The enemy in "extended space": SLN or MAlign

SharkHunter wrote:

SWM wrote:No one suggested that the MA would have built forts at the Twins. I was the poster you are talking about, and what I said was that it was almost certain that the Alignment had by now installed more permanent defenses on their side of the wormhole than the cobbled-together pair of battlecruisers. More permanent defenses does not have to mean forts--it is more likely to mean mines and missile pods, and perhaps a few permanently stationed ships which won't be missed after a while, unlike the MSDF ships that took out the Harvest Joy.

I haven't found it again, but IIRC has RFC posted here on the forums that what he hasn't said yet is that neither side of the Torch wormhole is "doing nothing" in terms of military preparations. Whatever plans each side might have had would presumably be growing more difficult "offstage" and we'll know more about that when the action resumes.

In addition, in CoG Erewhon has asked the team of Justice and Radamacher to effectively initial an even stronger "last ditch intervention" agreement with Haven, and Justice's domain includes Torch, at least until Cachat gets back. Seems like the usefulness of the planned invasion route from the MAlign into the Haven Quadrant is getting mighty slim.

The Torch wormhole becomes even more of an unlikely back door invasion point to Haven if someone realizes that they need to park a dozen or so BC's on that wormhole and nail anything that comes through it. But realizing that would have to entail some bit of gained knowledge that there is something to fear on the other side of it.

In which one of a thousand possible ways will this knowledge fall into Torch's hands?

--snipping--

StealthSeeker wrote:[

SharkHunter wrote:... Seems like the usefulness of the planned invasion route from the MAlign into the Haven Quadrant is getting mighty slim.

The Torch wormhole becomes even more of an unlikely back door invasion point to Haven if someone realizes that they need to park a dozen or so BC's on that wormhole and nail anything that comes through it. But realizing that would have to entail some bit of gained knowledge that there is something to fear on the other side of it.

In which one of a thousand possible ways will this knowledge fall into Torch's hands?

I wonder if super wormhole defenses even matter, given that RFC says that it's more important to defend the terminus from hyperspace attack, not transit-based attacks. Otherwise, let's say that the Erewhon/Maya alliance or GA decides that it's a good idea to permanently park or loan a few freighters worth of pods to the RTN, along with enough missile control platforms (ships) to protect the planet.

The bad guys start punching ships through whatever wormhole defenses are there and... what? Courier ships hyper out in all directions, the planet stays safe, and... if it was ONE massed transit, no more ships get through and system defense pods begin systematically blowing the opposition away if they head in system (which they practically have to, I think).

If it's a only a few ships at a time, it's even easier, because that gives a few cruisers time to get on station with that same level of missile support. The question is whether the MAlign/Darius realizes that and has an effective plan and enough ships to do both, attacking from hyperspace prior to attempting to use the Torch wormhole.

SharkHunter wrote:I wonder if super wormhole defenses even matter, given that RFC says that it's more important to defend the terminus from hyperspace attack, not transit-based attacks. Otherwise, let's say that the Erewhon/Maya alliance or GA decides that it's a good idea to permanently park or loan a few freighters worth of pods to the RTN, along with enough missile control platforms (ships) to protect the planet.

My own interpretation of things, going from what others have been saying, is that it is important to defend a wormhole from both a hyperspace attack and a transit attack. It seems that RFC is adamant that an attack of a defended wormhole through a transit attack is suicide as the attacking ship is to vulnerable as it exits the wormhole. If a ship does transit the wormhole past that initial vulnerality point, it becomes much harder to kill. So that means that the initial attack on a defended wormhole has to come from hyperspace. But if I didn't have the wormhole defended, then an attack on a system/planet could indeed begin with a wormhole transit. So the ships that I put on my wormhole have to be able to defend against both a hyper attack and a transit attack.

SharkHunter wrote:The bad guys start punching ships through whatever wormhole defenses are there and... what? Courier ships hyper out in all directions, the planet stays safe, and... if it was ONE massed transit, no more ships get through and system defense pods begin systematically blowing the opposition away if they head in system (which they practically have to, I think).

If it's a only a few ships at a time, it's even easier, because that gives a few cruisers time to get on station with that same level of missile support. The question is whether the MAlign/Darius realizes that and has an effective plan and enough ships to do both, attacking from hyperspace prior to attempting to use the Torch wormhole.

This kind of an attack through a defended wormhole is the kind that RFC states will never happen. But then again, Torch's wormhole, as far as I know, is not being defended. But the Mesan Alignment wants to keep the fact that the wormhole leads somewhere a secret so I doubt that they would attack through it. However, they could attack through hyperspace and once they had taken out anyone who could observe the transits through the wormhole, they could then safely transit a monsterous fleet of ships all in secret. The MA either wanted control of the system, as they had when Mesa owned it or they wanted the system uninhabited, as it would have been if the "eradication" attack, that Maya forces prevented, had succeeded.

