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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 Bluestrike2   » Tue Jul 03, 2018 12:18 pm

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DrakBibliophile wrote:IIRC there was a comment about the Church not accepting that Schuler (& apparently the other Archangels) had human descendants.

I suspect that when the crew starting the "playing angels game" that any sexual relationships between the crew & passengers were kept low-key.

Later on, the Church may have taken the public position that it never happened. Possibly because some churchmen tried to use the "we're descended from Archangels/Angels" as a power play.


It's possible that there were intra-command crew factors behind that. It'd be all too easy to see angel/colonist relationships as incredibly coercive given the power differential. "Sleep with me," says the Archangel Bob. A colonist wouldn't stand a chance; they wouldn't even know that they can say "no." The Catholic Church sexual abuse cases involved priests using the power and deference of their position to abuse children and get away with it for years. An "archangel/angel" on Safehold would have infinitely more power.

Even with all the psychological damage they were dealing with, I can't see the rest of the command crew being too accepting of such situations. If they were, they're even further gone than the series has suggested. And that's ignoring the increased likelihood of overhearing something, seeing something they shouldn't, or simply losing that sense of "awe" of the angelic command crew due to increased proximity.
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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by Bluesqueak   » Tue Jul 03, 2018 3:52 pm

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Bluestrike2 wrote:
DrakBibliophile wrote:IIRC there was a comment about the Church not accepting that Schuler (& apparently the other Archangels) had human descendants.

I suspect that when the crew starting the "playing angels game" that any sexual relationships between the crew & passengers were kept low-key.

Later on, the Church may have taken the public position that it never happened. Possibly because some churchmen tried to use the "we're descended from Archangels/Angels" as a power play.


It's possible that there were intra-command crew factors behind that. It'd be all too easy to see angel/colonist relationships as incredibly coercive given the power differential. "Sleep with me," says the Archangel Bob. A colonist wouldn't stand a chance; they wouldn't even know that they can say "no." The Catholic Church sexual abuse cases involved priests using the power and deference of their position to abuse children and get away with it for years. An "archangel/angel" on Safehold would have infinitely more power.

Even with all the psychological damage they were dealing with, I can't see the rest of the command crew being too accepting of such situations. If they were, they're even further gone than the series has suggested. And that's ignoring the increased likelihood of overhearing something, seeing something they shouldn't, or simply losing that sense of "awe" of the angelic command crew due to increased proximity.


But what if the passenger didn't know that the person they were in a relationship with was an angel/archangel?

Just wondering if the 'Frederick/Androcles' conundrum is related to his descendants the Wyllsyns - who are, after all, called Wyllsyn, not Schueler.

"Archangel Androcles Schueler? Sorry, what? I'm plain Fred Wilson, don'tcha know. Just an ordinary Adam from anywhere-but-here."

Though, given the ages that the command crew could be, it's possible that the reason only Schueler has known descendants is that one of his adult children was accepted as a colonist.
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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by Joat42   » Tue Jul 03, 2018 5:18 pm

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Bluesqueak wrote:But what if the passenger didn't know that the person they were in a relationship with was an angel/archangel?

Just wondering if the 'Frederick/Androcles' conundrum is related to his descendants the Wyllsyns - who are, after all, called Wyllsyn, not Schueler.

"Archangel Androcles Schueler? Sorry, what? I'm plain Fred Wilson, don'tcha know. Just an ordinary Adam from anywhere-but-here."

Though, given the ages that the command crew could be, it's possible that the reason only Schueler has known descendants is that one of his adult children was accepted as a colonist.

I'm pretty sure RFC didn't switch the names by chance. You all know the origin of the name Androcles I hope? The story about the runaway roman slave and the wounded lion in the cave which had a thorn in his paw?

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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by C. O. Thompson   » Wed Jul 04, 2018 9:52 am

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Loren Pechtel wrote:
Fireflair wrote:It's possible that the answer to dealing with the OBS and it's platform(s) is to do a kinetic strike on them all simultaneously from a fair distance away. Maybe not. If one of the strikes misses it's platform it would have a good probability of hitting the planet. Whatever the strike is composed of would have to be moving fast enough or for there be enough of the striking projectiles to get past the OBS defenses. A miss and hitting Safehold would be Bad.

It's also possible that the OBS might call home, namely the temple, to ask for guidance on this unexpected situation.


Actually, you can do a kinetic strike against the OBS without any threat to Safehold. Take a big load of sand gravel out into deep space, come back at say 100km/sec and throw the sand at the OBS system, followed by the gravel.

That's going to be a nightmare for the defense lasers to deal with any any piece that gets through makes quite a bang on what it hits. However, a piece of gravel hitting Safehold at 100 km/sec is merely pretty fireworks.

Phoning home before it dies is another matter, though.


That sounds like it would work...
I am more inclined to be very very quiet and sneak out to the asteroid belt with a few 'robots' a good computer and a fabber to start a build up of infrastructure... then deal with the OBS and bring people out.
Just my 2 ₡ worth
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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by Joat42   » Wed Jul 04, 2018 1:28 pm

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Loren Pechtel wrote:
Fireflair wrote:It's possible that the answer to dealing with the OBS and it's platform(s) is to do a kinetic strike on them all simultaneously from a fair distance away. Maybe not. If one of the strikes misses it's platform it would have a good probability of hitting the planet. Whatever the strike is composed of would have to be moving fast enough or for there be enough of the striking projectiles to get past the OBS defenses. A miss and hitting Safehold would be Bad.

It's also possible that the OBS might call home, namely the temple, to ask for guidance on this unexpected situation.


