tlb wrote:cthia wrote:Or the long shot that I suggested in another thread. Key personnel could have been whisked away on a spider ship. Galton was a good chance to test the effectiveness of the LD.
"Ah, you can't see us can you? But we shall meet again, and since this eye exam has determined that you are blind as a bat, it won't be so pretty for you next time."
I see no evidence in To End in Fire for this. The system was flooded with recon drones, so there was no possibility to load a ship while the fight was on. If they had wanted to do that, it would have been possible to do so before the arrival of the Grand Alliance; but then you could have used a regular passenger ship. What Darius would never want to do is to expose such a ship to a system full of people who were not aware that a spider drive existed.
The only use that I can imagine is to have several Ghost spy ships located far enough away, so that no one would would be aware of them; but where they could record the events of the battle to give feedback to Darius on how things worked out. For example, give a warning about the bow wave produced by Shuttlecock.
Evidence withheld by author per a need to know basis, for the next book?
The point is Galton was a good opportunity to test the effectivness of the spider drive. And a freighter using a spider drive could already have been docked with the station in anticipation of an attack. Without exposing the system to the drive. The drive could have been activated only upon the GA coming over the hyper wall. It could have been towed to the station, and/or moved on thrusters coming in to dock.
I also don't buy the notion that Darius wasn't aware of the bow shock. What navy doesn't test their own weapons.
I still think an LD could have been operating in the system, even if only before the attack. Why not test the effectiveness of the LD on one of your own systems, as an exercise. Key Alignment personnel could have been placed on the stations and manning the sensor platforms in anticipation of a visit and ready to cover for any anomalies that are detected.