The enemy in "extended space": SLN or MAlign

JohnRoth wrote:Apropos of that, there are parts we haven't seen yet, like the shift in the MAlign's intelligence, command and control network from being centered on Mesa to being centered somewhere else (probably Darius, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's elsewhere).

Darius is accessed through a wormhole connection they want to keep secret and unsuspected, and it is probably far away from the rest of civilization going the long way. In addition, keeping Darius itself in the dark about the way the universe works is important. I'm sure they've got a whole lot of firewalls between incoming information and Darius society at large, but sensible planning doesn't mean jumping up and down on your safety net like a trampoline.

Mannerheim, on the other hand, is a short trip to Darius by that secret route, and couriers going to and from it can be lost in its regular traffic. Having the Alignment leadership right there for one of the central RF members and the known-space connection to Darius, Felix, and the Twins would be very convenient.

SharkHunter wrote:So for future plot purposes, say a similar situation exists, and our GA spies of any stripe (Beowulfan, Torchese, RMN, etc.) plus ONI research reveals that high ranking SLN naval officer X signed off on corrupt practice Y regarding system Z thinking that it is at Manpower's behest, in reality to benefit the MAlign. The MAlign may still need their corrupted admiral to do something, so watching said person becomes uber profitable in terms of finding the puppetmasters.

I like where your thoughts are going here. This may tie in real well with Daud(?) and his three friends on Old-Terra. Who knows what little bits of information they are going to find now that they have really began looking in Earnest.

JeffEngel wrote:Mannerheim, on the other hand, is a short trip to Darius by that secret route, and couriers going to and from it can be lost in its regular traffic. Having the Alignment leadership right there for one of the central RF members and the known-space connection to Darius, Felix, and the Twins would be very convenient.

Ok, I'm trying to keep this wormhole thing in Mannerheim straight. Mannerheim has a wormhole to Felix that everybody knows about. Felix has a wormhole junction with 5 wormholes, two of which the MA is trying to keep secret from everybody. But Mannerheim knows of the other 2, well, 3, as one goes to Mannerheim, because Mannerheim is trying to get full control of Felix so they can have full ownership of the 3 wormholes in Felix that they actually know about?

One of the wormholes in Felix (known or unknown ?) leades to the “twins” that leads to Torch. And one of the totally “unknown” wormholes in Felix leads to Darius? If so, Darius is just a couple of quick wormhole jumps from the “known” structures of wormholes but the MA can't use that travel path with out giving away the fact that there are additional wormholes in Felix? So the MA if forced to take the hyperspace route to Darius to keep the wormholes secret?

Somehow, in some way Torch has got to play a big roll in things once the wheels really come off the MA's plans. Just seems like it has to.

I need a map to keep all this wormhole stuff straight.

StealthSeeker wrote:Ok, I'm trying to keep this wormhole thing in Mannerheim straight. Mannerheim has a wormhole to Felix that everybody knows about. Felix has a wormhole junction with 5 wormholes, two of which the MA is trying to keep secret from everybody. But Mannerheim knows of the other 2, well, 3, as one goes to Mannerheim, because Mannerheim is trying to get full control of Felix so they can have full ownership of the 3 wormholes in Felix that they actually know about?

One of the wormholes in Felix (known or unknown ?) leades to the “twins” that leads to Torch. And one of the totally “unknown” wormholes in Felix leads to Darius? If so, Darius is just a couple of quick wormhole jumps from the “known” structures of wormholes but the MA can't use that travel path with out giving away the fact that there are additional wormholes in Felix? So the MA if forced to take the hyperspace route to Darius to keep the wormholes secret?

Somehow, in some way Torch has got to play a big roll in things once the wheels really come off the MA's plans. Just seems like it has to.

Not quite.

Mannerheim is physically near the Felix system ("little more than 10 light-years" [ToF].

A Jessyk Combine survey ship (acting for the Messan Alliance) investigated the Felix system "better than two T-centuries" ago [ToF] and found the junction.

"Eight and a half T-years ago" [ToF] parts of the Mannerheim System Defense Force (and presumably other high ranking parts of the Mannerheim Republic government) became officially aware of the junction at Felix, and it (officially) 2 secondary terminii. (The first non-MALign people to know of it)
However Mannerheim is trying to keep its existence a secret from the rest of the galaxy until they firmly establish ownership of it and the Felix system. (Which serves the MAlign's purpose, they don't want it all that well known yet either)

Torch of Freedom doesn't (that I see) tell us where the 2 'known to Mannerheim'; aka "official" terminii go.
The 2 still totally secret ones are the Darius terminus and the SGC-902-36-G (aka "The Twins") terminus.

Then, as you said the other wormhole to the Twins' system is the Torch - Twins bridge.


Now some of the MAlign manned ships of the Mannerheim System Defense Force were secretly deployed all the way to The Twins to keep and eye on the wormhole from Torch. But the rest of the MSDF wouldn't know that that's where they were; they'd have had some cover story. (Maybe at Felix; maybe at one or the other of the "official" remote terminii of the Felix junction; maybe off on a deep space training mission)

Now that said, because the wider MSDF knows about (parts of) the Felix Junction, the MAlign might have to be careful about using it to access Darius. They'd have to make sure that only MAlign manned MSDF ships were around to observe the unexpected Junction traffic. Otherwise someone would start wondering about any significant ships using a wormhole that was supposed to be kept secret from the rest of the galaxy until ownership was firmly established.

