Houdini and its consequences(CoG spoilers)

SYED wrote:I meant in the future any possible claim to felix is done. Also, it is owned by corparations i believe, and it could be claimed or controlled like any terminii.
It might be extrordinary useful, and i bett it has been fully mapped by now hopefully.
I see felix and darius added to torch, peacefully or by force. felix can be terraformed, and it place in the league would be very valuable.
If that company that supplies the new missiles is taken out, it might put the league back to a weaker position, and it potentially makes yildun an easier target if the corparations that own it are mesan based.

The thing is how does manticore stop the seccies and slaves from having revenge on the citizens?

Okay, I'm dizzy now.

Felix doesn't officially belong to Mannerheim, but Mannerheim is in de facto possession of it, and no one else even knows the junction exists. The original survey was done by Alignment personnel under cover of a Jessyk Combine mission which was, itself, covert and technically illegal. None of the data about the survey ever found it into Jessyk's records, and you can be pretty sure that the Alignment has thoroughly sanitize the information from the Mesa end. The Mannerheim Navy (or at least its senior officers) know about the junction, but aside from the Alignment personnel embedded in their navy, they have no idea that it connects to Darius or the Twins. The Navy has filed and "complete" survey data on the wormhole which clearly "proves" that it does not in fact connect to either of those systems. The official record shows two termini, neither of which is particularly important to existing interstellar shipping patterns but which offer potential future value sufficient to explain Mannerheim's interest in the wormhole. The fact that they have no immediate value also helps to explain why Mannerheim is proceeding slowly and carefully to secure legal ownership through proxies and shell corporations. They are playing the long game and there's nothing to make securing immediate possession enormously valuable. Hence, they can take their time and do it right.

So it can't be claimed "like any other terminus," because it has a current legal owner (who is in the process of gratefully unloading it to the "suckers" who are buying if for Mannerheim) and because it is right next door to someone who already has a component of one of the most powerful SDFs of the SL camped out in the system "for maneuvers." Once Mannerheim's secured title to the system (completely legally), the Mannerheim System government will claim sovereignty (requested to do so by the new, Mannerheimian owners of the newly --- "Oh, my gosh, there's a wormhole here, Maud!" --- discovered junction. Mannerheim will then install an astro control node to manage traffic through the wormhole, and the only thing which would conceivably bring interstellar traffic to Felix in the first place would be the junction. So if Mannerheim doesn't tell anyone about the extra two termini, and if only Alignment-vetted AC personnel work the terminus, and if they don't let any traffic through to or from Darius when anyone who's not already in on the secret is using the wormhole to reach one of the other termini, how is anyone except the Alignment supposed to know anything about it. Mannerheim's possession of Felix --- and it's well known hatred for genetic slavery --- will, in fact, be the perfect cover to prevent anyone from stumbling across Darius.

As for the other question --- how to prevent the slaves and seccies from taking revenge on the full citizens of Mesa --- there are a few points you need to consider. One is that while the citizens are a distinct minority on Mesa, they're a large majority, much too big to be summarily massacred in the best traditions of slave revolts the galaxy over. Second, at the moment, all legal weapons on the planet are in citizen hands. It's unlikely that Manticore will be stupid enough to immediately disband all police and military organizations of the existing Mesan government, for several reasons, including the inadvisability of letting them simply disappear into the general population before accountability for various . . . recent questionable decisions, shall we say, has been determined. Another reason is that, frankly, neither the seccies nor the slaves have any experience in running police organizations; training is going to be required before non-citizen police can be stood up.

So if Manticore makes it known that citizens who use weapons against seccies or slaves except in direct, provable self-defense will be prosecuted for murder or attempted murder, and if the SEM simultaneously make it known to the seccies and slaves that (a) a seccie/slave-majority police force is in the process of being formed, (b) in the meantime, the existing police forces (but not the suppressive security agencies) will remain in service under new management (i.e., with Manty and Torch officers and noncoms embedded in and cross-posted throughout it), and that (c) citizens are being allowed to retain arms to resist any overly hasty applications of "justice," it should be possible to hold the vengeance killings to a minimum. It probably won't be possible to completely prevent them, of course, but the level of violence should be manageable, particularly because Manticore and Beowulf (and Haven, for that matter) have so much well-earned credibility with slaves and seccies alike. They're the Good Guys and have been for centuries. A long as there's clear evidence that they are moving forward with the reforms they've promised, the majority of Mesa's underclass(es) will be willing to exercise patience. After all, the seccie leadership is going to recognize that it will be much more valuable to take over a planet and star system whose infrastructure is still intact than to burn that superstructure to the ground first and then squabble over who gets the ruins.

