SLN, and MAlign playing catch up with Manticoran superiority

Mycall4me wrote:The operative statement is, "getting hands on a ship that has been there"....isn't that possibility extremely unlikely? It's well known in the Honorverse that all computer databases be deleted if the possibility of capture occurs. And that's assuming the MA (or it's agents) manages to run down a ship that's actually been there. Would they even know to look?

And they'd have to be even luckier to capture a person who has been there, wouldn't they? It would certainly be a priority for them, but it still seems to me that there would be a lot of luck involved to find someone with the actual stellar coordinates to Bolthole.

We do not know how many people are being run through Bolthole and in the case of a compensator failure there is no one alive to wipe the computer database. However they just need to get a spy onto one of the new ships to see if traces of Bolthole's location are still in the logs.

But note that exact stellar coordinates are NOT needed for Bolthole; as I said someone just has to know that this was the colony for Calvin's Hope that had to escape to a star in a nearby dust cloud. The coordinates for Calvin's Hope are a matter of public record.

tlb wrote:

Mycall4me wrote:The operative statement is, "getting hands on a ship that has been there"....isn't that possibility extremely unlikely? It's well known in the Honorverse that all computer databases be deleted if the possibility of capture occurs. And that's assuming the MA (or it's agents) manages to run down a ship that's actually been there. Would they even know to look?

And they'd have to be even luckier to capture a person who has been there, wouldn't they? It would certainly be a priority for them, but it still seems to me that there would be a lot of luck involved to find someone with the actual stellar coordinates to Bolthole.

We do not know how many people are being run through Bolthole and in the case of a compensator failure there is no one alive to wipe the computer database. However they just need to get a spy onto one of the new ships to see if traces of Bolthole's location are still in the logs.

Though if the compensator failure happened before leaving the Bolthole system then you'd have to find the system before you could find the ship with the coordinates to the system [G]. So that's only useful is a ship with such data suffered a failure on the Haven side of the wormhole -- and further than your agents were able to kill it's acceleration and board it to search before any of the normal system patrol or naval units could do so.


Also, the ships built or visiting Bolthole really only need the coordinates of the two wormhole termini and the relative distance and bearing from the Bolthole termini to the system itself. They don't actually need to know where it is relative to the rest of the galaxy because they'd only every visit it via wormhole. (Heck, if you're really paranoid don't keep the details of how to get from the wormhole to the system in the ship computers -- have each returning ship get it fresh from the forts on the Bolthole end of the wormhole on each transit; and wipe it before traveling back through the wormhole)

And for ships built there they don't even need to retain that wormhole location information once they leave. They're not expected to return for repairs or upgrades -- those can happen at the normal naval yards.

And you don't need to bring those ships' plankowner crews to Bolthole; you can cut down on the number of people who visit by using yard crews to deliver the ships from Bolthole to a yard for the plankowners to take over and run through final commissioning trials (after the yard trials were run at Bolthole) -- then shuttle the transit crews back to Bolthole so they're not out wandering around the galaxy.

That said, sensor readings while on yard trials and the like might still reveal where the system was even if that location wasn't entered into their astro-navigation database. So you'd still need to wipe that kind of information after you left (or else shut down those types of sensors and purge before transiting the wormhole)

But do that and there'd be very, very, few ships, or crew, outside of Bolthole itself that would have any information about it. Cuts down drastically on the chances of finding or targeting one. Though of course the ships that shuttle those crews back, or bring in the rare VIP visitor, do need to keep details at least on how to get to the Haven side of the wormhole.


But take those basic measures and even a compensator failure on one of those ships won't reveal the actual real-world location; just the location of the Haven side terminus. You'd then need to sneak through the wormhole itself (good freaking luck with that) and gather sensor data to turn that into a location to attack; or else launch an opposed wormhole assault before searching the local stars for this hidden base.

tlb wrote:

Mycall4me wrote:The operative statement is, "getting hands on a ship that has been there"....isn't that possibility extremely unlikely? It's well known in the Honorverse that all computer databases be deleted if the possibility of capture occurs. And that's assuming the MA (or it's agents) manages to run down a ship that's actually been there. Would they even know to look?

And they'd have to be even luckier to capture a person who has been there, wouldn't they? It would certainly be a priority for them, but it still seems to me that there would be a lot of luck involved to find someone with the actual stellar coordinates to Bolthole.

We do not know how many people are being run through Bolthole and in the case of a compensator failure there is no one alive to wipe the computer database. However they just need to get a spy onto one of the new ships to see if traces of Bolthole's location are still in the logs.

But note that exact stellar coordinates are NOT needed for Bolthole; as I said someone just has to know that this was the colony for Calvin's Hope that had to escape to a star in a nearby dust cloud. The coordinates for Calvin's Hope are a matter of public record.

I think that Johnathon S has fairly conclusively postulated the means to avoid a ship from giving away the location of Bolthole. That leaves that possibility of someone knowing that Calvin's Hope is the location of Bolthole, but the MA would STILL have to FIND and capture or suborn that person. And how likely would that be? Not VERY likely IMO

So, all that aside I really don't think that an attack of LDs need concern the GA, at least for the present.

Mycall4me wrote:So, all that aside I really don't think that an attack of LDs need concern the GA, at least for the present.

You mean an attack on Bolthole is very low probability. It is up to the author whether they should have worried about an attack anywhere else.

tlb wrote:

Mycall4me wrote:So, all that aside I really don't think that an attack of LDs need concern the GA, at least for the present.

