Armored Ships in Silkiah Bay?

SYED wrote:DO we know if the angels used explosives themselves when they made canals, or simply used man power? We know that the harchong originally got gunpowder allowed due a wish to one day create their own canal system, which would have needed explosives to be created. So could they blast a canal through the mountains?

Given the descriptions of shear mirror-surfaced rock faces along some of the old canals, I assume the Federation used high-powered beam weapons, grav lifts, and other high tech to build the canals. The canals already existed before the Adams and Eves woke up, so Safeholdians have no record of how they were built or how the original terraformed areas were created. Some of the canals were indeed put through mountainous areas that current Safeholdians could not have managed. But the isthmus apparently balked the Federation, most likely because of a lack of water supplies to keep the canals filled.

SYED wrote:DO we know if the angels used explosives themselves when they made canals, or simply used man power?

The canals made by the Archangels were made prior to "Creation," so I imagine they would have used federation tech, including high explosives and/or industrial cutting lasers. IIRC there is a description of the differences between an "original" canal and a man-made canal that mentions how the former ignore obstacles while the latter are forced to wander around them.