The Torch Wormhole

cthia wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:They won't, unless there's a specific military objective to achieve in doing so. They can't really hold the wormhole against the massed GA navies. Even the ESN and MARSN can probably respond fast enough to dislodge any beach-head the MAN manages to establish in the Congo system.

The days it would take for the response to come through may not be good for Torch or the RTN. They're on the short end of the stick. Unless the Congo System is defended by Mk42-missile pods and Mycroft, which it might be.

But as a result, the wormhole gets blocked. We've discussed this multiple times and it's impossible to attack through a well-defended wormhole. That would be true for both sides: the MAN can't get into Congo any more and the GF can't breach into The Twins to find out where that is.

So, what strategic objective would be accomplished by revealing that the wormhole does, in fact, work and that the MAlign Navy is on the other side?

I don't think you're thinking clearly, from the MAs strategic standpoint. When they are ready to pounce on the galaxy, they will want to seize all termini leading into MA space. Just like the RMN tried to do against Haven. Sooner or later that wormhole will be transited again anyway. It is heavily fortified on the MA's end. They're not worried about that.

You are being too arrogantly biased against the MA, and you're accustomed to the RMN fighting pussies. When the MA act to seize. . .the equivalent of Trevor's star?, they will come loaded for bear. Lennys will already be in the system just waiting for the fun to begin, and the MA will hold the system. If you think it was difficult for the RMN to retake Trevor's Star? Pfft. Hamish will get his ass shot off this time.

Plus, the MA will have hostages. A whole frickin' planet. And nobody can blame them for treating it as it's namesake suggests. Torch it! Think they are bluffing?

Better put on your thinking cap with these guys. They're Alphas. And they've solved a few technical problems and bought a few tricks along to show off to the galaxy. With centuries old pleasure. After all, they've got a few "Dets" to collect on. "You killed my daddy!"

Manticore wanted Trevor's Star because it slightly reduced their defensive concerns at Manticore but mostly because it dramatically simplified the logistics of their offensive war against Haven by shortening their supply lines by 210 LY while simultaneously making them almost immune to commerce raiding.

Retaking Torch to regain control of the terminus would be equally useful to the MAlign if they were fighting an overt conventional naval offensive into the Haven sector. But the ships they've been building appear to be stealth ambush predators, not designed for a conventional assault. Grabbing control of Torch simply gives them a known fixed location that they must defend, which largely throws away their advantages of stealth and secrecy since instead of having to try to protect every single system against nearly invisible attackers the Grand Alliance can counterattack where the MAlign must be and attack them in force at Torch.

Yes it would be convenient to be able to use that wormhole to more quickly get from Darius to the Haven Sector. But I don't see it being worth the risk anytime soon of having to come that far out of the shadows and voluntarily forfeit much of your special advantage. Risk and benefits of retaking Torch seem wildly different that the risks and benefits of Manticore taking Trevor's Star.


But we'll see. Maybe the next MAlign miscalculation is for them to seek a conventional war (of revenge) against Manticore and that's how they end up exposing the existence, and then location, of Darius and the whole story wraps up. Doing so seems like a massive mistake for them; but nothing says they can't make massive mistakes.

cthia wrote:Better put on your thinking cap with these guys. They're Alphas. And they've solved a few technical problems and bought a few tricks along to show off to the galaxy. With centuries old pleasure.

You are strangely inconsistent about their capabilities. In this thread you are suggesting they can create marvelous and malign military tricks to play on the Grand Alliance sufficient to do more than just hold the end of a wormhole, but in another thread you are suggesting that they are incapable hiding the financial trail for their undercover activities. I expect that we will find their abilities are somewhere in between these two extremes and am interesting in seeing how the authors make it play out.

cthia wrote:I don't think you're thinking clearly, from the MAs strategic standpoint. When they are ready to pounce on the galaxy, they will want to seize all termini leading into MA space. Just like the RMN tried to do against Haven. Sooner or later that wormhole will be transited again anyway. It is heavily fortified on the MA's end. They're not worried about that.

