Possible way to take out the OBS

Dilandu wrote:The Church itself didn't have any high-tech in comission and they didn't use it to control the situation.

Quibble: The Temple itself is a "Miraculous" high-tech device, filled with "Miraculous" high-tech devices. The fact that the Church Hierarchy has forgotten the "high-tech" part of that description is irrelevant.

We know nothing about the other candidate(s) that were available for command, nor how the final selection was made. We do know, from David's infordumps, that Operation Ark was planned under the strictest security and paranoia; and furthermore, that the people alive at the time were all traumatized by their looming genocide to one degree or another. It's requires no great speculation to think that, under the circumstances, Langhorne passed muster because he kept himself sufficiently under wraps during the selection process, and that the planners wanted someone who could definitely keep technology restricted for the proscribed period (as opposed to someone who wasn't careful enough). Remember, not even the conspirators were certain Langhorne was going to go off the rails. They were hedging their bets when they decided to make Nimue's PICA disappear, but that uncertainty means that Langhorne could just as easily not been off his rocker and followed the original mission plan.

In short, Langhorne could have easily deceived the operational planners on Earth in order to grab the command slot.

Ok playing devils advocate here. How do we know the TRUE original plans for Operation ARK? All we know comes from the memories that Niume and what Pei shares with us in OAR. What if the original plan was to do just as Langhorn set up to do, and the few people who thought otherwise were a small group set about to change the plan to help humanity thrive and not just hide forever. The PICA was placed on a ship and then lost while the owner transferred ships. They broke the laws of PICA's to get their plan to work. How do we know that Pei was not truly trying to undermine the TURE plans of the ARK missions and try to get humanity back into space?

Only intellectuals went with Pei's plan. True thinkers of an end game. Those with Langhorn were just scared of genocide and wanted to hide and let their kids have a chance not seeing the big picture of what total isolation would do to human kind. I guess what I am trying to say is we know what would be most rational to us, but the original plan was close to what Langhorn did that no one argued the few changes he did to keep humans in the dark. Only those who were in the resistance movement would be offended by it.

History is written by the winners. Here we have information given to us by the looser. The looser is trying to rewrite history. Human kind lost the war with the Gbaba. Only if they go back to fight them can the results be changed. The human race is dead unless they go back and retake Earth. Otherwise the Safehold human race has a retarded growth and it too will shrivel up and die when the first alien species makes contact.

mhicks wrote:Ok playing devils advocate here. How do we know the TRUE original plans for Operation ARK? All we know comes from the memories that Niume and what Pei shares with us in OAR. What if the original plan was to do just as Langhorn set up to do, and the few people who thought otherwise were a small group set about to change the plan to help humanity thrive and not just hide forever. The PICA was placed on a ship and then lost while the owner transferred ships. They broke the laws of PICA's to get their plan to work. How do we know that Pei was not truly trying to undermine the TURE plans of the ARK missions and try to get humanity back into space?

Only intellectuals went with Pei's plan. True thinkers of an end game. Those with Langhorn were just scared of genocide and wanted to hide and let their kids have a chance not seeing the big picture of what total isolation would do to human kind. I guess what I am trying to say is we know what would be most rational to us, but the original plan was close to what Langhorn did that no one argued the few changes he did to keep humans in the dark. Only those who were in the resistance movement would be offended by it.

History is written by the winners. Here we have information given to us by the looser. The looser is trying to rewrite history. Human kind lost the war with the Gbaba. Only if they go back to fight them can the results be changed. The human race is dead unless they go back and retake Earth. Otherwise the Safehold human race has a retarded growth and it too will shrivel up and die when the first alien species makes contact.

The TRUE original plans are the ones posited by David Weber in the infodump graciously made available by Duckk via that link he made available a few posts back. I doubt that David's literary characters are going to hide much from him...

Don

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Langhorne didn't 'somehow' come into command - he was selected by the mission planners. How the decision was made, and who the alternatives were, we aren't told, although you can take it for granted that it was largely a matter of political horse-trading. Once in place, Langhorne would have had a lot of influence over who the senior staff were and how they were assigned, so getting people like Bedard and Chihiro in place to help wouldn't have been a serious challenge.

As for your contention that the enclaves would inevitably become corrupt, which is an assumption that does have some basis in the historical record, you simply aren't taking the time-scale into account. That kind of cultural shift takes generations [10-20, typically], and the enclaves wouldn't _have_ generations. In fact, the original plan envisaged that some of the _1st_ generation crew would still be around at the end of the Dark Age, and that the people actually running the show would have been raised by people with living memories of Operation Ark and committed, more than often enough, to making it work. Unless the original crew had actively inculcated the attitudes you are positing in their children and grandchildren they couldn't become widespread enough to matter in the time allowed.

