Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

Jonathan_S wrote:Still I'd assumed any tow would have the towed ship directly astern of the towing one; where sails wouldn't be an issue.

I had assumed that wouldn't be possible because the hypergenerator field wouldn't extend that far back. Your figure of 6 km changes things: there is enough room behind a battlecruiser to place a 2-km long LD. So yes, it could hypergenerate through the wormhole.

But that still leaves the geometry of the sails. The BC's won't help the LD, so the LD must be generating an equivalent of them on its own, with all the discussion of whether that is stealthy or not. And all the debris flying around, missed graser shots, and all the prying eyes at a mere tens of thousands of km.

penny wrote:If only for my own convenience, the thread I brought forth is where I obtained the info about the range of the forts from the WH. At ~ 500,000 km range, I just can't swallow the pill prescribed for suspending disbelief that at that range a fort's energy weapons are not affected by ships within very dense gravitic fields. "Shut up and take the pill," Thinksmarkedly? I will take it, but I will spit it out when you're not looking.

The forts don't need to fire themselves any more. They can simply launch missiles from pods pre-placed 150,000 km from the emergence lanes. Those missiles cover 100,000 km in 14.8 seconds at full sprint mode in 96,000 gravities. Heck, strap a warhead to a CM and they'll be there in 12.5 seconds at 130,000 gravities... though I'd argue that the 2.3 extra seconds may be worth the much more powerful warhead that the Mk23 carries.

So even if the gravitic effects distort the energy fire - and we know that even if they do, it's not enough because a LAC can fire into an emergence lane - it's irrelevant. Moreover, if it does distort, it's worse for the LD because then the missiles will be bracketing the targets instead of trying for accuracy, which means they will hit the LD far more easily.

Also, I envisioned this tactic being carried out on a completely unsuspecting MBS, say from Trevor's Star. Please don't inundate me with requests for particulars on how that would be successful. Ask the MAN with access to nanites and a totally benign use of compulsion intended to AUTHORIZE instead of KILL.

Authorising is irrelevant here. The agent (voluntary or not) needs to also stop all other traffic going from Trevor's Star to Manticore so the formation sets up the mass transit. And that is something that takes an hour for a formation that has practised it and has access to the details about the wormhole. There's no way that the defenders on the Manticore side are going to let one hour go by without traffic from Trevor's Star without sending a ship o ask "is everything ok?" Once that ship fails to promptly return, they go into alert status.

It would have made more sense if you had said the Matapan terminus, which is the one that probably sees the least amount of traffic. But even then I expect it is more than one per hour. Moreover, each ship that transits carries the information about how far behind the next ship is, so if there's an unplanned stoppage, the Manicore side will want to know why.

Besides all that, I really doubt everyone on the ops centre on the terminus control station and in each and every picket ship could be made to not send an alert. One agent is a coup, two agents is unlikely. The full command crew is negligible. I don't see a way that you can fool the defenders on the departing terminus into believing this is a friendly formation but not send a warning through the junction that they are about to transit.

No, I don't see any way this can be achieved in the MWHJ or Erewhon wormholes.

But a surprise mass transit should solve some of the problems. Especially a mass transit blaring the proper transit codes.

See above, the transit is preceded by a ship saying it's coming. Someone on the receiving side will try to authenticate the incoming fleet. Which they of course will fail to do.

And besides, once they do arrive, they are going to be visible and determined not to be what they said they'd be.

In such a scenario, I can't see how missiles would come into play. How long would it take for missiles to arrive at their standoff range; even if I crush the huge pill and swallow it so that I can suspend belief that the standoff range of energy weapons are not affected by the intense gravity.

See above: less than 15 seconds. Even if you add 30 seconds of puzzlement due to the startle factor, the missiles would be in range in 45 seconds, which half the time the LDs need to exit the emergence lane, much less the hyperlimit.

Especially energy weapons firing from the sides of the junctions which are perpendicular to the cones of gravity. Gravity should be the most powerful and destructive perpendicular to the cone of gravity.

What cone?

Wedges and sails are described to be planes.

In any case, so long as it's not a chaotic process, you just have to compensate for it and know how light will bend. We know it's possible to fire into an emergence lane and this is not up for discussion.

And entering a WH perpendicular to the lanes should be the most destructive. Same goes for standoff range. Anyway, I will take the pill. But I won't swallow it.

