(SPOILERS) Too worried about waking up Dad?

I keep seeing people talk about doing something to negate the OBS or, in my case, taking direct action against the Temple and/or Temple forces. And the response to these is, 'NO DON'T YOU MIGHT WAKE IT UP'. While I can understand some direct actions, which would be considered attacks, might wake it up, however, some of the suggestions posted were stuff that could occur in nature. While they may not work, someone would scream, YOU MIGHT WAKE IT UP!! I mean, come on, seriously? You do know there are going to be things that happen, micro meteor showers, cometary debris, and just random chunks or rock that will intersect the orbit of Safehold regularly, right? You think that every time something like that happens the OBS is gonna wake up? Even if it did, it's going to take one look and conclude it was natural phenomenon, and go back to sleep.

I get you don't want to draw attention of the OBS, but this reflex if anyone offers up an idea on how to get rid of it seems a little excessive.

We're worried about "waking up Dad" because David Weber has said that Merlin and the Inner Circle are worried about it.

Now their first priority (after getting people to start innovations) is to win the War against the Church but they aren't going to take unnecessary risks to do so.

Which includes all the fancy ideas people (not just you) keep coming up with.

Of course, David Weber knows all the "little" details that would either "blow the fancy ideas out of the water" or "make the fancy ideas unnecessary".

Most of us like to speculate about what David Weber is planning and/or what details about the Safehold-universe that David Weber hasn't told us yet.

The thing is that there have been plenty of "fancy ideas" come up and many David Weber has "blown out of the water".

Many of us know why David Weber has "blown them out of the water" and we're trying to explain to you why David Weber has said those ideas won't happen.

abrax894 wrote:I keep seeing people talk about doing something to negate the OBS or, in my case, taking direct action against the Temple and/or Temple forces. And the response to these is, 'NO DON'T YOU MIGHT WAKE IT UP'. While I can understand some direct actions, which would be considered attacks, might wake it up, however, some of the suggestions posted were stuff that could occur in nature. While they may not work, someone would scream, YOU MIGHT WAKE IT UP!! I mean, come on, seriously? You do know there are going to be things that happen, micro meteor showers, cometary debris, and just random chunks or rock that will intersect the orbit of Safehold regularly, right? You think that every time something like that happens the OBS is gonna wake up? Even if it did, it's going to take one look and conclude it was natural phenomenon, and go back to sleep.

I get you don't want to draw attention of the OBS, but this reflex if anyone offers up an idea on how to get rid of it seems a little excessive.

abrax894 wrote:I keep seeing people talk about doing something to negate the OBS or, in my case, taking direct action against the Temple and/or Temple forces. And the response to these is, 'NO DON'T YOU MIGHT WAKE IT UP'. While I can understand some direct actions, which would be considered attacks, might wake it up, however, some of the suggestions posted were stuff that could occur in nature. While they may not work, someone would scream, YOU MIGHT WAKE IT UP!! I mean, come on, seriously? You do know there are going to be things that happen, micro meteor showers, cometary debris, and just random chunks or rock that will intersect the orbit of Safehold regularly, right? You think that every time something like that happens the OBS is gonna wake up? Even if it did, it's going to take one look and conclude it was natural phenomenon, and go back to sleep.

I get you don't want to draw attention of the OBS, but this reflex if anyone offers up an idea on how to get rid of it seems a little excessive.

I think the biggest reason to be careful about waking up Dad, is that if it goes badly it might be centuries more before Merlin and/or Nimmue could get another opportunity like the one they have now. And if things really went south, and both were killed in the aftermath, there might never be a chance foe Safehold to break free of the Church.

Oh, I'm aware there are good reasons why some of them might not work, including mine. It took me getting into the second to last book before DW explained it where I no longer found my own idea unfeasible. But some of the ideas, while flawed and easily picked apart, could easily be called low tech, since your essentially throwing rocks. Multi-ton rocks in some cases but still rocks, but at least one person will predictably call out 'Because you don't want to wake up with OBS', like it's some sort of catch-all reason. This seems a bit lazy, mostly because whatever system was controlling the OBS would HAVE to understand or be programed with qualifier that if some giant rock is on a collision course with you, or the OBS system drifts through a cloud of micro meteorites, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are under attack and should start looking for the most advanced city on Safehold and bombard it out of existence. While I can understand being cautious, at some point it gets a little ridiculous.

abrax894 wrote:Oh, I'm aware there are good reasons why some of them might not work, including mine. It took me getting into the second to last book before DW explained it where I no longer found my own idea unfeasible. But some of the ideas, while flawed and easily picked apart, could easily be called low tech, since your essentially throwing rocks. Multi-ton rocks in some cases but still rocks, but at least one person will predictably call out 'Because you don't want to wake up with OBS', like it's some sort of catch-all reason. This seems a bit lazy, mostly because whatever system was controlling the OBS would HAVE to understand or be programed with qualifier that if some giant rock is on a collision course with you, or the OBS system drifts through a cloud of micro meteorites, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are under attack and should start looking for the most advanced city on Safehold and bombard it out of existence. While I can understand being cautious, at some point it gets a little ridiculous.

