Safehold: Story line Speculation

The OBS is the problem alright. I think setting up the infrastructure to get back into space requires going to a remote location and a colony. The OBS threat requires the advanced tech being under ground. So, as I see it, the IC sets up a colony/enclave of Circle Members in a remote location like the Barren Lands, but with access to necessary ores. The above ground colony is pretty much like anywhere else in Charis with a network of deep tunnels below. The outlet for space ships would be underwater.

This sort of set up can prepare Safehold for going back into space asap. Having Merlin and Nahrmahn try it with just OWL won't prepare enough people to work with advance tech and work/live in space. Setting up the Colony will.

PeterZ wrote:The OBS is the problem alright. I think setting up the infrastructure to get back into space requires going to a remote location and a colony. The OBS threat requires the advanced tech being under ground. So, as I see it, the IC sets up a colony/enclave of Circle Members in a remote location like the Barren Lands, but with access to necessary ores. The above ground colony is pretty much like anywhere else in Charis with a network of deep tunnels below. The outlet for space ships would be underwater.

This sort of set up can prepare Safehold for going back into space asap. Having Merlin and Nahrmahn try it with just OWL won't prepare enough people to work with advance tech and work/live in space. Setting up the Colony will.

We don't want to forget that the Inner Circle now knows about a secret tunnel from a vineyard to the basement of the Temple...
Should be able to get a few people in to figure out how to shut off any problematic equipment.

n7axw wrote:

C. O. Thompson wrote:Don,
I find your most recent comments resonate with my own views but I want to suggest that "North Harchong, Desnair and the Temple Lands being more resistive to change, centers of reaction, if you will."... maybe true of the leaders but not necessarily of the of the man on the street... especially with many returning vets.
I know David indicated that the leaders of North Harchong do not want the discharged troops to come back but 'you can't always get what you want'

You are right also, the jump from steam engine to steam turbines that generate electricity is not very large at all so, we could expect that genie to be out of the bottle very quickly...

"Merlin doesn't have to convince the whole planet of his point of view to meet his goal " again I agree but, tend to think in terms of 'what they don't know... won't hurt them'

So, if I were asked my 2¢ I would quietly move most of the R&D into space starting ASAP so that by the time the surprise is dealt with there would already be mounting support to allow a fleet to come to Safehold and show the hold outs why the Proscriptions and Langhorn were wrong.

But, I have been wrong before

You might convince someone that way, but most of the holdouts won't be rational or open to persuasion. That is what mhicks is right to point out. The point will instead be to prevent them from interfering and otherwise work around them.

You probably could move some R&D into space, given the reality that the OBS doesn't seem to react to the skimmers and shuttles that have been used so far... If you could arrange a location beyond the OBS to put it a small R&D community could be invaluable...perhaps even figure out how to neutralize the OBS.

After the OBS is dealt with, you want most of your scientific community on the ground because you want to expand scientific knowledge and its benefits as widely as possible, both in its pure and applied forms that overall, people benefit from those discoveries as their standard of living rises from the resulting industrialization that will happen as a consequence of applied tech. That, in turn, becomes the basis for a more widespread return to space and the support structure needed to support a space presence and eventually colonization and a space navy.

I think that it is in this last phase that Owl's database really comes into its own as trained Safeholden scientists use TF tech as a foundation to build upon and eventually transform until when humanity once again encounters the Gbaba, humanity will be in a position of superiority, both in numbers and technology.

Don

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I must have misunderstood the text in the earlier books, but I was under the impression that the OBS would attack any objects getting close to it, and also any thing that tried to escape the planet's orbit. I know that Merlin is able to fly the skimmer in to space and not harass the OBS but the snarks did get the OBS's attention. I always felt that they were trapped on the planet until the OBS was destroyed. I felt that any attempt to escape would be met with the OBS waking up. So the option of getting more materials from mining out in space has always been out of the question in my mind. If there is text contrary let me know.
If they can get off the planet send some drone miners out to find the materials missing to make more PIKAS and let Merlin multiply and replenish the earth.

mhicks wrote:
I must have misunderstood the text in the earlier books, but I was under the impression that the OBS would attack any objects getting close to it, and also any thing that tried to escape the planet's orbit. I know that Merlin is able to fly the skimmer in to space and not harass the OBS but the snarks did get the OBS's attention. I always felt that they were trapped on the planet until the OBS was destroyed. I felt that any attempt to escape would be met with the OBS waking up. So the option of getting more materials from mining out in space has always been out of the question in my mind. If there is text contrary let me know.
If they can get off the planet send some drone miners out to find the materials missing to make more PIKAS and let Merlin multiply and replenish the earth.

