Brigade XO wrote:Streak Drive has been used quite a bit. We have just seen that Jessyk has at least a few running via Warner (which seems to be the preferred point closest to the Darius wormhole). It was probably used in the ship out of Darius to deliver the Silver Bullet weapons to the freighter taking them to Beowulf. Aldona Anisimovna seems to be using one to do her running around in Talbot. Harahap/Firebrand certainly noticed he has very speedy transport from Mesa to his 1st round of assignments for the Alignment. So, Streak Drive in the equivalent of large private yachts, freighters, probably couriers (if not just Dispatch Boats).
Simoes was not alone in his research on Streak Drives and improvements. He worked in a lab full of people and it would be reasonable that they were all working on some segment of Streak Drive advancement. We have at least one view of the difficulty his problems caused by the culling of his daughter made with the people he had to work with and he was being kept -barely- making progress because Jack was his minder in keeping him working. The Alignment NEEDED whatever they could squeeze out of him. Clearly he was not going out with Houdini by that point but prior to that it is reasonable that he and most if not all of the people in that lab would have been on the Houdini list. That being said, it is unlikely they would have been sent to Galton if it was as important as the pushing Simoes would seem to indicate.
I don't remember if the ship that too Albrect Detweiler to the meeting with the heads of the RF was a Streak but given the time that round trip took out of Albrect's work, it probably was.
There are only two major ways someone is going to identify a Streak Drive ship based on what we have been told. One is for a physical inspection by knowledgeable people from the inside of a ship- like the propulsion equipment etc- and what Zilwicki and friends have done with data collection and noting "someting odd" about the clearly regular round trip runs of various ships. So the Alignment doesn't want anybody's naval people looking at the physical engineering on these ships and you don't want Customs Inspectors and Engineers taking a look either. Nobody goes on these ships not allowed and the crews don't get off. Their passengers can but that is controlled. Nobody at Mesa was going to pull an inspection of a Jessyk ship and as long as a private or commercial ship- in most systems- wasn't hooking up to a station but only transferring cargo and people by shuttle there would be no reason to invoke customs regulations. You could probably go right though the Manticore Junction of the ship was not stopping at the Junction or at any terminus it used with the Junction.
If Streak Drive isn't used in normal space then someone would have to catch a look in hyperspace and the chances of that are really low as someone eating to do that would have to get to the band(s) the Streak was using and there is the challange of knowing which way the ship went once it translated out.
Of course, nobody is ever going to get a close inspection of one.
From the humor thread ...
cthia wrote:MA: Streak Boat 999
Code Name: Witch on her Stick
I admit film is responsible for a lot of my baggage.
Can you imagine Albrecht Detweiler's personal Streak Boat having this exact same Josey Wale's moment?
IOW, Albrecht Detweiler does his best Josey Wales impression. . .
OUTLAW JOSEY WALES
"Ahh! Un huh! Looka here boys. We done caught ourselves. . . Josey Wales!"
"Is that her Bubba? Is that Miss greased lighnin' herself?"
"Yep, she is! You better watch her though, I hear she's real fast."
"Why don't you just ease that pistol right on out a mite slow, butt first. . . that's right. . .that's right."
"Oh shit, that's a graser!"
"BOOM!"