shower thought: Could the fall of galton exposed bolthole?

One i'm almost sure a few others nations suspect the pressence of something like bolthole. If only guessing the number and size of shipyards haven has, and then counting the number of ships they've actually have. those two numbers won't square. as to why they would even be looking in the first place, i think we forget haven most likely still looks like evil empire to those outside the area manticore is. look how long it too for germany to be at all trusted after 1945. But anyway some planetary military hear's about galton and starts talking/guessing about how manticore found it. they then decided to try aply those lessons to bolthole..... granted in bolthole's case the wormhole would make it way more difficult.

The discrepancy in the number of Haven's ships showed up a whilte ago (about 3 years back in the story) just before Thunderbolt kicked off the 2nd war.

And even then it only looks like a discrepancy if you were carefully monitoring what all their known yards were working on during the Ceasefire.

So anybody who was clued into to the likelihood of a secret yard complex would already have been looking before Galton. But even if the Grand Alliance declassifies how they found Galton (or that secret leaks) the techniques they used seem unlikely to be useful in finding Bolthole.

After all, a key clue was tracking freighters heading out from neutral territory. But Bolthole would have been set up by Peep state freighters going directly Peep territory to the wormhole and through to Calvin's Hope. You wouldn't have those 3rd party records to find because they'd have no reason to pass through 3rd party neutral territory -- and the Peeps of the time would have reasons to scrub, sanitize, or falsify what shipping records there were.

So, no, I don't think the Grand Alliance finding Galton is likely to cause Bolthole to be found any sooner.

Jonathan_S wrote:The discrepancy in the number of Haven's ships showed up a whilte ago (about 3 years back in the story) just before Thunderbolt kicked off the 2nd war.

And even then it only looks like a discrepancy if you were carefully monitoring what all their known yards were working on during the Ceasefire.

So anybody who was clued into to the likelihood of a secret yard complex would already have been looking before Galton. But even if the Grand Alliance declassifies how they found Galton (or that secret leaks) the techniques they used seem unlikely to be useful in finding Bolthole.

After all, a key clue was tracking freighters heading out from neutral territory. But Bolthole would have been set up by Peep state freighters going directly Peep territory to the wormhole and through to Calvin's Hope. You wouldn't have those 3rd party records to find because they'd have no reason to pass through 3rd party neutral territory -- and the Peeps of the time would have reasons to scrub, sanitize, or falsify what shipping records there were.

So, no, I don't think the Grand Alliance finding Galton is likely to cause Bolthole to be found any sooner.

i actually tend to agree.

I wasn't even thinking in terms of leaking. more sort of morning coffee talk on how they found it, and then trying what ever they come up with. but about those freighters. Could you apply something similar to the bolthole ships themselves? Say you have a certain ship you suspect was built at bolthole. Well you go through haven's news and find the first mention of something like "ship's captain plays courtesy visit to planetary governor" then like manticore did you start mathing. i don't think it would work nearly as well, but it might shrink the volume way more then the grand alliance would be happy with, not dangerously so but still in unhappy levels.

Puidwen wrote:i actually tend to agree.

I wasn't even thinking in terms of leaking. more sort of morning coffee talk on how they found it, and then trying what ever they come up with. but about those freighters. Could you apply something similar to the bolthole ships themselves? Say you have a certain ship you suspect was built at bolthole. Well you go through haven's news and find the first mention of something like "ship's captain plays courtesy visit to planetary governor" then like manticore did you start mathing. i don't think it would work nearly as well, but it might shrink the volume way more then the grand alliance would be happy with, not dangerously so but still in unhappy levels.

As far as we know the ships built at Bolthole were all naval warships - and mostly the big ones SD(P)s and CLACs -- as there was no mention of Haven deploying new designs of destroyers, cruisers, or battlecruisers. And they could build more of those known classes at their normal yards.

Those new SD(P) and CLAC classes were built in the tightest secrecy until just before Thunderbolt (to sidestep the risk that Manticore might end the ceasefire to crush those ships before Haven had enough of them to stand up to the RMN's modern wall). So there'd be no visits, much less news coverage about them. And in the brief interval between revealing their existence and the resumption of hostilities they'd have been kept concentrated in fleets against the risk of Manticoran aggression, or to prepare if order to execute Thunderbolt. So again no visits.

And of course once the war resumed movements of naval ships is kept out of the press as much as possible so there'd be few stories. And by that point the ships would have moved so much since leaving Bolthole (to their fleet anchorage, then largely dispersed for Thunderbolt, then reconcentrated to try to hold off and Mantie counterattacks while regrouping, that I'd think trying to narrow down where they came from would be pretty hopeless.

After all Haven was taking every precaution to keep the Manticoran Alliance from finding (and attacking) Bolthole. And their intelligence and counter-intelligence services are very capable.

So for all those reasons I doubt anybody's going to have luck trying to narrow down Bolthole (or even the wormhole leading to it) via news reports or open source intel on ship movements.

