KEW for Charis

Ok, so I've been wondering, why hasn't Merlin started using low tech conventional explosives for taking out targets of opportunity, such as massive fleets? I mean, Sea mines aren't exactly high tech and would be almost undetectable to any sensor that was looking for them. Not to mention it's not a huge jump outside of current tech nor is it even outside their capabilities. And that's just one way conventional weapons could be used against CoG. Take for instance after Operation Rakurai, Cayleb and Merlin were furious and they were looking for ways to strike back. Why not take a page out of the Church's own book? Have Merlin take a small or many small KEW and place them in a degrading orbit with the endpoint being the Temple? Other than the Skimmer, which is stealthed, and if you really wanted to, have OWL throw in a guidance package to make sure you ONLY hit the temple and you have, what the USAF coined, Rods from God. Small, fast, high energy kinetic, bunker busters, which the temple essentially is. Yes it may be tough, but you hit it enough times and even the strongest bunkers will crack. Also, if your concerned that the skimmer may not have the lift, user one of the heavy lift shuttles retrofitted with stealth systems from the cave. Anyway, what better propaganda could possibly give yourself. 'Look, God himself has condemned the temple!' or if you wanted to avoid future questions as to why you lied to your people, 'Oh dear, what a dreadful 'cough' accident 'cough' this is. Would the Temple accept the assistance from Charis in it's time of need?'. Just saying, there are so many ways that conventional explosives could be employed without drawing too much attention to yourself and wouldn't even be considered high tech.

First, on attacking the Temple David Weber covers it in the Topic "Why doesn't Merlin just nuke the Temple? (Asked Wed May 23, 2012)" found at http://www.davidweber.net/faqs/index/series:6/page:2

In addition, even if you could "just hit the Temple", IMO you can't avoid collateral damage to Zion itself.

As for your other ideas, I think David Weber covers that in the Topic "Why can't Merlin just use Terran Federation weapons to quickly overthrow the Church? (Asked Mon Apr 30, 2012)" found at http://www.davidweber.net/faqs/index/page:3/series:6

Even though you're talking about technology possibly less than Federation tech, you still talk about technology much higher than current Safehold tech.

abrax894 wrote:Ok, so I've been wondering, why hasn't Merlin started using low tech conventional explosives for taking out targets of opportunity, such as massive fleets? I mean, Sea mines aren't exactly high tech and would be almost undetectable to any sensor that was looking for them. Not to mention it's not a huge jump outside of current tech nor is it even outside their capabilities. And that's just one way conventional weapons could be used against CoG. Take for instance after Operation Rakurai, Cayleb and Merlin were furious and they were looking for ways to strike back. Why not take a page out of the Church's own book? Have Merlin take a small or many small KEW and place them in a degrading orbit with the endpoint being the Temple? Other than the Skimmer, which is stealthed, and if you really wanted to, have OWL throw in a guidance package to make sure you ONLY hit the temple and you have, what the USAF coined, Rods from God. Small, fast, high energy kinetic, bunker busters, which the temple essentially is. Yes it may be tough, but you hit it enough times and even the strongest bunkers will crack. Also, if your concerned that the skimmer may not have the lift, user one of the heavy lift shuttles retrofitted with stealth systems from the cave. Anyway, what better propaganda could possibly give yourself. 'Look, God himself has condemned the temple!' or if you wanted to avoid future questions as to why you lied to your people, 'Oh dear, what a dreadful 'cough' accident 'cough' this is. Would the Temple accept the assistance from Charis in it's time of need?'. Just saying, there are so many ways that conventional explosives could be employed without drawing too much attention to yourself and wouldn't even be considered high tech.

I guess I missed that you also posted this question to the boards as well as emailing it to me. I'll copy my response in case my email bounced:

1) No one knows how exactly the bombardment system triggers. While it's theorized the system could be automatic, the recent revelations about something under the Temple means that it's entirely possible that it would wake up whatever is slumbering first. The last thing Merlin wants is an "Archangel" issuing orders from the Temple, for example.

