Hey the OBS is solar powered!

i wonder how long it would take to run down if a large roll of tin foil where put between its solar collectors and the sun, or a cloud of dust. Or if the lost secret to brewing a good cup of coffee is on it.


laz
Ps. i can't believe i am the first to notice this so could someone tell me where RFC's response that uses kinetic bombardment on this question is.

laz wrote:i wonder how long it would take to run down if a large roll of tin foil where put between its solar collectors and the sun, or a cloud of dust. Or if the lost secret to brewing a good cup of coffee is on it.


laz
Ps. i can't believe i am the first to notice this so could someone tell me where RFC's response that uses kinetic bombardment on this question is.

That would have to be one f---ing big roll of tin foil - either that or it would have to be very near the satellites themselves and I seem to recall them having defense mechanisms that prevented even the SNARCs from getting close for a passive sensor read.

Some time back I proposed using sand to disable the OBS. The sand would be dropped in orbit by either Merlin or Owl in an orbit with opposite rotation of the OBS. It would act as sandpaper and degrade the surfaces of the Solar Panels and any exposed sensors.

The orbital bombardment system is fairly complex. It has to be, because you can't hang just anything out in the sucking void of space, with no maintenance, for centuries on end, and expect it to work. Space is a harsh, harsh environment, so the OBS must have systems involved to keep it operational under any circumstance. So crippling the OBS is likely to be a very temporary inconvenience before the repair drones or whatever bring it back online.

Secondly, there's no way to guarantee that destroying or otherwise negating the OBS isn't going to trigger something in the Temple. The Inner Circle most definitely does not want to wake up whatever it is that's sleeping under the Temple. They have to deal with the Church first before thinking about getting rid of the Rakurai.

That would have to be one f---ing big roll of tin foil - either that or it would have to be very near the satellites themselves ....

Actually, not near the satellite or that big. A small "sun shade" placed closer to the sun that would keep the OBS in shadow would work. The closer to the sun, the larger the shadow it would cast and the smaller it could be. A. C. Clarke used such a shield in one of his stories to sheild the earth from a solar event.
However, keeping something as small as the OBS in the shadow would be a good trick.

Bill

Duckk wrote:They have to deal with the Church first before thinking about getting rid of the Rakurai.

I've wondered about that. They definitely need to have humanity as united as possible to back Merlin's plans. But as long as the Rakurai is operational, all they're really hoping is that if someone awakens, and has control of the Rakurai, they can be persuaded not to bomb humanity back to the Stone Age. Given the mental problems that humanity got from impending extinction, that seems a chancy proposition. I'm sure that if Langhorne had survived to be asleep under the Temple, he'd regard a humanity reduced to a few no-tech survivors as preferable to a humanity on its way back to the stars.

Before the impending "awakening", whatever it is, they need to have the world united under the new leadership and take out the Rakurai. Then there'd be some hope of persuading the "newcomer(s)" that humanity's best chance of survival lies in helping them rather than trying to restore the old order. And even then, they'd need to be watched very closely.

How fragile can the OBS be?

I mean look at the Temple: It's armored in excessively thick battlesteel, has been fully functional for centuries with no sign of wear and tear and is fully expected by everyone to last for centuries or millenia more if not dang near forever.

And it's sitting on a planet with a reducing oxygen atmosphere in a region of that sees howling blizzards every winter.

Would the OBS be built to LESS standards than that? And even if it was, there's still a huge margin between the standards the Temple was built to and "will fall apart on its own given enough time". Federation construction and materials technology seems to have reached the classic sci fi point of total and routine Ragnarok proofing; as long as someone with comparable tech doesn't try to destroy it, it really WILL last forever.

Also solar powered Rakurai is perfectly feasible if you don't expect the thing to fire more than once a millenium. That's a loooong time to accumulate battery power.

Hi EvilAuthor,

Just one nit; its armorplast, not battle steel.

Other than that great points!

L

evilauthor wrote:How fragile can the OBS be?

I mean look at the Temple: It's armored in excessively thick battlesteel, has been fully functional for centuries with no sign of wear and tear and is fully expected by everyone to last for centuries or millenia more if not dang near forever.

And it's sitting on a planet with a reducing oxygen atmosphere in a region of that sees howling blizzards every winter.

Would the OBS be built to LESS standards than that? And even if it was, there's still a huge margin between the standards the Temple was built to and "will fall apart on its own given enough time". Federation construction and materials technology seems to have reached the classic sci fi point of total and routine Ragnarok proofing; as long as someone with comparable tech doesn't try to destroy it, it really WILL last forever.

Also solar powered Rakurai is perfectly feasible if you don't expect the thing to fire more than once a millenium. That's a loooong time to accumulate battery power.

JohnS wrote:

Duckk wrote:They have to deal with the Church first before thinking about getting rid of the Rakurai.

I've wondered about that. They definitely need to have humanity as united as possible to back Merlin's plans. But as long as the Rakurai is operational, all they're really hoping is that if someone awakens, and has control of the Rakurai, they can be persuaded not to bomb humanity back to the Stone Age. Given the mental problems that humanity got from impending extinction, that seems a chancy proposition. I'm sure that if Langhorne had survived to be asleep under the Temple, he'd regard a humanity reduced to a few no-tech survivors as preferable to a humanity on its way back to the stars.

Before the impending "awakening", whatever it is, they need to have the world united under the new leadership and take out the Rakurai. Then there'd be some hope of persuading the "newcomer(s)" that humanity's best chance of survival lies in helping them rather than trying to restore the old order. And even then, they'd need to be watched very closely.

Err no. Persuasion is not on the agenda. 'Deal with the church first' includes 'Get sufficient access to the Temple to ensure either that whatever is due to awaken doesn't or that he/she/it can be taken into immediate custody before having any opportunity to do anything.'

ka8wtk wrote:

That would have to be one f---ing big roll of tin foil - either that or it would have to be very near the satellites themselves ....

Actually, not near the satellite or that big. A small "sun shade" placed closer to the sun that would keep the OBS in shadow would work. The closer to the sun, the larger the shadow it would cast and the smaller it could be. A. C. Clarke used such a shield in one of his stories to sheild the earth from a solar event.
However, keeping something as small as the OBS in the shadow would be a good trick.

Bill

That is true if the Sun were a point-source. But the Sun is not a point-source. The farther from the satellite the shade gets, the larger the penumbra gets, but the smaller the umbra. The penumbra will only get partial blockage of the Sun. If the shade were far enough from the satellite, there would be no umbra at all.

Assume the star of Safehold is about the same size as the Sun, and Safehold about 1 Astronomical Unit from it. A shade 100 meters in diameter will have no umbra after 10 km. Beyond that, it will cover a smaller and smaller portion of the Sun's apparent disc.