Improbability of wormholes connecting to habitable planets

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Interesting theory. But we do know they connect to very low mass stars too: both the Lynx terminus and the Twins are in star systems with M8 red dwarfs, which is the second to last step in the classification table. So such termini cannot be too small to transit.

Peregrinator wrote:That is why I hedged my words! But in any case, finding a few counterexamples does not prove that such termini don't exist.

I think that we have to believe that the probability of linkage increases with star mass. When combined with the probability of a star existing decreasing with mass, then we could get an overwhelming probability of wormhole junctions being tied to Sol-type stars; without denying that other linkages could exist, given that some examples have been found.

tlb wrote:I think that we have to believe that the probability of linkage increases with star mass. When combined with the probability of a star existing decreasing with mass, then we could get an overwhelming probability of wormhole junctions being tied to Sol-type stars; without denying that other linkages could exist, given that some examples have been found.

I don't recall any descriptions of giant stars in the Honorverse but that could just be me not remembering.

tlb wrote:I think that we have to believe that the probability of linkage increases with star mass. When combined with the probability of a star existing decreasing with mass, then we could get an overwhelming probability of wormhole junctions being tied to Sol-type stars; without denying that other linkages could exist, given that some examples have been found.

Peregrinator wrote:I don't recall any descriptions of giant stars in the Honorverse but that could just be me not remembering.

In our galaxy less than 1% of all stars are twice the mass of the Sun, or greater; so it might not be surprising that they have not made into the stories.

But they, and their hyper limit, would be dramatic. One of the largest known stars in the universe is UY Scuti, a hypergiant with a radius around 1,700 times larger than the sun; but it is only 30 times as massive as the Sun. There is another star (R136a1) that is only 30 Solar radii, but 300 times as massive.

Theemile wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Your example of Idaho supports the theory that they really are extremely difficult to detect. Either that or the Idahoans and the Zunkerians and the companies that explored both systems were criminally negligent...

Why Criminally negligent? the Manticore junction is 412 Lm from it's primary. The Hyper limit of Manticore A is ~22 lm. As an example, Pluto's orbital radius is between 300 and 480 lm. We're discussing gravity whispers out in the keiper belt, that no one was looking for until ~400 years ago. And if it takes a specially equipped team of ships with a cadre of experts in Hyper Physicists and a pile of cash from one of the richest star nations YEARS to discover a a side wormhole that they could already prove mathematically. Yes, they already found the big one - and we're discussing looking for a side tunnel right next to the big one, so we've already got it localized to just a few million cubic kilometers from the ENTIRE 500 lm radius sphere. So THAT should have been easy, but it wasn't.

My point was that if it were only of moderate effort to find and no one had found them after centuries of habitation on either end of the wormhole, then they'd be criminally negligent, given the economic boom that both systems have seen since the discovery.

You're arguing that it is very difficult to find. I agree completely.

We only have one data point of how wormholes were found: Axelrod knowing about the MWHJ from second hand data with civilian sensors of ships that visited maybe once a month. From that, we could think that finding wormholes or at least wormhole junctions isn't very difficult. But the MWHJ is an outlier in every sense, so we can't really extrapolate from it. And maybe Axelrod had some algorithms that were never made public and remain largely unknown (except maybe to a certain alignment that found a wormhole in an unsettled system).

ThinksMarkedly wrote:except maybe to a certain alignment that found a wormhole in an unsettled system

It's likely that the proximity of the wormhole to its "twin" terminus had something to do with their finding it -- unless you mean the Felix Junction and not the SGC-902-36-G Wormhole Anomaly.

Peregrinator wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:except maybe to a certain alignment that found a wormhole in an unsettled system

It's likely that the proximity of the wormhole to its "twin" terminus had something to do with their finding it -- unless you mean the Felix Junction and not the SGC-902-36-G Wormhole Anomaly.

I meant Felix.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I meant Felix.

Fair enough - although Felix is a K2 star and has a planet that could be colonized, but hasn't been. Perhaps the Mesan Alignment was looking at Felix as a possibility for a Darius-style hideout, happened across the Junction, and discovered Darius thereby.

Peregrinator wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I meant Felix.

Fair enough - although Felix is a K2 star and has a planet that could be colonized, but hasn't been. Perhaps the Mesan Alignment was looking at Felix as a possibility for a Darius-style hideout, happened across the Junction, and discovered Darius thereby.

There is no current colony, several were attempted and never survived. The planet has had several "owners" over the years - sufficient to muddy the waters as to who truly owns the claim.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:You're arguing that it is very difficult to find. I agree completely.

We only have one data point of how wormholes were found: Axelrod knowing about the MWHJ from second hand data with civilian sensors of ships that visited maybe once a month. From that, we could think that finding wormholes or at least wormhole junctions isn't very difficult. But the MWHJ is an outlier in every sense, so we can't really extrapolate from it. And maybe Axelrod had some algorithms that were never made public and remain largely unknown (except maybe to a certain alignment that found a wormhole in an unsettled system).

An extreme outlier. By far the largest and most powerful wormhole junction ever detected - with an resonance zone (RZ) powerful enough to cause extremely rough transitions up into hyper and to the destroy ships attempting to reenter normal space within its area. (It has the most termini and has the highest transit mass ceiling ever found)

That makes its grav disturbances stand out like a lighthouse against the background of routine fluctuations that grav sensor see, or even rough areas of hyper entry/exit, that aren't associated with wormholes. The signal level of a termini/junction is a function of the wormhole's power (its transit mass ceiling) and for junctions of the number of other termini).

So it isn't too surprising that someone who knew what a wormhole terminus's "signature" looked like could easily identify a potential one at Manticore even based on fairly casual civilian sensor readings. But a pure point to point wormhole bridge capable of taking no more than a dozen or so megatons at once is going to be a will o the wisp compared to the lighthouse of the Manticore junction

Peregrinator wrote:I don't recall any descriptions of giant stars in the Honorverse but that could just be me not remembering.

Giant stars aren't very friendly to the planets around them. While giant stars might exist it's unlikely there's a world there worth living on, it's certain that there's no life-bearing world there, it would have to be terraformed. There are enough suitable worlds around, it would be very unlikely someone would go to the expense of terraforming a world.

Thus they are irrelevant for purposes of the story.