They want to be South Africa, not Zimbabwe.

Isn't Thandi still on planet?

If she is I'm sure that she could have a big hand in the PR campaign to curb Seccie and Slave violence on the citizens.

Hi MunroBurton,

Haven is only 677 LY from Sol, or less than 3 month's in hyper, not 6 or 18 month's [from FoD] which RFC admitted was an egregious typo in one of the pearls, which are still not working.

Torch is around 15 days from Torch in a db via the hyper bridges, technically closer but the time/distance objections still hold.

The textev states Torch's population was only around 14 million IIRC, despite ~15,000 immigrants a week, so Mesa's outnumbers it by 200-1?

So that's 2 strikes, but RFC may be holding out on us.

L

munroburton wrote:**quote="Weird Harold"**[quote="SYED"]...WAnt to really mess with mesa and the alignment, put forward a plan that has mesa asking to join the kingdom of torch. This is a newly freed planet of slaves, who better to join with. **quote**

I don't think that would be feasible due to the communications lag. Even if the Torch Wormhole was useable, I don't believe that would reduce the communications lag to make a single polity workable.

Mesa has been in existence for a long, long time. It's been nearly 500 years since Leonard Detweiler established the colony there. It's a planetary population in the billions, with entrenched cultural traditions and political classes.

Torch is essentially a brand new colony, with an enormous (currently) classless immigrant population, but I doubt they've passed more than a few hundred million.

The time lag involved means those billions would be governed by Torch's tiny government, all those hundreds of light years away. To shorten the communication loop, they would have to rely on using wormhole bridges requiring long term permission from Erewhon, Manticore, Beowulf and Visigoth. Or another more ideal connection may run elsewhere through the League.

Without access to those, it's a thousand light year voyage between Congo and Mesa, according to the prettier maps out there. Didn't Haven need six months to make a round trip to Sol once cut off from the wormhole network? In less than six months(Feb 1922 to June 1922), the Solarian League lost five hundred wallers and pretty much all its wormholes.

Heck, even Manticore(AKA Wormhole Xtreme) isn't silly enough to govern Silesia or Talbott directly and it's got guaranteed control of these links until someone works out a way to drop out of hyperspace totally undetected.

Yes, given the GA's friendly status with Torch, they could attempt it. However, I doubt Prime Minister Du Havel would endorse the attempt, unless the Darius wormhole chain leads somewhere very near Mesa. Then, only if Torch asserted control of all those systems would it stand a chance of being such an extended interstellar polity.

Think of it as the USA of 1800 trying to incorporate China. That's a toughie, even if 50-70% of China fully supported the movement.[/quote]

OF COURSE RFC is holding out on us! It's one of the things he does...and giggles.

dreamrider

While I tend to feel an obligation to try to predict where future books are going, it's always more fun when I'm wrong. So while it seems obvious to arrange for the SLN to have a rather large oopsie involving Beowulf I'm not going to be upset if he does something cleverer. As long as we can put an end to the "We have got the Maxim gun, and they have not" battles it will be fun.

I always consided felix next to impossible to hide, due to torch. we know they spotted mesa acting strange there, leading them to suspect the worm hole.
also the mannerheim naval command might be alignment, but the rumors are sure to spread in the enlisted. officially, they are trying to protect a future mannerheim investment froom falling into the wrong hands.
I am hoping that there might be an alignment ship stopping at the amusment park station, so get captured, and the data can leak. they do not yet know it is under new management.

Houdini was done quickly and rushed and early, while not even complete. there might not be much, but there will be traces.

SYED wrote:I always consided felix next to impossible to hide, due to torch. we know they spotted mesa acting strange there, leading them to suspect the worm hole.
also the mannerheim naval command might be alignment, but the rumors are sure to spread in the enlisted. officially, they are trying to protect a future mannerheim investment froom falling into the wrong hands.
I am hoping that there might be an alignment ship stopping at the amusment park station, so get captured, and the data can leak. they do not yet know it is under new management.

