Attacking Darius:

While it would be interesting to find out how long it would take an Alignment to cold start or even warm start a Spider drive but your not considering that they might not shut them down at all if they were to coast in ballistically from a hyperspace trip to sort of near a wormhole or any other place and just holding them at idle.
The Ghost doing the scouting at Manticore provides a lot of "thinking" about even the Alignment can't really detect the Spider drive and nobody else yet knows enough about it's emissions to understand what they are seeing IF they can see them with existing scanners. So, other than the energy budget and fuel, there might not be a reason to shut down a Spider Drive on something like an LD that is lurking within it's nominal attack range with the weapons we have seen in the Alignment inventory so far.

If a Spider ship is doing a superb job of imitating a hole in space with it's drive moving it around, then one coasting or even hanging stopped relative to something like a wormhole or a star system with the drive powered but not generating any movement should be effectively invisible. Remember we have been told about Smart Skin systems etc. And at the range of something like the cometary shell, nobody is going to notice waste heat being directed away from the primary system sensor nets.

cthia wrote:Hmm... how fast can a warship shed the sails and shut down the hypergenerator? I'm talking about an emergency military n-space configuration.*

That's not the issue.

The issue is it can't bring up wedges and this sidewalls inside the exit lane. It has to drift clear first. And since there's no hiding the sails right after transit, however quick you can bring them down, there's no hiding the ship and that it's vulnerable. It's unclear if that also applies to a bubblewall, but since it's a gravitic phenomenon, there's a good chance it does too. And in any case, bubblewalls take time to go up (or around, in the case).

Two LACs sufficed to get the SLN task force in the Ajay-Prime bridge. They wouldn't have if the SLN had done a mass transit, but we're positing here that the GA sent a major task force to hold the Felix Junction. They'd have no trouble blowing any number of ships coming through the junction from Darius out of the sky.

Unless David decides to go Starfire and have pre-transit bombardments, but as far as we know that has been ruled out for the HV.

And if you've guessed where I'm headed, then how about it? Has textev supplied us with the total time to initiate the spider drive? I'd bet it has been discussed already. But if the spider drive can be brought up instantly, or instantly from an idle state, and an idle state can exist simultaneously with hypering, then perhaps the rules of engagement will give the Spiders (LDs] enough time to activate their stealth. Also, it isn't exactly inconceivable that the MA has eliminated transit sickness.

Irrelevant if we're still talking about transiting the junction. Even if the ship were able to transition to spider immediately upon clearing the exit -- and there's good reason to think that they have to clear the exit lane first -- it's locked on because of that pair of bright sails that have just shut down. We're talking about taking fire within half a second of the transit or less, so the maximum displacement an LD can do even at emergency acceleration is about 300 m. That's not enough to clear its (likely) beam.

Could it come with guns blazing? Yes, but it wouldn't have any targets. If their attacker is positioned a quarter light-second away, by the time the LD receives the radar returns to be able to fire, it's also receiving incoming fire. Actually, it would receive incoming fire before that, because the attacker would attack on receipt of the FTL signature of the sails, so about 0.25 + 0.25/62 = 0.255 seconds.

The GA doesn't have any idea what is on the other side of that WH. And even if during wartime ships exit the WH, until the GA can identify the bad guys for certain, they can't simply fire on anything coming out of the WH. It could be an innocent navy.

That is true, but there is a scenario where they'd discovered the WH through Intel or following a suspect ship, then set up surveillance of it. They might have enough data to show that huge ships bigger than the biggest freighter have been coming out of there. And moving using a stealth propulsion system that no one else is known to have.

Also, with their total stealth, who is to say whether the MA has very stealthy platforms watching the watchers. And these platforms could be armed to the teeth awaiting orders. I can't believe the MA hasn't foreseen the time that that end of the WH would be seized.

That is true, but as I mentioned above, stealth is not useful when defending a fixed target. You have to be near that fixed target.

It might be costly to take on those stealthed defences, but it can be done.

