"Why are you still alive?"

ThinksMarkedly wrote:If it's gravitationally bound and keeping its distance from that star as that star performs its orbit around the galactic centre, it's associated.

tlb wrote:Do we know that is true that the Lynx end is gravitationally bound to the M8 red dwarf? Do we know that a wormhole that is not associated with a star will not move along with galactic rotation? I expect that the best indication of association is a resonance zone that is clearly set by both the wormhole and the star.

munroburton wrote:It's mostly undefined. Galactic rotation allows us to draw a few implications - because if wormholes stayed associated with their respective stars, then there should be vastly longer wormholes cris-crossing the galaxy after billions of years, plus any number of ejected extragalactic stars dragging their associated termini out for true bolthole systems.

The average bridge being approximately 400? light years in length tells us that they must be temporary and/or relatively localised phenomena which expire or change when their host stars move too far apart - after potentially millions of years.

I'm guessing that the Twins anomaly is undergoing that transition, with one of the star's termini gradually losing stability and leading to a second termini forming, which will move further away from the star as its precedessor collapses.

Of course, we really don't know; but for arguments sake say that they start at around 100 LY and prefer to be associated with a star. That would mean that they could start out with nearby connections within a galactic arm (or one connection or none). Any lengthening or shortening after initial creation could be due to the relative movements of the terminal stars. The intense energy bound up in the wormhole might act as a spring, allowing it to stretch to a point where it either breaks (collapsing the wormhole) or decouples from the weaker star and at some point finding another star to form an association (in the meantime terminating into empty space).

However I am not sure why we might think that the Twins are undergoing a transition. But with a time-frame of millions of years, everything is changing and we just don't see that. I read that it takes Sol 220 million years to complete one galactic orbit.

Or artificial? I have read series where some elder race created jump points that now are used by the space-faring people without any idea of how to create a new one. So far the author(s) have not given any indication of something like that.

Pearls of Weber: Hyperspace near a wormhole junction:
Any wormhole terminus exists in a fixed relationship with the star(s) with which it is associated.

Well, we do have at least one wormhole (a junction) located relative to two stars. That would be the Manticore Binary System. I don't recall another one but that doesn't mean one wasn't mentioned.

So far we don't have any reported termini located out in the middle of nowhere. Of course that kind of arrangement could probably only have been discovered when a survey ship came out of it as very few people will be wandering around-looking for gravitational abnormalities while running between stars in normal space.

tlb wrote:Of course, we really don't know; but for arguments sake say that they start at around 100 LY and prefer to be associated with a star. That would mean that they could start out with nearby connections within a galactic arm (or one connection or none). Any lengthening or shortening after initial creation could be due to the relative movements of the terminal stars. The intense energy bound up in the wormhole might act as a spring, allowing it to stretch to a point where it either breaks (collapsing the wormhole) or decouples from the weaker star and at some point finding another star to form an association (in the meantime terminating into empty space).

However I am not sure why we might think that the Twins are undergoing a transition. But with a time-frame of millions of years, everything is changing and we just don't see that. I read that it takes Sol 220 million years to complete one galactic orbit.

Yes, so consider how long it takes two stars to move from a starting distance of ~100 LY to about ~1,000 LY during galactic orbiting.

Two stars, one of them in a retrograde orbit, with a separating velocity of of ~500km/s, would need four and a half million years to cross that gap. Two stars in very similar orbits could bear "stable" wormholes for billions of years or more.

The Diaspora has a radius of approximately five to ten thousand light years, so humanity hasn't reached the galactic core with its much more rapidly orbiting stars. Even there, a retrograde separation velocity of .2c would take 4,500 years, although to get to this velocity both stars would have to orbit the black hole closely enough that they're way under the 100-LY lower limit for observed wormholes.

Humans have been using wormholes for less than 500 years. Any observed changes to data are probably so minute that they could be misinterpreted as improved technology producing more refined results.

The Twins could be an extremely rare type of wormholes, or they represent an extremely rare and astronomically brief phase of wormhole evolution which has simply not been observed by humanity yet. Even the Alignment's wormhole astrophysicists might not see any evidence for this theory until/if one of the Twins does collapse.

Brigade XO wrote:Pearls of Weber: Hyperspace near a wormhole junction:
Any wormhole terminus exists in a fixed relationship with the star(s) with which it is associated.

Well, we do have at least one wormhole (a junction) located relative to two stars. That would be the Manticore Binary System. I don't recall another one but that doesn't mean one wasn't mentioned.

