Isilith wrote:It's nice to see that manufacturing is spreading across the Empire, especially the explosives. I'm not sure why there's a persistent rumor that there will be a major industrial accident in HFQ though. There has never been a major industrial accident in Charis during the entire war, although there has been a major case of sabotage.
There is? I have read all through the forums and I haven't seen any rumors of such.
Even Corisande is getting into the action, with its rubber being used in bicycle tires. Emerald is a good central place for manufacturing, and I've thought that its lack of mountains and water power must be the reason that we haven't seen heavy industrialization introduced there before, given that it's the third oldest member of the EoC and much closer to Charis than Chisholm. Steam engines are going to allow all sorts of manufacturing everywhere that coal is available, so the entire Empire should be pitching in soon. Of course that means the TLs will be sending samples and design specifications for all sorts of technology to Zion, which probably can't afford to build it!
Actually, I did see this addressed somewhere in the forums. We have no idea if Emerald has mountains ( and the rain/water such would bring to a tropical island continent.
Emerald, like Tarot, like Zebediah, and so on... have not had their topographies filled in by the evil genius.Too bad the contents of the stolen briefcase are so useful in the CoGA's iron foundries...
So we will get railroads - after the war. Shotguns will soon be in the building queue, and after some early snafus in cartridge production (which makes me worry for BGV) the allies will have the church boys seriously outgunned. The damage those pistols will do when the enemy closes with the ICA makes me cringe! Those poor Harchongese...
On the stolen briefcase... that was one of the biggest "God gives the CoGA the plans" deus ex machina moments I have ever seen an author use. It annoyed me far more than Vlad showing up in OotD. There is zero chance someone with plans that important would be walking around without being heavily guarded. None, zero chance... except the author said it happened. ( Mind you, I LOOOOOOVE David Webers books, but that was a "I said it happened, so it did" moment. )
The cartridge ammunition is another pet peeve. When it was first brought into production Howsmyn said it was so far ahead of the rifles and pistols that he would make enough to get by, and then scale back production on the ammunition until the weapons could catch up. The next thing we ever hear about it is him saying "we don't have enough!!!!"... yeah, what happened there?
I believe DW wrote in the "lost briefcase" as a way to give the info to the Go4. Merlin knows that if they start to use the technology it will open the flood gates. So I think Merlin or Caleb intentionally sent the briefcase the way they did with the intentions of the Go4 getting the info so they too would start down the slippery slope of innovation that will force them to break the prescriptions.