Which is exactly why the MAlign should not reveal that it is so fortified. And unlike any other wormhole, this one has a double cut out: even if they lose it, there's a second one to fall back on, one with possibly even greater defences (Felix, though at the moment there isn't because the MAlign doesn't want anyone to know the Junction is there). There's nothing to gain in making that revelation alone, not if all they wanted is to capture the Congo System. So I ask again: what strategic objective do they accomplish by transiting?

I won t discount revenge on the Ballroom and on Torch for sending the expedition that exposed the MAlign in the first place. The Inner Onion seems to be driven by irrational considerations every now and again, but those aren't the rule. At the very least we should see a changed galactic circumstance before that.

You are being too arrogantly biased against the MA, and you're accustomed to the RMN fighting pussies. When the MA act to seize. . .the equivalent of Trevor's star?, they will come loaded for bear. Lennys will already be in the system just waiting for the fun to begin, and the MA will hold the system. If you think it was difficult for the RMN to retake Trevor's Star? Pfft. Hamish will get his ass shot off this time.

Indeed I had not considered the thought that the MAN would pre-position ships on the Congo System awaiting the transit, but that doesn't change anything. Whether there were 60 ships prepositioned or 60 ships transited is irrelevant.

The only question is how soon the ships would need to be in-system to deploy a Silver Bullet to find the Mycroft station, without being detected by the RTN. They pulled that off in Beowulf, but Beowulf has much higher traffic to hide in. Plus the GA has learnt from that.

On a straight-up fight, the GF wins and retakes the system. We know this won't be straight-up and we've discussed enough about fighting Lenny Dets without coming to a conclusion. I don't want to debate that again, not without more information from RFC and we don't have that yet.

And yet, even if you're right, what strategic objective is achieved in all of this? What's the point in capturing the Congo System? Previously, there was a danger of the GA forcing its way through The Twins when the Mannerheim or RF Navy wasn't there to stop it, but there was also no compelling reason for the GA to try. By seizing Congo, the MAN extends their line of defence one transit further, but brings a big sign saying "we're here! this wormhole leads to territory we control!" and adds a system they must defend, tying up their forces.

Plus, the MA will have hostages. A whole frickin' planet. And nobody can blame them for treating it as it's namesake suggests. Torch it! Think they are bluffing?

Poor choice of words there. There's a big difference between "no will be surprised" and "no one can blame them." Genocide can be blamed.

Better put on your thinking cap with these guys. They're Alphas. And they've solved a few technical problems and bought a few tricks along to show off to the galaxy. With centuries old pleasure. After all, they've got a few "Dets" to collect on. "You killed my daddy!"

You killed my father, prepare to die! ?

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Better put on your thinking cap with these guys. They're Alphas. And they've solved a few technical problems and bought a few tricks along to show off to the galaxy. With centuries old pleasure.

You are strangely inconsistent about their capabilities. In this thread you are suggesting they can create marvelous and malign military tricks to play on the Grand Alliance sufficient to do more than just hold the end of a wormhole, but in another thread you are suggesting that they are incapable hiding the financial trail for their undercover activities. I expect that we will find their abilities are somewhere in between these two extremes and am interesting in seeing how the authors make it play out.

Not really, although I do have an affinity and habit for debating both sides. It is only fair.

I obviously assign different weights of measure to the two tasks in hand. Creating marvelous military tricks is somewhat straightforward; the task adheres to the common principles of physics. Except for the occasional and unexplained bits of handwavium. But, covering all aspects of paper trails is supernatural spiritualistic and jingoistically impossible, or the resident ghost hunters, and our very own local three-letter intelligence agencies may as well give up the ghost.

There's no such thing as a perfect crime.

cthia wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:They won't, unless there's a specific military objective to achieve in doing so. They can't really hold the wormhole against the massed GA navies. Even the ESN and MARSN can probably respond fast enough to dislodge any beach-head the MAN manages to establish in the Congo system.

The days it would take for the response to come through may not be good for Torch or the RTN. They're on the short end of the stick. Unless the Congo System is defended by Mk42-missile pods and Mycroft, which it might be.

But as a result, the wormhole gets blocked. We've discussed this multiple times and it's impossible to attack through a well-defended wormhole. That would be true for both sides: the MAN can't get into Congo any more and the GF can't breach into The Twins to find out where that is.

