KEW for Charis

Direwolf18 wrote:One of my pet theories on how Merlin is going to deal with the bombardment platform is as follows. Use SNARCs to build a second one far enough away to be inoffensive to it and use it to launch rocks at the first one.

Using Rocks on Safehold is a no go because it is to much of a magical attack from God, something Merlin is absolutely determined to avoid.

Now personally I don't agree with his outlook but that's what it is, and Cayleb and Sharleyne agree with him not me so there wont be anything like a saturation bombardment on Zion.

6L6 wrote:Hi abrax894 It's a shame Merlin could not save those sailors and I agree it would hav been easy for him to free them but how would he get them to safety without useing the assault shuttle. There is no way they could travel overland. Then there would be around a hundred people that would learn the truth.

Bulldogger wrote:Forgive me if I missed someone else’s reply which covers the same subject.

A KEW would cause a nuclear type explosion, sans the radiation. The amount of kinetic energy (ergo Kinetic Energy Weapon) released would in the least cause an extremely high temperature shock wave which would obliterate any of the city it came into contact with and destroy most of the rest with the shock wave from the wind displacement.

Any argument that the KEW would be controlled and limited in size to affect only a tightly controlled space would be nil because such a small KEW would be unable to penetrate a Battle Steel Armored object like the temple... the whole point of Battle Steel armor is to protect from large explosions.

abrax894 wrote:Duckk, I DID read them. I'm actually only finished with AMF and am about 1/3-1/2 of the way through HFaF right now. What struck me was when they were actually discussing a way to intervene when the Charisian prisoners were being moved to the Temple and any previous time they have discussed Merlin directly intervening. They always point to missiles, which have advanced drive system easily detected and/or DEW's. I can understand any reticence in using these as it would draw too much attention to them. What I'm talking about is using conventional, low yield, low tech, precision strikes at targets of opportunity. I mean, let's face it, an intelligence apparatus is used for far more than simply intelligence gathering. Sabotage, direct intervention, and occasionally assassination are simply a few actions an intelligence agency would be involved in. So is striking at targets of opportunity really so much a stretch? It just seems the Inner Circle is limiting themselves unnecessarily. As for defense systems in the Temple, I don't really have an answer for that. That was kind of the idea behind multiple smaller hits. As the Punisher would say 'Like crackin a guys skull with a teaspoon..... funny the things you learn' . But if you utterly gut the Temple in the first strikes, nothing is GOING to wake up. Even with point defense systems, they can only shoot down so much. Something traveling in excess of Mach 10 is going to cross through it's engagement envelope so fast that it MAY get one shot. If you'll recall in Caldron of Ghosts, they used small KEW strikes to take down the Towers on Mesa. Those may not be hardened structures like the Temple, but comparatively speaking, I would say they would have pretty similar results from a KEW strike. Collateral damage was minimal on the exterior of the towers, internally however was another matter. Anyway, I'm not really arguing with you, just a debate cause it's fun. Personally I think that people in the Inner Circle are limiting themselves too much. I'm not advocating butchering millions of people to save millions more, I'm saying that targeted tactical strikes would have a HUGE demoralizing effect on CoG forces and it could be done rather easily without raising too much suspicion.

As to the comment about disappearing fleets, again I was using it as an example, however, I wasn't talking about all 200+ ships. I was talking about taking out 1 element prior to the rendezvous. No survivors, no witnesses, and yes you could set it up to take out the powder magazine and it actually reinforces my point above, Intelligence agencies definitely conduct sabotage of enemy operations, who's to say they didn't do the same here. Just because they can't figure out HOW they did it doesn't mean anything. But even that, they would never KNOW what happened to that one element, no survivors, no witnesses. They just don't know. You can look throughout history at instances where things just disappear (take the Bermuda Triangle). That one area has let people's imagination run wild and look at what has come of it. If no one knows what happened to that one element, it becomes a mystery, some may claim they got caught by the Chasisian fleet, some may say a storm got them, some may say a Leviathan got them, who knows, who cares, let their imaginations run with it. That is what an author does because it works.

Duckk wrote:It doesn't matter if the KEW is low yield. Merlin has no way of knowing what the consequences of a direct attack on the Temple would be. It's possible, even probable, that the Temple has defensive systems in case it was attacked by modern weapons. Dropping a KEW on it would certainly activate them, at which point just about anything bad could happen. And even if there are no such defensive systems, it would definitely wake up what's under the Temple. A hypersonic weapon is one hell of a knock on the door that's impossible to ignore.

And as for the "smaller" tactical uses of Merlin's tech, I remind you that he's refrained from interfering every time something adverse to Charis comes up. He didn't step in to save King Haarald at Darcos (beyond any personal PICA abilities, that is), and he didn't save Lock Island either. Again, Merlin does not like playing God. Look at when he intervened at the end of MT&T. It took the high probability of a complete strategic reversal to get him to personally intervene, and in the aftermath severely beats himself up about it.

Merlin also knows that repeated use of his tech which leads to a series of very convenient reversals for the Church isn't going to pass the plausibility test for very long, on either side. Certainly not with someone as paranoid as Clyntahn at the wheel. You just can't make entire fleets disappear again and again if you threw mines in front of every Church force. Merlin is not going to want to give further fodder to Clyntahn's propaganda that Charis is in league with Shan-Wei.

Lastly, I again exhort you to read over the infodumps which are archived in the FAQs. It's been suggested before that Merlin take a more active role. How that role should be implemented is largely irrelevant; David's responses are broad enough to cover why it's not a good thing to do, regardless.

abrax894 wrote:Explosion? Really? How? I believe you are confusing a shock wave with an explosion. Also, when they are describing the destructive force of a KEW in terms of how many kilotons, it would actually be more accurate to describe them in terms of Newtons of force transferred.

abrax894 wrote:Yes, there will be shock waves, yes, there may be structural damage in the immediate vicinity around the temple and yes it may kill some people in the same area, but that is a far cry from a WMD.