Relative size of combatants

Mil-tech Bard: I think we are talking about two different things. I said a cableway going from the top of the cliff right down to the plain would be impossible, because it requires such a long unsupported stretch - longer than anything in your link suggests is possible. You bolded a section saying the cableway was 140 km long with 262 towers: that makes for barely half a kilometer of unsupported length, or only a quarter of the minimum I have calculated. Tension stations are not the only supports a cableway has.

If I'm guessing right from your last post, you are talking about a structure that hugs the cliff all the way down. Instead of being supported from below like all Earth cableways I'm aware of, the "support towers" are sticking out horizontally from the cliff - right? If that's the case, then yes, such a structure is possible, assuming they could build anything on said almost vertical cliff. I don't know about that kind of construction to say.

On the other hand, I'm now wondering why we haven't seen cableways on Safehold. Has Weber ever written about them in any of his books? I can' remember any.

Two points regards the following --

What you end up doing is hanging a temporary platform with heavy (steam powered) equipment and work crews, over the side of the nearly vertical cliff. You are running huge risks with weather, accidents, and tipping over your crane. Then you would have to find suitable locations to place each permanent platform, and finally lower a really big crane down to the new platform to do it again. I don't see this project as possible, without heavy aerial lift capacity (helicopters).

If you dump enough debris over the side of the cliff (as you blast and dig out the cut) you will eventually have a makeshift ramp. It would not be something you would want to build train tracks over, however, it could (with some improvement) get the crews needed to make a permanent ramp into Karys

1. You have a very modern view of risk. Our ancestors in 1890 - 1930 were anywhere near as risk adverse as you are in approaching civil engineering projects. And the Sharonans thus far in the text have shown a similar taste for risk taking.

2. You keep forgetting the Sharonan Talents. In this case, in addition to T-K lifters, the mapping talent's ability to tell you exactly where good solid rock is on the cliff top and face for anchoring ropeway and elevator platforms.

NB: It is no where near as dangerous or risky as you think for the Sharonans. And even if it were, it is likely the Sharonans would have done it anyway.

For the TTE, a Traisum cliff top to bottom ropeway would have been a trivial enabling three month project done as an early part of the Traisum Cut's multi-year construction.

I just noticed that the Bahzelverse is heading into a similar war between Magic and Psi talents as the Multiverse. I wonder if this theme will follow the same pattern in the Multiverse as in the Bahzellverse?

The one common characteristic between Arcana and the Bahzellverse is the inherent stratification of society based on inherent power. Those without power can never really participate as thoroughly as those that do have it. In a sense Magical Gifts assert that "might makes right" in governance. This is seen clearly in the Mythalans. The Ransarans have a heavy individual rights/libertarian out look. How does the Gift fit there?
Does magic and the need to use it corrupt too thoroughly for it to be used for good? What sorts of limits if usable limits are possible must be in place to deter people being corrupted by magic?

I suspect both stories will delve into rights and responsibilities from very different directions.

bkwormlisa,

You are -STILL- not paying attention to the known ropeway capabilities of 1911.

See:

1. "In 1911, aerial ropeway lines were typically 1,000 to 15,000 feet (305 to 4,600 metres) long, with a daily cargo capacity of 15 to 200 tons and speeds of around 2 to 5 mph (3,2 to 8 km/h)."

2. "The fall was between zero (almost horizontal lines) and 4,000 feet (1,220 metres)."


3. "Ropeway towers could be constructed from timber or iron and were generally between 100 and 300 feet (30 to 90 metres) apart, although much longer spans were possible if necessary."

TRIGONOMETRIC FUNCTION ANALYSIS

A 30 degree ropeway downslope -- AKA a classic TRIGONOMETRIC 30-60-90 triangle -- with a 3100 foot (1000 meter) "opposite" for the cliff height results in a ropeway hypotenuse of twice the 3100 foot height, or 6,200 feet (~2000 meters).

A ropeway over the Traisum cliffs represents 41% of the 1911 Ropeway technological state of the art cable-rope length and 82% of 1911 state of the art in ropeway drop over distance.

The TTE can easily double the length of the cable-rope to buy a less steep ropeway down angle.

See:

A^2 + B^2 = C^2

Where

A= 3,100
B= ?
C= 12,400

Yeilds B = 12,006 feet away from the angle/tension tower at the top of the cliff.

A three stage elevator down the side of the cliff (AKA 1000 feet to a significant cliff anchored platform, then another 1000 feet to a significant cliff anchored platform, then an elevator to the bottom) would give you the means to transport down people and supplies to build the ropeway.

You could either use the "significant cliff anchored platform" as a "tower" or angle-tension station against cliff for a zig-zag ropeway.

Or simply angle away from the cliff at the top, accepting more sway in the cable rope.

