Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster Bay

fallsfromtrees wrote:When was the last time that RFC dropped in a subplot that had no purpose at all? Part of it might be the tracing of ships - they we just leaving when Torch took the way station, so there might be info there - or at least leads that will let things go further on. I suspect that there is going to be a significant subplot on Darius, in which those two will play a major role, but who knows.

Oh, he does that to distract us. Remember Naomi Bonaparte, I mean, Esther McQueen?

But I don't think that's the case here. Either Zach is going to be the leader of a fifth column in Darius or his extraction was compromised. Or both. Note how he somehow magically went from having no idea where to go, with no GAUL handler, to arriving in Darius.

Brigade XO wrote:Who would have done the survey? That depends on your belief of level of paranoia with the Alignment. They certainly could have their own system/wormhole survey crews. Give that we know there is that whole secret wormhole network and Darius, they probably do. In any case, when not actualy working, they would be being kept inside the Alignment secret network. I also would have to wonder about the security systems on those ships and if their people were ever allowed off (or anybody else allowed on) when they were away from Darius.

There's a very important point we're not discussing here: there really may not have been a survey at all from the Torch / Congo side. We don't know which side of the wormhole was explored first.

But in fact all signs point to the exploration coming from the Felix side first, through the Twins, arriving in the Congo system. I think we know that because the Felix wormhole was known to the MAlign since the 1700s, but the Congo system and the Verdant Vista exploration is far newer. That tells me the MAlign explored the Felix Junction and arrived at the Twins, then explored the second hyperbridge and arrived in Congo. Once they knew where it led and how close it was to Erewhon, they came from the other side to claim rights.

That way, there never was any exploration from the Congo side. There are no records to be hidden because no records were ever produced.

It's entirely possible that the Torch Wormhole was discovered by the Alignment after they discovered the Twins and then did a quick recon of the system associated with it and found Verdant Vista.
Having once determined where the wormhole terminus was located, and after checking out the local system, they could have gone right back to Darius or to report this information and then head out on the next job.
Said job could have been closer looking for any other wormholes connected to the one by Verdant Vista. Presuming that didn't turn up anything, they may or may not have gone back to the Twins and looking their for any other wormholes.

It would not be at all hard for that information to have been fed back (suitably covered in misdirection) to one of the subsidiaries of Manpower as an exploration survey report of star systems over by Maya and them Manpower jumps on the report and sends a team to 1) check it out and 2) file a claim on the system. Verdant Vista is described as having a lot of tropical enviornment and a really interesting bio-system which had potential for massive pharmacology development. So, Manpower pays X (who is an Alignment operative) for the rights to the system/transfers the claim through whatever process that is handled and Manpower sets up a large research operation primarily staffed with genetic slaves as workers.

Nobody had to know about the worm hole. Not clear if anybody approching the (now) Torch system would have any idea that ships are even visting the area where the wormhole is located or it is being used...up until the point where Verdant Vista becomes Torch and the Alignment shuts down the use and stations that Mannerheim squadron on the other side to destroy any ship trying to go through.
The information "purchased" by Manpower could even have contained [as a normal subsection of an explorer report] that the ship made a routine sweep in the area around the star and found no evidence of readings that might indicate a wormhole being present. That might be buried in files of Manpower but wouldn't nessisarily have been something that was included with the information actualy on Verdant Vista.

Zack McBride could be those first pebbles falling in an avalanche of problems that will start to develope when members of the Houdini Project start to run into each other or work together on Darius. People came over time, a relative good long time as the Alignment was pulling people out of Mesa and covering their leaving with accidents, etc.
How many people in the lifts after Houdini went into fast-forward will possibly learn about "terrorists" activites that impaced where they lived or worked- and lots of people died?

Then there is that whole piece about the majority of the population of Darius are slaves that don't know/understand they are slaves? Yes, we are told that they are being treated the way the original Detweiler Plan had looked to do. That being more or less a general class of residents under the hierarchy of The Alignment Alpha Lines (or whatever they and the other Star Lines and lower classes are being called on Darius).
Zack, at least, is going to see that they are, at best, Seccies although they are not in the miserable civil and legal problmes of that group on Mesa.
Darius is apparently the perfected Alignment Cast System, don't know what they are calling it but that is what it appears to be.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:How about a different approach on finding records?

