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(SPOILERS) Hot air ballons?

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(SPOILERS) Hot air ballons?
Post by cawest   » Mon May 02, 2016 3:26 pm

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just finished the latest book...the range and Line of site (LOS) issue made remember something. your FO's are only going to be able to see only so far.


what about observation Balloons. they were flying in 1794 and were also used in the ACW till WW1.

how would they get the info to the gunners blow?

signal flags, flashing lights or when/if telegraph.
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Re: Hot air ballons?
Post by ksandgren   » Mon May 02, 2016 10:57 pm

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Try using the advanced search tool for hot air balloons and see page after page of several previous threads that discuss this to death.
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Re: Hot air ballons?
Post by Keith_w   » Tue May 03, 2016 6:53 am

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ksandgren wrote:Try using the advanced search tool for hot air balloons and see page after page of several previous threads that discuss this to death.


and yet, like a vampire, it always resurrects to bite us in the ...
--
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
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Re: Hot air ballons?
Post by Dauntless   » Tue May 03, 2016 12:26 pm

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it is the safehold version of "if you just reffited those SLN SDs" which seems to appear every couple of months in the honorverse section
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Re: Hot air ballons?
Post by Castenea   » Tue May 03, 2016 4:54 pm

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Dauntless wrote:it is the safehold version of "if you just reffited those SLN SDs" which seems to appear every couple of months in the honorverse section

A few of the earlier threads we hashed it out, came out with 2-3 ideas of how to use Hot Air Balloons that might actually work as intended, then the idea has gone no further due to authorial non-comment. So this idea is one that will require text-ev to become anything more than a hobbyhorse for new posters.
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Re: Hot air ballons?
Post by C. O. Thompson   » Sun May 08, 2016 11:45 am

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Keith_w wrote:
ksandgren wrote:Try using the advanced search tool for hot air balloons and see page after page of several previous threads that discuss this to death.


and yet, like a vampire, it always resurrects to bite us in the ...


Be kind... this forum has more threads than a Victoria Secrets store. :oops: maybe that is not the best example but... hopefully you get my drift.

I also was one of the speculators that thought that lighter than air ships could be built by the tech base (with the inclusion of Owl's guidance)and that it could serve as a platform to pinpoint attack the temple (or at least the rocket factory) and/or the Mighty Host

Getting near time to reread the Safehold series in anticipation of the next book... my recall was that the next Honor Harrington book will precede the release of the next book in this series so... I have been working my way through that first.
Just my 2 ₡ worth
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Re: Hot air ballons?
Post by n7axw   » Sun May 08, 2016 9:32 pm

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Dauntless wrote:it is the safehold version of "if you just reffited those SLN SDs" which seems to appear every couple of months in the honorverse section


Hasn't anyone poured holy water over those SD threads and driven a stake through their heart yet?

Don

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When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: Hot air ballons?
Post by Dauntless   » Mon May 09, 2016 9:27 am

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well they are dormant at the mo, but the odds are good someone with free time over the summer will bring one back.
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Re: Hot air ballons?
Post by Jonathan_S   » Tue May 10, 2016 2:27 pm

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Dauntless wrote:it is the safehold version of "if you just reffited those SLN SDs" which seems to appear every couple of months in the honorverse section

To be fair tethered hot air observation balloons are way less resource intensive, and noticeably more useful, than refitting SLN SDs. :D
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Re: Hot air ballons?
Post by evilauthor   » Tue May 10, 2016 5:22 pm

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IIRC, the balloon idea basically boils down to the following:

1) It is well within Charis' technical abilities to make. The Church's too, although it'd be much more expensive for them because of their over-reliance on manual labor for making things like steel-thistle silk and whatnot.

2) The real question is whether the Writ (or at least the Writ as interpreted by most of Safehold) forbids balloon use through disallowing flight. Certain powers are reserved for the "Angels" and flight is almost certainly one of those.

3) With SNARC surveillance and a huge tech lead, Charis quite simply doesn't need balloons. Which means that whether they get balloons or not depends entirely on their willingness to fight the resulting religious battle involved to make balloons acceptable. In the middle of an actual religious war, they'd probably decide (if they haven't already) the distraction of such a fight isn't worth the minuscule gains.

4) We all know how Clyntahn would react to the idea of ballooons. If it can't be used to DIRECTLY attack enemy forces (or just kill people), ANY innovation is going to be a tough sell to the Inquisition. An innovation that directly violates common interpretation of the Writ is going to be even harder to sell to the Church side, and not just to the Inquisition.
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