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New Books

This fascinating series is a combination of historical seafaring, swashbuckling adventure, and high technological science-fiction. Join us in a discussion!
Re: New Books
Post by DMcCunney   » Wed Oct 02, 2019 1:44 pm

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Dauntless wrote:wasn't there a line in OAR about how Langhorne didn't oversee the terraforming, he was with the majority of the fleet elsewhere. That was how the brain washing of the colonists escaped notice until it was too late to do anything about it.

Langhorne was in orbit, and I don't believe he physically set foot on Safehold until the terraforming process was well along. (And I suspect he was in orbit around Safehold. Why should he and the rest of the colony fleet be anywhere else, and where else was there to be?)

The brainwashing of the colonists didn't escape notice. Because of the implants all colonists had, it was possible for Bedard to rearrange colonist's memories while they were in cryo, and suppress conscious memory of who they used to be and where they had come from, so they awakened as Adams and Eves and saw the Angels and Archangels as divine beings. This probably occurred well before they were awakened.

Langhorne was Colony Administrator and authorized Bedard to do it. Shan Wei and some of the rest of the command crew disagreed, but were overruled by Langhorne. The original plans for Operation Ark called for the colonists to refrain from using technology beyond wind, water, and muscle power for a period of 300 years. The assumption was that use of advanced technology left traces other high tech species could follow, and that was how the Gbaba located the TF colonies and finally Earth itself. 300 years was chosen as a likely time frame in which the Gbaba could conclude they had exterminated humanity and stop looking.

I believe the original plans called for weakening of colonists memories of who they were/where they were from, simply to make it easier to refrain from using advanced technology for several centuries. If you are bootstrapping a new colony world from scratch, there will be powerful incentives to use more advanced tech if you are aware it exists and is possible. But the Alexandria Enclave existed precisely as a place to preserve humanity's history and provide the information required to resume technological development once it was thought safe.

Permanently abjuring technology and hiding on Safehold forever was Langhorne's modification of his original orders, but Earth was dead and there was no one left to prevent his meddling. He was legally appointed Colony Administrator and final authority, and could rewrite his orders. Without going into open revolt, the rest of the command crew couldn't stop him.

(After Kau Yung nuked Langhorne's HQ in retaliation for the Rakurai strike on the Alexandria Enclave, killing Langhorne and Bedard as well as himself, a faction of the command crew *did* revolt against Chihiro who had assumed the reins after Langhorne's death in what became the War Against the Fallen, but that conflict did not erupt till two years after the Rakurai strike that turned the Alexandria Enclave into Armageddon Reef.)
______
Dennis
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Re: New Books
Post by SilverbladeTE   » Wed Oct 02, 2019 2:46 pm

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It did say Langhorne was NOT in Safehold system, along with much of the fleet, until after Safehold was terraformed which iirc took about 90 years?

That gave Shan Wei plenty of time to prepare things....
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Re: New Books
Post by Louis R   » Thu Oct 03, 2019 12:23 am

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That's unfortunate.

I'm afraid you'll have to take your disagreement up with Himself, however. He's the author who has Kau-yung tell Nimue explicitly that Langhorne did _not_ oversee the terraforming, but stayed with the main colony fleet. '"Of course"--he smiled bitterly--"we didn't realize then why he was staying there"' he goes on to say.

DMcCunney wrote:
Louis R wrote:That impression is certainly wrong: Hamilcar _was_ Langhorne's command ship. And therefore not in-system for most or all of the terraforming.

Sorry, but I can't agree. It was the command ship and a major industrial node. Just where else would it be, and why? You tend to want HQ and major industrial center close to where the work is being done. I see no reason for it to be elsewhere.

