[karajorma]

To the officers and crew of the GTD Aquitaine. We have halted the shivan advance. The battle of Capella is over. We sealed off the system and our people are safe, maybe forever.

Notice he says that we sealed the system off not we did half and the shivans finished the job for us.

I've always taken that to mean that the node was sealed.

[BlackDove]

It completed the mission. The final monologue seals it really.

Also, the story doesn't work if it didn't.

[Goober5000]

Command could have kept it a secret that the node was still open.  In the Twilight campaign, they kept the Ikeya-Gamma Draconis node a secret...

The tech room says, "According to declassified transmissions, the mission succeeded."  So Earth was communicating via slower-than-light means, and some of what they said is classified.

[Mongoose]

About the radio signal from Alpha Centauri, I've heard some theories that there could possibly be some sort of interference, such as some sort of interstellar gas or other material, preventing clear radio transmission.  To me, this makes as good sense as any other theory I've heard.  If Command had been getting signals through with no response, I don't think they'd gain anything by keeping that fact a secret.  I've also heard suggestions that there was possibly a response from Earth, but that it wasn't exactly favorable.  While this doesn't tie in with any canon, it does raise some...sinister possibilities.

[IceFire]

Originally posted by Goober5000
Let's NOT get into the whole "do subspace nodes requre gravity" argument again.  If that happens I'll split off those posts and lock them.  This thread is for discussing the Nereid and the plans to collapse the node.

The Bastion going through Capella to the Epsilon Pegasi node makes sense, given that the meson bombs were developed at "the Hideki institute in Vega" and that's probably the only system where they're produced.  I agree completely with that part.  What I want to highlight is the Nereid cbanim which shows the node being collapsed at the Capella end.  (See attached.)  It struck me as odd when I first saw the anim - there's no reason why they shouldn't have detonated the Nereid at the Vega end.  But assuming they had planned to detonate it at the Capella end, and they stuck to that plan, the Nereid would have melted before it exploded.

Maybe there's a difference with destabilizing the node from one end or the other?

In either case, it doesn't have to actually jump back into the system to destabilize the corridor.  I don't think so anyways...it can detonate at the same time it opens the node into Capella.  So the explosion from the supernova would be a mute point as the meson bombs have already gone off.

[NGTM-1R]

Originally posted by Goober5000
The tech room says, "According to declassified transmissions, the mission succeeded."  So Earth was communicating via slower-than-light means, and some of what they said is classified.

I always took that to mean subspace radio chatter from the Bastion's aerospace group, myself. The Bastion was still talking to you while you were in subspace, so that seems reasonable...

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by IceFire
In either case, it doesn't have to actually jump back into the system to destabilize the corridor.  I don't think so anyways...it can detonate at the same time it opens the node into Capella.  So the explosion from the supernova would be a mute point as the meson bombs have already gone off.

Maybe, but those meson bombs took a long time to detonate.  If the timing wasn't perfectly exact, the supernova could have melted/fused everything before the final detonation stage.

Of course, the Nereid could have exploded in subspace, before it even started exiting the other end, but that doesn't seem to be what they planned on doing.

The least risky scenario would be to blow up the Vega end, but again, that doesn't seem to be what they did.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Goober5000
Command could have kept it a secret that the node was still open.  In the Twilight campaign, they kept the Ikeya-Gamma Draconis node a secret...

The tech room says, "According to declassified transmissions, the mission succeeded."  So Earth was communicating via slower-than-light means, and some of what they said is classified.

Unless they meant the last transmissions of the persuing fighters/bombers as they delivered the coup-de-grace, of course.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by IceFire
Maybe there's a difference with destabilizing the node from one end or the other?

I tend to go by this theory. If you blow up a node then the subspace corridor collapses. Thing is we don't know how quickly this happens. The GTVA were trying to get all their ships out of Capella but the last thing they'd want to happen is for the shivans to start swarming into Vega after them.

