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Could the inner circle push the old Terran fed tech along?

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Re: Could the inner circle push the old Terran fed tech alon
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Tue Jul 03, 2018 12:24 pm

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Dilandu wrote:There is other way. Time dilation. The Archangels have workable spaceship, capable (presubmably) of high relativistic velocities. They could accelerate away from Safehold, bringing velocity until they hit 10 to 1 treshold, then left the ship drifting and go to cryosleep. Or, they may push even higher, and go without cryosleep at all - by compressing the whole 1000 years in just a small ammount of onboard time.


Look at his How the Safehold Series won't end short story. Even a 2:1 compression is not attainable with tech superior to the Federation.
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Re: Could the inner circle push the old Terran fed tech alon
Post by shayvaan   » Fri Jul 06, 2018 9:54 pm

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Hmmm...

I wonder if part of the big hole that Merlin found under the Temple is a mine for the resources that the TUTT needs for maintenance. As well as a huge armory with lots of combat mechs and other whatnot :)
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Re: Could the inner circle push the old Terran fed tech alon
Post by n7axw   » Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:54 pm

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shayvaan wrote:Hmmm...

I wonder if part of the big hole that Merlin found under the Temple is a mine for the resources that the TUTT needs for maintenance. As well as a huge armory with lots of combat mechs and other whatnot :)


That would be ironic, wouldn't it? Imagine tons of ultra-modern combat power under the Temple without the denizens of the Temple even knowing it was there, much less how to use it...at the same time they lose the Jihad... :mrgreen:

Don

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When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: Could the inner circle push the old Terran fed tech alon
Post by Erls   » Sat Jul 07, 2018 7:26 pm

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n7axw wrote:I hate to be the party pooper.... but my impression is that for now, the ceiling has probably been reached.

...

The elbow room you have so far is that along with updating industry to steam, you can educate. The royal college is a start. Multiply the number of colleges to educate in the scientific method There is a danger that once this sort of knowledge gets out, someone will carry things to the point where the OBS does react and deal the whole thing a real setback. Imagine the religious and political firestorm that a rakurai strike would cause.

Don

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My thoughts (largely). I expect each "Capital" city in the Empire of Charis is going to have its own Royal College - with other larger cities in the Empire getting smaller, less research oriented ones. Basically, Charis will be trying to raise the education (and broaden the mind) of all of its citizens to ease the eventual jump to TF technology.

Of course, another upside to this would be the ability to get more Inner Circle scientists exposure to the greatest number of intelligent and talented people from around the empire - while on the flip side exposing large contingents of the population to the process (see, it is heresy - we think things through logically) and creating even broader acceptance.

As far as pushing TF tech along or setting up TF manufacturing sites... I find that highly unlikely. Maybe some continued small scale manufacturing in the Cave for things the inner circle has use for, but I don't see Merlin (or anyone else) deciding to take any more gambles than they have to until they survive the "Return" - whatever that may be.

(I'm sure deep down they are hoping that whatever the "Return" is can be co-opted and help shutdown/neutralize the OBS).
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Re: Could the inner circle push the old Terran fed tech alon
Post by phillies   » Tue Jul 10, 2018 3:56 pm

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noblehunter wrote:
n7axw wrote:
The elbow room you have so far is that along with updating industry to steam, you can educate. The royal college is a start. Multiply the number of colleges to educate in the scientific method There is a danger that once this sort of knowledge gets out, someone will carry things to the point where the OBS does react and deal the whole thing a real setback. Imagine the religious and political firestorm that a rakurai strike would cause.

Don

It is good that electricity is well-defined and apparently the bright line for activating the OBS. It seems unlikely someone would cross that line by accident.

Which means RFC will likely have someone cross it on purpose.