I don't believe there is any text evidence that the OBS would attack any attempt to break orbit...
If I had seen that, I would not suggest that any effort be made to start space industries till that was firmly under control of the Inner Circle.
Even though 'the Commodore" and Pei Shan-Wei would not have known about the OBS, that is too much of a corner for David to have painted himself into.

But... hey, I have been wrong before

---------SPOILERS---------
-----Has references to the SNIPPET-----


After rereading the snippet and RFC bits of information that followed I feel vindicated! in my own little way. I have been trying to express my worries and thoughts very poorly, RFC on the other had answered some of those points.

Quote from TFT Snippet #1

"In 2367, the survey ship Adenauer discovered the first evidence of an advanced nonhuman species. Christened the Alphanes, they had achieved a three-star civilization, their technology had been substantially inferior to humanity's current level . . . and they had been exterminated in a massive interstellar war. The scientific community's majority view was that the Alphanes, who'd clearly been a militant species, had destroyed themselves. A minority, however, led by anthropologist Anton Sugawara, argued that the evidence suggested the Alphane civilization had been destroyed by an external force.

Sugawara was pilloried by the press — which christened his putative interstellar predators the Gbaba — for his paranoia. No one in government took the ridiculous notion seriously . . . but the Federation began expanding its navy — which had been little more than a police and rescue force — and building genuine warships. Not that anyone really believed in genocidal alien menaces, of course. Everyone in government was very clear about that! Still, one had to take some precautions, even if it was solely to assuage the dread of those who might have been frightened by Sugawara's absurd theories."

and then latter on in the Could the Inner Circle Push the Old Terran Fed Tech Alon, RFC said

"Um. There's also the interesting point that no one knows how the OBS (or anything that might be hidden under the Temple) would react to spacecraft leaving planetary orbit. And as Dilandu pointed out above, that would be another of those mistakes you only get to make once.

Just saying."

I am not going crazy, I am still nuts but not going crazy. People are people and will scoff and retard the progress of others even with evidence to prove otherwise. We act like lobsters in a bucket. Catch one lobster and put it in a bucket it will crawl out and get away. Put multiple lobsters in a bucket and they will pull on any that try to get out and bring them back into the bucket... Then the bucket gets taken to the kitchen and we eat like kings and the lobsters are all sorry for being mean and not listening when the one crawling out is telling them "The Boiling Pot is coming, The Pot is coming, Get thee out of the bucket".

A human anthropologist found proof that another race of aliens had killed the Alphanes. There was evidence of superior weapons used against the Alphanes and total destruction of the three star system culture. While the TF was at peace within it's self there was a Navy built and manned (I am sure that it was not easy to do at the time and that pushback from the planets was strong).

The 15th voting member of the TF had only 436,000 souls in it. It takes time to get a population going, even with advanced tech to keep down the diseases that would shorten the life span/decrease birthrates etc. It will take generations and many colonies to go after the Gbaba again.

And RFC is hinting that the people of safehold are trapped in the fishbowl until the OBS is taken off line. And I don't think that destruction of OBS will be an option, I see more of a hacking the back door cyber attack by Owl sacrificing himself to do it the way Jarvis went against Ultron... Or merlin pulling a Seekers/Mission Impossible type infiltration mission and planting a neutralizing virus in the OBS system.(mixing genre I know )

Now I will go back to work and hope you all forgive me for my crazy ranting of how I think I am right. My wife does not let me do that much and you guys can't do much to make me cry I do love how we can argue the points out in good ways and joke with each other and in some cases agree to disagree. I may be very wrong in my way of thinking and expressing it, but the forum is kind and I have not been put in my place or told to be quiet

Thank you

And thank you RFC for the fun break from reality by giving us the fun books and then the forum and snippets that keep our discussion going