The Torch Wormhole

I just finished rereading Crown of Slaves.

Very early on, Victor Cachat is sitting with Walter Imbesi and his niece on Erwhon talking about policitcal stuff and tactics of what Victor is planning and the neice brings up the Torch wormhole and that it has THREE Termini. Walter doesn't correct anything and while nobody knows where the other two (or since they are talking three termini it's a junction with three places it's termini lead) go. Then the discussion of Manpower allowing warships through the Wormhole that could attack Erwhon -even selling them the access to do it- and so the discussion flows to the advantage of Erwhon having a neutral but friendly very close neighbor with that wormhole both for an economic boost and a probable stopper on it from Unfriendlies comming through it abetted by Manpower.

So, although Ruth - later in the series- is reporting that they can find NO information on the wormhole in any of the databases captured on or in orbit above Torch, incluidng the deep command bunker, there is at least an indication that the wormhole WAS explored even if Manpower very purposfully didn't keep any of the information at Verdant Vists and that there are powerful people attached to the Government of Erwhon who know something about that.

I don't recall any conversation about either Torch or anybody involved with the Harvest Joy even mentioning having asked Erwhon anything. And Victor should certainly have remembered that conversation with the Imbesis. Any information about that wormhole would be helpfull. like even a sanitized version of how Walter Imbesi or his niece came to know anything about it and how reliable was (without ID of course) is thought to be.

I say this because in the books, the Harvest Joy goes through- is never heard from again- and it's all "killer wormhole". But if there is any evidence that Manpower had any mapping done through that wormhole.....and nobody raises a question about them finding that sitting there outside the Congo System.....particularly if there are multiple termini, then it's not the wormhole that is the problem but somebody is waiting on the other end of the initial transit approch (the one you are most likely to find if there is one to find).

And now we have Henke at Mesa and when does Manticore (and possibly Torch) start digging through Manpower records to see what specificaly is recoreded about that wormhole - along with all sorts of interesting sales and distribution records for Manpower's "products" and it's other business interests. Unless something untoward happend to the Manpower headquaters like a 20MT nuclear weapon under the basement.

Just saying.

I can't believe this! I was gathering wool just the other day thinking there just has to be at least one more junction. That would be magnificent for storyline.

Poor Harvest Joy. Roaches check in but they don't check out. Nice thread Brigade XO! And, one day they could be a powerhouse with a junction like Manticore.

What would be nice of Murphy is if he arranged for one of those terminii terminating in strategic distance of Manticore.

Uh oh, I see another naming conflict over the horizon.

We have MA for both Mesan Alignment and Manticoran Alliance.

Will we have MWJ for both Manticore Wormhole Junction and MAlign Wormhole Junction? Oh boy.

I did a search on Crown of Slaves and the only mention I could find to the wormhole at (what was then) Congo having three termini occurred in chapter 18 when Victor Cachet is talking to Thandi Palane as follows:

Victor started moving things around again. "Actually, now that it's available, let me use this big empty roll basket instead to represent the Solarian League. Okay, now we'll use the pepper shaker—"
He positioned it not far away from the salt shaker which marked Erewhon.
"—to indicate the location of Congo. And now—"
Quickly, he positioned his knife and fork, and the knife he borrowed from Thandi's side of the table.
"—we can see the whole thing. Through hyper-space, Congo's not more than three days travel from Erewhon. And now it's been discovered that Congo's system has a wormhole junction with no fewer than three termini. Since the wormhole was first found by Mesan interests only a short while ago, the presumption is that at least one of them connects to the Solarian League. But nobody really knows where its termini lead to, except the Mesans." He wiggled one of the knives to indicate that its actual line of connection was uncertain.
Thandi studied the arrangement. "And your point is?" Before Victor could answer, she added: "I'm not being sarcastic. Astrography is not my strong suit. I'm a foot soldier, remember?"
"My point is that since the junction was discovered, Congo has been simultaneously a giant headache and a giant opportunity for Erewhon. A headache, because so long as it's controlled by Mesan interests, the system acts as a potential attack route."
"Who'd want to attack Erewhon?"
Victor shrugged. "Who knows? At the moment, Erewhon's allied with Manticore, and the only official enemy they have is us. The Republic of Haven. But we're not a threat—not through Congo, anyway—because we're located"—he balled up his napkin and planted it toward the edge of the table—"way over here. I suppose it's possible that one of those termini leads to Havenite space, but if it does the Republic certainly doesn't know about it. I admit, the Erewhonese would have to take our word for that, but it does happen to be true."

This is what Naomi Imbesi said to Victor in the hotel roon with Ginny in chapter 15:

Naomi's face was tight. "Congo poses a constant threat to us. We weren't too concerned until a few years ago, when the Mesans discovered the system had its own wormhole junction. But that changed everything. Sure, Mesa wouldn't attack Erewhon directly—but who's to say whom else those scumbags might allow through the junction? It's like having a gangster for a neighbor, with the combination to your back door. We were assured by the Star Kingdom that after the war with Haven was successfully prosecuted and peace was made, they'd give us whatever help we needed to deal with Congo. Including the promise to put their diplomatic clout into making damned sure that any OFS bureaucrat's temptation to rent Mesa an SLN task force or two was firmly dissuaded. Those assurances were given by the Cromarty Government, of course."

Does saying junction imply more than one terminal? There is no sign as to how the number three was determined and I cannot believe that information would come from Mesa.

If there were at least three termini, shouldn't the Harvest Joy have searched them out before trying to make a transfer?

PS. It might be better to use GA, for Grand Alliance, to encompass Manticore, Grayson, Haven and the Andermani.

tlb wrote:Does saying junction imply more than one terminal? There is no sign as to how the number three was determined and I cannot believe that information would come from Mesa.