Dilandu wrote:

Duckk wrote:
I would have bolded the whole thing for emphasis, but that would render the act meaningless. Langhorne has never been remotely close to what the mission planners intended for Operation Ark, period.

Well, assuming the fact that Langhorne somehow came into the overall command and moreover - was able to convert a good part of other high-placed - it seems that the mission planners didn't do job really well.

Oops, missed the info dump from RFC. That does make sense.

It makes you wonder how so many people could follow his new marching orders, if the new orders were so far off from the original mission they all singed up for.

The OBS was small enough o fit in Himilcar and was launched in secret... so it can't be that big. I have always wondered if there was more than one OBS and they are in the gravity wells between the planet and the moon.

I might need to dive deeper into other forum strings for more info dumps from RFC.

Dilandu wrote:

Duckk wrote:So instead, they created the Church of God Awaiting - another closed off elitist group that primarily inhabits a high tech enclave. Your conclusion is contradictory with your premise.

No. You didn't understood the difference. The Church itself didn't have any high-tech in comission and they didn't use it to control the situation. Basically the Church is "everyone equival" scenario, where the controlling party - i.e. the Church - couldn't abuse their exclusive access to high-tech either (because they didn't have any)

Just compare the situations:

1) Dr. Pei scenario - the limited high-tech groups that control the low-tech outsiders and limit the avaliable technology.

2) Langhorne scenario - the low-tech "outsiders" controlled THEMSELVES and limit the avaliable technology by themselves.

The first scenario is pretty prone to corruption, abuse of power and elitarian thinking. Bascially, no one could even guarantee, that the high-tech elite would EVER decide to share their knowlege with others. Just imagine the situation - the techno-aristocracy rule for centuries, their position is highly privileged, and then someone would decide "well, it was great times, but you know, maybe we should share our knowlege with
vulgar herd outside?" I really doubt that this would work well.

On the other hand, the Church model are MUCH more predictable in long therms. There is no abuse of high-tech power in Langhorne model - because no one have acsess to the high-tech. And when we decided to change the model, all we need is just to make "Divine Revelation" and tell them "Praise, mortals! The God Allmighty in his divine visdom decided that Proscription must be lifted and more knowlege must became avaliable to everyone! And anyone who said otherwise is heretic!"

This is a long reply, so apologies in advance.

The idea of enclaves abusing their access to technology is interesting, but highly improbable for a number of reasons. And consequently, the idea that Langhorne chose his path for this reason is also highly unlikely.

First, talking about changes over centuries isn’t as significant as it would seem when you’re talking about individuals whose lifespans are measured in centuries. What you’re really talking about is mere handful of generations, with large numbers of the first generation (the command crew itself) still alive. And the definition of a generation would likely be lengthened due to cultural changes resulting from such longevity, namely lower birth rates like we already see in industrialized societies. Aside from accidental deaths and the occasional medical casualty, the enclave’s entire population would be alive, all of whom have been exposed to the ideals of the Federation and the knowledge that the Gbaba is out there waiting for humanity to resurface. There literally wouldn’t be time for a radical shift in beliefs to occur, particularly when the command crew members are still around to correct anyone who starts to even think in that direction.

At worst, you might see a paternalistic sense of protection towards the outsiders develop. It might be condescending in a way, but that’s something you can still work with. They might “control” progress on Safehold, but it’d be a relatively benign form of control. If someone is about to upset the applecart, they can always just invite them (and their family) into the enclave. That’s a far cry from mass murder. And even if they miss something, it’s unlikely that it’d lead to electricity and an EM footprint in the time remaining before Safehold emerges from hiding. In some ways, it’d probably be beneficial to be able to latch onto a nascent scientific revolution at that point.

Second, the knowledge of the Gbaba alone and the fact that they already beat the TF with the tech the enclave has access to would be sufficient to prevent such a system from arising and becoming socially acceptable. If humanity ever wanted to take the fight to the Gbaba, or just be ready to defend themselves, they need a significant population base to support their industries and military (the TF had over 2 billion in uniform alone), colonies in multiple star systems, and a rigorous R&D program just to start. A small, high tech enclave that reigns over pre-industrial peasants is fundamentally incapable of raising the resources necessary to fight off the Gbaba or even expanding out-system. Any attempt to use the peasant population, while maintaining their control over tech, wouldn’t work. To use them, you’d have to educate them and share the same tech you want to hoard. The only alternative would be to use AIs and automation, but the TF already used those at a much greater scale alongside their population and other resources. Even then, it wasn’t enough to turn the tide against the Gbaba. It certainly wouldn’t be enough for a small enclave to do what the TF couldn’t.

