Impeller Wedge in a Boat Bay

I meant to say the Havenites and not the Sollies. Getting old does have its disadvantages. However, yeah, they did talk about it a little bit, but still somehow our hero's did it and fairly quickly also....which is my point. There should have been many impossible to defeat roadblocks.

There should have been more more physical gadgets to remove and mechanical preventers to disconnect. They should not have been able to do what they did....even if they had DAYS. Even then any intelligent Havenite would have quickly discovered what they did. HB of CJ (old coot)

HB of CJ wrote:I meant to say the Havenites and not the Sollies. Getting old does have its disadvantages. However, yeah, they did talk about it a little bit, but still somehow our hero's did it and fairly quickly also....which is my point. There should have been many impossible to defeat roadblocks.

There should have been more more physical gadgets to remove and mechanical preventers to disconnect. They should not have been able to do what they did....even if they had DAYS. Even then any intelligent Havenite would have quickly discovered what they did. HB of CJ (old coot)

Normally, people who are aboard a ship don't want to bring up a wedge inside it. Electronic safeties which almost no one could disengage plus a few physical interlocks which almost no one can disengage is quite adequate. The safety interlocks were plenty to prevent accidents, and almost no one would have the skills to do the sabotage necessary. No one else in that escape party even knew it was even possible.

SWM wrote:

HB of CJ wrote:I meant to say the Havenites and not the Sollies. Getting old does have its disadvantages. However, yeah, they did talk about it a little bit, but still somehow our hero's did it and fairly quickly also....which is my point. There should have been many impossible to defeat roadblocks.

There should have been more more physical gadgets to remove and mechanical preventers to disconnect. They should not have been able to do what they did....even if they had DAYS. Even then any intelligent Havenite would have quickly discovered what they did. HB of CJ (old coot)

Normally, people who are aboard a ship don't want to bring up a wedge inside it. Electronic safeties which almost no one could disengage plus a few physical interlocks which almost no one can disengage is quite adequate. The safety interlocks were plenty to prevent accidents, and almost no one would have the skills to do the sabotage necessary. No one else in that escape party even knew it was even possible.

Don't forget also that Harkness had pretty much free and easy access to every database in the ship. He also had plenty of time to look at the tech manuals (which were probably on the comp) for the pinnace/assault shuttle/whatever and figure out exactly what he needed to do and where to make it possible to do that.

It is implied more than once that fusion bottle, wedge, and compensator disasters are particularly horrifying-- I think the "no escape" aspect is what triggers that reaction (along with a healthy dose of body horror/ disgust with compensator failure).

It's a reaction I see in other SF-- the Black Jack Geary series has a weapon that dissolves atomic bonds, and the main character has the same horrified reaction when he hears about it.

For myself, given some of the more spectacular and gruesome ways to go in space battles, I'd just as soon choose something instantaneous!