tlb wrote:They were specifically told that the Grand Alliance would be on them soon by the Detweiler that came to visit.
That happened before the Alliance knew where Galton was. So there was no reason for Benjamin to believe the detection was imminent. He came to Galton to advise the Inner Onion members there that they'd made a mistake with the Beowulf Strike: they revealed far too much of "The Other Guys" existence, to the point where the press couldn't keep denying its existence. And they poked the Alliance in general and Beowulf in particular far too much in the eye, causing them to devote enormous resources to finding the Alignment.
But I don't think anyone expected Galton to be found that quickly. In fact, later when "Call Me Phoebe" was talking to Audrey, she said they couldn't be sure the Alliance would find Galton instead of Darius. I don't think anyone in the Onion expected Darius to be found first, since the tracks leading to it are far much better hidden, but Felix isn't.
But they did expect Galton to be found, eventually. That was the purpose of the visit: to warn that the Alamo Contingency would need to happen. That's also why there were simulations in Darius about how Galton could possibly defend itself (and concluding that it was impossible).
If you do not believe that the scout was detected, why would you believe that they could be detected in other systems which do not have detector arrays?
I don't.
I merely said that they could only be sure that it was a regional scouting if they detected scouts in multiple systems. But they have no way to prove a negative: the fact that they didn't see any scouts does not mean such scouting didn't happen.
And I don't think they had assets in place to even attempt to detect in other systems.
After the Detweiler warning, they would be as ready as ever. I will continue to insist that their very speculation is an indication that the scout was detected. But if you do do not want to accept that, then so be it.
That was a pointless visit. Galton couldn't change its defensive stance: it would be allowed no more technology than what it already had. All it could do was build what it already plans for or could legitimately explain away, like the Hasta.
And they couldn't remain at Defcon 2 or whatever is equivalent to that for years. Such a heigtened state of alert is only possible with some intel that an attack is imminent within a given window of time.
The only thing that visit served, besides giving us readers an insight into why Galton existed, who was there, and Benjamin and his brothers' state of mind after Albrecht's death, was to soothe Benjamin's conscience. Adebayo and Montalván basically sent him back saying, "we're fine, don't worry about us, we'll die for the cause."