No, actually it's not. Because for a rear-area role to work, there has to be an actual rear area, and that does not exist in Freespace terms. Every ship in the system is equally vunerable to attack without warning, because of intrasystem subspace jumps. The Hecate's design and space warfare as practiced by FS don't mesh. At the best, some serious errors were commited with Hecate.
But we've not
seen large fleet operations, so we don't truly know all that much about space-warfare techniques as practiced by the GTVA.
Now, every ship in a contested system is not immediately in the firing line, as - while you can jump anywhere in the system - you need to know where the hell you're going, meaning a scouting operation beforehand, which gives you a little bit of warning before 6 Orions jump in on top of you. Moreover, by 'rear area', I mean that by context, whether by standing 20 kilometres from a node blockade, or sitting near the node into a hostile system to stand as a base for launching fighters and fleet C&C. IMO, the Hecate was given enough firepower to defend itself until it's
true power - over 150 fighter-craft - can bring forth the hurt. Of course, there are abberations, such as the Aquitaine moving into the Nebula, a decidedly hostile system theorised to hold one or more Shivan destroyers. However, this can be taken as an non-standard operation, given that "reconnaissance in force" is needed, and a beach-head was required to be established in-system. Furthermore, given our distinct lack of knowledge regarding the greater situation regarding fleet organisation at that point of the Civil War, not to mention the confusion and panic that would have erupted given the appearance of the Shivans, it is likely an extraordinary occurence.
