Reflecting Upon RTH -- SPOILER THREAD

I was thinking about the demolition spell, warheads and the Acranan reaction to high pressures.

Could it be that Arcanan spells are not designed to generate a effect from a single point, but from a area of effect? The demolition spell destroyed a section of wall quietly. That suggests to me that force was applied to the entire section of the wall within the area of effect. Sort of like a giant hand pushing or punching.

Arcanan spells do not explode like Sharonan chemical reactions. That suggests to me that the threshold for Gifted use of spells/devices is the effects'/devices' density of force applied. That and I suppose the sheer amount of force the spell channels.

Warheads then would not explode, but define an area that force is applied to. Fireballs manifesting equally within the effected area. Poison gas materializing in the effected area and the like.

Arcanans don't deal in explosions. That means for your cruise missile, Nicholas, Arcanan magisters would have to define the area they wish to effect. That might mean knowing a bit about the target before the missile is launched. The same with any proposed bombs. The bombardier would have to set the area he wishes to apply the effects of the bomb's spell. Both might pose problems that are not inexpensively addressed. The solutions might make the mass use of missiles and bombs cost prohibitive.

brnicholas wrote:

Your question about larger missiles/projectiles is an interesting one. I tend to see it from a different angle.

If the Arcanans can make a warhead they appear to have all the other pieces for a cruise missile. The propulsion system can come from the slider cars. The spells for seeing where it is from recon crystals. The ability to make sense of the images from the image analysis spellware that has been mentioned in text. The programing for following a route from the PCs.

If they can make a warhead. They ought to be able to connect several crystals to a piece of wood and have it fly itself, possibly including right through portals, to where they want it to go boom.

Nicholas

I wonder if one of those djinns would die on Sharona.

HTM

n7axw wrote:About the only thing we know with any degree of confidence is that the closer to the other guy's home world you get the less effective your weapons will be. A spell set off in Tajvana would probably as powerful as a soap bubble, or perhaps Jathmar's rifle in Portalis. I wonder if the Sharonians have any idea of that yet.

Just thinking about that, Velvelig has some Arcanan healers in his party. I wouldn't be surprised if once his party hooks up with the army, those healers get sent to Sharona, perhaps to help Zindel only to discover that their gifts don't work...wouldn't that be frustrating. Unless they manage to make the proper connection, no one will understand that Zindel needs to be transported out to Ft Salby to get the benefit of the healer's gift.

Don

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Jonathan_S wrote: quote="brnicholas"
As for sliders not crossing portals. Would you please post the text evidence for that.

I am not denying it, I still haven't been able to read RTH so for all I know it may say that and if it does that would trump earlier works. But until you post text I must go with the evidence I have seen and Chapter 1 of Hell's Gate, when discussing portal physics, says:

"it wasn't at all uncommon to see two lines of slider cars charging into a portal on exactly opposite headings—one from the east and the other from the west—at the exact same moment on what appeared to be exactly the same track. No matter how carefully it had all been explained before a man saw it for the first time with his own eyes, he knew those two sliders had to be colliding in the universe on the other side of that portal. But, of course, they weren't. Viewed from the side in that other universe, both sliders were exploding out of the same space simultaneously . . . but headed in exactly opposite directions." /quote

That text seems quite clear that sliders can cross portals.

Nicholas /quote Heh, I'd forgotten that bit from Hell's Gate, and the authors might have too.

Here's the text from RTH that I believe Keith_w was thinking of
quote="Road to Hell: Ch 18" Of course, motics can’t cross a portal threshold any better than a slider can, and that’s going to be an ongoing problem for their owners. You’ve seen the elaborate arrangements the slider stations have for transferring passengers between coaches at a portal, but how does the owner of a private motic manage that?” He shook his head.
“I think they’ll manage it in the end,” Gadrial said confidently. “There’s been some fundamental research into purely mechanical ways of getting entire sliders across thresholds, Jas. If we can make that work, we can scale it down for motics./quote

That seems completely at odds with the description from the earlier book.

That is indeed what I was thinking of.

Jonathan_S wrote:Heh, I'd forgotten that bit from Hell's Gate, and the authors might have too.

Here's the text from RTH that I believe Keith_w was thinking of

Road to Hell: Ch 18 wrote:Of course, motics can’t cross a portal threshold any better than a slider can, and that’s going to be an ongoing problem for their owners. You’ve seen the elaborate arrangements the slider stations have for transferring passengers between coaches at a portal, but how does the owner of a private motic manage that?” He shook his head.
“I think they’ll manage it in the end,” Gadrial said confidently. “There’s been some fundamental research into purely mechanical ways of getting entire sliders across thresholds, Jas. If we can make that work, we can scale it down for motics.

