Attacking Darius:

n7axw wrote:Getting back to the subject at hand, at the end of the book the Alliance doesn't realize that Darius was still there to be attacked. They thought that taking out Dalton had completed the job. I was a bit disappointed at that, but oh well. Zilwicki and company will get it figured out and that is probably going to be how the next book starts.

I dispute that. They definitely don't know where Darius is or what its name is, but I think they know there's a fallback position somewhere and it's the true source of the new technology. See thread I'm starting.

I'm wondering, though, if they shouldn't have been able to figure it out. First we know that those small freighters we're transferring cargo from point a to point b. Galton was one of those points. Where was the other?

From all we've heard, the other point was that pirate base. So they don't have a third point to indicate Darius.

Secondly, we know that GF encounters some Malign weapons, but no LDs. So where are they?

I am also wondering which worm hole the Malign is using to communicate between Darius and Dalton. Is it the one at Mannerheim or something that I may have missed...

We don't know exactly where Galton and Felix & Mannerheim are. And we also don't know where the other termini of the Felix Junction are located, not even The Twins. Any one of those 4, including Darius itself, could be closer to Galton than Felix or Mannerheim.

n7axw wrote:Getting back to the subject at hand, at the end of the book the Alliance doesn't realize that Darius was still there to be attacked. They thought that taking out Dalton had completed the job. I was a bit disappointed at that, but oh well. Zilwicki and company will get it figured out and that is probably going to be how the next book starts.

I'm wondering, though, if they shouldn't have been able to figure it out. First we know that those small freighters we're transferring cargo from point a to point b. Galton was one of those points. Where was the other?

Secondly, we know that GF encounters some Malign weapons, but no LDs. So where are they?

I am also wondering which worm hole the Malign is using to communicate between Darius and Dalton. Is it the one at Mannerheim or something that I may have missed...

Don

-

It appears that it was Galton supplying the weapons, not Darius; so there is nothing to trace back to Darius from that. Further that Galton is not near a wormhole, otherwise the freighters could not have been used to triangulate. I do not now believe that there was freight movement between Darius and Galton

We know that the Leonard Detweiler class is out there somewhere, but in the books there is no one outside of Darius (and perhaps Mannerheim) that has any knowledge of them.

We have highlighted the few inconsistencies that might cause the Grand Alliance to suspect the existence of a Malign hideout; mainly the lack of the spider-drive at Galton and the Houdini passengers that did not end at Galton. We will see if Galton reveals the secrets of the bio-genetic nano-tech used for assassination, if not that is another inconsistency.

tlb wrote:

n7axw wrote:Getting back to the subject at hand, at the end of the book the Alliance doesn't realize that Darius was still there to be attacked. They thought that taking out Dalton had completed the job. I was a bit disappointed at that, but oh well. Zilwicki and company will get it figured out and that is probably going to be how the next book starts.

I'm wondering, though, if they shouldn't have been able to figure it out. First we know that those small freighters we're transferring cargo from point a to point b. Galton was one of those points. Where was the other?

Secondly, we know that GF encounters some Malign weapons, but no LDs. So where are they?

I am also wondering which worm hole the Malign is using to communicate between Darius and Dalton. Is it the one at Mannerheim or something that I may have missed...

Don

-

It appears that it was Galton supplying the weapons, not Darius; so there is nothing to trace back to Darius from that. Further that Galton is not near a wormhole, otherwise the freighters could not have been used to triangulate. I do not now believe that there was freight movement between Darius and Galton

We know that the Leonard Detweiler class is out there somewhere, but in the books there is no one outside of Darius (and perhaps Mannerheim) that has any knowledge of them.

We have highlighted the few inconsistencies that might cause the Grand Alliance to suspect the existence of a Malign hideout; mainly the lack of the spider-drive at Galton and the Houdini passengers that did not end at Galton. We will see if Galton reveals the secrets of the bio-genetic nano-tech used for assassination, if not that is another inconsistency.