The whole Torch situation is a real dilemma for the MA as how can they justify continued attacks on that system/planet with out tipping someone off to the idea that there is something extremely important there. Where as, with continued attacks, I think all eyes would gradually but surely turn toward that wormhole with a great deal of suspicion. So if it wasn't defended, it would shortly become so.

The Manticore Junction is very heavely defended, both by forts and minefields plus we presume by LACs and warships stationed there.
We know at least the Beowulf end of one wormhole, the San Marin end of that wormhole, the Lynx end of the Talbot wormhole and the Basilisk end of that wormhole are all defended. We don't actually have anything on Hennesy's end (but given the problems with SL will be now. The Matapan and Gregor A are both probably protected- just by why and how much strength is the question.

Look at Lacoon II. The Lacoon forces went through by surprise and with nobody on the otherside except the local Astro Control. One can speculate that the forces timed the move between end points of any pair or string was accomplished by going to hyper as soon as possible for at least the 1st wave of any attack force formed after arriving and then exiting hyper as close to the other wormhole in the pair to catch that transit before any word could be passed. We were not shown ANY wormhole in Lacoon II that was defended nor told about anybody even attempting to fight or perhaps even trying to send (if a ship was available) to the second of a pair of wormholes (by two different systems) like Idaho and Nuncio.
If you pop out of an undefended wormhole, it's your prize to hold. Of course, now that Lacoon II has happened, all sorts of people, including the SL, are going to at least TRY and set up defense. Wonderfull what happens when you can arrive at an undefended place.
A whole lot of wormhole owners are going to have to make some hard decisions about what and how much they can place to guard at least their end (if not both) of the wormhole and then continue to build from there.

It is probably going to take come solid information arriving to have anyone, including Torch, put defense on the odd little wormhole. We, the readers, know there is a BC squadron on the other side but nobody outside a very small group of Alignment and their people in the Mannerhime SDF know it goes anywhere. IF-another of those big Ifs- the Alignment decides to use the Torch wormhole to get ships somewhere, that is probably going to change the thinking because someone with Torch is probably going to notice. If I were the Alignment and for some reason needed to spend the secreat of the Torch wormhole to accomplish something very important, I think they would add a piece to the transit and have some ship go from the wormhole directly to the Troch System and lay waste to it. They tried before with the PRN-in exile and got trashed. If it is still a worthwhile target and they have to expose that asset anyway, just smash anything in-system if possible (station, freighters, frigates, any infrastructure, and -this is the Alignment and they were really not happy loseing Verdent Vista- punch a missile into the planet and create an EE event.

Brigade XO wrote:It is probably going to take come solid information arriving to have anyone, including Torch, put defense on the odd little wormhole. We, the readers, know there is a BC squadron on the other side but nobody outside a very small group of Alignment and their people in the Mannerhime SDF know it goes anywhere. IF-another of those big Ifs- the Alignment decides to use the Torch wormhole to get ships somewhere, that is probably going to change the thinking because someone with Torch is probably going to notice. If I were the Alignment and for some reason needed to spend the secreat of the Torch wormhole to accomplish something very important, I think they would add a piece to the transit and have some ship go from the wormhole directly to the Troch System and lay waste to it. They tried before with the PRN-in exile and got trashed. If it is still a worthwhile target and they have to expose that asset anyway, just smash anything in-system if possible (station, freighters, frigates, any infrastructure, and -this is the Alignment and they were really not happy loseing Verdent Vista- punch a missile into the planet and create an EE event.

I agree, information of some kind has to arrive to elevate Torch's suspecion of the wormhole. Maybe the Dr./surveyor who found it will discover something. Maybe a bit of information will be found on Mesa when the GA gets their hands on the paper work from that shipping conglomerate (who's name starts with a "J"). Only then would Torch defend it heavily.

And as I said, if the MA keeps trying to destroy Torch somebody is going to be asking why, what's so important? Almost anything that the MA does to Torch is going to draw attention to that system and it's wormhole. The MA could launch a attack on Torch through the wormhole but there are to many ships there that could get away and tell somebody that ships came thorough it. The MA wanted it as a secret way to get at the back side of Haven. But that would have been after they had suffered tremendous losses in an effort that would have destroyed Manticore. So the wormhole remains something that the MA can still use, but only once, before everybody knows about it and that it leads to where ever the MA ran off to.