Maybe so, but you seem fixated on the same idea. I haven't seen anything that suggests Merlin has the ability at this time to throw rocks at all. And if he could, what do you want him to throw them at. RFC has pretty much shot down throwing them at the Temple since it probably wouldn't even scratch it. And if he threw something big enough, there wouldn't be a whole lot of Zion left. War is war, but killing several million people for no good reason seems a little ridiculous.
As for your position about destroying whole fleets at sea, that could have merit. But you need to remember that this is RFC's universe , and he doesn't seem to want to do things that way.

I've been an avid reader for over 40 years, and there has been many a time I thought an author should have done something different. Ultimately you have 2 choices. Quit reading that book or that author, or sit back and enjoy it as it is. I think we extremely lucky to have a forum that the author regularly answers questions, post snippets, what have you. Once he shoots down your idea, you might want to consider dropping it and moving on.

Ramhawkfan wrote:
Maybe so, but you seem fixated on the same idea. I haven't seen anything that suggests Merlin has the ability at this time to throw rocks at all. And if he could, what do you want him to throw them at. RFC has pretty much shot down throwing them at the Temple since it probably wouldn't even scratch it. And if he threw something big enough, there wouldn't be a whole lot of Zion left. War is war, but killing several million people for no good reason seems a little ridiculous.
As for your position about destroying whole fleets at sea, that could have merit. But you need to remember that this is RFC's universe , and he doesn't seem to want to do things that way.

I've been an avid reader for over 40 years, and there has been many a time I thought an author should have done something different. Ultimately you have 2 choices. Quit reading that book or that author, or sit back and enjoy it as it is. I think we extremely lucky to have a forum that the author regularly answers questions, post snippets, what have you. Once he shoots down your idea, you might want to consider dropping it and moving on.

First, I think you missed the point of this post. I'm not complaining about DW. I'm actually looking at the things people say about other peoples idea for knocking down the OBS/Temple. Now, AS I SAID IN THE VERY FIRST POST, I understand why many of these MINE INCLUDED, would not work. However, some, while very filled with holes and easily shot down, the reasons that some people use simply make no sense. For instance, in multiple posts I've seen people using the idea of using rocks thrown (from deeper in-system, not the ground) at a high rate of speed and en mass at the OBS to overcome it's defense system and knock it offline. Now, while there are LOT's of holes in the plan, one that you CAN'T use is 'Because you might wake up the OBS and it will kill all of Safehold/Charis'. Why? Well, if a rock comes along, how is any system going to know where it came from? The system has to be looking for ground based attacks (though it may be looking for space based attacks too, but even if it is it's not going to start slamming the planet because of it). I was pointing out that you can't use that as a catch all as a way to get around every persons idea. THAT WAS ALL. I'm well aware that you don't want to alert the OBS to the presence of Charis at later tech level's or that those capabilities exist, BUT, a rock tumbling through space is probably going to trigger a simple defense response NOT a 'My God My God we're all going to die!' response. After all, didn't Merlin send a HIGHLY ADVANCED SNARC remote in to take a look? And was it not destroyed? That remote was more advanced than a rock, why would the OBS act differently?

I'm a huge DW fan, specifically because I love how he makes all his work legitimate/believable, from what we know today, sci-fi. I'm not criticizing, even though I may not agree with certain pieces of logic, I still enjoy his stories and will continue to read them. Now, this is a FORUM, it's all about asking questions and opening debates. Not to sound snarky, but maybe you should stop reading the forum if you don't like the questions people are asking......

abrax894 wrote:Now, while there are LOT's of holes in the plan, one that you CAN'T use is 'Because you might wake up the OBS and it will kill all of Safehold/Charis'.

You're missing the point that it is Merlin who won't do anything which might wake up the OBS and/or cause unnecessary collateral damage. Merlin who knows exactly what the OBS can be capable of but hasn't been able to get close enough to determine exactly how it is configured.

It is made fairly clear in the books that Merlin will NOT do anything to directly attack the OBS, preferring to gain access to the controls presumed to be in the Temple basement. Only if he determines that the OBS can't be shut down from the Temple (or other ground station) would he consider ANY attempt to destroy or disable the OBS.

Apropos of nothing, I seem to recall a board game based around the concept of "not waking up dad".
The board had a pop-up dad in a bed in the middle.

I guess Safeholdians don't want to have to go all the way back to the start...

Not bloody likely, but Clynton may go on one of his rants, breaks toilet, floods basement short circuiting the AI the Raquri fires on the temple thinking the enemy has taken it. Langhorne's plan is hoist on its own petard.

Poker

pokermind wrote:Not bloody likely, but Clynton may go on one of his rants, breaks toilet, floods basement short circuiting the AI the Raquri fires on the temple thinking the enemy has taken it. Langhorne's plan is hoist on its own petard.

Poker

I doubt the basement's systems is that fragile.

For that matter, I doubt the Temple's toilets are that fragile. Considering how well armored the Temple is (even the main floor of interior has several inches of armorplast on it), it wouldn't surprise me if the Temple's amenities are ALSO invulnerable to harm.