Jonathan_S wrote:After all Haven was taking every precaution to keep the Manticoran Alliance from finding (and attacking) Bolthole. And their intelligence and counter-intelligence services are very capable.

So for all those reasons I doubt anybody's going to have luck trying to narrow down Bolthole (or even the wormhole leading to it) via news reports or open source intel on ship movements.

Agreed too.

Unlike the Wanner-Mannerheim warp bridge case, the one leading from Haven territory to Calvin's System is an unknown warp bridge. This is more like the case of Darius: if you don't know where the bridge is and you can't transit it, you don't know where the other side is. It doesn't matter you can collate from personnel records accidentally posted on the Navy's website or some LinkedIn equivalent that a trip from Haven to Bolthole and back takes N number of days: you don't know how far the wormhole takes you. That could place you reasonably anywhere within ~500 light-years from the near endpoint.

The more worrisome leak are spacers posting pictures of the stellar background in social media, or just having their cameras lost and leaked to foreign operatives.

That and the fact that the Sanctuary system was inhabited by the descendants of a very famous lost colony ship. If it does get out that the ship was Calvin's Hope, then that limits the search volume considerably. Plus that's also where the far endpoint of the wormhole is, so ships transiting from Haven space could be followed to the Refuge Systme.

In any case, Pritchart promised the Shirkahna that Sanctuary would be given back to the Sanctuarians.

Dark Fall wrote:“... And it means I have to give you back—return to you, not bestow it upon you like some gift—your own star system and your own future. But when I do, I have to do it in a way that preserves my own star nation and everything I gave my sacred honor to thirty-seven T-years ago. And I have to ask you to understand—and accept—that.”
...
“Perhaps one day I’ll ask you about that memory,” he said, and his voice was gentle against the background grumble of thunder. “But not today.” He smiled again, more warmly. “I’m certain we’ll have many opportunities in the future for me to ask. Perhaps when we sign that treaty of yours in the next few days. Or perhaps on the day—some years from now, I’m sure—when you join me in a toast to the privatization of our friends in the Republic of Haven’s interest in our star system’s infrastructure.”

Her eyes widened ever so slightly, and his smile grew broader.

“Or perhaps even on the day when Refuge seeks admission to a Republic of Haven worthy of the men and women fighting to restore it.”

ThinksMarkedly wrote:[
Agreed too.

Unlike the Wanner-Mannerheim warp bridge case, the one leading from Haven territory to Calvin's System is an unknown warp bridge. This is more like the case of Darius: if you don't know where the bridge is and you can't transit it, you don't know where the other side is. It doesn't matter you can collate from personnel records accidentally posted on the Navy's website or some LinkedIn equivalent that a trip from Haven to Bolthole and back takes N number of days: you don't know how far the wormhole takes you. That could place you reasonably anywhere within ~500 light-years from the near endpoint.

The more worrisome leak are spacers posting pictures of the stellar background in social media, or just having their cameras lost and leaked to foreign operatives.

That and the fact that the Sanctuary system was inhabited by the descendants of a very famous lost colony ship. If it does get out that the ship was Calvin's Hope, then that limits the search volume considerably. Plus that's also where the far endpoint of the wormhole is, so ships transiting from Haven space could be followed to the Refuge Systme.

In any case, Pritchart promised the Shirkahna that Sanctuary would be given back to the Sanctuarians.

Haven has been vary cagey in how it handles shipping with Bolthole. They are having crews from Bolthole take new ships to coordinates in space and handing them over to a new Haven crew which as no idea where the ship came from and with practical no interaction between the the crews. The people navigating the ship from Bolthole seem to have all the navigation information NOT in the new ship systems and I suspect that while the systems may have the information about the operation of systems, it doesn't have any locations information. Probably the receiving crew has to load "standard" RHN navigation packages AFTER they accept the turnover of the ship and it's also probably a minimal size crew that is handling taking the ship from where they get it to where thy feed it into the regular Naval Operations after wiping the journey history. So if VERY FEW people are getting to go to Bolthole and leave again (Like President Pritchard & staff) the potential leask are minimal. All of the Peeps who were at Boldhole before Prichard took over the Haven, are still there (or dead, or in prison, it sounded like they cleaned up the SS and other groups from the other regime).

I'll leave the creative recordkeeing side to RFC. We don't need to know. Haven had a Lot of yards in a lot of places, the Navy is getting new and better ships- and that's all they want to know

Brigade XO wrote: Haven has been vary cagey in how it handles shipping with Bolthole. They are having crews from Bolthole take new ships to coordinates in space and handing them over to a new Haven crew which as no idea where the ship came from and with practical no interaction between the the crews. The people navigating the ship from Bolthole seem to have all the navigation information NOT in the new ship systems and I suspect that while the systems may have the information about the operation of systems, it doesn't have any locations information. Probably the receiving crew has to load "standard" RHN navigation packages AFTER they accept the turnover of the ship and it's also probably a minimal size crew that is handling taking the ship from where they get it to where thy feed it into the regular Naval Operations after wiping the journey history. So if VERY FEW people are getting to go to Bolthole and leave again (Like President Pritchard & staff) the potential leask are minimal. All of the Peeps who were at Boldhole before Prichard took over the Haven, are still there (or dead, or in prison, it sounded like they cleaned up the SS and other groups from the other regime).