That seems completely at odds with the description from the earlier book.

Thank you! I agree, it looks like a continuity change.

This also says really interesting, and really bad things, for Arcanan logistics. Since it implies that every piece of cargo moving to the front has to be manually moved across every portal threshold. That is likely to do bad things for their supply lines relative to the Sharonans who can drive trains across a portal without any problems.

Nicholas

n7axw wrote:About the only thing we know with any degree of confidence is that the closer to the other guy's home world you get the less effective your weapons will be. A spell set off in Tajvana would probably as powerful as a soap bubble, or perhaps Jathmar's rifle in Portalis. I wonder if the Sharonians have any idea of that yet.

...snipped....

Don

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Do we even know that with any confidence? Jathmar's rifle worked differently in Portalis depending on if Jathmar or an Arcanan was holding it. Would it have worked differently too if Sharonans instead of Arcanans were watching? How about if there were more Sharonans within 20 miles of where he was standing then Arcanans? If yes, will portals interfere with the observer effects?

I ask all those questions because what we know is that guns/talents/gifts get weaker as individuals move to the other sides home worlds. We don't know what will happen if large groups, like invading armies, made the same trip.

Nicholas

But we have seen relatively unaimed area of effect spells out of Arcanans. You mentioned the dragons breath weapons, infantry dragons also appear to effect everything within a certain distance of a specific point. The grenades are another example of the same principle.

A missile that flies itself to one foot underneath the main span of a Sharonan railroad bridge and then breaks into small pieces everything within 50 meters of itself is going to leave a large hole in the bridge.

Might it be too difficult/expensive to do. Yes it could, but it looks possible to me and if it is cheaper then repairing the bridge it is a net gain for Arcana.

Nicholas

PeterZ wrote:I was thinking about the demolition spell, warheads and the Acranan reaction to high pressures.

Could it be that Arcanan spells are not designed to generate a effect from a single point, but from a area of effect? The demolition spell destroyed a section of wall quietly. That suggests to me that force was applied to the entire section of the wall within the area of effect. Sort of like a giant hand pushing or punching.

Arcanan spells do not explode like Sharonan chemical reactions. That suggests to me that the threshold for Gifted use of spells/devices is the effects'/devices' density of force applied. That and I suppose the sheer amount of force the spell channels.

Warheads then would not explode, but define an area that force is applied to. Fireballs manifesting equally within the effected area. Poison gas materializing in the effected area and the like.

Arcanans don't deal in explosions. That means for your cruise missile, Nicholas, Arcanan magisters would have to define the area they wish to effect. That might mean knowing a bit about the target before the missile is launched. The same with any proposed bombs. The bombardier would have to set the area he wishes to apply the effects of the bomb's spell. Both might pose problems that are not inexpensively addressed. The solutions might make the mass use of missiles and bombs cost prohibitive.

brnicholas wrote:

Your question about larger missiles/projectiles is an interesting one. I tend to see it from a different angle.

If the Arcanans can make a warhead they appear to have all the other pieces for a cruise missile. The propulsion system can come from the slider cars. The spells for seeing where it is from recon crystals. The ability to make sense of the images from the image analysis spellware that has been mentioned in text. The programing for following a route from the PCs.

If they can make a warhead. They ought to be able to connect several crystals to a piece of wood and have it fly itself, possibly including right through portals, to where they want it to go boom.

Nicholas

brnicholas wrote:

n7axw wrote:About the only thing we know with any degree of confidence is that the closer to the other guy's home world you get the less effective your weapons will be. A spell set off in Tajvana would probably as powerful as a soap bubble, or perhaps Jathmar's rifle in Portalis. I wonder if the Sharonians have any idea of that yet.

...snipped....

Don

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Do we even know that with any confidence? Jathmar's rifle worked differently in Portalis depending on if Jathmar or an Arcanan was holding it. Would it have worked differently too if Sharonans instead of Arcanans were watching? How about if there were more Sharonans within 20 miles of where he was standing then Arcanans? If yes, will portals interfere with the observer effects?

I ask all those questions because what we know is that guns/talents/gifts get weaker as individuals move to the other sides home worlds. We don't know what will happen if large groups, like invading armies, made the same trip.

