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It's nitpicking time! List your favorite safehold nits

This fascinating series is a combination of historical seafaring, swashbuckling adventure, and high technological science-fiction. Join us in a discussion!
Re: It's nitpicking time! List your favorite safehold nits
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Sun Jul 05, 2015 9:46 pm

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Expert snuggler wrote:The nit that's bugging me is that Owl can't analyze the Key. Understood that it's loaded with defensive malware from Federation technology, but why not spin off copy after copy of Owl and let each one start fresh at the point where the last copy got destroyed?

EDIT: another thing that's bugging me is that Merlin is so emotionally stable. When author Norah Vincent lived in a male persona for a year she had a breakdown. Occupying an obviously male body would be worse. Gender dysphoria should set in, and it's a powerful and dangerous thing psychologically.

Because the defensive malware will not only destroy the investigating computer, but will proababy (>99%) also slag the information itself, so you only get one chance at it. It didn't seem worth the risk.
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Re: It's nitpicking time! List your favorite safehold nits
Post by n7axw   » Sun Jul 05, 2015 10:32 pm

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fallsfromtrees wrote:
Expert snuggler wrote:The nit that's bugging me is that Owl can't analyze the Key. Understood that it's loaded with defensive malware from Federation technology, but why not spin off copy after copy of Owl and let each one start fresh at the point where the last copy got destroyed?

EDIT: another thing that's bugging me is that Merlin is so emotionally stable. When author Norah Vincent lived in a male persona for a year she had a breakdown. Occupying an obviously male body would be worse. Gender dysphoria should set in, and it's a powerful and dangerous thing psychologically.

Because the defensive malware will not only destroy the investigating computer, but will proababy (>99%) also slag the information itself, so you only get one chance at it. It didn't seem worth the risk.


To add to fallsfromtrees comment here, there is always the thought that the key may well be the only way to access whatever is under the Temple. And were it to turn out that this is how the OBS needs to be shut down, the situation would become a lot more complicated were the files stored in the key to be destroyed.

But on the other hand, the key could turn loose goblins that Merlin would rather stay sleeping... So pay your money and take your chances...

Don
When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: It's nitpicking time! List your favorite safehold nits
Post by Expert snuggler   » Mon Jul 06, 2015 12:38 am

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Whoever made the Key must have had a reason for taking those precautions. Schueler must have been working at severe cross purposes with his colleagues.
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Re: It's nitpicking time! List your favorite safehold nits
Post by Weird Harold   » Mon Jul 06, 2015 1:03 am

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Expert snuggler wrote:The nit that's bugging me is that Owl can't analyze the Key. Understood that it's loaded with defensive malware from Federation technology, but why not spin off copy after copy of Owl and let each one start fresh at the point where the last copy got destroyed?


Possibly because if OWL could create copies of itself, it could make more than one additional PICA?
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
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Re: It's nitpicking time! List your favorite safehold nits
Post by n7axw   » Mon Jul 06, 2015 5:58 pm

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Weird Harold wrote:
Expert snuggler wrote:The nit that's bugging me is that Owl can't analyze the Key. Understood that it's loaded with defensive malware from Federation technology, but why not spin off copy after copy of Owl and let each one start fresh at the point where the last copy got destroyed?


Possibly because if OWL could create copies of itself, it could make more than one additional PICA?


Textev on this suggests no. But he could very well generate additional AIs and perhaps come up with ways other than a PICA to house them.

Don
When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: It's nitpicking time! List your favorite safehold nits
Post by Tonto Silerheels   » Mon Jul 06, 2015 7:16 pm

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Tararoys wrote:

So: what are your favorite nits?

How Firm a Foundation, pg 69.

"Why," the inquisitor demanded in a harsh, ugly tone. "They've obviously [redacted] up by the numbers...again."

"If father Greyghor's dispatch is accurate, and we have no reason yet to believe it isn', Bishop Kornylys clearly encountered a new and unexpected weapon...again." Duchairn kept his voice deliberately level and nonconfrontational, although he saw Clyntahn's eyes narrow angrily at the deliberate mimicry of his last two words.


What two words? Duchairn mimicked one word and a pause.

~Tonto
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Re: It's nitpicking time! List your favorite safehold nits
Post by evilauthor   » Tue Jul 07, 2015 1:28 am

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fallsfromtrees wrote:Because the defensive malware will not only destroy the investigating computer, but will proababy (>99%) also slag the information itself, so you only get one chance at it. It didn't seem worth the risk.


That right there. I'm pretty sure that trying to actually copy the Key's files (a process which involves "reading" the files even in their encrypted form) without proper authorization will trigger the malware.

There's all sorts of measures that OWL can take to prevent infection from any malware the Key might hold. None of them protects the Key from itself however.
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Re: It's nitpicking time! List your favorite safehold nits
Post by Expert snuggler   » Tue Jul 07, 2015 2:39 am

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Federation cybersecurity technology is fundamentally different from our own. It's been a consistent rule with our own that no matter how clever the copy protection, physical access and time are enough to break it.
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Re: It's nitpicking time! List your favorite safehold nits
Post by Ealdgyth   » Tue Jul 07, 2015 9:34 am

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Re-re-re-reading Safehold and finding tiny nitpicks.

OAR HB p. 485. Thirsk has just gotten his remaining ships into Crag Reach and sits down to eat and he thinks that "he hadn't eaten since breakfast, the better part of thirty-six hours ago". But ... the Battle of Rock Point starts around dawn on one day. Thirsk is eating around midnight (or perhaps a bit after) that same day. At most we're looking at twenty hours before, not thirty-six.
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Re: It's nitpicking time! List your favorite safehold nits
Post by FreeTrav   » Tue Jul 07, 2015 11:03 am

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Ealdgyth wrote:Re-re-re-reading Safehold and finding tiny nitpicks.

OAR HB p. 485. Thirsk has just gotten his remaining ships into Crag Reach and sits down to eat and he thinks that "he hadn't eaten since breakfast, the better part of thirty-six hours ago". But ... the Battle of Rock Point starts around dawn on one day. Thirsk is eating around midnight (or perhaps a bit after) that same day. At most we're looking at twenty hours before, not thirty-six.

Anything more than eighteen is "the better part of thirty-six". However, with Safehold days being roughly 26.5 hours, IIRC, I don't see anyone really thinking in terms of parts of a thirty-six hour interval.
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