Reflecting Upon RTH -- SPOILER THREAD

Astelon wrote:

n7axw wrote:Imagine, for example, dragons soaring high enough above an advancing Sharonian army to be out of range of its artillery and drop crystals with explosive spells powerful enough to level a city.

The problem here is that Arcana has shown no capacity to make delayed activation spells that powerful. In fact the only delayed activation spells we have seen are grenades and the Arcanan version of landmines. Furthermore at Fort Salby the engineer who demoed the forts walls was killed by falling debris. The text even indicates it wasn't an unusual occurrence in demo work.

We can draw one of two conclusions from this:
1. Arcana has complete disregard for their own trained (and somewhat rare) personnel.
2. Arcana is having difficulty with delayed activation spellware for spells above a level of power.

The text indicates conclusion one is not likely, so I am speculate that it is the second. The second conclusion also explains why both armies were destroyed in the only mention of mass destruction spells being used (although it may have been made impossible for the losing army to withdraw).

I drew a 3rd and 4th possible conclusions from those same facts.
3. A delay triggered spells may not have any adjustability.

The demo spell wasn't just trying to randomly blow something up; it was trying to create a practical breach in the walls; which takes more a random big explosion. The necessity to correctly place, and then tune/adjust the spell so it completes its creatively controlled demolition may take hands on gift.

4. Arcana's practice may be assuming rapid and effective counter-spells to be employed. We know spellware exists to find the landmine style "trap spells". It's possible they use no delay on their demolition spells not because they can't add a delay feature; but because they expect the spell wielding other side to be able to hit it with a disarm spell if given noticeable time between setting and triggering the spell.



I'll also note that we don't know how powerful their landmine style trap spells get; so it may be premature to assume they top out an anti-personnel landmine level. After all on Earth people also build anti-tank and, later, nuclear land mines!?!. We do know that they have the cut at Trailsum rigged for demolition; and I got the impression those are remote or delay triggered spells; not engineers camping out along the walls waiting to blow them. If so, delay or trap triggered spells capable of collapsing walls of a hard-rock excavation are pretty damned powerful...

Actually, the conclusions people are drawing here rather exceed the evidence.

A contact-triggered mine is _not_ a delayed activation device, although I can understand why it looks like one. It is active from the moment it is laid and the safety device pulled. Once active, it does sit and wait for a trigger event, but that doesn't mean it's not active, and likely to stay that way for a century - that's why the damned things are so freaking difficult to get rid of when you don't want them anymore.

Similarly, there's no evidence that trap spells are delayed: the trigger component of the spellware will be active from the moment the trap is set - and may likewise remain so for decades, although I certainly hope the Arcanans had the intelligence to include a deactivation command. This has two implications: first, presumably, the same sorts of triggers should be possible for demolition spells that have been emplaced ahead of time, so mining the Cut isn't really that challenging. Second, there's reason to think that the trigger spells would not be inactivated by passage through a portal, and there are all sorts of conditions that can be used to set them off after they've been chucked through, so, again, there really shouldn't be any challenge in creating artillery warheads.

Of course, there are a couple of gotchas, too. One is that the portal won't block or diminish the physical effects of the weapon - something that is likely to get quite a few Arcanans singed the first few times, since they clearly haven't thought seriously about this, and they "know" that magical weapons don't work through portals. Like the old joke about the nuclear hand-grenade, you have to have a delivery system with enough range that you can actually use the thing. Another is that, while there's good evidence that the trigger spellware won't be inactivated by the transit, there's also some evidence that complex spells don't necessarily make the trip gracefully. And weapons that premature aren't - usually, at least - much better than weapons that don't function at all.

Astelon wrote:First a note on Arcanan delayed activations spells. The existence of grenades seems to indicate that it is possible to do, but Arcana is still accepting the deaths of Gifted engineers to do demo work (the one that blew the hole on Fort Salby's walls died from falling debris). That indicates they can't do it in those cases. It might be a limitation on the amount of energy to be released, or maybe a control issue, but in either case it looks as if Arcana doesn't have a concept for bombs. Whether they can develop it is another matter, but it might not even be possible for their technology.

n7axw wrote:

CanoeSage wrote:
There is a reference in book 2 to "Combat trap spells" (magic landmines) which gives us another datapoint.

