and its personnel into customs and security inspection facilities and staff!

There's an old line that prisoners have an advantage of over guards because they have plenty of time to plan while the guards have to do the guarding.

Bombs like we saw can always be around and they have to be found. Compare that to ISIS and it's tactics now. Certain acts can be done because no one is prepared for them. Of course, there are major disasters but that often leads to real nasty reactions.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Now the rebuilding can go a couple steps further and prohibit reestablishment of the few exceptions to the no heavy industry rule on those residential stations as well as forcing as much as possible of the light industry off station. But that means way more station to station orbital traffic -- which is also a high risk activity (not to mention a major bottleneck and economic cost).

And as mentioned earlier they can do a better job of confirming a given shipment is expected before allowing it on-station. But despite all that a station with several million inhabitants living, shopping, and commuting (if not actually working - if their jobs got exiled to a separate stations) is still going to have far too much daily cargo being delivered to fully inspect it all without turning a huge amount of the station and its personnel into customs and security inspection facilities and staff!

Stations really should be as self-sustaining as possible. There should be enough industry on every station to build everything they need including any smaller ships. Short range orbital traffic should probably just be done with those fancy pusher and puller beams. Industrial jobs should be done with as much telecommuting as possible. They should really, really not need regular shipments and the shipments they DO need should be mostly pure element feed-stock. Get trusted ships (ones that you produced) to do the pick ups and security sweeps from a transshipment area. Stuff should be scanned with some sort of fancy X-ray or gamma ray scanner combo; it is not like its gonna hurt pure element feed-stock.

If you don't want to get nuked in a world were you have commercial grade nukes, fusion thrusters and those impellers, and mass murdering terrorists that's a bare minimum. I still think you should make back-ups of the people, but I think the Honorverse has some phobias about making superior humans using advanced nanotech.

quite possibly a cat wrote:Stations really should be as self-sustaining as possible. There should be enough industry on every station to build everything they need including any smaller ships. Short range orbital traffic should probably just be done with those fancy pusher and puller beams. Industrial jobs should be done with as much telecommuting as possible. They should really, really not need regular shipments and the shipments they DO need should be mostly pure element feed-stock. Get trusted ships (ones that you produced) to do the pick ups and security sweeps from a transshipment area. Stuff should be scanned with some sort of fancy X-ray or gamma ray scanner combo; it is not like its gonna hurt pure element feed-stock.

If you don't want to get nuked in a world were you have commercial grade nukes, fusion thrusters and those impellers, and mass murdering terrorists that's a bare minimum. I still think you should make back-ups of the people, but I think the Honorverse has some phobias about making superior humans using advanced nanotech.

I guess if you spent enough money you could make New York City mostly self-sustaining. But given the cost of land there, and the trivial cost of transportation it'd be economically crazy to try. These Beowulfan stations aren't shipyards or heavy industry nodes (not sure where the former are, their later are out near their asteroid belt) - these are major cities that just happen to be in space.

People aren't going to be happy if everything in all their stores is restricted to what can be made from scratch on the station. Shipping, even to orbit or between star systems, is dirt cheap in the Honorverse; so even things they might not mind being produced locally - like much of their non-specialty food - would be cheaper to ship up from planetside than grown on-station. People want the same clothes, toys, electronics, etc that are avalible on any other city on Beowulf and are going to be profoundly unhappy if their city stations are not allowed to have those.


Are their stations that can pull off that higher security? Sure. But those aren't the residential cities in space - those are special purpose naval or commercial platforms.

Now maybe the solution is Beowulf simply reconsiders whether the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma station cities should be replaced at all. Given the ludicrous toughness of planetside residential towers a city that size on the ground would be far more resistant to large nuclear weapons than any plausible orbital construction. (Though new built orbital stations could be designed to be far more survivable to nukes smuggled into their loading docks -- that just wasn't an attack vector that was seriously addressed before)

The GA realized at once that the habitats were going boom from internally planted bombs. Im wondering if forensic specalists can identify a timeframe when the bombs were delivered, based on the locations of the bombs in the storage areas. It may then be possible to extrapolate which freighter(s) may have delivered the bombs. The navy could then start looking for the suspected culprits. If memory serves, the same freighter also deployed silver bullet and lm wondering if the Manties or Beowulf's navies can find any silver bullet debris that might provide clues about how they were able to neutralize Mycroft (sensors that watched for handshaking to determine the locations of Mycroft components for the grasers to target). I believe that some of the Ghostrider recon drones were in position to see the silver bullet grazers fire & also likely saw them self destruct afterwards. Of course all this is a long shot, but with 40M civilian casualties the GA's going to turn over every possible rock to find where the Alignment is hiding.

stewart wrote:

----------------

Right now (post-Beowulf), there are effectively no large shipping platforms about Beowulf.
As rebuilt, shipping / Trans-shipping platforms would (should) be physically separate from residential and industrial platforms until shipment is acknowledged as expected and inspected.
Same issue in this universe/time-line -- be suspicious of unexpected packages (std procedure in mil/government installations) or unexpected e-mails with attachments -- unless you like restoring from back-ups or paying off with Bit-Coin.

-- "Lessons 'Re-Learned' were not learned in the first place"

-- Stewart

If memory serves, there is still a US Postal Facility sitting dormant after the facility detected (and opened) a letter containing anthrax powder ~20 years ago. Everything inside was just left in place. The Postal Service initiated new handling procedures after those attacks.

While not a precise analogy - it does provide a glimpse into what a service would do in the face of a threat. Find ways to detect and nullify it, and build dedicated automated sorting facilities away from customers.