"Why are you still alive?"

My understanding is that the streak drive takes up a lot of room, so may not be practical for heavy duty starting of new colonies. Think using a Ferrari to deliver bulky goods. Possible but inefficient.

Daryl wrote:My understanding is that the streak drive takes up a lot of room, so may not be practical for heavy duty starting of new colonies. Think using a Ferrari to deliver bulky goods. Possible but inefficient.

It's big for a hyper drive -- about twice as large.
But hyper drives must be relatively small compared to the overall size of ships. A dispatch boat, which is normally only about 38,000 tons, carrying a streak drive just looks like one that's been bulked to to be a bit more luxurious of a fast private yacht/corporate transport -- so it doesn't sound like it's been bloated to even the size of an old destroyer (70,000 tons)

Yet the entire mass of that dispatch boat (or the destroyer, for that matter) is barely more than a rounding error to the mass of a large freighter.

So I don't see a streak drive putting enough squeeze on the internals of a colony transport to make any significant difference.

Daryl wrote:My understanding is that the streak drive takes up a lot of room, so may not be practical for heavy duty starting of new colonies. Think using a Ferrari to deliver bulky goods. Possible but inefficient.

Jonathan_S wrote:It's big for a hyper drive -- about twice as large.
But hyper drives must be relatively small compared to the overall size of ships. A dispatch boat, which is normally only about 38,000 tons, carrying a streak drive just looks like one that's been bulked to to be a bit more luxurious of a fast private yacht/corporate transport -- so it doesn't sound like it's been bloated to even the size of an old destroyer (70,000 tons)

Yet the entire mass of that dispatch boat (or the destroyer, for that matter) is barely more than a rounding error to the mass of a large freighter.

So I don't see a streak drive putting enough squeeze on the internals of a colony transport to make any significant difference.

If we are talking about the Hideaway I suggested, then a streak drive is not strictly needed for a one time move (it only gains a factor of 1.45, as has been pointed out). However I like the idea of a paranoid group building most of their orbitals of a size and shape to make use of a compensator, wedge and sails (including the streak drive). The largest industrial complexes would only have gravity plates, wedges (or spider drive) and sails and would trail behind at a snail's pace. I wonder if a spider drive would have advantages when used on ore extraction ships (which would be carried within the processing ship when moving)?

That way when the news comes of the fall of Darius, they could all move to a pre-scouted system even further out.

tlb wrote:There is no reason to do that, as it just wastes resources that should be defending Darius. The place to put forts, etc. is at the end away from Darius to deny anyone transit. Particularly if this is a new wormhole (not connected to Felix), then the Alignment can hope that it will not even be noticed by the Grand Alliance. Although frankly it would no longer be useful after the GA conquers Darius, because then the only reason to go back is to use the Felix wormhole; which would draw attention.

Better would be to pick a site without a wormhole, someplace that only the streak drive makes practical. Someplace that would not ordinarily useful for colonization; maybe a white dwarf star with burned out planets, one or more asteroid belts and a gas giant planet or two. Then build an orbital based civilization similar to Yildun. Finally communicate back by means of streak drive dispatch boats nominally affiliated with an otherwise respectable news organization.

I thought I was suggesting that the forts, minefields and guard ships (MAN) would be on the DARIUS end of the Felix-Darius wormhole. Sure, fortifying the Felix end would be a major give-away for anyone who happens or comes snooping by.

Not sure what Mannerheim may or may not have close to the Felix end of the wormhole but if a ship is parked there it would be able to function as an Astro-Control. Perhaps the Alignment doesn't feel the need for anything like Astro Control at either end of the wormhole but it does have traffic moving both ways so just perhaps that would be prudent.

So, if someone were to show up at the Felix System to take a scouting look to see if there is any activity in the system (nobody has yet decided that the Alignment is tucked away at the other end of a wormhole) would they be able to catch any impeller or exiting from hyperspace out at the unknown wormhole? Just having a GA ship (or Beowlf Biological Survey vessel) drop in by Felix to take a look shouldn't be cause for Mannerheim Navy to immediately attack such a ship. They (perhaps even public) are negotiating to acquire the the Felix System as a resource and -remember, nobody else had anything in it- they are using it as an exercise area pending a glacially slow multiparty discussion over purchasing the rights.

I realize that the Alignment didn't use anything for Astro Control at the Torch end of the Torch wormhole but they probably didn't have too much traffic that they were running though it. Certainly not the volume they seem to have been running via Felix-Darius.

Galton was charted, reported and then wiped off the records. It was safe enough as long as it wasn't sending materials any place but Darius and how many people ( who are not already now dead) had any idea of where and too whom Galton was sending all of whatever it was manufacturing for the Alignment?