Now assuming that the subspace corridor doesn't instantly fail (it's a huge assumption but lets see where it takes us) then the logical place to shut the door is at the Capella end. That way you can get your people into the corridor and close the node. They can then travel down the corridor and exit out the other end.

If on the other hand you try to close the door at the Vega end you run the risk of something faster than the ships you have in the coridor getting in. That leaves you with two dreadful choices. Blow the node and kill everyone in the Corridor or fight the shivans swarming into Vega and hope you can hold whatever they've sent through the node until you can get the civies out of the corridor.


A second reason is that if you send the Nereid towards Capella it could act as a backup should the Bastion have failed. If the Bastion didn't make it then pluging the Epsilon Pegasi node is probably more important for the simple reason that the Meson Bombs are made in Vega and there may be more in that system. So you'd only have to fight the shivans for long enough to load some onto transports (or another decomissioned Orion) and send it it into the node.

To plug the Epsilon Pegasi node on the other hand would also require you to get the bombs ready and then jump along this route :
Vega>>Deneb>>Sirius>>Regulus>>Polaris>>Epsilon Pegasi. You'd have to fight off the larger number of shivans who made it through in that time too.

[aldo_14]

Well, the only time anyone has ever destablised a node has been at the exiting end - maybe it's as simple as that, something that means the explosion has more of an effect exiting than entering subspace.

[karajorma]

Except that the Bastion was destroyed entering subspace.

That said maybe once you've entered subspace you can't turn around can come back out again to make a bigger bang

[SuperCoolAl]

1. The Bastion was heavily damaged. It may have blown up in subspace with no crew aboard, so command may have played it safe, detonating at the entrance.

2. Command may also have decided to play it safe with the Nereid, detonating at the entrance because of the nova.

3. The cbanims show the original plan- i.e. to detonate at the exit- for some reason- to maximise ship-escaping-capella time

[Ace]

Originally posted by Goober5000
Command could have kept it a secret that the node was still open.  In the Twilight campaign, they kept the Ikeya-Gamma Draconis node a secret...

In Twilight the Ikeya-Gehenna subspace node was kept classified. Gehenna was a system where the GTI conducted some of their research before the Hades rebellion. It's also how the Taranis entered GTA space. All data on the system was classified by the GTVA security council as it was believed that the node was unstable and transit was impossibe, thus it did not pose a threat.

There may or may not be references to such places in BWO

Anyway, it's more then possible that the GTVA had been maintaining radio contact with Sol. Sending occassional data packets. However, most of the information beyond "Earth is still there" is classified at the highest level.

[BlackDove]

Originally posted by Ace
There may or may not be references to such places in BWO

Tease.

[NGTM-1R]

I've always wondered about the GTVA classifying so much information that would probably be highly useful to field commanders, myself...one wonders why they bother to classify data on the Shivans so highly: it isn't like the Shivans are likely to find out about it even if it's not classified at all. Data on Shivan weaponry is understandably classified, but using the highest possible classification on what we are lead to believe is a communications satellite? What about the Shivan Comm Node is so dangerous that it's classified Level Omega? Okay, I suppose it blows up nicely, but that's stretching.

So is classifying all information on the Mara Level Psi, which is presumably beyond the level of clearance that the rank-and-file pilots of the GTVA have, yet these are the people who need the information most. Or classifying the information about the Sathanas so highly when one ought to be distributing such information as widely as possible to get people thinking about how to beat such a monster.

[karajorma]

The GTI knew everything that the GTA knew about the Shivans. They rebelled.

Bosch knew everything that the GTVA knew about the Shivans. He rebelled.

Starting to see a pattern here?

But yeah they do seem to be playing their cards very close to their chests.

[Blitzerland]

During the Homesick campaign, the GTVI had a base of operations in a nebula, and such. This discussion has prompted me to go back and play the thing.

Way to steal ten hours of my life.