What next after To End in Fire

When the GA plus SLN was looking for what turned out to be Galton, they were working from data on ship movements which included what were essentially courier ships (even if they might have been on the small end of the size of a commercial transport) and then started sending small task groups to sniff around from a distance to see if there was the sort of transmission and power evidence for an industrialized system. And they found one.

Felix is not the same thing. It's a system with nobody living there. At best, a GL group doing what was done to find Galton is going to "see" might be a few starships using impellers in the system and then evidence of ships hyping out and then back in. But that is really iffy given the distance the survey ship that found Galton was from the system. All the evidence you are searching for is at the other end of a wormhole. Sure, Mannerheim, might have a ship or two identified by any ships getting closer (but not actually in) the Felix system but figuring out what they were doing there is both tougher and not going to give you the trail to follow. If they have any ships (which they probably do as guards) on the Felix end of the bridge to Darius, they are going to be mostly station-keeping close enough to the Felix end of the wormhole and probably not visible to long-range scans to show them lurking someplace odd.
Your scout team would need to be close enough to pick up ships coming out of the wormhole or entering it. Just how close to the wormhole do you have to be to detect that?
Remember, there is no information or evidence that any of the ships that the GA developed the Galton trail of breadcrumbs from might be using a wormhole other than the one that took them to Mannerheim. That means someone would have to stumble across some ship coming out of hyper way too far from the Felix system that would make any kind of sense for a system approach and then have it vanish but not go back into hyper. How close do you have to be to seen the transition from wedge to sails with military grade sensors? How much traffic is actually transiting the wormhole from Felix to Dalton? If you know it's there (say, you are an Alignment astrogator and you know exactly where you need to come out of hyper to be safe and then use the wormhole) the activity of even one ship a day in each direction using the wormhole is going to be somewhat a case of being in the right place at the wrong time for the Alignment.

Brigade XO wrote:When the GA plus SLN was looking for what turned out to be Galton, they were working from data on ship movements which included what were essentially courier ships (even if they might have been on the small end of the size of a commercial transport) and then started sending small task groups to sniff around from a distance to see if there was the sort of transmission and power evidence for an industrialized system. And they found one.

No, the data was from the 100+ slaver ships that transited the Warner-Mannerheim wormhole. Slaver ships are as fast as a freighter: that is, not very, unlike couriers. It's possible that they could have done the same math with couriers, but I expect that the variance of speeds would be much bigger. Plus, they wouldn't be able to make the assumption that they went to the same place -- I'm sure secret couriers are a common occurrence.

Your scout team would need to be close enough to pick up ships coming out of the wormhole or entering it. Just how close to the wormhole do you have to be to detect that?

That's a good question. They do use sails and those things are bright, so maybe not too close. But ship-borne sensors aren't very good past a few light-minutes, so if you haven't already identified that there were a few ships loitering in this particular patch of space, you're not going to be seeing any transits either.

Remember, there is no information or evidence that any of the ships that the GA developed the Galton trail of breadcrumbs from might be using a wormhole other than the one that took them to Mannerheim. That means someone would have to stumble across some ship coming out of hyper way too far from the Felix system that would make any kind of sense for a system approach and then have it vanish but not go back into hyper. How close do you have to be to seen the transition from wedge to sails with military grade sensors? How much traffic is actually transiting the wormhole from Felix to Dalton? If you know it's there (say, you are an Alignment astrogator and you know exactly where you need to come out of hyper to be safe and then use the wormhole) the activity of even one ship a day in each direction using the wormhole is going to be somewhat a case of being in the right place at the wrong time for the Alignment.

None of that is incriminating evidence, even if you could sense it. Mannerheim ships being in another system for manoeuvres is not wrong or illegal. Guarding a previously-unknown wormhole while trying to legally acquire the rights to the system is also not illegal. In fact, it's a very good procedure. It's actually more than what Haven was doing to the Calvin wormhole!

So even if a remote scout could see ships around the wormhole making transit and could say some of those were from Mannerheim, they can't connect the RF to the MAlign directly, just yet.

You´d need to actually fingerprint the ships as the ones that undertook the Yawata Strike or having technology that is unique to Galton. We don't think there was any such sensor data in the former case and we haven't been told about the latter either.

Oh, it would be cause for the intelligence services to pay closer attention, for no other reason than that the GA is doing exactly the same thing with the Calvin wormhole and Bolthole.