We don't know what happens if you don't enter in the correct bearing. All we know is that you need the correct bearing to transit. It could be that simply nothing happens if you try to transit with the wrong vector. It could also be that something bad only happens if you use the hypergenerator and that won't apply to energy beams.

Are we sure that an LD needs sails simply to be in the transit lane or emergence lane? An LD might not need sails after it exits the WH and is in the emergence lane. That might simply be a shortcoming of wedges. A spider drive might function in the emergence lane just fine, where sails are only needed for the actual transit. If correct, an LD can immediately bring up its spider drive and initiate evasive maneuvers.

I don't see how that changes anything. Maybe it can transit without being towed and doesn't need the sails once it's transited, so it can instantaneously shift to spider-drive for acceleration. There are still recon drones all around the emergence lane at less than 50,000 km looking into it and there will be debris flying all around. It can't escape without some kind of damage or being observed.

It would make far more sense to use some of your earlier suggestions to tag along an unsuspecting and very myopic freighter and transit with it, if the conditions above are true. Then one LD at a time could arrive at the target destination and hope to remain undetected because no one is expecting to detect anything. Those drones are still there within stealth-penetrating range, but maybe the alert status is low and no one is processing the data. The LD will cause the wormhole to lock down for 5-8 extra minutes, so the other side will wonder why it can't send the next ship. Once or twice that will be ignored and filed for later study; if it starts happening too often, then someone will investigate, meaning that there's an upper limit on how many ships can transit.

And again... why would you do this? If you can insert into a wormhole departure lane without being observed, why would you need to transit? You may as well insert into the other side's terminus. The only way this makes sense is if you don't know where the other terminus is, so you're trying to scout.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:If only for my own convenience, the thread I brought forth is where I obtained the info about the range of the forts from the WH. At ~ 500,000 km range, I just can't swallow the pill prescribed for suspending disbelief that at that range a fort's energy weapons are not affected by ships within very dense gravitic fields. "Shut up and take the pill," Thinksmarkedly? I will take it, but I will spit it out when you're not looking.

The forts don't need to fire themselves any more. They can simply launch missiles from pods pre-placed 150,000 km from the emergence lanes. Those missiles cover 100,000 km in 14.8 seconds at full sprint mode in 96,000 gravities. Heck, strap a warhead to a CM and they'll be there in 12.5 seconds at 130,000 gravities... though I'd argue that the 2.3 extra seconds may be worth the much more powerful warhead that the Mk23 carries.

I won't even bother to question your math on how quickly missiles can reach their range once launched. I do question the reaction time of brains attached to the powers that be who are responsible for making the decision to launch, in the face of surprise and confusion. I'd think it would take at least a minute. (And the answer will be no!) After all, firing missiles will result in innocents being destroyed as well. Remember, this is a surprise to the MBS side. They will still have ships in the departure lane waiting to transit. Careful careful careful who you shoot at. Anyway, I'm much less optimistic about how long the process will take to receive the necessary authorization to engage. Especially when ships are blaring the correct codes!!! Which literally are begging, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"

Thinksmarkedly wrote:So even if the gravitic effects distort the energy fire - and we know that even if they do, it's not enough because a LAC can fire into an emergence lane - it's irrelevant. Moreover, if it does distort, it's worse for the LD because then the missiles will be bracketing the targets instead of trying for accuracy, which means they will hit the LD far more easily.

Distort my eye! They should be deflected. But ok ok! I'll fake swallowing the pill. (I feel like a woman.)

But there will certainly be no bracketing. Friendlies are all around the WH. Friendlies, civilian ships, are in the transit lane waiting to transit. If you personally are the one who has to authorize engaging, knowing there will be collateral deaths, could you make that call? You may have just sentenced someone in the Royal family to their death.

penny wrote:Also, I envisioned this tactic being carried out on a completely unsuspecting MBS, say from Trevor's Star. Please don't inundate me with requests for particulars on how that would be successful. Ask the MAN with access to nanites and a totally benign use of compulsion intended to AUTHORIZE instead of KILL.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:Authorising is irrelevant here. The agent (voluntary or not) needs to also stop all other traffic going from Trevor's Star to Manticore so the formation sets up the mass transit. And that is something that takes an hour for a formation that has practised it and has access to the details about the wormhole. There's no way that the defenders on the Manticore side are going to let one hour go by without traffic from Trevor's Star without sending a ship o ask "is everything ok?" Once that ship fails to promptly return, they go into alert status.

