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TFT Snippet #2

This fascinating series is a combination of historical seafaring, swashbuckling adventure, and high technological science-fiction. Join us in a discussion!
Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by C. O. Thompson   » Mon Jun 25, 2018 12:48 pm

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That's my opinion but do we have Text Evidence (or Word Of Weber) to support that?

Joat42 wrote:The OBS consists of multiple platforms encircling Safehold.


See this post. The original post from rfc was lost in a board-crash many years ago.

Relevant quote:
runsforcelery wrote:Okay, this is a system which uses solar power collection for its primary operation, is heavily stealthed, and kicks on the onboard fusion plants only when it's time to crank up the kinetic launchers and then turns them off as soon as the strike is over. The support and maintenance system operates under exactly the same sort of constraints, as well. As to how the platform(s) are arranged, for now that's for me to know and you to worry about, but I think you can safely assume that the people who put it/them in place weren't stupid enough to design a system that couldn't spot, track, and target objectives wherever they happen to be located on the face of Safehold.



I have learned something today which had slipped by me before...

platform(s)

boy am I glad I did not bet next weeks beer money
Just my 2 ₡ worth
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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by Dauntless   » Mon Jun 25, 2018 1:04 pm

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did merlin not speculate that the OBS had been programmed to ignore certain signals.

the skimmer's is a fraction of the air cars that the archangels and presumbly seijin used for transport but the air lorries presumably would be close to the aircars.
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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by mhicks   » Mon Jun 25, 2018 1:33 pm

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Who ever put the OBS in place was not stupid enough to not track and destroy anyone trying to escape off the planet. If the whole point of the "Langhorn Plan" is to keep humans on the planet and safe from Gbaba means that they don't want anyone getting off the planet and at the same time not letting anything reach the planet. I have always been in the school of those believing the OBS is a multiple OBS system allowing full coverage and a large arching defense/offence net.

To me anything leaving the orbit of Safehold would be considered hostile to the Langhorn design and shot by the OBS. Anything leaving orbit short of using hyperdrive would get destroyed the minute it was detected. Use of Hyper drive would be picked up by the Gbaba, so it is a catch 22 trying to get away from the planet. Then any colony in the star system would still be capable of getting targeted by the OBS. Kinetic Energy Weapons take objects and shoot them at super fast speeds to cause massive damage. The weapon can use just about anything it can get its hands on and put in a magnetic rail gun type sled. If they are going to get off Safehold and just try to "start over" leaving the safeholdians behind would require going far away to another system and hope the OBS doesn't send in any high speed asteroids it shot at the new colony.
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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by mhicks   » Mon Jun 25, 2018 1:39 pm

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What if the Archangels that left were survivors of the "fallen" and they left the system with Himlecar to start up a new colony far away form Safehold and the Longhorn followers leaving them in the dust with the hopes of returning in 1000 years after they have continued the TF legacy and have a NEW TF with a new Navy and have gone back to kick some Gbaba butt and only return to Safehold if they succeed in doing that. If they failed then Safehold would still be safe from the Gbaba and no one would be any wiser as to how hopeless it would be to go against the Gbaba.
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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by Duckk   » Mon Jun 25, 2018 3:11 pm

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mhicks wrote:What if the Archangels that left were survivors of the "fallen" and they left the system with Himlecar to start up a new colony far away form Safehold and the Longhorn followers leaving them in the dust with the hopes of returning in 1000 years after they have continued the TF legacy and have a NEW TF with a new Navy and have gone back to kick some Gbaba butt and only return to Safehold if they succeed in doing that. If they failed then Safehold would still be safe from the Gbaba and no one would be any wiser as to how hopeless it would be to go against the Gbaba.


Unless they completely lucked out and found a planet 100% compatible with human biology, they would need to terraform the planet first. Remember, it took Shan-wei Pei years and a whole colonization fleet to prep Safehold for the colonists. Possessing Hamilcar doesn't help, because it's a factory ship, not a colony ship. And I would really doubt that there were enough personnel with the Fallen to provide that kind of expertise, or even provide a diverse enough genetic pool to prevent inbreeding.
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Shields at 50%, taunting at 100%! - Tom Pope
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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by NervousEnergy   » Mon Jun 25, 2018 5:06 pm

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mhicks wrote:Who ever put the OBS in place was not stupid enough to not track and destroy anyone trying to escape off the planet. If the whole point of the "Langhorn Plan" is to keep humans on the planet and safe from Gbaba means that they don't want anyone getting off the planet and at the same time not letting anything reach the planet. I have always been in the school of those believing the OBS is a multiple OBS system allowing full coverage and a large arching defense/offence net.

To me anything leaving the orbit of Safehold would be considered hostile to the Langhorn design and shot by the OBS. Anything leaving orbit short of using hyperdrive would get destroyed the minute it was detected. Use of Hyper drive would be picked up by the Gbaba, so it is a catch 22 trying to get away from the planet. Then any colony in the star system would still be capable of getting targeted by the OBS. Kinetic Energy Weapons take objects and shoot them at super fast speeds to cause massive damage. The weapon can use just about anything it can get its hands on and put in a magnetic rail gun type sled. If they are going to get off Safehold and just try to "start over" leaving the safeholdians behind would require going far away to another system and hope the OBS doesn't send in any high speed asteroids it shot at the new colony.

I'm dubious about the ability of the system to prevent orbital departure. Kinetic weapons are great for taking out ground installations, but shooting even hypervelocity projectiles at a manuvering spacecraft with the speeds the Skimmers are capable of or faster would require an incredible amount of luck to hit.