From Toralk's PoV
"He didn't know what the Sharonians called the devilish devices they'd buried around their defensive positions. He didn't even know—yet—how they worked, for that matter. But their effectiveness had already been made amply clear, and he expected them to have a significantly dampening effect on the ground troops' confidence.

Maybe not, he thought. I may be being overly pessimistic. It's not that much different from a combat trap spell, after all.

He watched the corpsmen making their quick yet cautious way towards the newest casualties and knew that there was, indeed, at least one very significant difference. The devices killing his men as they exploded were completely undetectable by any of the Army's trap-sweeping spells. They simply didn't register, since they didn't rely on any arcane technology at all, and that was the reason for the hesitancy he could already see in the gas-masked troops advancing cautiously through the Sharonian positions."

Nice catch, CanoeSage. That more or less establishes the possibility of delayed activation spells. Delivering them where they need to be might be a bit more dicey without a nonmagical means of delivery. I presume that Sharona would cover the Maritha side by mining it heavily as well as using razor wire, all covered by heavy artillery that can fire through the portal just fine.

Don

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Please feel free to correct me here. But

It seems to me that a spell is a spell is a spell and the thing can be set to varying degrees of power, although it might take a more powerful magister to set a more powerful spell.

How the thing is activated is a different subject. You could have time delayed, contact, trip wire or other types of activation. But that wouldn't be saying anything about the spell itself or how strong it is.

Right or wrong??

Don

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Louis R wrote:
<snip>

so, again, there really shouldn't be any challenge in creating artillery warheads.

<snip>

Except if that is so, how come no Sharonian has ever done so? The fact that they have doctrine for defending a portal suggests they have thought about the possibility of someone attacking through one (though I'm not sure they have ever had to use their doctrine before). After all, conceptually speaking, a contact-fused shell is just a land mine you have thrown at someone. If they have land mines (I can't remember myself) it's not such a big mental leap.

The Sharonans do have explosive shells.
They have found them effective against dragons,
for example defending Fort Salby.

HTM

Randomiser wrote:

Louis R wrote:
<snip>

so, again, there really shouldn't be any challenge in creating artillery warheads.

<snip>

Except if that is so, how come no Sharonian has ever done so? The fact that they have doctrine for defending a portal suggests they have thought about the possibility of someone attacking through one (though I'm not sure they have ever had to use their doctrine before). After all, conceptually speaking, a contact-fused shell is just a land mine you have thrown at someone. If they have land mines (I can't remember myself) it's not such a big mental leap.

Randomiser wrote:

Louis R wrote:
<snip>

so, again, there really shouldn't be any challenge in creating artillery warheads.

<snip>

Except if that is so, how come no Sharonian has ever done so? The fact that they have doctrine for defending a portal suggests they have thought about the possibility of someone attacking through one (though I'm not sure they have ever had to use their doctrine before). After all, conceptually speaking, a contact-fused shell is just a land mine you have thrown at someone. If they have land mines (I can't remember myself) it's not such a big mental leap.

They also have land-mines, which Arcanans cannot detect as trap-spells.

Astelon wrote:
The problem here is that Arcana has shown no capacity to make delayed activation spells that powerful. In fact the only delayed activation spells we have seen are grenades and the Arcanan version of landmines. Furthermore at Fort Salby the engineer who demoed the forts walls was killed by falling debris. The text even indicates it wasn't an unusual occurrence in demo work.

We can draw one of two conclusions from this:
1. Arcana has complete disregard for their own trained (and somewhat rare) personnel.
2. Arcana is having difficulty with delayed activation spellware for spells above a level of power.

The text indicates conclusion one is not likely, so I am speculate that it is the second. The second conclusion also explains why both armies were destroyed in the only mention of mass destruction spells being used (although it may have been made impossible for the losing army to withdraw).

We also have to acknowledge that Arcana has mandated the destruction of all data and spell ware involving spells of mass destruction. Unless some group (like the Shakira) want to admit they still have it, then it will likely take some time to reproduce the necessary research (maybe years).

I do not expect that we will see spells of mass destruction implemented before some semblance of sanity is restored. The Shakira might use them to in an attempt to take over, but I suspect they will decide to remain hidden and work from the shadows than take chances in a complete destruction scenario.

