Langhorne survived Kau-yung's attack.

Brigade XO wrote:

Must have been a realy good vest pocket nuke if they were able to rebuild the temple within just a couple of years and not have much challange with the radiation from the divice.

That might be true using present technology. However, indications are that they used future technology, so they may have extremely efficient clean-up technology, or they may have fusion devices with no triggering fission devices, and therefore no latent radioactivity. Plus there are some suggestions that there may have been decades between the Kau-yung explosion and the creation of the Temple.

How much really important equipment did they lose, I mean, just how small can you make a nuclear explosion?

With present technology about 0.15 kt of TNT equivalent. There is no practical, theoretical lower limit if they were able to fuse, say, only two or four atoms of hydrogen into helium.

~Tonto

Brigade XO wrote:
Must have been a realy good vest pocket nuke if they were able to rebuild the temple within just a couple of years and not have much challange with the radiation from the divice.
One would think that having a nuclear bomb go off within a headquarters building should play havoc with the site for a while. All that messy radiation. How did they deal with the nice crater if it was an on ground or underground blast? How much really important equipment did they lose, I mean, just how small can you make a nuclear explosion?

I think there is a certain amount of handwavium going on here. First there is the matter of whether or not a vest pocket nuke can truly be small enough to fit in a vest pocket. The answer to that was that since that's how it is described in the textev, that is what it was. The other matter has to do with how clean a nuke can be. Obviously it was a whole lot cleaner than anything could be in our timeline. So we shrug our shoulders and suspend disbelief. If the textev says the temple was built on the site, then it was, never mind radioactivity, etc...handwavium.

Don

Tonto Silerheels wrote:Brigade XO wrote:

Must have been a realy good vest pocket nuke if they were able to rebuild the temple within just a couple of years and not have much challange with the radiation from the divice.

That might be true using present technology. However, indications are that they used future technology, so they may have extremely efficient clean-up technology, or they may have fusion devices with no triggering fission devices, and therefore no latent radioactivity. Plus there are some suggestions that there may have been decades between the Kau-yung explosion and the creation of the Temple.

How much really important equipment did they lose, I mean, just how small can you make a nuclear explosion?

With present technology about 0.15 kt of TNT equivalent. There is no practical, theoretical lower limit if they were able to fuse, say, only two or four atoms of hydrogen into helium.

~Tonto

I believe the word from RFC is that the Temple, at least its current form, was first built after the conclusion of the War Against the Fallen, as a symbol of that victory. However, there was, I believe, some sort of Angelic enclave at Zion rebuilt immediately following the vest-pocket nuke, as resources from it were apparently secretly diverted by the "Fallen".

So a number of years after, in addition to a clean weapon to start with. But mainly a clean weapon, plus probably the tech to clean up any dangerous residual side effects rather well.


As far as equipment losses ... probably nothing that couldn't be recovered/rebuilt with the capabilities of Hamilcar. More likely to be critical, or at least not readily replaceable, losses would be the people and any data stored in local archives that hadn't been backed up in offsite/out-of-blast range facilities.

Tonto Silerheels wrote:Sounour wrote:

Is there any textev that the entire temple was build after the nuke? And that the entire colony HQ which was here before the War of the Fallen was destroyed?

Yes. Off Armageddon Reef, pg 68

The Temple of God and City of Zion were evidence of that, she thought grimly, for neither had existed before Shan-wei's murder.

~Tonto

That's suggestive, but it could also mean that the old "Church of God" had no central temple and thus no holy city. Langhorne and the others didn't need a temple.
The surviving (arch)angels could have simply repaired and improved the existing colony HQ building and declared it holy. After the temple was build, the city of Zion most likely grew simply to support the pilgrims and church-hierarchy who lived there.

As with the temple in jerusalem for some the second temple location is identical to the first. But then again it may not be, but then again does it really matter in any practical sense?

chickladoria wrote:As with the temple in jerusalem for some the second temple location is identical to the first. But then again it may not be, but then again does it really matter in any practical sense?

With the temple in Jerusalem, you can probably establish its location and resolve the question archelogically, were it not for the Dome of the Rock sitting on top of the location.

On a practical sense you might be right, but it is not a practical issue, but a religious one. Sacred space is a concept that has a lot of importance for many religions, both Islam and Judaism included. Practicality can pale in comparison to that.

Don

Tonto Silerheels wrote:With present technology about 0.15 kt of TNT equivalent.

I thought the "Davy Crockett" warhead got down to 10-20 tons equivalent in the early 60s?

I am rereading HFAF and on pages 347-347, when Archbishop Maikel is sharing the news that the Inquisition has taken Thirsk's prisoners and is moving them to Zion, he quotes from the Book of Chihiro, Chapter 5, verses 10-14: "Then the Archangel Langhorne stood upon Mount Heilbronn, looking down upon the Field of Sabana, where so many had fallen opposing evil, and his eyes were wet with tears." (and more)

This seems to be a reference to the War of the Fallen. Since the Book of Chihiro wasn't added until after the war, it seems to me that this indicates 1 of 2 things:

1. Chihiro wasn't above lying about what happened in order to write a "good" story
or
2. Langhorne did survive Kau-yung's attack

Personally I lean towards the 1st, because I don't think that Kau-yung would have triggered the nuke unless he was certain of getting his target, however, I suppose that it is possible that TF tech included force fields which could have been used to protect Langhorne from the blast effects.

Keith_w wrote:
Personally I lean towards the 1st, because I don't think that Kau-yung would have triggered the nuke unless he was certain of getting his target, however, I suppose that it is possible that TF tech included force fields which could have been used to protect Langhorne from the blast effects.

Which would presume that Langhorne had some notion that Kau-Yung was coming along to nuke him, which I can't quite make the leap to accept, at least just yet.

wingfield wrote:Which would presume that Langhorne had some notion that Kau-Yung was coming along to nuke him, which I can't quite make the leap to accept, at least just yet.

Totally understandable. On the other hand might I suggest that Langhorne may have suspected that Kau-yung was a little upset that his wife, no matter how distant their relationship had been of late, and all her co-workers had been murdered by a military device that Langhorne hadn't bothered to mention to Kau-yung and was not designed for the protection of Safehold itself, but for the protection of the lie that Langhorne was promulgating?