Actually, you can do a kinetic strike against the OBS without any threat to Safehold. Take a big load of sand gravel out into deep space, come back at say 100km/sec and throw the sand at the OBS system, followed by the gravel.

That's going to be a nightmare for the defense lasers to deal with any any piece that gets through makes quite a bang on what it hits. However, a piece of gravel hitting Safehold at 100 km/sec is merely pretty fireworks.

Phoning home before it dies is another matter, though.

I suggested that method a while back and it was shot down.

There is a couple of reasons, primarily we don't know enough of federation tech to say there is no shield technology in play.

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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by Undercover Fat Kid   » Wed Jul 04, 2018 8:56 pm

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They’d almost have to have some sort of system for dealing with small debris if they’re flying ships at an appreciable fraction of C. Something as simple like Joe Haldeman imagined in “Forever War,” where incoming debris was given a negative charge, and subsequently pushed out of the ships path by another negative field to clear everything smaller than a small pea, while the sensors of the day were capable of detecting anything larger in time for the ship to avoid them. I wonder how well something fairly simple and close enough to IRL technology to be feasible would do.

Loren Pechtel wrote:
Fireflair wrote:It's possible that the answer to dealing with the OBS and it's platform(s) is to do a kinetic strike on them all simultaneously from a fair distance away. Maybe not. If one of the strikes misses it's platform it would have a good probability of hitting the planet. Whatever the strike is composed of would have to be moving fast enough or for there be enough of the striking projectiles to get past the OBS defenses. A miss and hitting Safehold would be Bad.

It's also possible that the OBS might call home, namely the temple, to ask for guidance on this unexpected situation.


Actually, you can do a kinetic strike against the OBS without any threat to Safehold. Take a big load of sand gravel out into deep space, come back at say 100km/sec and throw the sand at the OBS system, followed by the gravel.

That's going to be a nightmare for the defense lasers to deal with any any piece that gets through makes quite a bang on what it hits. However, a piece of gravel hitting Safehold at 100 km/sec is merely pretty fireworks.

Phoning home before it dies is another matter, though.
.
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Duty is as a mountain
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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by Annachie   » Wed Jul 04, 2018 10:08 pm

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Besides, we don't know if the defence sats are programmed to let things LEAVE orbit.

After all, there's no reason for an arch-angel to leave orbit. Achieve it, maybe.
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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by Bluestrike2   » Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:03 pm

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Joat42 wrote:
Loren Pechtel wrote:Actually, you can do a kinetic strike against the OBS without any threat to Safehold. Take a big load of sand gravel out into deep space, come back at say 100km/sec and throw the sand at the OBS system, followed by the gravel.

That's going to be a nightmare for the defense lasers to deal with any any piece that gets through makes quite a bang on what it hits. However, a piece of gravel hitting Safehold at 100 km/sec is merely pretty fireworks.

Phoning home before it dies is another matter, though.

I suggested that method a while back and it was shot down.

There is a couple of reasons, primarily we don't know enough of federation tech to say there is no shield technology in play.


With enough kinetic energy, the OBS is dead. Shield or no shield. The trick is identifying all of the platforms, coordinating your time on target strike, and nailing everything all at once--instantly overwhelming active defenses--before the system can get a message out. If there's even a slight delay, if active defenses manage to keep a single platform alive for even a couple microseconds longer than the rest, an alert message gets out.

But that's a passive mechanism for the OBS, and one I can't see Chihiro relying on. While we don't know exactly what the OBS system is, and the system is far advanced from what we have available today, there are a few givens. From a networking perspective, the system would implement a heartbeat between the OBS and the Temple. The OBS sends a periodic signal down to the temple that says "OBS system is active." If the signal is not received, the Temple assumes the system is down and activates whatever contingency plan is setup. This is such a basic element of high availability networking that it's flatly impossible that the OBS and Temple don't have a heartbeat in place. A complex satellite network that needs to be resilient enough to last for centuries, withstand random meteoroid strikes, and survive a combat environment is the very definition of a high-availability environment. It's adaptable, self-healing, and can replenish its ammunition and hardware. Beyond that, it'd also use some form of asymmetric crypto to sign the heartbeat messages, so that the Temple could verify that the message is in fact from the OBS. The odds of fooling the Temple would approach zero, and that's ignoring other monitoring mechanisms.

As dangerous as the OBS is, the thing under the temple is likely even more so. One of the recent TFT snippets makes that abundantly clear. There's more under the Temple than we previously thought. So actually killing the OBS has never been the challenge. There are plenty of options, including strikes from lower orbits or even the planetary surface. The risk has always been what happens afterwards.
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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by evilauthor   » Thu Jul 05, 2018 4:33 pm

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Bluestrike2 wrote:With enough kinetic energy, the OBS is dead. Shield or no shield.


The problem is, what counts as "enough energy"? Given the super strong materials that Federation tech has, I doubt a cloud of sand grains going at merely orbital speeds will do more than scratch the OBS' paint. And even then, I'd expect the paint to be self repairing.

Going faster probably requires a full blown spaceship, not just some shuttles. Good luck sneaking one of those past the OBS.
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Re: TFT Snippet #2
Post by Randomiser   » Thu Jul 05, 2018 6:10 pm

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We haven't actually got enough information about the role of Attack Shuttles to say anything very much about the extent of their capabilities. Just sayin'

One could imagine they were used by marines, but what on earth for? Indeed, what would you use marines for? Nimue Chweriau thinks somewhere, I think it's around slapping down that uppity, misogynist guard officer, that a humongous proportion of the TF forces were Marines (IIRMC it's 1/4) What their tasks were in a space war against an enemy that had no interest in conquering, as opposed to destroying, any ground area, is never explained.
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