Simoes only laid out the possibility of the spider drive. Not of its actual existence. Could it be the GA assumes OB was carried out by traditional ships hurling deadly ballistic weapons? Weapons that were prototypes and scarce as Apollo once was and the data lost in the self-destruct sequence of the Galton space station. And the ships that hurled them were simply very stealthy. The GA already thinks that the MA's stealth probably exceeds their own, per TEiF.

And the nanite tech could have been buried on Mesa with the ruse of Houdini, as far as the GA is concerned.

cthia wrote:Simoes only laid out the possibility of the spider drive. Not of its actual existence. Could it be the GA assumes OB was carried out by traditional ships hurling deadly ballistic weapons? Weapons that were prototypes and scarce as Apollo once was and the data lost in the self-destruct sequence of the Galton space station.

Since Herlander Simões was a streak drive expert, he was actually more likely to know that the spider drive existed than that there was a theoretical possibility of one; that depends on how much he knows of the workings of the device.

We know that the people at Galton all believed that Oyster Bay was solely accomplished with weapons that they had supplied; that was why they were so excited about its success. The only difference between that possibility and the actuality (aside from any evidence that the spider drive was used) was that the grasers mounted on the torpedoes at Galton were not as big as in the attack on the Manticoran orbitals. Remember that normal missiles were also used to attack the shipyards.

We might find out in the next book what was found at Galton and what was believed destroyed. For example all references found to the bio-genetic nano-tech might just be pointers to the classified databases on the fortresses that self-destructed.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
There was no way the RMN and GSN could have prosecuted a war against both Haven and the Solarian League. The mitigating factor is that the Andermani were around, but IIRC didn't RFC say that the Andermani weren't producing Mk23 E and F yet? The number of missiles used to take out RHN ships was much, much higher than for the SLN. And at this time, the RHN would be at about 900 SD(P) strength.

No I personally asked David about that and he said no, the Andermani had no ability to build them. Which seems kind of crazy to be rebuilding your entire fleet to use a weapon you can’t produce, but it has happened.

They sent out people with plans and expertise as soon as the attack happened, bit not before.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

n7axw wrote:Getting back to the subject at hand, at the end of the book the Alliance doesn't realize that Darius was still there to be attacked. They thought that taking out Dalton had completed the job. I was a bit disappointed at that, but oh well. Zilwicki and company will get it figured out and that is probably going to be how the next book starts.

I dispute that. They definitely don't know where Darius is or what its name is, but I think they know there's a fallback position somewhere and it's the true source of the new technology. See thread I'm starting.

I'm wondering, though, if they shouldn't have been able to figure it out. First we know that those small freighters we're transferring cargo from point a to point b. Galton was one of those points. Where was the other?

From all we've heard, the other point was that pirate base. So they don't have a third point to indicate Darius.

Secondly, we know that GF encounters some Malign weapons, but no LDs. So where are they?

I am also wondering which worm hole the Malign is using to communicate between Darius and Dalton. Is it the one at Mannerheim or something that I may have missed...

We don't know exactly where Galton and Felix & Mannerheim are. And we also don't know where the other termini of the Felix Junction are located, not even The Twins. Any one of those 4, including Darius itself, could be closer to Galton than Felix or Mannerheim.

No disagreement on your first point. Obviously enough they don't know where Darius is. The question is when will they realize they don't. Also are there clues to lead them to that conclusion. I thought that the celebrating started way too early.

As for point a and point b, they figure out that there are three points pretty much right away. However, they assume that one of the points is where they get the labor for The transfer of cargo. Everyone assumes, at least, that Hole in the Wall is where that labor is. That leaves a and b. They find one of those points...Galton. Now, what about Darius? I am submitting that there are clues to tip them off that their search is not over that apparently they miss.

As for the worm holes, no, the Alliance doesn't know about them. The bad guys do. And the reader does. I was merely asking if we have any indication of a worm hole that could more directly connect Darius and Galton. We truly don't know where Darius is. When Haven's Bolthole was discovered, it was revealed that it was on the opposite side of Manticore from Haven. Darius could well turn out to be the same sort of thing.

There is one wormhole that Manticore knows about that it doesn't know what is on the far side... Torch. That discussion disappears below the horizon after the disappearance of Harvest Joy. I think that it would be with risking a squadron of BCs to find out.

