More wildly disparate assumptions:

On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 9:46 PM, Greg Chalik <mrg3105@gmail.com> wrote:

>>Just to clear something up, there is SPACE and there is space, just like
>> there is BLUE ocean, and green ocean, a.k.a 'the littoral'

Again, a poor comparison.  Curve of the dirtball limits line of sight.
Water allows you to hide below the surface.

> So any reasonably large, well populated system with resources worth fighting
> over is not going to be a pristine island-of-a-world in a three-planet
> system.

>It is very likely the system will be with several more planets, not
> a few moons, and besides that a heap of other 'stuff' like derelict ships

Doubtful.  Derelicts get salvaged unless they are on a high-V course
and WAY far away.   But even then, they get tracked.

> and stations and bits of abandoned space exploration and resource extraction
> equipment that authorities are still looking for owners of to charge fees
> for abandonement in-system, and odd mined, semi-mined and unmined slabs of
> 'rock', and 'rock' used by the wealthy for their own orbital retreat
> fortresses, and etc. etc. etc.

Yes.  None of which is terribly useful for taking control of the
system.  You are now sliding toward apples and oranges.

Even so, a well run, moderately bureaucratic system will require
in-system flight plans, even if they are only approximate, to aid in
keeping track of ships and risks to navigation.

You can always update your plan in flight, but presumably, if it's a
big, populous wealthy system (such that it is a strategic target) the
local authorities are away of that status and like to keep an eye on
things.

>
> In other words there isn't a need for an 'umbrella'. A system surveillance
> will produce the system 'terrain' not quite immaculate for the sensors to
> scan, and with quite a significant number of objects to use as screens.

Again, so?  If you pop in system in the orbit of pluto, on the
opposite side of the system from pluto, you are far enough out to be
not terribly threatening in the immediate sense.

Eventually, you will have to go someplace more useful than empty deep
space, and as you make that approach to someplace useful, you should
be crossing their sensor pickets with plenty of time for them to take
action.  And once you cross those pickets, you be staying on those
sensor plots until you jump out.

Yeah, maybe you can break surveillance in an asteroid belt, but once
again, you can only stay off the sensor plot by staying out in the
hinterlands.

> And then there is bribary and corruption.
> After all, there must be corruptable individuals somewhere in the sensor
> comand structure, and assured that their job won't be blasted out of
> existence, they may well turn a 'blind sensor' to the certain Jump
> coordinate for long enough.

Why bother?  If you're doing something small and trivial, like
smuggling, file your flight plan and go your merry way.  Nobody cares,
unless its a balkanized system, and then ALL the sides will want to
track you to make sure they get their cut.

Nobody's gonna be able to hide a 50KT commerce raider popping up at
the 100d line.  Or a squadron of gunboats,

Dan

--

"Any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from a genuine
kook." -Alan Morgan