Jonathan_S wrote:Now some of the MAlign manned ships of the Mannerheim System Defense Force were secretly deployed all the way to The Twins to keep and eye on the wormhole from Torch. But the rest of the MSDF wouldn't know that that's where they were; they'd have had some cover story. (Maybe at Felix; maybe at one or the other of the "official" remote terminii of the Felix junction; maybe off on a deep space training mission)

Now that said, because the wider MSDF knows about (parts of) the Felix Junction, the MAlign might have to be careful about using it to access Darius. They'd have to make sure that only MAlign manned MSDF ships were around to observe the unexpected Junction traffic. Otherwise someone would start wondering about any significant ships using a wormhole that was supposed to be kept secret from the rest of the galaxy until ownership was firmly established.

Still, that's the safest cover and route for communication to/from Darius, and it's out of Mannerheim. You'd need to be careful about using it, but anything else would be both riskier and more tedious. (Well - setting up shop on Felix would be less tedious, but much riskier.)

Alternatively - if you want a spot where there's zero traffic and no one at all to monitor it, but close to your pocket junction, there's the system with the Twins itself, SGC-902-36-G. It's got no habitable planets and it's not even close to another. But running the operation out of starships and living in them indefinitely isn't inviting.

StealthSeeker wrote:Ok, I'm trying to keep this wormhole thing in Mannerheim straight. Mannerheim has a wormhole ...

Um, No. Mannerheim does NOT have a wormhole.

Mannerheim is ten lightyears from Felix which does have a wormhole, which nobody except "Mannerheim" (aka the MAlign) knows about. They've known about it for about two centuries, but have only let Mannerheim (outside of the onion) know about it for about ten years. Information is still closely held to only a few people because "Somebody Else" owns the Felix system. Actually several "Somebody Elses" which is making obtaining clear title to the system difficult, without revealing an untoward interest or the existence of the wormhole junction.

The Felix Wormhole has four secondary termini.

Two go to unrevealed and unimportant locations. Those are the generally known (outside the Onion) termini. They are still closely held secrets, but not important to the storyline.

One terminus leads to Darius and is known only to the innermost layer of the Onion and a few high-ranking officers of the Mannerhein SDF who are inside the Onion to some extent.

One terminus leads to one of the "Twins;" two wormhole termini less than two light-minutes apart and right on the hyperlimit of a brown dwarf star with only a catalog number.

The other Wormhole Terminus in the "Twins" leads to Congo/Torch and is guarded by a squadron of Mannerheim SDF battlecruisers.

The Torch Wormhole is completely separate from the Felix Wormhole Junction other than leading to the same system as one terminus.

dreamrider wrote:

Houdini was planned for years and years, possibly centuries. It was merely accelerated, and the cover stories enhanced, by the current astro-political pressures. So I submit that "meticulously" would still apply to the longer term elements, like transit routings, records elimination, evacuations covered by more mundane occurances than nuke terrorism, etc.

dreamrider

Yeah, it was planned years in advance. But not the way it turned out. From the moment they learn about Cachet and Zilwicke's escape and revelations, they start improvising. What was undoubtedly intended as a quietly executed op extended over time becomes something that is rushed, hurried. That whole bit of doing it amid a chorus of thundering nuclear weapons was something new, an adaptation, a measure of desperation to try to add to the casualty lists and loose the people they wanted to evacuate in the middle of it. And the way they went about it undoubtedly required additional shipping on relatively short notice. The routings might have held.

All in all, "meticulous" isn't a good word for describing what happened. "Meticulous" flew out the window when they accelerated. They were flying by the seat of their britches!

Don

n7axw wrote:

dreamrider wrote:

Houdini was planned for years and years, possibly centuries. It was merely accelerated, and the cover stories enhanced, by the current astro-political pressures. So I submit that "meticulously" would still apply to the longer term elements, like transit routings, records elimination, evacuations covered by more mundane occurances than nuke terrorism, etc.

dreamrider

Yeah, it was planned years in advance. But not the way it turned out. From the moment they learn about Cachet and Zilwicke's escape and revelations, they start improvising. What was undoubtedly intended as a quietly executed op extended over time becomes something that is rushed, hurried. That whole bit of doing it amid a chorus of thundering nuclear weapons was something new, an adaptation, a measure of desperation to try to add to the casualty lists and loose the people they wanted to evacuate in the middle of it. And the way they went about it undoubtedly required additional shipping on relatively short notice. The routings might have held.

All in all, "meticulous" isn't a good word for describing what happened. "Meticulous" flew out the window when they accelerated. They were flying by the seat of their britches!

Don

There is actually textev to this point - originally Houdini was supposed to be quiet and very subdued. It was Cachat and Zilwicki in some part that forced their hands, but it was also the fear (justified as it turns out) that Henke was going to move on Mesa in the near future, and they HAD to have everyone of importance out, and records destroyed before she did so. And while they were completely ruthless in their plan, it is indeed possible that they missed someone - possibly one of the lower ranking junior members of the onion who was supposed to be killed by the lack of a ping to his med package, who hadn't gotten the update, and is just now realizing that all of the junior troops have started dropping dead from heart attacks, and cerebral hemorrhages, the odd case of typhoid fever, etc, and figure he had better get some help before he gets dropped by the MAlign.

Hi fallsfromtrees,

Now there is an interesting thought. One would wonder if such individual would actually have a chance of saving himself by turning himself over to the sicbay of a Manty warship.
Talk about a security measure backfiring!

Don