I have said it a thousand times. When the MAN attacks for real, they will unleash the full power of everything at their disposal, including rampant use of nanites. There won't be just one person affected this time. And they still might have people inserted in important places, like Junction Control. IOW, I won't worry about those particulars. It is simply unimportant how they pull it off. What is important is that they've pulled it off. Is that pill hard to swallow? Word of advice, place it under your tongue.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:It would have made more sense if you had said the Matapan terminus, which is the one that probably sees the least amount of traffic. But even then I expect it is more than one per hour. Moreover, each ship that transits carries the information about how far behind the next ship is, so if there's an unplanned stoppage, the Manicore side will want to know why.

Ok, let's use Matapan. The MAN will appreciate the info. But you're asking why and what happened in the middle of a mess. Any reason could be given that has probably happened enough before. Say a ship exploded because some system does not maintain their ships like they should and debris needs to be cleared.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:Besides all that, I really doubt everyone on the ops centre on the terminus control station and in each and every picket ship could be made to not send an alert. One agent is a coup, two agents is unlikely. The full command crew is negligible. I don't see a way that you can fool the defenders on the departing terminus into believing this is a friendly formation but not send a warning through the junction that they are about to transit.

No, I don't see any way this can be achieved in the MWHJ or Erewhon wormholes.

You can't see how? That's okay! You're not an Alpha. And you don't have access to unbridled unleashed nanite warfare. A coup? LOL This is an all out attack!

penny wrote:But a surprise mass transit should solve some of the problems. Especially a mass transit blaring the proper transit codes.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:See above, the transit is preceded by a ship saying it's coming. Someone on the receiving side will try to authenticate the incoming fleet. Which they of course will fail to do.

Back at you, see above. 'Nited friends in high places. Friends of distinction have become friends of compulsion.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:And besides, once they do arrive, they are going to be visible and determined not to be what they said they'd be.

What did they say they'd be? Trojan horses?

penny wrote:In such a scenario, I can't see how missiles would come into play. How long would it take for missiles to arrive at their standoff range; even if I crush the huge pill and swallow it so that I can suspend belief that the standoff range of energy weapons are not affected by the intense gravity.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:See above: less than 15 seconds. Even if you add 30 seconds of puzzlement due to the startle factor, the missiles would be in range in 45 seconds, which half the time the LDs need to exit the emergence lane, much less the hyperlimit.

I ain't buying it. There are friendlies waiting to transit. The Queen? The Prime Minister? ...

penny wrote:Especially energy weapons firing from the sides of the junctions which are perpendicular to the cones of gravity. Gravity should be the most powerful and destructive perpendicular to the cone of gravity.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:What cone?

See the thread I brought forth. Wormhole Assault: MA Style. No need to reinvent wheels. When ships are in the lanes, they trigger a reaction from the WH. That cone of gravity extends outward. This is when I find it difficult to believe that energy weapons are not affected. If there are no ships in the lanes, as there would have been before the WH was discovered, then light and energy weapons would have simply passed through. So, also no occlusion.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:In any case, so long as it's not a chaotic process, you just have to compensate for it and know how light will bend. We know it's possible to fire into an emergence lane and this is not up for discussion.

Let me check. Yep, the huge jagged pill is still under my tongue where it will remain.

penny wrote:And entering a WH perpendicular to the lanes should be the most destructive. Same goes for standoff range. Anyway, I will take the pill. But I won't swallow it.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:We don't know what happens if you don't enter in the correct bearing. All we know is that you need the correct bearing to transit. It could be that simply nothing happens if you try to transit with the wrong vector. It could also be that something bad only happens if you use the hypergenerator and that won't apply to energy beams.

We solved that in the thread I brought through the WH. We do know what happens. Any ship without sails and are on the incorrect bearing while the WH is activated (ships waiting in lanes) will be destroyed.

penny wrote:Are we sure that an LD needs sails simply to be in the transit lane or emergence lane? An LD might not need sails after it exits the WH and is in the emergence lane. That might simply be a shortcoming of wedges. A spider drive might function in the emergence lane just fine, where sails are only needed for the actual transit. If correct, an LD can immediately bring up its spider drive and initiate evasive maneuvers.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:I don't see how that changes anything. Maybe it can transit without being towed and doesn't need the sails once it's transited, so it can instantaneously shift to spider-drive for acceleration. There are still recon drones all around the emergence lane at less than 50,000 km looking into it and there will be debris flying all around. It can't escape without some kind of damage or being observed.

