?

tlb wrote:You are technically correct that the Hasta was created on Ganymede based on information from the Malign, but incorrect in saying that it was used in Oyster Bay.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:That's my point: they couldn't have been. So the Galton documentation saying that they had supplied the equipment that attacked Manticore and Grayson cannot ring true, because in its own defence, Galton only had the Hasta III or a modest evolution thereof. For that fake documentation to sound true, Galton would need to have something superior to what the Hasta III ended up being, before the Hasta I began development.

Ditto for the warheads. We don't know whether the Hastas used in the defence of Galton were 3-second grasers, but it strikes to me as something the MAN would have kept from the Galton navy. So if they weren't and the RMN and GSN have very detailed records of how long the grasers fired for, where are the 3-second grasers?

If RFC decides to, he can explain all of this away, but it's pushing disbelief. It can't be just missing information, because the GA has captured the system and a lot of databases. Even my quote above says that missing information caused the GA analysts to be highly suspicious of TIY, so this alone shouldn't explain unless the Zilwicki, Cachat, and Ruth are suddenly struck with a case of Terminal Stupidity. It would have to be convincing information that is found and corroborated by people, which somehow explains why the level of stealth seen in the Strike wasn't usable for defence, why the delivery vehicles were discarded in favour of the Hasta design, why the graser in those weapons wasn't as powerful, etc.

Plus the nanites. Plus the people who left Mesa but never made it to Galton. And I'm assuming the streak drive was legitimately developed in Galton and thus its entire development files are going to be found.

No, my opinion remains that the GA knows it hasn't found the true core of the Onion.

tlb wrote:Then please explain how Galton was found by tracing the shipments of CATAPHRACTS, the very things used in Oyster Bay.

I am guessing that the next book will explain all the things found at Galton, as well as any discrepancies. I am sure that there will be something that reveals the truth, but believe it may be more subtle than you seem to think.

tlb wrote:Then please explain how Galton was found by tracing the shipments of CATAPHRACTS, the very things used in Oyster Bay.

I am guessing that the next book will explain all the things found at Galton, as well as any discrepancies. I am sure that there will be something that reveals the truth, but believe it may be more subtle than you seem to think.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Oyster Bay did use Cataphracts, but it also used the graser torpedoes driven by spider drives. The Cataphracts were picked up on sensors the moment they left the pods and lit up their wedges, but nothing picked up the torpedoes before they fired for 3 seconds. That's what's missing.

I agree the next book will explain things, but I personally think that all the evidence is there: that's David's style, to seed it throughout the books. His style is indeed to have it subtle, not this glaring, but at the same time I cannot ignore the fact that it is this glaring. In my opinion, it's too much to be explained away.

And I'll add another one: the Silver Bullet. There would need to be a plan in Galton for a long-duration and extremely stealthy recon drone.

In-universe, the MAlign found itself between a rock and a hard stone. They simply couldn't give Galton enough to make a convincing explanation without giving away too much. And they also didn't expect Galton to be discovered that quickly, so Galton didn't have time to develop what it needed to pretend to have had all along.

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:As for rifts, I'd quibble slightly that most probably aren't fully bounded, on all 6 sides, by grav waves. So much of hyper is rift that most of that rift area probably connects -- and the bits that get unique names are just the portions of rift that major shipping routes can't avoid.

I agree that is a possibility, we do not know the likelihood of gravity waves. But the Selker Rift is described as something of an anomaly. The main thing is whether a rogue wave is more likely to bounce off or be absorbed a gravity wave (and so lose its identity, since no one worries about rogue waves within a a gravity wave). The least likely thing would be for a rogue wave to randomly navigate the connected areas that are gravity wave free. Having the ability to ride a rogue wave, just means that you ride along wherever it goes, without the ability to steer.

Jonathan_S wrote:Though HAE does include this tidbit

Echoes of Honor wrote:"Rifts" were volumes of hyper-space between gravity waves. They weren't uncommon; in fact, most of h-space was one huge rift, since grav waves tended to be quite narrow in interstellar terms. Unfortunately, the waves' crazy-quilt patterns meant most voyages required a starship to cross at least one.