Like everyone's said, a wormhole assault would be suicidal. While crazy, ruthless and bloodthirsty, the Malign isn't stupid and they've had centuries to dig in deep in Darius. Until Darius' location can be pinned down, attacking it would be impossible. The only chance of a successful attack would be through hyper.

jtg452 wrote:Like everyone's said, a wormhole assault would be suicidal. While crazy, ruthless and bloodthirsty, the Malign isn't stupid and they've had centuries to dig in deep in Darius. Until Darius' location can be pinned down, attacking it would be impossible. The only chance of a successful attack would be through hyper.

Right, but like I said, it goes both ways: the Felix side of the Junction can be blockaded and taken over much more easily than Darius itself would. That leaves Darius isolated from its rapid-movement asset.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

jtg452 wrote:Like everyone's said, a wormhole assault would be suicidal. While crazy, ruthless and bloodthirsty, the Malign isn't stupid and they've had centuries to dig in deep in Darius. Until Darius' location can be pinned down, attacking it would be impossible. The only chance of a successful attack would be through hyper.

Right, but like I said, it goes both ways: the Felix side of the Junction can be blockaded and taken over much more easily than Darius itself would. That leaves Darius isolated from its rapid-movement asset.

Taking away their speed advantages would be worth it if you can follow up by taking advantage of the disruption of their communication and Intel loop.

Blockading the other end of the wormhole just slows them down. That doesn't even weaken then since they aren't dependent on imported sustenance or raw materials.

Then again, how would anyone know to blockade it? If you don't know what is on the other side, it just a 'killer wormhole like the one at Torch to be avoided until it's proven otherwise.

jtg452 wrote:Taking away their speed advantages would be worth it if you can follow up by taking advantage of the disruption of their communication and Intel loop.

Of course. If you don't have a reason to blockade, you're just wasting ships trying to take it, exposing yourself to counter-attack at a point that must be defended, and possibly tying down a portion of your mobile assets.

If you don't have a reason to blockade, it might be better to not do it and instead observe the comings and goings. You don't shut down an information pipeline unless you have to, you monitor it.

Then again, how would anyone know to blockade it? If you don't know what is on the other side, it just a 'killer wormhole like the one at Torch to be avoided until it's proven otherwise.

They would know because they'd have observed the wormhole in use by ships with spider drives.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
They would know because they'd have observed the wormhole in use by ships with spider drives.

When did the GA develop a spider drive detector? Do they even know exactly what it is? The guy that Victor and Anton snatched from the Gamma Center was an expert on the streak drive. He was unreliable and the Alignment is crazy about compartmentalization. Did he even know that there was a parallel project on the spider drive? If so, how much did he know and is it enough to give the GA a starting point? They have the recordings of the readings of the Sharks dropping out of hyper during Oyster Bay, so they know what that looks like in retrospect, but that's it.

A spider drive is used in regular space and hyper. You need 2 sails to use a wormhole, right? Do spider drive equipped ships have the ability to make sails for a wormhole transit? Would they be noticeably different from regular sails on exit from a wormhole?

I'm only asking because you're building a LOT on assumptions and speculation that you've already made.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:They would know because they'd have observed the wormhole in use by ships with spider drives.

jtg452 wrote:When did the GA develop a spider drive detector? Do they even know exactly what it is? The guy that Victor and Anton snatched from the Gamma Center was an expert on the streak drive. He was unreliable and the Alignment is crazy about compartmentalization. Did he even know that there was a parallel project on the spider drive? If so, how much did he know and is it enough to give the GA a starting point? They have the recordings of the readings of the Sharks dropping out of hyper during Oyster Bay, so they know what that looks like in retrospect, but that's it.

A spider drive is used in regular space and hyper. You need 2 sails to use a wormhole, right? Do spider drive equipped ships have the ability to make sails for a wormhole transit? Would they be noticeably different from regular sails on exit from a wormhole?

I'm only asking because you're building a LOT on assumptions and speculation that you've already made.

