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Silk Town-Thesmar Canal

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Re: Silk Town-Thesmar Canal
Post by lyonheart   » Tue Aug 25, 2015 3:54 am

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Hi Gamarus,

I have to agree, Siddarmark would have been far further south into Desnar if they'd started from Silkiah.

NTM, there's absolutely no indication of Siddarmark ever controlling Silkiah for two (2) centuries.

What we do have is textev for Desnarians invading a much smaller republic, to destroy them and like the lesson of
Kolstyr some 2&1/2 centuries ago when it all began, apparently when Shiloh was a border province.

So in the roughly 250 years since Siddarmark advanced south; more than 1700 miles to what's now the Silkiah northern border and all the way through it [another thousand miles] into North Watch when the CoGA interfered, taking the Desnari coastal provinces opposite Tarot along the way, probably increasing the republic's size, wealth and population by 6 or 7 times, all to the consternation of the corrupt temple.

One wonders when the northern Siddarmark provinces were collected by force or gathered in by popular vote, since they are evidently older and better represented in the republic's parliament than the South March Lands were.

BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if such an advance required quite a bit of shipping for supplies, being far quicker than relying on slow barges, which might have encouraged Desnar to maintain or increase its navy, and another reason the temple constrained the republic's. ;)

L


gamarus wrote:
McGuiness wrote:So here's the Cliff Notes version. Siddarmark had already captured all of Silkiah and North Watch, and had Desnair trapped in Howard along a short, mountainous front, which it could have easily defended or even expanded well before Merlin showed up with innovations like rifles and artillery. However, some vicar with a lot of influence was probably rather upset that Siddarmark caused him to lose all the lovely bribes he wanted to skim from the Salthar Canal, and Desnair was pretty upset about losing them too. So they basically did a Hanth and got the CoGA to intervene, a couple of centuries after Siddarmark had seized the canal.



I'm sorry, but I can't see anywhere that Siddarmark had held Silkiah (or North Watch) for two centuries prior to the Treaty of Silk Town.
More likeliy, the latest spath of Siddarmark/Desnarian fighting rolled the Desnarians back once more, losing Silkiah and with Siddarmarkian forces in North Watch, the CoGA stepped in and dictated the terms in the Treaty.
After all, if Siddarmark had held Silkiah for centuries, don't you think they would have gotten much further into Howard each time the bloody minded Desnarian Emperors revealed their stupidity?
Any snippet or post from RFC is good if not great!
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Re: Spoiler element included at the end Re: Silk Town-Thesma
Post by lyonheart   » Tue Aug 25, 2015 4:25 am

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Hi Gamarus,

Maybe not.

The Cascade Locks and Canal which I just clicked on were 90 feet high to deal with a 55 foot [17m] variation on the Columbia River, while the wiki Lock article reports that Portuguese locks on the Douro River have rises of 108 [33m] and 115 feet [35m], while the Irish have a couple of 100 feet [30.5m] locks on the Shannon.

Given another 300 years of improving technology in the Terran Federation, I suspect much higher rises are quite possible.

L


gamarus wrote:You cannot* use a single lock to get a barge up more than a few meters, maybe abit more than 5 meters. For that you need multiple locks in a chain, each gaining a few meters till you get to the level of the plateau. There will be a 'chain' of locks on each side of the plateau.

*There is some very dramatic barge elevators/escalators designed in the Victorian era to lift a barge out of a channel at one level and deposit it at another that exceed my number above by a wide margin. One is especially elegant, using counterveights and water taken on as ballast at the higher level it is operating enltirely without engines. That tough takes a lot of iron or steel, cables, gasquets and grease. And it's only practical if you need to scale a near vertical distance.


*quote="lyonheart"*Hi Isaac Newton,

Sorry, I don't think so.

The lock sets are 150-160 miles apart, so I don't think they are 'chains' in any way.

Actually, it is evidently a somewhat higher central plateau that Shan'wei's canal goes over, not around or through, which is very interesting for those who think it could have gone around the plateau or simple plowed through it as other canals did, but remember such problems didn't bother Shan-wei, who wasn't trying to impress the colonists with god like powers like the archangels.