Too many assumptions about the capabilities of an LD and its stealth.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:It would make far more sense to use some of your earlier suggestions to tag along an unsuspecting and very myopic freighter and transit with it, if the conditions above are true. Then one LD at a time could arrive at the target destination and hope to remain undetected because no one is expecting to detect anything. Those drones are still there within stealth-penetrating range, but maybe the alert status is low and no one is processing the data. The LD will cause the wormhole to lock down for 5-8 extra minutes, so the other side will wonder why it can't send the next ship. Once or twice that will be ignored and filed for later study; if it starts happening too often, then someone will investigate, meaning that there's an upper limit on how many ships can transit.

And again... why would you do this? If you can insert into a wormhole departure lane without being observed, why would you need to transit? You may as well insert into the other side's terminus. The only way this makes sense is if you don't know where the other terminus is, so you're trying to scout.

That tactic may be in simultaneous use as well. Everything along with the kitchen sink is being thrown at the MBS.

Why? ... Why? ... Why?

Some navies receive a Case Zulu.

This navy has been awaiting a Case Woooo Hoooo!!! For a very long time.


Case Woo Hoo: Descend on the MBS. Attack!

penny wrote:

Thinksmarkedly wrote:What cone?

See the thread I brought forth. Wormhole Assault: MA Style. No need to reinvent wheels. When ships are in the lanes, they trigger a reaction from the WH. That cone of gravity extends outward. This is when I find it difficult to believe that energy weapons are not affected. If there are no ships in the lanes, as there would have been before the WH was discovered, then light and energy weapons would have simply passed through. So, also no occlusion.

I don't recall, and can't find anything saying, that activating the wormhole causes a surge of cone of gravity.

To the contrary it is described as

On Basilisk Station wrote:the Junction was simply a focused funnel of hyper-space, like the eye of a hurricane frozen forever in normal-space terms.

More Than Honor wrote:The mechanism of the junction is still imperfectly understood, but for all intents and purposes a junction is a "gravity fault," or a gravitic distortion so powerful as to fold hyper-space and breach the interface between it and normal-space. The result is a direct point-to-point congruence between points in normal-space which are seldom separated by less than 100 light-years and may be separated by several thousand. A hyper drive is required to utilize them, and ships cannot maintain stability or course control through a wormhole junction without Warshawski Sails.

These are Star Trek or Stargate wormholes that whoosh out when activated - they have "frozen" permanent areas of turbulent gravity, though which the approach and emergence lanes pass and the only sign of a transit is the disappearance or appearance of a ship (and possibly, though not described, some energy bleed from the sails on arrival)

So no, there's no cone of gravity shooting out to deflect energy weapons and (as far as has been described) no change to the lanes when a ship enters them.

penny wrote:I won't even bother to question your math on how quickly missiles can reach their range once launched. I do question the reaction time of brains attached to the powers that be who are responsible for making the decision to launch, in the face of surprise and confusion. I'd think it would take at least a minute. (And the answer will be no!) After all, firing missiles will result in innocents being destroyed as well. Remember, this is a surprise to the MBS side. They will still have ships in the departure lane waiting to transit. Careful careful careful who you shoot at. Anyway, I'm much less optimistic about how long the process will take to receive the necessary authorization to engage. Especially when ships are blaring the correct codes!!! Which literally are begging, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"

The 14.8 seconds are after the launch order, of course. You have a point that the launch order may be delayed while the defenders try to understand just what happened. While the Trevor's Star terminus was held by the Peeps, launching orders were probably on a hair-trigger. It's easy to abort the missiles if you do get a confirmation of who's showed up in the emergence lane, for one thing. Now that all the termini are held by the RMN and allied forces, the hair-trigger order is probably not in force.

However, even with a delayed launch order, the time for an LD to leave the emergence lane is still pretty high (see above) and ditto for the hyperlimit of the Junction. The entire Junction is a mere 1-light-second wide, which means there are A LOT of observers within stealth-breaking range of the LDs. That means those LDs will be shot at. And if they have no wedges, they'll take significant damage.