StealthSeeker wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:It is probably going to take come solid information arriving to have anyone, including Torch, put defense on the odd little wormhole. We, the readers, know there is a BC squadron on the other side but nobody outside a very small group of Alignment and their people in the Mannerhime SDF know it goes anywhere. IF-another of those big Ifs- the Alignment decides to use the Torch wormhole to get ships somewhere, that is probably going to change the thinking because someone with Torch is probably going to notice. If I were the Alignment and for some reason needed to spend the secreat of the Torch wormhole to accomplish something very important, I think they would add a piece to the transit and have some ship go from the wormhole directly to the Troch System and lay waste to it. They tried before with the PRN-in exile and got trashed. If it is still a worthwhile target and they have to expose that asset anyway, just smash anything in-system if possible (station, freighters, frigates, any infrastructure, and -this is the Alignment and they were really not happy loseing Verdent Vista- punch a missile into the planet and create an EE event.

I agree, information of some kind has to arrive to elevate Torch's suspecion of the wormhole. Maybe the Dr./surveyor who found it will discover something. Maybe a bit of information will be found on Mesa when the GA gets their hands on the paper work from that shipping conglomerate (who's name starts with a "J"). Only then would Torch defend it heavily.

And as I said, if the MA keeps trying to destroy Torch somebody is going to be asking why, what's so important? Almost anything that the MA does to Torch is going to draw attention to that system and it's wormhole. The MA could launch a attack on Torch through the wormhole but there are to many ships there that could get away and tell somebody that ships came thorough it. The MA wanted it as a secret way to get at the back side of Haven. But that would have been after they had suffered tremendous losses in an effort that would have destroyed Manticore. So the wormhole remains something that the MA can still use, but only once, before everybody knows about it and that it leads to where ever the MA ran off to.

Having an back door into the Haven Quadrant is probably an objective, but a secondary one. The real concern would be to safeguard the location of Darius which cod be compromised if someone got loose in the system beyond the Torch wormhole.

Don

StealthSeeker wrote:And as I said, if the MA keeps trying to destroy Torch somebody is going to be asking why, what's so important? Almost anything that the MA does to Torch is going to draw attention to that system and it's wormhole. The MA could launch a attack on Torch through the wormhole but there are to many ships there that could get away and tell somebody that ships came thorough it. The MA wanted it as a secret way to get at the back side of Haven. But that would have been after they had suffered tremendous losses in an effort that would have destroyed Manticore. So the wormhole remains something that the MA can still use, but only once, before everybody knows about it and that it leads to where ever the MA ran off to.

There is the minor point that Torch declared war on Mesa. Actions have consequences. While the grand Torch plan doesn't include getting all blowed up by Mesa or it's tools, I suspect Mesa has different plans.

n7axw wrote:Having an back door into the Haven Quadrant is probably an objective, but a secondary one. The real concern would be to safeguard the location of Darius which cod be compromised if someone got loose in the system beyond the Torch wormhole.

Don

I am reasonably sure that I read somewhere that the original reason Mesa settled Torch was because of the wormhole. Part of their centuries long plans of attacking Haven after Haven ground itself down while defeating Manticore. Loosing the planet to a bunch of their slaves put a big crimp in those plans.

But yes, right now, after loosing Torch, they have defended the "twins" side of the wormhole to keep Darius from being discovered. The wormhole went from being as asset to a liability when the slaves took Torch.

kzt wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:And as I said, if the MA keeps trying to destroy Torch somebody is going to be asking why, what's so important? Almost anything that the MA does to Torch is going to draw attention to that system and it's wormhole. The MA could launch a attack on Torch through the wormhole but there are to many ships there that could get away and tell somebody that ships came thorough it. The MA wanted it as a secret way to get at the back side of Haven. But that would have been after they had suffered tremendous losses in an effort that would have destroyed Manticore. So the wormhole remains something that the MA can still use, but only once, before everybody knows about it and that it leads to where ever the MA ran off to.

There is the minor point that Torch declared war on Mesa. Actions have consequences. While the grand Torch plan doesn't include getting all blowed up by Mesa or it's tools, I suspect Mesa has different plans.

I agree, its absolutely true That Torch has declared war on Mesa. However, at this time, it is also true that Mesa has been conquered. So if attacks on Torch continue,... who is doing it and why? What is so important about Torch? Not something the MA would really want to bring to everybody's attention, or so I would think.

Found it, here's where RFC has already hinted that both sides of the Torch wormhole are likely seeing some action:

http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3107&hilit=torch+wormhole+rfc&start=60#p68433

--snipping--

runsforcelery wrote:Nope. If the SEM and its buddies do decide that this wormhole Leads Somewhere Ominous (and, trust me, their analysts are considering that very attentively, given the circumstances), the best thing they could possibly do from the MA's perspective would be to try to take it away from them by coming through the wormhole at them with no idea of where the other end lies in normal-space terms. And please do note that if I haven't told you what Torch is doing about its end of the warp bridge, I also haven't told you anything about what the other side's done since Harvest Joy failed to report back. You think maybe they've been, um, bolstering their defenses, perhaps?

Just asking, you understand.

(bolding, etc. mine)