Possible way to take out the OBS

I think this discussion is missing one obvious solution - you don't take out the OBS. You don't need to. You just have to make it so that it doesn't drop something on you when you start developing advanced tech, electricity for example. Easiest way - make certain that it doesn't have something to drop on you. It is a kinetic weapon - it needs ammunitions to shoot . You on the other hand have a whole Armageddon reef that can be safely hit as much as you want. So - give the OBS a LOT of targets - for all I know a simple radio will do the trick of calling a orbital strike. So when the platforms run out of rocks you face two scenarios - 1 it doesn't have a resupply routine - problem solved. 2 It will need to launch a supply ship - then you have to consider ways to take it out. Away from the orbital protections of the OBS it will be a lot easier. Repeat till it is done. The main problem with this method is that activating an orbital strike ( or several ) will most probably awake whatever is below the Temple, so you might want to take care of that first.

And option 3: Phone home to daddy for instructions and in turn wake up whatever sleeps under the temple - bad idea

I think there are several things we need to consider where the OBS is concerned. Langhorne's plan consisted of the people of Safehold never reaching a technological level where they could threaten the OBS and preventing the Gabba from ever discovering Safehold in the first place. So the OBS defense system probably consists of Point Defense Laser platforms with passive sensors surrounding each OBS platform which is able to detect both directed attacks and debris that threaten the OBS.

Because of this fact its unlikely the defense system consists of anything more than energy based weapons like PD Lasers, energy based weaponry would only need a Fusion reactor to power it which itself could be kept on standby for most of the time meaning the nanites in the PD system would only need the raw materials to maintain the system itself. Autocannons of missiles would have to be replenished and simple attrition from space debris would mean any PD system would need to restock much more often so to avoid that Langhorne probably kept them energy based only.

As for the OBS itself while it would use actual ammunition in the form of kinetic rods replenishing them would not be that hard. During the war with the fallen all OBS strikes were intentional so its likely that after the war the remaining members of Langhorne's crew made sure the OBS had full clips of kinetic rods and a supply of raw materials for the OBS nanites to replenish their ammunition in the event that they were forced to fire all the rods they currently have. However I think it's safe to say after the war no more OBS shots have been fired either intentionally or automatically otherwise there would at least be legends about them.

So here is what I think they should do, they have said time and again that the resources OWL in the cave are limited. However if they can get SNARCs into orbit past the OBS how hard would it be to get a batch of nanites past them. There are probably other planets in the system Safehold is located in or even an asteroid belt, how hard would it be to send out some nanites with a preprogrammed direction to collect resources and then start building things like say a small ship capable of taking out the OBS. Would take a little while sure but even if taking out the OBS would wake up TUTT having orbital superiority would prevent it from doing anything rash.

Just from what we know of the pat we can also safely assume that Langhorne's crew didn't have the ability to talk to everyone on Safehold at one time. I remember them mentioning that it would be bad if the Go4 had access to even regular radio but for Langhorne's crew in the past they didn't need the radio when they had an army of angels to physically go to all the towns and there were a lot less people back then as well. There is probably at least 1 angel under the temple but there could also be multiple either in AI or PICA form. But even if they do have fabricators a major part of having an angel in the temple is probably to give them access to the OBS directly. Remember it is only assumed that the OBS would fire on advanced technology, there has been no proof that the OBS even has a automatic firing feature. If you take out the OBS then no matter what else the TUTT might have Charis would have orbital superiority and might even be able to threaten the temple with orbital bombardment. I would like to see even an angel explain that one away.

Finally one last thing I would like to point out, Safehold has telescopes. The OBS has to be somewhere from mid to low orbit so the kinetic rods can get through the atmosphere without burning up or getting deflected off course. At this point i'm sure Charis has telescopes powerful enough to spot the OBS from the ground. All they would have to do would be to start spreading rumors about what they spotted in the sky, maybe spread some advanced telescope designs or examples around and some curious star gazer might spot them as well. Boy wouldn't that raise a lot of questions if people could actually spot the OBS and wonder what the hell it was and what it was doing up there.

At the very least they need to be able to take a look at the actual programming of the OBS,preferably before they take it out,as that would clarify a lot of questions they have,but I don't think that would be possible,unless you could slip a nannite with the equivalent of a 10 Terabyte UBS module in to obtain a copy,which then could be analysed at leisure,but how stealthy would such a nannite be?

kiradykes wrote:Finally one last thing I would like to point out, Safehold has telescopes. The OBS has to be somewhere from mid to low orbit so the kinetic rods can get through the atmosphere without burning up or getting deflected off course. At this point i'm sure Charis has telescopes powerful enough to spot the OBS from the ground. All they would have to do would be to start spreading rumors about what they spotted in the sky, maybe spread some advanced telescope designs or examples around and some curious star gazer might spot them as well. Boy wouldn't that raise a lot of questions if people could actually spot the OBS and wonder what the hell it was and what it was doing up there.

The most effective distance would have many variables, two of the major ones being are the kinetic impacters simply launched or do they have onboard drives of some type. The second variable being the time between launches. If the platforms could fire several rods at extremely close distances, the first rod will erode in the atmosphere creating an ion tube around a hard vacuum. The second rod, if close enough to the first, will ride down that tube until it starts eroding and so on. If enough rods are fired, one will hit the planet at Cee fractional speeds and you get Armageddon Reef.

