PeterZ wrote:FB, they can't get to the moon without a TF tech base manufacturing center. Whether the IC chooses one place to establish a TF manufacturing center and build the capacity there to go to Safehold's moon or build all the TF manufacturing centers on Safehold, the project must be undertaken. The initial heavy TF manufacturing center has to be away from civilization to mitigate risk.
Why not? Merlin has a drop shuttle bigger than a 747. You really think they couldn't fit
anything into that space that could at least get the process started? Perhaps not a full copy of his current manufacturing center in the cave, but surely
something could be put inside that and flown up.
And yes, it could be flown up. Nimue's remotes were destroyed when they
approached the bombardment platforms, not when they went up into space in general. Merlin has also flown in actual space at least twice that we know of (opening scene of BSRA, and when taking Sharleyan to the Cave for the med exam before Alannah was born). Odds are not particularly high those were the only times he did so.
With outright proof they can leave the atmosphere, we now have only the objection of leaving planetary orbit. But unless those platforms literally are the planetary equivalent of a Dyson Sphere there
are gaps that could be flown through. (Frankly I think there's very little BUT gaps, the platforms at most cover maybe 1% of the sky if even that. Otherwise we'd get 'weird shadows' and/or never see the sun.) And if there are, then a stealthed drop shuttle (or something) could be used to transport a seed factory out to the moon or somewhere else in the system.
So why again do they have to build the tech first? They have the small craft, that much is simply a duh. They almost certainly do
not (yet) have a spare factory but they could create something to start the process with. Sure it would be
slower, perhaps even a
lot slower. A smaller seed factory -- especially one that was just nannites and an AI computer to run them -- would be a LOT slower than sending a full-blown TF factory system. One of those "replicating itself" openly for just 4-5 years would have been enough to get any returning archangels "blown to hell and gone" (ATST, April 898, VIII).
But even if they had only started from the time of the Temple's surrender -- IMO they absolutely
should have started the minute OWL fully woke up and Merlin knew he could trust him "out of sight" -- they'd at least have
something built up by now with nearly
20 years to work with. Maybe not a full-fledged shipyard or fleet of warships. Very likely not in fact, especially if they decided it needed to be underground even out there on the (or a) moon. But they could have at least made the tools to make the tools.
PeterZ wrote:Btw, the last of the Fallen fought to their destruction in the Desolation Mountains. I believe the Barren Lands was another of Shan Wei's gifts to Nimue, like Silverlode was.
I stand corrected on the Desolation Mountains bit, but Silverlode at least had a name that gave a (blatant) hint about what was really there. But even with a 'blindingly obvious' clue like that they still totally missed the point until Narhman went digging in OWLs memory banks.
What is there about a bunch of 'useless' islands that are called what they are ('barren lands') that is our hint for why this is a 'gift' of Shan-Wei? What, outside of
maybe a place to build up high-tech, could they possibly be for? And how is Narhman or OWL going to dig up the hints in the planetary surveys or notes or whatever to help the team find out about it?
Short of that, even
if it's a safe place to build up tech it's not a gift of Shan-Wei. Unless you want to argue Shan-Wei turned actually useful islands
into barren lands for this purpose? I buy that even less than I do the idea it's a safe place to do it!
Even
if there is a high concentration of key elements needed in high tech construction out there, how are they going to figure it out? Where is the clue that we (and they) have overlooked so far?