(Spoilers - sorta) Predictions for Arc 2

Bluesqueak wrote:

PeterZ wrote:I don't think there will be more than three King Haarald class ships. These wooden hulled ships are already a legacy design. The Victory ships are all steel framed and steel hulled.

I think it's possible they may complete the six hulls that are already in the pipeline - after all, the ICN's closest naval competitor knows perfectly well they can't even duplicate HMS Dreadnought, let alone HMS King Haarald VII. So the class is going to be useful for a few years; especially if they've paid for most of the building already.

Most of the early RN ironclad classes only lasted two to four years as front-line ships - the pace of change was so dramatic. But that was a situation where all the major navies were able to duplicate each others technology; I can imagine the details of making Howmynized steel being a classified secret for Charis for as long as possible, even if they're willing to sell the finished product.

They may last 5 years or more due to not only having no competition but also no real target, but they'd be replaced immediately in any real new conflict. They're too vulnerable to mines and rockets, as demonstrated, and that tech is widely available among the Empire's potential enemies.

The real secrets to keep are the explosives formulas. A 100% steel hulled ship could likely be armored enough to survive black powder mines and rocket warheads, but not high explosives.

As noted, it depends on how much the MWW advances the chronograph. 5-10 years will result in a completely different book compared to 20.

The wooden backing is the most vulnerable party of the KH's, this especially true for deck armor. Heavy rockets can cave in the wooden supports without penetrating the 1-3 inches of Howsmynized steel. That makes the KHs too vulnerable to attack a truly prepared fortified port city. Between rockets and plunging fire, the Haraalds will be toast in such an attack 2-3 years from the end of AtSoT. They would still rule the oceans for 5-7 years until another navy can mount guns heavy enough to penetrate her side armour on steamers.

That makes producing the remaining KHs a waste. Refining the design as an all steel ship is highly likely. But the current three will be the last wood hulled ironclad built.

PeterZ wrote:The wooden backing is the most vulnerable party of the KH's, this especially true for deck armor. Heavy rockets can cave in the wooden supports without penetrating the 1-3 inches of Howsmynized steel. That makes the KHs too vulnerable to attack a truly prepared fortified port city. Between rockets and plunging fire, the Haraalds will be toast in such an attack 2-3 years from the end of AtSoT. They would still rule the oceans for 5-7 years until another navy can mount guns heavy enough to penetrate her side armour on steamers.

That makes producing the remaining KHs a waste. Refining the design as an all steel ship is highly likely. But the current three will be the last wood hulled ironclad built.

How much of a waste depend on how far along they are. My impression is thst once they have barrels, they are mostly done. If that is so, by all means finish them. But use new updated designs on new run of warships.

Don

-

thanatos wrote:...
Second, Charis, Siddarmark, South Harchong (which might become an independent state and change its name), the Temple Lands and Dohlar will all embrace innovation to the greatest degree. The first two for the obvious reasons - mistrust of the Temple and no desire to be caught with their pants down by a resurgent Church. Dohlar will try to match Charis' naval power if only to deter Charisian expansionism (something tells me Charis will claim many of the islands in the Gulf of Dohlar as part of the peace treaty) and South Harchong will do it to deter Dohlar. And the Temple Lands will do it because they can no longer rely on Mother Church's power to protect them, especially given the sheer power of the Republican Army after the Jihad.
...
Fourth, I think Duchairn is going to face an increasingly vocal and revanchist faction of the new vicarite, that is going to demand greater church action to curb Charisian innovation and power and constantly having to remind the younger whippersnappers that the Church no longer has that sort of power and that that was the excuse used to start the Jihad. It may well end with his assassination. They might even smell blood in the water if Magwair, Duchairn's partner in crime, dies of natural causes.

With regard to the CoGA, one important thing to remember is that it is heavily in debt and reeling from a morally unjust war of it's making. I suspect they will be forced to sell all their foundaries, and most else they have. They will also be highly restricted, I would suspect, by treaties from having armies again. I suspect the CoGA will be far less an important issue in the next arc.

I am more concerned about Desnaire and (Northern) Harchong. Specifically, I doubt those 2-3 million serfs trained in the Military will just "go away." Either they will settle in South Harchong, or there will be a revolution. And if they settle, they will expect their families to join them. If Wind Song wants to become the next Emperor of Harchong, he certainly has the opportunity.

I also think that one of Houseman's people, becoming addicted to CherryBean Tea, will establish a series of stores both near the Delfact Works and in cities across the Empire selling drinks based on Cherrybean Tea, Chocolate, and combinations thereof, using steam to rapidly heat the drinks. Maybe they'll call it StarMarks.

-- Bob G

BobG wrote:

thanatos wrote:...
I also think that one of Houseman's people, becoming addicted to CherryBean Tea, will establish a series of stores both near the Delfact Works and in cities across the Empire selling drinks based on Cherrybean Tea, Chocolate, and combinations thereof, using steam to rapidly heat the drinks. Maybe they'll call it StarMarks.
-- Bob G

No, each will be called Timothy Hortuns Cherrybean and Doughnut Shop.

