In the end it is probably mostly a matter of how many hops that will determine which is the faster path, the two paths are mostly equal in other respects, I suspect the latency incurred for each hop is roughly the same, assuming they use error correction and re-transmission on the link layers between the satellites.
If it all gets passed through blindly then it will be a bit quicker because there is no decoding step involved but I highly doubt that because it would lead to substantial inefficiencies and loss of capacity (the difference between a switched and hub). Smarter to be a bit slower and to maximize the routing capabilities of the satellites so as to optimize for the scarce resource: inter-satellite bandwidth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_amplifier
In the end it is probably mostly a matter of how many hops that will determine which is the faster path, the two paths are mostly equal in other respects, I suspect the latency incurred for each hop is roughly the same, assuming they use error correction and re-transmission on the link layers between the satellites.
If it all gets passed through blindly then it will be a bit quicker because there is no decoding step involved but I highly doubt that because it would lead to substantial inefficiencies and loss of capacity (the difference between a switched and hub). Smarter to be a bit slower and to maximize the routing capabilities of the satellites so as to optimize for the scarce resource: inter-satellite bandwidth.