You mean an attack on Bolthole is very low probability. It is up to the author whether they should have worried about an attack anywhere else.

Well yeah, please forgive my imprecise language. I did, indeed mean an attack on Bolthole. Since that was what we were discuszing here, I didn't see the need to be that specific.

Of course the certainty of the LDs attacking elsewhere is a foregone conclusion.

I just wish we didn't have such a (presumably) long time before we find out what RFC is planning.

Mycall4me wrote:That leaves that possibility of someone knowing that Calvin's Hope is the location of Bolthole, but the MA would STILL have to FIND and capture or suborn that person. And how likely would that be? Not VERY likely IMO

I think the likeliest way to find Bolthole is to have spies at the on-planet bars when tech types might hang out (the same way the peeps sent out spies). Obviously they would be listening for any information, but might hear someone that had duty there talking after a few too many drinks about how the surrounding dust cloud looked at night and the way the inhabitants looked. Still a low probability event.

PS: Calvin's Hope is not Bolthole itself, it is the blasted planet that the colonists thought they would inhabit. The Refuge System contains the planet Sanctuary, which is Bolthole.

PPS: In the last few pages Bolthole was among various targets discussed. Obviously it was the hardest one to attack.

tlb wrote:

Mycall4me wrote:That leaves that possibility of someone knowing that Calvin's Hope is the location of Bolthole, but the MA would STILL have to FIND and capture or suborn that person. And how likely would that be? Not VERY likely IMO

I think the likeliest way to find Bolthole is to have spies at the on-planet bars when tech types might hang out (the same way the peeps sent out spies). Obviously they would be listening for any information, but might hear someone that had duty there talking after a few too many drinks about how the surrounding dust cloud looked at night and the way the inhabitants looked. Still a low probability event.

PS: Calvin's Hope is not Bolthole itself, it is the blasted planet that the colonists thought they would inhabit. The Refuge System contains the planet Sanctuary, which is Bolthole.

PPS: In the last few pages Bolthole was among various targets discussed. Obviously it was the hardest one to attack.

I assume you mean the last few pages of To End In Fire? I've been taking a small break before finishing my re reading of the HH series, and I'm still only partway into UH. And it's been quite some time since I've read either one of those books, so I wouldn't remember which book's last few pages you might be referring to.

tlb wrote:In the last few pages Bolthole was among various targets discussed. Obviously it was the hardest one to attack.

Mycall4me wrote:I assume you mean the last few pages of To End In Fire? I've been taking a small break before finishing my re reading of the HH series, and I'm still only partway into UH. And it's been quite some time since I've read either one of those books, so I wouldn't remember which book's last few pages you might be referring to.

No, sorry for being imprecise; I was referring to the last few pages of this thread, which also mentioned attacks on infrastructure at other planets.

I am not aware of any discussion in the books about attacking Bolthole.

tlb wrote:

Mycall4me wrote:That leaves that possibility of someone knowing that Calvin's Hope is the location of Bolthole, but the MA would STILL have to FIND and capture or suborn that person. And how likely would that be? Not VERY likely IMO

I think the likeliest way to find Bolthole is to have spies at the on-planet bars when tech types might hang out (the same way the peeps sent out spies). Obviously they would be listening for any information, but might hear someone that had duty there talking after a few too many drinks about how the surrounding dust cloud looked at night and the way the inhabitants looked. Still a low probability event.

PS: Calvin's Hope is not Bolthole itself, it is the blasted planet that the colonists thought they would inhabit. The Refuge System contains the planet Sanctuary, which is Bolthole.

PPS: In the last few pages Bolthole was among various targets discussed. Obviously it was the hardest one to attack.

As for picking up details in bars, that would rather seem to depend on whether any techs had ever cycled back from Bolthole. It's certainly not impossible that as an ultra secret yard that all the workers were moved to Calvin's Hope 'for the duration'.

If so then the only bars where spies could pick up tidbits from the workers would be the ones on the stations or planet of Calvin's Hope -- and if you've got spies in-system then said spies would have more direct ways of seeing what the sky looked like or determining the system's location [G].


(Kind of like how it would have been hard to learn of the Manhattan project during WWII because the bars the scientists and techs were hanging out at and possibly talking too freely in were almost exclusively within the high security compounds at Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and Hanford. If the spies had access to those bars they already knew of the project and had access into its secure enclaves. Of course there were spies; but they were scientists, who'd been recruited into the project, and who for ideological reasons were sharing technical details with the Soviets)


And to maintain secrecy any transit crews could be denied shore leave anywhere on the Haven side of the wormhole. They drop off their ships at the delivery yards, board the return transport and head off. No bar stops -- so no place for spies to easily eavesdrop.

Jonathan_S wrote:As for picking up details in bars, that would rather seem to depend on whether any techs had ever cycled back from Bolthole. It's certainly not impossible that as an ultra secret yard that all the workers were moved to Calvin's Hope 'for the duration'.

What "duration"? The Solarian League has been pacified and Galton has been conquered. Why would they never be allowed to return from Sanctuary (not Calvin's Hope) at this point? For that matter Haven has promised to reveal the secret of Sanctuary and the fate of the Calvin's Hope colonists.

It would require an LD attack somewhere for the GA to realize that Bolthole secrecy must still be preserved.