So far we don't have any reported termini located out in the middle of nowhere. Of course that kind of arrangement could probably only have been discovered when a survey ship came out of it as very few people will be wandering around-looking for gravitational abnormalities while running between stars in normal space.

I began this inquiry with that quote and said:"I am not sure that excludes the case of a wormhole that is not associated with at least one star; since I read it as saying that if there is an associated star, then that relationship is fixed". There is also this in "The Universe of Honor Harrington" within More Than Honor:

Moreover, wormhole junctions are primarily associated with mid-range main sequence stars (F, G, and K), which gives a high probability of finding habitable planets in relatively close proximity to their far termini.

That still is not saying that all wormholes are associated with stars, although that could be an inference.

But there is one thing that we can infer from that second statement: I have seen it stated that red dwarf stars are the most common of all star types, so there must be a component of the star's gravity strength in the association. Since if the association were pure chance, then there would be many more to M8, red dwarf stars, like that at the Lynx end of the wormhole from Manticore. That would imply that the strongest association would be to the giant and super giant stars, but their scarcity in the galaxy would be why the majority of associations are with "mid-range main sequence stars (F, G, and K)".

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I think they are, but those nanites may be in voluntary control, not independently armed. If any of them were caught and questioned, they may choose to end their own lives rather than reveal any secrets.

Like Jack McBryde. He was deep enough that his attempt at defection didn't trigger the nanites. Either he didn't have it or they weren't armed. Since we know Gail has nanites that weren't armed, I'm going to guess it's the latter.

Gail raises an interesting problem for me. The splinter group is concerned that Gail's work on the defense of "System Alpha" has made her a security risk that will need to be eliminated. Therefore they are considering having her nanites deactivated during her next physical. Suppose that they do that and the leadership does decide to have her die. Wouldn't she be ordered to another physical, if she does not die on cue? When she is found to have her nanites deactivated, then won't they perform a checkup on the technician that did Gail's physical? Once they have two people with deactivated nanites, won't there be some severe questioning; which cannot be escaped through the suicide protocol? Isn't having deactivated nanites a sure sign of being in this splinter group, much as dropping dead was of being a member of the Malign back in the Solarian League? So wouldn't it be better just to let Gail die?

munroburton wrote:Yes, so consider how long it takes two stars to move from a starting distance of ~100 LY to about ~1,000 LY during galactic orbiting.

Two stars, one of them in a retrograde orbit, with a separating velocity of of ~500km/s, would need four and a half million years to cross that gap. Two stars in very similar orbits could bear "stable" wormholes for billions of years or more.

500 km/s is practically "runaway hypervelocity" level. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_kinematics#Hypervelocity_stars.

The orbital speed of a star around the Galactic Centre is in the order of 100 km/s. It doesn't depend on the distance to the radius... which is why this whole "Dark Matter" came about, of course. So you calculated an upper bound, but that's very extreme. The more likely value is that the relative velocity between any two stars does not exceed 100 km/s.

The Diaspora has a radius of approximately five to ten thousand light years, so humanity hasn't reached the galactic core with its much more rapidly orbiting stars. Even there, a retrograde separation velocity of .2c would take 4,500 years, although to get to this velocity both stars would have to orbit the black hole closely enough that they're way under the 100-LY lower limit for observed wormholes.

That's again a gross overestimation. The Diaspora should be less than 1000 light-years in radius. Manticore was settled at the edge of known space at the time, at 512 light-years from Sol. Manticore is considered a Verge system and beyond the Verge we have the Fringe, but I doubt it can be more than doubling Manticore's distance. So 1000 light-years in radius.

Humans have been using wormholes for less than 500 years. Any observed changes to data are probably so minute that they could be misinterpreted as improved technology producing more refined results.

Indeed, but just under 500 years. Wormholes were theorised in 1391, found in 1429.

On the other hand, there's such thing as averages. If a wormhole is stable for an average of a million years and 1000 of them are known (counting all termini of a Junction), then in 500 years we should have seen one wormhole disconnection with a 50% chance. But I guess the average duration is much longer than one million years, as your calculations above would indicate.

The Twins could be an extremely rare type of wormholes, or they represent an extremely rare and astronomically brief phase of wormhole evolution which has simply not been observed by humanity yet. Even the Alignment's wormhole astrophysicists might not see any evidence for this theory until/if one of the Twins does collapse.

