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RTH Official Snippet #4

"Hell's Gate" and "Hell Hath No Fury", by David, Linda Evans, and Joelle Presby, take the clash of science and magic to a whole new dimension...join us in a friendly discussion of this engrossing series!
Re: RTH Official Snippet #4
Post by Howard T. Map-addict   » Sat Jun 06, 2015 11:46 am

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CORRECTION:
Checking the Casualty List at bottom of thread 3227,
I note that Geyrsof and Desmar were both killed at
Fort Salby, so 2029th and 3012 were the two Strikes
that attacked there.

But then the 2029th should not have so many dragons.
Those two Strikes should have three (3) dragons
between them!
But the 5001st should have about eleven (11), IfIRC.
That would make about 14 in the whole Talon.

I guess that there are still three more Strikes at
Hell's Gate, or exploring the other five Portals
which lead out from them. Perhaps there are 2 or 3
Flights in reserve at HG, available to reinforce Harshu.

I must check the books, and my notes,
and report on Monday.

HTM
--------------------------------------
Brnichols noted above that the AEF started with two (2)
whole Talons, six (6) Strikes, plus four Yellows.
Only three Yellows were used attacking the Hell's
Gate Lines, leaving one elsewhere. One Yellow was
killed there, with its pilot.

It seems that Harshu and Toralk took only three of
those Strikes, including two Yellows, and Talon
Commander 500 Myr, with them into New Uromath
and Thermyn. That leaves the other three Strikes,
and presumably one Talon Commander,
behind in Hell's Gate, to be part of the garrison
of the place (it needs a garrison), to chase Simrath's
escapees, and to investigate the other Portals.
Arcana would be foolish not to investigate them!

Those three Strikes (and other garrison units) also
(incidently) constitute a Reserve, which might be
sent forward if needed.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3227
which lists all officers & soldiers,
includes three Strike Commanders:
100 Geyrsof, 3012th Strike,
100 Helika, 5001st " , and
100 Desmar, 2029th " .
The 4016th Strike is also mentioned,
but its commander was not named in HHNF.

**ISTR that the 2029th was part of the attack on
the Hell's Gate Lines, but was not one of the three
which Harshu & Toralk took into Thermyn.
I deduce that it was part of the Reserve. **
----------
Corrected an hour later. 2029th **was** part of
the Fort Salby attack. See top of this post.

HTM

bkwormlisa wrote:I was wondering the same thing. We knew there were only three of the 3012th Strike left, and I don't think we had numbers for the 5001th, but where did the 2029th come from? It obviously wasn't available for the attack on Fort Salby - Toralk specifically thought that he had only three dragons fit to fight - but it doesn't sound like Helika had it either.

It's also a lot of transport dragons, and they can haul more than I would have thought practical. How the heck do they normally feed dragons, especially in heavily populated worlds?

Strange thought: Since dragons are accumulators in their own right as Gadrial says (they recharge themselves for each breath weapon), maybe there's more to them than just weapons? Perhaps they have some levitation spells built in too. It would have been a great original reason for them to be accumulators, before the Mythalans added breath weapons. That would explain how something that size could fly at all
SCC wrote:Interesting about the supply of dragons, far more then I thought they had (Of course, no mention of wounded is made). Didn't they start out short of battle dragons?
Last edited by Howard T. Map-addict on Sat Jun 06, 2015 12:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: RTH Official Snippet #4
Post by Howard T. Map-addict   » Sat Jun 06, 2015 12:16 pm

Howard T. Map-addict
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Posts: 1392
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Location: Philadelphia, PA

Oh My Goodness!
Heart Surgeries!

Prayers and best wishes for a complete recovery,
with as little pain and as much speed as possible.

Howard "True Map-addict" Wilkins

runsforcelery wrote:Sorry this is running late, what with heart surgeries and finishing up the final page proofs on Sword of the South, I've kinda had my hands full.

{snip to eot}

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Re: RTH Official Snippet #4
Post by Howard T. Map-addict   » Sat Jun 06, 2015 12:57 pm

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Snippet #4 specifies that the dragons use
Levitation Spells. Of course some must be built in,
I presume, while others can be added.

