How To Convert entire populace

indeed yes. to be honest given their firepower and expected multi decade mission's that they were happy picketing semi distant stars and didn't spend some more time on trying to track the problem to its source.

The 4th Imperium doesn't seem to have had access to the information they needed to do more than flounder around. If the 3rd captured the data, it didn't make it as far as Birhat before the end - and I'm inclined to doubt that they managed it at all. Recall that the info that must have come from face-to-face encounters was preserved from the _2nd_, who may even have gotten it from non-human survivors of an earlier Great Visit, although if that was the case Dahak didn't know anything about it.

In fact, thinking about it, I suspect that it was the fact that they looked in more-or-less the place that they _thought_ the Acuultani came from, without finding any, that was the first chink in their belief. Not being quite sure that there was anything to find, and with no idea where to look for it [other than "East"], but reasonably confident in their ability to hold off an attack, they settled back to wait and see what happened. Which was nothing. And continued to be nothing, for long enough that the 4th Imperium decided that there must not be anything _to_ happen anymore.

Since the Gbaba aren't sweeping out of Galactic East at steadily increasing intervals, Safehold will know exactly where to look for them. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the first recontact with them wasn't in the form of some idiot going "Nonsense! Wait until we come out of hyper, and you'll see for yourself that there's noth... Oh, oh!"

Dauntless wrote:indeed yes. to be honest given their firepower and expected multi decade mission's that they were happy picketing semi distant stars and didn't spend some more time on trying to track the problem to its source.

Louis R wrote:The 4th Imperium doesn't seem to have had access to the information they needed to do more than flounder around. If the 3rd captured the data, it didn't make it as far as Birhat before the end - and I'm inclined to doubt that they managed it at all. Recall that the info that must have come from face-to-face encounters was preserved from the _2nd_, who may even have gotten it from non-human survivors of an earlier Great Visit, although if that was the case Dahak didn't know anything about it.

In fact, thinking about it, I suspect that it was the fact that they looked in more-or-less the place that they _thought_ the Acuultani came from, without finding any, that was the first chink in their belief. Not being quite sure that there was anything to find, and with no idea where to look for it [other than "East"], but reasonably confident in their ability to hold off an attack, they settled back to wait and see what happened. Which was nothing. And continued to be nothing, for long enough that the 4th Imperium decided that there must not be anything _to_ happen anymore.

Since the Gbaba aren't sweeping out of Galactic East at steadily increasing intervals, Safehold will know exactly where to look for them. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the first recontact with them wasn't in the form of some idiot going "Nonsense! Wait until we come out of hyper, and you'll see for yourself that there's noth... Oh, oh!"

It wasn't so much that the 4th Imperium decided that nothing further was going to happen. Dahak was on picket duty waiting for the Acuultani, after all. But large numbers of people including members of Dahaks crew no longer believed because the wait was so long...

Don

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I see what you're saying, but I would argue that when essentially the entire population has come to a conclusion, that is what the society has decided, regardless of what official policy may be. A disjunction that is likely one of the roots of the civil war. As cause, not just a necessary condition.

[it occurs to me that I'd rather like to see an essay -_not_ a story - about that war sometime]

n7axw wrote:It wasn't so much that the 4th Imperium decided that nothing further was going to happen. Dahak was on picket duty waiting for the Acuultani, after all. But large numbers of people including members of Dahaks crew no longer believed because the wait was so long...

Don

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Louis R wrote:I see what you're saying, but I would argue that when essentially the entire population has come to a conclusion, that is what the society has decided, regardless of what official policy may be. A disjunction that is likely one of the roots of the civil war. As cause, not just a necessary condition.

[it occurs to me that I'd rather like to see an essay -_not_ a story - about that war sometime]

n7axw wrote:It wasn't so much that the 4th Imperium decided that nothing further was going to happen. Dahak was on picket duty waiting for the Acuultani, after all. But large numbers of people including members of Dahaks crew no longer believed because the wait was so long...

Don

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We really have no way of knowing what most of the population thought. We only know from textev that a certain percentage of people had given up on the Achuultani. We also know that a certain percentage still believed. We don't know which group was larger, only that there was no longer a consensus of belief.

