Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster Bay

kzt wrote:There are three possibilities:
1) The WH is a death trap because some natural phenomena makes it unsurvivable.
2) They made some sort of catastrophic error and were destroyed or at least have no hyperspace capability.
3). There is some sort of enemy force that acted against them.

If it’s case 1 anyone you send in will die. If it’s case 3 then most likely whatever happened to them will happen again. Only in case 2 is it likely that you have a reasonable chance of not getting a bunch of very difficult to replace people killed pointlessly. So, you feeling lucky?

Maldorian wrote:
The point is, that the Harvest Joy didn´t return and with the alignment in the calculation brutal force is the best guess why. If you think about how someone would secure a unused wormhole, mines or a single fortress would be the number one guesses. Ships would be a little bit down on the list.

You are apparently having too much fun to bother with the real(?) Honorverse.

The author wrote in the text:
1) there is an existing wormhole no one has ever successfully transited, so it is possible this one has whatever problem the first one had;

2) One of the things no one responsible wants to do is to assume enemy action when no actual data exists to suggest it;

3)Your argument (that hostile action is the best guess) only makes sense because the author gave you insight into the Malign's operations and motivations. Certainly neither of the hyperspace physicists involved in the survey offered that possibility (not even to Jeremy)or considered it at the time. Characters in the story do not have the data to connect those dots.

So considering how you would execute a breach on a defended wormhole terminus is a waste of effort, since the RMN isn't going to send ships through it anyway. If data is found suggesting or confirming enemy action, you will follow up through the source(s) of the data, not go storming an unknown terminus armed with unknown defenses.

They'll find Darius, either through not-quite-expired links on Mesa, or by finding and recruiting another McBride (onion insider that isn't insane.) We'll get there when the author decides to go there.

Rob
edited out extra "have".

You are right, miscalculations of the wormhole would be a good explarnation for the loss of the Harvest Joy, but with the Mesan operation on Verdant Vista/Torch and the Alignment in the picture, the chance of hostile forces at the other end of the wormhole rise from "nearly non existent" to "you have to really think about it".

So, if someone of the alliance will ever make another try to cross the Torch wormhole, I bet they wouldn´t use an outdatet cruiser but something sturdier.

Edit:

I wonder what Herlander Simmons has to say to that topic! I know, he knows nothing about the Torch wormhole himself, but he is a mathematecan, maybe he has heared something at university/work about projects related to wormholes or even the existence of courses about wormhole physics could lead to the conclusion, that the Alignment works on paths trough wormholes.

Given the technology available at the SLN level available at the time of, say, Monica, it is entirely possible that the Alignment could acquire former SLN ships (as were transfered to Monica) with "modern" weapons and use them to interdict the non-Torch side of the Torch wormhole.
You don't need Spyder drive ships with the Graser Trop level weaponry. You only need hyper capable (and, wormhole capable since you have to get them 1st into the Alighmnet's wormhole network and mover them around in it) ships with even SLN CH or BC range of standard energy and missiles. That you would probably want to add some level of minefields to it is also reasonable but you would have to then provide the people and ship(s) and people plus LACs or equivalent to tend the mines without being hypercapale.

Heck, the Alignment could even broker a deal with Mannerheim to buy several of it's existing if slightly older (which would let them upgrade via Technodyne or similar builder) and put them on the interditction duty. Draw the crews from Darius population and train the up with Mannerheim Naval Officers who are both already knowlable about the role of the Alignment and let this "legacy" force handle the job.
They are sitting on the exit lane from Torch, they cycle ships (possible at least two at a time) up to the closest fireing point and have their weapons and active sensors hot all the time. The can put pods in around the mines. How many do you need? Heck, at this point there could be several thousand pods with some varient of the Cataphracts that have been "misdirected" from what have nominally sent to Fillertya and so far nobody on the GA or SLN side has been wondering where they actualy came from or what the total order was.
The Alighment can afford to have ten thousand people trained to at least operate and fight the ships from an ambush position. Besides, how many people on board each ship would have to know how to transit a wormhole except that you might need to have some rotation and certainly send supply ships regularly. Emergency communication would by dispatch boat or perhaps DDs.

What the Alignment can't afford is some other ship comming through the Torch Wormhole and reporting back where the other end is. Once that is known, the GA is one step closer to finding where the rock is that the Alignment is hiding under.

