[AqueousShadow]

Originally posted by Blaise Russel
The Meson warhead was only intended to destroy the Knossos portal, as they reckoned that without the portal's stabilising influence, the node would collapse anyway. They were wrong; while being stabilised by the Knossos, the node had become stable in its own right, and no longer needed the portal to keep it usable.

Exactly. Command thought that without the Knossos, the Shivans wouldn't be able to get through because the subspace tunnel would become unstable again. However, either it already became stabilized on its own, or the Shivans were able to get through before it actually started to destabilize.

Clearing out the fighters would ensure that the bomb squad got back safely. Also, detonating the bomb would also kill you and anything in the immediate vicinity, not allowing Command to take that course of action. Besides, the Shivan fighters would probably be too fast and fly away before the bomb goes kaboom anyway.

[Carl]

Originally posted by AqueousShadow


Exactly. Command thought that without the Knossos, the Shivans wouldn't be able to get through because the subspace tunnel would become unstable again. However, either it already became stabilized on its own, or the Shivans were able to get through before it actually started to destabilize.

well, technically, it didn't stablize on it's own. the knossos did it. you see, the Knossos effect works in long term, too. it's like a bobby bin. if you bend it and then let go, it'll snap right bach, but if you bend it and hold it there, it'll very slowly loose tension.

[IceFire]

Originally posted by Carl


well, technically, it didn't stablize on it's own. the knossos did it. you see, the Knossos effect works in long term, too. it's like a bobby bin. if you bend it and then let go, it'll snap right bach, but if you bend it and hold it there, it'll very slowly loose tension.

Yeah thats a pretty good analogy.

If you read the debriefing and listen to the comments...the conclusion is that the subspace node had already stabilized on its own following the activation of the Knossos portal...the months that it had been active had been enough to move the node from an unstable/untraversable (without the help of the portal) to ones that was fairly easy to traverse.

Unaware of that fact, Command attempted to destroy the Knossos and seal the node by making it unstable again.   The bombs were directed at the Knossos and not the subspace corridor.  There obviously wasn't time to bring in a destroyer filled with Meson bombs and conventional means of attacking a spinning gate with no central point is very difficult (and no doubt a gameplay concession as well)....so...the Sathans got through and we know what happened next.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by IceFire
If you read the debriefing and listen to the comments...the conclusion is that the subspace node had already stabilized on its own following the activation of the Knossos portal...the months that it had been active had been enough to move the node from an unstable/untraversable (without the help of the portal) to ones that was fairly easy to traverse.

I always took it as not the months it was active so much as the 8000 years it was in standby mode.  If a knossos portal could stabilize a node in a few months I doubt the ancients would have built so many. They'd just build one, stabilise the node and then take it apart and move it to the next unstable node.