NB: A ropeway over the Traisum cliff is a trivial intial enabling step for the TTE Civil Engineer Corps given the successful accomplishment of the cut in the first instance.

phillies wrote:

Astelon wrote:It's not about the energy to run the the system, it's about being able to build it in the first place. You have a three thousand yard drop off a nearly vertical cliff. You simply can not place the nineteen or twenty weight bearing towers you would require just to reach the ground in Karys.

You drill the towers into the side of the cliff, and run the cableway parallel to the cliff.

Without fairly sophisticated tension controls having towers sticking out the side of the cliff holding a near vertical cable don't help with the "elevator problem" because they can't revive the upper cable of the need to support the entire weight of the lower cable (plus the weight of the cargo)

When you run a lengthy fairly horizontal cable across a series of vertical supports they each take some of the weight and the cable need only support the load and the weight of the cable between any two adjacent towers.
But with a vertically hung cable the intermediate towers just hold it away from the cliff. They don't transfer the vertical force into the rock; that's all done at the top tower/anchor.

If there is a problem of support between towers for the cable strung between towers, would not this problem be eliminated simply by installing the towers on a diagonal line across the cliff face from top to bottom???

The risk to the men is one thing, risks to millions of marks worth of equipment is another. Lowering one giant crane to a manmade platform so you could dangle even more equipment from that crane to build an even lower platform is a serious risk to all of that equipment.

As for talents, a telekinetic has a forty pound maximum lifting ability. Not going to make much of a difference. As for the mappers, we have seen how a Plotter scanning for life near a portal gets interference from the "portal energies" (Hell's Gate chapter eighteen). A Mapper probably faces a similar problem, making the talent of less use around a portal.

Further there is no mention of any ropeway in the story, likely there is no ropeway at all.

Astelon wrote:The risk to the men is one thing, risks to millions of marks worth of equipment is another. Lowering one giant crane to a manmade platform so you could dangle even more equipment from that crane to build an even lower platform is a serious risk to all of that equipment.

As for talents, a telekinetic has a forty pound maximum lifting ability. Not going to make much of a difference. As for the mappers, we have seen how a Plotter scanning for life near a portal gets interference from the "portal energies" (Hell's Gate chapter eighteen). A Mapper probably faces a similar problem, making the talent of less use around a portal.

Further there is no mention of any ropeway in the story, likely there is no ropeway at all.

10 billion people in a much more equal group of societies and nations both in terms of technology and economic productivity would price the resources required for The Cut and any associated tramway differently than our Earth would. I envision 10 billion people participating in an economy with the access to capital and technology of 1900s US or Britain. That would be one uber wealthy society.

From that perspective the cost in labor, capital and material of the Traisum Cut is much smaller as a percentage of the total economic output. Heck even if the same number of people die in the effort as died in making the Panama Canal, the number of lives will be less as a percentage of the total population than was the case for US in that effort. No matter how one looks at it, the promise of doing something enormous has drawn people to risk their lives to do that great thing.

Now, whether there is a ropeway in the Traisum Cut depends on whether RFC thought about it or not. Its that simple. MTB pretty much showed that the project was possible.

As there were no such things as fairly sophisticated tension controls for 1860's-1930's ropeways, and they worked out just fine, I don't see an issue here.

Jonathan_S wrote:Without fairly sophisticated tension controls having towers sticking out the side of the cliff holding a near vertical cable don't help with the "elevator problem" because they can't revive the upper cable of the need to support the entire weight of the lower cable (plus the weight of the cargo)

When you run a lengthy fairly horizontal cable across a series of vertical supports they each take some of the weight and the cable need only support the load and the weight of the cable between any two adjacent towers.
But with a vertically hung cable the intermediate towers just hold it away from the cliff. They don't transfer the vertical force into the rock; that's all done at the top tower/anchor.

This point --

Down Under wrote:If there is a problem of support between towers for the cable strung between towers, would not this problem be eliminated simply by installing the towers on a diagonal line across the cliff face from top to bottom???

Is one I made earlier up-thread.

You can do ropeways diagonally across the face of the cliff, using mappers to give you good places to anchor tower or angle-tension stations platforms.

Or you could build the ropeway out from the cliffs, accepting lots of play in the cable until the first stabilizing towers.

Or you could build staged elevators down the sides of the cliffs using those same mapper talents to find strong anchor points.

Likely it would be a combination of all of the above, most of which (all cables and most engines, gearing, aka EXPENSVE STUFF) was disassembled for use elsewhere by the TTE Civil Engineering Corps after the cut was complete.

whatever the combination of ropeways and elevators over the cliffs could have been done, it would represent essentially trivial scale efforts within the larger Traisum Cut railway/road civil engineering project.

And finally, to have PAAF gate forts and "string of pearls" hippotrain provisioning stations between the portals as far forward as Hell's Gate means that lots of men, material, draft animals, and wagons went over the cliffs during the building process there to support that expansion.

That argues persuasively for significant material/people movement over the cliffs to do that, years earlier than the completion of the Cut.