For that matter, I'm surprized that the other side of the Felix bridge isn't covered by mines and a blocking force. They can't actualy set an Astro Control on the Felix side - that would be unfortunate if somebody they would have a problem shooting at happened by- but like the Manticore Junction you could make the non-Felix side a deathtrap for anybody who came through without a schedule or prove they were on urgent business.
Can the Alignment afford NOT to picket their sides of at least the wormholes that they use in the shadow network.

Brigade XO wrote:For that matter, I'm surprized that the other side of the Felix bridge isn't covered by mines and a blocking force. They can't actualy set an Astro Control on the Felix side - that would be unfortunate if somebody they would have a problem shooting at happened by- but like the Manticore Junction you could make the non-Felix side a deathtrap for anybody who came through without a schedule or prove they were on urgent business.
Can the Alignment afford NOT to picket their sides of at least the wormholes that they use in the shadow network.

They don't want anything in Felix to indicate that there is a wormhole in the first place. A minefield might work, since it is by definition stealthy. Anyone who happens to stop in the system, like the legitimate owners, would not see it unless they happened to literally run into it. But at that point, they'd have detected the wormhole in the first place.

A picket can also be explained away -- just ships from neighbour Mannerheim conducting exercises outside the hyperlimit. So long as they're not detected multiple times at the same position, that would be suspicious.

That's why it's better to picket at The Twins, which appears to be an otherwise useless system, with no owner. The chances of someone stumbling upon it are smaller than Felix.

If The Twins is compromised, they will have to picket Felix in force and risk discovery. And then they'll need to explain why the Renaissance Factor does not want Manticoran ships to go through.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:For that matter, I'm surprized that the other side of the Felix bridge isn't covered by mines and a blocking force. They can't actualy set an Astro Control on the Felix side - that would be unfortunate if somebody they would have a problem shooting at happened by- but like the Manticore Junction you could make the non-Felix side a deathtrap for anybody who came through without a schedule or prove they were on urgent business.
Can the Alignment afford NOT to picket their sides of at least the wormholes that they use in the shadow network.

They don't want anything in Felix to indicate that there is a wormhole in the first place. A minefield might work, since it is by definition stealthy. Anyone who happens to stop in the system, like the legitimate owners, would not see it unless they happened to literally run into it. But at that point, they'd have detected the wormhole in the first place.

A picket can also be explained away -- just ships from neighbour Mannerheim conducting exercises outside the hyperlimit. So long as they're not detected multiple times at the same position, that would be suspicious.

That's why it's better to picket at The Twins, which appears to be an otherwise useless system, with no owner. The chances of someone stumbling upon it are smaller than Felix.

If The Twins is compromised, they will have to picket Felix in force and risk discovery. And then they'll need to explain why the Renaissance Factor does not want Manticoran ships to go through.

Mannerheim is picketing Felix in force, see chapter 50 of _Torch of Freedom_; there is a taskforce (with ships of the wall) conducting "routine training exercises" (and I suspect it isn't the only taskforce which conducts "routine training exercises").

Sorry if I have not been clear about a blocking force on the Torch-Twins wormhole.
The Alighment would put it on the Twins end. Since (so far) nobody outside the Alighment knows about the bridge and nobody mentioned any exploration -other than perhaps by the Alignment of the Twins system- it is unlikely that anybody is going to be stumbling on it in the near future. So you put your blocking force on the exit lane at the Twins end and obliterate anything that comes though it. Nobody is going to see it.

It is highly unlikely that the Alignment is using the Twins-Torch wormhole for anything at this point. While there may not be a research ship sitting near the Torch end of the wormhole, there will be a research probe monitoring the wormhole for further study. Even if there is only a periodic trip out to the probe from Torch to download data, I should expect that such a probe would be capable of noticing a ship comming out of or going into the wormhole. The Alighment- having gone though so much trouble to keep that wormhole 1st secret and then make it look like a killer- isn't going to want to provide evidence that somebody can come out of it or just sails up and into it. No, just popping the probe to eradicate the data isn't going to cut it. What if it streaming the data to Torch? Besides, any probe left out there would be fairly rugged and specificaly placed so as not to be in the way of any little hiccups the wormhole might come up with (remember, the Harvest Joy plotted out the vector of transit lane) and the probe suddenly going missing would get people thinking hard about that again.