But there will certainly be no bracketing. Friendlies are all around the WH. Friendlies, civilian ships, are in the transit lane waiting to transit. If you personally are the one who has to authorize engaging, knowing there will be collateral deaths, could you make that call? You may have just sentenced someone in the Royal family to their death.

The question is whether there's an angle the missiles can fire into the emergence lane and not hit other traffic. We don't know the geometry, so we can't say one way or another. If it is possible, then the missiles will be placed at a position that their attack vector will not jeopardise innocents.

If that is not possible, then they may still be fired and risk some friendly-fire casualties than letting a hostile take over the Junction.

I have said it a thousand times. When the MAN attacks for real, they will unleash the full power of everything at their disposal, including rampant use of nanites. There won't be just one person affected this time. And they still might have people inserted in important places, like Junction Control. IOW, I won't worry about those particulars. It is simply unimportant how they pull it off. What is important is that they've pulled it off. Is that pill hard to swallow? Word of advice, place it under your tongue.

You've said a thousand times but offered no means by which this can be accomplished. It's an idea, not a plan. I can also have ideas about quantum-entangled ansibles used for communication, but that doesn't make it possible.

The problem here is knowing just who's going to be at this particular terminus at any given time. The level of infiltration you're talking about is measured in tens of percent of the RMN and traffic control. If the MAlign has managed to infiltrate a million Manticorans like this and not get detected, I think it's game over.

I say this because the RMN detachments rotate and the MAlign cannot control with precision the deployment of ships and personnel inside those ships. There are also too many other factors outside of their control, like which ships might be transiting when they make their presence known, both in and out of this terminus. This attack would need to find a moment in which a gap in the expected transit will not raise questions on the other side, then achieve total surprise and make sure nothing transits with an alert. Then position itself for a mass transit. I just don't see how this is possible.

Ok, let's use Matapan. The MAN will appreciate the info. But you're asking why and what happened in the middle of a mess. Any reason could be given that has probably happened enough before. Say a ship exploded because some system does not maintain their ships like they should and debris needs to be cleared.

So you're saying that they do send a ship through with some misleading information? That makes sense. They'd also need a high-ranking official in the Matapan Astro Control that is a full agent, not just a nanite-infested patsy, to take over the control room, compose the message, and use the proper encryption & authentication routines.

Back at you, see above. 'Nited friends in high places. Friends of distinction have become friends of compulsion.

Again, you're talking about the MAlign having infiltrated the RMN Admiralty, under the eyes of the treecats, and not with compulsion because you're requiring highly technical, non-repetitive muscle-memory tasks. Remember that the nanites can (as far as we've seen) only do something that the MAlign can themselves do with their own people. Impersonating an RMN admiral to send authenticated orders that a fleet is transiting is not something that the MAlign can do, so you need a full agent. And the problem with this idea is that the means required to achieve it also permit you to do far more damage in other ways, instead of trying this mass transit that is just going to get a lot of LDs destroyed, for little to no gain.

And besides, "authenticating" here involves the other side knowing which fleet this is and that they're going to perform a necessary mass transit. The Junction knows where all RMN detachments are, so if suddenly Tenth Fleet says it's coming from Matapan when the Junction control knows it was 10 days away from Lynx at the last communiqué, it will smell a rat. Even if the Junction doesn't know, the Admiralty House on Landing is only 19 minutes round-trip communication.

What did they say they'd be? Trojan horses?

Presumably, an RMN fleet, which is composed of RMN ships. No one else would be allowed a mass transit through the Junction.

I ain't buying it. There are friendlies waiting to transit. The Queen? The Prime Minister? ...

See above: better friendly-fire than losing the Junction. And besides, what are the LDs doing for those 90 seconds anyway? Not shooting up the defences? If those LDs or the decoy ships are firing, then everyone is in danger already. Sending missiles to stop the threat is better than just allowing the threat to run unchecked.

See the thread I brought forth. Wormhole Assault: MA Style. No need to reinvent wheels. When ships are in the lanes, they trigger a reaction from the WH. That cone of gravity extends outward. This is when I find it difficult to believe that energy weapons are not affected. If there are no ships in the lanes, as there would have been before the WH was discovered, then light and energy weapons would have simply passed through. So, also no occlusion.