There is also the fact that the Mannerheim is trying to "quietly buy the system from the various owners" as they don't want to draw attention to it.
Whilst they were part of the SL that would have been easier to use cut outs, but now they have left the SL and openly joined the RF that is going to be a bit harder.
Especially as one or more of the SL parties involved in the negotiations are going to want to know who they are really dealing with, so...
a) someone works out who they are really selling it to
b) wonder why a non-SL system is trying to buy it
C) send someone to check out the system
and/or
D) earn "brownie points" with new SL/SLN by informing on them

or a reporter in one of those SL systems wonders why their government is having secret negotiations over rights to a star systems

Garth 2 wrote:There is also the fact that the Mannerheim is trying to "quietly buy the system from the various owners" as they don't want to draw attention to it.
Whilst they were part of the SL that would have been easier to use cut outs, but now they have left the SL and openly joined the RF that is going to be a bit harder.
Especially as one or more of the SL parties involved in the negotiations are going to want to know who they are really dealing with, so...

The Republic of Mannerheim was never part of the SL. Some of the RF members appear to have been SL members prior to the founding of the RF, but it's unclear whether this is getting retconned. When the ONI Director Chuck Gannon was discussing it with Adm. Winston Kingsford, there was no mention of secession.

But Mannerheim wasn't a member.

a) someone works out who they are really selling it to
b) wonder why a non-SL system is trying to buy it
C) send someone to check out the system
and/or
D) earn "brownie points" with new SL/SLN by informing on them

or a reporter in one of those SL systems wonders why their government is having secret negotiations over rights to a star systems

Buying a system is not too unexpected. Since it's only 12 light-years from Mannerheim, it's not too far out to think that Mannerheim would simply want to have future room to expand to in the next few centuries. There aren't THAT many G-type stars within 12 light-years of Sol; in fact, there are exactly three, two G2 (Alpha Centauri A and Epsilon Indi) and one G8 (Tau Ceti), so it's entirely possible that Felix is the closest G-type single-star system to Mannerheim. As a G-type star, it might be a very good analogous to their own home system for them to also justify using for naval training and testing grounds.

However, the simple fact that someone is, regardless of who that is, means there's something interesting about that system. It could be minerals and ore, it could be a previously undetected and inhabitable moon, or a wormhole. It doesn't matter what it is, it'll drive the price up. Of course, if they know it is a wormhole, then the price will go up by a lot, probably because the seller would open up for bidding. And that would give the MAlign's secret away.

When you don't want people to know whose buying you use cut-outs and law firms.

It's like one of the 1500 companies that are HQ at one address in Nevada, which leads you to a Luxembourg holding company, controlled by Panamanian shell company, which is owned by a PRC Chinese shell company that is actually owned by a company in Liechtenstein. Good luck tracing that.

kzt wrote:When you don't want people to know whose buying you use cut-outs and law firms.

It's like one of the 1500 companies that are HQ at one address in Nevada, which leads you to a Luxembourg holding company, controlled by Panamanian shell company, which is owned by a PRC Chinese shell company that is actually owned by a company in Liechtenstein. Good luck tracing that.

That may hide who is doing the buying, but not that someone is trying to do so. Unless there's an active market of trading uninhabited system claims, but it isn't likely this exists because otherwise they'd have acquired it by now.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

kzt wrote:When you don't want people to know whose buying you use cut-outs and law firms.

It's like one of the 1500 companies that are HQ at one address in Nevada, which leads you to a Luxembourg holding company, controlled by Panamanian shell company, which is owned by a PRC Chinese shell company that is actually owned by a company in Liechtenstein. Good luck tracing that.

That may hide who is doing the buying, but not that someone is trying to do so. Unless there's an active market of trading uninhabited system claims, but it isn't likely this exists because otherwise they'd have acquired it by now.

How I would do it (which might take a good deal of set up) would be buying something else from a company that held one of the claims and, as part of the negotiations, say something like "I need something more to justify that price, do you have something basically worthless to throw in the deal?" Repeat (using a different cover company and different negotiator, native to a different planet) for each such company.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

kzt wrote:When you don't want people to know whose buying you use cut-outs and law firms.

It's like one of the 1500 companies that are HQ at one address in Nevada, which leads you to a Luxembourg holding company, controlled by Panamanian shell company, which is owned by a PRC Chinese shell company that is actually owned by a company in Liechtenstein. Good luck tracing that.

That may hide who is doing the buying, but not that someone is trying to do so. Unless there's an active market of trading uninhabited system claims, but it isn't likely this exists because otherwise they'd have acquired it by now.

