The fate of the Dawn Star and the Archangels

Given the fact that the TF had obviously gone completely away from subtractive manufacturing, the only apparent limit to the ability of a given industrial plant to produce would be size of a given piece and availability of resources. Clearly the plant Merlin controls is capable of operating at a molecular level, which means that it is very possible that even if his can't operate at an atomic level, a more capable plant, like one in the Hamilcar, could. If that's the case, literally anything constitutes acceptable build material, and even barring atomic level manipulation, a given quantity of build material would go much, much further than could be achieved today.

That said, the only bar to an archangel PICA would be the desire of the command staff (read: RFC).

RFC has said that there's no PICA under the temple, but I think it's a given whatever IS there could swat Merlin et al like a fly. What is going to prevent that is the realization that first, the original plan was doomed before his interference, and second, putting the genie back in the bottle is going to prove prohibitively expensive and time consuming, if it's possible at all. Whatever we find out at the end of this year is going to set the stage for the second arc of the story, which, rumor has it, will be a nasty religious war.

Personally I'm already looking forward to the final act. I want fleets of ships with missiles and shields, backed by Hellbore fire and battle steel hulls. I want armored vehicles that sneer at mere megaton warheads supporting combat drops by power armored troops to grind the Gbaba under their hobnailed boots and bring an end to the cancerous madness that has snuffed the light of civilization from an entire galactic arm! I want a hard bitten Admiral of the Fleet to release a Gbaba scout to run home to his masters to inform them that the Sons and Daughters of murdered Terra are coming, with holds full of Hell and precious little mercy!

Last, I want some vestige of Gbaba intelligentsia to realize that they've brought this on themselves and to try to sue for peace...and who knows? Fail? Succeed? It's time to toss the dice....

Possible, but the evidence is against it. Current strong hints appear to be that "permanently abjure technology" is Chihiro's change.

Its possible yes, and I certainly agree that Chihiro did make changes, but if you go back and reread the council section from OAR you get the strong feeling that the complete anti-tech plan FOREVER was Bedard's idea strongly supported by Langhorne and the rest of his faction.

IMHO Langhorne, Bedard et al established the foundation for the complete anti-tech FOREVER mindset, and after Kau Yungs nuke Chihiro was the one who radically altered it into what we have now with the inquisition and the Book of Schueler. Langhorne, Bedard et al certainly seem to have been megalomaniacal but Chihiro seems to have been tyrannical.

DMcCunney wrote:Which was part of the point of my post.

We can assume it's possible for Hamilcar to manufacture PICAs without the ten day activation limit. Owl could, and we have to assume Hamilcar's manufacturing capability is at least that good. But Owl had an existing PICA to analyze and extrapolate from. Note that plans for building PICAs weren't in the databases in Romulus' computer cores. They likely don't exist on Hamilcar, so even if it can build one, where does it get the plans? It doesn't have a sample to examine.

Whether Hamilcar still exists hasn't been definitively stated, though I strongly suspect it does. And even if it does, and has made additional PICAs, what personalities would inhabit them? Note my quoting David in my post, when I suggested that Chihiro could record his personality, upload it to a PICA, and return to Safehold at the thousand year mark in an immortal body. David said if Chihiro could have done that, he wouldn't have waited. This means that capacity didn't exist, and Chihiro is the one most likely to have done it if he could.

The capacity to make more PICAs exists - Owl could do it is he got replenishment of the critical materials he could not replace from existing resources, Hamilcar's manufacturing capability could likely do it, if plans existed to feed to the units that would do it (and if the requisite raw materials were present.) There's still the question of what personalities would be loaded into them, and whether any of the Angels or Archangels left copies of theirs that could be used.

Whether Hamilcar still exists strikes me as a likely future plot element, but I don't think whether it has PICAs in inventory will be.
_______
Dennis

Mmmm... I don't think we've ever gotten a *complete* description of the system that contains Safehold. For all we know, there could be other planets (with or without moons) or even an asteroid belt. All of which could be good "out of the way" places to have a secret base. Indeed, it's more likely the Hamilcar could survive *inside* such a facility rather than at the mercy of "space junk".

As for PICA's; OWL had one of the "renegade" archangels - Dr Proctor's - research into the Nimue PICA with which to "reverse engineer" a PICA. The fact that no information on PICA design was in the Romulus's data bank is easily (and, for that matter, *was*) explained, in that that ship was a warship; and while it might contain much additional information besides what was necessary to perform that function, it wouldn't have *everything*; especially design specifications and schematics for something that was basically more *civilian* oriented than military.

Also, I suspect the manufacturing modules required templates and programming. *If* a PICA template existed in any of the computers originally on Safehold, it would have been for a "limited duration" PICA, since those were the only ones allowed by Federation law. Someone would have needed to modify the programming, and the person who had that kind of expertise was on the opposing side.

So it would appear the possibility of a basically unlimited duration PICA with one of the "evil" archangel's personalities is, in essence, vanishingly small.

For the benefit of those who are newer on the Forum, RFC has said that Langhorne's plan was for all the expedition's ships to be dropped into the sun as the need for them diminished. Hamilcar was the last of them. He has also, wilfully, said that 'Hamilcar is gone.' The debate arises out of the perceived ambiguity of that last statement.

What, you expected a straight answer from RFC? where's the fun in that?

OrlandoNative wrote:

DMcCunney wrote:Whether Hamilcar still exists strikes me as a likely future plot element, but I don't think whether it has PICAs in inventory will be.