A corollary to this point is the need to defend against other potential threats as well that already exist or may rise in the future. Safehold is in an entirely new, uncharted section of space. Within a relatively small sphere around Sol, they discovered ruins from a number of technic societies right in the Gbaba’s backyard that all date from the same relative time period. It’s reasonable to extrapolate from there that life is common in the galaxy. This has always bugged me a bit about Langhorne; after experiencing what happens when killer neighbors get involved, why was no one concerned about a similar species near their new home? The point here is that you need a large, educated population base to maintain the infrastructure necessary to defend yourself.

Third, the enclave would have access to the complete historical record. They’d know—in excruciating detail—just how nasty peasant rebellions can be. And a peasant rebellion would be inevitable if only through resentment. Seeing your family members die of diseases that you know could be cured would be just one example.And even with their tech advantages, there are a myriad of ways the low-tech peasants could make them bleed. At best, the enclaves would find themselves totally isolated.

Fourth, a high-tech enclave wouldn’t be a magical city with limitless power and technology to lord over others. They’d have the knowledge, yes, but they can’t use it at scale: during the low-tech hiding period, they’d be forced to work under the same restrictions as the rest of the planet to maintain a low EM footprint. Fusion energy would be out; they’d be relying on geothermal and other similar energy sources to avoid large-scale neutrino emissions detectable from space. A large city would drastically increase the chance of detection. Even just the artificial illumination at night would be clearly visible from space.

Fifth, you’re presuming that an enclave has to be a fully modern TF city. OAR suggests otherwise; the Alexandria Enclave had colonists in it and villages nearby (as evident by Jeremiah Knowles, his family, and the others Shan-wei educated with NEATs) and used technology that was significantly less advanced than the angels’ aircars.

Under the original Ark mission plan, an enclave would actually be pretty simple. You don’t need the gleaming towers of Oz. Vaults containing computer support (AIs and possibly virtual personalities), a fabrication module and supplies/stockpiles, a complete database of Terran history and knowledge, and anything else that would be helpful when it came time to bootstrap Safehold. None of that would have to be visible on the street. And an informed population that’s passed the knowledge of their mission down to their children in case they die early.

Based on the description of Alexandria, it seems like the “enclave” was more or less a regular city with libraries that kept records of the TF and Gbaba alive and maintained those supplies. In an enclave setup like that, there’s no tech imbalance in use on a daily basis that’d tempt the development of an oppressive, aristocratic regime.

Finally, if the mission planners genuinely believed this to be a possibility, they could have built in a fail-safe. Watchdog AIs could have been used to monitor an enclave’s activities and take corrective actions where necessary. But I don’t think this was ever really a concern. The enclave members would have largely been TF military personnel. Personnel who were trained to the highest of professional standards and part of a military organization with an esprit de corps developed over the course of centuries. The same people the Terran Federation trusted with starships capable of scouring life off of entire planets. They weren’t a third-rate military built on nepotism and corruption. Worrying about them taking over and abusing their power would have been like the United States worrying about the Joint Chiefs leading a military coup. A possibility, but one with such a low probability that it’s effectively meaningless.

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Now, compare this to the Church that Langhorne setup. You’re worried about a high-tech enclave abusing their technology and power, but that’s exactly what Zion is even if they mistake technology for divinity.

Just look at the Temple. It’s a massive modern complex, with all the luxuries and benefits that Terran technology could provide. They have heating and air conditioning while the poor huddle around the Temple’s vents in a futile attempt to stave off the cold of Zion’s winter. The Temple’s leadership luxuriates in the benefits of a high tech enclave, maintains the very stranglehold on Safehold that you feared an enclave might reach for, and they have the benefit of a divine imprimatur to justify their position. In that context, the Temple becomes an even more sinister force: it isolates its inhabitants from the world around them, and subtly warps their worldview as they live in a little, literal slice of the divine on Safehold.

Is the Church model predictable? Absolutely, and that’s why it never would have been an option without Langhorne’s neo-luddism and megalomania driven by the irrational belief that humanity brought the Gbaba on themselves. To be an effective means of control, the Church would have to have absolute power to enforce the Proscriptions and prevent the rise of technology. There are *countless* examples of religion being abused by secular authorities and powerful Churches/religious institutions alike for even more reasons. All under the justification that “God demands it.” The surprise isn’t that the CoGA became corrupt; it’s that even Langhorne and his supporters were able to convince themselves that—this time—things would be different. The CoGA’s corruption was inevitable. No objective mission planner would ever think it was an acceptable option for safeguarding humanity.

