Diesel

Easternmystic wrote:There is also the minor fact that smog predates ICE engines. Smog fist became a major problem in the days of the coal burning steam Engines of Industrial England. So that ship has sailed.

One final point on smog, while extremely rare it is possible to have smog from entirely natural sources.

There is Smog and then there is Smog.

A 1890-ish London Pea Soup Fog (the original "Smog") was chemically different from a 1960-ish Los Angeles Smog and both are chemically different from an Alaskan Wildfire feeding a temperature inversion (aka "natural Smog")

A spectroscopic detector would be able to distinguish between types of Smog and detect the "fingerprint" of internal combustion engines. (much as "Smog Check" stations can isolate several different pollutants and check them against established limits -- if they're actually checking and not asking VW's engine computers.)

IOW, not all Smog is created equal and it should be trivial to distinguish the cause.

Easternmystic wrote:I see that you don't care about wiping out the Temple Loyalist folks down the road from the polluting Charisians who just happen to be downwind from all the pollution that the Charisian factories are producing.

If the Temple Loyalists haven't stopped the violations of the Proscriptions, then the OBS will have to do it for them. [/sarcasm]

The OBS is a computer, and it can't distinguish between "temple loyalists" and "heretics" from orbit. It can, at best, detect forbidden levels of technology beyond what the Inquisition should allow; IF the OBS can act autonomously, it is going to assume the Inquisition has failed to enforce the Proscriptions and that there are no "Temple Loyalists" left before it acts.

Weird Harold wrote:

Easternmystic wrote:There is also the minor fact that smog predates ICE engines. Smog fist became a major problem in the days of the coal burning steam Engines of Industrial England. So that ship has sailed.

One final point on smog, while extremely rare it is possible to have smog from entirely natural sources.

There is Smog and then there is Smog.

A 1890-ish London Pea Soup Fog (the original "Smog") was chemically different from a 1960-ish Los Angeles Smog and both are chemically different from an Alaskan Wildfire feeding a temperature inversion (aka "natural Smog")

A spectroscopic detector would be able to distinguish between types of Smog and detect the "fingerprint" of internal combustion engines. (much as "Smog Check" stations can isolate several different pollutants and check them against established limits -- if they're actually checking and not asking VW's engine computers.)

IOW, not all Smog is created equal and it should be trivial to distinguish the cause.

The primary reason for differences in smog is the source of the smog. Safehold has fire vine oil which burns in the same manner as Diesel. Fire vine oil is a common source of heating fuel in Harchong. So smog in Harchong is going to look a lot like smog from L.A.

Nothing is ever trivial when dealing with remote sensors. Extensive ground truthing is required to understand the data you are receiving. Since probes from the OBS to check things out would be of at least some interest to Merlin et. al. and we have no information regarding such probes, I think it's safe to assume that they don't exist.

Weird Harold wrote:

Easternmystic wrote:I see that you don't care about wiping out the Temple Loyalist folks down the road from the polluting Charisians who just happen to be downwind from all the pollution that the Charisian factories are producing.

If the Temple Loyalists haven't stopped the violations of the Proscriptions, then the OBS will have to do it for them. [/sarcasm]

The OBS is a computer, and it can't distinguish between "temple loyalists" and "heretics" from orbit. It can, at best, detect forbidden levels of technology beyond what the Inquisition should allow; IF the OBS can act autonomously, it is going to assume the Inquisition has failed to enforce the Proscriptions and that there are no "Temple Loyalists" left before it acts.

Except for the fact that random punishment is notoriously ineffective. If I was a temple loyalist and I saw that the Rakurai of legend took out a temple loyalist community while ignoring a nearby community that has been adopting all the latest Charisian innovations, I'd start thinking that the Rakurai is signaling it's support for Charisian progress.

Easternmystic wrote:The primary reason for differences in smog is the source of the smog. Safehold has fire vine oil which burns in the same manner as Diesel. Fire vine oil is a common source of heating fuel in Harchong. So smog in Harchong is going to look a lot like smog from L.A.

Not really. If that were true, we wouldn't all be driving low-compression gasoline engines, high-compression muscle cars would still rule the roads. (tetraethyl lead isn't the only anti-knock remedy to make high-octane gasoline.) Not to mention 1960-ish LA Smog was the result of huge numbers of gasoline engines, not Diesel engines.

High compression produces different combustion byproducts from the same fuel burned at normal atmospheric pressure.

Easternmystic wrote:Except for the fact that random punishment is notoriously ineffective. If I was a temple loyalist and I saw that the Rakurai of legend took out a temple loyalist community while ignoring a nearby community that has been adopting all the latest Charisian innovations, I'd start thinking that the Rakurai is signaling it's support for Charisian progress.

What makes you think the OBS would ignore the source of the pollution? Alexandria was not destroyed by precision strikes, it was leveled over the whole island. If the OBS acts autonomously, it is highly unlikely to engage in precision strikes on individual communities, but is likely to excise entire countries/continents.

Note I'm talking about an autonomous reaction, NOT a precision strike ordered by a command agency -- something to take out a rebellious monastery, for example. An autonomous strike would have to be on the "assumption" that the Inquisition is either unwilling or unable to correct the situation. The OBS in autonomous mode is a "Doomsday Device" and Doomsday Devices aren't built to be moderately applied.

Would the paranoid control freaks who built the OBS have trusted it with an autonomous mode?

Merlin's prudent to fear the possibility but from one point of view it's unlikely.

Expert snuggler wrote:Merlin's prudent to fear the possibility but from one point of view it's unlikely.