Mmmm... I don't think we've ever gotten a *complete* description of the system that contains Safehold

For all we know, there could be other planets (with or without moons) or even an asteroid belt. All of which could be good "out of the way" places to have a secret base. Indeed, it's more likely the Hamilcar could survive *inside* such a facility rather than at the mercy of "space junk".

As far as I know, we haven't. We know Safehold circles a sun, and has a moon called Langhorne circling it, but that's all we know. There may well be planets closer to Safehold's star and further out, and possibly an asteroid belt. In fact, I'd call that likely. I doubt solar systems with one planet circling the sun within the habitable range as the only components are all that likely. None of that has been relevant to the story thus far.

As for PICA's; OWL had one of the "renegade" archangels - Dr Proctor's - research into the Nimue PICA with which to "reverse engineer" a PICA. The fact that no information on PICA design was in the Romulus's data bank is easily (and, for that matter, *was*) explained, in that that ship was a warship; and while it might contain much additional information besides what was necessary to perform that function, it wouldn't have *everything*; especially design specifications and schematics for something that was basically more *civilian* oriented than military.

Agreed.

Also, I suspect the manufacturing modules required templates and programming. *If* a PICA template existed in any of the computers originally on Safehold, it would have been for a "limited duration" PICA, since those were the only ones allowed by Federation law. Someone would have needed to modify the programming, and the person who had that kind of expertise was on the opposing side.

So it would appear the possibility of a basically unlimited duration PICA with one of the "evil" archangel's personalities is, in essence, vanishingly small.

It seems likely here that any other PICAs, limited or not are unlikely. David explicitly stated when asked that Merlin and Nimue are the only PICAs on Safehold. While Hamilcar might have the manufacturing capability to produce one, it won't have the plans.

If the good guys can get to and take possession of Hamilcar, Owl's plans could be used, but you still have the issue of the personalities that would inhabit them. Nimue's Alban's stored personality became the basis for both Merlin and Nimue's PICAs, but I don't see that notion being broadly applicable.
______
Dennis

DMcCunney wrote:..snip..
As far as I know, we haven't. We know Safehold circles a sun, and has a moon called Langhorne circling it, but that's all we know. There may well be planets closer to Safehold's star and further out, and possibly an asteroid belt. In fact, I'd call that likely. I doubt solar systems with one planet circling the sun within the habitable range as the only components are all that likely. None of that has been relevant to the story thus far.

"That's no moon!"

Maybe they utilized the moon for hiding the Hamilcar or built a base there - but I doubt it. RFC has a penchant for foreshadowing events although we are usually to stupid to realize it, and so far there has been no real reference to the moon at all.

Just a thought... There really is no evidence of which I am aware for anyone other than Langhorne and Bedard being primarily responsible for the main thrust of what happened on Safehold. We do know that Chihiro took over after Langhorne's death and in all probability did make some changes to adapt the original plan to the new circumstances.

However, get beyond that...the material surrounding Seijin Khody, for example...what we have is in the realm of what might have happened, conjecture, possibility, etc. What we can say is that amongst the fallen, there seem to be those with a vested interest in protecting Lanhorne's reputation by suggesting that he was not the one to order the strike on the Alexandria enclave.

But I think that is far as we can go in terms of what we can call established fact.

Don

-

Joat42 wrote:

DMcCunney wrote:..snip..
As far as I know, we haven't. We know Safehold circles a sun, and has a moon called Langhorne circling it, but that's all we know. There may well be planets closer to Safehold's star and further out, and possibly an asteroid belt. In fact, I'd call that likely. I doubt solar systems with one planet circling the sun within the habitable range as the only components are all that likely. None of that has been relevant to the story thus far.

"That's no moon!"

Maybe they utilized the moon for hiding the Hamilcar or built a base there - but I doubt it. RFC has a penchant for foreshadowing events although we are usually to stupid to realize it, and so far there has been no real reference to the moon at all.

I did have the random though that it I wanted to keep Hamilcar around, but wanted to make it exceptionally unlikely to be detected, I might see if I could stash it on Langhorne and cover it over. It would be close at hand and easy enough to uncover by anyone that could get to it in the first place.
_______
Dennis

DMcCunney wrote:...
I did have the random though that it I wanted to keep Hamilcar around, but wanted to make it exceptionally unlikely to be detected, I might see if I could stash it on Langhorne and cover it over. It would be close at hand and easy enough to uncover by anyone that could get to it in the first place.
_______
Dennis

Just park it on the back side. No need for burial. Close at hand, no possibility of being discovered so long as the induced social matrix holds.

jgnfld wrote:

DMcCunney wrote:...
I did have the random though that it I wanted to keep Hamilcar around, but wanted to make it exceptionally unlikely to be detected, I might see if I could stash it on Langhorne and cover it over. It would be close at hand and easy enough to uncover by anyone that could get to it in the first place.
_______
Dennis

Just park it on the back side. No need for burial. Close at hand, no possibility of being discovered so long as the induced social matrix holds.

Is there any evidence that it is tidally locked as our moon is? Although most of the larger moons of our solar system are tidally locked there are many moons which only may be tidally locked, they haven't been able to confirm them yet. Pluto's moons, with the exception of Charon, are not tidally locked.

It seems that tidal locking depends on how long the moon has been captured, and does work both ways. The earth's original rotational period was 6 hours and has slowed to the current 24 so although our planet would become tidally locked eventually, it is expected that the sun will swell to a red giant and consume both the earth and the moon before that happens.