2) Merlin already feels a great deal of guilt and torment over using his advanced tech to fight the Church forces. It is his greatest fear that in the name of expediency he could embrace the same tactics Clyntahn uses. Wide-spread, indiscriminate use of modern weapons is an anathema to both himself and the entire Inner Circle.

3) Merlin knows that at some point he's going to have to reveal the truth to the entire Safehold population. When he does, it's going to lead to a lot of pointed questions about any historical usage of Terran Federation tech. Merlin needs the moral high ground if he wants to get the Safeholdians to listen to his warnings about the Gbaba, so very obvious uses of modern weapons isn't recommended.

4) Using modern weapons which leaves plenty of witnesses could quite easily set back Nimue's mission on Safehold. With concrete proof of divine intervention, it could quite easily be spun that the Safeholdians have finally strayed too far from the Proscriptions, thereby reinforcing them as a thought control mechanism. This would obviously throw away all of Nimue's painstaking build up of the innovative mindset. Even if the Inner Circle knows that the Proscriptions are a lie, the reinvigoration of the Proscriptions in the population in general would make any further headway impossible.

Hi Abrax894,

Welcome to the forums, enjoy your favorite simulated beverage on the simulated forum.

The last thing the ICN wants to do is suggest or show the the Go4 it should make sea mines, as mentioned a couple of times in the textev; so no Merlin isn't going to sink what's left of the CoGA navies with sea mines for several reasons, NTM there aren't any Go4 controlled 'massive fleets' to sink in the first place, and wooden hulled galleons aren't much of a threat to steel armored cruisers in the second.

Merlin will not use or 'reinvent' weapons he doesn't think are needed, especially when his primary goal is to get Safeholdians to think of their own solutions; they've already often surprised him with their clever ideas.

Regarding KEW's in general, 'the rod from god' concept has been around for quite a few decades, and it wouldn't surprise me if some of the 'old koots' here might be able to provide you with far more detailed insights and or history from their direct personal experience.

Keep thinking, I look forward to your future posts.

L

abrax894 wrote:Ok, so I've been wondering, why hasn't Merlin started using low tech conventional explosives for taking out targets of opportunity, such as massive fleets? I mean, Sea mines aren't exactly high tech and would be almost undetectable to any sensor that was looking for them. Not to mention it's not a huge jump outside of current tech nor is it even outside their capabilities. And that's just one way conventional weapons could be used against CoG. Take for instance after Operation Rakurai, Cayleb and Merlin were furious and they were looking for ways to strike back. Why not take a page out of the Church's own book? Have Merlin take a small or many small KEW and place them in a degrading orbit with the endpoint being the Temple? Other than the Skimmer, which is stealthed, and if you really wanted to, have OWL throw in a guidance package to make sure you ONLY hit the temple and you have, what the USAF coined, Rods from God. Small, fast, high energy kinetic, bunker busters, which the temple essentially is. Yes it may be tough, but you hit it enough times and even the strongest bunkers will crack. Also, if your concerned that the skimmer may not have the lift, user one of the heavy lift shuttles retrofitted with stealth systems from the cave. Anyway, what better propaganda could possibly give yourself. 'Look, God himself has condemned the temple!' or if you wanted to avoid future questions as to why you lied to your people, 'Oh dear, what a dreadful 'cough' accident 'cough' this is. Would the Temple accept the assistance from Charis in it's time of need?'. Just saying, there are so many ways that conventional explosives could be employed without drawing too much attention to yourself and wouldn't even be considered high tech.

