Well yes. But without PICA's to spare on suicidal test runs, that's not a test Merlin can run. He's managed to operate in Zion, not particularly near the Temple itself, under careful circumstances, so there's been that much of a test. But that's a far cry from walking in.aurabass wrote:Weird Harold wrote:
Merlin's body (PICA) is built with the same Terran Federation technology as the SNARCs, so the problems that prevent him using the SNARCs prevents him from going in person -- or even going into areas of Zion close to the Temple. A point the Merlin has pondered in nearly every book.
Actually Merlin does not know what technology triggers the bombardment platforms - he/she speculates and tests the limits as was done with the steam engines.
It would not. But why assume that the bombardment system is the only active defense the Temple has? It's built like a planetary defense bunker. One of those could certainly have systems to detect and eliminate - or disable to capture - identifiable automated systems that aren't identified as friendly, such as recon drones (large or tiny) or PICA's. Merlin can test that by walking in, but that's the only way to test for how it may react to PICA's specifically and the potential costs are kinda high.The real question is what becomes the target if a technology is a trigger? That question has been on my mind since early in the series. Say the entity or technology that triggers the bombardment platform is activated by a SNARK or can somehow ascertain the presence of a molycirc (sic?) brain inside a PICA -then what becomes the target? It seems most likely that the technology that drives the PICA is not unlike the technology that drives the AI that controls the bombardment platforms. It has to be similar - a version of a computer or artificial intelligence. So if such a technology shows up inside the Temple how can the AI inside the Temple use the bombardment platforms to destroy it? -
It seems that this is something that will eventually be risked since I can't see any way that anyone besides Merlin could get into the Temple under croft to access the AI and attempt to turn it off. I don't think there is anyone yet revealed inside the COGA who is in control of the bombardment platform control AI. So if Safehold is going to break the ban on technological advancement in order to confront the Gababa someone is going to have to defeat the bombardment control AI and that entity will likely have to be Nimue -since no one else on Safehold has the remotest idea what an AI is or how to hack it.
There's a Key to bring up at least one system or entity under there. It may have control over the OBS. And humans can carry that in and interface with it as designed. For that matter, if it does take hacking, teaching someone isn't impossible. And in any case, we can't hold Merlin to standards of behavior that assume he knows that he's a character in a book that, by narrative rules, has to have a certain ending which demands that he be able safely to walk in and start knifing bad people and/or hack bad computers.