Mobile Frame Hangar

I am so looking forward to this book now. You guys really outdid yourselves with building the setting.

I'm not sure if I understand.

Each system has only one stargate, right (or most of them, at any rate - Sol probably has more than one)?

So, say System A is largely controlled by the Free Colonies (i.e. they control the gate), and they want to attack System B, which is SU. Their options are to
1) inaccurately send some pilots in a lifeboat to somewhere in the system and hope Free Colonies sympathisers on the other end can pick them up in time, or
2) accurately send them to the stargate. They'd probably have to send mecha with them, or maybe if the TTM were lax (which seems unlikely) a couple of pilots could be killed in their sleep and their frames hijacked.

Is that roughly how the gates work? Or does the presence of a gate on the other end make it possible to send stuff anywhere in the system with greater accuracy than with no gate?


And if the Ijad goal is simply to eliminate the Solar Union's ability to maintain an empire that threatens them, why can't they send nukes to every SU and Free Colonies stargate?

It just wouldn't gain anything. And it's an expensive and risky enough idea (I really don't know what kind of machine would be required to cause that kind of destruction) that someone involved would immediately point that out. Don't neglect the "your move" part of that equation above.

War is a part of negotiation that uses large-scale force in order to gain a better position in the negotiation*. You can't eliminate the party you're negotiating with if you want them to do something for you. Destroying a transit gate might buy you time, but it would certainly start an escalation where the losers would be the ones with the least money to build new transit gates.