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Why did Mesa ever develop Congo

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Re: Why did Mesa ever develop Congo? Camoflage....
Post by Tenshinai   » Thu Dec 11, 2014 5:01 pm

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SharkHunter wrote:As soon as the MA found the wormhole essentially leading back to their more important population and fleet worlds, they had to control the system.


Or, the found the Congo system through "their" wormhole.
OR, it was finding the wormhole that led them to choosing and developing their hideout world.

"you wouldn't want to visit there even if you're half dead" terminus dominated by those evil Manpower brutes.


Yeah, much easier keeping something secret if few people ever come nearby.
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Re: Why did Mesa ever develop Congo? Camoflage....
Post by SWM   » Thu Dec 11, 2014 5:21 pm

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SharkHunter wrote:As soon as the MA found the wormhole essentially leading back to their more important population and fleet worlds, they had to control the system.

It is almost certainly the other way around. They discovered the Felix wormhole, traced it through the Twins and Congo, and quickly got a Mesan company to claim Congo.
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Re: Why did Mesa ever develop Congo? Camoflage....
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Thu Dec 11, 2014 10:39 pm

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SWM wrote:
SharkHunter wrote:As soon as the MA found the wormhole essentially leading back to their more important population and fleet worlds, they had to control the system.

It is almost certainly the other way around. They discovered the Felix wormhole, traced it through the Twins and Congo, and quickly got a Mesan company to claim Congo.

A virtual certainty. Remember that the Manticore survey crew could hardly believe that anyone had found it from the Torch side, the readings were so weak.
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Re: Why did Mesa ever develop Congo
Post by SharkHunter   » Fri Dec 12, 2014 1:55 pm

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I just re-read an interesting bit in Torch of Freedom. Not only have the McBrydes been inside the onion for several generations as "alpha line genome" sorts, but the only current McBride lose in the galaxy (Zachariah) knows EXACTLY why Mesa had the wormhole and what is on the other side.

He won't even have an "evil Mesan overlord" implant that would reduce his grey matter to smush if he thinks about it (unless maybe he was rigorously interrogated) because otherwise he couldn't have done his job, and they didn't expect him to either get caught or get loose.

Hmmmm... methinks I be deducing an upcoming plot point.
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Re: Why did Mesa ever develop Congo? Camoflage....
Post by JohnRoth   » Fri Dec 12, 2014 4:44 pm

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SWM wrote:
SharkHunter wrote:As soon as the MA found the wormhole essentially leading back to their more important population and fleet worlds, they had to control the system.

It is almost certainly the other way around. They discovered the Felix wormhole, traced it through the Twins and Congo, and quickly got a Mesan company to claim Congo.


No almost about it.

Torch of Freedom, Chapter 50 wrote:No one had ever encountered anything like it before, and even all these years after its discovery, the Mesan Alignment's hyper-physicists were still trying to come up with an explanation for how the "SGC-902-36-G Wormhole Anomaly" (also known as "The Twins") had happened when all generally accepted wormhole theory said it couldn't have. There were currently, Trajan had been told, at least six competing "main" hypotheses.
Obviously, no one had ever predicted that any such thing was possible. In fact, the Alignment had literally stumbled across it in the course of surveying the wormhole junction associated with the Felix System, where Trajan's task force was currently exercising. Not that the galaxy at large had any idea of that junction's existence, either. It had been discovered initially by a survey expedition backed by the "Jessyk Combine" and operating (very surreptitiously) out of Mannerheim under direct orders from the Alignment. Jessyk never shared survey information with anyone unless there was an excellent reason for it to do so, and in this case the Alignment had decided there was an excellent reason not to broadcast the Combine's discovery.


The textev is that they discovered the Felix junction when they were surveying Felix as a possible location for their arsenal planet. Then they discovered The Twins, leading their astrophysicists to utter the most important words in the history of science. That in turn led to Congo.