The farther the platforms are from the planet, the faster the (powered)rods go and the harder the platforms are to see from the ground.

doug941 wrote:

kiradykes wrote:Finally one last thing I would like to point out, Safehold has telescopes. The OBS has to be somewhere from mid to low orbit so the kinetic rods can get through the atmosphere without burning up or getting deflected off course. At this point i'm sure Charis has telescopes powerful enough to spot the OBS from the ground. All they would have to do would be to start spreading rumors about what they spotted in the sky, maybe spread some advanced telescope designs or examples around and some curious star gazer might spot them as well. Boy wouldn't that raise a lot of questions if people could actually spot the OBS and wonder what the hell it was and what it was doing up there.

The most effective distance would have many variables, two of the major ones being are the kinetic impacters simply launched or do they have onboard drives of some type. The second variable being the time between launches. If the platforms could fire several rods at extremely close distances, the first rod will erode in the atmosphere creating an ion tube around a hard vacuum. The second rod, if close enough to the first, will ride down that tube until it starts eroding and so on. If enough rods are fired, one will hit the planet at Cee fractional speeds and you get Armageddon Reef.

The farther the platforms are from the planet, the faster the (powered)rods go and the harder the platforms are to see from the ground.

This is very similar to the High Frontier system proposed in the late 70's, early 80's. Smart, or smartly aimed, telephone poles. Still not sure why we haven't built something like that to this day. Occupying the high orbitals and using KKV's instead of nukes has long been the optimal strategy across many, many sci-fi series.

As far as taking out the OBS with ball bearing or sand or marbles for that matter, a fractional orbital lift in retrograde will give any object an impact velocity of 30-50km/second. That's 90MJ per kg at a minimum. Double the closing velocity, you go to 4x the impact energy. And lasers can only deflect with blow off impulse, they cannot destroy. Shields would be the only reasonable defense, but I'm not sure what the shielding capability/technology is. (A wedge shield like in the honorverse would shrug off a kkv inpact easily.)

But someone made the comment earlier that the OBS will be there as long as RFC needs it to be...and that is the ultimate answer...

CRC wrote:This is very similar to the High Frontier system proposed in the late 70's, early 80's. Smart, or smartly aimed, telephone poles. Still not sure why we haven't built something like that to this day. Occupying the high orbitals and using KKV's instead of nukes has long been the optimal strategy across many, many sci-fi series.

As far as taking out the OBS with ball bearing or sand or marbles for that matter, a fractional orbital lift in retrograde will give any object an impact velocity of 30-50km/second. That's 90MJ per kg at a minimum. Double the closing velocity, you go to 4x the impact energy. And lasers can only deflect with blow off impulse, they cannot destroy. Shields would be the only reasonable defense, but I'm not sure what the shielding capability/technology is. (A wedge shield like in the honorverse would shrug off a kkv inpact easily.)

But someone made the comment earlier that the OBS will be there as long as RFC needs it to be...and that is the ultimate answer...

Jerry Pournelle came up with Project Thor during the Eisenhower era when he was working at Boeing according to Wikipedia. It was the same general idea, and was referenced in Footfall.

Just wondering: instead of taking out the OBS,would it be possible to reprogram it to serve Safehold,instead of being a Damocles sword hanging over the planet waiting for it to strike,so to speak? After all we have a perfectly good orbital defense system in place,somewhat. One of those could come in handy at a later date.

CRC wrote:As far as taking out the OBS with ball bearing or sand or marbles for that matter, a fractional orbital lift in retrograde will give any object an impact velocity of 30-50km/second. That's 90MJ per kg at a minimum. Double the closing velocity, you go to 4x the impact energy. And lasers can only deflect with blow off impulse, they cannot destroy. Shields would be the only reasonable defense, but I'm not sure what the shielding capability/technology is. (A wedge shield like in the honorverse would shrug off a kkv inpact easily.)

But someone made the comment earlier that the OBS will be there as long as RFC needs it to be...and that is the ultimate answer...

Since the platforms that made up the OBS have been up there for hundreds of years, it probably is capable of making orbital adjustments. If it detect objects which it cannot intercept on a collision course, it's reasonable to assume it can probably re-adjust it's orbit to move out of the way of any dangerous objects.

I guess it's a matter of priorities. Merlin have limited time of a few years before whatever is under the temple is suppose to awake. So Merlin can either spend time and resources to take out the OBS or take out the Mother Church's grip on Safehold so that the threat of OBS have a limited impact (when the entire planet becomes pro-tech instead of anti-tech). Unless whatever under the temple is prepared to armageddon/ragnarok the entire planet and start all over with whoever survives.

I still find it entertaining that we are still discussing ways to destroy the OBS... There is absolutely no reason to do so until the Temple is under the control of the EoC. Destroying the OBS may trigger a pre-designed response that does who knows what. There is a lovely saying that asks if you poke a sleeping bear; in this case, I feel the best course of action is to simply leave it alone until you have gained control of all areas that the command crew controlled during the War of the Fallen.