HTM

bkwormlisa wrote:I was wondering the same thing. We knew there were only three of the 3012th Strike left, and I don't think we had numbers for the 5001th, but where did the 2029th come from? It obviously wasn't available for the attack on Fort Salby - Toralk specifically thought that he had only three dragons fit to fight - but it doesn't sound like Helika had it either.

It's also a lot of transport dragons, and they can haul more than I would have thought practical. How the heck do they normally feed dragons, especially in heavily populated worlds?

Strange thought: Since dragons are accumulators in their own right as Gadrial says (they recharge themselves for each breath weapon), maybe there's more to them than just weapons? Perhaps they have some **levitation spells** built in too. It would have been a great original reason for them to be accumulators, before the Mythalans added breath weapons. That would explain how something that size could fly at all
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Re: RTH Official Snippet #4
Post by akira.taylor   » Sat Jun 06, 2015 2:10 pm

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Could it be that, at the point Toralk is thinking, 11 dragons were not fit to fight (but are now, or are expected to be soonish)?

bkwormlisa wrote:I was wondering the same thing. We knew there were only three of the 3012th Strike left, and I don't think we had numbers for the 5001th, but where did the 2029th come from? It obviously wasn't available for the attack on Fort Salby - Toralk specifically thought that he had only three dragons fit to fight - but it doesn't sound like Helika had it either.

It's also a lot of transport dragons, and they can haul more than I would have thought practical. How the heck do they normally feed dragons, especially in heavily populated worlds?

Strange thought: Since dragons are accumulators in their own right as Gadrial says (they recharge themselves for each breath weapon), maybe there's more to them than just weapons? Perhaps they have some levitation spells built in too. It would have been a great original reason for them to be accumulators, before the Mythalans added breath weapons. That would explain how something that size could fly at all
SCC wrote:Interesting about the supply of dragons, far more then I thought they had (Of course, no mention of wounded is made). Didn't they start out short of battle dragons?
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Re: RTH Official Snippet #4
Post by lyonheart   » Sat Jun 06, 2015 9:18 pm

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Hi Akira. Taylor,

Thanks RFC for another great snippet!

I wouldn't be surprised that dragons recovering from sickness or injuries might be the ticket, or the discrepancy might be explained by the need to rest and feed the dragons etc, these being the designated reserve during their required rest times.

I could be wrong and textev inconsistencies or contradictions are the bane of my enjoyment of RFC's classics particularly with HoS; Bu9 should have read them more or provided explanations for ignoring them besides their non textev additions etc.

L


akira.taylor wrote:Could it be that, at the point Toralk is thinking, 11 dragons were not fit to fight (but are now, or are expected to be soonish)?

bkwormlisa wrote:I was wondering the same thing. We knew there were only three of the 3012th Strike left, and I don't think we had numbers for the 5001th, but where did the 2029th come from? It obviously wasn't available for the attack on Fort Salby - Toralk specifically thought that he had only three dragons fit to fight - but it doesn't sound like Helika had it either.

It's also a lot of transport dragons, and they can haul more than I would have thought practical. How the heck do they normally feed dragons, especially in heavily populated worlds?

Strange thought: Since dragons are accumulators in their own right as Gadrial says (they recharge themselves for each breath weapon), maybe there's more to them than just weapons? Perhaps they have some levitation spells built in too. It would have been a great original reason for them to be accumulators, before the Mythalans added breath weapons. That would explain how something that size could fly at all
*quote="SCC"*Interesting about the supply of dragons, far more then I thought they had (Of course, no mention of wounded is made). Didn't they start out short of battle dragons?
*quote*
Any snippet or post from RFC is good if not great!
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Re: RTH Official Snippet #4
Post by Astelon   » Sun Jun 07, 2015 1:06 am

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Iran some numbers from the Fort Salby battle. I counted the number going in, and the number lost, and I seem to have come up with an extra dragon somewhere. I counted six survivors, with two being badly injured. I could have misunderstood something and not counted one as killed, that would make five survivors and two badly injured, leaving three capable of fighting. If the dragons injured at Hell's gate were returning to service, and the two injured were counted that could add several dragons, but they seem to have picked up eleven.

Another thing I noticed is that Toralk is thinking that the transport dragons can fly nearly thirty thousand miles in sixteen days, or almost nineteen hundred in a day. Chapter eleven of Hell's gate specifically states that a transport dragon can fly one thousand miles possibly a bit more in a day, but then has to rest.