I believe that we are likely to see a stand off, and uneasy truce between Sharona and Arkana. Fore that to happen each side would have to learn what is actually happening at the front, and the potential for that has already been put in place by the authors.

Remember that there existed a class of destructive spell forbidden to Arkanans and Mythlothians as well. The game on the non-Sharona side is to takeover and put the Mythlothians in charge. The Sharonians have been underestimated by the Shakira and now have lost Hells Gate.

Sunlord Markham had read the agreement about the New Empire and accepted his Crown Prine. The Agreement made Everyone A Subject to the New Emperor of Sharona so anyone trying to change the Regency is a TRAITOR!

dwileye13 wrote:

Astelon wrote:
The problem here is that Arcana has shown no capacity to make delayed activation spells that powerful. In fact the only delayed activation spells we have seen are grenades and the Arcanan version of landmines. Furthermore at Fort Salby the engineer who demoed the forts walls was killed by falling debris. The text even indicates it wasn't an unusual occurrence in demo work.

We can draw one of two conclusions from this:
1. Arcana has complete disregard for their own trained (and somewhat rare) personnel.
2. Arcana is having difficulty with delayed activation spellware for spells above a level of power.

The text indicates conclusion one is not likely, so I am speculate that it is the second. The second conclusion also explains why both armies were destroyed in the only mention of mass destruction spells being used (although it may have been made impossible for the losing army to withdraw).

We also have to acknowledge that Arcana has mandated the destruction of all data and spell ware involving spells of mass destruction. Unless some group (like the Shakira) want to admit they still have it, then it will likely take some time to reproduce the necessary research (maybe years).

I do not expect that we will see spells of mass destruction implemented before some semblance of sanity is restored. The Shakira might use them to in an attempt to take over, but I suspect they will decide to remain hidden and work from the shadows than take chances in a complete destruction scenario.

I believe that we are likely to see a stand off, and uneasy truce between Sharona and Arkana. Fore that to happen each side would have to learn what is actually happening at the front, and the potential for that has already been put in place by the authors.

Remember that there existed a class of destructive spell forbidden to Arkanans and Mythlothians as well. The game on the non-Sharona side is to takeover and put the Mythlothians in charge. The Sharonians have been underestimated by the Shakira and now have lost Hells Gate.

Sunlord Markham had read the agreement about the New Empire and accepted his Crown Prine. The Agreement made Everyone A Subject to the New Emperor of Sharona so anyone trying to change the Regency is a TRAITOR!

This all deserves a yes, but...

Yes it is all true, but... there isn't going to be anything simple about any of it. On Arcana, the Olderhans are sniffing a plot, but it will be a near run thing to thwart the plot before it is implemented. On Sharona, Chava is stll in the loose, perhaps assembling an army to counter the Caliraths at the same time Ternathia is sending its own armies to the front.

Interesting times indeed. The good guys win, but not without some high risk tension as the plot thickens.

Don

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n7axw wrote:
This all deserves a yes, but...

Yes it is all true, but... there isn't going to be anything simple about any of it. On Arcana, the Olderhans are sniffing a plot, but it will be a near run thing to thwart the plot before it is implemented. On Sharona, Chava is stll in the loose, perhaps assembling an army to counter the Caliraths at the same time Ternathia is sending its own armies to the front.

Interesting times indeed. The good guys win, but not without some high risk tension as the plot thickens.

Don

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Good Lord, Don. You have just given the description of the majority of good novels. The art is in the details and we are trying to discuss David and Joelle's artistry here.

PeterZ wrote:

n7axw wrote:
This all deserves a yes, but...

Yes it is all true, but... there isn't going to be anything simple about any of it. On Arcana, the Olderhans are sniffing a plot, but it will be a near run thing to thwart the plot before it is implemented. On Sharona, Chava is stll in the loose, perhaps assembling an army to counter the Caliraths at the same time Ternathia is sending its own armies to the front.

Interesting times indeed. The good guys win, but not without some high risk tension as the plot thickens.

Don

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Good Lord, Don. You have just given the description of the majority of good novels. The art is in the details and we are trying to discuss David and Joelle's artistry here.

Yep. Agreed on both counts...

Don

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