Would Safeholdians really recognize electricity?

phillies wrote:Oh, yes, the system may well still work, but the suspicion that it will complain about steam, diesel, nuclear, or the wrestling channel is hypothetical.

I'd certainly program it to take out the wrestling channel...(not so much the rest...)

Yes Merlin could but more might happen than just the Rakurai destroying the test site.

The Rakurai might also wake whatever is sleeping under the Temple which in turn orders the Rakurai to destroy Charis.

The point is that the Writ specifically forbids mankind's use of electricity (unlike steam which is not specifically mentioned).

So Merlin and the Inner Circle have good reasons to believe that using electricity is a "step too far" and have no good reason IMO to test what would happen.

cralkhi wrote:

DrakBibliophile wrote:If they're wrong, they may lose Charis.

Couldn't Merlin test it safely by using remotes to build electrical stuff on the south pole?

If the Rakurai hits it, no one but the inner circle will ever know -- people don't seem to live on Armageddon Reef, so how would anyone know that the south pole got bombarded?

Yep Drak they took a big risk introducing steam...

Steam is enough till they deal with the bombardment platforms.

DrakBibliophile wrote:

"What we do know is that the OBS is still protected as Owl lost probes that got too close to the OBS.

While David Weber has fooled me before, I'm beginning to suspect that somebody disabled the actual OBS so it will not bombard any locations on Safehold without direct instruction"

My guess is that the planetary bombardment system always worked that way. It was only the space defense system that was fully automated. The technology to destroy the system is decades if not hundreds of years away. All that he can hope for is that, at some point in the not that distant future, he comes across a way to determine, with surety, if the system is live or dead and if it is still live, find a method to disable it.

So, I would, at this point, take my chances that it is a manually controlled system and that no one left in the Temple has enough knowledge of the technology to be able to utilize it. If I am wrong, then all that is lost is a small island. But, in any case, I am not advocating the large scale installation and use of electricity, all I am urging is that small steps to demonstrate some of its capabilities be taken.

Further, at this point, now that steam has been accepted, there is no reason that Charis could not move forward with electricity surreptitiously by installing generation and motors underground. All that would be above ground would be the steam plant, everything else would be below ground. All of this would be on a really small scale because Charis does not now, nor will it have for the near term future, the required chemistry, physics and manufacturing capabilities to do it on a large scale. However, small scale operation would allow proof of concept and give them a giant leg up once the proscriptions have been nullified. Merlin and OWL can make sure that their proof of concept stuff is scalable and they don't go down any dead ends.

Yeah, we understand what you are urging. But we've already told you (and David has also said) it won't happen, because the worst case is not that they lose an isolated island. The worst case is that it wakes something up under the Temple that Merlin really wouldn't want woken up, something that can examine the entire situation and make a decision to bombard the Empire of Charis into reefs. Even the tiniest risk of that is too much--Merlin won't do it until he is certain the potential danger does not exist or is neutralized.

SWM wrote:Yeah, we understand what you are urging. But we've already told you (and David has also said) it won't happen, because the worst case is not that they lose an isolated island. The worst case is that it wakes something up under the Temple that Merlin really wouldn't want woken up, something that can examine the entire situation and make a decision to bombard the Empire of Charis into reefs. Even the tiniest risk of that is too much--Merlin won't do it until he is certain the potential danger does not exist or is neutralized.

I agree, but with qualification. Merlin did take exactly that risk with steam. Something under the temple could have been awakened. No sign of any communicarion whatever to inform the temple "look! We have steam!" Nothing. Why? We don't know. All we can do is speculate. Should Merlin take that risk again? No comment.

Don

n7axw wrote:I agree, but with qualification. Merlin did take exactly that risk with steam. Something under the temple could have been awakened.

Yes, Merlin took that risk with Steam. However, at the time and place he set up his test, the only violation of the Proscriptions was his phantom steam civilization.

Upping the ante with electricity and the associated electromagnetic radiation is an order of magnitude more likely to awake whatever preventive measures Langhorne left in place.

Steam or some variety of "heat engine" was necessary to stretch the Proscriptions and enable Charis to survive the war; If the CoGA doesn't match Steam Technology, Charis wins, If the CoGA does match Steam Technology, then Merlin wins even if Charis doesn't.

Another problem, upping the ante with electricity would be a step too far for any Safeholdian (even Charisians) who doesn't know the truth.

Safeholdians believe that "playing around with electricity" is stealing from the Archangel Langhorne.

From what David Weber has said, the Writ is clear on this and not even Father Paityr could convince Charisians that it'd be OK.

Even putting the electrical generators underground may not help as you may still need more manpower inside the "underground lair" than the Inner Circle could provide.

Of course, creating the "underground lair" would be extremely difficult without the use of Federation technology.

In addition, how deep would be safe from orbital detection?

Nimue's Cave is miles under a mountain.

No Merlin and the Inner Circle won't IMO risk this.

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:I agree, but with qualification. Merlin did take exactly that risk with steam. Something under the temple could have been awakened.

Yes, Merlin took that risk with Steam. However, at the time and place he set up his test, the only violation of the Proscriptions was his phantom steam civilization.

Upping the ante with electricity and the associated electromagnetic radiation is an order of magnitude more likely to awake whatever preventive measures Langhorne left in place.

Steam or some variety of "heat engine" was necessary to stretch the Proscriptions and enable Charis to survive the war; If the CoGA doesn't match Steam Technology, Charis wins, If the CoGA does match Steam Technology, then Merlin wins even if Charis doesn't.

n7axw wrote:

SWM wrote:Yeah, we understand what you are urging. But we've already told you (and David has also said) it won't happen, because the worst case is not that they lose an isolated island. The worst case is that it wakes something up under the Temple that Merlin really wouldn't want woken up, something that can examine the entire situation and make a decision to bombard the Empire of Charis into reefs. Even the tiniest risk of that is too much--Merlin won't do it until he is certain the potential danger does not exist or is neutralized.

I agree, but with qualification. Merlin did take exactly that risk with steam. Something under the temple could have been awakened. No sign of any communicarion whatever to inform the temple "look! We have steam!" Nothing. Why? We don't know. All we can do is speculate. Should Merlin take that risk again? No comment.

Don

All right, it was a slight exaggeration to say "even the tiniest risk." But the risk with steam is miniscule compared to the risk with electricity.

Electricity is explicitly and vehemently prohibited by the Proscriptions. If anything is watching for prohibited technologies, it will be looking for electricity. I think we can take that as a certainty.

At the time that Merlin did his tests with steam, Charis had limited its innovations to improvements of already existing technologies. The danger to Charis from examination at that time was relatively low. If we assume there is something watching, the probability that it is watching for the development of steam is fairly low. The developing industry Charis needed more power than was available from the traditional Safeholdian sources, or it would be unable to compete with the total industry of the mainland.

Compare that to electricity. Charis has a burgeoning steam industry which is a total break from previous Safehold technologies. The danger to Charis from examination is now deadly; anything trying to enforce Langhorne's plan would have to eradicate Charis and steam technology. Given the emphasis the Proscriptions placed on electricity, we can be 100% certain that if there is anything monitoring for violations of the Proscriptions, they would be watching for electricity. And Charis does not need electricity at this point in time; they can get by with the power sources they have now. There is no pressing urgency to get electricity in the near future.

Given the fearful danger if electricity were detected, and the inability to put electricity to public use even in Charis because of the explicit Proscription, there is no point in taking even a tiny risk by making even small demonstration tests.