Why do people think I'm talking about NUKING the Temple, I'm not. The Rods from God (yes, I know KEW's goes back much further, but this one works best for my example) concept from the USAF was described as a Tungsten telephone pole with a guidance system and fins, accelerated from a launch platform to hyper-velocities (mach 10 plus). The whole De-orbiting process would take about 15 minutes so it could not be used against mobile targets, but was designed more as a bunker buster. Collateral damage would minimal as it is a penetrating weapon, NOT a WMD. It was originally thought up as a way to take out Russian ICBM bunker/silos but since the USSR was focused more on mobile launch platforms it would not have been as effective since finding those platforms was a pain in the ass. So, NOT HIGH TECH. The reason this program was even thought of was because it would be looked at as nothing more than a meteor. Even with a guidance system, a passive one mind you, not using GPS, it's not going to give off any telltale signatures to look at. And taking out the Temple this way has multiple benefits. First, Temple Loyalists would have to severely start questioning their belief that the CoGA is infallible and start questioning who's side God was truly on, inversely this would reinforce those supporting CoC that they were right. You might say, this would hurt Merlin' attempts to subtly direct people away from the Archangels but really, not a whole lot of progress has been made in that regard anyway and an active Jihad is certainly not helping matters. Ending the war is the first and primary step. After Charis is in control, and has brought more clergy members into the inner circle, THEN you can start with subtly directing people down a path to them being more accepting of The Truth. More than likely, the currently generation will never be ready for that truth either, they are too set in their ways, their children however, might be. It all depends on ending the war as quickly as possible, to allow more time for people to get used to the idea. People don't like change, especially fast change. And if people question you later, after The Truth has been revealed, about the Temple being destroyed, you can honestly say that you did it to prevent the genocidal, power hungry, maniac Grand Inquisitor from killing anyone else. Second, Charis/Merlin/Caleb are working on a very short timetable here, they don't know when/if an Archangel will wake up to take direct control of CoGA forces. Taking out the Temple in the manner I'm speaking will probably take out not only the Temple but also anything under it, including any Archangel(s) that may be sleeping down there as well as any systems/AI down there that could be just waiting to take over the KEW system in orbit. And third, and more in reference to the first point, it would essentially be cutting off the head of the snake, without leadership the individual nations making up the AoG would become more fractious and be much easier to mop up.

As for the rest, yes I can see where you wouldn't want to the other side think about sea mines, that could get nasty pretty quick, especially with Charis being a predominately naval power. But I was thinking more along the lines of what happened in AMF. Consider, 2 large AoG fleets moving to combine their forces and move against you. Drop a bunch of mines in front of them and around them with that skimmer, and you have 1 entire fleet just gone. No one claims responsibility, no one knows what happened to it, it's just gone. Not only would that eliminate the immediate threat they posed but talk about a demoralizing blow to AoG forces. Not knowing what happened to that fleet is FAR scarier than knowing, after all, our own imaginations have a tendency to come up with things far worse than reality AND Charis gets to save it's exploding shells for a future surprise.
Then there is intercepting and rescuing the captured Charis sailor being transported to Zion in HFAF. How high tech is it to gas a camp full of guards, or drop a drug into their food/drink while eating? No tell tale sign of tech being used in this case, it's all chemicals in very small quantities. And the guards wouldn't be around to tell anyone about it later anyway. The prisoners wouldn't know HOW Merlin took down all the guards, but they would more than likely just attribute it to him being a Sajin.

Remember, this post is NOT about using HIGH TECH, other than the KEW's which I was thinking of as more of an answer to Op Rakurai. This is about using low tech in different ways. Subtle ways that would not pop up on anyone's radar as abnormal or any more abnormal than one would expect to find around a Sajin. Remember KISS, keep it simple.

abrax894 wrote:Consider, 2 large AoG fleets moving to combine their forces and move against you. Drop a bunch of mines in front of them and around them with that skimmer, and you have 1 entire fleet just gone. No one claims responsibility, no one knows what happened to it, it's just gone.

If you're going to cheat by using a skimmer to take out an enemy fleet, why not just use SNARCs to blow up their ammo magazines? It's MUCH more deniable and less likely to leave inconvenient survivors to testify something "supernatural" was going on.

Of course, having an entire fleet (which comes from where again?) just mysteriously vanish is pretty supernatural in itself. Especially if there's no convenient storm to explain it away (and even then, storms don't get EVERY ship in a fleet).

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.

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.

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.

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.