It is clear that electricity is forbidden. I have not yet seen evidence that using it would activate the OBS. The characters are assuming it would, and certainly the author would never be so mean as to deceive his characters.
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Re: Could the inner circle push the old Terran fed tech alon
Post by Weird Harold   » Tue Jul 10, 2018 4:53 pm

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phillies wrote:It is clear that electricity is forbidden. I have not yet seen evidence that using it would activate the OBS. The characters are assuming it would, and certainly the author would never be so mean as to deceive his characters.


There is no evidence that the OBS can act autonomously except for self-defense. The characters aren't assuming that the OBS would be triggered by electricity, they're assuming that it COULD be triggered and that is a level of risk they're not willing to take.

For all we know, Merlin could walk into the Temple and start flipping switches to shut down the TuTT and the OBS without triggering so much as a dust collection robot. The consequences if he can't do that are serious enough for him not to test the possibility. The same thing applies to the OBS -- the consequences of guessing wrong are potentially to serious to risk.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

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Re: Could the inner circle push the old Terran fed tech alon
Post by Randomiser   » Tue Jul 10, 2018 5:09 pm

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People on Safehold have experimented with electricity in the past according to RFC (it was posted somewhere) and they received prompt and unpleasant visits from the Inquisition. It suggests that a trivial use of electricity will not trigger the OBS. Widespread use of less basic applications, now ... ??
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Re: Could the inner circle push the old Terran fed tech alon
Post by Weird Harold   » Tue Jul 10, 2018 9:44 pm

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Randomiser wrote:People on Safehold have experimented with electricity in the past according to RFC (it was posted somewhere) and they received prompt and unpleasant visits from the Inquisition. It suggests that a trivial use of electricity will not trigger the OBS. Widespread use of less basic applications, now ... ??


There is a random background noise level of naturally occurring electricity. Anything that doesn't exceed that natural background level or become widespread and regular enough to raise the background level has to be considered as possibly triggering a Rakuri response from the OBS.

The problem is that Merlin knows how the OBS could be programmed and has to assume the worst possible case. With a device that could be programmed to bomb civilization back to the stone age, it is probably best to avoid anything that might trigger it. Merlin carefully tested to make sure that widespread steam technology -- more concentrated than anything done so far -- before deciding that anything up to, but not including, Electricity would be an acceptable risk.

Electrification was the next "plateau" in the development of technology on Earth, and a logical line for the OBS' programming to draw. The vigor with which the Inquisition detected and dealt with forbidden experiments suggests that they may have been getting "miraculous" revelations of offenders.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

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Re: Could the inner circle push the old Terran fed tech alon
Post by Whitecold   » Sat Jul 28, 2018 12:17 pm

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Weird Harold wrote:There is no evidence that the OBS can act autonomously except for self-defense. The characters aren't assuming that the OBS would be triggered by electricity, they're assuming that it COULD be triggered and that is a level of risk they're not willing to take.

For all we know, Merlin could walk into the Temple and start flipping switches to shut down the TuTT and the OBS without triggering so much as a dust collection robot. The consequences if he can't do that are serious enough for him not to test the possibility. The same thing applies to the OBS -- the consequences of guessing wrong are potentially to serious to risk.


There is no proof, but there is evidence. The writ explicitly mentions electricity as being off limits, and bothers to actually describe it. There must be a reason the archangels described electricity, even risking that this knowledge could be used for innovation, and that reason could well be the detection threshold of the OBS.
And as mentioned before, the only way to find out the detection threshold besides taking the system apart is the one way you absolutely want to avoid.
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Re: Could the inner circle push the old Terran fed tech alon
Post by Weird Harold   » Sat Jul 28, 2018 4:06 pm

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Whitecold wrote:There is no proof, but there is evidence. The writ explicitly mentions electricity as being off limits, and bothers to actually describe it.


The writ doesn't say, "no electricity or the Rakuri will strike you." iow, Being #1 on the Prohibition hit parade isn't evidence that the OBS can act autonomously.

There is a very strong implication that nobody in the CoGA had discretionary control of the OBS. Clyntahn would definitely have used it if he could have. A corollary of that implication is that the OBS won't act unless it does act autonomously -- aka unpredictably.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
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