Mannerheim, while in quiet and protracted negotiations for the apparently unremarkable (and not having a habitable planet) system of Felix, had decided to use the system for it's SDF's practice and maneuvers. I guess that sort of provides for a plauable explination for Mannerheim SDF ships to be sitting or swanning around well outside the hyperlimit on a system they don't own and apparently nobody is using for anything else but they probably have to keep at least one ship sitting out relative to the wormhole if for no other reason than to make sure nobody elce stumbles across it. What they would do if someone did come buy is a different question

We know the Alignment does use the Darius-Felix bridge (it's how they got the anti-Moriarty package to Beowulf via the Mannerheim-Werner bridge) and it's probably the major conduit for the Alignment to or from Darius. We don't acutaly know where the other two wormholes on the Darius-Felix wormhole network map from earlier this year go and if any other wormholes are being used by the Alignment.

The other thing that would be prudent for the Alignment to have an Astro Control and blocking force on top of the Darius end of the Felix-Darius bridge. They have got to want compleat control of that inbound lane and provide transit information to outbound ships.

Theemile wrote:
And #2 is the reason why they are still studying the wormhole. If 18 months go by, nothing consequential is found, and the math is still the same - what are the chances they will make another attempt? pretty low...

But at the same time, with the rise of the GA and everything coming out about the MA what are the chances somsone in GA intelligence would connect Manpower, an unexplored WH and a missing survey ship?

If they redo the survey and come up with the same math that leaves it with someone is picketing the WH, something is impeding the other end of the WH or the crew made an error/technical casualty during transit.

If it is protected why is it protect? Since the previous owner was Manpower I would be very interested in finding out the answer to that. The RMN, RHN, GSN and BSDF would likely be able to find quite a few volunteers to man the ships but they don't need to do so, they are military organizations and they can order some crews to commit to the mission if they think this is important enough to outweigh the risk of losing those ships/people.



If there is some natural obstacle the assault force will either be completely destroyed or someone will get through and get back with word of the issue. At some point the GA might just decide to fortify the WH and figure it out later, but the RF/MA cannot depend on that.

I need a volunteer to go into this woodchipper,

OK, that didn't work, could I have another volunteer?

Hmm, still didn't work, could I...

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:You are apparently having too much fun to bother with the real(?) Honorverse.

The author wrote in the text:
1) there is an existing wormhole no one has ever successfully transited, so it is possible this one has whatever problem the first one had;

2) One of the things no one responsible wants to do is to assume enemy action when no actual data exists to suggest it;

3)Your argument (that hostile action is the best guess) only makes sense because the author gave you insight into the Malign's operations and motivations. Certainly neither of the hyperspace physicists involved in the survey offered that possibility (not even to Jeremy)or considered it at the time. Characters in the story do not have the data to connect those dots.

1)Manpower owned the system.
2)Manpower and the MA have a very obvious connection.
3)A corporation like Manpower has a system that they have had under their control for an unknown amount of time.
4)That system has a WH.
5)Manpower apparently did not get around to surveying a potential economic goldmine
6)Oyster bay, Beowulf Strike, Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachat’s gathered intelligence and the existence of MA becomes known to the GA.

When all of that is combined some interesting conclusions could be drawn. Either Manpower surveyed the WH and ran into a problem like Harvest Joy did, or they surveyed the WH and found something of value on the other end which prompted the MA to hide it. When everything is taken into consideration the most obvious conclusion is enemy action. Obviously at some point the GA might decide to fortify their end of the WH and leave it be or they might decide to take a risk and try to do a WH assault in order to gain the coordinates of the other end of the WH.

So considering how you would execute a breach on a defended wormhole terminus is a waste of effort, since the RMN isn't going to send ships through it anyway. If data is found suggesting or confirming enemy action, you will follow up through the source(s) of the data, not go storming an unknown terminus armed with unknown defenses.

After the GA has lost tens of millions of people in unprovoked attacks, tens or hundreds of millions of people throughout human space directly or indirectly died because of the MA, I suspect they would be willing to take some risks if it leads them a step closer to the MA's base and industrial power.