So, what strategic objective would be accomplished by revealing that the wormhole does, in fact, work and that the MAlign Navy is on the other side?

I don't think you're thinking clearly, from the MAs strategic standpoint. When they are ready to pounce on the galaxy, they will want to seize all termini leading into MA space. Just like the RMN tried to do against Haven. Sooner or later that wormhole will be transited again anyway. It is heavily fortified on the MA's end. They're not worried about that.

You are being too arrogantly biased against the MA, and you're accustomed to the RMN fighting pussies. When the MA act to seize. . .the equivalent of Trevor's star?, they will come loaded for bear. Lennys will already be in the system just waiting for the fun to begin, and the MA will hold the system. If you think it was difficult for the RMN to retake Trevor's Star? Pfft. Hamish will get his ass shot off this time.

Plus, the MA will have hostages. A whole frickin' planet. And nobody can blame them for treating it as it's namesake suggests. Torch it! Think they are bluffing?

Better put on your thinking cap with these guys. They're Alphas. And they've solved a few technical problems and bought a few tricks along to show off to the galaxy. With centuries old pleasure. After all, they've got a few "Dets" to collect on. "You killed my daddy!"

Jonathan_S wrote:Manticore wanted Trevor's Star because it slightly reduced their defensive concerns at Manticore but mostly because it dramatically simplified the logistics of their offensive war against Haven by shortening their supply lines by 210 LY while simultaneously making them almost immune to commerce raiding.

Retaking Torch to regain control of the terminus would be equally useful to the MAlign if they were fighting an overt conventional naval offensive into the Haven sector.

Assolutely! Probably unlike anyone else in the forum, I think that's exactly what they'll do. Attack Haven. Attack Manticore. Attack Grayson. Which is what I consistently posit in most of my threads.

We all seem to be on one accord that the MAs original plans are kaput. What are they going to do to persuade galactic interest in the grandiose plans of a master race? I say they are going to play good cop bad cop using the MA and the RFN. That will only work if the galaxy is reeling in fear so the RFN can don the mask of the cavalry. The galaxy will only reel in fear if the superpowers are taken down a peg or two. Operations against Haven will be based out of Torch, while killing two birds with one stone by exacting vengeance against defectors like Jeremy X. "We demand Jeremy X or else we'll see how easy Torch lives up to it's name."

If Honor can demand the Mandarins, the MA can make demands too.

Jonathan_S wrote:But the ships they've been building appear to be stealth ambush predators, not designed for a conventional assault. Grabbing control of Torch simply gives them a known fixed location that they must defend, which largely throws away their advantages of stealth and secrecy since instead of having to try to protect every single system against nearly invisible attackers the Grand Alliance can counterattack where the MAlign must be and attack them in force at Torch.

Another mistake in logic. You are thinking too small. The MA doesn't think small. Every major system will be attacked simultaneously and will be pretty damn busy on its own. Ambush tactics work very well the first time on an unsuspecting, complacent prey. When the "ghosts" finally descend out of the shadows for all of the marbles, it will be for all the marbles. It will be waged with Haven's notion of a short victorious war while the Lenny's are new, before the GA can lick it's wounds and get back on balance. The MA won't play by the Galaxy's traditional and humane rules of war. They have never been humane. They want the galaxy to fear them. By the time a counterattack is mounted, the tortoise will have pulled it's head back into it's shell. What will the GA do then? We all know what transiting a fortified wormhole accomplishes. And the long way around won't work. The long way around to where?

Jonathan_S wrote:Yes it would be convenient to be able to use that wormhole to more quickly get from Darius to the Haven Sector. But I don't see it being worth the risk anytime soon of having to come that far out of the shadows and voluntarily forfeit much of your special advantage. Risk and benefits of retaking Torch seem wildly different that the risks and benefits of Manticore taking Trevor's Star.


But we'll see. Maybe the next MAlign miscalculation is for them to seek a conventional war (of revenge) against Manticore and that's how they end up exposing the existence, and then location, of Darius and the whole story wraps up. Doing so seems like a massive mistake for them; but nothing says they can't make massive mistakes.