Also, it belatedly occurs to me, that if grav waves were so frequent that a majority of rifts were walled off, that the first few centuries of hyper scouts (725 - 1200s PD), before the Warshaski detectors allowed grav waves to be seen and avoided, would have gone from risky to suicidal.

After all, the hyper scout Suffren that surveyed the Manticore system, before its sublight colony ship started off, made the 512 LY run from Earth to Manticore without encountering any grav waves (because, remember, it had no way to detect them at distance - and wouldn't have had the fuel/delta-v to go around them even if it could)
That's one hell of a big rift

penny wrote:But in the early days of surveying the MBS, what bands could Suffren use? Do consider that I suggested rogue grav waves, at least, originate in the higher bands. Your logic could actually add credence to that thought. By the time rogue grav waves reach the lower bands they might dissipate.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:Even if Darius is found, it possibly has another layer of security - legality. All that is needed is Darius need to claim that it is a secret colony of.... another member of the Renaissance Factor. That's right, they are a secret colony of a separate completely legal star nation (say, the Maxwell Association) that has nothing to do with those big bad nasty Mesans. And when someone looks, sure enough, there exists at the Maxwell Association a paper trail of the Secret colony going back 200 years along with plenty of Government officials which will back it up.

Nothing to see here - everything is totally normal - move along....

Could it be another RF member like that, not Mannerheim, with a proper paper trail?

My initial reaction was no. Mannerheim has been "protecting" the Felix Junction for some 15 T-years now and too many people in their Navy who are not MAlign agents know about it. So if the Maxwell Association had known about the Junction for an extra 150 T-years, they'd either have opposed Mannerheim protecting it, or they'd have got into an RF-like arrangement much earlier than last year.

But maybe there's a way around that: Maxwell was indeed colonising and was protecting the Junction when Mannerheim stumbled upon it. At that point, they decided to share the expense: given that Mannerheim had a bigger Navy, they'd take over the protection but gain access to the colony. At the same time, they'd start the discussions to found the RF.

The question is whether Maxwell or any member of the RF would have had the expertise and resources to start another colony. We know from TEiF that Mannerheim was barely a single government 200 T-years ago, and it's the terminus of the Warner-Mannerheim Warp Bridge, so presumably the most developed system in its region (we know they had an "outsized Navy"). It doesn't look like they'd have had the resources to start a daughter colony.

Though nothing stops another Manticore-like well-funded colony having been established in the region. That requires though that such did exist prior to the MAlign machinations.

penny wrote:But in the early days of surveying the MBS, what bands could Suffren use? Do consider that I suggested rogue grav waves, at least, originate in the higher bands. Your logic could actually add credence to that thought. By the time rogue grav waves reach the lower bands they might dissipate.

The universe of Honor Harrington, (1) Background (General) wrote:The original hyper drive was a man-killer. The casualty figures over the first fifty years of hyper travel were daunting. Worse, vessels which were destroyed were lost with all hands, which left no record of their fates and thus offered no clue as to the causes of their destruction. Eventually, however, it was determined that most had probably been lost to one of two phenomena, which became known as "grav shear" (see below) and "dimensional shear" (violent energy turbulence separating hyper bands from one another). Once this was recognized and the higher hyper bands were declared off limits, losses due to dimensional shear ended, but grav shear remained a highly dangerous and essentially unpredictable phenomenon for the next five centuries.

-- skip --

Moreover, even the relatively "safe" lower bands which could be reliably reached were characterized by powerful energy surges and flows—currents, almost—of highly-charged particles and warped gravity waves. Adequate shielding could hold the radiation effects in check, but a grav shear within any band could rip the strongest ship to pieces.

Theemile wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:That Darius is at the other end of the Felix wormhole gives it a great jump on not being run across IF it isn't relatively close to an inhabited planet that could pick up its EM emissions. There is one known -to us- exit from the network that includes Felix and that is the terminus over by Torch

At this point, there is nothing yet that creates a question about the Felix system as being involved in anything other than perhaps it is being used by the Mannerheim SDF (now part of the RF) for exercises. No "known" habitation in the Felix either on a planet or any space station. Also at this point, you can't use the scouting technique that was used to investigate the system that turned out to be Galton because that was looking at the System, not the space relative to it for activity/EM noise. The RMN Scouting group isn't going to be looking for ship traffic well outside the hyper limit of Felix even if it were somehow tasked to investigate the same way.

