HVAC or things fall apart

Duckk wrote:For all we know, there could be a provision in the Writ that mandates some basic resupply for the maintenance drones. "Thou shalt leave a pile of bauxite in the janitor's closet."

"Yea, I say unto thee, he who falls asleep in the central chapel and snores, shall be rendered unto Langhorne and serve as replacement filter material for the Holy AC."

n7axw wrote:

Mendicant wrote:
Any decent maintenance bot would have the capability to maintain maintenance bots. The real question is how do they get their raw materials? Even the most massive stockpile will someday be depleted.

Understood, but sooner or later a problem occurs that can't be dealt with by a given set of program perameters, such as the need to arrange for the substituton of a resource for another resource that's no longer available or a myriad of other things that need to be dealt with that require the creativity of sentience to handle. As good as you can visualize computers being, there are limits in all things...including this.

Don

Being a programmer by trade, I can definitely confirm the limitations of computers. Just the problems caused by programs that don't properly sanitize their data inputs are legion...

Internal to the temple, in the areas that humans do not go, I can see the temple systems having a sufficiently detailed schematic to adhere to to keep things operational. (Barring a major issue like an earthquake collapsing the room or an orbital strike from the OBS)

External to that, with the automatic doors and environmental systems, I would guess that it's a combination of maintenance units and rituals. We know that the Verifier had a ritual associated with it to keep it charged, something similar for items like the Inquisition's wands would make sense.

Duckk wrote:For all we know, there could be a provision in the Writ that mandates some basic resupply for the maintenance drones. "Thou shalt leave a pile of bauxite in the janitor's closet."

Sure, but that's a bit less 'miraculous'.

Mendicant wrote:
Being a programmer by trade, I can definitely confirm the limitations of computers. Just the problems caused by programs that don't properly sanitize their data inputs are legion...

Internal to the temple, in the areas that humans do not go, I can see the temple systems having a sufficiently detailed schematic to adhere to to keep things operational. (Barring a major issue like an earthquake collapsing the room or an orbital strike from the OBS)

External to that, with the automatic doors and environmental systems, I would guess that it's a combination of maintenance units and rituals. We know that the Verifier had a ritual associated with it to keep it charged, something similar for items like the Inquisition's wands would make sense.

Can you imagine the condition of a Windows operating system after being in continious operation for 750 years...boggles the mind...

Don

n7axw wrote:

Mendicant wrote:
Being a programmer by trade, I can definitely confirm the limitations of computers. Just the problems caused by programs that don't properly sanitize their data inputs are legion...

Internal to the temple, in the areas that humans do not go, I can see the temple systems having a sufficiently detailed schematic to adhere to to keep things operational. (Barring a major issue like an earthquake collapsing the room or an orbital strike from the OBS)

External to that, with the automatic doors and environmental systems, I would guess that it's a combination of maintenance units and rituals. We know that the Verifier had a ritual associated with it to keep it charged, something similar for items like the Inquisition's wands would make sense.

Can you imagine the condition of a Windows operating system after being in continious operation for 750 years...boggles the mind...

Don

We know they had AIs, AIs were common enough that you could use one as a fire control system (Owl). You'd have to have some sort of provision for it not to go insane.

I'm imagining a once-in-a-decade ceremony called the Holy Reboot. Thou shalt remove the plug from the Holy Socket. Thou shalt count to ten, reciting the 9 Commandments of Murphy. Then thou shalt plug the cord back into the Holy Socket, and press the Holy Power Button whilst chanting the Invocation.

For blue is the color of Shang-wei, and these rites will purge the curse of the Blue Screen Of Death from our holy servitors...

Kytheros wrote:Sure, but that's a bit less 'miraculous'.

It's no worse than the provisions needed to keep the Stone of Schueler working all those years. So long as it's dressed up as an offering in a suitably "holy" way it's not really a problem.

NinaKatarina wrote:We know they had AIs, AIs were common enough that you could use one as a fire control system (Owl). You'd have to have some sort of provision for it not to go insane.

I'm imagining a once-in-a-decade ceremony called the Holy Reboot. Thou shalt remove the plug from the Holy Socket. Thou shalt count to ten, reciting the 9 Commandments of Murphy. Then thou shalt plug the cord back into the Holy Socket, and press the Holy Power Button whilst chanting the Invocation.