That's an argument not based on textev. And against textev that says that firing into emergence lanes is possible and highly accurate, because the LAC in Ajay-Prime started just crippling the SLN BCs instead of destroying them outright.

There's no hint in the text that there is any occlusion. Even if there is, there are angles where it doesn't apply, because, again, a LAC can fire into the emergence lane.

We solved that in the thread I brought through the WH. We do know what happens. Any ship without sails and are on the incorrect bearing while the WH is activated (ships waiting in lanes) will be destroyed.

A ship without sails yes. Vector, I don't recall a discussion of.

That tactic may be in simultaneous use as well. Everything along with the kitchen sink is being thrown at the MBS.

Simultaneous implies that there is some communication mechanism coordinating. That means the MAlign is sending legitimate freighters or couriers through the Junction so they can message the other side's forces to begin operation. One does not plan a "simultaneous" operation from 3 months apart travel-time and it needing to be exact to the minute. Something will go wrong.

Jonathan_S wrote: I don't recall, and can't find anything saying, that activating the wormhole causes a surge of cone of gravity.

To the contrary it is described as

On Basilisk Station wrote:The Junction was simply a focused funnel of hyper-space, like the eye of a hurricane frozen forever in normal-space terms.

In the Wormhole Assault: MA Style thread, Jonathan, you actually refer to it as a cylinder several times. Then you refer to it as a cone, IINM. But the point is moot because you literally posted the textev referring to the focused area of gravity as a cone. Well, as a funnel, rather. And what is the shape of a funnel?


Noun
1.
funnel shape - a conical shape with a wider and a narrower opening at the two ends.


The second part of the textev you included also implies that laserheads will be deflected, not distorted. That text says that the very powerful area of gravity "folds" spacetime. Folding infers deflecting off in another direction. Try folding a sheet of paper without totally changing its direction. Two plus two ain't gettin’ any closer to four.

More Than Honor wrote:The mechanism of the junction is still imperfectly understood, but for all intents and purposes a junction is a "gravity fault," or a gravitic distortion so powerful as to fold hyper-space and breach the interface between it and normal-space. The result is a direct point-to-point congruence between points in normal-space which are seldom separated by less than 100 light-years and may be separated by several thousand. A hyper drive is required to utilize them, and ships cannot maintain stability or course control through a wormhole junction without Warshawski Sails.

And then the passage literally goes on to say that ships cannot maintain stability or course control without a Warshawski. Unless you all think that laserheads are immune to the equation; even though laserheads have no Warshawski Sails. But of course, if laserheads can enter the WH, then it'd be possible to fire on ships on the other side!

Now, I can swallow the pill if it says that energy weapons that simply come near the cone of gravity will be distorted. Like parallaxed light rays that get too close to the Sun. But firing into a brick wall with no Warshawskis???

Memo to Thinksmarkedly: I recall textev indicating that one of the most important jobs of survey ships like Harvest Joy is to determine the correct bearing to enter the junction. That was Harvest Joy’s main function.

They've got to enter that wall, cone of gravity, just right. Unless you also think that each successive attempt of the sixty probes that were sent into the WH were on the same bearing. Now, that would surely be the definition of insanity. Attempting the same thing sixty times and expecting different results. Each of those sixty attempts destroyed the probe.

You can argue that we don't know what happened to the sixty probes that were lost. But that's gonna be a very short straw.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The question is whether there's an angle the missiles can fire into the emergence lane and not hit other traffic. We don't know the geometry, so we can't say one way or another. If it is possible, then the missiles will be placed at a position that their attack vector will not jeopardise innocents.

I tend to think their must be. The holding area for ships waiting to transit, the warehouses, etc. would all be further from the junction than the end of the grav lanes.