We also don't know where the two "Unknown" termini are located. They are on the map of Oct 2019 but that only gives the distance of Mannerheim from Felix (10 ly) and the distance of Darius from Felix (130 ly). One little challenge for the Alignment is that the map appears to show Felix as a junction, not just one terminus which has at least three other direct termini (the 3rd being The Twins which has two wormholes, one of which is the one leading to Torch. I say challenge because if/when the Felix wormhole is identified by the GA or some one else looking for the Alignment, and that entity ends up blockading the Felix wormhole, Darius is -perhaps- at least 140 ly from anywhere we have been told about and all of it's traffic will have to use hyperspace.

The GA, well at least RMN, knows enough about Streak Drive from Herlander and Firebrand that it reduces the normal travel time between systems. They may not know by how much but eventually that could end up getting plugged into looking at interesting shipping movements related to the Alignment and it's minions and so -again perhaps- give someone the idea that ships equipped with the SD are stopping at rondezvouse points to transfer material/people/information. That also extends the distance you have to consider when looking for possible shipping locations since it extends the range of the ships in a give time frame.

Even if Darius is found, it possibly has another layer of security - legality. All that is needed is Darius need to claim that it is a secret colony of.... another member of the Renaissance Factor. That's right, they are a secret colony of a separate completely legal star nation (say, the Maxwell Association) that has nothing to do with those big bad nasty Mesans. And when someone looks, sure enough, there exists at the Maxwell Association a paper trail of the Secret colony going back 200 years along with plenty of Government officials which will back it up.

Nothing to see here - everything is totally normal - move along....

crnd22 wrote:One thing to consider also is that Darius doesn't stand by itself but it is a (secret for now) member of the Renaissance Factor which is led by Alignment core members, so unless one can prove without a shadow of a doubt that Darius and the RF leaders are the evil guys behind all, that could turn ugly soon diplomatically too - I easily see an SL revanchist faction taking power and allying itself with the Alignment while claiming that that is the cuddly secret Alignment as the baddies were annihilated at Galton; after all if O' Hanrahan can fool the treecats and Honor by allowing herself to sincerely believe that the Darius faction are the good guys and the Galton were the baddies, who knows how many others in position of power and influence we do not know of as yet can do that...

penny wrote:The GA cannot simply hyper in-system guns blaring without proof. And the MA has been very paranoid about losing pieces of their puzzle. And what can the GA legally do? Can a navy simply hyper in someone else's system and demand anything? Even if that anything is simply cooperation? Does even galactic law say that a navy must be given admittance to your system even in a time of peace? Why should a system have to allow another navy to trespass; to possibly see classified emplacements, mines, etc. The Andermani didn't seem to be under any obligation of allowing Honor access to space it controlled. So, not only must Darius be found, but certain undeniable proof of many things must also be uncovered. So, the legality of attacking Darius alone because of the logistics involved in gathering certain proof might give Darius the warning of an impending attack.

Theemile wrote:Why would Mannerheim even have to be involved? - they are picketing Felix. If Darius was found via hyper, there is no reason the scout would even know they have a wormhole - wormholes are usually 7+ light hours away from the primary, so a scout probably would not even see active defenses at a wormhole without a VERY extensive mapping of the system.

My point being that they could just claim to be someone else's colony - not necessarily Mesa's. Other, "hidden" Colonies are out there all over the place - mining planets, lost colonies, new colonies, trading posts, pirate bases, lone cranks trying to get away from "the system", etc, etc - and they are not on the normal maps. Just because you run into something unexpected, doesn't mean it's a Mesan base.

As for the spider drive ships - remember, the RMN has never SEEN a spider drive ship - if it's not moving, they wouldn't necessarily know what that shape construction is intended for.