The MAlign is reasonably competent (but they think they're far more competent than they are) and has good computer support, I seriously doubt there's anything on Mesa that points to Darius. However, we know they have hidden stations around, we saw Beowulf going after some of them. We also know some of those stations were used in Houdini.

On Mesa they're going to figure out a bunch of people were extracted but not what became of them. Beowulf will capture another station that will point them in the right direction.

One thing that always bothered me was the entire Zach McBryde and his new girl friend( whose name escapes me at the moment) subplot that occupied significant portions of multiple books - and then appeared to go nowhere.

When was the last time that RFC dropped in a subplot that had no purpose at all? Part of it might be the tracing of ships - they we just leaving when Torch took the way station, so there might be info there - or at least leads that will let things go further on. I suspect that there is going to be a significant subplot on Darius, in which those two will play a major role, but who knows.

It could be to show the lengths to which the MAlign went to hide their extraction but I think it's much more likely he was setting stuff up for the future.

Either they will play a role on Darius, or the method of their escape will be discovered. Note that these are not mutually exclusive, I wouldn't be surprised if both happen.

With the transport of Zack and the others getting tangled in the Torch raid on the smuggling/slaver base, the Alignment may have dropped a stitch or two in their cover and data trails. That one ship (of the two) where the GAUL blew the power plant and took the boarding party & it's shuttle rather than have them discover the Houdini evacuees is probably going to bubble up to the interest of certain people. Zilwicki among them.

Brigade XO wrote:
Nobody had to know about the worm hole. Not clear if anybody approching the (now) Torch system would have any idea that ships are even visting the area where the wormhole is located or it is being used...up until the point where Verdant Vista becomes Torch and the Alignment shuts down the use and stations that Mannerheim squadron on the other side to destroy any ship trying to go through.
The information "purchased" by Manpower could even have contained [as a normal subsection of an explorer report] that the ship made a routine sweep in the area around the star and found no evidence of readings that might indicate a wormhole being present. That might be buried in files of Manpower but wouldn't nessisarily have been something that was included with the information actualy on Verdant Vista.

That's how I think they should have done: hide the wormhole by claiming one isn't there. While they're in control of the planet and have even a minimum of Astro Control, no one is going to be investigating a new wormhole without their knowing it. So if they lost control of the planet, it would take time for someone to realise the report was inaccurate and the blame can simply be "shoddy survey".

Claiming a wormhole is there and not explore it is stretching it. Given how much a well-connected wormhole can bring in economically, failing to explore one is economic malpractice. A genuine company's shareholders could sue the board for it.

TheMadPenguin wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:They consider small-scale setbacks but are unable to consider any large scale problem.

They (the SLN) do not have a budget big enough to do more than repair/reload what they now have.

The SLN will have a much larger budget when they reorganize their government weather they opt for individual system navies obligated to do mutual defence or keep the SLN central as soon as they figure it out they will have significantly more money and resources than the MA/GA.

There were political reasons why the mandarins were strapped for cash and it had little to do with the League's financial capabilities. What they have now leaves them second best to the GA and their allies and third best once they figure out the MA truly exists, the League might carry out the biggest purge in history to get rid of every corrupt official or every traitor.

Its sobering when you realize the US Navy is the SLN. They have invested a decades of construction budget in to the unsalvageable disasters that are the LCS and dd1000 program. The Ford is half a decade late and all the critical systems needed for air ops still don’t work, with no good idea when they will. The maintenance infrastructure is a disaster, the ships crash into merchantman regularly, and every 05 and above who served in the pacific was in the pocket of a guy paying them off in hookers and blow for secret info and business.

Sigs wrote:There were political reasons why the mandarins were strapped for cash and it had little to do with the League's financial capabilities. What they have now leaves them second best to the GA and their allies and third best once they figure out the MA truly exists, the League might carry out the biggest purge in history to get rid of every corrupt official or every traitor.

They couldn't. It's simply not feasible to purge corruption at that endemic level, not within a generation. As soon as the crisis is over, a lot of the old guard will come back for "business as usual", and that includes the contractors that they need to get their hardware from. But it's possible to do a lot of cleaning up. Plus the fact that the MAlign won't be pulling strings to make corruption worse.

So yes, the NewSLN can be a huge force in the coming fight. That's why I think the new First Space Lord Sir Jan Kotouč, PMV, should cultivate a good working relationship with Fleet Admiral Kingsford.