The risk is giving the GA time to fortify the Torch end of the wormhole before the MA can use it. And eating anything other than a short victorious, or at least devastating, war. Hit and run has always been the philosophy of the MA's tactics, or of many a dirty fighter. When it is for all the marbles, the gloves they borrowed from Henke will come off, and assassinations will run rampant, compulsion will be like child's play and kews will be traded for compliance. You know, all of the characteristics of the bad cop.

Enter, the RFrickin-a good cop.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:But the ships they've been building appear to be stealth ambush predators, not designed for a conventional assault. Grabbing control of Torch simply gives them a known fixed location that they must defend, which largely throws away their advantages of stealth and secrecy since instead of having to try to protect every single system against nearly invisible attackers the Grand Alliance can counterattack where the MAlign must be and attack them in force at Torch.

Another mistake in logic. You are thinking too small. The MA doesn't think small. Every major system will be attacked simultaneously and will be pretty damn busy on its own. Ambush tactics work very well the first time on an unsuspecting, complacent prey. When the "ghosts" finally descend out of the shadows for all of the marbles, [i]it will be[/is] for all the marbles. It will be waged with Haven's notion of a short victorious war while the Lenny's are new, before the GA can lick it's wounds and get back on balance. The MA won't play by the Galaxy's traditional and humane rules of war. They have never been humane. They want the galaxy to fear them. By the time a counterattack is mounted, the tortoise will have pulled it's head back into it's shell. What will the GA do then? We all know what transiting a fortified wormhole accomplishes. And the long way around won't work. The long way around to where?

Jonathan_S wrote:Yes it would be convenient to be able to use that wormhole to more quickly get from Darius to the Haven Sector. But I don't see it being worth the risk anytime soon of having to come that far out of the shadows and voluntarily forfeit much of your special advantage. Risk and benefits of retaking Torch seem wildly different that the risks and benefits of Manticore taking Trevor's Star.


But we'll see. Maybe the next MAlign miscalculation is for them to seek a conventional war (of revenge) against Manticore and that's how they end up exposing the existence, and then location, of Darius and the whole story wraps up. Doing so seems like a massive mistake for them; but nothing says they can't make massive mistakes.

The risk is giving the GA time to fortify the Torch end of the wormhole before the MA can use it. And eating anything other than a short victorious, or at least devastating, war. Hit and run has always been the philosophy of the MA's tactics, or of many a dirty fighter. When it is for all the marbles, the gloves they borrowed from Henke will come off, and assassinations will run rampant, compulsion will be like child's play and kews will be traded for compliance. You know, all of the characteristics of the bad cop.

Enter, the RFrickin-a good cop.

If the MAlign attack with enough forces to hit every major system simultaneously then they hardly need Torch - at least not to launch the attack. But sure, after smashing everybody with a navy they could effortlessly seize it afterwards. But if their main thrust is, as you propose, a single simultaneously strike on every major system they don't need shorter logistics to sustain higher operational tempo.

So all that seizing Torch before the attack would buy them is shaving a few months off the transit time of the strike wave at the risk of tipping their hand. They're going to take a lot of time to work their way into ambush position around major systems (the Sharks took several months from emergence to attack) so there would be lots of time for warning to go out as a result of seizing Torch. Better, it seems to me, to preserve the element of surprise (in many ways their best advantage) by bypassing Torch and going to long way through hyper. After all this isn't going to be a quick attack in any case - not with how long it takes to sneak up on the defenders of a major system - so why risk exposure to make it only slightly less slow?

And as for taking Torch by wormhole assault - that seem insanely risky. The advantages as so heavily stacked in favor of the defenders that it's really only practical to do that like White Haven did - by taking the terminus from normal space and then summoning reinforcements through it. But that means you still have to wait for your attack force to get through through hyper - so in the case of an attack on everyone I still don't see bother hitting Torch first if you're sending ships the long way just send them all the long way to their primary targets.

A couple of points on the current conversation.

1. The Torch WHJ isn't defended unlike Trevor's Star or Basilisk. No forts, shoals of mines or a battle group of wallers playing watchman.

Nobody knows where it leads, so I doubt that it's even monitored. It's not like a transit is covert, so why bother?