Finally, you suggest that it could have been used as a temporary means of control and could have been overturned by a returning angel. That’s highly unlikely, even if they were working from the original Writ in its pre-Rakurai form. Religions have a tendency to grow in unexpected directions, even one that was carefully manufactured to guide humanity in a certain direction (or stop them altogether, I suppose you could say). And after a thousand years of control, there’s a large degree of institutional momentum.

Now imagine how a new angel, commanding humanity to ignore *everything* Langhorne originally told them and embrace what has been forbidden for over a millennia, might be received. One word. “Demon!” Even without the Books of Chiriho and Schueler, the angel would be in for one hell of a tough sale. Why did God change his mind? How could an omniscient being command one thing and then need to reverse course in the future? Did God lie? Or might this new ‘angel’ be lying instead? Could it be a test of some sort?

At the very best, humanity embraces the new technology without ever really understanding it. Because why would they? The technology is divine. And things like fabrication modules really would look like magic. But there’s an even bigger problem: aside from having no scientific tradition, there’d be no reason to even wonder whether this new, divine technology might be improved. The Writ works against you here; all of the guides and suggestions just work as-is (strangling independent thought before it can emerge, as was intended). You don’t need to improve upon anything in the Writ, so why in the world would they need to improve upon this new technology? Any suggestion to the contrary would raise difficult questions, such as how God could give you technology that can be improved upon. And if that's the case, is it actually God offering this technology or...something else? Not a good train of thought, that. Best case, humanity lets the magic boxes build magic things, they go on a holy crusade against the Gbaba with their magic toys, and then they die. Oops.

At worst, the new technology and anything connected to it will become tainted. Maybe people will shy away from it “just in case.” Maybe they’ll become actively opposed to it. At that point, it’s worse than doing nothing at all because you’re going to forever tar the scientific method and technology for the future by association.

Or, perhaps even worse than that, humanity will accept the new angel’s warning about the Gbaba and go about their business as before. At that point, God has intervened multiple times to save humanity. If they Gbaba ever show up again, there’d be a pretty decent justification for the belief that he’d intervene to save them again.

In short, Operation Ark was meticulously planned at every level. Langhorne’s bright idea to use religion to permanently handicap humanity clearly wasn’t. There are so many possible—and likely, as born out by human history—problems and pitfalls to be accounted for under the approach that no planner with even an ounce of objectivity would consent to it. Langhorne’s religious creation speaks more to his own personal beliefs and psychological scarring—not to mention ego—than any genuinely objective desire to protect humanity from possible harm even if his delusions made him believe otherwise. He threw out the plan for a more complex one, one that would eventually go off the rails. And which point, humanity is gone.

Langhorne didn't 'somehow' come into command - he was selected by the mission planners. How the decision was made, and who the alternatives were, we aren't told, although you can take it for granted that it was largely a matter of political horse-trading.

This explanation always struck me as particulary weak one. What "politics" could exist in pretty small organisation of Ark project planners?! The humanity were fighting (and losing) the war for survival; the military probably have as much direct control as it could be effective, reducing the Terran civilian goverment to the basic functions. And the Ark project was a tiny, conspiracy group inside the Federation
And they found time and resources to waste on political horse-traiding?

with all respect, it would seems more probable that previous mission commander suffered some incident just before launch, and was hastly replaced with the first one who fit - I.e. Langhorne.

Again, it's not as if Langhorne was foaming at the mouth mad. His is a more cold, calculating, and (within its boundaries) rational type of megalomania. He could easily have kept his outward behavior and views acceptable to the mission planners in order to pass selection.

And as I said before, not even the conspirators knew without a doubt what Langhorne was up to. As was said in OAR, they estimated a "no more than 40% chance" that Langhorne would follow the mission parameters. So even with their own set of personal biases and emotional baggage, they could never definitively conclude that Langhorne was going to screw with the mission. And if it wasn't obvious to them under their most pessimistic thinking, then it wouldn't be obvious to the mission planners either.

Duckk wrote:Again, it's not as if Langhorne was foaming at the mouth mad. His is a more cold, calculating, and (within its boundaries) rational type of megalomania. He could easily have kept his outward behavior and views acceptable to the mission planners in order to pass selection.

And as I said before, not even the conspirators knew without a doubt what Langhorne was up to. As was said in OAR, they estimated a "no more than 40% chance" that Langhorne would follow the mission parameters. So even with their own set of personal biases and emotional baggage, they could never definitively conclude that Langhorne was going to screw with the mission. And if it wasn't obvious to them under their most pessimistic thinking, then it wouldn't be obvious to the mission planners either.

So basically they placed the future of humankind in hands of man, who they knew was unreliable.

Two possible explanations:

- Dangerous level of incompetence
- Sabotage on highest level