Nicholas

It is how it appears at this time. One would think that even large armies would be hugely outnumbered by demographics on an opponents world. For example an army of 100,000 would be a rounding error on a world of 10 billion. And we have no textev to suggest that the effect would be localized to where an army would be rather than generally true of that world as a whole.

So...given what textev there is my guess would be that yes, it would be true that an army's weapons on its opponent's world would not work effectively.

But you are right to point out that it is only speculation and confidence either way would be limited.

Don

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Nicholas,

I agree that self guided missiles are possible. It seems we also agree that guidance might well require seriously potent magister skills. Such skills might make either the use or the manufacture of self guided missiles expensive. TOO expensive is for DW and JP to decide.

brnicholas wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Heh, I'd forgotten that bit from Hell's Gate, and the authors might have too.

Here's the text from RTH that I believe Keith_w was thinking of

--- Road to Hell: Ch 18 --- Of course, motics can’t cross a portal threshold any better than a slider can, and that’s going to be an ongoing problem for their owners. You’ve seen the elaborate arrangements the slider stations have for transferring passengers between coaches at a portal, but how does the owner of a private motic manage that?” He shook his head.
“I think they’ll manage it in the end,” Gadrial said confidently. “There’s been some fundamental research into purely mechanical ways of getting entire sliders across thresholds, Jas. If we can make that work, we can scale it down for motics. ------
That seems completely at odds with the description from the earlier book.

Thank you! I agree, it looks like a continuity change.

This also says really interesting, and really bad things, for Arcanan logistics. Since it implies that every piece of cargo moving to the front has to be manually moved across every portal threshold. That is likely to do bad things for their supply lines relative to the Sharonans who can drive trains across a portal without any problems.

Nicholas

The odd thing is this new approach seems to imply that at least some kinds of crystal spells shut down when crossing a portal; specifically the levitation spells. But we didn't hear about issues with the hover wagons when the mixed group with those was moving towards Hell's Gate. You'd think they'd mention it if the wagons crashed to the ground and had to be re-floated each gate.

And dragons can pull floating transport pods. There's no indication those levitation spells need to be restarted each gate crossing. And even if a minorly gifted pilot can do that having the full weight of the pod briefly yank down on the dragon each gate seems, shall we say, impractical.

And we know gryphon control spells, and recon crystal spell, both work father crossing a portal because they've been running the odd recon gryphon through the gate and over to the Fort Salbey area. There are no gifted around to reset those after the gryphons fly through the gate.

And those are just active spells. PCs and accumulators don't appear to lose charge when crossing a portal.


I could see some classes of spells shutting down. But even if a set of slider cars lost propulsion as it crossed a portal it would have momentum and could get pushed be the cars still moving towards the portal. Worst case there you might have to have a gifted conductor kick the drive back on once the whole chain of slider crosses through.
But having to stop and crossroad people and supplies seems insane and not very compatible with the other instances I mentioned of spells working after crossing a portal.

(And if it were true they'd have figured out mechanical means to roll or push a slider through decades ago. Even greased wood or metal runners for the car to land on and horses with ropes to drag the car through would be vastly superior in efficiency to unloading and hand carrying the cargo across)

One more thing we agree on, which I fear I wasn't clear about in my last post. It is not clear whether or not the Arcanans can build a warhead for that missile.

As I have been thinking about it more I realized that we don't actually have any proof of a delayed activation spell. They could have gotten the grenades by setting the fireball to go off immediately when the grenade is activated and then expand. If the expansion was set up right, read exponential and the time interval for doubling shortening exponentially as well, I think they could get a fireball that takes five seconds to get to the size of the grenade and then appears to instantly become 5-10 meters in diameter. Which is the behavior we observed. No delayed activation, just growth.

The question to which I don't think we have an answer at this time is if the type of delayed activation spells required for bombs or missiles are something the Arcanans have figured out in the last couple of centuries and never applied because there wasn't any reason to or if they are something they can't do.

In other words are the Arcanans in the same position with bombs that Sharonans are with guns (under wartime R&D pressure they are going to get lots better really fast) or are they in the same position as Sharonans are with hand held computers (not going to happen any time soon).

Nicholas

PeterZ wrote:Nicholas,

I agree that self guided missiles are possible. It seems we also agree that guidance might well require seriously potent magister skills. Such skills might make either the use or the manufacture of self guided missiles expensive. TOO expensive is for DW and JP to decide.