I'll leave the creative recordkeeing side to RFC. We don't need to know. Haven had a Lot of yards in a lot of places, the Navy is getting new and better ships- and that's all they want to know

Yeah, I suspect the same: the ships are ferried from Bolthole to J-156-18(L) with a skeleton crew, who then takes a military transport back to Bolthole, with the new crew assuming ownership right there in that system. The problem though is this requires a non-trivial investment in fixed infrastructure. Turning a ship over and resetting the systems to factory settings is not a trivial task. Maybe it's just the navigational database that is erased and loaded up with standard Havenite (and now GA) packages, but even then it's not something I'd expect to do free-floating in space.

That is to say, I expect there is at least one space station in J-156-18(L), possibly more than one. And because of this, there will also be fixed and mobile defences around the wormhole. Unlike the MWHJ and Warner-Mannerheim, which see commercial traffic, this is a military reservation system, so anyone who shows up without an IFF will be shot at and the identity will only be investigated by looking at what the markings in the debris.

In Felix, someone could conceivably be coming to investigate the entangled legal claim or just jump the claim and settle anyway. It's barely 12 light-years from Mannerheim too, so it's in a prime location.

On the other hand, J-156-18(L) is said to be 70 light-years from Haven (which means in the Verge) and if not inside the Republic's de facto or de jure volume, is definitely inside its sphere of influence. It is also described as a planetless M3 red dwarf, so unlike Felix, it has nothing calling for humans to settle. "Dark Fall" doesn't say whether there are any asteroids left around the red dwarf to make even mining useful (if not profitable). That means no one is going to accidentally stumble on J-156-18(L), unless they were following a Havenite ship or already knew where to go. Because unlike Bolthole and the Refuge system, regular Havenite spacers are frequently rotating through J-156-18(L). Intercepting and compromising one navigator may be difficult, but not impossible.

OTOH, If I was transferring ships from a secret ship yard to the Navy; I would do the transfer at a regular base (i.e., ship leaves Sanctuary, goes to Calvin's Star, transits the wormhole bridge, and then goes to a regular Haven Navy base. Thus, only the transfer crews know where either wormhole terminii are.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:OTOH, If I was transferring ships from a secret ship yard to the Navy; I would do the transfer at a regular base (i.e., ship leaves Sanctuary, goes to Calvin's Star, transits the wormhole bridge, and then goes to a regular Haven Navy base. Thus, only the transfer crews know where either wormhole terminii are.

I wouldn't do it that way. It's too easy for the transfer crews to let something spill while they're on leave on the base. They will interact with the regular crew of the base, whether they're allowed to or not. Remember how Shannon Foraker managed to get messages through to the other Navy ships under the eyes of the StateSec, before the "oops" moment?

And besides, the location of the near wormhole terminus is not a critical secret. The GA would rather it not fell into the wrong hands, but if it does, there isn't much an intruder can do. It's not a commercial hub like the MWHJ, so as I said above, any unknown visitor will be shot at first and questions will be asked later. If someone came in force and blew away all the defences, it would still not know the transit vectors. It would need to bring a wormhole-survey ship in to figure that out, in a process that could take many weeks or months. So there's no way it can figure out in time how to transit to Calvin's System before the RHN would respond.

And of course, the far side of the wormhole would be defended too. As we know, there's no way to effectively force a transit.

Finally, getting to Calvin's System does not get one to the Refuge system. It will limit the search volume for anyone trying to find it, but it's still a lot of time for what's likely the largest shipbuilding complex in the Settled Galaxy to get its defences up and be reinforced through hyper travel.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:OTOH, If I was transferring ships from a secret ship yard to the Navy; I would do the transfer at a regular base (i.e., ship leaves Sanctuary, goes to Calvin's Star, transits the wormhole bridge, and then goes to a regular Haven Navy base. Thus, only the transfer crews know where either wormhole terminii are.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I wouldn't do it that way. It's too easy for the transfer crews to let something spill while they're on leave on the base. They will interact with the regular crew of the base, whether they're allowed to or not. Remember how Shannon Foraker managed to get messages through to the other Navy ships under the eyes of the StateSec, before the "oops" moment?

Then don't give them leave. Each transfer of a group of ships can be accompanied by a passenger liner. Once the ships are stopped and any navigation information cleared, the crews are shuttled to the liner to return to Bolthole. Best if the crews are natives of Bolthole, so when they get leave, it is on their native planet.

Realistically, it is not the transfer crews that are the problem, since their contact can be minimized. It is that foreign technicians and other personnel are eventually going to be rotated out of Bolthole and they are going to know things that could provide clues to the location.