HFQ Official Snippet #12

lyonheart wrote:Seeing all the equipment and meeting Nahrmahn and OWL will be very important proofs of the Federation and Operation Ark, but when the inner circle reveals themselves after witnessing Merlin's explanations at the appropriate time will help them realize just how much power and support Merlin has amassed, and thus how much information they'll have at their fingertips as well, which will also encourage them to join the inner circle.

For me, that is possibly additional added value of Merlin's approach, but I don't think it's his primary reason. He could do most of that outside of the Cave. He could, e.g., have opted to drop the stealth cover of those skimmers, explain the technology to Aivah and tell her the truth right on the spot. If she reacts negatively, a stunner will do the trick. No reason at all to go to the Cave. So, there is another reason. But what that is, I'm really at a loss.

lyonheart wrote:I'm curious how you think Nynian is going to take Merlin out, since I'm sure his remotes have already scanned and searched her in ways she be shocked until she understands more federation tech.

I've no plausible scenario, right now. There might be an emergency shutdown button for ending acute attacks of excess tartness and smart alecking. Perhaps Kohdy left the SSK an angelic device that inserts viral code via ultra-violet light pulses into Merlins core programming and enables her to take him over. Perhaps she's got a 24th century equivalent of a Stuxnet-contaminated USB stick to be plugged into his high-speed data interface.
I just won't be a vest-pocket nuke...


Oh, and by the way:

lyonheart wrote:Have confidence in RFC, little grasshopper.

anwi wrote:I'm looking forward to his solution for that one.

fallsfromtrees wrote:
Not going to be much else that looks like that.

Whether or not it was the rakurai is irrelevant as far as the SSK are concerned. They believe that it was, and Merlin can show them the current status of it. I might have been something as simple as the Thunderbolt weapon proposed in the sixties as a tank destroyer. Basically a 600 kilo iron spike dropped from orbit striking the tank at 5 miles per second.[/quote]

600kg of iron dropped from orbit will kill a tank but it wont do much to a substantial building complex. You need at least ten of tons of blast yield rather than the cratering impact of a simple spike, so either multiple walked escape velocity shots or three to four times escape velocity. (Unless you are on hard rock, the energy yield gives you a deep but small diameter crater). Either way is painful at the receiving end. (600kg at 12km/s = 10 tons of TNT applied at the cross section of the impactor). Kinetic impactors release their power when the impactor is stopped - slower release = less energy per second = less blast, optimum is same density as the impactor, so a kinetic impactor in a deep swamp gives less yield than the same impactor in hardened steel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8n59S8j2C0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WagAKBuc_o
http://josephtube.com/video/6SObYcIRTlI ... Atoll.html
(impact is at 6 minutes)

anwi wrote:[
I've no plausible scenario, right now. There might be an emergency shutdown button for ending acute attacks of excess tartness and smart alecking. Perhaps Kohdy left the SSK an angelic device that inserts viral code via ultra-violet light pulses into Merlins core programming and enables her to take him over. Perhaps she's got a 24th century equivalent of a Stuxnet-contaminated USB stick to be plugged into his high-speed data interface.
I just won't be a vest-pocket nuke...

I would just like to point out the Merlin's high-speed data port was renedered inoperative by the changes made to allow him to remain active past the 10 day limit.

Keith_w wrote:I would just like to point out the Merlin's high-speed data port was renedered inoperative by the changes made to allow him to remain active past the 10 day limit.

True, but I've always understood that to be a software issue. And even today USB sticks can be used for attacks on the firmware level via USB ports that are disabled by the operating system. At least I've read that somewhere.
However, please note that I didn't propose plausible scenarios...

anwi wrote:

Keith_w wrote:I would just like to point out the Merlin's high-speed data port was renedered inoperative by the changes made to allow him to remain active past the 10 day limit.

True, but I've always understood that to be a software issue. And even today USB sticks can be used for attacks on the firmware level via USB ports that are disabled by the operating system. At least I've read that somewhere.
However, please note that I didn't propose plausible scenarios...

I re-read the article that discussed the issue http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/07/this-thumbdrive-hacks-computers-badusb-exploit-makes-devices-turn-evil/ and the only mention of there not being any OS involvement was an OSless system which implies that you are pulling the OS off the stick itself. But none of what I read suggested that it could work if the port were disabled which is a very good thing as a lot of admins disable access to USB storage devices, unless it's the keyboard or mouse (or the wireless adapter for them) that contains the malware.

anwi wrote:
I've no plausible scenario, right now. There might be an emergency shutdown button for ending acute attacks of excess tartness and smart alecking. Perhaps Kohdy left the SSK an angelic device that inserts viral code via ultra-violet light pulses into Merlins core programming and enables her to take him over. Perhaps she's got a 24th century equivalent of a Stuxnet-contaminated USB stick to be plugged into his high-speed data interface.
I just won't be a vest-pocket nuke...

But Merlin's high speed data interface has been disabled

One can always tell when we are starting to need another snippet by how wound down the posts start sounding...

Don

n7axw wrote:One can always tell when we are starting to need another snippet by how wound down the posts start sounding...

Don

I have managed to delay my snippet addiction by coming across an EXCELLENT read in SF-> Military-> Space, and I challenge my fellow fans to follow me to "Free Range Topics" forum and the post for "Excellent read ..." of this day (12/06/14). I have NO CONNECTION to author or web site. First quarter of novel is free.

Having said this, I wish to reiterate that whatever enjoyment I got from this read in no way diminishes my raving hunger for ANOTHER SNIPPET!

fallsfromtrees wrote:But Merlin's high speed data interface has been disabled

But his LOW speed one is obviously working since he gave Nimue 3.0 (Merlin being Nimue 2.0) some basic skills like horsemanship and serious swordplay and what not. And of course he can receive Owl's intel downloads direct which includes video and audio.

That's alot of data bandwidth right there, far greater than what's needed to transmit a simple virus. Which shouldn't be possible to infect Merlin without him having a ridiculously vulnerable security hole in his operating system. Even Microsoft Windows isn't THAT vulnerable.

On a side note, when Merlin and others talk about his High Speed Data Port, their definition of "high speed" likely means operating in hyper-heuristic mode. You know, the mode where virtual personalities (and possibly organic people with NEATs) can experience weeks or even months of subjective time in the space of 15 real world minutes.

Which means the High Speed data port operates at bandwidths that are orders of magnitude greater than the low speed port. And the low speed data port's bandwidth appears to be comparable to modern home internet.