It was mentioned that there were multiple groups claiming ownership rights, with multiple attempts to colonize the system and failing. How many of those were squatters who stayed long enough to legally fight for ownership, but never purchased it? Or Banks who placed a lien against the colony who defaulted on payments 2 centuries ago?

And what is the value of the system? Even a destitute M class system probably is worth trillions in mineral rights - but a G class with a marginal goldilocks world? How do you pay off half a dozen claimants who have a semi-valid claim on the system, and would rather sit on it until someone pays their asking price (because said liens don't come due until the system is sold).

Theemile wrote:It was mentioned that there were multiple groups claiming ownership rights, with multiple attempts to colonize the system and failing. How many of those were squatters who stayed long enough to legally fight for ownership, but never purchased it? Or Banks who placed a lien against the colony who defaulted on payments 2 centuries ago?

Fair. If the MAlign & Mannerheim insert themselves as one of those quarrelling parties, no one should know that they want the system for a reason not shared by any of the other parties.

BTW, would the principle of uti possidetis apply to star systems? Mannerheim could make the claim that they've de facto possessed the system, especially if they begin investing there. They've officially though secretly been doing that for some 12 years; how long more is required?

And what is the value of the system? Even a destitute M class system probably is worth trillions in mineral rights - but a G class with a marginal goldilocks world? How do you pay off half a dozen claimants who have a semi-valid claim on the system, and would rather sit on it until someone pays their asking price (because said liens don't come due until the system is sold).

Well, the issue with systems with M-class dwarfs is that they're more than dime-a-dozen. They're dime-a-million, because there are just so many of them. Our Galaxy has 400 billion stars, 75% of which are M-class dwarfs, so there are 300 billion of those star systems. So no, M-class is not reason enough to be worth anything. Location and exploitable resources, yes, and even then location is marginal: at 12 light-years from Mannerheim, Felix wouldn't likely be the closest M-class.

But I agree on G-class with inhabitable world, even if marginal.

How do you pay them? Present value versus future, potential value. Right now, they are in litigation and none of them is certain to have any pay day. Oh, they all think they have the rightful claim, but they should know by now that there's no actual guarantee of it. It might be wiser to take a few centicreds on the credit right now, than none at all. Plus, you get it right now, meaning you can invest it or buy something with it. This is likely even more true for any banks that have received the claim as a collateral for something, as they should have a more rational view of their finances, as opposed to a subjective emotional attachment like the PFT corporation and the Tomlinson system that the Andermani annexed (see ACTI).

It can't be that simple, though, otherwise Mannerheim would already have bought off all the claimants.

People and business by and sell rights and claims all the time. What do you think happens when banks (or investment companies) foreclose on anything and then start looking to recover at least part their losses?

Where do you go to unload this stuff? The Sharks. Got some company that is chronically behind on it's notes AND has not been supplying the information (statements, etc) required by the financial regulators? Loans- which may ultimately pay off, just not in the time contracted, become a burden on lenders who have to show certain things (like financial statements by the borrowers that indicate they CAN make some level of payments) but slow payments (like chronic 60 6o 90 days past due on payments) or not providing ANY of the ongoing financial information required by the loans documents -and also the basis of being able to do Loan Review?

So you shop the debt to "The Sharks". You may not get all you are supposed to (including late fees) BUT you do get to get to move a major problem of a loan off your books for some money and the "bad loan" goes away. You clean up your portfolio, get the regulators (and investors) off your backs about said "bad loans" and you take what you do get in money and are able to start lending that back out.

Picture the owner of a big company who calls the EVP of a bank to say "There is this lawyer in my lobby telling me that he now holds all the notes I had with you and is taking over my business. And the response is....Joe, remember that for the past four years I have been telling you that your have to bring your loans from 90+days past due and you HAVE to give me all those tax returns and financial statements that were agreed to be supplied (at least anually) on the business and the guarantor's? Well, you haven'd been doing that and the credit risk rating of your debt has remained in the toilet no matther that you keep making promises but never even try to catch up even if you say "your good for it".? Remember when I told you that this couldn't continue and you have NEVER shown any actual progress in catching up on payments or providing all the financials that you are required to give us?
So, we sold your debt. We don't own it any more and, yes, the person in your lobby is there to tell you that they (or the people they represent) OWN that debt and we can't talk to you about this anymore. Given what you owe, they CAN tell you what they are going to do and your not dealing with the friendly bank any more. I can't talk to you about this, it's out of our hands.

--the EVP didn't actually say "it's just business" but you get the idea.