If there were at least three termini, shouldn't the Harvest Joy have searched them out before trying to make a transfer?

Recently at least David Weber has used Wormhole Bridge for a wormhole with only a pair of termini - such as the Idaho-Zunker Bridge from one of the most recent books. And so Junction implies at least 3 termini; 2 remote ones and one shared central one at the Junction system.

Harvest Joy could only have found additional wormhole is the purported Junction actually did exist and Congo was the central Junction. From, say, Basilisk you can't tell from any possible examination of that terminus that it connects to a multi-wormhole Junction rather than being the somewhat more common single-wormhole Bridge.

I'm sure given the rumors about Congo being part of a 3 terminus Junction that Harvest Joy was likely to have taken special care to look for any hints of additional wormhole routes from Congo. But it appears, from what we now know, that the rumors of a 3 terminus Junction were either incorrect or a very confused interpretation of The Twins; where in a conjunction unique in explored space two different wormhole Bridges terminate in the same system - but without the collocated Junction configuration. And odder, IIRC, both being location basically on the hyper limit rather than being light hours away like a normal terminus.

(Still that does give nearly the practical effect of a 3 terminus Junction: Congo - The Twins - Felix; despite actually being a 4 terminus configuration with two that just happen to be in different parts of The Twins system)

What if one or both of its termini are also junctions? As in having at least two termini themselves. Talk about a 4-way long distance phone call. Or is that a 5-way. Darn, multiple trunked calls are always so confusing. LOL

Gives a new meaning to "The Lennys shall come acallin'."

cthia wrote:What if one or both of its termini are also junctions? As in having at least two termini themselves. Talk about a 4-way long distance phone call. Or is that a 5-way. Darn, multiple trunked calls are always so confusing. LOL

Gives a new meaning to "The Lenny's shall come acallin'."

Well one of The Twin's termini is a Junction - the Felix Junction which goes to The Twins and to Darius (or at least near Darius)

However we've yet to see any Junction to Junction wormholes.

Closest we've seen is "psuedo juctions" like Phoenix where the Termini of one Junction ends up within a relatively small number of LY of the termini of some other Junction. In that case Manticore - Hennesy + Terra Haute - Erewhon with the middle two being nearby systems in the Phoenix Cluster.

Arguably you could considered the Andermani and Matapan to each have another "psuedo junction"; with Manticore - Gregor + Durandal + Asgerd being one and Manticore - Matapan area + Matapan area - Asgerd being the other. (And yes the Asgerd Junction, according to the maps, has 2/3 of it's remote termini coincidently near termini of the Manticore Junction)


We just don't know if it's possible for a Junction to actually connect directly to another Junction - all we know is RFC hasn't felt the need to unveil such a complicated wormhole topology for us

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:What if one or both of its termini are also junctions? As in having at least two termini themselves. Talk about a 4-way long distance phone call. Or is that a 5-way. Darn, multiple trunked calls are always so confusing. LOL

Gives a new meaning to "The Lenny's shall come acallin'."

Well one of The Twin's termini is a Junction - the Felix Junction which goes to The Twins and to Darius (or at least near Darius)

However we've yet to see any Junction to Junction wormholes.

Closest we've seen is "psuedo juctions" like Phoenix where the Termini of one Junction ends up within a relatively small number of LY of the termini of some other Junction. In that case Manticore - Hennesy + Terra Haute - Erewhon with the middle two being nearby systems in the Phoenix Cluster.

Arguably you could considered the Andermani and Matapan to each have another "psuedo junction"; with Manticore - Gregor + Durandal + Asgerd being one and Manticore - Matapan area + Matapan area - Asgerd being the other. (And yes the Asgerd Junction, according to the maps, has 2/3 of it's remote termini coincidently near termini of the Manticore Junction)


We just don't know if it's possible for a Junction to actually connect directly to another Junction - all we know is RFC hasn't felt the need to unveil such a complicated wormhole topology for us

Junction to junction connections were made as early as Alexander Graham Bell.

If they are possible and that is the case, finding the MA just became that much more difficult inside a maze of termini.

We know that the MAilgn "released" the information about the Junction as part of their plans and that "Manpower or an affiliate" had themselves only just found out about the Junction.

That doesn't mean that the MAilgn told the truth about the "Torch Junction", it could actually only be the "Torch Bridge". Linking "Torch to the "Twins", especially as the survey team never mentioned choosing from multiple approach vectors for their initial jump, which you would have thought would be a major discussion point.

Actually thinking abut it, they never discuss the possibility of multiple vectors and multiple entry/exit points. They seem to locate one entry point and stop asking any further questions, maybe "off-camera" they decide that the "Manpower survey" was wrong and its not a "junction" after all??

Garth 2 wrote:We know that the MAilgn "released" the information about the Junction as part of their plans and that "Manpower or an affiliate" had themselves only just found out about the Junction.

That doesn't mean that the MAilgn told the truth about the "Torch Junction", it could actually only be the "Torch Bridge". Linking "Torch to the "Twins", especially as the survey team never mentioned choosing from multiple approach vectors for their initial jump, which you would have thought would be a major discussion point.

Actually thinking abut it, they never discuss the possibility of multiple vectors and multiple entry/exit points. They seem to locate one entry point and stop asking any further questions, maybe "off-camera" they decide that the "Manpower survey" was wrong and its not a "junction" after all??

Or at least concluded that there was no indication of additional termini here - so if the "Manpower survey" was right the rumor garbled it and Congo was a remote termini of the junction, rather than the junction system.

But there'd be no way to know without actually going through and seeing what the far side looked like.

Still, I don't think they would have quickly dismissed a search for signs of additional links from Congo; especially since they were already giving it a closer look due to the weird extra anomaly in their readings. And if any additional sign had been found I think that would have been mentioned "on-camera".