And there are only 7 pairs of lanes - and the missiles (and forts, energy buoys, and mines) would all (I assume) be firing roughly perpendicularly across each of those 7 lanes. So even if those pairs of lanes stick out in all directions along the sphere of the Junction area it should still be pretty easy to find spots that aren't backstopping the firing in which to position all those vulnerable items. (Plus if they're more than a million km from a lane then they're out of effective energy range anyway, and if over (probably) 120,000 km safe from laserheads detonations)

So the only thing that might be close enough and positioned enough to be a worry would be
a) defensive mines, energy buoys, and maybe forts. Easy enough to make sure the forts aren't in each other's firing lines -- and if killing a hostile transit causes some collateral damage to other unmanned defenses, oh well.
b) other ships in one of the lanes - and those are small enough that it should also be easy to change angles minutely to ensure they aren't in the line of any of your fire, changing firing angle by a couple degrees (either by very slightly angling the missile path, or very slightly altering the firing time of a fort, energy buoy, or mine) would ensure they're playing backstop to your fire.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:We solved that in the thread I brought through the WH. We do know what happens. Any ship without sails and are on the incorrect bearing while the WH is activated (ships waiting in lanes) will be destroyed.

A ship without sails yes. Vector, I don't recall a discussion of.

Also there's not "while the WH is activated".
As I mentioned in an earlier post this isn't a Star Trek or Stargate wormhole that whooshes open and anything caught in the "whoosh" is destroyed.
The grav effects are always there. A ship (or anything) wandering into them without a sail is destroyed - always; not just when someone is transiting the wormhole. (And a probe with, I assume, sails but explicitly lacking a hypergenerator seems to be destroyed when it hits the "transition point" where a ship would activate their generator to make transit)

The only way a surprise transit destroys another ship is if the two (or more likely their sails) collide. And so that would have to be another ship in that same lane (or at least the same terminus's arrival/departure lane pair) But ships awaiting permission to transit are well back in holding areas well outside of the area where you need sails -- so they wouldn't be destroyed just by the act of a surprise mass transit. (And, outside of a mass transit scenarios I think only one ship at a time in under sails approaching, or leaving, a given terminus's jump point. So it's seem a surprise mass transit would be able to collide with and kill at most one ship of regular traffic (though that might cause a multi-ship pileup among the mass transiting ships)

penny wrote:The second part of the textev you included also implies that laserheads will be deflected, not distorted. That text says that the very powerful area of gravity "folds" spacetime. Folding infers deflecting off in another direction. Try folding a sheet of paper without totally changing its direction. Two plus two ain't gettin’ any closer to four.

I read that as the fold of space-time being at the "transition point" where you activate the hyper generator to instantaneously transition from one terminus to another -- and not the emergence lane extending out from that point

penny wrote:And then the passage literally goes on to say that ships cannot maintain stability or course control without a Warshawski. Unless you all think that laserheads are immune to the equation; even though laserheads have no Warshawski Sails. But of course, if laserheads can enter the WH, then it'd be possible to fire on ships on the other side!

The laserhead missile body cannot maintain stability (or even survive) if it entered the emergence lane; where ships need a sail to maintain stability or course control. Fortunately it doesn't need to because those lanes are narrow and its laser can reach out 50,000 km to significantly damage even a sidewall protected target (much less a ship in the emergence lane which must necessarily lack sidewalls; as it is under sail rather than wedge)
The laser doesn't need a sail to penetrate the gravity - and while that gravity would tug on the photons of the laser and cause it to deflect we know from the fact that people who aren't idiots have designed wormhole defenses around using laserheads against hostile transits, and LACs have made precision shots at ships under sail emerging from a wormhole, that whatever deflection the emergence lane's gravity causes it must either be too minor to mater (possible sheer forces that cancel out; which would destroy a ship but on average not change the direction of a laser; or possible to pre-compute their effect and aim accordingly)

Felix.

The map provided earlier by Runsforcellery showed the Felix Junction with Four wormholes. One goes to (somewhere near) Darius. The second is labeled Twins which we are told is leading to a star system with TWO (2) separate wormholes - not a junction- at differnt positions relative to the star. The second wormhole is what goes to Torch. The Third and Fourth wormholes are labeled "Unknown" and have not been discussed in the books....they are just there.

Darius- baring new information- is a terminus of the Felix Junction. That brings up a couple of points.
1) the Mannerheim squadron that butchered the Harvest Joy as it came though to the Twins from Torch had to go From Felix to the Twins. Ok Nothing mentioned about the Twins end of the Torch-Twins wormhole being a junction. So no other way out except to near Torch.

2) Clearly the Alignment has the capability to explore the Felix Junction and find the exit by Torch via the Twins.

3) Why are the other two "unknown". It is possible that while the surveys of the Felix Junction could haves given evidence of two additional termini but the Alignment hasn't pursued that --yet. Hard to believe but there it is.

