Chrome Falcon, on Oct 23 2005, 07:44 AM, said:
I was running on the assumption that the HGs were constructed on sight from local resources. People originally got these locations via sleeper ships - a bit like Lost in Space - a sleeper gets sent out to construct the HG on the other end.
I'm afraid that I'm sort of running on a suspension-of-disbelief scenario here, with things as simple as possible.
That gives the defenders a HUGE advantage. First it's a choke point. Second, if they know an overwhelming force is comming, they destroy or disable or turn off the HG until they're ready for it. Hell, they can coordinate with friendly forces on when to turn on and turn off the HG so friendlies can enter the system but hostiles can't.
Imagine... Stargate SG-1. The gate on Earth is a huge choke point. If the Goa'uld didn't have FTL ships, the only way they could travel would be the gate. Guess what? Earth's sole gate (they had 2, only 1 now) has an iris, or a protective shield that doesn't let anything materialize on their side if they don't want it to. It's also under a mountain in a military base filled with Air Force and Marine personnel. They have M2 turrets, cruise missiles and tons of infantry to guard the gate if anything happens. As a fail safe, they have nuclear warheads for a base self-destruct if need be. The only way a sizable force attacks Earth is through FTL ships, or some tricky use of penetrating the gate, usually with a virus on one of their teams.
Now in our scenario, we don't have FTL ships, we use HGs. HGs that are man-made and can be shut down, disabled or distroyed easilly.
What happens if you enter an HG towards another HG that's shut down? How do HGs work, do they create a "worm hole" between two active HGs for isntantaneous travel? Do they open a hole into another dimension and allow you to cross into it? Do they somehow accelerate you to 50C, but you can only decelerate by using another HG? Those all matter...
And if you think sieging a planet is a valid tactic... it isn't.
Earth has been self-sufficient for 20,000 years. Unless you're sieging a mining planet or something that does not have any life supporting natural resources, a planet will be more than happy to shut down its HG so you can't come in.
There are many more uses of HGs that I won't discuss because they're really tactics that would be very effective, but I've listed some simple ones like turning it off.