(Spoilers) Future technological developments.

Galactic Sapper wrote:having platforms like Beowulf Alpha solely as residential platforms makes sense solely as a plot device.

Beowulf has been settled for the better part of two millennia, and has not been involved in a shooting war before. That spaceborne population exists because of decisions made centuries ago. It should not be held against Beowulf for somehow not magically predicting an existential foe using wholly unknown capabilities.

Potato wrote:Beowulf has been settled for the better part of two millennia, and has not been involved in a shooting war before. That spaceborne population exists because of decisions made centuries ago. It should not be held against Beowulf for somehow not magically predicting an existential foe using wholly unknown capabilities.

Freight carriers, time fuzes and packages filled with explosive are hardly a new or an unanticipated threat.

kzt wrote:Freight carriers, time fuzes and packages filled with explosive are hardly a new or an unanticipated threat.

I could step out my front door and be shot dead. Guess I should stay inside forever then?

Potato wrote:Beowulf has been settled for the better part of two millennia, and has not been involved in a shooting war before. That spaceborne population exists because of decisions made centuries ago. It should not be held against Beowulf for somehow not magically predicting an existential foe using wholly unknown capabilities.

kzt wrote:Freight carriers, time fuzes and packages filled with explosive are hardly a new or an unanticipated threat.

If they had simply moved unclaimed packages to an off-site warehouse, then there would not have been that problem. Particularly since the alleged recipients refused delivery. But why was there an impeller shield for a production line and not for the living spaces? Admittedly that would not have saved people, but why not the ability to generate a sidewall as a protection from accidents or meteors? Is the problem that it takes to long to bring one up.
Yes, you can be shot on your front porch; but some environments are more dangerous than others and the more dangerous should require that more safeguards be in place.

tlb wrote:Yes, you can be shot on your front porch; but some environments are more dangerous than others and the more dangerous should require that more safeguards be in place.

And until the situation with Mesa came to light, the Beowulf system was one of the safest systems in the whole galaxy.

Potato wrote:And until the situation with Mesa came to light, the Beowulf system was one of the safest systems in the whole galaxy.

They have had a long-standing issue with not being very good at spotting Mesan terrorists.

tlb wrote:Yes, you can be shot on your front porch; but some environments are more dangerous than others and the more dangerous should require that more safeguards be in place.

Potato wrote:And until the situation with Mesa came to light, the Beowulf system was one of the safest systems in the whole galaxy.

kzt wrote:They have had a long-standing issue with not being very good at spotting Mesan terrorists.

Saying space is safe is a relative thing. Don't they have asteroids and meteors? Do they never have accidents? Life is space is inherently more dangerous because the lack of an atmosphere removes a safety cushion. So there should been safeguards out there, even before they came to realize that Mesa was not just Manpower Inc.

Potato wrote:

kzt wrote:Freight carriers, time fuzes and packages filled with explosive are hardly a new or an unanticipated threat.

I could step out my front door and be shot dead. Guess I should stay inside forever then?

Won't work. Your house can still be destroyed by air strikes. Or even by natural disasters if you live in the right (wrong?) area.

Potato wrote:

Galactic Sapper wrote:having platforms like Beowulf Alpha solely as residential platforms makes sense solely as a plot device.

Beowulf has been settled for the better part of two millennia, and has not been involved in a shooting war before. That spaceborne population exists because of decisions made centuries ago. It should not be held against Beowulf for somehow not magically predicting an existential foe using wholly unknown capabilities.

I'm not even approaching it from a defensive standpoint. Strictly from an economic standpoint they make no sense. Despite being settled that long they didn't have an overcrowding problem to the point where that much residential capacity was needed to be located in space simply because there was no room on the surface for them any more. Earth might have had that problem - maybe - but not anywhere else.

Nor do they have the reason somewhere like Grayson does: an existential threat by the planetary environment. There it would make sense to move large numbers of the population off the surface and they didn't because they couldn't afford to.

Nor were the orbital habitats dedicated to industries that needed access to space or to the support systems needed to run those industries. Manticore's habitats were; so were things like Blackbird and the Bolthole stations. Beowulf Alpha seems to be nothing more than a really freaking expensive unnecessary city in space for no particular reason.

Galactic Sapper wrote:I'm not even approaching it from a defensive standpoint. Strictly from an economic standpoint they make no sense. Despite being settled that long they didn't have an overcrowding problem to the point where that much residential capacity was needed to be located in space simply because there was no room on the surface for them any more. Earth might have had that problem - maybe - but not anywhere else.

Nor do they have the reason somewhere like Grayson does: an existential threat by the planetary environment. There it would make sense to move large numbers of the population off the surface and they didn't because they couldn't afford to.

Nor were the orbital habitats dedicated to industries that needed access to space or to the support systems needed to run those industries. Manticore's habitats were; so were things like Blackbird and the Bolthole stations. Beowulf Alpha seems to be nothing more than a really freaking expensive unnecessary city in space for no particular reason.

The whole discussion revolves back to the discussion of what the 300 Million people in Manticore B space do. Originally, it was assumed that many were on Weyland - nope, only about 1.5 million or so. Do they build ships - no - all the shipyards in Manticore B space were at Weyland. Factory workers? - no - industry was also focused at Weyland. We know some work in Ore extraction - but a study showed that fewer than 20 million people on Earth directly work at ore extraction, and less than 70 million are directly employed in the industry world wide - for a 21th century tech planet with 2x the population of Manticore - Total.

So what do the rest of the 300 million do? Adult entertainment and Medical support for the mining ops? Telemarketers? (that would explain the long pause before people answer...)