Concerning the Orbital Bombardment System, No Spoilers

Technically, the Orbital platforms would need to be placed in a "Walker Constellation" in order to maximize coverage and minimise response time.

One thing which I don't think has been addressed is if these platforms and all their attending satellites are still capable of orbital manouevre? After almost a thousand years, the orbits would have been preturbed by the gravitatinal interactions of the rest of Safehold's planetary system, and possibly atmospheric drag for the lower orbiting sensor systems. The careful spacing of the Walker constellation will degrade over time unless the systems can change their orbits, and this will be pretty hard on whatever thruster system is being used for a millenium, not to mention fuel consumption.

could lagrange points he;p with that, along with improved materials, and i was reading about a week or so back about some satellite tech that used electromagnets as a movement system to push them in and out from the earth using the magnetic field?

Thucydides wrote:Technically, the Orbital platforms would need to be placed in a "Walker Constellation" in order to maximize coverage and minimise response time.

One thing which I don't think has been addressed is if these platforms and all their attending satellites are still capable of orbital manouevre? After almost a thousand years, the orbits would have been preturbed by the gravitatinal interactions of the rest of Safehold's planetary system, and possibly atmospheric drag for the lower orbiting sensor systems. The careful spacing of the Walker constellation will degrade over time unless the systems can change their orbits, and this will be pretty hard on whatever thruster system is being used for a millenium, not to mention fuel consumption.

I agree that it really should be able to cover all of Safehold all the time, because unless the OBS is constantly watching the whole planet, you could do quite a bit without notice by turning off your "secret base"'s electrical systems when the OBS was above the horizon...

The only problem is that the "sphere" quote really does sound like all the platforms are in one defensive sphere. But maybe it is one sphere per platform...

Well the OBS already is known to have defense platforms and the bombardment platforms.

There could be sensor platforms which might be heavily stealthed. Those might be small and numerous providing total coverage all the time.

The orbits could be quite high. Solar sails likely work just fine for steering.

Thucydides wrote:Technically, the Orbital platforms would need to be placed in a "Walker Constellation" in order to maximize coverage and minimise response time.

One thing which I don't think has been addressed is if these platforms and all their attending satellites are still capable of orbital manouevre? After almost a thousand years, the orbits would have been preturbed by the gravitatinal interactions of the rest of Safehold's planetary system, and possibly atmospheric drag for the lower orbiting sensor systems. The careful spacing of the Walker constellation will degrade over time unless the systems can change their orbits, and this will be pretty hard on whatever thruster system is being used for a millenium, not to mention fuel consumption.

It's possible that Terran Federation tech allows them to stay in orbit via other means than "thrusters".

There's been no mention of Merlin's shuttle needing fuel.

It and the orbital platforms might use some sort of reactionless drive.

Thucydides wrote:Technically, the Orbital platforms would need to be placed in a "Walker Constellation" in order to maximize coverage and minimise response time.

One thing which I don't think has been addressed is if these platforms and all their attending satellites are still capable of orbital manouevre? After almost a thousand years, the orbits would have been preturbed by the gravitatinal interactions of the rest of Safehold's planetary system, and possibly atmospheric drag for the lower orbiting sensor systems. The careful spacing of the Walker constellation will degrade over time unless the systems can change their orbits, and this will be pretty hard on whatever thruster system is being used for a millenium, not to mention fuel consumption.

Solar sails might work for very high orbits (too low and the sail itself will be slowed by atmospheric drag and pulled out of orbit), but the reflection of sunlight off the sails would make them very obvious to the naked eye at night and maybe even during the day. Of course if the sail was damaged, then the same objections to the long duration of a Walker constellation would apply.

High orbits would also compromise the ability of the OBS to rapidly react to a target on the ground, I suspect that the platforms would have to be in LEO to have high definition of the target and the best response time.

As I think on this more, the entire idea of a "sphere" surrounding each platform is a non starter unless there is some sort of active propulsion system, since orbital mechanics wold cause a sphere to degrade within days (systems orbiting closer to the planet would be moving faster than ones orbiting farther away from the planet). If these devices are passively orbiting, then you might see a "layer cake" effect of sensors, defense systems and bombardment platforms all orbiting at different altitudes.

If they have active propulsion systems, then the real danger isn't even to Charis, but the detection of heat and emissions in space by the Enemy...

I think David Weber said the Gbaba aren't likely to be visiting Safehold.

The danger earlier was with Gbaba scouts attempting to find the Project Ark fleet and that threat is likely over.

So the surviving Archangels weren't concerned about "hiding" the OBS from the Gbaba.

According to the Word Of Weber, the purpose of the OBS was to prevent Safeholdians from developing a civilization capable of space travel.

Thucydides wrote:Solar sails might work for very high orbits (too low and the sail itself will be slowed by atmospheric drag and pulled out of orbit), but the reflection of sunlight off the sails would make them very obvious to the naked eye at night and maybe even during the day. Of course if the sail was damaged, then the same objections to the long duration of a Walker constellation would apply.

High orbits would also compromise the ability of the OBS to rapidly react to a target on the ground, I suspect that the platforms would have to be in LEO to have high definition of the target and the best response time.

As I think on this more, the entire idea of a "sphere" surrounding each platform is a non starter unless there is some sort of active propulsion system, since orbital mechanics wold cause a sphere to degrade within days (systems orbiting closer to the planet would be moving faster than ones orbiting farther away from the planet). If these devices are passively orbiting, then you might see a "layer cake" effect of sensors, defense systems and bombardment platforms all orbiting at different altitudes.

If they have active propulsion systems, then the real danger isn't even to Charis, but the detection of heat and emissions in space by the Enemy...

DrakBibliophile wrote:I think David Weber said the Gbaba aren't likely to be visiting Safehold.

The danger earlier was with Gbaba scouts attempting to find the Project Ark fleet and that threat is likely over.

So the surviving Archangels weren't concerned about "hiding" the OBS from the Gbaba.

According to the Word Of Weber, the purpose of the OBS was to prevent Safeholdians from developing a civilization capable of space travel.

When the OBS was deployed the Archangels were afraid of both the Gbaba and discovery by people on the ground. the textev indicates that the system is highly stealthed, hard to spot remotely from the ground and hence any sensors are most probably passive (i.e. no ground penetrating radar, Lidar is a possibility but even that is detectable if you know where to look). The other assumption is a knowledge level on the ground of orbital physics at a lower level than the ancient Greeks (because the script uses the crystal shell model of cosmology). Therefore they may have designed the system to detect the fiddlings of a Safeholdian equivalent of Micheal Faraday at the bottom end or Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla at the upper end of detectability (Tesla level fiddlings would be detectable a couple of light years away with the power transmission experiments and you would have to be blind and deaf to miss them).
The effective use of obscuration requires a knowledge that you need to obscure and an further knowledge of what you need to obscure, information that the script, I am sure, would be severely lacking in detail. (If you don't know what you have to hide how do you hide it?)
We (and Nimue/Merlin) know things that the Archangels may have assumed would have been detected (by the inquisition if not the OBS) as they were rediscovered let alone implemented in commercial sizes.

Here's a suggestion.

Given that the textev appears to be all from the first book (OAR) when OWL wasn't the sharpest tack in the draw, etc., maybe it would be time for Merlin to suggest to the new and improved OWL and Nahrmahn that they investigate the question of neutralizing the OBS again, and possibly do some of that super-time compressed R&D like they did regarding PICA's. Who knows what answers might come from a couple of centuries of virtual R&D?