The Navy of God against Charis naval superiority

cralkhi wrote:

pokermind wrote:The reintroduction of ancient thought IE Greek and Roman came from the Moors in Spain.

Islam had that God's plan, monotheistic set-up too and at one point it was moving in a proto-scientific direction - the potential was indeed there. But then the philosophy of occasionalism (in which there are no natural laws, every event is a direct miracle) became widely accepted and that was pretty much the end of it.

(Although I don't think the Byzantines get enough credit for retaining a lot of Greco-Roman stuff).

Early Christianity destroyed the works of the Romans and Greeks as Pagan literature leading to the dark ages.

Maybe in some isolated cases, but not in general. The Dark Ages were a result of the destruction/collapse of infrastructure not any organized rejection of pagan knowledge or literature.

pokermind wrote:

cralkhi wrote:
[Snip]

Individual innovations, no. The combination of them into a scientific mindset (which you need for anything near spacefaring tech, which is what Langhorne really wanted to prevent) probably yes.

Ancient Greece and Rome and medieval China never developed anything like science despite many geniuses and many inventions.

It took the Western Christian assumption of a rational comprehensible world, combined with elements of Greek philosophy filtered through that assumption (scholasticism), to prepare the intellectual soil for science. Without that I don't think you would have gotten spacefaring in tens of thousands of years of civilization (or more).

[Snip]

The reintroduction of ancient thought IE Greek and Roman came from the Moors in Spain. This kick started the Renaissance and the development of the scientific method as the introduction of Arabic numerals, and algebra gave the west the mathematics that allowed the scientific method. Early Christianity destroyed the works of the Romans and Greeks as Pagan literature leading to the dark ages. Odd how the once rational Islamists are now the book burning beheading fanatics.

Poker

JRM wrote:*quote="cralkhi"* *quote="pokermind"*
The reintroduction of ancient thought IE Greek and Roman came from the Moors in Spain. *quote*

Islam had that God's plan, monotheistic set-up too and at one point it was moving in a proto-scientific direction - the potential was indeed there. But then the philosophy of occasionalism (in which there are no natural laws, every event is a direct miracle) became widely accepted and that was pretty much the end of it.

(Although I don't think the Byzantines get enough credit for retaining a lot of Greco-Roman stuff).

Early Christianity destroyed the works of the Romans and Greeks as Pagan literature leading to the dark ages.

Maybe in some isolated cases, but not in general. The Dark Ages were a result of the destruction/collapse of infrastructure not any organized rejection of pagan knowledge or literature.*quote*

You need to read "Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty" by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. A brief distillation would be that prosperity occurs when there are inclusive political institutions, and inclusive economic institutions. Only when you have both, do you have the creative destruction that continual economic innovation brings.

The authors examine every civilization that you know about, and some that you were unaware of. They explain the limits of economic growth under communism, and other authoritarian types of government. When the government is exclusive, limiting participation and power, then the economy will soon be exclusive, limiting economic opportunity to maintain the power of current elite.

For Safehold, this means that the rest of the world will never be able to catch up to either Siddarmark, or the EOC. Even if Merlin sent massive infodumps to the COGA, the church dominated countries would be unable to maximize utilization of economic resources and motivate personal productivity.

pokermind wrote:
Now any visibility limiting factor nite, fog, or generated smoke can be used for a masked spar torpedo attack, and small galleys using stealth rather than armor may be the Navy of God's only answer.

Poker

Dilandu wrote:

pokermind wrote:
Now any visibility limiting factor nite, fog, or generated smoke can be used for a masked spar torpedo attack, and small galleys using stealth rather than armor may be the Navy of God's only answer.

Poker

Hm, it may work. Without the electricity, the Charisian spotlights abilities would be limited and by Earth standart - inadequate. So, the night attack with the combination of spar torpedo ships, rams and possibly - some sort of Rendel-type gunboats (low, small, with one bow heavy cannon) may be effective even against this type of warships.

Charybdis wrote:

Dilandu wrote:

Hm, it may work. Without the electricity, the Charisian spotlights abilities would be limited and by Earth standart - inadequate. So, the night attack with the combination of spar torpedo ships, rams and possibly - some sort of Rendel-type gunboats (low, small, with one bow heavy cannon) may be effective even against this type of warships.

HOWEVER, you are not including that mighty "Eye-In-the-Sky" of OWL and the SNARKs and it would be an odd occasion indeed if there were not several flitting around a fleet or anchorage of the Navy. Now far be it from me to deny RFC his twisted schemes where all such support is unavailable but, like horse races, this is an odds-on gamble!

Dilandu wrote:

pokermind wrote:
Now any visibility limiting factor nite, fog, or generated smoke can be used for a masked spar torpedo attack, and small galleys using stealth rather than armor may be the Navy of God's only answer.

Poker

Hm, it may work. Without the electricity, the Charisian spotlights abilities would be limited and by Earth standart - inadequate. So, the night attack with the combination of spar torpedo ships, rams and possibly - some sort of Rendel-type gunboats (low, small, with one bow heavy cannon) may be effective even against this type of warships.