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Honorverse Long Range Exploration?

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Re: Honorverse Long Range Exploration?
Post by Hutch   » Sun Mar 02, 2014 7:57 pm

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Are there long-term/long-range missions going on (such as the possible black hole mission mentioned above)? Probably.

Do they (at least for now) impact the storyline? Not that I can see.

So unless there is something about them to impact the story-arc of the Honorverse (and I really can't see the MWW bringing in any dues ex machina elements now, they will be a side of the Honorverse that we can speculate about, but are unlikely to see.

IMHO as always. YMMV.
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Re: Honorverse Long Range Exploration?
Post by KNick   » Sun Mar 02, 2014 8:23 pm

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IMHO a more important question is whether or not there is still exploration for new colonies ongoing. Also, what has happened with those colonies that were settled from League or Verge planets. Are they covered by Lacoon I? Has Manticore taken over the job of meeting immediate needs? Is the SEM still letting colonization ships through to their intended colonies? Are any of them in dire straights due to the war?
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Re: Honorverse Long Range Exploration?
Post by cthia   » Sun Mar 02, 2014 8:42 pm

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It just seems odd that the SLN never found and control a junction in Solarian Space.

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Re: Honorverse Long Range Exploration?
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sun Mar 02, 2014 8:46 pm

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Hutch wrote:Are there long-term/long-range missions going on (such as the possible black hole mission mentioned above)? Probably.

Do they (at least for now) impact the storyline? Not that I can see.

So unless there is something about them to impact the story-arc of the Honorverse (and I really can't see the MWW bringing in any dues ex machina elements now, they will be a side of the Honorverse that we can speculate about, but are unlikely to see.

IMHO as always. YMMV.
I tend to agree, although I could see it coming up in someone's backstory. Turns out some minor character we know, or a new character, was involved in <insert mission name> an x-year long scientific research mission to <insert super remote location>. This gets mentioned in passing, or they use it as a knowledge point when talking about long duration deployments, or gets noticed when a superior officer is reading their records upon transfer.

Something like that.

I suppose, some author might work up a short story about this for an anthology, but even that I tend to doubt. <shrug>
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Re: Honorverse Long Range Exploration?
Post by drothgery   » Sun Mar 02, 2014 9:55 pm

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KNick wrote:IMHO a more important question is whether or not there is still exploration for new colonies ongoing.
Almost certainly. At minimum, if the other end of a newly discovered wormhole junction goes to the middle of nowhere (relatively speaking), it's likely the discoverers will look around a bit for good colonization sites if only to have some traffic going through their new junction.

And the continual outbound movement to stay ahead of OFS has to mean someone is scouting around the outer edge of the verge for new space.
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Re: Honorverse Long Range Exploration?
Post by Dafmeister   » Mon Mar 03, 2014 5:47 am

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cthia wrote:It just seems odd that the SLN never found and control a junction in Solarian Space.


There are a lot of junctions and termini in Solarian space, how many would depend on how you define 'Solarian space'. Termini in the Verge have been falling like ninepins, and probably the Shell too. We haven't seen the GA take a terminus in the core of the League yet, and I can think of two reasons why:

1) Time. Has there been time for the Lacoon enforcement squadrons to get to the heart of the League yet? Very possibly not.

2) Does the GA want to take termini in the core of the League? Bear in mind that the GA's entire strategy is to cause the League to fragment, taking advantage of the fundamental isolationism and localised viewpoint of the average Solarian. Taking termini out in the Verge and Shell, and withdrawing the Manticoran merchant fleet, strangles the League's internal and external trade through increasing journey times and reducing available hulls. This leads (hopefully) to economic difficulty and anger with the League's government over it's handling of the crisis - a crisis which, crucially, is happening Over There and isn't really Anything To Do With Us, or wouldn't be if the people running the galaxy could find their arses without both hands, fire control lidar and a hyper log. If the GA starts knocking off termini in the core worlds, then all of a sudden that crisis Over There becomes an attack Over Here, which is liable to turn anger with the Assembly and the Mandarins into anger with the GA and unite the core worlds against the 'neobarb aggressor'.
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Re: Honorverse Long Range Exploration?
Post by SWM   » Mon Mar 03, 2014 10:13 am

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Dafmeister wrote:
cthia wrote:It just seems odd that the SLN never found and control a junction in Solarian Space.


