Baen sample chapters (Spoilers)

Castenea wrote:

Mil-tech bard wrote:After the initial investigation at the mutiny site, Arcanian Dragon search parties would be at Ft. Ghartoum and aimed towards Sharonan bound gates.

Then the Arcanian search battalion would spread out around Ft. Ghartoum towards the best hide outs with food/water on the Ft. Ghartoum universe.

Only after those searches turned up empty would the Arcanians start searching back chain towards Hell's Gate.


If unicorns can cover 20 straight line miles an hour for 10 hours a day. That is 200 miles a day.

A week after the mutiny they are 1,400 miles from Ft. Ghartoum.

Assuming the straight line distance travel -- to stay off Dragon airways -- halves that, we are still talking 700 miles in a week.

The Arcanian search parties didn't get to Ft. Ghartoum for _several weeks_ after the munity.

NB: Barring ill luck, the search radius for an all unicorn transported Arcanian travelling party is too great for Dragons with personal locating spells to locate, given more than a two weeks head start.

Gets worse, once you locate the mutineers, you need to bring overwhelming firepower to ensure their recapture (or elimination). This is likely to be equal or larger numbers in practice. Where are the Arcanans going to find a large enough force at short notice to do this type of security at short notice? For Harshu and Neshok this could be the same type of nightmare that Spartacus was for Rome.

In the meantime, the Sharonians are busily looping around to try to flank Harshu out of his position or trap him in it. I haven't gotten the earc yet, but it could be that Harshu will have bigger and more urgent things to deal with than mutineers...

Don

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There is an even bigger problem in that Sharonan Whales are being railroaded into contested universes with a possibly devastating effect on Arcanian magic.

Arcanian military forces trapped behind Sharonan controlled portals may find universal laws tipping against magic as the Sharonan whales with talents are railroaded in/through them.

The Ft. Salby universe with b the first to see this effect, if my guess based upon on the author's hints is correct.

Mil-tech bard wrote:There is an even bigger problem in that Sharonan Whales are being railroaded into contested universes with a possibly devastating effect on Arcanian magic.

Arcanian military forces trapped behind Sharonan controlled portals may find universal laws tipping against magic as the Sharonan whales with talents are railroaded in/through them.

The Ft. Salby universe with b the first to see this effect, if my guess based upon on the author's hints is correct.

I don't have the current book except the sample chapters. Am I missing a trick I should hhave picked up in earlier books? I'm not remembering this...

Don

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Spoiler!

n7axw wrote:

Mil-tech bard wrote:There is an even bigger problem in that Sharonan Whales are being railroaded into contested universes with a possibly devastating effect on Arcanian magic.

Arcanian military forces trapped behind Sharonan controlled portals may find universal laws tipping against magic as the Sharonan whales with talents are railroaded in/through them.

The Ft. Salby universe with b the first to see this effect, if my guess based upon on the author's hints is correct.

I don't have the current book except the sample chapters. Am I missing a trick I should hhave picked up in earlier books? I'm not remembering this...

Don

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PeterZ wrote:Spoiler!

Hi Peter,

I take this response to mean that this discussion will make better sense when I have the rest of the book...spoilers are fine by me, by the way.

Don

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n7axw wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Spoiler!

Hi Peter,

I take this response to mean that this discussion will make better sense when I have the rest of the book...spoilers are fine by me, by the way.

Don

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Both simians and cetaceans asked to be transported to the frontier worlds. They plan to fight.

PeterZ wrote:quote="n7axw" quote="PeterZ"

Spoiler!

/quote

Hi Peter,

I take this response to mean that this discussion will make better sense when I have the rest of the book...spoilers are fine by me, by the way.

Don

-/quote

Both simians and cetaceans asked to be transported to the frontier worlds. They plan to fight.

I missed the "plan to fight" part - perhaps they intend to go there to help establish Sharona's ownership and physics?


Next Day Edit: I am re-reading RTH and finally came across the fight discussion including how do the Cetaceans tell the difference between Sharonan pods and Arcanan pods. Unfortunately I didn't bookmark it on my phone, and my PCs reader software doesn't allow word searches.

I am not sure that the physics are different in the various universes. Both Arcana and Sharona have sentient beings harness non-physical phenomena into a physical effect. Arcanans mentally harness aether into physical forces that change the physical world. Sharonans use their minds to perceive and manipulate the world around them. These Talents are largely perceptive in nature or influential to other minds. The one exception I recall is the teleportation of relatively small items. Even this Talent relates to dimensions beyond the physical ones we commonly think describes the real world in toto.

If we view sentient minds as existing beyond the physical dimensions but linked to it at the same time through our bodies and that mental dimension can influence the physical ones, we can see how all the universes share the same physical laws and yet still manifest the mental influences differently. Furthermore, the nature of how the mental dimension influences the physical world may well be a product of the sorts of mental activity the minds of that universe are engaged in. This is completely different than assuming the physical laws change from universe to universe.

Bottom line is that if the physical laws of one universe changed even in the slightest way from another, the two universes COULD NOT be as similar as the multiverse portrays. That mandates the magical and psychic phenomena to be non-physical in nature. Since these phenomena are linked to sentience, it allows for all the universe to evolve in almost identical ways UNTIL sentient beings intrude.

LATE BOOK SPOILER

PeterZ wrote:I am not sure that the physics are different in the various universes. Both Arcana and Sharona have sentient beings harness non-physical phenomena into a physical effect. Arcanans mentally harness aether into physical forces that change the physical world. Sharonans use their minds to perceive and manipulate the world around them. These Talents are largely perceptive in nature or influential to other minds. The one exception I recall is the teleportation of relatively small items. Even this Talent relates to dimensions beyond the physical ones we commonly think describes the real world in toto.

If we view sentient minds as existing beyond the physical dimensions but linked to it at the same time through our bodies and that mental dimension can influence the physical ones, we can see how all the universes share the same physical laws and yet still manifest the mental influences differently. Furthermore, the nature of how the mental dimension influences the physical world may well be a product of the sorts of mental activity the minds of that universe are engaged in. This is completely different than assuming the physical laws change from universe to universe.

Bottom line is that if the physical laws of one universe changed even in the slightest way from another, the two universes COULD NOT be as similar as the multiverse portrays. That mandates the magical and psychic phenomena to be non-physical in nature. Since these phenomena are linked to sentience, it allows for all the universe to evolve in almost identical ways UNTIL sentient beings intrude.

I like this theory and it makes a great deal of sense to me, however IMO it is directly contradicted by a scene late in the book where Sharonan weapons fail to fire in tests on Arcana Prime unless they are being fired by Jathmar or Shaylar. The primer cap doesn't ignite even with a perfectly functioning mechanism.

I listened to that talk that David gave to that ?readers club? A while back. He does seem to say that the physics changes from Newton. Peter, you remember the fuss I raised about it at the time...

Don

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