How far away- in terms of normal space and military-hyper capable ships does it seem reasonable to start looking for yet another place to hide the Alignment HQ? Whatever that distance (and routing) you have to consider how your going to transmit information by things like courier ships and transport people and goods by freighter. Would the Alignment then need to look at building a substantial fleet of fast transports with full military grade impellers/hyperdrives etc?
Would a 4 month hyper-space journey at present capability of military hyperdrives be enough distance to be safe?
Such a location would take a lot longer for non-milspec freighters, transports etc to get to or get to 1st destination from. You want the equivalent of Cap. Nemo's island base in the Honorverse.

Just speculating on what some potential options are.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

Theemile wrote:5) To find Darius's location - a scout stills need to secure the wormhole, map it, then map it's other termini - a Wormhole who is protected by heavy forces of Mannerheim, who is a (supposed) neutral third party.

That's a non-issue.

A GA task group drops in: "We have strong reason to believe this wormhole is being used by the MAlign and will be scouting it. We are making no claims on this system or the wormhole. Leave us alone and we will leave you alone." Mannerheim has nothing that can challenge such a force and whoever is in charge there will either not know (and thus be inclined to cooperate) or will know (and will want to hide that fact and thus cooperate.)

The real problem is the other end of the link is no doubt guarded.

I agree.

I don't see a Mannerheim senior officer arguing if a GA task force dropped into the system for a look around.

Then again, I don't think it's Mannerheim territory, so his arguments wouldn't hold water if the GA CO didn't want to be obliging.

He's not about to jump them unless he can wipe them out. Too big a break in character and you can't leave witnesses behind, so it's got to be a massacre or nothing. If one ship gets away, it means the RF is going to war with the GA or one of its members.

Brigade XO wrote:It is POSSIBLE that one of those "unknown" destination( well, undisclosed and so very open-ended) termini could be several hundred light years away from much of anything in the know/explored section of the galaxy where humans have been colonizing.
If so it would be reasonable that the Alignment has set up a Site B for what it has on Darius but that would also mean that at a minimum it would have the Darius end of the wormhole getting fitted out with forts and minefields along with ships in a defensive posture to slam it closed should the GA come calling.

tlb wrote:There is no reason to do that, as it just wastes resources that should be defending Darius. The place to put forts, etc. is at the end away from Darius to deny anyone transit. Particularly if this is a new wormhole (not connected to Felix), then the Alignment can hope that it will not even be noticed by the Grand Alliance. Although frankly it would no longer be useful after the GA conquers Darius, because then the only reason to go back is to use the Felix wormhole; which would draw attention.

Brigade XO wrote:I thought I was suggesting that the forts, minefields and guard ships (MAN) would be on the DARIUS end of the Felix-Darius wormhole. Sure, fortifying the Felix end would be a major give-away for anyone who happens or comes snooping by.

Rereading everything, I remember what I meant. I was reading that the wormhole might have another destination (site "B", you called it) and that you would put the terminal forts for it at Darius. I objected to that, saying that they should be at the other end (I meant the Site "B" end).

Yes, you are right that there will be "forts, minefields and guard ships" at the Darius end of the Felix to Darius wormhole. I expect that they are already there; I was only concerned about Site "B".

Brigade XO wrote:Not sure what Mannerheim may or may not have close to the Felix end of the wormhole but if a ship is parked there it would be able to function as an Astro-Control. Perhaps the Alignment doesn't feel the need for anything like Astro Control at either end of the wormhole but it does have traffic moving both ways so just perhaps that would be prudent.

So, if someone were to show up at the Felix System to take a scouting look to see if there is any activity in the system (nobody has yet decided that the Alignment is tucked away at the other end of a wormhole) would they be able to catch any impeller or exiting from hyperspace out at the unknown wormhole? Just having a GA ship (or Beowlf Biological Survey vessel) drop in by Felix to take a look shouldn't be cause for Mannerheim Navy to immediately attack such a ship. They (perhaps even public) are negotiating to acquire the the Felix System as a resource and -remember, nobody else had anything in it- they are using it as an exercise area pending a glacially slow multiparty discussion over purchasing the rights.

They wouldn't see anything. Aside from The Twins, there's no wormhole closer than 30 light-minutes from the primary and usually they're much further out, in the light-hour range. That's beyond the range of any but the most sensitive sensors, on dedicated sensor ships. It's unlikely that such a sensor ship would be scouting by accident. It would only be deployed if there was already a suspicion.

"Several light-hours" is also beyond the range of on-board hyper footprint detectors, so even if such a scouting expedition happened to be in the system when a ship dropped from hyper near the junction, it wouldn't be seen.

The chance that this expedition is close enough to the wormhole entirely by accident is near zero. It would have no reason to be that far out, unless it suspected there's a wormhole in the first place. And the chance that it is there when a ship transits or arrives is also pretty slim, so a happenstance detection is an "indistinguishable from zero" chance of ever happening.