There isn't any direct textev as to why they planted a colony on Congo, but I don't think anyone's come up with a believable alternative.
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Re: Why did Mesa ever develop Congo? Camoflage....
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Sat Dec 13, 2014 7:08 pm

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JohnRoth wrote:snip

There isn't any direct textev as to why they planted a colony on Congo, but I don't think anyone's come up with a believable alternative.

Although there is no textev for the reason, I suspect it's because they wanted to make sure no one else claimed the system, and then accidentally found the worm hole, unlikely though that was. They certainly didn't expect the Torch revolution to occur - which is ironic, because if they hadn't been playing silly ass games with the Masadans, the Torch Revolution would almost certainly never have happened.
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Re: Why did Mesa ever develop Congo
Post by Relax   » Sat Dec 13, 2014 7:30 pm

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davevw wrote:So we've all had fun beating a dead horse with trying to get to Darius via Torch, but I was wondering why the MA allowed Mesan companies to exploit Congo/Torch in the first place.

Per Textev, they found the chain from the far end (Felix), and then explored out and found Torch. So if they wanted to keep things on the DL, why did they start farming Congo for drugs?

The pharmaceuticals they were getting couldn't have been worth that much.


$$$ always about $$$
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Re: Why did Mesa ever develop Congo
Post by Vince   » Sat Dec 13, 2014 8:03 pm

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Relax wrote:
davevw wrote:So we've all had fun beating a dead horse with trying to get to Darius via Torch, but I was wondering why the MA allowed Mesan companies to exploit Congo/Torch in the first place.

Per Textev, they found the chain from the far end (Felix), and then explored out and found Torch. So if they wanted to keep things on the DL, why did they start farming Congo for drugs?

The pharmaceuticals they were getting couldn't have been worth that much.


$$$ always about $$$

Probably they didn't want anyone else claiming the planet (and star system) in order to keep them from investigating the wormhole once they decided to use Darius. And as Relax pointed out, the $$ incentive was there for someone to claim the planet:
Crown of Slaves, Chapter 42 wrote:"It might change faster than you think," demurred Du Havel. "I've been studying the economic figures available for Congo, as many as I've been able to track down. Which isn't much—and that's significant in itself, because it means it's been a gold mine for Mesa and they're keeping it hidden. That planet is potentially rich, Jeremy. The market for pharmaceutical products isn't going to go away. And I don't believe for one minute that Mesa's brutal methods for extracting the wealth are necessary. They just use up people because it's easy for them, and it's their way of doing business. Give us a few years—fewer than you think—and we can start producing more wealth using civilized methods than Mesa ever did with whips and chains. We'll be able to afford warships, be sure of it. Enough to match Mesa, anyway."
Italics are the author's, boldface and underlined text is my emphasis.
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Re: Why did Mesa ever develop Congo
Post by SWM   » Sat Dec 13, 2014 8:14 pm

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In addition, if I recall correctly, Erewhon was beginning to look at exploring systems in the region. Mesa wouldn't want Erewhon stumbling on anything they didn't want.
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Re: Why did Mesa ever develop Congo? Camoflage....
Post by JohnRoth   » Sat Dec 13, 2014 8:37 pm

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fallsfromtrees wrote:
JohnRoth wrote:snip

There isn't any direct textev as to why they planted a colony on Congo, but I don't think anyone's come up with a believable alternative.

Although there is no textev for the reason, I suspect it's because they wanted to make sure no one else claimed the system, and then accidentally found the worm hole, unlikely though that was. They certainly didn't expect the Torch revolution to occur - which is ironic, because if they hadn't been playing silly ass games with the Masadans, the Torch Revolution would almost certainly never have happened.


I think you've got it backwards: they found Congo while tracing out the links from Felix, and then decided to claim it. The fact that it's a pharmaceutical hotbed was simply a reason. If it hadn't been that, they'd have found another one.

When I said there wasn't another credible theory on the board, that's what I meant. That's the only theory that's backed up by actual textev.

The rest of the fun and games in Crown of Slaves was to try to push Erewhon into the friendly arms of the Solarian League.
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