4) Darius is at one end of a 130ly long wormhole transit. Although no mention has been made of a defensive force at the Darius end (and where did they get the ships- forts and what are they armed with) we have NOT been told of any force or control point at the Felix end of the wormhole.

So far, we has had a lot of traffic (like sending the Silver Bulletts by transport to meet the ship that took them to Beowulf) and then there are all the Houdini people by various routs and NO MENTION of any ships going from Darius anywhere other than by the Felix Junction. Why?

Other than the 140 ish LY from Darius to Mannheim (nearest place we know of with another wormhole, it appears that all of the communications, shipments and other movement from Darius goes via Felix. Seems like the shortest route to get to a lot of places and that is critical in the Alignment getting information and moving materials and people. Then there is not wanting anybody to have any coordinates let alone knowledge of Darius.
So if somebody blockades the Felix wormhole, the Alignment is stuck out on a long end of a trip anywhere. What's wrong with this picture given the Alignment is also using Streak Drive ships to improve the communications loops with its agents and minions?

Nobody has notices all the traffic to or from the direction of Felix? Think about the logic used to ultimately search for Galton by compiling traffic logs/records and looking at what are inconsistencies in turnaround times or time it takes ships to get from any various points to other points. Sure, the wormhole at Felix cuts 130 lys worth of travel off both legs to Darius from anywhere but that does mean that all the ships involved have to travel to Felix.

This will get interesting

Brigade XO wrote:Darius- baring new information- is a terminus of the Felix Junction. That brings up a couple of points.
1) the Mannerheim squadron that butchered the Harvest Joy as it came though to the Twins from Torch had to go From Felix to the Twins. Ok Nothing mentioned about the Twins end of the Torch-Twins wormhole being a junction. So no other way out except to near Torch.

2) Clearly the Alignment has the capability to explore the Felix Junction and find the exit by Torch via the Twins.

3) Why are the other two "unknown". It is possible that while the surveys of the Felix Junction could haves given evidence of two additional termini but the Alignment hasn't pursued that --yet. Hard to believe but there it is.

4) Darius is at one end of a 130ly long wormhole transit. Although no mention has been made of a defensive force at the Darius end (and where did they get the ships- forts and what are they armed with) we have NOT been told of any force or control point at the Felix end of the wormhole.

So far, we has had a lot of traffic (like sending the Silver Bulletts by transport to meet the ship that took them to Beowulf) and then there are all the Houdini people by various routs and NO MENTION of any ships going from Darius anywhere other than by the Felix Junction. Why?

Other than the 140 ish LY from Darius to Mannheim (nearest place we know of with another wormhole, it appears that all of the communications, shipments and other movement from Darius goes via Felix. Seems like the shortest route to get to a lot of places and that is critical in the Alignment getting information and moving materials and people. Then there is not wanting anybody to have any coordinates let alone knowledge of Darius.
So if somebody blockades the Felix wormhole, the Alignment is stuck out on a long end of a trip anywhere. What's wrong with this picture given the Alignment is also using Streak Drive ships to improve the communications loops with its agents and minions?

Nobody has notices all the traffic to or from the direction of Felix? Think about the logic used to ultimately search for Galton by compiling traffic logs/records and looking at what are inconsistencies in turnaround times or time it takes ships to get from any various points to other points. Sure, the wormhole at Felix cuts 130 lys worth of travel off both legs to Darius from anywhere but that does mean that all the ships involved have to travel to Felix.

This will get interesting

I guess we don't know if the two "unknown" termini's location is unknown to the MAlign or if it's just unknown to us. Heck, it might even be unknown to RFC, as he may not have yet decided on destinations; reserving that in case there's some future plot idea that would require them to go to a specific area. But whether or not he's decided (subject to revision) where they go he could have already decided that the MAlign has explored them and is aware of their destinations.

And clearly the leg from Felix to the twins was explored; that's the only way they'd know it forms that link. But while it's extremely likely the Mannerheim squadron at the Twins arrived via Felix it's not actually guaranteed. They could have gone the long way through hyper.


Also, if Darius is just 140 LY from Mannerheim that's not a bad trip through hyper. In the Theta bands that's only a 20 day trip (plus a day or so for acceleration and in-system maneuvering); and a Streak drive equipped ship can drop that to just under 12 days using the Kappa bands.