That actually means Mannerheim can station a few ships near the junction to serve as traffic control and early warning detection with little risk of giving things away. If someone does suspect a wormhole and then follows it up to where it would be, then finds Mannerheim sitting there, it doesn't raise any eyebrows at all: it just means Mannerheim came to the same conclusion on its own and hasn't yet told anyone.

What they shouldn't do is fortify it with means beyond what could be reasonably explained by black ops inside Mannerheim's Navy and highest levels of government. A couple of warships, up to and including battlecruisers, would be reasonable. They can call upon the ships in the inner Felix system that are "exercising" and "protecting mineral rights" for help, if needed. And it's only 12 light-years from their home system, so reinforcements can arrive faster than a wormhole survey ship can determine transit vectors.

I realize that the Alignment didn't use anything for Astro Control at the Torch end of the Torch wormhole but they probably didn't have too much traffic that they were running though it. Certainly not the volume they seem to have been running via Felix-Darius.

They were pretending that that terminus hadn't been mapped, so it's likely there was no traffic there at all, aside from the initial transits that confirmed the vectors.

Which, of course, made no sense. No profit-motivated company would miss the economic opportunity that a wormhole bridge means (q.v. Axelrod). The fact that Manpower wasn't operating as a profit-driven company was what led the Torch intelligence services to send Cachat and Zilwicki to Mesa in the first place.

Now that we know what Manpower really was, all assumptions about that wormhole should be revisited again ("why are you still alive?" again).

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Now that we know what Manpower really was, all assumptions about that wormhole should be revisited again ("why are you still alive?" again).

The only thing that one could really do with the wormhole near Torch is to station a picket by it. A heavy picket or other defense might only be possible if a heavier hitter than Torch is willing to do it. If someone comes through, then disable them; so they can be questioned and their computers examined.

What you would not want would be to send another survey ship through.

tlb wrote:The only thing that one could really do with the wormhole near Torch is to station a picket by it. A heavy picket or other defense might only be possible if a heavier hitter than Torch is willing to do it. If someone comes through, then disable them; so they can be questioned and their computers examined.

What you would not want would be to send another survey ship through.

Right. I don't think there's anything they can do about the wormhole right now. They may conclude that Harvest Joy's fate was enemy action after all, but that doesn't change the fact that transiting is a suicide mission. Unless the Honorverse comes up with a Starfire-style wormhole assault mechanism -- and all indications are that RFC is not going there. Or if there's a technology to pinpoint where a warp bridge leads to, without transiting, but again we'd have expected to see some research on that line or something even resembling that before now.

With that, I think the Congo-Twins warp bridge is now only a plot distraction. It's already served its purpose: bring Milliken into the GA's hands.

Though she may be yet another plot distraction. Like the Hole in the Wall operation databases. Or the Mannerheim warehouse databases. The breakthrough may come from an unexpected direction, like the Parmley Station (which is what I had thought TEiF was going to be about, when the cover was unveiled).

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Aside from The Twins, there's no wormhole closer than 30 light-minutes from the primary and usually they're much further out, in the light-hour range. That's beyond the range of any but the most sensitive sensors, on dedicated sensor ships. It's unlikely that such a sensor ship would be scouting by accident. It would only be deployed if there was already a suspicion.

"Several light-hours" is also beyond the range of on-board hyper footprint detectors, so even if such a scouting expedition happened to be in the system when a ship dropped from hyper near the junction, it wouldn't be seen.

The chance that this expedition is close enough to the wormhole entirely by accident is near zero. It would have no reason to be that far out, unless it suspected there's a wormhole in the first place. And the chance that it is there when a ship transits or arrives is also pretty slim, so a happenstance detection is an "indistinguishable from zero" chance of ever happening.

That actually means Mannerheim can station a few ships near the junction to serve as traffic control and early warning detection with little risk of giving things away. If someone does suspect a wormhole and then follows it up to where it would be, then finds Mannerheim sitting there, it doesn't raise any eyebrows at all: it just means Mannerheim came to the same conclusion on its own and hasn't yet told anyone.

I agree that the terminus itself would be beyond the range of shipboard sensors.

However, the resonance zone from the terminus to the star would cover a significant fraction of the hyper limit's cicumphrence -- and that probably could be detectable by shipboard sensors.

Now even as a 3 terminus Junction it'd be a lot weaker RZ than Manticores -- and there are apparently other grav turbulence phenomena that often produce indistinguishable effects yet aren't associated with a wormhole.

But it's still possible that a GA (especially an RMN) ship that happened on the system might well notice where the RZ meets the hyper limit and follow it back to see if it was potentially related to an unknown wormhole. That could be the trail of clues that leads a ship the light hours out to where that little Junction is now within their sensor range.

Still unlikely -- but not the astronomical odds of them randomly stumbling over a quiet object of interest several light hours from the star.