Electrical Devices on Safehold

JeffEngel wrote:Yeah. Dr. Lewis has been doing a good bit by exploring "curses" the Writ specifies for unsafe materials, to see which of them can be useful. And that was before she got into the Inner Circle. They can fuss around for a good while without introducing an honest theory. Or they may work up some so-so theories, either as a put-on to explain stuff away (in the case of those in the know) or naturally, as a result of doing science (in the case of those not in the know).

Yeah... Percussion Caps in Safeholdian religious terms is getting the Archangel curses to do work FOR you instead of AGAINST you.

Which sets an unfortunate precedent from the point of view of Langhorne's Plan. It gets people thinking about ways to exploit otherwise forbidden practices, turning the Writ from being a barrier to knowledge to a roadmap to knowledge.

evilauthor wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:Yeah. Dr. Lewis has been doing a good bit by exploring "curses" the Writ specifies for unsafe materials, to see which of them can be useful. And that was before she got into the Inner Circle. They can fuss around for a good while without introducing an honest theory. Or they may work up some so-so theories, either as a put-on to explain stuff away (in the case of those in the know) or naturally, as a result of doing science (in the case of those not in the know).

Yeah... Percussion Caps in Safeholdian religious terms is getting the Archangel curses to do work FOR you instead of AGAINST you.

Which sets an unfortunate precedent from the point of view of Langhorne's Plan. It gets people thinking about ways to exploit otherwise forbidden practices, turning the Writ from being a barrier to knowledge to a roadmap to knowledge.

Worse, actually. It presents a situation whereby the archangels' pique is used to accomplish mundane activity. A bit like snapping one's fingers and the archangels do one's bidding. If that's not blasphemous for the TE, what is?

I've been wondering myself if the Orbital Bombardment System is programmed to fire on any detectable radio source, and I've come up with a way to find out.

It's quite simple. Smuggle a transmitter of quite high power to Zion and arrange to have it activated. Either the OBS flattens the area, or it doesn't, but warns someone (the sleeping archangel?) that there's trouble there.

If the transmitter (and Zion) don't get flattened immediately, move it away from Zion until it does.

If the OBS flattens Zion, then farewell Zasphar Clyntahn. If not, there may be a cutout template protecting Zion, in which case the OBS could be used to flatten other militarily important targets by giving it a target to shoot at.

If not, if the sleeping angel wakens with the information that someone in Zion is experimenting with radio, then he/she will probably have a good hard look at Zaspahr Clyntahn in the process, which couldn't be entirely a bad thing... "...Your greed led to this schism!? You have a lot to answer for..."

Of course, the last option is that nothing happens. Of course, you wouldn't want the gbaba to hear it.

That presumes that the designers didn't build in the trivial precaution of an exclusion zone to protect their command and control center.

Monty wrote:I've been wondering myself if the Orbital Bombardment System is programmed to fire on any detectable radio source, and I've come up with a way to find out.

It's quite simple. Smuggle a transmitter of quite high power to Zion and arrange to have it activated. Either the OBS flattens the area, or it doesn't, but warns someone (the sleeping archangel?) that there's trouble there.

If the transmitter (and Zion) don't get flattened immediately, move it away from Zion until it does.

If the OBS flattens Zion, then farewell Zasphar Clyntahn. If not, there may be a cutout template protecting Zion, in which case the OBS could be used to flatten other militarily important targets by giving it a target to shoot at.

If not, if the sleeping angel wakens with the information that someone in Zion is experimenting with radio, then he/she will probably have a good hard look at Zaspahr Clyntahn in the process, which couldn't be entirely a bad thing... "...Your greed led to this schism!? You have a lot to answer for..."

Of course, the last option is that nothing happens. Of course, you wouldn't want the gbaba to hear it.

David has made it quite clear that Merlin would not do that. Zion is big city, with over a million people. Merlin is not going to use any weapon of mass destruction on a civilian target like that. For that matter, he won't want to use a weapon of mass destruction anywhere.

Merlin is also not going to do anything which might cause the OBS to wake up the Temple.

SWM wrote:David has made it quite clear that Merlin would not do that. Zion is big city, with over a million people. Merlin is not going to use any weapon of mass destruction on a civilian target like that. For that matter, he won't want to use a weapon of mass destruction anywhere.

Merlin is also not going to do anything which might cause the OBS to wake up the Temple.

I seem to recall him saying Merlin would never do something like that if he had any other option.

So short of the temple waking up another PICA, with no time limit, which proceeds to lay waste to the entire empire as proof of "Gods Will". And remains around to continue enforcing the proscriptions...


Point is, Merlin will do Anything he has to, to break the proscriptions. If that means nuking the temple, and millions of people, he will. But only if he literally has No other options.
Because if he doesn't and the history of earth and the gbaba are lost, eventually the entire human race will be eradicated.

Let's not forget that Merlin also doesn't want to give Safehold the impression that God or the Archangels are directly and openly intervening in events on Safehold. A Rakurai strike ANYWHERE (much less on Zion) would be interpreted by every Safeholdian as exactly that.

Chyort wrote:

SWM wrote:David has made it quite clear that Merlin would not do that. Zion is big city, with over a million people. Merlin is not going to use any weapon of mass destruction on a civilian target like that. For that matter, he won't want to use a weapon of mass destruction anywhere.

Merlin is also not going to do anything which might cause the OBS to wake up the Temple.

I seem to recall him saying Merlin would never do something like that if he had any other option.

So short of the temple waking up another PICA, with no time limit, which proceeds to lay waste to the entire empire as proof of "Gods Will". And remains around to continue enforcing the proscriptions...


Point is, Merlin will do Anything he has to, to break the proscriptions. If that means nuking the temple, and millions of people, he will. But only if he literally has No other options.
Because if he doesn't and the history of earth and the gbaba are lost, eventually the entire human race will be eradicated.

Go read 'Why doesn't Merlin just nuke the Temple' in the FAQ. David makes it pretty clear that Merlin would NOT kill nuke the temple and kill millions of innocent people, no matter what the circumstances. There are certain lines that Merlin will not, and cannot, cross. Even if there is no other way, Merlin will not do it.

http://www.davidweber.net/faqs/index/page:3/series:6