Now, if the platforms had Honorverse-style grasers or other powerful energy mounts, then it would be a different story, but now we're getting into territory we don't have much textev about... or if we do I don't remember it. We assume the system is intently monitoring the surface of Safehold for certain energy signatures, and that Merlin has, on several occasions, worried that pushing a skimmer past certain speeds might trigger a response. That means he's pretty certain that Federation tech can hide from the OBS sufficiently to operate pretty much at will below certain speeds, and indeed he's done so throughout the books.

If a spacecraft of the same tech level of the presumably OBS undetectable skimmers leaves the atmosphere, there's no way a kinetic projectile system is going to hit it before it's gone. I can't even imagine such a programmed mission... the system exists to attempt to keep the colony at a pre-industrial, no-electrical generation level. If they're building spacecraft they've blown right past that level.

I also can't really imagine a reason for the system to care about re-entry, other than just a generic attention getter to proscribed tech. They're not going to defend against the Gbaba.
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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by ryndieum   » Mon Jun 25, 2018 10:51 pm

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Forgive the guy that can't keep characters straight. Who is Ruhsail in this context?
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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by n7axw   » Mon Jun 25, 2018 10:59 pm

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NervousEnergy wrote:
mhicks wrote:Who ever put the OBS in place was not stupid enough to not track and destroy anyone trying to escape off the planet. If the whole point of the "Langhorn Plan" is to keep humans on the planet and safe from Gbaba means that they don't want anyone getting off the planet and at the same time not letting anything reach the planet. I have always been in the school of those believing the OBS is a multiple OBS system allowing full coverage and a large arching defense/offence net.

To me anything leaving the orbit of Safehold would be considered hostile to the Langhorn design and shot by the OBS. Anything leaving orbit short of using hyperdrive would get destroyed the minute it was detected. Use of Hyper drive would be picked up by the Gbaba, so it is a catch 22 trying to get away from the planet. Then any colony in the star system would still be capable of getting targeted by the OBS. Kinetic Energy Weapons take objects and shoot them at super fast speeds to cause massive damage. The weapon can use just about anything it can get its hands on and put in a magnetic rail gun type sled. If they are going to get off Safehold and just try to "start over" leaving the safeholdians behind would require going far away to another system and hope the OBS doesn't send in any high speed asteroids it shot at the new colony.

I'm dubious about the ability of the system to prevent orbital departure. Kinetic weapons are great for taking out ground installations, but shooting even hypervelocity projectiles at a manuvering spacecraft with the speeds the Skimmers are capable of or faster would require an incredible amount of luck to hit.

Now, if the platforms had Honorverse-style grasers or other powerful energy mounts, then it would be a different story, but now we're getting into territory we don't have much textev about... or if we do I don't remember it. We assume the system is intently monitoring the surface of Safehold for certain energy signatures, and that Merlin has, on several occasions, worried that pushing a skimmer past certain speeds might trigger a response. That means he's pretty certain that Federation tech can hide from the OBS sufficiently to operate pretty much at will below certain speeds, and indeed he's done so throughout the books.

If a spacecraft of the same tech level of the presumably OBS undetectable skimmers leaves the atmosphere, there's no way a kinetic projectile system is going to hit it before it's gone. I can't even imagine such a programmed mission... the system exists to attempt to keep the colony at a pre-industrial, no-electrical generation level. If they're building spacecraft they've blown right past that level.

I also can't really imagine a reason for the system to care about re-entry, other than just a generic attention getter to proscribed tech. They're not going to defend against the Gbaba.


I just went back and looked in OAR. There is textev for the kenetic platforms being plural. Those platforms are nestled in the midst of laser armed defensive installations that were able to detect and destroy Owl's heavily stealthed probes.

One might be able to destroy an OBS platform in its defensive nest by approaching it it with a heavily armed and shielded vessel that could stand up to its defensive weapons. I doubt that the defensive weapons would be full military grade.

Whether Merlin and Owl could construct such a vessel, I don't know.

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: TFT Snippet #2
Post by n7axw   » Mon Jun 25, 2018 11:05 pm

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ryndieum wrote:Forgive the guy that can't keep characters straight. Who is Ruhsail in this context?


Duke of Eastshare who was the commanding general of the Chsholmian army after the death of North Hallow. Eastshare orchestrated and led what had become the Imperial Charisian Army's response to defend Siddarmark after the Sword of Schuler.

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: TFT Snippet #2
Post by Fireflair   » Tue Jun 26, 2018 2:04 am

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I guess I'm a wagering sort of person, as I would bet money on things at this point. I would wager that the OBS is not a danger to something departing the atmosphere. One, as noted, it hasn't bothered the skimmer and didn't take out the probe until it approached the platform(s). Two, also as noted, if they've got space flight they're way past electricity.

I feel that the OBS system wasn't meant to be the grand god in the sky that smites everyone. It was more meant to slap anyone who might try to violate the proscriptions. So it's entirely possible that it was told to ignore TF tech in general. The archangels, at the end of the war, knew they had won. They had no clue about the cave or any contingency plans that might have been made and thus no reason to tell the OBS not to let TF tech wander about. In fact it would have made their own travels more complicated by having to risk the danger of some sort of IFF system and it's radiated signals which they were very concerned about.

I don't think I'd try to leave the system, I'd just get away from the planet where I could deploy some factories and start building up. Maybe, just to be safe, on the far side of a moon from Safehold and the OBS.
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