Don

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True enough, but don't forget that that textev applies to a period approximately 3,000 years before the civil war. As Ninhursag concluded, disbelief must have become general by the time it started: if there had been even a substantial minority who still truly anticipated the Acuultani coming back, it is reasonable to think that they would have volunteered for Fleet service in numbers large enough to be a very large majority of its personnel - and they wouldn't have been very interested in seeing resources diverted into a civil war. And probably even less interested in fighting in one.



We really have no way of knowing what most of the population thought. We only know from textev that a certain percentage of people had given up on the Achuultani. We also know that a certain percentage still believed. We don't know which group was larger, only that there was no longer a consensus of belief.

Don

-[/quote]

Louis R wrote:True enough, but don't forget that that textev applies to a period approximately 3,000 years before the civil war. As Ninhursag concluded, disbelief must have become general by the time it started: if there had been even a substantial minority who still truly anticipated the Acuultani coming back, it is reasonable to think that they would have volunteered for Fleet service in numbers large enough to be a very large majority of its personnel - and they wouldn't have been very interested in seeing resources diverted into a civil war. And probably even less interested in fighting in one.



We really have no way of knowing what most of the population thought. We only know from textev that a certain percentage of people had given up on the Achuultani. We also know that a certain percentage still believed. We don't know which group was larger, only that there was no longer a consensus of belief.

Don

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[/quote]

I was thinking about matters at the time of mutiny.

For 3000 years later, I would agree that what you have described would be a normal logical progression.

Don

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Not that I want to be a spoilsport or forum cop or anything like that but I think your discussion has kinda wandered of forum topic.

Now to get it back inside the forum [note to Keith - written before your post appeared :~]

Whoever [and i admit i can't recall who brought it up] it was who raised this as a potential problem for Safehold does have a point. However, there are some key differences. First is the much shorter time span involved: the Gbaba are going to be 1-2 millenia in the past, not 10. Second, the way Operation Ark was set up - assuming that the Peis squirreled away copies of the relevant data - Safehold knows everything the Federation knew. [Although, oddly, the 4th Imperium did have some notion of what the Acuultani called themselves while the TF didn't know the same for the Gbaba.] That makes the threat much more concrete and quantifiable. Finally, anyone on Safehold who wants to put themselves to the trouble will be able to discuss the Gbaba with an eyewitness to the destruction of the Terran Federation. The reason the 4th Imperium existed at all was that Birhat never actually saw the Acuultani, and it seems to have been far-enough off the beaten path not to be getting regular intelligence updates, either. That leaves the typical Safeholder with 6 degrees of separation from the Gbaba, not 6,000.

Now, if the decision is made to let sleeping Gbaba lie, that immediacy will eventually be lost, meaning that the decision could well come back to haunt them in 5-6,000 years. Even so, the historical record will be there, so the tale of the Gbaba will always be something more like the Napoleonic Wars than the Volsunga Saga.

n7axw wrote:

Louis R wrote:True enough, but don't forget that that textev applies to a period approximately 3,000 years before the civil war. As Ninhursag concluded, disbelief must have become general by the time it started: if there had been even a substantial minority who still truly anticipated the Acuultani coming back, it is reasonable to think that they would have volunteered for Fleet service in numbers large enough to be a very large majority of its personnel - and they wouldn't have been very interested in seeing resources diverted into a civil war. And probably even less interested in fighting in one.



We really have no way of knowing what most of the population thought. We only know from textev that a certain percentage of people had given up on the Achuultani. We also know that a certain percentage still believed. We don't know which group was larger, only that there was no longer a consensus of belief.

Don

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I was thinking about matters at the time of mutiny.

For 3000 years later, I would agree that what you have described would be a normal logical progression.

Don

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Keith_w wrote:Not that I want to be a spoilsport or forum cop or anything like that but I think your discussion has kinda wandered of forum topic.

Yeah, it did, although the comparison between Safehold and the Gbaba and the 4th Imperium waiting on the Achuultani was there.

Don

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