All this stuff is interesting. Here is another thought to throw into the mix. Rainbow Waters and Windsong are too well developed as sympathetic pov characters to simply exit the story at this point.

So what will their role be? So they take the MH home to N Harchong to introduce the aristocracy and bureaucrats to a new balance through superior firepower? Do they agree to go someplace else, perhaps S. Harchong, in exchange to their families being able to join them? Does S Harchong go its own way with Rainbow Waters establishing a new dynasty as its emperor?

Any other ideas...

Don

-

PeterZ wrote:The wooden backing is the most vulnerable party of the KH's, this especially true for deck armor. Heavy rockets can cave in the wooden supports without penetrating the 1-3 inches of Howsmynized steel. That makes the KHs too vulnerable to attack a truly prepared fortified port city. Between rockets and plunging fire, the Haraalds will be toast in such an attack 2-3 years from the end of AtSoT. They would still rule the oceans for 5-7 years until another navy can mount guns heavy enough to penetrate her side armour on steamers.

That makes producing the remaining KHs a waste. Refining the design as an all steel ship is highly likely. But the current three will be the last wood hulled ironclad built.

The KHs are an all Steel design, esentially a circa 1895 predreadnaught or protected cruiser design. I believe you are thinking of the Cities.

Theemile wrote:

PeterZ wrote:The wooden backing is the most vulnerable party of the KH's, this especially true for deck armor. Heavy rockets can cave in the wooden supports without penetrating the 1-3 inches of Howsmynized steel. That makes the KHs too vulnerable to attack a truly prepared fortified port city. Between rockets and plunging fire, the Haraalds will be toast in such an attack 2-3 years from the end of AtSoT. They would still rule the oceans for 5-7 years until another navy can mount guns heavy enough to penetrate her side armour on steamers.

That makes producing the remaining KHs a waste. Refining the design as an all steel ship is highly likely. But the current three will be the last wood hulled ironclad built.

The KHs are an all Steel design, esentially a circa 1895 predreadnaught or protected cruiser design. I believe you are thinking of the Cities.

Beg to differ. They are steel framed but wooden hulled. Armour is bolted onto wooden backing. That same is true for the City class ironclads. The Victory hips are the first that was all steel. Go back and re-read the descriptions.