That means I am either completely misunderstanding something, there is a typo, or the number has been changed on purpose.
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Re: RTH Official Snippet #4
Post by Keith_w   » Sun Jun 07, 2015 7:37 am

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Astelon wrote:<Snipped because I have no answer for that question> :D

Another thing I noticed is that Toralk is thinking that the transport dragons can fly nearly thirty thousand miles in sixteen days, or almost nineteen hundred in a day. Chapter eleven of Hell's gate specifically states that a transport dragon can fly one thousand miles possibly a bit more in a day, but then has to rest.

That means I am either completely misunderstanding something, there is a typo, or the number has been changed on purpose.


Since dragons are animals and not mechanical devices, I would think that the maximum distance each could travel in a single day would be individual to each dragon, although if they could not travel at least a certain minimum distance, they would not be used as transport dragons. There would be a lot of other variables such as the availability of food, as was mentioned in the snippet, and over what period of time they were expected to be able to transport what weight, even with the use of levitation crystals.
--
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
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Re: RTH Official Snippet #4
Post by brnicholas   » Sun Jun 07, 2015 12:29 pm

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You mentioned dragons injured at Hell's Gate. One thing that is sure to fool with our estimates regarding dragons killed and injured is the fact that we only saw half the battle of Hell's Gate. We saw two passes by Reds against Chan Tesh and then two passes by Yellows. Yet like anyone defending a portal Chan Tesh had to divide his forces in half and defend both sides of the portal. Presumably the dragons had to clear both sides of the portal and we have no idea what happened on the other side of the portal. There may have been a number of additional wounded there which we didn't hear about before and are coming back into service now.

I caught the bit about the range of transport dragons too. When I put the number into a calculator I got about 1500 miles a day. My best guess for an explanation is that Toralk is figuring minimum rest times rather then ones geared for humans. Perhaps a dragon can fly 1000 miles in 12 hours and then needs 6 hours of rest but the pilot much prefers to take off in the morning after a full nights sleep so they usually fly 1000 in 12 hours and then rest for 12 hours and that is where the 1000 miles a day figure came from.

Nicholas

Astelon wrote:Iran some numbers from the Fort Salby battle. I counted the number going in, and the number lost, and I seem to have come up with an extra dragon somewhere. I counted six survivors, with two being badly injured. I could have misunderstood something and not counted one as killed, that would make five survivors and two badly injured, leaving three capable of fighting. If the dragons injured at Hell's gate were returning to service, and the two injured were counted that could add several dragons, but they seem to have picked up eleven.

Another thing I noticed is that Toralk is thinking that the transport dragons can fly nearly thirty thousand miles in sixteen days, or almost nineteen hundred in a day. Chapter eleven of Hell's gate specifically states that a transport dragon can fly one thousand miles possibly a bit more in a day, but then has to rest.

That means I am either completely misunderstanding something, there is a typo, or the number has been changed on purpose.
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Re: RTH Official Snippet #4
Post by jeremyr   » Sun Jun 07, 2015 4:23 pm

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Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Snippet #4 specifies that the dragons use
Levitation Spells. Of course some must be built in,
I presume, while others can be added.

HTM


I took this to mean the levitation spell was for the cargo to make it lighter. I would think the dragon weighs way more than it's cargo, so you would not need as strong a spell. It could be that the dragon cannot fly without the spell, but that doesn't seem likely.
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Re: RTH Official Snippet #4
Post by runsforcelery   » Sun Jun 07, 2015 6:29 pm

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I'm sorry you were so dissatisfied, Lyonheart. Personally, I think BuNine did an excellent job. Was it perfect? No, but then they had 20 damned years worth of books --- in which at least some continuity problems were inevitable --- to straighten out. I suspect it's rather easier to criticize them after the fact than it was to do the job in the first place.


lyonheart wrote:Hi Akira. Taylor,

Thanks RFC for another great snippet!

I wouldn't be surprised that dragons recovering from sickness or injuries might be the ticket, or the discrepancy might be explained by the need to rest and feed the dragons etc, these being the designated reserve during their required rest times.

I could be wrong and textev inconsistencies or contradictions are the bane of my enjoyment of RFC's classics particularly with HoS; Bu9 should have read them more or provided explanations for ignoring them besides their non textev additions etc.

L




"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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