Dennis
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Re: New Books
Post by cnrd22   » Thu Oct 03, 2019 9:34 pm

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Coming back to the original topic - any news on safehold 11??
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Re: New Books
Post by Peter2   » Mon Oct 07, 2019 3:58 pm

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DMcCunney wrote:[snip]

Shan Wei and her folks had the advantage of high-tech gear to dig the original canals, allowing it to happen far faster than low tech would have permitted. And we are told that the Book of Hastings provides a fair bit of information on geology, in part because the original canals like the Holy Langhorne carved through some elevated terrain and revealed geological strata in the process which needed some explanation. (Similar cuts happened on Earth as railroads were developed and in some cases required extensive excavation of the right of way. The Pennsylvania Railroad made rather enormous changes along its right of way.)

[snip]


There's a rather revealing piece of local history (local to me, anyway) which has some bearing here. Without going into too much detail, at the end of the 18th century, there was a wealthy tobacco merchant in Liverpool (Liverpool UK) called Joseph Williamson who engaged some builders to do some work on his house. These included digging out a wine cellar under it. For one reason or another (possibly to give employment to soldiers left jobless after the end of the Napoleonic Wars) the digging continued, and became quite extensive – maps and photographs are available from https://williamsontunnels.com (and they really are worth visiting if you happen to be in the area). One of these excavations was the "Triple Tunnel" which headed roughly northwards from his house.

At about the same time that the tunnelers were working on this, workmen were also making an east-west cutting through the same rocky ridge to provide railroad access to Liverpool. When the inevitable happened and the railway workers cut into the Triple Tunnel, they ran in fright, because they thought they had opened an access into Hell.

I thought this was an interesting illustration not only of the marks that large-scale engineering works leave on the landscape, but also of the effect that heart-held religious beliefs can have on people's behaviour.

If you take a train into or out of Liverpool Lime Street station, the bricked-up arcs where the cutting slices through the Triple Tunnel are still obvious now, 200 years later.
.
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Re: New Books
Post by Dilandu   » Tue Oct 08, 2019 1:06 am

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Peter2 wrote:at the end of the 18th century,

At about the same time

provide railroad access to Liverpool.


Er...
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: New Books
Post by SilverbladeTE   » Tue Oct 08, 2019 3:34 am

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Dilandu
Probably horse drawn trams on wooden rails
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Re: New Books
Post by Peter2   » Tue Oct 08, 2019 9:04 am

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Dilandu wrote:
Peter2 wrote:at the end of the 18th century,

At about the same time

provide railroad access to Liverpool.


Er...


That's right. Joseph Williamson (b. 1769) when aged 11 moved with his family to a town near Liverpool in 1780. He lived in Liverpool round about 1800, he started his excavations round about 1810, and continued until he died in 1840. Liverpool Lime Street station opened in 1836.

There's no inconsistency.
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Re: New Books
Post by Peter2   » Tue Oct 08, 2019 9:20 am

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Peter2 wrote:
Dilandu wrote:
Peter2 wrote
at the end of the 18th century,

At about the same time

provide railroad access to Liverpool.


Er...


That's right. Joseph Williamson (b. 1769) when aged 11 moved with his family to a town near Liverpool in 1780. He lived in Liverpool round about 1800, he started his excavations round about 1810, and continued until he died in 1840. Liverpool Lime Street station opened in 1836.

There's no inconsistency.
.


I should have added that the rail link from Liverpool to Manchester opened in 1830.

No trams or wooden rails involved, I assure you – carriages running on steel rails pulled by steam engines.
Williamson was acquainted with Stevenson, who designed and built the "Rocket", the first commercially viable steam locomotive in 1829.
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Re: New Books
Post by SilverbladeTE   » Tue Oct 08, 2019 2:20 pm

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Peter2
Ah I see :)

I was thinking of things like this which did come before steam
And.local mines used ponies
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swansea ... es_Railway

I also think the Ordinance works used such, because the ponies could move gunpowder in underground or protected paths, without any iron accoutrements, thus, no sparks and in restricted space and gunpowder isn't that heavy compared to stone or metals?
Guess they must have used bronze horseshoes etc?
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