shower thought: Could the fall of galton exposed bolthole?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Sorry, ambiguous language here. I was referring to the population of the planet called Darius Gamma, which I assume from the name is the third rock from the sun. We've also heard about the "shipyards at Darius Prime", but whether that's the first planet or the star itself is unclear. Star Trek uses "Prime" for the first planet.

Chapter 38 wrote:Albrecht Detweiler reflected on exactly what that implied as he stood to one side on what would have been the flag deck aboard an actual warship and watched the enormous space station, gleaming in the reflected light of the F6 star called Darius, growing larger on the visual display as MANS Genesis approached it. The station—known officially as Darius Prime—orbited the planet Gamma, Darius' only habitable world, and at the moment, it was over Gamma's night side, just approaching the terminator. The planetary surface below it sparkled with lines and beads of light, and there were four other stations to keep it company, although none of them were remotely the same size as Manticore's Hephaestus or Vulcan.

Or the size they had been, at any rate.

His eyes moved to the ships taking form in the shipyards Darius Prime supported. Eventually, those ships would become the first units of the Leonard Detweiler class, he knew, although it wouldn't happen anywhere near as soon as he wished.

tlb wrote:Calling the planet Gamma shows a lack of imagination. There are many better names from the rule of Darius the Great, for instance Macedonia comes to mind.

PS: Star Trek calling the first planet "Prime" is sort of silly, because that would make Mercury the prime planet (in name only). Doing that for the first planet in the Goldilocks Zone would make more sense.

tlb wrote:Star Trek calling the first planet "Prime" is sort of silly, because that would make Mercury the prime planet (in name only). Doing that for the first planet in the Goldilocks Zone would make more sense.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:It's to avoid saying "one". Mercury is Sol Prime, but Venus is Sol II and Earth is Sol III.

tlb wrote:Then why not use the ordinals: primus, secundus, tertius, quartus, quintus, sextus, septimus, octavus, nonus, decimus and so on? Prime more closely means of first importance these days (for example Darius Prime), which the first planet (Mercury) clearly is not.

tlb wrote:Then why not use the ordinals: primus, secundus, tertius, quartus, quintus, sextus, septimus, octavus, nonus, decimus and so on? Prime more closely means of first importance these days (for example Darius Prime), which the first planet (Mercury) clearly is not.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:So you want Star Trek script writers to be consistent and come up with that detailed nomenclature? And actors to pronounce it? Even the books which have an editor ensuring consistency aren't that consistent.

Why are habitable planets called "Class M" instead of "Class A?" Or "Class One?"

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:Then why not use the ordinals: primus, secundus, tertius, quartus, quintus, sextus, septimus, octavus, nonus, decimus and so on? Prime more closely means of first importance these days (for example Darius Prime), which the first planet (Mercury) clearly is not.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:So you want Star Trek script writers to be consistent and come up with that detailed nomenclature? And actors to pronounce it? Even the books which have an editor ensuring consistency aren't that consistent.

Why are habitable planets called "Class M" instead of "Class A?" Or "Class One?"

Well I do not particularly care about the Star Trek writers, I stopped watching decades ago. I just do not like a naming system that makes an insignificant planet seem like the most important, just say first, second, third etc... to indicate position, if you do not like Latin. Anyway actors that play doctors have to pronounce things that are much more complicated.

I have no idea what habitable planets are called, nor why the nomenclature was chosen.

Jonathan_S wrote:The discrepancy in the number of Haven's ships showed up a whilte ago (about 3 years back in the story) just before Thunderbolt kicked off the 2nd war.

And even then it only looks like a discrepancy if you were carefully monitoring what all their known yards were working on during the Ceasefire.

So anybody who was clued into to the likelihood of a secret yard complex would already have been looking before Galton. But even if the Grand Alliance declassifies how they found Galton (or that secret leaks) the techniques they used seem unlikely to be useful in finding Bolthole.

After all, a key clue was tracking freighters heading out from neutral territory. But Bolthole would have been set up by Peep state freighters going directly Peep territory to the wormhole and through to Calvin's Hope. You wouldn't have those 3rd party records to find because they'd have no reason to pass through 3rd party neutral territory -- and the Peeps of the time would have reasons to scrub, sanitize, or falsify what shipping records there were.

So, no, I don't think the Grand Alliance finding Galton is likely to cause Bolthole to be found any sooner.

penny wrote:But there is a possibility that the MAN used the knowledge of an incoming invasion to acquire the location. Some time ago I suggested some sort of a tracking device of malign design being stealthily attached to the hull of select GA ships in inconspicuous places.

penny wrote:But there is a possibility that the MAN used the knowledge of an incoming invasion to acquire the location. Some time ago I suggested some sort of a tracking device of malign design being stealthily attached to the hull of select GA ships in inconspicuous places.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:That's what we've been discussing. There doesn't seem to be much traffic of ships going to Bolthole: ships come from it, not to it. It's not being used as a repair yard - the other, overt yards in Haven space and in the GA can take up that job. The only ships going to it are transports, which the MAlign spies would have a harder time getting to.

That's also a good reason not to have the Bolthole ferry crews go to a standard RHN station, but instead only as far as J-156-18(L). Attaching to the hull of a ship there would be quite obvious, because EVA exercises to the returning ships are likely never going to happen in that system.

tlb wrote:Honor managed to get a bomb attached to a repair ship at Sidemore in the Marsh System without needing anyone to perform a space walk.