Technology Evolution

Jonathan_S wrote:With One Stone by Timothy Zahn. I think most of us remember the story; we just think the author oversold Honor's probable impact on FTL comm invention.

It's like giving someone credit for "inventing" smoke signals when they spot raiders by seeing the smoke from the town they set afire...

MaxxQ wrote:That should answer your question about other tech developments. One thing that was "developed" led - directly or indirectly - to something else, which led to something else, and so on. Yes, David is pretty good about doing that sort of thing, rather than just creating a new weapon out of nothing, like many other SF books tend to do.

I agree. I always liked how realistically (within limits) the technology was developed during the course of the series. I was impressed when I realized that things like the FTL com, missile pods, even podnaughts were introduced (in their larval form perhaps) very early on in the series and then improved over years and years.

Theisman even references it in AAC after the Battle of Lovat:

"We're still evaluating the preliminary reports. From what we've seen so far, it looks like they used two new weapons on us. What makes it hurt worse is that both their new systems appear to be absolutely logical progressions from their damned Ghost Rider technology, and we never even saw them coming."

He is referring to the Mistletoe armed recon drones to take out the Moriarty platforms and, of course, Apollo's first use in an all-up fleet battle.