Don

-

cthia wrote:Simoes only laid out the possibility of the spider drive. Not of its actual existence. Could it be the GA assumes OB was carried out by traditional ships hurling deadlye ballistic weapons? Weapons that were prototypes and scarce as Apollo once was and the data lost in the self-destruct sequence of the Galton space station.

And the nanite tech could have been buried on Mesa with the ruse of Houdini, as far as the GA is concerned.

It's more than that. Simões only knew about the name "spider drive" and no details, but his explanation does align with the fact that Manticore had already concluded it was a new drive technology. He only gave a name to it. Besides, the spiders were also used in the Sigma Draconis system during Operation Fabius and those were definitely not ballistic weapons.

There's also the fact that the grasers that were used in OB were more powerful than any of the weapons used at Galton, and they had very good readings of those.

There's the fact that the torpedoes used during OB could not have used the Hasta body like they did at Galton, because the Hasta didn't exist and there's a perfectly accurate paper trail of its development in the captured Technodyne files.

Then there's the stealth, which again was much better during OB and Fabius than what Galton had.

There are also the three slaver ships that never made back to Mannerheim.

Each one of those, individually, could be dismissed as an unexplained inconsistency due to failure to properly interpret data or loss of data somewhere, or prototypes that never made into production, etc. But there are just too many of them.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Simoes only laid out the possibility of the spider drive. Not of its actual existence. Could it be the GA assumes OB was carried out by traditional ships hurling deadlye ballistic weapons? Weapons that were prototypes and scarce as Apollo once was and the data lost in the self-destruct sequence of the Galton space station.

And the nanite tech could have been buried on Mesa with the ruse of Houdini, as far as the GA is concerned.

It's more than that. Simões only knew about the name "spider drive" and no details, but his explanation does align with the fact that Manticore had already concluded it was a new drive technology. He only gave a name to it. Besides, the spiders were also used in the Sigma Draconis system during Operation Fabius and those were definitely not ballistic weapons.

There's also the fact that the grasers that were used in OB were more powerful than any of the weapons used at Galton, and they had very good readings of those.

There's the fact that the torpedoes used during OB could not have used the Hasta body like they did at Galton, because the Hasta didn't exist and there's a perfectly accurate paper trail of its development in the captured Technodyne files.

Then there's the stealth, which again was much better during OB and Fabius than what Galton had.

There are also the three slaver ships that never made back to Mannerheim.

Each one of those, individually, could be dismissed as an unexplained inconsistency due to failure to properly interpret data or loss of data somewhere, or prototypes that never made into production, etc. But there are just too many of them.

Maybe a bit more than a name. He probably had a general idea of what the spiders were and what they can do...

As for the hastas, they show up first with the SLN strike at Beowulf.

Don

-

n7axw wrote:As for the hastas, they show up first with the SLN strike at Beowulf.

Indeed they do.

But we are shown a scene when they are first demonstrated to the SLN brass. And in TEiF, we are explicitly told that the development of the Hastas was very well documented, unlike the Cataphracts.

That means the weapons that the Galton Navy used against Honor could not have been the ones used at OB. So just what did they use? And given that the stealth was really good, but the Hasta-driven graserheads were picked up, why did Galton "downgrade" to Hastas?

And then where are the plans for the Silver Bullet?

How likely is it that they have really good details on what happened? The station lost a reactor miliseconds after the weapon started firing. And it's a graser, so there isn't any way you can see the beam unless you are the target. Delicate sensors tend to be overloaded and damaged by gigaton class fusion bottles exploding and then dozens of fusion bombs going off.

I would assume they were only able to tell it was a graser when they got pieces of the station to a lab and saw damage on the atomic scale that is is typical of what really intense gamma ray bombardment does to material.

Given the multiple fusion reactors and missiles exploding it's probably essentially impossible to determine exact or even order of magnitude of the beam strength. Range and focus and how far the piece of irradiated but not destroyed material was from the beam are all needed to know that, and I suspect they know none of those.