Houdini was done quickly and rushed and early, while not even complete. there might not be much, but there will be traces.

SYED wrote:I always consided felix next to impossible to hide, due to torch. we know they spotted mesa acting strange there, leading them to suspect the worm hole.
...<snip>.

Huh?
Point 1 - No one outside the Mesan Alignment knows of any logical connection between Torch/Congo and the Felix system.

Point 2 - The existence of the Torch wormhole terminus was not a secret, or at least not a kept secret back to well before the Torch revolution.

Point 3 - All that the Torch scientific team/establishment currently knows of the other side of the Torch wormhole is that a survey ship did not come back from it, and did not manage to message back via other routes. It must be assumed to be a killer WH, which are not unknown, until there is further data.

Point 4 - Although there was some mystery among the Torches and the science team as to why there were no records of prior wormhole investigation, they were written off generally to the compartmentalization of Mesan/Manpower activities, to the concept that the Verdant Vista planetary corporate establishment really weren't privy any WH investigation details, and to the known loss of large segments of Verdant Vista computer records storage.

Point 5 - The Torch authorities must now also consider that there might have been little info about prior investigation/exploitation of the wormhole because Manpower/Jessyk/and company had already discovered that it was a dud/killer.

Point 6 - The Torch hyper bridge does not connect to Felix, it connects to SGC-902-36-G. You have to thoroughly investigate THAT system before you could establish any connection to Felix.

Point 7 - There will not be any leaks about a connection to Torch from Task Force 4 personnel in Felix, even if they are ever let off the reservation/surveillance when they rotate home (which may still be months away). The starline leaders of that Mannerheim naval element are the only ones who know anything about the bridge out to SGC-902-36-G, or any relationship to that obscure Torch system in the Haven quadrant, and they are like, starlines. Some other personnel in TF4 (strictly limited) know of the secret WH junction there, but they have been given very different info about how many termini it has and where the links lead to. They are all also loyal Mannerheim SDF personnel, protecting one of the Top Secrets of their star nation, the existence of a 'new' major junction within 10 LY of their homeworld, during the years that their star nation is covertly maneuvering to gain full control of this enormous 'economic' advantage. Those who DO know of the junction's existence are also aware that, in addition to their obligations of loyalty to their home star nation, they could scotch the whole deal, and the national and personal advantages it could bring, if they leaked the existence of the junction before the ownership is sewn up.

Point 8 - There will be no leaks from Commodore Ganneau's squadron in SGC-920-36-G, because, a) they don't get out much, and b) the entire personnel of THAT squadron is starlines.

FWIW, I have long thought that the function and layers of the Onion are nowhere else so graphically illustrated as in David and Eric's careful exposition of the deep protections surrounding the Torch - Twins - Felix WH route.


Its been awhile since the muskets from the crate labeled ToF were hung over the fireplace. I submit that you may want to go back and read portions of it again.

dreamrider

SYED wrote: I am hoping that there might be an alignment ship stopping at the amusment park station, so get captured, and the data can leak. they do not yet know it is under new management.

Houdini was done quickly and rushed and early, while not even complete. there might not be much, but there will be traces.

And I already known which ship it will be, or at least who will be on it.

SCC wrote:

SYED wrote: I am hoping that there might be an alignment ship stopping at the amusment park station, so get captured, and the data can leak. they do not yet know it is under new management.

Houdini was done quickly and rushed and early, while not even complete. there might not be much, but there will be traces.

And I already known which ship it will be, or at least who will be on it.

That's fairly obvious. Possibly a bit too obvious. However, Zack McBryde definitely knows about the Torch wormhole connection to the Twins; whether he knows anything beyond that is currently unknown. In particular, we don't know if he knows anything about either Felix or Darius, or if he does, if he knows about the Felix-Twins connection.

JohnRoth wrote:That's fairly obvious. Possibly a bit too obvious. However, Zack McBryde definitely knows about the Torch wormhole connection to the Twins; whether he knows anything beyond that is currently unknown. In particular, we don't know if he knows anything about either Felix or Darius, or if he does, if he knows about the Felix-Twins connection.

Where do you get the idea that Zack knows about the twins?