End Of Safehold or end of the first series?

well safehold is not manticore (or as far we know they aren't) so they don't have 3 planets to grow people on and several very rich asteroid belts to develop industry etc, so they will need to establish other colonies and develop them before they will likely be ready to take to the fight to the gabba.

so while they might set up a back up plan(safehold II) first they will also be creating normal colonies. not sure if they will use TF tech to terraform other worlds within the system (like a mars type if they have it, or moons of a big guess giant) or if in the interests of not putting eggs in one basket they will be external though not in the direction they will have sent Ark II

Dauntless wrote:so while they might set up a back up plan(safehold II) first they will also be creating normal colonies.

It wouldn't surprise me much if Safehold ends up having a Grayson-style "War of the Faithful" and has to establish a "Masada" colony (or colonies) composed of Temple Loyalists who refuse to abandon the Writ.

Does anyone think sheer man/woman power might be a problem? I mean you will need a very large population for support.

Maybe

Peter2 wrote:. . . but I really do hope that the default attitude of that "somebody stronger" is not hostile. Otherwise it might be a case of "out of the frying pan into the fire"!
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Definitely a possibility. If it wasn't for the authorial statement that we'd see the Gbaba again, I'd be speculating that the Safeholdians would be all geared up to crush the Gbaba with overwhelming force... then discover that the Gbaba were already wiped out by someone higher-tech and just as mean.

Darcwar wrote:Does anyone think sheer man/woman power might be a problem? I mean you will need a very large population for support.

Maybe

Given how far from Safehold the Gbaba/TF space was, by the time they meet the Gbaba again the "Safehold Federation" should be far larger than Gbaba space - assuming they don't specifically go hunt the Gbaba early.

I'm finding the notion of a "Safehold 2" planet intriguing.

The context of estabishing such a planet would be entirely different this round. Such a planet would be separated from the next version of the TF by distance and isolation rather than by the lack of tech. You don't want to perpetrate the Langhorne/Bedard myths by including TL disidents....

Establishing "Safehold 2" would not be a last ditch desperation effort like Operstion Ark, but a carefully thought out "insurance policy" taken out well prior to any encounter with the Gbaba. What else might we say about it?

Another interesting question that I've never seen discussed has to do with the neighborhood around Safehold. Could it be that there is another potential threat out there much closer and more immediate than the Gbaba? What a plot twist that would be!

Don

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Weird Harold wrote:

Dauntless wrote:so while they might set up a back up plan(safehold II) first they will also be creating normal colonies.

It wouldn't surprise me much if Safehold ends up having a Grayson-style "War of the Faithful" and has to establish a "Masada" colony (or colonies) composed of Temple Loyalists who refuse to abandon the Writ.

How would you get them there? Admitting that other worlds exist and embracing the tech to get there is pure heresy. Can't go interstellar with steampunk outside of certain fantasy novels. The CoGA is too tightly bound with Safehold itself to survive any transplant.

A backup would be seen as a good idea, but for it to truly be a failsafe option it would have to be sent as far from Safehold (at least) as Safehold was from the TF. Not a trivial undertaking.

The template for this has already been written with The Excalibur Alternative. Once you get FTL tech back start cautiously exploring while massively ramping up your population base to take advantage of discovered/terraformed neighbor worlds. Use the existential Gbaba threat to maintain cultural cohesion and unity of purpose, and build the War Machine.

I'd personally be fine with ending the Safehold series at the destruction of the CoGA if Himself went back to the Excalibur Alternative universe and wrote his next Starfire-style grand conflict books there. The Achulgbaba aren't nearly as interesting or fun to hate as the Galactics were. Not enough personality.

I don't think anybody is suggesting that a "Safehold 2" colony be established prior to the full recovery of TF tech. The notion is impossible on its merits. As you point out, no way to get them there...

What such a colony would look like might be an interesting exercise in fantasy, however.

Don

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Yep, and when people stop believing in the Gbaba...

That template's been written, too.

As for Excalibur, that's not actually Himself's sandbox. Ranks of Bronze is David Drake's story, and I have no idea if he has his own notions of where things should go from the point it's been left.

NervousEnergy wrote:
The template for this has already been written with The Excalibur Alternative. Once you get FTL tech back start cautiously exploring while massively ramping up your population base to take advantage of discovered/terraformed neighbor worlds. Use the existential Gbaba threat to maintain cultural cohesion and unity of purpose, and build the War Machine.

I'd personally be fine with ending the Safehold series at the destruction of the CoGA if Himself went back to the Excalibur Alternative universe and wrote his next Starfire-style grand conflict books there. The Achulgbaba aren't nearly as interesting or fun to hate as the Galactics were. Not enough personality.

Weird Harold wrote:

Dauntless wrote:so while they might set up a back up plan(safehold II) first they will also be creating normal colonies.

It wouldn't surprise me much if Safehold ends up having a Grayson-style "War of the Faithful" and has to establish a "Masada" colony (or colonies) composed of Temple Loyalists who refuse to abandon the Writ.

It's possible, I suppose, but I would tend to expect the current war to end with a discrediting of the current CoGA leadership - and the remaining Writ-Loyalists rejecting even a lot of the innovations Clyntahn accepted under pressure of war.

So I'd think a second religious war would be unlikely, and instead isolationist communities preserving a low tech "Writ-compliant" lifestyle would form.

n7axw wrote:I'm finding the notion of a "Safehold 2" planet intriguing.

The context of estabishing such a planet would be entirely different this round. Such a planet would be separated from the next version of the TF by distance and isolation rather than by the lack of tech. You don't want to perpetrate the Langhorne/Bedard myths by including TL disidents....

Establishing "Safehold 2" would not be a last ditch desperation effort like Operstion Ark, but a carefully thought out "insurance policy" taken out well prior to any encounter with the Gbaba. What else might we say about it?

Another interesting question that I've never seen discussed has to do with the neighborhood around Safehold. Could it be that there is another potential threat out there much closer and more immediate than the Gbaba? What a plot twist that would be!

Don

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Ideally you would probably do safehold 2 as just safehold itself. Send out the colony ship to setup your future forward base/combat base. That way if you try to take the gababba and fail safehold is still there safe and sound.