Nathan C. wrote:Bruno Behrends
I really like your idea of the Temple being an observation tower. I had never considered that. As to your comment on the colony fleet fleet I have to concede that you are probably right but that was 1000 years ago. Do we have any idea the rate at which the Gbaba expand? Maybe another sentient species developed we know there have been at least 3.
RFC hasn't provided any clues as to how many he thinks might exist.
We don't know how large the Gbaba polity is, and what other species they may destroyed. We only know they seem to think they should be the only sentient species allowed to exist in what they consider their space. There may well be other species on the other side of the Gbaba space or elsewhere that the Gbaba and humanity simply never encountered. Since they play no part in and have no effect on the Safehold story, whether they even exist is a matter of idle speculation.
But the impression I've gotten is that the Gbaba don't expand. They evolved to sentience and developed interstellar travel, and built an interstellar polity while men were still sheltering in caves. They now occupy an area of space of unknown size, with an unknown number of Gbaba inhabited plants in it, and unknown resources available. But fragmentary evidence indicates they reached a state of development and expansion and said "This is adequate. We will stop here, and keep everything just like it is now forever." (Gee. That sounds familiar...
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/icon_razz.gif)
They have demonstrated that they are willing to travel far beyond their space chasing down and destroying other species the Gbaba consider threats, but beyond leaving automated stations to keep watch after, they don't seem to stick around. The go back to where they came from and resume what they were doing before being interrupted.
They are certainly an extraordinarily static culture. It's mentioned in OAR that the TF encountered Gbaba construction that was thousands of years old, but even new build ships were duplicates of original designs with no significant differences.
Whether they are still sentient is an interesting question. Sentience evolved in humanity as a response to environmental change. Pure reflex became insufficient to insure survival. Being able to consciously consider the environment and craft new responses was an aid to survival.
What if you have attained sufficient sufficient mastery of your environment that conscious consideration is no longer needed to deal with it. Do you remain sentient, or does it atrophy? Might there be a sentient species for whom interstellar travel is reflex?
(Note that reflex actions can be quite complex, and are not limited to simple situations.)
Erls
2. We know this is false. The skimmer goes into space multiple times. I agree that it has a set of defenses to protect itself that are at this point impregnable.
Define "space".
It's pretty plainly stated that Merlin's skimmer excursions are entirely in atmosphere, often hyper-sonic, with appendages crossed that the OBS doesn't notice.
The OBS demonstrated it had point defense, and could swat the probes Merlin sent to take a closer look. It didn't demonstrate it could destroy the recon skimmer if it got close enough. But even it couldn't, the last thing Merlin and the IC want is to "wake it up". (My guess is that point defense was there to stop wandering space junk that might damage OBS stations. I doubt Chihiro and co. thought anything threatening might come from Safehold.)
Even if the OBS can't destroy the skimmer, any engagement is likely to exceed the programmed threshold where it phones home. Point defense swatting probes apparently weren't considered sufficiently important to report. Something like the skimmer would be. And the result of the OBS waking up is likely "Prohibited technology detected. Look for places on Safehold it might have come from and drop rocks on it!" This is the last thing Merlin and the IC want, and they've been careful to tread very carefully around the IC.
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Dennis