Making a third of the canal fresh water, required quite a number of catch basins and aqueducts apparently, so they will need to be secured as well, but not as immediately as the the locks since I doubt they've been prepared for demolition the way the locks have.

I pointed out before that the fresh water will eventually be used for human and animal consumption when the canal goes all seawater some time in the future.

L


isaac_newton wrote:
Hi Lyon

I strongly suspect those two sets of locks are actually a pair of chains of locks, unless it is a really really low central plataeau! Was there anything more definite in the textev?
*quote*
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Re: Spoiler element included at the end Re: Silk Town-Thesma
Post by isaac_newton   » Tue Aug 25, 2015 6:35 am

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lyonheart wrote:Hi Gamarus,

Maybe not.

The Cascade Locks and Canal which I just clicked on were 90 feet high to deal with a 55 foot [17m] variation on the Columbia River, while the wiki Lock article reports that Portuguese locks on the Douro River have rises of 108 [33m] and 115 feet [35m], while the Irish have a couple of 100 feet [30.5m] locks on the Shannon.

Given another 300 years of improving technology in the Terran Federation, I suspect much higher rises are quite possible.

L


gamarus wrote:You cannot* use a single lock to get a barge up more than a few meters, maybe abit more than 5 meters. For that you need multiple locks in a chain, each gaining a few meters till you get to the level of the plateau. There will be a 'chain' of locks on each side of the plateau.

*There is some very dramatic barge elevators/escalators designed in the Victorian era to lift a barge out of a channel at one level and deposit it at another that exceed my number above by a wide margin. One is especially elegant, using counterveights and water taken on as ballast at the higher level it is operating enltirely without engines. That tough takes a lot of iron or steel, cables, gasquets and grease. And it's only practical if you need to scale a near vertical distance.

SNIP


Yup - high rises are indeed possible with 20thC tech, and I'm sure with Terran tech they could have whatever they wanted.

BUT I'm more thinking about what is possible with man/dragon power tech.

It seems to me that the old english canals are a much more likely example of what might be expected on Safehold - especially as mere 'mortals' would have to maintain it for hundreds of years, even if they didn't build it in the first place.
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Re: Spoiler element included at the end Re: Silk Town-Thesma
Post by Keith_w   » Tue Aug 25, 2015 6:54 am

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isaac_newton wrote: quote="lyonheart" Hi Isaac Newton,

Sorry, I don't think so.

The lock sets are 150-160 miles apart, so I don't think they are 'chains' in any way.

Actually, it is evidently a somewhat higher central plateau that Shan'wei's canal goes over, not around or through, which is very interesting for those who think it could have gone around the plateau or simple plowed through it as other canals did, but remember such problems didn't bother Shan-wei, who wasn't trying to impress the colonists with god like powers like the archangels.

Making a third of the canal fresh water, required quite a number of catch basins and aqueducts apparently, so they will need to be secured as well, but not as immediately as the the locks since I doubt they've been prepared for demolition the way the locks have.

I pointed out before that the fresh water will eventually be used for human and animal consumption when the canal goes all seawater some time in the future.

L


quote="isaac_newton"

Hi Lyon

I strongly suspect those two sets of locks are actually a pair of chains of locks, unless it is a really really low central plataeau! Was there anything more definite in the textev? /quote /quote

Hi Lyon.

Let me explain why I think that there is likely to be a 'chain of locks'. We have a lot of canals in the UK with locks. Each lock chamber has a specific 'rise' [height difference between upper and lower sections of the water going into/out of that chamber].

That rise is not very large [I think about 20ft max, and more normally 10ft or so].

Therefore if you want to run a canal up an escarpment [edge of a plateau] which is several hundred foot, you physically must have a sequence [chain] of many locks running from top to bottom of the slope.

One famous one is the Caen Hill Locks [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caen_Hill_Locks] where 29 chambers give a total rise of over 200ft.

Hence my comment about the low central plateau. It just seemed unlikely to me that the central plateau was only 10-20ft above sea level.

[Edit] I see that in portugal there is a lock with a 100ft rise - but not sure if that purely under gravity.


