Manticore A, Manticore B & the Junction?

perhaps some one could point me toward the answers to some questions regarding the Manticore star system and the junction.

We know [Uouse of Steel] that that the A & B have masses of 1.12SM and 0.92SM, and have an average distance of 333 & 406 light minutes from the center of gravity [GoG].
- what is their orbital period?


we also know that the Junction is related to A, or at least lies at a distance of 412 light minutes from A.

we know that worm holes junctions move with their related stars [relative to the galaxy I guess]

so this seems to imply that the Manticore junction rotates round the system CoG, or does it move with the A but at a fixed angle wrt the center of the galaxy or is there some other path....?

Does the junction affect the orbits of A & B, esp since it could easily path between them?

A little bit search on this forum and I have found this

You can preview the relevant pages here: https://www.wargamevault.com/product/14 ... coran-Navy

Unfortunately, I don't think it'll help answer the question of what exactly the MWJ is orbiting.

kylegreewon wrote:A little bit search on this forum and I have found this

You can preview the relevant pages here: https://www.wargamevault.com/product/14 ... coran-Navy

Unfortunately, I don't think it'll help answer the question of what exactly the MWJ is orbiting.

I think HoS gives the A and B component orbital periods. But it does not, as kyle points out, answer what exactly the Junction's orbital mechanics are.

Is it tied to A, or to the common centre of gravity of the A-B system? If it is tied to the A component, what is its orbital period (we don't have the physics to even speculate)? Does it orbit at all, or does it just move along whatever it's bound to with that/those bodies' motion aroud the Galaxy? And is it on the same plane as the two stars? Note we don't know if the orbital planes of the planets in each component are aligned: if the two stars were formed from the same molecular cloud, it's likely they're aligned; if they were formed by capture, then they most likely aren't.

In fact, can the MWHJ orbiting outside the plane of A's ecliptic explain just how no one noticed that the Junction was there for the first 150 T-years of the Manticore polity's existence? I'd argued in the past that someone would have noticed the Resonance Zone, which makes the normal hyper emergence and departure points tricky for half of the Manticoran year. But if it's not aligned with the ecliptic and ships usually do arrive on the ecliptic, then ships would be arriving outside or on the fringes of the RZ. And I don't think it changes the events of the Battle of Manticore, since Honor and Kuzak were coming from the Junction.

I have no clue. Having said that, I suspect the WHJ movements are more tied to the CoG than Manticore A. The proximity of a second solar mass has to influence how the characteristics of the WHJ some some degree. Given the enormity of the Manty WHJ, I don't think that assumption is too far a stretch.

Isn't the MAlign's Felix WHJ also associated with a binary solar system? That one has 3 termini, no? Or is it 4?

Again not proof but very suggestive that mass influences the WHJ in some way.

PeterZ wrote:I have no clue. Having said that, I suspect the WHJ movements are more tied to the CoG than Manticore A. The proximity of a second solar mass has to influence how the characteristics of the WHJ some some degree. Given the enormity of the Manty WHJ, I don't think that assumption is too far a stretch.

That poses the question of whether the RZ switches from A to B every now and then. My guess is that David hasn't decided yet. In fact, I think he came up with RZ as a plot device to explain some requirements of the Battle of Manticore, instead of something that was in the story from the get-go. There are some rough edges.

Isn't the MAlign's Felix WHJ also associated with a binary solar system? That one has 3 termini, no? Or is it 4?

Again not proof but very suggestive that mass influences the WHJ in some way.

The Felix WHJ is indeed known to have 4 termini besides the Junction, two of which are currently unidentified to us. Presumably the MAlign knows where they lead, but whether that's of strategic import or not, we haven't been told.

But Felix isn't described as a multiple system.

Felix isn't a binary system. I thought one of the termini ended in a binary system. Again, my recollection may be faulty.

PeterZ wrote:Felix isn't a binary system. I thought one of the termini ended in a binary system. Again, my recollection may be faulty.

One of them ends in The Twins, which is not a binary star system, but a binary wormhole system (whence the name).

PeterZ wrote:Felix isn't a binary system. I thought one of the termini ended in a binary system. Again, my recollection may be faulty.

We only know two of its termini - Darius and "The Twins".
Felix is just a single "dim K2-class" star.
"The Twins", SGC-902-36-G, is apparently a single M8 dwarf "a dim little star just this side of a "brown dwarf,"".
And Darius is described as "the F6 star called Darius".

So none of its (known) termini appear to be binary system.


Offhand the only terminus (other than the Manticore Junction itself) that I can recall being in a binary system is the Gregor terminus of the Manticore Junction. It is in the uninhabited Gregor-A system ("for all intents and purposes" Manticoran territory) adjacent to the inhabited Gregor-B. Formerly territory of the Gregor Republic, but now Andermani territory after they "ah, acquired" it sometime around the mid to late 1860s.

Specifically HAE described it thusly "Gregor-A belongs to us, and they've always acknowledged our legitimate concern over the security of the Junction terminus there." But it isn't clear if the terminus is permanently bound to Gregor-A.

I guess it's possible that the binary stars' mutual orbit is slow enough that the terminus has simply happened to be nearer to A for the few hundred years since the terminus was first explored (1647 PD [HOS]). Or technically we don't know that the terminus was near Gregor-A when the survey ship Artemis first came through; all we actually know is that the Gregor Republic, and later then Andermani, effectively granted Manticore control over that uninhabited system (as well as the space around the terminus itself) and as of HAE the terminus was much closer to Gregor-A than B.

Still, I'd initially understood that the terminus was bound to just Gregor-A. But that could clearly be a misunderstanding as looking again there seems to be so little detail in the actual text.

Jonathan_S wrote:Specifically HAE described it thusly "Gregor-A belongs to us, and they've always acknowledged our legitimate concern over the security of the Junction terminus there." But it isn't clear if the terminus is permanently bound to Gregor-A.

I guess it's possible that the binary stars' mutual orbit is slow enough that the terminus has simply happened to be nearer to A for the few hundred years since the terminus was first explored (1647 PD [HOS]). Or technically we don't know that the terminus was near Gregor-A when the survey ship Artemis first came through; all we actually know is that the Gregor Republic, and later then Andermani, effectively granted Manticore control over that uninhabited system (as well as the space around the terminus itself) and as of HAE the terminus was much closer to Gregor-A than B.

Still, I'd initially understood that the terminus was bound to just Gregor-A. But that could clearly be a misunderstanding as looking again there seems to be so little detail in the actual text.

It's also possible that the A and B components of the Gregor system are much distant than the A and B components of Manticore. For example, the B and C components of the 40 Eridani system are 400 AU (nearly 60 billion km or nearly 55 light-hours) away from component A. We know wormholes are light-hours away from their star and Manticore's is the furthest or one of the furthest at only 7 light-hours. If Gregor A and B are separated by anything above 10 light-hours (72 AU), then he wormhole terminus is likely to stay gravitationally bound to the A component permanently.

And again this is even assuming they orbit on the same plane.