-I thought Clynton was going to trick, then lock Merlin into a brick-wall tower that was really (random archangel)'s escape rocket to the moon. Merlin would be trapped, no way back, no way to do anything but sit there and try to figure out how to avoid detection from the Evil Eye in the Sky's BAD side.
-Lost spaceship. After all that had been done in the settlement of SH, there's probably a Federation build spaceship somewhere in the SH star system. It's only the type used for wandering around the system rather than going to another solar system, but what's ON it?
-Sejins on steam-powered penny-bicycles, fighting giant slash lizards. There's been a lot of sweeping drama but not enough main characters desperately trying to survive combat.
-Weber will likely kill some more main B characters, especially amongst the Charisians. Like Edward Houseman the engineer.
-More robots. We know that Owl can build a PICA, though he's all out of exotic material (oh gosh, what's this behind a tapestry in the Temple, a door?) Normally, what could Owl do if he only had to build a steel and nano-chip android?
-For that matter, we only got a look at very little of the Temple. Whatever happened to Langhorn's living quarters? Where were the official angel-class flying cars kept?
-Payment. What about the Church's shaky money situation? Will Charis pay off the Temple's debts? What will they ask for?
-Mining. It was previously mentioned that Merlin was mining things by remote drone himself. If Merlin has his own kingdom-sized treasury, does he really need to run everything past the Inner Circle? What will they do when they're cut out of the loop and not have input on everything?
-There was a lot of "one-mention and never returned to" stuff that I'm sure can surprize people. In book 9 Clynton gave an order to arrest all Dhollarans. But where do you _put_ them? Finally giving some information about the Inquisition door-breakers really helped flesh out the story of Zion. (almost painful to read, the naivety being almost as bad as the torture)
- I'm surprized they didn't try Clyntan for braking church laws. Like how Harrington's military court tried the prison guards on the prison planet for breaking their own laws. (Hid it in the "contingency plans". did he? Yes, the c-plans from an entirely different book.) Yes, they mentioned doing that, but it was over in a paragraph and it didn't sink in for the characters. Clynton defending himself would have been interesting, to say the least. But I can easily accept that Weber just doesn't have that sort of Insane Troll Logic insanity in him. It would have been very... quotable at least! Clynton had three months, didn't he write anything down? It's 2016 and Hitler's "Mein Kampf" or however you spell it is still being passed around.
-As much as I'd have liked a "few" examples of various things going wrong for the AOG at the hands of Merlin "I've got all the right paperwork and I'm here to collect your company's firearms while we're behind the front lines. They're to be taken back for advanced rifiling. Just put them in the cart and I'll come back tomorrow." not enough went wrong for the AOG. And wow it feels strange to admit that. Let me explain-
There were always people who we didn't get to see. Interesting scenes that the aside paragraphs talked around. Which was why brief moments spent with Earl of Golden Tree? (the only one to have survived the shelling of his command bunker, and all of his personal possessions and staff he served with for two years gone) was so interesting. For example early in book 9 a field sargent (or something) had arranged for his platoon to all have a hot meal when they come back from the rainy and dark patrol. The AOG supply lines are talked about endlessly elsewhere, underscoring how such a rare event as good hot food on the front line would be. We hadn't, and for the entire series haven't, gotten to see the cook's reactions to hearing that the entire platoon was killed. All of them. What would their reaction be, surrounded by empty benches and full tables? Again, I guess Weber isn't that cruel.
-Where the money was. And another one was the Temple had been receiving revenues for hundreds of years. And that's all we had heard about it. Just put it in a box and put it over there. At the start of Safehold, back in Armageddon Reef, what was the treasury like? After 800 years how difficult was it getting to find new places to put their stored money? Treasury officials can't admit to having too much money, after all! They have a holy Church to run! Were they just stacking boxes in the back room? Had they had to abandon the breakroom in the 5th century to the effort? Had there been successive generations of digging in an effort to find more places to put more boxes of gold? And how did the staff take the reversal, what was it like for them to enter a situation where they're wheeling out the gold the same hour that they've received it? What sort of experience for them was it like to enter rooms, one after another, that hadn't been entered in hundreds of years? To take away the church's sacred monetary reserves, to slowly _empty_ them?
-Flammable Victory. Now that Charis has won and they basically get to tell everybody what to do, what about the Gababa objectives? It doesn't matter what the SH'ers believe as long as Merlin gets to shut down the Platform and deal with the Temple Mystery. So we're very likely to see the Platform fire. It's likely that Charis or Chisholm is going to get a crater instead of a castle, and more main characters will die.
-Penny Dreadfuls. Everybody's got a printing press around here! But what sort of things are they printing? What Church(Inq.) approved tales will be told about the brave men on the battlefield? What sort of Merlin-made books are being sold in Charis? (straight out of a subfolder in Owl's database)'Could be anything from Armageddon Reef to TinTin graphic novels.. And Thanatos has a point, they could package the Earth Truth as a sci-fi novel. Merlin should have been leaflet-dropping THAT around the Temple lands since book two!
-Steampunk written by a ships and swords writer. It's always fun to see a writer write what he doesn't want to write, just to see how many ways around under and over he can think up. If what Weber really wants to write is say, the Spanish naval attack on England, how does he write that when everybody's adding gaskets and cogs to everything they can. Charis taking over the Temple lands isn't going to be as confusing for the people as the Delthak Works taking over all those shoddy underfunded manufacturies. With so many new ways to power things (wind! water! steam! hydrogen!) how are the "yesterday the most complicated thing we knew about was axes and horses and this little motor thing is SO AWESOME" mainlanders going to take it?
-Insufficiently nailed down. A great war leaves the country with three armies — an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves. ~German Proverb. We've been let in on all those casualty totals, but what about the simple hurt feelings of the people? All those "We hiked for a hundred days hauling this cannon. And now I'm going to keep it!" "We actually managed to kill a Charisian and by god I'm keeping this gear!" "To think we used to use these nets for fishing instead of collecting a fortune in busted ship-wood. Oh, what's this?" "Say, no-one will mind if I take this off of this body. Wait, why is it blinking a little light?" "No-one will mind if I take this copper-bottom wreck and make myself a really big parabolic mirror. And now I can hear the voice of god on my fillings." "I used to be a somebody! I used to be an Inquisition big shot! Now I'm a street-corner preacher. And NOW I've got a CHAINSAW!" etc. This could lead to a lot of little things in the wonderfully wrong hands and a few people "Chosen to fight Zur and the Ko-Dan Armada."

I wonder what sort of restitution Siddermark and Charis will receive?

I suspect Dairnyth will be ceded to Siddermark if it initially belonged to Dohlar. The Border Kingdoms will either be demilitarized and/or support Siddermarkian forts along the Holy Langhorne. Dairnyth will likely support squadrons of the Republic of Siddermark navy. The core of that navy will likely be the city class ships Charis will sell to Siddermark. I bet Cayleb will sell the King Haarald's as well, once they replace them with newer designs.

Charis will likely keep Claw Island, Trove Island and base on Dragon Island. Those bases will boast the ICN's newest and most powerful ships.the ICN will also negotiate bases on Sampson's Land, Greentree Island, Hammer Island and perhaps even Windbreak Island. Since Charis will pay for those basing rights, those locations will grow increasingly pro Charis.

The visibility of the ICN units and the RSA weapons systems with which they will train means the Temple Lands, Dohlar and Harchong will see what they may be threatened with in the future. They have to continue to innovate or be helpless against Charisian and Siddermarkian aggression. Furthermore, they have to improve their economies or never hope to afford the weapons system Siddermark and Charis are developing.

I believe that represents the two prongs of the Inner Circle's Cold War strategy. Display the innovations that improve Charisian power and expand the economy of Charis and Siddermark to both support a better standard of living for their citizens as well as to afford as a nation those powerful weapons systems. In effect Charis' innovations will allow Charis to both eat it's tasty cake and still have the same piece for later. The other nations must become like Charis or be completely subject to Charisian will one way or another; economically or militarily.