There are a lot of junctions and termini in Solarian space, how many would depend on how you define 'Solarian space'. Termini in the Verge have been falling like ninepins, and probably the Shell too. We haven't seen the GA take a terminus in the core of the League yet, and I can think of two reasons why:

I think cthia is referring to a statement early in the series that the Solarian League does not own any wormhole junctions. That statement has not been repeated later in the series. Given the number of wormholes we now know lie in and around Solarian space, it does seem odd that the League doesn't own any of them, so it raises the question whether this has been retconned. For instance, Visigoth is clearly a member of the Solarian League, and has a junction. It would be very odd if the League did not own that junction. In addition, there is this interesting quote in I Will Build My House Of Steel:
Axlrod's management had been willing to spend the manhours because it had believed those markers [of previously unknown wormholes] might be well buried in the old data if it was reexamined, and that belief had proved well founded. The various termini the search had uncovered within the territory of the Solarian League had, of course, been recognized as the League's property and duly reported to Old Terra for lucrative finder's fees, but those outside the League had enjoyed rather a different status, in Axelrod's opinion--especially in cases where the recrunched data suggested the possibility of true junctions, with multiple termini.

So we know that Axelrod turned quite a few termini over to the League. It would be odd if none of them turned out to be a junction.
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Re: Honorverse Long Range Exploration?
Post by Dafmeister   » Mon Mar 03, 2014 11:30 am

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Ah, we're getting into the distinction between a wormhole and a junction. Strictly speacking, a junction is a system with termini of two or more wormhole bridges in it, and those are significantly rarer than single-terminus systems.

Also, I don't think the League would own termini. Its members would own termini, or protectorates and Verge systems would own termini which were leased to League companies on ridiculously generous terms, but the federal government wouldn't own them.
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Re: Honorverse Long Range Exploration?
Post by SWM   » Mon Mar 03, 2014 2:18 pm

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Dafmeister wrote:Ah, we're getting into the distinction between a wormhole and a junction. Strictly speacking, a junction is a system with termini of two or more wormhole bridges in it, and those are significantly rarer than single-terminus systems.

Also, I don't think the League would own termini. Its members would own termini, or protectorates and Verge systems would own termini which were leased to League companies on ridiculously generous terms, but the federal government wouldn't own them.

I don't remember what the original textev was. I do remember that we had several discussions about it, maybe five years ago or more. As I recall, the general conclusion at the time was that text really did mean that there were no junctions in Solarian-claimed space. However it was phrased, the Visigoth Wormhole Junction was taken to be a very clear contradiction. Cthia, do you have a reference to the original text?
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Re: Honorverse Long Range Exploration?
Post by Brigade XO   » Mon Mar 03, 2014 4:25 pm

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In my opinion, a reason we have not seen more (there was one) termini in Solarian Space being taken by RMN with Lacoon II is that there are limits to which SEM can dedicate ships to the campaign. Another is that any further in (and we probably haven't seen all that were done) and they would have stopped running up against termini that were actually defended by more than a few LACs or some old DD or CA for customs work.

If ANY of the wormholes in the Core are defended by forts and more than a couple of ships, it would mean a fight to take it away from the defenders. The only one we saw for Lacoon II that was actualy "part of the SL" only had the local Astro Control and now warships.

Taking an undefended side of a wormhole turns out to be fairly easy if you have a warship. If you have a squadron (even a mixed squadron of multiple classes and types- some of which are older ships) it is striaght forward. Going through said wormhole- if the people at the other end have any idea you are comming and have warships that can get to it- could be dicy. The further the RMN Lacoon II task forces go, the greater the chance that someone will get the word running ahead of them and end up in a really bad position for a fight. That would be exiting a termini into local warships and perhaps a hastily laid mine field.

There is also the challange that you really do need to end up holding both ends. Hold one end and you can deny others from using it, you just won't know what is going to come out of it next. Since "most' wormholes go from point to point and there is often quite a distance in real and hyper-space to cross between them, you put units out on thier own with a very good chance of having to face fighting at both ends but will little oppertunity for resupply and communication at either end.

What we have seen on the longest chain of taking wormholes shown is fairly substantial task forces of warships plus CLACs (with the attached LACs) and ammuntion ships at BOTH ends. This looks to me like setting up serious defence in depth around both termini of any of the wormholes. Thats a LOT of ships. Trying to recover any of those points is going to be very costly to the SLN even if they are sucessfull in driving off one or more of the forces.

At this point, any existing long range exploration or support of operations at the other end of those explorations is going to come to an eventual halt if it has to pass a GA controlled wormhole. I would like to think that SEM (or Haven though they are not really in a control position on any wormholes) would want to deal with any such returning expedition ship or supply vessel on a case by case basis and probably support some linkage to new colonies if for no other reason than that is what they are doing helping breakaway OFS controlled or supported words.
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