Isn't that an assumption which you are making? Everything that I have read indicates that you need to have sails to move safely in hyperspace. So then they would also have the sails needed to transit a wormhole.

tlb wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:They would know because they'd have observed the wormhole in use by ships with spider drives.

jtg452 wrote:When did the GA develop a spider drive detector? Do they even know exactly what it is? The guy that Victor and Anton snatched from the Gamma Center was an expert on the streak drive. He was unreliable and the Alignment is crazy about compartmentalization. Did he even know that there was a parallel project on the spider drive? If so, how much did he know and is it enough to give the GA a starting point? They have the recordings of the readings of the Sharks dropping out of hyper during Oyster Bay, so they know what that looks like in retrospect, but that's it.

A spider drive is used in regular space and hyper. You need 2 sails to use a wormhole, right? Do spider drive equipped ships have the ability to make sails for a wormhole transit? Would they be noticeably different from regular sails on exit from a wormhole?

I'm only asking because you're building a LOT on assumptions and speculation that you've already made.

Isn't that an assumption which you are making? Everything that I have read indicates that you need to have sails to move safely in hyperspace. So then they would also have the sails needed to transit a wormhole.

Sails are required for Grav Waves and wormholes. (all the wormhole descriptions we have been given include a transition to sails just as before translation.)

Hyperspace, outside of grav waves, can be crossed with impellers, and not sails - see HAE, the battle of Selker Rift and LACS and shuttles moving about in hyper.

When exiting a wormhole, you exit with a sail and a no acceleration - you just glide along the Emergence lane. Impellers cannot be used and will burn out - while we do not have cannon, it is implied that the spider is unusable as well (no acceleration in an emergence lane)

When asking David if the spider could use a wormhole, he replied with something akin to "Who said it can't" (implying that spider vessels can, in fact use a wormhole.) but the mechanics of it were not discussed (secondary alpha rings on rams, the spider can reconfigure into a sail, all new tech.? no clue and not mentioned)

jtg452 wrote:When did the GA develop a spider drive detector? Do they even know exactly what it is? The guy that Victor and Anton snatched from the Gamma Center was an expert on the streak drive. He was unreliable and the Alignment is crazy about compartmentalization. Did he even know that there was a parallel project on the spider drive? If so, how much did he know and is it enough to give the GA a starting point? They have the recordings of the readings of the Sharks dropping out of hyper during Oyster Bay, so they know what that looks like in retrospect, but that's it.

I'm not positing they did invent a spider detector. But the lack of detection is a detection too: if that ship which did transit through the wormhole, it was using sails. If that ship then did not bring up a wedge, and yet moved, it has a different propulsion mechanism. Plus, you know exactly where the ship is and you may have sufficient optical resolution in the recon drones to see the hull, so you'd see its triangular cross-section too.

I'm not sure Simões knew it was called Spider or whether Jack passed that information before his demise. But both of them knew there was a separate effort and the spider had been used in OB, so the GA knows its capabilities. Unfortunately, we do know that they didn't have any details on the actual implementation or the physics involved, so the GA never got that. At best they have the scans from both Oyster Bay and Fabius, with a greater likelihood of having spotted something for the Silver Bullets in Fabius, because those loitered there for weeks.

A spider drive is used in regular space and hyper. You need 2 sails to use a wormhole, right? Do spider drive equipped ships have the ability to make sails for a wormhole transit? Would they be noticeably different from regular sails on exit from a wormhole?

I'm only asking because you're building a LOT on assumptions and speculation that you've already made.

Yes, you need 2 sails to transit a wormhole or ride a grav wave. Therefore, spider-drive ships have sails. Moreover, navigating in hyper requires having Warshawski detectors, lest you accidentally run into a rogue grav wave and get destroyed.

Whether it's possible that they have a significantly different sail, one that manages to be stealthy, I grant you that is possible but extremely unlikely. That would mean they had not two but three physics breakthroughs in the past 50 T-years or so. Moreover, we know that Warshawski sails are just a different use of the impeller ring that is able to form a wedge and the sails are gravitic phenomena. So if they had the technology to make stealth sails, it would be likely they'd have to ability to make stealth wedges too, but we know they don't.