For blue is the color of Shang-wei, and these rites will purge the curse of the Blue Screen Of Death from our holy servitors...

In the Warhammer 40K universe, the tech priests perform maintenance on machines they have long since forgotten how to repair by rite. One such ritual goes something like 'And thou shalt take the Holy Lug Wrench and strike the power converter upon its right side not once, not twice, but thrice while speaking the holy chant of "Work, damn you, work."

n7axw wrote:

Mendicant wrote:
Being a programmer by trade, I can definitely confirm the limitations of computers. Just the problems caused by programs that don't properly sanitize their data inputs are legion...

Internal to the temple, in the areas that humans do not go, I can see the temple systems having a sufficiently detailed schematic to adhere to to keep things operational. (Barring a major issue like an earthquake collapsing the room or an orbital strike from the OBS)

External to that, with the automatic doors and environmental systems, I would guess that it's a combination of maintenance units and rituals. We know that the Verifier had a ritual associated with it to keep it charged, something similar for items like the Inquisition's wands would make sense.

Can you imagine the condition of a Windows operating system after being in continious operation for 750 years...boggles the mind...

Don

Given a current generation Windows PC has a mean time to failure of 22 months (based on Dell's laptop data), a computer running Windows in 750 years is hard to imagine.
Industrial PC's do better but MTBF's of 6 to 20 years are typical, so to ensure one is operating in a century would require over a thousand to start with (5 standard deviations).
A continuous production line of fabrication systems making replacements for themselves would be certainly be required for operating periods longer than a century. A large cavern full of hardware under the temple would not be unlikely.

AirTech wrote:A continuous production line of fabrication systems making replacements for themselves would be certainly be required for operating periods longer than a century. A large cavern full of hardware under the temple would not be unlikely.

You know, if the Temple systems started failing, it could provoke a serious crisis of faith in the power of the Archangels and/or God's continuing care for Safehold. That could be... the Church's darkest hour. Maybe the Thing under the Temple, to awake in 1000 years or when a Wylsynn goes knocking - is a tech support angel, there to do some maintenance on the Temple.

"You have a schism? War across Safehold? Jihad?! Dude, that is NOT my department! Now please, just let me back into the server room, okay?"

A point that has been made previously.

I imagine that whoever built the Temple had roughly the same grasp on the limitations of technology as they did on its history. IOW: 'not a problem, we built it to work forever' 'but...' 'you mean you don't know how to build things? you said...'

Between redundancy and effective nanotechnology, I'm sure that the place is good for a very long time - and many of the specific items the OP was concerned about are non-issues because they simply don't exist in the Temple [no sockets or wall plates, for example] - but sooner or later _something_ won't be as redundant as thought, or the odds will catch up with the system and the backup will fail while repairing the primary. At which point, something wakes up that is sophisticated enough to plan, direct and certify a complete overhaul [any system that can do that would be _too_ sophisticated to survive for millennia of continuous operation, from what we're told]. or it doesn't, and the ensuing cascade of failures shuts down the Temple. This is something that could have been allowed for in the Writ, of course, in which case you'll see a meeting of the Council where somebody says 'So that's what that passage in Hastings was about! You know the Order has been debating it for over 8 thousand years now.', and everybody continues tranquilly on their way. Or not, as the case may be - without the living, miraculous Temple, the Church is ultimately doomed. I suspect that Chihiro or whomever realised that, whence the Temple in the first place, but still adhered to the notion - the fallacy - of one man being able to impose his will on time and history.

BTW, I don't have electronic copies either, but IIRC, the repair mechs are mentioned somewhere in the 1st - 3rd books, in a scene where someone [possibly Duchairn] is walking down one of the main corridors of the Temple. I thought that the term 'servitor' was used for them, but that must not be correct.

JeffEngel wrote:

AirTech wrote:A continuous production line of fabrication systems making replacements for themselves would be certainly be required for operating periods longer than a century. A large cavern full of hardware under the temple would not be unlikely.

You know, if the Temple systems started failing, it could provoke a serious crisis of faith in the power of the Archangels and/or God's continuing care for Safehold. That could be... the Church's darkest hour. Maybe the Thing under the Temple, to awake in 1000 years or when a Wylsynn goes knocking - is a tech support angel, there to do some maintenance on the Temple.

"You have a schism? War across Safehold? Jihad?! Dude, that is NOT my department! Now please, just let me back into the server room, okay?"