The biggest thing Torch has is a single Havenite BC that's pretty dated and they can't crew it yet. Other than whatever Erwhonese naval units or Sepoy Navy units that might be in system, there's nothing to stop them bigger than a frigate. Nasty frigates, but still eggshells armed with hammers facing superior forces with stealth capabilities that the crews haven't even heard of.

2. The MA already sees themselves as Homo Superious because they have been making themselves into a superior version of humans for centuries. That sort of thinking gives a different perspective on what defines 'humane' and who it applies to. They have already set up the Peep die hards to violate the Endrani Edict. Once they are acting overtly rather than covertly, why not just remove a thorn in their side?

Jonathan_S wrote:If the MAlign attack with enough forces to hit every major system simultaneously then they hardly need Torch - at least not to launch the attack.

Can't happen. I took years of planning and production to be able to mount Oyster Bay. And at that they were only ever able to do it by not hitting Haven as planned. And Haven has way too ship yards to hurt much. Plus Bolthole. They simply cannot do enough damage to do anything other then a minor speedbump in production capacity, and nothing to destroy the mobile units.

No, they simply don't have time now to make what's needed to launch an attack of scale. And unless Houdini works better than any plan in the history of mankind has ever worked all the MAlign plans fall apart when the GA show up at Darius. After all, it will only take one slaver ship captain/navigator wanting to bargain for their life to start the breadcrumb trail.

Jonathan_S wrote:If the MAlign attack with enough forces to hit every major system simultaneously then they hardly need Torch - at least not to launch the attack.

ZVar wrote:Can't happen. I[t] took years of planning and production to be able to mount Oyster Bay. And at that they were only ever able to do it by not hitting Haven as planned. And Haven has way too ship yards to hurt much. Plus Bolthole. They simply cannot do enough damage to do anything other then a minor speedbump in production capacity, and nothing to destroy the mobile units.

No, they simply don't have time now to make what's needed to launch an attack of scale. And unless Houdini works better than any plan in the history of mankind has ever worked all the MAlign plans fall apart when the GA show up at Darius. After all, it will only take one slaver ship captain/navigator wanting to bargain for their life to start the breadcrumb trail.

Part of the problem with Oyset Bay was that it was launched before the vehicles were ready that were designed to execute it. However the situation was such that the Haven strike was unneeded, since the objective was to help Haven win. So if the Leonard Detweiler class ships are now ready, then a much bigger scale operation is feasible.

Now I personally do not expect that to happen. Crucially what I do not expect is an attack through the wormhole to seize Torch. Not because I expect the wormhole is heavily defended; but because that would expose to the world that the Malign had control of the other end and any ship that came through would have the navigation information to pinpoint its location.

jtg452 wrote:A couple of points on the current conversation.

1. The Torch WHJ isn't defended unlike Trevor's Star or Basilisk. No forts, shoals of mines or a battle group of wallers playing watchman.

Nobody knows where it leads, so I doubt that it's even monitored. It's not like a transit is covert, so why bother?

The biggest thing Torch has is a single Havenite BC that's pretty dated and they can't crew it yet. Other than whatever Erwhonese naval units or Sepoy Navy units that might be in system, there's nothing to stop them bigger than a frigate. Nasty frigates, but still eggshells armed with hammers facing superior forces with stealth capabilities that the crews haven't even heard of.

2. The MA already sees themselves as Homo Superious because they have been making themselves into a superior version of humans for centuries. That sort of thinking gives a different perspective on what defines 'humane' and who it applies to. They have already set up the Peep die hards to violate the Endrani Edict. Once they are acting overtly rather than covertly, why not just remove a thorn in their side?

Actually we don't know how it's covered. Defenses are simply never mentioned.

Maybe that's because RFC never expects to write an assault there; so no reason to foreshadow how it might go, or maybe it's because you're right and it's undefended.

However given how effective even a minor defense based primarily around missile pods (even of SDMs) would be it seems unlikely to me that it is totally undefended just because it's not actively being used. The insurance of defending it is so cheap that it doesn't seem worth skimping.

Even one or two of Torch's frigates controlling a few shoals of old missile pods could kill a dozen or more SD sized ships attempting hostile transit. They're just that vulnerable upon emergence.


And if you had any other choice would you want to pay a dozen SDs to capture a system defended by nothing larger than a BC and some missile pods?