True. But without more info, Merlin has to assume the worst based on what could have been done rather than what is "likely." The cost of guessing wrong is too high not to be "prudent."

Weird Harold wrote:What makes you think the OBS would ignore the source of the pollution? Alexandria was not destroyed by precision strikes, it was leveled over the whole island. If the OBS acts autonomously, it is highly unlikely to engage in precision strikes on individual communities, but is likely to excise entire countries/continents.

Note I'm talking about an autonomous reaction, NOT a precision strike ordered by a command agency -- something to take out a rebellious monastery, for example. An autonomous strike would have to be on the "assumption" that the Inquisition is either unwilling or unable to correct the situation. The OBS in autonomous mode is a "Doomsday Device" and Doomsday Devices aren't built to be moderately applied.

Yeah, but that was the original version of the OBS. Based on what has been written about the current version of the OBS, it is a lot more accurate.

Keith_w wrote:Yeah, but that was the original version of the OBS. Based on what has been written about the current version of the OBS, it is a lot more accurate.

Either version -- if there IS a revision -- can be pinpoint accurate in command mode; give it a set of coordinates and a desired yield and it can comply. But that is in "command mode" where it can be precisely aimed.

Either version can't be precise enough in autonomous mode to take out precision targets; It would have to blanket the area with remote sensors and/or SNARCs and be a much more capable AI than textev suggests, almost self aware or sentient. An AI that capable would go insane long before a thousand years elapsed. (FWIW, there's no evidence that the OBS isn't insane.)

Because of the insanity problem, the OBS probably isn't "sentient" and able to make fine distinctions. IF it does have an autonomous mode, it is probably set to allow a wide margin for the Inquisition to deal with a detected violation before it prunes civilization back to a level well below what the Proscriptions allow. Without a precise command mode target, the OBS should err on the side of overkill in order to cauterized the heresy "infection."

Weird Harold wrote:

Keith_w wrote:Yeah, but that was the original version of the OBS. Based on what has been written about the current version of the OBS, it is a lot more accurate.

Either version -- if there IS a revision -- can be pinpoint accurate in command mode; give it a set of coordinates and a desired yield and it can comply. But that is in "command mode" where it can be precisely aimed.

Either version can't be precise enough in autonomous mode to take out precision targets; It would have to blanket the area with remote sensors and/or SNARCs and be a much more capable AI than textev suggests, almost self aware or sentient. An AI that capable would go insane long before a thousand years elapsed. (FWIW, there's no evidence that the OBS isn't insane.)

Because of the insanity problem, the OBS probably isn't "sentient" and able to make fine distinctions. IF it does have an autonomous mode, it is probably set to allow a wide margin for the Inquisition to deal with a detected violation before it prunes civilization back to a level well below what the Proscriptions allow. Without a precise command mode target, the OBS should err on the side of overkill in order to cauterized the heresy "infection."

I don't see that your logic follows here, Harold. There is no particular reason to assert that it wouldn't be set to automatically target precisely. In fact that would better serve the purpose of warning and setting examples than a wide dispersal sinse anyone who witnessed the target being flattened would have a better chance of understanding what the OBS was responding to.

Don

n7axw wrote:I don't see that your logic follows here, Harold. There is no particular reason to assert that it wouldn't be set to automatically target precisely. In fact that would better serve the purpose of warning and setting examples than a wide dispersal sinse anyone who witnessed the target being flattened would have a better chance of understanding what the OBS was responding to.

Don

The OBS cannot be the primary deterrent to technology advancement. It must be a "correction of last resort" in autonomous mode.

In order for it to precisely target a violation of the Proscriptions without a command mode order, it would have to be as "intelligent," or moreso, as OWL has become over the course of the series. That level of AI, constantly conscious and monitoring the surface in sufficient detail for precision strikes -- individual trains or factories, for example -- would have gone totally insane long ago.

An AI having gone insane and self-terminated would be a best-case scenario, but we have to consider a worst case scenario. That is an "AI" dumb enough to remain sane but smart enough to recognize gross violations of the Proscriptions; violations greater than the first and second lines of defense should ever allow. (Indoctrination and Inquisition are first and second.)

An AI in that range wouldn't have the resolution from space or the detailed remote spy capacity for precision strikes, and since it is a "last resort" it would be dealing with widespread Heresy that wouldn't be amenable to correction by precision strikes.

There should be no reason for the OBS to act autonomously with precision, because that level of Heresy is supposed to be dealt with either by a command mode strike or the Inquisition. It should only act autonomously when the Heresy is more widespread or longer lasting than the Inquisition is supposed to allow -- indicating a failure of the Church's Indoctrination and Inquisition enforcement.

Given those assumptions, there would be no "precision targets" to cauterize the Heresy and only a New Armageddon Reef will do.

That is the Worst Case that has to be considered and risks have to be calculated against. The OBS could always wake up and act with more constraint, but that can't be planned for or used to calculate the risk/reward balance for new technology.

Weird Harold wrote:Not really. If that were true, we wouldn't all be driving low-compression gasoline engines, high-compression muscle cars would still rule the roads. (tetraethyl lead isn't the only anti-knock remedy to make high-octane gasoline.) Not to mention 1960-ish LA Smog was the result of

After that whopper, no need to discuss this subject with you anymore.

Look up history of the gasoline engine. Same goes for diesel. Look up why early gasoline engines won over diesel engines. And why if we started over today, gasoline engines by and large would not exist. They both have the same emissions except Diesel fuel has more sulphur due to the source of the fuel and its lack of refining. More refined diesel is called Kerosene and the many grades in between. Less refined diesel is called bunker oil and before that... Crude oil.