The Peterborough, Ontario hydraulic lift locks are gravity powered with a lift of 65', originally built in 1904.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterborough_Lift_Lock
--
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: Spoiler element included at the end Re: Silk Town-Thesma
Post by SWM   » Tue Aug 25, 2015 8:33 am

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lyonheart wrote:Hi Gamarus,

Maybe not.

The Cascade Locks and Canal which I just clicked on were 90 feet high to deal with a 55 foot [17m] variation on the Columbia River, while the wiki Lock article reports that Portuguese locks on the Douro River have rises of 108 [33m] and 115 feet [35m], while the Irish have a couple of 100 feet [30.5m] locks on the Shannon.

Given another 300 years of improving technology in the Terran Federation, I suspect much higher rises are quite possible.

L

The problem is not in the construction--the problem is filling and emptying the locks. Large rises require modern pumping. Safehold-tech locks can't be that high.
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Re: Spoiler element included at the end Re: Silk Town-Thesma
Post by n7axw   » Tue Aug 25, 2015 9:07 am

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SWM wrote:
lyonheart wrote:Hi Gamarus,

Maybe not.

The Cascade Locks and Canal which I just clicked on were 90 feet high to deal with a 55 foot [17m] variation on the Columbia River, while the wiki Lock article reports that Portuguese locks on the Douro River have rises of 108 [33m] and 115 feet [35m], while the Irish have a couple of 100 feet [30.5m] locks on the Shannon.

Given another 300 years of improving technology in the Terran Federation, I suspect much higher rises are quite possible.

L

The problem is not in the construction--the problem is filling and emptying the locks. Large rises require modern pumping. Safehold-tech locks can't be that high.


Do we have any idea how Safehold pumps are powered?

Don
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Re: Spoiler element included at the end Re: Silk Town-Thesma
Post by isaac_newton   » Tue Aug 25, 2015 9:45 am

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n7axw wrote:
SWM wrote: SNIP
The problem is not in the construction--the problem is filling and emptying the locks. Large rises require modern pumping. Safehold-tech locks can't be that high.


Do we have any idea how Safehold pumps are powered?

Don


Thanks SWM - thats sort of what I was thinking.

As to Safehold pumps - well, we know that steam power is out, so animal power I guess. I don't think I've heard mention of windmills in the text.
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Re: Silk Town-Thesmar Canal
Post by SWM   » Tue Aug 25, 2015 11:11 am

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Windmills are mentioned in the text, so there are probably pumps powered by that. Otherwise, animal powered pumps.
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Re: Silk Town-Thesmar Canal
Post by isaac_newton   » Tue Aug 25, 2015 12:22 pm

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SWM wrote:Windmills are mentioned in the text, so there are probably pumps powered by that. Otherwise, animal powered pumps.


Well, that does make sense, given the other tech they have.

Can you remind me where - I'm guessing in OAR when Merlin looks over Tellesberg from the palace?
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Re: Spoiler element included at the end Re: Silk Town-Thesma
Post by WeberFan   » Tue Aug 25, 2015 5:01 pm

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isaac_newton wrote:
n7axw wrote:Do we have any idea how Safehold pumps are powered?

Don


Thanks SWM - thats sort of what I was thinking.

As to Safehold pumps - well, we know that steam power is out, so animal power I guess. I don't think I've heard mention of windmills in the text.


A couple of additional thoughts since my previous (and obviously not well-thought-out) post on this topic and the notion of "bypass locks"...

1. The vertical rise is likely a bigger issue than I considered previously. I don't know how much rise is needed on the canal, but if it's significant, then the sheer volume of water required in the locks would be a big issue, let alone transferring / pumping that much water (the time required no matter how you do it).

2. Given a large volume of water required, you have to think of makeup water coming from somewhere. You could (I guess) "recycle" most of the water, but methinks you'd still need a fair amount of makeup.

3. While the canal is close to the Safehold equator and is in a region that presumably gets a lot of rain, I don't remember any climatology information (probably there, I just don't remember it). Doesn't guarantee a lot of rain though... While the Amazon and Congo river basins get lots of rain, the Middle East and North Africa don't, so there's no guarantee. I get the sense from the books that there's lots of rain on Safehold though... Lots of narrative about storms, not so much about droughts.
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