Replace "could be" with "are." They are definitely one of a kind: that's the only system where two wormholes connect outside of a Junction (they're a light-second apart) and that's the only system where they exit at exactly the hyperlimit.

Why that is, we don't know and I doubt we'll ever know in book form from David. Either he'll tell us what he'd considered after the Honor-time books are out, or it'll be up to a successor author after he's done with his part.

Brigade XO wrote:Well, we do have at least one wormhole (a junction) located relative to two stars. That would be the Manticore Binary System. I don't recall another one but that doesn't mean one wasn't mentioned.

We don't know if it's the only such system known, but it's the only one we have been told.

New lore from ACTI also says that theory dictated that wormholes could not exist in binary systems. Apparently, Manticore was the first exception. It might remain unexplained why it is possible to this day.

tlb wrote:Gail raises an interesting problem for me. The splinter group is concerned that Gail's work on the defense of "System Alpha" has made her a security risk that will need to be eliminated. Therefore they are considering having her nanites deactivated during her next physical. Suppose that they do that and the leadership does decide to have her die. Wouldn't she be ordered to another physical, if she does not die on cue? When she is found to have her nanites deactivated, then won't they perform a checkup on the technician that did Gail's physical? Once they have two people with deactivated nanites, won't there be some severe questioning; which cannot be escaped through the suicide protocol? Isn't having deactivated nanites a sure sign of being in this splinter group, much as dropping dead was of being a member of the Malign back in the Solarian League? So wouldn't it be better just to let Gail die?

Indeed. When she doesn't suddenly drop dead, it'll be a dead giveaway that someone is tinkering with nanites. The splinter group cannot afford that.

Since they are considering deactivating or removing her nanites in the first place, I assume they have a mitigation plan. My guess is that they'd fake her death -- it's not like the Detweilers would want to see the body. She'd then disappear on Darius.

tlb wrote:Gail raises an interesting problem for me. The splinter group is concerned that Gail's work on the defense of "System Alpha" has made her a security risk that will need to be eliminated. Therefore they are considering having her nanites deactivated during her next physical. Suppose that they do that and the leadership does decide to have her die. Wouldn't she be ordered to another physical, if she does not die on cue? When she is found to have her nanites deactivated, then won't they perform a checkup on the technician that did Gail's physical? Once they have two people with deactivated nanites, won't there be some severe questioning; which cannot be escaped through the suicide protocol? Isn't having deactivated nanites a sure sign of being in this splinter group, much as dropping dead was of being a member of the Malign back in the Solarian League? So wouldn't it be better just to let Gail die?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Indeed. When she doesn't suddenly drop dead, it'll be a dead giveaway that someone is tinkering with nanites. The splinter group cannot afford that.

Since they are considering deactivating or removing her nanites in the first place, I assume they have a mitigation plan. My guess is that they'd fake her death -- it's not like the Detweilers would want to see the body. She'd then disappear on Darius.

That depends on what sort of morgue system Darius has and whether it has been penetrated. Also I am not sure how someone could disappear on Darius, since I doubt that she would blend in with the workers. Just stuffing her in a safe house for the rest of her life seems awkward.

There is another point of interest about her: why would she be considered a security risk? It is not just that she knows about "System Alpha", but that she actively worked on improving their defense. Does this mean that the cover story, told to Audrey O'Hanrahan, is the actual official cover story and Darius will pretend to be a refuge for paranoid followers of the original Detweiler Plan? That they knew about the bad alignment at Galton, but hated them? I find that difficult to believe, considering that Darius has the spider drive and Galton did not. Also most people on Darius, do not know about Galton.

It seems to me that Gail is only a security risk to that cover story; but there are too many inconsistencies for that story to work, if and when Darius is found.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:Well, we do have at least one wormhole (a junction) located relative to two stars. That would be the Manticore Binary System. I don't recall another one but that doesn't mean one wasn't mentioned.

We don't know if it's the only such system known, but it's the only one we have been told.

New lore from ACTI also says that theory dictated that wormholes could not exist in binary systems. Apparently, Manticore was the first exception. It might remain unexplained why it is possible to this day.

The Gregor Terminus (of the Manticore Junction) is also in a binary system. Though I guess technically we don't know if it's located relative to both stars (like Manticore's Junction) or if it's permanently located relative to Gregor-A.

Still; either way it's a 2nd binary system with a wormhole terminus. Given how few of the 200-odd wormholes where we actually know anything about the systems they terminate in those two binary systems actually make up a non-trivial percentage of the terminus star systems we know about.